Links for 2010-11-10

"Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.
For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months."

"Every Supreme Court reporter waits--often in vain and for decades--for a case like AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. It is a case at the white-hot epicenter of three almost completely inexplicable doctrines: federal preemption, federal arbitration policy, and class action. (I can hear the clamor now from all of you who want me to skip right ahead to the juicy arbitration explanations.) Phrases like contracts of adhesion, exculpatory provisions, ex ante, nonclassable claims, and obstacle preemption fill up the Supreme Court chambers today, like some kind of hideous jargon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At some point the phrase post ante was uttered, which I don't think even makes sense. Indeed the only moment in the entire hourlong argument that might have happened in Technicolor came with Justice Stephen Breyer's baffling metaphor involving a "9,000-foot cow." And even he seemed to be confused about what that had to do with preemption, arbitration, or cellular telephones."

"This week's Car Talk had a great problem from a caller (you can listen to that episode here - show #1045: Pi Over Two Dopes). In short, the guy calling drove an 18-wheeler truck. His fuel gauge was unreliable, so he used a dip-stick type method to measure the amount of fuel level. So, here is the real math question: How does the amount of fuel depend on the depth of the fuel for a cylindrical tank on its side?

First, let me say that I probably shouldn't answer this because it makes a great test question. But, it is probably already in a test bank somewhere. It will still be a great test question. I really like how this real-world (actually real-world in this case) problem shows up."