Stars: Astronomical and NBA

Workout notes AM: 2200 yard swim: 500 free, 10 x (25 fist, 25 free) on the 1, 10 x (25 fly, 75 free) on the 2; fastest 2 were 1:44, 1:45; the rest were 1:47-1:48. 200 cool down (side, back); had someone to push against.

PM: 5 miles plus (really about 5.5) including 4 with the group on the steamboat course.

Posts
I’ll be glad when the NBA season is over; staying up to watch the Celtics is making me sleep deprived. But it is a lot of fun; most of their playoff games have been close. My guess is that the next game against the Heat; possibly the next two..will be close. The Heat are far from finished.

Note: Paul Pierce is being guarded by LeBron James; that is a tough person to shoot over.

Astronomy
Jerry Coyne displays some reader shots of the Venus transit; one of them shows the sun setting over buildings with Venus in the disk of the sun.

Think that we are hot stuff? Compare the size of the moon to other things:

Climate Change, Energy, Fairness and Fatigue

I admit that I woke up a bit tired today. Part of it is my 4 mile race (running) on Saturday, and 13.1 mile walk (half marathon) on Sunday; both were high intensity efforts for me.

But part of it is that the Boston Celtic vs. Miami Heat series is too interesting to fall asleep on; I watch the first part intending to go to sleep later but it never works that way. The series is tied 2-2; last night the Celtics won the first half, the Heat won the second half and it went into overtime and the Celtics overcame Paul Piece fouling out easier than the Heat overcame LeBron James fouling out. Hence the 2 point overtime win for the Celtics.

Workout notes Weights only.
rotator cuff (pulley, dumbbell)
pull ups (4 sets of 10)
rows: 15 x 180, 15 x 200, 10 x 220
bench press: 10 x 135, 8 x 165, 4 x 175, 1 x 190 (bodyweight: 188.5 so I got my body weight)
190 was easy…sort of. I used a spotter.
incline press: 10 x 135, 9 x 135
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 160
curls: 3 sets of 10 x 70 (machine)
military: 2 sets of 10 x 80, 1 set of 10 x 90 (machine; saving my forearms)
sit ups: 5 sets of 20
push backs: 3 sets of 10 x 130
abductor: 3 sets of 10 x 170
hip hikes
about 10-15 minutes of yoga (including head stand)

That was it; it took me some time to get warmed up but by the 3′rd set of pull ups, I started to sweat.

Posts
Perspectives and projections
The perils of drawing conclusions from incomplete data:

Economy
We are in a liquidity trap; companies have money but no reason to invest in more jobs as consumer demand is not there. Recovery has to start at the bottom and not the top, as Robert Reich explains.

Science/Technology
Climate change is affecting our energy producing systems. One reason: when one generates something by boiling water and using the steam to turn a turbine, the steam has to condense before it is put back into the system. Cold water is usually used to condense the steam, and the warmer the water, the harder it is to condense and the harder it is to keep a good vacuum in the condenser. This lowers the efficiency; the Navy knows this as the steam plants for ships are less efficient when the Navy sails in warm waters.

Biofuels: when talking about biofuels, one has to consider the energy that goes into producing the fuels to begin with AND the impact of, say, cutting down trees to make the wood. Peter Fairley explains:

New science confirms that burning trees to produce power instead of coal may be a losing strategy for combatting climate change.

In my April 2012 Spectrum news article on the questionable carbon benefits of largescale biomass power generation, I identified a boom in exports of wood pellets from the U.S. Southeast to Europe, where they are fast becoming a crucial energy supply for power firms seeking to meet the European Union’s renewable energy and carbon reduction mandates.

Forbes Magazine greentech columnist (and friend) Erica Gies noted my analysis in a May 22 blog post, Massachusetts Addresses “Biomass Loophole” and Limits Subsidies, about recently-issued regulations that set higher standards for biomass power plants seeking state-issued renewable energy certificates. The regulations eliminate the presumption that biomass power is carbon-neutral and, instead, require some proof from power generators that their operations—including fuel harvesting—deliver environmental benefits. Gies describes the state move as “an important course correction to the ‘biomass loophole’ that wood from forests has enjoyed in many policy frameworks around the world.”

The caveat: all too often, energy research is influenced by money from companies that, well, want to keep selling their products. I am NOT saying that is the case with this article, but I think this is why some on “my side” might be reluctant to accept such conclusions, even if they, well, turn out to be correct.

In St. Joseph, MN

Ate dinner at the packet pickup, now watching 76′ers-Celtics on TV. Celtics up 46-31 at the half. It could be warm tomorrow; perhaps some rain toward the end.

Today: I hated myself for being slow

This afternoon, I went to the Riverplex to help my “Building Steam” group train. But I did an easy 3.2 mile run (31:26) on my own.

Early into the run, a young woman wearing very tight, shiny spandex shorts (bright blue) blasted past me at what appeared to be at least a sub 7 minute per mile pace. These were the “almost bun-hugger” cropped shorts.

I HATED myself for being so slow.

Other sights made up for it later though; there are advantages to being slow.

Oh yeah…the group: we started a bit too quickly as I was warmed up at the very start. Still the group hung in well and the slowest person averaged 14:20 minutes per mile (supposed to be the 14:00 minute per mile pace group). It was the best workout of the year, IMHO.

Total miles: 6 (3 run, 3 walk).

Basketball

(via yahoo)

I did miss the first 3 quarters of the Celtics-76′ers game, and when I picked it up, the Celtics were up by 20 and went on to win 107-91. So, at least I’ve watched the competitive games.

Teamwork, Raygun’s economics, Hot Jupiters and Hot ancient women…

NBA

(image from Yahoo)

I just watched the 76′ers beat the Celtics 82-81; the 76′ers out hustled the Celtics for most of the game and deserved to win. Then again, the Celitcs scored 13 points in the second quarter and 11 in the third; you aren’t going to win many games that way.

The last 4 Celtic games (I’ve watched them all): lose by 1, win by 3, win by 1, lose by 1. At least these are not boring games. It doesn’t matter that much though, in that the winner of the Heat-Pacers will win the East (IMHO).

Teamwork of a different sort
There are social spiders that support each other and hunt in packs:

(hat tip: Conservation Report)

Economics
Can Paul Krugman stand a Ray-gun in the hands of an “Austerian”? Go to his blog to find out!

Hot Gas Planets
Why are astronomers interested in star planetary systems which have large gas planets that orbit the host star from a short distance?

These are Jupiter-sized planets that have an orbit of only about three days. The scientists looked at 63 hot Jupiters to see if they could find evidence for any nearby Earth-like planets. They found none.[...]

The current theory is that hot Jupiters formed and then migrated in towards their stars. The researchers say that the migration might have “disrupted the formation of Earth-like planets.” Good thing our Jupiter kept its cool.

In short, a “hot giant gas planet” might mean that there is no use looking for an “earth” in that system.

Hot ancient women
Via Scientific American:

Since their discovery in 1994, the spectacular paintings of lions, rhinos, and other animals in southern France’s Chauvet Cave have stood out as the oldest known cave art, clocking in at about 37,000 years old.* But there have been occasional sightings of other cave art that is equally ancient, although its dating has been more uncertain. Now a team working at another site in the south of France claims to have discovered what appear to be engravings of female genitalia that are as old as or older than Chauvet, possibly making them the world’s most ancient cave art.

Men have been interested in such things for a long time, it seems.

Social chimps, galaxies, technicals and the horse race

Weekly address

The horse race, as the NY Times sees it.

Basketball
This has to be one of the worst technical foul calls that I’ve ever seen.

Science
Check out this cluster of galaxies

(click for the larger image)

Chimps Even chimps have differences between societies: here is a case in which tool use differs between groups.

Assorted Topics: prime numbers, smart security, and Wladimir’s upcoming boxing (mis)match

I started my vacation last night by watching a thrilling basketball game between the Celtics and the Hawks. The Hawks trailed but didn’t go away; they even took a lead with 3 minutes to go and still held it with under one minute to go. But Paul Pierce made a huge defensive play (block) and the Hawks missed one of two free throws; Pierce made both of his. So the Celtics won 83-80 to take the series 4-2 and to take on the number 8 seed 76′ers who eliminated an injury depleted Bulls team.

Boxing
Wladimir Klitichko is trying to convince his fans that his upcoming bout against Tony Thompson will be competitive.

This is what happened last time:

And now Thompson is over 40 and Wladimir has gotten even better. Sorry; I’ll be surprised if this goes past the middle rounds.

I respect Thompson for trying; it takes guts to get in the ring with that beast!

Cats

Mathematics and Profiling

Terrance Tao is on the verge of another huge mathematical breakthrough:

One of the oldest unsolved problems in mathematics is also among the easiest to grasp. The weak Goldbach conjecture says that you can break up any odd number into the sum of, at most, three prime numbers (num­bers that cannot be evenly divided by any other num­ber except themselves or 1). For example:

35 = 19 + 13 + 3
or
77 = 53 + 13 + 11

Mathematician Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles, has now inched toward a proof. He has shown that one can write odd numbers as sums of, at most, five primes—and he is hopeful about getting that down to three. Besides the sheer thrill of cracking a nut that has eluded some of the best minds in mathematics for nearly three centuries, Tao says, reaching that coveted goal might lead mathematicians to ideas useful in real life—for example, for encrypting sensitive data.

The weak Goldbach conjecture was proposed by 18th-century mathematician Christian Goldbach. It is the sibling of a statement concerning even numbers, named the strong Goldbach conjecture but actually made by his colleague, mathematician Leonhard Euler. The strong version says that every even number larger than 2 is the sum of two primes. As its name implies, the weak version would follow if the strong were true: to write an odd number as a sum of three primes, it would be sufficient to subtract 3 from it and apply the strong version to the resulting even number.

Note: Tao is a Fields Medalist and perhaps one of the smartest human beings on this planet.

Profiling
Here is what is wrong with it:

1. There are so few terrorists that profiling will almost never produce a true positive; you effectively gain no information from doing it.
2. Actual terrorists often don’t fit the profile.
3. The actual terrorists can “counter” the profiling tactic (e. g., deliberately picking those who don’t fit the profile)
4. This tactic builds resentment.

Bruce Schneier concludes:

The proper reaction to screening horror stories isn’t to subject only “those people” to it; it’s to subject no one to it. (Can anyone even explain what hypothetical terrorist plot could successfully evade normal security, but would be discovered during secondary screening?) Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theater. It doesn’t make us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. Even more strongly, security isn’t our society’s only value. Do we really want the full power of government to act out our stereotypes and prejudices? Have we Americans ever done something like this and not been ashamed later? This is what we have a Constitution for: to help us live up to our values and not down to our fears.

AMEN.

By the way, kudos to Sam Harris for publishing an expert who completely disagrees with him.

Snowe Job and Parker’s blistering of Limbaugh…among other things

Workout notes
I slept in and woke up in time to make the 7 am swim prior to work; I got in 2200 yards of mostly “play”: 500 of 25 back, 25 free, 500 of 50 side, 50 free, 500 of 25 fist, 25 free, 500 of 25 fly, 75 free, 200 cool down. I got in my rotator cuff exercises at home.

Note: the woman next to me wore a new, tighter swim suit. I liked that.

Personal note
I am busier with students this semester; the good news is that I am some motivated science students who want to learn the math (though some aren’t naturally talented in it). But it is forcing me to be a bit more efficient with my time.

Posts
I just joined Twitter; a Carl Zimmer post alerted me to the fact that, in some humans (only a few), codeine is turned into morphine and this can be passed into breast milk. A nursing mother had her baby die because of this (her milk was found to contain morphine and she had been taking Tylenol with codeine (Tylenol III)

But Twitter can be a double edged sword for celebrities. Miley Cyrus tweeted a Lawrence Krauss statement and got some backlash because the statement implied that humans had a natural origin instead of a divine one. There is a problem when one has a less than intellectual fan base.

Speaking of celebrities Many NBA players are supporting President Obama; I knew there was a reason I liked basketball!

Churches
It is no secret that Mormonism has a racist past; their holy text says that dark skins are a curse from a deity and until the 1970′s, a black male couldn’t hold the “priesthood” (an office that males in good standing get). This policy was changed by a “revelation” (they hold that the church president is a prophet). Well, a Mormon scholar was very vocal in his defense of this policy.

Here is the rub: the LDS church views their president as a prophet, so Mormons can’t say “we humans got this wrong”; they are boxed into trying to explain why “The Lord” didn’t permit it. A top down structure has its drawbacks.

Kathleen Parker’s BRUTAL snark on Rush Limbaugh
Yes, Limbaugh’s calling out a college student as a “slut” for wanting to testify about access to birth control managed to outrage many. Kathleen Parker (a conservative) had a few things to say, many of which I disagreed with (e. g., “this is against my religion” is not a reason to modify public policy). But her slam of Mr. Limbaugh was EPIC:

Inadvertently, Limbaugh also helped advance the argument from the left that Republicans are waging a war against women. After referring to Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute,” he offered the following proposition:

“So, Miss Fluke, and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives . . . we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

The image suggested is equally degrading to Limbaugh, given his obvious familiarity with “watching,” and invites unflattering speculation. To wit: It is entirely possible that Limbaugh himself never needed contraception in college, but virtue in the absence of opportunity is hardly a moral triumph.

Emphasis mine. Note: NOW, Mr. Limbaugh would never lack for female company; no wealthy man would.

Snowe Job
Senator Olympia Snowe explains that she is leaving the Senate, in part due to the partisan atmosphere made it difficult to get anything done.
This would have been more convincing had she said that SHE was part of the problem because SHE went along with so many filibusters.
Also, some of her compromise proposals were minimal tweaks of little consequence (almost symbolic), to say the least; sort of putting sweetener in one’s tea while ordering pie and ice cream.

Simplistic Conservatives
This is what passes as an argument among conservatives:

Well, nature culls the old, sick and lame from the population and natural selection works against the latter two. So some of us want human society to be more compassionate than that (though I’ll admit that there ARE a certain percentage of no-good-for-nothing slackers).

13 June 2011 noonish

Workout notes
Weights and swimming:
Weights: incline press: 10 x 115, 10 x 130, 6 x 135, 5 x 135
dumbbell curls: 4 sets of 10 x 25
pull downs: 10 x 140, 10 x 120 (different machine), 10 x 140 (usual machine)
rows (Hammer): 10 x 200, 10 x 210, 10 x 210 (medium grip)
sit ups: 40, 30, 30 (1, 1, 2 were the inclines)
rotator cuff

Swimming:
10 x (25 front, 25 free)
10 x (25 3g, 25 free)
5 x 100 on 2 (1:48, 48, 48, 52, 48)
I counted strokes: 21-22 per length.
Shoulder: somewhat sore today. Not bad…but I’ll have to stretch and ice.

Note: while lifting, I talked to a young man who was doing reps with 315 on the bench. I told him to take care of his shoulders.
His lifting was fine, but a little prevention can save some time off.

Posts
NBA: I have to admit that I was amused at the talk about LeBron James’ “failure” (failure? If I were the best math professor in the second best mathematics department in the country, I’d be wildly successful…) and a bit amused at his response to critics:

And he said he wouldn’t let it bother him that so many were so happy to see him fail.

“Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.

“They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

I’ll remark on that:

1. What he says about people having to go on and get on with their lives is unimpeachable. But there is a corollary here: those who wanted him to “succeed” would have ALSO had to get on with their lives were his team to have won the title! In short, people putting things into proper prospective is not good for business for any professional sports team or athlete.

If he does well and you are his fan…well…HE was the one who did well and not you. If he flops and you hate him, well, it was his opponent who stopped him…not you. But if this fact sinks in…well, that is fewer jerseys, caps, towels, t-shirts (etc.) that get sold.

2. True, he is an elite athlete and the vast majority of fans (myself included), including those with advanced degrees and professional credentials, are no where near elite. But then one could argue that the average garbage collector, while not highly regarded, does a more important job than an athlete does.

Back to basketball: I think that while he is a dominant player, he isn’t a team leader type. They probably need some kick-butt point guard (say, Rajon Rondo) to run the team and say “ok, it is late in the game and we are getting LeBron the ball…and THAT is how we are going to do it!”

Posts
No, the US is NOT the envy of the world, at least in health care:

David Cameron, now:

Ask a Briton to describe “American-style” healthcare, and you’ll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can’t afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy.

But critics here warn that a similarly bleak future may await Britain if a government plan to put more power in the hands of doctors and introduce more competition into the NHS succeeds — privatization by stealth, they say.

So frightening is the Yankee example that any British politician who values his job has to explicitly disavow it as a possible outcome. Twice.

“We will not be selling off the NHS, we will not be moving towards an insurance scheme, we will not introduce an American-style private system,” Prime Minister David Cameron emphatically told a group of healthcare workers in a nationally televised address last week.

Bottom line: we are seen by the rest of the world as a prime NEGATIVE example. Then again, the rest of the world isn’t stuck with Republicans.

Politics

13 June 2011: sleep is good!

I finally feel rested; so today I’ll get in early and get a start on my outstanding mathematics papers (“outstanding” as in “revisions are overdue” )
I’ll swim and lift over lunch.

NBA Dallas beat Miami 4-2 to win the series. It was fun to watch.
But now comes the analysis and lots of people are laughing at LeBron James not having a great last quarter.
I know little about basketball and about what makes a great athlete, but I love thinking about sports so I’ll post this thought:

it appears to me that some great players (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan) were also “leaders on the court” whereas other great players (Wilt Chamberlain) never really embraced the “leader on the court” role; they merely dominated their position (and were still very effective). So if LeBron James is one of the latter, I wonder if the Heat would benefit from perhaps trading one of the other “big three” for a Rajon Rondo type point guard; they might be able to use a “take charge” type of guy for these “down the stretch” situations. If I remember correctly, Isaiah Thomas did that for the old Detroit Pistons.

I warmly welcome feedback, correction, flames or whatever.

Non-sports
No, being a conservative doesn’t mean that you are racist. There is nothing racist about thinking that tax cuts are always appropriate (you might be delusional but that is different ).

But there is no denying that much of the current Republican following IS racist. Ken Barnes writes:

For the next 13 years, I dedicated myself to growing the conservative base of the Republican Party, and in the process bound myself in emotion and deed.

During that time, I worked on behalf of Republican candidates at all levels, from presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, on down to local elections.

I have had the pleasure of serving as president of the Sacramento Republican Assembly, a term as a member of the California Republican Party executive committee, and most recently as treasurer of the Sacramento County Republican Party.

Last year alone, I donated more than 400 hours of my time to the Republican Party and made financial contributions to a number of Republican candidates.

[...]
Generally speaking, Republicans are decent people, and naturally, many of my closest friends vote Republican. As with any large organization or group, there will always be people at the fringes who hold views that are not representative of the body.

An organization cannot control the behavior of each individual actor, but it can control its response to abhorrent conduct.

The latest incident in a string of tawdry, race-based actions was the promotion of a racist cartoon by elected Orange County Republican Party Central Committee member Marilyn Davenport. The cartoon depicted President Barack Obama and his parents as chimpanzees, while simultaneously implying that the president is not a legitimate American, but rather an African-born interloper.

While the Orange County GOP chairman and a number of other committee members were quick to condemn the image and Davenport, what’s disturbing is the incredible number of people who continue to defend Davenport’s actions as well as the cartoon itself.

Had this been an isolated event, it could be set aside as a mere aberration. However, when placed in the context of similar offenses by the same self-identified tea party-conservative Republicans, there emerges a disturbing pattern of extreme intolerance.

Over the past two years, we have seen Republicans use long-held racist imagery in portrayals of Obama. The president has been depicted as a communist witch doctor, a man inclined to plant watermelons on the White House lawn, and we watched in disbelief as his face was placed on an “Obama Buck Food Stamp” along with stereotyped pictures of fried chicken, barbecue ribs, Kool-Aid and the obligatory watermelon.

What does any of this have to do with public policy or conservative values? Here is a man who excelled academically at the finest schools in the world, has a wonderful in-tact family, worked hard and rose to become president of the United States. Yet in spite of his accomplishments, the president is still labeled an illegitimate, socialist, African witch doctor and has his face superimposed on a chimpanzee.

Folks, it does matter. I’ll give you an example: when it comes to immigration, I am a “play by the rules” kind of guy. But much of the “legal immigration” movement IS racist; for one example, Pat Buchanan supported giving white illegal immigrants amnesty but not to the non-white ones. Other protesters bring racist imagery to their protests. Others approve of racial profiling by police.

So, I can’t in good conscious join them; SOME (not all) of their argument is based on bigotry.

Zakaria and conservatives
This Daily Kos Diary talks about Zakaria’s latest GPS show; in it, guest Ann Coulter (!) was doing her usual “just making up stuff” thing. But the problem is that Ann Coulter had no business being there; I won’t watch GPS if they keep doing that. Bring on an intellectual conservative instead. Sure, Ms. Coulter has sold lots of books and has an earned law degree from a good school. But she makes her living being provocative and not by being thoughtful.