Wow, it’s been a while…

anyhow - I know this is an old topic (though one new to me), but it really raises some good points that have always bothered me about what people call “art”.  I sort of follow the last point made in the article - about how Pollock deserves respect for creating something which was not mere replication, but even so it smacks to me of a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes.  What I would love to see is a group of art aficionados participate in a blind study that analyzes their ability to discern the work of unfamiliar, yet professional artists from cheap knock-offs produced by someone intentionally mimicking the style but without a shred of artistic ability (myself, for instance).

As Stephen will attest, they would probably identify my Pollock knock-off by the exceedingly “long legs” hidden within the splatter. 

Doonesbury (hat tip to this Freakonomics article)

of course, he might still be alive - he’s an awfully hard-to-track-down guy.

Anyhow, the pertinent point is that I’ve come across another fascinating Freakonomics article; this one dealing with the inconsistency and inaccuracy of weather reports. To be it’s supremely ironic that I stumbled across this a mere day after ranting about a similar problem in the news’ treatment of the course of the stock market.

A lot of it (the article) sort of dovetails with common sense, though it’s so easy to just assume that the newscasters actually know what they’re doing… but then again, that’s exactly my problem with stock reporting; you trust them to know what they’re talking about, and often they don’t have the decency to admit they simply don’t know.

As for Dr. George, well that’s just a blast from my past. I haven’t thought of him in years, until I was trying to come up with a ‘different’ title for this post. I think he will always be my image of a stereotypical weatherman from the ‘good old days’ - back before Dallas Raines (is that really his legal name?) or Christopher Nance or the comic Fritz Coleman. And in trying to look up whatever became of him, I stumbled across this little post which surprised me by informing me that Dr. George is immortalized in a Tom Waits song (I’m guessing Writin Wrong has heard it at some point).

To summarize, I quote from the article:

The takeaway message? Do not plan your weekend activities based on the T.V. weather forecasts unless it is already Thursday — but waiting until Friday would be even better.

So Caleb and Quinn were sharing with us what they’ve been learning about the ear yesterday. We are enjoying hearing about what they remember and are prompting Quinn for the vocabulary he remembers. He does a pretty good job, recalling the hammer (I’m guessing his previous familiarity with the word helped) and we hint and cajole to get him to recall anvil and stirrups. These are the ones that immediately come to my mind.

Not to leave out Caleb, though he’s not quite 6, we ask what he learned and he claimed he couldn’t remember any of the words. Only, moments later, he blurts out “…and the semicircular canal!” Guess he couldn’t be bothered with anything as simple as a hammer or anvil.

On a side note, he also quite seriously explained (as he’s working on his phonics) that the end of the word ‘leap’ starts with ‘p’.

As a former (small-time) investor and math teacher, I’ve long been frustrated with the news’ approach to reporting ups and downs, highs and lows in the market.  My favorite type of report states that “The Dow was up today on rumors that ____________________.”  Come on!  You’re telling me that the only thing that contributed to this massively complex market today was a single rumor?  No one in their right mind believes that, certainly not whoever wrote the article…  yet they feel compelled to put a reason to the day’s events.  And I really believe a lot of people out there take the report at face value.

What was merely a pet peeve, however, became much more serious after I read this paper by Arthur Lupia, et al. at the University of Michigan (hat tip, once again, to Freakonomics).  I don’t want to steal his thunder too much - you should read for yourself - but suffice it to say that the status quo is really just fostering ignorance and poor investing sense.  I consider myself good with numbers, but this interpretation of events eluded me.  Reading it, however, explains a lot about how an economy can appear so good and perform so badly at the same time; it’s all about where you focus your attention.

Whether or not the media is swayed by the solid suggestions, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to at least better interpret this kind of financial data in the future.  That’s a start…

More by Prof. Lupia here.

I just got through reading a gushing ‘heads up’ to Lost fans about the upcoming continuation to the season (post Writer’s-strike) and I guess it just really rubbed me the wrong way. I know I shouldn’t really take personally what ultimately are the tastes and/or opinions of others, but I suppose as a reformed ‘Lost’-oholic I just feel like it’s a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes and I don’t like seeing perfectly respectable and intelligent people duped.

Lost has a lot going for it - I can see the attraction: great characters, an intricate plot, fast-paced changes of plot direction, an air of mystery. In many ways, I think it’s similar to Alias (also a show I avidly followed). But at some point, perhaps near the end of Alias’s run, I read a review that got me thinking… essentially, the reviewer pointed out, the show (I think they were referring to Alias) is all about the ride but without a destination. Anybody who stuck around to the bitter (and unsatisfactorily completed) end should be able to understand what I’m saying… the credits rolled and I asked myself, “that was it?!”

And I was already, subconsciously, beginning to feel this about Lost. There were too many unanswered questions. Unanswered questions are fine if there is some chance that they will be explained, but more and more questions arose and lots of other little details fell by the wayside.

What is the explanation of Walt’s ‘ability’ with animals? There probably isn’t one, but it sure looked mysterious while it lasted… Where’d the polar bear come from? Who cares - nobody but me remembers it anymore, right…? What was the huge creature that shredded the airline pilot in the first episode??? Nobody knows and I’m sure it’ll never come up… What’s so special about Hurley’s numbers? Who cares - they’re mysterious, they don’t need an explanation…

I’m sure there are more that I’ve forgotten. The point is, a good mystery has a solution. Anybody can keep coming up with another twist - but splicing together twists that make sense and are all part of a nice, coherent story while still keeping the viewers guessing… now that’s what I’m looking for. Sadly, even Alias fell victim to the temptation of stringing the viewers (read: addicts) along by giving them another titillating (yet substance-less) hit. Each episode is more like the patch than a real cigarette. [No, I don't smoke - it's just an apropos picture, in my estimation]

It’s funny, after this diatribe I’m suddenly coming to the realization that, by my standards, 90% of TV isn’t worth the time it takes to watch it… hmm, maybe this is why I don’t much anymore. I like Heroes, so far, but I suspect that will pall soon as well. Any show that depends on the same ridiculous thing happening over an over again will strain at the bounds of my credulity after a while. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but for how long?!

Sorry, Jessica Fletcher, but I don’t want to be your friend - everywhere you go, somebody gets whacked. After 12 years, you’d think they’d lock her up! Sorry, Dr. House, but after a while I’ve started to see a pattern - you’re a jerk, people have the most mysterious illness in the world, and in the nick of time you save them! Great for a while (I really mean that - I did enjoy it for a bit!), but what new can happen? Survivor? Hmmm, a bunch of adults competing in lame, contrived events and backstabbing worse than high school teenagers on a soap opera… I’ll pass. American Idol - a talent show I can understand, but the making sport of people who clearly don’t have a clear grip on reality (not to mention people who don’t have decent enough friends to tell them otherwise) is just sad… it’s tantamount to picking on someone with a disability and calling it humour (which is why high school students watch it - a la Jackass).

The only shows I do understand are procedurals and sit-coms. A sit-com is about daily life and humour - daily life is always happening and those who can find humour in the mundane are impressive (especially those who can keep the humour clean). Procedurals are generally about life on the job and the job keeps happening, so that’s not surprising either (and doesn’t need to be contrived). That said, there are enough Law & Orders out there that they could show all the reruns end to end ’til eternity and not run out - we could use a fresh idea, people!

You may claim that House is a procedural, but that would only be if he treated normal issues - it is not SOP to have a unique, nearly-impossible-to-solve medical case come through once a week (or at least, that’s what my intuition tells me).

I apologize to those I’ve terribly offended… if any happened to stumble across this blog. I just needed to vent. As I tried to state at the beginning, I can’t regulate your opinion (nor do I want to). If you want unadulterated, free-from-the-constraints-of-reality entertainment, more power to you! And I hope you enjoy it! I just wish there was more intelligent-through-and-through entertainment out there.

Like Firefly - but I guess that’s why they cancelled it… can’t have the people thinking too much!

PS - if they did answer any of the aforementioned “Lost-questions”, please drop me a comment and fill me in! Inquiring minds want to know!

Very cool app!  Check it out!

(yeah, yeah, Freakonomics again…  they’re too cool for words!)

I so should have blogged about this sooner, but I just hadn’t had time to watch the video.  This is very interesting and very funny.  (would post it here, but WordPress won’t allow it for this type of video)

I should also point out that I first found the video on the Freakonomics blog and that I first became acquainted with Sudhir Venkatesh due to his pieces on What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?

Came across this puzzle via the Freakonomics blog (as usual), and it’s really quite interesting. It’s basically a word-association puzzle, but it’s designed to use cookies so it will automatically save your game. AND there’s a feature that let’s people share their solutions to collaborate.

Try it out!

If you want to collaborate, let me show you how: click on the ’save game’ button and it will provide you with a link to your saved content. Paste that content into a comment here for us to share our results.

My progress so far (only use it if you want to - you can start on your own by using the link above). My recommendation is to begin it on your own and only use my progress if you’re getting stuck. To add my progress to yours, again click the ’save game’ button and there’s a field where you can paste in somebody else’s progress (just paste in the above link).

This interesting article brought to light some interesting statistics that I wouldn’t have guessed on my own.  I’m not really sure what to make of it just yet, but I’m hoping that I might at least use the information to encourage my students, especially girls that might not see themselves as capable of going into an engineering-related filed.

Part of the program I work with encourages students to choose a path as they enter their junior year: the Biomed path, or the Engineering path.  Overwhelmingly, the girls tend to prefer Biomed.  That’s not necessarily a problem (before I get flamed for insinuating otherwise) - I just want to make sure all students feel they are capable of either choice.  Last year, for instance, out of about twenty students, only two were girls.