mgroves

Archive for April, 2007

You’re not seeing double. Brittany and Abby Hensel are conjoined twins. But unlike typical conjoined twins, who are either deformed or immobilized by their condition, these two function perfectly as two heads on one body.

Other than the grotesque shock you get when you see them for the first time, they’re attractive, normal girls. I imagine if one were to see them naked; other than a back like a Cardassian (damn me and my Star Trek references); it would look like a normal body: two arms, two legs, two breasts, and one genital region.

Physiologically, they have just the right amount of organs to sustain a two-headed body. They each have their own stomach, so they can get hungry or full independent of each other. They each have their own heart, which is much better than one heart working overtime to pump blood up to two brains.

They each have their own driver’s license too (and I imagine the photos look like a cropped-out ex-boyfriend on Match.com). If they were to ever be pulled over by a cop (excluding the fact that the cop would in all likelihood kill them on site as the first shot of a perceived mutant apocalypse) would they get one ticket or two? That’s a question they themselves pose in the Discovery Channel documentary Joined for Life. But I have a few questions of my own:

• Can one get sick but not the other?
• Can one of them draw a picture while the other writes an essay?
• If they’re intimate with a guy does it count as a threesome?
• If they’re raped, does the perpetrator get charged on two counts?
• They each control half of the body, so do they alternate wiping duties?

Although they’re forever cursed to have an asterisk on their World Hot Dog Eating Championship trading card, they seem to be happy, and fortunate given their odds. I hope they can find a place for themselves in the world… and hope they both agree on the place.

I came across Shattering the Bell Curve while reading one of my favorite economics blogs, EconLog.

When talking about assumptions for predictive statistical models, David A. Shaywitz suggests that there is a lot inconsistency and inaccuracy in many statistical models, due to incorrect assumptions about distributions. Specifically, using a bell-curve instead of a power-law.

Arnold Kling, from EconLog, applies this specifically to models proclaiming various scenarios of significant man-made climate change, of which it certainly applies, but that’s not what I found the most interesting.

I found this quote from the conclusion of the article interesting:

If we accept Mr. Taleb’s premise about power-law ascendancy, we are left with a troubling question: How do you function in a world where accurate prediction is rarely possible, where history isn’t a reliable guide to the future and where the most important events cannot be anticipated? [emphasis mine]

I don’t find it troubling that I can’t perfectly anticipate or predict the future. Well, okay I’m lying. I’m scared of the future just like everyone: it’s the human condition. But to somehow think that faith in a predictive statistical model was somehow holding back the now-shattered dam separating fear and functionality seems ridiculous.

How can you function in a world that can’t be statistically predicted? We all do it every day, all the time. I think rather than fearing the future, we should embrace it and look forward to it.

I saw this posted today at the WorseThanFailure forums.

Missed the last Tuesday Tube? Head over to the tag search for ‘tuesday tube’ and browse through the archives.

This week we explore the comedic and commercial stylings of one Michael Busch, former member of Four Funny Guys and Matt, and fellow alumnus of the Ohio University.

Yes, I have posted about him before, and yet another posts inches me ever closer to creepy stalker status. But know this: despite posting about him twice, I have no idea where he lives, where he works, or that his trash consists mostly of back-issues of Highlights and empty toothpaste tubes. Nope, no idea at all.

Here’s the commercial that inspired the first post. An Alltel commercial.

Here’s another commercial, involving chewing gum:

And finally, here’s a bizarre…sketch? Something about a “one-minute horror film festival” or something? This may be the funniest improvised sketch involving paper dolls that I have ever seen. And I truly mean that.

Okay, there. If you see another post here about Michael Busch, it officially means I’m a stalker and you can turn me in.

Somewhere in Kittitas County, in the middle of Washington state where the rain doesn’t fall as frequently as Seattle, lies a hole in the countryside, a modest nine feet across. But as locals will tell you, it’s quite a bit deeper.

For years they’d dump trash down the hole; truckloads of it; not just cans and diapers, we’re talking special pickup items, TVs and refrigerators and dead livestock. As the trash fell, they would wait and wait and never hear it hit the bottom.

One townsman will tell you about the time he threw his dead dog in, only to later see it resurrected. Another will tell you about the shadow he saw emitted from it like a ray of black light. Others will talk about their radios playing broadcasts from the past. And then there’s Mel Walters, who once owned the land, and probed its bottomless depths.

Mel tied a roll of Life Savers candy onto a fishing string and lowered it into the hole. When the line ran out he tied another, and another. He ran out of line at 80,000 feet and still hadn’t reached the bottom.

Before Mel could conduct any more research, the government had initiated a series of maneuvers to acquire the land for themselves. Mel used their payoff and moved to Australia. It’s always the government, man!

That story is baloney but it has its share of believers.

Between 1997 and 2002, Mel recounted this story on the late night radio show Coast To Coast AM, captivating a sleep deprived audience over the course of many episodes. But the area has been frequently searched and nothing deeper than a ditch has been found. To top it all off, 80,000 feet deep is over 15 miles. The deepest hole on record, on the Kola Peninsula in Russia, is only half as deep. And as far as fishing string goes, it would only take 15 spools, but the geothermal heat at that depth would melt the line.

Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and author of Why People Believe Weird Things, says, “We’re anecdotal thinkers, so we accept things, particularly if they’re in the form of a story, even if it’s outlandish.” In the May 2007 issue of Wired Magazine, this quote is used in reference to the urban legends and good-luck stories propagated through email by naive mothers and wives (and I imagine some men but I don’t really have any data to support that).

It’s an interesting story. You want it to be real. Life is far too short to go without bottomless pits with magical powers.

A couple years later, Mel found another hole in Nevada, but that’s another story.

Quotes: the nonstop humor factory on IRC. What makes a funny quote? I’ve recently returned to my roots on IRC and met up with alot of my friends from years ago. Recently uncovered was a hot plate of quotes from the old quote bot. Let’s share.

[Tweeder] dude, i was listning to a celine dion cd, and i pulled up to a toll booth, and the guy called me a fag. >:|

[Tweeder] .:random mp3:. song[Dixie Chicks - Home - 09 - Tortured Tangled Hearts.mp3] Mp3′s played[2218]
[Tweeder] oh god guys. im soooo sorry
[Tweeder] .:random mp3:. song[16_celine_dion_-_a_new_day_has_come-bmi.mp3] Mp3′s played[2219]
[Tweeder] omg!
[Tweeder] no one seen that
[Tweeder] is kinda a catchy song though

[Strickland_Propane] tommorow im going to toronto
[Tweeder] after toronto why dont you go to hell!
[orkim] im going to ottawa in a week or so
[Tweeder] see, orkims already going to hell.

There hasn’t been a stitch of new Futurama in a good long while, and I must have seen every episode of it at least half a dozen times at this point.

But, it’s such a good show that I’ll be watching the Futurama Space Marathon, tonight on Adult Swim.

Here’s one of my favorite clips from the show.

Some interesting notes: Bender uncomfortably hums the “Dueling Banjo” song most noted for its appearance in Deliverance, which of course, was set in the “deep south”. Also, I’m not sure what Donovan has to do with Atlanta, but the song he does in this clip was also featured in a famous scene from Goodfellas.

Everyone has pet peeves. My mother was very bothered by improper use of English in writing and speech, and her annoyances have been passed on to me.

Of course, I’m bothered by the same old cliches and hack writing that bothers a lot of people already, but here are some specific things that bother me. Note that not all of these things are incorrect in English, but they are all really, really annoying. Don’t say or write them if you want to be on my good side!

1. Can I ask you a question? Don’t you mean, “can I ask you two questions?”
2. Deja Vu all over again. Unless you are Yogi Berra, or you have actually had the feeling of Deja Vu twice for the same event, you do not get to say this!
3. “I hate to tell you…” This is almost always followed by something that the speaker relishes in telling you.
4. Personified SUVs. Does anyone else notice that when there’s a car accident involving an SUV, that it’s always the SUV causing the accident? As in “His SUV slammed into the telephone pole, injuring all inside.” What do news-writers have against SUVs? It’s the driver that caused the accident, not the vehicle.
5. “That begs the question…” followed by an actual question. No, that raises the question. Begs the question means something quite different.
6. I could care less. Don’t you mean you couldn’t care less? I must admit that I’m guilty of this sometimes, and it hurts me–physically–when I say it.
7. And then there was/were [insert number here]. Person who uses this phrase often, are you even aware of its origin? If not, Agatha Cristie spins in her grave because of you, and we all die a little inside when you say it. Reality shows especially get on my nerves when they do this.
8. User-friendly. Clients always ask for a “user-friendly” web page or application interface. Never mind how meaninglessly vague that term is, why would you ever not want a product to be friendly toward the user?
9. We, when you really mean I. As in, “this is what we decided” or “this is what we think”. This reeks of not being confident in taking credit for one’s own actions. Unless you’re really sure you are talking about yourself and at least one other distinct actual person, use I!
10. Mixing up “bring” and “take”. Use “bring” when you are causing something to come from somewhere else. Use “take” when you are causing something to go from your current location to somewhere else. Bring the balloon to me. Take this watermelon over to Stan.

Let me qualify all this by saying that by no means am I an expert on English, nor do I consider myself the ruler of what to say and how to say it. I’m just listing some things that bother me. So lay off!

What are some phrases, cliches, grammatical abuses that annoy you? And don’t just list the same old stuff like there/they’re/their. Maybe I used one in this very post.

A mythical locale, hidden from the outside world; an enigmatic group, kidnapping children because they cannot have any of their own; and a strange technology that allows all of your wishes to come true – if you watch Lost that should sound familiar. But they actually did this 19 years ago on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The first time we saw The Others, Lost’s mysterious antagonists, they kidnapped 10-year-old Walt. The next time we saw them, they took two more children. And last week, in the episode “One of Us“, their agenda was revealed. They take the children because their women cannot carry a child to term.

This is the same motivation as The Aldeans on the 17th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled “When the Bough Breaks“. In the episode, the planet Aldea, fabled like Atlantis or El Dorado, suddenly appears before the Enterprise. The inhabitants, one of the few Star Trek races that don’t have shit on their foreheads, were so advanced they could cloak their entire planet. They proceed to kidnap the Enterprise’s children, including Wesley Crusher and his rainbow sweater. Apparently, The Aldeans have suddenly found themselves sterile and need fresh stock to replenish their population. But as irony would have it, it was their cloaking device, intended to preserve their race from predators, which caused their sterility. Ah… Sweet, sweet sci-fi irony… Sci-rony?

The island on Lost seems to have its own cloaking device. There have been many references to the idea that once you leave, you can never return. Ben Linus, posing as Henry Gale, once said that God, “can’t see this island any better than the rest of the world can.”

The Aldeans every wish is granted by The Custodian, a computer system so perfect, they have long since forgotten how it works or how to maintain it (insert computer geek joke here). In Lost terms, this is comparable to the magic box concept referenced in “The Man from Tallahassee“, the island’s undefined wish-granting mechanism. Whether that turns out to be an actual physical device remains to be seen.

There are several other points of comparison. The Aldean’s communes or “units”, and their emphasis on the arts are similar to the Dharma Initiatives hippy-like social collective. The Aldeans claim that the only way through their shield is “their way” much like Dharma represents “the one true way”… okay, that one’s a bit of a stretch.

So, did the Lost writers steal this concept, or is the fertility/kidnapping scenario a classic myth that I’m not familiar with? Did they come up with the idea independently, like how Jeffrey Marzi came up with Jurassic Park 2 before Michael Crichton wrote it? And did I think at age 10, that 19 years later I would be writing about an episode of Star Trek on someone else’s blog? Where did my life go wrong? These are all answer that will hopefully be revealed in the next episode of Lost… that is, unless we get another stupid Korean people flashback.

You may have noticed the “About Us” section has expanded a lot lately.

When you first saw it, you likely started yelling and panicking, wondering what was happening to your world.

Well, calm down, spaz! Yeah, mgroves.com is getting more writers, but this is good news.

First, Tweeder. Yeah, he’s back. Be afraid–be very afraid.

Second, Jonny. Yes, the same Jonny who is the #1 commenter on mgroves.com. I’ll let him introduce himself further with his first post. What I will say about him is that he’s an extremely intelligent, hilarious person, who I know will bring the finest in quality entertainment and information to mgroves.com.

I’ll also say that when it comes to politics and religion, we are pretty far apart. But that’s fine: diversity of thought is a great thing.

So, please welcome back Tweeder, and welcome our newest author, Jonny.