One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

But they almost certainly weren't "written" in the correct order - the "M", if it is an "M", is in much bolder ink (i.e. blood) than the "F", which is hardly visible, if it's truly visible at all. In other words, the "ink" is bolder nearest the point at which the blood from Kelly's neck would have sprayed, getting fainter as one goes from "M" to "F".

I'd say that Kaz made a fair challenge to the M-as-brighter-than-the-F argument (that is, whatever Maybrick used for the F was too thin so he used something else for the M or refreshed the blood (presumably) for the M).

I agree that there are versions of the picture which have been posted in the last few days which distorts the M and even makes it look constructed from straight lines which could - if that were true - be rivulets (those pesky rivulets again!).

Digital pixelated pictures of Mona Lisa from a distance look like Mona Lisa. This is entirely intentional. You get up too close and all you can see are the constituent pixels, distorting the image out of 'existence' (obviously, as a Zen Buddhist, I'd have to argue that Mona is not actually there though the intention to create her image for our eyes is there - just saying, not judging, LOL).

The point is that Maybrick painted an FM which shows up routinely in modern prints of Kelly's death scene; and no amount of distortion should cause that fact to be lost to us.

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

I'd say that Kaz made a fair challenge to the M-as-brighter-than-the-F argument (that is, whatever Maybrick used for the F was too thin so he used something else for the M or refreshed the blood (presumably) for the M).

Sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. He could always have gone back and "touched-up" the F if that had been the case. If he wanted to write "FM", the "F" would have been much clearer than it is, no doubt about it.

[John G]

I think it is a little patronising to publish a link on inductive reasoning. You should summarise it and put it in your own words so that we know you know what you're talking about.

And of course it is definitely statistics or the backward-engineering of a hoaxer (if those letters are there) and either the tunnel vision of faith or else a freak random event which happened to coincidide with the journal's prediction (if it turns out they aren't).

It's not as simple as faith-because-I-don't-like-the-alternative.

Oh dear, I assumed you'd know about all this stuff as you appear to be so knowledgeable. But, of course, appearances can be deceptive!

[Iconoclast]

Sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. He could always have gone back and "touched-up" the F if that had been the case. If he wanted to write "FM", the "F" would have been much clearer than it is, no doubt about it.

Well he could, Sam. Or he could not. Once again (this is a very common theme with you), it is not for you to inform us of Maybrick's state of mind or mental process. It is for Maybrick and Maybrick alone to decide whether he did or did not wish to improve the legibility of the F.

[Iconoclast]

Oh dear, I assumed you'd know about all this stuff as you appear to be so knowledgeable. But, of course, appearances can be deceptive!

I'm really confused John. Did you read a post somewhere where I have said I don't know what inductive reasoning is?

Please clarify because your post seems to infer this heavily. I assume you aren't simply refering to my previous post on the subject as this clearly states no such thing.

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

Well he could, Sam. Or he could not. Once again (this is a very common theme with you), it is not for you to inform us of Maybrick's state of mind or mental process.

I'm not talking about Maybrick's state of mind or mental process; I'm talking about the mechanics of painting something on a wall. An "F" (downstroke, cross-stroke, cross-stroke) is certainly going to stand out much more clearly than we see in the MJK photographs. And what's he going to use to paint it? Why, the blood, of course. When is he going to paint it? Why, before the "M", of course. Therefore, without applying an ounce of psychobabble (which I loathe), it is reasonable to expect that the "F" should appear as strong, if not stronger than, the "M". But it doesn't. Not by a country mile; in fact, some people [Edit: most people] can't see the "F" at all. Go figure.

And less of that ad-hominem "this is a very common theme with you" crap, please, particularly when it's not true.

[Henry Flower]

OMG - pot, kettle, black alert! Please take that Basic Statistics book back to the shop and demand a refund, mate! I'm guessing you either have no statistics background or else that you struggled with it thirty years ago at school?

You don't want me to start listing the things I 'guess' you struggled with at school.

I absolutely agree that a large number of clouds form - that was actually my point and I suspect one or two of my dedicated readers will have already noticed that. Wherever you have sufficient quantities of variable events, you will eventually have the possibility of 'images' emerging from some examples of them. The fact that there is one sky is obviously irrelevant as I didn't imply there wasn't only one sky (that would be weird, even for me!).

Congratulations on this whole paragraph of padding.

But please don't think you can associate one sky with one photograph, therefore multiple clouds with multiple pixels, therefore like with like, for in that line of 'reasoning' would lie the true home of your 'faulty logic'.

But please don't think you get to insist that, to demonstrate the faultiness of your reasoning, I must compare only like with like. That's not the case, and you don't get to insist on it, even despite your high-octane sophomoric sarcasm. One photo equals multiple hundreds of marks, multiple hundreds of opportunities to 'find' meaningful marks among random noise.

The point about multiple events causing random 'images' is lost when we go from the macro world of clouds down to the micro level of pixels. You can't compare the two (and still expect to be taken seriously).

Says the expert on being taken seriously! Macro and micro have nothing to do with it, and are clearly words you've thrown in to bolster yourself. Yes, multiple events cause random images, and multiple chances for images to be 'recognized'. But you don't get to limit the argument to events: when looking for recognizable marks among random visual noise, the amount of noise is key. Multiple hundreds of marks on a photo (and there are many) allow ample scope for the brain to 'recognize' letters. You want proof? Now we have not merely the FM on the wall, we suddenly have an M smeared in blood on her leg, an F gouged out of her arm, and her chemise/arm/thigh being 'arranged' to form another M.

If there were no other marks or splatter or scratches or mould or dirt on that partition wall part of that photo, THEN you'd have a point with your clouds analogy. But you don't, because those marks are there, all over that photo. It's a comparison that can be made whether you like it or not, it is more honest and more logical than your own assertion - that because there is only one photo and it does not shift and change like the clouds, the odds of us finding what look (to you) like letters are astronomical. Bullsh*t, Ike. Pure crap. I know you have dismissed, in that high-handed way of yours, the use of the concept of pareidolia on this subject, but another news flash: you don't get to do that. On the best reproductions there is no F. The M looks barely like an M and is right where we would expect to see splashes of blood on the wall. The 'letters' are written where it would be unnatural for a normal sized human to write them. A forger looking for ways to lend his forgery credibility saw marks that he could use, in an old and not very good reproduction, incorporated the idea into the diary, and Ike is now seeing everything backwards.

If you are arguing that pixels vary randomly independent of the image they have captured is deeply unsettling. Pixels vary non-randomly based upon the image they have captured! They vary because what they represent varies. That is the purpose they serve. It is not an interpretation of the mind with pixels (as it is with clouds or toast or whatever) - pixels vary because they capture different bits of information!

Even after translating that opening sentence into English, I find that I wasn't making any of those arguments. I was stating the number of pixels just to remind you how much information is in that image. Lots to choose from. I know what pixels do. I'm quite good with pixels. But thanks for the concern.

But thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain to you how statistics works. Take the book back, it's full of faulty logic.

Your attempt to limit the parameters of what may be used as a statistical comparison was invalid. Logically wrong. Accept it and move on.

And while I'm on the subject: The possible presence of other letters is not an issue we should be labouring over.

Nobody will be surprised to hear you espousing that view. What choice do you have?

There could be a hundred letters on Kelly's wall, but still the chances of getting something that looks extremely similar to Florence Maybrick's initials - in their correct order - would still remain reasonably small.

That would be true only if there were an FM there. Looking at the best reproductions with unadjusted contrast levels, there is some blood spray or cast-off that vaguely - but only vaguely - resembles an M. There is no F. The supposed F is no more a distinct mark than any of the other smudgy marks along that area of the partition. If the marks you contrive to read as an F are deliberately made marks, then so are the others adjacent to it, because it is as indistinct as they are. End of story. ("Reasonably small" - the master statistician strikes again!) And anyway, even if you admitted that the F and the M aren't on that wall, you'd find some way to crowbar them in: I think of your hilarious spoof on the GSG and I'm sure of it.

The fact that there have only been a small handful of rather questionable letters 'discovered' implies that that probability then becomes vanishingly small. If you understand statistics, then this should cause some consternation amongst those who believe the journal is a hoax

I've yet to see any evidence that you understand statistics or probability, Ike, save for the fact that you like to insist (without any actual statistics) that the chances of this or that happening or not happening by chance are astronomical, or vanishingly small, etc. Anyone can throw hyperbole around like that. Anyone can play this game. Have you any professional training as a statistician? If so, that might serve you better than high-handed assertions.

The point is that to fulfill the 'prophecy' of the journal, we need one or more example of 'F' and 'M' in Kelly's room, and lo and behold we appear to have them.

The M is blood splatter or something else. (Ever noticed that when you move a bed away from a wall after several years, the area around the height of the "initials" is often grubby, greasy, darker and more scuffed? That's not a height that a killer sitting on the bed would write at, but it is a height where we would expect to see some dirt and/or blood.) The F is simply not there. The forger saw a bad reproduction and thought he saw an FM. He incorporated this into his account of the killing.

You're right about the pointlessness: you call us naysayers (even though I would not be upset at all if Maybrick were proved to have been JtR) but you are a true believer and a diary zealot, so there is little purpose to this discussion.

[Iconoclast]

I'm not talking about Maybrick's state of mind or mental process; I'm talking about the mechanics of painting something on a wall. An "F" (downstroke, cross-stroke, cross-stroke) is certainly going to stand out much more clearly than we see in the MJK photographs. And what's he going to use to paint it? Why, the blood, of course. When is he going to paint it? Why, before the "M", of course. Therefore, without applying an ounce of psychobabble (which I loathe), it is reasonable to expect that the "F" should appear as strong, if not stronger than, the "M". But it doesn't. Not by a country mile; in fact, some people [Edit: most people] can't see the "F" at all. Go figure.

And less of that ad-hominem "this is a very common theme with you" crap, please, particularly when it's not true.

Sam,

You absolutely are doing exactly that. You are telling us the mechanics of making those strokes as they may have existed had you been Jack the Spratt! If you were to go back through other posts over the years, it is something you do a lot of - as well as other people - citing the Argument from Personal Incredulity to dismiss any claims to the contrary.

You can 'Go figure' as much as you want but you are basically saying "I must be right, so you must be wrong" (this is the polite version. "I know what Jack the Ripper would have been thinking because that's what I would have done in the same circimstances and to suggest anything otherwise is just plain absurd". Et cetera.

That's naysaying. Then along come the feebleminded who assume your argument is valid because it hasn't been challenged, so along come I to challenge it.

[Henry Flower]

Sam,

You absolutely are doing exactly that. You are telling us the mechanics of making those strokes as they may have existed had you been Jack the Spratt! If you were to go back through other posts over the years, it is something you do a lot of - as well as other people - citing the Argument from Personal Incredulity to dismiss any claims to the contrary.

You can 'Go figure' as much as you want but you are basically saying "I must be right, so you must be wrong" (this is the polite version. "I know what Jack the Ripper would have been thinking because that's what I would have done in the same circimstances and to suggest anything otherwise is just plain absurd". Et cetera.

That's naysaying. Then along come the feebleminded who assume your argument is valid because it hasn't been challenged, so along come I to challenge it.

There is no F.

[Henry Flower]

You are telling us the mechanics of making those strokes as they may have existed had you been Jack the Spratt!

Whereas what YOU are doing is proposing inexplicably absurd scenarios in an attempt to get the (lack of) evidence to fit the diary.

Sure, Maybrick got a small amount of some really weak, watery, thin, blood on his finger, wrote an F which is literally indistinguishable from the other random marks along the wall, then (presumably realising it hadn't worked) dunked his finger in the proper red stuff to write the M.

Yeah. Sure. It doesn't actually contravene the laws of physics, so in Maybrickworld it must be accepted as just being what happened.

Or maybe in Maybrickworld he wrote the M first. Whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is that when dealing with other suspects it's right and proper to point out flaws, contradictions, anomalies, and absurditiess in the case - but with Maybrick that same process will be dismissed as 'naysaying'.

It's like dealing with petulant children.

[Sam Flynn]

You absolutely are doing exactly that. You are telling us the mechanics of making those strokes as they may have existed had you been Jack the Spratt!

Well, how else does one write an "F" on a wall, especially an "F" like the one that (isn't) there, except by executing a downstroke and two cross-strokes? Be that as it may, one would expect the "F" to be as visible, if not more so, than the "M", assuming the intention was to write "FM" all along. But it isn't: the "M" is visible in all copies of the MJK photograph, whilst the "F" is practically invisible, to the point where most people struggle to see the "F" at all.

[Henry Flower]

Here is MJK2 unenhanced: the M is more likely splatter. There is no F



Here is MJK2 with the contrast levels boosted. There is no F



Here is MJK2 with contrast levels boosted and a burn tool applied over the area of the alleged initials to try to bring out darker tones. There. Is. No. F.

[Iconoclast]

Be that as it may, one would expect the "F" to be as visible, if not more so, than the "M", assuming the intention was to write "FM" all along.

This is beautiful - this is exactly what I have just accused you of doing and you can't see it! You literally can't see it - wonderful!

"... one would expect the 'F' to be as visible ...".

Sam Flynn (and others) might expect the 'F' to be as visible, but Sam Flynn was not in Kelly's room in 1888. What Sam Flynn expects to happen is determined by Sam Flynn's worldview. He is not Jack the Spratt. We need to consider Jack the Spratt's possible worldview and - at its very simplest level - a man who has just ripped apart another human being, pumped we are led to believe by arsenic might not labour too long over the clarity of his 'F' having corrected it with a clearer 'M' or he may have simply thought "That'll do me - I know I've put it there and that's the sort of police goading I want, not the really blatant kind where I write "FM" in three feet high letters so no-one can miss it including my possibly suspicious family who might think this confirms their susppicions and report me to the local Plod".

Maybe my version happened, maybe it didn't. It's just not for us to ascribe intentionality to a psychotic murderer with a male Victorian worldview. Our disbelief is exactly that, and no more. It tells us nothing of the authenticity or otherwise of this document or any other document.

If our worldview predicts the authenticity of an event, then Leicester City could never win the Premiership. Ever. No-one in their right mind would have considered it plausible, but history shows us that it happened. Our incredulity was stretched to breaking-point as they did it, and then it should have snapped, forever to remain broken and unrelied on again. Somehow or other your incredulity has remained perfectly intact despite this clear warning from very recent history.

[Iconoclast]

Here is MJK2 unenhanced: the M is more likely splatter. There is no F

[ATTACH]18254[/ATTACH]

Here is MJK2 with the contrast levels boosted. There is no F

[ATTACH]18255[/ATTACH]

Here is MJK2 with contrast levels boosted and a burn tool applied over the area of the alleged initials to try to bring out darker tones. There. Is. No. F.

[ATTACH]18256[/ATTACH]

You're trying too hard to obfuscate.

Just take a quick look in Sugden and then again in Marriott. Much quicker, very much clearer, not in the slightest motivated by Sugden or Marriott's personal disbelief in the journal. Compelling stuff.

[Sam Flynn]

And, so as to make another point, here is the relevant portion from the version of MJK1 published in Farson's book, where something like an "FM" can, in fact, be seen:



The key point is that the illusory "FM" is more apparent in the grainier, noisier version of the photograph, MJK1, which was used in Ripper books from 1972 onwards. In contrast, there is no "FM" apparent in the better-quality MJK2 image which was discovered, but not yet widely published (if at all), in 1988.