Estimation

< rant >

I've been reading tour books about China and Japan and either it is just the books or people need a lesson on estimation (from what I remember of the other members of the Italy tour (pre-euro), it's not just the books)! Yes, I realize that the readers of this blog are a quite educated group and probably don't need this lesson, but this is my only forum for posting stuff like this so here it goes...

First off - going between celsius and fahrenheit (some of the credit for the following goes to one of my family members - I think my dad, but I don't remember) telling people to multiply by 9/5 and add 32 may be an attempt to improve American's mental math abilities, but is pretty darn silly when talking about the weather. Let's say that when you are discussing the weather you're typically talking about somewhere between 0 F and 100 F. If instead of taking a celsius value and multiplying by 9/5 and adding 32 you multiply by 2 and add 30 you will at most be off by 5.6 F at either end (I don't think you'll do anything different if it is -5.6 F vs 0 F or 105.6 F vs 100 F). For a more typical temperature like 70 F you'll only be off by 2 F. And if the temperature is outside the range 0 F to 100 F then the estimation is even easier - either too cold or too hot.

Next - exchange rates. If you are making major purchases or have just enough money then go ahead and use the exact exchange rate. However, if the exchange rate is 95 to 1 go ahead and divide by 100! (That's 100 said as an exclamation, not 100 factorial, that would be a horrible estimation.) Even if the exchange rate is say 8 to 1 for minor purchases decide if you want to over or under estimate and divide by either 5 or 10. It's a little off, but you'll act like a normal person instead of adding yet another barrier to communication (plus when you screw up dividing by 95 or even 8 you'll be a lot further off than if you had just estimated). For those headed to Europe I would say make life easy on yourself and say 1 euro = 1 dollar (again, if making a big purchase than take the time to do the calculation).

< /rant >

Animal Rights

I just finished Animal Rights, A Very Short Introduction by David DeGrazia. You might be wondering why I read this book, even given that my reading list has become somewhat eclectic over the last year. Well, I recently designed an animal experiment for the first time. The experiment is for work. I won't go into many details for a number of reasons, but the experiment is about as humane as animal research can be and my experiment piggy-backs (no pun intended) on another set of experiments so really my experiment caused absolutely no harm. While my feeling is that if any animal research is justified, life saving research that does not involve torturing the animal would be it, I thought it would be interesting to see what others have to say about it since I'm still not completely sure how I feel about it.

As you might expect the book does not really resolve any issues, but it does clarify various positions on the topics of animal research and the conclusions that can be drawn from each position. While the author makes his favorite positions known, actually picking one is of course left to the reader. The book builds up the position that animals (at least higher level ones) do suffer and so they should have a certain level of rights. The major split is if animals, like humans, have rights that should not be dismissed even if it would overall benefit society (or even more protected since animals can never give informed consent). There is also a question of if there should be a sliding scale of rights based on the mental abilities of animals. Another interesting discussion point is if killing an animal harmlessly is cruelty or not. There are a number of ways of looking at it. One point is that humans have lots of future goals and killing a human stops them from accomplishing those goals vs an animal which does not have future goals. Another perspective is like opportunity cost - how much positive experience are you depriving the animal by killing it.

While I didn't pick a particular position, the book did help me put animal experiments in perspective. When I hear the term animal experiments my first thought is injecting awake animals with cosmetics to see what harm it causes. This is of course very different from the research I am involved with. One of the main points I got from the book is that I did way more harm to animals by eating meat for dinner than by my involvement in these experiments. When I jokingly suggested that I should keep track of how many animals are killed due to decisions I make, a co-worker pointed out that all the animals I eat would far out number anything else. What the book further illustrated is that the animals killed for food also have much worse lives and endure far greater suffering.

Overall I'm still a bit hesitant about animal testing and will try to minimize the amount required, but I now realize that small alterations to my eating habits would make a far bigger difference. I was hesitant to even talk about animal testing on this blog so I probably won't go into more details here, but if you are curious about it, I'm fine with discussing on the phone or over email.

Random Ramblings (again)

The following are a random assortment of thoughts with no unifying thread.

I just saw Knocked Up. It was very funny and I would recommend it, but it was blog worthy because the girl from UCB who I discussed here (toward the end) and here had several lines in the movie. At some point I'll leave detailing her career to IMDB, but for now I still find it crazy, and proof I shouldn't be a hollywood talent agent.

I recommend Twisted Oak 2004 Petite Sirah (pdf, but worth it, especially if you like to know the pH of your wine...).

For those that have seen me recently you have probably noticed my slowly growing sideburns which eventually made it all the way to my jawbone. Well, they're gone! And I may have over done it a bit since I barely left any, but I'm sure they'll creep back down again. It is interesting that people misinterpret laziness as fashion sense.

If you have not seen iTunes U, it is worth checking out. They have lectures from a number of schools (including one I'm fond of) on line as podcasts - both video and audio (for free). The selection is still a bit limited, but if you are just looking for a taste of a subject they are worthwhile. If you go to the iTunes store it's in the list on the left under the heading iTunes Store.

I was so glad to see Jon Stewart make fun of giving weapons to Sunni insurgents on the June 13 episode. I felt the need to rant about it, but watching him satisfied my need. The part I find amazing is that it is a strategy that has been tried numerous times and is almost always regretted.

San Diego

Two friends from college came out to San Diego (I'm avoiding names since they don't keep blogs so I don't want to make the decision to post info about them) and two of their friends also met us in San Diego. They were nice enough to let me stay in their hotel room so it was like I took a vacation to San Diego and I took off Friday so it was like a real trip.

On Friday we went to the wild animal park. It is mostly African animals which makes sense since the park is in the desert east of San Diego. The setup was very well done - the animals were given a lot of area to move around and the fences were subtile enough that it didn't have that caged animals look. That night we went to Jakes Del Mar which is a great restaurant along the beach.

One of the friends found a desert tour that started in Borrego Springs. We rode around in an old army jeep through the desert and went on a short hike. There were some plants and some of them were interesting plants that I had never seen before, but it was also interesting just how barren a giant amount of land can be. One day I'll get pictures from the other members of the group (hint, hint) and post them rather than describing everything. The most amazing part was when we got out of the jeep and the tour guide told us to look down until he told us to stop. When we looked up we were a foot from the edge of a cliff from which you could see for about 60 miles in almost every direction including seeing out into mexico. The view was unending brown hills. Brown hills don't sound that amazing and I'm not sure that the pictures will capture it, but the immensity was incredible. The weather was interesting because it was in the high 90s or low 100s but was so dry that it actually didn't feel that bad; although, I did feel the dryness making its way down my throat - it was like the scene in the matrix where neo first enters the real world - but instead of melted glass creeping down it was dryness. After the tour we had dinner in Borrego Springs and then went out for some star gazing. I haven't seen that many stars since scout camp in the middle of Missouri. Saw a couple satellites flying along and one shooting star.

Next day we started with breakfast/lunch at a french pastry restaurant. Then made our way tokayaking/snorkeling in La Jolla. We kayaked out to some caves and then snorkeled in them. I enjoyed the event, but did see quite as much while snorkeling as I expected; although, when kayaking we saw a bunch of seals and some small sharks (only about 5 feet long and supposedly don't attack people). Also saw a bird dive into the water. For dinner we headed to old town where we ate at The Old Town Mexican Cafe.

Overall had a very good time and thanks to my friends for planning the whole weekend and letting me stay in their room.