It pays off being mentally incompetent

"The ruling may well change the way experts disclose their opinions, according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

Finally academia is taking public understanding of risk seriously. The subject has long been neglected.

to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

has long been neglected.

Europeans tend to criminalize things that we consider to be accidents, or simple incompetance. Things like airplane accidents.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
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Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

Problem with this is they are damned if they do and demned if they don't. In future they will put sealed predictions date stamped into a bank vault and give a stern "no comment" when interviewed. That is clearly what the public wants given this *ludicrous* decision.

No earthquake expert in the world can predict when or how strong the next earthquake is going to be. I have lived in a serious earthquake zone and the variation in the quakes is quite amazing.

to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

has long been neglected.

The public doesn't understand probability or risk and never will :(

Why else do you think the poorest in society spend so much on lottery tickets to subsidise the arts, athletics, museums, opera and music? (places almost none of them actually visit)

"It could be you!" is a cunning slogan. It is a voluntary tax on the innumerate.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

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ording to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public under standing of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

ubject has long been neglected.

I think this more an Italian lunacy than anything Europe-wide. It will probably be reversed on appeal, since it's obviously nonsense.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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ording to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public under standing of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

ubject has long been neglected.

bonus pater vs. cupla I guess

in the US every one in the area or knowing someone in the area would get a laywer and sue everyone and everything in sight with money to take

I'm sure it will be reversed on appeal, not even the italians are that crazy, unless ofcourse there is more to it, i.e. something like they did think think a quake was likely but said it wasn't for political or economic reasons

-Lasse

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

Or failing to close the bow doors on the Herald of Free Enterprise.

Airplane accidents are generally very carefully investigated. Only when there is massive negligence are criminal prosecutions considered - like for instance the bodged temporary repair on a US Continental airliner using titanium parts that downed the ill fated Concorde at Paris.

Seems to me entirely reasonable to have a trail when an airline is so cavalier as to use titanium for its bodged repairs and still worse when they are badly attached so that chunks of it are left on the runway after take off.

Mainly to make the fat lawyers richer and obfuscate the facts.

Actually I think they probably are.

Reports here are that these scientists have been jailed because of something a politician on the same platform as they were stood said to reassure the public. Namely that the small quakes were helping let out the strain and decreased the chances of a big one.

No scientist would say such a thing - there are no such guarantees.

The weirdest earthquake I experienced I heard it coming for a couple of seconds before the earth moved abruptly an inch to the left!

It destroyed every maglev turbo pump in the Tokyo area.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

Concordes had a long history of blowing tires, and of tire shards damaging wings.

"In the 24 years of Concorde flights before July 2000, there were 65 incidents of burst tyres, six of which led to the perforation of fuel tanks." from your link above.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

there can be more than one screw up in one accident, bodged repairs that dropped stuff on the runway caused the accident, flying a plane where a blown tire tends to perforate the fuel tank made it worse

-Lasse

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

Metal junk is common on runways. Blown tires on airplanes is pretty common, too.

The europeans picked an American airline to blame for a defective aircraft, the pride of European aviation technology. It seems to have been on fire before it hit the Continental metal thing.

Lately, laser and radar gadgets are being used to scan runways for trash.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

*Titanium* isn't though. That stuff is lethal against airframes. It is banned for temporary repairs as a result - but Continental have scant regard for the rules. Can't even do the bolts up reliably either.

You are just jealous because Europe had SST and you didn't. Little more than sour grapes from an NIH mentality.

Even the Russians had a Concordsky although ISTR the plans they nicked were ahem lacking one or two valves in between the wing fuel tanks.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain."

subject has long been neglected.

A blown tire shouldn't crash an airplane. Concorde was defective.

We could have built an SST, if we had been eager to lose billions of dollars to have a dangerous, polluting, ugly toy to coddle the super-rich. It lost money at, what, $12,000 round-trip across the Atlantic? People here with sense did the math and decided to not do that.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators