best, How likely are you to… we humans seem to like being assessed and seeing where we fit in, but perhaps that’s for another article. What I’m really getting at is: where did this really start? The first official personality inventory: Woodworth’s Personal Data Sheet.

World War One soldiers taking aptitude test, 1918.

I’m sure that people were trying to put other people into categories long before that, but there wasn’t any official, standardized personality inventory until 1917, when Robert Woodworth, a psychologist, was called to create a test to screen out potential military recruits who might be susceptible to “shell shock” (a then misunderstood issue now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Woodworth collected data from known shell shocked soldiers, and created 116 yes-no questions that, in theory, would indicate a personality susceptible to shell shock and “neurosis” (essentially, answers that matched those of shell shock soldiers).

In today’s light, the test really doesn’t hold a lot of water. It’s very subjective, and assumes a high amount of face validity (truthfulness) in responses – many tests nowadays have “liar detectors” built in to indicate whether or not the person taking the test is just BSing the whole thing, or even trying for a particular outcome. The test, while containing a wide variety of questions, also had many culturally specific questions, or simply questions that testees might not know how to answer: “Do you often consume a fifth of liquor in a day?” Many might not consider how much a fifth of liquor is to be common knowledge (it is 128oz, or 1/5th of a gallon). Questions involved inquiries into general health, feelings, childhood, bed-wetting, lovemaking, fears… most of them sound silly and irrelevant by today’s standards.

Since World War I ended in 1918, the test was only given a limited run. For the short time it was used on recruits, results did seem favorable to weeding out recruits who matched their shell shocked counterparts – though it is not incredibly likely this would have eliminated or even taken a large chunk out of the shell shocked potential population (PTSD is not necessarily linked to any definite personality type, but is a combination of reactions to stress and stress management capabilities). The test was reworked from time to time over the years, and led to the development of tests for other unwanted personality qualities.

Since that initial conception, personality inventory development has flourished, and there are quite a number of pretty accurate tests out there. If you’re interested, check out the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the Keirsey Temperament Sorter.

SOURCES

1. http://www.poeticgenius.com/apotheosis_sept_oct_2001/psychometry09.htm
2. http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Woodworth/murchison.htm
3. http://www.believermag.com/issues/200408/?read=article_paul

1. MMPI: http://psychcorp.pearsonassessments.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=MMPI-2&Mode=summary
2. Meyers-Briggs: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
3. Keirsey: http://www.keirsey.com/

My original curiosity to this subject belongs to Tycho Brahe (the 16th century Danish astronomer, not the alter-ego of Jerry Holkins of the webcomic Penny Arcade), whose cause death, upon further investigation, is not a sure thing. Brahe’s best-known expiration is from a strained bladder, due to his want to maintain etiquette rules during a banquet – leaving the table early would have been rude. Although it is likely he died of uremia (a failing of the kidneys), consistent with early considerations of an overstressed bladder, blockage by kidney stones, etc., investigations in the 20th century have shown Brahe had high levels of mercury in his system that could cause poisoning. Some cry assassination, but Brahe’s frequent chemistry experimentation and possible self-treatments using mercury seem a more likely cause.

A more recent bladder-related death occurred as recently as 2007. Thanks to the punnability of the name of the Nintendo Wii, a radio station offered a contest, “Hold Your Wee for a Wii”, which caused the death of Jennifer Strange due to water intoxication. Water intoxication is a severe imbalance of water and electrolytes in the body. Strange was not even the “winner” of the competition (what happened to the winner isn’t further mentioned), and while her family was awarded damages, and many employees of the radio station terminated, it’s still a tragic story.

Curious deaths range from unfortunate impalings, indigestion, freak accidents, multitudes of suicides, and a variety of cardiac arrests due to excessive laughter. For the sake of not bringing myself or you, dear reader, into a deep depression, I’ve decided to stop here with details, and point further investigation to my source links.

To end on a more encouraging note, not all deaths need be untimely, unusual, or sudden. The longest-lived human on record is Jeanne Louise Calment, who died at the age of one-hundred and twenty-two (122) in 1997. Had she been born but a few years later, she could have spanned two centuries and entered a new millennium, but I suppose Oldest Person Ever is admirable enough to start quibbling over such details.

If this was too depressing a post, I’m going to place the blame squarely on the advent of Finals Week. Dark times cometh.

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths
2. http://www.ips-planetarium.org/planetarian/articles/howTychoDied.html
3. http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/death.html
4. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16614865/
5. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5460584-504083.html
6. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/books/odense/6/09.htm
7. http://www.wowzone.com/calment.htm

In honor of this great day, I bring to you some fun tidbits about Star Wars.

Now, despite the awesomeness of how this date works, some still dispute if it should be the official Day. Star Wars: A New Hope was originally released on May 25th, 1977, and maintain that it should Star Wars Day. I personally think May the Fourth Be With You is just too good to pass up. And May 25th does honor Star Wars in its own way, as Geek Pride Day.

I’ll start with my favorite bit, something that some of you may have come across in the nearly thirty-three years since A New Hope was released, but it still makes me giggle. In this clip, watch the Stormtrooper on the far right as he walks in the room.

Quick thinking to save the scene, you can hear  one of the other Stormtroopers say ‘See to him.” The sound effect of his helmet cracking the door was reportedly added, though I can’t verify it, and supposedly the man in the suit says he remembers the sound. Adding, or at least upping the audibility of the crack seems more likely though, as Jango Fett (the clone-source for Stormtroopers) conks his head during Revenge of the Sith ^[3,4]. At least we know Lucasfilm has a bit of a sense of humor.

We all know that Darth Vader was just too much of a villain for one actor; best known as voiced by James Earl Jones, given a face by Sebastian Shaw (and unfortunately Hayden Christensen if I’m going to be fair and list them all), stunt doubled (and did the fight scenes) by Bob Anderson, and embodied by David Prowse. What’s most interesting about this is that David Prowse didn’t know he wouldn’t be the voice of Darth Vader until the theatrical release of A New Hope ^[2]. George Lucas decided later that a Scottish accent didn’t fit well with the Dark Lord of the Sith, and hired Jones. For the later movies, Prowse felt much more at ease reading his lines, knowing his delivery didn’t need to be perfect.

By my count, there are 449 Star Wars novels ^[5] with seven to be released over the next year or so. Only 107 are specifically listed ‘young adult’. This count does not include the numerous reference and encyclopedic books. The scope of these novels spans 25,000 years before A New Hope to more than forty years after (given their own reference as ‘BBY’ (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ‘ABY’ (After the Battle of Yavin).

I myself own… twenty-six Star Wars novels and a variety of reference sources. Included among my collection is the first Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster. It was written in 1978 ^[6], after A New Hope but before Empire Strikes Back. This leads to some awkward moments between Luke and Leia, who work as a romantic couple through the book (the author and characters didn’t know any better, but we know better!).

So now that I have unfurled my nerd flag, I can only hope it was worth your entertainment. May the Force be with you, always. Live long and prosper.

Yes. Yes I did go there.

sources:

1. http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/628586
2. http://www.darthvader-starwars.com/film-and-tv-2.htm
3. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Blooper
4. http://web.archive.org/web/20080504221426/www.starwars.com/site/homingbeacon/61.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_books
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinter_of_the_Mind’27s_Eye

That’s right, guard donkeys! Easier to maintain than a dog, 24-hour protection, and so much more eco-friendly than traps and poison. Donkeys have long been used by farmers to protect their herds of sheep, cattle, goats, whatever is tempting to local predators. Donkeys are naturally aggressive toward intruders, canines specifically, and will “protect” the herd they’re hanging out with. They don’t intentionally guard and patrol like a herding dog would, but bond with their herd brethren, and chase off potential threats. Male donkeys (jacks) make poorer guards since they can be too aggressive, so females (jennies) are preferred.

Donkeys also work best in their herd as the only donkey, otherwise you get a lot of “hanging out” and donkey-herd mentality going on, and not nearly enough ass-kicking-coyote.

sources:

• http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/080807dntexdonkeys.eb56ed0.html
• http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex9396
• http://www.donkeys.com/donkeyinfo.html

The traditional speed dating set-up has the women seated, while the men moved from woman to woman. This might seem like an arbitrary choice, but it probably had to do with women taking slightly longer to move between each man (gathering up their purse or belongings). What’s interesting is that this position can actually have an effect on interaction – a common impression is that women are pickier than men, but observation of speed daters noted that it was the seated person that was more selective, regardless of gender. The act of approaching or being approached has a psychological effect that either makes one feel like they’re going after someone desirable (why else would we be “pursuing” him/her?), or are desirable because someone is approaching them.

Also, should you go speed dating, keep in mind the most common lie (fib) of each gender: women lie about their weight, men lie about their height.

sources:

• http://www.speeddating.com/history.php
• http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/03/the-road-to-romance.html
• http://www.originaldating.com/HistoryofSpeeddating.htm
• Saccuzzo, Dennis. Class Lecture. Personality Psychology. San Diego State University, San Diego, CA. 6 April 2010.
• http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolved-primate/200910/the-science-speed-dating-part-ii

Snakes in general are commonly referred to as having fangs, i.e. “the snake sunk his fangs deep into the flesh”, even though they technically do not. In the snake world, fangs only classify hollow, venom injecting teeth. Non-venomous snakes (about 90%) just have teeth. Yes, sharp teeth, but not fangs.

The fuzzy area is how fangs are referred to in the rest of the animal kingdom: spiders have “fangs”, which are more accurately cheliceraeic mouth parts (though accurately following the hollow-with-venom theme). The front canines of carnivores are often called fangs, and it looks like anything with long teeth gets to have fangs.

Essentially, unless you are around a picky herpetologist, I don’t see any harm in saying “ahh don’t let that snake get his fangs in me!”, but now you know the difference.

Sources:

Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe (segment: Blood, Pain, Puke and Poo)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang
http://www.umass.edu/nrec/snake_pit/pages/myth.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7204/full/nature07178.html

Back in the mid-1960s, a game show called Let’s Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall, began airing. It involved a lot of odd little deal games, with players risking guaranteed money and prizes for potentially greater prizes, or possibly duds like goats and dog food.

For this particular problem, we refer to a ‘What’s Behind Door Number…’ game. Contestants were presented with three doors, one of which had a wonderful prize, the other two… less desirable rewards. So a contestant selects a door (say, #2). Monty Hall then reveals what was behind one of the doors they did not select (say, #3) – it thus being that Monty Hall knew which door the prize was behind. The contestant was then given The Deal: would you like to switch doors? The question is, would you switch? Does it matter?

Intuition (for those of us who aren’t mathematicians) would suggest that it wouldn’t matter, since the choice is 50/50 – two doors, right? Wrong. It is actually advantageous to switch to the other door. This is kind of a weird idea to get your brain around. To try to simplify it, your original odds of selecting the prize door are 1/3. When Monty reveals one of the incorrect doors (which had a 2/3 chance), the odds of the door you selected remain the same (1/3), which the OTHER door still has a 2/3 chance with it. Trust me, it works. The key is that Monty knows what is behind each door. If he did not, then there would be no advantage to switching, and he could even reveal the door with the prize.

If you would like to try it yourself, here is a link to a simulation with Monty Knows and Monty Doesn’t Know options. Have fun, and don’t give yourself a headache.

Assuming FotD.CA develops at a decent average rate, he(?) can hold his head up all on his own when supported upright. He’ll also push himself up off the ground, and can roll from his side to his back. There won’t be any standing and walking for another 7 to 10 months, but I am impressed.

FotD.CA’s world is slowly expanding, as well, as he becomes aware of himself and practices motor habits focused on his own body (smacking lips, playing with hands). He can imitate facial expressions, and anticipate some simple events.  If FotD.CA is really on the ball, there might even be the start of some cooing, the first start of language. Don’t be fooled though, FotD.CA has been listening to everything you’ve said all this while, gauging the language, picking up prosody (simply, rhythm) and figuring out what phonemes are important. No worries though – right now, “it doesn’t matter what [you] read, it’s the tone you use.”

You may have verbally stumbled across this little dyslexic-esque speech error, or possibly even created one intentionally on your own. Switching corresponding letters or morphemes creates this unique lexical phenomenon: Spoonerisms. More accurately referred to as metathesis, the term Spooonerism is attributed to Reverend William Archibald Spooner, who was oft to make these particular blunders. Honestly the man had a real way with words: “Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride.” And reprimanding a student for “hissing my mystery lecture”. I can only hope to achieve such quality flubs – my current productions have hit somewhat below the mark so far. I can recall commenting on my “litchy eggs” and “fime crighting lizards” (the original origin of the last phrase currently escapes me).

I originally learned this from a BMW print ad, go figure.