Quick takes to break the block.

Okay, pregnant-me is still sleeping a lot and using my waking time to catch up. Here are a few short items that interested me for one reason or another, but that I never managed to turn into full posts.

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Christy P. sent me a link some time ago to a site about traveling light: OneBag.com . It has tons of tips for keeping the packing weight down (including in the case of traveling with kids). I think it has some wisdom that could apply to "traveling" around town, just running errands, with your littles in tow. If you always feel like you are lugging too much around, you might find it useful.

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From the OneBag site, I followed a rabbit trail that took me to a clothing manufacturer, Scottevest, that had me wishing I had found it when I wasn't under the No-Buying-New-Nonmaternity-Clothes-When-Pregnant ban. The concept behind these folks is crazy, I know, but let me spell it out anyway:

Women's clothing with functional pockets in it.

Okay, they have men's clothes too, fair enough. And they don't have lots of different clothes. But still! A dress with pockets. Women's cargo pants with real, not cosmetic, pockets. A classic trench with a pocket capable of carrying an iPad. A travel vest with tons of pockets. I am going to autosend myself an email for a year from now, when I might conceivably be getting back into my old clothing size, to go back and check them out.

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Back when DarwinCatholic and I were posting about whether college education is worth the cost, whether a liberal arts degree is generally worthwhile, etc. -- even my husband got into it -- we were doing a lot of calculation about means and medians: costs, returns, salaries, debt, graduation rates, etc. I recently came across a short post by Tyler Cowen that reminded me of a piece of vocabulary that we should really have been using to talk about what's changed in the college calculation: variance.

If you're deciding how much to invest in a particular game, there's a big difference between a situation in which most of the possible outcomes are clustered tightly around the median, and one in which the possible outcomes are spread widely on either side of the median. Even when the two medians in question are exactly the same. In the one case, you have a very high chance of getting the value you expect out of your investment, and a low chance either of "hitting the jackpot" and doing much better or of failing miserably and ending up a big loser. In the other, there may be nearly as much chance of losing your shirt as of getting the expected value; and even if there's also a better chance of hitting the jackpot, that's not much of a consolation to the large pool of losers (especially since humans often feel worse about losing than they feel good about winning.)

I've had more statistics than the average person but somehow that never stops me from forgetting to consider the effects of variance, at least when I first look at a problem.

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The Fourth and First Amendments have been getting a lot of press lately. From Melanie B via Facebook comes this interesting link about a lawsuit brought on (comparatively rare) Third Amendment grounds. I'll save you from looking it up: it's the one protecting us from having to quarter soldiers in our homes during peacetime. The Nevada homeowner in question refused to allow into his home police who wanted to establish a "tactical advantage" against persons in a neighboring house, but the police forced their way in anyway and occupied his house.

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Another FB friend pointed to this article from the UK about a rise in rickets and scurvy there. The article's lede suggests it's related to parents who "rely on takeaways and microwave meals," and one analyst suggests it's related to the "impact of promotions, advertising, and marketing from the processed food industry."

It seems odd to blame the entire "processed food industry" for rickets and scurvy, when that is the same industry that brings things like frozen concentrated orange juice; canned and frozen fruits and vegetables of all kinds; canned oily fish such as mackerel, sardines, and salmon; and numerous other foods that would be out of reach of urban families during much of the year if we were limited to fresh, local food in season. Isn't it more likely to result from inattention to basic concepts of a "balanced diet," and (especially considering this is the UK) lack of natural sunlight?

It's possible that the marketers who advertise various processed foods in the UK have shifted away from advertising foods that help provide vitamins C and D and towards foods that don't, I suppose.

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Finally, another link suggested by Christy P: A plea to pack a "go bag." Timely, what with all the evacuations and tornadoes and explosions and wildfires that seem to have dominated the news this spring and summer.

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Do you know it took me all day to write this post? And it's practically a holiday. I started it this morning at 7 and have been working only in bits and pieces since then. Pregnancy brain -- ugh.

Posted with Blogsy

Comments

[Melanie B]

Wait... Scottevest makes women's clothing now?! I bought Dom a vest from them when we were first married and I think they had about three different style vests and that was all they made.

I love the dress. And the cargo pants. I might just have to get some. Though I almost never wear dresses anymore since they tend to be a pain to nurse in and in the past seven years the only time I'm not nursing has been when I'm pregnant.

I have taken exactly zero statistics courses, but the concept of variance is indeed interesting, especially in context of the college discussion.

[GeekLady]

I have one of their 2008-9 women's vests. It was... okay. My primary complaint isn't even Scott eVest's fault, I just found the vest extremely hot, even in the light khaki color, because ths is Texas and its hot 75% of the year, most years. So my vest has been relegated to hiking use now as a daypack replacement, especially when carrying a baby in a sherpani baby carrier (and I highly recommend Sherpani baby carriers, which I thinkwork better for women than Kelty or Deuter.)

But it looks like they've really improved their women's options. The dress is probably not long enough for my torso, but the cargo pants look fab.

[Bearing]

GeekLady, I agree with you about Sherpani versus Kelty carriers. We have a
Kelty Expedition which works great for my husband (6'0") and I can't wear it at all. I tried on the Sherpani but decided that given how rarely I would use it -- since I do most hiking with babies when Mark is with me -- not to invest in one. If I need a back carrier, I generally use my Didymos wrap sling. I have borrowed an Ergo before and like it and often recommend it, but I have never owned one.

[Bearing]

Melanie, if you want an interesting story about variance and how it can matter, and also about public perception of truths they don't like, google "variance Lawrence Summers." You might recall that Summers got in trouble for saying something impolitic about the natural abilities of women in science and how that alone would be enough to explain a lot of the disparities we see between men and women in the elite levels of STEM fields. His observation, which I believe has largely held up, was that although the average abilities of men and women in mathematics are about the same, but the variance is greater for men (there are more male failures and more male SooperGeniuses and fewer average males). This would indeed explain a large part of the disparity, although surely there are other factors, but he got fired anyway. The mathematical argument is, however, a good introduction to the effects that variance can have.

[Cathie]

I so want the ScotteVest Trench coat. We got Kevin the vest/coat combo for his birthday and he LOVES it. 22 pockets. One big enough for an ipad. Glorious storage space and his is well vented. Now I'm considering the dress. I love skirts and dresses but the lack of pockets drives me wild.

[GeekLady]

I got a pair of the Margaux Cargaux for my birthday. They are absurd. I might fit into the XXL if I hem them up six inches and lose about 2 inches off my hips and thighs.

As it is, they FIT, but they look like they were sprayed on which makes 4 out of 6 pockets unusable. (The other 3 of the 9 advertised pockets are inside other pockets.)

...I could pull a better pair of cargos out of my rear.

[bearing]

Oops! Sorry!

[GeekLady]

Hey, comments are working again. I'm sorry, rereading this I felt like I was overly cross. I'm still cross about the silly pants, but I wasn't blaming you. I just wanted to warn you about them before you bought any.

[Bearing]

Thanks :)