Fashion Faux Paus

It seems that a lot of people don't think about the activities they plan on participating in when they plan their wardrobe for the day, despite a great deal of planning about how they look, which seems to me to be rather backward. Mostly, it seems to be women, although guys do it sometimes too. Let me illustrate just a few things that I have seen that made me go hmm.

A woman at a local waterpark was wearing a string bikini. That in and of itself is not unusual. Women with the right form look great in them. Then again, it really doesn't matter what they wear if they can make a string bikini look good, so it is rather moot. No, what made this a seriously bad choice was that she was a mother with a little boy trailing along behind her. A little boy that saw interesting dangling strings within arm reach and, being a curious little boy, kept pulling on them. Needless to say, his mom was not too happy about her swim suit constantly being taken off in public. This could have been prevented quite easily if she had simply worn any other type of swimsuit. String bikinis are not the greatest choice for any woman that actually intends on swimming anyway as they have a tendency of slipping off in the type of activities that occur in water parks, say, on slides or in the wave pool. While this may be greatly amusing to all the guys there, I am not so sure it is that amusing to the women, or girls. Why anyone would send their 6 year old daughters to a water park in a string bikini is beyond me, but I see it all the time. No, string bikinis really only have one purpose, to make guys imagine pulling those strings. Seriously girls, if you aren't planning on guys doing that so you can have a wild bout of sex, you might want to rethink making your swimsuit the one second to naked variety.

Another thing I see women do on a regular basis is wearing miniskirts and a light blouse no matter how cold it is, then of course they complain about being cold. If this is not a ploy to get guys to invite them into their room, I don't know what is. You might as well be putting a sign on yourself saying you are available and ready for sex. Unless it is hot outside, miniskirts are designed to make men think of women as purely sex objects. No woman can expect to be taken seriously while wearing them, unless by seriously one means with serious intent to screw. Women dress like this to indicate they are sexy, but in reality it mostly indicates they are stupid and desperate. Miniskirts certainly have their place and are quite appropriate in the right circumstance, but that circumstance is not when the temperature is below freezing.

High heels are another thing that seems rather ill thought out. They seem to be designed by sadistic podiatrists to drum up business because they are about the worst thing a person can do to their feet. This is not exactly news to women, yet they still insist on wearing them. Don't get me wrong, I like to see a good looking woman in high heels as much as the next guy, they certainly have their place. One such place is when the woman is trying to look sexy with the intent to carry out that implied intent at some point in the near future. However, if a woman is trying to be taken seriously as a person with a brain and not just a nice ass, and/or they are on their feet for extended periods, high heels are just plain dumb. If women want to be taken seriously, dressing like they are advertising sex is probably not the way to do it. I am not saying women have to dress frumpy, which is the typical complaint women make when people bring this up, but when one dresses to highlight certain physical characteristics, they have no justification for complaining when people assume intent behind that mode of dress. There are lots of ways to dress and look nice without advertising sexual availability. Women may also bring up the height differential. In some cases, this may be a valid point, height does confer a social advantage in our society. But this social pressure is not as high on women as it is on men. Not to say it isn't there, it is just not as strong. But mostly, my disagreement here is on the type of shoe chosen. The stiletto heels with pointed toes are not designed to promote a height advantage, they are designed solely for appearance. That appearance to me says look, I am a ditz that is willing to permanently damage my feet in the hopes of attracting a guy to take care of me because I am incapable of doing so for myself, unless of course, the social situation is one in which people are expected to make oneself attractive for the opposite gender. At parties or social gathering outside of work, a woman can dress in such a way without any statements made about their intelligence or ability. At work though, it just says ditzy. On the other hand, a wider heel with a broader toe indicates that a woman feels the need to be taller (which, there are plenty of times in which this is a valid concern, both physically and socially) but has some thought about her feet. This type of woman can be taken seriously in a work environment.

To sum this section up, if a woman walks into my office to talk about her grade and she is dressed modestly, I am going to assume she is willing to conversely intelligently about her grade and I will be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. If she comes in wearing a lowcut blouse with no bra and a miniskirt, I am going to assume she is going to try to sway my opinion with sex appeal, or an implicit offer of sex (because yes, this is a not uncommon tactic in universities). This is going to make me want to get away from her as fast as possible (as I don't want to lose my job) and will certainly result in no improvement of her grade. There are plenty of instructors on whom this behavior works, but that helps no one and the instructors really should be canned as that sort of behavior is damaging to the goal of school for all concerned.

I should point out that men also wear high heels upon occasion. This usually takes the form of cowboy boots. In the country, there are good reasons for them. If one is actually riding horses, the heel is a utilitarian device. In an urban landscape, the only benefit is to be taller and look masculine. Mostly it makes them look like stupid posers. Look guys, everyone knows you're not a cowboy and wouldn't be able to ride a horse if your life depended on it, so cut the charade, alright? Unless you're going to a country bar and dressing for the occasion, you just look dumb.

The other big mistake that men and women make in the shoe department is to wear nice shoes even when they are going someplace that requires them to walk in the mud. I have seen so many people go on field trips in which they know they are going to be walking around in the muck wearing expensive shoes that get ruined. The women have it even worse, because stiletto heels just don't work in mud. Every time I see that, I just have to wonder why they even bothered to show up. The rest of the class that dressed appropriately are just laughing at them. Here's a tip, if you are going hiking, miniskirts and high heels? Not such a good idea. Try jeans and comfortable shoes. The women who dress appropriately get much more respect from the guys (the guys who don't dress appropriately are just hopeless twits, the less said about the better).

One final fashion faux paus. If you are in a place in which there is a decent chance of dropping something on your toes or spilling something on your clothes, you might want to consider wearing appropriate clothing. Sandals and shorts are not good things to wear in a machine shop, or a lab, or similar places. Playing with children dressed in expensive clothes just means a huge cleaning bill. Don't try your hand at painting or cooking while wearing designer duds.

All this seems common sense, but as we all know, common sense is not so common. A tip to those that might still have some brain matter between their ears: try to dress like you mean it. Think about what you will be doing, then dress appropriately for the occasion. How hard is that?

Glen Beck is a Con

I have never understood why people support Glen Beck. He is the worst kind of con artist, an obvious one.

Beck spends a lot of his time telling us just how bad the Democrats are ruining the country. According to him, the economy is due to catastrophically collapse any minute. His solution for people is for them to buy gold, because when the economy collapses and money is worthless, gold will be the only thing that will hold its value. So of course he is in the business of selling gold. he is making a fortune off convincing people the economy is tanking when he doesn't believe it himself.

Why is it obvious he doesn't believe it? Several reasons. First and foremost, if he really believed it, he would not be selling his gold. He would be keeping it for himself. Moreover, he would not be taking currency for his gold because, according to him, all that currency that he is working so hard to collect, is going to soon be worthless.

Continuing on, a little basic economy research indicates that gold is a good investment when the market is low, but a very bad investment when the market is going up. The gold brokers know this, so when they are pushing gold, that should be a sign that they think the economy is going to improve. The thing is, you want to buy gold when the economy is good, because the price of gold tends to be low, so when the economy tanks, you can sell it for a great price. This is what the gold brokers are doing. They are trying to get people to buy it now because they, NOT YOU, are going to make a killing. Gold is really high right now, the brokers like Beck will make a fortune if you buy it now.

The other thing I fail to see why people don't question, is if the economy tanks and currency becomes worthless, why do people think gold is going to be any better? When people are desperate, they are interested in food, clothing, shelter, and power. Gold will do none of these things. It is no better than currency when it comes down to it. If you really thought the economy was going to collapse, gold would not be what you would be stocking up on. You would find a place that you could grow your own food, buy some goats (easier to take care of than cows) or sheep, and invest in ways to take your home off the electrical grid. You would be adding solar power, geothermal, and/or other green energy sources that would supply you with all the power you need. You would be learning medical skills and engineering.

What you would NOT be doing is amassing a hoard of worthless yellow minerals. Obtain knowledge, don't waste your time on worthless bling. You can't eat gold, it won't keep you warm at night, it won't even keep the rain off your head. Gold has worth only because people are willing to buy it to show how wealthy they are. But that wealth only has worth in a functioning economy.

Glen Beck obviously really thinks the economy is doing ok, ar at least well enough that your money will still buy him lots of stuff and that it will continue to do so in the forseeable future. Don't be an idiot. Keep your money.

ADDENDUM: I actually forgot the other huge thing that points to Beck being a liar in this situation. He doesn't want people to gold bullion. He wants people to buy rare gold coins that are vastly overpriced. How much overpriced? As much as 10x the real value of the gold. Here is a great infographic that shows just how badly Beck is lying: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/glenn-beck-goldline/

Recall Sanity

UPDATE: When I wrote this, I was suffering from sleep deprivation. There is a serious logical flaw in it that does a wonderful job of pretty much demolishing my point. I thought a good while about simply taking down the post, but I decided to leave it up for a few reasons. 1) It is a shining example of how sleep deprivation does indeed negatively affect performance, 2) it illustrates why one should not think statistics when tired, 3) the main idea is still valid, I think, even if there is a serious flaw in the example, and 4) it will be interesting to see if anyone reading this will pick up on the mistake other than me. I will say again though, the main idea of the post is still valid in today's overly fear-driven society and is something we all need to think about. Are the fears we panic about really significant compared to dangers we ignore? Just how messed up are our priorities?  

The United States has decided to recall sanity. What am I talking about? The decision to recall 380 million eggs from all across the country because "hundreds" of people in a four state area have gotten sick due to salmonella. No one has died, just gotten sick.
Why do I think this is an overreaction? Consider the odds of getting salmonella from one of these possibly infected eggs. The number of salmonella cases in the country that has been attributed to this particular outbreak number less than 300. Consider that according to the CDC, the total number of salmonella cases every year from all sources is about 4000, I hardly think this qualifies as something to worry about. But if we take the 300 cases, that means that there is less than a 1 in a million chance of getting salmonella from the eggs being recalled.

Let's compare this to a few other facts, shall we? According to Eggsafety.org, the chances of getting exposed to salmonella in eggs just normally is 1:20,000, which, they estimate, means you should eat an egg with salmonella, on average, once every 84 years. Seems to me the chances of getting salmonella from the NON-recalled eggs is certainly no worse than getting it from the recalled eggs.Now admittedly, we are comparing numbers of people who actually got sick, supposedly from contaminated eggs, to the number of people who get exposed to the salmonella bacteria, which are not at all the same. Still, it is clear that the recalled eggs are not exactly posing a major health hazard.

Let's compare this with some other statistics. The national Weather Service estimates your chances of being struck by lightning this year are between 1/500,000 to 1/750,000. Being struck by lightning in your entire life runs you a risk of about 1/6250. Most people don't panic overly much about being struck by lightning because it is a real, but very rare event. But it is MUCH MORE LIKELY than getting salmonella from these recalled eggs.

Now, suppose you beat the astronomical odds and actually get an egg with salmonella. How dangerous is it? If you bother to cook it and don't eat it raw, the chances of actually contracting salmonella is approximately, um...uh...ZERO because cooking the egg kills the bacteria. Turns out these particular bacteria are not that resistant to heat.

Suppose you really beat the odds and get an infected egg AND you eat it raw AND you get sick. How dangerous is it? The answer? Not all that much. You will get nauseous, you may vomit, get a fever, diarrhea, and in general feel sicker than a dog, but you will be fine in a few days with no, ahem, ill effects. Most likely, you will simply feel a little queasy like you ate something that didn't agree with you and you won't miss a lick of work. Sorry bout that. It is possible you may get so sick that you could die if completely cut off from any sort of health care, but that is really, really, really unlikely unless you are a) very young, b) very old, or c) already sick as a dog from something else, in which case you may die if your neighbor sneezes in your general direction.

All in all, I'm not seeing the threat here, certainly not one worth spending millions of dollars and scaring lots of people about. So apparently, we are not recalling eggs per se, but any shred of sanity.

Privitization Sucks

A lot of people complain about the government and how inefficient they are. But they seem to forget that private companies are just as bad, and in many ways worse because they put profits over anything else.

Today is the first day of school for my kids. Let me tell you what my morning was like.

My daughter had to get to the bus stop early because the private bus company is woefully inefficient and is deaf to the needs of their customers. They were unable to let the schools, and therefore us, know what number the bus that was supposed to pick up my daughter would be until a few days before school, despite the fact that we were supposed to inform the school over a week earlier. The bus company also thinks it is just fine to make a 5 year old girl walk four blocks at 6 AM to meet her bus. The company refused to change the bus stop closer to our house despite the fact that they have another one of their buses drive RIGHT BY OUR HOUSE!

Of course, this actually assumes she survives to be picked up. As we waited for the bus (I chose to wait with her as if the bus did not pick her up, it would be too late to take her to school by the time she could walk back to the house), we were nearly run over by buses that were speeding through the residential area. I have no idea if one of the buses that drive by was hers or not as they were marked with tiny placards in the windows that could only be read if the bus was stopped and you were at the door about to get on, which by this time, you probably have some idea whether it is your bus or not. Of course, if the bus comes screaming by you doing 40 or more in a 25 mph zone, you have no chance to read the placard at all. In case you were wondering, we were waiting in plain view, outside the car, so it wasn't like they couldn't see us and just missed us. They simply weren't paying attention, more concerned with making their schedule than actually picking up kids without killing them in the process.

On the way to work, I found that the privitized road construction crews had started several new jobs on the first day of school, closing several busy intersections to one lane traffic hazards. What moron scheduled this I have no idea, but surely they could have checked the schedule and realized that today, of all days, might be a bad time to make it nearly impossible to drive across town in any sort of reasonable time frame.

When I get to work, I find that the private parking lot that my university uses had been blocked off. Why I have no idea. They didn't bother to tell us that we were not going to be able to park in the lot that about half of the university uses. We just show up to work to find that we have to park somewhere else and hoof it even farther than the half mile the parking is away from campus as it stands.

To make matters worse, the idiots that blocked off the lot forgot to block all the entrances. Those of us that come in the back way found that we had to turn around and leave because the front entrances were blocked off and we weren't actually supposed to be there, causing to us to have to drive all the way around the block, which could have been avoided if they had simply done their jobs correctly, or even, you know, told us in advance.


I decide to call the bus company and complain about the transit situation once I get to work. Only I never get anyone to talk to. What I get instead is a recording that tells me they don't answer the phones until 8 AM (which it was already after that) and that I really should have tried to get things straightened out before school started and it will be close to two weeks before I can get anything done at this point. Clearly, any complaints are surely the fault of their customers simply not planning ahead and not the fault of the bus company, at least according to them. I finally get a phone number that does NOT give me an insulting message. This one simply says they will be right with me and then proceeds to ignore me for the next 45 minutes. They eventually even stop playing the recording that my business is important to them and they will be right with me and leave me with a dead line.

Somehow, I can't imagine that the government could possibly do any worse. At least with the government, if I find someone to complain to about homicidal bus drivers and idiot construction crew, I rarely get the "suck it" response I get from private companies with government contracts.

And could someone please tell me how it is that the city could possibly be saving money by paying a company to run the buses for a profit rather than just doing it themselves? All the prices are the same, except that the company adds an extra fee to give themselves a profit. We would then also have the advantage that the school districts would actually have some idea what the buses were doing rather than having to tell the parents that the buses cannot be counted on the first two weeks of school.

A friend of mine worked for a phone company and he explained how they handled outsourcing. Outsourcing actually cost the company a fortune, but because the outsourcing was handled through a different department, each department individually looked like it was saving money. They had one department with no workers and 37 supervisors, because all the staff that actually did anything was outsourced. On the departments bookkeeping, they made a killing. The poor outsourcing department though was always in trouble for being seriously in the red. I suppose they outsourced their work too. It was patently obvious to virtually everyone that the costs to the company as a whole was more than paying for the work in-house, but since the bookkeeping was done on a departmental basis, the accountants and the top administrators never seemed to see this. to me, this is abysmally stupid and detrimental to the company. But this is apparently standard business practice.

So, if all businesses are this stupid (and from what I have seen, most government administrators are too), we should be seriously asking for our money back from all these administration and business schools, because they are teaching crap.

ADDENDUM: More than 4 hours after I arrived at work today, I received an email informing me that the parking lot would be closed due to a boat/RV show. I kinda already figured out the lot was closed, although it is good to know it will still be closed tomorrow and the next day. As Adam Sandler said in "The Wedding Singer", "This is something you could have told me YESTERDAY!"

Evolution Works

I've been gone partially due to technical issues. OpenOffice is great, but it turns out there are some reasons to actually go ahead and buy the real thing. Anyway, onward!

I was recently told that evolution couldn't possibly work because it would take billions of mutations in every species to get the number of mutations needed to drive evolution. There is a lot wrong with this statement, the first of which is that mutation rate is only a small part of the genetic variation that drives evolution. This person, like so many that argue against evolution, has no understanding of how evolution works, nor of the mechanisms genetic variation.

I won't go into a long defense of evolution here, but I thought I would address his statement of the billions of mutations that we don't see, according to him. How many mutations can we really expect? The answer is vastly greater than most people realize.

DNA is well protected by several molecular mechanisms designed to ensure an accurate duplication. But mistakes, or mutations, will occur no matterhow good the quality control process. Mutation rate varies tremendously depending on the conditions, but in humans, the average mutation rate is 2.5 x 10^-8 (0.000000025) per nucleotide (http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/156/1/297). This means that there is one mutation for every 250,000,000 nucleotides. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?

The problem here is that there are 3 billion basepairs in the human genome, or 6 billion nucleotides (http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/HumanheyGenome/faq/faqs1.shtml). This means there are 150 mistakes each time it is replicated (the paper cited above states there 175 errors per doubling, but we will go with these conservative numbers).

Ok, so nowhere near the billions we need, right? But consider just how many times we need to copy that DNA every time we try to have sex. I am going to leave women out of this because the number of mutations women contribute is so small compared to men that it is insignificant. You'll see why in just a second, but it is safe to say that the vast majority of mutation driven evolution is driven by men.

The number of sperm in one ejaculation, even if we use the lower than commonly reported values here (http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/iju/vol2n1/sperm.xml), is about 50 million sperm/ml and there are 2-6 ml/ejaculate. So we'll be conservative again and use 3 ml, giving 150 million sperm/ejaculate (also note that the paper cited above on mutation rate says that males have 4 times the mutation rate of females, but we will go with the average stated). One should also keep in mind that most places report 250-300 million sperm in the average ejaculate.

So, if there are 150 mistakes in every sperm, there are 150 x 150 million = 22500 million, or 22.5 billion mistakes in every ejaculation. So every time every single male ejaculates, he is supplying more than enough mutations to drive evolution for the whole human race according to the creationist that was pontificating to me.

But wait! There's more! There are over approximately 2.23 billion males between 15-64 on the planet right now (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html). So, assuming that we count one ejaculation for each man, that is 5x 10^19 mutations.

Estimates vary as to how many times the average man ejaculates in his life, but most estimates are between 5-8,000 times. But let's only count ones that are in the age range that most men are fathering babies and only count the number of times that the man is actually having sex, so those sperm have a chance of making a baby. No matter where you go, every survey and study lists the average person as having sex at least 100 times a year. But let's assume that is way more than the "average" and let's only count, say, 200 times in their entire life. That means that there are 10^21 mutations in every generation of human males.

That number puts the national debt to shame. So it is clear that evolution has plenty of material to work with. This is precisely why the problem is NOT getting enough variation. The problem is why don't we evolve faster? Fortunately, modern evolutionary theory has answers for that too in the form of stabilizing selection and numerous other methods to keep evolution from going crazy.

So be prepared, the next time any of you tell me that evolution can't work because there aren't enough mutations, I will laugh in your face and mock you mercilessly.