The Terminal Pre-review

I haven't seen it, and I talked my wife into going to see Harry Potter last night instead of it. Why? From everything I've seen and read about it (which is a scant little, admittedly), it just strikes me as... and here's my two word pre-review...

Latka Gump

Everybody loves the cute little Eastern European guy with the funny accent, right?

Maybe my preconceptions are wrong, but I'll wait until it comes out on cable to find out. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.

Update 6/21
I'm not sure what to make of The Terminal getting its ass kicked in the box office by Dodgeball. But get its ass kicked, it did. Should I feel somewhat glad that I might not be the only one who's tired of the cute foreigner cliche? Then again, Dodgeball does have Ben Stiller in it.

Animal Friendly

I get a kick when I look at a bottle of hair or skin care products and see something like "Not tested on animals". I don't think to myself, "Wow, that's nice." Rather, I wonder how they know that the ingredients are safe. Do they know it from past experience which is based, in large part, on previous experiments on animals?

Just once...

Just once I'd like to pick up a fantasy novel that starts out something like this:

His name was Bob.

Not Mikthera Stonebrush. Not Olrik Dragonhewer. Certainly not Gryzzt'hty-Byttwx Mizzleghrum.

Bob.

Actually his name was Robert, but it had been years since Bob had heard that name in reference to himself. Not since his mother was slaughtered by a group of marauding ogres when Bob was barely 10 years old. It was this act that drove the hatred of that evil race like a spike through his soul. The hatred permeated every part of his being.

It was this hatred that drove Bob to spend his every waking moment training to hunt and fight ogres. Bob became quite good at it too. So good, in fact, that the elders in and around the Western Highlands could not believe that one with a name such as Bob could rise to the status of protector and hero to thousands.

One day a messenger came to Frankton searching for Bob. He did not find him sitting in a dark corner in a tavern known as the Grassy Gnoll peering over his mug of ale with eyes that had seen many strange and wonderous things. It wasn't even past nightfall with rain falling in sheets, dear reader. It was a bright and sunny spring day. He found him sitting with friends in the outdoor dining area of Joe's enjoying some seared lamb chops and a glass of spring water.

There's a reason I'm not an author, but surely I'm not the only one who finds all of these fantastical "hero-ish" names too damn ponderous. Sure you're supposed to be taken away to another world of might and magic, but surely some folks in these worlds achieve great things with a boring name like Bob.

I think I'm going to name my next D&D; character Bob. Ten bucks says he dies before he reaches 5th level.

There is little time, the end is nigh!

I think that Jack Chick does a pretty good job of being a parody of himself. A real-life recursive relationship.

And then there's this.

Good stuff.

Insert Snazzy Title Here

Via fark.com, but I just couldn't pass it up.

NOAA Expects Above Normal 2004 Hurricane Season

There is a 50 percent probability that the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season will have above-normal activity, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) said in its outlook.

On its face it's absurd, and I got a good laugh. Reporters should avoid writing sentences such as that. But, they also add...

NOAA's season outlook said there was a 40 percent probability of a near-normal season and only a 10 percent probability that the season will be below normal.

American Idol Voting Revisited

It's been over a year since I first posted on this topic, but it just seems that it's a topic that just won't go away.

American Idol Outrage: Your Vote Doesn't Count

So apparently, it's even worse than a Coin Flip.

To further pat myself on the back, I'd also point you to my other two posts on the subject:
American Idol Voting Update

American Idol Part 3

AHHHH!!!!

Haven't posted here in quite some time because things have gotten a bit busy on my end. In particular, I've been making an effort to get some research done and finals have rolled around.

It being finals time around here is actually what motivated me to write this post for one reason. To say the following:

GRADING FINALS SUCKS!!!

It's easily the absolute worst part of this job.

Guess I shouldn't gripe too much. I'll be golfing tomorrow while most of you poor schlubs will be working.

Random Thoughts

Spring Break here at Texas Tech. Nothing of any substance to throw up, just a couple of random thoughts.

I'm thinking of proposing a rule in my fantasy football league whereby we would recognize an NFL player's desire to be declared a conscientious objector, thereby making him inelligible for the draft.

Yesterday, while watching a news story about the guy who got laid off and then won millions in the Powerball lottery, I was also thinking that it would be kind of cool if there was a separate lottery held to randomly select which lottery player, among all lottery ticket buyers, would be covered in the national media that week. "This week, we profile Eugene, who spent nearly $100 of his $400 weekly paycheck trying to hit that one in eighty million chance at the estimated fifty million dollar jackpot." Sure it's boring, but at least this way people would begin to get some idea as to their real chances of actually striking it rich in a lottery.

Reader's Choice Awards

Every year, the campus newspaper, The University Daily, has a Reader's Choice Awards. There are a total of 89 categories to fill out. Great. I'm all about "best of" lists. I recently watched the countdown of the 100 greatest songs in country music last weekend, and I don't really care much for country music.

Let's see here... I might want to fill this out and have my vote count. "The rules are easy... Follow them and your vote will count!" Good, I'm all about easy rules, too.

Print clearly... entries become property of UD... good good... final decisions on ballots, categories, and winning entries will be made by the UD... blah, but okay...

#4. Ballots must be filled out completely or they will be disregarded!

There's an exclamation point there, so I better take that seriously. Let's start filling this out. First category is about "Best Food and Restaurant". Doing good until I get to #12 "Cold Beer". I don't drink beer. Okay, so I make something up for that. Next!

"Best Sights and Sounds" Hmmm... #14-16 "Local Band", "Local C&W; Band", and "Soap Opera". I don't take in the local music, and I don't watch soaps, so I'm stuck here.

You get the point by now. I love that "Best Tattoo Shop", "Night Club", "Bar" are all included alongside "Church". I take my hung over and tattooed self into church every Sunday! "Tanning Salon", yeah right. "Men's Shoes Store" AND "Women's Shoes Store" I buy shoes for my wife all the time, dontcha know. Same for clothing stores, both traditional AND casual.

Then at the bottom is the statement, "Texas Tech University's Daily Newspaper - Read by 93% of Tech Students, Faculty, and Staff". I wonder if they got that number from a poll ran in the paper?

Well, since I don't detect any traps, I open the door...

Last Saturday was the first time in years that I've spent any time behind the screen, and of course the first time with 3rd Edition (actually 3.5).

So 5 rooms into the dungeon crawl there are two traps. The rogue fails to find both, and one of them just happens to be a slay living trap. He fails his save and dies, and this leads in a simple question: Does the Detect Magic spell detect magic traps?

The rest of this might be a bit lengthy, and I imagine that the majority of you probably don't want to watch me completely geek out. But those of you who want to follow my journey as I learn the mechanics of traps in D&D; 3.5, feel free to click the link below.

» Click to finish reading "Well, since I don't detect any traps, I open the door..."

Wit and Wisdom

One of the more humorous, if not a bit cliché, bits of elevator graffiti that I have seen resides here in the Mathematics and Statistics building. The sign in the basement reads, as is typical:

In case of fire
Do not use elevators

Instead of the overly passé scratching out of the "Do not", our witty graffitist added:

Use water

Well done, sir or madam. I would, however, point out that were a fire to break out in our building it would most likely be an electrical fire, in which case a chemical flame retardant would be greatly preferred over water as water will likely only serve to spread the fire.

One Film to Rule Them All

Okay, so Lord of the Rings won in every category there were nominated. Swell. What I'm really interested in are the headlines that we'll see tonight and tomorrow, and the headlines that should and should not have been.

The predictable:
LOTR lords over Oscars, wins eleven awards (my version was "Rings Lords over the Competition")
"King" Rings Up Record Oscars
Jackson crowned Oscar king
'Rings' Rules Over Oscars with 11 Wins

The bland:
Lord of the Rings dominates the Oscars
'Lord of the Rings' Dominates the Oscars
`Return of the King' sweeps Oscars with 11 wins, including best picture
"Rings" Sweeps Oscars

So far, I haven't seen any that have made me groan, so I've made up a couple of my own:

Shoeless Jackson hits one out of the park
Rings runs rings around the competition

Any more?

More about Hummers

No, not that kind of Hummer.

As a follow up to an earlier post by Jubal extolling the virtues of avoiding the money shot:

Oral Sex Shown to Be Linked to Mouth Cancer

I love the taste of dust in the morning

Not a good day to ride a motorcycle.

» Click to finish reading "I love the taste of dust in the morning"

Leave NASA Alone!

I'm tired of hearing all these people bitch and gripe about the latest NASA missions to Mars. "Why are we spending billions on that when we could be feeding our own people?" "What good is it to send a robot 35-250 million miles to Mars? What has NASA ever done for us?" (Not that they generally know that Mars ranges 35-250 million miles away from Earth...)

Bah, I say! I find it unpossible that you cannot know the latest and greatest thing that NASA has given us: Tempur-Pedic. So shut your pie hole, whiner.

Marijuana Eases HIV-Related Nerve Pain

Marijuana Eases HIV-Related Nerve Pain

Not in much of a mood to think up a snazzy title.

For people with nerve damage that can result from HIV infection, smoking marijuana seems to relieve the pain they experience, according to the results of a small pilot study.

(Emphasis added)

Oh no. You've already told me in the headline that it does relieve the pain, not that it seems to relieve the pain.

In a trial, 16 HIV-infected subjects with neuropathy were given three marijuana cigarettes each day for seven days.

Mmmmkay. No control group, eh?

Look, I've got no problem in the world with small pilot studies like this one. The thing I'm trying to figure out is why it's news. It's a sexy news topic nowadays, sure, but that's not much of an excuse.

A trial with participants randomized to receive marijuana or an inactive placebo has now been started, she added, and 20 out of 50 participants have been enrolled so far.

Now we're talkin'. Two questions, though:

What kind of placebo is used if the treatment is smoking marijuana cigarettes? Is it possible to remove the THC so that the two are, in all other respects, indistinguishable?

Isn't saying that you only have 40% of your participants pretty much an advertisement?

******* ****!!!!

Thanks to new technology and in light of recent events during the Super Bowl halftime show, this blog will be brought to you with a five minute delay so that anything that happens or is said that might be objectionable to anyone can be censored.

**** ****, I'm ******* ****** today.

It's bad enough that I was already in a ***** mood, but I don't need some ****** ******* college kid flipping me off for his own ******* *********.

So I'm waiting at the light to turn into campus. Quite a long line, so it takes a couple of cycles to clear it up so that it'll be my turn next time we get the arrow. Not a problem, I'm a patient guy when it comes to driving and waiting in line. There's an SUV full of college kids in front of me, and it's obvious they're chatting and carrying on. Arrow appears, and a full five seconds passes before I finally decide to give a friendly tap on my horn to let the guy know that he needs to move his ******* ***. The ****** mother ****** flips me off. He's the ******* ***** that's sitting at the ******* light for a ******* eternity while a huge line of ******* vehicles waits behind him. Then, as we're turning into campus, the ****** **** decides to deliberately slow down.

AGH! Sometimes I think...

The management at the Dead Parrot Society wishes to apologize for allowing the above rant by Dead Parrot James to continue for as long as it did, and we want to assure our audience that it might not happen again. We are considering suspending him for nine days. Not two or five or seven, but nine! In all likelihood, he won't be suspended at all, and we will apologize for even leaking such information and will in the future claim that it is an internal matter. Your understanding is appreciated.

Update
I have decided to award a prize to anyone who can correctly fill in all of the blanks. In all likelihood, it will be an unwrapped cookie of some type sent book rate to assure its staleness. Members of DPS are eligible to compete. Anyone who has a problem with this can shove it. I probably wouldn't give them the time of day much less the answers.

More of the same

Cancer survival improves despite more cases

See, right there we start off on the wrong foot when you give me a nonsensical headline like that. What in the world does cancer survival have to do with there being more cases of cancer? Given insufficient medical resources, maybe, but I hardly think that's the case in the UK.

The cancer death rate has fallen by 18% for men and 6% for women in a generation, the charity Cancer Research revealed yesterday.

Wait. Stop. Hold on a second there. Please define "cancer death rate". Is that (a) the rate of deaths due to cancer among all deaths, or (b) the yearly rate of deaths among cancer patients? It's important, you know.

The overall 12% reduction in mortality between 1972 and 2002 contrasts with recent figures showing a steady rise in new cancer cases, many of them related to lifestyle factors, including smoking, drinking and obesity.

So now we're contrasting percentages with raw numbers. As they say on the Guinness beer commercials, "Brilliant!" So there's a steady rise in new cancer cases? And that's kind of like a steady rise in the population, right? Is the rise in new cancer cases proportionately the same as the rise in the population, or is it higher or lower? Or does "rise in new cancer cases" really refer to the per-capita cancer rate? It's important, you know.

What would be nice to know is if there is a decrease in the rate of deaths due to cancer despite the rate of cancer increasing. I think that's what they're telling me, but to be honest, I get confused easily so I don't know if I'm supposed to come away from this story thinking that.

What he said... What he wanted to say...

Virus attack on Microsoft sites fizzles, expert says virus was badly written

What he said:

"It seems like the attack was poorly coded and a complete failure," said Jack Sebbag, Canadian general manager and vice-president of Network Associates Inc.

What he wanted to say:

"Ur hax0r skillz sux0rs."

I also love that headline. It's more of an invitation than anything else. I read that and thought that it may as well have been "Virus attack on Microsoft sites fizzles, expert says 'Try again, idiot.'"

Famous last words?

Mars Rover Spirit Snaps Healthy Photo

(But this is really about the other rover, Opportunity.)

Meantime, halfway around the globe at Meridiani Planum, Spirit's sister rover Opportunity was preparing to drive off its lander platform, possibly as early as overnight Saturday.

"The tips of the egress aid (a reinforced fabric ramp) are now in the soil. That makes egress look perfect. It's going to be an easy ride," said JPL's Matt Wallace, mission manager, in the release.

Emphasis added.

Isn't this just the NASA way of saying, "Hey y'all, watch this!"

Sigh of Relief #3

Well, since we're doing baby pictures...

She was actually born on the 12th, but I wanted to wait a week or two to make sure that mother and baby were both doing fine.

» Click to finish reading "Sigh of Relief #3"

We're only ranked #4?

That's unpossible!

Ryan actually discovered this, but I think he's getting a little too uppity and aloof with all his blogging vis-à-vis media stuff to post something so trivial. So, send in James, the King of Trivial Stuff (no, really, that's my official title)! He'll do it! (By the way, my other title is "King of Superfluous use of Words like Vis-à-Vis and Superfluous and A priori".)

Am I supposed to be confused?

CNN Headline:

Poll: Bush's qualities behind his approval rating

Two-thirds of Americans think President Bush has the right personal qualities for the presidency, yet nearly half or more think the Democratic Party would do a better job on major domestic issues, according to a new poll.

Link

For starters "nearly half or more" is just a terrible way to present survey results. Does that mean that the percent in the poll that responded in this way was 52%, which factoring in the margin of error of +/- 3% would lead to a range of 49% to 55%? Or does it mean something else? I don't know, do you?

The poll indicated that Bush's favorable standing with most Americans on his personal qualities is a main reason for his job approval rating of 59 percent in the most recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll and similar high marks in other polls.

When I first read this, I thought to myself, 'Since when does 59% equal two-thirds?' Then I realized that the 59% has nothing to do with this poll at all! So much for keeping it simple, stupid. Or, maybe, I'm just too much of a simpleton... Then I wonder what the actual percentage that lead to the "two-thirds" actually is. Is it 66%? Is it 67%? Did they just round up or down from 64, 65, 68, or 69%? Continuing to read the story, I'm not left with much confidence that it's 66 or 67%.

At least 50 percent or more of those interviewed said the Democratic Party would do a better job on such issues as the environment, health care and education.

Nearly 50 percent preferred the Democrats on issues such as the budget deficit, the economy and taxes.

Why "Nearly 50 percent"? Why not "48 percent" or "49 percent" or whatever the actual number is? Why do they have to bump it up to the magical number 50%?

Why don't they give the exact percentages? AHHHHH!!!

The poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

Thank you for telling me that. I can look at the results above and figure out what the probable ranges are for the true percentages. Oh, wait...

LSU 21 - OU 14

WOO HOO!

I couldn't have dreamed it any better. LSU took care of business, and the BCS officials are in full spin cycle. I have little doubt that they'll come up with something even worse for next year. It really is like Frankenstein's Monster.

Question of the Day

What does eBay do with the props they use in their commercials? Do they sell them on eBay?

Christmas Pales in Comparison...

...when LSU is playing in the big daddy BCS game.

This is a house just down the road from where my sister lives.

GEAUX TIGERS!

» Click to finish reading "Christmas Pales in Comparison..."

Single women stay sane?

It's way too early for me to think of any witty title, so I just added a question mark...

Single women stay sane

Yet another case of an observed relationship that is interpreted, at the very least by the reporter, as a cause and effect relationship. Thank you for providing me with yet another example to give to my students to show why they should always be skeptical when reading articles such as this.

From the story above: The researchers said: "Men in first partnerships displayed better mental health than those who remained single, whereas women who remained single displayed equally good mental health to those in their first partnership and better health than those who had experienced a partnership spilt."

From another story: Men and women who are in a long-term relationship are happier than singles, although men do better in cohabitation, while marriage is more beneficial for women the report said.

But wait a second, here. You just got finished telling me that staying single leads to women staying sane. And now you're going to tell me that women who manage to find someone that they can stay (dare I say) happily married to (or, let me be PC here, happily partnered with) for a long time might actually enjoy better mental health? AGH! So, really, it's not the staying single part is it? Rather, it's the break-ups? Gee, I never would have guessed that repeatedly having your heart ripped from your chest would have been bad for you. Or that women who are a bit unbalanced to begin with are the ones that can't stand to be alone and can't seem to get along with repeated partners. And I never would have guessed that self-confident women who have a good grip on their life to begin with would be happy staying single (perhaps, for many of them, while waiting for the right guy to come along before making a commitment that might lead to a nasty heart-wrenching break-up).

More links:
Google (Note: I have no idea how long that link'll work.)

Manny the Man Ram!

More headline humor:

A-Rod/Man-Ram deal "dead"

Somehow I don't think Manny wants to be known as the "Man Ram".

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Stupid Pen Tricks

Thought I would take a break from trying to master the Thumbaround Reverse to post this:

Pentrix

Do yourself a favor and check out the Double Thumbaround Normal and the Neoback Combo.

Utter Joy

After posting about my Bitter Disappointment last May, I can now turn that frown upside down.

Popular, Racy Restaurant Chain Makes It’s Way to Lubbock

Woo hoo!

Monty Python Autobiography

I think that, considering the title of our blog, we would be derelict if we failed to mention this.

How Monty Python changed the world

WOO HOO!

GEAUX TIGERS!

Update (12/7):

The final BCS rankings are out, and the #1 team in both the AP and ESPN/USAToday polls won't be playing in the Sugar Bowl. (Which is not, by the way, the "National Championship". It's the BCS Championship. The NCAA doesn't recognize a "National Champion" in Division I-A football.)

LSU versus OU!

GEAUX TIGERS!

It'll be interesting to see what kind of "tweaking" they will do to the BCS for next year.

GEAUX CHAOS!

Tidbits

Suggested by my wife:

Alaska state fire marshal orders freeze on new ice hotel construction; artist continues anyway

The Alaska Fire Marshal's office on Nov. 21 ordered a halt to construction of the planned Aurora Ice Hotel at Chena Hot Springs Resort, citing unspecified building code and public safety concerns.

Yes, yes, I know that a FIRE Marshal has more in his job description than just preventing fires, but I still think it's funny to read that a FIRE Marshal is halting construction of a hotel made entirely of ice.

No link yet, but Texas Tech's student paper The University Daily ran a story about a stack of graded tests (the Scantron variety) found on campus. This is the #2 story for today.

Each graded Scantron contained the name and Social Security number of the student who took the test, which caused Conklin [the student who discovered the tests scattering in the wind to parts unknown] to worry about identity theft.

...

"It's not too safe having Social Security numbers all over town," Tony Pasek, a freshman pre-law major from Houston, said. "They could have been more careful with the tests."

No, it's not a good idea to have your Social Security number floating around, but I can promise you that the vast majority of college students are more guarded with their phone number than they are with their SSN. Identity theft? Please. That's a bit of a reach, isn't it? I suppose anything is possible, but I think that the last thing that a crook will want to do is empty your bank account of the $13.10 that it currently contains. Not to mention the fact that the odds against a test ending up in the hands of someone that would commit identity theft are, I would guess, incredibly high. And would you really even notice the drop in the bucket of an extra couple of thousand dollars of credit card debt?

But the funniest part of the whole story was that they had an accompanying photograph of Conklin handing the stack of tests that he managed to gather up to the Mass Comm secretary.

Update: Story has been posted (sans photo, dammit!). Large stack of graded tests found on campus

Fine, but where are the other 5?

Found via fark.com:

I wonder if a role-player will end up buying this. Judging by the amounts spent on role-playing collectibles by some, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

When headlines go very very wrong

Yankees may need whiff of Colon

I get tired of headlines that are trying to make a cute play on words (Bartolo Colon's last name is pronounced as "cologne"), but headlines like the above make it all worth it.

700 Degrees?

As I sit here with some fried turkey in my belly, I came across this story from FoxNews:

Deep-Fried Turkey Can Be Delicious, Dangerous

Guthrie said those concerns begin with 5 gallons of scalding 700-degree grease precariously perched over an open flame. (Emphasis added.)

700 degrees!? SEVEN HUNDRED? As in Fahrenheit? Holy cow!

For starters, anybody that lets their peanut oil get over 375 is asking for trouble. Anybody that lets their peanut oil get over 400 is an idiot.

My tips for a safe and yummy fried turkey.

1) Make sure your pot is large enough to accomodate the turkey you are planning on frying. We have a pretty large pot, and anything over 13 pounds is a deal breaker. Also be sure you set up the pot OUTSIDE and AWAY FROM THE HOUSE on level concrete or something similarly nonflammable.

2) Measure the amount of oil you are going to need ahead of time. Put the turkey upright in the pot (while it's still in the plastic wrapping) and fill with water until it is just covering the top of the turkey. Remove the turkey, and at the water level mark the outside of the pot or put a piece of tape to use as a guide. (Don't forget to remove the tape!)

3) Make sure you have a grease thermometer. If you don't have one, then use the oven. Better luck next year.

4) When the oil gets to 350-375 slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, lower the turkey into the pot. Boil overs happen when the turkey is just dropped into the pot and all that moisture meets all that hot oil at the same time. By slowly lowering it into the pot, you are introducing the moisture into the oil in small increments.

5) Once the turkey is completely immersed, replace the grease thermometer and monitor the temperature carefully. (Make sure that you don't accidentally stick the thermometer into the turkey, as I did once.) The temperature usually drops to 300 immediately, and I set the burner so that it slowly rises back to 350 by the time the bird is almost done. This generally takes lots of trips outside to check on it and lots of minor adjustments in the flow of the butane.

Happy (Fried) Turkey Day!

Jury Duty

Last Monday, being the good citizen that I think I am, I show up for jury duty at 8 AM sharp, just like the summons stated. Unlike the last time, this time around I made sure to bring some reading material so that I don't spend the next couple of hours just staring at the floor.

At around 8:15, they start taking excuses. There were fewer people trying to get out of it than last time, so maybe there's hope for this world after all. (One lady was completely pissed that the judge wouldn't let her get out of it. Suck it up!)

At around 8:45 or 9:00, they start calling out the names. Mine is in the first batch. "Cool," I thought, "this is going to be some great DPS fodder."

At 10:15, my group (panel) gets sent to the court room where voir dire is going to take place. I'll omit the details of this process as, for the most part, it was rather boring. I will say this, however, smart-ass answers won't get you out of jury duty and may, in fact, make your chances of being on the jury higher.

When asked by the defense attorney what "beyond a reasonable doubt" means to me (Texas no longer has a specific definition for it), I answered "Beyond a reasonable doubt means that when viewing the evidence under the light of the presumption of innocence any other explanation is highly unlikely."

When asked by him which of the four reasons for punishing a criminal (punishment for punishment's sake, deterrence, protection of society, and rehabilitation) was my second favorite (the prosecutor already asked us what our #1 was, and I answered protection of society), I said, "Well that depends. Are we talking about a perfect world or the real world?" The defense attorney told me, "The real world." I then said, "None of them, then, because I don't believe that the current system seeks to rehabilitate anyone. But, in a perfect world, I would answer rehabilitation." (I didn't say so, but for the record I don't think that deterrence is worth considering because I think that jail time is like a lock on a door. All it does is keep an honest man honest.)

These two answers followed a long string of what basically amounted to grunts and nods from the rest of the panel. I thought that for sure one or both sides would think I was too damn smart for my own good. Wrongo! In fact, I think several perfectly acceptable jurors were skipped just to include me.

I was the last one to be seated. Before we even had a chance to catch our breath or get used to the idea that we were on the jury, the courtroom was cleared and opening arguments began.

Before anyone asks, let me state that I am not going to share any specifics about the trial. Sorry. Because of the nature of the trial, I don't want to share them and be second guessed by people who weren't there and who don't know what I know.

Some Nerd Humor

From the Turbo Pascal 7.0 Language Guide Index, pp. 296-297:

(Click the picture to open the full-size image in a new window. If you can't read the text, then you need to tell your browser to display it full-size instead of shrinking it to fit to the browser window.)

» Click to finish reading "Some Nerd Humor"

Coming Soon: Matrix Overanalyzed?

With the forthcoming release of Matrix Revolutions, I thought I would throw out this review that I saw on FoxNews.com.

Spoiler Alert!

» Click to finish reading "Coming Soon: Matrix Overanalyzed?"

There Are Better Things to Criticize in the BCS

I don't really even know where to begin with this:

Senators looking into legality of college football championship selection

Let me start by saying that I am not a fan in any way, shape, or form of the BCS. It has worked reasonably well thus far in setting up a legitimate (if sometimes controversial) championship game. The problem with the BCS as I see it is that there still exists the potential for a huge mess. (The most likely way for this to happen, btw, is if there are no unbeatens and 4 or 5 teams from good conferences with only one loss.)

But, the following isn't the huge mess that might pop up:

Now 8-0, the Horned Frogs follow in the footsteps of the Marshall University Thundering Herd and the Tulane University Green Wave before them as "little schools that could," but ultimately could not because they were shut out of the BCS bowls by a process critics say is unduly restrictive and exclusive.

...

It was 1998 when Tulane went through its season undefeated, but had to settle for playing in the Liberty Bowl because the more prestigious bowls were taken by big-name teams, most with losses on their records. It won its bowl game.

This kind of argument is just plain nonsense. Stupid beyond belief. Regardless of the technical legal details (which I'm not even going to approach), schools like Tulane and TCU just don't even have a gripe. "But we're 8-0." Please. I can't believe this story doesn't even bother to mention against whom TCU has gone 8-0! I will, however:

Tulane, Navy, Vanderbilt, Arizona, Army, South Florida, UAB, Houston.

Some power houses there. As a semi-objective measure of the quality of those teams, let's look at their rankings on one of more accepted computer rankings, Sagarin:

106, 87, 110, 104, 170, 80, 75, 90, respectively.

Their upcoming schedule?

Louisville, Cincinnati, Southern Miss, and SMU

Louisville is the only decent team they're playing all year! They're currently ranked 25th in the ESPN/USAToday poll, but 48th by Sagarin. The remaining teams have rankings of 73, 57, and 173, respectively.

"But we're ranked behind teams that have a loss."

Oh boo fricking hoo. Some of those teams you can't even count. Florida State lost to Miami, #2 in the BCS. Georgia lost to LSU, #7 in the BCS. LSU lost to Florida, #21 in the ESPN/USAToday poll. Nebraska lost to Missouri, #24 in the ESPN/USAToday poll. Iowa has two losses, but those came against Michigan State at #10 in the BCS and Ohio State at #6 in the BCS.

That leaves University of Southern California, Ohio State, Washington State, and Michigan State. Southern Cal's loss was to California, Ohio State lost to Wisconsin, Washington State lost to Notre Dame, and Michigan State lost to Louisiana Tech. The only real inexplicable loss in that whole bunch is Michigan State losing to Louisiana Tech, but Michigan State beat three teams that were ranked in the top 25 when they played.

So, please, TCU and others who use these lame arguments, until you start playing some teams that have some teeth in them, suck wind.

I can see! I can see!

New monitor! I can see!

Thought for the day:

How many motocycle cops out there have been given the nickname Ponch or Jon?

When it rains...

So my computer dies a couple of weeks ago.

Dude, we're getting a Dell.

I can't really even enjoy the new computer because I seem to have come down with a cold late last week that I still haven't completely shaken.

The television in the bedroom suddenly started having a green hue in the lower lefthand corner, and a blue hue in the upper lefthand corner. Great. A new TV is in our near future.

Then today, no sooner do I sit down to poke around on the internet on my new Dell while I'm waiting for my burgers to cook, the monitor dies. We actually had Dell throw in a 17" flat panel monitor for an extra $80, but we already had a 19" monitor (CRT monster), so we turned around and sold the flat panel to my wife's mother for $200.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
RRRRRRRRRRR
GGGGGGGGGGGG
HHHHHHHHHHH
!!!!!!!!!

Something tells me no amount of D is going to make me feel any better.

It pours (10/24/04)
So I bring home the 15 inch monitor that I store in my office just for emergencies such as this.

It's dead too. I would have never guessed.

AOL 9.0 Optimized

My useless thought for the day:

If the new AOL 9.0 is "Optimized", does that mean that there won't be an AOL 10?

What do Will Rogers, Texas Tech, and crepe paper have in common?

The Texas Tech tradition that I think is the best is when the Saddle Tramps wrap the Will Rogers and Soapsuds statue in red crepe paper on Friday before a home football game. (Of note is the legend surrounding the direction that the horse's ass faces.)

Even better than that is wrapping Will and Soapsuds in black crepe paper when a national tragedy occurs or there is a significant loss in the Tech family. I would be hard pressed to think of a more fitting tribute, to be honest. There are no signs proclaiming that this is a memorial for Gov. Smith. They come early in the morning and wrap the statue, and passersby see it and just know. If they don't know why it's wrapped in black, they just might take the time to find out why and learn something about the man. It's brief and it's fragile (it is paper after all), two words often used to describe our lives.

Universities love to put names on buildings to honor significant members of their community. I doubt that I would ever want my name on a building. It is lasting, yes, and people will long remember who you were because of the plaque, but just as often students will be cursing your name. Imagine if they named a statistics building after me! (Not that it's ever going to happen.)

"Want to go grab some lunch?"

"No, I have to go to Surles Hall and sleep through another boring lecture. I hate that place."

(On the other hand, maybe tormenting students long after my death is not such a bad thing after all.)

Dio has rocked for a long, long time

Woo hoo! Got my new computer today! Took two days longer than it should have because Dell shipped it to an address that doesn't exist. When I called FedEx to see what was up, after looking up the tracking number the lady said, "Oh, dude, you're getting a Dell." I've lost count of how many times I've heard and said that in the past week. BIG difference moving from 500 MHz to 2.4 GHz. Unfortunately, it doesn't speed up the software installation phase (ordeal) as it's 12 hours since I got the thing and I've still got not 2 or 5 or 7, but 9 left to install.

Listening to The D makes it bearable, though.

Crime Dramas

I know I can't be the only one that's getting sick of the glut of crime/legal dramas on television these days. Ugh!

I count 6 on NBC (half of which are Law and Order shows), 11 (!) on CBS, 6 on ABC (7 if you want to count Alias), and only 1 on Fox. (24 was a neat idea for the first season. Now I look at it as just another crime drama, and didn't even watch last season.) That's a full day's worth of crime/legal dramas per week. If "primetime" is 7-11, there are 4 hours per night times 4 major networks times 7 days in a week for a total of 112 hours. So 21% of the primetime schedule is made up of these shows. (I'm assuming without checking all 24 of them that they're each an hour long.)

I almost wish that someone would come up with something like Cop Rock to mix it up a bit. Almost. Mostly I just wish they would go away.

10/13/03 Oops. I forgot Lyon's Den. Make that 25.

Quote of the Day

"The Government's Auto Safety Chief Dr. Jeffrey Runge":

"If you can keep all four wheels on the pavement, your chances of rolling over are far far less."

New SUV rollover tests

(Note: Post has been modified since the video has been put online. I'm happy to report that my only error in the quote was "ground" instead of "pavement". Also, in light of Ryan's recent post regarding MSNBC links, click it while it's hot. In a week, the link's likely to go to a story about the latest "Fleecing of America".)

ROCK!

Does Anyone Even Care?

And that's how the cookie crumbles

Okay, when I made my bake sale post, I dutifully resisted the urge to work "that's how the cookie crumbles" into the headline or post itself. Looks like CNN couldn't resist.

Furthermore, does anyone outside of the cookie industry care why a cookie breaks apart? Maybe because they're brittle? Who wants a perfect cookie anyway? Part of the fun of eating cookies is devouring the crumbs at the bottom of the bag. That's like a freebie. They don't count. They're not a whole cookie, so they don't add to your total if you happen to be keeping count.

BTW, biscuits are what you put butter and gravy or jelly over. If the British call cookies biscuits, what do they call what we call biscuits? Bread? Rolls?

I Get Hot Flashes Just Reading This!

Have I ever mentioned how I so love to nitpick?

Hormones may raise risk of ovarian cancer

The new analysis found that 32 of the 16,608 participants developed ovarian cancer during about 51/2 years of follow-up. There were 20 cases in women who took hormones and 12 in those on dummy pills.

The difference is not statistically significant because the cancer was so rare, but the trend is worrisome, said University of Washington researcher Garnet Anderson, the lead author of the analysis, which appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

(Emphasis added)

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

Paradoxically, the more rare the event, the easier it is to detect differences. This is because as the probability decreases to zero (or increases to one) the variance decreases to zero. The worst-case scenario for being able to detect differences is when the probability of the event occuring is equal to 0.5.

On the other hand, the more rare an event is, the more likely it is for any significant differences seen (which, remember, are actually easier to detect) to be caused by extraneous (i.e. uncontrolled) factors, as I'm sure Vic would be more than happy to point out.

Furthermore, if the difference isn't statistically significant, what the Hell is up with that headline and sub-headline? Sure, it may raise the risk of cancer, but it's also likely that it may not. That's what being "statistically insignificant" means for crying out loud!

Bake Sale Protest

Via Drudge:

Texas University Shuts Down Bake Sale

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Near the end of the story, we learn that:

The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50.

I find this interesting, can you see why? How many possible ways are there to raise exactly $1.50? Let us count the ways.

1 white male, 2 blacks
1 white woman, 1 Hispanic, 1 black
3 Hispanics

I find it odd that in every case at least two minorities had to buy a cookie.

I also wonder aloud what would have happened if the prices had been symbolic and the cookies were given away.

Album Covers

There really needs to be more 70's style nudity on album covers.

Cutting out the Middleman

Sun present chip-design breakthrough [sic]

Network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. researchers will report on Tuesday that they have devised a way to dramatically increase the speed at which semiconductors can talk to each other.

By placing the chips edge to edge, directly touching, so data can flow freely, Sun has taken out the need for the tiny wires, pads and solder points that now connect chips on printed circuit boards that help make up computer systems, Sun said. (Emphasis added)

Something tells me that this was one of those smacking-the-forehead-why-didn't-we-think-of-this-earlier moments.

Prehistoric Pr0n

How can I NOT post this?

Oldest genital fossils found in Scotland

There's just too many comments that can be made at this point. I'm sure more than a few of them would involve a kilt joke of some kind. Ryan made some comment about Anna Nicole Smith and her ancient genitals. The possibilities are virtually endless...

"Live Suicide"

Via Fark.com:

LIVE SUICIDE TO TAKE PLACE AT ROCK CONCERT

Something about the quotes around "live suicide" makes me suspicious.

I also love this quote:

Though his identity is being withheld until the day of the event, he did have this to say, “I thank the lord that Hell On Earth is giving me this opportunity to end my suffering."

I wonder what "the lord" (notice the conspicuous absence of capitalization) would think about your committing suicide at the concert of a band with songs such as (Warning: Not for kiddies. Links go to lyrics.):

My Angels are Demons

Vampire Christ

Ripping the Wings Off the Backs of Angels

Raped by the Virgin Mary

The A.I.D.S. Infested Blood of Christ

Deliver Me to Evil

(BTW, if you're going to title your album Biomechanical Ejaculations Of The Dammed [sic], you might want to spell the word correctly or people might think you're an illiterate river.)

Follow up (9/18):
Front man for Hell on Earth takes his case to Bay area airwaves (via Drudge)

$200 Bill

There's just so much to love about this story found via Fark.com:

Payment as phony as, well, a $200 bill

Funny stuff there.

Sure the guy oughta get nailed, but anybody that accepts a $200 bill deserves to get stuck with the loss. What makes it worse is that the cashier had to think about what she/he was doing when punching in the amount into the cash register. Then the bill was so fake that it's beyond funny. They didn't even attempt to make it look legitimate. That something didn't click in their head during the whole process of accepting the bill and counting out the change just astounds me.

Of course, my favorite part of the whole story is the last line:

Food Lion said normal policy is not to accept bills over $100.

Was this taken from the Standard Replies Handbook?

Useless Dice Tricks

To counter Ryan's attempt to increase the ratio of quality posts to fluff here at DPS, I present the following:

The following is what years of role playing games has gotten me.

I used to be able to do some better ones when I had some 6-sided dice that had some deep pips. I also got pretty good at spinning all types and getting a good many going at the same time, but now I seem to have some kind of mental block. It has to "feel" right before I can get the spin off, which generally results in a piss-poor spin and some funny looks on my face as I try to get the "feel" (you should see my 3 1/2 year old making fun of me). I guess I would liken it to some kind of OC disorder.

Got any of your own?

Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji test blasts aimed at predicting volcanic eruptions

Five underground blasts, each using 1,100 pounds of explosives, will be set off Thursday, triggering mini earthquakes that will allow scientists to get a better idea of volcanic activity occurring beneath the cone-shaped peak, Kyodo News agency reported.

Aren't they afraid they're going to wake up Godzilla?

Mystery Solved!

FINALLY!

About two years ago, I upgraded my work computer from Windows NT to Windows 2000. Ever since then, when I would try to shut down or reboot my computer, it would go through the process of logging me off, saving all the data it needs to save, and then it would kick me to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) with the DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE error message. I would then have to manually hit the reset button to get it to reboot. Really, it's not that much of a problem, and I'm not quite *that* lazy, so I didn't pay it much heed and let it go for the past couple of years.

But, every once in a while, I get bit by a bug that suggests to me that it's time to clean up the computer and fix those annoying things that seem to pop up. So I set out on a quest to squash this particular bug. First place I looked was Google: DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Always reassuring to know that I'm not the only one having this problem, but I really didn't see anything that helped me out to any degree. So I go to Microsoft's help pages. Okay, so they give me a few steps to follow, but they aren't very helpful. I did step #1 and find a total of 39 files that are "unsigned". But there is no guidance given as to how to identify the offensive driver. Being a little more tech savvy than the average bear, I employed the following steps:

1) Pick a file from the list.
2) Rename that file by appending a .tmp to the end.
3) Reboot the computer (of course, this entails having to endure the BSoD again) to allow Windows to load without that driver.
4) After Windows finishes loading up, reboot it again and see if you get the BSoD. If so, that wasn't the file, and it's time to try another one.

Of course, there are quicker ways of doing this such as examining the system registry or renaming multiple files at once to try and narrow the search. And it was possible to eliminate several drivers right off the bat based on their date stamp.

As the title of the post suggests, I finally found the offending driver. It was a file named "pxhelper.sys" that Nero Burning Rom installed on my system while I was still running NT. Of course, it was near the bottom of my list, so it took me quite a while to get to it, but get to it I did, and all I have to say now is WOO HOO!

The whole reason that I'm even writing this post is so that perhaps some poor fool that suffers the same malady for the same reason may stumble upon this and maybe, just maybe, prevent them from pulling their hair out. Out of curiosity, I tried Google: DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE pxhelper.sys and got a grand total of two links, both of which are from the same URL and both of which are broken. I found it odd that somebody hasn't yet compiled a list of known drivers that can cause this problem. Well, add this one to the nonexistent list.

Now if I can only figure out why my printer software won't reinstall correctly and why my two cd-rom drives don't seem to like to work all the time...

Mildly Disturbing

Google: suicide how commit shooting

And you thought the Star Wars Kid had reason to be embarrassed?

FBI arrests 'stupid' Blaster.B suspect

Investigators deliberately infected a PC with Blaster.B and monitored it as it tried to contact a website to register that it had been infected. The domain was registered in his father's name. (Emphasis added)

I wonder how much credibility he has with the l337 h4x0r community after being so stupid as to use a domain bearing his daddy's name?

Sigh of Relief #2

Our first ultrasound appointment was yesterday, and everthing looks okay. The baby seems to have all of her fingers and toes. Her brain cavity looks good as does her spine. Her arm and leg bones are all in the right places and proportions as well. Did I mention that it's a girl? They're also likely to push the "due date" back a couple of weeks, which would put it a whole one day different than my wife's sister's due date.

Blackout, London Style

Power cut cripples London

Quite clearly this is Bush's fault.

Ahhhh... Fall is in the air!

The Fall semester is about to begin, and in many places it's already begun. Big doings on campuses all over the country. Although Fall is usually associated with leaves falling off of trees and grass turning brown and the beginning of the long dark that is winter, on a college campus Fall is a time of new beginnings and rebirth. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes...

Okay, that's more than a bit over the top. Actually, watching all of the incoming (many with their parents and an uncomfortable look on their faces) and returning students scurrying about campus always reminds me of the song Ants Marching by the Dave Matthews Band.

All the little ants are marching
Red and black antennae waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way

Being at Texas Tech, the red and black part is particularly appropriate.

I've always wondered what would happen if I pulled a Professor Kingsfield. "You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a statistician." Or if I were to shroud someone. I'd probably get sued.

If only our sample was larger...

Casually browsing through stories on Google, I came across this one:

3 Schizophrenia Drugs May Raise Diabetes Risk, Study Says

This one's so damn easy, that it almost speaks for itself.

The drugs — Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, Risperdal, made by Jannsen Pharmaceutica, and Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca — were associated with higher rates of diabetes than older generation drugs for schizophrenia like Haldol, the study found. (Emphasis added)

Okay so far... and then...

But the increased risk was statistically significant only for Zyprexa and Risperdal, the researchers said, possibly because of the smaller number of subjects who took Seroquel.

Ummm... wait a second. You just got finished telling me in the preceding sentence that you found an increase in the rate of diabetes for all three drugs, and now you're telling me that you were just kidding, that it was really just two of them? ARGH! Please, somebody claw my eyeballs out.

And then they go and tell me that they probably would have found significant results if only the sample was larger? Holy Fricking Hell! Let me let you in on a little secret. If you take a large enough sample, you can find statistically significant differences for everything. This kind of statement should never ever ever EVER be made because it is impossible to measure just how misleading it is. "Oh pooh! Sample size, schample size. It's there, we just didn't take a large enough sample. Trust us."

The study's findings have not been submitted for publication and have not undergone systematic peer review by other researchers. Its findings are also limited by the fact that the patients were not randomly assigned to different drugs and that the researchers did not know the patients' family history of diabetes or what other risk factors, including excess weight, they might have had.

Okay, I understand that there was no randomization. This is an unavoidable fact of observational studies of this sort. I'll let them slide on that point, but why is this making news before the scientific community gets the chance to review the results?

Political Correctness Sucks

Customer sues Pizza Hut for a racial slur on his receipt, according to his lawsuit

Included in the lawsuit is a copy of a receipt, dated March 31, in which the word "name" is followed by a racial epithet in typed letters.

Is it really not permissable to print the epithet? Wouldn't that add to my understanding of the story? Isn't it important to know whether Mr. Benson is black and the word was "nigger" or whether he's white and the word was "redneck" or whether he's hispanic and the word was "spick" or possibly something else?

Standardized Testing

Seems there have been a couple of recent stories on CNN about standardized testing.

States stick with high-school exit exams

Standards operating procedure (Terrible headline, btw.)

My thoughts on this may be a bit meandering and a bit underdeveloped, but the topic interests me.

The long-and-short of my opinion on standardized testing is this:

It's not perfect, but can you think of anything better?

I just don't buy the cultural bias argument. At least not anymore. Since this has become a concern, the test writers spend a great deal of time and effort to eliminate this. That's why I don't like statements like, "Kids are individuals, and teaching is not one size fits all." (Second story) What does that have to do with anything? What's wrong with requiring kids of any stripe to know how to find the roots of a quadratic equation? To understand logic? To know that Hand:Glove::Foot:Shoe? To be able to read and interpret a bit of writing? To write an essay?

The second oft-cited problem with standardized tests is teachers "teaching to the test". As far as I'm concerned, this is the larger of the two "problems", but I wonder just how much of a problem it really is. Suppose that someone teaches a kid a certain set of "tricks" to use to help improve their score. How much time would that take? Would it be more productive for the kid to just spend that time working some more math problems or expanding his vocabulary a few words? I don't know, but I do know that these tricks don't help you raise your score any significant amount. Now suppose that someone changes the material being taught to the kid so that it focuses only on those things that are likely to show up on the test. This is the real danger, in my opinion. As more schools do this, those schools who stick to their guns and still offer a broad and diverse education can fall behind in test scores even though the quality of education hasn't changed. Each group of kids who takes a standardized test is measured against that group, so I could forsee this happening. But I wonder if a kid who has gone through such a specialized education is really worse off. He might be lacking in some areas, true, but will he have learned how to learn in the process? That's really what education is all about. At least that's what it should be about. Will that kid then have the ability to think and reason independently which would allow him to easily fill in those gaps? Or can you learn how to succeed at a standardized test through rote? Again, I have no idea.

Suppose we decide to do away with standardized testing? What do we do then? How do we compare two kids from different schools against one another? It would be foolish to decide to base this comparison on performance in high school alone, even if we decide to adjust for the "difficulty" of the courses. As an educator, I know how tempting it is to bump a kid up a grade, and I know how easy it is to rationalize it. "He's a good kid." "He really worked his tail off in class." Not only that, but assigning a grade of F, D, and even C can lead to some uncomfortable meetings with students. More than once I've had a student cry in my office, and I've only been in this game for 6 years.

So what do we do then? What's a better answer? What's the difference between a standardized test and a required essay on a college application? If you really want to ensure diversity, why not admit students via lottery?

Finally, Ryan pointed out to me how he amusing he finds the examples they use to illustrate how illiterate our youth are.

Statistics show that the typical American high school senior can find the Mississippi River on a map but doesn't know the significance of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and isn't aware that Canada is the United States' top trading partner.

If you had asked me what the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (shouldn't the "r" in "resolution" be capitalized?) was, I'd have stared at you blankly. If you asked me who the United States' top trading partner was, I'd have put Canada third after Japan and China.

So there you have it. I have no original ideas. Just some general (probably naive - screw the umlaut) impressions. I really don't see a better way of doing it.

Poker

For some reason, any time I flip to the Travel Channel, and they are showing the World Poker Tour, I feel compelled to watch. Ditto for ESPN's coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker. I can't explain it, really. I have a solid grounding in the probabilities and the mechanics of playing poker although I've only ever played casually on occasion. No regular poker nights for me, although I wouldn't be averse to it. So I can't claim an interest because I'm a regular poker player. I also don't find the personalities very appealing. Most of the top players seem to be domineering assholes. It can't be the suspense. I already know who won the 2003 World Series of Poker, and they show the players' cards on every hand, so you know who's bluffing and who's not. I would prefer that they didn't show the cards so you would have some added suspense. As it is now, the only suspense that is provided is the river card turning over.

Maybe it's just the human dynamics; seeing how the best players in the world handle certain situations. I find it interesting to watch a player with junk cards bet huge amounts of money and then turn around a couple of hands later with a pair of aces betting conservatively. Really, this is the only place that you can watch such things without visiting the casinos yourself. I imagine it happens during poker night in somebody's basement, but there's no way it can happen to this degree. The stakes just aren't high enough. I've tried bluffing with crap before, but when you're playing with plastic chips that don't have any value attached to them or with a couple of dollars in nickles, dimes and quarters, it just doesn't work. When the pot means a difference of more than a hundred thousand dollars in winnings, however, it's fascinating to see how often the player with the best hand loses.

Little League World Series

Sorry, I can't help it.

Richland National beat Hawaii to advance to the Little League World Series.

The score? Could it really have been anything else?

Five-O

Sigh of Relief #1

Got the results from my wife's triple test yesterday, and they were negative. Big sigh of relief. Of course I know there is the chance of a false negative, but it's still better than having to deal with all the stress and worry that would come along with a positive result while waiting for the ultrasound appointment and waiting for the results of the follow-up test.

As far as I'm concerned, the three big hurdles during the pregnancy are the triple test, the first sonogram (during which you can count the fingers and toes, and the more trained experts can count everything else), and finally the birth.

Hurdle #2 is coming up in about 3 weeks. Hurdle #3 will be early January, and that will also be a worrisome time as Gini will have a scheduled C-section. Jonathon was born via emergency C-section, and our doctor doesn't like to do a vbac (vaginal birth after C-section). It was kinda cool seeing my wife cut open the first time. (I'm not at all squeamish, can you tell? Well, that's a lie. I can't stand to see someone turn an ankle or break a leg; probably due to having more ankle sprains than I can count.) But there's a danger every time someone undergoes surgery, so it won't be a happy time until both baby and Gini are safe and sound and I'm changing shitty diapers again.

Open Alcohol?

Question for the day:

When a bar closes down shuts down (for good), what becomes of all the open (but not empty) bottles of alcohol?

Surely they aren't just poured down the drain, as that would be a colossal waste, and would make grown men weep. Does the owner just take them home? That would make for a helluva block party. Do the employees just divvy them up? "I got dibs on the Crown!"

Plain Brown Packaging

So the United States Post Office now has a policy that they will not deliver any package weighing 16 ounces or more unless it is brought to the counter at the post office. We know this because my wife tried to send an envelope that weighed 17 ounces, and it was returned to us with a note saying as much. (She removed some of the stuff and got it down to 15 ounces, and then got into an argument with our mailman, which is another story.)

So, let me see if I'm straight on all of this.

You're worried about a package that you've picked up in my mailbox with my return address on it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's a biological agent that someone's trying to send, isn't the damage already done? If it's a bomb, you want to bring it back to me so that I can blow myself up? Doesn't it seem quite a bit idiotic for the post office to assume that someone would use their actual return address? If there is a return address on a dangerous package, and they return it to that address, doesn't that border on criminal actions by the USPS if the owner of said return address is in any way injured? In fact, isn't this regulation so easy to get around it's not even funny? Have someone you're trying to send a dangerous package to? Just put their address as the return address on the package. Voila!

And finally, if they're so worried about people sending packages weighing more than one pound, WHY IN THE HELL ARE THEY STILL SELLING STAMPS IN THOSE DENOMINATIONS!!!???

Spammers

I know they have to do it to avoid junk filters, but really, what spammer expects me to read an email with a subject like "Re:Vviagra,Phentermiine,xXenical& many others prescribedonline and shippedovernight dexsb"?

You mean if I die at 50 I have a lower chance of making it to 100?

Someone sent me this story in email (Thanks Tom):

There are 4.2 million U.S. adults who fit the "old old" category of 85 or older. Statistics show that making it to age 85 significantly improves one's chances at 100, especially among males.

Topping 100: Hope for the rest of us (Free registration required.)

Although there are some deeper statistical/probabilistic issues that can be associated with a comment of this sort, I seriously doubt that any of them were considered in either the reporter's or the researcher's minds when they came up with this bit of worthless statistical minutia. I also seriously doubt I'll have the time to discuss any of them in the next few days with finals coming up this week.

A Room With a View

Since I don't really have the time to go hunting down crap to write about on the various news sources, I figure I'd better stick to the inane until the summer semester is over.

After 3 or so years of being offered the chance to move to an office with a window, I finally decided to do it. The main factors were the size of the new office and the view.

Not too bad. My window overlooks Tech's Memorial Circle with the recently added Pfluger Fountain. One of the grad students recently told me that you aren't supposed to walk on the grass inside of Memorial Circle because it's a "living memorial". Grass? Trees, bushes, and shubbery ok. But grass? And I also can't figure out the deal with the interior of Pfluger Fountain. No benches. No place to sit down. "Move along please."

But, it's still a nice view.

Update 8/4
Did I forget to mention that the window of my office faces due East and that it's fu**ing hot in here? Every silver lining has a touch of gray, eh?

Domineering? Egotistical? Simple-Minded? Moi?

Funniest thing I've seen in quite some time. Really. Obviously, someone put it on my windshield because I apparently took up two parking spaces (or, by the tone, considerably more) this morning when I parked my truck.

I sincerely apologize. No, really, I do. I apologize for my right rear Bridgestone hanging over the yellow line by an inch. Despite my simple-mindedness, I can figure out that a consequence of this heinous action was that the bed of my truck was intruding on your parking space by somewhat more than an inch. I understand my actions are nearly unforgivable, especially so when you consider that the reason I intruded on, nay, violated your personal space was because the yellow truck parked on the left side of my truck had nearly committed the same capital crime as I. Alas, two wrongs don't make a right, so I accept full responsibility for my actions despite being careful to leave enough room for my bull headed and inconsiderate self to extricate myself from my truck while allowing others parked near me to do the opposite (i.e. get in their cars with ease).

In all seriousness, my wife would probably be more than happy to tell the world how anal I am about parking. I'll back up a few times to straighten my truck up and to make sure I'm not intruding on anyone else's precious parking space unless circumstances (like this morning's) prevent me from doing so. Really. I'm not lying. Wait, don't I get a last request?

By the way, fuckwad, unlike you, I'm not such a coward that I will not attach my name to the above sarcasm.

Sincerely,

James G. Surles
203 Math and Statistics

P.S. Feel free to drop by and discuss this matter with me.

(You can clearly tell that I haven't blogged long enough. After getting a good laugh out of this note, I originally crumpled it up - as you can probably tell - and threw it on the floor of my truck. I immediately realized my error and retrieved it. Next time I won't make this mistake.)

What? No Spaghetti?

This little piece of drivel was found via fark.com:

10 most dangerous foods to eat on the road

\begin{nitpick}

Like I said, drivel. Probably shouldn't even have to point out that these aren't the most dangerous foods to eat on the road. These are simply the foods that are actually consumed most often on the road.

\end{nitpick}

More Headline Mishaps

I'm tired of taking screen caps, resizing them, uploading them, and linking them.

So take my word for it. It (their headline on their page) can be corrected at any time (and was 7/22).

Checkered flags and foriegn links (SWCD)
(Note to the Parrot who changed "foriegn" to "foreign": The fact that they fixed it doesn't mean that I have to fix it. SWCD = Spelling Was Correct, Dammit!)

They're HEADLINES people! The most prominent part of the entire story! It might be nice to double- and triple-check these things. I've seen more typos in headlines in the past week than I saw in all of the latest Harry Potter book. This particular one is especially unforgivable considering a spell-checker would have easily caught this one unlike the previous one I posted.

BTW, I do expect someone to correct me when I screw up one of my titles on this blog. I also expect to correct it as quickly as it's noticed. I'm not infallible. Then again, I don't get paid for doing this either.

Total Dungeons & Dragons Nerd Out

I've been a role-playing nerd since... how long has it been since middle school? I just recently found a group here in Lubbock to play with, so I've been getting back into gaming. We've been running 3rd Edition D&D; exclusively thus far, and my copy of Player's Handbook version 3.5 arrived from Barnes and Noble yesterday.

If you game and want to read my opinions on the changes or if you just want to come along for the ride and watch me completely nerd out, click away...

» Click to finish reading "Total Dungeons & Dragons Nerd Out"

Prize-Wining Poet

I know, I know... There but for the grace of God go I.

On the other hand, I don't have anything better to write about now that I'm in class 4 hours a day and spend the vast majority of the remaining 4 hours preparing to be in class for 4 hours.

(Click for full-size image in another window.)

Typos happen, even to the best. But should they really happen in a headline, especially one of the Big Three?

I did a screencap because it could be corrected at any time.

Too Damn Funny

Defense labels flashing charge physically impossible

No quotes or snippets from the story. Just read it. All of it.

Those Hazing Old-Timers

Ahhh... the wonders of automation.

Captured from news.yahoo.com this morning:

(Click for the full-size image in another window.)

A Follow Up of 'Shooting Holes'

Also from Fark...

Guns special report: why isn't life-saving technology implemented?

This is related to a post by Victor Shooting Holes in Social Science.

From the present article:

Douglas Wiebe of the Firearm Injury Center at Penn (FICAP) at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia agrees. Last month, Wiebe and colleagues found that people who keep guns at home have a 72 per cent greater chance of being killed by firearms compared with those who do not, and are 3.44 times as likely to commit suicide (Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol 41, p 771).

Ahhhh... I love it when useless statistics from useless studies find their way into debates in which they don't belong.

Spoiled Brat Rejected by Harvard

This is a followup to Valedictorian Ruling posted back in May.

Seems that in addition to being a spoiled brat, she might also be a plagiarist.

Harvard Takes Back Hornstine Admission Offer
(Link also found at Fark.com.)

Tsk tsk tsk.

In a column by Hornstine in June printed next to the Courier-Post’s note about the “misused sources,” Hornstine said her citation problems stemmed from a lack of training in journalism.

“I kept notes on what I had read,” she wrote. “When finalizing my thoughts, I, like most every teenager who has use of a computer, cut and pasted my ideas together. I erroneously thought the way I had submitted the articles was appropriate.”

Please.

As a side note, there might be some kind of Kennedy-Lincoln connection. Jayson Blair, Blair Hornstine... any other similarities?

Looks like I'm way behind the curve on this one. A search on Google for "Jayson Blair" and "Blair Hornstine" turns up 78 matches (as of 1:50 PM Central).

Dwarf Tossing for the 21st Century

From Fark.com.

Yeah, this is just damn weird.

Bizarre Game Targets Women: Hunting for Bambi

If they didn't have the accompanying video, I wouldn't believe it.

Update 7/14:

Snopes.com has posted on hunting for Bambi. They are skeptical about the whole thing and lean towards it being an elaborate hoax. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if it were. I'm sure better reporters than LuAnne Sorrell have been taken in by hoaxes. Will keep my eye on it, and see what becomes of it.

A Mountain Out of a Molehill

Driving up to my house yesterday after work, I see a van from our local NBC affiliate (www.kcbd.com) getting set up to do a live feed for the 5 o'clock news right in front of our house. My first thought was, "Hey! What did we win?" So I hurried in, took my shower (left work early), and settled in on the couch to watch the news.

They were doing a story about the West Nile virus being found in mosquitos in Lubbock. The story was repeated at the 6 o'clock (again live) and 10 o'clock (taped) editions. If you look under the "Top Video" section on their webpage, you can watch the 6 o'clock live broadcast (for a short time at least) by clicking on the "West Nile Found in Lubbock" (page down a bit, right side of the front page).

Sure, every local news station has done a story on West Nile. The fact that they did it in front of my house isn't a big deal either. Problem is, in every single broadcast of this story they stated that they were reporting from 103rd and University and that one of the sites where the mosquitos had been captured was at 103rd and University. (You can also read the accompaying story. "Traps at 103rd and University...") Maybe the traps were placed where 103rd and University would be if it actually existed, but THERE IS NO 103RD AND UNIVERSITY! They were reporting from 109th and University. I know it because I live there! In fact, there is no 99th-107th and University at all, so it's not like they could have gotten lost driving through the neighborhoods looking for a kiddie pool to demonstrate that you should empty them out every few days.

I know, I know. It's no big deal, and I really shouldn't give a shit. But how hard is it to get little things like your location right? I felt like opening my door in the middle of her live broadcast and yelling at her. After her 5 o'clock broadcast was finished, I went outside to tell her, but they were doing their best to look busy, and I kept telling myself that it was no big deal, so I went back inside.

And, of course, the mistake was repeated again during her 6 o'clock broadcast, but this time I was pissed at them because we couldn't leave our house so that my wife and I could go out for our anniversary until she had finished yapping.

Update
Since posting this this morning, I emailed KCBD, and someone has modified the online story to remove the actual locations. It now reads simply, "Scientists have captured mosquitos from 4 different areas in Lubbock that all test positive for west Nile virus." Dunno if it's due to my email or not. Now if they'll only dub over their voices in the video.

Say Baby, Wanna See My Theorem?

Not exactly sure what category to put this under. I'd seen this headline but never bothered to read the story until Ryan pointed me to it.

Geniuses, criminals do best work in their 30s

He believes the male competitive urge to attract females is a driving force for the scientific and criminal achievements, according to New Scientist magazine.

"They do whatever they do" in order to win the sexual attention of women, Kanazawa said.

There are a lot of misguided scientists out there if that's the case (and I'm not saying it isn't, but there isn't a shred of evidence in this story that it is). Somehow the majority of women don't seem too impressed with a guy who's proven a few theorems, no matter how ground-breaking. My guess is the same can be said for scientists who conduct studies to determine when genius and criminal behavior peaks.

"Oooh Honey, your theorem... it's just so... so... huge."

Am I Going to Hell For This?

About a week ago, the wife and I were shopping at KMart, and we happened to stop by the baseball card section. For old-time's sake, I picked up a couple of packs and the wife picked up a box of Fleer Ultra. When we went to check out, the box, which was listed at $13.99, rang up for $1.99. The cashier noticed it, and called over her manager. After scanning a second, third, and fourth time and always coming up with $1.99, the manager shrugged her shoulders and said, "Act like you never saw it."

Well, today I had to stop by KMart today to pick up some vitamin B6 for the wife and some weed 'n feed for the yard. I passed by the baseball card section on my way to get the vitamins, and I picked up a box of the Ultra and went to one of the little scanners they have for your convenience. It read $1.99. I bought only what I came for, and went home. When I got home, I convinced my wife to go with me to KMart to buy up all of their boxes of Ultra cards. I'm an admitted wimp when it comes to possible confrontation, so I let her be the bulldog. I have little doubt that if they would have given us a problem, she would have still walked out of there with the cards at $1.99 per box. But it didn't come to that. The cashier rang them up without a second thought, and we got 9 boxes of Ultra cards (10 if you count the one we snagged last week) at $1.99 a piece.

So, my question is a moral one. Are we going to Hell for this or not? We knew we were getting the cards for well below the listed price, thereby taking advantage of an obvious error on KMart's part. I know that a store is obligated to sell merchandise at the price displayed, even if the computer rings it up at a higher price. Is there a reverse rule? Is the store obligated to sell the merchandise at the price that the computer rings it up at even if the displayed price is higher?

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it; I'm just curious what others would think about it.

This all reminds me when I was a kid and got a Megatron Transformer (the one that turns into the Walther PPK pistol) at Wal Mart for like $2 when the listed price was a lot higher than that. Also reminds me of the time the lady in the comic book store accidentally gave me a $20 bill in my change in place of the $1 bill I was supposed to get. Being the upstanding young man I was, I turned around and blew it on even more comics. Yeah, I'm gonna burn in Hell.

File This One Under "No Shit"

Death Rate Higher on Very Hot, Cold Days: Study

A higher-than-normal number of deaths occurs during boiling hot or freezing cold weather and the socially disadvantaged are most likely to be affected, according to the findings of a six-year study in seven U.S. cities.

About the only thing even mildly interesting in the whole story was that respiratory-related deaths occured more often in cold weather than in hot weather, but they don't even say whether they wagered a guess as to why.

Sweet Revenge

Serena Williams trounced Justine Henin-Hardenne at Wimbledon to get to the finals, and I was damn glad to see her do it. Sure she's going to downplay the revenge angle, but you could see it in her play and her mannerisms that she was looking to obliterate Henin-Hardenne. Why would she want revenge? For her loss to Henin-Hardenne at the French Open? I'm sure that's part of it, but what I think she really wanted to kick her ass for was an incident that occured during their meeting at the French Open.

In case you missed it or simply don't care, here's how the story describes it:

Williams accused Henin-Hardenne of cheating in their Paris match by requesting a timeout and then failing to acknowledge it. Following the upset, Williams drew boos when she brusquely shook hands with the Belgian.

They're taking the middle road here. I saw it unfold before my eyes, and while it's technically not cheating, it's tantamount to the same thing. Here's what happened.

While Henin-Hardenne was serving, Serena held up her hand. This is basically the signal for a time out. The chair umpire didn't see Serena hold up her hand, and Henin-Hardenne served and won the point. Serena argued, and the result of the point stood. Where Henin-Hardenne showed very poor form is in not coming forward and offering to replay the point.

In most other sports, this is perfectly acceptable behavior. In tennis, however, it's not. Tennis is much like golf. At a great many levels of the games, there are no chair umpires or linesmen. The players are expected to call their own lines (meaning, of course, whether their opponent's shot is in or out), and they are expected to do so with total honesty. If neither player knows whether a ball was in or out, let's call a let and play the point over. This breeds a stronger "code of ethics" than in most sports. Because of this, breaches in etiquette that appear minor to someone not familiar with tennis actually aren't so minor.

So I was happy to see Serena kick the shit out of Henin-Hardenne in this match. I was even more pleased to watch her smile warmly and shake hands with Henin-Hardenne after it was over.

A Bone to Pick

ESPN's Jeff Merron has provided us with a list of the most overrated athletes of all time.

He lists Nolan Ryan as #7.

Let me start out by saying that Nolan Ryan is easily my favorite baseball player of all time. I have a Nolan Ryan baseball card collection that is composed of 890 cards (672 if you don't count duplicates). Every one of the cards has been graded, accounted for in an Excel worksheet (the insanity of which Ryan can attest to), and carefully preserved in a sleve/toploader combination or a screwdown (when appropriate).

Having said that, I have no problems with Nolan Ryan being on a list of overrated athletes. As stated in the accompanying story (How we made the lists):

For example, Nolan Ryan. On several occasions in the past at ESPN.com, we've asked users to name the greatest pitcher of all time. Ryan, with his legacy of strikeouts and no-hitters, has won the poll. But he wasn't a greater pitcher than Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton, to name just two of his contemporaries. That's why we feel Ryan, who never won a Cy Young Award, is overrated.

No, Ryan is not the greatest pitcher of all time. Despite his being my favorite baseball player, even I know that.

What I take issue with is the comparison of Ryan to Carlton, especially the statement that Carlton won four Cy Youngs and Ryan won none. There are years that Ryan should have won the Cy Young, and would have if his teams had supplied him with more run support. Case and point? If you look at 1972 in Ryan's career statistics, you see that he had a 2.28 ERA, and barely finished above 0.500 with 19 wins and 16 losses. This is the story of Ryan's career. In 1981 with Houston, he didn't pitch enough games to earn the Cy Young, but he had a 1.69 ERA, and in nearly half the games he had a no decision or a loss! That's absurd!

To address this Merron states:

Granted, he pitched most of his career for mediocre teams, but he never won the Cy Young Award (Steve Carlton, his contemporary and also a strikeout pitcher, won four Cy Youngs).

Huh? He never played for any decent teams, but we're going to hold it against him and point out that he never won any Cy Youngs anyway? In fact, if you forget about wins and losses, as they are a function of both the pitcher's effectiveness and the team's run production, Nolan actually has a lower career ERA. Ryan's is 3.19 while Carlton's is 3.22 (Carlton's stats).

But how else can we account for the effect of the team on the pitcher? There are probably many ways. Just messing around, I compared how well Ryan and Carlton did by looking at their win percentage minus their team's win percentage. This is plotted in the following graph:

The Fine Print:

• Only includes years in which the pitcher appeared in 20 or more games.
  
• The team's win percentage includes games pitched by Ryan and Carlton. (It's almost impossible at this point to compute the winning percentage of the team for the games that Ryan and Carlton didn't appear in without going through a very large number of boxscores. You want to do it for me?)
  
• Carlton pitched for three teams in 1986 (Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco) and for two teams in 1987 (Cleveland and Minnesota). The team winning percentage for those years was computed by averaging the winning percentages for those teams. Again, I'm not very keen on trying to find out just what stretches of the seasons Carlton was on which team.
  
• Finally, it's hardly fair to penalize either pitcher for winning 66% of their games while their team won 70% of their games, so I really ought to be adjusting for this somehow. Ah well, no measure is perfect.
  

The conclusions? Well, Carlton's difference appears to be (on average) slightly higher than Ryan's. The average difference for Carlton is 4.8%, and is 2.0% for Ryan. Considering the scatter of the points, that's not much. (That's plain English for "It's not statistically significant by any stretch of the imagination.") On the other hand, Ryan's winning percentage was below his team's 9 out of 25 years while Carlton's was below his team's 9 out of 20 years. Conclusion: Call it a draw.

So, no, he wasn't a greater pitcher than Carlton. But in light of the teams each pitcher pitched for, Carlton wasn't a greater pitcher than Ryan either.

Overrated athlete? Sure. He's not the greatest pitcher ever. Want to show this by comparing him to Steve Carlton? Pick somebody better Merron.

Addendum
I was just thinking that comparing a pitcher's winning percentage to the winning percentage of the team is probably not the best way to go about this. The team's winning percentage will be a function of both the hitting and pitching (and, to a lesser degree, the fielding) abilities of the team. What is probably best is to explore the relationship between the pitcher's winning percentage and the team's offensive prowess alone.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to get offensive statistics for their respective teams, and I did such an analysis. I'll leave out the boring details. I'll just say that it involved predicting the pitcher's winning percentage based on their team's standardized batting average score using regression. The conclusions are pretty much the same. Give Ryan or Carlton an average hitting team, and they'll do pretty much the same.

I found it interesting that prior to 1986, Carlton's team's batting average was below the league average only 3 years out of 18. Ryan's team's batting average was below the league average 15 years out of 25. To say that Ryan played for some "mediocre" teams is, in light of this, an understatement. By the way, Ryan had a winning record in 8 of those 15 years. Carlton had a winning record in 1 of those 3 years; including the amazing 1972 season where he won 73% of his games while Philly won only 38% for the year.

No, Not The Cereal

GREATEST... NAME... EVER!

Coco Crisp

Tires & Speed

While driving home from Dallas a couple of weekends ago, we were pulled over by the police for speeding. The cop said we were doing 78 (in a 70), while we had the speedometer set at 74. I trust my speedometer. Every time I drive by one of those "Your speed is" gadgets, it's dead-on with my speedometer. If I'm to assume that my speedometer is correct, then that leaves two possibilities: His radar or his speedometer (he was driving in the opposite direction at the time) need calibrating or he's -----. He let us off with a warning, and I got the distinct feeling that they were just looking for someone to search, not give a speeding ticket to.

Regardless, it got me thinking. The size of my tires is not the same as those originally on the truck. Looking them up on the internet, I see they're a half inch larger in diameter. So I was thinking, what difference does that make? If my speedometer reads 74 mph, at what speed am I actually traveling?

It's an easy calculation, and the answer is:

S * d2 / d1

Where S is the speed your speedometer is giving you, d2 is the diameter of your current tires, and d1 is the diameter of the tires used to calibrate the speedometer.

So, if my speedometer read 74 mph, then we were actually traveling at around 75 mph (new tires are 29.5 inches, original tires were 29 inches).

Want to see the calculations? Read on.

» Click to finish reading "Tires & Speed"

The Name of the Rose

I just recently finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Good book. I'm not a fan of mysteries, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. After reading it, I decided that I wanted to watch the movie starring Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, and Christian Slater in a new light. I've watched it quite a few times before, but I never paid much attention to the plot. At the time I was more interested in seeing the naked peasant girl. So, I found someone on eBay selling the DVD, and paid a reasonable price for it to be shipped to me from Brazil. (It's the Portuguese version, but you can select the English language verison. The English version costs an arm and a leg; the two completed auctions for it on eBay were for $31 and $61!) At present, I'm still waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

So after watching Caesar last night for the second time, I was flipping through the channels before rolling over and falling asleep, and what do I see on one of the millions of premium movie channels we pay out the ass for? It was an hour into it already, and I didn't want to spoil my DVD viewing experience, so I didn't watch it, but dammit this kind of crap always seems to happen. It's just like when I order something and it's a week or two late in arriving. I call or write the people to check on the status of my order, and I'll be damned if the package never fails to arrive the very next day.

Caesar

Watched all 4 hours of Caesar on TNT.

Could have been a whole lot better if it had been 10 hours. I thought the story was very disjointed, and it glossed over a vast number of details that (I felt) would have advanced the story much better. And I'm not even going to go into the inaccuracies (there were many). I'll chalk it up to artistic license.

Not enough time was spent giving the viewer a clearer picture of the political landscape of the time. We learn who Caesar's enemies were, yes, but why were they his enemies? What was floating around in the wind to cause Pompey to slowly turn on Caesar? Why was Cato such an important adversary?

I was also annoyed by the battle scene at Alesia. It was flat out confusing. After watching it, I had to go read up on it to figure out how Caesar won the battle. My wife, watching the 11 o'clock (Central) re-broadcast was as confused as I was on my first viewing. There's a scene where Caesar, standing before a map, describes what Vercingetorix and his reinforcements on the outside of the walls are going to do, but he never describes what he himself is going to do to counter it. That would have cleared things up a great deal.

I was also disappointed in Jeremy Sisto's portrayal of Caesar. He looks like he's about to cry in every scene.

Garage Days Re-Re-Visited?

Disclaimer: This comes from someone who used to be a Metallica fanatic. I quit bothering to care after Load came out. Personally, I think their new stuff sucks.

That being said, I've heard a total of three songs off of their new album St. Anger. Every one of them sounds like they were recorded in a garage. Is this supposed to signify some kind of return to their roots?

Let me get this straight. They presumably spent a load (pun intended) of money on a recording studio, a producer, sound men, and the other assorted personnel "required" to put out a major release of this sort. I'm also guessing that they spent a good deal of time getting the sound and feel of the album just right; that is, sounding like it was recorded in a garage.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't they have done that by recording it in a garage in the first place?

Two Men and a Ball

Remember that post I did about the prisoner's dilemma?

Here it is in action!

Bonds No. 73 Ball: a Story of Greed

If the two dolts had agreed to cooperate and split the proceeds from the sale down the middle, they'd each be making off with a cool quarter mil before taxes. But no. Instead their lawyers are making off with the money, and they're left standing there looking like idiots.

Idiots.

Did You Drink Your 42 Cups of Tea Today?

Can tea lower cholesterol?

The subjects, all of whom were on a low-fat diet, were randomly assigned to receive either the pill or a placebo for 12 weeks. Those receiving the tea extract pill were given a high-antioxidant dosage, equivalent to seven cups of black tea and 35 cups of green tea. (Emphasis added.)

Hey, I've got no problems with the study as it appears it was conducted. Good show. On the other hand...

The finding adds to the growing body of research illuminating the broad health benefits of tea drinking.

No, it doesn't. There's no guarantee that the effects seen at the high doses studied will manifest themselves at the lower doses a regular tea drinker will be exposed to. There isn't a magical formula that says if I drink 1 cup of black tea and 5 cups of green tea per day, I'll see a 1/7th of 16% (2.3% - On average. Individual results may vary.) drop in my cholesterol level.

Update: Two stories I've read since posting this have reversed the amounts of black and green tea extract. Tea can lower cholesterol, study shows and Study: Tea Extracts Help Lower Cholesterol

Pig Shit and Love Canal

60 Minutes just finished airing a story about pig farming in North Carolina (associated online story), and Morley Safer compared the ungodly amounts of pig shit with Love Canal.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't studies shown that cancer rates at Love Canal are comparable to, and in many cases lower than, those of nearby areas?

Salted Margaritas!

This recent addition by Snopes.com, Movers and Salt Shakers, reminded me of an experience an old friend of mine once had while applying for a job at a Mexican restaurant in Lake Charles. She walked in, asked to fill out an application, and was given an application and told to go fill it out in the bar. The bartender approached her and informed her that drinks were two for one, so she ordered margaritas. (Casa does have some damn good margaritas. You can even get their mix in stores around Lake Charles, and apparently will be able to order them via the internet very soon.)

The manager came out and informed her that anyone who would drink while applying for a job was not exactly the type of person they wanted working for them.

While I'm talking about Casa, this old guy is great. He walks around the restaurant and chats with the customers, asks how your food is, asks how you are, etc. Other than refill a drink or two, I've never seen him do anything else. Every restaurant should have a Mr. Smith. (Actually, until this very minute, I didn't know his name was Mr. Smith. My sister and I always called him Mr. Mañana because we consider him as much a part of the place as their nachos.)

Escape From LA

Phew. Back in Lubbock. Hello dry air! My stock response when people ask me if I'm ready to go back or if I'm glad to be back: I'm (looking forward to/glad to be back at) work so I can relax.

I think that the ultimate parody that Weird Al could ever do would be to take a song that is meant to be silly and make it a serious one. (B-52's "Rock Lobster" comes immediately to mind for some reason.) That would've been pure genius and the funniest song that Weird Al would've ever writen (to me, anyway). Maybe he's already done it and I've totally missed out. Something by the Barenaked Ladies would be good as well. Speaking of BNL, their album Gordon has an amazing number of references to other bands and artists. It's purely staggering.

Darrell's Po-Boys

If you ever find yourself driving on Interstate 10 through Lake Charles, Louisiana, you would be doing yourself a huge favor to take a short detour and stop at Darrell's. I know less about Darrell's history than I do about Cotten's, but I can proudly say I was there when it started. Darrell's started in a, let's not mince words here, dump of a bar. I mean a total dive. When not getting people drunk, I suppose they wanted a way to make money during the day. So they started selling po-boys. Nothing unusual with that. Walking into Darrell's in those early days, you were just as likely to see folks that looked like they forgot to leave the bar at closing time the night before as you were to see fellow college students who were also in on the secret. Darrell's didn't stay a secret for too long, though, and soon the crowd shifted from bar flies and college students to your typical businessmen out for lunch throwing their ties over their back or stuffing them into their shirts (with good reason, which I'll get to).

As business grew and grew, I guess Darrell's outgrew their humble roots and they moved into the building where they currently are. It's much larger, much cleaner, and there's McNeese (GO POKES!) and other sports-related paraphanalia hanging on the walls. In short, it's your typical sports bar now, complete with the scattered TVs (one of them a very large screen projection) showing nothing but sports. Even though the atmosphere has changed (as with all things, it just ain't the same), thankfully the po-boys haven't.

Looking at the menu on the wall, you wouldn't think that Darrell's is anything special. They have ham, turkey, roast beef, american, swiss, provolone, etc. You know, the usual fare. I'm sure there's more to be had there, but I've rarely had anything other than a roast beef with swiss. The roast beef is some of the best I've eaten. It's saturated by a gravy that leaves a sizeable puddle in the basket by the time you've finished (watch those sleeves and ties). (As an aside, my wife, with a quality roast beef, can make a damn good replica.) But, as good as the meat that goes into the po-boy is, it's not even the best part in my opinion.

If you go, make sure you ask for the "special sauce". It's jalapeno mayonaise, nothing more, nothing less. It's not hot, but it gives the sandwich just the right kick. In fact, next time you're making a hot sandwich, cut up a few jalapeno peppers and mix it in with some mayo. Try it. You might be surprised how much you like it.

The best part about their po-boys is the bread, hands down. It's the perfect balance of crusty, soft, and chewy. You must have all three of those qualities in the right proportions in order to have a good po-boy, and Darrell's has them nailed, let me tell you. (Oddly enough, the closest I've found to Darrell's bread is at California Dreaming in Columbia, South Carolina. They are, I believe, a chain.) I really wish I knew their recipe or supplier, because my wife and I haven't found a decent bread to make po-boys in Lubbock, and I seriously doubt we will. I suppose I could start experimenting with some French bread recipes.

Anyway, I'll wrap up this love-fest. I haven't yet gone there during my trip to LA yet, but I plan on trying. If you find yourself planning a trip that goes through Lake Charles, make sure you time it so you're hungry at that time. Here's a handy dandy map.

Statistics Show...

Sent to me by a former student.

Trip to LA, Day ??? Ummm... I Forget

Just a quick blog to say...

WOO HOO!!!

GO DEVILS!!!

Fried shrimp and catfish tonight. Yummy.
Scratch that. Shrimp stew. Still yummy, though.

College World Series

After a two year absence, the LSU Tigers are back at Omaha!

GEAUX TIGERS!

Visit to LA, Day 3

Spent the last two nights at a campground. Man, roughing it sucks. Air conditioned cabin. A futon to sleep on. A refrigerator, two-burner stove, shower, and hot and cold running water. Terrible, let me tell you.

My son caught his first fish. An itty bitty goggle eye.

Food update: Boiled crawfish. 'Nuff said. Mmmmmmm...

Heading to Baton Rouge tomorrow and New Orleans the day after. Good cajun pork roast tomorrow night. At least it better be good, sis. Mmmmmm...

Trip to LA, Day 1

The drive yesterday and last night was uneventful, but was a bit longer than usual due to the rain, our attempts to avoid the rain, and the ever-present road construction. But, we made it to Lake Charles fine.

Ryan thought it would be nice if I acted as a "food correspondant" while I'm here. Whether he was joking or not, I'm going to take him up on it since I won't have time to dig around to find anything worth writing on. (Unless someone points me to something, that is.)

Today my wife and I had lunch at Cotten's ("Cotten's, the king of the grill!"). Mmmm... Cotten's has a long history in Lake Charles. Their burgers are amazing, but the best thing they have to offer is their onion rings. Vidalia onions sliced very thin and lightly breaded. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to really cook a good onion ring. Crunchy, greasy, and with plenty of crunchies at the bottom of the basket to enjoy after you've finished off the onions. The only thing that I've seen that even approximates it was years ago while I was visiting my father in the New England area. The only difference was that they weren't called "onion rings", rather it was called an "onion brick". They were formed into the shape of a brick and fried so that it kept that shape. As good as they were, they still ain't the same.

Cotten's burgers are still great ("Make mine old fashioned, please!" - i.e. with grilled onions.), but once upon a time they used to fall apart and make a mess of things. Ahhh, the good old days. They still taste the same, but it's just not quite as good without pieces of meat falling out and mayonaise running down your arms.

I'm not exactly sure of the details, but word has it that the owner of Cotten's once worked as a cook for the Colonial Inn whose burgers fell apart even more readily and whose onion rings were equally out-of-this-world (if not better). Supposedly, he started Cotten's with the same basic recipes that he learned from Colonial Inn. I remember eating Colonial Inn's burgers and rings on a regular basis. At the time, I didn't quite understand why people would want to eat burgers that fell apart on you. Of course, I understand now and miss it.

Important Non-Discovery

Study Finds Jack Shit (Thanks, Brian)

11 hour drive ahead of me, so reading something like this is always a good start, especially considering the band of showers we're going to have to drive through around Fort Worth and Dallas. Ugh.

Depression and Sex

Since I love to trash studies reported in the media, I suppose it's only fair to point out when somebody gets it right.

Study links depression, suicide rates to teen sex

Notice, no headline screaming that teen sex is the cause of depression and suicide. Just a link.

The Heritage researchers do not find a causal link between "unhappy kids" and sexual activity, says Robert Rector, a senior researcher with Heritage. "This is really impossible to prove." But he says that study findings send a clear message about unhappy teens that differs from one portrayed in the popular culture, that "all forms of non-marital sexual activity are wonderful and glorious, particularly the younger (teen) the better," he says.

They point out that they have not found a causal link. Good for them.

Tamara Kreinin of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) says "we need to take depression among the young very seriously." But it is a "disservice" to blame sexual activity and ignore "divorce, domestic violence, sexual abuse, substance abuse, lack of parental and community support and questions about sexual orientation," she says.

I'm guessing that SIECUS is a more liberal organization. While the tone of the two quotes is different, the basic meaning is the same: It's basically impossible to blame teen sex for depression and suicide.

The real test will be to see how this study, and others like it, are used to determine policy. But at least USA Today did a good job reporting the findings.

PUNCH BUG!

Volkswagen and other car enthusiasts find plenty of ways to play decades-old game

I got a kick out of this since my wife and I still play. Our rules:

1) The old bug is a "punch bug" and adds one to your current total while a new beetle is an "unpunch bug" and subtracts one from your opponent's current total. Negative totals are allowed. You are allowed one punch for every point. Taking a punch reduces your total by one. Only bugs or beetles that appear to be in drivable condition are acceptable.
2) There are "double punch bugs" and "double unpunch bugs". Convertible bugs or beetles are doubles. A bug with the engine showing is a double. A beetle with a bra is a double ("dressed unpunch bug").
3) In case of a tie, the punch or unpunch bug is off-limits until it goes completely out of sight and is seen again.
4) If a double punch bug is accidentally called as a single, the caller receives at least one point. The first person to correctly call the double will receive the remaining point. Similar rules apply for unpunch bugs.
5) When passing by a dealership or bug graveyard, a maximum of five points can be claimed (or lost) between the two players.

I forsee leagues forming soon.

Ban 'Em! Ban the Walkers!

Somebody please, shoot me now.

Alert! Wheeled walkers are unsafe at any speed

Despite being placed under a voluntary ban by Health Canada in 1989, Safe Kids said more than 1,000 Canadian children are injured each year using the walkers.

Yeah, that's reasonable.

The survey also found 85 per cent of walker injuries come from falling down stairs, an accident twice as likely to produce a serious head injury.

Wait a minute? Ban the walkers because our kids are falling down stairs? Huh? Could someone please explain that one to me? Why not ban second stories on houses, or make it illegal to raise a child in a house with more than one story? Following their logic, that is just as reasonable a request/demand.

Idiots.

And then there's this sob story:

Walkers targeted for ban

Matthew was her fourth child, and Marlene's gut told her putting him in a baby walker was a bad idea.

When the Calgary mom received one as a gift, Marlene (whose name has been changed at her request) thought maybe she was being overprotective, and propped the little boy in it to watch the busy household buzz around him.

"Then one of the other kids left a door open, and he fell down the stairs," she says. "His nose was broken, his eyes were black, his whole face was bruised purple. And we got off lucky."

Oh, yeah, blame it on the walker. Don't blame it on the kid for leaving the door open. Or, even better yet, don't blame it on your inability to install a simple child gate at the top (and bottom) of the stairs. Not only that, but it's not that difficult to install your own spring so that the swing gates will automatically close if left open by one of your other kids.

Thoughts on "Scholars Who Blog"

The Chronicle of Higher Education has recently published an article with the descriptive title "Scholars Who Blog". I'm hesitant to throw my hat into the ring and discuss the article and the topic because I'm afraid that I'll likely not add anything original or new to the discussion, but at the urging of Ryan, I'll do just that.

Some have started blogging in order to muse aloud about their research. Others want to polish their chops at opinion-writing for nonacademic audiences. Still others have more urgent and personal reasons.

I would have a hard time pinning down exactly why I choose to participate in this blog. I rarely, if ever, read blogs if I'm being honest. Of course, my visits to blogs has increased somewhat since I've started participating in DPS (Dead Parrots Society). I love commenting/ranting about some of the absurd things I see (daily) in the news, especially when it's a scientific study of some sort. That doesn't entirely explain it, however. I'll happily write about more personal things. Maybe I just like to hear myself talk?

There are a few things that I will not write about, however. I won't write about my research or colleagues in any great detail, for example. I just don't see DPS as a pulpit from which to promote myself.

"The development of the blog lowers the cost of publishing almost to the vanishing point," says Jack M. Balkin, a professor of law and the director of the Information Society Project at Yale University, who maintains a blog called Balkinization. "It really does help realize the promise of the Internet as a place for wide-ranging public discussion."

And so on...

No doubt blogs can be a wonderful facilitator of academic discussion. One of the things that we need to be careful of, however, is to not let it extend beyond the discussion of and free exchange of ideas. In other words, it should never take the place of traditional peer-reviewed research (in whatever incarnation it takes, and despite the problems inherent in it). Surely, if someone posts research on the web without having it first reviewed, it will go through a different process of review as thousands of people read it. The problem, however, is that by the time the dust has settled and the research has either been validated or refuted (of course, it's not quite as dichotomous as that), many people will have been taken in, won't care, will never hear the eventual consensus, and so on. A recent example is the flury of online discussion and online "research" results during and following the 2000 presidential election controversy. There was no review process, and the resulting flood was too much, for myself at least, to keep up with. In fact, a friend of mine (also a statistician) and I wrote a critical letter to the authors of one of the earliest analyses. After that single foray, I simply decided not to bother with others because it would have consumed my every waking hour. My sister later found a mention of our letter in a list of "research" about the 2000 election. They had characterized our critique as an analysis of the data in its own right, which it never was. Perhaps this is another danger. Things can easily be taken out of context.

One of the things that I do worry about is what happens when I hear from the author of a study that I've skewered on DPS? When I write a scathing entry, it's really a criticism of both the study and the way the study was reported in the media. Of course, without reading the study myself, I have no idea if, and to what degree, the reporter writing the story has mischaracterized the nature of the research and its conclusions. But I don't think that really matters. Even if the study itself is flawless, and the story about the study butchers it completely, it is entirely appropriate to attack it. If it appears on NBC, ABC, CBS, FoxNews, CNN, and so on, then millions of people will have seen it and believed it, when based on what was reported, they have absolutely no reason to. Call it education. If there's one thing I hope to accomplish by doing this, it's to get people to be more skeptical about these things.

So, maybe DPS is a pulpit after all.

Gangsta Country

Dixie Chicks Ruffle More Feathers

This time, they take issue with the fact that Maines apparently chose to take a shot at fellow country musician Toby Keith during her May 21 performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Maines wore a sleeveless shirt with the letters F.U.T.K. on the front.

Apparently she also doesn't know how to spell "you". Looks like the Texas/Oklahoma rivalry is coming to a head. Unlike inner city gangsters, a typical country boy knows how to aim.

Dreams

Last two nights, I've had some strange dreams. Two nights ago, I was placed in a cross between Night of the Living Dead and Interview with the Vampire. Mindless zombies suddenly started appearing everywhere wanting to consume as much human flesh as possible. Somehow, we had access to firearms of all kinds, from pistols to fully automatic machine guns. (Yes, I'm aware that's repetitive and redundant. Ditto.) So we start blasting the zombies. Just as we're making headway, another group of undead (the vampires) shows up in 18 wheelers. Why 18 wheelers? That seemed kind of odd to me, even in the dream, but I'll come back to that.

» Click to finish reading "Dreams"

The Final Frontier

The 'space age' in total eclipse

Good overview. I felt sad when I read this.

American Idol Part 3

'American Idol' voting overtaxed U.S. phone systems

Fox continues with its head-in-the-sand approach, however, despite the evidence that the final result was as reflective of public sentiment as a coin flip would have been. (Emphasis added.)

Interesting choice of words, eh?

Volokh Conspiracy & Demographics

Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy had an interesting idea for obtaining demographic information for visitors to websites.

The basic idea is that too many people will be turned off by answering several questions about themselves leading to a low response rate, which as a general rule leads to biased estimates. So why not ask users of a website a single randomly chosen question instead?

It's a great idea. It would almost certainly lead to much higher response rates and thus less bias in the estimates. There's one problem of note, however. Such a sampling scheme would make it impossible to search for associations/correlations in the demographic data. It would not be possible, for example, to determine what percentage of 18-21 year olds supported the war in Iraq. If such information is not of interest (i.e. only one-dimensional demographic data is all we care about), then the idea is great. Looking for these associations are often the meat and potatoes of surveys of this sort, however.

MechaStreisand is Loose Again!

TheSmokingGun.com

Invasion of privacy? So I guess that little fence gives her a reasonable expectation of privacy? FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS? Is she not making enough money writing memos to make the mortgage payments?

This is another case I'll be following closely. If she wins, does that mean that I can file lawsuits against everyone that drives by my house? I'll settle for $20 or a bottle of Crown, though.

Junk Science, Part 4!

Honeymooners test sweet sex brew

Crap. Pure and utter crap. I don't even have to point out why, but I will. Am I understanding this right that they are only looking for one test couple? ONE?! Even if they're planning to use numerous couples, there's no mention of a control group. This from a professional scientific society?

Furthermore, if you need help on your honeymoon, you got some serious issues that I doubt getting snockered will help.

Separated at Birth?

With my sister's permission, here is a photo of her boyfriend and a photo of Bosco (Jason Wiles).

Junk Science, Part 3?

Anxiety 'may increase cancer risk'

I don't quite know enough of the details to give a thorough thrashing of this study, but there are some very troubling things.

In this latest study, scientists from the University of Bergen followed up 62,591 people who had taken part in a medical survey between 1995 and 1997.

The survey was originally used to draw up a national cancer register in Norway to identify those who had developed cancer or abnormal cells that could turn into cancer.

Those involved in the study also took a test to determine if they suffered from anxiety.

Did they take the anxiety test at the time of the original survey, or was the test given in the recent past by the researchers of the present study? If it was the latter, then presuming that those participating in the initial survey were told whether they had "cancer or abnormal cells that could turn into cancer", don't you think that an increase in anxiety would result?

The survey did not provide information on whether people smoked or led unhealthy lifestyles, which increase the chances of developing cancer.

Oh, good going there, guys.

Update: According to this story, the anxiety test was given at the time of the original survey. But I find the following curious:

Because of the large size of the Norwegian study, the researchers were unable to accurately assess whether other factors such as smoking, lack of self-care or poor diet could have contributed to the difference in cancer risk between anxious and non-anxious people.

So they have the wherewithal to give 62,591 people an anxiety test, but they don't have the resources to ask them how much they smoke? How often they visit the doctor? How they would rate their diet? Granted, it wouldn't allow for an accurate assessment, but associations/correlations could still be found. Self-reported answers generally lead to more noise (higher variance), but that just makes finding these associations harder to detect, not impossible. One thing that might be problematic would be a systematic bias in the self-reported answers, but that's no reason to not try at least.

Apple Music

Am I just being petty? Am I the only one that gets annoyed every time I hear Nava sing the word "pact" as "pack"?

If Ellen Feiss were to do an AppleMusic.com commercial, what song would she sing?

Daschle Graph

This is old news, really, and I've already posted about it at Rotoguru.com, but I thought it was funny enough to post once again.

For some reason, on September 26, 2002, I happened to be watching a joint press conference given by Senator Tom Daschle and Representative Dick Gephardt. I think that the press was hoping for some remarks about Iraq even though the press conference was about something else entirely. I can't remember now what it was about exactly, but Daschle pulled out the following graph:

(Click on the picture for the full-size image.)

I captured this image from the archived video that I found at CSPAN.org, although I cannot get the movie to play now. Rest assured that it is entirely unaltered.

Science in the Media

There's really nothing wrong with this story other than the title.

Breastfeeding Counters Harm of Smoking in Pregnancy

Research has suggested that smoking during pregnancy can have a negative effect on a child's mental development. But in the new study, 9 year olds whose mothers smoked during pregnancy and breast-fed them for more than three weeks scored similarly on tests of reading, math and spelling as breast-fed children of mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy.

That's all well and good. No problems there. They even offer an alternative explanation:

Alternatively, women who breast-feed may differ in important qualities from women who don't -- perhaps in IQ or parenting skills -- and these differences might explain why their children did better on the tests, she said.

Great!

BUT WHY TITLE THE DAMN STORY LIKE THEY DID?! This study doesn't prove that breastfeeding counters the effect of smoking, it only offers it up as a possibility!

Open Container Laws in Louisiana?

Found on FARK.com:

Daiquiri outlets give seal of approval to bill

She said lids now are being taped onto each drive-through drink. Also in keeping with the bill, open straws are not put in drinks. Wrapped straws are provided.

No, this is not a joke. As a native of Louisiana, let me assure you that this really does happen. Tape over the lid of a styrofoam cup does not violate the open container laws in Louisiana, even if the lid has a hole for the straw.

GO DEVILS!

Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight.

GO

Biennial Refresher Training on Employment Non-Discrimination Training

Every two years, employees of Texas Tech are required to take a refresher on job discrimination and sexual harassment. I'd rather make a trip to the dentist, but okay, I can see the need for it. Luckily, we're allowed to do it online, print out and sign a certificate of completion, all from the comfort of our office.

Two things jumped out at me while taking this online course. While discussing how common sexual harrasment is, they include the following:

A 1976 Redbook Magazine survey reported that about 90% of 9,000 women respondents said they had been sexually harassed in the workplace.

Talk about annoying behavior! Citing a statistic from a completely non-scientific, self-selected sample is enough to cause my blood pressure to spike.

Fortunately, to lighten the mood a bit, there was the following picture accompanying a section discussing other aspects of sexual harassment:

That's just fricking hilarious. They don't have the guy just patting her ass, no. He's grabbing a handful of that sucker! I also liked the picture they had accompanying the example of female-on-female sexual harrasment, but I suspect it's only funny in context. (Just has one woman leaning over the shoulder of another.)

Note: The file name was not originally "grabass.jpg". Somehow "216.jpg" just wasn't descriptive enough, so I renamed it.

American Idol Voting Update

This from USAToday:

'Idol' voting strained nerves, nation's telephone systems

If you haven't yet, you might want to read my May 13th post American Idol - A Coin Flip?

Of note:

The Idol finale was like a local radio contest magnified many times, featuring two popular contestants, millions of fans and two phone numbers with equal capacity. (Emphasis added)

BAM! Damn, I nailed it. Hang on while I pat myself on the back.

AT&T;, which supplied the text-messaging option for its 21 million subscribers at 10 cents a pop, supplied 2.5 million votes, or about 10% of the total. "And not a single message got rejected," AT&T;'s Andre Dahan says. AT&T; did not provide a breakdown of votes, but text messaging could have made the difference. (Emphasis added)

That answers that question.

I would be extremely interested to see a breakdown of the votes. In particular, what the differences in percentages are for Ruben vs. Clay in the 1-800 numbers compared to the differences for the text messaging.

You saw it here first! And if you didn't, you should have. What took you so long?

Trip to South Carolina

Phew. I am drained. Just returned to Lubbock from South Carolina, the first leg of which I blogged about the other day. I wasn't supposed to be back until some time this afternoon, but I decided to drive straight through instead of stopping somewhere for the night. ~1250 miles in 20.25 hours. Personally, I think everyone should make that drive by themselves at least once. I don't know exactly what you're supposed to learn by doing it, but it's an experience to say the least. Robby Gordon driving both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 in the same day a great feat? Bah! I've got him beat by half the distance that the Busch series racers raced yesterday (300 miles). Of course, I'm not entering the turns at 180-240 MPH like he will be. But he won't be driving for 20 hours, either. He didn't even finish the 500. Pansy. Twenty-Four Hours of Le Mans? They swap out the drivers. Wusses.

The return drive was much better as it rained both days I made the drive to SC. Ugh.

» Click to finish reading "Trip to South Carolina"

Fourteen Hours

Just finished driving 14 hours, and now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Meridian, MS. A couple of things that came to mind during the drive...

My wife and I once stayed in a hotel in Houston, TX that would accept out-of-town checks but not local checks. (They didn't want the local Johns bringing their hookers there; out-of-town Johns welcome.)

There's a golf course in Lubbock that has a "No Golfing (City Ordinance)" sign at the entrance. I'll try to remember to bring my camera next time I go golfing there.

Clear Channel sucks. The rock station here in Meridian sounds exactly like the rock station in Lubbock. Is there one guy that does all of the station ads/ids for all of the Clear Channel radio stations around the country, or do they have a bunch of guys that sound exactly the same?

Why is it that I'm distracted by silence? I always have to have some kind of noise in the background except when I'm ready to close my eyes and go to sleep. Even in college, I would study in the library with Metallica, Sepultura, Slayer, Pantera, Tool, or some other aggressive band playing on my headphones. If studying at the house, I had the TV on in the background. Am I the norm? Would my thoughts and ideas be clearer and more well developed if I spent more time in quiet contemplation?

"Silence. Something about silence makes me sick." - Rage Against the Machine
"Constant over stimulation numbs me." - Tool

For some reason those popped into my head. I'm sure there's a decent blog in there somewhere, but I'm too tired at the moment to write it.

Good night. I'm going to watch TV.

Initial Weights of the Organs!?

I've been involved in a number of controlled experiments that are trying to determine the accute (short-term) impact of exposure to ammonium perchlorate. The basic way these experiments are conducted is to take a number of critters (deer mice, quail, etc.) and expose them to varying doses of ammonium perchlorate. After the study is over, the critters are sacrificed and various things about them are measured. Included is the weight of the critter and of various organs (testes/ovaries, heart, liver, brain, etc.).

So the long and short of this story is that one of the papers we submitted was just rejected. The referees thought that it was important that we provide the initial weights of the organs.

*sigh*

Think about that for a second.

Grass

Just got finished mowing the lawn. There are several spots in our lawn that we cannot seem to get grass to grow in. So we aerated the soil. Tilled it up. Added some top soil. Fertilized it. Seeded it... twice. Watered it two and three times a day.

No grass. I can count on one hand the number of seeds that have germinated.

Yet it's a constant struggle to keep the grass from growing in the joints in the cement of our driveway and sidewalk.

"Here's a nice spot of some aerated, fertilized soil Mr. Grass. Doesn't that look like a good home?"

"Screw you. I like this crack better."

"Bastard."

(Yes, that's my shadow in 3230. I'm too lazy to go re-take the shot.)

UPDATE - 5/19
Never fails. Waiting for a package to arrive in the mail. Two, three weeks late. I call to find out what's going on, and the damn thing will arrive the very next day. Three of the four bare spots in the yard now have little itty bitty grass seedlings popping up. Woo hoo!

Is This From The Onion?

Politicians lie, new study shows

This has got to be a joke. Is it April 1 again? Has someone subtly hacked MSNBC.com?

But the main cause of lying is increased probing by the public into areas that the government would rather not discuss candidly. If voters only asked fewer questions, politicians would tell them fewer lies.

Too damn funny.

Second-Hand Smoke

Will someone please tell me how this is news?

Critics fume over tobacco study

'We are appalled that the tobacco industry has succeeded in giving visibility to a study with so many problems it literally failed to get a government grant,' said Dr Michael Thun, the society's national vice-president of epidemiology and surveillance research.

'This study is neither reliable nor independent.'

That's it!? That's the only criticism they have that's worthy of printing?

Personally, I have no care in the world one way or the other which side the evidence will eventually favor, but if you're going to attack a study, it should not be an attack of the credibility of the researchers alone. Certainly that should be a consideration, but such criticisms fall flat on their face without any valid criticisms of the methodology accompanying them.

I really hope that the critics come up with some better criticisms, and that the news types who choose how to write these stories include them. Luckily, they have: Second-hand smoke study sparks controversy & Claim that passive smoking does no harm lights up tobacco row

Still, there's that whole rotten apple thing. These were only the three prominent stories linked by news.google.com, but the one that got me in a row was the most prominent of them all.

Matrix Reloaded

I just got back from watching The Matrix Reloaded. I won't provide an in-depth analysis of the movie, as I generally don't like to break down movies like that. (Literature and poetry either, for that matter.) I will offer some initial impressions.

I think I've sufficiently gotten over the whole idiotic "humans as batteries" basis for immersing humans in The Matrix enough to enjoy the twists in this movie. I won't provide any spoilers, but I figured out about halfway through what everyone meant by this whole "choice" thing they were harping on.

I found the movie a decent way to pass a good time (my Coonass background showing, there), but there were a couple of things that I found to be annoying.

During the fight scene that pitted Neo versus a bunch of ex-Agent Smiths, Neo's trenchcoat looked plastic, and that detracted from what was, as far as I could tell, an otherwise flawless "see what we can do with our special effects" scene.

For some reason, the music grated on my nerves at times.

Last, but not least, the slow-motion gimmick was used waaaaaay too much at some of the most inane times. "Look, we have a car flying through the air, let's put it in slow motion for a second so we can see the tires spinning." Don't get me wrong, there are many times in the movie where the use of the slow motion is great. The scene with Trinity falling down the side of the building is a prime example.

Okay, I lied. I will provide one near-spoiler. SEMI-SPOILER ALERT! Don't click on the link to keep reading if you don't want even the tiniest clue as to what happens in the movie.

» Click to finish reading "Matrix Reloaded"

Bitter Disappointment

I was so hoping that building going up a mile down the road from my house was a Hooters. We'd heard tell from a couple of people that it was going to be a Hooters. At the end of March we were in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for the NASCAR race, and while eating at a Hooters on the way out of town, our waitress told us that her manager informed them that morning that Lubbock was getting a Hooters.

Ah well, it's not meant to be yet, I suppose. The building going up is a Buffalo Wild Wings. I just hope and pray they have decent wings. Seems that most places I've eaten at just don't know how to do decent wings.

"We have the best wing sauce ever!"
"Really? Let me taste it. Hmmm... This tastes just like hot sauce."
"No, it's wing sauce."
"What are the ingredients?"
"Hot sauce."

Can you tell I'm not a big fan of wings doused in nothing more than hot sauce? That's why I love Hooters' wings so much. The base of their sauce is mostly butter. The rest of their food is underwhelming, and their fries have way too much salt on them. (Yeah, yeah, I know. It's to sell more beer.) But their wings are *insert best Homer Simpson drooling sound here*. Damn damn damn.

American Idol - A Coin Flip?

While watching American Idol tonight, it popped into my head that the results at this point (with only three contestants remaining) just might be a random flip of the coin. (My wife doesn't miss the show and since the semester is over and I'm home on Tuesday nights, that's what we watch. I could live without it, but I admit rather guiltily that I have formed some opinions as to who I want to see win.)

Anyway, for the uninformed, each of the contestants has a toll free number that the audience can call to vote for that contestant. There is also a number that a voter can send a text message to via their cell phone... I'll get to that later. For now, I want to focus on the toll free numbers.

There are two ways that I can envision Fox setting up the lines alloted to them to receive the votes. Method One is to allocate an equal number of lines for each of the contestants. Method Two is to have a single pool of lines that the incoming calls arrive at. I know that the first method is the simplest and is possible, but I'm not sure if the second method is possible. I also have no clue how Fox has it set up. If the first method is used, however, then the outcome will be nothing more than a coin flip.

» Click to finish reading "American Idol - A Coin Flip?"

Vieques Cancer Rates

Study: Vieques' cancer rates higher than Puerto Rico's

The 9,100 residents of the offshore island of Vieques, where for six decades the U.S. Navy bombed, stored and burned weapons, are 27 percent more likely to have cancer than other Puerto Ricans, according to a study released Friday by thecommonwealth's Health Department.

Wrong. The 27% higher rate is an estimate. The true rate could be higher or it could be lower. That the increase in rates is significant is undoubtedly true, otherwise the study would not have been published. But it is a shame that they did not point out how significant the result is or give the range of likely values for this percentage.

Here's what I mean. If we assume that all 9100 residents of Vieques were included in the study and that 310 of those had cancer and that an equal number of Peurto Rican residents were surveyed and of those 246 had cancer, the likely range of values (95% confidence) for this percentage is 7% higher to 50% higher. The fine print is that this assumes independent observations and that the census from Vieques is treated as a sample. Neither of which is true. I don't know if the researchers made this same mistake, and no indication of it is given in this news story. If we treat the number of Vieques cancers as a fixed number (it was a census, after all) the range goes from about 12% higher to 44% higher. The true range is somewhere in between because the number of cancers is not fixed, nor is it as random as the first method assumes.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't expect a news story meant for a general audience to include these kinds of details. But to a trained statistician, all that is usually necessary for him to get some feel for how the data were analyzed is a range like that I gave above and some indication of sample sizes. If something doesn't jive, he can read the study and examine the gory details in... well... more detail.

Now, on to the idea of hidden causes. The story leaves the reader with the impression that the increase in cancer rates is because of the bombing despite their careful wording. Some work has been done to compare the two populations to determine if there are any causes other than the bombing, but there is more work left to do, and this is pointed out clearly in the story as evidenced in the following paragraphs.

More detailed comparative studies on soil, groundwater, behavior and lifestyle, genetics, plants, trees, fish, and radiation levels -- which will take two years -- will start now to try to determine distinguishing patterns that can help point to causes.

But residents are convinced exposure to carcinogens in the food chain and, particularly, the air are to blame for the statistics cited in the Health Department report.

Although studies are far from complete, health officials noted that colon cancer in women and lung-cancer rates are higher in Vieques than in Puerto Rico, even though both populations smoke at similar levels.

Standing alone, these paragraphs would not cause me to have an urge to scream. In fact, I applaud them. But they come right after a brief history of the bombing activities and the use of depleted uranium ammunition the Navy "improperly" used. (That's another thing. How can they be improperly used? More like nobody wanted them tested in their neighborhood, so they were going to test them somewhere and claim it as an "Ooopsie!")

So, despite all of my ramblings (and despite the deficiency pointed out in the first paragraph), I still think this story does a pretty good job. Even though it gives considerably more face time to the "bombings as a cause" side, it does at least point out that you cannot pin the cause on the bombings yet without more study.

Sunep!

"Klingon Language Interpreter" Urban Legend

Cheater Chea... Ummm... Guess Not

Possible explanation for Derby photo

Anthrax Clue?

New Find Reignites Anthrax Probe

Two sources familiar with the items recovered from the pond described a clear box, with holes that could accommodate gloves to protect the user as he worked. Also recovered were vials wrapped in plastic.

I post this simply because it rings familiar to me in light of the recent finds in Iraq of the "mobile chemical labs". Empty vessels that have little other obvious use but devoid of any trace (as of now) of the material they are purported to have produced.

tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?

Klingon Interpreter Needed for Ore. Mental Patients

No comment needed other than nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e',.

(Klingon linguistics from StarTrek.com.)

Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater!

Stewards investigating 'suspicious' photo

Seems to me if you're going to cheat, you could learn a lesson from the many who have cheated (some very successfully --- for a while) from casinos using concealed electronic devices.

Valedictorian Ruling

Judge grants N.J. student's request to be named valedictorian

The school district argued that the shared honors were fair because it was impossible for the other two students also chosen as valedictorians to match Hornstine's GPA. As non-disabled students they were required to take classes such as gym that receive less weight in calculating the average.

(Emphasis added)

Let me get this straight. The two non-handicapped students are handicapped in an academic sense because they are required to take gym?

But Wolfson said the school's decision "would send the message that we have two valedictorians this year, a disabled one and a non-disabled one."

I think this will be an interesting graduation. Seems to me that this is a "feel good" decision that has little to do with fairness. Would it not have been more fair to judge the students on equal footing? Why not omit those courses that the non-disabled students took that the disabled student could not have taken when computing the grade point average? What kind of message is being sent by this decision? That a disabled student has a built-in head start on the road towards becoming valedictorian? "Just make A's in every class you take, and none of those pesky able-bodied students will be able to touch your grade point average. We're counting on you." Will able-bodied students who are on track for a high GPA now sue to get out of gym so that it will not hurt their average?

Where's King Solomon when you need him? I'm sure Victor will recall the case I was asked to consult on where the runner-up in a beauty contest sued because she thought that the way the scores were computed was unfair. Quit being so damn spoiled and prissy, people!

I have the feeling that this student will find the results of her lawsuit will be a hinderance more than a help in the future (assuming and hoping she doesn't win the --- read carefully now --- 2.5 MILLION dollars). To anyone who remembers this case, she will forever have an asterisk attached to her valedictorian honor. Likely, most people won't remember this, but it will pop up at the most unexpected times. Now that I think about it, I'm probably wrong. It will probably happen more than I think because of the internet. A simple search will turn up her name and the details of this case to anyone interested. To this day, I have people that ask me about things that happened in middle school when I run into them while visiting family in Louisiana, and none of that is archived anywhere on the internet. If she had held her head high, accepted the (co-)honor with dignity and grace, she would never have to face this. Nobody would have asked her, "By the way, how many others were valedictorian in your class?" when she included that on her resume. Instead, she will occasionally hear, "Hey, aren't you that girl...?"

M&M;

Awwww... poor wittle Eminem doesn't want his serwious art wampooned.

SUCK IT UP!

Some Local News

From CNN:

Professor in bioterrorism scare pleads innocent

Texas Tech University researcher Thomas C. Butler, 61, remained free on bond and will no longer be required to wear an electronic monitoring device while he awaits trial.

Butler, who is internationally renowned for his plague research, had told the FBI that 30 vials of bubonic plague bacteria were missing from his laboratory, but then, according to court documents, he admitted he had accidentally destroyed them.

(Emphasis added)

And You Thought You Had Nothing in Common with Your Mom?

Moms, kids carry one another's cells

It turns out that even decades after a woman gives birth, she can still have cells in her blood and tissues that came from her children during pregnancy. And by the same token, many adults appear to harbor such cells they picked up from Mom during their time in the womb.

And then there's this, which I found humorous:

The big question for scientists now is whether harboring these foreign cells is good, bad or irrelevant for a person's health. Some evidence suggests they may set the stage for several kinds of autoimmune disease, in which the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues. But some scientists suspect they may also be helpful.

Of course understanding the process is an important task. And, of course, finding ways to treat those who would be adversly effected by it is also an important task. What I find funny is that they talk about it as if it were some horrible disease that's passed from mother to child. It's part of the human condition. It's a fact of life. You don't catch it like a cold.

With a very slight mismatch, the body's immune system accepts them as normal -- much like a computer unwittingly accepts viruses into its inner workings, Nelson reasons.

And then this. Why do we constantly compare biological processes to mechanical ones? Sure there are parallels, but come on now! It's getting to be a bit too much.

Hotmail Fights Back Against Spam?

Found in my Hotmail account this afternoon:

MSN Hotmail fights back against spam
MSN is strongly committed to helping protect consumers from spam. MSN Hotmail uses leading-edge junk e-mail filtering technology to block more than 2 billion spam e-mail messages a day from reaching Hotmail users. In addition, MSN Hotmail strongly enforces its policies against spammers who abuse its service.

Two words:

HORSE ....!

Junk Science, Part 2

Mortgages 'bad for health'

They say people who fall behind on mortgage repayments are at risk of becoming seriously ill.

This one belongs in the junk science series more for what the story does not conclude than for what the story does conclude. I have little doubt that the increase in stress due to falling behind on mortgage payments and/or losing your home contributes, in some small way, to ill health. But I would be willing to bet that it's not anywhere near the primary or even a major contributor. More likely, it's the state of being in financial straits, the inability to make regular visits to the doctor, and the inability to have that cough checked up on. In other words, falling behind on mortgage payments is a symptom of financial distress, just as ill health is.

This is a classic mistake made in these kinds of studies, or in the communication of their results. They conclude that A causes B, when in fact, A and B are both symptoms of the real cause C. I have little doubt you will see these over and over and over again, and you will learn to hate me for boring you with them. Quite often, the folks conducting the study being reported on have actually accounted for C, but it is either not communicated clearly in the story or it is entirely omitted.

Studies have shown that people who live in poor housing are at increased risk of heart disease, stroke, asthma, infectious diseases and mental health problems, including depression.

Nooooo... really? You mean that mold on the wall and the poor ventillation is bad for me?

The Prisoner's Dilemma and SUV Safety

There's an old problem known as the Prisoner's Dilemma

Jim and Vic are caught speeding away from an area where a murder was committed. They have no weapons in the car, but do have a good deal of drugs. The DA can easily put both of them away for 5 years on a drug charge. What the DA wants, however, is a murder conviction. So the DA offers Jim a deal. He will let Jim go if Jim will pin the murder on Vic. "Otherwise," he informs Jim, "you're going down for murder."

In that scenario, Jim's optimal decision is to rat out Vic.

But what happens if Jim is a bit smarter? Surely, he thinks, the DA has made the same offer to Vic. So what are his options? If we both shut up, he considers, all we have is five years on the drug charge. If I squeal and Vic squeals, then we'll both be put away for a long time on murder (say, 30 years, reduced sentence because we cooperated). If I squeal, and Vic stays quiet, then I'll go free and Vic will be in jail for a long time on murder (say, 50 years because we pissed the DA off and made him hold a trial). If I stay quiet and Vic squeals, then I'll be going to jail for 50 years.

So what's his optimal choice, and what does this have to do with SUV safety?

» Click to finish reading "The Prisoner's Dilemma and SUV Safety"

Vegas: The Way it Oughta Be!

Vegas flirts with racier image

Three words:

It's about time!

(Does a contraction count as one or two words?)

NASCAR TrackPass and Real Networks

Man, this kind of crap pisses me off.

I signed up for NASCAR.com's premium subscription service, TrackPass. They have a 14 day free trial. Don't like it, you can cancel at any time before 14 days, and nothing is charged to your credit card. Signing up for it is a breeze, as is most anything you pay for over the internet. Give them your information, type in your credit card number, and off you go. Soooo easy to give them your money.

Try to cancel.

» Click to finish reading "NASCAR TrackPass and Real Networks"

Junk Science, Part 1

I plan to keep track (and a running total) of stories that I find regarding studies or experiments that reach completely obvious conclusions, and are generally a waste of time and money.

Home Not Always a Safe Haven for Children

Two studies by researchers at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati found home is the single most common location for children to be injured in the United States.

Residential injuries remain a leading cause of death in children and adolescents -- particularly black children -- and home is the scene of most injuries that result in a visit to the emergency department.

I hate to say it, but this study appears to have been a waste of money. I generally don't take to shouting, but OF COURSE MORE CHILDREN ARE HURT AT HOME! THAT'S WHERE THEY SPEND THE GREAT MAJORITY OF THEIR TIME!

And then this conclusion:

...boys were at greater risk than girls.

Brilliant, eh?

I hope there was more to this study than was reported in this news story.

"Smart" Virus?

Smart Virus Eliminates Brain Cancer In Animal Experiments

Why do people incessantly label things as "smart"? Smart virus. Smart bomb. Blah! Phoey!

The ability to differentiate between two different types of cells (i.e. healthy vs. cancerous) does not make this virus smart. I have a betta that can differentiate between a rock and a food granule. Does that make him smart?

Although researchers don't know why some mice treated with Delta-24-RGD did not survive, they theorize that, due to natural variation, some animals may have needed a bigger dose of the therapy.

As a statistician (and I'm sure Cam will appreciate this one as well), comments like this crack me up. "Geee... uhhh... we just don't know why chemotherapy worked for your sister, but not for you Deena. Guess you needed a bigger dose." And to theorize that all that was needed was a bigger dose? That's just damn funny.

Ghost Rider

I regularly use IMDB's Random Title function to poke around, see what's new, see if there's any movies I've seen but haven't rated, etc. So I was poking around the other day and I stumbled across Ghost Rider. Another superhero movie, and it looks like the pickings are getting pretty thin. A Daredevil movie had promise, but they had to go and cast Ben Affleck as the lead. And now this. It's bad enough they're making a Ghost Rider movie, but they go and cast Nicholas Cage in the lead? HI?!

I'm going to preliminarily assign this movie a rating of Deceased on a scale of Deceased to I Feel Happy!

I wonder if they're going to use Henry Rollins' campy and crappy song of the same name in the movie.

Hell on Earth

My sister and my wife are huge Grease fans. If either of the Grease movies are on TV, everything gets dropped, and they are glued to the TV. Grease is tolerable in small doses, but Grease 2 is beyond intolerable. (I consider Grease to be the Caddyshack of teen movies, and Grease 2 to be Caddyshack 2.)

So now this:

1970s-set 'Grease 3' in works

No doubt I will be dragged kicking and screaming to go see it when it opens. *sigh*

I Wonder Sometimes...

I'd like to know what architect thought it would be a good idea to build a wing of classrooms with a hallway that's barely 6 foot wide where each one of the classrooms has a door that opens outward while the wing of offices in which I currently reside has doors that open inward. I imagine this guy hunched over a drafting table and grinning maniacally while thinking to himself, "Yeah, this'll piss 'em off."

I'd also like to know what's going through the heads of the students who (a) only ever open the door halfway as they are leaving class and (b) stand in the way and look at you blankly when you attempt to open the door completely so that it does not block traffic.

Riding Shotgun... Literally

From a CNN story:

Eleven years before that, two cosmonauts overshot their touchdown site by 2,000 miles and found themselves deep in a forest with hungry wolves. That's when Russian space officials decided to pack a sawed-off shotgun aboard every spacecraft. (Emphasis mine) Source

So I guess I'll have to rethink one of my many criticisms of the movie Armageddon. I guess the machine guns on the rover were there to fight off wolves; either that, or the grass on the asteroid posed a more serious threat than originally thought.

Cymbals

On my drive in to work this morning, I saw a student riding his bike (ignoring all traffic laws, btw) wearing a shirt for Zildjian cymbals. Thought it was kinda funny that the shirt declared:

Genuine Turkish Cymbals
Made in the U.S.A.

The Old Man is Gone

The process that created the Old Man in the Mountain has taken it away after some 200 million years. Just another cheery reminder that all treasures, no matter how valuable and well-cared for, will eventually be lost.

On a side note, I remember seeing the Old Man in the Mountain years ago when my father was working as a welder on a nuclear power plant in the Northeast. We drove to see it in the middle of a snowstorm, and I only remember two things about that trip: the Old Man and changing lanes. Keep in mind that we're a bunch of coonasses from Louisiana driving in a snow storm. My father suddenly changes lanes while driving along the highway for no apparent reason. My step mother, in a calm voice, "John, why did you change lanes?" My father replied, "I didn't mean to!"

(Actually, I overstate the coonass factor. My father worked for a while in Alaska and made frequent trips to Colorado, so he was actually proficient at driving in ice and snow.)

Now this is some REAL research

Now why can't I get grants from the NSF to do research like this?

BTW, it's COKE dammit! Or, at the very least, don't call it pop. That's like calling your tennis shoes sneakers.