Primero? La lengua castillana me ha abandonado.

Stanford had a prison? Who knew? Was it in nearby Atherton or Menlo Park? Perhaps in Mountain View, or as far away as Half Moon Bay?

Except for the one or two folks that have remained close, I have forgotten Everyone I Ever Knew In High School And College. That's pretty embarrassing when you still live in the area.

"Do I know you?"

"Er... maybe... I don't remember." *smile*

Can professors get away with this kind of stuff on American university campuses these days? It took place on campus? In the basement of a building?

Wiki:
Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The students who were assigned to be the prisoners were paid $15 a day as an incentive.

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. Finally, Zimbardo terminated the experiment because he realized that his experiment was unethical.

Penn State was up the road from the State Pen. Something that students were quite aware of.

How many people think the croissant was "invented" in Budapest? Raise your hands.

Loomis,
Ethics has blossomed in the sciences in recent years. Especially anything dealing with humans.

On the other hand, there's a fair amount of loopy stuff. A recent flap involved a what's apparently an elite Yale undergraduate program in self-directed studies. A student faked pregnancy and abortion to create a bloody art project.

No, Loomis, there's no way a professor could do that these days. The pendulum has swung way over to the other side, such that any research with "human subjects" -- y'know, things like a linguist recording people talking and analyzing the grammatical properties of their language -- has to have a big long proposal written up to be reviewed by the Institutional Review Board.

Hey... no dissing the Institutional Review Board. The G family's gotta eat, you know.

"Leading astronomical theory states that the universe is basically swirling around a big black hole from which nothing, not even light, escapes. "

Actually, that would be just one galaxy within the universe, not the whole universe. Within the observable universe, I have calculated, there are approximately 1 trillion galaxies (trillion = 1000 billion); possibly more. I may have this value incorrectly by as much as a factor of 100, but I contend that it remains a fairly large number. Comparable to a mole of galaxies (1 mole = Avogadro's Number). Don't remember Avogadro's Number? Call the Avogadro help line: 555-602-1023. Or Google it.

The results of the STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT didn't prevent the Army from doing field trials on the same phenomenon at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Just had to put that out there.

Personally, I would have rather have been involved in THE HARRAD EXPERIMENT(1973) with Tippi Hedren.

Oh where to begin. Sigh.

My German, in which I was once fluent, has been shoved out of the way by recently-acquired Spanish, in which I am clearly not.

I once spent an entire lunchtime walk trying to recall the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, and convinced myself only that Steven Tyler was not right. (Stevie Nicks...)

That girl I took to the Junior Prom. (Jane something? )

My zip code.

What I had for lunch yesterday.

You get the idea. Part of this is normal aging. But part is just because my brain has been pretty Bloopy since, like, birth.I attribute this to the fact that I spend so much time thinking Deep Thoughts that my brain forgets to remember trivial things. Like, you know, my wife's birthday. (Middle of July somewhere. I know she's a Cancer...)

Others interpret my forgetfulness in less forgiving ways.

To deal with these "dropped bits" I frequently go through the phonetic alphabet looking for some kind of clue. In other words, I mutter to myself a lot.

Anyway, I think proper names, in particular, are the first to go because the brain stores them differently than other information. I am sure I read this somewhere.

But for the life of me, I can't remember where.

Wow, there is more than an equivalent of galaxies?

Can I ask who the author of the kit is? It says "Editor." If it wasn't Joel (and I don't think it was) it needs a byline on it at the top or bottom.

A lot has been written about the infamous Zimbardo study over the years, and its results are chilling. And it presents an intellectual dilemma: the study was deemed unethical (as well as cruel, both rightly so) and could never be replicated today. Nevertheless, how can the information that study found ever be replicated or verified? If the study hadn't been conducted, how would we ever have known its results? We wouldn't. And if anything, the Zimbardo study puts what happened at Abu Ghraib into context.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,"
I loved that book and Ivan had a great day by his standards,I think he even got the fish eye in his dinner!!

I happen to know that in the future I will not have the slightest use for algebra, and I speak from experience.

Ha, I'm glad someone's benefiting from it, TBG. No, honestly, I see the need for it, and I'm glad we're not back in the bad old days. The problem is the lack of common sense in the institutional regulations (big surprise). It doesn't make sense to use the same process for linguists or anthropologists as for medical researchers. And since the main issue for linguists and anthropologists is privacy/confidentiality, the fact that journalism professors and students are completely exempt from review is a bit puzzling. I also don't like the fact that the process -- just by the time it requires -- generally prevents students from doing completely innocuous class projects in which they collect original language data, which means they never get a feel for what doing linguistics is actually like. So, yeah, I have issues with the IRB. That said, there have been a few reasonable revisions made recently at my school, so maybe a good middle ground will be found eventually.

Speaking of failing memory, I couldn't for the life of me remember who wrote "One Day in..." and had to look it up. Solzhenitsyn, of course. Duh. I know the name almost as well as my own. (I even remember who played Ivan in the movie: Tom Courtenay, who played Antipov/Strelnikov in "Dr. Zhivago.")

Ooooh, Avocado's Number...I know that one:

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 160 kcal 670 kJ
Carbohydrates 8.53 g
- Sugars 0.66 g
- Dietary fiber 6.7 g
Fat 14.66 g
- saturated 2.13 g
- monounsaturated 9.80 g
- polyunsaturated 1.82 g
Protein 2 g
Thiamin (Vit. B1) 0.067 mg 5%
Riboflavin (Vit. B2) 0.130 mg 9%
Niacin (Vit. B3) 1.738 mg 12%
Pantothenic acid (B5) 1.389 mg 28%
Vitamin B6 0.257 mg 20%
Folate (Vit. B9) 81 μg 20%
Vitamin C 10 mg 17%
Calcium 12 mg 1%
Iron 0.55 mg 4%
Magnesium 29 mg 8%
Phosphorus 52 mg 7%
Potassium 485 mg 10%
Zinc 0.64 mg 6%

Teehee, that's the second time I made myself laugh today. And it's not even lunchtime yet. I don't have bloopy brain, well OK I do, but really my bigger problem today is loopy brain.

The Bloopy brain theory to be in full effect in my life; bad news considering finals are right around the corner. One would think that my brain would be able to hold off on the deletion of crucial details until *after* exams, but no.

I do remember that "A Day in the Life..." made me very cold when I read it. very, very cold.

I cannot remember for the life of me if I am wearing underwear at this very moment.

bc

I seem to forget an awful lot unless I'm angry, at which point I have crystal clear recall and a kick-butt vocabulary to boot.

The rest of the time, I say things like "you know. the rectangle thing. that you use to go in and out of the house. Over there. Can you close it? Thanks."

or worse...

"You. Boy child. Hey. Tall kid. Yeah, you. Where's that piece of paper that says how you're doing in...um...school?"

Once, in Amsterdam, I completely forgot what day it was (is today Wednesday or Thursday? Is my flight home Wednesday or Thursday? Ooops.), but I think that might have been something else.

gwe...that's why I like that book. I can relate to the concept that having a good day means getting the fish eyeball.

*bloop*

Who am I?

*bloop*

Why am I here?

:-)

To Science Tim: hey, thanks! You're right. And you know, I took three really excellent astronomy courses in college, so you'd think I would have known that fact well enough to catch it myself. Something else to add to the list... sigh.

At least when I look at it, the Kit is bylined "Caitlin Gibson." I find this very funny since I seem to recall some mention of her age in reference to the piece that she and Rachel wrote in rebuttal to Charlotte Allen's twaddle. She's, what, about 23? And already she's fretting about forgetfulness?

To Caitlin: My dear, I am just shy of 46. Almost as antique as Joel. Assuming college graduation at 21, and approximating brain bloopage as a linear function, then I must have forgotten (46-21)/(23-21) = 12.5 times as much as you have. I think I might be able to make a case for having forgotten more than you'll ever know. I won't engage in such cruelty, however, since (a) you'll just forget it soon enough; but (b) you might not, and I'd like you to come visit me in the old folks' home when I am a spry and lecherous 90-year old man and you will still be a dewy and fresh-faced 67-year old. Don't tell the ScienceSpouse, or she'll do away with me at 89.

Last night I was cramming with my son for his AP English test today. I would read an old AP test question and he would tell me what book he would use and a brief outline of his thesis.

Then I would read the books that the test suggested so that he could comment on any other books he was familiar with. Ivan Denisovitch was on one of the lists. My wife went "OMG, I haven't thought of that book in twenty years." Another blast from the past was Ethan Frome.

Judging from various overlaps on the reading lists, I'm convinced you can answer any possible AP essay if you have read the following books:

Beloved
Great Expectations
The Scarlett Letter

At least one of those was listed for every question.

It's strange how I can rattle off my childhood telephone number without any thinking or studdering. However, when I have to leave a callback number on somebody's answering machine, I can't even remember my own office phone number that I've been using for a ddecade. It's embarrasing ending a recorded message with, "Please call me back, my number is, umm, uh, 555, wait, no, [pause], 505, oops, that's not it either, um uh. Let me get back with you on that one." {hangup}

Where's my sign?

IMPORTANT ENTERTAINMENT NEWS!

On Saturday, May 10, I (StorytellerTim) will be telling some stories at the Solomon's Island Maritime Festival, in Calvert County, Maryland. This is at the self-same museum at which the paleontology symposium was held last year (or the year before? Bloop!), where ScienceKid#1 and I met up with Dooley (who has gone missing from the Achenblog). I will be telling "Sally the Sea-Grasshopper", "Jack's Brother Tom and Another Beanstalk", and "Cinderella -- a Rough Sailor's Tale." I believe I go on stage at about 11:00 AM. I feel free to advertise this important artistic endeavor in this forum since, as always, storytelling doesn't pay squat.

LiT, your post made me remember the end of one semester at my New England college. I went around telling people to have a good summer. Somehow didn't process the fact that there was snow on the ground.

Let me note that there will be several other storytellers there, who are quite good, including one who is a former XO on a non-nuclear submarine and who knows his nautical stuff. So, if you can't catch me on stage, there's still plenty of other tellers worthy of your attention.

SciTim, the trouble is, I don't think brain bloopage is ... um... whatchamacallit...linear. It seems to me to be very spotty and highly irregular. The only correlation I can see is that it increase exponentially with the number of children one has. By the time one has five or six kids, as I have, by the time they've all graduated from high school your brain is a mass of lost pockets of knowledge. Entire sections of your brain have been wiped out. Thank goodness, Mother Nature compensates for this problem by hardwiring a few simple commands into the parental (swiss-cheese-like) brain, such as "Turn that *&^%$# down!" and "Yes, you can borrow the car keys, but remember to fill up the tank." Scientists speculate that these command functions do not reside in the cerebral cortex proper, but are located in a bundle of ganglia stuck to the reptile brain area near the spinal cord.

SCC: It might be The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlett Letter would be one of those unauthorized Gone With The Wind sequels. I think.

Poor Mudge, can't even remember how many kids he has.

Mudge I think it is so cute that after you had (4?) children you would still be so optimistic as to believe the children might put gas in the car?

I once had an amazing memory - now not so much, just the ability to retain really useless information. On a good day I remember to call my kids by the correct name. I am quickly turning into my mom with her "get me that thing", which god help you if you didn't know and the running list of children's names - if you name everyone you at least include the one correct name.

She had so many redeeming qualities that it what I am hoping for.

Bloopy Brain! That's it! This Kit encapsulates my experience remarkably well, aided by RD and Lostinthought. I have forgotten both French and German, much of algebra, large chunks of basic science of all sorts, and fractions. Actually I don't think I ever knew fractions; I was absent that day. There are a lot of other things I've forgotten but I can't tell you what they are.

One advantage of having a child in grade school is that you get to re-learn things you once knew.

Like Lostinthought, I often lose the common names for everyday objects. However, I note this only happens at home, where I'm doing several things at once. At work, where I only do work, I don't have any trouble remembering these things. This may not be bloopy brain.

Also, I am truly impressed at the way Caitlin knew the name she wanted began with a Z and ended with an O, and it did. Usually when I'm trying to remember a name, if I am convinced it begins with a specific letter the only thing of which I can be certain is that it does not begin with that letter.

"When I think back
on all the cr@p
I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all.
And though my lack of education
hasn't hurt me none,
I can read the writing on the wall."

This is the best I can hope for some days.

bia... that's why it's good to have a Person of Reason at the top of an IRB chain. That's where Someone I'm Close To is doing his best, I think.

Unfortunately, many IRB rules aren't made by the folks on the IRB.. they just must enforce them. This is especially true in the Large Bureaucracy he is currently part of.

You know it's the 21st century when I'm trying to remember something and all I can come up with is the number "404."

An interesting idea that a mind is like a galaxy with a giant black hole at the center and that information that isn't used much falls into an orbit closer and closer to the event horizon and drops in.

Stephen Hawking recently formulated a theory that says info dropping into a black hole may not be completely lost but stays in there and reappears later in some other form, maybe leaking out through the x-ray jets at the hole's poles.

So maybe that 9th grade reading of "Beowulf" remanifests itself as a sudden inexplicable urge to buy a pair of gladiator sandals.

"Hamlet" would clarly be a pair of stiletto-heeled FMPs.

bc

The reason I have difficulty remembering how many children I have (5), is that once upon a time there used to be a sixth, whom we lost after two years. So in my mind the "5" always has an asterisk or a footnote attached to it. Also, our oldest son (technically my stepson) and I are pretty much estranged, so in my mind the "true" answer is something like 4 1/2 plus 1/2 plus 1. Similary, I have trouble with the number of my grandchildren (10). The number could be 11, since we lost one to a miscarriage very late in the game. And two of the 10 belong to my estranged stepson in Texas, whom I have never met and most likely never will. So that "true" number in my head is 8 plus 2 plus 1.

So whenever I have to pull up either number, I have to stop and sort it all out. I've programmed myself to say "five kids, ten grandkids" out of rote, without necessarily feeling that the numbers are accurate.

Like it says in the play/movie "Rent" (which was on last night and which I saw for the first time--pretty good), I have lots of baggage. But then, we all do.

That's a very poignant story Mudge. Thank you for sharing it.

It's good to realize that sloshing around the back of everyone's minds are all sorts of complex memories which invariably influence the way we view reality.

For example, to this day there are certain sounds, like feet running quickly up stairs, that make be momentarily freeze. On the other hand, the smell of Coppertone suntan lotion induces a profound sense of longing for summers long past.

And, as I have implied, the redhead thing isn't entirely arbitrary.

I think this is another part of becoming a grownup. (A lifetime project for some of us.) It isn't just dealing with the things you forget. It is also dealing with the things you remember.

What you don't use, you lose. It has nothing to do with a bloopy brain. That's why no one is smarter than a fifth grader.

LiT, thanks for the tune cootie.

bc

Curmudgeon writes:
The reason I have difficulty remembering how many children I have (5)...

It could be worse, you know.

From today's NYT:

The information has families like the Wylers [two wives, many kids in Colorado City, Arizona] talking about some of polygamy's best-kept secrets. Who would have guessed, for instance, that Wendell Nielsen, a high-ranking sect official with family here [Colorado City, Arizona], had 21 wives in Texas, too? Or that he has 35 children on top of those here?

From an Onion article called "Number Of Acceptable Things Candidates Can Say Now Down To Four"...


... "At the beginning of 2007 there were 38 things candidates could mention in public that wouldn't be considered damaging to their campaigns, but now they are mostly limited to 'Thank you all for coming,' and 'God bless America,'" ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said on Sunday's episode of This Week. "There would still be five phrases available to the candidates if the Obama camp hadn't accused Clinton of saying 'Glad to be here' with a little tinge of sarcasm during a stump speech in North Carolina."

As of press time, the two additional phrases still considered appropriate for candidates are the often-quoted "These pancakes are great," and "Death to the infidels."

SCC: "clearly."

bc

I always thought bloopy was a toilet noise.

But in fact -- and contrary to a stupid TV show -- we ARE smarter than fifth graders. And wiser. (At least, the membership of this Boodle certainly is.)

A fifth-grader wouldn't know how to answer the question, "Does this dress make me look fat?"

Meyerson has a darn good piece today touching tangentially on this question, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703186.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

As recommended by safety experts, I have separated my house keys from my car key. I got home from dinner with friends the other day, didn't have my house keys. Looked and looked, called the restaurant, they weren't there. Looked more.

Then it dawned on me. They were in the lock of the sunroom door, where I left them when I unlocked that door to take some plants out early in the afternoon.

Yes, I am Ms. Bloopy Brain orginal herself.

slyness... were they on the outside of the door or the inside? That's important in determining true bloopiness.

Slyness leaving my keys in the front door was a regular occurance at my old house - it became the default location to look when I needed to find my keys.

It was not uncommon for visitors to hand me the keys when I would answer the door, for some reason I remember most of the time at this house, a larger entrance and console table to deposit the keys I think is the difference.

If I had my car and house keys separate I would spend a good part of my life looking for one set or the other.

No, Curmudgeon, that dress is just stunning on you. Stunning. At least I'M stunned.

No, Curmudgeon, that dress is just stunning on you. Stunning. At least I'M stunned.

Why, K-guy, you smooth-talker, you.

Hey! I had a Boodle moment this morning. You know those metal-outline type critters people put on their cars? Around here Christians have a fish, there are the Darwin fish-with-legs, and there's a fish eating the fish-with-legs. Well, a car in front of me had what looked like a fish body with FSM inside, complete with noodly appendages. I would have followed it, but it lost me at a red light.

How many grandchildren do my parents have?

I have one child, but my husband had two before he married me. My brother had one child with his first wife but after they divorced and that wife remarried he signed away his parental rights to his daughter. Then he remarried and had three more children. Then he divorced his second wife, and recently married a woman who has two daughters. My sister was a parent of the child her lover had through artificial insemination; since it was a same-sex union, she had no legal rights and so when they split up after seven years she had not even minimal visitation rights--still, that was her little girl, too, by subjective measures.

So, the answer could be as low as 4 or as high as 10, depending on how you define grandchild. Probably as some point it will depend on what the meaning of "is" is.

OK, I've been away for a while. Work's been crazy. A zoo. Bedlam.

Anyway, I come back to check the Boodle, and there's this "Caitlin Gibson" at the helm. Who is Caitlin Gibson and what has she done with Joel. No one is asking. It's like Joel was eaten by wolves and know one noticed. It's spooky.

Ms. Gibson is a fine writer and I've enjoyed her kits that I quickly scanned this morning. And I'm very happy if Joel's getting a well-deserved vacation and has left the kit in the hands of a capable associate.

Just tell me he's ok.

Joel's on a top secret mission in Australia.

CowTown - Joel, as far as we know, is a live and well and learning about really old dead things in Australia. He should be back in a couple of weeks. (He was a bit fuzzy about the schedule.)

Catlin Gibson and her cohort RachelManteuffel are filling in until we scare them away.

Something about fossils...

Glad you could stop by, Cowtown. I'm sure you're keeping your workplace under control. We miss you when you're not around, though.

Yes, ivansmom, you CAN own your own FSM car emblem! Here's how http://www.cafepress.com/venganza/

SCC: Please take the space between "a" and "live" and insert it between Ms. Manteuffel's first and last name.

Thank you very much

I have a spouse, three kids, two dogs, a hamster and a cat. I must have addressed everyone of these 8 beings at least once with the name of the seven others. Maybe I did not called everyone else with the name of the hamster when I think of it. It's too polysyllabic.
The wise old dog doesn't take any chances with the possibility of getting a treat, he comes whatever the name I call.

I regularly put the sugar in the freezer compartment and the coffee beans in the pantry. I have at least 6 utility knives, only one of which is "findable" at any time. And so on. Anf it is getting worse. *sign*

Awww, thanks, kbertocci.

shriek... I don't know how old I was when I realized my name did not include the first syllables of my two older sisters' names. And my younger sister had one more to add to hers.

I have a great memory. I only ever forget one thing. Problem is, that one thing is whatever I most need to remember.

*sigh*

Inside, TBG. It's a double-sided deadbolt, so I had to have my key to unlock from the inside.

Note to self: When spouse is out of town and the lawn must be mowed, find a better time that the heat of the day to do it...

Whew. Feels good to sit down and cool off.

kb,
You are describing what I call the post-nuclear family. As the traditional building blocks split apart and recombine, they form new structures that we have yet to name. We have father, mother, and step- building blocks, but that's not enough. In recent years we have added the baby-mama and baby-daddy relationships to describe that situations that don't fit into the standard paradigm. We're still working on names for the various genetic stews currently available.

My family still fits into the standard family tree model with a few erasures and cross-overs, but in the future we are going to require three-dimensional modeling software just to describe our relationship to the other people under our same roof.

*faxin' Slyness a hand fan and a pitcher of sweet tea* :-)

Oh Scotty, thanks so much! That's exactly what I need right now!

*faxing Slyness my 22-year-old son to cut here grass -- right after he cuts ours.*

Country-Western singer Eddie Arnold died this morning, a few days short of his 90th birthday. His wife of 60 years died last month.

It's a pretty common phenomenon that when one spouse of a couple who have been married 40, 50, 60 years, dies, the other one seldom lives much more than six months longer.

dang I'm ready, but Happy Hour prices don't kick in for another 22 minutes it generally takes me 12 minutes to get there.

SCC: he was married 66 years.

>It could be worse, you know.

Everything could always be worse. What you don't know is how much the stated circumstances have hurt, and certainly no way of comparing them to your own situation. Numbers aren't everything and playing *I'm the ultimate victim* is pretty boring.

Thanks, Mudge! How much does he charge?

Mr. T enjoys mowing, so I don't have to do it unless he's gone. I don't mind, but it needed to be done today, and there's a change of rain later. This morning wasn't an option, as I had the funeral of a friend's mother to attend.

Yeah, Mudge, that's how it was with my grandparents. They had been married 56 years when my grandmother died, and my grandfather only lived six months.

Loomis, it is tempting to personalize the squirrels' depredations, assigning the damage to a particular squirrel or two. But in the end, you will find that squirrels are distributed throughout your neighborhood. Kill two of them and entropy will bring two more. They diffuse like a drop of dye in water.
A few years back my father in law got tired of squirrels digging up his flowerbeds and started trapping them. He caught and released 39 black and grey squirrels that summer. That is 780km of driving the 10km to and fro the Gatineau Park to release the tree rats in the wild. There were still plenty of bushy tailed-bandits digging up the flowerbeds all summer long.
And it's not counting all the suffering this deportation program caused to the squirrel families. They are still talking about this "Grand Dérangement". Evangelina Squirrel pining for her lost Brad. An American poet in the boodle could probably write something really touching about that story. Their most folk music group is called "2002", the year of the massive deportation.

I could go on and on but I think I will quit now that I'm barely ahead.

All this talk of the elderly tempts me to wheel out the old saw about how Grandpa died peacefully in his sleep, but the other folks in the car were not so lucky, but perhaps that would be unwarranted levity.

SCC most POPULAR folk...

SCC most POPULAR folk

Sorry for that douple post. The lying b@stard told me my post was held because there wasn't a name and a comment included.

Slyness, you're eligible for the FotB discount. How big's your yard?

Mudge, that could easily have happened with my grandfather, and in less than 6 months, too. The day after my grandmother died of Alzheimers, he was taken away in an ambulance to the hospital, and that could have been it. But he listened when we told him we still wanted him around, and went through with the double bypass and the rehab and the assisted living to make it eventually to a lovely independent living place where he started his smash hit current events discussion group (I've mentioned it here before) and met a new girlfriend that he's giddy about. No insult at all to my grandmother -- I aspire to a marriage like theirs. And no moral to the story, really. I'm just happy for him that he's so much happier and healthier at 91 than he was at 89.

Shrieking - On several weekends each month I shoot blackpowder muzzleloading firearms, old style, with my gun club. We have a rule that a shooter must wait 5 minutes after a misfire before returning to the loading bench - and 20 minutes before looking down the barrel.

And while these are great squirrel hunting tools, they lack a bit of 'discreet' in most neighborhoods.

DLD

Oooh, exciting, Mudge! There's about a quarter of an acre of grass. Too much, IMHO, but there it is.

SD, I have one of those stories about deer, and how Marge was in the middle of the road, desperately in need of glasses (as all deer are), squinting. She calls Herb out from by the tree line, and says hey...you see that up there? What the heck is that? and next thing you know..WHAM. Herb's been grazed by a car driven by Biff (accompanied by his wife Doris, with little Patty in the back seat). Marge, of course, escapes without a scratch.

Having had enough for one evening, Herb heads over to the local watering hole, the Doe-Ray-Me, where Herb bums a smoke, even though he quit years ago. The bartender pours him a strong one, and says...tell me about it. Herb launches in about how his face was pressed up against some glass, and he was *this* close to a girl, he could see her face, it was the creepiest thing he's ever come across. He comments that humans aren't nearly so cute in the wild.

The story goes on an on, and at least to my mind, it's pretty funny.

But I'm twisted. As, apparently, you are.

Quarter of an acre? Piece of cake. He can do it in an hour. Call it 15 bucks.

An hour? Piker. I can do a quarter of an acre in 20 minutes or less with a push mower. I do, too. Unless, of course, the quarter acre has a hillside filled with dog trenches or holes. That takes 45 minutes.

Oh my, I'll call the first of the week and you'll fax him to me, Mudge? For that price, he can use Mr. T's fancy mower!

Thanks for volunteering him!

Cowtown writes:
Anyway, I come back to check the Boodle, and there's this "Caitlin Gibson" at the helm. Who is Caitlin Gibson and what has she done with Joel. No one is asking. It's like Joel was eaten by wolves and know one noticed. It's spooky.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/08/advertising.marketingandpr

Tourism Australia has parted company with M&C Saatchi, the ad agency that created the controversial "Where the b1oody he!! are you?" campaign.

Tourism Australia infamously ruffled British sensibilities in 2006 with M&C Saatchi's controversial "Where the b1oody he!! are you?" TV ad campaign.

The UK advertising regulator received a string of complaints about the ad, which led Australian tourism minister Fran Bailey to accuse the British of lacking a sense of humour. The row resulted in acres of free media coverage.

Anyone know how much free media coverage is contained in an acre? Or is there some metric conversion from column inch to an acre?

What I'm curious to know is how bad is the drought, really, is AussieLand?

It's been really dry here for the last nine months--drenching storms go north to Austin or south to Laredo--as though we have a stubborn rain shield above our heads or something.

Free media coverage generally spreads pretty thin, so there may not be a whole lot in an acre. :)

This time I've remembered the smilies.

DLD

It's true, DLD, that it spreads pretty thin. But it's usually so high in BS that a little goes a long way.

Ok, NOW I know why I never see a greater-than or less-than sign here. They get "et".

The other part of the above post went : As neither a column-inch nor an acre is a metric measurement, one must convert them to something like a "furlong/fortnight" and then back again before they are of much use.

DLD

That calculation is problematic anyway, DLD, because the width of a column-inch may vary, depending on whether one is using a broadsheet, "metro" broadsheet, tabloid, the number of standard columns per page, etc.

Loomis,
an acre was originally a field one furlong (40 rods or 10 chains) long by 4 rods (or 1 chain) wide. Thus an acre is 10 square chains, 160 square rods, 43 560 square feet (because a rod is 16 and a half feet long) or 4840 square yards (easy one, three feet per yard). There are exactly 640 acres in a square mile, since the furlong we started with is one eighth of a mile. I note here as I have done before that the traditional imperial system of measure is based on the barley acorn since an inch is defined as ten barley acorns and the pound as 7000 thousands "grains" of the same.

DLD, the Huckster might object to the shooting of squirrels with a .50 cal muzzleloader. It wouldn't leave much meat to the gourmet hunter, I think. I shoot the opposite of your musket, air pistol. I'm mightily tempted to buy a good air rifle as well (got a crappy one already). The dollars involved are keeping me on the have-not side, for the time being.

You can do a single caret as in "I <3 U", but the minute you get the closed caret in the line, the Anti-HTML bot thinks you are trying to sneak some malicious code through.

No trees, no squirrels in trees. No nuts or holes in the house, no squirrels in the house.

Moral: remove the motivation to stay, and the squirrels will seek greener treetops.

C'est simpleux.

Forgetting? Old news. I've been absent-minded since birth, and sometimes it has hit shocking levels. But for facts, for information that didn't change everyday (like what I had for lunch), my memory was like steel.

Not so much; I found my memory hit full around 7 years ago and started rewriting over old information a bit.

Now now and then I will remember the cousin of the word I meant to say and use that instead. Worse, some days I've even tried to remember the word, you know, you use when you can't remember-- oh! Whachamacallit-- when I just can't think of anything else to say.

The pitfalls of a visual memory is that you can remember the wrong thing very vividly instead of the right thing, so I wind up doing a lot of fact-checking if I have even a slight "yeah, that's right, isn't it?" feeling.

The worst thing that comes with memory overwriting is the "deja vu" feeling I often get soon after learning something new. I used to have that everytime I heard something I had already heard before.

But now it's oh, and then a few seconds later... wait, that feels familiar, did I know that before? (My guess is not; New useless fact number 2 zillion has just overwritten a neuron that normally blurbed happy familiar facts.)

This just all points out what every kid knows: Grown-ups, while they do know some important stuff, also are inexplicably brain damaged.

My brain is not just bloopy, but scattered, battered, lacquered, smothered and covered.

Which explains a lot.

SCC: "But for facts, for information that didn't change everyday (UNlike what I had for lunch, or where I left my keys or household chores...), my memory was like steel."

Actually, I blew out my memory in grad school. That was over a generation ago. It's amazing I managed to raise two nearly-normal adult children.

"Grown-ups, while they do know some important stuff, also are inexplicably brain damaged." Wilbrod, I think you've just expressed not only the Boy's belief, but that of his generation. I'll ask him later. That is certainly the message he often sends our way.

Kim, do we have a new episode of "Lost" tonight? I haven't checked.

It's been dull and gray all afternoon here, and now, when people are going home, it has started to rain again. I'm hobbling for the bus; catch yuns in a couple of hours.

First memory, then squirrels. Which reminds me of my theory that tree nuts have a chemical that gives squirrels amnesia. They forget where they stashed the nuts, and the nuts get to sprout.

In any case, those squirrels make a fine tasty stew.

Where was I? Oh, yeah: my theory of micro-strokes. Sure, the "use it or lose it" theory is valid. But once, for about 4 years, I forgot how to say "steel wool." Now I can tell you, my need for saying "steel wool" has pretty much stayed constant in life. I find a need to say it maybe once every year or two. But the years I forgot how to say "steel wool" were annoying. Every time I tried to say it, I would say "stainless steel" instead.

I figured a micro-stroke. One microscopic piece of cholesterol, probably traceable in theory to one single piece of bacon I ate, broke free from a wee (what's the name of the fine vessels that distribute the blood? starts with a "c"..)capillary and killed maybe one brain cell. The one that forked from steel to wool. Without that single cell, which normally I would never miss at all, I had to re-learn the phrase. I actually had to practice it. Steel wool! Another brain cell finally got trained to pick up the slack. I'm sure the cell that linked to "stainless" was relieved. No more stupid pointless overtime.

Mini-strokes do occur-- they're called infracts. You can get multi-infract dementia, so you may want to pump more blood to that brain before you start saying woolly steel instead.

I like to make multiple forks from one word to another. That, I find, helps me retain information better. So instead of reading the same numbing material over and over again, I'll read the same material--by different authors, hoping that somehow the different phrasing will help me keep the concepts in my head much better.

So far, so good. If I had an sequential auditory memory, this might produce mental train-wrecks, but it's never harmed me.

What techniques do you use to know stuff cold for long periods of time? Sheer repetition?

Speaking of bloopy brain... Dr G was just trying to tell us about something that happened at the shopping center in front of the nail salon, but not being able to remember what it was called described the place as the Vietnamese Finger-Painting Store.

And this is how metaphors of the ages are made-- bloopy brains.

I'm sure once beds had pales instead of legs, but after some brain bloops, beds acquired legs, and so on.

It could have been worse, it could have been the colorful Vietnamese finger-hammering salon.

It's possible I got a more recent one with "capillaries" but it may be fatigue. I also can't fathom how I can increase retention of the International Building Code. Perhaps make a game of it. Try to see how much I can memorize, and then try to beat that record! Offer myself cheese when I win.

for all have lost someone Especially you cassandra, I thought of you when I first heard of this):

"Bring me my harp,"was David's sad sigh,
'I would play one more tune before I die.
Help me, dear wife, put the hands to the strings,
I wish my loved ones the blessing God brings.'

'Last night an angel called with heaven's breath:
David, play, and come through the gates of death!'
Farewell, faithful harp, farewell to your strings,
I wish my loved ones the blessing God brings.'

http://www.contemplator.com/wales/davidwr.html

And a YouTube version I like a lot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zudC7Q8U_2Q

My eyes are damp. That Jane Oliver version almost had me on the verge of sobbing on the third listening.

Or donate some free rice, Jumper. Sounds like you have the germ of the International Building video game. Will it pass earthquakes? Will the inspector fail you because the wires weren't done right? Will it fall apart when somebody sneezes on it?

Ah, the REAL simulated city game. Yes, I have often wished for a better chance to practice in a simulated world that is more realistic. For example one where the actual consequences of rain really effect the outcome. As it does in real life.

Hey, where'd everybody go? Especially our West Coasties: yoki, mostly, LA Lurker, Aloha, rainforest: you folks out there?

There was a tornado watch in Virginia out around Culpeper a few hours ago that has now encompassed a couple of southern Maryland counties, including mine.

Geez Louise, Mudge, I haven't gone anywhere - I just got here!

I couldn't remember Jeff Toobin's last name from Tue, when he was commentating on CNN, till tonight when I was driving home. The strangest things come to me when I'm driving - why is that? Actually, the Yarn Harlot touched upon that in her talk - she was talking about getting into a meditative state, as when you're knitting, or driving on automatic pilot. Anyway, I've noticed that I have a harder time remembering actors's names the last few years.

Ivansmom, you cracked me up when you said you would have followed the FSM car. What were you going to do? Ha!

Hope you're hunkered down, Mudge.

As a relatively frequent speaker on the subject of science and the rationalist approach to interpreting evidence, often called upon to defend evolution as part and parcel of the overall conception of the universe as a long-lived place governed by natural laws, I can tell you that the whole FSM thing is not helping. It is distinctly counter-productive. The sneering derision of self-satisfied intellectuals does not shake the confidence of self-satisfied know-nothings. In fact, it hardens their certainty that they are right. I understand the spirit of the FSM joke, but it trades upon the shared assumption that anyone who would believe any broadly similar story (and you know what story I mean) is a moron and an untutorable fool. I do not share that assumption, so to me, it simply is tiresome. Carry on with your FSM-humor and FSM invocations, if you must; I just had to get that off my chest.

I am *such* a wet blanket.

I'm here! I'm always here! When the techies come upstairs at the office and inform me that they *know* that I keep the wapo.com open all the time, and perhaps I'm wasting my employer's time, I reply, "Ya? And? What's your point?"

'Mudge, make sure you and Mrs. Mudge and all the Mudgelets are safe. You know what to do.

But I will greet you cheerfully at the Balticon, if you should be attending. And I must admit, I love the sound of the phrase "noodly appendage."

The idea of the FSM doesn't really "trade upon the shared assumption that anyone who would believe any broadly similar story is a moron and an untutorable fool."

What it does trade on, I believe, is the idea that anyone who believes that such a story should be required to be taught in Science class is a fool.

Just because you think it's a joke, SciTim....

I'm kind of surprised the FSM cult has reached the people you refer to. As somebody who is related to people who taught their children that people tamed dinosaurs before the flood...

I take exception to the label "self-satisfied know-nothings."

They are simply attempting to reconcile their faith, as taught by poor yet loud theologians, to their understanding of the world. They are taught the word of God is in the bible and that it must be read as is.

Think of the 400+ Jewish commandments which must be followed. Those commandments have accumulated centuries of rabbinical interpretion and commentary (the Talmud).

Take the Talmud completely out of the picture when reading the Torah away, replacing with simplified, homespun interpretion by people who have had no schooling, and you are going to have a tendency towards overly literal fundamentalist chaos in the interpretion of the Torah as well, and over-strict (and often mis-)interpretions of the commandments.

Granted, the intellectual approach of such a form of Christianity (or Judaism) would not seem to attract intelligent people, but you'd be incorrect.

Many people, when they are looking for religion, want the "best form" there is, and the fundamentalists have managed to market their form as "true christianity" by participating in open hatred towards more established forms of christianity, by pouncing on church political weaknesses or open drift/ignoring of obvious biblical truths.

They refuse to engage in a full discussion of their interpretion of the bible on theological grounds compared to more mainstream churches because they will lose.

That they attack science is simply because science is the one enemy to a overly simplistic fundamentalist interpretion that they can't just diss outright without it backfiring on them.

So they apply their intelligence to confronting the paradox head-on; attempting to argue and establish a science amenable to their beliefs. It's not a new game. It's been done before in history.

I think it's appropriate to say "if you want science done your way, do it, and play by OUR rules to prove it. Don't come in and demand we teach your religion as science."

All we had to do is say, Hindu creation beliefs is this and that, and do you want your kid learning that, because it does have some matches with current scientific theory, including how old the universe really is? No? How about this and that religion?

There was no need to make up the FSM. That said, I remain Touched By His Noodly Appendage evermore.

Besides, God is love, and what could symbolize love better than a good home-cooked Italian pasta dinner?

I'm here, Mudge. Haven't finish backboodling yet. Might post something later, if I remember.

Hope you and your family are safe from the tornado.

They've cancelled the tornado warning, but the tornado watch is in effect until 3 a.m. The part of the storm that the weatherman speculated might contain the tornado (if there is one) is across the Potomac from us to the southwest. Thing is, it's moving northeast. We don't have any rain or hail yet, but there was a lot of hail just to the west of I-95 in Stafford County.

The line of thunderstorms is very large, stretching all the way down into N. Carolina; I wouldn't be surprised if Cassandra catches some of it around dawn.

I've got a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning, so may not be able to show up at Reveille for the morning wake-up. That being so, I'll catch you guys around noon. 'Goodnight and sleep tight (and tornado-free).

Checking sump pumps and saying a prayer for the Mudgians et al.

FSM is funny, this from an evolution-weilding, liberation theology-slinging R. Catholic.

However, some of the humor is quite salted with distain; people of great intellect may want to buy a social clue occasionally. I also think Darwin explains a great deal but personally, if we are not careful we are drinking to the Kook-aid of determinism.

We are all increased if we work for dignity and freedom, including to believe in belief or non belief or the varieties of in-between stances. We may as well be kind. We may as well be kin.

Whew! I have good news, then will drop off into a featherbed of relief. I shall have a living wage and interesting work and some health insurance next year! Huzzah seven times seven. I believe that Boodling Forces tipped the balance toward my quest.

Thankee, one and all. Quaffs all around. Save the Kool Aid to tie dye a t-shirt or two for guest Kitters C and A.

Congrats on the good news, CP! That's wonderful. Huzzah indeed!

I'm looking forward to a weekend - 2 days in a row off! I hope...I'm backing up a newbie Saturday, but still...I have jury duty the week after next. I'm actually looking forward to it because I have a great excuse not to be at work. Hope I don't get picked for a trial, though.

This was quite a good Kit, I thought. Very Joel-like.

And if at all possible, wipe the tears from your eyes, and at 3:36. in the Jane Oliver YouTube, and look up at the sky. What do see in the clouds RD P.

major SCC: 1:36 look up

College Parkian, I agree that evolutionary theory should not be adopted as a religion.

I sense that the dangers of oversubscribing to science is rooted in materialism-- the idea that nothing exists that is not material. If it was not evolution, it would be another trendy theory (such as the earth orbiting the sun).

I'm not sure we know enough about the stuff the universe is made of to conclusively say the idea that the universe is all there is, is remotely correct.

Evolutionary theory (darwinism is only the first draft) may explain much of the perversity of human nature, but it does not necessarily give us a roadmap to living well.

Far from it; it says that life is ever-changing and no one solution is always correct in all cases. This can be seen as license for moral relativism. This would be wrong. Human nature is actually rather consistent in its capacity to be cruel, selfish, and thoughtless and has been so thoroughout recorded history.

At the same time, we flourish best if we live kindly to each other and ensure such a legacy for our children and their children.

This tendency towards moral rot in itself is encaspulated neatly as the doctrine of "original sin" in R. Catholicism, without all the comparative ethology work to spade out why.

Many religions contain pithy observations and truths about the human condition (and partial remedies) that we would take centuries to prove through science.

In short, the individual matters... including those individuals that are not you.

I'm here! But of course, no one else is at this hour. Funny how I go to sleep just when you guys are all waking up. It just blows my mind thinking about it. By the time you're all at work, I'm fast asleep. Stock traders out here work the night shift and are done with their days by 10 a.m. What a life. Me, I work with west coasters so my day ends at 2 or 3 p.m. (sometimes my home office works late). This gives me time to shuttle the Alohakids to and from their respective activities. Thank goodness. If I had to be stuck to a desk from 8 to 5, there'd be no after school fun for either of them.

Okay, I'm rambling now. Have a great Friday Boodlers!

Nope, no tornado here. Congrats, CP. Gotta run.

New Kit!
From the Sidney zoo, by you-know-who.

Yesterday I posted a link to Gerson's column saying that there was not a war on science and if there was, conservatives were on the side of science and ethics. This thesis was so facetious that I dared to dip a toe into the 500+ comments hoping to see some people excoriating Gerson for calling liberals Nazis. Instead it had quickly devolved into a evolution versus 'intelligent design' diatribe.

Ben Stein, who I had previously admired as a very smart if cranky and self-important caricature, put out a Michael Moore style documentary on how intellectual intolerance was stifling debate on controversial issues like ID. He is now dead to me.

There is a war on science and the forces of ignorance and dogma have established a beachhead. We must push back and among our weapons are mockery, ridicule, and fanatical devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

-- The names of all the prehistoric eras and periods, and the order in which they occurred (currently, I get lost somewhere around the "Jurassic Park" period) --

Camels, Ordinarily, Sit Down Carefully. Perhaps their Joints Creak.

Learnt that over 40 years ago. The mnemnonic stands for:-
Cambrian, Ordivician, Silurian, Devonian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Jurassic, Carboniferous.

Anyone here today? (Monday, May 12)... current Boodle is the White Screen of Boodle Death.

Hi all...

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