Intriguing Tidbits

Why moths fly around lights

Nocturnal moths navigate at night by keeping a fixed bearing on the brightest light in the sky. That light usually used to be the moon, which is far enough away that they would in an effectively straight line if they kept that bright light in a constant position. Unfortunately for moths, the results are quite different with artificial illumination, which is usually brighter and much, much nearer. The strategy of keeping such a light in a constant position leads to tight circles (unfortunately for the moth).

Update 2024-02-09: A recent entomology study suggests that moths treat artificial lights as the night sky in general, rather than just the moon in particular: ‘Moths to a flame’: Insect behavior around light isn’t about attraction, scientists say | CNN. I'm not convinced but also lack expertise, so am not convinced they're wrong, either. In either case, though, the explanations suggest that moths circling lights is because of mistaking the light for a distant orientation cue undermining their frame of reference so what would be straight lines become tight circles.

Bicyle riding balance is not due to gyroscopic forces

Instead, we make (mostly) small, unconscious steering adjustments to arrange for the wheels to be under our center of gravity.

Like many, I used to assume it was gyroscopic forces, but on a bicycle at typical (even high) speeds the weight of the wheels is insufficient to account for keeping the bike upright. (Gyroscopic forces are a factor in steering dynamics, however.)

Reflexive steering corrections in response to imbalance does two significant things:

• it shifts where the bike is relative to your center of mass
• and it causes push-back torque from centripetal force.

Feel for these steering adjustments is what we learn when becoming acquainted with riding a bike, and the counter-intuitive nature is why it initially is so beguiling. As we become acquainted with the new dynamics our reflexes do what they do well and calibrate, and the skill becomes automatic.

See Gyroscopic Effects Have Almost Nothing To Do With Your Ability to Ride a Bike and the WIkiPedia Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics Balance section and a brief sidebar on The Bicycle Wheel.

What if it's unlucky to be superstitious?

Superstition is attribution of cause without sufficient reason. Real life inevitably includes uncertainty, and sometimes we need provisional conclusions. The challenge is to avoid fooling yourself that such conclusions are settled.

Even skepticism, as a pervasive strategy, can be misleading. There are, in fact, true facts that cannot be proven - that such facts exist can be proven. Assuming that only those things which can be proven are true is therefore a mistake. That's why it's all the more important to learn to recognize the degree that a conclusion is provisional, yet continue to honor it in light of that provisionality. Recognizing when uncertainty must be accepted, and operating with vitality in the face of it, is useful.

If you accept that natural is anything that developed in nature, and that humans are natural, then human contrivance is just a layer of nature on nature, natural is everything that exists, and supernatural is everything that doesn't exist. The trick to understanding that there inevitably is stuff that exists that we don't understand. I see superstition as unwarranted conclusions, and the best antidote I've found to falling into superstition is to use it against itself: I consider it unlucky to be superstitious.

This doesn't keep me from knocking on wood when I feel the situation warrants, but I see utility in that, a kind of self-communication in which I am annunciating recognition of a risk avoided or something like that. There may be siimilar utility in similar actions. What I want to avoid is fooling myself by replacing uncertainty with unwarranted certainty.

In general, excesses in both mysticism and skepticism are driven by the same motive: dismissing uncertainty when uncertainty is warranted. See the Skepticism and Mysticism section of my Real Faith page for more.

Everything involves a combination of usefulness and uselessness

We identify stuff that has a lot more useful than useless as good, and identify stuff that has a lot more useless than useful as bad. But it's important to recognize that there's always some of the other, or when we get rid of something that's mostly useless we fail to provide for useful parts that we're also cutting away.

I have found this way of looking at things helps me to avoid misleading myself with premature conclusions. I believe there are at least two reasons for that:

• First, it enables me to have a clear perspective when my understanding is aproximate, which is almost always the case. The perspective I arrive at can be properly qualified.
• Second, it reminds me that my perspective is always from a particular vantage point. What's useful to me might be useless to someone else, or to me in a different context. "Useful" and "useless" are according to your purpose.

Toilet flushing clears some air

Did you know that the toilet doesn't only drain water when you flush, it also gulps some air? So, flushing soon after you dump will take some of the fumes along with the waste, significantly reducing the bathroom smell.

I haven't researched this - and haven't quite figured how to ask Google - but i believe this is by deliberate design, a feature deliberately implemented and continued. (I don't know whether the new breed of low-waste toilets also do this, however.)

In any case, this is the kind of fact that appeals greatly to my geeky design/developer sensibilities; obsessive, even, dare i say, anal retentive? (-%)

Maybe this is commonly known, but unspoken? Some kind of taboo? I've only heard it mentioned once or twice - and haven't had few occasions to mention it myself (though, yes, I have done).

While i'm in this realm, i have to take a stand and point out that there are clear advantages to having the toilet paper roll mounted on the wall so it unwinds with the paper going forwards over the top. This puts the dangling lead in the front of the roll, much easier to grab, pull, and tear. There's no controversy here, unroll-forward-over-the-top is the only right way.

(Clearly, i've lived on my own for too long.)

Sense of humor

It's called "sense of humor", not "being funny", because it's about noticing funny rather than making funny. Discovery rather than imposition.

Realizing this I find it easier to retain my sense of humor and enjoy stuff more, even under duress.

Maybe evolution is "just a theory", but so is gravity

Ever been dismayed by claims that evolution is just a theory, and thus an article of faith on par with creationism? I find it helpful to point out that it's a theory more on par with gravity. Both models agree invariably with observed phenomena. Creationism, on the other hand, is often based on treating all evidence as contrived by some divine agency to, for some absurd reason, mislead.

Gravity can be explained as god's will that things stay put, for instance. While this may serve some kind of dogmatic agenda, it skips over all sorts of useful and enlightening details of gravity's scientific model, unless the dogma is refined to incorporate the science. (Newton's law in the bible?) Creationism in the stead of evolution forfeits useful understandings.

Even more harmful is the dismissal of scientific inference as "mere conjecture". All understanding is inference. All the way back to perception - anything we perceive is inferred from seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, feeling, derived from models that we've developed in organizing the input from our sensory systems. Often they're reliable inferences, due to the tuning filters of consistency and persistence by which we hone them.

I can see "spiritual faith" as a kind of model that isn't all that different. It's a kind of inference, but what's being inferred is codes of behavior, befitting (or unbefitting, depending on your persuasion) individual and societal ethical constitution. Difficulties arise when the domain of discourse is transferred, from the societal realm - "I partake of this social dogma, with the benefit of mutual caring and support" - to the scientific realm - "I must uphold this dogma, literally, despite apparent contradictions with observed phenomena". Religious tenets are useful, at least at some points, as metaphoric agreements, fostering social fabric, but can achieve the reverse when applied literally.

Incremental often makes learning easier

Insisting on doing big things right the first time often is recipe for not doing it at all, or seeing through only those things you can already do well. It makes learning harder

When learning something new and big, do a few to throw away, if practical. What better way to get acquainted with the domain, and get a feel for the shape your ideas actually take on when they descend from the ether and actually hit the ground?

People usually have more going on inside than than i expect

No kidding. I believe I'm not completely naive, but have discovered that I'm more naive than I expect, Even taking this insight into account. I am still surprised when I get a look behind the curtain, discover what people are really thinking. Sometimes even when it's my own curtain...

Forwarding chain letters without the threat earns even better cosmic rewards

... which are redeemable in any faith, not just that of the original threat. And, bonus, it doesn't matter how few copies you forward, or to whom.

(Thanks to Christine Cole for her brave example pointing the way, and the spiritual law firm, Para, Dox, and Whimsy, for their diligence in verifying this metaphysical loophole...)

Resentment and self pity are debilitating

Resentment and pity are actually anger masquerading as something else, and the masquerade makes them debilitating.

Resentment is anger seeming directed toward someone else. It's actually anger with oneself for not taking a stand against a perceived offense coming from the target of the resentment. That doesn't mean you should take that stand, but you would be best served by admitting to yourself the anger about the offense so you can come to terms about what it's worth to you to take that stand.

Similarly, pity is often anger about perceived weakness over which you feel you have no recourse. It is distinctly different than empathy in that it includes disdain – contempt for that perceived weakness. It is particularly pernicious in the form of self-pity, in which you have anger and contempt for perceived weakness in yourself, and being unwilling to act on or even acknowledge it you compound your sense of powerlessness. Again, being clear about the actual feeling brings focus on your actual concerns and the costs and benefits of measures to address them.

One symptom of the misdirected anger inherent in resentment and pity is that acting on those impulses does not alleviate the feelings.

See Resentment And Self Pity for more.

A Zen monk walks up to a hotdog vendor and says "make me one with everything."

Ha ha! But there's more...

The monk gets the hot dog and pays with a ten. After several moments waiting, he says to the vendor, "I was expecting change.", to which the vendor replies, "Silly monk, you of all people should know, change comes from within."