All Wikis Lead to Mathematics?

Last weekend, my favorite webcomic XKCD was about Wikipedia and how it made us all look smarter. As you rolled over the cartoon, a box popped up that said,
"Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at ‘Philosophy’."
Since then, I've seen a couple of my science blogs repeat this "fact" with "Mathematics" replacing "Philosophy". So I thought I would try it using CARROT. The list of wikipedia articles looks like this:

1.  carrot
2.  root vegetable
  (remember to skip over all the stuff in parentheses
   and italics, like the Latin derivation, etc.)
3.  vegetables
4.  edible
5.  ingestion
6.  organism
7.  biology
8.  natural science
9.  science
10. knowledge
11. facts
12. information
13. sequence
14. mathematics

If you keep going, four steps later you do get to philosophy, so both hypotheses are possibly correct.Let's try it again.

1.  Derrick Rose
2.  basketball
3.  team sport
4.  sport
5.  organized
6.  social group
7.  social cohesion
8.  social policy
9.  human welfare (quality of life)
10. international development
11. foreign aid
12. international relations
13. states (sovereign state)
14. state
15. social sciences
16. fields
17. academia
18. community
19. interaction
20. causal
21. effect (result)
22. sequence
23. mathematics

Now there have been many reasons given in the various blogs about why this happens. One interesting insight was that it doesn't happen if you use the French language version of Wikipedia. In the English language version, almost all articles start with identifying the topic with a broader topic. You can see that in the second example where basketball leads to team sport leads to sport. The model article in Wikipedia in English is usually written in the form "A is a kind of B" (Basketball is a kind of team sport.  A team sport is a kind of sport. And so on.) OK, that does make a lot of sense. And a number of blogs point to exceptions that tend to loop between two topics. For example, one blog listed "The Gong Show" as a counterexample that formed a loop when it hit "Knowledge". So I tried that one, and guess what? It led to mathematics. Which brings us to a similarly likely reason why this works, given in a computer science blog that had some serious data given on archived versions of Wikipedia: since the XKCD webcomic appeared last week, hundreds, if not thousands, of Wikipedia articles have been edited to make them work out. Just a minor change in the order of the first sentence, or taking away a link that used to be to another topic that dead-ended. In other words, all the math - science - humanities geeks that regularly edit Wikipedia (and regularly read XKCD) are making it all work out. One of the advantages of having a huge, free, easy to edit encyclopedia on the Internet. Well, an advantage unless you were hoping that the huge, free encyclopedia was being edited solely to make the articles better. Luckily the changes are fairly minor. I haven't seen any blogs reporting that articles have become less factual as a result. In fact, Wikipedia has a page devoted to the game, where people are encouraged to find the longest sequence that eventually leads to "Philosophy". The winner right now is "Abbadon", which takes 42 links before it gets to "Philosophy". Finally, I found something that I don't think I have enough time for.

Middle School Promotion Ceremony Speech

On behalf of the Board of Education of District 118, I would like to welcome family, friends, District 118 staff, and students to these promotion exercises. I would like to talk to both students and parents today about the transition you are both making from middle school to high school. I say both because parents have a transition to go through as well.    

Those of you parents who have had older children at the high school know that having a high school student is very different from having a middle school student. Your role in your child’s life will change dramatically over the next four years. And it should change. We know that in four years many of these students will be moving on to a life in which you are not present on a day to day basis. Whether they are moving on to college or choosing military service or going off to work, there is a good chance that they will not be living at home. They will not have you to monitor their every action and to help them out of every bad situation. When they oversleep and miss a class at U of I, you can’t call them in and have them excused. You can’t call their professors and find out what your son or daughter can do to improve their grade. I remember going with my older son to the University of Illinois at Chicago parent/student orientation and finding out that we parents would not be getting any information from the university about our kids. No progress reports, no copies of their schedule, no grades of any kind. All reports would go directly to the students. “How do we find out how they are doing?” we wanted to know. “You will have to ask them,” we are told by the university. That is very different from your middle school experience, I’m sure. Now as a high school parent, you are not cast adrift like a college parent is. Your children will still need boundaries and supervision as they go through high school, but you do need to prepare your son or daughter for the time when they will be solely responsible for their actions. They need to learn how to advocate for themselves. They need to talk with teachers about what they can do if they get off track. They need to take responsibility when they make a mistake and suffer some penalties. And you need to let them suffer the penalties and learn from them. The next four years can be exciting for you parents. You can be involved in going to football, soccer, and softball games, watching your kids perform in band or choir, supporting their involvement in the musical or other extracurricular activities, seeing them all dressed up heading off to prom or homecoming dances. This is a great high school and I hope you get involved as a spectator in all the activities that are going on.    

Students, I’m going off on a tangent for a moment, but I am really excited about the big movies that are coming out this summer: the final Harry Potter movie, all the comic book movies like Thor and Green Lantern, and even a movie based on a book I read as a child 50 years ago, Mr. Popper’s Penguins. I was discussing these movies with a friend who took quite a few film criticism courses in college and we were talking about how movies and TV shows, even those about ordinary things, differed from real life. And he remembered a sentence quoted by one of his professors that describes the fact that movies and TV shows are all about editing transitions. “The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.” And that quote stuck in my head. You might be able to picture yourself as a high school senior on a day similar to this one, wearing a graduation gown and being ready to move on to work or to college or to the military, but unlike the movies, we don’t just jump from now to then. It will take four years for you to become that graduating senior. And what you do in the next four years will affect the way you view high school as a graduating senior. Over the next four years, there will be more choices for classes than you've ever had: architectural drafting, physics, calculus, and psychology to name just a few. Extracurricular activities like the Spanish Club, Scholastic Bowl, the school Newspaper, and Pep Band can help make you a more well-rounded individual. Athletic teams like golf, football, soccer, and softball can challenge you mentally as well as physically. There will be over 1300 students at the high school next year. Somewhere there you will find someone who appreciates you for who you are. Or if it's time to effect a change in your image, this is the year to do it. Find a new group to belong to, new activities to try. You are responsible for who you will be next fall. Don't let high school just happen to you. Take part and you will find the rewards are great. Four years will pass quickly and you will have become the young adult you hope to be.    

Thank you.   

Thanksgiving Movie Trailer!

I'm going to tell you up front that the movie in this trailer may have moved to the top of my movie list - maybe second behind "Cowboys and Aliens" - how can you not love that title, regardless of what the movie is like. I must caution you, however; you may wonder why I am so high on this movie as you watch the opening. It looks really (really (really)) stupid at first, but wait for the guest stars to show up. It gets better in a hurry after that.  Can't wait for Thanksgiving.  Although first we have to see Kung Fu Panda 2, right. I hope Mike has pictures of himself dressed up for the Thursday night at 12:05 AM opening show. I'm guessing he goes as Oogway (before he became a bunch of peach blossoms). Enjoy!    

Also as Geek Chic Daily tells us, "Gawrssh! Please wish Goofy a happy 79th birthday before he hilariously ruins it."    

 

I'm Back

I haven't been blogging much lately because it's the graduation season and I've been getting ready for graduation speech time. The speech to the High School kids went pretty well today. They seemed to be attentive and enjoyed the joke at the end. I worried that it may have been a little harsh and not uplifting enough, but it's done. And people thanked me, so it must not have been too over the top.    

The middle school promotion ceremony is Thursday at 7 PM, so I have to get going on it soon. If you were an 8th grader, what would be a good message for you to hear? I've done 8 or 9 of these so I have covered a lot of messages. I could use some help with a new topic, instead of get involved at your school, change your image this summer if you don't like it (they move from 2 middle schools to one high school so half the kids are new to them at high school - good time to change your image), I even had one using points made in Brokaw's book about the greatest generation (those coming back from WW2). So let me know soon if you have an idea. Sources are helpful, too. Today's high school address started out about the new movie Thor, so they can be lighter in the beginning.  Thanks in advance.     

And if you have any upcoming needs for a promotional speaker, I am getting better at this after 8 years.  I'd love to talk to your group. I even have my own graduation gown and thingamabob that goes around your neck and shows you have a masters degree in mathematics. And I charge significantly less than what George Bush makes. Although I probably won't say, "Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die."  Kinda like the kid in Sixth Sense, I think; I see dead families!  If you work in an office and your colleagues seem to be stuck at a 10th grade level emotionally, that's my target demographic, unfortunately. Oh, well.  

Middle School address should be posted Thursday evening. Enjoy.  

WHS Commencement Address, 2011

Commencement Address

May 22, 2011

Wauconda High School

Welcome parents, friends, faculty, and members of the graduating class of 2011:

On behalf of the Board of Education of District 118, I would like to welcome you to the 95th annual commencement of Wauconda High School.

I went to the movies last week and saw the movie Thor, in 3-D, no less. Now being a long time math teacher and certified geek, I have always had a fondness for comic books, so I have been looking forward to the wave of comic book movies that are headed our way this summer. And as I sat in the theater and watched Thor, my memories stretched back to the 1960’s.  When I was a Freshman in high school, my mother bought me a book for my birthday. Now in a few more years, I would probably have to stop here and explain to the younger set that a book is like an IPad, except it doesn’t scroll, or text or tweet, and it won’t play Youtube videos. The book she got me was by Edith Hamilton and it was titled Mythology. The book was a collection of stories about the Roman and Greek gods, goddesses, and heroes. The stories included the twelve labors of Hercules,  Jason and the Golden Fleece, and near the end of the book was a section on Norse mythology, including the story of Thor.

Since then I have been fascinated by myths of all kinds. I have read books about  Native American mythology, Celtic mythology, and Egyptian mythology. And what I would like to do today is talk to you about some myths that you should know about as you move on to the next stage in your life.

The first myth I would like to talk about is the myth that failure is bad.  Now nobody wants to fail. Whether it’s doing  poorly on a test , having a bad date, or making a poor choice in life, you don’t walk away from a failure with a good taste in your mouth. But you can walk away with a better sense of who you are and what you need to do better if you want to succeed. The book And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was rejected by 27 different publishers before Ted Geisel finally found one that accepted it. Eventually 200 million copies of his books would find their way into the hands of children and adults who loved Dr. Seuss. You will make have failures. Admit to them, learn from them, and move on.

Another myth that I want to talk about is the myth that someone else is responsible for the way your life turns out. We are living in what is commonly called the Age of Entitlement in America. A sense of entitlement means that we feel we have a right or claim to something, whether it’s a nice house, preferential treatment, or the good life. We feel that we are owed these things. Mental health professionals routinely write about their experiences working with people who are absolutely certain that their lives should be better and that someone else is to blame. Talk radio shows seem to exist solely to tell us who to blame for the way our life has gone. Our exaggerated self-esteem leads us to think we are better than others. And then we can’t understand why other people seem to be better off than we are.  Unfortunately this is as far from the American ideal as we can get. We are a country founded on a pioneer spirit that tells us if we want to make something of ourselves, it’s up to us. Instead, we complain about what we don’t have.  As Anthony Robinson said, “Instead of knowing life as a gift, life turns into something that is taken for granted – or worse, begrudged. That’s real poverty, and no sense of entitlement can alleviate it.”  

The last myth that I would like to talk about is the myth that to get ahead you have to leave others behind. You know the image: people rising to the top by knocking other people down. Competition brings out the best in us. Unfortunately for that image, hundreds of studies going back to the late 1800’s have all said the same thing: cooperation is the real road to success. For instance, statistics show that scientists who consider themselves cooperative tend to have more published articles than their competitive colleagues. Cooperative business people have higher salaries. From elementary grades to college, students who cooperate have higher grade point averages. When resources and information are shared and team efforts are reinforced, everyone wins. Cooperation turns potential competitors into partners.  And as a side benefit, the research is pretty overwhelming that people who work cooperatively are physically healthier and better adjusted psychologically. We can make progress on being more cooperative, but it is a skill we have to learn. 

At one point during the little league baseball game, the coach said to one of his young players,
“Jimmy, do you know what cooperation is?”
The little boy nodded.
“Do you know that we win or lose as a team?”
Again the boy nodded yes.
“And do you know that when the umpire calls a strike while you are batting, you shouldn’t argue or swear at him or call him an idiot?’
The boy nodded in agreement.
“Good,” said the coach. “Now, would you please go over there and explain that to your mother.”

I appreciate your time and attention today. I congratulate you on 

the success that you have had in reaching this new stage in your 

life. And I hope that you make your life into a wonderful journey. 

Thank you. 

It's About Time

The College of Arms, official repository of the coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families and their descendants, granted a coat-of-arms to Sir Terence David John Pratchett of Broad Chalke, Wiltshire on April 28:      

 

Illustrated left are the Armorial Bearings granted to Sir Terence David John PRATCHETT of Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, Knight, OBE by Letters Patent of Garter and Clarenceux Kings of Arms dated 28 April 2010.   

The Arms are blazoned: Sable and ankh between four Roundels in saltire each issuing Argent.   

The Crest is Upon a Helm with a Wreath Argent and Sable On Water Barry wavy Sable Argent and Sable an Owl affronty wings displayed and inverted Or supporting thereby two closed Books erect Gules.   

The motto means “Do Not Fear the Reaper.”  

Good advice for all of us.  A fitting tribute for one of my favorite people of all time, currently battling Alzheimer's Disease. Hang in there, Terry.    

What I Want (Need) On My Next Car

I have complained often about the lack of innovation in design on the part of automobile makers. Until 2000, nearly every car manufactured had the same basic features: internal combustion engine powered by petroleum, two or four doors (plus maybe a hatchback) operating on hinges and a door handle, front and rear seats that function the same way they did in 1950. Face it, the only changes in automobile manufacturing have been about efficiency and looks, but not function. A steering wheel looks amost exactly the same as it did in 1940. Since 2000, changes in fuels have been the only significant change, with hybrid and electric cars becoming more common. And don't get me started on why cars can't fly. Finally, however, there comes a change that is outside the box.  From this company, an actual revolution in how you get in and out of your car.

I don't care if I have to sell the house to pay for it, I'm definitely getting this on my next car.  

Today's Political Science Lesson: How Foreign Policy Works

The Whitest Kids You Know is an ensemble comedy group that airs on IFC (Independent Film Channel). The following video is their take on the nuclear arms race.   

Odds and Ends, Mostly Ends

1. Ten years ago, Douglas Adams passed away. The author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was only 49 years old when he passed away. How many great stories were left undone by his early death? He also wrote the Dirk Gently Detective series and did scripts for Doctor Who. He credited the bands Pink Floyd and Procul Harum as influences in his writing, and he was heavily involved in the computer game versions of his books.  He had epic bouts of writer's block, saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." My favorite quote - "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."  




Time to read the whole series again.    



2. It is with great dismay that I learned of the demise of the Food Network's best show, Good Eats. Alton Brown, host and writer, announced abruptly that the show was closing up shop after 12 years on the air. The pilot for Good Eats first aired on our own PBS channel, WTTW Chicago, in July of 1998 and was picked up by the Food Network in 1999. It continued to air new shows until last week. The smartest food show on TV, Good Eats won a Peabody Award in 2006 and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in 2000. Alton Brown mixed science with cooking, often using weird made-up contraptions to illustrate his points. From Episode 1: Steak Your Claim to Episode 249: Use Your Noodle, I learned a lot about cooking from Alton Brown. Brown has promised to stay involved with the Food Network - he is a significant part of Iron Chef America and we can hope for something new from him in the future.   


3. This morning the space shuttle Endeavor had its final launch, mission STS - 134.  Endeavor was built in the late 80's to replace Challenger, which exploded shortly after launch during Mission STS - 51. It is named for British explorer James Cook's first sailing ship. Cook's voyage on the Endeavor established the usefulness of sending scientists on voyages of exploration. While sailing with Cook, naturalists James Banks and Carl Solander collected many new families and species of plants, and encountered numerous new species of animals.  This is Endeavor's 25th space flight. Launch was spectacular at 7:56 AM CDT this morning and Endeavor is expected to return to Earth June 1st. Many of the mission objectives involve stocking the space station with spare parts in anticipation of the end of the Space Shuttle missions.  The final Space Shuttle launch, involving Atlantis, is scheduled for June 28th. It would be nice to be there to see the end of an amazing era in space exploration. 


From the webcomic XKCD:   

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." 

Here's hoping we stay irrational. 

Tropes

 I have been reading a lot about tropes lately. A trope is a word or expression that is used in a figurative (not literal) sense. For example, "Saturday's game will be a cakewalk" doesn't mean that there will be cake at the game. And "the President's speech was a home run" doesn't automatically mean that a Cubs pitcher was involved. I've been especially interested in tropes that have to do with writing fiction, as evidenced at the website TV Tropes.  This website categorizes typical situations, characters, and other plot devices with words or phrases that call them to mind (tropes). For example, one trope is called "Always Save the Girl" in which the plot says that the hero makes it uncomfortably plain that he/she values the life of their Love Interest over those of everyone else: friends, family,  or even all other life in the universe. Luckily the site gives examples from TV (Pushing Daisies, X Files, House), Literature (Harry Potter), films (Indiana Jones, Matrix Reloaded), and video games (Final Fantasy IV). There are thousands of tropes to look through with lots of supporting material. A "Scrappy" is a universally hated character - Scrappy-Do, Wesley Crusher, Chris Bosh Jar Jar Binks.  A "Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot" is any character or movie that is a combination (usually technically impossible) of cool things that is better than the sum of its parts - the Borgs in Star Trek TNG (zombie pirate cyborgs), Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles, and the movie Peewee's Big Adventure, in which Pee-Wee Herman meets a magician, a fortune-teller, an escaped convict, a zombie truck driver, a giant, a hobo, cowboys, and bikers - and then ends up getting chased by water-skiers, Santa Claus, and Godzilla.    

You can read the descriptions in non-spoiler mode so that a description that gives away something crucial in the movie is blanked out. And as in most wiki style sites, you can add your own suggestions or comments, as long as you register and log in. A lot of fun to just read through a few when you have some minutes free.  It's a bookmark for me; when the day is not going well, I know that reading the trope "Carrying a Cake" will make me smile (think Rodney Dangerfield in Easy Money).    

Summer Movie Season Has Begun!

The good news is Thor is as good as I had hoped. It may or may not be a good film - I'm not qualified in the film crit department - but it is a great summer movie. Natalie Portman does seem a little out of place after Black Swan, but I'm sure actors want to be in blockbuster movies for a change of pace, too. The highlight of the movie is the three buddies (The Warriors Three) plus Sif (Thor's love interest for a time in the original comic books). They are very enjoyable as somewhat comic relief.    

Anthony Hopkins is sufficiently Odin-like in a campy eye patch and Rene Russo from Major League and Lethal Weapon shows up as Frigga, Odin's wife.   

I think I even saw the old ham Stan Lee as a pickup truck driver in the movie.   

All in all, a good start to the summer movie season. Next up: Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda.This summer just gets better and better.    

Da Bulls!

Made Atlanta look sick in game 6 last night. Heard one sports talk show guy say that last night's basketball game was the equivalent of basketball nirvana. They now advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. First time back since the championship year 1998. It is going to be a tough series against Miami, but if the Bulls can play the way they did last night, they have a good chance. Boozer making his pick-and-pop shot makes a big difference. They can't cover both him and Derrick; someone is going to be open.  

Matt Spiegel of the morning show on WSCR 670 Chicago (The Score) has a blog post that depicts the upcoming series as the battle between the Death Star and the Rebel Alliance. It is worth the time to read it. Derrick Rose as the young Jedi MVP with Tom Thibodeau as Yoda. And including the sentence:   

Omer Asik looks horrifyingly like a Tauntaun, the omnivorous reptomammal indigenous to the icy planet of Hoth.    

On the Dark Side, James is chosen as Darth Vader, and "Dwyane Wade is Grand Moff Tarkin, the original commander of the Death Star, who enslaved others to work underneath him. He is destined to be destroyed by our young Jedi himself."   

Probably the best choice is the identity of Chris Bosh, "You know, the guy I like to call “the coat-tail rider,” that whiny, screaming, fake tough guy with no business being in this position. Well, there is one character, in the entire Star Wars realm, near-universally hated and derided."   

Yes, you guessed it, Chris Bosh is Jar Jar Binks.    


We have tickets for Game 2 Wednesday night. Shoot me a text message during the game. I'll let you know how we're doing. Go Bulls.    

Number Eighty with a Bullet!

I would like to take a little time here and ask a favor. I have been writing this blog since the last week of January, and this one will be my 80th post. I have been averaging 20 a month, so roughly two posts every three days. It has been very enjoyable for me. I have been able to satisfy the writing bug that is  present and I have also been able to pass along some things that you may not have had time to look for on the interwebs, like   

7 Basic Things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong 
Japan Earthquake Animation
How to Decorate the Spare Bedroom

There have been some math topics:  

A Math Fact You Probably Didn't Know
Mathematics You Can Use!
Today's Math Lesson: Bubble-sort, anyone?

some music videos: 

Today's Musical Selection
One of My Favorite Songs
Gonzo Sings Today's Musical Selection

and some geek moments: 

The NeatoShop
The JetPack is Here (sort-of)
Hail To The King, Baby!
 
This blog has also given me a chance to let you know some things about me and how I think:  

Can't Help Myself
Reflections on bin Laden and America
How I Spent My Morning
Easter Fun!
Illinois Public Employee Unions

The one thing this blog has not done has been to give me an idea of how you think. I know you don't have all the time I have, but it would be nice to hear what you have to say. So I am going to walk you through the process of commenting on the blog. It is not difficult, although you may have to set up an account through Google. Hit the button below that says 0 comments (or by this time 1 comment or 2 comments, etc). Type your comment into the white box labeled comment. It can be as simple as "Hey, I'm reading you". Or you can do a specific comment about that post - "I can't believe there's a website with pictures of animals with stuffed animals". If you have time, be specific in your comments and tell me what you think or did or saw that is related to what I wrote. When you are done, click on the menu "Comment as" below the box and highlight Google account. Then click on Post comment. If you have an active Google account associated with my blog, you can skip the next few steps. If you don't have an account on file with the blog (never commented on Blogger before), the Blogger screen should show up with a chance to sign in with your Google account. If you don't have a Google account, click on Get Started and follow the directions. You don't have to fill in everything when you set up your Google account. E-mail address, the password you make up and a user name to display on the screen are essential. You don't have to use your actual name. My user name is jcat. That's what shows up on the comments page. Fill in the word verification, click the acceptance box and you are good to go. That word verification thing often shows up when I post a comment to someone else's blog. I think it is to keep things a little more secure. Well, that's it. Post a comment about the blog, post a comment about someone else's comment, or post a comment about my response to your comment. Just don't post a comment that you are eating breakfast. That's twitter and we have an official stance on twitter. It involves Samuel L Jackson and a gun.   

I can't emphasize enough the fact that blog writing is often a pretty lonely affair on my level. On the statistics page associated with the blog, I can find out how many pages were viewed each day, but that doesn't really tell me who is out there. I might get a comment or two from the boys and/or my lovely and delightful daughter - in  - law. But it usually goes four or five or eight posts in a row without any comment at all. Twelve of my previous 79 posts have at least one comment.  That leaves 67 posts bare naked. If that keeps up, I'll have to get the new puppy sooner than I thought, just to have someone to talk to. It's pretty quiet in this room at 1 AM. It would be nice to know you are out there, although probably sleeping if you are smarter than me.  If the comment thing is not working, send me an e-mail here.   Looking forward to hearing from you. And when you start your blog, I promise to read and comment. 

And, as always, thanks for reading (and soon, I hope, thanks for commenting).


   

Going Out In Style

This may seem like too dark a topic for some of you, but I am really impressed by these coffins. Yes, coffins. They are made by a company called Creative Coffins, and are environmentally more sound and considerably cheaper than typical wood and metal coffins. More importantly to me, they are a lot more fun.     



 

I thought it was nice that they had one for me:   




















 Although I like this one a lot (I think Dave would like this one, too).   

This one is nice, and it looks great from the side while it is being carried. 




 

This may be my favorite, though. This is a seriously cool coffin and if I weren't being cremated, I would require this one for my funeral. I think it would bring a smile to people, and that is the deceased's job at a funeral. People feel bad enough already without seeing you in some heavy, dark metal and oak box.  One thing the deceased can do is make everyone feel a little better at the funeral. It's the least you could do. Vanilla creams and caramels would make me smile. How about you?     

The Obligatory Cat Video

So far I have avoided the cute puppy and kitty pictures that seem to be the sole purpose of the internet.  I love a kitten sleeping with a stuffed panda bear as much as the next guy, but it seemed that this should be a cute animal - free zone as much as possible. But this video is not a cute kitty - this is a nutcase kitty. The music is as scary as the kitten. i coached high school tennis for 12 years at two different high schools and I understand the angst that a tennis ball can provide. I remember coaching Bronco Freshmen Girls tennis on the second day of the season and getting all the foursomes practicing net play while I critiqued. I had to stop, however, when I noticed five minutes into the drill that the players on the end court were all standing at the net talking. I walked down and asked what was up. They answered that they had had enough of that drill and were deciding what to do next. We had a brief animated discussion (ask Scott and Bob about those) about how high school sports worked and everything was OK after that. Enjoy the video. I promise I won't overdo cute.   

Reflections on bin Laden and America

Enough time has passed, it seemed, that an opinion or two about the death of Osama bin Laden might be in order. I must say that some of the events of the past couple of weeks have been somewhat troubling, and I have taken some time to read what others have to say while I think about where I stand on the issues raised by his death. I must say up front that I am relieved that he is dead. There is no ambiguity about the evil nature of his actions and no uncertainty about the monstrous scope of his organization. And I am sure that for many Americans who were touched by the death and destruction on 9/11, there must be a great deal of satisfaction in having him brought to justice. Some of the students I taught lost relatives in the attack on the Twin Towers and I know their lives changed immediately. But as in any instance like this, I fall back on being a teacher for nearly 40 years and I ask myself how I would respond if a student asked me what I thought about bin Laden's death. And the first thing I would tell them is that I probably wouldn't celebrate. Cheering his death seems wrong to me. I can feel that justice has been done; I can feel relieved that he can do no more harm. I can feel pride in the exemplary actions of our armed forces. I can honestly feel we did the right thing in going after him. And I do feel all those things.

I just still struggle with the cheering and dancing outside the White House.

I have read articles that seek to paint those reactions to his death as a communal sense of relief and a recognition of our unity of purpose in ridding the world of a terrorist. Maybe for some of the people it was just that, and, if you felt that way and celebrated, I understand. But if there is one quality that I think is synonymous with the United States, it is our inability to do things in moderation.


It was brought home to me this weekend when I talked to a friend about how much bigger the things we buy have gotten. When I was much younger, you would buy a 6 ounce bottle of Coke and feel like you were satisfied. Now Coke comes in 16 ounce bottles and 32 ounce big gulps and five different flavors.

If I needed a drink during school, I could go out to the water fountain and get a drink. Now students carry around a 24 ounce water bottle like they are going to die of dehydration in the next 49 minutes.

 We thought in the seventies that maybe we were overdoing the competition angle and should emphasize teamwork and cooperation. We ended up giving every player in Little League a trophy and gave a lot of young people an unhealthy dose of fake self-esteem.

Then people felt we weren't being competitive enough in the world marketplace and we demanded to know every school's score on the state report card and started making decisions about schools based on that one number.

Someone falls on a playground and we make sure they are closed down for everybody else. "My son got seriously hurt once on the monkey bars and its my responsibility to make sure no one ever gets hurt again."

We can't seem to do anything without going overboard. "Overdoing it" is our national motto and "Again, only bigger" is our mantra.  A large part of our population can't drink just a little, or eat just a little, or feel just a little. The Chevy Cavalier is a little small, don't you think. So we built Hummers and Escalades that block out the sun. Our 800 square foot house is a little small, so we bought 2400 square foot estates in the suburbs, big enough that we wouldn't have to interact with the kids.

And when Osama bin Laden died, for some people it was not enough to say a prayer, feel some relief, and whisper "thank you" to the people involved.  If it wasn't done big, you obviously didn't really mean it.

And so it goes.

Today's Math Lesson: Monty Python and the Holy Hot Hand

I know that you folks probably aren't reading too many math blogs, so I feel it is my duty to help out in a small way. Today's lesson:


From Wikipedia:  In probability theory, the law of large numbers is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed.    

Stated a little differently, if a fair coin is tossed a large number of times, you would expect about 50% heads and 50% tails.  You have to be careful how you apply it though. If after 1000 tosses the difference between heads and tails is 20, on the next flip the difference is just as likely to go to 21 as it is to 19. We aren't saying the difference gets smaller. But the ratio between the difference and the number of tosses should approach zero (if the difference grows, it grows more slowly than the number of tosses grows). Being 20 apart after 1000 tosses is a more significant difference than being 25 apart after 2000 tosses.   

So what does this have to do with today's math lesson? Well, having just watched the Chicago Bulls destroy the Atlanta Hawks to go up 2 - 1 in the conference semi-final (believe me, this series is over) and watching Derrick Rose get 44, the age old question of the "hot hand" came up again. Luckily, mathematics is there to triumph over perception.     

Here's where the law of large numbers comes in. Sometimes, people who believe in the law of large numbers, and that's most of us, including mathematicians, come to think there is something called the law of small numbers that functions much the same. That is, after 10 tosses, the results should be roughly 5 heads and 5 tails. Unfortunately, that is not true. And here's where people get off track. They see a streak in basketball, where Dirk Nowitzki hits three in a row, and say, "He's got the hot hand. Feed him the ball every time."  And what happens when you do that is that shooters get worse than normal.     

That's what John Huizenga of the University of Chicago and Sandy Weil of Sportsmetricians Consulting Group found after analyzing every shot from the 2002-03 season to 2007-08. They highlighted 49 players that could be termed high level jump shooters in the NBA (these are the guys everyone would think of when saying someone has a hot hand). Here are their findings about these players:    

i) after making a jump shot, players tend to take harder shots, lowering their field goal shooting by 3.5%,    

ii) after making a jump shot, players shoot 16% sooner than after a missed jump shot,   

iii) after making a jump shot, players shoot their team's next shot 34% of the time, as opposed to 25% of the time after a missed jump shot,  

and, my favorite,
iv) if everyone on the team behaves this way, it will cost the average team 4.5 wins a season.   

One of my favorite writers about statistics and public perception, Amos Tversky of Stanford University, was involved in a study published in 1985 that looked at Philadelphia 76er games and found:  

"the outcomes of both field goal and free throw attempts were largely independent of the outcome of the previous attempt. Moreover, the frequency of streaks in players’ records did not exceed the frequency predicted by a binomial model that assumes a constant hit rate."   

That is, when we look at several strings of five shots, where the shooter has a shooting percentage of 40% (the expected result is 2 made out of 5 shots), there should be some strings where they make five in a row, just as there should be some strings where they miss five in a row (Kyle Korver: 1 of 9 in Wednesday's game). The number of times each happens is consistent with what mathematics tells us it should be.  That is, the number of streaks in shooting in basketball is just what random chance tells us it should be. 

Pretty much every study for 20 years has told us the same thing. There is no such thing as a hot hand in basketball. Which brings us to the video of the day (with a tip of the cap to ESPN TrueHoop blog), wherein the same sort of vague science is used to determine whether a woman is a witch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One of the best pseudoscience vignettes I've ever seen - even though it works out right in the end. 

The best line - 

A normal looking man:  "She turned me into a newt......... I got better." 

Gonzo Sings Today's Musical Selection

"I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" from the Muppet Movie, written by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher.  Gonzo, accompanied by Rowlf on the harmonica and Fozzie on the ukulele:   

 Contains a great line:   There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met.   

Thank you Gonzo (and Jim Henson) for letting us know it was OK to be a little different, and thank you, Paul, for all the songs you wrote for the Muppet Movie (Rainbow Connection and Moving Right Along were two of my favorites).    

Henson's been gone for more than twenty years now, and as someone writes after this video of Big Bird singing at Jim Henson's funeral, "I'm still really raw where this is concerned." I feel the same way.   

Thor, alternate version

For those of you who need more Thor than you can get from one movie, Syfy channel, just coincidentally, is also releasing a new Thor movie this Saturday. "Almighty Thor" stars Richard Grieco as Loki and Cody Deal as Thor. If you are not sure about this, go here to watch the trailer. You'll be convinced. Of something.      

 

It is brought to you by the fine people at Global Asylum, who produced such award winners as "Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus",  "DaVinci Treasure", and "Snakes On a Train". Yes, train. As you can tell, they specialize in low budget knock-offs of big budget movies.    

So, get your costume ready. See you at the TV at 8 PM Central time this Saturday. I won't miss it. If you don't see it, you won't miss it either.   

Where's Your Tardis?

OK, today is going to be a little over the top GEEKY, so just keep that in mind. First off, have you given much thought to what you would do if you had a time machine? I mean, we all saw Back to the Future at least 20 times (I and III anyway, II just wasn't that good). Didn't we all want to have a Dr. Brown friend that could build almost anything?     

And Quantum Leap was the greatest. 
  
"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished."    

Followed soon after by the weekly "Oh, boy."
   
I've got the final season of Quantum Leap checked out on Netflix right now.   

And who could forget the most excellent time machine given to Bill S. Preston, Esq.  and Ted "Theodore" Logan by Rufus.    

But probably the best time machine is this one:   

Yes, you're right. It is the Type 40 TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) flown by Dr. Who, the last of the Time Lords. Obsolete and unreliable, although originally it was supposed to be flown by six pilots, which may explain the lack of reliability.     

Unfortunately, time is running out on the Where's the Tardis contest being run by BBC America. Competitors are asked to submit pictures of the TARDIS they have built showing the "original design", "creative use of materials", "creative placement in a public location", and "blah blah blah Facebook". Contest runs until May 15th, so your time is limited. According to the contest rules:    

"The First Place Winner will be awarded the Grand Prize of a Doctor Who Screening event at a venue in your area in September 2011, with a maximum of 50 guests, plus one copy of every episode of Doctor Who currently available on DVD in the United States with a suggested retail value of Two Thousand Nine Hundred Seventy United States Dollars (US $2,970.90)."   

So get to work. September is wide open for me, so let me know when and where the screening will be when you win. I don't want to miss it. Oh, and can I borrow the second season from Tom Baker's time as the doctor? That's the only Tom Baker season I don't have. Thanks.