Since I just turned in a big essay recently, I am very much almost done with school this year. This ought to give me a chance to catch up on my blogging. Here are some things that distracted me up to this finals week.

I really shouldn’t have any reason to know that the Caramelldansen Speedycake remix is sped up by a factor of the 4th root of 2, and is thus three half-steps higher than the original.

Speaking of caramel (almost), Skittles have come out in “Chocolate Mix” in an attempt to horn in on M&Ms’ territory, and one of the flavors is Chocolate Caramel. While I don’t like caramel, it’s actually hard to tell the difference between the different flavors, except by noting they are various shades of brown. Thus the problem of “I don’t like caramel” is supplanted by homogeneity, which is also a problem for Skittles. I expect Chocolate Mix won’t attract either people who don’t like Skittles or people who do like Skittles, just those who are undecided. That's a pretty bad audience to target, at least on a regular basis.

I wonder whether Yahtzee is doing anything for his birthday or his "Zero Punctuation" anniversary. And by "anything," I mean "something in the video." On a related note, I've been thinking of doing some ZP-style video reviews of some things, most likely aimed at the furry fandom. In something like a chord, I might make a tribute video for ZP.

I submitted an entry to Nagfa's March ambigram contest recently. I found out about Nagfa through ceruleanst's journal, and I think this might be a good opportunity for me to get my name out.

This all makes me wonder, though, whether I'll have to decide between ambigrams and webcomics. I doubt it, mostly, since the aforementioned ceruleanst seems to be doing fine with that.

Yeesh, I started writing this entry weeks ago, and I didn't even mention getting hit by a car. I'd better wrap it up and work on another entry. (I'm fine, by the way. The car was turning, so it wasn't going very fast. The driver called 911 and the responders vetted me.)

In case you were wondering, NO I did not get my Halloween costume ready in time. And now, it's time for SPOILERS!


Chuck! Revelation!( Revelation! )

I must say, though, part of that Green segment during the commercial break with Morgan and Casey rubbed me the wrong way. Morgan said he had an eco-friendly vehicle, and Casey responded by pointing out that said vehicle was a bike. It was supposed to be a put-down. What? Oh, come on! Bicycles are a standard alternative to normal cars; lots of people chose to ride bikes instead of cars specifically because they didn't use gas, loooong before things like hybrid cars started popping up. I wouldn't be surprised if NBC had received, let's call it a kickback, from the car companies for putting that crack in there. Phoo....


Heroes! Revelation!( Revelation! )


Journeyman! Revelation!( Revelation! )

I just realized that "Do you support the troops?" is a loaded question. The trick is that if you support the people, the question is phrased so that it sounds like you have to support their trooplike activities. Of course, many if not most soldiers would rather not fight. If you hear this in an argument, there's no way to guarantee a "win"; just point out the loadedness and say "yes, but not as troops."

Tom Tomorrow (among others, I'm sure) has compared the current Bush presidency to the Nixon presidency. The current Gulf War obviously corresponds to Vietnam, and the current wiretap scandal suggests Watergate. So I was trying to think up a third analogic similarity, but I came up with a disparity instead; if Baudy Dubya resigns or gets impeached, Tricky Dick Cheney would be next in line, and would likely be seen as more competent than the man he's replacing. I'm sure this is why the Democrats have been sitting on their hands.
(Note: First, I'm sort of joking. Second, I've misspelled "bawdy" above, but it's otherwise a nice anagram. Third, "bawdy" may not be an accurate description, but see the second point.)

Now, I know I suggested I'd talk about the Colorado Math Olympiad, but I was going to give two math exercises, and I figured that would be rather dull. So instead, here's an alphametic/cryptarithm which answers a question skipped over in "Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School."

  APPLES
+ORANGES
 NOGRAPE

I haven't seen this week's "Heroes" yet, but I did see most of "Criminal Minds" on Wednesday and "Monk" yesterday. (For completeness's sake, I also saw "Shark," "Psych," and "NUMB3RS," but I'm only really talking about the other two here.)

SPOILERS

( SPOILERS )

Does anybody else get annoyed by Pez dispensers? They're such a chore to load. I have one right here, so let me describe the (pictorial) directions on the package:

1. Pull the spring-loaded head all the way out.
2. Insert the (unwrapped) candy in one stack.

My problems lie mainly with these two steps, but let me finish first.

3. Push the head back into position.
4. To enjoy, push the head backward and pull out the tiny piece of candy.

All right. My first problem is the transition from 1 to 2. Since the thing is spring-loaded, it requires you use either a tricky maneuver or a third hand to hold it open. And I don't even mean one of those metal stands with tiny clamps (although that might work, so long as the clamps are holding both ends of the assembly).

The second problem becomes apparent once I try to implement the directions. See, before following step 1, you have to prepare for step 2 by unwrapping the candy. That would have been nice to know ahead of time. Then, once you've opened the dispenser, you have to insert the candy all at once, in a single stack, or else insert each of the twelve pieces individually. The latter way is tedious, so I try the former way. (You know, like it's shown in the directions.) I tell you, I can't unwrap the candy completely enough to drop it in all at once (ignoring that the "neck" is just a tad too thin for the candy to "drop" in), because the end pieces are invariably stuck in the ends of the package. Invariably.

I don't really have a problem with step 3, but step 4 seriously underdelivers.

Happy Saturday the 14th, everyone! I was going to post yesterday, but, you know....

I had this titular chat earlier in the week. It was very interesting, and I wish I'd had more time to speak with Mr. Lambert, since we only talked about two topics. I also wish I'd had a tape recorder with me; as is, I'll have to do with paraphrasing him.

I asked him what he thought about global warming. He called it junk science, and said he spoke from being a scientist himself. I pressured him about the hockey stick graph, that graph that shows average global temperature and carbon dioxide levels rising synchronously, and after he mentioned that average global temperature naturally rose periodically, he added, "Don't forget that carbon dioxide is found all over the world, and so we can't say what's causing the rise. Besides, plants use carbon dioxide to breathe, and we don't want to kill the plants."

I stress that this is a paraphrase, and Mr. Lambert probably said something much more sensible. However, I wasn't thinking clearly (as someone with Asperger's Syndrome, I frequently have trouble with conversation), and all I could think of was, "But plants also create carbon dioxide. They store energy by turning CO2 and H2O into sugar and oxygen, then reverse the process to use that energy." So I kept my mouth shut.

It hadn't occurred to me to point out that plants were doing just fine before the Industrial Revolution, which is when the CO2 levels started rising, and average global temperature with them. (It has been pointed out as ironic that the Industrial Revolution also killed a lot of trees. But I digress.)

I changed the topic to taxes. (Right away, you know this cannot be good.) I asked where the sense was in giving tax breaks to the rich. (Sorry. I know grouping many different people under one name is a little simplistic.) After all, since they have more money, can't they afford to have more taken away? He answered with the rhetorical question of "where do you draw the line?" and added that doctors in Sweden, for example, are charged 102% income tax (a figure I haven't been able to verify). I told him I was worried that it sounded a lot like Reaganomics, and he answered (again, this is just a paraphrase): "It is Reaganomics, and Reaganomics works. It's created 30 million jobs in the last 25 years."

I stopped the conversation and let Mr Lambert go at that point, partly because I didn't have enough knowledge to contradict him (or to agree with him, as he pointed out several times). However, I did make a point to ask my mother about it later. She agreed that Reaganomics created many jobs, but she added that a lot of those jobs were low-paying and many people needed to work several jobs to support their families. Now, I still don't know enough to confirm or deny this, but I'll say this much: I'm proud to vote Democrat, because I don't want to be three janitors.

Okay, I'm declaring the relevant statute of limitations officially up. I won't have everyone spending forever talking about what a horrible thing happened today. (Heck, I barely even knew the Twin Towers existed before they got hit.) Numerology!

Take the numbers 9 and 11 to be the starting terms of a Fibonacci-like sequence. Add 9 more terms to it, to get 11 total.

9
11
20
31
51
82
133
215
348
563
911

Neat, eh?

I saw "NUMB3RS" just a few hours ago. (I just want to say that I used some of the time following to reset my password, because it somehow changed.) This episode was a rerun, "Undercurrents." (New episodes start September 22.) A couple things bothered me about that episode when I first saw it.

( Spoiler )

Yes, crisis.* According to many men of the cloth, The Da Vinci Code has plunged countless Christians into doubt over their beliefs. The whole religion is under the thralls of the wrong book, even though that book is entirely fictional. That is to say, neither Mr. Langdon, nor Prof. Teabing, nor any of the other characters existed.

This raises the question of how The Da Vinci Code gained such a following. One obvious influence is its popularity, though of course that can't be the whole explanation, as it became popular mainly by throwing Christian beliefs into doubt.

I'm proposing the theory that the particular Christians being duped are the suggestible ones. It's easier to show that suggestible Christians exist than to show how big that crowd is, but bear with me. These people I'm calling "suggestible Christians" are characterized by two traits (it's critical to my conjecture that these traits be taken together): they accepted the Holy Bible without question, and they questioned the Bible when they read The Da Vinci Code.**

Do you see what I'm getting at? First they accepted one long-winded book as gospel... then they tried to accept another long-winded book as gospel. Such people are prone to make attachments based on little more than a few pages! No wonder the holy men are distressed.

*Let me point out right here that I have tagged this as a "rant." My fledgling definition for a rant is that the author makes certain claims and purposely supports them weakly or with little effort to convince. For example, the third paragraph contains a claim about a group selected almost specifically so that the claim will be true.
**You can't see me formatting this, but every time I italicize "The Da Vinci Code," it's as if I'm taking a deep breath in order to say it dramatically.