So there I was sitting at Sloppy Joe's just like most other days. Through the doors walked a most interesting character. A comma. A comma walked into Sloppy Joe's. Not an actual comma. A woman whose very embodiment reminded me of a comma. Commas are the bane of my existence yet I am drawn to her like a moth to a flame. I am a married man but I cannot stop thinking about her. I have tried to rid my life of all commas but it seems that I have one more that I must address.

Bibliography Exercise

King, Stephen
1981. Cujo. New York: Viking Press.

Torre, Joe
2009. The Yankee Years. New York: Doubleday.

Grann, David
2009. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. New York: Doubleday.

Berman, Morris
2006. Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Roth, Phillip
1969. Portnoy’s Complaint. New York: Random House.

Unpopular conclusion of "Freakonomics"

On occasion, a book or an article decides to go against the grain and draw a conclusion that is unpopular with the common belief of people. One of my favorite books, and an example of such a technique is "Freakonomics", by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The book draws a correlation between crime and legalized abortion. "Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime"(Levitt 139). What I really appreciated about this book is that it attempts to back up it's wild accusations with objective proof. The book is an excellent read, and one of many that I recommend to show how school subjects (in this case economics) are applied in real life.

References

Levitt, Steven D., Dubner, Stephen J.
2005. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: Harper Collins.

"Why are you Jiggling"

Where o slang terms come from? Recently my 10 year old nephew has been driving his mom, and granddad crazy with "Why are you jiggling", "Why are YOU JIGGLING". I wonder where this came from, and I actually find it quite amusing. They have learned, also, to laugh at these phrases rather than get annoyed by them. I hope this one catches on..

Anticipation, Letdown

So there I was, all set to play my new game. My friends recommended the game, and it seemed really cool. After all of the hundreds of dollars poured into the system, and games, and the connection is no good. Oh well, a few more days won't kill me. Guess I should be studying anyway.

Don't Sleep on Your Research

In this modern information age, the dissemination of information is often misunderstood, and the research methodology is often neglected. Web sites like "Wikipedia" have replaced dictionaries and encyclopedias. Many of us take this information for granted, and do not look at it critically. Look deeper into many articles, and you may find different conclusions than the article's own "conclusion". Take, for example, these articles on "sleep"

One study that was published that attempts to relate sleep habits to the likelihood of contracting the common cold.¹ Common sense would tell us as much, but what does the study actually tell us? The study had "only" 153 participants (relatively small), and exposed them to the virus after their sleep pattern was recorded. The next study we look at relates sleep duration to obesity and weight gain.² One can easily read into it that amount of sleep causes obesity or weight gain, but that is not what the study says. It actually relates the two, but does nothing to say which causes which. Obesity can cause sleeping problems such as sleep apnea, and is in fact one of the primary causes, according to helpguide.org.³ Then there is another study that follows sleep patterns of college students.⁴ All that this study can conclude is (perhaps) "Many students have sleep problems...", but it admits that the "survey may be limited by under reporting". Last but not least we have a fine study on caffeine or melatonin on sleep and sleepiness throughout travel that spans multiple time zones.⁵ Here we find a study that is very specific, controlled, and makes no assumptions.

Don't sleep on your research, and let the blogosphere/wikipedia/myspace/etc. world turn you into a machine. There is no (proof) of artificial intelligence, so use your own. (Not to say tha any of the aforementioned data is, or is not true)

References

1. Sleep Habits and Susceptibility to the common cold. Sheldon Cohen, PhD; William J Doyle, PhD; Cuneyt M. Alper, MD; Denise Janicki-Deverts, PhD; Ronald B. Turner, MD. Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol. 169 No. 1, January 12, 2009
2. Sleep duration, general and abdominal obesity, and weight change among te older adult population of Spain. Esther Lopez-Garcia, Raquel Faubel, Luz Leon-Munoz, Maria C Zuluaga, Jose R Banegas and Fernando Rodriguez-Artalejo. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, No. 2, 310-316, February 2008
3. Sleep Apnea, Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and treatment. http://www.helpguide.org/life/sleep_apnea.htm
4. Sleep Patterns of College Students at a Public University. LeAnne M. Forquer, PhD; Adrian E. Camden, BS; Krista M. Gabrrau, BS; C. Merle Johnson, PhD. Journal of American College Health, Vol. 56, NO. 5
5. Caffeine or melatonin effects on sleep and sleepiness after rapid eastward transmeridian travel. M. Beaumont, D. Batejat, C. Pierard, P. Van Beers, J.B. Denis, O. Coste, P. Doireau, F. Chauffard, J. French, and D. Lagarde. Journal of Applied Physiology 96: 50-58, 2004

Math in Real Life

Wouldn't you know, math really works in real life. In my math class my professor brought up This really great article which basically explains mathematically why human nature leads to the economic crisis's we are experiencing right now. I will sum it up for you as simple as possible.

Lets assume you work at an investment bank. Lets say, for simplicity sake that you and 99 other colleagues have 10 million dollars each to invest in "a coin flip". Heads you double your money, tails you go broke. Now your coin is special. Your coin has a 3/4 chance of coming up heads. Do you bet on your coin or on theirs? If you bet on theirs it is 1/2 you will make money and get a big bonus, 1/2 you go broke. What if you bet on yours? If you win and everyone else wins you get your bonus (3/8 chance..3/4 yours*1/2 theirs). However if you lose and everyone else wins the company is bankrupt, and still no bonus for you.

Would you take the "Smarter risk" that gives you less chance of making money?
Really?

Let's Make a Deal

After reading an obscure nonfiction book a few years ago "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers"
click here for a book review I came across the "Monty Hall Problem" which at first glance seems counter intuitive. It struck me as so simple, but yet so not obvious that I helped my nephew, who was 8 years old at the time, make a science project on it. Lo and behold, I was flipping through the channels, and the movie "21" was on (which I never watched because the book "Bringing Down the House" was so much better), and the scene was exactly this infamous problem. Small World! If you clicked on the second link and still are not convinced try this one .

Do they always have it?

Once again I was playing a game, and the only way I could possibly lose is if my opponent drew the 1 card he needed. First of all he had to have the card. Secondly he had to draw it. Lastly the game state had to be exactly as it was. This seems to happen to my friends and myself far more than sadistically probably, but is that the case? My answer is that no, it is not the case, but our own limited observation makes it seem so. If you are in Atlantic City and you see 10 black in a row, or 10 red in a row it will catch your eye, even though the probability is 1 in 500 of that happening, but do we notice the other 499 times when it does not happen? Another example would be that it seems like it always rains on the fourth of July, and New Years eve is the coldest night. If we look at the numbers it is, in fact, more along the norm.

Introduction: Sleep

After thousands of years of civilization, all of the breakthroughs that we have had in science, and scientists still cannot agree on why we sleep, and exactly what it does for us. You can ask ten different people how much sleep they get a night, or how much sleep they should get a night and you can probably get ten different responses. There are numerous studies on the subject, and there is a huge misunderstanding as to what each study means. When I look at a study, I try to dig deeper and see what is the real conclusion. Being a mathematical person, I usually look into the numbers to see if a study is large enough to account for statistical anomalies. The next thing I do is try to figure out if a proper scientific method is used to show cause and effect. Many studies take data and throw the numbers together, to see what the correlation is, neglecting to come up with a reason. Once I find a study that meets these criteria, it amazes me that people do not try to do what is recommended. Sleep, for example, is such a seemingly simple topic. Almost any study will show you that you need 6-9 hours of quality sleep per night, but then there is a wild discrepancy as to what will happen if you do not stay within those guidelines for prolonged periods of time. Most Americans neglect these basic standards.

Break it Down

Earlier I posted reservations I have with studies that are published, declaring that cause and effect are often not taken into true account. In response I was asked "Should we throw out all epidemiological studies because "some" are flawed? Or should we, which I think is the better choice, wade through the difficulties and attempt to find the truth?" My answer is that these studies should be broken down into categories.

Category I would be studies that show cause and effect, are done with strict guidelines like double blind studies, and are confirmed independently.

Category II would be studies that have a conclusion that is based in cause and effect, but the relationship is not proven, but seems probable

Category III would be studies that take data and are evaluated, and a conclusion is drawn strictly from that data, with no real hypothesis for WHY. These are by far the most dangerous, and should try to be avoided, lest they lead you down the wrong path.

Everyone has problems, what are you doing to solve yours?

I spent quite a few years in retail as a manager, and one concept that I developed over the years was that anyone can come up with a problem, but it takes something special to come up with a solution, or to even try. "I can't work on this day", "We need more of this", "That doesn't belong there", are a few examples, and my answer would inevitably be "OK, so what can you do about it?" That simple question solved so many problems over the years, it is not even funny. The same can be applied to problems with family, money, relationships, and more. The world has enough problems, lets try to do something about it. Complaining that you do not make enough money to pay your bills, will not accomplish anything; figuring out how to make more money, or cut down on your bills will. How often do you hear someone say "I'm going to take some classes so I can get a promotion", instead of "I'll never get that promotion, my life sucks"? My guess would be not often. I take pride that I have no common phobias, or fears. I am not crazy enough to walk down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood; That is not fear, it is common sense. I do not fear, however, the dark, heights, monsters, tall roller coasters, public speaking, etc. To me these are two sides of the same coin. Being afraid of something that my brain tells me is reasonably safe (like jumping off a 50 foot high diving board as the 7 year old children are doing) s a waste of my time and energy. I am going to do it anyway, so why waste time and energy on fear. Complaining about a situation I am in is not going to improve my situation, trying something different (and hopefully constructive) will (or at least may). I see this theme of positive thinking repeated in books such as "The Secret", "The Celestine Prophecy", and even "Dilbert 2.0" that I have begun to adopt it.

Cause and Effect Primer

I wanted to get this out there, my apprehension of so called "scientific studies". The big problem that I have is with linked data studies is the lack of association between the empirical evidence and the effects that are being suggested. If I told you that Arizona has the highest rate of lung Cancer, could you conclude that something in Arizona causes that lung cancer? In fact, the opposite is true. Arizona has such high rates of lung cancer because older people migrate there, for the warmer weather, and older people have higher rates of cancer. If a study were to show that children that play a lot of video games have poor social skills, could you conclude which is the cause and which is the effect? These "chicken and the egg" studies bother me, and I try to give negative correlations a chance to be "innocent until proven guilty"

Quick aside: it has been proven that the egg really did come before the chicken; the eggs came from dinosaurs and the chickens came from the eggs

Watch it again...for the first time

Have you ever watched a movie for a second time, but one little fact changes your perception of the movie? For example, one of my favorite baseball movies, Field of Dreams. If you have ever watched the movie, and not read the book, you might be surprised to know that the Terrance Mann character (played by James Earl Jones) was J.D. Salinger in the book. Anyone who is familiar with J.D. Salinger would realize that this is a BIG difference. One of my favorite movies of all times is Remember the Titans. This movie is based on a true story. What makes this great, besides the football, is the drama of race tensions, as well as what happens to the characters. Look into the story, however, and you will find out that many liberties and exaggerations were taken. Still a great story, but nowhere near the one Disney put out. How about "Eyes Wide Shut"? Many critics say that it was just a bad porn film, but it is the same "ritual" that we see years later in "The Da Vinci Code"

Do you see what I see?

Earlier I stated that video games can help in speed of tasks and cut down on errors, but it may also help your eyesight.
http://www.livescience.com/health/070315_video_vision.html
According to this study, when playing games like "Gears of War", "Lost Planet", and "Halo", there is a substantial increase in the ability to see objects in a cluttered space. Exercise for the eyes, as it is.
Sorry, sedate games like Tetris show no improvement, no matter how high your high score is.

Just vacuum the walls

When I was in High school, there was a school activity called mock trial. If you do not know what this is, that is OK, I never really knew what it was, I just participated to spend more time with my new girlfriend. Basically a mock trial is between 2 schools, and it is a trial with students playing the parts of lawyers and witnesses (obviously I was a witness). Now let me tell you I find myself to be one of the most analytical (a.k.a. not creative) people, but I pulled one out one day. Before you arrive to the competition, you see the information from both sides of the case, and they tell you when you arrive what side you will be representing. This gives you all the information, and what the opposition will try to get you on. Basically the trial came down to carpets that contained asbestos, and there were carpets on the wall. So when the opposing lawyer asked me the "janitor" if I vacuumed I said yes, every day. o their follow up was, what about the carpet on the wall. I responded "oh yeah, we have a special attachment that we use to vacuum the walls every day (this was nowhere in the notes, but it was not specifically stated to be untrue)". Needless to say this left the opposition dumbfounded.
http://www.nationalmocktrial.org/

Not exactly Brain Surgery?

Many people have a belief that video games fry children's brains, and should be monitored or withheld from children. I believe that a lot of that criticism comes from adults that have never played video games themselves when they were younger (because they did not exist), or at least never played games such as exist today. Their argument is that they are playing with "mindless machines". I've always been on the fence on this subject because of articles like this
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/12/66086
which shows that 3 hours of video games a week can improve speed , and efficiency in "everyday" tasks, including surgery!

Who is John Galt?

If you recognize that famous first line then you have probably read what is probably my favorite book of all time Atlas Shrugged. If you have not, then I highly suggest that you do. Published more than 50 years ago, much of what this book represents still rings true today, as evidenced by a recent wall street journal article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html
I have been trying to "push" this book on to most everyone I know, and the few that have managed to "trudge" through the 1168 pages are grateful for it. I have actually read it twice (although I must admit I glazed over "The Speech" the second time around), and I highly suggest reading it before the movie comes out (rumored to have Angelina Jolie, Russell Crowe, and Brad Pitt), because no matter how good the movie is I doubt it can ever do the book justice (The DaVinci Code, anyone?)

Creating a Blog

Apparently creating a blog is easier than I thought. Especially if you use Gmail, which I do. Ive noticed a trend in email names in the last few years. When the Internet first became popular, Aol was the primary way for common folk, such as myself. People had a wide variety of "names". In my own family there is a carbo22, realebusy, popalapu, brooklynbaby25, and a whosnext316, just to name a few. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert is one of the first people I can remember that used "FirstnameLastname" and he is still using ScottAdams@aol.com. I have taken to using my own name in my email addresses, web pages, etc. leaving little doubt who it is sending the information. The only blog I regularly read is Scott Adams', and I must say I really enjoy it (check it out here http://www.dilbert.com/blog/ if you are interested). I like his style, and I plan on having a similar one on this blog, unless "suggested" otherwise.