I Believe Two Things

I love scientific analysis of unscientific things — like when Wikipedia takes on the high five:

The gesture takes its name from the “five” fingers and the raising of the hand “high”. This is opposed to the “low” five which has been a part of the African-American culture since at least World War II. It’s probably impossible to know exactly when the low first transitioned to a high, but there are many creation myths.

The best part of the article is a helpful series of photographs clarifying the proper manner in which to perform the “too slow” variation:

"Too Slow"

Zoom in on the facial expressions for Victim misses and “Too slow”. I don’t remember anything like that in The Encyclopedia Britannica we had back in the dark days when learning about something took more than 30 seconds.

Fun fact: the high five was invented in 1977.

[Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Glenn] Burke, waiting on deck, thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate. [Leftfielder Dusty] Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. “His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back,” says Baker, now 62 and managing the Reds. “So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.”

Another fun fact: Glenn Burke was gay. Grade school bullies inclined to shout out homophobic insults and then high five about it should just keep that in mind. (Wikipedia cites that fact to a book titled Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders, which is at once the most awesome and the most horrifying book title ever.)

CBS News has a series of amazing photographs from Philip Zimbardo’s famous “Stanford Prison Study“, plus the newspaper advertisement that started it all:

Stanford Prison Study Ad

In 2012 dollars, that $15 would be about $130.

I recently signed up for the financial website Mint to see how it compared to our existing financial organization (a fancy Google Spreadsheet). Though Mint came highly recommended, it doesn’t compare favorably.

Mint does a good job of aggregating account information in one place, so I can now see on a single screen our credit card charges, banking transactions, investments, mortgage balance, and home equity (using the current estimate for our property’s market value from Zillow). This gives an excellent picture of our net worth at a glance, which is fun to see.

Mint's "Spending Over Time" Graph

The site then categorizes expenses and graphs your spending on coffee (for example) over time. This is imperfect but it’s easy enough to correct errors.

But the point of any financial tool isn’t to analyze past spending but to budget future spending. Mint’s offering there is fairly weak. The entire model is built around categories so you can budget your coffee consumption or groceries for the month.

That’s not a bad idea, but it overlooks several major aspects of how people spend money. I’ll outline five of them.

First, our real budget accounts for several fixed once-monthly expenses like Netflix. That’s clearly an “Entertainment” expense, but it’s not really an optional expense from month to month. Unless we cancel the service, Netflix will charge us exactly $7.99 at some point in January, which means we have $7.99 less to spend than our paychecks say. The same is true for phone service, cable television, and other monthly activities. In Mint, though, you can’t track particular bills; you can only track categories. It might report that you’ve got $30 left for entertainment, but does that include Netflix? Or do you really only have $22.01 left?

Second, we account for some variable once-monthly expenses like our electric bill. I don’t know the amount for January’s bill but I know we’ll get one. This means our budget may set aside $200 for electricity but when the bill arrives we pay only $100 then we instantly have an extra $100 to spend on something else. In Mint, if your utilities budget is $200 and you’ve spent only half of it, the other half is still ready to go. There is no concept of being “done” with an expense.

Third, Mint does allow some control for unusual or one-time expenses in that you can set a budget for a certain category in only one month, but the reasoning is opaque. In my spreadsheet I may add a line for “Dentist Appointment” but in Mint I must instead increase the budget in my “Health & Fitness” category by that amount. If the appointment moves I have to decrease this month’s amount and increase next month’s.

Finally, Mint’s budgets are generally confined to a single month; there’s no clear picture of the annual budget. We pay our car insurance premium in full in January and July, which means we overspend dramatically those months. January’s budget alone makes us appear to be living well beyond our means. But a complete annual budget shows that we more than make up the difference in the other ten months and in fact save nearly $200 on our premium in the end.

The area where Mint works well is for ongoing expenses like groceries and entertainment. As long as your spending categories align with your budget categories, the budgeting tool works well. What you can’t do is budget entertainment and clothing as a lump sum while still tracking spending in each category separately.

I update our budget spreadsheet every day with our most recent expenses. The task is the worst part of a spreadsheet budget and it’s what Mint does best. For Mint to be useful as a financial tool, the budgeting needs to improve.

I’d like to see a focus on (and organization around) expenses: the kind you know in advance and the kind you don’t. Categories are great for analysis, but they shouldn’t be so critical in budgeting future spending. And there needs to be a better “big picture” view of an entire year (or more).

Mint is already immensely powerful and it’s completely free. As several people have pointed out to me, for someone who doesn’t already have a household budget, Mint would be an excellent place to start. And maybe after a while you too can setup a Google Spreadsheet!

Auditorium is perhaps the most interesting browser game I’ve ever played.

A stream of white particles flows across the screen, and by strategically placing controls in its path you can redirect it towards audio “audio containers” that make music as the particles flow across. The result is a beautiful song that sounds just right only when the stream is properly flowing through each container.

Auditorium

The full game costs $10, but you can try several “acts” for free (without any form of registration or account required — you just visit the website).

While we were visiting Sam’s relative in the hospital a technician ran a routine test on her heart. With some electrical leads attached to what was essentially a large laptop, he uttered the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard:

This may feel strange. I’m going to increase your heart rate just for a second.

We apparently live in a world where that is a routine thing to say.

This comes from Gala Darling from two years ago. I also belatedly like her December Activity Guide giving something to do every day of “the month of Christmas”. Most of the suggestions could be just as applicable in January: “Carry chocolate coins in your purse & give them to people who make you smile” and “decide to do Twelve Dates of Christmas”, for example.

Image Text:

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world. If you have money in the bank,  your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week. if you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of improimprosimprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering. If you can read this message you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.

Medical imaging firm EIZO released a pinup calendar a couple years ago. But they’re a medical imaging firm… so the pinups all look like this:

Miss March

I’m sure most people only read it for the clavicles.

(via Geekosystem)

The Internet makes for at once a terrifying and wonderful community.

Jessica Ahlquist made headlines this week when she (with the American Civil Liberties Union) won a lawsuit against Cranston High School West asking the school to remove a banner from the auditorium. Most of the news coverage doesn’t get specific, but here’s the complete text of the offending banner:

Our Heavenly Father,

Grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, to be honest with ourselves as well as with others.

Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship.
Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.

Amen

Jessica Ahlquist

Ahlquist suggests this is a prayer and thus doesn’t belong in a public school. The school board saw the banner as purely historical (a gift from the class of 1962-1963) and secular anyway. The eagle-eyed judge deciding the case managed to spot the ”Our Heavenly Father” at the top, the “Amen” at the bottom, and the fact that the text calls upon a higher power to grant these various laudable attributes.

Also, the title on the banner is “School Prayer”. That was probably a useful clue. Judge Ronald Lageux ruled (in a 40 page decision worth reading in full):

No amount of debate can make the School Prayer anything other than a prayer, and a Christian one at that. … While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve. At any rate, no amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction.

Bringing the suit did nothing positive for Ahlquist’s social standing, and winning it didn’t help. Police have been investigating threats from social media (read the most wretched if you’re brave) and stepping up patrols around the school and her home. The court’s decision notes:

After Plaintiff’s public comments before the School Committee, and particularly after the lawsuit was filed, Plaintiff was subject to frequent taunting and threats at school, as well as a virtual on-line hate campaign via Facebook.

When the mayor spoke in the very auditorium and told students the banner should stay, Ahlquist reported feeling devalued, “horrible very uncomfortable, alone and isolated.”

Maybe we can help with that. Public tweets @JessicaAhlquist are now overwhelmingly positive. That’s a start. But wait, there’s more! Hemant Mehta, blogger at FriendlyAthiest.com, started a campaign to give Ahlquist a small college scholarship. This tangible show of support compensates someone who has suffered the hatred of ignorant religionists while standing up firmly for her beliefs. That must be taxing in a way we (who have not done it) can’t imagine. But I like MarcoVincenzo’s answer on Reddit best. Why give?

Because rewarding merit is the best way I know of to encourage others to emulate it. And, in a world of limited resources it’s better to focus those resources where they’ll do the most good rather than dilute them to the point where they can’t even be detected.

The American Humanist Association will keep the donated money in a trust fund. When I began researching this piece, the donated amount stood at $8,200. It climbed to $10,000 within hours and topped $12,000 by this morning. Would you care to give a dollar (via PayPal) to support the courage of a 16 year old high school student?

As one Redditor put it, “I was going to buy beer. I decided to spend $10 for this cause … I’m still going to buy beer.”

Sophie made a sad announcement about her day on the way home:

Sophie: Today, Brandi ruined my life.

Me: You mean your day?

Sophie: No, my whole life.

Me: What did she do?

Sophie: Well, she did a nice thing too. She let me take a drink of her water. It was colored water, and I liked it. And she had it in a water bottle, and she wiped off all her germs, and she told me that she would share with me, and then she let me have a drink.

Me: I don’t understand. That sounds like a nice thing to do. What bad thing did she do that ruined your life?

Sophie: I already forgot.

A teenaged Girl Scout is calling for a boycott on buying cookies this year upon learning that Girl Scouts of the USA admits transgender boys — i.e., admits anyone who identifies herself as a girl regardless of the child’s anatomical gender.

I expected a vitriolic rant on the evils of minorities here. What you’ll hear instead, while still tragically misguided, is a calm, well-researched position:

Of course, what this actually does is increase immensely my respect for Girl Scouts of the USA. I’ll order extra cookies this year as soon as our local troops start selling (in just ten more days).

Whereas Boy Scouts of America openly and thoughtlessly discriminates against its membership (which it can legally do as a private organization), I’ve learned from this news that Girl Scouts of the USA is more accepting. Girl Scouts of Colorado in particular made headlines when a local troop leader initially denied admission to a transgender boy prompting the state organization to intervene with a reminder that “Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization”. Anyone who identifies herself as a girl (regardless of their physical anatomy) may join.

Girl Scouts are also a bit more tolerant toward religious differences. Although the Girl Scout Promise calls for girls to try “to serve God and my country”, after a lawsuit in 1993 they now allow individuals to substitute other phrasing for “God” if that word does not describe their beliefs. (This establishes those who deviate as exceptions to be tolerated rather than equals, but is still an important positive step.)

Ultimately, why would we want to shelter our children from others who are different? At a young age children are already accustomed to discovering that much about the world is different than they had imagined and they will take those differences in stride. A girl in Kindergarten meeting a transgender boy will almost certainly respond by saying, “Well that’s nice; can we go down the slide again now?” An adult meeting the same individual in the workplace for the first time may react less favorably. Even if you cruelly characterize someone’s beliefs as “abnormal” or “wrong”, whom do you serve by pretending that they do not exist in the world? Certainly not your children.

The teen in this video advocates boycotting cookie sales since more than half of those proceeds go to the council, with only 10% to 15% staying with the local troop. She advocates sending cash donations specifically to local troops — presumably those deemed sufficiently intolerant and bigoted. For the rest of us, this is a great excuse to eat more  cookies, since funding the council is funding the same organization that’s willing to intervene when it sees intolerance in local troops.

The website behind the video also provides a form letter to send to Girl Scouts of the USA administration to protest the decision. I’ll be sending a letter of support.