Fallow for progress

You bought the Phoenix album I recommended, right?  Ye ole wcuk didn’t lead you astray on that rec, did he?  This post around I’m bring the thunder with just one song. It’s Matt Pond’s Red Ankles.  Catchy, seasonal, and brilliantly lyricized, if you don’t like this song, I must say, your taste is in your mouth.

I looked high and low to find a fulll version on the web.  The amazon preview is the best I can offer without soliciting a letter from the RIAA.  If you buy the song and don’t think it worth a dollar, I will refund your money, or not write a blog post for a week (whichever your prefer).

Sleeping became useless when the thought had hit my mind
the markings from your socks impressing skin into design
so with it walk away

The part I’ve faced
your face in parts
the lines that will not leave my head
a change like strings of lights that spark
looking down
your ankles red

I’ve imagined every single detail of the strain
the sickness is what I don’t know that will not go away
that will not go away

The instinct of cameras
is all for the instant
the nettles
the blueness
fallow for progress
the end of July
can’t be called liar
to you I am no liar

The part I’ve faced
your face in parts
the lines will not leave my head
a change like strings of light that spark
looking down
your ankles red

I hate your celebrity encounter stories.

Your celebrity encounter stories are really boring. Consider a sampling of some fantastically exciting quotes on the Reddit post, “Have you ever met a celebrity?” These are written by different people about different celebrities.

He was extremely gracious.

Really cool guy.

I also met Shaq, who was down to earth.

…is a damn nice guy

Cool guy, very tall

He was the nicest, most down to earth guy.

Very nice guy.

She was really nice

He seemed nice.

Bill Cosby. What a nice guy.

He is one of the nicest guys ever.

He’s a nice guy

overall pretty cool.

Really nice guy with a huge laugh.

Super nice guy,

He was a nice guy but he wasn’t a great tipper.

Oh, do go on!  Tell me more!  I’m on the precipice of caring too much. She was nice? He was totally down to earth, bro?!  Get out. You don’t say.

Here’s a theory: most celebrities make millions of dollars to work 2 days a week and have loads of free time, during which people shower them with praise and attention.  Don’t you think you’d be pretty “nice” and “down to earth” in those shoes?  Something about the complete absolution from ever having to earn another dime in your lifetime just has that calming effect on people.  The result? Your celebrity encounter reads like a bad 4th-grade book report. “He was nice. It was good. I like celebrities. She was pretty. Then he said something funny. I laughed. He was nice. I can’t believe she buys groceries just like me. When I grow up, I want to be nice and good like him. I like turtles. Sports are fun.”

This is the part of the post where commentors post specious counter examples in a statistically inane attempt to invalidate my post.

And this is the part where they decide not to post after all, because they would only be making my prophecy come true.

If this all sounds cynical, it’s because Miley wouldn’t autograph my DVD.  (But it’s still all good, because her best friend Leslie made clear that she’s just being Miley.)

We got told

I loves me a good YouTube comment, even if it cuts as deep as this one. Ne’er a more poignant social critique hath been uttered.

fluffyxoxo has made a comment on Oh, Hey Aaron:

wooww! this vedio is pointless like what the hell.. if you guys are trying to be funny you guys arnt but nice try++++ that punch was sso gay and fake.

For shame. It’s the crushing weight of critiques like this that forced Aaron and I into early retirement.

Erdős-Bacon Quaternion

You’ve heard of the Erdos number.

You’ve heard of the Bacon number.

Now, you’ve even heard of the Imaginary Erdos number.

I am proposing the Erdos-Bacon Quaternion, a quaternion representation of one’s real & complex separation from co-authorship with Erdos and co-actingship with kevin Bacon:

For example, if you’ve written a paper with Erdos, written a paper with a dream coauthor of Erdos, and have acted in a film with an actor 2 steps removed from Bacon, you have number 1 + 2i + 3k.

Patents pending.

Why doesn’t the weather forecast have a confidence interval?

Almost every discipline of statistical science requires a confidence level be ascribed to a result. You have to estimate with what certainty you think your results/hypothesis will hold.  Call it statistical significance, error bars, hypothesis testing, or whatever you’d like.  Good scientists say how right they think they are.

Yet, meteorologists don’t normally give a confidence measure with the weather report. Why?

Here in NJ we’ve had rain on and off for weeks.  Every day the weather forecast is something resembling “40%* chance of thunderstorms. Showers Possible. Party Cloudy. 72 degrees.”  Roughly speaking, this translates to, “We have no idea what the weather will be, though we are slightly more than 0% sure it wont be sunny and 90.” Fair enough, weather forecasting is a chaotic science. We can’t (wont) ever predict chaotic events far in the future.  But what’s the harm in admitting uncertainty? Surely there are times when meteorologists are pretty damn sure of the weather (e.g. during a drought with no fronts in sight, or in Buffalo during any day of the winter) and times when their guess is as good as my LL Bean barometer (e.g. the humid, wily days of summer, where an evening thunderstorm is as much a coin toss as the baseball game it ruins).  Why not say, “we are a paltry 10% sure there is a 50% chance of precipitation in the region”? I refuse to believe confidence has gone unnoticed by academic meteorologists, so why hasn’t it trickled in to mainstream forecasting?

Enlighten me, weather(wo)men.

*As I understand it, the percent chance of precipitation given by most forecasts refers to the chance that a measurable amount of rain (usually to 1/100th of an inch) will fall somewhere in the region. While a 100% chance means it’s probably going ot rain, it doesn’t tell you the confidence with which that 100% prediction is made.

And Now, Pictures of Animals Who Ate Too Much

The petty jurisdiction of local weather

There’s a nicely written piece in the NYTimes, well worth the minute or two it takes to read it!

Writing: A Luxury

There was a time when I enjoyed updating this site.  Lately I just don’t.  It’s not that I lost interest in writing, or complaining, or reading your lovely comments.  Writing (my euphemism for the loaded term “blogging”) is a luxury.  It’s a luxury to have the time and desire to write about life.

Right now I am going through a rough patch of assorted, but self-inflicted, injuries. I have only 1 front tooth, had 4 sets of stitches in two months, and come home everyday to a mailbox of medical bills, forms, and assorted documents. It’s hard to maintain a normal life, much less write about it, when time is marked by a sea of appointments.

This is not to say that I request your pity. I’m lucky to have insurance and a stable job and (relative) good health and a caring girlfriend and a caring family.  I’m still smiling and there are people, like our good friend Charlie, who deserve a hug and some good karma much more than I.

For now, I heal, fill out forms, and work in lab. That’s enough to keep your author busy.

Not okay.

Cycling fans probably read about the Giro riders protesting the safety of the course on Stage 9.  The usual “just-race-your-bike-mannnnnn” morons predictably came out of their hospital beds to criticize what was a smart decision on the peloton’s behalf.  The Giro director idiotically blabbered,

“This is not doing the sport any favors. Do we have to cancel all the dangerous races in cycling? Do we cancel Amstel Gold Race, Liège-Bastogne-Liège? I hope that the riders have made their point and we can return to the spectacle after the rest day.”

I could waste my time and yours with a refutation of this nonsense.  A picture does better here.

Roberto Bettini - www.bettiniphoto.net

Umm, that’s not okay.

Buy this now.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phonenix. You will like it. I don’t take music recommendation lightly.

Will I ever win a bike race?

“It takes a village...”

Every click adds to the mountain of hope.

Fake.

Today I saw a kid wearing a Rutgers Cycling jacket at a bus stop.  I have never seen him before in my life.

How to get 3 simple chin sutures removed: Modern US Healthcare Style

1. Call doc office.  Be told that next available appt. is two weeks away. By this time, stitches will have healed into the skin.
2. Go to walk-in hours at the doctors office.
3. Get told that removing stitches cannot be done at a walk-in appointment (What can? Band-Aid application?)
4. Get nurses and receptionists to pity you…make appointment for later in the day.
5. Come back for appt.
6. Wait 1.5 hours in exam room, alone.
7. See doctor with med student.
8. Have med student and doc perform 2 minute procedure.
9. IMPORTANT STEP: do not sterilize the area or sutures prior to removal.
10. Leave without the last 4 hours of your life.

Next time, should there be a next time, Aaron will be performing the procedure in 5 minutes (total) at home.

Joke’s on me?

Who would attend this? This really shouldn’t be this hard.

Whether we wish them to or not, students often rely on Wikipedia as a source of information. This session will discuss ways of teaching students to use critical judgment when reading Wikipedia articles.

Date: Tuesday, April 14
Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Place: Busch Campus Center, room 120AB, BC

This workshop qualifies for the 21st Century Professor Certificate Program.

Is this college now? Instructors working towards “21st Century Professor” Certificates? Students who don’t know a credible source from a Pop Tart?  Professors who need to attend an hour long seminar to tell their conniving ratlings that the Internet is not a scholarly source?

I wish I went through college in the 1950s.  Back then, you got a D if you wrote some crappy paper with crappy sources.  Now, we have seminars to teach professors how to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with any student who gets an A-.

Here’s your seminar: don’t cite stupid stuff.  Now get off my lawn.

Choose your own adventure