7 November 09 (pm)

Workout notes: maybe a walk after the game I am watching. Right now Navy leads Notre Dame 14-0 early in the 3′rd quarter and are running the ball very well. They are picking up first downs and controlling the ball.

Dave Quigg drove us to Springfield for the conference; Dave gave a talk on branched processes. The main talk was on astronomy and the use of data and statistics; U. of Illinois, Springfield professor John Martin was the speaker. He talked about many topics; one of his areas of research is star formation, especially the larger blueish stars that appear off of the main galaxy plane (formed there or ejected to there? Note that these stars have relatively short life spans.

As far as the statistical issues, some that were discussed were those of detection (accounting for noise and variation) and some of the major biases that astronomers have to deal with; one is the Lutz-Kelker bias: when one measures the small angles that one deals with in astronomy, error really can’t be negative because angles can’t be negative. Hence there is a bias in the positive direction which means that the parallax errors tend to be biased toward more parallax, hence distance is underestimated which leads to underestimation of luminosity.

Also the Malmquist Bias was discussed: this is the bias which states that, in situations where one is limited by signal strength, those entities emitting the stronger signals tend to be oversampled (e. g., brighter stars are oversampled).

Politics

Paul Krugman
No, Ronald Reagan didn’t start any great economic awakening.

Aha. I see that some commenters insist that I was unfair or, some insist, intellectually dishonest in my post on the fact that advanced economies actually grew faster in the era before modern finance took hold. There have been assertions that it was all about rebuilding from the war, or that the picture looks very different if you look at per capita real GDP, with some flat assertions that if you look at the numbers right growth has been better since 1980s.

Um, no.

Take the United States, which wasn’t damaged in the war. Take per capita real GDP. Give hostages by taking data from 1950 to 1980, which means including the 1980 recession, but stopping at 2007, so that the current slump isn’t included. Then here’s what you get:

Growth in per capita real GDP from 1950 to 1980: 2.2 percent per year
Growth in per capita real GDP from 1980 to 2007: 2.0 percent per year

Oh, and if we look at real median family income instead, we get:

Growth from 1950 to 1980: 2.3 percent per year
Growth from 1980 to 2007: 0.7 percent per year

Sorry: there’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980.

Chickenhawk Tancredo storms off set after Markos confronts him on veterans health care – Daily Kos TV (beta)

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7 November 09 (am)

I haven’t worked out as yet; I’ll probably get in a short hike between football games.

My calf ached at times last night but I am wondering if this is a “build up” type ache. Yes I did the stepper on Friday (yesterday).

Science Yesterday I went to a guest lecture by Victoria Borowicz (of Illinois State); she was talking about the effects of the parasitic plant pedicularis canadensis on grassy prairies. She presented some detailed data toward the end (e. g., how did adding more nutrient and/or less light affect this plant versus the plants around it.

I noticed some things:

1. The students payed attention and asked questions. That rarely happens at a math talk.

2. There was much for a student to do in such an experiment.

At the end I asked a “peanut gallery” type question: though the parasitic plant indeed harmed (or did not help) the host plant, the flowers did lead to more visits from bees which in turn did help the host plant spread its pollen. So, could there be some natural selection going on in that the parasitic plant might be aiding the reproductive success of the plant though it might be harming the plant in the long run?

She humored me but said that such an adaptation would be heavily dependent on a possibly non-stable bee population, but that question deserved study (but wasn’t especially promising). She was very nice about it.

In a bit, I will travel with a math colleague to attend a mini-conference in statistics; the title is “Astronomy Data Sets“.

GUBA – These Glutes Were Made for Walkin’

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DemConWatch:: Jon Stewart Makes Glenn Beck Look Like the Tool He Is

Jon Stewart mimics Glenn Beck

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6 November 2009

Workout notes 1 mile on the AMT, 3 on the Stairmaster (25 minutes), then 2200 yards of swimming: 500 warm up (9:52 via 25 free/25 back), 500 drill/swim (fins), 5 x 200 on the 3:30 (3:12, 3:12, 3:14, 3:14, 3:11); 200 cool down. The pool was almost full and I was the only male.

The first two 3:12 reps excited me but I couldn’t get any faster.

Injury wise: I didn’t feel it at all in today’s workout nor afterward.

Posts

Religion
See, we atheists are just like the religious fundamentalists.:

Frank Schaeffer really detests most of the New Atheists (except for Dan Dennett; he loves Dennett to pieces). He thinks they’re just like the Christian fundamentalists, and he should know, since his father was one of the most fanatical evangelicals around, and he was part of that radical Christianity himself. He starts off with a damning assertion.

The most aggressive members of the “New Atheism” movement have quite a bit in common with religious extremists like Pat Robertson and Ted Haggard.

Whoa. That’s a strong accusation. I wonder what these points of commonality are?

I read his whole long complaint, and it boils down to precisely one point of similarity, and even that doesn’t hold up: the Richard Dawkins website has an online store, where you can buy his books and a scarlet A pin and t-shirts. That’s it.

Let’s see: I think that people ought to critically examine the evidence (if your religion teaches Y, is there evidence for it? Would you believe that if another religion taught it? ) That makes me a fundamentalist?

Science Lectures:

I’ve got some stuff to do this weekend.

This one is from Jason:

I also am planning on watching this one:

Scientific method and security Security suffers when fear trumps the facts.

Academia:

It is wrong to put students in situations in which they are almost assured of failure. Stretching one’s limits is quite another matter.

Cell phones in class: ARGHHHH!!

Politics

The current Republican party (via Right Wing Watch)

5 November 09 (Part II)

Do you think that science is sterile? Read this; we find that humans are not as unique as we might think (this article is about sexual foreplay…in bats!)

Academia: snowflakery at its worst.

On the other end: my vector calculus students were getting tired of watching me work markers until they went bone dry….(we have these stupid white boards which require the use of magic marker like devices to write). So yesterday, I walk into class and there were THREE packages of brand new markers…in different colors!

I laughed and said “I’m still not giving you extra credit on your last exam”.

But in all honesty I was deeply touched; for reasons I cannot go into here I had to discipline myself to not tear up.

Frosty 5 November 09 (am)

Workout notes 500 warm up (8:52), 10 x (25 drill, 25 swim) with fins, 5 x 100 (alt side/free) on the 2 (1:46-1:53 each), 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on the 1:05 (53-55 each).

Then yoga with a substitute teacher; she was tall; wore black spandex, had the typical “sand dune” butt, spoke with a lisp and spouted off pseudo-scientific nonsense. She fit every stereotype of a younger yoga teacher…but I did leave the class all stretched out which was the point.

Injury: the right calf hurt last night (seized up?) but felt better in the morning; not sure if this is a delayed reaction to the ultra or to the stepper workout.

Posts:

Yes, many people don’t lose weight when they start exercising if they don’t change their eating. It really isn’t that hard to see why:

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.”

Mind you, this stuff came from a controlled study. Many people “work out” by going to the pool and floating on a water noodle. I still don’t understand what that is supposed to be doing.

Science
Maybe I’ll watch this video this evening? This is a Jerry Conye lecture on evolution.

Speaking of evolution, there are limits on how fast change can take place. Here is an attempt to find out what these limits are.

When pseudo-science causes harm In Iraq, dowsing is being used to “discover” mines! As it is often said, you can’t make this stuff up.

Puzzle: can you solve this puzzle?

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A) Yes.

B) No.

C) Cannot be determined.

For the answer and a discussion, surf here.

Academia In a previous post, I pointed to a link in which community college professors admitted to passing students who deserved to fail because they wanted to keep their jobs. Here are some responses.

Politics: Our right wing Representative had a health care town hall; it turned into a tea party (I didn’t go, but this is the second time I’ve heard this).

Screaming Pumpkin Video

Barbara and I did the 2 mile walk on Friday night (and I did the McNaughton 30 miler on Saturday).

There was a 5K run and a marathon “prediction” event also; if you did the marathon you weren’t allowed to wear a watch and the person finishing closest to midnight (but not beyond) won. You could start at 5 pm or later.

4 November 09 (am)

Workout notes Nothing yet; I’ll swim again and perhaps do 2-3 miles on the stair master.

Update 1 mile on the AMT (12:30), 3 on the stairmaster (350 calories, 25 minutes; last 10 minutes at 100 steps per minute). Then 2200 yards of swimming: 500 of back/free (just under 10), 500 of side/free (under 10), 500 of drill/swim (fins), 6 x 100 (100 paddle, 100 free), 100 free.

Then I did it again.

Yes, I am distracted (not in a good way) but this too shall pass. Yes I have poor eyesight…I have to make myself put on my glasses when I get out of the pool. The happy news is the alert life guard caught me before I could embarrass myself.

Injury update I barely noticed a “thereness” in my right leg during the stair master stage; 3 hours later I notice a light ache in the calf. Note: I haven’t had a NSAID since Saturday morning. None.

Politics Republicans won governorships in Virginia (not a surprise) and in New Jersey (lots of corruption there); frankly neither result worries me. In the Virginia race, the Republican turn-out was roughly what it was in 2008; the Democratic one was way lower (African Americans?) In the New Jersey race: my guess is that the voters learned something from Illinois; this was a case where I am embarrassed to say that I voted for Blagojevich.

The one result that bothered me was the fact that Maine overturned the legislature’s decision to allow gays to marry. Of course, this result was bitter just in and of itself; then many of us remember that African Americans were blamed for a similar thing happening in California (true; AAs were the deciding factor, but age, economic and educational status were the true predictors here). Well, what happened in Maine??? You can’t blame “the Blacks” there:

Since there are next to no Blacks in Maine, can we blame them for this defeat?

* tamtam’s diary :: ::
*

I remember cruising the diary entries last year and seeing the hate being spewed towards African Americans after prop 8 passed in California. This hate was generataed because media outlets decided only to break down the voting results based on race and ignoring age, education, and religion. Now we have a state in the more progressive NE with an educated 99% White majority population essentially passing the same law. So whose to blame now? For all of you using the N word last year…what word will you use for your own race? I have worked for Equality CA since last year, but the response after Prop 8 left a bad taste in my mouth. I do not believe that civil rights should be voted on at the ballot box. However, since it is, the equality movement needs to do some regrouping and start casting a bigger net.

Now of course, there was some good news too: conservative Democrat Bill Owens took a seat in the US Congress that the Republicans had held for 125 years. True, the Republican nominee for this seat had been hounded out by a tea-bagger type conservative that some big guns had campaigned for.

Also, the State of Washington decided to extend same-sex couples benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Nate Silver has a nice analysis of why.

Social: Zero Tolerance policies are Zero Discretion policies but…

These so-called zero-tolerance policies are actually zero-discretion policies. They’re policies that must be followed, no situational discretion allowed. We encounter them whenever we go through airport security: no liquids, gels or aerosols. Some workplaces have them for sexual harassment incidents; in some sports a banned substance found in a urine sample means suspension, even if it’s for a real medical condition. Judges have zero discretion when faced with mandatory sentencing laws: three strikes for drug offences and you go to jail, mandatory sentencing for statutory rape (underage sex), etc. A national restaurant chain won’t serve hamburgers rare, even if you offer to sign a waiver. Whenever you hear “that’s the rule, and I can’t do anything about it” — and they’re not lying to get rid of you — you’re butting against a zero discretion policy.

These policies enrage us because they are blind to circumstance. [...]

However, problems with discretion were the reason behind these mandatory policies in the first place. Discretion is often applied inconsistently. One school principal might deal with knives in the classroom one way, and another principal another way. Your drug sentence could depend considerably on how sympathetic your judge is, or on whether she’s having a bad day.

Even worse, discretion can lead to discrimination. Schools had weapons bans before zero-tolerance policies, but teachers and administrators enforced the rules disproportionally against African-American students. Criminal sentences varied by race, too. The benefit of zero-discretion rules and laws is that they ensure that everyone is treated equally.[...]

The problem with the zero-tolerance weapons rules isn’t that they’re rigid, it’s that they’re poorly written.

What constitutes a weapon? Is it any knife, no matter how small? Should the penalties be the same for a first grader and a high school student? Does intent matter? When an aspirin carried for menstrual cramps becomes “drug possession,” you know there’s a badly written rule in effect.

It isn’t simple and easy, is it? That is why I get angry when I hear some moron bellowing about how THEY have more “common sense” that the people who have tried to work on a policy and maybe still made a mistake.

It is easy to see how simple things are when one has never had the responsibility to implement a nuanced rule to cover a wide range of solutions to cover circumstances that might be impossible to predict to begin with.