Kirsten Mortensen's blog

Be prepared, o denizens of the Internet!

National Pancake Day is nearly upon us! Next Tuesday, February 28!

And to help you get into the spirit, here are some oddball facts you ought to know about pancakes. Well, actually, that’s not true . . . you technically don’t need to know any oddball facts about pancakes. In fact, learning oddball facts about pancakes is probably a colossal waste of time. But! There are a couple of recipes at that link. And nobody can have too many pancake recipes . . . oh, okay, I admit it. That’s not true, either.

In fact, one of the quickest ways to cut down on the hassle of making pancakes is to do away with the whole look-up-a-recipe step. Throw a good bit of flour in a bowl, pinch of salt, thumbnail of baking powder, bit of sugar to help them brown up, beat an egg into a chunk of melted butter (not too hot on the butter, this is pancakes, not Hollandaise), stir that into the flour, then add enough milk so it will spread out on the griddle. Or not, if you like your pancakes as high as they are wide.

Works for me. But I make a lot of pancakes. My daughter favors them for her breakfasts :-)

(Oh, one other thing. That last step — the adding milk part. That’s the only tricky one, because if you over-mix you’ll make the final product rubbery. So take a deep breath and imagine that you are a Bold Chef of Minimalist Action. Confident to complete the final mixing with a few decisive flicks of a fork. Leave the lumps. They’ll sort themselves out, they always do.)

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Comfy cardboard, bit of sun, what more do we need to be happy?

Technorati Tags: Friday catblogging

View this short video before you answer . . .

Jurassic beaver discovered.

Wouldn’t you love to see one of these babies chase a Jeep!

Okay, it would have to be a very small Jeep to get that Spielberg effect.

Here’s the facts: seventeen inches long; probably an egg-layer; semi-aquatic; probably ate fish. Oh, and predates any other known fur-bearing mammal by 40 million years.

Way cool.

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The problem is, we may not know how little we know.

So claims Yale University psychology professor Frank Keil in this article. Keil has conducted research on the disconnect between what people think they know compared to what they actually do know.

We are good at estimating how well we know simple facts (such as the capitals of countries), procedures (such as how to make an international phone call), and narratives (such as the plots of well-known movies). But we seem to have a specific “illusion of explanatory depth” – the belief that we possess a more profound causal [emphasis mine] understanding than we really do. We can be appropriately modest about our knowledge of other things, but not so about our ability to explain the workings of the world.

This is particularly pronounced, Keil says, when the object of our faux understanding is a relatively complex object or system. Because complex systems are “richly hierarchical,” he explains, “they can be understood at several levels of analysis.” Unfortunately, we tend to confound a high-level understanding with a comprehensive understanding.

One can understand how a computer “works” in terms of the high-level functions of the mouse, the hard drive, and the display while not having any understanding of the mechanisms that enable a cursor to move when a mouse is moved, or allow information to be stored and erased, or control pixels on a screen.

Yet once we’re able to explain how to save a file, or log onto the Internet, or defrag a harddrive, we slip into the illusion of believing we understand our computers.

We’re also vulnerable to this illusion, Keil continues, when the parts of the system are visible. “The more parts you can see, the more you think you know how those parts actually work.”

Keil’s piece confines itself to a discussion of physical phenomena, but it strikes me that the same can be said of our understanding of events–historical and current. Surf the ‘net tonight, for instance, and you’ll find as many theories about what’s going on in Iraq right now as you have time to read. People are writing about who was behind the bombing of the Golden Mosque, what their motivations were, and whether this represents civil war or not. Many of these explanations are delivered with supreme confidence.

But in every case, we have individuals who are working with the highly visible parts of a very complex phenomenon.

So, if Keil is right, the aforementioned confidence is actually supreme overconfidence. It’s not understanding; it’s the illusion of understanding.

Almost no one really understands what’s happening–the exception being the people who actually masterminded the bombing.

The same goes for every major event, from Bush’s deal to hand over commercial port operations to Dubai to — well, fill in the blank: _________________________.

We deceive ourselves when we assume that knowing what the pieces are, and how they fit together, is enough to proclaim causality.

And by the way, maybe the political divide in this country wouldn’t be so harsh if we all acknowledged this, eh?

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While Jay Rosen’s “rollback” analysis of Cheney’s delay in reporting his hunting accident earlier this month is appealing in the abstract, if we apply Occam’s Razor, this may be the likelier explanation.

Or this could be yet another example of the parallel left/right universes that play out, merrily oblivious to one another . . .

(Update: Or should that be, “willfully oblivious to one another”?)

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My dad has posted his skunk story now.

There’s been a rash of studies lately that purport to poke holes in popular notions about using supplements to treat various health conditions.

Here’s the latest: an AP report, headlined “Supplements do little for arthritis, study finds” by the Globe & Mail, which says that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate don’t seem to have much effect on arthritis symptoms.

The article reports the findings of a study by the National Institutes of Health that was published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. But when you dig into it a bit, some interesting things come to light. One is that well over half of the subjects did get better–including those who were given a placebo:

Sixty per cent who took the placebos had reduced pain compared with 64 per cent who took glucosamine, 65 per cent who took chondroitin and 67 per cent who took the combo pills.

And get this — of the people who took the prescription drug Celebrex? 70 percent reported less pain. Note that the article sums up the spread between the placebo and supplement results as “These differences were so small that they could have occurred by chance alone.” Presumably we could say the same thing about Celebrex vs. glucosamine and chondroitin, then, right?

(No word on whether the subjects taking glucosamine and chondroitin encountered any Celebrex-style side effects.)

The subtext of the argument that traditional medicine likes to mount against alternatives is that alternatives are witchdoctory. Closer to magic than science. But you know what? Traditional medicine is completely dependent on faith, excuse me, “magic,” as well. Publish a few studies that say Celebrex doesn’t work, and that 70 percent figure would start dipping closer to 60 percent.

Me? I just keep my eye out for that perfect placebo. That would be: something that goes well with a nice red wine.

Technorati Tags: supplements, glucosamine and chondroitin

The snow is wet, and my skunk ducked under the deck on his way across my property which muddied his feet a bit — perfect for leaving several sets of pretty clear tracks.

Along with the size of the tracks (1.5-2 inch long prints) one way to tell a skunk track is that the claws on the front feet are markedly longer. (They use them to dig for food–that’s how they tear up peoples’ lawns if they have grubs.) Skunks are also “pacers;” that refers to their gait and the way they place their feet. Pacers leave two rows of tracks, and each row has alternating front and back foot prints.

Usually you can see five toes on both the front and back feet of skunk tracks, but in some cases you can’t. In the tracks in this photo, only four toes show on the back foot print.

Here’s a great online resource for identifying animal tracks, and here’s another.

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I happened to look up from my desk a few minutes ago and saw a skunk heading across the street into my lawn!

I grabbed my camera and dashed out the front door. It had snowed last night, so I was able to tell from his tracks where he had headed — up my driveway. I caught up with him next to my garage — I yelped at him, and he whirled around and lifted his tail :-)

I repeated that several times, grabbing shots. Unfortunately, none was a killer pic, but here’s the best of the lot.

Isn’t he cute????