NaPM April 27, 2017

[rayheinrich]

Rather large-ish comments vis-à-vis Don Q's and Duke Alien's entries:

ENIGMA

    Cyphers (my preferred spelling) that conserve four-letter words are eminently crackable...
    but are, considering their conservation of amusement, much to be preferred.

Take two dice, both honest
that is, each displays
numbers one through six
as frequently when thrown.

Yet when thrown together
rank imbalances appear:
seven shows one time in six
while two and twelve appear but rarely.
Whence this surprising trend?
If one is red, the other green
when thrown together, each
watched by itself
behaves impeccably - one to six
no bias.  What’s the story?

Story, yes: researcher bias
for, without a thought the watcher
adds the two together
which are unrelated otherwise.

This is not Heisenberg uncertainty
but performance of an operation
on the data which
cannot be justified
resulting in erroneous reports.

Now tell us about
homogenizing temperature records by
adding and subtracting numbers
without evidence or notice
just to fit expected trends
in derived anomalies.

one time in six - just checking to see if you're awake (I'm not)

                Fixed:
               
                0 to 11 twelve-sided die
                                . . .

                Flat Earth resources can be found here.