Major League Baseball’s grand-slam experiment to pick up its pace
Posted by mark in sports, Uncategorized on March 30, 2023
It’s Opening Day today for Major League Baseball (MLB), when hopes for a championship season hit a peak before reality sets in for most of our teams. Excitement runs higher than usual this year because trial runs at lower levels emboldened Major League Baseball (MLB) into implementing drastic rule changes aimed at speeding up the game. The biggest impacts will come from a new pitch clock, a ban on the infield shift and limits on pickoff throws.
Results from MLB’s spring training—wrapping up this weekend—look very promising: The average time per game dropped to about 2.5 hours—down 26 minutes from last year. That will keep me, a Minnesota Twins season-ticket holder, in the game—no more bailing out in the later innings and listening to the finish on the radio during my half-hour drive home from Target Field.
Another likely effect of the MLB rule changes will be more attempts to steal bases, increased this spring by almost 50% from 2.1 to 3.1 per 100 plate appearances with a success rate of 77.2 percent—up from year’s 71.3.* Let’s go!
These new rules for 2023 augment one adopted in 2020 to limit overtime games—the placement of a “ghost runner” at second base beginning in the 10th inning. The October issues of Significance magazine** reports remarkable agreement of actual results versus predictions generated by a natural experiment on this rule—a reduction of about 15 minutes per game. Even better!
“This is the game we all want to see — get the ball, pitch the ball, keep the defense on their toes.”
Actor Bryan Cranston speaking on behalf of MLB
PS It’s hard to argue with the efficacy of natural experiments based on this MLB example and the methodology being awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.*** However, if at all possible from an ethical, practical and political perspective, a planned experiment laid out in randomized fashion remains the ‘gold standard’ for predictive modeling. Why not take over a baseball league or a specific team, preferably the lowest level possible, and run a designed experiment? I did so successfully for my softball squad. See how and the results in this 2007 StatsMadeEasy blog.
*Statistics on game time and stolen bases from Tyler Kepner, The New York Times, 2023 MLB Season Preview, 3/27/23.
**“Baseball’s natural experiment,” Lee Kennedy-Shaffer.
Modern breeds don’t join wolves in their call of the wild
When I grew up, dogs mainly roamed free in my Saint Paul city neighborhood. They would create a terrific cacophony of howls when fire engines cruised by, and even more so during monthly testing of civil-defense sirens.
Based on my observations of our dogs and others it seemed to me that they all responded to these wolf-like sounds. So I was surprised to learn that Hungarian scientists observed only 39 of 68 breeds joining in on wolf howling.* Furthermore, they graded the vocal responses by type as follows (making me howl with laughter-ha ha):
- Howl, Bark-howl, Moan, Yelp
- Growl, Growl-howl, Woof
- Whine, Whine-howl
- Bark
The researchers then applied principal component analysis (PCA) that connected the degree of howling to the genetic distance from wolves—ancient breeds (huskies, malamutes and the like) older most likely to join in. This effect becomes more pronounced with age: Older dogs from modern breeds (for example, terriers and boxers) being least likely to howl with the wolves.
Hopefully, I interpreted this study correctly—there’s a lot to it. However, if you have a dog and remain uncertain how they howl, turn the volume up on this video.
By the way, I almost literally ran into a huge timber-wolf sitting on a remote road in northern Minnesota. After I brought our family car to a full stop, the wolf stared me down before sauntering slowly off. That gave me a healthy respect for Canis lupus and their wildness.
PS If you like dogs (as I do!), check out this briefing by Reuters, which includes a short video of the lead scientist and her Siberian husky Bizsu, whose howling precipitated this fascinating study.
Going all out to save the birds
Posted by mark in Nature, Uncategorized on February 10, 2023
Last summer a cute little bird smacked into our patio door. It stood stunned long enough for me to get this closeup.
I see lots of cardinals (my favorite!), finches, sparrows and other backyard birds all year round. Others—robins and the like—come only when the weather warms up. However, I don’t recall ever seeing one in pretty pastels of brown and yellow. This beautifully colored creature does not pop out for me as one of the 23 most common birds in Minnesota. What could it be? Google Lens provides a clue by identifying it as a warbler. Along this line, based on what’s pictured on internet (even narrowed to warblers, many appearing similar), I’m going with this being a female (juvenile?) common yellowthroat. Do you agree?
Happily, this cute little yellow-throated bird flew off soon after its stunning encounter with our house and never came back to knock on our door. However, from time to time a bright-red male cardinal takes issue with its rival staring back from our bay windows. I’ve tried to ward these aggressors off by taping CDs shiny-side-out to the middle of the glass. However, that never works. Now, thanks to a heads-up from New York Times,* I know why: This new study by College of William & Mary biologists shows that window films increase avoidance of collisions by birds but only when applied externally.
“Bird collisions with windows kill more than a billion birds per year.”
Professor John Swaddle, lead scientist of first experimental study to compare the effectiveness of window films when applied to internal versus external surfaces of double-glazed windows
The researchers randomly divided 72 zebra finches into 4 groups via a two-factor, two-level factorial that varied type of film—BirdShades (not commercially available yet) vs Haverkamp—and location on the glass surface—interior vs exterior. No worries—their ingenious flight-testing facility featured a net that prevented window-bound birds from head-on collision.
By the way, in this interview by W&M News (check out the picture of his student showing the “proper technique for holding a zebra finch”), Swaddle says that “silhouettes of animals or birds don’t tend to work in part because they’re generally too spaced out.” So, when our windows again come under attack by angry birds, I will use many CDs (putting a plentiful pile of unused and obsolete media to good use)—not just one—and duct tape them to the outside—not the inside. I just hope that the neighbors don’t complain about the blast of solar radiation going back their way.
*“Those Window Stickers to Prevent Bird Strikes? There’s a Catch.”, Catrin Einhorn, Feb. 2, 2023 (Updated Feb. 7)
See C/2022 E3 (ZTF) aka the “green comet”
Discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) nearly last March, comet C/2022 E3 features a not uncommon bright green glow caused by out-of-this world diatomic carbon (not stable on Earth). What makes E3 rare is that it last appeared 50,000 years ago when Neanderthals still roamed.
Today the comet made its closest approach; but the windchill here in Minnesota will run well below -20 F—way too cold even for an astronomy fan like me. I’m holding out for the 10th of this month when E3 will be close to Mars in the night sky and thus easy to find. However, I may settle for this amazing view provided by Portuguese astrophotographer Michael Claro taken during a spectacular disconnection event when the comet’s tail got torn away by a powerful gust of solar wind.
Odds of winning the lottery versus being impaled by an icicle
The odds against winning today’s $1+ billion Mega Millions come to over 300 million to 1. According to these statistics from the National Weather Service, the chances in being hit by lightning strike in any given year are far greater—about 1 in a million.
Being in the dead of winter, I’m more worried about the icicles hanging over our walkway.
I cannot find any ‘official’ statistics on the odds of dying from one of these frozen daggers, but it must be on par with winning the lottery.
Though it makes far more sense for me to invest in a helmet rather than the Mega Millions, I bought 5 tickets just to participate in the dream. It’s fun doing something irrational every so often!
To get the math on the odds and tips on improving them (such as: pick at random!), see this post by Davidson College Professor Tim Davidson.
Smoot points about measurements
Posted by mark in science, Uncategorized on January 4, 2023
Does it really matter that the calendar turned over from December 2022 to January 2023? From where I sit nothing much changed from one day—12/31/22—to the next—1/1/23. It’s just as cold here in Minnesota—below freezing (32 F or 0 C: Take your pick). Must we pay any attention to an irrelevant measure of time passing by? Of course, the answer is “yes” for everyone to party on a timely basis for the New Year, birthdays, and anniversaries. However, I feel badly for my niece’s daughter born on Leap Day 2020—no 1st birthday until 2024. That’s a measurement failure. Anyways, Happy New Year!
Also, why do we continue to favor English versus metric units here in the USA? That is a huge waste! Let’s begin the conversion by expanding the football fields to 100 meters. The players won’t even notice the 10 percent increase in required effort. My feeling is that this will be the breakthrough to the far more sensible and scientific metric system—a movement that seemed certain to succeed when Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act in 1975. Unfortunately, this became a political football when folks here in the Midwest resisted being told to post their distances in kilometers rather than miles.
The silliness of the archaic English anthropometric measures, such as height in feet and quantities of spices in pinches, came to a head in 1958 when frat brothers from MIT flipped a pledge named Oliver Smoot over-and-over the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge for a total of 364.4 Smoots (plus “one ear”*). In 2016, the MIT Alumni magazine published this April Fool’s joke that the Institute planned to recalibrate the Smoot to its namesakes current height (presumably a bit shrunken by the decades). What I find most interesting is that Smoot later served as chairman of the American National Standards Institute and president of the International Organization for Standardization. He went all out, literally, for the sake of measurements!
By way, it snowed 4 and 3/16ths of an inch yesterday according to my double Helix measuring ‘stick’. For my own purposes, I always use the metric side of this ruler—much preferring its decimal system (m/cm/mm, etc.) over the cumbersome fractions of inches. But to keep things simple, I pay the teenager next door by the inch.
PS It snowed another 6 inches overnight, bringing the total to 25 cm or so (deliberately mixing measurement scales to make my point). In any case, I need a taller ruler!
*Per Smoot in this 1995 interview. I first heard of him from the November 21st Wall Street Journal review of “Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants.” For details and reader ratings (assuming you like accurate measurements!) of this new book, I recommend you go to this Goodreads site.
Age vs happiness—some ups and downs
Posted by mark in Uncategorized, Wellness on December 19, 2022
The “mid-life crisis” provides endless amusement from over-the-hill fellows trying to hold on to their youth via frivolous purchases (e.g., a sportscar) and foolish escapades (e.g., young women). A few years ago, economist David Blanchflower pinpointed 47.2 as the age when unhappiness reaches this minimum.* However, my re-analysis of his data indicate a very plausible complication to this picture: A late 20s dip creating a double “U” in the happiness curve.
After importing Blanchflower’s life-satisfaction data** into Stat-Ease software, I applied a 6th order polynomial model—not just the 2nd order quadratic typically used for simplification. This more sophisticated analysis reveals an initial dip at 24.1 years before the ‘mid-life crisis’ coming at 50.9 years of age.
Of course, all of us differ individually in our happiness throughout our lives, but it is interesting to see how we compare to the average person in this regard. Although I would not mind a rejuvenation to my mid-20s physical fitness, it really is great to be well past the unhappiness of those youthful days and the subsequent stress that comes at mid-life. Old guys really do rule for happiness by my reckoning.
Cheers!
*Research Shows People Become Increasingly Unhappy Until Age 47.2, Inc., 1/30/20.
**Figure 2: “US Gallup Daily Tracker Cantril’s 11-step life satisfaction ladder, 2008-2018, no control curve”, Is happiness U-shaped everywhere? Age and subjective well-being in 145 countries, David G. Blanchflower, Journal of Population Economics, v34, pp 575–624, 9/9/20.
Embrace coincidences to shore up your well-being
Posted by mark in Uncategorized, Wellness on October 19, 2022
Being a believer in the power of positivity, I am always on the lookout for the bright side of life. For example, while out for a very chilly walk this morning, I was delighted to see a dozen or so bluebirds perched along a fence next to the sidewalk. I embraced this happy coincidence!
Professor David Hand, former Chair in Statistics at Imperial College, London, made a case that these little miracles occur daily.* You just need to be pay attention. I got some great reinforcement for collecting coincidences from a report last week by Wall Street Journal columnist Elizabeth Anne Bernstein.** She provided a great example of a fortuitous series of events that led to a wonderful meeting with a friend of her father, who passed away earlier this year.
“Surprising concurrent events can help us reach decisions, soothe us in grief and tighten our connections to others.
Elizabeth Anne Bernstein
Although some people believe in divine causes for coincidences such as Elizabeth’s,*** I think they occur at random and get selectively noticed due to personal biases. In any case, I am happy for anyone who gains comfort from them.
PS For an excellent breakdown of coincidence by serendipity (“happy accidents”) versus synchronicity (an acausal “falling together in time” see this 2021 Psychology Today explanation by Bernard D. Beitman, M.D. of Meaningful Coincidences.
PPS On a related, more humorous note, check out this ‘heads-up’ on the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Eery!
*See my 2014 blog explaining why Laws of nature lead to rare events that really ought not surprise anyone
**The Hidden Power of Coincidences
***For example, many believed in a heavenly arrangement for the simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826—exactly 50 years after each had signed the Declaration of Independence.
Eschew surplusage
Posted by mark in Communication, Uncategorized on October 8, 2022
This is Mark Twain’s humorous advice for jargon-prone writers who fail to “employ a simple and straightforward style.”* In case you’re wondering, “surplusage” means “unnecessary or irrelevant language.” This obscure term is mainly used by the legal profession. Isn’t that ironic?
Here are some promising developments for citizens in English-speaking countries who suffer from surplusage at the hands of their lawyer-riddled governments:
- The Plain Language bill now coming to a final vote by the New Zealand Parliament may make simple-English training mandatory for their public servants.**
- Twelve years ago this month, the USA enacted the Plain Writing Act of 2010 establishing that Government documents issued to the public must be written clearly.
- A recent Labradorian-commissioned comparative study of “ordinary” versus “plain” English showed significant improvements in reading speed, understanding, retention and appreciation.**
- The 2022 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the authors (Martinez, et al) of Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives processing difficulty in legal language (not at all ignoble—lawyers should be held accountable for incomprehensible contracts).
“Contracts contain “startlingly” high proportions of difficult-to-process (“complex psycholinguistic) features including low frequency jargon, centre-embedded clauses, passive voice structures, and non-standard capitalisation.”
Eric Martinez and Edward Gibson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Francis Mollica at the University of Edinburgh
Poor writing is not confined to government or legal communications. Those of us who work in the scientific arena must work mightily to decipher reports intended to provide “accessibly erudite progressive rigor” (the first phrase that came up for me at this Academic B.S. Generator). I found some hope from these studies:
- A randomized, controlled study on thousands of subjects “indicating the detrimental effects of providing too many details on statistical concepts.”***
- A call**** by statistician Karen Grace-Martin to work on reducing four major sources of confusion for terminology rising to a level of “absurdity”:
- “Single terms with multiple meanings,” e.g., alpha and beta used for linear-model coefficients as well as to symbolize risk versus power.
- “Terms with colloquial meanings in English and technical definitions in statistics,” e.g., “error” (supposedly early statisticians got so much criticism from managers about too many errors that they started calling these “residuals).
- “Similar terms with nuanced meanings,” e.g., General Linear Model and Generalized Linear Model (being an engineer-only, I have trouble with this distinction).
- “Multiple terms with one basic meaning,” e.g., a long list of synonyms for “mixed models”.
Down with bureaucratic language, legalese and technical jargon!
*See rules #14 #18 (speaking plainly) in Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses
**The Effectiveness of Plain Language Proven by Data, 2020
***Kerwer, et al, How to Put It Plainly? , 2021.
Spacecraft DART scores a direct hit on asteroid Dimorphos
Posted by mark in science, Uncategorized on September 27, 2022
It was amazing to see today the videos from NASA showing a direct hit by their spacecraft DART (an acronym for “Double Asteroid Redirection Test”) on the asteroid Dimorphos.
Here are some amazing statistics on this astounding feat of physics:
- DART traveled 56,000 miles to accomplish its $330 million suicidal mission against the 560-foot diameter Dimorphos.
- DART came in at 1,260 pounds to impact the 11-billion-pound Dimorphos, similar in scale to a house-fly smashing into an NFL running back. This seems harmless if not for the fact that the fly is going 15,000 miles per hour!
- NASA’s boffins predict that the impact will shift the orbit of Dimorphos around its bigger sibling Didymos by 1%–reducing it by 7 minutes from the current rate of about 12 hours per revolution.
The big question is: Could we really deflect an asteroid heading for Earth? Given the success of DART, I am now a lot more optimistic that, by the time a planet-threatening object comes our way, a defense system will be in place.
“We do not currently know of any object of “moderate” size which has a chance of impact in the next 100 years. …Please keep in mind that anything smaller than about 30 meters in size will have an airburst and is unlikely to reach ground (excluding metallic NEAs). Our atmosphere is very efficient at protecting us from small impacts.”
– Asteroid scientist Marina Brozovic