Subject: (urth) Memento Mori, Re: This Week in Google Alerts: conference, sketch

From: Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 18:50:38 +0000

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net> wrote:
> - Via http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jenniferfitz/2014/06/should-you-be-writing-right-now-and-what-about-the-kids-and-what-about-a-conference-this-summer/
> , http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9005474225.html "Prominent
> Catholic Writers to Speak at Catholic Writers Conference in Chicago
> Area":

By the way, I know how easy it is to let time slip by and never get
around to doing something you always intended to do but never quite
got around to. If you want to write fanmail, see Wolfe in the flesh,
get an autograph for a book, perhaps buy an autographed special
edition etc, you should do so soon. As soon as possible.

It will sound morbid to point this out, but the odds are not good for
Wolfe surviving too many more years, and if you pass up opportunities
you may well discover you passed up your last such opportunity. List
members may not have much experience with how elderly people can
abruptly decline and die, or how mortality exponential increases over
time in the Gompertz curve, so here's some numerical calculations from
SSA actuarial tables.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe tell us that Wolfe is now age
83. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html 83: instantaneous risk
of death that year, 0.083230 or 8.3%; remaining life expectancy: 6.66
years.

Over the next 7 years, each year an American male's risk of death is:

- 83: 0.083230 (8%)
- 84: 0.091933 (9%)
- 85: 0.101625 (10%)
- 86: 0.112448 (11%)
- 87: 0.124502 (12%)
- 88: 0.137837 (14%)
- 89: 0.152458 (15%)
- 90: 0.168352 (17%)
- 91: 0.185486 (19%)
- 92: 0.203817 (20%)
- 93: 0.223298 (22%)

Risk increases dramatically each year, and since that's just the risk
each year, the cumulative risk increases even more dramatically. This
is why despite billions of people on earth, only one person (Jeanne
Calment) has survived to 122 years (and the record age has actually
fallen steadily ever since).

The probability of surviving to a particular age is the conjunction of
each negated risk (since you have to not die in each previous year);
so to survive to 84, one has to beat 1 * (1-0.083230) = 0.9168, and to
survive to 85, one has to beat 1 * (1-0.083230) * (1-0.091933) =
0.8325, and so on. It's easy to automate the calculation up to age 93
in Haskell:

    ghci> scanl (*) 1 $ map (1-) [0.083230, 0.091933, 0.101625,
0.112448, 0.124502, 0.137837, 0.152458, 0.168352, 0.185486, 0.203817,
0.223298]
          ~>
             [1.0,0.91677,0.8324885835899999,0.7478869312826661,0.6637885416337929,0.5811455406233024,0.5010421827404082,0.42465429364417107,
              0.35316289400058754,0.28765612144399455,0.2290269137396439,0.1778856619554089]

Or, the probability an American male (like Gene Wolfe) will survive to
a specified age, having survived to age 83, is:

- 1y, 84: 92%
- 2y, 85: 83% (4/5)
- 3y, 86: 75% (3/4)
- 4y, 87: 66% (2/3)
- 5y, 88: 58%
- 6y, 89: 50% (coin flip)
- 7y, 90: 42%
- 8y, 91: 35% (1/3)
- 9y, 92: 29%
- 10y, 93: 23% (1/5)
- 11y, 94: 18%

These figures are population-wide averages, which don't take into
account individual circumstances. On the positive side, Wolfe is
high-status and has received many honors and can look back on a
sterling writing career with great satisfaction; on the negative,
Wolfe has lost his wife recently, which is a well-known risk factor
for men, is not in perfect health, and may be overweight. On net, I'd
say these figures are underestimates.

So, this implies that if you pass up an opportunity this year in favor
of next year, there's a >10% chance Wolfe will be permanently delayed;
if you wait 2 years, ~20%, 3 years, 25%, and so on. These are not
negligible risks.

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

---

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:22:11 +0000

The stressful and long decline of rosemary is concerning. This might be the
most depressing analysis ever undertaken on urth list.  I have felt myself
to be very fortunate in my childhood heroes.  I am so grateful that my time
and Gene's just happened to overlap significantly.

There's a picture at the Fuller award I didn't know was taken at the time,
where, for the many kindnesses he showed me, thinking we were mostly
alone,  I told him that I loved him, and he would always be my hero,
thinking I would never see him again.  Then the nebulas were in California
the very next year, and Gene named grandmaster, so it proved to not be the
last time.

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc282/maramini/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps379db714.jpg

On Sunday, July 13, 2014, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > - Via
> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jenniferfitz/2014/06/should-you-be-writing-right-now-and-what-about-the-kids-and-what-about-a-conference-this-summer/
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <javascript:;>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
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From: Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:26:52 +0000

At first I was depressed, then I was interested in the math, then I was
depressed again, then Marc's picture cheered me up. Here's to all the best
for Gene.
On Jul 13, 2014 7:22 PM, "Marc Aramini" <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

> The stressful and long decline of rosemary is concerning. This might be
> the most depressing analysis ever undertaken on urth list.  I have felt
> myself to be very fortunate in my childhood heroes.  I am so grateful that
> my time and Gene's just happened to overlap significantly.
>
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
> To post, write urth at urth.net
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From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:53:19 +0000

Of course, I am a Wolfe fan first and an SF one second (or third) but even
though I preferred the Fuller Ceremony because it was all about Gene, I
can't recommend the Nebula Awards highly enough.  The panels in memory of
the SF greats are astonishingly informative - you get to hear people talk
who knew guys like Bradbury or pretty much every Golden Age SF writer
working in the beginning and mid 20th centuries as well as meet some of the
new faces.  I sat at dinner with Connie Willis, chatted with Joe Haldeman
as he wrote, had Robert Silverberg ask to pet my dog, sat at a panel where
the guy who wrote Logan's Run and other SF screenplays talked about the
construction of so many of the classic movies and moments in SF ... SF
fandom is truly special for that. (How many times have I, frustrated at
elderly drivers or shoppers in Arizona, quipped about Logan's Run?  And
there sitting at the front of the room was the man who provided the
punchline for my least humanitarian nastiness).  When I was a child I got
to meet Jack Williamson - he lived about 30 minutes away from me, and I
curse the foolishness that did not lead me to seek out Roger Zelazny while
he was living in Santa Fe, mere hours away, though I was a fan of his by
the 4th grade.  I feel like fans of truly popular entertainment are cheated
of this closeness.  When I saw my name in the SFWA directory, with my
address and phone number next to the addresses and phone numbers of most of
the authors I had grown up reading, it was an ethereal and impossible
feeling.  Most of the other famous personages throughout history are lost
in antiquity, forever inaccessible to us, or others are so overwhelmed with
inexplicable and mostly unwarranted fame (actors? golfers? really?) that
they are unapproachable.
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From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 23:59:49 +0000

Marginally off topic, having said all that and been rather smug in my
dismissal of "popular" entertainers, if you hang out in Las Vegas boxing
gyms you will meet an amazing number of famous boxers coming through to
train or with their proteges, most fairly friendly and accessible and happy
to be recognized - the sport must now be something more of a niche thing
than it used to be, much as SF probably is. I felt a little bad after I
wrote that last sentence below.

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