Perusal Items

Here are some things of interest I came upon recently which are worth taking a gander at:

• It is well known that I really like spicy foods.  For me generally, there is no such thing as “too spicy.”  In this vein here is a short video from CNN about a salsa that one company claims is the hottest salsa in the world.
• There have been some male political figures recently who feel that they need to regain control of women’s reproductive choices.  As someone who believes that perhaps women themselves should be making these choices, I found this video to be quite funny.
• Here is a good article about a movement in Los Angeles to end fines for students who are late or truant for school.
• This is an amusing spoof on the first world problem of buying decongestants from the pharmacy in the United States in the new millennium.
• On YouTube there is a good series of video's called “Minute Physics” which are worthy and short entertaining videos presenting various topics in physics.  They are worth checking out.
• Here is a short article abut things to come for eye glasses as Google plans to sell glasses which will stream information to you as you make your way through the world.

Magnet

Unless you live in a big city this may not happen to you but for me this seems to be an almost ubiquitous experience.  I'll be standing at a bus stop with a group of people and a panhandler will approach the group and unerringly I will be the one and only person the guy will ask for money.  Bill Gates could be standing next to me and the homeless guy would ignore Bill and still only seek money from me.  I do not know why I have become the world's bum magnet but there must be a way to depolarize myself.  Maybe its time for a disguise?

There used to be a crazy guy wearing an outlandish outfit who would stand on State Street with a bullhorn and lecture people about eternal damnation.  He would rant and wail and invariably people would cross the street to avoid him and almost always give him a wide birth.  So I guess I have answered my own question.  Thus I will be stopping after work today and getting myself a bullhorn and an electric color dreamcoat.  No doubt this will make me pretty popular in general so I will be available for all your party appearance needs, so get your requests in early.

Amusing

"I was in the grocery store.  I saw a sign that said ‘pet supplies’.  So I did.  Then I went outside and saw a sign that said ‘compact cars’ …."  

Steven Wright

Fortune Cookie

After eating 9000 or so fortune cookies over the years I finally got one that accurately predicted my future:

"You will eat a meal."

Of course why couldn’t it say:

"You will win $ 1,000,000.00 and meet many intelligent showgirls!"

Willpower Malfunction

Still True

" In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. "

Lawrence Peter

Imponderable # 4

You are sitting on the back of a CTA bus.  The bus is half full and filled with losers of all shapes and sizes.  Four consecutive seats in the back have just one person sitting in them (including yours), leaving an empty seat available.  The fattest woman in the world boards the bus and begins to lumber towards the rear of the bus.  There are many other open seats but you know it is coming.  Somehow, some way, that person is going to trudge down the aisle, passing up all the other empty seats, and head unerringly towards the one open next to you.  Then, no matter how far you are going, they will not get up first.  Instead, it is no doubt more pleasing to them, and to the Gods, to squeeze you into a small bit of crushed matter.
 
Finally, as you near the end of the line, you will mention to them that you are getting off.  Immediately they will sigh a heavy sigh, and commence trying to get up.  They will fail of course, and you then will need to scream at the bus driver that you are getting off.  The bus driver will drive on anyway because that is how he rolls.  Inexorably then, your stop will disappear in the background, and you will find yourself cursing the enormous person who has trapped you.  They will huffily reply and say something so mind bogglingly insipid that you will not have the words to be able to respond in a civil fashion, and you will have started another perfect morning.

Six Simple Rules for Poker Success

1. Play with the stupidest people possible.
2. Don’t tilt.
3. Embrace variance, it is your friend.
4. It is always useful to appear to be what you are not.
5. Planning ahead is mandatory.
6. Seek to make your decisions as simple as possible.

nota bene: These are too simplistic of course, but that does not make them wrong.

In the Belly of the Beast

The Red Line – Roosevelt Stop

Libation of the Week

I was playing pool last night in a joint on the South Side of town, so let’s stay with that theme for our cocktail of the week:

8 Ball

• 1.5 ounces Dark Rum
• 1.5 ounces Peach Schnapps
• 1.5 ounces Almond Liqueur
• 1 tablespoon Grenadine
• 8 ounces Pineapple Juice

In a very tall glass, mix ingredients.  Stir until arms are quite tired.  Drink.  Rack’em.

Stichomancy

There are some mornings when you decide things can not be left to chance and everything must be planned to the smallest degree.  There are others where you acknowledge the randomness of the world and embrace the chaos which is you know is out there waiting for you.  This morning feels like a chaos day so we must act accordingly.

Stichomancy is a kind of fortune telling that seeks to know the future by randomly selecting a passage from a book.  A such I have picked a book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values,” by Robert M. Pirsig.  Now I will open it at random and thus see what might fate will be today:

“(What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness).  Familiarity can blind you too.”

I see then the Gods are directing me to do something different with my day.  As such I am headed out now, to wander through a new and different part of the City and embrace my destiny at random.  Hopefully the Gods will show a little kindness and there will be beer and super-models at the end of the road.

Two Thoughts

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

and

“The good life is a process, not a state of being.  It is a direction not a destination.”

Carl Rogers

At the Musée

Radical

I know, your ego needs assuaging.  I have just the thing.  I have taken the radical step of installing the Words with Friends Application on my phone.  This means that you can play this game with me, and no doubt crush my soul.  Remember though, I am not very good at games, so you will have to play at half speed to keep things interesting.

Anyway, if you should feel like bolstering your self image, you can compete with me.  My details are:

User Name: Laoch of Chicago

Defy the Romantic Industrial Complex

"In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing."

Mignon McLaughlin

Could there be a lamer holiday than Valentine’s Day?  The idea that you are supposed to treat your various girlfriends "specially" on this day by taking them to an expensive restaurant which will inflate their prices for this one day and then buy these women gifts or you do not "love" them, is just ridiculous.  You should treat the people you are involved with specially throughout the year. 

As someone who essentially eats out almost every day, I know that this is one of the few days all year where you should not go out to eat.  It is absurd to pay $ 300.00 for a meal that will cost you $ 100.00 the next day. 

If you want to get your person small presents throughout the year to show that you are thinking of them, that is splendid.  But you should not have to go and buy them a present on a holiday created by the greeting card industry or risk losing your relationship.

This is also a holiday which seems to give women the message that they are useless if they are not involved in a romantic relationship during Valentine’s Day.  They are urged to pamper and be nice to themselves because they are not fortunate enough to have a soul mate at this very moment of their lives.  Well I agree that women should be nice to themselves, but whether you are in a relationship has nothing to do with your worth as a person.

So I urge to you to be unconventional, treat this day like any other.  Then sometime soon, out of the blue, do something nice for your significant other.  They deserve it.

Reading Matter

Here are some interesting things I came across this week:

• Are we living in a computer simulation (God I hope so)?  Philosopher Nick Bostrom tackles this question in this thought provoking article.
• Here is an article which presents some data about how running can improve your fluid intelligence.
• Wired magazine brings us this article entitled: “Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Are Great for Creativity.”
• Ok, it turns out that Mom was right after all.  Here is an article detailing a study which showed that High School students did best on tests with seven hours of sleep.  Perhaps my three hour a night high school sleep regimen was ill advised?
• A new study apparently claims that eating chocolate cake for breakfast could help you lose weight.  I am skeptical, but you can read about it here.  Tuesday it will no doubt be cake time!

Window Shopping – Chinatown

Hypothetical

You are a Doctor working for the Center for Disease Control.  You are assigned to a team that is responding to a new spread of a hemorrhagic fever which kills 90% of the people it afflicts.  There is a rare experimental serum which is being tested on animals.  The serum shows great promise but will be very hard to manufacture in great numbers and if it is approved will only be available to a very small number of people.

You arrive home to discover your 11 year old daughter showing early signs of having this disease.  As a member of the CDC team you have access to the serum.  The serum is not available to give to humans and only very small amounts of it exist at this time.  The long term consequences of taking this serum are unknown.  Because the serum is so limited in quantity, it will be missed and an investigation will be launched if some turns up missing.

Do you steal some and try and use it to save your daughters life, or do you take her to the hospital and hope she is one of the lucky 10% which survives after being afflicted with this malady?

Useful Word

edacious, adjective – to devour voraciously: gluttonous.

Light Reading

In recent days I have come upon these interesting items which you might find illuminating:

• This is an interesting article about the oldest living thing on Earth at a mere 200,000 years of age.
• Here is a free place to play chess with an artificial intelligence: lichess.
• Does Finland have the formula for successful schools for school children?  You can read an article which describes their secret here.
• Here is an article describing a clever and novel legal argument in defense of a copyright infringement suit, asserting that pornography is not copyrightable in the United States due to the fact that it does not, “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” as required by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
• Can you distill the essence of a subject into two simple things?  This piece describes some good attempts.

Thought for the Day

“All truth passes through three stages.  First, it is ridiculed.  Second, it is violently opposed.  Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

Where I Should Be Today

South Street Seaport, lower Manhattan, New York City

Pillar of Strength

My mother once told me that during a particularly trying Summer day when she was a teenager she found herself contemplating her coming apparent oblivion.  As she walked and wrestled with her demons, she found herself next to Central Park in New York City.  She wandered into the park and found a bench to sit upon.  She remembered that she happened to have a book in her bag, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, which she decided to start reading.  Several hours later she found that it restored her equilibrium and she was then able to face the unbearable travails which plagued her and thus continue to fight on against the darkness.  I like the idea of having a book or movie which is a ballast for a person.  A place where they can return in times of need to help find themselves again.

Is there a book or movie which serves this purpose in your life?

Interesting Proposition Bet

This Sunday the Super Bowl takes place in the Unites States, which serves these days as good opportunity to eat food which is bad for you in the company of friends, enemies and neighbors.  Millions of dollars are spent on various commercials during the game, and there is generally a dreadful halftime show with some over the hill singing act.  If you are of a betting mind, there are many possible wagers that one can make on this game.  In looking over the list of proposition bets* I found one that I liked, so if you happen to find yourself in Las Vegas this weekend, you might consider a tiny wager if you are daring and do not mind losing money.

The one that I liked was:

TOTAL RUSHING YARDS BY: PATRIOTS

OVER      102.5  -110

UNDER     102.5  -110

I like the under.  I would explain my reasoning but it is somewhat pedestrian and my logic and perspicacity in this regard would not impress you.  You can find a list of more of these type of bets here.

* A proposition bet is a bet where instead of wagering on the future of a team, the wager is made on an individual player or event generally occurring during the game.

Apt Word, Hopefully

opsimath, noun – a person who becomes a student or who acquires knowledge late in life.

Pick Me Up

I was listening on the internet to a radio broadcast from ABC radio in New South Wales and came across this drink which turned out to be quite tasty (I have changed it a bit but the spirit is the same).  Thus from our friends in Australia, here is something to make your week better:

Kate’s Strawberry Cocktail

• 6 ounces of vodka
• 5 limes
• Fresh strawberries
• 12 ounces of Ginger Beer
• ice

Imagine yourself in a deck chair in sunny Australia.  You are wearing a fine hat to protect your sacred head.  You are thirsty though, so you find your blender and squeeze the five limes into it.  Then you toss in the strawberries and add the vodka and ginger beer.  Fill the the rest of the blender with ice.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into a tall glass.  Consume.  Repeat as needed.

Learning a Little Poker

Will Ma is teaching a course on poker at MIT.  He has put a lot of the materials online here, and has created a YouTube channel with videos of the lectures here.  They are quite good and worth watching if you would like to learn how to play poker better.

Sichuan Boiled Beef

From Spring World in Chinatown