Just in time for Halloween, and it’s down right scary.
Your computer is going to read your mind!
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/magic-gopher-central.swf
Well, the computer, of course, is not reading anyone’s mind.
There’s a neat trick in math where subtracting the sum of the digits of a two-digit number from itself always equals a multiple of 9.
So, for example if you have 43, then 43 – 7 = 36. Or 28-10=18, 57-12=45, 32-5=27, etc etc etc
Now look at the symbols in the game for 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99. They’re all the same, ain’t they? All the other symbols are just filler to fool you.
Now that you know how it works (and Knowledge is Power, I always say) you can go and impress your friends.
There are lots of cute tricks with the number 9 — such as adding the two digits themselves in the multiples of 9 (i.e., 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90) also equal to 9. And these multiples are palindromes (”mirror images”) of another multiple. So 45 is a palindrome of 54, 36 is a palindrome of 63, 81 is a palindrome of 18, etc.
These weird properties of 9 is the reason why the ancients thought 9 had mystical powers and associated it with the occult and witchcraft.
Blessed be!
Tags: fun science
This is great article — if you thought there was a single factor that caused the mess we are in, this just might be the smoking gun:
Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk
The entire article eviscerates the SEC and its pro-business, pro-deregulation chairman Christopher Cox:
The commission’s decision effectively to outsource its oversight to the firms themselves fit squarely in the broader Washington culture of the last eight years under President Bush.
A similar closeness to industry and laissez-faire philosophy has driven a push for deregulation throughout the government, from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency to worker safety and transportation agencies.
I love my conservative friends dearly, but I really will never understand the way a Republican’s brain works: they say they want government out of people’s private lives, but the party platform wants a constitutional ban on gay marriage and abortion (and I would think choosing your mate and what you want to do to your own body is about as private as you can get).
They want government out of people’s pocketbooks, but that idea of de-regulation and hoping that the markets will police themselves is the ultimate example of naivete and cluelessness.
They want to regulate what should not be regulated, and don’t want to regulate what should be. There is certainly enough criticism about liberalism, but I think I’ve framed the conservative ideology pretty succinctly.
Tags: financial crisis, idiots, republicans, SEC
People don’t want to face facts, they want to be pandered to, and no one does that better than Republicans.
Republicans are very suspicious of “smart” people, because “smart” = “elite” and they have successfully labeled “elites” as being out of touch with ordinary Americans
So long as people choose to live in denial, there will always be politicians to sell them whatever myth they want to believe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html
Actually most Americans really in fact are quite STUPID because they don’t/can’t/won’t understand current events or affairs that are happening around them; instead they prefer to be led by the nose by people who talk down to them, as long as they believe they can have a beer or a coffee with that person. (“Hey, he’s just like one of us! I don’t know how the frigging economy works, and neither does he! I’m definitely voting for him now!”)
It worked with Bush, and it’s going to work with Palin.
Speaking of Palin, she truly scares me. Forget about 4 more years of Bush, imagine a female Dick Cheney:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html
And I’m thoroughly convinced that most Americans are stupid since I had an argument in Times Square with an average tourist from Kansas (not making this up) who swore that Jesus Christ spoke English because her BIBLE was written in English. Yes, people, these are the salt-of-the-earth people that are the backbone of this country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14friedman.html
Reminds me of the scene in ‘Blazing Saddles’ when the Gene Wilder tells the sheriff (the man, the legend, Cleavon Little), “You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
Fight the good fight everyone, but I fear these are PRECISELY the reasons why the Republicans will win. I’ve been contributing $50 every month to Obama’s campaign since March of 2007 (LONG before he even gained national prominence because I knew he would be a different, more ethical and better kind of leader), but if the Dems screw this up then I will never, not ever, vote for them again.
Tags: democrats, mccain, obama, palin, politics, republicans
Well, I shouldn’t say it means exactly “nothing” but the weight it carries is a lot less than people think.
Have you ever worked for a boss that was a temperamental, vindictive bully? Or perhaps he was incompetent without a clear vision for navigating the bad times, let alone the good? Was he spiteful, petty, stupid, short-sighted? How many years of “experience” did he have as a manager? Do you think it had any bearing on his management style?
The same thing goes with politicians.
Let’s talk about Bush: the inexperienced Bush and the experienced Bush.
Bush had no political experience when he campaigned against the popular and heavily-favored Ann Richards for Governor of Texas in 1995. But he won anyway. So when he announced his intent to run for President in 2000 he had FIVE years of experience as a governor (three more than Palin).
Eight years later and the record shows that he is one of the worst Presidents in American history.
Was that BECAUSE of his experience, or BECAUSE of his lack of it?
The answer is neither.
What trumps experience any day of the week is Intelligence, Wisdom and Ethics. Bush has shown for the last eight years how ill-equipped he is in any of the three areas, and the country is suffering for it.
Maybe McCain can lay some claim to ethics and wisdom (I don’t know how intelligent he is), but Palin definitely cannot say that. Everything I’ve read about her so far doesn’t give me the confidence that she is ethical, wise or intelligent.
McCain may or may not give the country four more years of Bush, but President Palin most certainly will.
So remember: Intelligence + Wisdom + Ethics = Good Judgment.
This is your choice, America. What will you fight for?
Tags: democrats, mccain, obama, palin, politics, republicans
Although I’m no fan of the Republican party, I admit that I do admire John McCain. He’s not the maverick that he once was, but he is still full of challenging ideas.
One of them that I read a few weeks ago is an idea that British Prime Ministers must stand in front of Members of Parliament and answer any and all questions under oath. This is called Question Time and it’s time that it came to America. As an admitted Anglophile, the idea that this concept should take root here, in the so-called last superpower in the world, is something that I’ve longed to see.
Imagine if the leader of the free world had to swallow his pride, get off his high horse, look at Congress, the elected body that represents the people, directly in the eye, and answered any and all questions that were put to him.
No preening, no swaggering, no photo op, no sound bites. It would make C-SPAN appointment viewing.
Question Time. It’s about time for Question Time.
Once upon a time, there was this girl named Julia. Now Julia was convinced that she was going to spend the rest of her life alone. And she was content with it. She made a career change and she became her a mentor. And she made friends. One of her friends was Rina, who invited her to a BBQ. She wasn’t sure if she was going to go — she had spent most of the day sleeping. But she went anyway. There were a lot of children, but she didn’t mind. So to amuse herself she struck up a conversation with her friends on, of all things, wet dreams. While they were going back and forth, a man, Roland, entered in from the outside, sat down and got caught up in the conversation. While her friends were offering up one misconception after another about wet dreams, Julia defended men, trying to explain how wet dreams really worked. But Roland, who was mightily amused about this oddest of odd conversations, was struck by the forthrightness and confident demeanor of this most intriguing, mysterious Julia. He knew right then and there that he had to take that chance of chances and find out who this Julia was… {to be continued}
The cancer called the Department of Homeland Security is at it again, eating away at our fundamental rights. As it metastasizes through the Constitution, already bludgeoning due process in theFifth Amendment, it’s now tearing at the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizures without probable cause.
A recent federal court decision has upheld the practice by the US Customs officials to search laptops for international travelers arriving at the border, even forcing them to disclose password to unlock the laptop if the official demands it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/06/AR2008020604763.html
The agency that is at the center of this controversy is the US Customs department, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. On 6/25/08, Jayson Ahern, Deputy Commissioner of US Customs testified before Congress on this activity:
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/congressional_test/laptop_searches.xml
As the U.S. Supreme Court has stated, “since the beginning of our Government,” the Executive Branch has enjoyed “plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border, without probable cause or a warrant, in order to regulate the collection of duties and to prevent the introduction of contraband into this country.”
Privacy advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is petitioning the government against possible violations of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure:
http://www.eff.org/issues/travel-screening
http://www.eff.org/cases/foia-litigation-border-searches
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/protecting-yourself-suspicionless-searches-while-t
http://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-arnold
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/05/01
Quote from the last link:
Your privacy could be at risk even if you don’t travel yourself. Your financial institution, your insurer, and other enterprises hold extensive personal data about you and your family,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. “If agents of those groups travel internationally, your information could be exposed to officials at the border or potentially copied and stored in government databases. Americans should know how and why electronic data is seized and kept by the government, and who is able to access it at the border and in the years afterwards.
NOTE: It’s important to point out that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not do laptop searches, only the US Customs department:
http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/02/rumor-alert-laptops.html
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