johnl.org » statistics http://johnl.org Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:16:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Gordon Foster http://johnl.org/2012/01/30/gordon-foster/ http://johnl.org/2012/01/30/gordon-foster/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:18:25 +0000 johnl http://johnl.org/?p=1180 1921 - 2010

Pioneering figure in the worlds of informatics and computing - The Irish Times
Saturday, February 26, 2011
(mirrored here)

Gordon Foster moved through the 20th century like a lost character from Cryptonomicon.

He worked as a code-breaker in Bletchley Park, met Alan Turing, studied cybernetics, helped develop operations research, invented ISBN, became a professor in Statistics at TCD, connected remote areas to the internet and communicated with doctors attending the Ebola epidemic in Zaire.

RIP.

]]> http://johnl.org/2012/01/30/gordon-foster/feed/ 0 Why are we so scared of swine flu? http://johnl.org/2009/10/30/why-are-we-so-scared-of-swine-flu/ http://johnl.org/2009/10/30/why-are-we-so-scared-of-swine-flu/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:44:10 +0000 johnl http://johnl.org/?p=318 I was linked to this graph earlier today.

Swine Flu Conspiracy

Click to enlarge.

Ask yourself why we hear so much about a disease with such a relatively small death-toll.

Ask yourself why we don't hear about all the other much more important diseases.

Ask yourself why we countenance motor vehicles but not war.

Ask yourself why we're so bad at judging risk.

Ask your local pharmacist how much money he's made in the last 300 days on face-masks, hand-wash, Tamiflu and so on.

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