Zeno's Paradox

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Ever since I read Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, I’ve had the paradox postulated by Zeno of Elea (c. 450 B.C.) bouncing around in my head. To summarize the paradox:

Zeno’s Paradox may be rephrased as follows. Suppose I wish to cross the room. First, of course, I must cover half the distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then I must cover half the remaining distance…and so on forever. The consequence is that I can never get to the other side of the room.

What this actually does is to make all motion impossible, for before I can cover half the distance I must cover half of half the distance, and before I can do that I must cover half of half of half of the distance, and so on, so that in reality I can never move any distance at all, because doing so involves moving an infinite number of small intermediate distances first.

I knew there must be a solution, as we all do manage to move around quite handily, I just never knew what it was. Luckily enough, I managed to stumble across an explanation of the paradox and its solution today. Nifty!

(Via Jason Kottke)

Just Hang Up

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Hang up when I’m talking to you. Get off your cell phone. In fact, turn off your cell phone. Just turn it off, put it down somewhere out of reach, and pay attention to the conversation that you’re already invovled in.

I’m sick of cell phones — or rather, I’m sick of what we put up with when cell phones are involved.

Personal calls at work on company time? Forbidden, of course — unless that call comes in on the cell phone at someone’s hip. Having a conversation with someone? Sorry, hold on, I’ve got a call. Out at dinner at a nice restaurant? Hope you don’t mind sitting there while I chat on the phone. Driving down the highway at 60 miles an hour in that gas-guzzling SUV that’s never left the pavement? Perfect time to distract yourself with the phone!

Why, for so many people, is everything put aside when the ringer goes off? You’ve got voicemail on that thing, right? Good. Then use it when I’m talking to you. I’m standing in front of you, looking you in the face — that should take precedence.

Expecting an important call? Fine, I can accept that — use the caller ID to check before answering if you can. If you can’t do that, then if an incoming call is not “the call,” make your apologies, offer to call back, and hang up.

This is simple stuff. To me, at least. Why doesn’t it seem to be for anyone else?

If you are using a cell phone, think about your behaviour while you’re on the phone. It’s basically a given that the people around you are going to be able to hear your side of the conversation — often whether they want to or not. Put some small amount of thought into what those around you are hearing. I’ve seen businessmen in expensive three-piece suits take a call and immediately turn into a foul-mouthed frat boy talking to whichever friend called, then hang up and turn back to the business conversation as if nothing had happened.

In a noisy environment? Maybe you should find a quiet place for that oh-so-important call then. I don’t know how many conversations I’ve been able to “sit in” on because one or the other party couldn’t hear well, so voices were raised, shouting into the phone, apparently under the bizarre assumption that there was some sort of “cone of silence” surrounding them. Here’s a hint, folks — we can hear you. Especially when you’re yelling.

Oh, and just because a cell phone is on your hip and you have the ability to call someone every time some little thing crosses your brain — don’t. Please don’t. Chances are, it’s not that important. If it’s really important, you’ll know it — if it can wait, let it wait. I’ve already lost too many hours to calls that had no real purpose or need, made only because there was no inhibition stopping it. I don’t need to lose any more.

I’m starting to feel like some sort of freak in today’s society. I don’t have a cell phone, nor do I want a cell phone. The only time I’ve owned one it was required by my job — and paid for by my job, too. I’m just sick to death of seeing people so engrossed in their phones that they neglect everything else.

Sorry about the rant. But please — put down the phone. Pay attention to the world.

Gun control 2003

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This is just frightening.

U.S. Department of Justice has threatened to criminally prosecute California’s top firearms official over the state’s continued use of a federal databank to hunt down illegal gun users, The Chronicle has learned.

Federal authorities believe the list of convicted felons, drug dealers, suspected terrorists, spouse beaters, illegal immigrants and others should only be used to help gun dealers determine if someone is allowed to buy a gun, not police investigating other gun-control violations.

(Via MeFi)

Everything's broken

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Four months ago, workmen started on a two-month project to renovate the apartment building I live in. We’re still waiting for them to finish.

We’ve had to put up with interruptions to every normal service. Electricity, heat, hot water, laundry — all of it has been cut off at one point or another. The laundry, of course, was one of the first things to go, so for the past four months, we’ve had to pay more money to go to a laundromat a few blocks away.

This week, I found out that the laundry facilities had finally reopened. So today, I started trying to do my laundry.

  • One of the washers has its coin slot jammed. Okay, I can cope with that, there’s still two more washers.
  • One of the other two washers occasionally decides to eat your quarters, but not start the wash cycle.
  • One of the dryers won’t even take quarters — the slider doohickey is jammed. Again, there’s two more dryers to work with.
  • The final straw? The original plans called for new electric washers and dryers. Plans changed at some point, so they put back in the old dryers. Gas dryers. In a ‘renovated’ laundry room with no gas hookups. End result? All the dryers are now ‘Air Dry’ only. Any guesses just how dry jeans get with ‘Air Dry’ only? Not at all. So now I’ve got jeans hung on the heater, over doors, over my shower curtain, and I’m just hoping that I’ve got at least one pair that’s actually wearable tomorrow morning.

I’m sick of this.

We’ve lost a good quarter of the tenants because of all the problems with this project. The only thing that’s really kept me here is that I don’t really have the spare cash to just pick up and find a new place. God, I wish I did, though….

On battling stereotypes

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When you’re a member of Suncoast‘s ‘Replay’ membership program, one of the benefits is their Request magazine. It’s about what you’d expect from this type of magazine — 50% advertising, 47% advertising thinly disguised as content, and about 3% that’s actually somewhat interesting to read.

The current March/April issue has a rundown of six top Oscar contenders: Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Julianne Moore, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Anniston, and Robin Williams. In the article, there were two quotes from Nicholson and Hanks that really stood out to me in the differences between how the two actors confront the stereotypes they’ve been saddled with — and illustrates why I tend to think more of Nicholson than I do of Hanks.

Discussing his role in About Schmidt, Nicholson had this to say:

More difficult, [Nicholson] says, is crafting a performance real enough to make the audience forget everything they know about the personality behind the character. “Almost anyone can give a representative performance when you’re unknown. The real pro game of acting is after you’re known — to ‘un-Jack’ the character and get the audience to invest in a fictional person. In order to keep growing as an actor, you have to learn the devices that keep you from just relying on what works for you.”

Then, regarding Road to Perdition, Hanks said this:

…Hanks insists that changing his image wasn’t the reason for taking the dark role. “That would take into an account a falsehood that it’s possible to change your image. You can’t do it,” he says. “[The audience] walks into a theater with a preconceived idea of everybody in the film, but hopefully that switch goes off, and you just watch the movie.”

In other words, while both actors know that they’ve been sterotyped — Nicholson as absolutely insane, and Hanks as the “nice guy,” Hanks just shrugs his shoulders and does his thing, while Nicholson actively works to challenge himself both in his roles and his acting to stretch both himself and his audience’s perception of him.

Good for you, Jack.

Sleep – from the painting by Salvadore Dali

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Salvadore Dali - Sleep

A bit of historical archiving here. This is a piece I wrote in 11th grade, which would put it at around 1989 or 1990. We were given an assignment to write an essay exploring any painting we chose, and the teacher was kind enough to leave the exact nature of the requested essay very open for interpretation. Salvadore Dali has long been one of my favorite artists, so I chose his painting “Sleep” to work with.

Were I writing it now, there are definitely some things I’d do differently. However, I’m not writing it now, merely resurrecting it — and presenting it for the world to see. Enjoy!

Read more

Stonehenge porn?

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Here’s a fun little story that dad pointed out, from the Discovery Channel — Female anatomy inspired Stonehenge?

The design of Stonehenge, the 4,800-year-old monument in southwestern England, was based on female sexual anatomy, according to a paper in the current Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

[Anthony Perks] noticed how the inner stone trilithons were arranged in a more elliptical, or egg-shaped, pattern than a true circle. Comparing the layout with the shape of female sexual organs showed surprising parallels.

Perks believes the labia majora could be represented by the outer stone circle and possibly the outer mound, with the inner circle serving as the labia minora, the altar stone as the clitoris and the empty geometric center outlined by bluestones representing the birth canal.

Who gave them the loudspeakers?

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Her: “So what? The majority of people don’t even leave comments, they just read. Those are the normal, intelligent people.”

Me: “Wait a minute. This is interesting: You’re saying that the majority of people who visit my site don’t leave any comments at all, which is true. And by not leaving any comments at all, that signals that they are normal?”

Her: “Exactly. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Me: “Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t usually leave comments on people’s sites. And I’m relatively normal. Do you leave comments?”

Her: “Rarely.”

Me: “Wow. Let’s take this a step further. If we apply this model to the greater world, it seems to me that the ramifications are staggering.”

Her: “Go on.”

Me: “Okay, this might sound a little crazy, but, can we conclude, based on this, that maybe, and hear me out on this, but just maybe, most…people, people in the world, are…normal?”

Her: “Wow. I guess we could. My God, I never thought of it that way before. But it actually makes sense.”

Me: “Yeah, wow. But if most people in the world are in fact normal, how have I been left with the distinctly opposite impression for most of my life?”

Her: “I dunno. Maybe because the crazy people are the ones with the loudspeakers and they won’t shut up.”

Me: “I guess. But how did the crazy people get the loudspeakers?”

Her: “Hmm. That doesn’t make sense. How could the normal, intelligent people allow the nutcases to dominate the power of communication that way?”

Me: “I dunno. That’s pretty sad.”

Her: “Yeah, pretty fucking sad.”

— Found on Hipsters are Annoying

It came from Outer Faith

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Dad sent me this great little quiz from Beliefnet — It came from Outer Faith.

Though no one’s yet written a book on how to convert aliens, some religions do accept the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence. Find out how much you know about the intersection of faith and sci-fi.

I got seven out of ten when I took it, missing just questions five, seven, and eight. Not too bad, I think!

Welcome to Earth, meet the leaders

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An e-mail from a Newsday reporter who spent a week in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum:

The world isn’t run by a clever cabal. It’s run by about 5,000 bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal power. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive — especially about science and technology. All of them are financially wise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stock investing. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happy if the global political system behaved far more rationally — better for the bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn to nearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysis to be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. They have a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDS pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They are comfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though white caucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-tech gadgets and are glued to their cell phones.

Welcome to Earth: meet the leaders.

(Via Daypop)