A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Last night my husband happened upon some YouTube videos of Eddie Izzard. It had been a while since I’d seen his stand-up acts and so we ended up watching several of the videos. Today, I happened upon the Mac/PC Christmas commercial. That got me to thinking about humor. The most important thing about both of these examples is that neither Izzard nor Mac do hurtful humor. Of course, Apple wants to sell its product but it does it in a humorous way without actually putting down PC — only pointing out the differences between the two brands. Izzard also doesn’t do hurtful, insulting humor — his routines are usually about the absurdities of life, history, literature, and society. They can be biting but there not sarcastic or insulting just absolutely hilarious.

There are many other examples I’m sure of humor that tickles the funny bone but doesn’t insult to do it. So, why is it so difficult to find good humorists who don’t insult people to get laughs. I know they’re out there but they don’t seem to get the screen or air time of the hurtful/insulting ones. When did it become normal for people to laugh at others rather than at themselves and the absurdities of life.

I also wonder if that change in outlook is what driving so much of the hatefulness that has crept into so many areas of life. Recently, CNN had a question that asked if negative ads were helpful to the candidate or a pox on both parties. The results last time I looked was 93% for a pox on both parties. Yet, by the time we reach the middle of next year, if not sooner, most if not all political ads will be negative. They won’t give us any information about the candidate that the ad is for but only comments skirting slander of all the opposing candidates. Personally, I get my information about candidates from other sources than ads or newspapers because they concentrate on this negativity to the exclusion of actual information about the stance of the candidate. [NOTE: I’m not naming parties because it seems all parties are guilty of negative campaigning.]

I can’t help thinking that my grandmother was right, “If you can’t say anything good don’t say anything at all”. So, I’ll continue to enjoy humorists who make me laugh at myself and my species. I’ll also tend to vote for a candidate that tells me exactly what the problems are and what they intend to do about it rather than wasting time telling me about the graphic/petty details of the opposition’s peccadilloes — as if I care about the church attendance, what they did years ago in college, or who they’re related to. What I care about is how they’ve voted in the past, what they intend to do in the future, and can I trust them to keep their word and run the country in accordance with the wishes of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the laws of the land, and the will of the people (all that irregardless of their party affiliation which should come after the above list).

Guess, I am a Pollyanna afterall — always looking for the good/better/best in others.

Looking at a few news sites today, I learned that Korean scientists have cloned cats that are florescent in UV light. The first article said:

The Ministry of Science and Technology said a team led by Kong Il-keun, an animal cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, manipulated the RFP in the skin tissue of Turkish Angora cats.

The second article (the one with the photo) said:

The red cloned cat research is expected to be utilized in dealing with certain genetic diseases in animals and humans. It will also help reproduce rare animals, such as tigers and wildcats, which are on the verge of extinction, the team said.

While it may seem that this is simply science for science’s sake and this cat could stand in for Rudolf on a cold winter night if Santa had a big UV light, it does appear that it has some legitimate research uses in dealing with genetic diseases. It’s also a theoretical test of their ability to change a genetic trait with a virus. This is all well and good but what about these cats?

I’m all for gaining knowledge and for solving some of the health problems that people have and maybe this is a first step in doing this; however, I can’t help but think that while the proof of concept with getting the skin cells to fluoresce didn’t do any harm (or at least I hope not, one of the kittens was born dead according to the article). But then you change the cat to be born with a disease and then come up with a treatment…doesn’t do much for the cat does it?

Sure, if push came to shove I’d side with humanity against animals but there has to be another way to test this stuff out without putting animals in danger. There seems to be an US vs THEM attitude — we’re the top of the heap, the epitome of evolution, so we can do anything we want because they’re just animals. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. If indeed we wish to be as great as we think we are then humans need to also realize that they are stewards of this planet and its inhabitants down to the smallest insects/whatever. So, far with global warming, acid rain, genetically engineered crops escaping from test fields — well, our grades are failing and it’s the generations unborn who will be paying for our hubris and failures.

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. The ends do not always justify the means no matter how good those ends may be. I can say that now because it’s all theoretical, but if a family member was dying and the price of saving that loved one’s life was to do more of this type of research — I don’t know what choice I’d make in that case. And that’s the point, the ethics of these situations have to be spelled out before we’ve traveled so far down the road that we can’t, or won’t, turn back.

Do we need more research into genetic diseases and ways to cure them? Yes, we do. But what are we willing to do to get those cures? That’s the question. Is there another way other than animal testing? Has anyone even looked into it or, since animal testing is so easy compared to all the research necessary to find alternatives, will anyone even look into it — after all, they’re only animals.

I caught an article on Science Daily about how people enjoy a movie more when they see it with other people. Now this sounds pretty “doh!” to me, but then science often proves the known in order to move on and be sure they understand the underlying reasons for things. However, in reading the article, I couldn’t help but think that maybe this behavior might be a bit more prevalent that just with movies. For example the authors said:

the researchers videotaped participants and found that synchrony of evaluations can be traced to glances at the other person during the film and adoption of the observed expressions.

That sounds like the sort of behavior that you observe in crowds of any type — whether that behavior is positive or negative. For example, people in a protest march will act out not with their usual behavior but following the visual and auditory behaviors of the rest of the marchers. Often, not believing that they did what they did afterward. It’s only a step beyond their normal behavior and; no, they wouldn’t have done it IF they’d been on their own. In a crowd, we feel anonymous and able to do things that we wouldn’t ordinarily do and it’s that gaining cues from others who are not following their own inner rules of behavior that leads to the violence often seen in crowd situations.

On the other hand, I’m going to put a positive spin on this, maybe this same behavior can model “good” behavior also. During the Christmas season, nothing really changes but people feel that they aught to behave “better” because of the season. It takes very little for the first person to wish another, “Happy Holidays”. Then they wish someone else well, and the behavior spreads. Watch the Salvation Army cauldrons, often no one gives a donation, then one person does and many others who observed the dropping of the coins also give. So, this crowd watching for signals to behavior can also be a positive thing — not just causing riots but random acts of kindness.

So, when you’re out in public think about the behavior that you want others about you to model when you act. Maybe your random act of kindness can be to smile at people when they wait on you. Take the time to sincerely wish them a “Happy Holiday” rather than just parroting the words. What you do may be what causes another to pass it on. If we all pass on kindness and good behavior it may not stop wars or end our environmental crisis or even pay your bills. But if we all just try to act a bit nicer to each other in little ways that don’t hurt us or take away from our ordinary rush and business — perhaps, just perhaps, it will make the world a bit of a nicer place to be and all that karma just might add up to make this a better place to live, not just during the holiday season, but every day.

Pollyanna-ish, probably — but, it is based in science, so give it a try.

I was talking with friends the other night about something that’s been bothering me since my dentist visit and the hygienist’s evil eye roll with sigh. Okay so I hadn’t had my teeth cleaned by the hygienist in years but I brush 3 times a day usually. But you’d have thought that I’d committed a crime against nature. Then there was the lecture on the importance of brushing my teeth — as if I never did. (This is going somewhere, honest.)

Anyhow, once I got home and calmed down, I began to wonder why she thought I didn’t brush my teeth enough when most people (when they’re honest) barely brush twice a day — morning and night. So, what do you do when you want to know something — you google, and I found out some interesting stuff.

First, I learned that if you have an electric toothbrush you’re not supposed to move the toothbrush except to move from tooth to tooth. It’s vitally important that you don’t use it as a normal toothbrush because that could damage your gums. Hmmm, I don’t recall ever hearing or seeing anything about that when we got our first electric toothbrush. But we’re back to regular brushes now anyway — it was just an interesting aside in my search.

Next, and this is really interesting because it showed up on several dental sites; you’re supposed to brush each tooth for 10 seconds. Now the average adult has 32 teeth (I have 24 because 2 molars never came in and 4 I had to have pulled because they came in sideways). However, let’s use the average adult with 32 teeth. That means you should brush your teeth for 320 seconds total or 5.3 minutes every time you brush. That’s just over 5 minutes just for your teeth. I don’t know about you, but I barely spend 5 minutes on my whole ‘get ready to face the day’ routine.

At first I thought well, maybe I’m just clueless (I often am) so I’ve been asking around my usual sample group about it. No one knew about the 10 seconds/tooth thing. So, I’m wondering how people are supposed to know about it. I know that over the years and several dentists, not one has ever mentioned this time/tooth thing or even that you should brush for 5 minutes for a totally clean set of chompers. So, before the internet how were we supposed to find this out if the professional people we go to don’t tell us?

Then I starting thinking about the things that as an adult I realized I didn’t know, and realized there was a lot of stuff that I just ‘learned’ without being specifically told, or somehow figured out for myself. Kids observe and they learn lots of things. And because it appears that they know something, no one jumps in to explain so sometimes they learn the wrong things. One of my favorite scenes in Starman is when he runs the red light and causes chaos behind him in traffic. He’s asked (paraphrased), “You said you’d watched me. You said you knew the rules.” The alien replies, “I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.”

See, he learned by observing and while he learned the actual rules of the road, he didn’t learn the correct legal rules of the road. Now, we observe drivers for years and I’m sure many of us found out what we knew and what were the real rules were very different when we actually studied for our learner’s permit.

I know I’ve learned a lot from books. The research and background material that goes behind a good mystery or science fiction book does sort of get packed into the unconscious as you’re reading. I learn from movies, too. It’s from books and movies that I learned about bringing gifts to the host/hostess in some situations; about multiple forks and spoons and finger bowls at fancy dinners (not that I go to any); about valet parking; about tipping maids in hotels; the workings of the bail bond system; forensic house cleaning after a death; and much much more.

I also remember those childhood songs we used to sing and the games. I don’t recall any adult every teaching us the “I’m going to go eat worms” song. But it seems, in my memory, that one day all of us just knew it somehow. Sort of as if the wind just blew the knowledge into our ears one night.

So, I guess I’m still curious about how we’re supposed to learn things when the professionals don’t tell us. Is it ESP, the wind whispering in our ear, should we have picked in up by observation somehow (can’t think of a single movie/book with a five minute tooth brushing scene though I can think of several with a toothbrush scene.

Guess, I’ll continue to ponder this question of how we learn.

Well, I’ve managed to blow most of my day watching YouTube videos of musical tesla coils. I mean how geeky can you get. This one was my favorite — not because you can see it best but because of the tune (it is November and Nutcracker season).

Megavoltmeister posted this explanation of the video:

Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI. The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software. These coils were constructed by Steve Ward and Jeff Larson. Video was captured by Terry Blake. What is not obvious is how loud the coils are. They are well over 110dB.

Here’s the YouTube link if you want to go there directly — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opf5jIukSBM
Hey, I wasted my day so why shouldn’t you.

I also learned from reading the descriptions with the videos that there are yearly teslathons where folks gather with their electronic equipment and play around — these videos are some of the results. I’ve always found Tesla to be an interesting scientist and believe that it’s time to look again at some of his work — but without the scientific prejudice he fought against — after all, some of his ‘hair-brained’ schemes do seem to work. I really should dig out those two Tesla biographies and move them closer to the top of my To Be Read piles but then my Must Read Pile is so huge it could take a while to get to the bios.

I got the automatic newsletter from NPR and found this article Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter…and Umami by Robert Krulwich to be extremely interesting. It all started with a French chef Auguste Escoffier who made a veal stock that had a new flavor that wasn’t the taste of sweet, sour, salty, or bitter. But when this magic ingredient was added to anything it tasted better. Scientists insisted there was only the 4 tastes but now with new testing they’ve found that indeed, there is a new taste. They call it Umami since it’s what a chemist Kikunae Ikeda, called it when he posited the 5th flavor years ago. So, now that it’s been proven to exist, Ideda’s name for it will be the one used for this new flavor. (The secret ingredient? Glutamate.) Read the article…it’s very informative and interesting.

Just a quick note before we start the 3 hours drive up to Philadelphia, PA, for PhilCon. It seems my blog is now popular enough to get Spam comments. So, I wanted to explicitly list my comment policy so no one gets hard feeling. First, I love comments — positive, negative, and neutral. Though to be frank, I don’t really like the negative ones but usually after I cool off I see that side of things and appreciate the feedback.

What I’m getting now is just “I like it”, “what a great site” (I wish), and this one that I can’t figure out, “My grandfather loves trains”. So, I’m moderating comments, all comments. You can write a comments without having to log in or do any of that but I’m moderating all comments. If a comment doesn’t add to the topic or discussion — I’ll probably just delete it after reading. That means all those me too posts will just get dropped as I’ll appreciate it, but it doesn’t add to the discussion. That makes it easier for me to delete all this Spam commentary without having to stop and evaluate every post.

Trains, mumble, mumble, I haven’t even had a post about trains on this blog.

In another online group, we’ve been discussing wishes. There’s a lot of people who are all hyped on learning the steps to attract positive forces to grant your wishes. Personally, I make a wish on the turkey wishbone every year, on falling stars, and when blowing out the candles on my birthday cake (soon to be a single candle since shortly we’ll be able to cook the cake with the candle heat). Anyway, this discussion made me think about wishes and the granting thereof. Ever since I heard the Rolling Stone song, I always hear, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need” whenever I think of wishes (or prayers for that matter).

If you stop and think about it. Wishes are at the root of a lot of fairy tales and seldom do things turn out for the wisher or wishee. Sometimes it’s because the wish was not specific enough and other times it was because the person making the wish didn’t really know what it was they wanted. Even if you do know exactly what you want — your conscious and unconscious mind agree — would you really want that event/thing/whatever to be the result of a wish? People seldom appreciate things that they get free or too easily — that’s why there is often a nominal fee for service for things that would otherwise be given away. Don’t believe me. Well think about it, if someone came up to you and gave you a ‘free’ flashlight, I’ll wager the first thing you’d do is try to figure out what the catch was or what was wrong with it.

But going back to wishes…think about those rash wishes in the heat of anger or hurt. None of them should ever come true. I know that I’ll be eternally grateful that all of those anger-fed wishes dissipated like morning mist in sunshine. Then there’s the one to continue the wonderful time or good feeling forever — remember those. In the clear light of morning, would you really want eternal happiness? Really? Can there be happiness without sadness to let us know the difference? Most things come with polar opposites: health/sickness, love/hate, sunshine/rain…

Maybe wishes are just place holders to allow us to dream but not necessarily to get a free ride. Satisfaction and pride comes more from achieving what you want by working for it. Not that a bit of help along the way would be turned away — sometimes you need a helping hand. But once a job is done — doesn’t it feel good to know you did it? Would it feel as good if you just twitched your nose and the job was done with no effort at all?

Wishes should be the embodiment of good hopes and positive thoughts towards others. But, then perhaps I just need to think about this wishing business a bit more. Should wishes come true — always, never, sometimes?