Loose Change

[pipelineaudio]

Here's a linky link.

Somehow I doubt this would convince them

 

[delphi_ote]

Re the odds:
does that mean you guys buy lotto tickets too????

Probability is a measure of uncertainty. Once we know an event has happened, we aren't uncertain about it anymore.

If you let me play the lottery from yesterday, then yes. I will buy a lotto ticket (one would be enough.) Even if the odds were a trillion to one against whatever number came up, I think it would be a good investment.

 

[WildCat]

Somehow I doubt this would convince them

Nothing will ever convince those guys. I was just lurking over there, they're still posting threads about how there were no Arabs on any of the planes. Idiots.

One thing you may point out to them is that in the WTC7 video they think proves a controlled demo, is that the "squibs" go off after the building starts to collapse. Proving that the "squibs" are just material being ejected from the floors collapsing within the building.

 

[diggingdeeper]

Probability is a measure of uncertainty.

To my knowlage, the odds are the measurment of a state of probability being true or not, or, happening or not.

However, I get the gist of your statement

 

[diggingdeeper]

Alas, that was bogus anyway. Charles Burlingame left the Navy to take a job with the airlines in 1979. He remained in the Naval Reserve until he retired in 1996. Yet this site claims he participates in an exercise in 2000, then retires to take a job at American Airlines.

I was going to ask, do they really think people won't check these things? But, it seems that people don't...

The usual reason why it didn't go anywhere, because it just ain't so!
Thanks for looking it up and bringing it to my attention!

 

[Manny]

"I was supposed to pilot a plane into the White House," Moussaoui responded when defense lawyers asked him if he knew he was supposed to be a pilot in the Sept. 11 attacks when he was arrested on Aug. 16 of that year. "I only knew about the two planes of the World Trade Center in addition to my own," he added.

Note: I can't post links yet, but you can find the article on the front page of foxnews

Another piece of evidence in the column of the standard 9-11 theory. Although I doubt it will stop the conspiracy theorists for a single moment.

Note: I can't post links yet, but you can find the article on the front page of foxnews

Another piece of evidence in the column of the standard 9-11 theory. Although I doubt it will stop the conspiracy theorists for a single moment.

I'm going to come down on the other side of this one. Moussaoui is a liar and in all probability is just having a little fun with the spectacle of his sentencing hearing. If he said his job was to install the explosives in the Bankers Trust building and that's why it didn't fall I certainly wouldn't believe him absent other evidence. Why should anyone believe this statement either, without corroborating evidence?

 

[chipmunk stew]

I'm going to come down on the other side of this one. Moussaoui is a liar and in all probability is just having a little fun with the spectacle of his sentencing hearing. If he said his job was to install the explosives in the Bankers Trust building and that's why it didn't fall I certainly wouldn't believe him absent other evidence. Why should anyone believe this statement either, without corroborating evidence?

I'm having the same reaction. What makes his testimony most suspicious to me is his claim that he was supposed to partner up with convicted "shoe bomber" Whatsizname.

I think he'd just rather have his 40 virgins sooner than later, and a relatively humane execution rather than a shank in the gut.

 

[delphi_ote]

To my knowlage, the odds are the measurment of a state of probability being true or not, or, happening or not.

"Odds" and "probability" mean roughly the same thing. We report them differently, and there are subtle technical differences, but they're basically the same concept.

When you say "being true or not," that's what I mean when I use the word "uncertain." If we are certain, then we don't need a measure of whether a thing is true or not. It either is or it isn't.

 

[CurtC]

I think it's fair to say that when people ask what are the odds of something happening, they're talking about the hypothetical scenario where something similar happens a bunch of times, and asking out of those trials, what proportion will have this certain thing happen.

The trouble you quickly get into is that you have to specify what exactly you're asking:

* What is the prob that this particular guy's passport would be found intact, at that exact location, by some guy who hands it to a police officer? Pretty low.

* What is the prob that any photo ID of any of the hijackers would be found before the buildings collapsed? Pretty low that, too, but certainly greater than the first scenario.

* What is the prob that any hijacker belonging is found? We're starting to get a little higher.

As you get less and less specific, the probability gets higher and higher, and you realize that out of the very large set of astounding coincidences that could possibly happen, it's not too remarkable that one of them did in fact happen.

 

[kookbreaker]

I'm still wondering why this passport is such a big deal. The CT'ers are making such a huge deal about it as if it were the only thing the FBi says they have to link the events to the terrorists. In fact, it is just something that survived and they would have figured out the names in any case. The only reason the passport gets any freaking attention at all is because the CT'ers mention it constantly.

 

[CurtC]

The first time I ever heard that a hijacker's passport was found, it was from a CTer years after the fact.

 

[Alek]

"Odds" and "probability" mean roughly the same thing. We report them differently, and there are subtle technical differences, but they're basically the same concept.

When you say "being true or not," that's what I mean when I use the word "uncertain." If we are certain, then we don't need a measure of whether a thing is true or not. It either is or it isn't.

No they don't mean roughly the same thing. A probability is a chance or likelihood. For instance, rolling a 2 on a balanced 6-sided die has a 1/6 probability. Odds are ratios of chances, usually expressed as the ratio of the probability of failure to the probability of success. If the probability of rolling a 2 is 1/6, the odds are 5:1 against it.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

In common usage of the terms probability is "the ratio of the number of outcomes in an exhaustive set of equally likely outcomes that produce a given event to the total number of possible outcomes" and odds are "the ratio of the probability of one event to that of an alternative event".

Now, what I am seeing is that you are playing around with the numbers to make the differences look more dramatic than they are. Your dice example can just as easily be shown as:
Probability that you will roll a 2 on a six-sided dice: 1 in 6 for, or 5 in 6 against
Odds that you will will roll a 2 on a six-sided dice: 1:5 for it, or 5:1 against it iirc

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

No they don't mean roughly the same thing. A probability is a chance or likelihood. For instance, rolling a 2 on a balanced 6-sided die has a 1/6 probability. Odds are ratios of chances, usually expressed as the ratio of the probability of failure to the probability of success. If the probability of rolling a 2 is 1/6, the odds are 5:1 against it.

Actually they are the same thing. In your example you wrote the probability of rolling a 2 as "1/6". Using your example the odds of rolling a 2 are "1:6".

Just change your ":" into a "/" and you are talking about the same thing.

LLH

 

[Alek]

Actually they are the same thing. In your example you wrote the probability of rolling a 2 as "1/6". Using your example the odds of rolling a 2 are "1:6".

Just change your ":" into a "/" and you are talking about the same thing.

LLH

Uh, no. The odds of rolling a 2 on a balanced 6-sided die are 1:5. Re-read my post until you understand it.

 

[Alek]

In common usage of the terms probability is "the ratio of the number of outcomes in an exhaustive set of equally likely outcomes that produce a given event to the total number of possible outcomes" and odds are "the ratio of the probability of one event to that of an alternative event".

Now, what I am seeing is that you are playing around with the numbers to make the differences look more dramatic than they are. Your dice example can just as easily be shown as:
Probability that you will roll a 2 on a six-sided dice: 1 in 6 for, or 5 in 6 against
Odds that you will will roll a 2 on a six-sided dice: 1:5 for it, or 5:1 against it iirc

You recall correctly. However, I contend that 1/6 is not "roughly the same" as 1:5. If NASA engineers used this type of logic, then we would have space shuttles exploding in the sky.

 

[WildCat]

You recall correctly. However, I contend that 1/6 is not "roughly the same" as 1:5. If NASA engineers used this type of logic, then we would have space shuttles exploding in the sky.

Oh, glad you're back Alek. Can you please supply the list of eyewitnesses who saw something other than an AA 757 hit the Pentagon?

 

[GrnMtSkeptic]

oops

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

Uh, no. The odds of rolling a 2 on a balanced 6-sided die are 1:5. Re-read my post until you understand it.

Sorry you’re right. I forget sometimes that I live in Vegas where "odds" means something totally different

Regardless: rolling a dice you have 1 chance in 6 of getting any certain side. No matter which way you use to annotate it. You are playing semantics.

LLH

 

[ferd burfle]

I have two other general lines of questioning to attack the WTC demolition theory. Hopefully someone here has some knowledge of the process of blowing up buildings to provide the answers or point me in direction of some source.

1.) What kind of resources would it take to blow up all three buildings? How many tons of explosives? How many trained people to plant these explosives? How much time would it all take to plant all the charges? Could these charges be hidden to go unnoticed by people working within the building?

2.) If both of the towers were wired to blow, wouldn't the planes crashing into the towers detonate the explosives on those levels? Wouldn't that cause an instantenous crash of those levels above? Or do demolition charges require some other type of reaction to go off?

I would happily defer to Huntsman as I'm not a demolitions expert. But I do have experience in engineering failure analysis and can make a couple of categorical statements on that aspect. A controlled demolition would leave an unmistakeable signature on the steel. Explosives, and it would have to have been tons, would leave residue all over the debris. And if they used shaped-charge column cutters on the steel columns, which I think is the most likely method if I bought into this part of the CT, the debris and especially the steel would have no end of copper residue on it since the cutters work by using a jet of hypersonic copper to cut the steel. I'm no structural engineer either but demolition would result in steel that exhibited cut ends; many, many cut ends from all the demolition charges. As opposed to lots of bent, torn or stretch-like-taffy-till-it-broke ends.

And I suppose this is the point where our CT brethren gently point out to me that I'm forgetting about the army of Illuminati-bred hamsters that, wearing these really, really, really cute camo Nomex firesuits, fanned out into the still-smoldering debris and used these really, really, really tiny little wire brushes to scrape away all trace of HE and copper before the forensics lads showed up. And oh yeah, gnawed with their titanium tooth implants on the cut ends of the steel until it didn't look cut.

Sigh....

Ferd