Horostat Blog
Started 26 dec 2010, updates sporadic progress of the Horostat software,
and the programmers fluctuating opinions about it's practicality.
The program README is Here, download is Here (mac OS9 only)

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24 Jan. 2011 Here's a handy quote from Prof. Milford H. Wolpoff (Univ of Michigan, Dept. of Anthropology), regarding GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out). "In computer work, garbage results can arise from bad data or from poorly conceived algorithms applied to analysis - I don't expect that the results from both of these combined are a different order of garbage because bad is bad enough. The science I am used to practicing has far too many examples of mistaken, occasionally fraudulent data and inappropriate, even illogical analysis, and it is all too often impossible to separate conclusions from assumptions. ... The value of GIGO is to sharpen the skeptical sense and the critical facility because the truth behind GIGO is simple: science is a human activity." Note: that statement wasn't specifically addressed me, and I'm not paranoid (much). That said, I'm continuing w/ the initial proposition that there is a connection between events and astrological influence. This graph (right) shows that some planets make a majority of the aspects for the event in question, which appears to indicate association. It's possible that the pattern may be an artifact of the way the code was written, but so far I haven't seen it. This pattern suggests that the effect of any single planet in aspect is less important than a preponderance of planets expressing the same aspect, because there's rarely only one column, and usually several. Another possibility is that this kind of pattern is meaningless because it's always inherent for any event. For that to happen without being unique to the event, the aspects would have to occur all the time (they don't) and be similar for any data set (they aren't).

16 Jan. 2011

OK, Mercury came to my rescue (protector of thieves and liars). The stats formula previously used was purposely bent to show results from a few samples, something I did once late at night when designing the graph layout, & then forgot about it till forced to confront unrealistically huge odds when more samples became available. That idea works though so long as the numbers are connected to something. There's now a slide button that multiplies a small sample till it's big enough to show which planets are potential players, given enough charts and a continuing trend.

The existing odds are an Average Deviation w/ a fudge multiplier. An alternative is Standard Deviation which is the square root of the squared average which has been divided by the number of charts. They both exaggerate the differences, but average deviation alone doesn't enhance the range, thus the multiplier.

No Fudge 3 X Fudge

The fudge scale goes up to 100 but not much useful stuff can be gleaned above 20 or 30, so I'll probably change it. The odds in the upper left corner are approximate multiples of the fudge. When using the program, you can access the fudge in the above graph window using 'cmd. arrow (up, dn, etc)' if you punch it a few times (algorithm doesn't like to exit that event loop. more to fix), to raise or lower the multiplier.

9 Jan. 2011

Updated version is available.

5 Jan. 2011

I'm still intrigued by the columns below (above 24 Jan. 2011) showing that some planets do all the work. So in case there's still something to be uncovered there, I'm putting in a slide button to adjust the 'severity' of the analysis by percent. 100% = completely bogus, 0% = what my 8th grade math teacher would call 'a hard cold fact' (she was so mean the halls would empty to let her go by & I'm pretty sure there's nothing in my program that can be attributed to her. She seated the class by test scores, I sat in the last seat behind a kid w/ an IQ of 60). It'll take a few days to get it running though in case you want to update your version of Horostat, check back later.

4 Jan. 2011

OK duh there was something going on. So now I'm eating my hat. (sigh) The numbers describing the size of the sample were written to describe the odds of planets in houses (like 12 to 1), but for aspects it has to be (I think) 360 (degrees) compared to the width of the orb. In the first case the probability is 1 in 12, the other can be less than 1 in 180. The pictures below look nice but think of them all being blank. Yes it's bleak (unless I can think up a respectable way to get lower odds) but if you're a nerd, you can still use the ephemeris to hit on chicks.

26 Dec. 2010

The original post that went here was so embarrassing that I can hear my 8th grade math teacher tapping her pencil. If you're a sadist, or a geek, this period is the link. The formula was wrong, but the basic statement is still valid (so far), ok? get over it.

But this part is still good, it loads lists of textfile data and converts it into charts. Data entry is a bottleneck, it's ok to enter few events at a time through the Horostat chart entry dialog, but listing 300 dates is grueling, & tedious beyond belief. So the program now has a function in the text editing window. A pulldown menu called 'Import Data' instructs the program to read from a text file and record hundreds of charts in a couple of seconds. The text has to be in the format below. A word processor program with spreadsheets can be set up to list the info. but if you haven't used a spreadsheet before, it won't save time. Instead use a regular textfile w/ a fixed width font like courier and justify everything to the right. That way goes pretty fast and errors stand out because the only variable sized entry is to the left. And if you paste this string: " AD, Lat.--N, Long.---W, ", it flies. For the name there should be no caps and total less than 21 characters, + one space at the end.

habiqi china , 21/04/01952 AD, Lat.40N, Long.119E, 10:30 PM another name , 02/04/02002 AD, Lat.39N, Long.123W, 12:46 AM name 3 , 15/09/02002 AD, Lat.--N, Long.---W, 00:00 AM name_4 , 30/11/01999 AD, Lat.33N, Long.101W, 03:31 PM + 246 more

The format is: name , dd/mm/yyyyy AD,(or BC) Lat.LLN(S), Long.LLLW(E), hh:mm AM (or PM). If you don't know the Latitude and longitude, replace those numbers with dashes (-). If the time is unknown, replace the hrs & mins w/ zeros. Punctuation characters, spaces, and the number of characters after the name (47), are all critical.

Please include a description of the nature of your list, and where you got the data. What kind of info you're looking for could authenticate any results, but you can keep it private if you wish.

• I don't charge to process a list of dates that total more than 250, for anything less, the charge is (250 - n) x 0.20 cents (US$).
• I reserve the right to publish the results, but will include your description only with your permission, though I may write a generalized description.
• I'll send back graph jpegs of aspect or sign associations, but I don't interpret results.
• Please read this about Recognizing garbage.