Odd Lots
- Spooky or creepy music in SF/Fantasy/Horror flicks is assumed to rely on the theremin. I just discovered the Ondes Martenot, which sounds like a theremin but is easier to play. Furthermore, it’s been around for most of 100 years. Not sure how I got into my 70s without ever stumbling on it. Good link on YouTube.
- Carol and I don’t go out to the movies much anymore. We stream or buy a DVD for anything we want to see. This writer offers a cogent explanation for why theaters are largely to blame for this phenomenon. (Crappy movies are the rest of the explanation.)
- This sounds a little (or more than a little) grandiose: A meteotsunami subjected the shore of Lake Michigan in Holland, Michigan to—oh, no!—a 2-foot wave. When I was a kid this phenom was called a seiche, and Chicago got its share, rare though they might be. Certain types of bad weather including strong winds and rapid changes in atmospheric pressure are to blame. Again, I’m surprised I made it to my 70s without ever seeing the word.
- No small number of people have claimed that "return to office" mandates are back-channel layoffs, a way to reduce headcount by having heads quit voluntarily. Now some research seems to indicate that this is the case.
- Ok, this is mondo weird: I spun through the McD’s drive-thru not long ago for an iced coffee and got two pennies (and some other coins) in change. Both pennies were 1981-Ds. What are the chances?
- I was looking for Revolutionary War flags and stumbled upon a list of flags on Wikipedia that would do Sheldon Cooper proud.
- Beethoven was a classical music composer, but his body was full of heavy metal, specifically, lead. The Mayo Clinic analyzed a few strands of the maestro’s hair, and found 64 times the lead found in a typical American today. This likely led to the many medical problems Beethoven had, including deafness.
- Lazarus 3.4 is now available, built with FreePascal 3.2.2. It’s a bugfix release and there isn’t a lot of New Stuff, but get it anyway! There’s nothing else quite like it in the OSS universe.
- A few days ago I received an email inviting me to the—wait for it–Lane Technical High School Milwaukee World Naked Bike Ride. I thought it was a hoax but no—naked bike rides are evidently a thing in big cities. Now, Lane Technical High School (which I attended 1966-1970) is in Chicago, not Milwaukee. There is in fact a World Naked Bike Ride in Chicago on my 72nd birthday tomorrow, but they didn’t invite me. I don’t own a bike, and I’m a long damn way from Milwaukee, or Chicago. That said, I doubt there will be a World Phoenix Naked Bike ride any time soon. It was 113 the other day. People would die.
Posted in: None Of The Above.
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World Naked Bike Ride was instituted in 2004, and continues as an annual event in many cities throughout the world, including Chicago and Milwaukee. However, the invitation you received actually is a hoax. If you try to follow through with any of the conatacts given there, you will find they don’t lead anywhere. Also, the details given do not exactly match those of the actual event.
Thanks for clarifying that. It smelled like a hoax since Moment One. The notices supposedly came through Classmates, which is something I doubt they would do, since they would catch unholy hell if they did. (And a lot of people probably believed it was real, so some hell was probably caught.)
I’m a little surprised that cities allow such a thing, but then again, a lot of things surprise me these days.
You asked, “what are the chances” of getting two pennies that match in getting change? Not as bad as you may think. This is just a variation of the birthday paradox that tells us the odds are about 50% that a group of 23 people will have a two with the same birthday. (Another way of looking at this is if you have 23 dice of 365 sides (for the days of the year) you have a 50% chance of rolling a one double.
For the penny case, here are the simplifying assumptions:
1) Assume that all pennies in circulation were minted 1960 or later (i.e. all wheat backed pennies are excluded) so 64 years are possible for a penny.
2) Assume the number of pennies minted per year are equal, and that half of these were minted in Denver “D” and the other half in Philadelphia (” ” blank)This makes 128 differently marked pennies in circulation). Note: These assumptions makes the number of pennies in circulation unnecessary)
Doing the math (check wikipedia on the “Birthday problem”), you have a 50% chance of two pennies the same if you get 14 pennies in change. The calculation can be done for any number of coins. If you only get two coins back the chances are 0.8%. The odds improve to 5% with four pennies in change.
Better assumptions may change this. Accounting for variations in minting numbers will just make some years less likely while others have higher probabilities. This will skew the possibilities, making a match even more likely (but it will be for the year in which more pennies were minted.
> weight training
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There are a lot of knock-on effects to weight training. It’s not just getting stronger or looking better.
A few years ago I was getting around on crutches, and looking at a double knee replacement, and maybe a hip. The docs weren’t sure they could do anything about my back. From the X-rays, they wondered how I was getting around at all.
A year and a half ago I started with stretching, then very light weights, then heavier ones. It took six months or so before I saw any real progress, and then it came rapidly. I not only don’t use the crutches or a cane any more, I can walk 5k at a time. Not to mention improvement in blood pressure and various lab figures.
Not bragging; I’m pretty sure the benefits would apply to anyone. But it takes a lot of time, and modern medicine is geared toward quick fixes. They don’t expect patients to put forth the effort… but without some kind of encouragement, there’s little reason for someone to try.