This One is Tumblr’s Fault, I Swear
Someone I follow posted this awesome link to Newton’s notebooks stored in the Cambridge Digital Library (link link link!).
Now that I’ve got access to both Newton’s notes and Leibniz’ notes (thanks to checking out Dr. Wolfram’s awesome post on Leibniz’ archives), you can probably guess how freaking excited I am.
So. Graphology in itself is pretty much pseudoscience, but it’s still interesting to compare the writing styles of these two geniuses, just to see if any similarities/differences stand out. That’s allowed, right? (Screw it, I’m doing it anyway.)
A lot of Newton’s notes were written in English ‘cause…duh…he was an Englishman. From what I’ve read about Leibniz, I think he could read and write in English but not nearly as fluently as in several other languages; most of his work was in Latin, the rest in French and German. So I couldn’t find a good English excerpt from both. So let’s do Latin, just for the sake of keeping the language consistent.
Here’s a Newton page:
Look at his writing, it’s so neat! I’m no handwriting analyst or anything like that, but it looks like this section of Newton’s notes was written slowly and deliberately as if he’s just sitting there going, “yeah, I got this.” There are a few things crossed out, of course, but it looks like he took the time to carefully scratch them out and then just kept going. Slow but steady. And his numbers are so clear, too, holy crap.
The above is just a screenshot of a semi-magnified page; on the actual Cambridge site you can zoom in further and make out the English notes he made in the margin. If you look at a lot of other pages in this section of notes, Newton really seems to keep things very organized, even if it looks like he’s making scratch calculations in some parts.
And then there’s Leibniz:
I was planning to do both samples in Latin like I just said above, but I’m snatching pictures of Leibniz’ notes from Dr. Wolfram’s post on him so there aren’t nearly as many choices as with Newton. So I figured a more appropriate comparison would be pages written by both men that contained both words and numbers. I believe Leibniz’ page is written in French, but I seriously can only make out like three words here.
I’m not sure if it’s just because of different writing tools or different ink/paper, but Leibniz looks like he pressed fairly hard (or at least as hard as you could with a quill). Also, in contrast to Newton, it looks to me like Leibniz wrote pretty rapidly. Newton’s corrections were either neat single cross-outs or carefully scribbled out so the mistake couldn’t be read. All of Leibniz’ corrections look like, “no time for error must keep writing!” *scratchscratchscratch* “ONWARD!” Even his numbers look rushed (look, it’s binary!). It almost looks like he used this page for just those calculations but then wrote around them, continuing from a previous page.
On some of the other pages Leibniz really manages to get a lot on a single page. We’re talking ITTY BITTY scrawl, a consequence of his becoming very near-sided in his 20s and it only getting worse as he got older. I’m actually not sure how good (or bad) Newton’s vision was. Of course he did stick a darning needle back behind his eye and wiggled it around (optics experiment), so…
Anyway. Just an interesting thing to see the differences/similarities in their styles.
Alrighty!
Alright y’all, my “for fun” class has been decided!
Ready?
*drumroll*
It’s LINEAR ALGEBRA!
But Claudia, you say, you already have taken Linear Algebra!
Indeed! But here are some reasons why I want to take it again:
1. It’s IMPORTANT. And I’m about 99% sure I could get a lot more out of it now than when I took it back in 2009. Now that I know I want to go study multivariate statistics—probably SEM specifically—I need to know my linear algebra. I need to know it very well. I knew it decently when I took multivariate stats and SEM, but now that I know how it’s used in those types of analyses, if I go back and take Linear again, I think I’ll be able to better pick out the really important stuff. At least to a greater degree than I did before.
2. I’m also taking Numerical Linear Algebra this semester as well, which (surprise, surprise) has Linear Algebra as a prereq. Since it’s been so long since I’ve had the prereq, I figured a little in-semester refresher could only be a good thing.
3. Calculus, trigonometry, and geometry are my friends. Algebra and I still spread dirty rumors about one another and glare hatefully at each other whenever we pass. This needs to change.
4. It’s being taught by Dr. Abo, the professor I had for Discrete Math last semester. Dr. Abo is very intelligent, very awesome, and very good at teaching. He’s also hilarious at times.
Yeah so anyway.
TWSB: It’s That SI Unit That Won’t Conform Again
Thisiscoolthisiscoolthisiscool.
I keep coming back to the kilogram in these science blogs. One day I think I’ll do like a (somewhat) comprehensive history of the SI units, ’cause I find them fascinating.
(I also really like the word kilogram.)
2/3 of the way there!
I hit 1,000 walking miles (1,609.34 km) for the year today.
For comparison:
There are approximately 1,000 miles between Portland, OR and San Diego, CA.
There are approximately 1,609 km between Paris, France and Naples, Italy.
Which is all cool, except all that was done within the city limits of Moscow (except for one walk to Pullman). I have to get to a bigger city, man.
OH YEAH, and this happened yesterday on my mom’s car:
Facebook Stalking for DATA!
Here’s more “Claudia is bored” random thingies.
I have 111 friends on Facebook. I wanted to see the distribution of birthdays across the months (and the zodiac signs, because why not?). So I Facebook stalked everyone and found that 97 of my 111 friends had their birthdays listed (at least month and day). Here’s the distribution by month:
I knew I had a lot of February, May, and November, but I didn’t know I had so many April and July. Haha, look at August and September. Very interesting, especially in comparison to this.
And here’s some zodiac just ‘cause:
I have a sucktastic headache tonight, so don’t take any of this seriously.
I’ve been employed as a stats lecturer for a year today!
AND SPEAKING OF SCHOOL:
I respectfully disagree with this to a certain extent.
[Realizes she is positioning herself in front of the verbal firing squad by disagreeing with Neil deGrasse Tyson]
Students want good (or at least passing) grades because they want the class to “count” as being mastered. They want the class to count because it’s one step closer to a degree. Why do most students want a degree? To get a good, well-paying job.
In my (probably stupid) opinion, I don’t think the blame for cheating can rest solely on the school system. It rests, rather on the fact that we value the eventual end product—tolerable job + money—over the actual learning itself.
Of course, I’m likely being idealistic if I say, “we should value learning for learning’s sake LOLZ,” but I think we’ve passed the point where that’s even in the back of our minds. “Gotta pass calc II to get into CS 352 to graduate! Who cares about the harmonic series?”
(You should care, dammit, it’s cool.)
I’d like to actually try to better defend my position on this, but I have a super bad headache tonight and I probably just typed a bunch of gibberish up there. If I remember later, I’ll add more to this.
Necessary side rant: why in the name of Captain Buttswag am I still working on this story? The chapter names are hilarious because a few of the chapters are solely about specific numbers. So I’ve got stand-in names like: “Chapter 5: 5” and “Chapter 7: 2.” UGH.
Stats Oddity
Holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrap this is cool!
Alright. This blog is about odds ratios, when they’re useful, and when they’re not.
Part I: WTF is an odds ratio?
So I feel really dumb because I’ve been dealing with odds ratios all summer for my other job and I just realized that I actually freaking teach odds ratios in class.
Durh.
An odds ratio is exactly what it sounds like: a ratio of odds (HOLY CRAP NO WAY!). So to better understand it, let’s look at what odds are. Odds are basically ratios of probabilities—specifically, the ratio of the probability of some even happening to the probability of it not happening.
Example: suppose you had 9 M&Ms in a bag (for some strange reason), three of which were red, five of which were green, and one of which is brown. To calculate your odds of pulling a red M&M, take the number of red M&Ms (3) over the number of non-red M&Ms (6). So the odds of pulling a red M&M are 3:6, or 1:2.
So what’s an odds ratio? It’s taking two of these odds and comparing them in ratio form (so it’s like a ratio of ratios). Wiki says it nicely: The odds ratio is the ratio of the odds of an event occurring in one group to the odds of it occurring in another group. If you’ve got the odds for Condition 1 as the numerator and the odds for Condition 2 as the denominator of your odds ratio, interpretation is as follows:
- Odds ratio = 1 means that the event is equally likely to occur in both Condition 1 and Condition 2.
- Odds ratio > 1 means that the event is more likely to occur in Condition 1
- Odds ratio < 1 means that the event is more likely to occur in Condition 2
Got it?
Good.
Part II: Where would you see an odds ratio?
RIGHT HERE!
My dad is involved in writing and distributing a water quality/water attitudes survey. Over the years such surveys have been distributed to 30-some-odd states and tons of data have been collected. A big part of my job this summer was to go through data from 2008, 2010, and 2012 for the four Pacific Northwest states, AK, ID, OR, and WA.
We looked specifically at a couple questions with binary answers. So let’s take this question as an example.
“Have you received water quality information from environmental agencies?” People could answer “yes” or “no.” So what we were interested in was the proportion of people who answered “yes” for several different demographics. For this example, let’s just use age. We could express this info in two different ways. The raw proportions (proportion saying “yes”) for each age range we defined:
And then the odds ratios:
Why is the >70 group missing on this plot? Because we’re using its odds as the denominator for each of the odds ratio calculations involving the other five age categories. To calculate the odds for the >70 group, we take the proportion of “yes” over the proportion of “no.” Let’s call that odds value D. Now let’s say we want the odds ratio for the < 30 group to the >70 group (the red bar in the second graph up there). We calculate its odds the same way we did for the >70 group. Let’s call that odds value N. Then to get that odds ratio value, we take N/D. Simple as that!
But what’s it telling us? If we look at that red bar in the second graph, it’s an odds ratio of about .8. Since .8 is less than 1, we can say that people who are in the >70 group are more likely to say “yes, I’ve gotten water quality info from environmental agencies” than are people in the <30 group. And we can actually see that difference reflected in the proportions graph: the >70 group’s proportion for “yes” is higher than the <30 group’s. In fact, look at the similar shapes of the two graphs overall.
Part III: Here’s where things get interesting.
So pretty cool so far, right? When you read papers that involve a lot of proportions for binary data like this, the researchers really like to give you odds ratios, sometimes in plots like this. And sometimes it works out where that’s okay, ‘cause the odds ratios reflect what’s actually going on with the raw proportions.
But as is often the case with real data, things aren’t always nice and pretty like that.
Let’s look at another question from the surveys: “How important is clean drinking water?” This was actually originally a Likert scale question (5 different importance values were possible) but we combined ratings to make it binary in the end: “Not Important” vs. “Important.” And again, we wanted to compare answers for several different demographics. Let’s just look at age again. Here’s the odds ratio plot, again using the odds for the >70 group as our denominator for the odds ratio calculations:
Woah! Big differences, huh? I bet the proportions differ dramatically between the age groups too—
Oh.
Wait, then what the hell is going on with those odds ratios?
Here, dear reader, is where we see an instance of “stuff that works well under normal circumstances goes batshit crazy when we reach extremes.” Take another look at those proportions. No one’s going to say that clean drinking water isn’t important, right? Those are definitely high proportions. Extremely high, one might say. So when we take an odds—the ratio of the proportion for “Very Important” to the proportion for “Not Important.”–we’re seeing relatively big proportions being divided by relatively small proportions. The result? Big numbers (example: .97/.03 = 32.33, compared to a modest .56/.44 = 1.27…, for example). But the most important thing is that when you’re dealing with those extreme proportions, small differences are very much exaggerated in the odds ratios.
Suppose the proportion for the >70 group is .97. So its odds would be .97/.03 = 32.33. That 32.33 is our D again. And let’s say that the proportion for the 40 – 49 group is .98 (which I think it was, actually). Its odds would be .98/.01 = 98. The odds ratio: 98/32.33 = 3.03. A huge odds ratio! That on its own would suggest quite a big difference in proportions for these two groups…when in fact, they only differ by .01.
Part IV: So what?
This whole rambling thing has a point, I promise. As I mentioned, when you see data like this in studies and papers and stuff, you’ll often see odds ratios reported. You won’t see the actual raw proportions nearly as often. In the examples I used here, the “environmental agencies” question was an example where the differences in the odds ratios are actually meaningful, since they reflect the actual trend in the proportions. The “drinking water” question, on the other hand, was an example where the odds ratios on their own are practically meaningless. They’re dramatic, but they over-dramatize very small differences in the actual proportions. You can’t trust them on their own. If they are provided, look at the raw proportions. If not, ask yourself if dramatic odds ratios make sense. Would you expect big differences in proportions across groups, or no? Is there something else going on instead?
So the moral of the story is this: be wary as you traverse the vast universe of academic papers! Odds ratios in the mirror may be less impressive than they appear.
DONE!
(Edit: good lord, this is long. I envisioned it as like three paragraphs. Sorry.)
Ah, why not?
How do you ease anxiety?
Ha. Though that said “how do you EAT anxiety?” WITH A SPORK!
Do you know anyone who enjoys getting mosquito bites?
Premiering this week on TLC: XTREME FETISHES! Episode 1: Malaria Hysteria!
Do you think TLC has too many shows about big families and midgets?
HAHAHA I totally responded to the previous question before looking at this one.
Do you ever hang out with other people outside of your group of friends?
I don’t have a group of friends.
When was the last time you had a Jolly Rancher?
Last night!
Do you know anyone whose birthday is in August?
Like four people.
Do you have a headache right now?
Yeah, actually. Anticipation stress blows.
Do you pretend to be scared of thunderstorms to get attention?
I run around naked in thunderstorms to get attention.
Does the sound of crunchy [food] bother you?
Nope.
How often do you get heartburn?
THE ATRIA…THEY BUUUUUUUUURN! (not often)
Have you ever experienced contagious yawning?
Who hasn’t?
Have you ever rode in a topless car?
No. I don’t think so, at least.
What caused you to be angry last?
A discourteous “neighbor.”
Would you marry someone if they were unable to have sex?
Yup.
Don’t you hate it when a survey repeats a question?
Yup. (Don’t you hate it when a survey taker repeats an answer?)
Where’s your favorite coffee shop?
Coffee isn’t my cup of tea. HO HO I’M FUNNY TONIGHT.
What’s your opinion on cinnamon rolls?
I cannot think of them without thinking of Metalocalypse. That damn show has ruined my life.
Do you enjoy baking, or even cooking in general?
I do indeed. I’m bad at it, but I do it anyway!
Have you ever taken a bath with someone?
As a little kid, yeah.
What’s your grandma’s name?
Mom’s side: Joyce (but she’s dead to me, so who cares)
Dad’s side: Emily (she’s awesome)
When was the last time you had ice cream?
A very long time ago.
Think of the last person who said I love you, do you think they meant it?
Hopefully!
Where is your biological father right now?
Sleeping.
Do you have any freckles?
I do now that I’ve been out walking during daylight.
Do you like orange juice?
GOD NO. Arrogant pulpy nastiness.
Who did you last eat at a sit-down restaurant with?
Uh…good question.
How many bedrooms are there in your house?
Four?
Have you ever tried to find friends from elementary school online?
That’s called Facebook.
What kind of home do you hope to have when you’re older?
Is it mine? Am I living alone? Then I’m good to go.
Do you call it a buggy or a cart?
Cart.
Did you watch the Cosby Show when you were younger?
Nope.
How often do you check your e-mail?
Probably not as often as I should.
What color do you think best describes your personality?
Think of the gaudiest color you can. That’s me.
Have you ever built a sandcastle?
Yup.
Would you rather live in a world like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?
Neither, please.
Do you enjoy doing crafts?
I prefer arts.
When was the last time you rented a movie?
A very long time.
If you could be any videogame character, who would you be?
GORDON FREEMAN HANDS DOWN WHERE’S MY CROWBAR DAMMIT THIS IS NOT A DRILL
(The preceding is an example of why friends don’t let friends give Claudia Red Bull.)
Claudia: Demolishing Sanity One Blog at a Time
So I was dicking around with drawing ideas this evening and eventually started thinking about something cool to do with the zodiac signs. I was scribbling Aquarius’ sign everywhere when I considered how similar it looks to the “approximately equals” sign.
Which led to this:
I wanted to find commonly-used math symbols that best matched the shape of the actual zodiac symbols to give you MATH ZODIAC, but for some of them I had to take a little artistic license. Virgo and Scorpio, I’m looking at you (yes, I just took Virgo’s “M” shape and made it an “N,” deal with it).
And for those of you screaming, “hey u cant mix mathz with pseudoscience SHAME lolz,” I say, “screw you.” Plus, now instead of saying “Taurus” when people ask you your sign, now you can reply “Universal Quantifier!” and confuse the hell out of them. Upturned A’s are cooler than bulls anyway.
Also, as I was waking up this morning, I swear I was trying to explain Euler’s Identity to my cat. Not sure how successful I was considering I was half asleep and she’s a cat.
Alright, it’s rant time
So I’m on Tumblr a lot. I like Tumblr because I can find fellow AH fanatics and not feel so weird about quoting Gavin Free to myself all the time I like to watch trends. I like to watch how certain things work their way around Tumblr and how quickly/slowly they do so.
There’s been one or two posts that have been going around lately that I would like to comment on, if y’all don’t mind.
(If you do mind, just skip this blog, ‘cause I’m gonna rant here anyway.)
(AGH TUMBLR IS DOWN WHY DO YOU FAIL ME WHEN I NEED YOU?!)
So I actually can’t pull up the posts at the moment like I wanted to (see above sentence), but the gist of them is this: people who do well under the implementation of our current educational methods (sit down and be lectured to, then take tests) aren’t actually learning and don’t actually know anything about the material they’re being taught. They’re just good at working the system. This whole thing links in with the opinion that GPA is just a measure of how well someone can work said system.
‘Kay, let’s pause for a moment.
I think most people who make this argument against the current most common delivery of information in our schools don’t think that people who just don’t do well in school are stupid and are incapable of learning. They just can’t work the system. They’re perfectly intelligent individuals who are fully capable of learning and retaining new info; they just don’t learn well when they’re forced to sit and listen to a teacher prattle on about something. Maybe they’d do better in a situation where they were able to watch active demonstrations of whatever material’s being taught (like a chemistry teacher throwing potassium in water rather than just talking about how/why doing so causes an explosion) or doing activities involving the material being taught (like actually throwing the K into the H2O themselves).
In fact, this is the whole idea behind different learning styles, is it not? Some people learn better one way, some people learn better another. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption to make—not everyone gathers information in the same way.
So think about this for a second. If people all have different learning styles and we accept that a good number of people don’t learn best when sitting in a classroom and taking notes as a prof lectures, shouldn’t we also accept that there are likely people who do learn best in that environment? I mean, I know that schools across the globe don’t all follow this “students sit and listen to teacher talk” template, but you’ve got to think that such template wasn’t dreamt up by a bunch of people who sat around snickering “haha, let’s force students to follow this method even though it doesn’t work for anyone!” It was probably, at least in part, originally conceptualized by people who either learned best this way themselves or thought others did.
And it does work best for some people. I know that for a fact because I am one of those people. I learn best when I’m “forced” to listen to someone talk about the material. I have a very good aural memory. And like quite a lot of people, I remember stuff better when I’m exposed to it multiple times. That’s why I write stuff down during lecture. I hear the material, I write down the material, and the written stuff is there later if I need to refer to it. That works for me. I learn things that way. I’m the type of person for whom “they system” just works because it just so happens to match my learning style.
I know a lot of people for whom lectures aren’t very beneficial but labs really help them learn. I don’t usually retain stuff that’s taught in lab-like settings because when I get “hands on” with material, I like to do it alone and on my own time. Labs are stressful and they don’t help me learn. If our current educational system was all hands-on lab-based, I’d have to work extra super hard to retain anything ‘cause that’s just not the way my brain works.
So I guess what this meandering rant boils down to is this: for a lot of people, the current system may not be their ideal way to learn, and therefore some have probably developed ways to “work the system” and look like they’re doing well even if they’re not retaining anything past what’s necessary to earn them an A in a semester-long class. But for some people, maybe they’re not working the system at all—for them, the system just…works.
So please think of that next time you have the urge to assume that people who do well in school nowadays are just good at faking their way through.
[rant over; commencing Achievement Hunter video binge]
Holy Crapples
Oh my god.
There’s an article on Leibniz on Uncyclopedia.
The whole thing is a Leibniz/Newton slashfest.
- “He was born with extremely long and poofy hair, which he wore to bed every night and named ‘Poof.'”
- “The mathematician Isaac Newton fell in love with Leibniz when he discovered this divine hair, nicknaming him ‘Gotthair.'”
- “He enjoyed sex, tapdancing, walking his headdress, keeping frogs in his pocket, drinking, and keeping frogs in his headdress.”
- “Newton fell desperately in love with Leibniz, and ferociously stalked him. Leibniz, however, was not interested in Newton’s inferior and less poofy hair.”
- “Leibniz’s troubles of giving us this divine truth was due to the threat of Netwon’s sex drive. Leibniz was never able to sit down long enough to write more than a couple of pages before Newton found him again.”
- “Leibniz and Poof relentlessly attempted to avoid Newton’s calculus seduction, which began the series of violent battles known as the Calculus Wars.”
- “It has been theorized that Leibniz’s unique ability to rise from the dead is attributable to Poof’s power level being over 9,000!”
I AM LAUGHING SO HARD.
FWOOSH!
THERE I FIXED IT.
The process of getting this scanned and posted on DeviantArt took way more effort than it was worth.
TWSB: It’s Flippin’ Hot!
THIS
IS
THE
COOLEST
THING
EVER.
Are you ready to GET YO’ MIND BLOWN?
Okayokayokayokay. So you know how the earth’s magnetic field switches poles every so often? So does the sun’s!
The sun is currently at the peak of its 11 year solar cycle and is about to swap its north magnetic pole for its south and vice versa. According to Stanford University solar physicist Todd Hoeksema, the swapitself isn’t more than 3 to 4 months out. The north pole has actually already flipped; we’re just waiting on the south one to get its butt in gear and head to the opposite side.
So what does this mean for our solar system? What solar physicists focus on during this time is something called the “current sheet.” This is a surface that juts outward from the sun’s equator along which runs an electric current produced by the sun’s magnetic field. The current itself is small but the sheet is freaking huge, and it’s the thing that pretty much keeps the heliosphere (the sun’s magnetic influence) in check.
According to Phil Scherrer, another Stanford solar physicist, the sheet becomes really wavy and warped during a pole swap. So for us here on earth, as we zoom around in our orbit of the sun, we pass in and out of the sheet itself. This can cause disruptive “cosmic weather,” but the warped sheet actually offers the solar system better protection against cosmic rays.
Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory has observed three such polar swaps since 1976. This will be the fourth.
HOW. COOL. IS. THAT. I freaking love the sun.
Video!
I BLEED LIGHTENING
Here’s a thing. I don’t feel like saying anything else today.
Common Curta-sy
“WTF is a Curta?” you may be asking.
I’ll tell you!
The Curta is a little handheld mechanical calculator introduced in 1948 by Austrian engineer Curt Herzstark (so I guess “Curta” was an easier name than “Herzstarka”). Real-life ones look like THIS (source for pic)…
…and were considered the best portable calculators until the digital ones started coming out in the 1970s.
Its design is based in part off of…(wait for it)…Leibniz’ Step Reckoner. It is able to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and also square roots. What made it different from contemporary calculators was, though it employed a stepped drum mechanism like most others, Herzstark was able to create and patent a single drum that did the work of 10+ drums, thus making the Curta super compact.
I wanted to get a real one, but they’re like $400 now, so this simulator was a cool find. If you want to get all up in the Curta’s business but are intimidated by all the arrows/dials (it’s like a slide rule on steroids!), check out this manual.
Are all Aquarian baseball players pitchers?
Holy crap dudes, this is the best discussion of imaginary numbers I’ve ever heard. Listen to this, it’s really cool.
Green & Stokes
So in my continuing saga of “Let’s Make Stupid Jokes About Everything” (aka, “My Life”) and in the same vein as that Neil & Prey dream I had awhile back, I think someone should propose a detective/mystery show called Green & Stokes. It’d be like NUMB3RS crossed with Law & Order crossed with Columbo, except with exponentially more puns.
They’d work for the LAMD (Los Angeles Math Department) or something, because cities would have their own math departments in whatever universe that would allow Green and Stokes to be mathematicians AND detectives AND live during the same time period.
And the episode names could each be a pun on some other famous mathematician’s name (or other dumb puns).
- “Rolle with the Punches”
- “Out with the Old, in with the Newton”
- “Bourbaki and the Case of the Empty Set”
I DON’T EVEN KNOW.
This is why I need school to start again.
Edit: holy crap, I forgot how crappy gifs can be when they’re exported from Flash (especially when you don’t know what you’re doing), but here’s the theoretical show’s opening animation nonetheless:
Edit 2: fixed it (sort of; it’s still dumb)
Book Review: Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
Have I read this before: Yup! I read it in the spring of 2007. It was required for my Western Lit. class.
Review: Y’know, this was actually quite a bit better than I remember. And more upsetting. I don’t know why, but Kurtz really, really strikes me the same way that Pinbacker from Sunshine did. Still trying to make that connection make sense. Maybe it’s because in Sunshine, the crew of Icarus II only hears about the failed mission of Icarus I from recordings made by Pinbacker. In a way, readers are only privileged to learn about the African wilderness/ivory trading/horror through Marlow’s narration, which is centered on events surrounding Kurtz. It’s like these two characters who don’t make appearances until the very ends of their respective stories are actually responsible for the stories in the first place.
There’s also this shared experience of duality: you form an opinion about both Kurtz and Pinbacker based on what’s said about them. This opinion (likely) changes once the men are actually confronted.
Bah, I dunno. Still fleshing it out. But that’s the thing that really stuck out to me most when I read this again.
Rating: 6/10
Anosmia Stuff!
Or, if you don’t have time (I got a little copy/paste happy, sorry. And yes, the actual article is quite a bit longer than this) (all emphases added by me):
- The negative consequences of olfactory dysfunction for the quality of life are not widely appreciated and the condition is therefore often ignored or trivialized.
- None of the treatments that have been investigated are in wide use and in most cases olfactory dysfunction is untreatable.
- Interactions with medical service providers can also be a source of frustration. One study showed that in Germany and Switzerland, 25% of patients felt that they had not been managed well and 6% felt that their condition had been trivialized.
- 2% of the subjects of this study are scared of getting exposed to dangers because of their olfactory dysfunction. The main concern is the inability to detect a gas leak or a fire. Several subjects report that they have actually failed to detect a gas leak. Similarly, the inability to detect fires has resulted in dangerous situations for some subjects.
- The most important odor to manage is one’s body odor. There are severe social consequences of failing to maintain the culturally expected body odor and many individuals who suffer from smell loss therefore are worried about their olfactory appearance.
- “Just recently one of our cats urinated on a piece of carpet, and it apparently reeked, and the smell was making my boyfriend nuts, and I couldn’t smell it at all. His reaction to me was complete disbelief, as if I was faking that I couldn’t smell something horrid.”
- For those with congenital olfactory impairment the challenge starts with convincing their parents and other adults that they cannot smell. Children with congenital smell loss are usually unaware of the dysfunction and only “discover” their condition as teenagers. One subject reports her experience when she was six years old and came home from school where cinnamon rolls were baked, wondering what this “smell” everybody else got so excited about was: “My mother got surprised, because she had absolutely no clue about this condition before that. We went to the hospital to check it out, but with little result. I was asked to smell several different things while being blindfolded, and I couldn’t smell anything. The result was however that I was a stubborn child who lied, so not much more was done.”
- Once affected individuals have convinced others of the existence of their condition, they often face a lack of sympathy. Olfactory impairment is not considered to be a serious disability and sometimes affected individuals are even told that they should be happy about their inability to smell unpleasant odors.
- “It’s a weird affliction. People don’t really get it. They think it’s not as big a deal as it is. After all, they figure anosmics aren’t disabled. We don’t need seeing-eye dogs or sign language to interact with our environment. And they are right — partly. We can function without drawing attention to our plight. We can do virtually everything we could before we lost our sense of smell, except enjoy the immensely important aspects of human life that most people take for granted”
- It is especially aggravating for the patients when members of the medical profession to which they turn for help trivialize their condition.
- Children who do not have a sense of smell often just mimic others’ reactions to smell without actually perceiving any smells.
- “Smelling seemed to me like religion, you just had to have enough faith to make it true.”
- “When I was little I used to pretend that I was able to because I thought I had to be able to “learn” how and I just wasn’t good enough at it yet.” [I thought this all the time]
- “I had always figured a sense of smell was something that developed as you got older.”
- In addition to places, times, and events, people also have characteristic smells. Many subjects in this study note that they cannot smell their babies or children. Others complain about not being able to smell their romantic partner and wonder if their olfactory impairment influences their romantic relationships.
- “I have become afraid: does my lack of sense of smell keep me from finding someone I’d like to spend the rest of my life with?”
As I think I’ve said before, anosmia (usually) isn’t that big of a deal for me, but for other and especially for people who become anosmic after having a sense of smell, it can be pretty messed up. If you’re interested in reading about peoples’ experiences with phantom smells (which sound like hell), check out the article.
Said the statistician with the small sample size to the statistician with the large one: “I’m ‘n’-vious!”
POP QUIZ GO: What Englishman was it that Anders Hall called “a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science”?
It’s the same guy who Richard Dawkins labeled “the greatest biologist since Darwin.”
Give up? It’s SIR RONALD FISHER!
An evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and statistician, Fisher lived from 1890 to 1962. He had plans to enter the British Army upon his graduation from the University of Cambridge (where he studied biology/eugenics) in 1912, but he had horrible eyesight and failed the vision test. So what did he do instead? He worked as a statistician for London, among other things. He also started to write for the Eugenic Review, which only increased his interest in stat methods.
In 1918, his paper The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance was published in which he introduced the method of analysis of variance (yup, ANOVA!). A year later, after taking a job with an agricultural station, he began to gather numerous sets of data—both large and small—which allowed him to develop methods of experimental design as well as small sample statistics. Throughout his professional career, he continued to develop ANOVA, promoted ML estimation, described the z-distribution (now used in the form of the F-distribution), and pretty much set up the foundation for the field of population genetics. He also (and I didn’t know this until I read more about him) opposed Bayesian statistics quite vehemently.
Anyway. Thought he deserved a bit of a mention today, since he died on this day in 1962.
Please take MS Paint away from me
Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute.
So a tropical storm is currently crawling (swimming?) weakly towards Hawaii.
What was the name of this tropical storm? Flossie.
I have never heard that name in my life.
*researches*
Okay, apparently it’s a diminutive of Florence, which is “derived from florens; ‘prosperous, flourishing.'”
Yeah, okay, “Florence” I’ve obviously heard. But when I see “Tropical Storm Flossie” I think this:
DENTAL DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Up next: Hurricane Listerine!
The Bayou Breakdown Appreciation Post
This song has been the only song I’ve been able to write to for a solid week and a half now (except the version I’ve got is much faster). The more I listen to it, the more I like it (or at least, the more I like the positive association between it and “holy crap I’m actually getting work done!”).
For those readers who weren’t in concert band this spring (aka all of you), we played this and it was awesome.
LULULULULU
Long one.
01. Who is your favorite movie actor?
Tom Hanks is freaking awesome.
02. What was the last book you finished? What book are you currently reading?
I just finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Verne and have started re-reading the next item on my list: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I also started reading this big ass book on the history of math that I’d gotten a while ago, but I can’t remember the author off the top of my head.
03. Do you play The Sims 2 or 3?
Yes, but not nearly as much as I used to.
04. How much do you watch TV on an average day?
I pretty much have the TV on from the time I get home to the time I go to bed, but the amount of time I’m actually *watching* it is probably at most an hour and a half.
05. What is your best friend’s mom’s name?
I don’t have a best friend.
06. Are you a fan of Lady Gaga and/or Ke$ha?
Yup, but much more so Lady Gaga.
07. Have you ever painted a picture?
Indeed I have. I used to paint quite a bit before I realized how much I sucked.
08. What is your favorite cereal?
Cinnamon Toasters, the cheapo version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (they’re vastly better, too)
09. Do you play games on the Internet often?
Does Minecraft count? If so, yes.
10. Do you have anything personalized? (a bag, towel, pillow, etc.)
My backpack has my initials on it ‘cause I’m a dorkfest.
11. What does your favorite pair of shoes look like?
I like my walking shoes a lot, but they’re soooo not that bright anymore, haha. My toe shoes rock, too.
12. What is your school’s colors/mascot?
*insert fight song here*
13. What type of building do you live in?
A house?
14. Do you edit pictures before you let people see them?
Depends on the picture.
15. What kind of decorations do you have in your room?
I don’t really have a room…I have the basement, but I haven’t decorated it at all. It’s all my dad’s weird, weird stuff.
16. Do you get along with your siblings, if you have them?
No sibbies, thank god.
17. What is the longest song you have on your music player?
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfieldis 25 and a half minutes long.
18. Have you ever listened to Passion Pit or Vampire Weekend?
HAHAHAHAHAH yes.
19. How many plays does your favorite band have in your music player?
My favorite BAND? I’m not sure…I’m not near iTunes at the moment.
20. Did you go to school today?
I went to campus, but classes aren’t a-goin’ right now.
Have you ever…
Stood at the end of a rainbow?
Bro, I AM the rainbow.
Drank blackcurrant and orange cordial mixed together?
Can’t say that I have.
Not eaten anything for a day?
Yup.
Traveled for a whole day, non-stop?
If you count our driving days to Ontario, yes.
Dressed as a cowboy/cowgirl?
I don’t think so.
Swam with dolphins?
Nope.
Been on TV?
I don’t think so.
Appeared on Google?
If you Google my full name (“Claudia Marie Mahler”) I’m the first hit.
Met your favourite music artist?
No.
Performed in front of a large audience?
Indeed I have.
Been asked for your autograph?
Nope.
Made someone so happy, they cried?
I have no idea. Hopefully!
Made your own clothing?
I *sort of* made those Kermit pants.
Been swimming outside in the winter?
Yes. But it was in Hawaii.
This Or That
Broccoli or Cauliflower?
BROCCOLI
Fish or Meat?
Fish IS meat.
Cereal or Toast?
What kind of cereal?
Dress or Jeans?
Dress.
Screamo or Rap?
Screamo.
Star or Moon?
Star.
Aeroplane or Helicopter?
Anything but a helicopter.
Black or White?
White.
Rainbow or Greyscale?
Haha, seriously?
Land or Water?
Land.
England or USA?
USA.
Unusual or Common?
Unusual.
Scarf or Gloves?
Gloves.
Vinyl or Tape?
Tape.
Tape or CD?
CD.
Snoopy or Garfield?
Garfield!
Random Questions
Do you sit at a table for dinner?
I haven’t done that in a long time.
Pick up the nearest book and turn to page 24. What is the last sentence?
“However, we don’t usually grasp the entire nature of a thing all at once, especially in a more lengthy analysis, but in place of the things themselves we make use of signs, whose explicit explanation we usually omit for the sake of brevity, knowing or believing that we have the ability to produce it at will.” (Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas; Leibniz <3)
If you put out your right arm, what’s nearest to it?
The TV.
What brand is the nearest chocolate bar?
Snickers.
What is the nearest red item?
The door.
What channel is your TV on, if it’s on?
I’m watching Adult Swim. It’s on mute, but I can tell that Robot Chicken’s being Robot Chicken.
Do you even have a TV in the room you’re in?
Clearly.
Do you have a pillow with an awesome pillow case?
Damn straight. It’s striped and colorful.
What are the curtains in your bedroom like?
I don’t have curtains or a bedroom.
What size is your bed?
I sleep on a couch. Trust me, it’s vastly more comfortable than the bed down here.
Do you have wallpaper or painted walls in your bedroom?
They’re wood.
What is your favourite pattern?
Stripes.
What is your favourite reality TV show?
Top Chef!
What is your favourite programme on MTV?\
My drama friends and I, when we went to state, pretty much marathoned Next in the hotel room.
Do you watch Friends? If so, what’s your favourite episode?
Bah.
Do you watch Big Brother?
Again: bah.
Have you ever been outside of your own country?
Indeed.
If so, what’s the first country you went to?
England.
Have you ever attempted to play a guitar?
Yes.
Do you have an interesting nationality?
Meh.
Do you have any famous relatives?
Possibly.
Have you ever been in the middle of a family argument?
Welcome to family life.
Have you ever thrown food at someone?
I threw half a loaf of bread at Aneel in high school. ‘Cause that was high school and that’s what we did.
Have you ever had an argument with a teacher?
No, actually.
What is your favourite fruit?
Apples.
If you could work anywhere in the world, what would you do?
I would be a statistician/Leibniz expert in Antarctica. DON’T LAUGH, IT WOULD BE AWESOME.
If you could run away and start a fresh right this moment, would you?
Yes.
Do you live in a warm country?
One of the coolest things about the US, I think, is the HUGE range of climate zones in it.
Do you own a water pool? \
What…what other kind of pool would I own?
Have you ever bought something on eBay?
Yup.
Have you ever sold something on eBay?
Yup.
Have you ever heard of the band McFly? If so, do you like them?
Never heard of them.
Have you ever cooked a large meal?
Not really. I made mashed potatoes for the grad school crew, but that wasn’t really that much.
If you could be God, would you?
Do you know what kind of chaos I would cause?
Would you rather…
Live in a large nice house alone, or a small cheap house with others?
I’d much rather be alone.
Would you rather be the most famous person alive, or have no friends?
Famous, just because that way I could have a better shot of doing some good for the world.
Eat something extremely spicy or extremely bitter?
Bitter.
Have no self-esteem or be too full of yourself?
No self-esteem.
Eat a big bowl of rubbery egg or a cup of raw egg?
Rubbery egg doesn’t bother me, so let’s go with that.
Be too tall or too short?
I’m already too short, so…
Be a cow or a sheep?
Cow.
Drink lavender oil or eat vaseline?
Vaseline.
Eat a human eyeball or a human tongue?
Tongue.
Be the cleverest and ugliest person alive or the dumbest and most attractive?
Clever + ugly is totally fine with me.
Have a cat or a dog?
Cat.
Be a duck or a chicken?
Duck.
Have a brace or awful teeth?
Like a back brace? I’ll go with awful teeth, since that would be less painful day to day.
Do maths everyday or science?
MATH!
Have an American or an Australian accent?
American. As long as I could pick where in America the accent would be from.
Have no hair or have too much hair?
No hair.
Smell disgusting for life or have a nose bleed for the rest of your life?
Smell. It wouldn’t bother me. Plus I’d be living in that big house all alone but also be ridiculously famous, so who cares?
Be fancied by every person/animal alive or no one?
No one.
Have one arm or one leg?
One arm. Gotta do my walkin’!
Be a famous musican or the president for the day?
Is the famous musician also a “singly day” thing? If so, president. If not, musician.
Have to wear an eyepatch for life or an arm sling?
Eyepatch.
Be male or female?
Male.
Die from being to hot or too cold?
Too cold.
Be in a prison or mental hospital for a month?
Mental hospital.
Have curly or straight hair?
I hate my “I can’t decide if I’m curly or just obnoxious” hair, so straight.
Be 18 for life or 21?
18.
Never experience childhood or adulthood?
Never experience childhood (which kind of contradicts my answer to the above question, but what’re ya gonna do?
Own a private beach or a pool?
Pool.
Be a widow or be single for life?
Single.
Be spiderman or superman?
THE HULK
How long did this survey take you, or did you not time it?
Who knows? I do these things like over a three-day span
Long one.
01. Who is your favorite movie actor?
Tom Hanks is freaking awesome.
02. What was the last book you finished? What book are you currently reading?
I just finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Verne and have started re-reading the next item on my list: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I also started reading this big ass book on the history of math that I’d gotten a while ago, but I can’t remember the author off the top of my head.
03. Do you play The Sims 2 or 3?
Yes, but not nearly as much as I used to.
04. How much do you watch TV on an average day?
I pretty much have the TV on from the time I get home to the time I go to bed, but the amount of time I’m actually *watching* it is probably at most an hour and a half.
05. What is your best friend’s mom’s name?
I don’t have a best friend.
06. Are you a fan of Lady Gaga and/or Ke$ha?
Yup, but much more so Lady Gaga.
07. Have you ever painted a picture?
Indeed I have. I used to paint quite a bit before I realized how much I sucked.
08. What is your favorite cereal?
Cinnamon Toasters, the cheapo version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (they’re vastly better, too)
09. Do you play games on the Internet often?
Does Minecraft count? If so, yes.
10. Do you have anything personalized? (a bag, towel, pillow, etc.)
My backpack has my initials on it ‘cause I’m a dorkfest.
11. What does your favorite pair of shoes look like?
I like my walking shoes a lot, but they’re soooo not that bright anymore, haha. My toe shoes rock, too.
12. What is your school’s colors/mascot?
*insert fight song here*
13. What type of building do you live in?
A house?
14. Do you edit pictures before you let people see them?
Depends on the picture.
15. What kind of decorations do you have in your room?
I don’t really have a room…I have the basement, but I haven’t decorated it at all. It’s all my dad’s weird, weird stuff.
16. Do you get along with your siblings, if you have them?
No sibbies, thank god.
17. What is the longest song you have on your music player?
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfieldis 25 and a half minutes long.
18. Have you ever listened to Passion Pit or Vampire Weekend?
HAHAHAHAHAH yes.
19. How many plays does your favorite band have in your music player?
My favorite BAND? I’m not sure…I’m not near iTunes at the moment.
20. Did you go to school today?
I went to campus, but classes aren’t a-goin’ right now.
Have you ever…
Stood at the end of a rainbow?
Bro, I AM the rainbow.
Drank blackcurrant and orange cordial mixed together?
Can’t say that I have.
Not eaten anything for a day?
Yup.
Traveled for a whole day, non-stop?
If you count our driving days to Ontario, yes.
Dressed as a cowboy/cowgirl?
I don’t think so.
Swam with dolphins?
Nope.
Been on TV?
I don’t think so.
Appeared on Google?
If you Google my full name (“Claudia Marie Mahler”) I’m the first hit.
Met your favourite music artist?
No.
Performed in front of a large audience?
Indeed I have.
Been asked for your autograph?
Nope.
Made someone so happy, they cried?
I have no idea. Hopefully!
Made your own clothing?
I *sort of* made those Kermit pants.
Been swimming outside in the winter?
Yes. But it was in Hawaii.
This Or That
Broccoli or Cauliflower?
BROCCOLI
Fish or Meat?
Fish IS meat.
Cereal or Toast?
What kind of cereal?
Dress or Jeans?
Dress.
Screamo or Rap?
Screamo.
Star or Moon?
Star.
Aeroplane or Helicopter?
Anything but a helicopter.
Black or White?
White.
Rainbow or Greyscale?
Haha, seriously?
Land or Water?
Land.
England or USA?
USA.
Unusual or Common?
Unusual.
Scarf or Gloves?
Gloves.
Vinyl or Tape?
Tape.
Tape or CD?
CD.
Snoopy or Garfield?
Garfield!
Random Questions
Do you sit at a table for dinner?
I haven’t done that in a long time.
Pick up the nearest book and turn to page 24. What is the last sentence?
“However, we don’t usually grasp the entire nature of a thing all at once, especially in a more lengthy analysis, but in place of the things themselves we make use of signs, whose explicit explanation we usually omit for the sake of brevity, knowing or believing that we have the ability to produce it at will.” (Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas; Leibniz <3)
If you put out your right arm, what’s nearest to it?
The TV.
What brand is the nearest chocolate bar?
Snickers.
What is the nearest red item?
The door.
What channel is your TV on, if it’s on?
I’m watching Adult Swim. It’s on mute, but Robot Chicken’s being Robot Chicken.
Do you even have a TV in the room you’re in?
Clearly.
Do you have a pillow with an awesome pillow case?
Damn straight. It’s striped and colorful.
What are the curtains in your bedroom like?
I don’t have curtains or a bedroom.
What size is your bed?
I sleep on a couch. Trust me, it’s vastly more comfortable than the bed down here.
Do you have wallpaper or painted walls in your bedroom?
They’re wood.
What is your favourite pattern?
Stripes.
What is your favourite reality TV show?
Top Chef!
What is your favourite programme on MTV?
My drama friends and I, when we went to state, pretty much marathoned Next in the hotel room.
Do you watch Friends? If so, what’s your favourite episode?
Bah.
Do you watch Big Brother?
Again: bah.
Have you ever been outside of your own country?
Indeed.
If so, what’s the first country you went to?
England.
Have you ever attempted to play a guitar?
Yes.
Do you have an interesting nationality?
I’m part Basque. That’s pretty cool.
Do you have any famous relatives?
Possibly.
Have you ever been in the middle of a family argument?
Welcome to family life.
Have you ever thrown food at someone?
I threw half a loaf of bread at Aneel in high school. ‘Cause that was high school and that’s what we did.
Have you ever had an argument with a teacher?
No, actually.
What is your favourite fruit?
Apples.
If you could work anywhere in the world, what would you do?
I would be a statistician/Leibniz expert in Antarctica. DON’T LAUGH, IT WOULD BE AWESOME.
If you could run away and start a fresh right this moment, would you?
Yes.
Do you live in a warm country?
One of the coolest things about the US, I think, is the HUGE range of climate zones in it.
Do you own a water pool?
What…what other kind of pool would I own?
Have you ever bought something on eBay?
Yup.
Have you ever sold something on eBay?
Yup.
Have you ever heard of the band McFly? If so, do you like them?
Never heard of them.
Have you ever cooked a large meal?
Not really. I made mashed potatoes for the grad school crew, but that wasn’t really that much.
If you could be God, would you?
Do you know what kind of chaos I would cause?
Would you rather…
Live in a large nice house alone, or a small cheap house with others?
I’d much rather be alone.
Would you rather be the most famous person alive, or have no friends?
Famous, just because that way I could have a better shot of doing some good for the world.
Eat something extremely spicy or extremely bitter?
Bitter.
Have no self-esteem or be too full of yourself?
No self-esteem.
Eat a big bowl of rubbery egg or a cup of raw egg?
Rubbery egg doesn’t bother me, so let’s go with that.
Be too tall or too short?
I’m already too short, so…
Be a cow or a sheep?
Cow.
Drink lavender oil or eat vaseline?
Vaseline.
Eat a human eyeball or a human tongue?
Tongue.
Be the cleverest and ugliest person alive or the dumbest and most attractive?
Clever + ugly is totally fine with me.
Have a cat or a dog?
Cat.
Be a duck or a chicken?
Duck.
Have a brace or awful teeth?
Like a back brace? I’ll go with awful teeth, since that would be less painful day to day.
Do maths everyday or science?
MATH!
Have an American or an Australian accent?
American. As long as I could pick where in America the accent would be from.
Have no hair or have too much hair?
No hair.
Smell disgusting for life or have a nose bleed for the rest of your life?
Smell. It wouldn’t bother me. Plus I’d be living in that big house all alone but also be ridiculously famous, so who cares?
Be fancied by every person/animal alive or no one?
No one.
Have one arm or one leg?
One arm. Gotta do my walkin’!
Be a famous musican or the president for the day?
Is the famous musician also a “singly day” thing? If so, president. If not, musician.
Have to wear an eyepatch for life or an arm sling?
Eyepatch.
Be male or female?
Male.
Die from being to hot or too cold?
Too cold.
Be in a prison or mental hospital for a month?
Mental hospital.
Have curly or straight hair?
I hate my “I can’t decide if I’m curly or just obnoxious” hair, so straight.
Be 18 for life or 21?
18.
Never experience childhood or adulthood?
Never experience childhood (which kind of contradicts my answer to the above question, but what’re ya gonna do?
Own a private beach or a pool?
Pool.
Be a widow or be single for life?
Single.
Be spiderman or superman?
THE HULK
How long did this survey take you, or did you not time it?
Who knows? I do these things like over a three-day span.
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