Triumvirate of Dictators

There's this country called Libya that's been in the news lately and, apparently, it's been ruled for a long time by trio of really bad dictators - who knew?

I really resent it when the pundits just assume you already know stuff (like there are really three guys in charge - maybe they are brothers?):

This conspiracy on the part of the press is as bad as the one several years ago when China moved their capital city from Peking to Beijing!  Why can't they just tell us these things?

"Khadafi"

"Gadaffi

"Qaddafi"

Lightweight Ninjas

Last week I gave a simple quiz to one of my classes on momentum.  Here is a problem quoted directly from the quiz:

2.    If a .55 kg ninja throwing star embeds itself in a stationary 3 kg block, what will be the speed of the block + star after the collision?  The star slams into the block at 5 m/s.

And here are the questions that followed:
"Don't we need to know the mass of the star?" ("It's given!" I respond)
"Why do you give us the mass of the ninja - we don't need that, do we?" ("That's a very small ninja!" I reply)
"This question is very poorly written." (*sigh*)

In the end, about half the class was confused by the question and the other half (including me) was mystified by their confusion until I realized the confused half never encounter the word 'ninja' as a adjective...

For the record, this is the first result when image googling 'ninja throwing star':


For fun, I googled ".55 kg ninja" and I did get this result:

Hmm... next year I will add a picture of the throwing star.  For the sticklers out there, I made the star very heavy so I could count points off when some students inevitably neglect the mass of the star when calculating the final momentum.  (experience & ease of grading trumps realism every time!)

Inappropriate Linear "Fits"

Next week I turn 41.  Bald spot, grey hair, trimming my eyebrows - these I am okay with.  But the persistent weight gain and my inability to lose the weight simply by thinking about it really bothers me.  In a nerdy attempt to gain a handle on this, I turn to analytics.

Many non scientists love to apply a linear fit to nonlinear data.  In this spirit, I have graphed my weight as a function of age and determined the best fit line.  As you can see, I will probably weigh 440 lbs when I am 85 years old.  Also of note is that I was born weighing 20 lbs and that I am gaining about 4.5 lbs per year.

The red line represent the 6 actual data points (drawn from memory and last weekend's weigh-in as well as the logical zero point of 1969).

Travolta, Cruise, and Ford

Long ago, I tried to convince people I was a nerdy teacher version of John Travolta:

Then I was told (by people who haven't met many white people) that I look like Tom Cruise, so I started to run with that (using his picture as mine on various teacher sites):

And, as of last week (thanks MK and CF), I have graduated to the ranks of Harrison Ford:

(Note the super-hip reference to a previous blog post!)

Finally, I have made it to the big leagues!

Indiana Jones, he diggin' up bones

I have my flaws, teachin' Newton's Laws

He has cool whip; into equations I dip

In front of others, I use white board marker

His cool hat, makes him taller, darker

But similarities between us can fill pages -

Dressed up in our Earth-tones and beiges

Red on the Outside, Gray on the Inside

Long ago, I learned that hamburger meat (and other 'red' meats) were only red because they had been exposed to air.  Obviously, it preserves better if  you keep it air tight - but customers expect their 'red' meat to be red and so the butchers purposefully expose the meat to the air so the outside is red! 

I hadn't thought about this for years but mentioned it casually at the dinner table the other night and everyone thought I was crazy.  So I checked, and it's true (references here and here)! 

What a crazy world we live in, huh?  It's all about appearances: from the face we present to the world right down to the meat in the grocery store.  Style over substance every time! 

I want to open a grocery store chain called "Ugly, Safe & Tasty" - how's that for a new marketing angle?

Wilder, Progress, and Technology

Every generation likes to think it faces unique problems (it's all going to hell in handbasket, right?). 
How I enjoyed reading this passage in The Long Winter (set in 1880) to Isabelle this evening:

"These times are too progressive.  Everything has changed too fast.  Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves - they're good things to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em."

Amen, Pa - we still feel that way!

Supertasting, Languages, and Neuronal Development

A while back, I posted about the advantages of exposing the young mind to different languages and the connection of that to the fact that infants are actually pruning the connections between their over-connected neurons.  (Development for the very young is not the forming of new connection as it is for adults, but rather the abandonment of pathways not needed).

Now it occurs to me that the same thing might be happening for smell.  Irene and I have noticed that our kids seem to be supersensitive to trace odors and tastes.  (chop an onion near their open container of milk and Isabelle will tell you about it when she takes a sip later).  Apparently the development of taste is not well understood and undergoing considerable research, but we do know that there are bona-fide supertasters among us.  That might not have anything to do with neuronal development but now I can post another They Might be Giants video!: