All things are born, live a little while, and eventually die.  Countless of these cycles pass us with indifference, but a precious few draw our attention.  For my family, one ended today: Cotton, our 16-year-old maltipoo, died peacefully this morning.

We were lucky to enjoy her cheerful demeanor in our house since the mid 1990s.  She will be missed.

(Note: This is almost certain to come across as vain seeing as how I play goalie.  Know that it was written with lighthearted intent 🙂 )

Some people are more attractive than others.  I know, big surprise: like wealth, beauty is a relative measure.  The great news?  On sports teams, goalies are the lookers!

Yes, there is a correlation between positions played in sports and the attractiveness of the players.  A well-written 2007 study (“Does the Face Reveal Athletic Flair? Positions in Team Sports and Facial Attractiveness” by Park, Buunk, and Wieling) took up this issue.

In the study, the researchers had women rate the attractiveness of faces of male soccer and ice hockey players.  The hypothesis was that certain positions in team sports depend more on heritable traits than others, and those preferential traits would manifest as improved attractiveness.

The study authors showed female students at the University of Groningen photos of faces of professional soccer and ice hockey players, which were selected to provide samples from the various positions in those sports (i.e., goalies/goalkeepers, defensemen/defenders, midfielders, and forwards/strikers).

The results were clear: of the soccer players, the goalkeepers and strikers were rated as significantly more attractive than the midfielders and defenders.  Similarly, of the hockey players, the goalies were rated as significantly more attractive than the forwards, who in turn were rated as significantly more attractive than the defensemen.

The authors went on to hypothesize that physical and psychological demands placed on goalies/goalkeepers and forwards/strikers depend on traits that are associated with heritable fitness.  However, they were unable to establish a causal relationship: are good-looking people pushed into more prestigious positions, or is it the natural talent that drives them there?

As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational, objective beings, emotion and subjectivity still drive many of our choices.  It’s hardly surprising that we should base some of our decisions on looks given the ubiquity of such behavior in non-human species.  If lions, peacocks, and banana slugs all use looks as proxies for virility and athletic prowess, why not humans?  If certain positions on sporting teams require more of those traits, it seems intuitive that selection should occur based on them.

Reference:

Justin Park, Bram Buunk and Martijn Wieling (2007). Does the face reveal athletic flair? Positions in team sports and facial attractiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 1960 – 1965.

Looks like the competition is getting even more fierce at the country’s elite universities.  In a follow-up to an old post about the admission rate, I took a new look at the undergraduate numbers:

As you can see, these three schools have become increasingly selective over the past ten years.  What’s driving this?  Well, it isn’t a change in the number of admittance offers:

Instead, the trend can be seen in a stark rise in the number of applications:

Why the increase?  I’m not sure.  It’s well known that graduate school applications track the unemployment rate, but I’m not sure about undergraduate applications.  One possible explanation is that while the population continues to grow, the number of slots available at the super-selective universities remains relatively constant.  Another is that self-selection might not be as strong an influence, i.e., that less-qualified students are giving it a shot.

(I would also like to note that acceptance rates have been declining for universities in general, not just the so-called elites.)

Where will it end?  Will the crushing cost of a year of university education finally halt the rise? (Unlikely, given the generous financial aid packages these well-endowed schools are offering “low” income students.)  Will fewer students bother applying once they see the bleak odds of gaining admittance?  Will students decide to apply to fewer universities, thereby decreasing the total number of applications and increasing the university yield rates?  Time will tell.

(Data collected from press releases from the individual schools)

I have a weakness for baked goods.  Muffins, scones, breads… mmm.  It would be really nice to be able to enjoy a warm muffin after hiking through the woods.

Unfortunately, the minimalist backpacking style of which I am so fond is in opposition to such luxury.  My skin-out dry weight is less than 20 pounds, so throwing in a 15-pound Dutch oven is a non-starter.  Sure, there are gizmos like the Outback Oven that are designed to convert stoves into ovens, but they’re not compatible with my backpacking stove, expensive, bulky, and heavy.  The Bakepacker looks promising, but it seems expensive, and I’m not fond of the idea of heating foods in Ziploc-type plastic bags.  What to do?

The solution: steam baking.  I ran across the instructions and had to give it a try.

There are just a few simple steps.  Get two small (about 1″ tall) pieces of aluminum foil, put a small slit in each of them, and put them together to form an “X”.  Place the X in the bottom of a small pot (I used an 850 ml MSR titanium kettle).  Pour water into the pot until the X is nearly covered.  Place a foil muffin cup on top of the X.

Fill the muffin cup about 2/3 full with your favorite “just-add-water” mix (to which you should have added the usual amount of water).  Put the lid on the pot, put the pot on a stove, and fire up the stove.  Let the water boil about 5 minutes, then turn the heat off and let eveything sit for at least another 10 minutes.  After that, open and enjoy!

I tested this on my backpacking trip at Big Basin Redwoods State Park last Friday night.  The blueberry muffin tasted fantastic after a long day on the trail, and there was no mess.  True, the muffin wasn’t as brown as it would have been in a conventional oven, but it was warm and fluffy.

Delicious.

I was reading yet another article about the going-out-of-business sales at Circuit City stores.  Even though they’ve been trying to clear out the merchandise for several weeks — heavily discounted, no less — there’s still a bunch of junk sitting around.

Sure, it’s difficult to predict what will sell and what won’t.  It can be even harder to find the appropriate price.  Regardless, Circuit City seems to have done a rather poor job on both accounts.  Might the fact that the stores carried large amounts of undesirable merchandise have had something to do with the failure of the chain?  Might the fact that the stuff is still around indicate that even the lowered asking prices are still far too high?

It’s not just Circuit City.  The same phenomenon can be seen in after-holiday clearances.   Bags upon bags of disgusting Halloween candy, 50% off.  Hideously tacky Christmas tree ornaments.  Revolting Easter-themed sweatshirts, invariably in size XXXL.  I can’t fathom what must have been running through the store buyers’ heads.  Were they stoned?  Stuck in the 1980s?  Doing a favor for a mob boss?

The mind boggles.