22 January 2011; Later in the Day

Workout notes This morning’s activities (lifting, 4 miles running, 2.5 elliptical) wiped me out; I am NOT in race ready shape; not even close. I’ve got so much building up to do. But I am getting stronger. But I’ll have to stretch several times a day while my body adjusts.
I am off of all pain killers and those were masking my “everyday” soreness.

I am not overtraining as my workouts are getting better.

Posts
I’ve downloaded some MacTeX software for my MacBook Pro; this is to help me write mathematics papers and to help me with my mathematics blog.
For the record: I am finishing up a couple of papers to submit for publication and I am attempting to relearn the real analysis that I had, well, “forgotten”; ok, I am trying to learn what I never really understood the first time around. The topics so far: Lebesgue integration and Lebesgue measure (the usual measure and “outer” measure.

For the non-mathematics types who have had a course in calculus: in elementary calculus, you learned how to integrate functions over an interval. The idea is that the definite integral was a “Riemann sum”: you chopped an interval up into small intervals and approximated the area between the graph of the function and the x-axis by small, thin rectangles. As the rectangles got thinner, your areas approached the true area. Now to actually evaluate the integral, in many cases, you could use anti-differentiation; this was a “trick that worked” to calculate that integral.
Lebesgue integration involves chopping up the interval into more sophisticated sets (sets that aren’t merely intervals); this allows you to integrate more functions; enough said for now. Yes, I’ve greatly oversimplified this, and the mathematicians will tell you that you get better “convergence properties” with Lebesgue integration. This latter statement only makes sense if you’ve had a real analysis class, at least at the undergraduate level.

Education The NSF has picked up an article that I had talked about earlier. The idea is that one of the best ways to learn something is to attempt to recall it; the process of retrieving the information actually assists in learning. I followed this thread on facebook and some of the comments were depressing; evidently many, many people simply do not understand that there is a difference between being entertained and actually learning something difficult. The latter is, well, hard work and not always fun (though it can be at times). In short, watching “Mr. Science” and doing some “gee whiz” experiments is not going to turn you into a scientist. Reading popular science books won’t teach you the real stuff either.

Don’t get me wrong; I love popular science books as it gives me an idea of what areas are of interest to working scientists and a rough idea of what they are attempting to do. But that does not mean that I UNDERSTAND their work; not by a long shot.

Politics
President Obama talks to OFA supporters about his upcoming State of the Union address:

Some Democrats (that I respect) have worries that the President is nearing a “what is good for corporate America is good for all of America” position. Sure, I want our businesses to thrive; no businesses means “no jobs”. But the corporate bottom line shouldn’t be the “be all”, “end all” of our policies:

But what’s American “competitiveness” and how do you measure it? Here are some different definitions:

— It’s American exports. Okay, but the easiest way for American companies to increase their exports from the US is for their American-made products to become cheaper internationally. And for them to reduce the price of their American-made stuff they have to cut their costs of production in here. Their biggest cost is their payrolls. So it follows that the simplest way for them to become more “competitive” is to cut their payrolls — either by substituting software and automated machinery for their US workers, or getting (or forcing) their US workers to accept wage and benefit cuts.

— It’s net exports. Another way to think about American “competitiveness” is the balance of trade — how much we import from abroad versus how much they import from us. The easiest and most direct way to improve the trade balance is to coax the value of the dollar down relative to foreign currencies (the Fed’s current strategy for flooding the economy with money could have this effect). The result is everything we make becomes cheaper to the rest of the world. But even if other nations were willing to let this happen (doubtful; we’d probably have a currency war instead as they tried to coax down the value of their currencies in response), we’d pay a high price. Everything the rest of the world makes would become more expensive for us.

— It’s the profits of American-based companies. In case you haven’t noticed, the profits of American corporations are soaring. That’s largely because sales from their foreign-based operations are booming (especially in China, Brazil, and India). It’s also because they’ve cut their costs of production in the US (see the first item above). American-based companies have become global — making and selling all over the world — so their profitability has little or nothing to do with the number and quality of jobs here in the US. In fact, it may be inversely related.

— It’s the number and quality of American jobs. This is my preferred definition, but on this measure we’re doing terribly badly. Most Americans are imprisoned in a terrible tradeoff — they can get a job, but only one that pays considerably less than the one they used to have, or they can face unemployment or insecure contract work. The only sure way to improve the quality of jobs over the long term is to build the productivity of American workers and the US overall, which means major investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. But it’s far from clear American corporations and their executives will pay the taxes needed to make these investments. And the only sure way to improve the number of jobs is to give the vast middle and working classes of America sufficient purchasing power to get the economy going again. But here again, it’s far from clear American corporations and their executives will be willing to push for a more progressive tax code, along with wage subsidies, that would put more money into average workers’ pockets.

It’s politically important for President Obama, as for any president, to be available to American business, and to avoid the moniker of beiing “anti-business.” But the President must not be seduced into believing — and must not allow the public to be similarly seduced into thinking — that the well-being of American business is synonymous with the well-being of Americans.

Paul Krugmann: “me too”:

Sigh. So it appears that President Obama is going to make “competitiveness” his main economic theme. To be fair, he could (and may well) do worse. But this is hackneyed stuff, and involves a fundamental misconception about the nature of our economic problems.

It’s OK to talk about competitiveness when you’re specifically asking whether a country’s exports and import-competing industries have low enough costs to sell stuff in competition with rivals in other countries; measures of relative costs and prices are, in fact, commonly — and unobjectionably — referred to as competitiveness indicators.

But the idea that broader economic performance is about being better than other countries at something or other — that a companycountry is like a corporation –is just wrong. I wrote about this at length a long time ago, and everything I said then still holds true.*

The hopeful interpretation of Obama’s embrace of the idea that he’s the CEO of America Inc. is that it might help fend off right-wing attacks on government action as a whole, helping him sell the need for public investment of various kinds. On the other hand, as Robert Reich says, this could all too easily turn into a validation of the claim that what’s good for corporations is good for America, which is even less true now than it used to be.

Note: this gets us back to a political issue and campaigning. I admit that I am not an expert in economics. But when President George W. Bush was in office, I really didn’t have confidence in him because I didn’t see him as highly intelligent and I didn’t see him as understanding the lives of the non-wealthy. I didn’t see him as being deliberately mean; I honestly believe that he was well intentioned.

On the other hand, I see President Obama as being smarter and having a better grasp of the challenges that everyday Americans face. That is why I have a bit more trust in him. What this means is that if he pushes for a policy that President Bush would have pushed for, I’ll be far more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, I don’t have the economic expertise to properly evaluate the policy’s potential BUT I have more trust in President Obama’s judgment than President George W. Bush’s. Note: I had more trust in President George H. W. Bush than I did in the second President Bush.

22 January 2011: am

More snow.

Workout notes I made it to the Riverplex for the annual Steve Foster Memorial run/walk/whatever. I didn’t run outdoors as it is still slippery and my back is still slightly achy. But I did get in a general purpose workout indoors:

rotator cuff PT, piriformis, back stretches
Weights: incline press: 10 x 45, 10 x 115, 10 x 125, 5 x 135
curls: 15 x 15, 15 x 20 lb., 15, x 20 lb., 10 x 25 lb.
rows: 3 sets of 10 x 140 (different angle on this machine)
squats: 20 x 45 lb, 10 x 135, 10 x 155, 10 x 155 (free)
sit ups: 100 (various inclines)
Then my run was weird: 1 mile in 9:55; felt weird. Stretched. Ran another in 9:50. Felt weird, so I stretched again.
Then 2 in 19:30; felt much better but I used a more stable treadmill and I was running 8:30 mpm toward the end.
Then 2.5 on the elliptical (20 minutes).
Then even more stretching.

the whole workout took about 2 hours; it felt like I didn’t do much.

21 January 2011 late night

It is snowing again. Yuck.

Posts
Science
Betelgeus will eventually explode (supernova) and will become visible in our day sky. It will probably happen in the next, oh, 1,000,000 years or so.

Biology Yes, last year a laboratory produced gene (based on a natural pattern) has been embedded in DNA, and passed on. Now, a pattern developed in the lab was inserted..and worked!

Synthetic biology garnered national headlines in May 2010 when a team led by J. Craig Venter announced it had created the world’s first “synthetic cell.” The group used computers to copy an entire bacterial genome that, when inserted into a cell whose own genome had been removed, “booted up” the cell, which then passed the synthesized genome to its offspring.

This accomplishment was no small feat but the new genome, although man-made, was almost entirely a replication of one that already existed in nature. Now, a new study published January 4 in PLoS One has shown that DNA sequences designed in the laboratory and distinct from any found in nature can, when inserted into cells missing genes necessary for survival, “rescue” some of those cells.

They were not random sequences, explains Michael Hecht, a professor of chemistry at Princeton University who led the research. Instead they were intentionally patterned to code for amino acid arrangements, which can fold into relatively crude three-dimensional protein structures that are distinct from any natural proteins. In the past three decades scientists have refined methods for designing entirely new proteins from scratch, and they have shown that some can even catalyze reactions. “Since proteins are basically molecular machines that work in cells,” Hecht says, the next logical question was: “Can you get one that you design from scratch to work in a cell?”

Allergic reactions: there are some men who are allergic to their own semen; orgasm actually causes an allergic reaction in them! At least one of the stories has a happy ending; the doctors attempted to desensitize one man by using a very dilute solution of his own semen…and the technique worked!

Religion A philosophy of religion professor has come to the conclusion that theism is an intellectually indefensible position.

Parsons hung up his hat on September 1:

I have to confess that I now regard “the case for theism” as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position—no more than I could present intelligent design as a legitimate biological theory. BTW, in saying that I now consider the case for theism to be a fraud, I do not mean to charge that the people making that case are frauds who aim to fool us with claims they know to be empty. No, theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest… I just cannot take their arguments seriously any more, and if you cannot take something seriously, you should not try to devote serious academic attention to it.

Emphasis mine. Yes, good people believe some rather strange things, and if someone thinks that some deity intervenes in the affairs of this universe, that is indefensible; IMHO it is every bit as indefensible as:

see more funny videos

Now if someone gets comfort and inspiration from a good story or wants to speculate on “what lit the match” of the universe, well, who knows? I sure don’t.

Education Some college students don’t learn a thing in college. No, that isn’t a shock. What is a shock is that faculty really don’t have much say in the matter:

What did you learn at univerity? Not much, it seems, according to the data in a new book titled Academically Adrift. The book is reviewed in the latest issue if Inside Higher Ed [Academically Adrift].

The data aren’t surprising. The authors of the book show that 36% of students failed to learn anything after four years of college. Of those who did learn something, the gains were very modest.

Why don’t students learn?

The main culprit for lack of academic progress of students, according to the authors, is a lack of rigor. They review data from student surveys to show, for example, that 32 percent of students each semester do not take any courses with more than 40 pages of reading assigned a week, and that half don’t take a single course in which they must write more than 20 pages over the course of a semester. Further, the authors note that students spend, on average, only about 12-14 hours a week studying, and that much of this time is studying in groups.

But here is the kicker:

None of this is news my colleagues and me. Problem is, there’s not much we can do about it. If we increase the rigor of our biochemistry courses and start demanding more of our students then the result won’t be increased learning. It will simply mean that undergraduates will avoid biochemistry courses. In fact, that’s already happening since the University of Toronto has developed dozens of new programs that will award degrees in the biological sciences without ever forcing students to take a rigorous course.

This brings up a question that I often ask my students. If university is supposed to be difficult (rigorous) then it’s likely that some students won’t be capable of completing a degree. In an ideal setting with expertly taught, challenging, programs, what percentage of the incoming class of students should expect to complete a degree? Clearly the answer can’t be 100% because that bar is way too low. Should it be 50% as it was in many universities in the past? Lower?

I know that if our department were to raise standards, our “client” departments would scream bloody murder.

Word Warcraft – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – 01/20/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

Steve Cohen comparing Republicans to Nazis is the polar opposite of his case for honest discourse. Airdate – 01/20/11

Word Warcraft – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart…, posted with vodpod

Rush Limbaugh Speaks Chinese

ColbertNation.com video – Stephen is deeply offended by Rush Limbaugh’s cheap, insensitive rip-off of Ching Chong Ding Dong.

Rush Limbaugh Speaks Chinese, posted with vodpod

21 January 2011

Workout notes I didn’t get to the gym until 5:30 or so. Still, I had time to get in 7 miles on the Elliptical (1:02:30) and to stretch the back and piriformis. All went well.

I didn’t like the cold. I enjoyed the gym though; I joked a bit with Pat Arnold (a sub 2:50 marathoner) who was running on the treadmill ahead of me; and yes, there were the ladies. I found myself thinking “wow, there are some attractive women here (mostly aged 35-65)” and then said to myself “duh….you are in the cardio room, after all. “

Everything went well.

Mathematics Education
A student asked me to prove this (in class) and I got stumped for a while; 10 minutes after class I got it:

Note:

If you want a hint: yes, you use integration by parts….but do an easy algebraic step FIRST.

Update A friend and fellow mathematics professor (and very fast distance walker) reminded me that simple integration by parts will work: set and Then in the integral term in the integration by parts, remember that and substitute that in and solve for the original integral. I missed that the first time.

Posts
Why women live longer than men:

see more funny videos

Women are smarter than this….

Richard Dawkins: I KNEW that he really was “of Satan”. Here is proof.

Don’t Like This

20 January 2011

It is going to be bitterly cold tonight; below zero F. Oh well….

Posts
I posted my workout on facebook; one of my friends sent me a video of a woman doing a type of push up. This is a screen shot:

Shame on him for doing that!
Really, I worked out twice today (yoga in the morning, light weights and 4 miles of running in the afternoon) and each time, I saw lots of women wearing tight spandex of different varieties and more vpls that you’d see in a Victoria Secret catalog.

Other posts.

Remember the woman who walked herself into a fountain because she was texting and not watching where she was going? You guessed it; she is playing the victim and is going to sue. .

Lady: you did something dumb and you got laughed at. But no harm, no foul; but now you are really looking like a total loser.

Religion: Remember the Giffords shooting (where many died)? Well, you guessed it: many Americans think that their paying helped Giffords live:

According to a FOX News poll, roughly 8 in 10 Americans believe prayer helped save Congressman Gabrielle Giffords.

Such stupidity is mind blowing. Just mind blowing. Do people really think that they can get some deity to change the operation of nature on their behalf? Exactly how does that differ from voodoo or witchcraft or magic?

Speaking of stupidity: guess who is putting out feelers for the Iowa Republican caucuses?

Making yourself smarter
Yes, testing students on material helps them learn it better.:

Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.

One of those methods — repeatedly studying the material — is familiar to legions of students who cram before exams. The other — having students draw detailed diagrams documenting what they are learning — is prized by many teachers because it forces students to make connections among facts.

These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they also seem to give students the illusion that they know material better than they do.

In the experiments, the students were asked to predict how much they would remember a week after using one of the methods to learn the material. Those who took the test after reading the passage predicted they would remember less than the other students predicted — but the results were just the opposite.

Emphasis mine. The students say that they understand stuff….that they don’t really understand.

Science Watch this video which is the first one that shows a malaria parasite attacking and entering a human cell!

Awesome.

20 January 2011

Workout notes
Morning: woke up late (5:15 am) but still took Lynn to yoga; then after my 10-11 class I did some stretching, 2 mile run (10 minute mile, then 5 one minute intervals at 9:15 mpm (3 level hill) (19:37) and didn’t feel right. So I stretched some more, then did 2 more miles (18:12; 9:22 first mile, 8:50 second). Then more stretching, piriformis work (hip hikes), rotator cuff stuff then 10 minutes (10:10 or 3 miles) on the arm bike.

I was a sweaty mess.

Note: the shoulder didn’t bother me at night and the back is feeling better; day two of no Naproxen. I’d love to get off of it for good.

19 January 2011 pm

Ok, so the House voted to repeal Obamacare. Big deal; those morons could vote to repeal evolution and gravity for all I care. But this does point out one huge difference between the Republicans and Democrats: the Republicans at least symbolically follow the whims of their idiot base whereas the Democrats actually push back against theirs.

But speaking of health care:

This is part of what HCR does.

Now of course, the House could have made important (and popular) tweaks to the bill, but that isn’t what they chose to do.

Fun

Interesting, no?

see more funny videos

See? I am not opposed to ALL religion.

Science
Did you know that abandoned orange groves actually threaten the currently producing ones? Roughly speaking, diseases and insect infestation are taking hold in abandoned groves and are spreading to the tended ones:

Citrus producers in Indian River have begun a program to bulldoze and burn trees in abandoned groves. But it’s costly and depends on the cooperation of sometimes absentee owners.

This is the latest of many challenges for an industry that has long grown one of Florida’s most lucrative crops.

Adair says the past three decades have presented citrus growers with one new disease after another. The reason, he says, is globalization.

“What we did was, we very efficiently took citrus from another hemisphere, brought it into the United States, into Florida, and grew it as an exotic species,” he says. “We took it away from its natural enemies. And what we’re seeing right now is [that] all the natural enemies of citrus have found it here in Florida.”

Adair says he believes, given enough time and research, the industry will find a way to effectively control greening and canker.

However, he estimates that may take up to 10 years. Many in the industry may not be able to wait that long.