Blog Here Now

On a cloudy December afternoon. Taken with my iPhone…

There seems to be a vengeful ghost in my Yahoo! Weather widget (which I keep on my “My Yahoo” home page). It keeps showing me the weather in Sundsvall Sweden and Sunnyvale CA in addition to Oshkosh. When I delete these locations, they arise from the dead next time I log in. This wouldn’t be so annoying, except for the fact that the weather in Oshkosh is invariably colder than the weather in Sweden, and of course MUCH colder than Sunnyvale. And to add injury to insult, we’re expecting 8-12 inches of snow in the next 36 hours.

Oh Ullr, why dost thou taunt me so?

Notice how green the grass still is… and this is December in central Wisconsin.

Amazingly, we managed to get through November without any measurable snow. Then it turned into December, and like clockwork, the temperature dipped into the low 20s and we got dusted. More is on its way.

Please note: we accept sympathy and even prayers (not to mention money for heating fuel). If you need a god to pray to, for this purpose I suggest Ullr – Norse God of Snow. However, my guess is that he’s more put upon by skiers praying for snow. I suppose that means you will have to pray with great fervor. Then at least you’ll be warm…

As something like health insurance reform crawls – like a cramping marathon runner – towards the finish line, and Wisconsinites enjoy a sixth Packers win plus a second week of high temperatures in the mid-50s (May It Not Be Global Warming), here’s wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. And what better way to celebrate than with a little Cold Turkey… John Lennon style, with a little primal screaming (or is that an imitation of something else?) near the end-

Well, it’s finally official: Cheryl’s album, Ain’t About Me, is now available on iTunes. The physical CD is available at CD Baby. Here’s the album graphics:

As I set my clocks back an hour and celebrate another ending of daylight savings time, I would like to make the following proposal:

Adopting this proposal would result in a net increase of 72+ hours of sleep over the average lifetime. Yes, the position of the sun relative to the Earth at any given clock-hour would cycle full-circle over the course of 24 years. But night owls (such as myself) would finally gain equality with daylight ducks, who would have to learn what it’s like to want to sleep when everyone else is awake.

Write your Congressperson today.

Recently confirmed (according to a story in the New York Times): risk of heart attack decreases among non-smokers once smoking bans are in place-

The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of a heart attack among both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of secondhand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems.

“Even a small amount of exposure to secondhand smoke can increase blood clotting, constrict blood vessels and can cause a heart attack,” said Dr. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the panel.

“Smoking bans need to be put in place as quickly as possible,” Dr. Benowitz added. “The longer we wait, the more disease we are accepting.”

In part because I lost both of my parents to smoking related diseases, I strongly support banning tobacco smoking in public places. Wisconsin recently passed a State-wide ban, but it doesn’t go into effect until July 2010. That’s not a day too soon for me. I’m really looking forward to being able to go out and enjoy some music in a local tavern without feeling the need to wear a gas mask.

Caution… you are about to enter a Geek Zone…

I just noticed that Excel 2008 (Mac version 12.2) finally lifted the arbitrary 7-level limit on nested IF functions. Previous versions of Excel restricted nested IFs in a formula to 7, which meant that, for instance, you couldn’t write a nested IF formula in a gradebook to input a numeric grade and automatically output a letter grade; you could do this only with the first 7 letter grades, and then you had to manually assign the rest. (There were purported workarounds published on the web involving string concatenations, but I only discovered them while working on this post, and I haven’t tested them to see if they work). This wasn’t much of a problem on my campus until this semester, when we switched from an 8-point (A, AB, B, BC…) to a 12-point (A, A-, B+, B, B-….) scale. With the 8-point scale, I could handle manually entering the 8th letter grade (F) into my spreadsheet, because there were relatively few of them. But on the 12-point scale the 7th grade is a “C”, and there are lots of grades lower than that in a typical Intro course. So, just on a whim tonight, while entering the results of the semester’s first exam into my spreadsheet, I wrote a 12-nested-IF formula and, totally unexpectedly, it worked! Thank you Microsoft for finally… finally… removing the silliest limitation in spreadsheet history.

Okay, I was as surprised as anyone this morning to discover that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. So I did a little googling around, and found this excerpt from Nobel’s will, which set up all of the Nobel prizes:

“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Now, no one has been talking about the abolition or reduction of standing armies lately, and “peace congresses” no longer occur as such. That leaves “the best work for fraternity between nations” as the major criterion on which this year’s 200+ nominees were evaluated, and, without knowing who else was in the running, it’s hard to say whether our new president truly deserves the prize. There may well be some hard-working NGO that could better use the prize money. But I can’t think of another single individual who has done more over this last year to at least try to promote fraternity between nations than president Obama, even if only by making speeches around the world… And, let’s face it, if Yasser Arafat can win the Nobel peace prize, anyone can.

As the academic year approaches, re-reading Bertrand Russell – this from the last chapter of The Problems of Philosophy (1912) – helps to get me pumped up-

“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.”

Les Paul, “the wizard of Waukesha” who invented the solid body electric guitar and multi-track recording, died today at the age of 94. Here’s a piece from the t.v. show he had with his wife, vocalist Mary Ford.

A couple of years ago, PBS’s “American Masters” did a great documentary on Paul called “Chasing Sound”. No doubt they’ll be running it again soon, so be on the lookout. Even if you don’t care a whit about electric guitars, this portrait of an indefatigable man who found his calling is thoroughly entertaining.

After all the inaccurate paraphrases and simple misrepresentations of Sotomayor’s views (I’ve heard at least 5 different paraphrases of her ‘wise Latina’ comment on news-ertainment shows, each of which set up straw women to knock down), it’s refreshing to hear the judge speak for herself – I was beginning to wonder if she had a voice at all. C-SPAN has particularly good live coverage on the web, including here.

UPDATE: Well, Senator Kyl just finished his inquisition of Judge Sotomayor concerning the “wise Latina” comment, and I must say that he gave her every opportunity to adopt the inoffensive interpretation of the philosophy behind the comment that I suggested in a previous post on this subject. She, however, did not go that route here (although she set forth a similar interpretation elsewhere), insisting instead that her comment was just an instance of rhetorical excess. Here’s the end of their exchange, although I think it’s best viewed in the context provided by the previous several minutes [I'll post the whole thing if it becomes available - meanwhile, here's a transcript that includes the whole exchange. To find the relevant portion, search for the phrase 'a legal basis']:

While I disagree with Kyl on most issues, I think his concern about Sotomayor’s remarks has a sound basis. Sotomayor might as well be honest about having been influenced, at least in her abstract academic views, by a sort of multicultural relativism that has tended to be promulgated in many humanities and social science departments over the past few decades: one that verges on being anti-white and anti-male, and not just pro-diversity. However, my own concern is mitigated by the fact that – as Sotomayor herself repeatedly stresses – there seems to be no evidence of her actually having applied those views in her judicial decisions.

I’ve found that even avid fans of public radio have often not heard one of its most educational and (I think) entertaining shows: A Way With Words, hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, examines the many quirks English. Here’s an edited list of topics covered on the last show.

Why do aviators say “roger” to indicate they’ve received a message? A pilot phones the show about that, “wilco,” and similar language.

For some golfers, the phrase “go golfing” is as maddening as a missed two-foot putt. The proper expression, they insist, is play golf. A longtime golfer wonders whether that’s true.

Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game called “Odd One Out,” the object of which is to guess which of four words doesn’t belong with the rest. Try this one: dove, job, polish, some.

“Yo!” Why did people ever start using the word yo! to get someone’s attention? Grant explains that in English there’s mo’ than one yo.

It’s one of the biggest grammatical bugaboos of all, the one that bedevils even the most earnest English students: “Is it lie or lay?” Martha shares a trick for remembering the difference.

How are things in your “neck of the woods“? And why heck do we say neck?

Grant explains the connection between “sauce” and “don’t sass me.”

Why do some people pronounce the word “wash” as warsh? Martha and Grant discuss the so-called “intrusive R” and why it makes people say “warsh” instead of “wash” and “Warshington” instead of “Washington.”

A Way With Words can be heard on many public radio stations (often at odd times, such as early Sunday morning), and the podcast is available on the web site linked to above, as well as on iTunes.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist posting this. (Once you’ve had a good laugh or 10 with this, you need not sit through the whole thing… fast forward to the end and put yourself out of your misery).

Blame Charles. He posted it first.

At his press conference today, President Obama championed logic – what a novel idea! – in the otherwise purely political debate over the ramifications of “the public option” for medical insurance being developed in Congress. Here’s what he said in response to the concern that the public plan might drive the private insurance companies out of business-

THE PRESIDENT: Why would it drive private insurers out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government — which they say can’t run anything — suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.

Now, I think that there’s going to be some healthy debates in Congress about the shape that this takes. I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly, that over time they can’t compete with the government just printing money.

So there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape. But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they’re giving consumers the best possible deal, that they can’t compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what’s the best deal. That defies logic, which is why I think you’ve seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan. All right?

Any president who first notes the logical inconsistency of his opponent’s positions, but then goes on to recognize that one of those positions does raise a concern that needs to be addressed (i.e., that the public plan must compete fairly with the private ones), and finally uses the word ‘conceptually’ to summarize his point, is sure to warm the cockles of a philosopher’s heart. It certainly did mine.

Here is the latest addition to the family: Katie, our four-month-old Sheltie pup-

And here is a “Mother & Daughter” portrait (note the matching hair color)-

Katie is our first dog, and at least on our first day together, it seems we’ve lucked out.

I recently received FEMA’s “National Flood Insurance Program Summary of Coverage” with my flood insurance policy statement. I usually ignore government documents unless I really have to read them, but tonight was an exception: an inexplicable impulse to be a responsible home-owner drew my eyes to the page, where I immediately noticed two odd spelling errors. This made me curious enough to read the entire document with some care, and I found 10 (count ‘em, 10) spelling or grammatical errors on the first two pages alone.

Now, I know that FEMA employees are probably overworked and underpaid, like most government employees. Heck, I’m a government employee myself, so I can empathize. But when the first 2 pages of a basic (and no doubt widely distributed) 4-page document contains 10 spelling and grammatical errors, you have to wonder what is going on over there.

Here is the first page of FEMA’s “National Flood Insurance Program Summary of Coverage”. I’ve highlighted the errors in yellow:

1. “…Form. which is…” should be “…Form, which is…”
2. “Your mortgage company require that..” should be “Your mortgage company requires that…”
3. & 4. “…of tow or or more…” should be “…of two or more…”
5. “…above” should be “…above.”

Here’s the second page:

6. “…choose different deductible…” should be either “…choose a different deductible…” or “…choose different deductibles…”
7. “…are covered of the backup is…” should be “…are covered if the backup is…”
8. “Refer to you policy…” should be “Refer to your policy…”
9. “…overage…” should be “…coverage…”
10. “…decks. patios” should be “…decks, patios…”

Notice that none of these errors are of the sort a spelling-checker would detect, although a simple grammar-checker probably would. My guess is that the writer, not having the patience to proof-read the document him/herself, left the job to a mere spelling-checker.

Given that FEMA is now a branch of Homeland Security, one can only hope that such carelessness (dare I say incompetence?) is unusual.

By the way, I don’t think that the writer should singled out for criticism here. Whoever appointed the writer to do this job without checking the quality of his or her work should also be reprimanded. And maybe the professors who gave the writer passing grades in college – surely the writer of such a document would have a college degree – should also be chastised.

Or, am I – a now prickly college professor myself who has grown weary of seeing similar problems in my own students’ writing – just making a mountain out of a mole-hill?