Friday Random Ten, August 14

Leave a reply
  1. Peter Hamill, “The Unconscious Life”: A track from an amazing live
    performance. In general, I’m not a big fan of live recordings – you really need
    to be there for a live performance. There’s a dynamic between the performer
    and the audience in live music, and in a recording, you’re listening to it from
    the outside – so you can feel that there’s something missing. This recording has an
    intensity, an intimacy, which is extraordinary. And it’s a great song, too.
  2. Valley of the Giants, “Whaling Tale”: Valley of the Giants has taken its
    place as my favorite post-rock band – surpassing even “Godspeed You Black Emperor!”.
    This track is very godspeed-like, but it manages to carry it out better than
    even Godspeed would have.
  3. Black Math Horseman, “Deerslayer”: This is a hard group to describe.
    It’s sort of like a cross between Mogwai, Sonic Youth, and King Crimson. They’re not really post-rock, and they’re not really prog rock, but they’ve got elements of both. They’ve got a really great sound. I haven’t listened to them enough to get a really
    good feel, but they’re definitely worth a listen.
  4. The Flower Kings, “The Rainmaker”: What can I say about the Flower Kings
    that I haven’t said before?
  5. Marillion, “The Only Unforgivable Thing”: a vaguely poppy track from
    Marillion’s second-best album. It’s slow, with the feel and structure
    of a pop ballad, but the lyrics are very un-ballad-like, and it’s got a ton
    of subtle complexity. Classic Marillion.
  6. Riverside, “Cybernetic Pillow”: I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned
    Riverside before. They’re a really fantastic neo-progressive band from
    Poland that I discovered lately. They’re really remarkable – they’ve got
    an amazing sound, which is very distinct from anything else. Most neo-prog
    bands, you can listen to, and say their main inspiration is Genesis, or Yes,
    or Pink Floyd, or whatever. With Riverside, I can’t do that. They sound like
    themselves, and nothing else. I’ve embedded a Youtube live video of this
    song below.
  7. Gong, “Damaged Man”: A very typical Gong track, if there is such a thing.
  8. Porcupine Tree, “Sentimental”
  9. Rush, “Red Lenses”: a nice old classic Rush track.
  10. The Reasoning, “Shadows of the Mind”: another recent discovery for me;
    The Reasoning is a decent neo-prog band. They’re not great, but they’re good,
    and they do some terrific multipart vocal harmony.

Disco Goes Digital

Leave a reply

It sometimes seems like every day, some “intelligent design” bozo comes out with
another book rehashing the same-old crap. I usually ignore it. But this time, I felt
like the promotional materials for one of the new books really stepped right into my
part of the world, rhetorically speaking, and so I figured I should give it a
quick smackdown.

The book in question is Stephen C. Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell”. Meyer’s argument
basically comes down to one that is seems like we’ve heard and dealt with a thousand times already. There’s stuff in the cell which looks kinda-sorta like a machine if you look at it in the right way, and since machines were designed, therefore so were cells.

If that’s all he said, I’d just ignore him. Why rehash the same old shit? But no. This time, the DI needed to add a youtube video, which makes some amazingly strong, unsupported claims.

The official description of this is “This animation shows how the digital information encoded in DNA directs protein synthesis inside the cell and provides a unique look at the evidence for intelligent design as described in Dr. Stephen C. Meyers book Signature in the Cell”. The soundtrack, if you pay attention to it, repeats that claim several times in several ways: that DNA is specifically digital information, and that therefore the processes that operate on DNA are effectively digital computations, and since everyone knows that a digital computer required intelligent humans to design it, it’s impossible that the “digital computer” in the cell evolved.

Continue reading →

The Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg? Only if you use bad math.

Leave a reply

Here’s a quick bit of obnoxious bad math. I saw this myself in a link to an AP article via Salon.com, and a reader sent me a link
to the same story via CNN. It’s yet another example of what I call a metric error: that is, the use of a measurement in a way that makes it appear to mean something very different than what it really means.

Here’s the story. Chevy is coming out with a very cool new car, the Volt. It’s
a hybrid with massive batteries. It plugs in to your household electricity when you’re home to charge its batteries. It operates as an electric car until its batteries start to get low, and then it starts running a small gas motor to power a generator. It’s a very cool idea. I’m honestly excited about cars like the volt – and Google helped develop the technology behind it, which biases me even more in its favor. So you’d expect me to be very supportive of the hype around it, right? I wish I could. But GM has decided that the best way to promote it is to use bad math to tell lies to make it look even better than it really is.

Chevy has announced that for city driving, the Volt will get gas mileage of 230 miles per gallon.

That’s nonsense. Pure, utter rubbish.

Continue reading →

I am the antichrist. No, really!

96 Replies

I normally try to ignore things like this, but this is just too funny.

In general, I find arguments like this to be extremely silly. This is, basically, like
playing with gematria – only instead of doing real gematria (which can be quite silly enough),
it’s like our friend “Gotcha” – mixing systems and screwing things up until you get the results
you want.

Lots of the particularly crazy strain of Christians really, desperately want to believe
that Barack Obama is the antichrist. They want an explanation for how this black man with
a muslim name could possible have actually been elected – they don’t believe it could possibly
have happened honestly. And their doctrine requires the antichrist to come soon. Combine
those two, and you’ve got what, for them, is a sort of perfect storm.

Which gives us things like this. For more mockery, see beneath the fold.

Continue reading →

The Pentatonic is Fundamental: a Video Demo

Leave a reply

As long-time readers know, I’m an amateur musician, from a very musical family. My sister is a music teacher, and my brother used to be a professional french horn player and composer. I personally play classical clarinet, a very wide range of folk-flutes, and some bluegrass banjo.

As long as I’ve studied music, my teachers have always talked about how fundamental the pentatonic scale is. For those who don’t know, the pentatonic
scale is a basic scale which has five distinct notes per octave, instead of the 7 of the traditional diatonic scale, or the 12 of the chromatic scale. For example, the
pentatonic scale starting at C is the notes C, D, E, G, A, and back to C.

I’ve never really grasped what’s so fundamental about it. It’s
got a beautiful sound – but just looking at it, it’s hard to see what makes it more
fundamental than any other scale. It’s not an evenly distributed scale – the
steps are second, second, minor third, second, minor third. But there’s something
about it.

This video shows just how fundamental it is. Without being told to, people will
naturally sing the steps of the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is wired into our brains. Watch and be amazed!

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Friday Random Ten, July 31

Leave a reply
  1. Russian Circles, “Youngblood”: post rock, in the Mogwai style. Very nice stuff. Not the
    most exciting PR band around, but good.
  2. The Flower Kings, “World Without a Heart”: typical FK. Since I pretty much worship the ground
    that Roine Stolte walks on, you can guess what I think of this.
  3. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Transit”: would you believe sort-of progressive
    big-band jazz? That’s pretty much how I’d describe this. Big band jazz is not my usual cup of tea, but
    this is damned impressive, and a good solid listen. Definitely very cool stuff.
  4. Naftule’s Dream, “Yid in Seattle”: Naftule’s Dream is an alternate name for a wonderful
    Klezmer group called Shirim. When they’re doing weird stuff, they record as ND; when they’re doing
    traditional, they record as Shirim. ND is klezmer the way that John Zorn and his radical jewish
    culture guys play it. Wild stuff. Brilliant.
  5. Sonic Youth, “Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)”: a track from the newest Sonic Youth
    album. This actually sounds more like older SY. In general, they’ve mellowed a bit over
    time; in particular, they’re last album had fewer rough edges. This one keeps the smooth
    production, but brings the edge back to the sound. SY just keeps getting better.
  6. The Tangent, “The Ethernet”: the Tangent started out as a collaboration between
    Roine Stolte of the Flower Kings, and Andy Tillison of Parallel or 90 Degrees. Stolte eventually
    quit, leaving Tillison running the band. It’s completely replaced Po90D as Tillison’s main band.
    It’s not quite up there with tFK, but it’s damned good.
  7. Keith Emerson Band, “Prelude to Hope”: This is an astonishing track. It’s Keith Emerson
    playing something beautiful and subtle. I’m a big Emerson fan. He’s a brilliant pianist.
    I love his style, and I usually love his compositions. But my opinion of him in the past was that
    if anyone were to suggest that perhaps he should try being a bit more subtle, he’d
    be likely to bash their head in with a sledgehammer, put the body through a wood chipper,
    collect up the bits and burn them to ashes, and then piss on the ashes – just to make sure
    that he made his point clear. And yet… This is a beautiful, subtle piece of playing, from
    a frankly terrific album.
  8. Echolyn, “Lovesick Morning”: Echolyn is one of my favorite recent discoveries. They’re
    not exactly a new band – they formed in the early 90s, broke up in 95, and then reformed
    a couple of years later. But they’re a thoroughly excellent neo-progressive band, with a very
    distinct sound. They don’t sound like they’re trying to be Genesis, or the Flower Kings, or Yes… They
    sound like nothing but themselves.
  9. Frank Zappa, “Drowning Witch”: Typical Zappa. Very strange, wonderfully erratic
    but great music, and incredibly silly lyrics delivered in that strange Zappa style.
  10. Dream Theater, “Wither”: Dream Theater’s newest. DT is a great progressive
    metal band. Their last few albums were a bit uninspired in my opinion. This one is really
    quite good. Unfortunately, this is one of the weaker songs on the album. Not bad, but not
    exactly what I’d choose to try to turn someone on to Dream Theater.

Bill O'Reilly on Life Expectancy: Dumbest Man on Earth?

Leave a reply

An alert reader just sent me, via “Media Matters”, the single dumbest real-life
video clip that I have ever seen. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Bill O’Reilly is
a conservative radio and TV talk-show host. He’s known for doing a lot of really obnoxious
things, ranging from sexually harassing at least one female employee, to sending some of
his employees to stalk people who he doesn’t like, to shutting off the microphones of
guests on his show if he’s losing an argument. In short, he’s a loudmouthed asshole who
gets off on bullying people.

But that’s just background. As a conservative commentator, he’s been going off on
the evils of Obama’s supposedly socialist healthcare reform. That’s frequently
taken the form of talking about how horrible medical care is under Canada’s
socialized health system. One of his viewers wrote in to him about this. And
the insanity follows.

The question came from a viewer named Peter from Victoria, BC, who asked: “Has anyone noticed
that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?”

Bill’s response:” Well, that’s to be expected Peter, because we have 10 times
as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents,
crimes, down the line.” Delivered, of course, in BillO’s trademark patronizing
style.

Continue reading →

Friday Recipe: Chinese Potstickers (aka Jiao Zi)

Leave a reply

dumpling.png

My wife is chinese. So in our house, comfort food is often something chinese. For her, one of her very favorite things is dumplings, also known as pot-stickers. They’re time consuming to make, but not difficult. They’re really delicious, well worth the effort. They’re best with a homemade wrapper, but that’s not easy. If you go to a chinese grocery store, they sell pre-made dumpling wrappers with are pretty good. Not as good as homemade, but more than adequate. The wrappers are circular, and about 2 or 3 inches in diameter.

These are traditionally made with ground pork. But I don’t eat pork, so I use chicken thighs. Definitely make sure you use thighs – to come out right, the meat inside can’t be too lean – it needs to have some fat in it. Thighs work really nicely; breasts, not so much.

When my wife stuffs them, this recipe makes around 30 dumplings. If I’m stuffing them, it’s more like twice that – she somehow manages to stuff an amazing amount of filling into each dumpling. If I try that, I can’t close ’em.

Ingredients

  • 3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
  • 1/2 medium sized head of napa cabbage (about 1lb).
  • Thinly sliced green parts of two scallions.
  • 1 tablespoon Oyster sauce.
  • 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil.
  • 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce (to taste)
  • A small dish of cold water.
  • Dumpling wrappers.

Instructions

  1. Put the chicken thighs and the oyster sauce into a food processor. Pulse until you’ve got what looks like coarsely ground meat.
  2. Finely mince the cabbage. Don’t do it in a food processor – that’ll just pulp it. You want it minced into little pieces.
  3. Fold the cabbage, soy sauce, and sesame oil into the ground meat.
  4. Now you’ve got the finished filling. Take a wrapper, put a dollop of filling into the center of the wrapper. Lightly brush the edges with water, and then fold the wrapper in half, sealing the edges. (The really correct way of doing it crimps it so that it actually looks like a crescent moon, and stands up by itself. But I have no idea how to explain that! And it tastes good even with the lazy fold.)
  5. Keep doing that until you run out of either wrappers or filling.
  6. Heat up a shallow frying pan on medium to medium-high heat. Cover the bottom with oil. You want enough oil to fry the bottom of the wrappers, but not enough that they’re swimming in it. And you only want the bottom to fry. (Don’t use a wok for this. This is one of the only times that I’ll ever say that about chinese cooking – but you really want a flat bottomed pan.)
  7. Put the dumplings into the pan in shifts. You don’t want them too close together, or they’ll stick to one another. Let them cook for one or two minutes, until the bottom is a nice dark brown.
  8. Take about 1/2 cup of chicken stock, dump it into the pan, and immediately cover the pan tightly. Let it cook like that until almost all of the stock evaporates. Then take the dumplings out, and put them in a serving bowl. They’ll stick to the bottom a bit; pry them up gently with either a spatula or tongs. (There’s a reason that they’re called pot-stickers!)
  9. Keep going in batches until they’re all cooked.
  10. Serve them with a dipping sauce. Spoon a bit of sauce over each dumpling right before you eat it.

There are a ton of dipping sauces you can use. My own favorite is:

  1. about 1/4 cup of clear rice vinegar
  2. About 1/4 cup of soy sauce
  3. 1 teaspoon of sugar
  4. one clove of crushed garlic, finely minced.
  5. One slice of ginger, crushed and finely minced.
  6. Greens of one scallion finely minced.
  7. One drop of sesame oil.
  8. One half teaspoon of sambal or sriracha chili sauce.

These little suckers are seriously good eating. They’re sort of like potato chips, in that once you start eating them, you can’t stop. So make a lot!

If you really want to make homemade wrappers (which is a lot of work, but which makes these wonderful little things so much better that you’ll never go back to store-made wrappers), there’s a great recipe for them in Ming Tsai’s “Blue Ginger” cookbook.

Bad Healthcare Cost Models Produce Silly Results (anyone surprised?)

Leave a reply

This morning, my good friend Orac sent me a link to an interesting piece
of bad math. Orac is the guy who really motivated me to start blogging; I
jokingly call him my blogfather. He’s also a really smart guy, not to mention
a genuinely nice one (at least for a transparent box of blinking lights). So
when he sends me a link that he thinks is up my alley, I take a look at
the first opportunity.

Today, he sent me a link to a guy who claims to have put together
a mathematical model showing that it’s impossible to create a national
healthcare system without rationing. The argument is a great example
of what I always say about mathematical modeling: you can’t just
put together a model and then accept its results: real mathematical models
must be validated. It’s easy to put together something that looks
right, but which produces drastically wrong results.

The common way of saying it is “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. I personally
don’t like that way of describing it – because in the most convincing examples
of this, it looks like what’s going in isn’t garbage.

Continue reading →

High School Reunion: New comment thread

285 Replies

We’ve been having some load trouble with the ScienceBlogs server, and the
400+ comment over on the high school reunion thread seem to be resulting in a lot of timeouts. In an attempt to reduce the number of errors, I’m closing the thread on that post, and asking folks to post any new comments here.