Football and Vacuuming

Workout notes
Weights: same old, though I did a set of seated dumbbell presses with no support (6 x 40) and a standing one (10 x 40) as well as my usual 15 x 40 (supported). I had 2 sets of 9 x 125 on the incline, 10 x 135, 4 x 170, 4 x 170, 9 x 155 on the bench, 50 lb. on the pulley curl, and 6 x 160 on the lat pull down.

Swim: 5 x (25 long, 25 fist, 50 free), 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on the 1:10-1:05, then 4 x 250 (pull, free, pull, free), 200 side.

Football
While I share disgust with the Penn State pedophile scandal, when it comes to the other dark sides of football, too many harken back to an era that, well, didn’t exist. Guess what? Coaches had their players play while injured ALL of the time; look up the story of Frank Leahy telling a player with a broken nose: “well, nothing more can happen to it then. Get back in there and do some blocking”. You might look up Bear Bryant’s infamous Texas A&M practices where the players were denied things like water.

But the article did point me toward this excellent New York Times article by all pro defensive lineman Kris Jenkins. I can recommend it.

College football: The Big Ten and the SEC are very different; the Big Ten is content to be a strong but regional conference. Positioning for a national championship is secondary.

Spandex/Big Butts
Hey, these are just moms running the vacuum cleaner…while wearing spandex.
Ok, a couple of these are car vacuum cleaners…

My conclusion: these moms want to have more kids.

Irrational Conservatives, Irrational Liberals and Karma

There have been some interesting reading going around the internet lately.

The first two readings come from New York Magazine

David Frum talks about how insane conservatives have become in terms of insisting on ridiculous ideas.

On the other hand, Jonathan Chait notes that liberal insanity comes from the expectations that too many liberals have of Democratic presidents.

I am sorry to say that I think that Mr. Chait is right on. Here is what many liberals don’t see (or don’t want to see): yes, it is true that many liberal ideas (e. g. public option for health insurance) are popular with a majority of Americans. But that really doesn’t mean anything; people in Congress (Representatives and Senators) actually do a decent job of voting the way that their constituents want them to vote. We (my friends and I) might not like John Boehner or Eric Cantor, but these people accurately represent their constituents. The sad fact is that our “representative” system gives people who live in sparsely populated, mostly conservative areas disproportionate power; remember that Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota have the same number of Senators as Illinois, California and New York.

Bottom line: I don’t like the way that Republicans in Congress vote, but for the most part they represent people that think very differently than I do. I might not like those people; I might think of them as ignorant, selfish and stupid (and they probably think even worse of me), but they are entitled to vote for who they want to vote for.

Personally, I’d love it if we would just split this country into two countries and let the wingnuts have their know-nothing theocracy.
And yes, if Rick Perry PROMISED to lead such a secession, I’d vote for him.

But all isn’t lost; sometimes douche bags get bitten by their “douche-baggery”. Example: there was a law firm that handled foreclosures. The decided to have a “dress up” Halloween party at work, and some of their employees (many) thought it would be great fun to mock those made homeless by the mortgage crisis and bad housing market.

Well, those photos got out and they are no longer laughing:

Steven J. Baum P.C., a firm that specialized in foreclosures, is closing its doors a month after photos showing employees celebrating Halloween by dressing like the homeless surfaced in a New York Times column by Joe Nocera. Nocera wrote a follow up column this weekend, in which he quoted an angry email he received from Mr. Baum himself. The firm announced the shuttering via press release and was reported by the NYT:

“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a press release issued on Monday. A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release…

On Saturday, Joe Nocera, The Times columnist who originally wrote about the firm’s Halloween party, published another column about the controversy. In it, he quoted an e-mail that Mr. Baum had sent him last week.

“Mr. Nocera — You have destroyed everything and everyone related to Steven J. Baum PC,” said the letter. “It took 40 years to build this firm and three weeks to tear down.”

“I think that’s what they call shooting the messenger,” Mr. Nocera said.

Uh, no Mr. Nocera. You brought it on yourself; no one to told you to get your jollies at the expense of the less fortunate.
Funny how these a-holes are all for accountability until THEY are the ones that screw up and face the consequences.

Economy
If you are a Republican and you don’t like the actual facts, you make them up. Yes, that might fool the insipid polyester pants set:

Greg Sargent sends us to Paul Ryan’s latest — an attempt to debunk the CBO report on income inequality. As usual, Ryan makes me think of Ezra Klein’s old line about Dick Armey: he’s a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.

Greg gives us a thorough takedown by Tim Smeeding, who really really knows his inequality stuff. I’d just add that Ryan repeats the familiar line about how we have vast income mobility, so that the picture given by static inequality comparisons is misleading.

But as I’ve pointed out, the CBO report itself takes that argument on and refutes it. Multi-year measures of inequality, it turns out, aren’t much lower than single-year measures. How is that possible, when many people change income quintiles? Because they’re usually moving short distances on the income scale.

It is how you slice and dice it. Example: suppose you declare that morbid obesity for a 6 foot male starts at, say 300 pounds. Well, you might have lots of movement of people into and out of the “morbidly obese” range…but most of that is, say, 305 to 297 and back. One can slice the data to make it appear that one is moving in and out of a category.

Gosh, I love Paul Krugman. I love how he refers to Newt Gingrich:

Or Maybe Jabba The Hutt

Mr. Gingrich (who has a Ph. D., in History from Tulane) is also good at “wowing” the Newsmax crowd.

But I am saving the Best for last: President Obama just OWNED the Republicans. Remember that Super Committee that was part of a deal that many of us howled about? Well some said “not so fast”; part of the deal was this super committee which, if it failed, would trigger some massive defense cuts? Well:

Okay, remember when Democrats and progressives during the debt ceiling showdown last summer were bitching that President Barack Obama was triangulating and wimping out by negotiating (and yielding much) with the tea-party-controlled Republicans? Well, that was then. In the latest twist of this never-ending saga, Obama is both calling out the Republicans and holding what appears to be a position of strength. That may all shift suddenly. This is politics. But Obama’s Democratic fans should savor the moment.[...]

This is the direct approach: Were it not for the extremists of the House Republican conference, there would be a multitrillion-dollar deficit-reduction compromise. This spin has the benefit of being true. Obama, don’t forget, put major entitlement reductions on the table during the debt ceiling negotiations, notably a slight hike in the eligibility age for Medicare and a readjustment in the cost-of-living allowance for Social Security. It’s unclear whether the Democrats would have, at the end of the day, backed him up on this had Speaker John Boehner kicked in sufficient revenue increases to seal the deal. But Obama was at the time leaning on his party’s congressional leaders to support such a compromise—and there were signs he might win them over. Boehner did no such thing with his party. Instead, he walked away from the so-called grand bargain—twice. So when the punditerati push the easy pox-on-both-houses analysis, they’re forgetting this recent history. But Obama, to his credit, is not.

In short, the Republicans threw away getting much of what they wanted because…well, they wanted it ALL.

The Evidence for the Invisible Man: not Convincing to young people (or to me)

Ok, this is heartbreaking to me because I love frogs and toads. But this is nature; sorry but I fail to see evidence for intelligent design here. I see the result of a blind, heartless process.

Or

It is no secret that young people are not flocking to the church:

And the Barna group carried out a five-year project to determine why so many young people are leaving Christian churces. The preceding link gives the results:

Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

Five of the reasons involve the church being overprotective, affording young people only a “shallow” Christian experience, being too simplistic and judgmental in sexual matters, being intolerant of other faiths, and being unfriendly to doubters. These are all good reasons to abandon faith completely, and bode well for secularism. But the most interesting reason is this one:

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.

Frankly, that is fact: when religion speaks on “truth” as in “things are this way for this reason”: they are flat out wrong. Religion can be useful to some for private reasons (inspiration, solace) and, as my wife likes to say, “it is one of the few places where you are challenged to live a better life”. But the “theology” behind the comforting, inspiring (to some) myths is just plain wrong.

Of course, this generational divide is lamented in some quarters (note: this article is mostly about the political divide):

Today, the split between young Americans, their parents and grandparents is as glaring as the difference between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. It extends to their votes but has its roots in racial, economic, religious and demographic differences.[...]

The differences at this year’s Thanksgiving tables will be obvious from the start. According to a recent Gallup poll, older Americans are much more likely than younger folks to say a prayer to begin their Thanksgiving dinner.

The poll found 73 percent of Republicans saying religion is important to their daily lives. That’s much higher than the 59 percent of Democrats who make the same claim. Similarly, 40 percent of Republicans say they go to church once a week, compared to only 27 percent of Democrats.

Now what about that power of “god”? Well…Jerry Coyne shares a cartoon with us:

Krugman: ‘Only fools and clowns’ believe Republican ideology | The Raw Story

Krugman: ‘Only fools and clowns’ believe Republ…, posted with vodpod

Regression….Peoria Turkey Trot

I ran this in just under 33 minutes in 2008; my 5K runs were in the 24 minute range. Today: 36:12 and it wasn’t as if I didn’t try.

I knew that this would be a rough one when I warmed up. Oh boy; it was chilly, windy; typical Peoria Turkey Trot weather. Yes; it was spandex season and I was to see many MILFs in front of me.

But mostly I just, well, tried to keep it in control. But I had no “speed up” going down hill (relative to the other runners). I kept myself from pushing due to my wanting to not slow to a walk. Even others yelling at me didn’t help.

This is a sneaky course; you know that first big hill will hurt; the second medium one is expected; you forget about the next two smaller inclines until you do the race again.

History:

1996 (beginner) Ollie 29:14
2000 (2′nd race of the day) Ollie 29:23
2001 (had a cold) Ollie 29:16, Tracy 40:35
2003 Ollie 28:58, Tracy 41:37
2005 Ollie 40:16 (walk), Tracy 42:57
(photos)
2008 Ollie 32:43 (runner)
2011 Ollie 36:12 (runner)

Why is the Illinois Football team struggling?

Illinois started off 6-0 and is now 6-5. What is going on?

First six wins (with the Sagarin computer ratings for each team)
Arkansas State: 71.88
South Dakota State: 55.66
Arizona State: 77.60
Western Michigan 67.91
Northwestern 71.54
Indiana 55.36

Average (mean): 66.7. Best win: Arizona State at 77.6

Next five losses
Ohio State: 75.33
Purdue: 69.68
Penn State: 82.12
Michigan: 85.70
Wisconsin: 84.79

Average: 79.5; worst loss: Purdue at 69.68.

If you remind me that the Penn State loss was by 3 points, I’ll remind you that 3 of the last 4 wins were also by 3 points.

Anyway, I think that the level of competition explains much of Illinois second half of the season troubles.

Illinois vs. Wisconsin Football 2011: Tale of Two Games

Note: prior to the trip, which I took with Tracy, I ran 4.2 miles in just over 44 minutes; it was dark but not that cold.

(photos from yahoo)

This AP article basically sums it up:

For one half, Illinois looked like the team that opened the season with a six-game winning streak.

Unfortunately for the Illini, the second half was a disaster that looked much like their play during their embarrassing losing streak.

Illinois committed four turnovers and No. 15 Wisconsin scored three unanswered touchdowns in a 28-17 victory Saturday.

The game (which wasn’t as well attended as I would have thought) was on a chilly (but warm for November) and windy day. Wisconsin got the opening kick off and ran it reasonably well for the first series prior to having to punt and pin Illinois deep in its own territory. Illinois ran a few plays and made a good punt to pin Wisconsin deep; the Illinois defense held and got the ball back at close to midfield.

Illinois took advantage and drove it for a touchdown (which came early in the second quarter).

Now Wisconsin had the wind and threw a couple of 30 yard passes to get in good position. But Illinois national sack leader Whitney Mercilus got a big sack and forced a fumble, which an Illinois linebacker Jonathan Brown returned to the Wisconsin 36. Illinois punched it in to go up 14-0.

Wisconsin moved it a bit but had to punt and pinned Illinois inside the 5 yard line.

This is when disaster struck; Illinois failed to move it and had to punt; but the punter dropped the snap and when he picked it up, he was tackled at the Illinois 2 yard line. Wisconsin punched it in to cut it to 14-7.

Still, Illinois drove the ball 54 yards and ended up with a field goal to go up 17-7. But this drive featured two offensive pass interference calls (for “picks”) and a 15 yard penalty for a chop block; one of the penalties negated a touchdown.

Then came the second half.

Illinois got the ball…and fumbled it away deep in their own territory (30 yard line) with 13:50 left in the third quarter). The resulting drive was bizarre; it took 7:23!!! It featured a lot of running, two 4′th down conversions, a pass interference penalty and still it took the Badgers 3 downs to score from the 2 yard line. And Illinois still lead.

It took Illinois only 17 seconds to throw an interception; but the defense held.

But then after the defense (aided by a bad shotgun snap) and driven Wisconsin backwards, they got off a 70+ yard punt, most which came on a roll after the Illinois special teams failed to field the punt. Illinois punted it back (rugby style) and that set up Wisconsin’s go ahead touchdown drive.

Illinois two possessions in the 4′th quarter ended in interceptions; the first one lead to a the clinching drive.

The last Wisconsin drive ended with Wisconsin gaining 60 plus yards and taking a knee while in scoring position.
Illinois second half drives: 10 yards, fumble, 19 yards, interception, 4 yards punt, 3 yards interception, 50 yards, interception. 86 yards, 4 turn overs in the second half. It is hard to win like that.

Other games
Navy fell to 4-7 in losing to San Jose State; Texas lost to Kansas State 17-13 (not a surprise though technically Texas was favored). But the BCS is in turmoil as Oklahoma State lost on Friday night, Oregon lost to USC, Clemson got crushed by North Carolina State and right now, Baylor leads Oklahoma late in the 4′th.

I’ll bet that the Houston Cougars are loving this as does Arkansas.

Indecision 2012 – No Really, They Can’t Decide – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – 11/17/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

The political media cares about two things: will a candidate win, or is he dead. Airdate – 11/17/11

Indecision 2012 – No Really, They Can’t Decide …, posted with vodpod

Icy Moons, Insulated Americans, Infantile Altruism and the Science of Sarcasm

Physics
Nature reports on a paper that claims that the wave function in quantum mechanics is not some mere mathematical/statistical metaphor but rather represents an actual physical “object”:

The debate over how to understand the wavefunction goes back to the 1920s. In the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ pioneered by Danish physicist Niels Bohr, the wavefunction was considered a computational tool: it gave correct results when used to calculate the probability of particles having various properties, but physicists were encouraged not to look for a deeper explanation of what the wavefunction is.

Albert Einstein also favoured a statistical interpretation of the wavefunction, although he thought that there had to be some other as-yet-unknown underlying reality. But others, such as Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, considered the wavefunction, at least initially, to be a real physical object.

The Copenhagen interpretation later fell out of popularity, but the idea that the wavefunction reflects what we can know about the world, rather than physical reality, has come back into vogue in the past 15 years with the rise of quantum information theory, Valentini says.

Rudolph and his colleagues may put a stop to that trend. Their theorem effectively says that individual quantum systems must “know” exactly what state they have been prepared in, or the results of measurements on them would lead to results at odds with quantum mechanics. They declined to comment while their preprint is undergoing the journal-submission process, but say in their paper that their finding is similar to the notion that an individual coin being flipped in a biased way — for example, so that it comes up ‘heads’ six out of ten times — has the intrinsic, physical property of being biased, in contrast to the idea that the bias is simply a statistical property of many coin-flip outcomes.

OF COURSE, this is just a preprint and the paper is undergoing peer review…and we know how this often turns out. Nevertheless, this article interests me as it talks about a key issue.

Astronomy
Does Eurpoa (one of Jupiter’s moons) contain liquid water? Here is a recent paper which says “yes”: a lot of it in shallow lakes. I’ve linked to the paper which actually has some details along with the mathematical modeling.

Obesity
Yes, Americans are fat and getting fatter:

If Americans stay on this path, 83 percent of men will be overweight or obese by 2020. Women are right behind them, with 72 percent projected to be overweight or obese by then.

The implications go far beyond tight pants and groaning sofas. Obesity is a big risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Imagining an America of overweight, unhealthy people gives public health officials the willies. And it should be frightening to us civilians, too.[...]

He looked at current rates for cardiovascular risk factors including smoking, lack of exercise, diet, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. He found that reductions in smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure since 1988 have been offset by weight gain, diabetes, and pre-diabetes.

Then he took the increases in weight, diabetes, and prediabetes, and predicted where they would go in the next two decades. That’s how he came up with more than three-quarters of Americans becoming overweight.

“It’s really striking,” Huffman told Shots. “It, gosh, it makes you want to figure out solutions.”

That’s especially true because we aren’t exemplars of healthy living right now. Right now, 32 percent of men and 34 percent of women are obese. Those numbers are projected to rise to 43 and 42 percent in 2020, nudging up toward half of all people.

The number of people who have diabetes or are pre-diabetic is also projected to increase, from 6.3 percent and 37 percent of women to 8.3 percent and 44 percent. Huffman said: “That’s more than half of women, if current trends continue. It’s not much better for men, as you would imagine.”

Clearly we need some help. Just about everybody knows they need to eat well and exercise more, but just knowing that isn’t doing the trick.

And, of course, this is a sign of the times: the article points out that doctors avoid discussing their patient’s weight with them, because the oh-so-sensitive patients won’t go to the doctor anymore!

Hmmm, I get snarky and sarcastic at times. Well, there are some studies on the topic of…yes, sarcasm! This made for some interesting reading; here are a couple of findings which surprised me:

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.

That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm “appears to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of anger,” according to the study authors.

The mental gymnastics needed to perceive sarcasm includes developing a “theory of mind” to see beyond the literal meaning of the words and understand that the speaker may be thinking of something entirely different. A theory of mind allows you to realize that when your brother says “nice job” when you spill the milk, he means just the opposite, the jerk.

and

But others researchers have found that the mocking, smug, superior nature of sarcasm is perceived as more hurtful than a plain-spoken criticism. The Greek root for sarcasm, sarkazein, means to tear flesh like dogs.

According to Haiman, dog-eat-dog sarcastic commentary is just part of our quest to be cool. “You’re distancing yourself, you’re making yourself superior,” Haiman says. “If you’re sincere all the time, you seem naive.”

[...]

Northerners also were more likely to think sarcasm was funny: 56 percent of Northerners found sarcasm humorous while only 35 percent of Southerners did. The New Yorkers and male students from either location were more likely to describe themselves as sarcastic.

And here is one finding that didn’t surprise me:

Sarcasm detection is an essential skill if one is going to function in a modern society dripping with irony. “Our culture in particular is permeated with sarcasm,” says Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California at San Francisco. “People who don’t understand sarcasm are immediately noticed. They’re not getting it. They’re not socially adept.”

Sarcasm so saturates 21st-century America that according to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase “yeah, right” was used, it was uttered sarcastically. Entire phrases have almost lost their literal meanings because they are so frequently said with a sneer. “Big deal,” for example. When’s the last time someone said that to you and meant it sincerely? “My heart bleeds for you” almost always equals “Tell it to someone who cares,” and “Aren’t you special” means you aren’t.

“It’s practically the primary language” in modern society, says John Haiman, a linguist at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Talk is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution of Language.

Altruism: is it fundamental?

In a new study, researchers had 15-month old babies watch movies of a person distributing crackers or milk to two others, either evenly or unevenly. Babies look at things longer when they’re surprised, so measuring looking time can be used to gain insight into what babies expect to happen. In the study, the infants looked longer when the person in the video distributed the foods unevenly, suggesting surprise, and perhaps even an early perception of fairness.

But the team also say they established a link between fairness and altruism. In a second part of the experiment, the babies chose between two toys, and were then asked to share one of the toys with an experimenter. About a third of the babies were “selfish sharers”: they shared the toy they hadn’t chosen. Another third were “altruistic sharers”: they shared their chosen toy. (The rest chose not to share. They may have been inhibited by the unfamiliarity of the experimenter, or maybe they just weren’t that into sharing.)

What’s interesting about the second half of the study was that by and large it was the babies who had previously been surprised by the unfair cracker and milk distribution who tended to share the preferred toy with the experimenter (the altruistic sharers). The babies who shared the rejected toy hadn’t expressed much surprise over unequal distribution. This led the researchers to suggest that there’s a fundamental link between altruism and a sense of equity.

An alternative interpretation for babies’ perception of fairness could be that babies merely show surprise when physical things are divided unevenly, the authors suggest. For example, that they could just be taken aback by “violations of non-moral conventions,” naturally assuming “that goods are usually divided into equal amounts.” But, the authors argue, the fact that the second part of the study connected the “altruistic” behaviors to the perception of unevenness speaks to the fact that babies “evaluate events along morally relevant dimensions.” This led the researchers to conclude that social and moral development occur in tandem. [...]

In fact, argue the authors, it’s even possible that babies are more likely to be altruistic than older people, because they think less about it. Study author Jessica Sommerville says that “some researchers have suggested that young children and infants may be more blindly altruistic than older children and adults, because they don’t yet possess the ability to be discerning.”

So maybe we should take a lesson from the youngsters who share their toys with random people without a second thought. Maybe thinking about it less is the key to kindness.

That is interesting, isn’t it. But this type of study have more value than “hey, this is neat”; it has some practical applications as well, as Schneier points out on his security blog:.

What does this have to do with security? Everything. It’s not until we understand the natural human tendencies of fairness and altruism that we can really understand people who take advantage of those tendencies, and build systems to prevent them from taking advantage.

Checking in with the Body….

Workout notes No swimming….again. The lifeguard didn’t show up.
Note: when I swim “seriously”, I need to swim over lunch or in the morning at the Riverplex. Right now, “catch as catch can” is sufficient.

Lifting: same old, same old. What was different:
curls were done on the pulley (42.5), I only got 9 reps with 125 on the last set of incline presses, I did 30-30-20-10-10 on the sit ups with 30, 30, 20 being on level 1, I used less weight and did 15 reps for my first set of Hammer Machine rows (180) and got 10 with 210 on my last set.
Bench press: 135 x 10, 170 x 4, 170 x 4, 155 x 9

Injury check in:
piriformis: some tingles from time to time
knees: weather aches mostly. My running range is about 8 miles and walking is about 17. Changing my shoes helped a great deal.
shoulder: feeling pretty darned good, though I have not tested it with lots of swimming.
back: some soreness when I sit for too long.