In late November I made a prediction about the TV show, Bones. Man, was I wrong. I had predicted that Dr. Lance Sweets was the Gormagon killer, but it turned out to be Zach Addy.
Oh well. I could have done the typical psychic thing and said it would be a "sweet young man", but I'm not as dishonest as Sylvia Browne or as cryptic (vague) as Nostradamus.
May 21, 2008
I Am SOOO Not Psychic
May 15, 2008
Is There a Golden Ratio?
As some of you may know, I recently returned to work for a former employer. The work I did here was primarily design and engineering, and I returned to do the same thing. The work I did in the interim, while rewarding, wasn't as challenging (which has its own rewards). So, when the chance came, it took it.
The key difference between the jobs is who the product is for. For the last two years, I did work on machines that your everyday person will probably never see. However, currently, and for a number of years prior to those two years, my efforts are/were seen by a larger portion of the population. Where my work was for industrial use, it's now for the "end user".
Since the products we design have to be aesthetic, as well as functional, we do some contouring with the outsides of the product in an attempt to make it more appealing. Of course, this sometimes means that the aesthetic part of the design will come down to a democratic vote, or even someone higher in the food chain getting it "their way".
Recently, I heard that a coworker gave a *ahem* spirited speech on the Golden Ratio, and how it made the iPod such a success. The only reason I'd heard of it was reading The Da Vinci Code, and considering the rest of Mr. Brown's book I was rather skeptical of this "magical" number. So, when someone mentioned the coworker talking about it, I thought I needed to check it out. Of course, a Google search turned up a number of hits concerning the iPod and "Golden Ratio", but none actually dealing with research. Actually, it seemed that the top hits for the search always referred to the same blog post. Unfortunately, the poster only gave the ratio (1.67 not the LxWxH measurements), so I couldn't check the ratio myself. They also only compared the iPod to two other models, and a commenter pointed out another MP3 player that was closer to Phi than the iPod. So, I turned to Google Scholar to check into the Golden Ratio itself.
Sometimes referred to as the greek letter Phi, it boils down to this:
(a+b)/a=a/b
or
(1+sqrt(5))/2
or
1.6180339887...
Perusing through the reviews, I couldn't find any that gave the Golden Ratio any credence. The two that seemed the most skeptical in their analysis pointed to the lack of support for the appeal of the Golden Ratio.
Looking at the numbers, the 1.67 ratio of the iPod is 3% off from the 1.62 of Phi. So, there's the question of if the iPod was even designed to be close to Phi. Honestly, I think this is a form of confirmation bias, because with today's technology it wouldn't be hard to get a design much closer to the ratio.
Even looking at the measurements of buildings, the Parthenon and the Great Pyramid, and structures (the Parthenon and the Great Pyramid) that supposedly conform to Phi, there's the question of what measurements should be used. If you look at enough structures, finding Phi wouldn't be difficult if you can also pick and choose what measurements conform to Phi.
While Phi, and it's interesting relation to Fibonacci Numbers, can be useful in some fields, its aesthetic use is questionable. It would also add an unnecessary parameter to what can sometimes be an already difficult task. It's hard enough to fit everything into the smallest area, let alone having to make that area fit a specific ratio.
The coworker seemed to imply that the reason for the iPod's success was caused by Phi. However, I think it's more likely that the marketing campaign and iTunes made it so popular. Of course, that's what Occam's Razor is for.
May 11, 2008
Happy Mother's Day / Nurse's Week, Princess!
My wife is a wonderful woman. She's intelligent, kind, friendly, and one of the most giving people I know. She's also my lover, best friend, confidant, and supporter. It's also coincidental that the day that celebrates her motherhood also falls in the week that recognizes the profession of nursing.
Yesterday, Munchkin and I went out to do the weekly shopping, and picked up a couple of cards, one from me and one from Munchkin, along with some flowers and York Peppermint Patties (one of Princess' favorite indulgences). No, it's not much, but there's some financial issues we're dealing with, and need to save money for. Plus, there're some other things that I'm going to do for her (such as take care of dinner when she wakes), that money can't buy. Well, it could but we can't afford to hire a chef for the evening.
Where she works, the past few years they've given gifts for Nurse's Week that I find insulting. Last year, she got a plastic tag that had the simple letters "RN". This year, she got a $50 "gift certificate" for Glamour Shots. I'm not sure how much of the final cost this would cover, because it would depend on how many of the options she went for and which types of portraits she ordered. Personally, I find the pictures of her taken with our digital camera to be more glamorous than anything I've seen taken at a Glamour Shots studio. However, since I find her to be the most alluring woman on the face of the Earth, I may be a bit biased.
Regardless, after some thinking, I found that what me and my daughter have gotten her is less adequate for the effort she puts into the family than the $50 gift that she recieved from her work. Since she works in ICU/CCU, a normal workday involves her dealing with things that make dinner conversation very interesting. She's been involved in helping people back from the brink of death, along with making a death more comfortable. I like to think that I'm strong emotionally, but I'm not even sure I could do what she does, and still go back to it every weekend.
If that isn't enough to make me respect and love her, during the week she spends her days doing the standard chores of a household, entertaining/chaffeuring/caring for a four year old, making sure the four year old gets to preschool, and being a wonderful wife to me. She makes all of this look so effortless that it would be easy for me to forget how stressful it can be for her. So, since we can't afford a gift that she actually deserves (fortunately she didn't marry me for my money), I'm going to give her one that comes from the heart.I'm proud of you, Princess.
You've done so much for our family that those outside our home will probably never know about, and even Munchkin won't understand until she gets much older. When someone asks what you do, I try to tell them with humility, but I always feel a great deal of pride.
I can't afford a billboard or to take out a full page ad in the newspaper, but I can put my feelings for you in a place that total strangers can read. I love, am proud of, and respect you more than words can possibly express, Princess.
-Your Bear
May 7, 2008
I'm Touched and Humbled
Recently, P-Momma did an interview for her 400th post. Well, I haven't been prowling the internet and my regular blogs as much recently, but when I read this one my throat tightened up and a tear almost came to my eye.
What would you classify as the entry that shows atheism in the best light?
There's no question in my mind that the fund raising effort, initiated by Berlzebub, was an unprecedented and bold portrayal of secular humanism. There was a poster who, essentially, dared people to "do something" and boy-howdy did the readers of this blog, and the larger atheist community, *do something*!! It was over-whelming! It still is. Above-and-beyond what it did for my family, it was an enormous, positive signal to the world that atheists are every bit as generous as their theist neighbors. I was humbled. And, what made it even better was that you had atheists and theists working together for this common goal. It was just really cool to watch.
In some ways I have to agree with her. Although I hesitate to say it was "unprecedented and bold", it was eye opening. It was a much larger success than I expected it to be, and we ended up helping two families in the process. There were donations from multiple continents (not to mention countries), and one person gave me the contact information to make the endeavor even more effective (We're still grateful, Pete).
P-Momma says that it was cool to watch. However, from my side it was truly amazing. The numerous emails, along with the donations, I received in support of P-Momma were very eye opening. Some were volunteering their own time to help install the film (before we found out all the specifics), and others were giving me information on how to contact 3M, P-Momma, and Dr. P-Daddy to get it rolling. Through all of it, the number of detractors that showed up on my blog were far less than I expected.
Regardless, the whole endeavor made me very proud to be a human being. It was truly humbling just to be a part of it, and I can only hope I can have that much of an impact to someone else again, in my lifetime.
The Popularity of Expelled
My regular readers (if I have any left) have probably heard of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, by now. A little Google search would find a plethora of information debunking Expelled's claims (plus the link I provided in the movie's title has a really good counter), so I won't even begin to do so. Actual movie critics haven't been kind, and those debunking the claims made by the film have been even less so.
There have been a couple of claims that the movie is a theatrical success. However, if you look at the numbers, it isn't nearly as successful as those who support it make it out to be.
On its opening weekend, Expelled grossed nearly $3 million. That sounds pretty good, especially for a mockumentary, until you see that it was shown on 1,052 screens. Averaging out the numbers, you get $2,824 per screen. Figure in the price per ticket (which according to Mark Mathis is $10), and you get just over 282 people per screen.
In comparison, Bowling for Columbine did nearly $210K, on eight screens for its opening weekend (in the U.S.). Doing the math, that was over $26K per screen. Even accounting for inflation, that is a phenomenal opening.
Fahrenheit 911 reached nearly $24 million on its opening weekend, using only 868 screens. Putting it at $27.5K per screen.
For the following weekend, Expelled: NIA totaled a gross of $5.3 million. I haven't seen any updates, so it would appear that the draw of the movie could be declining. Of course, opening weekends are when you can expect the biggest returns, right? Wrong. Fahrenheit 911 totaled over $61 million on it's second weekend.
So, the claims that Expelled is an "over the top" success is a gross overexageration. Actually, I would have expected it to have better returns considering the number of U.S. citizens who are supposed to be cdesign proponentsists. That they needed to saturate theaters (over 1,000 screens for a documentary) in order to make the profits they did makes the movie seem mediocre.
After all of that, what the cdesign proponentsists fail to grasp is that popularity does not equal true. If Expelled had a higher opening than Iron Man, that would have meant exactly the same as if it had failed miserably. No matter how much money it made that would not mean that scientists were being blackballed because they are propents of ID/Creationism, or that belief in evolution lead to the Holocaust. That the supporters of Expelled are trying to spin (frame?) the numbers so that it seems so is very telling of their mindset.
Now, there's a reason that I used Michael Moore mockumentaries as a benchmark. Bowling for Columbine, no matter how popular, did not prove that the easy availability of guns is the cause of all the firearms deaths in the U.S. I won't go into it here, but Mr. Moore isn't my favorite director. His films are as filled with massaging numbers, and outright deception, as Expelled appears to be.
So, if Expelled had used ILM, Skywalker Sound, and had used someone with more personality than Ben Stein as the host that would still make the film exactly what it is. A biased film that uses lies, misrepresentations, misdirection, and a persecution complex to further their own agenda. Regardless of what they think, the truth isn't a popularity contest.
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