1:64 scale is a LIE

Once upon a time scale was scale. If I drafted something in, say, 1/4 inch to the foot, my carpenter knew to measure the drawing in inches, then multiply by four to get the number of feet in the real dimention (actually, all he really needed was a scale rule, which is a special type of ruler that does the math for you). When I bought an HO scale train car, it was 1/87th the length, width, and height of the real thing; if I bought it in O scale, it was 1/48th. Not 1/47th, not 1/49th: 1/48th.

Below, from left to right are a a Jeep Cherokee, a London double-decker bus, a 2006 Ford Crown Victoria police car, a 1997 Land Rover Defender 110, and a 1963 Cadillac hearse. According to some who deal in die cast cars, all are 1:64 scale.


According to the manufacturer (Matchbox - which is really now Mattel (who also owns Hot Wheels - that's right, Matchbox and Hot Wheels are the same company these days, which may explain some of the slip in quality in Matchbox products)) the Jeep is in 1:58 scale, the police car is in 1:71, the Land Rover is actually in 1:64, and the hearse is in 1:81. The scale of the bus isn't given, but unless we're prepared to argue that a Land Rover is about as long as a double-decker bus, that bus isn't even close to 1:64 scale.

EDIT: 26 Mar 2008 11:14AM: The bus looks like a Routemaster, whose standard length was 27 feet, six inches, according to Wikipedia. The model itself is almost exactly three inches long, which would make the scale 1:110. This is almost half the scale of the Jeep.
EDIT: 27 October 2009 6:43 PM: Later packaging identifies the bus as a Routemaster.

4000 dead and counting

Several news agencies are today carrying the grim notice that the number of American dead in Iraq has reached and passed the 4000 mark. Surely this is a moment for us all to take stock, step back, and realize the nature of this second Gulf War, I mean, four thousand; 4 x 10^3.

Except that this landmark, or, rather its importance as a number, is entirely artificial. It is significant to us simply because we count in base ten. If we counted in some other base, we'd be paying attention to different numbers - 4000 would be FA0 in base 10, or 7640 in base 8, neither of which have the same full, round sound of 4000.

What does this mean? Well, it means that death 4000 means no more, and no less, than death 3999 or 4001. No family is any less grieved at the loss of their son if his death is the four-thousandth or the three thousand seven hundred sixty-sixth. Death is death, period.

A few months ago I remember hearing a debate regarding when to fly the US flag at half mast. One proposal was to do so every time an American soldier was killed. The argument against this was that it would result in the flag always being at half mast. I'm not really clear on the thinking behind that argument, though; it seems to devalue death.

Perhps we should fly the flag upside-down.

Vaccination does NOT lead to autism

In the 1998, the widely respected British medical journal The Lancet published a study suggesting a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.(4) As might be imagined, this has led many parents to question the value and danger of vaccines, and in some cases, to refuse to have their children vaccinated. Heavy publicity of the study's findings only spread the issue farther, involving more parents and, more to the point, more children.

Unfortunately, the study appears to suffer from some flaws, some of which I discuss below. I say "unfortunately" because it now appears that there is no real link between vaccines and autism, so many parents are denying their children the protection of vaccination simply because they have been mislead. Most of the study's authors writing in the same journal that published the initial study, have since retracted their initial interpretations.(1)

One flaw in the study has to do with possible conflicts of interest for the researchers. Three of the paper's authors, including the lead author (Dr Wakefield), are scheduled for hearings regarding allegations of professional misconduct in this respect.(2) Another flaw is discussed in a letter by the study's senior (not lead, but the senior) author, Dr Walker. In his letter, published in The Lancet less that a year after their publication of the original study, Dr Walker states that the Wakefield paper discusses two possible connections, one between autism and a form of inflammatory bowel disease, and the other "between [the] MMR [vaccine], autism, and inflammatory bowel disease". Dr Walker states that the first possible connection, which does not involve any vaccine at all, "is a new idea worthy of discussion". However, he goes on to say that the second possible connection is "unsubstantiated", and that "[t]his anecdotal reporting of a biased sample is poor science and has no place in a peer-reviewed journal." Dr Walker concludes "[s]ince no additional work was reported to substantiate this association and since considerable evidence has been collected by others to suggest that it does not exist, publishing it again lends further unwarranted credence to the hypothesis."(3)

Ten years later, The New York Times is reporting that a growing number of children are not being vaccinated, and a growing number of children are getting sick. Admittedly, there are some adverse effects of vaccines. But the adverse effects of the diseases for which we vaccinate include things like "death". So why is there so much debate?

References:
(NOTE: REFERENCES ARE ONLY INCLUDED FOR ARTICLES THAT I COULD NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO LINK TO, OR COULD ONLY PROVIDE LINKS THAT APPEAR TO REQUIRE A SUBSCRIPTION)
1. Munch, Simon H. et al "Commentary: Retraction of an interpretation". The Lancet. Volume 363, Issue 9411, 6 March 2004, Pages 747-749.

2. General Medical Council Press Office. Fitness to Practise Hearings. Accessed 21 march 2008 at http://www.gmcpressoffice.org.uk/apps/news/events/detail.php?key=2515

3. Walker. "Autism, inflammatory bowel disease, and MMR vaccine" The Lancet. Volume 351, Issue 9112, 2 May 1998, Page 1355.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T1B-3T5317Y-H/2/16a7b571a17e33eedd27ccf78fb0065d)

4. AJ Wakefield, et al. "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children". The Lancet Volume 351, Issue 9103, , 28 February 1998, Pages 637-641.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T1B-3SGHJ0T-1C/2/b1405dfce70e84ebde22390ec71142ec)

I sometimes wonder what Christian is thinking...

...as he sits before the window, watching the outside world. He was a stray until this past summer, though I'm not entirely sure that he hadn't spent some time as a pet prior to that, since he seems pretty relaxed around people (or at least around me) It is true that he often briefly finds a position of safety (often on the top stair, but sometimes beneath the table) as I come into the house, but as soon as I'm in, and often before I've closed the door, he comes forward to greet me.

But my point here is that when he sits before a window and looks out, is he glad to be free of being tormented by wind and rain, and having to fend for himself? Or does he miss the freedom that he used to have?

Stay off the roads...

One of the things my SAT students discuss is driving, drivers' ed., and road tests. During break I was privileged to overhear the following:

"...so this other car wasn't moving, and I could hear the woman sighing, like she was waiting for me to go, so finally I went. And then she's writing something and I'm trying to see what it is and I got distracted and I ran through a stop sign. She said 'stop, you've failed.' So that's the second time that I've failed."

The 'Aha!' moment

Like any job, teaching has its down sides. This is perhaps particularly true of teaching SAT prep, as the kids are present because they've been forced to go, typically, and you're teaching them either after they've already put in a full day of school, or you're interrupting their holy weekend. For the most part, they really don't want to be there, and I don't blame them.

But there's the rewarding side, too. Yesterday I had one of my SAT classes and we came to the math subject of functions. For those who don't remember, functions are those questions that look like "if f(x) = 2x + 3, then what does f(9) equal?"

I've never been clear on why some students have great difficulty with these problems, as they're really nothing but simple replacement exercises, but the fact is that some of them do, and when the word functions came out of my mouth, one of my students immediately said, aloud, though more-or-less to herself, "oh, I suck at these."

I didn't acknowledge her comment, but launched into my explanation of functions as the fancy substitution exercises that they are. Maybe three minutes in she spoke up again, again to herself, "oh," as in "oh, I get it."

That's what makes teaching worth it - that 'aha' moment, particularly when it's a subject the student has tried to learn before, but been unsuccessful at.

Daughter blogs coming

One of the nice things about a sett, real or virtual, is that you can carve out additional space as needed. This blog is getting a bit crowded in terms of subjects covered, so some of the more specific subjects will be spinning off into dedicated blogs. Keep your eye on the right margin, where links will appear.

Online editor

As writing moves away from traditional publishers run by professionals with on-staff editors to at-home and on-line printing with no editor save the writer and his computer, editing has fallen by the wayside. In some cases, this doesn't really matter. Whether an email contains a few misspelled words or not doesn't really matter - we understand the trade-off between efficiency and accuracy. However, in some cases we want someone else to look over our work before we submit it, and we'd like that someone to be more than the squiggly red and green lines we might find beneath our misspelled words and gramatically incorrect phrases. This need becomes even more urgent as our own editing skills atrophy through lack of use.

Someone has capitalized on this need. Gramlee (TM) employs a staff of independent editors who promise to turn around smaller documents (less than 4000 words) by email in under 24 hours (longer documents may take longer). How good they are I don't know, but the notion of an online service of this sort appeals to me, for although I have a fair understanding of grammar and spelling, I am not perfect, nor am I a very accurate typist. This sort of service may be of use to me for my more important writing (e.g. my thesis), though I think that I'd want a single editor, rather than a pool of editors, to work with for my novel, assuming that I ever get said novel to a point where an editor would be called for.

I can also see the use of such a service for others who lack the time or skills (or inclination) to edit their own work. This might particularly be of use to those who are struggling with the intricacies of English either because it is not their native language, or because they haven't been taught how to properly communicate with formal, or even semi-formal English. Some of my SAT students, for example, have great difficulty with the basic rules of grammar (more on that in another post) and their college essays would benefit from professional editing. Unfortunately, I suspect that many of the students who are most in need of this service are those who are least able to afford it.

There is also the question of misrepresentation. If a college entrance essay is supposed to give a sense of the person who wrote it, might the use of a professional editor be misleading, if not unethical? Or perhaps the point is more the ideas and their articulation, rather than the raw mechanics of writing that an editor would be concerned with. In either event, I don't think that I can recommend this service to my students (not that they could use it for their exam essays) as it probably conflicts with my status as a Test Prep Company employee. Further, having not used the service myself, I can't vouch for its quality. Nor can I say that it is better, or cheaper, or faster, or what-have-you-er than its competitors (if it doesn't have competitors yet, I expect it will within the year.)

And, I am forced to acknowledge that my own application essays were looked over by a professional secretary who was well-schooled in spelling and grammar (viz, my mother), and I expect that many of my fellow students at the time had similar help from their parents or teachers. So, I suppose that schools expect there to be a certain amount of editing. That being the case, perhaps mentioning the availability of such a service might be acceptable, if I don't mention any specific service.

No vacancy; please die elsewhere

According to Reuters, a village in southwest France has run out of room in their cemetery. Those who do not already possess a plot in the overcrowded cemetery are forbidden from dying within the parish. Offenders of this rule will be "severely punished."

Delegation of authority: the brain and the spinal cord

We tend to think of our brain as being the processing center of our body, making all decisions and directing all activity. The truth is that, while the brain does direct the actions of our body, it delegates a lot of control to the spinal cord.

The most obvious example of this is our reflexes. When you touch a hot stove, you reflexively withdraw your hand; the pain signal travels to your spinal cord and directly triggers the nerve circuit that activates the muscles in your arm, so by the time your brain is aware of what is happening, your hand has already been safely removed from danger. This is good, because it reduces the amount of time that our hand is on the stove, and so reduces the amount of damage we sustain.

Similar to this is the stretch reflex. When we receive something into our hands, we mentally estimate how much the object will weigh. We then activate enough of the cells in each muscle to exactly balance that estimated weight, and usually we're pretty close. Our hand might fall or rise slightly as we fine tune the amount of force we use to hold the object, but the movement is minor and smooth. If our estimate is far off, however, there is a more violent reaction. If we underestimate the weight, the object falls, and pulls our hand down with it, and we quickly exert more force to prevent the object from slipping out of our hands. This reflex, whether it is the fine adjustments of the first scenario or the gross adjustments of the second, are also regulated at the spinal cord.

Walking is a more complex example. As we learn to walk, much of the processing and regulation is done by the brain. Once we're adept walkers, however, the task is handed off to the spinal cord, with the brain only providing general directions. More specifically, the brain determines the direction and speed, and the spinal cord takes care of moving the feet.

Climbing or descending stairs is handled similarly, with one exception. Walking involves flat ground - whether we walk on the street or in our homes; the experience is the same. Stairs add a third dimension, and the amount we have to figure out how much to raise our foot for each step if we are to gracefully climb the stairs rather than trip and fall on them. Here, the brain steps in briefly - we look at the beginning of a staircase, using eye-foot coordination to safely land our feet on each of the first two steps, but if we're dealing with a regular staircase (i.e. each step is the same height and the same depth) our spine takes the height and depth information and plugs it into the general procedure for climbing stairs. At this point we focus our brain's attention, and our eyes, somewhere else until we reach the other end of the stairs, when our brain tunes in again to issue a "stop climbing stairs, start walking" order.

As with many phenomena, this is most obvious when something goes wrong. If you've ever tripped over an extra-high step in the middle of a staircase, or placed your foot down heavily on a step that wasn't as tall as those before it, you've experienced a case where the spinal column expected a step to be in one place, and directed your leg muscles to put your foot there - where the step turned out not to be. Your brain then steps in to clear up the confusion, and you're on you're way again.

Incidentally, this is a reason to be careful with home-made stair cases - the top and/or bottom steps are often of a different height than the rest of the staircase (building a set of stairs properly is more difficult than you might think).

And, no surprise, perhaps, this brings me back to driving once again. Much of driving is routine, and over time I expect that we hand off a lot of control to our spinal cord, and we turn our attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, the consequences of blithely missing a step, though occasionally severe, rarely approach the seriousness of blithely driving our car into an accident.

Inspired by: http://www.ethanhein.com/memebase/solving_problems/darwin_saves.html#saccade.

Christian chases his tail

I don't see him do so often, but when he does, I'm never sure if he realizes that it's his own tail that he's chasing.

I can vacuum my kitty!

Shadow's first exposure to the vacuum sent her running her to the other end of the house in alarm, but she has slowly become acclimated to its noise. So when I brought out the vacuum this evening to clean the rope shakings off of my bed, she didn't move from her spot on the covers, not far from the shakings that I was there to vacuum. So, I fitted the accessory hose with the upholstery brush attachment, and vacuumed the bed clean, and then I noticed that some of the shakings had gotten onto her fur, too (she supervised my work on the new climbing pole). Out of curiosity, for what she might do, I slowly brought the brush close to her, and she didn't move, so I carefully vacuumed the shakings off of her back. Based on the purring, I think she enjoyed it.

Do you close your front door at night?

You shouldn't have to. But you should do so, anyway. You should probably lock it, too. If you leave your front door standing open and your house is burglarized, you're not likely to receive overwhelming sympathy. You're more likely to be asked "Why didn't you close your front door?" Similarly, if you leave the key in your car's ignition, with the motor running and the doors unlocked, and someone steals your car, people will probably tell you that you were asking for it to be stolen. Yes - you should be able to leave your car running, but doing so isn't wise.

Yet somehow this all gets lost when the understandably emotional crime of rape is being discussed. Yes, we should be able to walk wherever we want, whenever we want, wearing whatever we want, even if it's a leisurely stroll through the deserted industrial quarter at two in the morning, and we're wearing only just enough to avoid being fined for public indecency. But we'd be unwise to do so.

The nature of rape is that two people are involved - an attacker and a victim. And by definition, the victim is overpowered - the victim is an unwilling participant. In some cases this is astonishingly evident - the victim whose house is broken into is raped in what should be the safest of all locations. Weight and strength differences, or the presence of a weapon, can also severely reduce a victim's options for avoiding the attack.

But many cases are not as clear as those described above, so to reflexively resent any blaming of the victim does all of us a disservice. For the victim, it suggests that there is no way to reduce the possibility of a future attack. It also denies that victim the possibility of self-determination, which only underscores the nature of the rape itself. The same is true for potential future victims - in other words, for everyone, because rape isn't restricted to heterosexual interactions, nor are women the only victims.

None of this is meant to say that rapists should not be held accountable for their actions. My only message is that stopping rape, or even reducing its frequency, requires work to be done on both the attacker's motivations, and on the victim's strategies.