Re: Coming Out of the Closet

From: Katharine Thayer ^lt;kthayer@pacifier.com>
Date: 03/11/05-10:33:00 AM Z
Message-id: <4231C837.25D8@pacifier.com>

Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>

>
> Yes, folks, all 30 sheets printed smooth as a baby's butt, with no
> speckling. They better have--they'll all be in my thesis show in a month.
>
> This proves ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about speckling except I, for one, will no
> longer worry about whether or not I accidentally overheat my jello ever
> again while attending to the soap opera called my life.
>
> Now THAT'S something to argue about. Open the floodgates...

Well, actually, I don't think it's anything to argue about at all; it's
just another data point among an infinite number of possible data
points. The problem comes when you, or I, or anyone, takes one bit of
data and draws an overreaching conclusion from it,a temptation we we all
are susceptible to once in a while.

Obviously in gum printing the problem how to make sense of so many
contradictory observations. For example, I accidentally got the gelatin
as hot as 170 degrees when I sized paper last week, and the one piece of
paper I sized with that hotter gelatin speckled on the third layer of a
tricolor gum. As I said last time this subject was batted around, it's
possible that different hardening agents behave differently with regard
to this, and maybe it's that different papers behave differently with
regard to this, but one thing that I would never say and have never
said (although people have sometimes mistakenly attributed this kind of
statement to me) is that my observations nullify your observations, nor
would I say that your observations nullify mine. It's only when we
start pooling all our observations, as I've said before, that we will
ever start seeing what the elephant looks like as a whole animal. My
2cents,
Katharine
Received on Fri Mar 11 18:28:49 2005

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