Urinal Dynamics

1 Reply

BYU, of all places, has posted what is likely the most useful study any man will ever find – Urinal Dynamics – on Splash Lab.

This research highlights the physics of urinal usage.  Through high-speed videos we show that significant splash back can occur when using a urinal, however, there are mitigation techniques.  First, aim for a vertical surface rather than a horizontal one and keep away from the water bowl.  Second, get close enough that the stream remains a stream rather than breaking up into droplets.  Third, aim at an angle to the urinal either by aiming sideways or downward.

And we have video!

Why Teach

Leave a reply

After winning the Nobel Prize for Literature Albert Camus wrote the following letter to his teacher, a letter that I think any teacher would find as validation for their day-to-day struggles.

19 November 1957

Dear Monsieur Germain,

I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honour, one I neither sought nor solicited.

But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.

I don't make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

Albert Camus 

Yet another reason to love Letters of Note. You should definitely visit the site to get the backstory on the letter.

Health Insurance – Caveat Emptor

Leave a reply

One of the problems with buying health insurance is that it's one of the most complicated purchase any one of us will make in any given year. With the advent of Obamacare scores of people will be buying insurance on an open market for the first time – versus opting from a limited set of options from an employer – and that means the complexity of the process will have an ever greater impact in the coming years. That's what makes this story on Planet Money so scary:

Any day now — assuming the government manages to fix HealthCare.gov — millions of people will start shopping for health insurance.

Will those shoppers know what they're doing? More to the point, if you're one of those shoppers, will you know what you're doing?

Here's a quick quiz, courtesy of economists George Loewenstein and Saurabh Bhargava, who study what people know (and what they think they know) about health insurance. The economists have used longer versions of these quizzes in their research…

While the share of people who answered each question correctly varied, the vast majority of people who took the quizzes got at least something wrong.

And this isn't just some academic artifact: Bhargava and Loewenstein are leading an ongoing study of some 50,000 real-world choices that people make when shopping for insurance — and found that 65 percent of the time, people choose plans that are more expensive than other options but don't provide more benefits.

You should go take the quiz. You might be surprises at how much you think you know that you really don't.

The Art of Becoming

Leave a reply

Letters of Note has a great letter from Kurt Vonnegut to some NY high school students:

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.

 

Is Lack of Competition Killing Americans’ Pay?

2 Replies

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal ties fat corporate profits to a lack of competitiveness in American industry which eventually leads to skimpy worker pay:

Never before have American companies seen so much of their sales drift down to the bottom line. In 12 months that ended in the second quarter, U.S. after-tax corporate profits as a share of gross domestic product, a measure of profit margins across the entire economy, came to 10.9%, according to the Commerce Department. That was the highest level according to records going back to 1929. Nor are there signs of erosion: S&P Dow Jones Indices estimates profits at companies in the S&P 500 as a share of sales hit a high in the third quarter…

Why aren't historically wide profit margins getting competed away? One reason may be that there isn't a lot of up-and-coming competition…

To some extent, the dearth of young businesses reflects an environment in which keeping your day job seems wiser than starting something new. But in a lending environment in which funding for newer, smaller businesses is constrained, many would-be entrepreneurs are willing but not able. Facing fewer newcomers, established businesses have one less reason to spend more on wages and equipment; why put effort into building a moat that isn't needed? This is great for profits but not the long-term health of the economy.

News Flash: Lewisville Residents Already Have Recycling

Leave a reply

The Town of Lewisville recently posted the following on its Facebook page:

***VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR TOWN RESIDENTS***

It has come to our attention that some Lewisville residents have been contacted by Waste Industries to become Waste Industries customers for recycling services.

IF you are a town resident, you are ALREADY provided garbage and recycling collection though Lewisville's contract with Waste Management.


LewisvilleRecycle

In Support of Coach Grobe

Leave a reply

Some folks in Demon Deacon land have been grumbling about Wake Forest's football coach Jim Grobe. His teams haven't had a winning record since the 2008 season and he has a .500 record as Wake's coach since 2001.  Personally I love having the guy lead Wake's football team and here are just a few reasons why:

  • His record is the best since "Peahead" Walker had a 77-51-6 record from 1937-50.
  • He's coaching one of the smallest  FBS schools in the country.
  • As the coach has said himself, it's a challenge coaching an "academic" school.
  • His team plays in a tiny stadium relative to other schools in the ACC/FBS.
  • Those last three items combined make Wake a tough place to recruit.
  • He runs a clean program.
  • He holds his players accountable.

That last point is a big one, and the following quote from a recent piece about Grobe's handling of a couple of players who aren't living up to behavioral expectations is a perfect example of his approach:

"I try to tell our football team – and they don’t always listen – talented people are a dime a dozen, people with really good talent,'' Grobe said. "And the last thing in the world that you want to have happen is 10 or 15 years from now, everybody is still talking about your talent but not talking about what you did. There’s a lot of kids that before they can blink their college careers are over.

"Of course, honestly, football is not really as important as ultimately being a good dad, being a good father, being a good worker, having a meaningful career and helping others – all those kinds of things that we know are more important than football.

"But you hate to see guys have all the talent in the world to play football and not use it. We’ll see going forward. The key word in all of this is hope.''

Personally I'll take this and a .500 record over a winning record and a program running amok any day.

Another note: I suspect fans might be a little less anxious about the football program if the basketball team hadn't been so atrocious the last few years.  In other words he's getting sucked into the "Fire Wellman/Bzdelik" vortex, which will hopefully start to disappear after this upcoming basketball season. It better or there could be a serious housecleaning afoot in Winston-Salem.