Monthly Archives: October 2017

Should it be required K-12? Favorite dancers? Greatest Dancer Ever? Greatest Dance? Dance highlights of your life?

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DANCE RANT: all humans are wired to dance – yes, dance should be required K-12
1.) The joy of dance is one of the most basic human joys. Babies dance in their cribs. Toddlers can’t stop dancing.
2.) But schools suck the joy of dancing out of most students, especially boys. By age 18 most boys feel that they “can’t dance.”
3.)  Dance is the best way to introduce kids to music. The first element of music is rhythm.
4.) Dance is the best way to teach the importance of self-control.
5.) Dance is the best way to teach cooperation.
6.) Dance is a great way to teach human anatomy and the laws of physics.
DANCE HIGHLIGHTS OF MY LIFE
1.) Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Blue Danube Waltz
2.) Laendler Waltz scene, Sound of Music, Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen in White Christmas, Banderas and Zeta-Jones Tango in The Mask of Zorro; Jimmy Steward and Donna Reed Charleston scence in It’s a Wonderful Life
3.) Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers : Night and Day
4.) Spanish dance lessons (with castanets) age 8.
5.) Learning to Waltz
6.) The “Mad Dog” dance in high school – a case of tarantism
7.) Mikhail Baryshykov: my candidate for best athlete in human history
DANCE HISTORY – RANDOM HIGHLIGHTS
1. The Moonwalk – from Marcel Marceau to Michael Jackson
2. The Popularity of Ballroom dancing in Maoist China and in parks across China today
3. Renoir, Dance at the Moulin Rouge
4. The surprising popularity of Gangnam Style (perhaps most liked video ever on Youtube)
YOUR TURN:
Please share your thoughts or your favorite dance video.

The Three Greatest Obstacles to Achieving Equality of Opportunity in America

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The worst news about civic life is that the other side may have  as strong a case as yours. Even on the issue dearest to your heart. This can lead to analysis paralysis. Here is my short list of the essence of the argument against my vision of equality of opportunity for America through education.
1.) Local control of schools
2.) Parental liberty
3.) Cultural/religious Liberty
How can anyone be against the adoption of best pedagogical practices in every
school, home, and community in America? Distrust of centralized authority, concern for parental privacy rights, fear of loss of cultural/religious autonomy. Unfortunately, the history of the United States and the world provides ample grounds for these concerns.
But I choose equality of opportunity.This is not easy. Perhaps this choice is not even rational. It is what my heart and soul say is right at this point in history in this place.
What do you think?

Trees in Harvard Yard

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Go check out the trees in Harvard Yard!
http://www.crimsoncanopy.com/harvardyard/map.html
Sourwoods on Mass Ave Near WIgglesworth to the left as you face Widener
The sourwood is splendid in the fall. Two prime examples are on Mass Ave
near Wigglesworth to your left as you face Widener from the JP Licks side
of the street.
On Wednesday they were still in full autumn splendor.
If you have not seen them, please do so and savor the beauty.
YOUR TURN: If you like taking pictures, take one and share it

The Greatest Paragraph of All Time

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“Art is long. But life is short.  The opportunity fleeting. Experience delusive.
Judgment therefore difficult.The physician must not only do the right
thing himself, but make sure the patient, the attendants, and the externals
cooperate.”
—Hippocrates, 480-360 BC
Comment: no other paragraph I have ever found is so concise in its expression,
so tight in its logical sequence, so universally applicable, so painfully true.
Think law, parenting, teaching, sports….
YOUR TURN: What is your favorite paragraph? What is your candidate for greatest
paragraph of all time?

Squat or Push-Up?

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WHAT”S THE BEST EXERCISE EVER – SQUAT, PUSH-UP, OR OTHER?
1.) If you have time to do only one exercise, what would it be?
a.) squats
b.) push-ups
c.) jumping jacks
d.) other
2.) What is the most efficient, balanced package of exercises ever developed in human
history?
a.) Canadian AIr Force Exercise Book
b.) Other?
In the 1950s the Canadian Air Force developed an awesome physical training program that only takes 12 minutes per day (women)  11 minutes per day (men). And involves zero equipment. Helen Mirren swears by it. A used copy of the original fitness manual costs $31 on Amazon (not the usual $.33). Price differential may reflect value differential. But you can get it for free online!
Does all the expensive equipment we use today really add any value?
Another instance of the best things in life being free?
So why isn’t the program more popular?
No money in it.
The 5BX plan for dudes takes 11 minutes.
toe touching/warm-up:  2 minutes
partial sit-ups: 1 minute
leg lifts: 1 minute
push-ups: 1 minute
stationary running: 6 minutes.
Here’s the XBX plan for the ladies:
toe touching/warm-up: 30 seconds
knee raising: 30 seconds
arm circling: 30 seconds
partial sit-ups: 30 seconds
chest and leg raising: 2 minutes
side leg raising: 1 minute
push-ups (from a kneeling position): 2 minutes
leg lifting: 1 minute
run and hop: 3 minutes
YOUR TURN: What do you think is the best exercise?

Do judges and juries matter any more?

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Do Juries and Judges Matter anymore? How should the judicial system be changed?
1.) Today 95% of cases are resolved by plea bargaining (aka horse trading) between  prosecutors and defense attorneys. Jury trials are relatively rare.
2.) Should our judicial system be structured so that the odds of the guilty going free versus the innocent being unfairly punished be 2 to 1, 5 to 1,  10 to 1 (Bible, Blackstone),
100 to 1 (Maimonides), 1000 to 1?
3.) Is the civil law system better than the common law system? Is a system in which two lawyers twist the truth as best they can the best system for arriving at the real truth
and the fairest resolution?
4.) Should we abolish life tenure for judges? Cash bail?
Please share your thoughts.

Mammograms and Physician Statistical Illiteracy

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“The probability that a woman of age 40 has breast cancer is
about 1%. If she has breast cancer, the probability that she
tests positive on a (first) screening mammogram is 90%.
If she does not have breast cancer, the probability that she
tests positive is 9%. What are the chances that a woman who tests
positive actually has breast cancer? Many doctors who were presented
with this common medical situation got the answer wrong –
wildly wrong…The answer most commonly given by physicians
was 90%.” The real answer: 10%.
–Gerd Gigenrenzer, Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers
Deceive You
More examples here:

Base rate fallacy

Base rate neglect is a specific form of the more general extension neglect.
YOUR TURN:
Do you have a favorite example of the Base Rate Fallacy?
Any other favorite statistical fallacies?
Any cool math at all to share?
Favorite proof perhaps?

Guitar Oddities

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Guitar strings appear designed to confuse and frustrate
the neophyte. The highest string is the lowest in pitch.
The “first string” is the lowest. That is the highest.
This reminds me of chemistry where “reduction is gain.”
The sequence of strings is EADGBE – with the first
four intervals being 4ths and the last one a third.
Why EADGBE? Physical comfort and musical convenience.
“The guitar is a larger-scaled instrument which is played sitting in one’s lap,” Lloyd wrote. “Even though the cello is a larger instrument than the violin, it is played with the neck vertically, which allows the hand to have a little bit easier time reaching for notes. With the guitar sitting in the lap and the neck diagonal to the player, the bend in the wrist starts to make it more difficult to spread out the fingers. So our next best choice for tuning any larger scaled multi-stringed instrument is going to be to tune in fourths, which are a little closer together. On a guitar, a person with a normal-sized hand can reasonably be expected to sound the major third with the pinkie finger while holding down the tonic with the index finger. So it makes sense that the next string should be the fourth.”
Lloyd also astutely pointed out that if six-string guitars were tuned completely in perfect fourths, you’d wind up with a harmonically discordant arrangement of (low to high) EADGCF. You can see the problem there—E and F are only a half step apart, imposing a naturally irritating interval of a minor second. “This is a god-awful interval,” Lloyd wrote. “And threatens to sour the whole thing.”

Standard Tuning: How EADGBE Came to Be

Get the when and why of your guitar’s typical tuning.
Related tidbits: the highest pitched strings are the thinnest; the frets are positioned logarithmically; custom strings are used to make playing barre chords easier – reducing the “gauge” (thickness) and the “action” (distance between string and fret board).
YOUR TURN: please share your frustrations with the technical oddities of any instrument.

Politicization kills conversation

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When the quest for truth slams into self-interest (in terms of professional
advancement or job security) or partisan loyalty, it’s likely to be bad
news for the former. Such is the sad state today when it comes to climate science.
A climate of finger pointing and name calling is stifling serious conversation.
“Whether the pitcher hits the stone, or the stone hits the pitcher, it’s going
to be bad for the pitcher.”

—Sancho Panza, Man from La Mancha (Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes)

The Plate Tectonics Revolution

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As late as the 1960s, US geology textbooks explained mountains using the principle of isostatic equilibrium according to which mountains are like icebergs floating on land. As icebergs have a smaller section above the surface and a deeper part beneath the surface, so with mountains.

Changes in mountains were a function of vertical, local forces.

The platetectonics revolution began with Alfred Wegner’s theory of continental drift. He noticed the similar shape of the South American and African coasts and gathered data showing that on opposite sides of the Atlantic similar species of animal and similar mineral deposits were found. He postulated that the continents had drifted apart.

But his theories were considered speculative and rejected by most scientists because he lacked any explanation for the force that could account for such drift.

The next line of evidence bolstering Wegner’s theory was the discovery of the mid-Atlantic ridge as the result of sonar searches for German submarines during World War II. Prior to the War it was assumed that the ocean floor was a flat featureless plain, “the abyssal plain.”

Far from it. The mid-Atlantic ridge is the largest single feature on the planet earth.

The next set of data leading toward the platetectonic revolution was the study of the ages of the islands in the Atlantic. It turned out there was a linear relationship between the age of the island and the distance from the ridge in a symmetrical relationship on either side of the ridge.

Finally came the discovery of a pattern of regular reversal of the magnetic field frozen in the rock on either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge.