Another pedantic letter to the editor

Last week this article was published in the Teaneck Suburbanite, with the following lines (emphasis added):

Trains carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota travel through Teaneck and other Bergen County towns regularly before arriving at a refinery in Philadelphia. Their numbers have increased exponentially in the past few years, and several derailments have occurred in Canada and across the United States.

Well, I felt the need to respond, and this week they printed my letter to the editor:

To the editor,
A recent article about the freight trains carrying Bakken crude oil running through Teaneck ("Resolution for trains to stop idling passes", Sept. 17, 2015) claimed that "[t]heir numbers have increased exponentially in the past few years..." This is not correct. "Exponentially" is not a more dramatic way of saying "rapidly" -- it means "at a rate proportional to the current value".
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (http://eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_railna_a_epc0_rail_mbbl_m.htm), crude oil traveling by rail from the midwest (i.e. North Dakota) to the northeast (i.e. Teaneck) has increased roughly linearly since 2012, at a rate around 4.3 million barrels per year (see: http://imgur.com/B9HmRfC), which corresponds to approximately 6,000 extra tanker cars per year.
While the (linear) rate of increasing oil traffic may still be very concerning to residents, like myself, who live within the "danger zone" of the tracks, we should, at the very least, be accurate in our descriptions of the situation.
Eli Lansey, Ph.D.
Teaneck

Here's the plot I link to:

Also, see my previous pedantic letter to the editor.

My letter to the editor

On May 14th, Jesse Pistachio wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Teaneck Suburbanite. This elicited a response last week by Steven Mather (second letter). Well, I felt the need to respond, and this week they printed my letter to the editor:

To the editor,
I am writing in response to the "Perhaps try slowing down" letter from May 21.
I wholeheartedly agree with much of what Mr. Mather writes regarding the correct response to a "road bully". I, personally, am happy to drive with cruise control set to 25, with an aggressive driver riding my tail.
However, I must point out an inaccuracy in Mr. Mather's letter. He states "Getting someplace five minutes FASTER [emphasis mine] is not worth the life of the person you might hit while driving so fast in these neighborhoods." The entire stretch of Sussex/Garrison -- the road under discussion -- is just 1.9 miles long. Driving at 25 mph, nonstop, takes 4.6 minutes. There is no speed one could drive which would get you across town five minutes quicker; traveling infinitely fast will only save you 4.6 minutes. Even if you consider the worst-case-scenario of waiting at a full red light cycle of the traffic light, you would need to drive at approximately 1,900 mph to save five minutes, thus exceeding the current land speed record by a factor of 2.5!
So, for the record, driving at 30mph saves you 45 seconds, 35mph saves you 1.3min, and 45mph saves you a whopping two minutes.
Eli Lansey, Ph.D.
Teaneck

Open Letter to Discovery Kids

Dear Discovery Kids / Paragon Publishing,

My son recently got this book as a gift:

It is a nice enough book, with lots of pictures, many of them nominally 3D. I guess that counts as "bringing learning to life." However, one (non-3D) picture caught my eye:

Firstly, I am please to see that Pluto is not in the picture. Nevertheless, there is something very wrong with it. Discovery Kids, I'll give you a few seconds to see if you can find it. ... ... See it yet? And no, I'm not talking about the bizarre green color of space -- maybe it's a garish false-color IR photo or something. What I concerned about is the source of the light in this picture. I was under the impression that the Sun is the primary light source in our solar system. Yet, there appears to be a far brighter light source off the the left hand side of space, since the sides of planets Saturn, Earth, Mercury and Uranus that face the Sun are all in shadow! (Yet, strangely, the Sun isn't?) This is a pretty sad mistake.

I wanted to find the source of this image. A quick look at the photo acknowledgements showed me that the way you produced this book was to simply use a ton of stock images, with a handful NASA images thrown in:

Now, granted you don't want to spend lots of money to make a cheap book, and you could have chosen even worse stock images (check out this one; it has the sun shadowed!), but if you're trying to produce educational books, at least make sure it's correct! This isn't a "subtle" mistake like the Wrong Stars In Titanic Movie debacle, this is something glaringly obvious on the main focus of a two-page spread that you should have caught! When I asked my five year old son what was wrong with the picture he figured it out, so your editorial team should definitely have caught it. I hope you do better in your other books.

Citi Bike is failing at physics

It seems that New York City needs to take some remedial STEM – the promotional materials for NYC BikeShare have an elementary physics mistake.

Their marketing materials state:

[the bike] has a low center of gravity for a more stable ride.

It turns out that a moving bicycle, is actually less stable when the center of gravity is low. Much like a balancing a pencil (low CG) is harder than balancing a broomstick (high CG). This phenomenon is explained well in this article about robot bicycles.

I emailed citi bike to complain and they responded with this:

I'm fairly certain that the engineers involved in constructing these bikes have looked at the pros and cons of both high and low centers of gravity, and found this to be the best option for the widest range of people.

I cannot argue with this. I've ridden these things in Boston and in Washington DC and they are indeed very stable; nicely done engineers! The stability has absolutely nothing to do with a "low center of gravity." In fact the stability to ride might actually be due to a high center of gravity for bike+person compared to more aggressive bike frames.
The next thing citibike said was:

Besides, almost anything with a lower center of gravity is going to be more stable based on simple physical laws.

Correct and irreverent again. Objects siting motionless on the ground will be more stable with a low center of gravity. But bikes mid "ride" are more like an inverted pendulum than a stable object. Here are some suggestions for a new description.

I wouldn't normally be so fast to recommend remedial classes ... but just last march NYC made a subway poster which mathematically embarrassing at best. Also, several years ago Eli previously discussed the state of science education in NYC which left much to be desired.

I'll end this post with a snobby message from Boston: get it together New York!

An open letter to CRC Press about using my photo in a textbook (after killing my favorite math website)

I Googled myself last week. In Google books actually - just for curiosity's sake. A photo credit in my name popped up in “Fundamentals of Microfabrication and Nanotechnology.” Could the credit really be for me? There aren’t too many Lanseys out there, but that book’s title didn’t sound familiar. Eagerly I scrolled up the page and a picture of mine was revealed. It was of a bright circular rainbow called a “glory.”

I really love that photo. Seeing it in a proper book gave me the warm fuzzies. But soon the giddy feeling faded; something deep in my memory made me uneasy about the publisher, CRC Press.

You see about a decade ago, fourteen year old me had started developing an interest in Mathematics. Surfing the web one day I stumbled upon MathWorld; a vast yet engaging encyclopedia. I penciled the URL into my spiral-bound notebook and returned to visit often. I learned more Mathematics in front of those library computer screens than I learned behind classroom chalkboards.

CRC Press, you destroyed MathWorld by a court order in October of 2000 during a copyright infringement lawsuit. A few years earlier, Eric Weissten published a print version of his online encyclopedia with CRC press. Despite negotiations where Weisstein made it clear that he wanted the encyclopedia to live on as an independent website, the book deal “fine print” assigned CRC Press complete control.

Because you didn’t want to give people like me free access to Eric’s work, you ordered the website taken offline. In doing so, you killed a living masterpiece to raise the value of your taxidermied replicas. And since the books cost more money than I had yet earned mowing lawns, I was out of luck. (Until, thankfully, Wolfram Research was eventually able to rescue the encyclopedia after a year in the courts.)

How can you be such a staunch enforcer of your own copyright yet so carelessly abuse mine? Looking for answers, I biked to a nearby library and located the textbook in the stacks. I found this statement in the front matter.

The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained.

CRC Press, you should know that you aren’t the first to include my glory photo in print. Professor Jozsef Cserti once “traced” me from Hungary to ask my permission. He mailed me a hard copy of the physics journal when it was printed and it now sits on my parents’ coffee table. Prof. Cserti, had seen my photo on the Atmospheric Optics website. Below the photo is the text “© Jonathan Lansey, shown with permission”

Contacting me is simple. My homepage is clearly linked from where the photo is posted online and my homepage has a prominent ‘contact’ link in the navbar plus more contact options in the footers. “Tracing the copyright holders” is so easy now that it took all of a few minutes for me to contact the two other people whose photos you used in the figure.

Simon whose fogbow picture was also published on Atoptics replied:

No, they haven't contacted me at all, let alone offered any payment.

Paul’s corona graphics were originally published in a scientific paper and he said:

This is the first time something like this has happened to me, and I rather don't
like it! … What they did is wrong!

To learn more about how this happened, I emailed the professor who wrote the book and asked what role he played in choosing these images. He replied:

CRC was doing the sourcing for me.

It is good to have lawyer friends in these situations and I am very fortunate to know Andy Sellars. We discussed the options available for myself, Paul and Simon. He advised that there was likely a valid copyright claim here, but the legal fees would be very costly. Me and my family are all individuals while CRC - you rest in the lap of an enormous corporation with almost $2 billion in revenue. No, I am not particularly interested in sparring with you in court. I much prefer to implore you with this open letter.

Even though Paul, Simon and I put our creative works on the Internet, we still have rights and feelings. Eric Weisstein has feelings too, he lovingly nurtured his “Treasure Trove of Mathematics” before you acquired it and shut it down. Though the Internet provides unimaginable opportunity - govern your actions not by the limits of what you are capable, but by the limits of common decency.

Respect the copyrights of others on principle, even when your size seemingly protects you from litigation.

Apologize to me, to Paul and to Simon, for not asking permission to use our photos in your textbook.

But most importantly, use your power as a publisher to spread knowledge, not to restrict access to knowledge.

CRC Press, please do what is right.

-Jonathan

How to decrease bus traffic at the GWB bus terminal

I often take the Express Service "jitney" from the George Washington Bridge Bus Station to get home from work. These small buses arrive and leave the bus terminal at fairly short intervals; I haven't timed it, but I'd estimate on the order of 5 minutes between each bus. This means there tends to be a lot of buses arriving and leaving on a regular basis. This is a good thing, since it usually takes only seven minutes from the time you leave the subway till you're on the bridge (more on that another time). The problem, though, is the route the buses take. Let me walk you through it in the map below:

View Broken Bus Route in a larger map

• The blue line shows the path a bus takes leaving the GWB to discharge passengers on the upper deck of the bus terminal.
• After dropping off the passengers, it takes the green path, down a ramp from the upper deck, onto an off-ramp from the bridge. It then needs to make a left-hand turn on to Broadway, shown in yellow, sitting at one traffic light (red triangle) before making another left turn on to W179th St after sitting at another traffic light. Then, it finally makes a left into the lower level of the bus terminal.
• After picking up riders, the bus exits the station on the red path, making a left onto W178th St, and repeats the loop via Broadway, re-encountering the two traffic lights, before picking up an on-ramp to the bridge.

tl;dr: Each bus does a double loop around the block hitting two traffic lights twice.

This is highly inefficient. These two loops around the block, sitting at two traffic lights, wastes a huge amount of time and money, and adds a lot to traffic. Let's say two buses (there are jitney two lines that do this) arrive and leave every five minutes, i.e. four buses going through this loop every five minutes clogging the roads, for a total of 4 x 288 = 1152 bus trips around this loop daily.

Google Maps says this extra portion of the loop takes about 3 minutes, so it's an extra 6 minutes per bus per trip across the bridge, for 3,456 wasted bus driver hours per day. If each bus holds around 20 people, that's 34,560 passenger hours wasted each day. (I know some buses aren't totally full, but some are overfull and/or seat more people.) If everyone on the bus is earning NY's minimum wage ($7.25/hr) that amounts to over $250k in wasted money every day. Keep in mind, the total time from subway to bridge is usually 7 minutes (I've timed it as low as 4.75 minutes), so nearly half of the time is taken sitting in local street traffic; if local traffic is bad, this can actually nearly double the time (the most I've timed is over 14.5 minutes). In fact, many people pick up the bus from the side on W179th St (this is illegal) to avoid this waste of time. And, this is before estimating the cost in wasted fuel, wear and tear on the roads, added pollution, etc...

Fortunately, there is a really simple solution: Change the direction that the buses go through the lower level of the terminal. Instead of the buses going south, from W179th to W178th, they should go north from W178th to W179th:

View Fixed bus route in a larger map

• Here, again, the blue line shows the path a bus takes leaving the GWB to discharge passengers on the upper deck of the bus terminal.
• After dropping off the passengers, it takes the green path, down a ramp from the upper deck, onto an off-ramp from the bridge. Under this scheme, though, it simply needs to turn directly into the lower level of the bus terminal, completely bypassing Broadway and the two traffic lights.
• After picking up riders, the bus exits the station on the red path, making a left onto W179th St, and immediately picking up the on-ramp to the bridge, skipping the repeated loop via Broadway and the two traffic lights.

tl;dr: Each bus goes directly into station, and from station to bridge without looping around the block

That's it -- it's as simple as changing the direction of the one-way signs and moving the "Do Not Enter" signs to the other side of the building:

View Larger Map

This will reduce congestion, pollution and commute time with essentially no cost. I will be forwarding a link to this post to the Port Authority, so we'll see if something happens.

My letter to Dan Neil

In Dan Neil's most recent car review in the WSJ he was commenting on the size and weight of the 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG, and wrote:

Automotive science has almost banished the M from the A=M/F (acceleration=mass/force) equation. No car as big and heavy as the Mercedes has the right to accelerate this hard.

I sent him an email:

Dan,
I love your column (and your new appearance on The Car Show), and I'm sorry for the nitpick, but in your review of the CLS63 in today's paper you commented on automotive science almost banishing the mass term from the force equation. You had the intuition right, but the equation wrong. It should have been: A = F / M. For the same force, a more massive car accelerates slower, while a lighter car accelerates quicker.
Otherwise, thanks for keeping your reviews funny and informative.
Eli Lansey

The article on the site is corrected, with a note at the bottom:

Corrections & Amplifications
In physics, acceleration equals force divided by mass. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave the equation as acceleration=mass/force.

Yet, no response from Mr. Neil, and no attribution in the Journal. I wonder how many people wrote to him about this.

Craigslist: Teflon pot with a hole in the bottom

My roommates pot sprung a leak the other day so I'm giving it away on craigslist. See my ad here. Now this is the second time I'm posting it, it was flagged and deleted the first time - I don't know why. Below the picture I've copied the text of the post.

I have a great non-stick coated pot which you can have for free. It is unusual in that it has a tiny hole in the bottom. This posting was previously flagged and deleted, I would like to clarify that this is not a joke. I have a real pot (see photo) that I would like to give away, and it has a real hole in the bottom. It is the sort of hole you don't notice until you have spent five minutes boiling water in it wondering why your stove is making funny noises. It could be useful for cooking pasta, by the time it is cooked all the water will have strained out. If you are not interested in a pot full of liquid oozing onto your stove-top do not despair! This pot is perfectly suited for heating smooth pebbles and other ingredients too large, solid and dry to fit through the small hole. These objects are also guaranteed not to stick to the bottom (although nonstick may be scratched).

The uses for this pot are nearly endless so I'll only put a few short ones here:

• It could be possible to use this pot as a small boat for a short period of time. I don't recommend leaving anything valuable inside the boat because in about 10 minutes it is likely to fills with water and sink to the bottom of your bathtub.
• It would be perfect as a display or decorative pot, for example to hold plastic cheerios for a photo-shoot
• The tiny hole lets in some light and it would probably make a great pinhole camera, if you know what that is.
• If you don't have very many pots, this one could keep your other cookware company. I don't really recommend this though because it has become quite bitter since its debilitating accident.
• Well suited for a Johnny Appleseed costume, unlike most pot/hats, this one is slightly ventilated to keep your head cool and dry. Adding fur to the handle would turn it into a decent Davey Crocket costume.
• No mess when cooking dry ice, nitrogen and other gases.
• One could use it as a model for artists drawing still life. The pot has a fantastic aptitude for holding still, even with loud distractions or a hot fire burning under it is brass
• The pot would also make a great vegetable peeler, if you melted it down and built a vegetable peeler out of it.

Update:

The post was flagged and removed, lets see why?

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/forums/?forumID=3

Open Letter to the BU Farmer’s Market

Dear Kelly,

I have recently purchased my books for the semester from the BU Barnes and Nobles and so I have no money left. Do you know if the BU farmers market will accept an arm and/or a leg instead of cash? I heard that is the way they do business.
Thanks,
-Jonathan

As you can see in the photo, squash is $3 a pound. The same squash is $1 a pound in my local market but in a less fancy basket.

Below is the email to which I was replying, the green font was their choice because of the amount of green cash required to make use of this farmers market:

About the Farmer’s Market:
Dining Services is a proud sponsor of the weekly market featuring locally grown
fruits and vegetables, fresh baked goods, and crafts made by area artists.
Stop by every Thursday through the end of October and support your local
vendor community!

Open letter to Scott McLaughlin, PhD

Dear Professor McLaughlin,

My class in language development is using your text, Introduction to Language Development (second edition, Thomson) and I have run across something which I would like to ask you about.

On page 86, Chapter 3, the section on Physical Contact, second paragraph (last one on the page) I quote:

"Physical contact between infants and caregivers is as necessary as breathing. In the most basic sense, infants would not survive without it."

First, by what metric do you define "as necessary as," or in what measure of necessity are they equal.

Second, what references do you have to back up this claim. I could not find any myself and so I suspected you may have accidentally written the statement in language implying it were true.

Thanks very much for your help in this,

-Jonathan

When I brought this up in class the other students and professor were actually defending it. But it turns out that saying "they have done studies" when you can't name a single one, is just like saying "I made it up."

Update, Professor McLaughlin responded extremely politely with a good answer to my question. The statement was metaphorical. You may also notice that he is a talented author as this email is very well written

Hi Jonathan,

First, I want to thank your for taking the time and showing the interest to inquire about my book. I'm always gratified that someone has chosen to use my book. When I decided to write it, I never planned on getting rich (and I have not), but I was enriched by the thought that maybe my approach to the subject matter would be helpful to someone - an instructor or a student. I hope you have found it to be a "student friendly" text.

With regard to my statement about physical contact being as necessary as breathing, on one level I would say that it is metaphorical - the way someone might say, "I would just die if I couldn't watch baseball every night." On the other hand, in a more real way, there were a number of studies that occurred in the U.S. during the 40s and 50s investigating the effects of "psychosocial deprivation" in orphanages. They found that even though orphaned babies were provided with sufficient nutrition, the ratio of infants to caregivers in the institutions was so high that infants were fed regularly but rarely cuddled. As a result, they had stunted physical and neurological development - failure to thrive - even to the point that some died without any apparent physical cause.

Because mine is a "normal development" text, I didn't think to go into that kind of background information to substantiate my metaphor, but you may be correct in the suggestion that it should be substantiated and maybe even backed up with citations. At the very least, I might include a "text box" that relates the anecdotal evidence from the orphanage studies I mentioned in the next edition.

I always appreciate any suggestions or questions that serve to improve the book so thank you for taking the time and interest to pose your question. Good luck in your studies - ours is a very complex, exciting, and challenging field so continue to give it your all!

Sincerely

Scott F. McLaughlin

Open Letter to IKEA

Dear IKEA,
I understand you enjoy having a strange naming convention.  And while Barnslig is a cute name for a rattle, and Slitbar is a reasonable (although somewhat creepy) name for a knife, Barometer already means something.  You see, this

is a barometer.  So is this

and this

And these:

are also all barometers.
However, this

is called a Lamp, not a Barometer.

I expect you will update your product line name in light of this letter.
Sincerely,
A Nut.

P.S. Love your Billy bookcases

More SPLAM!

SPLAM, Definition: Innocent email in your inbox that is meant for someone else.

---

For those who don't recall, Splam is the term used to describe emails sent by real people, but to the wrong address. It is always appropriate to respond with some attempt at humor. It was first defined and described on this blog about one year ago and we have since had several sightings. Firstly Ilan, from Bits of Ink fame had a very clever response to someone back in 2007 (read it here). Next Tracy Wilkinson needed some help taking me off her mailing list last August, then Eli reported recieving some Splam in the real world!

This post is about my most recent Splam incedent. The last names have been changed in the email below, its a complex story - so pay attention to all the characters.

Jonathan,

I just got this message from Bob Builder:

Hi Bonnie,

I've heard back from Bruce Wayne a couple of time today. Bruce has his talking points ready for discussion with Jonathan Smith. Bruce says that he is now just waiting for a call back from Jonathan. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.

If you happen to talk to Jonathan, please let him know that Bruce Wayne is ready with his comments.

Have a nice weekend!

-Bob

You work so hard that I hate to urge you to call him this late on a Friday afternoon, but it would be wonderful to be able to go the board informed about thier basic position rather than uninformed.

See what you can do, please.

Thanks,

Bonnie

I did not know any of the people mentioned, but it was addressed to me, and I didn't want to call Bruce, so I thought it would be appropriate to respond:

Bonnie,

I can't take this level of stress anymore! Just because of your email I'm not going to call Bruce for another WEEK!

You should be GLAD that I'm not QUITTING because of this!

One last thing - %$#& the $%#@-ing board! They know nothing about science!

-Jonathan

PS: plz scroll all the way down before replying

And upon scrolling down - she may have noticed:

Just kidding!

You probably wanted to contact Jonathan Smith instead of me, I am an old KGI REU student.

Good luck!

-Jonathan

PS: hope you didn't get a heart attack.

To end the story - everyone lived. The response I got was:

I may have errant fingers, but nerves of steel. Thanks for letting me know (rather creatively) that my message was sent to the wrong person. Hope all is well in your life.

Bonnie

This post intentionally left blank

Dedicated blog readers might recall a comment I wrote on Yoni's "Splam" post where I mentioned someone named Elizabeth A. Lanese (?).  You see, in our old apartment we were perpetually getting splam for Ms. Lanese.  You know, credit card applications, "you may already have won a million dollars" scams, and so on.  We put up with the annoyance of continually sending back these letters, and were hopeful that when we moved we'd seen the last of this Elizabeth Lanese.
Except for the general weirdness associated with the credit check (see aforementioned comment), this was the case.  Until yesterday, that is.

We received a letter addresses to Ms. Lanese that went through the USPS's mail forwarding system.  It helpfully suggested that we "inform sender of new address."  How about, "inform USPS that Lanese is not the same as Lansey"?
In any case, I'm thinking we should list her as a dependent on our taxes this year.  We could even fill out this "card intentionally left blank" we received from our insurance provider for her.

Originally I was going to end this post here, but as I was finishing editing it I got a phone call.  From American Express.  On my home line.  Trying to reach Elizabeth Lanese.  I kid you not.  And then on my cell phone.
However, upon Googling the number they called from, it turns out this is a scam.  So, Elizabeth A. Lanese, if by chance you're reading this, don't give any important info to people pretending to be American Express unless you dial them directly.  And, also, please "inform sender of new address."

Chronic Splam from Tracy Wilkinson

I have a number of emails from this lady because she thinks I'm Lynne Fung, as I have preveously mentioned on the blog about Splam, or unintended e-mails. I thought it was over (there are only 14 adresses on the whole list) but in response to yet another email I hit-reply all with the following email:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Lansey
Date: August 22, 2008
Subject: Fwd: please help JFS with this!

Hello All of Mrs. Wilkinson's Friends!
In celebration of nearly a year on this wonderful mailing list unintentionally masquerading as Lynne Fung, I would like to make public my historical correspondence with the organizational mastermind that is the great Tracy Wilkinson!

The first email I got way back in Dec 2007
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tracy Wilkinson <___>
Date: Dec 7, 2007 8:33 PM
Subject: Holiday Gift for Mrs. Hellarud

I ignored it with the hope that it would go away. After two more emails:
(Gift for Mrs. Hellerud and Play Date and a gift for Mrs. Hellerud) I politely responded. Please read my message below.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Lansey <___>
Date: Dec 16, 2007 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: A Gift for Mrs. Hellerud

Dear Tracy,

That sounds really great, a gift for Mrs. Hellerud and her husband- but there is only one problem- I don't know Mrs. Hellerud and I don't know her husband.

Who are they? and how, perhaps through some wierd twist of fate, how have I come to be on the short mailing list for their gifts?

I hope to hear from you soon,

Happy Holidays,

-Jonathan
PS: Parenthood is quite a few years away, I am 22 years old at the moment

She responded quite quickly the next day:


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tracy Wilkinson <___>
Date: Dec 17, 2007 2:25 AM
Subject: RE: A Gift for Mrs. Hellerud
To: Jonathan Lansey <___>

Oh how funny. I have you on my list as Lynne. I guess this the list is wrong! LOL
So sorry. I will remove you. Yes all these pleasures you have to come!! ;)

Ah yes, "how funny" Laughing Out Loud over this strange confusion! jlansey is just too close to jlausejo to tell the difference, ha ha. Alas, I thought the list was fixed and all the pleasures of annoying emails would be put on hold until I procure some children ;)

But the emails did not stop, I recieved yet another email last Febuary

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tracy Wilkinson <___>
Date: Feb 3, 2008 10:07 PM
Subject: Still need a docent
To: ___ . . . . .

Tracy still needs a docent for the Art Attack Program- an issue that "directly pertains to the class" which means that its relevance to my life is . . . . not very great. Amazed at my re-appearence on the list (almost had an Art Attack) I kindly requested to be taken off again.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lansey <___>
Date: Feb 4, 2008 3:20 AM
To: ___

hey, it would be cool if __@gmail.com could actually be taken off the list,
thanks!
-Jonathan

I recieved no response to this email, and assumed the matter finished . . . until the end of May when I found yet another one floating in my inbox about "Kinder Teacehr Time"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tracy Wilkinson <___@sbcglobal.net>
Date: May 21, 2008 8:25 PM
Subject: Kinder teacehr Time
To: ___ . . . .

Hello all,
Are any of you interested in the following Teacher Time? There is one space left for Mrs. Hellerud. This minimum bid for each teacher time is $25.00. Please let me know ASAP so we can let the teachers know who to expect on the outing. Also let me know if you know any parents from the other classes.

Teacher Time – Day at the Park Value Priceless

Join Mrs. Beier, Mrs. Hellerud, Mrs. Acosta and Mr. Althof for a fun filled day at Fowler Creek Park! We'll play parachute games, blow bubbles and enjoy the park's playground. We will supply a yummy afternoon snack. Only two lucky JFS students per class may attend. Parents will drive their children to and from Fowler Creek Park.

Date: Wednesday May 28^th from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

I thought Tracy might not have had the motivation to take me off the list- and so I hit the notorious "Reply to all" button and requested help from the public:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Lansey <___>

Dear All,

I would like everyone to please help me encourage Tracy W. to take my email address off of this mailing list. Last February I kindly requested that this be done (see the forward of my very polite message bellow), but apparently I am still on the list. Not that I am uninterested in blowing bubbles, parachuting into Fowler Creek Park's playground and Yummy afternoon snacks- rather I would much prefer to partake in these activities with people of my own age group and preferably with people in my own time zone.

I will give a very yummy treat to the first person to approach Mrs. Wilkinson about this.

Thanks for you help!

-Jonathan

She replied once more

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tracy Wilkinson <___@sbcglobal.net>

Gosh darn it not again! I thought this got fixed already. So sorry.


Yes, I thought you had it fixed too . . . in fact I even believed you might finally take me off for real this time. But no, this email to which I am replying, is dated August 21 2008, I am even a year older now, moving on to graduate school but somehow I am still on your kindergarden's mailing list. I do not fundraise for my tuition, ask you for christmas presents or invite you to my friends events on the east coast. Please I ask of you to do whatever it takes to take me off your mailing list. One suggestion, since there are only 14 names on the list, just take a look at the list before sending your next email to make sure I'm not on there.

All the best!
-Jonathan

Further Letters from a Nut

After not hearing from 1010WINS in response to my first letter to them, I sent them another:

Dear 1010WINS,
I am disappointed that I have not heard back from you in response to my letter sent July 3, 2008. Since then I have continued to listen to your broadcast on my morning commute, and my complaints mentioned in that previous letter (dated July 3, 2008) are still unresolved. Furthermore, I have since poked around your webpage and discovered the 1010WINS history page: <http://www.1010wins.com/pages/4623.php?>. In the list of questions and answers, Phyllis Ross, of W. B. Doner in Baltimore asks if you "will you tape your newscasts and repeat them? Will you re-read the same copy at short intervals?" The answer on that page is an unequivocal "Neither."
Yet, your daily broadcast is in direct contradiction to that claim. Regularly entire segments are repeated, often the news is identical every half hour, and usually the order of segments is not even changed! Furthermore, I've begun to suspect that you replay traffic reports too! I've called in traffic tips quite a few times already (unusually heavy traffic, accidents, lane closures), and have yet to hear these reports updated in the traffic reports! Maybe I did not wait long enough, and the reports only trickle through to the traffic reporter after 30 minutes or perhaps 24 hours? I often remain stuck in unreported traffic; What is the typical turnaround time from tip to report?
Still awaiting the world,
[fake name]
[fake name]@gmail.com
(609) 208-7511
P.S. A bigger message box would be appreciated!

This time I got not only a phone response, but also an email:

Dear [name]:

Thanks for being a loyal long-time listener of 1010 WINS. We appreciate it! As to you questions about the format and traffic....

As a 24 hour news station we try to freshen our copy and content as frequently as the news of the world allows. Some stories are repeated because of the tremendous turnover in our audience (something perhaps not anticipated by the answer that was given on our website 43 years ago) . We have 2.5 million people who tune to WINS every week. They do not all listen at the same time. They come and go throughout the day. If we did not repeat some of the stories, they would never have the chance to hear them.

As to the point about traffic. The reporters are live 24 hours a day. We never tape the traffic reports for later playback. But just like the news, the big traffic stories get repeated because of our enormous listener turnover. Information phoned into the traffic center must be verified before put on the air. This can take some time and could lead to the delays you are pointing out. We do strive to turn that information around as quickly as possible.

We provide a public service to our listeners. We have zero incentive to diminish the product.

I hope this answers you questions.

All the best--
Ben Mevorach, News Director
1010 WINS

The response was colored blue, except for the 'D' in 'Dear.' So I replied (note the blue 'D' in 'Dear' in my response):

Dear News D. Ben-Mevorach,
First of all - what an interesting name! I have never met, or corresponded with anyone with the first name News and middle name Director. Is is an ethnic name? Also, most dual last names I have encountered usually include a hyphen, in the form Ben-Mevorach, so I assume you accidentally left out the hyphen in your email signature.
In any case, thank you so much for your phone call and email response to my most recent message (July 16, 2008). I appreciate you clarifying my confusion regarding traffic updates and repeating news stories. Perhaps you should update the 1010WINS webpage with a new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page reflecting the current reality.
Furthermore, I am not sure if you are the person who receives all of 1010WINS internet email, but in case you are not, I'm including my original letter (from July 3, 2008) in hope of a response.

Sincerely yours,
[fake name]

I then pasted my original letter to them. Alas, no response back from this followup email. So I've switched to NPR.

Letters from a Nut

There's a great book called Letters from a Nut where a guy writes these fairly amusing letters to various places. In any case, I've been listening to 1010WINS on my commute and found certain things annoying about their broadcast, so I sent them my very own Letter from a Nut:

Dear 1010WINS,
I am very confused. Your channel announcer claims that 1010WINS is "All News, All the Time," and the logo on your website supports this statement. Yet, often the announcer states that 1010WINS has "News, Weather, Traffic, and More!" These are clearly contradictory claims! From listening to your broadcasts on my drive to and from work, I've determined that the latter statement is true, with "More" clearly referring to "Commercials." Then why do you persist in claiming "All News, All the Time" - you should really change your logo and sound bite to say "Some News, Every Now and Then," or perhaps "Almost all Commercials, Almost all of the Time." I would even accept, “Day old news, repeated verbatim every thirty minutes, interspersed with traffic reports and commercials all of the time.” But this is not the major reason for emailing you.
You see, I have a complaint regarding the oft-repeated claim "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world." Since you have a news cycle that repeats every 10 minutes (“Traffic and Weather on the Tens”), as well as every 30 minutes (“Sports news at 15 and 45 past the hour”), I figure that although it feels like your broadcast is mostly commercials, there must be only 8 minutes of ads for every 30 minutes of broadcast, or else the 22 minutes claim is completely nonsensical. In that case, since there’s no way to fast-forward through the commercials, I feel you should change your slogan to “You give us (and our advertisers) half an hour, we’ll give you the world.” But that is still not the main complaint.
My main complaint is that I’ve given you 22 minutes (actually, 30 minutes). In fact, I’ve given you my whole hour-and-a-half commute (that’s over 4 times 22 minutes, or 3 times 30 minutes), each way, for a few weeks and you have yet to give me the World. I was expecting a package in the mail or something, declaring me Owner and Supreme Ruler of The World, but I’ve received nothing. You didn’t even email me a tracking number! But then, I thought, you might not have my email address. So I figured I’d contact you so you’d know where to send it, so now you have it: ~~~~@gmail.com Eagerly awaiting the world, ~~~~~ ~~~~~~

I'll be sure to post any response I get.

What Wrong With This Picture

In the Sunday comics there is comic called Slylock Fox, in it there is Slylock Fox a Sherlock Holms wannabe. Every week there is some mystery that he has to find the solution to, and he can do this based upon something in the comic frame. You are supposed to guess what the solution to the mystery is. They tend to be very stupid with even stupider solutions. This week’s comic was utterly stupid because the solution was correct but in my mind there is an even bigger flaw.

Because it’s hard to flip your monitor upside down

Have you seen it yet, that’s right the picture of the nastily guy on the moon has stars. Now if you are on the moon with shadows being cast, you must be on the day side and if you are on the day side taking pictures for daylight exposure stars won’t show up. Stupid cartoonist we must all spam him with complaints about this massive inaccuracy, or he can admit that he took the picture on a sound stage with stars glued to the ceiling and then photoshoped the nasty guy into that.

Lab Final & Library Fire

Today I give the final for the intro to physics lab course that I'm teaching. A few weeks ago I warned the students that the final will be on the difficult side. One student was mildly frightened. At the end of his last lab report he added this text (bolding and emphasis not added):

When making the final, please remember that this is INTRO to physics, and not for physics majors. Think about how easy intro to biology, and the other intro/NON Major classes are… and try to apply that to our class when grading and creating an exam.

I decided to ignore that. But then on Wednesday morning I got this email:

Dear Professor,
I do not know if you are aware, but there was a fire early last night in the library- significantly hindering mine, as well as many other physics lab students ability to study.... please take this into account when counting / grading the final.
Also, I do not know if you are aware, but radioactivity was not covered in lecture at all; buoyancy, sounds, and fluids were all topics from last semester.
One final thing, please please please remember that this is a 1 credit non major intro class...
Thanks a lot,
See you at the final,
[Student's Name]

A fire in the library! WHOA! That's serious business (although a lame excuse). I called the library to verify that there was, in fact, a fire. The librarian was like, "Fire? In the library?! Not that I know of." Now, that tells you something about the seriousness of the fire. But I wanted to be sure, so I called YU security. Sure enough, some modem short circuited and started smoking. The library was evacuated for a few hours.
I know, I know, this is a truly devastating thing. I'm sure it affected many students, as, after all, the library is the only place one can study! I mean, the lounges on each dorm floor, the SkyCaf, the various batei medrash - those really are not good, quiet places to sit and study. So I figured this required a response:

Dear [Student's Name],
If the few hours the library was out of service has truly affected your mental state for the upcoming exam, I feel that you might want to contact YU's counseling services: http://www.yu.edu/counseling/ If there is an issue, I'll be more than glad to accommodate.
I am aware that radioactivity was not covered in lecture. However, as your grade on that lab (~[grade]%) was above the average grade for the rest of your labs (~[grade]%), I can only assume that you have a strong handle on the material we covered in that lab.
Regarding your last comment (which is similar to the one you appended to your last lab report), I am, in fact, aware that the course is a 1 credit course for non-physics majors.
However, the one credit hour that this will count towards your GPA is weighted the same as one credit hour for the "for majors" lab and the same as one credit hour of any of your other classes. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the credits assigned to a class do not determine the difficultly of the class or the thoroughness of an exam, but rather the length of time spent in lecture/lab.
Additionally, as the course is an intro course, and the labs were intro labs, the final is an intro final, and I believe it will yield an accurate measure of how much you've learned through the semester. However, I see no reason that an intro course final should be more or less difficult that an advanced course final - the only difference is the level of material covered.
I hope this has clarified any issues you were having regarding the final. See you tomorrow.
Eli.

This should be fun.

Letter to Santa Claus

Apparently the Royal Mail knows where Santa lives, ReindeerLand post-code SAN TA1.
See below the letter I wrote to his Saintly-ness


These are the pictures I put in the envelope with it.


Hey, if he can advertise Coke, why not Uncle Bens?
Next week I'll post if he replied.

Lets Complain

On March 20th 2006 the Family Circus comic strip published this comic.

Now this is an outrage against anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of science. The plants don't absorb the green light; they absorb the red and blue light and reflect the green light. For this we must complain to the writers of the Family Circus strip Jeff and Bill Keane, their email is 2familycircus@cox.net. We should also complain to all the newspapers that publish this horrible comic, not only do they make up science facts they also dress like they are in the 1940.