Cathyryn-I'm not a statistician, and am not set up to qualitatively evaluate predicitions (I maybe took on statistics course). I have been watching the seismicity for California for 14 years, and for the world (PDEs) for a bit longer. So, I have sort of a gut feeling for whether a predicition is impressive or not. But, many of the people who post can do that if they take a step back and look at this.

What I am interested in is science. So, I'll correct what I consider mistatements of fact, and occassionaly will try and push the discussion to why things happen....also, despite all the rejections I've had, I am persisent and do get papers published in major journals, and do get small proposals funded on occassion. So-I like to think I know what it takes, and what would turn-off reviewers.....so I make ocassional comments on that also. It sometimes seems like there are good scientists on this board (whether or not they have degrees), but that if all that happens is posting on this board, then we are just amusing ourselves....which is OK....Chris