A creature from your worst nightmares: A millipede as big as a car

You're looking at a picture of a Giant African Millipede, this one from the Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose, California. (Do you know the way to San Jose?) (Sorry... couldn't help myself.)

Anyway, if you look at the stats thoughtfully provided by the zoo at the link in the preceding paragraph, you'll see that this creepy critter is typically eight to 12 inches long... and can get up to 15 inches long. If your stomach is strong enough, you can click around the Intertubes and find pictures of these slimy devils crawling on peoples' hands... and sometimes their faces.

Yet this guy is a midget. A piker. A Lilliputian.

At least by comparison to the nine-foot long fossil millipede found recently in England. The link is to a USA Today story, by Jordan Mendoza, reprinted on Yahoo! News.

Although I'd prefer to believe that Mendoza is just joshing with us, I am obliged to report that the story is also on CNN, Live Science, and NPR.

England was closer to the Equator 326 million years ago and this behemoth, called Arthropleura, flourished in the warm, tropical conditions that then prevailed.

Arthropleura now displaces Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, a giant sea scorpion, as the largest invertebrate currently known to science.

(Of course, who knows what tomorrow may bring?)

I don't want anyone to think that I knew all this off the top of my head. I didn't. In fact, until I saw the linked Yahoo! News article, if asked, I probably would have said that the largest invertebrate known to scinece was a centipede that Long Suffering Spouse once saw on the living room ceiling one cool autumn morning. If the fur on that creature could have been preserved, it might have made her a fashionable-looking jacket. Or at least a stole.

Not that she would have worn it.... Long Suffering Spouse has a particular aversion to centipedes (or anything else that trespasses on the premises but belongs in the Great Outdoors).

Today is National Peanut Butter Day

Honest, I'm not trying to refocus this blog as a 'foodie page' or anything. It's just I ran across this tribute to National Peanut Butter Day, which just happens to be today.

Well, naturally, I was curious... if today is National Peanut Butter Day, is there also a separate National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day?

I've mentioned eating peanut butter and jelly in passing on this blog on prior occasions, but I don't seem to have ever said that PB&J has been my near-daily luncheon for pretty much my entire life. After I had large portions of my insides removed (nearly five years ago now) the doctor was trying to suggest dietary changes that might help keep me out of the bathroom for an hour or two at a time. "Have you ever eaten peanut butter?" asked the doctor -- and Long Suffering Spouse and I both burst out laughing. There probably haven't been more than 15 days since where I haven't had PB&J for lunch -- and I'm including Ash Wednesdays and Good Fridays (these are fast days for Catholics like me) in this total.

Anyway... today is National Peanut Butter Day, but National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day turns out to be April 2.

Mark your calendars.

Focus... or lack thereof... at Second Effort

I'm like the dog in Pixar's Up these days -- almost anything steals my attention -- Squirrel!

Yesterday, for example, I read with great interest a story about Georgetown students who have pieced together a frightening portrait of tunnels deep underground in China, wherein the Second Artillery Corps of the Peoples' Liberation Army can shuttle nuclear missiles from one location to another. The students (and their professor) have suggested that China may have 3,000 warheads that can be run around these underground tracks, a number nearly four times prior estimates of China's nuclear capability.

And it occurred to me, why would our Chinese masters need all these missiles? If they want to destroy the West, they have only to call their loans. Or stop selling us stuff. Foreclosure seems easier -- and less likely to trigger nuclear winter -- and Squirrel!

I recently published an article on my other blog, the one I write in my own name, and I linked to it from my Facebook page. I got a few nice responses, which I take with a grain of salt. Some people (including me) can't take a punch. But I also have trouble taking a compliment.

A message I received from my sister Betty may explain why. Having reviewed the favorable comments, she wrote, "I don't really understand much about what you write, but I like to see you get acknowledged for it." How Irish of her! An insult dressed up as a compliment: Betty holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English. She teaches English in a suburban high school. If she can't comprehend what I write, it can only be because it's incomprehensible. I'm still smiling as I write this -- a masterful put-down is a thing of beauty. I was still trying to formulate an appropriate response when -- Squirrel!

I read a letter to the editor in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday from Perry Sainati, of Belden Universal Manufacturing Co. A healthy excerpt (since letters don't last too long online on the Sun-Times website):

For the past two years, manufacturing all over the country is rebounding like it hasn’t in decades. There is a whole new face of manufacturing in 2011. That’s why manufacturing is now leading this country’s economic turnaround.

What’s more, as American manufacturers embrace innovation, automation and the value proposition, they’ve become the most efficient in the world. And that’s why in 2010, despite a 4.4 percent reduction in labor costs, they realized a remarkable 6.7 percent spike in productivity. In other words, these days American manufacturing is growing, and doing so with new demand for highly paid skilled workers. Some 20 percent of all manufactured goods worldwide are made in the U.S.A. This is a market share that has held steady for decades.

If you want to write a trend story, please write one that’s timely. Write about how many good manufacturing jobs continue to go unfilled in this country, even with 9 percent of our workers unemployed, because so few unemployed U.S. men and women are trained to do them. Write about how manufacturers who are producing “offshore” are facing escalating costs, long shipping lead times, detrimental quality and security concerns, are now starting to “re-shore” many facilities back to America. Write about how, thanks in large part to lean, forward-thinking Illinois-based companies like Caterpillar, and the millions they’ve invested in lean state-of-the-art plants, manufacturing is actually stronger in many states, including our own, than it’s been in years.

Gosh, I hope Mr. Sainati is right -- but all I hear on or read in the news these days suggests we are headed for Hell in an increasingly threadbare handbasket. I tried to think about how I could investigate (and hopefully verify) these claims and maybe do a post about it and -- Squirrel!

An article that pushes back the timeline for when humanity came 'out of Africa' caught my eye. And, in reading the article, I was struck by the assertion that Arabia, like the Sahara Desert, was once a lush, green place -- you know, climate change that predates even Al Gore? -- in other words, the world's climate is changing now because it changes always and the question is the extent to which humanity contributes to that change and whether we can hope to influence the changes that must come regardless of what we attempt -- and Squirrel!

That got me thinking about the coming winter. Chicago is bracing for another brutal winter, according to another article I saw. All the forecasts, from The Farmers' Almanac (not your go-to destination for meteorological science) to Accuweather, are lining up to suggest that we may have a colder, snowier winter than we're used to here. (And we're used to a lot, not that it keeps us from grumbling about it....)

Well, that got me to thinking about Jeane Dixon. When JFK was assassinated, everyone remembered her prediction -- and forgot her subsequent prediction that Nixon would win in 1960. Although she might have been right about that later one: If Richard J. Daley hadn't desperately needed Dan Ward to beat Ben Adamowski in the race for Cook County State's Attorney, Kennedy wouldn't have gotten nearly as many votes from Chicago -- LBJ may have stolen Texas, but Daley the First did not steal Illinois for JFK; that was just a happy consequence of straight ticket voting -- the dead hated to ticket-split -- for which Daley was able to take credit. But, on the other hand, if Dixon had been right about Nixon winning in 1960, then no one would have remembered her earlier prediction about the assassination of a Democratic president elected in 1960 -- and that got me back to the grim weather forecast: I wondered, does anyone ever follow up on these dire weather predictions and see how often they come true? Now THAT would be an interesting -- Squirrel!

You know, this Information Age is fascinating. There's so much to know. If only I could pay attention long enough....

Squirrel!

The large law firm and the ant hill compared

You're looking at an ant colony here, the queen ant being tended by her faithful, anonymous, fungible worker ants.

A partner in a large law firm is much like a queen ant. Or, depending on the annual bonuses, a queen termite.

It's not a pretty sight -- but it's efficient as all get out.

The queen in the termite mound -- or ant colony -- or beehive -- has only one function: Lay eggs. But, then, there's usually only one queen in a termite mound, etc.

There can be lots of partners in a law firm. Partners in large law firms have only two functions: Bill time or generate business. The really big partners generate business; the lesser partners bill time. Either way, they must be surrounded by faithful, anonymous and largely fungible minions whose sole purpose in life is to maximize the productivity of their assigned partner.

The partner in a large law firm never has to clear a paper jam from a printer or copier. In a really large firm, the partners may not know where the copiers are located. A large firm partner never spends an afternoon filing. S/he has people who write checks, look up cases, locate witnesses -- whatever the partner needs to keep productive, and whenever the partner needs it.

Another key difference between the ant hill and the large law firm is that, in a law firm, some of the workers may someday become partners themselves. Not the clerical help, of course, but the associates, with their fancy Ivy League degrees. They may start out legal life as props, something that the business-generating queen, er, partner, can brag on to prospective clients ("we just hired the editor of the Yale Law Journal; we turned the editor of the Harvard Law Review down flat"). However, with sheer determination, tireless struggle, the occasional sacrifice of principle (sure, we can justify ignoring those oil rig safety standards), incessant brown-nosing and false bonhomie, at least a few of the associates can some day rise to the top of the anthill.

On the other hand, in the anthill, the young and fresh worker ants tend the queen and the next generation of workers. Then, when they're older, they join foraging parties. When the survivors of these adventures get too old for that, they become the nest's guardians, rushing out to absorb the attack of any invading predator. It is difficult for a worker ant to die of old age. Of course, ulcers and heart attacks claim a lot of law firm support personnel as well; others may be fired for failing to adequately serve or protect their partner.

The National Geographic website mentions that there is a third class of honeybee, the drone. "Several hundred drones live in each hive during the spring and summer, but they are expelled for the winter months when the hive goes into a lean survival mode." This is similar to the way that associates and non-equity partners -- and the least productive partners -- are expelled from law firms whenever economic conditions warrant.

Social insects, like honeybees, are considered more 'advanced' than their solitary cousins. There are bees, wasps, and even ants who do not live in colonies, but who try and do everything themselves. In other words, solo practitioners. Like me.

I remember when Blackberries first burst on the techno-scene. All the big firm partners had them -- increased efficiency, you know -- and each email received from the device proudly bore the legend, "Sent From My Blackberry."

Of course, if the message was spelled correctly and punctuated, chances are the message was typed by a worker ant.

The big firms were behind the efiling movement that has swept the federal courts -- and is gathering momentum in the state courts as well. And why not? The partners in the big firms did nothing different from what they'd done before. They waved their hands (billing 4.5 hours for the task) and minions crafted a brief. That the brief was filed differently than heretofore would not have registered on the big firm partner -- he or she had never filed anything before either.

The problem is, I can change an ink cartridge -- even in the postage meter -- and solve paper jams deep within the copier. Given enough time (we know, now, it takes a month) I can figure out why my office Internet died. I know where all the courthouses are and how to file papers in each. But, sadly, these hard-won skills are not valued.

Gosh, I wish I had minions.

Worth your weight in gold?

Have you ever said that someone was worth their weight in gold?

Per this linked article on the Chicago Tribune website, gold closed today on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at $1,788 -- down slightly from an intra-day high of $1801 an ounce.

When I was in high school, I worked in the jewelry store in the Chicago exurb of Boondockia back in 1973-74. (I was the delivery boy and shipping clerk. I seldom interacted with customers. Unless it was to sweep up after hours, I was only allowed on the store floor during the Christmas season. I helped put away watch trays and ring trays at closing time, too. I was not allowed to wear cuffed trousers. I'm sure you can figure out why.)

Anyway, this experience has been on my mind lately when I hear the breathless updates on surging gold prices. I seem to recall the jewelers being upset -- back in 1973-74 -- that the price of gold had soared to $75 an ounce.

This set me to ciphering. An ounce of gold today is worth nearly 24 times what it was worth 38 years ago. (1800 divided by 75 = 24.) The only thing that has gone up as much as the price of gold is college tuition.

Once I got to ciphering, I couldn't stop. There are 16 ounces in a pound. I found this USA Today story from March, describing how the federal government is thinking about rewriting bus capacity rules because Americans are getting heavier than ever.

According to Larry Copeland's USA Today article, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that, today, "the average weight is 194.7 pounds for men 20 and older and 164.7 pounds for women that age range."

Finally, I'm above average at something.

Anyway, back to my ciphering: If a man is "worth his weight in gold" (and assuming that he is of average weight), he is currently worth $5,607,360 ($1,800 per ounce * 16 ounces per pound * 194.7 pounds).

I only wish I was.

For most of us, to be called 'worth our weight in gold' would be a good thing. But I suppose this could be a cutting insult to Warren Buffet of Bill Gates.

It's Secretaries, er, Administrative Professionals Day!

That's what my CBA Diary says, anyway.

Wikipedia says that Administrative Professionals' Day -- f/k/a Secretaries' Day -- has been around since 1952. It was promulgated by the National Secretaries Association smack dab in the middle of the first "National Secretaries Week," which in turn had been proclaimed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer.

You've always wondered what a Secretary of Commerce does, haven't you?

Anyway, the first Secretaries Day and Week were held in June, but the observance was moved to the last week of April in 1955. The name was changed to "Professional Secretaries Week" in 1981, according to Wikipedia, and then to the current "Administrative Professionals Week" in 2000.

Why is it that job titles evolve to obscure the actual job being done?

From a language standpoint, a CEO is an administrator and a professional -- but CEO's aren't Administrative Professionals.

I'd never heard of Secretaries Day or Week before I began practicing law in 1980. I'm not sure I heard of it during the first few years of my practice either.

Eventually, though, in my office, Secretaries Day became a day on which the partners took the secretaries to lunch. I think I was always allowed to go along.

After all, I was a secretary, too. I could type. When one of the other guys (all the lawyers at that firm were male in those days) needed something done quickly after hours, they'd come to me.

The guys I worked for figured secretaries were fungible units. The managing partners did not prey on their secretaries, but they never placed any particular value on them either. They hired young kids right out of high school for nothing, or as near as possible thereto. If a kid was smart, and many of them were, as soon as she acquired some basic skills, she would seek another position and double her pay. Any time a secretary came to work dressed more nicely than usual, it was obvious she was interviewing. At one point I suggested we open a secretarial school: We could charge kids for the privilege of learning the trade and actually make a profit from what we were already teaching them.

This suggestion was met with scorn.

The end result was that we had a revolving door staff and our secretaries were generally awful. Anyone showing flashes of competence was assigned to work for the managing partners. This was usually when a secretary would start interviewing. Not that the managing partner was particularly difficult to work for -- but it enhanced her status on an interview to be able to truthfully say that she'd been promoted to work for the firm's founding partners. This meant that the younger guys got a continuing succession of the greenest secretaries.

When PCs came along in the mid-80s, I dived into the technology as a way to keep my work moving: I started doing my typing at home. The daisy wheel printers of the day didn't produce output that looked particularly professional, but I didn't have to send out one-page letters with two stamps because of the weight of all that Wite-Out or Liquid Paper.

Eventually, I was able to bypass the secretaries pretty much altogether. The managing partners got mad at me for that, too. I seemed too happy. Misery is meant to be shared, I guess. Anyway, this was around the time that they bought PCs for all the secretaries and, for a couple of years anyway, until the advent of Windows, I became the firm computer guru.

I don't have a secretary now. It's not that I have anything against secretaries. It's just that employees have an annoying habit of wanting to get paid every two weeks whether I have the money to pay them or not.

Thus, I'm still my own best secretary. Which sounds a little like I'm my own best friend. Which sounds like the start of a rude joke I'll thank you to avoid.

I won't be taking myself to lunch today. But I think I'll get over it.

Curmudgeon flies around the country but not off the handle

I don’t know why anyone voluntarily takes a scheduled commercial flight in the United States.

I had the privilege of traveling to South Florida on Wednesday, arriving at O’Hare in a pre-dawn rain shower for a flight to Ft. Lauderdale. From Ft. Lauderdale I would rent a car and drive up to West Palm Beach. I realize that there is an airport there, too, but, after consulting schedule after website schedule, it was obvious that I could not get into that airport directly and back to Chicago in a single day.

Part of the problem was the timing of the deposition: The witness insisted on a late afternoon start.

But the day started out well enough – if you don’t count my spilling coffee all over myself in the car on the way to the airport. It was a beige shirt to begin with – but entirely inadequate to cover the evidence of my sloppiness.

Anyone still harboring the notion that air travel is romantic or glamorous has been in a coma since 2001. Today air travel is a joyless shuffle from one line to the next. One can prepare for it to some extent – I put my driver’s license in a shirt pocket this morning; I left the house with my shoes untied. But I still had to bring a laptop, and I still had to peel it out of its case. I needed three bins at the airport security check-in – and some time to put myself back together when I had successfully run the gauntlet.

The next two lines were for boarding – first a line to get on, and thereafter a line to get into one’s seat. On two of my three flights yesterday, I had the distinct privilege of sitting in the middle. Sitting in the middle seat on a crowded plane might be used – instead of jail time – as an effective punishment for minor, nonviolent offenses.

The lines inside the plane are caused by people trying to hoist “carry-on” luggage into the overhead bins. Carry-on luggage seems to consist of giant, lumpy blocks of granite. In theory, these should stack like Lego bricks; in practice, stuffed with who-knows-what, they constitute a hazard to anyone who sits beneath the opening and a hernia-risk to anyone who tries to loft one.

Flight attendants must be among the strongest people, pound for pound, because they are so often called upon to assist in lifting and rearranging these “carry-on” bags.

No one actually puts their carry-on by their seat. No matter where you actually sit on a plane, the bin above you is full when you arrive. I’m always in the last group to board, so I can’t prove it, but I believe this must hold true even for the first ones on the plane. You’d think the airlines would be suspicious of carry-ons that are never carried off.

But shed no tears for the airline industry. I’d thought they were in dire peril before the economy crashed – but, yesterday, I rode on two planes that were filled entirely. My third flight late last night, home to Chicago, wasn’t entirely full, but it was nearly so. Years ago, I’d been on flights where I had the row to myself; this apparently doesn’t happen anymore.

And while lines are cheerless, joyless things that must be endured, the people in them are not always sour or mean. Even the TSA agents I encountered yesterday were polite and not overly officious. Straggling out of my flight from Ft. Lauderdale, trying to find my gate in Charlotte for the Chicago leg of my journey, I asked a U.S. Air employee for help. He wasn’t actually working that counter, he told me, and I apologized for bothering him – and began to walk away. He stopped me. He could sign into the system, he told me, and he stepped behind the counter and did so. In a minute he’d given me my location. This was unexpected courtesy.

Thus, I perceived a certain we’re-all-in-this-together spirit of shared suffering in air travel. But I still want someone to blame. Especially for sticking me in the middle seat on two of three flights.

Still, no matter how cramped I was, there was still an opportunity to learn. Yesterday, I learned where Dave Barry finds his annual Christmas gift lists. Let me explain. In the middle seat, I couldn’t reach my computer; I couldn’t reach my briefcase. After I finished the morning paper, I had no choice but to spend a happy hour or so with the Sky Mall catalog.

There were audio and video accessories aplenty. There are now as many add-ons for iPods and iPhones as there are uses for duct tape. There were a surprising number of spy devices: Cameras to monitor your home from the road. GPS devices you can conceal in your car and track the location of your child (or spouse) even while traveling. And there was a hat that supposedly repels insects (a bargain at $79.95) and a “travel adapter” useable in 150 countries (for only $34.95!).

But what really caught my eye was a full size suit of armor – perfect for the house – but probably a bad idea to wear at airport security. I was tempted – until I noticed that the catalog said “No Rush Deliveries.” I wanted it right away... or not at all.

And then there was the collection of garden statuary. I’ve never seen such variety. There were garden fairies and a seated St. Francis – complete with birds perching – but also a two foot tall Yeti. I would think that, if one was going to put a Yeti statue in the backyard, it should at least be seven feet tall. My favorite, though, was “The Zombie of Montclair Moors” Statute. The illustration shows the head, shoulders and arms of an undead gentleman seemingly clawing his way up from his grave. The catalog boasts that this statue is “[c]aptured in meticulous detail in quality designer resin” and “finished so realistically that you’ll swear you can hear him breathing.” And such a bargain: Only $89.95!

I thought this would make a unique surprise for Long Suffering Spouse – she's the avid gardener in the family -- especially if I planted it in the garden without telling her about it. But I gave up the plan when I saw the dreaded words: “No Rush Deliveries.”

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Update: I found the illustration at the design toscano web site. In case you want one for your own backyard.

Musical Friday -- It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion

In a comment to Tuesday's post, Barb picked up on a passing remark that I'd made, asking whether I'd made up the song title, "It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion."

No, I didn't. Exhibit A for the defense is at the top of this post.

I listened to the Maria Muldaur (of "Midnight at the Oasis" fame) version online before posting this one; there was no video of her cover available.

More fun with numbers -- the telephone game

A math teacher in real life, Andrée was complimentary about my most recent post about happy numbers.

Thus encouraged, although I knew I was pushing my luck, I was brave enough to try this brain teaser that I stumbled on at this site.

The directions on the original site call for using a calculator. Andrée, if you let your students try this, I hope you'll insist on pencil and paper instead -- it's the Curmudgeon in me.

Anyway, here's the deal:

1. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (not the area code -- what we mature individuals call the 'exchange')

2. Multiply by 80

3. Add 1

4. Multiply by 250

5. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number (yes, this is designed for seven digit phone numbers)

6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again

7. Subtract 250

8. Divide number by 2

The answer should look very familiar.

I tried it on three different phone numbers... and it worked each time.

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day

Most of you outside the State of Illinois may be confused by this salutation, and well you might be: Wikipedia reports that Casimir Pulaski Day is a holiday almost unique to Illinois, though a similar day is observed in parts of Wisconsin and there's a proclamation, but no holiday, in neighboring Indiana.

Pulaski was a Polish volunteer in the American Revolution and is regarded as the Father of American Cavalry. For those afflicted with insatiable historical curiosity, here is a link to General Pulaski's Wikipedia biographical sketch.

The Pulaski Day holiday was first observed in Illinois in 1978. This was also the year that elections for state offices were severed from presidential elections: For example, though elected in 1976, Republican Governor James R. Thompson was forced to run for reelection in 1978. And, for many years, Chicago had the largest Polish community in the world, with the exception of Warsaw. (Things may have changed recently, but only just.) Thus, a zeal for history and a need to commemorate a great American Revolutionary hero can only be considered as part of the legislature's motivation to proclaim the holiday.

Whatever other motives may be ascribed or imagined, anything that is done in Illinois is done -- at least in part -- for votes.

How will you celebrate this anniversary?

On this date, 95 years ago, U.S. Secretary of State Philander Knox proclaimed that the 16th Amendment had been adopted by the requisite number of states and was now part and parcel of the U.S. Constitution.

Legislation to levy and collect the income tax followed shortly thereafter.... *Sigh*

What? No International CB Day?

Last month I grudgingly participated in International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Aaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

But today is October 4 -- you know, 10-4?

So wouldn't that make today International CB Day?

A quick Yahoo! search showed this post from Busy Mom last year on October 4... but there's apparently no groundswell here, no movement, no pent-up demand to commemorate 10-4 Day.

Can that be right?

Therefore, by the power vested in me as the sole proprietor of this homely blog, I hereby declare and decree today, 10/4, now and in perpetuity, International CB Day.

Are you with me? -- C'mon back.

This just in -- Curmudgeon doesn't win "Genius" grant

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its "Genius grants" for 2007.

The Curmudgeon is not listed among them.

Again.

Here's a link to the official announcement of this year's MacArthur Fellows. They prefer that term, "fellows," actually, as opposed to "genius grants."

If you should pardon the expression, there are a lot of really 'cool' people doing very 'cool' things who win these awards. You should follow the links this time. Really.

It's just -- well, there's no grant to any over-age, slice-of-life, semi-humorous bloggers.

Darn it.

And here's something you didn't know: The John D. MacArthur aforementioned is the brother of Charles MacArthur.

The name Charles MacArthur may not be familiar to you but you may remember his wife, the late Helen Hayes.

Also, Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht wrote a play, "The Front Page," that has been made and remade into a movie more times than just about any movie you can think of. Here's a link to the 1931 version starring Adolph Menjou -- and to the 1940 remake, His Girl Friday.



And -- because you're here at Second Effort -- there's a Chicago angle: "The Front Page" was based on MacArthur's experiences at the late, lamented City News Bureau (motto: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out").

And there's another Chicago angle (and motto) that comes into play here: Wait 'til next year!

Going back in time... would you be "technologically useful"?

Stumbled across this quiz at a site called The Universe As. Here's the set-up:

If you were to travel 2000 years into the past, how useful would you be in jumpstarting technological advancements? This 10 question quiz will help you figure out your technological usefulness. If you do poorly on the quiz, as most people likely will, then just let that inspire you to study up more on how things work and where raw materials come from.

Follow the link and take the quiz. I surprised myself by getting seven out of 10 right -- and to prove it, here are my results:


I was at least technologically useful enough to black out the correct answers before posting this. (No cheating!) And, as comforting as these results might be... I somehow doubt that a capricious fate would supply a multiple choice guess quiz when depositing someone in the days of Swords and Sandals. I'm afraid that -- even for someone who was genuinely technologically useful -- things would go more like they did for Mark Twain's Hank Morgan, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. (Believe it or not, that's a link to the contents of the book. Public domain is a wonderful thing. And if you've only seen the Bing Crosby movie version, you really don't know the story.)

And besides, I really wouldn't want to go back that far in time, even if I could -- I'd much rather just take $1,000 back to the early 1960's so I could invest with Warren Buffett at the birth of Berkshire Hathaway....

As long as I could beam right back.

And start spending....

New math: The difference between adjacent integers is not always equal -- or -- (n+1) - n is not always 1

With a title like that, you know what this post is going to be about, don't you?

C'mon -- you can guess, can't you?

Why Sports, of course.

My poor White Sox, for example, have just finished stinking up the Bronx, winning only one of three games from the hated Yankees. The Sox gave up home runs to nearly every member of the Yankee roster. I had my hands over my face so often during the series that I can't be sure if one or two Yankee pitchers might have launched dingers... and they don't even bat. (I have to state the obvious for Bee's sake -- and Chris's). The only Yankee who didn't get a home run during the Sox series was Alex Rodriguez. That's because poor A-Rod is stuck on 499. There's no great distance between 497 and 498 or 498 and 499 -- but there's a yawning chasm between 499 and 500.

Just ask Barry Bonds, who's found it so difficult to move off of 754 home runs and tie and pass Hank Aaron. (Note to Bee and Chris -- don't really try and ask Bonds: He'd probably just snarl at you. If you're lucky.)

And it's not just the larger numbers that are irregularly spaced. It turns out there's often an immense gulf between the numbers 2 and 3.

We've just finished Youngest Son's baseball season. There's been a tournament every weekend in July and he's played a lot of games. And we've seen it time and again -- both when we've been in the field and (although not as often) when we've been at bat: Getting those first two outs seems easy enough... but getting to that third out... oh, brother.

I don't know why they don't teach this in school. It's probably because they can't quantify it in a neat formula like the reasonable-looking (although, as we've seen, inaccurate) formula:

(n + 1) - n = 1

Is there a math teacher in the audience who can tackle this problem and report back?

The perils of dihydrogen monoxide?

Stumbled across this at this site. I assumed that the story was invented; however, according to Snopes.com, this story is true!

A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

And for plenty of good reasons, since:

1. it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting
2. it is a major component in acid rain
3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
4. accidental inhalation can kill you
5. it contributes to erosion
6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.

* Forty-three (43) said yes,
* Six (6) were undecided,
* Only one (1) knew [what "dihydrogen monoxide" really is].

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"

He feels the conclusion is obvious.

The author of the petition was Nathan Zohner and this project was a prize winner in 1997.

Zohner was apparently not the first to try and wring some laughter out of the perils of dihydrogen monoxide; Scopes says Zohner's project was based on a bogus report that was already making the rounds on the Internet.

And there may still be people falling for this bit. In fact, Snopes tells how one California municipality, Aliso Viejo, in Orange County, actually scheduled a vote at a March 2004 City Council meeting on an ordinance that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events. Among the reasons cited for the proposed ban was that foam containers are made with dihydrogen monoxide -- "DHMO, a substance that could 'threaten human health and safety.'"

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No Prize Contest: The first person to correctly identify the common name of dihydrogen monoxide in the Responses section will be acknowledged in a separate post and will also receive a hardy, if virtual, handshake and pat on the back.

Where's Alfred?

Those of you with kids nearing adulthood may remember the Where's Waldo craze of a few years back -- I guess it was "Where's Wally?" in the U.K.

In some households, I'm sure, it was all an act: Dad would let the kids find Waldo first so they could feel successful.

Not in my house.

The kids always could find Waldo... and I couldn't.

You may not remember, however, that this game was played before the Waldo craze, in movie theaters around the world, every time an Alfred Hitchcock picture was shown: Hitchcock allegedly had a cameo appearance in each and every picture he made. Here's a site that will show you 37 such cameos (out of a total, apparently, of 41). Nobody, it seems, can find the remaining four.

Here's the only one I ever found on my own -- Hitchcock, with Cary Grant, early on in To Catch A Thief:

I may try and get the family to watch a Hitchcock movie with me over the weekend just so I can amaze them with my sudden ability to spot Alfred....

A dollar spent at Walgreens -- and how we all come from somewhere

I found this at Walgreens Tuesday night and since it cost only a dollar I bought it. Two Fred Allen programs from the 1948 season, toward the end of his radio career.

I had a dentist's appointment yesterday, so I drove to work. That way, I could also listen to the programs. Long Suffering Spouse is a tolerant woman -- she puts up with many of my eccentricities -- but she can't stand to be in the same house with me when I listen to old time radio programs.

Fred Allen died in 1956 at the age of 61; he didn't have the celebrated old age that George Burns or Jack Benny did. Allen's reputation also suffered because his programs don't age well. The ones I listened to yesterday, for example, were chock full of topical references -- I caught most of them -- but not all. And my children would be unlikely to catch any. So many Jack Benny sketches, on the other hand, are timeless -- funny then, funny now -- because they dealt with recognizable people in situations, not current events. (In fairness, I should add that my children do not necessarily agree with my assessment that Jack Benny is still funny. That's because they're stubborn. And they're siding with their mother.)

The Jack Benny - Fred Allen feud is still funny today, 70 years after it started. Some of the scripts are in Allen's book, Treadmill to Oblivion, which I read as a kid. Somewhere along the line my parents disposed of it. I'd love to have it today.

And Allen's parody of game shows, when guest star Jack Benny is named "King for a Day" remains fall down, pound on the floor funny.

Listening to the Fred Allen programs yesterday reminded me that Allen still has an heir enjoying national fame.

David Letterman's feuds with his various networks are right out of the Fred Allen playbook.

And Letterman often comes across as an unhappy man, no matter how successful he has become, or how famous. In the judgment of his contemporaries, Allen also seemed happiest when he was miserable.

Letterman has always acknowledged his debt to Johnny Carson -- who made a career out of doing Jack Benny's doubletake. And Carson and Letterman both have acknowledged their debt to Benny. Benny, in turn, said he borrowed extensively from Frank Fay.

Letterman would probably acknowledge his debt to Fred Allen too, but most people wouldn't know who he was talking about.

But we all come from somewhere.