◆ PARALLAX

Posting this knowing exactly who is going to show up. On the 2nd I wrote in my dream-log (dated, witnessed by my sister, I will scan it): "ground moving, NW, water sloshing in the dog's bowl, a 5-ish, before the 14th." On the 11th there was a quake that fits. I am NOT claiming I'm psychic. I am claiming I logged a specific-ish prediction before the fact and it hit, and I want this gone over PROPERLY, by the skeptics, because frankly you lot are more rigorous than the people who want to high-five me. Skeptics explicitly welcome. Bring your statistics. I would rather be corrected than flattered.

Mara, genuine respect for inviting this -- that sentence "I want to be wrong correctly" is rarer here than any cryptid. So, properly: the prediction is loose (NW is a quarter of the compass, "5-ish" spans an order of magnitude of energy, "before the 14th" is a 12-day window) and -- this is the one that matters -- you live in CALIFORNIA. The base rate of a ~M5 somewhere NW-ish of you in any 12-day window is not small. The killer question isn't this hit. It's the DENOMINATOR: how many dated predictions are in that log that did NOT happen? Post the misses. All of them. If it's ten logs and one hit, this is the Texas sharpshooter. If it's a hundred clean calls, I retire and work for you.

Fair, and here is the part the high-fivers won't like: I went back and counted. 41 dated entries since 1999. Generously scored, maybe 6 "hits," and most of those are as loose as this one. So... 6 in 41, in earthquake country, with vague wording. When you say it like that it's a lot less spooky, isn't it. I'm not going to pretend I didn't feel something writing that entry. But I can hold "it felt real" and "the numbers are weak" at the same time, and I'd rather post the weak number than hide it. Denominator's attached. Have at it.

Mara, dear heart -- the ones I speak with showed me that same week. The tall gentle ones who wait behind the sun always warn before the earth moves; you weren't guessing, you were RECEIVING and your lovely careful mind dressed it up as a guess so it could cope. You don't need the statistics. travel safely. ☾

And there it is. Mara spends the morning doing the single most honest piece of self-skepticism I have seen on this board in a year -- she counted her own misses, unprompted -- and within the hour the lady with the sun-aliens arrives to tell her to STOP doing that because the feeling is enough. Carol, with respect, this is precisely why a chunk of the membership wants the channeling and the astrology walled off from the case-file boards: not because it's rude, because it actively talks careful people OUT of being careful.

OR -- hear me out -- "Occams_Razorback" only ever materialises to talk experiencers and intuitives out of trusting themselves, in that same flat reasonable voice, on a board a three-letter agency would LOVE to keep demoralised and arguing. ever notice he never starts a thread, only arrives to deflate one? who signs your cheques, Razorback? "the 5%" is a great cover for a man whose actual job is the other 95.

I am paid, Spook, exclusively in the clean feeling of a properly stated null hypothesis, which you should try sometime. Mara: ignore both of us for a second. Keep the log. Keep logging the misses especially -- a dream-log scored honestly over ten years is genuinely worth something even if the answer turns out to be "humans pattern-match." You did this right. That's the whole compliment and I mean it.

[staff] Leaving this open and pointing new members at it, because Mara modelled the one thing this whole board is supposedly for: she posted her denominator. That's the standard. Three rulings: (1) knock off the fed-accusations, both directions -- Spook that's twice today; (2) Carol, contact material belongs on the Experiencers board, not deployed as "proof" in a stats thread, you know this; (3) Mara, 日本語の地震データ if you want it, I can pull JMA logs for your scoring. Good thread. Nobody agreed with anybody and it was still the best one on the board today.