Experimental design

Thinking about experimental design. 
The hard thing about nested models is that you can't just take the variance of the sample design and the variance of the shell design and compare them, because the samples are nested in the shell. Trust me, I wish you could-- ANOVA is easy-- but you don't account for the variance correctly.  What you need to do is run a nested analysis of variance and you can check the satterwaite statistic depending on the type of effects you are dealing with. Shoot, darn education-- I can tell exactly "what" tests I want to run, but unfortunately I don't have a good reason why I am running them. I are bad scientist. What I statistically find myself reasoning through is the comparison between a nested RCBD and a nested CRD (nested randomized complete block versus nested completely random design) was that our "blocks" in this case are not really blocks-- if it were a randomized block design, each "blocking factor" would have within it all types of treatments.  In the case of my work, that would mean that each type of cover index would have within it some kinds of treatment, and that treatment would then determine my observational values which in this case are Mg of litter fall. RCBD as it is called is pretty straightforward. In this case, I have one big shell which is the basin itself. The outer layer is just looking at the variance of the litter for the whole basin, regardless of which "block" it is in. The inner layer is looking at the variance within each "block" (cover type).  We would make the assumption that the variance of the whole basin is greater than the variance of the individual blocks, but who knows. Maybe litter has nothing to do with cover type. Most importantly, we cannot assume that the variances are independent-- the variance within (the cover types) is a part of the variance between the cover types.

So I'm going to run, and think about blocking factors. If I can run, because I think all this alternative working out with hiking and martial arts is "working" in that I am feeling more tired and hungry now...if only it would actually get me into shape! Three Finger Jack kicked my butt and it HURTS but in a "damn, you worked hard" way.

DID I MENTION THAT IT'S 55 AND RAINING!!! THIS IS WHAT I MOVED TO THE PACIFIC COAST FOR!! MAY IT RAIN FOR THE NEXT 10 MONTHS STRAIGHT, AND STAY ABOUT 50 DEGREES!