Variations: Blue Flame

A wavy flower, with a pink-purple-blue shading

When I'm playing around with GIMP, I often find a particular piece, a monomer if you will, that somehow has a lot of potential uses. I can warp it, rotate it, flip it, and more to make "polymers" of greater complexity by using tricks of symmetry and space.

A crab or spider with peacock tails or wings

These four pictures are all variations on a single blue flame, shaped in different ways to create quite distinct results. (In fact, I made around ten, but these are the best and most distinct of them all.)

An icy blue fern-like frond

The flower was made by simple rotation about the center of the picture. The crab-spider required three different kinds of warping for the tails, legs, and center flames. The frond just contains repeatedly scaled down versions of the very same tail. Finally, the butterfly was made with a single different warp, followed by rotations and fun color trickery. :D

A pair of glassy blue butterfly wings

Independent Indicators: Trial by Jury

This week, one of my friends in a probability class showed me a problem about jurors and Bayes' rule. The jurors voted a guilty person innocent or voted an innocent person guilty some not-so-small fractions of the time, and a person was convicted if at least 9 jurors voted guilty. They were asked to find the probability of an correct jury decision given that some percentage of people tried were actually guilty.

This problem can be solved well with some indicator random variables (1 if a juror votes guilty, 0 otherwise), and the assumption is that they make their votes independently. In reality, however, this is generally not the case. In most (if not all) jury-based judicial systems, the jury meets and discusses the trial, making their decisions very much interdependent. So here is my question: is this desirable?

On one hand, some jurors lacking in critical thought or engagement in the trial might benefit from the knowledge and thoughts of those who are thinking about the case. On the other hand, a few "loud" jurors might heavily bias the decision merely by virtue of their persuasive abilities, regardless of the facts presented in court.

I feel that if you're going to be idealistic and follow the first train of reasoning, why would you not be equally optimistic that there simply won't be such poor jurors at all? If we are going to be realistic enough to admit that there will be jurors who neglect to use their own critical abilities, we should admit that it is more likely that a persuasive individual will influence them to follow rather than to think for themselves--in which case, their presence is not only useless but also detrimental to a fair decision.

A Spring Morning

 

My coffee spiked with cinnamon and chocolate,

I pass by smiles and yawns and squinted eyes.

Robins with hearts of fire play hide-and-seek

With squirrels in bushes and blossoming trees.

Through layers of translucent verdant leaves,

Drops of sunshine filter and fall on my head.

The childish breeze plays with a tuft of hair

And tickles my face with its misty fingers.

A panda trundles through my messy room,

Nomming on bamboo shoots of graphite

Grown with care on crinkled notebook pages

 By the light of the flames burning there.

Riddle Me This 4: Picky People

What does each person like?

1) Alice likes avocado but not squash, okra but not zucchini, eggplant but not bell pepper.

2) Bobby likes cookies but not cupcakes, apples but not bananas, blackberries but not grapes.

3) Drew likes cheese but not crackers, trout but not salmon, brie but not gouda.

4) Huck likes blues but not reds, straws but not sticks, elders but not youngsters.

5) Irene likes arugula but not sage, oregano but not tarragon, basil but not coriander.

6) Katy likes coffee but not mocha, milk but not cream, tall but not grande.

7) May likes suns but not skies, corn but not cabbage, and passion but not power.

Hint: They are all happy with themselves.

Riddle Me This 3: Between The Lines

FIREVESAL | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | DAMMN        

 EINTRANCE | _ _ _ _ _ _ | PALPENIPE
    CRONDOC | _ _ _ _ _ _ | SEDIMONSE
FORDFRYING | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | WRANCALVE         

REMURCY | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | NATURS   

DRELVANE | _ _ _ _ _ | YILL      

     MOGOL | _ _ _ _ _ _ | ENLODGE

Hint: Candy Fruit Capital House God Flower Poke