I found it very ironic the way the title of my last post was displayed after being imported into Facebook:

Lately we have been getting Emma into a bedtime routine.  Ostensibly, this is to teach (condition?) her into going to sleep easily at night, provided the routine is observed.  In actuality, she doesn’t go to sleep much more consistently than before the routine.  But that’s not really what I came here to write about.  Part of Emma’s bedtime routine is for daddy to read her a story.  (Literacy for the win!)  Tonight I tackled Horton Hears A Who, one of her two Dr. Seuss books (which are by far her longest bedtime stories).  I noticed while reading the book that Dr. Seuss must have pronounced “mayor” as a one-syllable word, a homophone to “mare,” whereas I pronounce it as two syllables, rhyming with “conveyor.”  I’m not sure if I pronounce it differently because I live in a different region, or because the pronunciation has shifted since the book was written in 1954, or both.  (Contrary to what your grade school teachers probably tried to burn into your head, English is a constantly evolving language, and the accepted pronunciation and even meaning of words varies by region and changes over time.)

Here is an example of what I’m talking about from Horton Hears A Who:

There aren’t any Whos!  And they don’t have a Mayor!
And we’re going to stop all this nonsense!  So there!

And here is one more example, which is even odder to my ear:

“So, Horton, please!” pleaded that voice of the Mayor’s
“Will you stick by us Whos while we’re making repairs?”

It is weird to read because “mayor” is used for a rhyme several times in the book, and if I read it so that it doesn’t rhyme it sounds really weird.  In fact, I tend to pronounce the word that is rhymed with mayor (i.e. “there”) as two syllables.

I guess I’m not really going anywhere with this, it was just something I noticed and thought I’d point out.  Other than mayor/mare thing, I didn’t notice any other rhyming problems.  In one place, I think “grocery” must be pronounced as a three-syllable word in order to have the intended rhythm, although I (and most people I know) typically pronounce “grocery” as something like “groshry.”  Oh well, people still consider Shakespeare great poetry, even though many of his rhymes no longer rhyme, so I guess it doesn’t necessarily spell doom.

Over the weekend—while I was back home for my brother’s wedding (some pictures will likely come soon)—I noticed that the organic milk my mom has started buying has a really long shelf life.  The carton I was pouring milk from, for example, didn’t expire for well over a month.  I was curious why this was the case so I did a little research and it seems that this milk has been treated with ultra-high-temperature (UHT) processing, rather than regular pasteurization.  From what I’ve read on Wikipedia, it seems that UHT milk could actually sit at room temperature for months without going bad, and in Europe it’s actually sold unrefrigerated.  Apparently they sell it refrigerated here because Americans wouldn’t buy unrefrigerated milk in test markets.

I couldn’t find a consensus as to why organic milk is UHT processed, though.  Some people said it was because “organic cows” aren’t given antibiotics, so UHT must be used to be sure all bacteria are killed.  Another said organic milk is typically shipped from further away, so they have to use UHT or it would be about to expire by the time it got to the store.  I’m not sure which is the real reason and I don’t feel like doing any more research.

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting fact I’d share with the class.

I was at home with the flu for a few days last week (not an experience I would recommend to anyone), and I did something I’ve never done before.  I watched a few episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger.  I had always assumed, based on the title I suppose, that the show was about your typical tougher-than-nails-cowboy-who-lives-by-his-own-rules-but-has-a-heart-of-gold type.  Turns out, it’s mainly about jumping out of helicopters onto people, and then proceeding to kick them.  A lot.  Like, I think there have been kick-boxing matches with less kicking.  Now I get all those Chuck Norris facts which set the internets abuzz a few years ago.

I also caught a few episodes of Ninja Warrior.  It’s kinda like Gladiators, only without the gladiators themselves (an improvement), and with the difficulty turned up about ten difficulty units.  And that’s on a scale of five.  You should totally check it out.

Now if only we could get Chuck Norris to compete on Ninja Warrior...

I went to a new Thai restaurant with some people from work yesterday, and I took a business card as I was paying:

I’m not sure what that means.  My theory is that a non-native speaker meant to write something like “premier” instead of “first.”

Any other theories?

I just got back from my first ever business trip.  My company sent me to Seattle (technically Everett, WA) this week to visit our good friends at Boeing.  You may have heard, they are a little behind schedule.  But I can’t say too much about the business purpose of my trip here.  Fortunately I wasn’t flying solo, there were several others from my company (two others from the Charlotte office).  I was the only developer there; everyone else was support.  In any case, here are a few highlights in convenient bulleted form:

• The area is pretty.  Unless you happen to hate evergreen trees, in which I guess you wouldn’t care for it.  Because there are lots of evergreens.  When you look out the window of the plane, it looks kind of like you are about to land in a Christmas tree farm.

• The Boeing plant is big.  Really big.  The biggest building in the world by volume, as a matter of fact.  If you imagine a garage where you might get your oil changed, with about six garage doors in the building, it’s kind of like that.  Except the garage doors are big enough to hold full-sized airplanes.

• Security is tight there.  Since they couldn’t confirm that I was a US Citizen, I got a temporary badge requiring an escort anywhere other than the conference room.  Including the bathroom.  So I had to act like a five-year-old and ask people to take me to the bathroom.

• I got to visit my friend from the Amazon.  It was nice to catch up with you.

• Due to a layover in Phoenix, I got to see the Grand Canyon from the sky.  I think it was the Grand Canyon anyway.  In any case, it was a large canyon somewhere north-northwest of Phoenix.

• On the flights to Seattle, I got to experience first-class flight for my first time.  I didn’t think it was that great, until I flew coach on the way back.  Then I remembered what coach was like.

• Most of our nation is a barren wasteland.  That’s the impression I get from thirty thousand feet.

• It was my observation that there are no black people in Seattle.  Some quick internet searching seems to support this: only 8.44% of the population in Seattle versus 32.72% of the population in Charlotte.  That’s a pretty big difference.  And in Everett it is only 3.35%.  That was a little weird.

• There is some kind of circular farming that they do in the flat states, where they just don’t use 21.5% of the land in a square plot.  See many examples here.  This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this but I thought I’d mention it.  I’m not sure how it is cost effective to waste so much of your land, but since there is so much of it done I’m assuming it must be more than 21.5% more efficient for some crops than traditional farming techniques.

• They still like grunge rock in Seattle.  At least the station I was listening to does.  In four half-hour drives (two trips to and from Peter’s house), I think I heard: 4 Nirvana songs, 3 Pearl Jam songs, 4 Foo Fighters songs, 2 Alice In Chains songs.  And then some new stuff like that terrible Finger Eleven song about clubbing.  I really hate that song.

• It didn’t rain all week.  Garrison had the same experience when he visited.  I’m beginning to think that “it always rains in Seattle” is just a myth.

• No signs of Sasquatch.  That also might be a myth.  But if so, then how do beef jerky enthusiasts mess with them?

I guess that’s all I’ve got to share.

Last week I posted a late-night rant on ocular dominance, and since then I’ve read some Wikipedia pages that were kind of interesting.  It seems I was right that there is almost no correlation between dominant hand and dominant foot; however, there is a weak correlation between dominant eye and dominant hand.  I also determined that I am right-eyed.  This makes me like about 60% of the population, in that I’m right-handed, right-eyed, and right-footed.

The ocular dominance test I took before was some variant of the “Dolman” method, which doesn’t work for me because I am too conscious of what is being tested.  But the following test worked for me:  Look at something far away with both eyes open, and then point at it with your index finger extended at full length.  Obviously, you’ll see two index fingers, but you’ll naturally use one of them for pointing.  Once you’ve done this, if you close your eyes one at a time, the one that sees the finger lined up with the object you are pointing at is the dominant eye.  For another variation, if you find that you are pointing at the object with the index finger on the left, you are right-eye dominant, and vice-versa.  When I first did this, I thought that I was favoring my right eye just because I was pointing with my right hand, meaning that lining up my right eye won’t leave the other image of my hand blocking my view.  But when I tried the same test using my left hand, it was still more natural to line up with my right eye.

There were several interesting theories as to why left-handedness would develop in right-handed populations.  Most of them focus on the advantage the left-handed person would have in combat, since the right-handed opponent would be less practiced against left-handed combatants (and for that same reason left-handedness is more common in boxers and baseball players than in the general population).  But there isn’t a good theory as to why we aren’t all ambidextrous, or why there aren’t any isolated left-handed populations.

So back to my original hypothesis: when you go quickly from dark to light, you instinctively close the dominant eye and squint the weak eye.  Yesterday Stephanie and I were leaving a restaurant with some friends in the middle of a sunny day, and as we walked outside I noticed everyone except Stephanie was closing their right eye, but Stephanie was closing her left eye.  I later had her do the test to determine dominant eye (without saying why exactly) and it was indeed her left eye, which is consistent with my theory.

Now for more hypothesizing, Stephanie and I both have weaker vision in our dominant eye.  Is that a coincidence, or is it because the dominant eye is stressed more?

It’s nearly midnight and I am tired but having trouble sleeping, so I decided to get up and do something other than try to sleep.  When I opened the fridge to get something to drink, I thought about the fact that whenever my eyes are adjusted to the dark and I suddenly expose them to light (turning on a computer screen, opening a refrigerator door, turning on a light), I always completely shut my right eye, and squint my left eye.  I’m not sure why this happens—is it related to one eye being the dominant?  It could be that my right eye is the dominant eye and I am instinctively protecting it from the damage of bright light.  Or it could be that my left eye is dominant, and I am instinctively using the better eye.  I’m not sure because I don’t know how to tell which eye is dominant.   (incidentally, my vision in my left eye is much better than the vision in my right eye, but I don’t think that is related to dominance).

I’ve read descriptions of how to test yourself to identify your dominant eye, but they never seem to work for me.  As I recall, they all say something about looking at something far away and then covering up one eye, and if you still see that object you are looking with your dominant eye.  That may not be exactly right, but the problem I always had with the test was that I got the same result for either eye, so either I didn’t understand the test, or I have ambidextrous eyes.

I think I’ve read that dominance in eyes and feet are in the same ratios as hand dominance; about 10% left and 90% right.  I think there’s also no correlation between them (i.e. being left-handed doesn’t make you any more likely to be left-footed).  But this is all coming from memory and may be completely incorrect.

Or maybe the test doesn’t work because my refocusing abilities are just good; I am one of those people that can look at a Magic Eye image and see it almost immediately, without having to hold the book to my nose or anything.  It’s a skill I remember realizing when I was around seven or eight, and I would look up at the the bottom of the top bunk which was supported by cross bars and by something resembling stretched out steel wool, in a very regular pattern.  I found that by adjusting how far I thought the top bunk was from me, I could adjust how far it looked like it was.  By crossing my eyes a little I could make it get closer to me, and stick out my hand until it was “touching” the bunk, even though I wasn’t touching anything.  The bed would be in focus, and my hand would be blurry.  Then I could push my hand even further, “through” the bed.  It also worked in the other way, if I loosened my eyes as if to look through the mattress, it would get farther away, and I could stick my hand out to it but my hand would bang into the “real” mattress before it got to the place where I could “see” it.  Not that I think this is some elusive skill for which I should be praised.. I mean it’s only slightly more useful than being able to roll your tongue.

Well, if any of this has made sense to you.. I am surprised.  This is the kind of random crap that goes through my mind when I can’t sleep:  when I’m tired, but I just can’t shut my brain off.  And what you’ve just read is kind of a stream-of-consciousness exercise.  Well I left out the thoughts that are just ruminations of everything that I have done or said to anyone in the last week or two and whether or not there was something else I could have reasonably said or done that would have led to more desirable outcome for any or all parties involved.  But no one wants to read those thoughts anyway.  I’m going to try to get some more sleep now.

same old decent lazy eye fixed to rest on you (aim free and so untrue)

Over my life I have been to several high school and college graduation ceremonies, and I have observed an apparent correlation between two factors.  The following chart will explain:

Update: See my follow-up post if you are deeply offended.

About a year or so ago I came across a link to this paper (warning: PDF file) in the comments to a blog.  I found it very interesting, and since reading it I’ve been able to recognize this phenomenon “in the wild” so often that I figured I should share.  I’ll warn you that the paper is a 14-page academic paper from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology... and it reads like one.  After the first page or so it gets pretty tedious to read.

Even so, here’s the gist of it:  Often times, someone who is unskilled at something is unaware that they are unskilled, because they don’t have enough skill to evaluate their own skill.  If you ask students how they think they did on a math test after taking it, for example, the students who performed poorly will grossly overestimate their performance.  They usually have some idea that they didn’t perform well, but they aren’t good enough at math to realize just how badly they did.

I’ve seen this kind of thing happen a surprising number of times.  Like someone a few years ago that claimed to have a “heavy graphics background”, then showed me something he made in Flash that was a bumpy model of 3D text, with a glaring shading error on one edge.  I remember someone I went to high school with, who would typically say “I didn’t miss any questions on that test” after taking a test, which would have me worried because I thought I might have missed one or two.  Then we’d get the test back and he’d get a seventy-something.  But he never quite caught on that maybe he was judging his own performance poorly.

Long before reading about this behavior, I learned to distrust confident people.  Upon reading this paper, I realized why most advice you receive is bad:  most people who feel entitled to give advice are not at all qualified to do so.  The great irony is that for most people confidence is a desirable quality in a leader, misinterpreted as an indicator of competence.  You needn’t look far into the world of politics to find dozens of examples of this principle at work.

So to conclude, I ask that my readers (all ten of you) watch for examples of this in your life.  It happens way more often than you might expect.

maybe if we’re loud we’ll stay alive