Archive for August, 2019
Stupid dad jokes work with a little help from prearranged laughs
“Why don’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? …(dramatic pause)… “The P is silent!”
I had to laugh out loud at this dad joke reported by Scott Simon of NPR in this June 15 Weekend Edition.
I came up with a good one myself the other day while helping my daughter Carrie fill up tires on a new bike carrier that she bought for my grandson. To be sure of enough pressure, I “aired” on the high side. Explaining this to her, I held up my arms and fingered air-quotes when I said “aired”. Carrie gave me an eyebrow-raised, squinty-eyed, pursed lips look, from which I could tell that she was greatly amused.
Nothing will deter me from telling my awesome dad jokes. However, I wish they would elicit more guffaws than groans. Fortunately, neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) have come to my rescue with advice on how to generate LOLs from puns and other forms of high humor dispensed by dads like me. The trick is to play a sound track of genuine laughter just after telling the joke. (It turns out that Hollywood knew what they were doing by dubbing in laugh tracks.) As reported in “Modulation of humor ratings of bad jokes by other people’s laughter” (Current Biology, July 22, 2019), the UCL team provided empirical evidence that adding laughter indeed increases how funny a joke is perceived to be.
Despite all this attestation from Hollywood and neuroscientists, I remain skeptical of laughter being infectious. Although I always laugh loudly after every one of my dad jokes, I keep getting these weird looks a la Carrie. Or when I attempt to lighten things up with my wife, it generally elicits only the standard “very funny, Mark”. (She knows that this is the only way to get me to temporarily cease and desist on humor.) Although I enjoy laughing at my own jokes, it seems that I need an outside source of chuckles to keep the guffaws going.
Central Casting in Hollywood supplies professional laughers at $100 per hour, but that’s too pricey. For now, I might keep this canned laugh track handy on my smartphone hidden in my back pocket. If that doesn’t work, I can always dig out my flatulence-simulating whoopee-cushion. This never fails to get attention!
P.S. Little known fact: The first dad joke on record is “Cleopatra walks by and Julius sees her.” An alternative version is “Look! Cleopatra walks by. Julius, seize her!” Now, play the laugh track. These puns are hilarious!
Designed experiment creates egg-splosive results
Posted by mark in design of experiments, Uncategorized on August 20, 2019
Design-Expert® software version 12 (DX12) released this summer with a cool new tool to model binary responses, for example, pass-versus-fail quality-testing. For what it’s worth, the methodology is called “logistic regression”, but suffice it to say that it handles results restricted to only two values, typically 0 or 1. The user deems which level is a success, most often “1”.
During development of DX12 Stat-Ease moved to a penthouse office on a building with a cascade of balconies. So, when our programmers, led by Hank Anderson, considered how to test this feature with an experiment, they came up with the idea of trying various packing on eggs to see if they could be dropped some distance without breaking—a project that high-school science teachers assign their students. However, we figured that our neighboring tenants down below and our new landlord might not be very happy about the mess that this would create. Therefore, Hank and his team took a less problematic tack by testing various factors for microwaving eggs to an edible stage. This experiment (or ‘eggs-periment’ if you like) also was more productive for varying the diet of the programmers from their staple of boiled ramen noodles—the focus of a prior DOE.* If they could achieve consistent success in cooking eggs by microwave, a combination of these with ramen might be the ideal sustenance for awesome coding for new versions of Design-Expert.
The Stat-Ease experiment began with a bang during the range-finding stage with an explosive result. You might say that the yolk was on us—bits of overcooked egg and shell dispersed throughout the chamber of the microwave. The picture below shows the messy aftermath (note the safety glasses).
After this learning experience (‘eggs-perience’?), Hank and his lab technician, Mike Brownson, settled into a safer range of factors, shown below, that kept the contents from reaching the catastrophic breaking point:
- Preheat—0 to 180 seconds
- Cooking time—120 to 420 seconds
- Power—60 to 100 percent
- Salt—0 to 2 teaspoons
- Egg Size —Large or Jumbo
Hank and Mike, with input from Stat-Ease Consultant Martin Bezener, put together an ambitious design with 92 runs using Design-Expert’s custom design builder (i-optimal) for response surface methods. Heads-up: When responses are restricted to just two outcomes (binary), many more runs are required to provide adequate power than would be required for a continuous measure.
The investment of nearly 100 trials for the ‘eggs-periment’ paid off by producing significant results on pass/fail measures of undercooking and overcooking. For example, the 3D graph below shows the probability of eggs being undercooked as a function of time and power for the microwaving. Notice by the corner at the left being cut off that potentially catastrophic combinations of high power and long cooking were excluded via a multifactor constraint. Clever!
.
Based on models produced from this experiment, Design-Expert’s multiple-response optimization recommends a most desirable setup for microwaving eggs as follows: Heavily salted jumbos preheated to the maximum level and then cooked for 315 seconds at medium power.
Thanks to the research by Hank, Mike and Martin, our programming staff now is fueled not just by ramen, but also with eggs—a spectacular success for DX12’s new logistic-regression tools!
* “The Optimal Recession-Proof Recipe”, Brooks Henderson, pp 1-2, September 2012 Stat-Teaser, followed up by “Confirming the Optimal Ramen”, p3, January 2013 Stat-Teaser.
Pop tops collected for charity and for the fun of counting
When my oldest grandchild Archer reached the age to walk rather than be pushed around the neighborhood in a stroller, he noticed lots of shiny tabs laying on the road. Knowing full well that these have no special scrap value than the can itself, I encouraged him to pick these up for the reduction in litter. This became a fun game for a few years. I’d keep some tabs in my pocket and surreptitiously toss them out for the joy of discovery, us having picked all the streets clean already.
When Archer outgrew the tab game, I continued to collect them for Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC)—them being happy to play along for the easy money from clean and closely-packed aluminum. Yesterday, after popping off tabs for 5 years or so, I emptied out my bottle (pictured) at the Minneapolis chapter.
Here are some interesting statistics on pop tabs that I gleaned from the internet:
- They were invented in 1974.
- There are 1,267 in one pound.
- The value of scrap aluminum ranges from 30 to 40 cents per pound.
- The Minneapolis RMHC started the Pop Tab Collection program in 1987, which then spread nationwide–they have raised more than $800,000 for their chapter alone since the founding.
Before turning in the tabs, I ran a contest with 24 of my relatives at our annual reunion last week. I started it off with my guess of 1500, which evidently biased the estimates because they came out to very near that value on average. Using the new histogram feature Design-Expert® software version 12, I produced the graphic shown. The program’s diagnostic tools revealed a nearly normal distribution other than one overly high guess from one of my brothers-in-law, who incorrectly extrapolated how many beverages I drink from observation of the quantities being consumed at the reunion.
The actual count was 1838. The winner guessed 1858 for first prize of ten dollars. Archer, now 8, helped me count, came in second and won two dollars plus another dollar for assisting. He was thrilled.
I’m starting up a new collection now. It’s a bother to bend them off the cans before I crush them but it’s a habit that provides a very small measure of satisfaction every time I drop one in the bucket.