The fake food parade
Don't pick on Taco Bell. Or rather, don't pick on only Taco Bell.
How the other planets would look at moon distance
How big would the other planets in the solar system look if they orbited the earth as far away as our moon?
Logic: Cold and Fuzzy
A recent post on the Good Math blog called "Fuzzy Logic vs Probability" reminded me of a coping skill that I take for granted, yet most people probably don't know about. The post linked above is about the essential difference between probabilities and values in fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is a sort of analog approach to Boolean logic. Boole constructed a rigid logical framework containing only two values: True and False. In Fuzzy logic, every statement has a rating of how true it is, from 0 to 100%. Decisions can therefore be made when there is not any binary certainty about the input parameters. The result is a degree (or percentage) of how true is the resulting compound statement. But how can this be a coping skill? Let's say a spouse asks if you want to go out for dinner. If you absolutely refuse, or eagerly must, then the answer can be Boolean (Yes or No). But that No might just lead to an argument. A grudging Yes may breed resentment. What if you are tired, but hungry, and not feeling sociable, nor like more driving, but also would like some entree that you are not likely to get at home, yet thinking about the money? You can go either way. One might call it 40% "want to go out". By myself, under half is a "No". But here is the spouse, and the spouse has also had a hard day with different characteristics, and leans toward going out (as indicated by the issuing of the question). She might counter my 40% with a more urgent 80%. This 80% indicates a willingness to stay home, if I really want to. But the average (logical union) of our two values is 60%. So we go out, each understanding how strongly the other one feels about it. If there is a near tie, we cast another ballot. As with a flipping coin in the air, one often has second thoughts about which way we want it to land. It does take a little practice to use percentages in gauging each others desires. But it really saves on arguments.
On banning free plastic bags
I just don't get it. Just look at the damage being done by allowing free plastic bags and ask yourself why we can't motivate ourselves to ban free plastic bags. If we, as a country, can't make this obviously necessary move, are we capable of anything at all? If some Middle Eastern terrorist dumped this amount of crap all over our country (and world), we'd declare war to seek revenge. But we're doing this to ourselves, so it's OK. And what about bottled water? The ends simply don't justify the means. We are being poisoned by free market fundamentalism.
Left Behind by Snowmageddon
There was recently a big winter storm across the Central and North Eastern U.S. In my local town, it had the potential of exceeding the record one-day snowfall set 29 years ago. All the local news stations talked about the major storm approaching. Thunder snow, a rare occurrence here, was predicted. Stores were stripped of snow shovels, salt, water softener (salt), milk and bread.The governor called in the National Guard, and all the utility and road crews were on high alert.
When the freezing rain started on Monday, the media warned people to stay home for the next day or two as the storm passed over. I grew excited. The little kid in me was hoping for a big snow. But our town was right on the freezing line. Just south of us, there is rain. North of us, snow. The band from rain through freezing rain, sleet, snow, up to full blizzard is only a hundred miles wide. As Tuesday dawned, we had a glaze of ice, and sleet was falling. I woke early and spent a couple of hours learning how to hack my new super-zoom camera to force it to take a time lapse picture series. I hoped to make a nice video of the yard disappearing under a foot or more of snow.
So I set up my camera and started it early in the morning, when there was still just a glaze of ice on the path and plants. The day wore on. At noon I it was still just sleeting. I changed the batteries in the camera. By sunset, there was just a couple of inches of sleet. It was fun to walk on top of what looks like snow. But the yard is still visible. Had the freeze line been a couple of dozen miles farther south, that thin layer of sleet would have been about a foot of snow. What a gyp! So I let the camera run overnight, in hopes that we'd get some snow on the few inches of ice.
But as Wednesday dawned, Groundhog Day, there was only a little more snow. Sure, the roads are all iced over, and icicles hang from everything. But this is a far cry from what the hue and cry of the media had us expecting. Granted, the next county over (and half the state) is snowed in. Interstate 70 is closed between the Saint Louis metro area and Kansas. And the temperature will drop below zero (-18°C) tonight.
But how did we get Left Behind from the transcendental fairyland, a heaven of deep snow? Obviously we hadn't prayed hard enough to the God of the clean white snowy world above to deliver us from mundane weather. Or we didn't believe sincerely enough in the snowy salvation offered by his half-breed son, Jack Frost. Maybe some around us are heretical worshipers of the Daily Commute, and counteracted our prayers.
So we beseech those who were called up to the snowy realm to share with us their good fortune. Show us unworthy shovelers of sleet what the True Light of real snow is like. Maybe it's not too late.