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Regular Blogging Will Resume ... Eventually

jrosenhouse — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:48:28 +0000

Regular Blogging Will Resume ... Eventually

Sorry for the longer than usual blog hiatus. Get your violins ready, but I am currently suffering through one of my periodical bouts of lower back pain, which makes it very painful to sit up for more than a few minutes at a time. The last two weeks or so have been spent remaining vertical just long enough to teach my classes and hold office hours, before dragging myself home and chewing on pain killers. Blogging was one of the first things to go.

I was diagnosed with degenerate disc disease a little more than a year ago, but I've had back problems going back to 2000. The first such attack was especially memorable, since it occurred roughly three days prior to my PhD thesis defense. If you have ever suffered through a serious bout of sciatica, you know there is no pain like it. You're all but immobile. There is exactly one physical position that provides any relief, and that is lying flat on your back on a hard surface. I remember giving my defense standing ramrod straight, since the slightest bend at the waist was very painful. In those days we were still using transparencies, and at one moment in the talk I forgot and bent over to pick up the next slide. Damn near fainted. On the other hand, it probably worked to my advantage. My thesis committee took pity on me and only asked me a few perfunctory questions before passing me. Yay!

Still, as bad as it was, it eventually healed on its own. It was the kind of thing that got a little better each day, so after the first four or five days the worst was over. Since then, roughly every eighteen months or so I would have a flare-up. Then I'd be miserable for six to eight weeks or so before life would get back to normal. During all this time, however, I never got around to seeing a doctor about it.

That changed last summer. You see, the memorable attack of July 2011 came with a couple of delightful new symptoms. I had two numb spots in my left leg, and some serious muscle weakness in my left calf. That scared me enough to see a doctor. Having watched too many episodes of House I was thinking blood clot, but my doctor basically laughed at that idea. An X-Ray revealed the degenerate disc disease. Basically, the cartilage that pads the discs in your spine gradually erodes as you get older. In my case, that degeneration has reached the point that two of the discs in my lower back are practically in contact with each other. Most of the time this doesn't present any problem at all. But if I move the wrong way, or exercise a bit too hard, things can get inflamed, putting pressure on the sciatic nerve, causing quite a bit of pain in my leg and lower back. Very annoying, but, again, with some patience it eventually heals on its own. Last year I actually did some physical therapy to address the muscle weakness, and while it took some time, eventually I recovered completely.

Relative to past attacks, this one has actually been less severe. My experience has been that it takes six to eight weeks for something like this to heal. It has only been two weeks since the initial onset of problems, and there has already been clear improvement. No muscle weakness this time, and actually considerably less pain. It's just sitting specifically that is uncomfortable. Standing is much better. But things are getting better. For example, I have now been upright for close to ten minutes. I am squirming a bit, but if I had tried this a few days ago I would be close to tears by now. So things are getting better, but any sort of extensive writing is off the table right now. Sorry about that.

As annoying as all this is, it really could be a lot worse. So I'd say I have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and see you soon.

jrosenhouse Tue, 11/20/2012 - 17:48

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Check out this website.... spineonline.com
It works !

Speaking from personal experience get yourself a good physio and/or sports masseur and take up Pilates. Did wonders for my back which also suffers from degenerative disc disease

I have been carrying a neighbor to an orthopedic clinic for sciatica pain. A steroid injection has not helped so far. After watching him for the last few months, you really have my sympathy.

He was specifically instructed to stay away from a chiropractor and to only see a physical therapist who specializes in spines.

You have my sympathy. Your experience sounds similar to mine when I was younger, though I haven't had any acute bouts for a good few years now. Getting older and less active may have helped!

A few things that have helped me:
1. Less sitting. These days I usually use my computer (laptop) standing up, on a shelf.
2. A lot of walking (and swimming until recently). More vigorous exercise tends to do me more harm than good.
3. A memory foam mattress topper. I used to sleep on a hard futon, which was better than a regular mattress, but still left me feeling sore and stiff in the morning. Memory foam has been a god send. The best ones (Tempur) are very expensive, but there are cheaper ones available too. Do try one if you haven't already.

Best wishes for your recovery.

I'm sorry to hear about your sufferings, Jason. I'll keep you in my prayers. It can't hurt. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, in spite of things.

Forget blogging. Get that fixed.

Ouch!

What Kevin writes. Come back when this thing is over - I can be patient.
In the meantime I wish you all the strength you need.

Been there, done that. Remember a schmuck calling himself JonS, who occasionally commented here in the now somewhat distant past, and who, among other things claimed that the human spinal column was a perfect design?

OT but in a previous thread (comments have been shut down on all previous threads), a gentleman calling himself Todd said the following re the recent election.

I cant wait to clean my dirty laundry with all the tears of left wing sorrow that will be flowing in the streets Nov. 6.

ROTFLMAO!

Very dangerous to count one's chickens before they are hatched.

From the sampler pages of Ph. Rosenhouse book I could see where his hypothesis was going and lost interest in purchasing the book because he said nothing new to any argument on both ideological opinions of creationism v.s. the evolutionist theories and remember this argument has been going on for the last 150 years. As we all are human beings we all have the rights and limited qualifications to argue opinion so I was quite intrigued that a PHD in Mathematics took on the challenge to converse with the world so stealthy with conviction or self credibility by conversing and observe organizations and political movements that are either for or against one anthers principal ideas of where we came from. Regarding Hitandrun comments I believe an honest reply would be the right thing to do first that being when your condition has improved enough to converse intellectually about your book. Now as for myself I have been researching the human genome as a hobby for the last 15 years as an armature. I have marveled at such a wonderful machine such as it is . Professionally I am a BSC in Computer Science and regarding thermal dynamics or pacifically the 2nd law I will just say that it in no way has anything to do with supporting evolution nor creationism and with minimal research and common sense you will find in plain sight the evidence to support a creator of intelligent design, one only has to wont to believe and see with his own eyes what , who where and why the truth is . From purely scientific evidence alone the Human Genome project has been the greatest witness to support the facts on why evolutionary theory can never hold water I’m sorry to say, Time and time again the ideology to argue and attempt to win the case to support evolution is purely on the merits to elevate the grieving conscious of the secularist and atheist of the world. This has gone as far to be labeled perverted intellectualism. As a scientist I will leave you with this anecdotal evidence to ponder. The entire global genetic library is not merely a volume of complicated chemical signatures that merely by random chance neither come into being nor assemble by chance and from nothing but the most advanced bio intelligent machine man has ever seen. I will also argue and tell you that the microprocessor architecture in you computer operates on the exact mechanical and problematic principals as the bio genetic machine and in principal I tell you that in an environmentally stable constant a billion years from now your very same computer will be exactly the same as what it was when it was designed and first created. The onboard low level and high level programming will operate exactly as designed, it will not decide otherwise nor shall it grow legs and walk away or out of the figurative primordial ooze. Just as every program that is written has a syntax that only is unique to which it is written for such as Basic, C, C++, java , php, cobal , and assembler just to name a few each having its own syntax . So as to say that my C program will evolve to a different language syntax is simply impossible and to justify otherwise is insane or coconsciously perverted. To close let’s focus back to the foundation of what I describe to you by example of computer architecture and its relationship to the genetic principals. If you were to remove or alter any piece of hardware without the intentional replacement architecture and program updates necessary your beloved PC will seas to operate and or exist, and to further drive my point home if any part of the architecture were to fail by means of the principal laws of thermal dynamics then your PC will also fail and seas to exist. There is a caveat in my argument. Did you notice I said if “you were to replace” any piece of hardware in your pc? Yes you surly can change the behavior and or ability of your pc by swapping out peripherals that are systems within themselves however you would not be successful unless you had the knowledge and or understanding of the entire process of what make computers do what they do and other than what they are they will only do what you as the creator or owner will want them to do nothing more just as the human genome will only do what it was designed to do create humans and nothing more.. one last note everything in nature from dust to sub atomic particles is a whiteness to intelligent design. If anyone took the time to read all the way down to this line I will just say this if you won’t the truth seek the truth if you won’t the proof seek the prove it will only take but a small amount of your time just as how much time it will take you to Finnish the Venti Carmel Machiatto sitting beside your laptop Thank you for your time.

Re Terrence Hardeman

Mr. Hardeman produced quite a word salad that said virtually nothing at great length. Since Mr. Hardeman demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the Theory of Evolution, I would suggest that he read the two popular books on the subject by Brown biology professor Ken Miller, no atheist he, before pontificating further on a subject of which he is completely ignorant. In short, never have I heard anyone write so knowledgeably from such a vast fund of ignorance.

and some paragraphs or headers might have induced me to read even a little bit further than five words! lol...

"two of the discs in my lower back are practically in contact with each other" ouch.. I have had both knees replaced.. and now my feet are acting up..

take OXYcodone.. 10mgs.. they help.. also I take Lyrica to block pain signals from my legs.. that or Celebrex (which is much stronger) might help.. it clogs up your receptors in the brain.. but still..

Mr Hardeman, what exactly does the profession of BSC in Computer Science entail? Do you stand on a plinth with your degree stapled to your forehead? I see that you also moonlight as an armature. When do you manage to sleep?

As for your evidence for Intelligent Design, you are quite wrong. I know for a fact that my cat Cassius crafted the Universe and all life in it. I can tell from careful study of his haughty expression.

Wot about those inversion contraptions? Mate of mine with back problems had one and he swore by it. Can't see it doing any harm if you strap your feet in tightly enough, obviously.

Sorry to hear of your back pain--I hope that suppressing the laughter induced by Mr. Hardeman 's comment didn't exacerbate it.

At similar intervals as your flare ups, I find myself stuck at a 90 degree angle. After reading of your travails, I won't be complaining next time.

Jason,

Do you blame evolution's Unintelligent Design for your back problems?

Best wishes on a full and speedy recovery from one biped to another.

H&R (Homo Erectus)

Sorry to hear about your back problems. I've had numerous bouts. All the best!

As a doctor who specializes in spine disorders, I have a lot of advice if you're interested. For the moment I'll say only two things - #1 if there was no trauma, and the doctor got an x-ray, (s)he is not a very good doctor (at least, not at treating spine disorders), and #2 if you have never tried a course of anti-inflammatory steroids for one of your flare ups, you are needlessly suffering.

My Silly Cat

jrosenhouse — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:31:11 +0000

My Silly Cat

My cat, Emily, tends to get a bit sulky when I leave her for long periods of time. So when I returned home from New York the other day, having been gone for a week, I was not surprised when she did not greet me at the door. Par for the course, I thought. She'll appear on her own in five to ten minutes.

When fifteen minutes went by and she still had not appeared I decided to go hunting. My first pass around the house was unsuccessful. Emily was not in any of her usual hiding places. Then I heard meowing. It was weird since it sounded like it was coming from directly underneath the floor. I went down to the basement, and sure enough, I found my cat:

How did she get up there? Here's a wider shot, to give you some idea of the heights we're talking about:

So, again, how did she get up there? I freaked out when I figured what must have happened. I'm currently having my main, upstairs bathroom completely redone, and much of the initial demolition work was completed while I was away. That included ripping out the old tub and removing the old tiles from the wall. That means there was probably a big hole in the wall for part of the time I was gone. Emily must have climbed in to investigate, and then got trapped when my contractor, oblivious to her presence, put in the new tub.

I no longer think that's what happened, but more on that in a moment. Emily didn't seem panicked at all, and she wasn't sitting in her own filth or anything like that. When I held out some food to her, she took it, but it did not seem like she was starving. So I decided she could not have been up there for very long.

That was some relief, but how to get her down? She could probably have just jumped, since the ceiling really isn't that high, but she seemed very reluctant to do that. She kept meowing at me and sticking her paw out. That box you see at the bottom of the second photo was part of a tower I built for her to climb down, but she mostly just gave me a “What's that for?” look. The armstrong approach -- in which I grab her by the scruff of the neck and yank her out -- was always an option, but I was hoping for something less drastic. Then I remembered there was a small panel in one of the upstairs closets that allowed access to some of the pipes. I removed that panel, and moments later Emily's little face appeared from underneath the floor. I looked despairingly at all the pipes between her and freedom, but I needn't have worried. She bent and twisted and turned and flexed and eventually did a little cat pull-up to extricate herself. Then she meowed triumphantly and acted as though this was her plan all along.

That takes care of that, I thought. I closed up the panel and the closet, and since the hole in the bathroom wall no longer existed I figured that was the end of it.

The following day my contractor arrived. Emily immediately ran away, since she always hides from noisy strangers. Whatever, I thought, let her hide. Then I heard a sound coming from the basement. The best description I can give is that it sounded like a cat climbing up a wall. I went downstairs, and sure enough Emily was back in her little nook. There's a table she could have used to get part way up, and from there I think she pretended that those wooden beams were trees.

This must be why people have their cats declawed.

For now I'm simply leaving that panel out and the closet door open. That way she can come and go as she pleases. I think when things get back to normal she won't be climbing up there any more, since that's the sort of place she only goes when she's hiding from especially scary strangers. Otherwise I guess I'll have to concoct some sort of barrier to keep her out of there, since I sure don't to have to leave that closet door open all the time.

jrosenhouse Thu, 08/16/2012 - 10:31

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Adorable! She looks almost EXACTLY like our little girl. Of course, ours wouldn't be caught dead climbing that high, while she responds to visiting contractors, gas company guys, etc. by heading right for them to ask if they're going to be one of her uncles now and explain how she prefers to be petted. It's an amazing thing about a cat that no matter what her personality is, we find it so adorable that we will cater to her every wish. :-)

As someone who is owned by 2 cats, I am constantly amazed, impressed, & frustrated by their ability to simply vanish in seemingly open spaces. As a fan of locked-room mysteries, I imagine that that cat-feature is equally interesting for you.

I'm confused. Is she Ceiling Cat or Basement Cat? This story seems to pose a deep theological dilemma.

GeoJim --

A locked room mystery was exactly what I thought of when she got up there the second time! It's an old John Dickson Carr trick, making it seem like the impossible situation has been resolved, only to reveal that there is some other, unthought of, explanation.

Let her stay there for more than a day and she'll find a way to come down herself. That's what cats do. You are nursing her like a baby - quite humiliating, if you think about it, though I'm not sure for whom.

Babies are thought to be training parents to fetch and smile when they throw thir toys out of the pram.

A thought.

PS you may want to lok into making a den of about the same size. It is comforting to a cat when the whiskers can feel the enclosure, as long as it is still ipen enough to allow quick escape and easy breathing. It may be her cat basket is just too darn big, and doesn't feel like a nest, but as an open and vulnerable plain.

Pretty tabby. Our has similar coloring, black stripes on brown, though she's a little darker brown. Which makes her pretty much impossible not to trip over in the dark.

eric - Yeah, ours likes to hang out on the wood-grain Pergo in the very dim little central hall of our house. I always tell her "Stripey brown cat ... stripey brown floor ... BAD IDEA!" She actually seems to me to put herself in the way of being stepped on to give people opportunities to demonstrate that they love her enough to be constantly looking out for her. When we go to the bathroom she will come running from nowhere to be sprawled in that hallway when we open the door. She'll creep up behind my husband while he's working in the kitchen and settle down to eat with her tail stuck straight out behind her, an inch behind his heels. He only has to take a careless step back once, and she'll be a Manx.

She actually seems to me to put herself in the way of being stepped on to give people opportunities to demonstrate that they love her enough to be constantly looking out for her.

Yeah, they definitely use 'interpose myself between the human and what they want to do" as a means of attention-getting.

But, I suppose that's better than the alternative explanation for this sort of behavior: (from this joke): Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded. Maybe I should try this at the top of the stairs.

There’s a table she could have used to get part way up, and from there I think she pretended that those wooden beams were trees.

That was my immediate surmise. My two, who are allowed outside, routinely go over 6 ft. wooden fences--jump about halfway up, stick the hold, and clamber to the top. The wood will probably show the claw marks (indeed, if she were to take a shine to one of the posts, it takes a cat little over a year to scratch halfway through a 4" × 4" working from the corner).

Yeah, I was skeptical of your "trapped in the wall" hypothesis right away. Seriously, having had cats for many years, I wouldn't have ruled out that she just freakin' jumped. A rube goldeberg idea featuring a cat wandering around in the wall, well it's possible, but way more plausible is that cats gonna be cats -- and that means getting in seemingly impossible places.

She could have easily jumped. My then-six-month-old kitten once made a totally vertical jump from the bathroom floor to the top of the shower curtain, to which he then attached himself like Velcro (claws!) and proceeded to look around with an expression of, "Oh, hello!" from the new vantage point. Would not have believed it had I not seen him do it.

New Reviews of the BMHB and the BECB

jrosenhouse — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:22:49 +0000

New Reviews of the BMHB and the BECB

The Big Monty Hall Book is now more than three years old, but new reviews still appear occasionally. The latest one comes from the magazine Significance, published by the Royal Statistical Society. The reviewer is Tom Fanshawe, a statistician at Lancaster University in England. Alas, the review is not freely available online, so permit me some excerpts:

[The Monty Hall problem] will be familiar to most people who have studied probability, and, given a modicum of probability theory, it is not a difficult problem. Does it really warrant a whole book?

It is a credit to Jason Rosenhouse that he has been able to write such a comprehensive account of this elementary problem, and the many alternative guises in which it appears, in such a compelling and approachable way. To many people, the answer is counter-intuitive, and that is what makes the problem appealing.

Score! And his final verdict:

Overall, this book is an excellent example of how a problem that is understandable by all can be used to introduce key concepts in mathematics and probability.

Score some more!

Meanwhile, the Big Evolution/Creationism Book has picked up a new review over at Amazon. Now, ordinarily I wouldn't call attention to an Amazon review (though I would note, for the record, that most of the reviews there are enthusiastically positive). But this one especially caught my eye since it comes from David Rintoul, a biology professor at Kansas State University. My old stomping grounds! He writes:

This is a well-written and enlightening take on a topic that has generated many books on both sides of a well-heated controversy...These are serious issues in the mind of many religious folks, and ignoring them in order to discuss scientific evidence is simply not going to lead to understanding or consensus. Rosenhouse's sympathetic treatment of this deep divide is valuable, and his dissection of the problems that arise from the dogmatic invocation of methodological naturalism is particularly helpful.

This book will help both evidence-based and faith-based individuals move closer to an appreciation of the issues on the other side of this dispute. It will particularly help scientists understand why it can be so very hard for even very bright students to accept evolution on the basis of the evidence alone. It is a wrenching intellectual, social, and cultural watershed for many creationists to accept evolution, and this book goes a long way toward explaining why that is always going to be the case.

It seems I'm quite the machine. I just keep scoring!

Folks, all the cool kids are reading these books. Do NOT be the last one to join the party. Go buy multiple copies today!

jrosenhouse Thu, 08/16/2012 - 04:22

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Just picked up the BMHB. Has anyone suggested that in the next edition you rename the 'Contents' section to 'Full Monty'?

Certainly not! No one has ever suggested such a thing. :)

I hope you enjoy the book.

Yeah, I was afraid that I would be the a-hole who suggested that for the millionth-time prize...yet apparently that fear wasn't enough to keep me from doing it anyway, ha ha.

I Love the Olympics

jrosenhouse — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:52:58 +0000

I Love the Olympics

Jerry Coyne has a sourpuss post up about his lack of enthusiasm for the Olympics:

This year, I can’t get energized at all. I watch the highlights on the evening news, but the revelation that Phelps has become the most decorated Olympian of all time leaves me cold. And I never watch the evening’s recaps.

I’m wondering if it’s just me, and I’ve simply lost interest, or whether the games themselves have become tepid and, as they get more “professional”—with fancy training, paid athletes, and the like—they’ve just gotten more boring. Reader opinion is welcome.

Well, I know for a fact that it's not just him. But it certainly isn't me, because I love the Olympics. I can't get enough of them.

I especially like seeing all the obscure sports that you only get to see once every four years. I watched archery the other day. It was fascinating! I wish one of the commentators would have explained what all the doodads were on the bow. That hardware they were using was way more complicated than those simple bows we used in high school.

I've heard all the complaints. NBC has a stranglehold on the television coverage and isn't presenting enough things live. Their human interest pieces are insipid. There are all sorts of drug and cheating scandals. It's all about jingoism and flag-waving. It provides a stage on which despotic countries can look good. Blah blah blah. Don't care.

I have the television on in the background as I write this. I just watched Kayla Harrison of the U. S. win the gold medal in judo. Judo! It was thrilling. And that's what it comes down to. I like watching the best athletes in the world competing in exciting sports to which they have devoted so much of their lives.

So lighten up folks, and just take some satisfaction in seeing what the human body can be made to do.

jrosenhouse Thu, 08/02/2012 - 13:52

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The streaming is clunky, sometimes choppy, and the interface isn't the best, but all that said...great great great. Lets me come home from work and watch whatever I want. I basically don't watch the network any more, just use the streaming.

I like the surprise of not knowing what I'm going to see until I turn on the TV. I'm usually not looking for a specific event, I just want to see something!

a few days old now, and cut and paste from Roger Ebert's hilarious description of the opening ceremony:

"At the north end of the stadium, a gigantic mountain has been erected, and the farmers and peasants are marching up its slopes. Now comes a dancing corps of men in top hats and mutton chops! The dancers continue their merry steps around the May Pole, and...good gravy, ladies and gentlemen, a helicopter has appeared in the sky, and it looks like...yes! James Bond and Queen Elizabeth have just parachuted into the stadium!"

... and what's not to love about the greatest celebration of sporting prowess and youth (and sometimes age!) in every sport you've never watched in the last 4 years!

I tend to like good stories in my sporting events, and there are still a lot of great stories in this year's Olympics, and maybe more than there have been in the past -- including the cheating and doping comments. And being Canadian, I get more of them from around the world than you poor Americans do, since you're in contention in every event and we aren't, so we have the freedom to talk about other countries every now and then [grin].

I find the NBC "coverage" a waste of time...with the adverts, teasers, up-close-and-personal segments, postmortems and outright jingoism there is very little left for sports coverage.

I found a free VPN (Expat Shield) which lets me watch the BBC streaming coverage (both live and recorded) with intelligent commentary. No commercials. No teasers. No sob-stories. No postmortems. A little jingoism...AND NO BOB COSTAS.

The Olympics has become interesting again.

It provides a stage on which despotic countries can look good.

Not this time. We've caught up to the Chinese in the medal-race, it looks like they're still recovering from that controversy about all their too-young-looking gymnasts, and there's that bit about how one of their medalists was kept in a bubble where she didn't hear of her grandparents' death and her mother's cancer until over a year later.

Then there's Russia, whose gymnasts seemed to all be falling and fumbling right and left -- the perfect metaphor for their politics.

And what other despotic countries have we even heard of this time? Did Nortk Korea get any medals yet?

"It’s all about jingoism and flag-waving."

This kind of attitude baffles me. The Olympics are the one time when the world gets together, puts aside its differences, and competes in sporting events that celebrate human athleticism. This is the one context in which flag-waving and national pride are perfectly appropriate. Lighten up, people.

What gets me about NBC's coverage is that I can't recall seeing a medal ceremony where Americans were not getting the gold metal.

The other night Danell Levya won all around bronze in gymnastics and they didn't show his metal ceremony.

rosnehouse

do a search for "james randi tam 10" on ytube

Amazing! Sometimes it is a definite really handy web logs We have ever appear all over on this subject area of interest. Basically Amazing. I will be plus a stylish specialized through this area i really may well fully understand your effort.

I would like to see more medals, down to 4th and 5th place (as long as some minimum number of countries are competing in the event). If you've practiced for years, get a chance once every four years to win a medal, and finish 4th or 5th in the world, you shouldn't go away feeling like a loser.

New medal metals: mithril and unobtainium? Okay, no. Iridium and vanadium?

My Olympics attitude is neutral.

martyM:
They showed the men's tennis award with nary an American in sight.

I used to watch basketball. I don't now. I just don't see the point of watching what is essentially an extended NBA all-star game. Most of the competitive teams have at least three NBA players. Forget the US Olympic basketball team. I am starting to get that way about tennis too. The gold medal round for the men was just a Wimbledon rematch. I agree that the less publicized sports are fun, but you have to search for them. I enjoy watching people in their prime showcase their athletic skills, but I think that my meh feeling comes from the fact that there really are no amateurs left in most of the Olympic events. I eagerly await the coming of sponsor patches on the uniforms.

I eagerly await the coming of sponsor patches on the uniforms.

The Italian fencing uniforms had a patch on the back shoulder which I swear looks like two of those naked-women-mudflap images from the '70s. I have no idea what the patch actually is, they never show a close-up. But I can't believe they are actually that. :)

I too am perplexed by the stabilizers and adjusters on Olympic archery bows. As far as I can tell from watching NatGeo there are still parts of the world where indigenous people hunt very effectively with basic wooden bows. It would still be the same test of skill surely, if Olympic archers had to use basic bows. (basic, but standardized, of course)

Man, I love the Olympics. This is mostly because it's like BBCTV has gone on a get-fit, detox regime for 2 weeks. But like most diets that make you feel better for a while, you know that the 'high-fat', 'life-limiting' habits of celebrity tv and no-talent, reality-shows will soon return and probably be even more pervading than before.

Eric, your eyes don't deceive you. The Kappa logo is of two naked people (man and woman) back-to-back. I would say, however, that it is a fairly well known brand in Europe and has been around for about 40 plus years; long enough for us to get over sniggering about it.

Well, I don't have a TV anymore so I am not watching them anyway, but I never developed any interest in the Olympics even in my youth. I agree with how fun obscure sports can be (Sumo FTW!), but still much prefer the championships of any individual sport as opposed to the mercilessly over-kill, over-commercialized and over-hyped Olympics any day.

Kentucky is a Beautiful State

jrosenhouse — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:02:04 +0000

Kentucky is a Beautiful State

I'm back in Virginia again, after another successful trip. This time I was mostly in Kentucky, visiting various friends.

It's a shame that nowadays Kentucky is known primarily for bourbon, horse racing and creationism, since it's really a very beautiful state. Among my ports of call was Morehead, KY to visit my friend Robin. She's in the math department at Morehead State University. She showed me around the area, including a stop at this lake, right on campus:

Not bad, but it was just a warm-up for what came next. Robin took me out to Lockegee Rock, in the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was probably for the best that she didn't tell me where we were going. Getting there involved a hike through the woods, which were muddy and slippery because it had poured rain earlier in the day. Then we came to some impressively vertical rocks that we proceeded to climb up. At this point I asked Robin, with some dismay, if we were planning to return the same way we were about to go up. Turns out we were.

Happily, though, it all looked worse than it actually was. And if you make it to the top of the rock you are rewarded with this:

That's pretty spectacular, and I assure you the photo doesn't do it justice.

Speaking of spectacular, Robin's an excellent chef and insisted on serving me a home-cooked meal. So, taking a page out of Jerry Coyne's playbook, here's what we had for dinner the first night I was there:

That's catfish served on a bed of kale surrounded by a variety of other veggies, a mixture of fried green tomatoes and fried squash, asparagus, and baked, thinly-sliced potatoes. Yum!

Oh, and I made the salad.

See what I mean by a successful trip?

jrosenhouse Wed, 07/25/2012 - 11:02

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My cousin could always cook!! And beware of her adventures, she has no fear!

It was a pleasure to have you! So glad you liked the food and made it up the wet sandstone to see the view at Lockegee! Next time you are on campus I'll include the bronze statues on our tour. Dora has agreed to my suggestion that we take a shelf in the department museum for mathematical objects. I may be arranging a competition for students and faculty with regards to that soon! So exciting, all the possibilities.

Cousin Ron! What a surprise! Hey, you are as adventuresome as I, both geographically and culinarily.

KY has a lot of beautiful state parks. Also a lot of mosquitoes in the summer. One of the interesting ones is Audubon park south of Evansville, IN. There are a few pages from an original folio of Audubon's book. They are simply beautiful to look at. Nice cabins there too.

Robin --

And thanks for having me! You were a terrific host. I'm glad you'll be visiting Harrisonburg for the SUMS Conference in September.

Ron --

I know just what you mean about having no fear. Robin was too polite to say anything, but I think she was rolling her eyes at me when I seemed skeptical about climbing up those rocks. As I pointed out to her, my main hobby growing up was playing chess. Way safer.

JimR --

I have to admit, the first time I read your comment I thought you were saying that one of the most interesting mosquitoes in KY is in Audubon park . :)

I have spent the night in several KY state parks in tents or cabins and only winters kept the mosquitoes off. It was still worth it walking the parks and seeing all the beauty. I have never been to the one you visited.

Mmmmmmm.....bourbon.....

Hey Jason you are a
"brilliant young professor of mathematics "

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/SHAME.cfm

It’s a shame that nowadays Kentucky is known primarily for bourbon, horse racing and creationism...

What do have against bourbon and horse racing?

Hitting the Road. Again.

jrosenhouse — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:12:33 +0000

Hitting the Road. Again.

It's been fun spending a few days at home in Virginia, but it's time to hit the road again. Tomorrow I will hop into the Jasonmobile and head west. Since I seek out only the choicest tourist destinations, I will be spending time in Loveland, OH; Bowling Green, KY; and Morehead, also KY. Fun! I'll be back next week.

jrosenhouse Thu, 07/19/2012 - 19:12

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Don't know if you're into cars but the Corvette Museum in Bolwing Green is supposed to be a real good one.
http://www.corvettemuseum.org/

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Wildlife Pic of the Day

jrosenhouse — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:23:25 +0000

Wildlife Pic of the Day

I'm back in Virginia for a few days. I'll be hitting the road once again on Friday, heading west this time to visit friends in Kentucky. In the meantime, here's an interesting photo of the light fixture hanging between the garage doors of my parent's house:

What's that ball-like thing underneath the light? Let's take a closer look:

Yikes! That's a hornet's nest!

Even cooler is that my parents never even noticed it was there. It fell to my five-year-old niece to point it out.

jrosenhouse Mon, 07/16/2012 - 08:23

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Got stung by a wasp the other day. First time since 2006. On the grand scale of pain, not a big deal (I'm not allergic). But for a milligram-sized beastie, they pack quite a wallop. The whole afternoon after it happened, I was thinking "its amazing how this sensation came out of that teeny tiny stinger."

That's nothing. Where I live (Moengo, Suriname) you can see them varying from one wasp-nests till colonies at least ten times as big in your backyard.
Fortunately in tropics wasps are far less aggressive. The exception is the African Killer Bee, called the Brazilian Bee here. Once I have seen a swarm of African Killer Bees. That was incredibly frightening. That day I ate an extra portion of bami to thank and praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster for not letting them inside where I hided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

Looks like they are conquering the States too.

Bald faced hornets are very beneficial because they control yellow jackets which are horrible outdoor barbeque and picnic pests. Give the hornet nest some space, and the hornets will hunt yellow jackets.

Having said that, in this instance it may be very difficult to live with the hornet nest hanging between the two garage doors.

Neat.

If they don't cause problems I tend to have a live-and-let-live attitude. I had a wasp's nest by my seldom used back door. Those rare times I used it as long as I didn't slam the door the wasps pretty much stayed cool. When winter rolled around they moved on and I broomed the abandoned nest off. We got along.

With a remote door opener and the ability to drive in and close the door behind that nest may not be an issue. Some of that may also depend on when the doors are opened. Cooler temperatures and night make them harder to rile. Then again you're no spring chicken and that implies elderly parent who may not have the agility to dodge angry beasties without the danger of falling, or the constitution to withstand a few stings without it becoming a medical emergency.

If it comes to getting rid of them there are options. Wait until night and cut the nest down as swiftly and smoothy as possible. Let it fall and just let it lay there. If you are quick and handy you do it in one smooth motion, get away with few of them taking flight,and no stings, they will be relatively unharmed, take the hint, and move on the next day.

There are commercial insecticidal sprays that project fifteen feet or more and they are convenient and less than twenty bucks. You spend a chunk of change and poison both the wasps and the surrounding environment but it is an option.

Doing service work where I absolutely have to work too near a nest to avoid injury I make do. I seldom have the spray around and usually resort to a about ten cents of gasoline tossed from an open topped container. Both the liquid and fumes drop the wee beasties very quickly. Toss and come back in ten minutes and if you did it well most of them will be curled up on the ground. Do it early in the morning when all of them are home and you don't have stragglers showing up. Murderous, but effective and cheap.

Your parent's what never noticed? ;)

Oh, and as long as folks are providing wasp advice, I'll chip in: You can buy a fake nest and install anywhere you don't want wasps; since they're territorial, they'll supposedly avoid it. I have neither anecdotes nor data on that, thought.

New York City is Never Boring

jrosenhouse — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 08:03:32 +0000

New York City is Never Boring

I have now reached the last leg of my travels. I was in Philadelphia for several days last week, and was in upstate New York over the weekend. Currently I'm in New York City.

Last night I attended Monday Night Magic at the Players Theater in Greenwich Village. All of the acts were very enjoyable, but it was a special thrill to get to see Chris Capehart, who is pretty famous among magicians. If you ever have a chance to see him perform I heartily recommend it.

When the show let out I walked around the village a bit. It was jumping with activity. Lots of stuff was still open, and it looked like there were several comedy clubs and music performance spaces in that general area. Eventually I hailed a cab and directed him to my hotel, which is on 34th and 8th, right near Madison Square Garden.

The driver took off, and if you have ever been in a New York cab you know I mean that literally. Almost immediately, however, another cab driver cut him off, very nearly causing an accident. My guy slammed on the brakes, which was annoying, since I was still struggling with the seat belt. (The little dinguses that receive the belt had gotten twisted, meaning that I was trying to plug my belt into the the one set aside for the center seat.)

Now, it probably would have been best if my guy had just shrugged it off. But no. He decided to give the other guy a piece of his mind. So he pulled up right next to him, I'm talking close, and unleashed a torrent of profanity upon the other driver that I cannot repeat here, on account of this being a family blog. Then my guy took the small bottle of water he was drinking from and threw its contents in the general direction of the other guy's cab. Some of the water made it through the open window on the passenger side.

I thought that was the end of it. My guy took off once more and was doing a very efficient job of getting me where I was going. But then we stopped at a red light. And guess who pulled up in the lane next to us. Yep. More profanity was exchanged between the two drivers. I made myself as small as possible in the back seat. The light turned green and we took off again.

We had been driving up Sixth Avenue (excuse me, “Avenue of the Americas”). At some point my guy turned left to move over to eighth. The particular street he chose for that purpose was a bit clogged with traffic, and we had to stop at one point. Guess who pulled up next to us, on the driver's side? You guessed it! That other guy was still pissed. My guy had actually moved over slightly in an attempt to crowd out the other driver, but he was unsuccessful. So neither cab was really in a proper lane, and they were so close to each other I was amazed they didn't actually scrape their sides together. Seriously, I doubt I could have slipped my hand through the space between them.

The rhetoric amped up. Racial slurs were exchanged. My guy suggested they go park somewhere and settle this properly. In the back, I was hoping they would not do that until I got dropped off. At some point the other guy noticed me. He was yelling something about how my guy was driving without headlights. I said nothing and made a point of looking ostentatiously out the window on the other side of the cab.

Then the other guy took an impressively large bottle of water and thrust its contents in our general direction. Some of the water traveled through the open windows and managed to get on me. My driver got rather wet.

This seemed to satisfy the other guy, who did not bother us after that. My guy was laughing in the front seat. I said, “We do have headlights, right?” He replied, “We're fine, don't worry about it.” Then he asked me if I wanted to be let out on the left or the right side of the road.

The rest of the ride went more smoothly. The fare was a little over seven dollars. I thanked him for the excitement, handed him a ten, and told him to keep the change. Seriously, the other guy did cut him off.

What a great city! Alas, my lunch plans fell through for today, so suddenly I have some time to kill. I figure I'll spend the rest of the morning at The Strand Bookstore, have lunch down there, and then wander over to the Natural History Museum in the afternoon. Tonight I'll be meeting my parents, brother and sister-in-law for dinner and a show. We're celebrating my mother's seventieth birthday!

Maybe I'll have more exciting adventures today...

jrosenhouse Tue, 07/10/2012 - 04:03

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Be sure to have a NY slice for all us sinners on the west coast. What they call pizza out here! Not always horrible, but always not pizza.

So neither cab was really in a proper lane, and they were so close to each other I was amazed they didn’t actually scrape their sides together

For NY cabbies, this is the norm rather than the exception.

You didn't mention any horn use. In other parts of the country that would mean there wasn't any. In NY, it probably means that it was so constant your ears stopped hearing it.

New York City really has it all.-----The Ramones

In lots of areas in NYC, they have signs that say honking a horn is an X dollar fine. I notice that horn honking is rather muted while driving around the city.

GeoJim --

I know just what you mean. You should try finding a decent slice of pizza in Virginia. Any time I get to New York I try to eat all of those treats you can't get anywhere else. In addition to a proper slice of pizza, I always try to get a proper pastrami sandwich (from Katz's, of course), and a black and white cookie (best black and whites in the city are at The Donut Pub on 14th St. and 7th Ave.) Yum!

eric --

In this case, there was no horn use. After all, you have to maintain some standards of decorum.

If Chris Capehart is so famous how come he doesn't have a Wikipedia article? ;)

Back in the day -- 35 years ago -- I lived near NYC and went into the city with friends a lot. Down to the Village, mostly. One night, wandering around, we went in to a pillow store -- just all kinds of pillows -- just because it was open. It was 1am. 1 am. Don't try that in Lincoln, Nebraska. :)

anthrosciguy:
What! They don't have 24-hr Walmarts in Lincoln, or do you have to drive to Omaha for that?

what if we will find a self replicate watch that made of dna?

Be careful jason. Bloomberg's food police are watching. if you drink a soda over 16 oz it is a felony.

Be careful in New York. It has become as bad as san Fransicko when it comes to treason, disorderly conduct, and fascist dictator wannabe politicians making up rules that everyone except themselves have to follow.

Bloomberg and his nazi food police should be deported to Syria. At least he would be more at hoe there giving out fascist orders and all. I bet that ugly turdface drinks large sodas himself. The filthy hypocrite.

Walmart sure, NOW; but even them 35 years ago? No. And I'm talking about a store that sold nothing but pillows. That's not what you expect to be open at that time of night, alongside the pizza, the belt buckles/head shop, etc., etc., etc.

I always remember an article in the Toronto Star (about 20 years ago) from a woman, a writer who was the wife of the UN rep from Canada, about how great it was living in NYC, where you could need a book, pick up the phone and call the bookstore at midnight or later and have it delivered within an hour. Again, I really don't think you can do that a whole lot of places. You can in NYC and you've been able to do that in eras when it was hard to find anything open after 9pm in smaller US cities.

Sorry I have to explain it to you; I guess I should have had 3x5 cards to hand out for the clueless. :)

anthrosciguy:
No need to explain. It was just a joke. Geez!

How to Cook a Hot Dog

jrosenhouse — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:31:13 +0000

How to Cook a Hot Dog

As preparation for your fourth of July barbecue, watch this video about how to cook a hot dog. It's very clever, despite being spoiled somewhat at the end by the application of ketchup to the finished dog. As Dirty Harry once said, nobody but nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog!

jrosenhouse Tue, 07/03/2012 - 17:31

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I live in a free country where I can put whatever I want on my hot dog.

Having the right to do something doesn't mean you should< do it!

A hot dog is just a cheap version of a brat. Best with kraut and dijon or similar mustard. Relish to taste. Some also add a beer drenching. Might also good for a dog. To date the *only* beer that I use for this is Miller High Life -- an older flavor.

Nostalgia time. While I was in high school we did extensive modification of barns, pens, fences, etc. on the ranch. I would get off the bus and walk the mile down the lane to the house. On the kitchen table I would find ten wienies, a loaf of white bread and a jar of mustard. I would put the wienies on to steam and go change into my work clothes. I would lay out ten slices of bread, slather them with mustard, and add a wienie to each. As soon as I finished my after school snack, I would go out and work, joining my mother and father. I would work until sundown, then do the chores, and go to the house. Mother would have supper ready, which was good because I would be starving by then.

What kind of journalism is that? Why ten wienies? Ten wienies sounds like a lot for one person. Were they all for you, or did you share them with the parents, or did you have siblings?

I put ketchup on my hotdog. But first I put sauerkraut to it. And snippets of onions.

MNb --

I'm sorry to hear about the ketchup, but I'm with you on the sauerkraut. As far as I'm concerned, hot dogs exist primarily as a platform for sauerkraut!

Back in the good old days, wieners were ten to the pound. Mother would buy 10 pound cartons and put them up by the pound in plastic bags in the deep freeze. At the time I was 6 ft 2, weighed about 170, consumed about 5000 calories a day, and did a man's work on the ranch.

So, let me get this straight, Dan:1. It's OK to (a) coprmae the citizens of entire states of the US to Islamic fundamentalists, who are widely known for imposing Sharia on their people, forcing women to dress a certain way by law, permitting women to be beaten, even killed for the crime of being raped and unable to prove it with a sufficient number of male witnesses, who are widely know for supporting terrorism and producing the bulk of the world's terrorists, who have intentionally killed innocents by the thousands in the most horrible ways and have expressed the desire to do so again and again, and who run the world's most undemocratic and benighted countries, and (b) say something as plug ignorant of not only these facts but of Islam and Christianity too as “fundamentalist Christians and Islamists are spiritual soul mates. 2. And, all the while doing this awful disparaging of Americans concerning their purported ignorance of science, showing to the reader that English grammar is not exactly your strong suit is also hunky-dory,BUT, pointing this simple fact out is verboten?OK. Noted. Disparaging commenters = bad. Disparaging groups = OK. Seems simple enough. I shall endeavor to comply.

Prometheus

jrosenhouse — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:17:18 +0000

Prometheus

Still no word on when the commenting issues will be resolved. Hopefully soon. But I did want to poke my head up long enough to warn you away from seeing Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus. Really, really bad. This one's going to be on a lot of ten worst lists at the end of the year.

When I see movies in the theater, I usually stick to action, horror or sci-fi. Which is to say that I see a lot of bad movies. But even so it is pretty rare that I completely hate a movie. No matter how asinine the story or hackneyed the dialogue, I can usually find something to like. Perhaps there's a clever action sequence or a few good lines. Or maybe just the thrill of seeing a big explosion. I like big explosions (in movies, that is).

Not this time. This is one of those movies where ten minutes in you get the sinking feeling that things aren't going to get any better. By twenty minutes you're waiting for it to end. And by thirty minutes you're thinking about things like sunk costs and about whether it might be worth it just to walk out.

So why was it so awful? The story. It's incomprehensible. If you've seen the ads you know the basic idea. Based on some highly dubious inferences drawn from a handful of ancient cave paintings, a pair of scientists decide that humanity was created by an alien race. They persuade an eccentric trillionaire (!!) to fund an expedition to the alien's home planet. Mayhem ensues! I'd say more, but I've grown bored just replaying the story in my head.

Mostly disappointing trailers too. Seriously, they remade Total Recall. Not a good day at the movies.

jrosenhouse Mon, 06/11/2012 - 10:17

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Agree, it was a curious mix of a few good characters and ideas and lots of very bad ones, with a general sense that development of this movie started will but somewhere along the way they just stopped trying.

The science is terrible, I was embarrassed for them when I saw the parts about the alien DNA and "Darwinism", and the scientists worse. Even the plotline about religion stank, though it was clearly intended to make some sort of a big statement it just never seemed to get around to it in the end.

Rats. I was really looking forward to it. The NY Times gave it a so-so review; I think the reviewer said the visuals and 3D were stunning. Oh well, I'll check it on DVD.

(Will this work?)

But other than all that, how did you like the play film, Mr. Rosenhouse?

I did like the star map scene. Shiny!

And the android was well acted.

Um. I have nothing else positive to say about the film.

Did you see Roger Ebert's article (not the movie review) on ID/Prometheus? Thought you might enjoy it!
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/06/_one_of_my_creationist.html

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