Teach Me Something Tuesday #27

Did you know that Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first — and currently only — syndicated television show (a show produced outside of network television, then sold to networks for broadcast, examples include Baywatch, Xena, and Legend of the Seeker) to be nominated for the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series? It was nominated for its 7th season (most likely as a testament to it’s cultural significance rather than the quality of that particular season itself) in 1994 but lost to Picket Fences. But as everyone says, it’s an honor just being nominated.

Teach Me Something Tuesday #26

The 80th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled Legacy featured the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise helping out a crashed freighter on the planet Turkana IV, homeworld of fallen comrade Tasha Yar. While on the mission they find Tasha’s sister Ishara, who helps out the crew, but has motives of her own. This fourth season episode was enjoyable, but not one that particularly stands out in my mind. The relationship formed between Ishara and Data was probably the best part of the episode and deserves a better episode to encapsulate it, but like I said, it was still a decent episode. What makes this episode noteworthy though is that as the 80th episode, it helped The Next Generation surpass the episode run of The Original Series, which ran for 79 episodes. In his Captain’s Log at the beginning of the episode, Picard casually makes reference to passing the planet Camus II on their way to a new mission. As it turns out, Camus II is the setting of the 79th and final episode of The Original Series episode Turnabout Intruder. This in-joke was supposedly devised by producers Rick Berman, Eric Stillwell and William Riker actor Jonathan Frakes, which I’m sure they took great pleasure in since so many people thought creating a new Star Trek series was a terrible idea and that it would never last.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!

Teach Me Something Tuesday #25: Pat Buchanan and Shoulder Hair

Today I’m welcoming the handsome and talented David from Che Bello who is here to bring us another installment of Teach Me Something Tuesday:

Anybody who’s ever paid attention to a political race or any kind of opinion polling is familiar with a proportion. “100% of authors of today’s TMST think Kári is adorable,” a headline might read. Or “64% of Craig’s shoulder hairs have grown more than an inch in the past 12 hours.” These are both magnificent examples of proportions, one distinctly more horrifying than the other. But in political races, we’re often dealing with a population so large that we can’t ask everyone any given question. Even surveying all of Craig’s shoulder hairs would be a daunting proposition, imagine if you had to talk to every person in the country! So, how do we say anything about the population with any certainty at all? We construct the almighty CONFIDENCE INTERVAL!

Let’s say you’ve been hired by me to find out how many people agree with the ideas of nutjob Pat Buchanan. (For the latest vile nutjobbery, see here.) It should be 0%, but, sadly, we don’t often see extremes in public opinion. You go out and do a survey of a randomly sampled group of people that is representative and proportional to the population along demographics such as gender, ethnicity, education level, etc. (if you were to sample gun-brandishing veterans who can’t find manufacturing jobs anymore and don’t mind blaming it on immigrants, your sample would be pretty biased (and wouldn’t have the collective sense God promised a doorknob)), and what you come back with is that 42% of the population agree with his statements. So, are you ready to definitively say that that’s the true proportion that you would get if you asked everyone? Since you only took a sample, it can’t be. We use confidence intervals to say “Given the information that we’ve gathered, we think the true value we’re estimating is between x and y.”

So how do we do that? The basic form of any confidence interval is our estimate plus/minus a margin of error. This margin of error has two pieces: a critical value from what we call the z-table, and the standard deviation of our estimate. The z-distribution is familiar to you as a bell curve; it’s the normal distribution. We use the normal distribution here because of the central limit theorem. With repeated sampling, we know that the distribution of our proportions would be normal. That is to say if we took lots and lots of samples and made a histogram of the proportions of support for Buchanan for each one, it would eventually take the shape of a normal model. Or, if we took repeated samples of ten of Craig’s exes, eventually we could get a good estimate of how long the famed Puntabuschlong really is. This is true of all sampling distributions, even if the underlying population you’re sampling from is highly skewed. (The population, not the Puntabuschlong.) If you’re having trouble believing this, and that’s okay, as it’s a pretty earth-shattering revelation, check out the fun simulation here. Given that, we can use the normal model to set how wide our confidence interval should be. For a 95% confidence interval, the associated z-value is 1.96, because on the normal model 95% of the data fall within 1.96 standard deviations of the mean.

The second piece of our margin of error is the standard deviation of our estimate. We find this by taking the square root of [(our estimate)(1-our estimate)/N], with N being our sample size. It should be intuitive that dividing by our sample size is a good idea — the larger the number of people you’ve talked to, the more precise your estimate will be. That’s just another way of saying that its standard deviation (the average distance from each observation to the mean) will be smaller. Talking to more people means you can more closely pinpoint where the true proportion lies given the data you have.

So, putting those pieces together, we take our estimate (.42), and add/subtract 1.96(standard deviation). Let’s say that you sampled 2000 people. That means our standard deviation is sqrt[(.42)(.58)/2000], or 0.011. Multiplying this by 1.96 gives us .0216. If we subtract that from our estimate, we get .3984. And if we add that to our estimate, we get .4416. And now we’ve constructed a confidence interval for the true amount of support for Pat Buchanan in the population: .3984 to .4416. That means that we’re 95% certain that the true proportion of support, if we asked everyone in the country, for Pat Buchanan would fall between those two numbers. If this were true, I would stab myself in the eyes. The last polling data on Pat Buchanan comes from the 2000 election cycle, but none of them indicate much more than 20% support at that time, and I doubt it’s climbed much given his encouragement of John McCain to go to war on Iran for electoral benefits.

So the next time you’re looking at political polling data, you’ll now be able to think critically about it. Most firms don’t even publish confidence intervals, instead just giving news outlets their point estimates and saying the margin of error is 3 or 4 or whatever number of points. That leaves it up to the public to add and subtract the margins of error from both candidates and see if they overlap, meaning that the race would be too close to call. But with so few people being mathematically-minded or statistically educated, most people take estimates at face value. Stop doing this today and you’ll be well on your way to impressing someone in a political discussion (and winning your way into this cute statistician’s heart.) By the way, the confidence interval for proportion of the time shoulder hair turns me on? 0.00 to 0.01.

GUEST TMST POST: Teach Me Something Tuesday #24

Continuing the grand tradition of Teach Me Something Tuesday guest posts which are way better than the ones I do, I welcome my friend Shaina who is here to discuss some Pop Psych: Hot Gossip with a Side of Psychology.

As Dane Cook pointed out at the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Awards last week, Vanessa Hudgens can not seem to keep her clothes on. Earlier this month a new batch of half naked pics taken on a cellphone circulated the internet to sequel the ones that made the rounds in 2007. Let’s put the fact that this is coming up at an award show for kids — a show where Miley Cyrus also shimmied along a stripper pole to the side for a moment — and focus on the de rigueur teenage pastime of “sexting.” Is there some kind of natural inclination, an evolutionary propellant to shed our unnatural clothing and flash off our goods like peacock feathers? Is it the ever-pornification of our society? Or is it just that the advent of clothing brought the titillation of “sans clothing” and those in the rebellious stage of development love all things titillating and mostly express themselves in a digital word?

As it turns out, little focus has been paid to the cultural or evolutionary role of exposure in today’s society since the early Freud theories of “perversion” which explain male flashing as a soothing of castration anxiety (because of the powerful shock the anaconda provides to its unsuspecting female victim). What, no public sponsored research after moms saw their little girls flashing on a Girl’s Gone Wild commercial? The commonplace practices of everyday teens soberly (we assume) posting themselves on the internet and via text has caught the attention of the psych community, however.

Dr. Sari Locker a Columbia University adolescent psychology professor and sextologist, shared with CNN that she believes girls send pictures to hold onto their boyfriends who are watching porn on the internet. Dr. John Suler and other researchers use the term “disinhbition effect” to describe the uninhibited expression in cyberspace. Often people share very personal things about themselves, show unusual acts of kindness, or use rude language or harsh criticism (which explains urbanbaby.com). This is due to psychological feelings of anonymity, asynchronicity (not interacting in real time), and existing in an alternate dimension.

And what of the person who forwards on these photos? It might not occur to them that this lady is even a person. Princeton psychology professor Susan Fiske, Mina Cikara GS and Standford psychology professor Jennifer Eberhart performed MRI machine scans and found that partially clothed women activated brain regions associated with objects or “things you manipulated with your hands”.

All in all, a high percent of teens seem to be aware of the possible negative consequences but send nude or half naked pictures of themselves anyway. Sounds like Dr. Locker’s advice to give the kiddies phones sans camera is a good idea.

Resources:

1. Suler, J. (2004). CyberPsychology and Behavior, 7, 321-326.

2. The Online Disinhibition Effect

3. Wolman, B (1998) Handbook of Human Sexuality, Jason Aronson; 2 Sub edition

4. Sex and Tech: results from a survey of teens and young adults

5. Sexting expert: Teens should not have cameras on cell phones

Pictures of a sloppy Jessica Simpson and inebriated Katie Price seem to be a daily treat on the gossip blogs these days. Both girls, as many celebs and civilians before them are binging after break-ups. Is it self-medication or a gulping down freedom?

Experts seem to agree that breaking up is similar psychologically to going through the loss of a loved one by death. Dr. Fisher at Rugers Univestiy found that in MRIs of recently dumped individuals, the brain areas associated with obsessive thinking and anger suppression were more active. As were the areas that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with risk taking. If there was ever a time you might think it’s a good idea to booze it up and make out with randoms, this might be it.

Another study done by psychologists at the UC Davis and University of Nevada, Reno found that certain types of people were more likely to drink and use drugs after a break-up. Those who tend towards self-reliance and avoidance are more likely to drink, likely because they don’t use social coping strategies. Individuals who tend to be more anxious in relationships and oscillate between dramatic and coy interactions with romantic interests are also more likely to take to the bottle after a break up. In general people who experienced greater distress are more likely to use the strategy of their choice more intensely for greater soothing. What’s more stressful than being dumped before your birthday and seeing it on every tabloid in the country?

Word to the wise recently single boys & girls: if you are going to pick up the bottle to heal your wounds, stay in with some good friends and play a game of 10 reasons my ex blows and 10 reasons my next will be better.

Resources:

1. D. Davis, Shaver, P.R., and Vernon, M. (2003) Psychical, Emotional, and Behavioral Reactions to Breaking up: The roles of gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29; 871

2. Fisher, H (2004), Dumped! The Nature of Romantic Rejection, New Scientist

3. The Science of Heartbreak, Women’s Health, July 2009

GUEST TMST POST: Teach Me Something Tuesday #23

Hi guys!

I’m Kári and I’m here today relieve Craig of his blogging duties and teach you about my quaint little home-country, Iceland. The fact that astounds most foreigners is our extremely small population. There’s only 319.368 of us, which accounts for a about 0.005% of the world’s population. But Iceland is not a small country, physically. It’s bigger than South Korea and slightly smaller than Guatemala and Kentucky at 103,000 square kilometres or about 40,000 square miles. The Icelandic nation is of Germanic descent and we descend from Norwegian immigrants and their red-haired Irish slave girls who settled here around 874 AD. Icelanders are in fact 50% Norwegian, 50% Irish with most of the male DNA coming from Norway but the female DNA coming from Ireland and the British Isles. This relatively newly discovered Irish factor probably accounts for the great amount of writing which was done in Iceland in the past – much greater than that of Norway and the other Nordic nations. Out of these the Icelandic Sagas (saga means story or history in Icelandic) are probably the best known. And yes, the settlers called it Iceland because there are glaciers here. We did not switch names with Greenland to confuse the Nazis. And no Iceland is totally not green, it’s more like a muddy greyish-brownish colour.

My first name, Kári, might look somewhat scary, with that accent and all (just be glad my name isn’t Þormóður) so here’s a primer: The á is pronounced like ow, as in “owl”, the r is tapped or rolled depending on your mood and the i is like the i in… well… in. It’s not like the one in machine but slightly lower. For that vowel, we have í with an accent. But since I live in the States currently, I don’t torture people (or myself) by going through all that all the time so you can also just go ahead and call me Cary instead. It’s usually easier for all parties involved.

My last name is Helgason and it means “Helgi’s son” cause my father’s name is Helgi. That is also my brother’s last name. If I had a sister, she would be Helgadóttir which means “Helgi’s daughter”. My mother is Emilsdóttir because her father was Emil (incidentally my middle name too) and my father is Magnússon because his father’s name is Magnús. These are called patronymics and used to be used all over Europe (most of those English last-names inding in -sen and -son descend from this tradition) but we are the only nation to carry on doing it. In the past few years, matronymics have become more common, where the mother’s name is used, and a few people use both.

Our language is Icelandic, which has changed the least out of all the Nordic languages since the first millennium, so we can still read our old books since 1200 AD. It is a Germanic language like English and we have a lot of words in common like ‘skip’ ship, ‘land’ land, ‘hár’ hair, ‘maður’ man and ‘meik-upp’ make-up (just kidding, that’s borrowed). Icelanders learn British English in schools and we watch loads of American TV and movies so our English becomes this weird mix of Patsy, Veronica Mars and Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (if you don’t know her, google her!). We also learn Danish, because Iceland used to be under the Danish crown until 1944 and people also learn either German, French or Spanish if they go to high school (and 80-90% of people do). And no, we don’t speak Portuguese, and no, we don’t speak Russian either.

For the better part of our great nation’s existence, we were very very poor. My ancestors used to live in small huts, called torfbæir (turf-huts, the singular is torfbær), dug into the ground, built out of rocks and turf:

Icelanders have never lived in igloos or snow-houses, just to clear that out. Don’t ever ask us either, cause we’ll probably lie and say that we did cause we think it’s so funny people actually think that and then we’ll laugh at you behind your back. But really, come to think of it, torfbæir are not much better.

Our housing situation starts to change in the 18th and 19th centuries and we start becoming slightly more civilised with every passing decade (or so we like to think) until we reached our high point in 2007, when we became the most developed nation in the world according to the United Nations HDI. Since then, everything has been downhill, our banking system collapsed, our currency collapsed and so did our dignity. But hey, fret not. We have a lesbian prime minister who is awesome, we still have Björk, Sigur Rós are still around, and we are not yet back to living in torfbæir. And the weather gets better every year, thanks to Global Warming. And yes, we are physically capable of feeling cold. But Iceland is actually not really that cold in the winter. New York City gets much colder. In the summer, it tends to be in the 59-69° F area (15-20° C).

We have lots of fish in the sea which accounts for a good part of our income. We sell it to various nations around us, including Spain, Britain and the States. A friend of mine found fresh Icelandic fish in Atlanta, Georgia, believe it or not. We also have lots of waterfalls which provide us with most of our energy in a completely non-polluting manner (though actually constructing the dams is a big issue here because it destroys a lot of land). Iceland is situated on the boundary between the North-American and Eurasian tectonic plates so we have volcanoes, earthquakes, hot springs and geysers (Geysir is our most famous geyser (it means ‘Spewer’) and that word you guys are borrowing from us, thank you very much). You may or may not have heard of the Blue Lagoon but that’s not a natural formation but a by-product of geothermal water processing (cause we use it to heat our houses). But it’s been made really nice and the silicon mud is good for your skin too.

Because we are so far up North, there is daylight most of the night from May to August and none at all throughout most of December to February. This is immensely freaky, even to me, who have lived in Iceland almost all my life. If you decide to take a visit during the summer, you might wanna bring along a sleeping mask and if you come in the winter, take some anti-depressants. Nah, just kidding. We don’t do that kind of stuff. We drink away our sorrows. But because the winter tends to be kind of gloomy, we have huge amounts of ghost stories. I might share them with you one of these days, but I think this is enough for now.

Wanna come visit? The flights are pretty cheap at the moment and because of our currency the króna’s collapse, the exchange rate is very favourable. For those that are into music, that seems to be among the few things we still have going for us and we have a really strong music scene, not just Björk and Sigur Rós. Maybe I’ll cover that later too!

So what do you think? Any questions? Comments? Stories to share? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sjáumst,
Kári Emil Helgason

GUEST POST: Teach Me Something Tuesday #22

As you know, Puntabulous totally loves teh Gin and Tonics! Oh, this is Craig writing by the way, he’s doing his little introduction thingy. Our special guest post just makes him write in the third blog identity person. Anyway, today’s guest post wasn’t written as a Teach Me Something Tuesday, but I think it totally fits! Here to teach us how to properly make a martini comes the delectable VUBOQ!

As some of you may know, VUBOQ *hearts* the gin.

Many, many moons ago, I took my first sip of gin and thought “Wow, I’m drinking a pine forest.” Then, I got very drunk, made a complete ass of myself, and passed out. And that’s how my family celebrated my 5th birthday.

Ha! I kid! Who do you think I am? Drew Barrymore?

A few weeks ago, my friend, Patty, was in town for a conference. We met at the bar in her hotel and she was all

BUT, she had never had a martini. I immediately ordered one for her.

Apparently, even if you *heart* the gin, you may not *heart* the martini. I am beginning to question our 15-year friendship though.

Still with me? Good. Because I do actually have a point.

Back in the Spring, when Craig, my friend, Jake, and I went to see David’s show, Craig mentioned that, even though he *hearts* teh gin, he didn’t know how to make a martini. *gasp* I think I may have swooned. So, here is my illustrated guide, to be preserved forever on teh intartubez as…

What you will need:

Step 1: Measure 1 ounce Dry Vermouth and 3 ounces Gin.

Some people like to think they are being all Cool and Shit when they order a very dry martini. Cold Gin with Olives? Not my cup of tea.

Which reminds me of a story. Back when I was working in a museum gift shop, I had the following conversation with a co-worker:

Co-Worker: I want to try a martini, but I don’t want any alcohol in it.
VUBOQ: What’s that? Olives in a Glass?

Step 2: Fill cocktail shaker with ice and pour in the carefully measured vermouth/gin.

(Do you really need to see a photo to do this? I hope not, because I didn’t take one.)

Step 3: Wait.

Why don’t you use this time to prepare a nice little snack of cheese and crackers?

Step 4: Swirl (or stir) the gin, vermouth, and ice. For the luv of gawd, please do not shake teh gin. Every time you shake a gin martini, a fairy dies. I totally blame James Bond for the whole “Shaken Martini” Disaster. He drank Vodka Martinis. What a dumbass!

I know. I know. Some of you are being all “But I love Vodka Martinis.”

GRE Flashback!

*Ahem* ‘Nuff said?

Step 5: Strain into chilled martini glass. Add a couple of olives (My current fave are the lemon/chili cured olives from the Whole Foods Olive Bar. Nom). Throw in some ice chips to help keep it cold if you want and, VOILA!

Drink and Enjoy!
*smooches*

For VUBOQ’s Definitive Guide to Gin: CLICK HERE
For The New York Times guide to good gins for martinis: CLICK HERE

Teach Me Something Tuesday #21

How many silica packets would I need to eat in order to absorb all the water in my body?

Okay, so you know those silica packets they put in shoeboxes and bottles of vitamins? Well silica is actually silicon dioxide (SiO₂), which is the same material that makes up quartz. It’s essentially really porous sand and capable of absorbing 40% of its weight in moisture. While technically harmless to eat, eating one of those packets would give you a serious case of dry mouth.

So how many packets would you have to eat to absorb all the water in your body? Let’s say for example that I weigh 195 pounds. (Hypothetically speaking of course.) Since the human body is 70% water, there is 136.5 pounds of water in my hypothetical body. Therefore, it would require 341.25 pounds of silica to absorb all the water. Since a single packet of silica weighs 0.1 ounces, that means I would have to eat 54,600 silica packets.

It doesn’t exactly sound like the best way to do yourself in if you ask me. Something tells me I wouldn’t make it past packet #2. And who has the money to buy 54,600 pairs of shoes to get all those packets in the first place?

Source: What If…?: 75 Fascinating Questions and Answers

Thanks Michelle!

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!

Teach Me Something Tuesday #20

EASTER EGGS

People think it’s fun to proclaim Easter traditions as silly and consumerist. And yes, that may be true to some extent, but don’t you dare say anything bad about Easter Eggs! They are genius! Throughout history, eggs have been used as a symbol of rebirth, and used in many Spring traditions throughout ancient history:

Ancient Persians painted eggs in celebration of Nowrooz, their New Years celebration, which falls on the Spring Equinox. There are sculptures on the walls of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, depicting followers bringing eggs to the temple in celebration of the New Year.

Eggs dipped in saltwater are often the first item of food eaten during Passover Seder. Symbolic of rebirth, eggs are often served to mourners after a funeral, and are therefore used to symbolize the (non-human) sacrifices made at the Temple of Jerusalem during ancient Passover traditions.

Pre-Christian Saxons celebrated the goddess Eostre (sounds a lot like a certain holiday, eh?) with a feast on the Spring Equinox, which of course included eggs, symbolizing the rebirth of Spring. Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, the symbol of the goddess Eostre was the hare.

In Christianity, the egg is a symbol of the tomb of Jesus after his crucifixion. While appearing dormant on the outside, the hard shell of the egg represents the rock encasing the resurrected life inside. Orthodox Christian eggs are traditionally dyed red to represent the blood of Christ.

So you see, Easter Eggs make perfect sense! Maybe you might want to consider dying eggs this year. Not as a symbol of your religion, but as a celebration of humanity and the traditions that bring us together, which are more alike than we may realize. And then go buy some of those Reeses peanut butter eggs. Yum!

NOW TEACH ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!

Teach Me Something Tuesday #19

IMPERATIVE

[im-per-uh-tiv], adjective: absolutely necessary or required; unavoidable.

The word imperative stems from the Latin word imperativus, which means “pertaining to a command”. Imperativus has its roots in the Latin words in- “in, toward” and -parare “beget, bear”.

Imperative is primarily used by people of authority. As a general rule of thumb it is only used (almost always over e-mail, but does occasionally make even douchier appearances verbally) when said person of authority forgets to do an item of work, and assumes that using the word “imperative” when directing you to do said item of work that said person of authority forgot (“It is imperative that you get this done first thing in the morning!”) makes them sound more important and therefore helps you forget that you’re only doing said imperative thing because said person of authority forgot to do so themselves, when in actuality, if said imperative thing was so “imperative” it would have been done already by said person of authority, or you would have been directed to do said imperative thing before it became “imperative”.

NOW TEACH ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!

Teach Me Something Tuesday #18

PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN

I heard a conservative pundit the other day say that if Bill Clinton was the first black president (referring to a remark made by Toni Morrison in 1998) then that would make Barack Obama the first gay president, because with him as president, gays would run rampant and be all up in your crib. And by “all up in your crib” I mean “actually in your cribs, teaching your babies that being gay is okay”. I was shocked and appalled by this! I mean, didn’t he know we already had our first gay president? Wait, you didn’t know we already had our first gay president? Why of course its our fifteenth president James Buchanan who was in office from 1857 to 1861 silly!

Okay, so like most historical gays (I’m looking at you Alexander!) it’s not exactly proven, but you just know he was a big old homo. First off, he was the only president never to be married, which, you know… (::flips wrist::) In fact, Harriet Lane, an orphaned niece whom he had adopted, acted as his First Lady. It’s actually due to Harriet Lane that the term “First Lady” was used because you couldn’t refer to her as “Mrs. President” because her and the President weren’t married.

So what else made Buchanan such a flaming flame of flamocity, you ask? Well for fifteen years, before he was president, Buchanan lived with his also unmarried “close friend” Alabama Senator Gayle King William King and even then people were talking about it. Aaron Brown, Governor of Tennessee at the time referred to the pair as “Buchanan and his wife”. Also, when King was appointed minister to France, Buchanan wrote in a letter:

“I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone, and [I] should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.”

Interesting! You know what else is interesting? The nieces of both Buchanan and King destroyed all the letters between the two men after their deaths. That’s like deleting all the dirty text messages you sent when you were drunk the night before! So there you have it. Bill Clinton may have been the first black president, but Barack Obama is certainly not the first gay one. I guess he’ll just have to be satisfied being remembered as the first president born outside the continental United States instead.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!