EclectEcon

I will be visiting Houston for the next little while, acting as a nanny /housekeeper for our granddaughter while my son and his wife go back to work/school. We're delighted to be able to help out.

This is our 5th granddaughter and our first opportunity to be nanny-temps. There are so many relatives around here, where our other children and granddaughters live, and Canadian parental leave is so generous [the U.S. does not provide a year of parental leave as Canada does], that none of the grandparents actually moved in to help out with the others.

I'll be there for awhile; then Ms. Eclectic will take over from me. Later in the summer and fall other grandparents will take a shift.

How much blogging I do depends on how much she sleeps during the day while I'm supposed to be looking after her ...

When I was young, the farmers had a test for whether their corn crop would be good. The saying, "Knee-high by the fourth of July" meant that if their corn was knee-high by then, the crop was likely to be a good one. Of course, it was just a vague rule of thumb, since corn matures much more quickly farther south than it does in the northern states or in Canada.

This summer, it looks to us as if the corn in our area is about waist-high on the fourth of July. We have had some good warm stretches and lots of moisture. The farmers around here are working very hard to find something about the weather to complain about... 8-)

From Linda Chavez, writing in Commentary [h/t to Execupundit, which has a lot of very good material that I do not see elsewhere]:

A single statistic tells the tale. As against the 10 percent or fewer of American whites who hold negative views of blacks, the same mid-1990’s survey of intergroup attitudes cited above registered over three-quarters of blacks holding negative views of whites. ...

As I have already suggested, a dishearteningly large number of black Americans do indeed harbor extreme attitudes toward white America and toward other American ethnic groups. One of the most in-depth studies of this issue, conducted by Paul M. Sniderman and Thomas Piazza for their book Black Pride and Black Prejudice (2002), found blacks significantly more likely than whites to hold anti-Semitic views, a finding consistent with several other studies. Regarding whites in general, one-quarter of those surveyed said they believed white doctors had invented AIDS in the laboratory in order to commit genocide, and nearly half said that the CIA and FBI had flooded black neighborhoods with drugs and guns so that blacks would harm one another—findings that suggest Jeremiah Wright is no outlier among blacks.

These wild conspiracy theories are themselves rooted in racial animus. Indeed, the data demonstrate that the greater the animus, the more likely an individual is to impute bigotry against himself and his group to others. In sum, Sniderman and Piazza conclude, “what encourages blacks to believe that others are prejudiced against them is their being prejudiced against others.”

It isn't as if black Americans haven't had good reasons to be suspicious of whites in the past. But these numbers and results would have shocked me if I hadn't seen the responses of students in predominantly black schools to the not-guilty verdict in the OJ trial; it was clear they perceived the trial as "them-against-us" rather than a contest of evidence and skill between the prosecution and the defence that OJ's lawyers clearly won. That reaction, coupled with the information provided in this article, are still more evidence that there is a wide gulf between whites and blacks in the US that requires bridge-building from both sides.

Quoted by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution,

Apart from the obvious problems of traffic and transportation, the growth created other confusing complications. Today, out of the city's eighty-five thousand streets, there are about eight hundred fifty called Juárez, seven hundred fifty named Hidalgo, and seven hundred known as Morelos. Two hundred are called 16 de Septiembre, while a hundred more are called 16 de Septiembre Avenue, Alley, Mews, or Extension. Nine separate neighborhoods are called La Palma, four are called Las Palmas, and there are numerous mutations: La Palmita, Las Palmitas, Palmas Inn, La Palmas Condominio, Palmas Avenida, La Palma I y Palma I-II Unidad Habitacional.

So suppose you look up Juárez on a street index. Which of the 850 streets named Juárez will the index show? Or will it list all 850?

Eva sent me this link to hundreds of jokes about communism. One of my favourites from the collection is this:

Q. What's the difference between a Christian and a Communist?

A. A Christian believes what's mine is yours, a Communist what's yours is mine

My older son, David Ricardo Palmer, recently constructed an entire kung fu outfit using nothing but duct tape.

The patch, the tattoos, the slippers, the sash, the headband... everything was made using duct tape. What a talented guy!

He writes,

In case you're wondering, duct-tape pants are really not likely ever to become a fad - they are VERY hot to wear and quite uncomfortable.

This is the May 2-4 Weekend in Canada. It all started long ago as a holiday to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria every May 24th, but in the 1950s, it was moved to the Monday on or before May 24th so we could have a three-day weekend.

This is the weekend that many people open their cottages for the summer. It is also the weekend that many campgrounds open and are overrun by young people who see it as an opportunity to get out and party.

From Wikipaedia,

In some parts of Canada, the holiday is colloquially known as May Two-Four. This phrase has two meanings: the holiday always falls near the date of May 24, and a two-four is Canadian slang for a case of 24 bottles of beer, a common packaging of the drink in Canada (and a common purchase of those planning to celebrate the weekend).

To celebrate the holiday, I think I'm going to vacuum the basement.

As a regular blogger, especially about myriad topics, I received a complimentary one-year subscription to the on-line version of Encyclopaedia Britannica (h/t to Craig Newmark!).

The first time I visited their site, I watched this really fascinating video about the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly. Many/most of you probably already know most of this stuff, but the details were fascinating for me. The links to the videos can be found here:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/388833/monarch-butterfly

Please let me know if the links don't work.

Nearly a year ago, I started playing around with Google Earth, a fascinating programme that allows one to view different portions of the earth from different perspectives (thanks to Duncan, who introduced me to geocaching and many programmes like Google Earth that are strong complements). One of the really neat things I could do was upload the route of one of my treks through the Yorkshire Dales (the route was saved on a hand-held GPS), and then show Ms. Eclectic where I'd been and what I'd seen. I could even show her the view from where I sat on a hillside and called her to exclaim about the beauty of the Dales.

A few months ago, Google Earth was expanded to include Google Sky, a programme designed for exploring the skies. And now Worldwide Telescope, in conjunction with Microsoft, has brought out WWT, an amazing programme for astronomical dabblings. From the NYTimes,

There may be no space war between Microsoft and Google, but their offerings reflect their different cultures. The WorldWide Telescope results from careful planning and lengthy development in a research division. It has the richer graphics and it created special software to present the images of spherical space objects with less polar distortion. WorldWide Telescope requires downloading a hefty piece of software, and it runs only on Microsoft Windows.

Google Sky started as a Google “20 percent” project, in which engineers can spend time on anything they choose. Google Earth, where Google Sky began, requires a software download, but its Web-based version, which came out in March, does not. The Google culture encourages engineers to put new things onto the Internet quickly and keep improving them, a philosophy geared to constant evolution instead of finished products.

Both programmes require some experience with them to understand how they work. As usual, Google pretty much says "do what you want" but has fewer features; and Microsoft says, "do it our way" with many more features; and the tradeoff between the two approaches makes the choice difficult. So I play with both

As I was growing up, we used to wander in these woods a lot. It was here I learned to identify wintergreen plants — we were able to eat the entire plant and enjoy the wintergreen flavour.

I had never seen wintergreen growing naturally anywhere else until recently, when we were visiting Beck and Ron at the Blue Heaven horse farm in Southern Nova Scotia. Here are some photos of a few of the plants.

If you ever decide to visit The Hopewell Rocks, we highly recommend that you stay there for two nights and a full day so that you can see the rocks at both high tide and low tide. The contrast contributes tremendously to one's appreciation of the rocks.

We also recommend that you consider staying at the Innisfree Bed & Breakfast, where we stayed during our visit. Innisfree is run by Alan and Elaine, who moved there about 3 years ago, throwing over their jobs in Orangeville and Toronto, because they like sea-kayaking so much. Also they have a real knack for hospitality.

The rooms we stayed in were large, and the B&B was immaculately clean. We are not necessarily positively inclined toward B&Bs, but this one was special. Alan greeted us and helped us get settled in our rooms. Then he gave us tidal charts and explained how to get the most out of our visit to the rocks. They also lent The Interpreter a pair of Wellies to wear down on the shore (Ms. Eclectic and I had our hiking boots with us for the trek).

The breakfasts at Innisfree were terrific. Fresh local produce, including some of the best, dark maple syrup we have ever tasted. We also arranged for Alan and Elaine to prepare and provide an evening meal for us while we were there. It was at least as good as any you might have at a high-end restaurant.

During the peak of the tourist season, Innisfree is often booked up. Also Alan is a kayak guide, leading kayakers through the Hopewell Rocks during high tide. They also make their own jams and woolen products, and they have a gorgeous set of gardens. These folks work hard!

Innisfree has what Alan calls "country cable", meaning their televisions receive only two channels. What a throwback to my childhood (except these are in colour)! It is equipt with WIFI, which is great for someone like me who is a borderline internet addict.

The home is quite close to the entrance to The Hopewell Rocks (perhaps a ten-minute walk if you are in good shape), but walking to the rocks from there might really take about a half hour or so for most people; we drove.)

When we first arrived at Innisfree (during a friggn blizzard! in late April!), Ms. Eclectic said, "Now this is what a bed and breakfast is supposed to be like." We were saying the same thing two days later when we left.

Innisfree has a 4-star rating from Canada Select. We found on our trip that all 4-star places were great places to stay. The Canada Select ratings were far superior to anything provided by CAA/AAA.

Many people find that one way to reduce stress in our day-to-day lives is to sit around and pop the bubbles in bubble wrap. One problem is that doing so can be annoying for the people around you; also, once the bubbles are all popped, the stress can accelerate.

So here, courtesy of BenS (he says it is sponsored by Ritalin, but I don't believe him) is a virtual sheet of bubble wrap for you to pop. I find the "manic" version especially satisfying.

I am not much of a coffee connoisseur. I cannot tell the difference between Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Horton's, or any other run-of-the-mill cafe's coffee. I can tell the difference between those standard coffees and the coffee from Starbucks, but I don't much care which I drink. I expect this lack of concern about coffee differences affects my attitude toward coffee drinking. And just so you know this is a true lack of concern, I tend to drink my coffee black, not double-double, which seems to be the favourite of most Canadians.

I drink coffee with a straw. I realize that most take-out coffee comes with a lid that has a tear-up section or pre-punched hole to drink through, and that these lids help prevent spills. But I'm still perfectly capable of spilling coffee when I drink it from the cup. So I stick a straw through the hole.

Some years ago, Ms. Eclectic and I realized that if we drink coffee through a straw, it is much less likely to spill, especially when we are in the car, driving down the road.

And a real bonus of drinking anything through a straw while driving is that your vision of the road is never obstructed. You don't tip the cup or can or bottle up in front of your face when you drink through a straw — you can always keep your eyes on the road and the traffic when you drink coffee (or anything else, for that matter) through a straw in the car (and to head off the likely questions, no I do not and I do not advocate drinking beer while driving, nor have I tried drinking beer through a straw).

Drinking coffee through a straw has become such a habit for me now that I usually drink it that way, even if I'm sitting down at Tim Horton's. Using a straw also avoids the ugly dribbles and stains that run down the side of a porcelain cup.

It has a lot to recommend it, but I still haven't screwed up the courage to ask for a straw at higher end restaurants.

I had seen these before and was delighted when Judith sent them to me:

My friend Anita lived and now lives in Michigan, but for many years she lived in Atlanta. Here's her reaction to my earlier posting about southern vs. northern women:

I can tell you first hand what the difference is in Northern and Southern gals. After moving south, I had to learn how to dress.

Living in Atlanta for several years and coming back north once a year, my husband and I could plainly see the difference. On one such visit, we landed in Grand Rapids (Michigan) and stayed the night at a hotel. In the morning I looked at the people there having brunch and said, " Look at these women! They are colorless !!" The women were all dressed in mainly solid browns, blues and grays. There was nothing outstanding about the design of their clothing. They only wore a trace of make up and nothing flashy in the way of earrings and jewelry. And plain shoes. It was summer !!! Were these woman not pretty? I think they were not using what they had.

Southern gals just know that if one is good, two is better and three is better yet. They go for the total package look from a very young age and time and effort is put into looking nice. Little girls have ribbons and accessories for their hair and there it starts.

The difference in using make up is night and day. The vast majority of Southern gals wouldn't go anywhere without make up. If the Northern gals put on a light coat of mascara they are doing good. With Southern gals, if the jewery isn't big enough to be seen at an arms length, it isn't worth having including earrings and a diamond engagement ring.

Just sitting in the parking lot of a Michigan Wal-Mart vs the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Fayetteville, Georgia tells it all. Michigan gives gals in jeans, printed tee-shirts, dirty white running shoes, little or no make up or jewery. In Fayetteville, the girl can be wearing jeans and a tee-shirt, but the tee is tucked in, she has a cute belt, her shoes are dressier, her hair is done, she has make -up on and a showy pair of earrings. Is one girl better looking than the other?? All things being equal, the Southern gal is more pleasing to look at.

The shoes that are offered in the South are so much nicer than the ones in the North. While living in Atlanta, I bought some really stylish shoes ...... soft green suede, suede and snake skin heals in eggplant color, multi color leathers of teal, tan and coral with satin ribbon ties. I haven't seen such offered in this area. They most likely wouldn't sell.

To conclude. Southern gals have a more polished look.

via Jack,
1. GO TO THE FOLLOWING SITE : http://www.tatuagemdaboa.com.br/


2. TYPE YOUR FIRST NAME ON THE 1st LINE.


3. TYPE YOUR LAST NAME ON THE 2nd LINE.

(Skip your email addresses.)

4. Click on Vizualizar (on your left) and watch what happens.

Despite how worked-up I get sometimes over the policy proposals of arrogant left-wing elitist interventionists, I have managed to control my language on this blog pretty well:


Created by OnePlusYou

According that website, I have cussed less than 94% of the blogs that have taken the test. Compare that with Rondi who, by comparison, swears like a trooper.

I figure the comments must affect the count. Why else would MR have a score of 6.6%? And there must be something wrong with the cuss counter if Phil got a zero.

Harry Truman is reputed to have once said,

Somebody bring me a one-handed economist! I'm tired of hearing, "On the one hand this, on the other hand that..."

Tyr was a one-handed Norse god,

The t-rune ... is named after Tyr, and was identified with this god., the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is Tîwaz. The rune is sometimes also referred to as Teiwaz, or spelling variants.

Judging from the rune portrayed in Wikipedia, one wonders if that's all Tyr was missing:

Yesterday, Craig Newmark linked to this article which rates the attractiveness of the women on various university campuses and then ranks the universities from 1 - 50.

As I scanned through the article to which he linked (yes, scanned; I'm old enough that there's no point in lingering), it struck me that the top 10 list includes only southern schools. Further, the schools ranked 11th - 20th are all from the south or from the west coast.

Where, I wondered, are the schools from the Midwest ranked? And sure enough, there were several in the list from 21st - 30th.

Why might the Big Ten and similar schools be ranked so low? To say there are fewer or less attractive women in such schools is not an adequate answer; the question is, if so, why?

Is there a selection bias in the admissions policies of southern schools (submit a photo with your application)?

Is it possible that women who are very attractive prefer warmer climates to show off their attractiveness, whereas those less well-endowed(?) are happy to attend universities where the weather mandates covering up more [with the attendant "I don't much care anymore" attitude by young males when the warm weather finally arrives]? If so, what will be the impact of global warming on these rankings in the future?

Is it possible that the selection bias arises because the women in the Midwest are every bit as attractive as elsewhere but there are fewer photos of them from which to judge because there is less warm weather in the Midwest? [an informal poll of colleagues tells me there's much more cleavage seen at schools in warmer climates, so this possibility has some merit]

Is it possible that the women in the Midwest and North are every bit as attractive, potentially, as the women of the South and West, but they choose to invest less in the raw materials of looks and more in the raw materials of other forms of human capital? If so, why?

Is it possible that there is an inverse correlation between female attractiveness and female intelligence and that the schools in the Midwest are better schools, attracting (!) smarter but less attractive women? and related,

Is it possible that northern men care less about superficial beauty, preferring the inner depths of knowledge and personality [yeah, sure], and hence the women respond to those incentives accordingly?

Or is it possible that southern men care more about superficial beauty, ...?

Or do Northern and Midwestern schools for some other reason attract women who, by the standards of the piece to which Craig Newmark linked, are less attractive?

How would Canadian universities come out in this ranking? Are the most beautiful women more likely to attend schools on the west coast? Rumour has it that Country Club U [aka UWO] in Ontario would do very well in this ranking, though.

Addendum: A radio commentator I happened to hear last evening was very confident that many of the photos accompanying the original article were of models wearing clothing with the school logos. If so, that raises other possibilities, such as:

Are administrators of southern and western schools able to hire better-looking models? If so, why? Is it because better-looking models prefer to live in the south or west coast? And, again, if so, why them and not the less attractive models?

Matt Braskey recently wrote to me about the solitaire game, Spider, about which I blogged a couple of years ago. I wrote, in part,

... [W]hat happens in Spider solitaire when you run out of cards in the piles across the top and the game won't let you deal any new cards because each column or slot must have at least one card in it [?]

Matt wrote,

I encountered the spider stalemate that you wrote about in your
blog about two years ago. Your blog seems to be one of the only
places that detail it. What an interesting scenario!

He also sent this screen shot, which (after you click on it) is much clearer than the one I posted back then.

As I wrote back then, this doesn't seem as if it should be called a loss. Rather, it seems like a stalemate to me.

However, once you know this is how the game works, if you want to win, you must avoid running out of cards this way.

I just received an announcement of auditions for a role in a fringe theatre play in Trono:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: FRINGE ACTORS - TORONTO
---------------------------------------------
...
Currently accepting submissions to audition for the remaining characters in the play: ...

The Old Man, male 45+

45+??? Old??? What's that make me???

From Snopes. The last time Easter was this early was in 1913. The next time it will be this early will be the year 2228.

Update: Be sure to see the comments!

Have you noticed that the various CSI shows have different colour themes? CSI-Miami is definitely yellow -- lots of backgrounds and backgound lightings are yellow, almost vividly yellow.

CSI-Las Vegas seems to have blue theme. The lab is blue or seems blue, and often the lights in the non-lab scenes are bluish.

But what on earth colour is associated with CSI NY? It seems grey or maybe silver, but it has far less blue and far less yellow than either of the related CSIs. [btw, I thought Gary Sinise was a whole lot better in Forest Gump than he is in this TV series].

Sorry for the dearth of postings lately. Travel, family illnesses, and then computer problems slowed me down considerably.

For a fun website, check out this one from HEMA in The Netherlands. Once you connect to it, wait a few seconds for the action to begin.

http://producten.hema.nl/

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.

[h/t to Ron]

from Jack,

How good a driver are you?

Getting old, are we? Reflexes slowing down? As I remember, the automobile driving manual says the average driver's reaction time is . 75 seconds -or- 1 car length for every 10 mph.

Here is a test of your reaction times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf

Make sure you have your mouse or glidepad ready when the game begins. Also, I found that just tapping the glidepad was pretty slow compared with clicking the right button.

A tough game that tests not only your knowledge of European geography but also your ability to use that knowledge quickly.

Via Alan Adamson, who scored higher than I did.

Update: Rondi did better than either of us, scoring nearly 29,000.

Here is one theory from The Agitator (via the Adam Smith Institute blog):

Clinton had to have known that marginalizing Obama wouldn’t work. He knows Obama is a talented politician, that he isn’t a demagogue like Jackson, and that he has already demonstrated that he can attract white voters in large swaths–Obama certainly didn’t win Iowa by dominating the black vote, did he?

So why would Clinton do it? Well, maybe he doesn’t want his wife to be president.

They don’t come much more alpha male than Bill Clinton. The guy’s a walking erection. I can’t imagine anything more emasculating to an alpha-alpha like Bill than to watch his wife arc over him–for her to become more powerful than he. Actually, it’s quite a bit worse than that. Hillary Clinton was on the verge of not only becoming more powerful than Bill, she was ready to become the most powerful person on the planet. ... I can’t see how that wouldn’t mess with the psychology of a guy like Clinton.

More to support my theory: It’s pretty clear that Hillary Clinton’s reputation and public image have never been of much concern to Bill Clinton. He has publicly humiliated his wife over and over and over again, then counted on her to stand by him in the interests of his career–at which point he inevitably turns around and humiliates her again. It isn’t all that hard to believe that a guy who’s alpha enough to risk his entire political career and presidential legacy for a few hummers from a pudgy intern might subconsciously sabotage his wife’s ascent to power, is it?

I have an entry in my Outlook calendar that pops up every February 11th. It says,

Buy Valentines or Die

That entry has proven to be a life-saver.

Of interest primarily to the older readers of EclectEcon is this site which provides a life expectancy calculator for people over 60 [h/t to BenS]. According to this site, I'm expected to live into my 80s, and I have a 4% chance of dying within the next 4 years.

Note to my children: It looks as if you will most likely have plenty of time, still, to save up to cover the negative inheritance.

My older son, David Ricardo Palmer, used his cell phone to take this photo at a local grocery store last weekend. He is warning people not to shop there...

Because Wikipedia is an open web site, entries there can be edited by anyone. In instances when there are disagreements, this openness can lead to some fascinating edit wars. One of the worst, most vitriolic, of these wars has involved John Lott (see his blog here).

Tim Worstall was the subject of a recent set of edits/re-edits at Wikipedia. He seems to have taken a somewhat light-hearted view of the incident. The scurrilous material inserted about him has since been edited out of Wikipedia, but he reproduced much of it on his website.

48%

I wonder if that means there is a 52% chance I would be the main course....

Just remember, folks: old meat is tough and not very tasty.

[h/t to Brian Ferguson; I'm not sure I want to learn what his score was. Maybe the optimal strategy when planning a trip is to make sure you travel with at least some people who have lower scores than your own.]

Update: Be sure to read the comments! Also, Ms. Eclectic informs me that she scored 31%. Rondi scored 20% -- down in the "great travel partner" range!

In 1983, an Air Canada 767 airplane with 61 passengers aboard ran out of fuel. The pilot, who had glider experience, safely landed the plane with no power at an abandoned military air strip in Gimli, Manitoba. The plane is now being removed from active service after having had many successful flights following the incident. For more of the story, see this. Fascinating stuff.

After having seen this article about ugly campuses in the US [h/t Newmark's Door], I began to ponder what might be the ugliest campuses in Canada. As of now, my ranking would be

1. York University for its concrete sameness, followed by
2. Concordia University for its lack of any remotely resembling attractiveness.

Both of these would beat any on the top 20 list from the US.

1920s style song by Eric Idle about the expanding universe. According to some reviews, the numbers are tolerably close to correct.

Yes, the same Eric Idle from the original Monty Python group.

Carol Hughes is very funny, especially for us old farts more senior members of the community.

Watch this five-minute clip, Mrs. Hughes' Skewed Views to see if you agree. You won't regret it.

The title of this posting is a line from her description of going through menopause.

It turns out that vacuums kill fleas pretty effectively. From the Globe & Mail,

WASHINGTON — Vacuum cleaners kill fleas just as well as any poison, surprised U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said a standard vacuum cleaner abuses the fleas so much it kills 96 per cent of adult fleas and 100 per cent of younger fleas.

So no need to worry that a vacuum cleaner bag may turn into a fleabag breeding ground for the pesky, biting creatures, said Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University.

Now to convince our cats that the vacuum is their friend.

I needed a test to show this?




And, in a robustness test (with some alternative answers a day later), here are my second results (note that there are no questions about how many parenthetical expressions you use, nor any questions about how many times you take on-line quizzes "to test for robustness"):




Looks more like "academic-nerd" to me.

[h/t to Phil Miller]

Wassail, snowsqualls, and a rude Christmas card from EclectEcon.

Creating and enforcing property rights and removing impediments to the growth of a working market economy will do much more to help feed the hungry than sending ten or a thousand or a million grains of rice to starving people. So while I am not terribly keen on the underlying plan at this site, the vocabulary test is one heck of a challenge.

A few times I managed to run my score up to 47 with a series of lucky guesses, but I admit it was luck (with probably some residual influence from my high school Latin class 68 years ago plus what little I have managed to pick up from doing the crosswords with Ms. Eclectic over the past two decades). Here is the link [h/t to Alex]. My "natural" score, toward which I seem to tend, is about 43 or 44.

Intriguing artwork by Alex Ivanov, a plumber from Russia now living in Goderich, Ontario.

This is my first album. It was inspired by reading Ontario Building Code Part 7, when I was preparing to take the plumbing exam for the provincial license. Besides other images it contains one nice picture and a couple of pretty gross ones.

I really like about half the pictures, and I don't mind the others.

It turns out that Paris Hilton doesn't care about drunken elephants after all. From the Associated Press [via Brian Ferguson]:

GAUHATI, India (AP) — In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.

It seems this was quoting a source that was premature (or maybe just plain lying).

I recently took this "intelligence" test. It is maybe a test of letter and number association; maybe a test of recognition of idioms and cliches; but it is hardly a test of intelligence. The test site says,

People who did well on this type of test are likely those who are gifted with verbal ability and linguistic pattern recognition.
This sort of assessment would discriminate against those with non-linguistic pattern recognition (like solving jigsaw puzzles)
and spatial intelligence (like the ability to use a map or see hidden figures in a drawing).

As Rondi Adamson (who got a very high score on the test) points out, the test has no time limit, so it is also a test of patience. You can keep trying wrong answers until you get them right, too. Once I reached the "genius" level, I figured I had satisficed, and I quit.

The site says it is Part I. Maybe the real intelligence test is to find a link to Part II.

Your Inner European is Swedish!

Relaxed and peaceful. You like to kick back and enjoy life.

The assessment is not particularly robust, however, as one might expect with just a six-question test. When I selected slightly different options:

Your Inner European is Dutch!

Open minded and tolerant. You're up for just about anything.

The two assessments seem pretty closely related in my mind. I'll take both.

[h/t Gabriel, who is also somewhat Dutch

Paris Hilton is concerned about binge-drinking, drunk elephants. Seriously:

Conservationists are praising socialite Paris Hilton, who has been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, for apparently trying to highlight the cause of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India.

Activists say a celebrity endorsement was sure to raise awareness of the plight of the pachyderms that get drunk on farmers' homemade rice beer then go on a rampage.

Last month, six wild elephants that broke into a farm in the state of Meghalaya were electrocuted after discovering and drinking the potent brew then uprooting an electricity pole.

Last week in Tokyo, Hilton said there would have been more casualties if villagers hadn't chased them away.

She called the situation "sad" and said people need to make sure alcohol is not available to the elephants.

Hilton promised to improve her bad-girl image when she completed a three-week jail term in June for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

For earlier links between Paris Hilton and String Theory, see this, this, this, this, and this.

[h/t to Brian Ferguson]

Has anyone ever done a follow-up study to measure which singles ads work best? What does it mean in this context to say "work best"? Let's say, "get the most replies or responses from members of the appropriate sex and sexual inclination." But of course other criteria are equally plausible.

I was prompted to wonder about this after reading these excerpts at Newmark's Door. I thought, "These are fun to read. I wonder if they worked." I fear that as with too many strategies in life, people do not attempt a systematic evaluation of the results.

And yet, if the results of such a study were widely known, wouldn't that make the ensuing ads less informative as more singles used the strategies that had worked in the past?

That's okay. We would just have to apply for a grant to redo the study every five years, right?

Tom Hanna volunteers to be waterboarded for two and a half minutes. Click here.

... the cats will sleep. How's that for an amended cliche?

Actually, what happened is that while I was away, Maxwell and Mystery took over my spot on the loveseat.



[photo courtesy of Ms. Eclectic]

As I understand it, string theory is the result of attempts by physicists to find a theory of everything. The strings in the theory are very small, have various shapes or forms, and are the basis of all sub-atomic particles and the basis of all energy, too.

That sounds a lot like "apeiron", a philosophical-physical abstract hypothesized by Anaximander. From Wikipaedia,

For Anaximander, the principle of things, the constituent of all substances, is nothing determined and not an element such as water in Thales' view. Neither is it something halfway between air and water, or between air and fire, thicker than air and fire, or more subtle than water and earth.[8] Anaximander argues that water cannot embrace all of the opposites found in nature — for example, water can only be wet, never dry — and therefore cannot be the one primary substance; nor could any of the other candidates. He postulated the apeiron as a substance that, although not directly perceptible to us, could explain the opposites he saw around him.

Also from Wikipaedia, on string theory,

String theory is a model of fundamental physics, whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the standard model of particle physics. The phrase is often used as shorthand for Superstring theory, as well as related theories such as M-theory. By replacing the point-like particles with strings, an apparently consistent quantum theory of gravity emerges. Moreover, it may be possible to "unify" the known natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear) by describing them with the same set of equations, as described in the Theory of everything.

It is all well-beyond my comprehension, but they sound pretty similar to me.

check this out.