17 May 2010 (noonish)

Workout notes rainy weather. I walked 1 mile on the track (13:20), stretched, one 200 drill, 200 walk (12:40), 1 mile on the treadmill gradually moving up to elevation 7 and holding it for 3 minutes and moving back down (13:55). Then 2200 yards of swimming: 250 free (slow!), 250 pull, 5 x (25 drill, 25 swim) fins, (3g), 5 x 50 on 1 free, 5 x (25 drill, 25 swim (3g, fins)), 5 x 50 free (25 fist) on 1, 5 x (alt 25 side, 25 free, 25 side, 25 free), 3 x 50 back (pull), 50 free.

Note: my head position makes a difference on how much pressure there is on my shoulder. I need to focus on a neutral head (e. g., NOT look up but rather look down).

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Sean Carrol makes a point about non-normalized probability with this delightful little example:

An eccentric benefactor holds two envelopes, and explains to you that they each contain money; one has two times as much cash as the other one. You are encouraged to open one, and you find $4,000 inside. Now your benefactor — who is a bit eccentric, remember — offers you a deal: you can either keep the $4,000, or you can trade for the other envelope. Which do you choose?

If you do the usual “expected value” calculation, then your strategy should not matter no matter how much money you see in the envelope and how big of the factor there is between the two envelopes (e. g., one envelope might contain, say, 1,000 times more money than the other).

But now suppose the factor is that one envelope has, say, 1000 times more money than the other and you open your envelope and see 2 dollars. Of course, you’d switch. On the other hand, if your envelope had 10,000 dollars in it, then of course you wouldn’t. The real life complication is that there is a realistic upper bound in how much could be in the envelope and if you discover that your envelope contains something near that upper bound, then you won’t switch.

In short, the “real life” problem is really a conditional probability problem: “what is the probability that my envelope contains the larger amount given that the upper bound is roughly X dollars”.

Sandwalk: check out his “visitors to this blog globe”.

Science

This is a long nosed tree frog; see more newly discovered species from Indonesian New Guinea here.

Jerry Coyne shows us a HUGE oarfish.

Nature: Celtic Rose took some coastline shots which show some spectacular natural beauty (scroll down just a bit to see the slideshow).

Absurdities that Mindless Religion can lead you to:

In 2002, 15 young girls burned to death in a school fire because firemen were not allowed by their religion to enter and rescue females who might not be covered head-to-toe in concealing clothing. In fact, religious police had actively hindered the escape of the girls, with reports that they were hitting them and pushing them back into the building, because they were trying to run out without putting their head coverings on first.

Now, in 2010, the religious ministry has given orders to the religious police to allow even male rescue workers to enter girls’ schools in an emergency.

Wow. So it only took them 8 years to figure out that maybe lives are more important than modesty.

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