retreat

[degringolade]

I thought that I would follow in the footsteps of the big-boy bloggers and write a piece of substantive analysis once a week, publish, and sit back and bask in admiration of the unwashed masses.

Well, I just went back and read my last couple of long posts and have come to the conclusion that my desires far outweigh my skills. Now, the reasons for this are many. But the subjects that I want to discuss just keep getting bigger and more complex and my analysis keeps getting more muddy. I am trying to come up with a way to deal with this, but so far all that I can do is try and figure the odds of any particular variable.

The problems being addressed that interest me are hopelessly multivariate. Worse yet, there is no concrete source of data that has a reasonable value for standard deviation. Even worse, most of the data is collected asking flawed questions. So truthfully, I don't seem to be able to deliver anything more than a guess.

Now this doesn't mean that I am going to stop making this kind of attempt, but I will just try and change the way that I write to reflect this uncertainty. Even more important is the idea is to understand that the problem isn't really amenable to truly accurate forecasts. So I am thinking that I will go back to the simple, day-to-day, diary that I sustained for years.