Friday, August 8, 2008

Guesstimation, Epsiode II: Attack of the Links

I've just realized, as I began typing this, that if I mention any topic at all, I will probably end up bombarded by the very subject matter I'm going to discuss, or be forced to Google my way to either triumphant victory or a crusty, brown stalemate that smells like bad cheese. So give me a moment to come up with something wholly fictitious to use in this discussion. I may have to be ridiculous. Considering some of my early writings, that could be bad.

Okay, here we go:

The other day, I had a post about the price of sklogfrabs*. In this discussion on sklogfrabs, which are created by eating the blue plate special at a throwback diner, then, through use of a paper bag, collected when they come out and the encasing shit is washed away, we were discussing how to make them cheaper. My theory was to lower the price of the blue plate special and use cheaper beer, which would make the resulting excretion less a solid mass and more like ass soup, necessitating only a sieve rather than the paper bag.

Naturally, someone who obviously enjoyed the tension of squeezing something solid in the paper bag disagreed, saying I would upset the natural order and cause people ass cancer. They cited some blog, u-no-poo**.com, which said that only in solid mass could quality sklogfrabs be found.

So I leapt to my computer and Googled the shit out of the sklogfrabs, instead of the other way around. I also sought out links for alternative sources of sklogfrab-laden shit, artificial sklogfrabs, clean sklogfrabs (no shit).

And the troll began cutting and pasting more links to crazy sites like MoveBowel.com. And in the end, we both had an assload of links and statistics and numbers that supported our positions. In the end, nobody won, and there was a lot of shit on the screen.

Now, if you haven't given up reading in disgust by now, here's the point. Statistics and numbers and models and estimates and guesses and all the guesstimations in the world can sometimes confuse an issue to the point that no one has the correct numbers. And when no one can get correct numbers, how can we possibly make a decision? So remember that opinions are like assholes and they all put out shit.

*If the idea of sklogfrabs is too much, it's because any serious item (oil, global warming, etc, would immediately produce links from people who disagree.

**Bonus points if you can name the book where U-No-Poo appears. Hint: it's book 6 out of 7, and the main character has a scar on his forehead.

As for me, I have 2 computers on my desk now. Damn I'm a geek.

9 comments:

Beth said...

Well what a fun blogging to wake up to today!

By the way, it's cool to be a geek nowadays, isn't it?

Patrick M said...

I'm just waiting for the liberal readers to argue the point here....

Obob said...

are we debating how numbers are manipulated or how we are easliy manipulated?

Patrick M said...

A little of both, Obob.

At least this post isn't getting unending arguments.

Beth said...

How can you argue with it?!?

Obob said...

you threw down the gauntlet ...

Satyavati devi dasi said...

I got totally distracted by the sklobsfrag word and everything past that was just lost on me.

Sorry.

Patrick M said...

Obob: ...and no one picked it up.

Saty: That was part of the point. If I had used anything real, I'd have gotten argument.

Note the lack of that. :)

Beth said...

Seems this post scared Toad and Shaw away, hmmmmmm?