Contra Dancing and Mathematics
Last week I met Larry Copes at the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America joint meetings in Baltimore, MD, USA. He gave an presentation on the mathematics of contra dancing. He tried to find what I call an omnicontra dance, a dance that omninates through all of the possible dance positions. After some searching and discarding of dance steps that would be rather unnatural, he found 4 good dances.
I too have done some work with the mathematics of contra dancing. I relate it to group theory and compare it to changing a mattress. My article states that the contra dancing foursomes group is the group of symmetries of a square, also called D4. In addition, the overall procedure of passing down the line in contra dancing is also a group, Dn, where n is the number of foursomes in the dance. Today I tried to find the overall group of all of these actions, for eight contra dancers. I used some software to find a group with 384 elements in it; this contains some steps that would never occur in a contra dance, such as the next set of foursomes circling around before the previous set has finished its moves and switched the two partners. I think it may have 64 elements, but am not certain.
Then I actually went out contra dancing and danced in 6 of the dances. It is quite different actually dancing it then analyzing it. I met quite a few people tonight, mostly women. What struck me the most is that people from ordinary walks of life, with little or no knowledge of mathematics, are able to execute all these moves in the required order and move about in a group with maybe hundreds of elements in it. The band was good - a group named Orion. It is also a good way to introduce people to group theory. If I ever teach a course in college abstract algebra, when I get to the group theory part, I will invite my class to the local contra dance. The best way to learn mathematics may be to become a part of mathematics, and contra dancing certainly does that.
A Journey through Blogrealm
2003/01/25
Internet Threat
I have seen my Internet service get worse and worse the past few months. On the web it seems that every site that you go to, other than personal sites like mine, throw uninvited popup windows in your face, as well as ads on the page. These slow down downloading of the web page, and can even lead to a weird looking page. If you use Norton Internet Security's ad blocking, and go to an editorial on the Washington Post, you will get a misshapen window. I suppose the ads are so tied to the structure of the page that eliminating them results in a weird page.
Viruses are becoming more threatening, too. Actually it is just one virus, w32.Klez.H @ mm, which sees fit to pull names off address books for both From: and To: blocks, and I get lots of virus messages accusing me of sending something I didn't send. And spam is getting worse. The latest spam atrocity was something that pulled names from address books and paired them with random email addresses. I then get squawks from places that can't receive the email saying that I, Linda Rodriguez (not a real name), with my correct email address, sent something to them and that it failed for some reason. In my opinion, spam such as this is a virus.
Today I could not get money out of a Bank of America ATM. That was probably due to an attack on servers by a Code Red like virus. Even non-Internet activities such as banking are affected. I think it would help if people put antivirus and site protection software on their computers and servers and use it. That would greatly limit the effectiveness of these Internet monsters. I checked my computer this morning and found no viruses.
I have seen my Internet service get worse and worse the past few months. On the web it seems that every site that you go to, other than personal sites like mine, throw uninvited popup windows in your face, as well as ads on the page. These slow down downloading of the web page, and can even lead to a weird looking page. If you use Norton Internet Security's ad blocking, and go to an editorial on the Washington Post, you will get a misshapen window. I suppose the ads are so tied to the structure of the page that eliminating them results in a weird page.
Viruses are becoming more threatening, too. Actually it is just one virus, w32.Klez.H @ mm, which sees fit to pull names off address books for both From: and To: blocks, and I get lots of virus messages accusing me of sending something I didn't send. And spam is getting worse. The latest spam atrocity was something that pulled names from address books and paired them with random email addresses. I then get squawks from places that can't receive the email saying that I, Linda Rodriguez (not a real name), with my correct email address, sent something to them and that it failed for some reason. In my opinion, spam such as this is a virus.
Today I could not get money out of a Bank of America ATM. That was probably due to an attack on servers by a Code Red like virus. Even non-Internet activities such as banking are affected. I think it would help if people put antivirus and site protection software on their computers and servers and use it. That would greatly limit the effectiveness of these Internet monsters. I checked my computer this morning and found no viruses.
2003/01/23
Influence, Honesty, and being to the point
Yesterday I attended a talk about the strategies of influence. He mentioned how you could influence people to buy toys in January, for instance. You bring the toy out into the market in November. Tout it as a good Christmas gift for your kids. Then suddenly terminate it on December 10 and send every parent to Scare City (because of scarcity of the toy). Then bring it out in the middle of January. All that pent-up demand explodes, and the toy sells in January. He also says that gasoline stations used to charge extra if a credit card was used to buy the gasoline. But then they offered cash discounts instead. That is like six of one and half a dozen of the other. A premium for credit card use is the same as a cash discount: you pay more by charging than by paying cash.
To me this is playing tricks on the public. Confronted with the gasoline station, I would tell them that cash discounts still mean that they are charging a premium for credit card use. When they say that is the usual price of gasoline, I would reply that there is no such thing as a usual price for gasoline!. All prices are relative to each other, and cash discounts are the same as credit card premiums. Tell them like it is. Expose their deception. I'm not sure why they are teaching people to behave like this.
Today we discussed table topics in Toastmasters, where a Topicsmaster gives you a subject to talk about in 1-2 minutes. You learn that if you don't know anything about the subject, that you make something up or change the subject. I.e., you be evasive. I am not sure this is proper training either. But I had to do it today. I was called to tell people what "pterion" meant. I told them honestly that I did not know, and that I could make a good guess by noticing that pter- means wing; for example, a rotating-wing flying machine is a helicopter. I was way off the mark this time (it is a medical term), but at least I was honest about it.
It even debases the language. It means that not has no meaning. It is just a filler word. When Nixon says "I am not a crook", he means that he is a crook. When Gary Hart denies an improper relationship with Donna Rice, that means he had such a relationship. When stock brokers tell customers that Enron is "Buy", they mean it's "Sell". When Iraq says it does not have weapons of mass destruction, and especially when it says it in 12,200 pages, that means that it does have weapons of mass destruction. So if you have a sexually free relationship with your wife, and you hold a public office, such as governor or senator, and you are asked if you had an "improper" relationship with a certain woman last night, change the subject or tell them that you prefer not to discuss it. For if you say you had an affair, then that means you had one. If you say you did not have an affair, that means you had one. The only way you can say you did not have one is not to comment on the subject. If Bill Clinton had done this when he was President, he would have been more effective, and our President today would be Al Gore.
Yesterday I attended a talk about the strategies of influence. He mentioned how you could influence people to buy toys in January, for instance. You bring the toy out into the market in November. Tout it as a good Christmas gift for your kids. Then suddenly terminate it on December 10 and send every parent to Scare City (because of scarcity of the toy). Then bring it out in the middle of January. All that pent-up demand explodes, and the toy sells in January. He also says that gasoline stations used to charge extra if a credit card was used to buy the gasoline. But then they offered cash discounts instead. That is like six of one and half a dozen of the other. A premium for credit card use is the same as a cash discount: you pay more by charging than by paying cash.
To me this is playing tricks on the public. Confronted with the gasoline station, I would tell them that cash discounts still mean that they are charging a premium for credit card use. When they say that is the usual price of gasoline, I would reply that there is no such thing as a usual price for gasoline!. All prices are relative to each other, and cash discounts are the same as credit card premiums. Tell them like it is. Expose their deception. I'm not sure why they are teaching people to behave like this.
Today we discussed table topics in Toastmasters, where a Topicsmaster gives you a subject to talk about in 1-2 minutes. You learn that if you don't know anything about the subject, that you make something up or change the subject. I.e., you be evasive. I am not sure this is proper training either. But I had to do it today. I was called to tell people what "pterion" meant. I told them honestly that I did not know, and that I could make a good guess by noticing that pter- means wing; for example, a rotating-wing flying machine is a helicopter. I was way off the mark this time (it is a medical term), but at least I was honest about it.
It even debases the language. It means that not has no meaning. It is just a filler word. When Nixon says "I am not a crook", he means that he is a crook. When Gary Hart denies an improper relationship with Donna Rice, that means he had such a relationship. When stock brokers tell customers that Enron is "Buy", they mean it's "Sell". When Iraq says it does not have weapons of mass destruction, and especially when it says it in 12,200 pages, that means that it does have weapons of mass destruction. So if you have a sexually free relationship with your wife, and you hold a public office, such as governor or senator, and you are asked if you had an "improper" relationship with a certain woman last night, change the subject or tell them that you prefer not to discuss it. For if you say you had an affair, then that means you had one. If you say you did not have an affair, that means you had one. The only way you can say you did not have one is not to comment on the subject. If Bill Clinton had done this when he was President, he would have been more effective, and our President today would be Al Gore.
2003/01/22
Copycat
The revelation that Cc, a genetic clone of a calico cat named Rainbow, not only does not look like Rainbow, but has a personality radically different from her, is of extraordinary importance. It says that cloning is not what we figured it was. One can't make a copy of a person simply by putting his genes into a zygote and bringing it to term. But identical twins are so much like each other that they can't be told apart. I know from experience, when I met a pair of such twins. They are certainly closer than Cc and Rainbow. This means the womb must have something to do with it. It seems that if two cats are genetically identical but grew in different wombs, they become two different looking cats. I would suspect the same if the two had grown in the same womb but not at the same time, but am not certain of this. Two identical twins grew in the same womb at the same time, so this accounts for their near identicalness. So it seems that people who want to make a copy of themselves for posterity can forget about it. It is a major finding in our understanding of life and of ourselves, and of course, of cats. Meow.
The revelation that Cc, a genetic clone of a calico cat named Rainbow, not only does not look like Rainbow, but has a personality radically different from her, is of extraordinary importance. It says that cloning is not what we figured it was. One can't make a copy of a person simply by putting his genes into a zygote and bringing it to term. But identical twins are so much like each other that they can't be told apart. I know from experience, when I met a pair of such twins. They are certainly closer than Cc and Rainbow. This means the womb must have something to do with it. It seems that if two cats are genetically identical but grew in different wombs, they become two different looking cats. I would suspect the same if the two had grown in the same womb but not at the same time, but am not certain of this. Two identical twins grew in the same womb at the same time, so this accounts for their near identicalness. So it seems that people who want to make a copy of themselves for posterity can forget about it. It is a major finding in our understanding of life and of ourselves, and of course, of cats. Meow.
Annual Leave Wars
Yesterday I got my paycheck and found that I had been charged for 9 more hours of leave than I had asked for. I had emailed my supervisor and her secretary several times that I was going to have Dec 30 be my regular day off, part of a 5-4 plan where I work 9 days of 9 hours each instead of 10 days of 8 hours in two weeks. I had intended to change the regular day off in the middle of the month, but for some reason they changed it at the end of the last month and charged me with 9 hours leave when I wanted a regular day off there. It seems that they want the official leave form instead of emails. A case of inflexible bureaucracy. But it gets worse. I had received an award of 16 hours off, and wanted to take 27 hours off to go to a conference. So I told them I wanted to take 11 hours of annual leave and 16 hours of award. But it seems they can't divide 16 by 9. It's true, 9 won't go into 16 evenly. So therefore I was going to take 9 hours of annual leave the first day, 2 hours of annual leave and 7 hours of award the next day, and 9 hours of award the last day. They could not get that second day straight.
My wife's workplace is no better. She works part time, so in 2 weeks she works 5 full-time days. This workplace can't do a 2 and 5 rhythm very well. For a while she worked 2 days one week and 3 the next, which is the same as 16 hours one week and 24 the next. That's reasonable. But the payroll people insist else Kingdom Come that each week must contain 20 hours of work. So now she is working one 4-hour day each week. She now goes to work 6 days instead of 5 in 2 weeks, with the same number of work hours, but spending more personal hours commuting, and consuming more oil.
It seems that mathematics is one discipline not well understood in today's society and we suffer because of it. By the way, did I say that 9 days of 9 hours was the same as 10 days of 8 hours above? That's 81=80. That doesn't match very well, but unless we can think of 81=80 at times, most of our music would never exist; see, for example, http://sonic-arts.org/dict/syncom.htm. At work they do let me have one hour off every two weeks.
Yesterday I got my paycheck and found that I had been charged for 9 more hours of leave than I had asked for. I had emailed my supervisor and her secretary several times that I was going to have Dec 30 be my regular day off, part of a 5-4 plan where I work 9 days of 9 hours each instead of 10 days of 8 hours in two weeks. I had intended to change the regular day off in the middle of the month, but for some reason they changed it at the end of the last month and charged me with 9 hours leave when I wanted a regular day off there. It seems that they want the official leave form instead of emails. A case of inflexible bureaucracy. But it gets worse. I had received an award of 16 hours off, and wanted to take 27 hours off to go to a conference. So I told them I wanted to take 11 hours of annual leave and 16 hours of award. But it seems they can't divide 16 by 9. It's true, 9 won't go into 16 evenly. So therefore I was going to take 9 hours of annual leave the first day, 2 hours of annual leave and 7 hours of award the next day, and 9 hours of award the last day. They could not get that second day straight.
My wife's workplace is no better. She works part time, so in 2 weeks she works 5 full-time days. This workplace can't do a 2 and 5 rhythm very well. For a while she worked 2 days one week and 3 the next, which is the same as 16 hours one week and 24 the next. That's reasonable. But the payroll people insist else Kingdom Come that each week must contain 20 hours of work. So now she is working one 4-hour day each week. She now goes to work 6 days instead of 5 in 2 weeks, with the same number of work hours, but spending more personal hours commuting, and consuming more oil.
It seems that mathematics is one discipline not well understood in today's society and we suffer because of it. By the way, did I say that 9 days of 9 hours was the same as 10 days of 8 hours above? That's 81=80. That doesn't match very well, but unless we can think of 81=80 at times, most of our music would never exist; see, for example, http://sonic-arts.org/dict/syncom.htm. At work they do let me have one hour off every two weeks.
Invade Iraq or no? What would Jesus do?
Pressure is developing to invade Iraq. Should the US do that? On the one hand, it seems that the US wants a favorable regime there so that it can get access to the 112 billion barrels of oil there. But on the other hand, Saddam Hussein has been one of the most threatening dictators in the region: he has invaded two neighboring countries and has used poison gas to kill about 5,000 Kurds. Further, he is suspected of harboring weapons of mass destruction. The world would be a better place without him.
Maybe Jesus would be of help here. He said, "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone." That means that a force would be organized to overthrow the Iraqi government, but it would include only nations that don't themselves have weapons of mass destruction. This may be unrealistic since so many large nations have these weapons. So maybe if it is decided to go in and overthrow him, it would be a UN force that would do it, including French, German, and Russian troops. Iraq would then become a UN protectorate after the government is overthrown. This most likely would be a war, but it may be good not to call it one. Call it a police action. Saddam is a criminal, like the DC snipers were, and needs to be brought before justice. I foresee eventually a day in which war is just as unacceptable as ordinary crime to settle disputes, and I hope that the case of Iraq is a first step in that direction.
Pressure is developing to invade Iraq. Should the US do that? On the one hand, it seems that the US wants a favorable regime there so that it can get access to the 112 billion barrels of oil there. But on the other hand, Saddam Hussein has been one of the most threatening dictators in the region: he has invaded two neighboring countries and has used poison gas to kill about 5,000 Kurds. Further, he is suspected of harboring weapons of mass destruction. The world would be a better place without him.
Maybe Jesus would be of help here. He said, "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone." That means that a force would be organized to overthrow the Iraqi government, but it would include only nations that don't themselves have weapons of mass destruction. This may be unrealistic since so many large nations have these weapons. So maybe if it is decided to go in and overthrow him, it would be a UN force that would do it, including French, German, and Russian troops. Iraq would then become a UN protectorate after the government is overthrown. This most likely would be a war, but it may be good not to call it one. Call it a police action. Saddam is a criminal, like the DC snipers were, and needs to be brought before justice. I foresee eventually a day in which war is just as unacceptable as ordinary crime to settle disputes, and I hope that the case of Iraq is a first step in that direction.
2003/01/20
Mathematics Conference
I took time out from my normal routine to go to a national mathematics conference in Baltimore last week. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is an attractive place. It is especially attractive at night where I saw the full moon hanging alongside the World Trade Center as a backdrop to the tall shafts of the frigate Constitution. The World Trade Center is an interesting building. It is five-sided, with a pentagon-shaped base, so that it looks attractive from any angle, since you always see at least two sides. It is unfortunate that its name and shape both remind us of a horror that occurred nearly a year and a half ago.
The conference brought me back to my graduate school days. I attended 44 talks, including three major addresses, and interviewed for several jobs. The most interesting talk was by Joe Silverman, who showed that elliptic curves occur all over the place in mathematics. The last presentation showed how laptop computers could be used to demonstrate mathematical concepts such as the graphs of quadratic and cubic equations. I wish I had access to some of those tools when I was growing up.
I took time out from my normal routine to go to a national mathematics conference in Baltimore last week. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is an attractive place. It is especially attractive at night where I saw the full moon hanging alongside the World Trade Center as a backdrop to the tall shafts of the frigate Constitution. The World Trade Center is an interesting building. It is five-sided, with a pentagon-shaped base, so that it looks attractive from any angle, since you always see at least two sides. It is unfortunate that its name and shape both remind us of a horror that occurred nearly a year and a half ago.
The conference brought me back to my graduate school days. I attended 44 talks, including three major addresses, and interviewed for several jobs. The most interesting talk was by Joe Silverman, who showed that elliptic curves occur all over the place in mathematics. The last presentation showed how laptop computers could be used to demonstrate mathematical concepts such as the graphs of quadratic and cubic equations. I wish I had access to some of those tools when I was growing up.
Martin Luther King Day
Today is a holiday in which we are to celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Workers get a day off. Children get a holiday from school, and many people attend celebrations in Rev. King's honor. Some think that this day is mainly for African Americans; after all, it was the treatment of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s that led to Rev. King's movement and to his untimely death. This is not so. This day is for everyone. Rev. King's message is that the pursuit of happiness is something that belongs to everyone, regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race and so forth. It is a day to recognize that despite all our differences, we are all essentially alike. Children in Chesterfield County, Virginia, had to go to school today because it snowed in December. Why couldn't they have chosen some other day, such as a teacher workday? But teachers made the most of it anyway. They departed from their usual lessons to devote time in their classes to Dr. King and his message.
Today is a holiday in which we are to celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Workers get a day off. Children get a holiday from school, and many people attend celebrations in Rev. King's honor. Some think that this day is mainly for African Americans; after all, it was the treatment of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s that led to Rev. King's movement and to his untimely death. This is not so. This day is for everyone. Rev. King's message is that the pursuit of happiness is something that belongs to everyone, regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race and so forth. It is a day to recognize that despite all our differences, we are all essentially alike. Children in Chesterfield County, Virginia, had to go to school today because it snowed in December. Why couldn't they have chosen some other day, such as a teacher workday? But teachers made the most of it anyway. They departed from their usual lessons to devote time in their classes to Dr. King and his message.
2003/01/09
Fibonacci currency
Today when I consulted a web site having the exchange rates between US dollars and British pounds, I found an interesting relationship. £1 = $1.6131, which is close to 1.619033989…, the golden ratio. This means that Fibonacci numbers can be used to convert between pounds and dollars. This is because ratios between two adjacent Fibonacci numbers converge to 1.619033989, actually (1+
5)/2, which is close to 1.6131. The Fibonacci numbers can be obtained by summing successive numbers:0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, and so forth, yielding the series 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…, and successive ones are apart from each other by about the golden ratio. Therefore, approximately we can say:
£8 = $13
$55 = £34
£987 = $1,610
and so forth. This makes it easy to remember the exchange rate. The same thing also happens between miles and kilometers; one mile = 1.609344 kilometers. So approximately, 21 kilometers = 13 miles, and 89 kph is 55 mph. It's not too often that you get help from these numbers in figuring out rates.
Today when I consulted a web site having the exchange rates between US dollars and British pounds, I found an interesting relationship. £1 = $1.6131, which is close to 1.619033989…, the golden ratio. This means that Fibonacci numbers can be used to convert between pounds and dollars. This is because ratios between two adjacent Fibonacci numbers converge to 1.619033989, actually (1+
5)/2, which is close to 1.6131. The Fibonacci numbers can be obtained by summing successive numbers:0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, and so forth, yielding the series 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…, and successive ones are apart from each other by about the golden ratio. Therefore, approximately we can say:
£8 = $13
$55 = £34
£987 = $1,610
and so forth. This makes it easy to remember the exchange rate. The same thing also happens between miles and kilometers; one mile = 1.609344 kilometers. So approximately, 21 kilometers = 13 miles, and 89 kph is 55 mph. It's not too often that you get help from these numbers in figuring out rates.
How much petrol tax?
I noted today from the Internet that the price of petrol in Great Britain is 54 pence per litre. Further, they said that all but 17 pence is tax. What does this mean in American terms? First, there are 3.78 litres in a gallon, so 54 pence per litre is £12.08 per gallon of petrol. Apply the exchange rate from above (sorry, 208 is not a Fibonacci number) and the result is $3.29 per gallon of gasoline. The actual price in America now is $1.30 per gallon, so we really have it cheap. Further, 37 pence is tax, so the amount taxed is 37 * 3.78 pence or £1.39, approximately. This is $2.25. So the British have a $2.25/gallon tax on their petrol. Our tax is perhaps 25 cents. Hence a $2/gallon tax on gasoline will make us on par with the British. It would also encourage conservation and development of renewable fuels. So why don't we do it? We could cut some other tax to make up for it; perhaps the income tax, creating the principle that a person should be taxed on how much fuel he consumes, not on how much money he makes.
Incidently, I prefer the British word petrol to the American word gasoline for vehicle fuel. This is because it is not ambiguous. Americans shorten gasoline to gas, which can be confused with another fuel, natural gas.
I noted today from the Internet that the price of petrol in Great Britain is 54 pence per litre. Further, they said that all but 17 pence is tax. What does this mean in American terms? First, there are 3.78 litres in a gallon, so 54 pence per litre is £12.08 per gallon of petrol. Apply the exchange rate from above (sorry, 208 is not a Fibonacci number) and the result is $3.29 per gallon of gasoline. The actual price in America now is $1.30 per gallon, so we really have it cheap. Further, 37 pence is tax, so the amount taxed is 37 * 3.78 pence or £1.39, approximately. This is $2.25. So the British have a $2.25/gallon tax on their petrol. Our tax is perhaps 25 cents. Hence a $2/gallon tax on gasoline will make us on par with the British. It would also encourage conservation and development of renewable fuels. So why don't we do it? We could cut some other tax to make up for it; perhaps the income tax, creating the principle that a person should be taxed on how much fuel he consumes, not on how much money he makes.
Incidently, I prefer the British word petrol to the American word gasoline for vehicle fuel. This is because it is not ambiguous. Americans shorten gasoline to gas, which can be confused with another fuel, natural gas.
2003/01/05
AFLAC Duck Meets GEICO Gecko
By far the best ads on TV are the AFLAC duck commercials. Most ads repeat over and over and over and over again and usually they repeat some form of the message "buy our product". Not so the AFLAC commercials. They show people talking in ordinary life, including insurance needs, and they can't remember a certain name. The AFLAC duck's quack (AFLAC!!) tries to remind them, but they don't hear him. The duck does some humorous things, such as kick tidbits at a park bench back to the feeding person. The GEICO gecko is also good, but not quite. But what I would like to see is for these two mascots to come together in one commercial, such as:
AFLAC Duck meets GEICO Gecko
Scene - in the park
Three children walking.
Art: Oh, Look. A Lizard.
Gecko: GEICO!
Charlie: Ooh! He looks real! (picks the gecko up)
Betty: Euucht!
Art: Betty, isn't he cute?
[The AFLAC duck walks in the background.]
Betty: But what if he bites?
Charlie: Your daddy's supplemental insurance covers it.
Betty: My daddy's what?
[GEICO gecko scrambles around in Art's hands, looking scared.]
Gecko: GEICO!
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!!
Art: What did the lizard say?
Betty: I think he said gecko.
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!!! wufufufufufu….
[AFLAC duck runs up to the children and flaps his wings. The GEICO gecko jumps out of Betty's arms]
Betty: Eeeek!
[AFLAC duck fluffs up his wings and starts going after the GEICO gecko. The gecko starts running as fast has he can and looks like Scare City. The AFLAC duck chases the GEICO gecko into the pond, and both disappear.]
Charlie: I didn't know that ducks liked lizards.
Announcers voice: Don't go chasing after geckos. Ask for it by name.
[Scene shows a street vendor with a customer, taking a picture of him holding the GEICO gecko. The AFLAC duck is nearby.]
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!
[All three of them, the vendor, the customer, and the GEICO gecko, get puzzled looks on their faces.]
[END]
By far the best ads on TV are the AFLAC duck commercials. Most ads repeat over and over and over and over again and usually they repeat some form of the message "buy our product". Not so the AFLAC commercials. They show people talking in ordinary life, including insurance needs, and they can't remember a certain name. The AFLAC duck's quack (AFLAC!!) tries to remind them, but they don't hear him. The duck does some humorous things, such as kick tidbits at a park bench back to the feeding person. The GEICO gecko is also good, but not quite. But what I would like to see is for these two mascots to come together in one commercial, such as:
AFLAC Duck meets GEICO Gecko
Scene - in the park
Three children walking.
Art: Oh, Look. A Lizard.
Gecko: GEICO!
Charlie: Ooh! He looks real! (picks the gecko up)
Betty: Euucht!
Art: Betty, isn't he cute?
[The AFLAC duck walks in the background.]
Betty: But what if he bites?
Charlie: Your daddy's supplemental insurance covers it.
Betty: My daddy's what?
[GEICO gecko scrambles around in Art's hands, looking scared.]
Gecko: GEICO!
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!!
Art: What did the lizard say?
Betty: I think he said gecko.
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!!! wufufufufufu….
[AFLAC duck runs up to the children and flaps his wings. The GEICO gecko jumps out of Betty's arms]
Betty: Eeeek!
[AFLAC duck fluffs up his wings and starts going after the GEICO gecko. The gecko starts running as fast has he can and looks like Scare City. The AFLAC duck chases the GEICO gecko into the pond, and both disappear.]
Charlie: I didn't know that ducks liked lizards.
Announcers voice: Don't go chasing after geckos. Ask for it by name.
[Scene shows a street vendor with a customer, taking a picture of him holding the GEICO gecko. The AFLAC duck is nearby.]
AFLAC Duck: AFLAC!
[All three of them, the vendor, the customer, and the GEICO gecko, get puzzled looks on their faces.]
[END]
Glory Shortage
In an article "A Pacifist in Wartime", in Style magazine, Jinny Batterson states that "Wars are fought from a perspective of scarcity - be it not enough human labor, not enough land, not enough coal, not enough oil, or not enough glory..." I am aware of most of these shortages, but the one that is new to me is a glory shortage. This is interesting. We all want some piece of the action, some fame, some glory in our lives, and are willing to risk our lives to grab a piece of the glory pie. So even heroic actions are things we desire, so they become just as materialistic as a cellular phone that plays mp3s. And what happens if we can't get a taste of the glory because someone else gets their first? Quite likely, we have a knock-down drag-out fight to get it. And wasn't it Humpty Dumpty (Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll) that said that "glory" meant "a knock-down drag-out fight"? As he says, "a word means exactly what I want it to mean, no more, no less". And we certainly have enough of words that mean exactly what the authors want them to mean in our culture already.
In an article "A Pacifist in Wartime", in Style magazine, Jinny Batterson states that "Wars are fought from a perspective of scarcity - be it not enough human labor, not enough land, not enough coal, not enough oil, or not enough glory..." I am aware of most of these shortages, but the one that is new to me is a glory shortage. This is interesting. We all want some piece of the action, some fame, some glory in our lives, and are willing to risk our lives to grab a piece of the glory pie. So even heroic actions are things we desire, so they become just as materialistic as a cellular phone that plays mp3s. And what happens if we can't get a taste of the glory because someone else gets their first? Quite likely, we have a knock-down drag-out fight to get it. And wasn't it Humpty Dumpty (Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll) that said that "glory" meant "a knock-down drag-out fight"? As he says, "a word means exactly what I want it to mean, no more, no less". And we certainly have enough of words that mean exactly what the authors want them to mean in our culture already.
Scare City
We may be running out of oil soon, and out of jobs everywhere at every time. Some experts are telling us, especially from the simplicity folks and the neurolinguistics people, that we have an abundance, that we have all we need before us. It's desire for something we don't now have, that we think it may make our life better, that drives us to buy stuff, causing shortages. When we do that, we live in Scare City (i.e., scarcity), when we should really be doing A Bun Dance (abundance). I would really like to see what this dance looks like, but I imagine some existing dances could serve as a Bun Dance. I got this idea of a Bun Dance from http://www.lightworks.com/MonthlyAspectarian/1998/January/0198-23.htm.
We may be running out of oil soon, and out of jobs everywhere at every time. Some experts are telling us, especially from the simplicity folks and the neurolinguistics people, that we have an abundance, that we have all we need before us. It's desire for something we don't now have, that we think it may make our life better, that drives us to buy stuff, causing shortages. When we do that, we live in Scare City (i.e., scarcity), when we should really be doing A Bun Dance (abundance). I would really like to see what this dance looks like, but I imagine some existing dances could serve as a Bun Dance. I got this idea of a Bun Dance from http://www.lightworks.com/MonthlyAspectarian/1998/January/0198-23.htm.
2003/01/04
The Great Zero-Zero Decade Oil Party
War with Iraq. Trouble with North Korea. What will happen next? According to one source, there will be a war with Iraq and oil prices will soar to $50 a barrel or so, but the government of Saddam Hussein will quickly be toppled. The new interim government will sign oil deals all over the place. The Venezuela situation will resolve itself, making that oil available again. With a lot of oil available, and with high oil prices, people are going to want to produce gasoline and other oil products all over the place. The result will be a gusher of oil to the world, mainly the developed world, and prosperity and a bullish stock market will return. This will happen in late 2003 into 2004 and 2005. If this happens, I will call it the Great Zero-Zero Decade Oil Party. Wheee! But the hangover of the runout of cheap oil will ominate after this party is over. We will be living as though there is no tomorrow. There really ought to be a better way.
War with Iraq. Trouble with North Korea. What will happen next? According to one source, there will be a war with Iraq and oil prices will soar to $50 a barrel or so, but the government of Saddam Hussein will quickly be toppled. The new interim government will sign oil deals all over the place. The Venezuela situation will resolve itself, making that oil available again. With a lot of oil available, and with high oil prices, people are going to want to produce gasoline and other oil products all over the place. The result will be a gusher of oil to the world, mainly the developed world, and prosperity and a bullish stock market will return. This will happen in late 2003 into 2004 and 2005. If this happens, I will call it the Great Zero-Zero Decade Oil Party. Wheee! But the hangover of the runout of cheap oil will ominate after this party is over. We will be living as though there is no tomorrow. There really ought to be a better way.
Toastmasters Officer Training
Today I attended Winter Leadership Institute, which is required of all officers of Toastmasters Clubs. I am a member of three Toastmasters clubs and I am an officer in each. So I went today to a building in the shape of a pentakis dodecahedron, with a pentagonal sanctuary. I learned how to be President of a club. One of the more interesting things they did this time was ask everyone for a motivational quote to put on a card; these cards would be drawn for raffle prizes. I was asked twice to do this, and here are the quotes I came up with:
Toastmasters is a Fire
Like a fire, a Toastmasters club requires the fuel of members, the air of a good educational program, and the heat of enthusiasm.
Just Add One
Just add one new member
Just add one new CTM (Competent Toastmaster)
Just add one new Speechcraft (introductory course to Toastmasters)
Just add one new DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster)
Above all, just add one new FRIEND.
There is never an end to Toastmasters.
We concluded with a lunch in which I met people I had not seen in a while.
Today I attended Winter Leadership Institute, which is required of all officers of Toastmasters Clubs. I am a member of three Toastmasters clubs and I am an officer in each. So I went today to a building in the shape of a pentakis dodecahedron, with a pentagonal sanctuary. I learned how to be President of a club. One of the more interesting things they did this time was ask everyone for a motivational quote to put on a card; these cards would be drawn for raffle prizes. I was asked twice to do this, and here are the quotes I came up with:
Toastmasters is a Fire
Like a fire, a Toastmasters club requires the fuel of members, the air of a good educational program, and the heat of enthusiasm.
Just Add One
Just add one new member
Just add one new CTM (Competent Toastmaster)
Just add one new Speechcraft (introductory course to Toastmasters)
Just add one new DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster)
Above all, just add one new FRIEND.
There is never an end to Toastmasters.
We concluded with a lunch in which I met people I had not seen in a while.
2003/01/01
The ultimate growth rate is zero
The economists are saying that growth will grow at a languid rate of about 1% this year. They seem to like it when it is 3% or more. Economists and others seem to want growth, growth all the time. They don't recognize a fundamental law: The ultimate growth rate is zero. This is the case because if growth rate is negative, soon you will have practically nothing, as things decay away. If growth rate is positive, things will keep growing until it exceeds the capacity of our finite resources. Therefore, neither positive nor negative growth rates can continue indefinitely, and thus the only real growth rate is zero. I think we will be better off when economists regard a year of -0.6% or 1.4% or something like that as being a good year. We certainly don't need more growth.
The economists are saying that growth will grow at a languid rate of about 1% this year. They seem to like it when it is 3% or more. Economists and others seem to want growth, growth all the time. They don't recognize a fundamental law: The ultimate growth rate is zero. This is the case because if growth rate is negative, soon you will have practically nothing, as things decay away. If growth rate is positive, things will keep growing until it exceeds the capacity of our finite resources. Therefore, neither positive nor negative growth rates can continue indefinitely, and thus the only real growth rate is zero. I think we will be better off when economists regard a year of -0.6% or 1.4% or something like that as being a good year. We certainly don't need more growth.
Review of Words book
I purchased a book recently called Predicting new words. It is about words that have been invented such as spin, meaning way of presenting something, and weapons-grade, meaning of superior quality. I found it quite interesting and I heartily recommend the book. He not only gives us many new words but he also predicts the chances of their success. His factors are:
1. Frequency of use
2. Unobtrusiveness
3. Diversity
4. Generation of other forms and meanings
5. Endurance of the concept.
OK, let's take a non-word from my Non-Words page. Try rurale, for instance. This means uncouth, crude, or ill-mannered, and is the opposite of urbane. Here is my ratings of it: Frequency, 0; Unobtrusiveness, 2; Diversity, 0; Generation of other forms, 1; Endurance of the concept, 2. It gets the two zeroes because no one has used them much except me; that is a problem with most of the words on my Non-Word page. It fits into language like a glove: "… behaving like a bunch of rurale brutes…", getting the 2 for unobtrusiveness. It has only one other form (ruralely), but the concept of well-mannered versus ill-mannered was around when I was a child and will continue, as I see it, well into the future. Total score is 5. If I start using it a lot, it will gain in Frequency and Diversity, and it then would have a good chance of entering the language. It main positive attribute is its Unobtrusiveness.
Mr. Metcalf, the book's author, rates atmosFear 0, and weapons-grade9. Thus atmosFear is going to get nowhere, while weapons-grade is likely to become part of the language. I agree with him on atmosFear, because in speech that does not sound different from "atmosphere",and on the page the F makes it look ugly. I agree with what Mr. Metcalf says about weapons-grade as well, that it has a good chance to enter our vocabulary, but I think it is ominous that this will happen. The word is violent; it implies that to be excellent you have to show some willingness to hurt people or things. So I hope it doesn't enter the vocabulary. I feel the same about blockbuster, which was named after a weapon capable of destroying an entire city block. But I think it is a good book anyway and I hope you have fun trying to predict which of my non-words will make it into the language.
I purchased a book recently called Predicting new words. It is about words that have been invented such as spin, meaning way of presenting something, and weapons-grade, meaning of superior quality. I found it quite interesting and I heartily recommend the book. He not only gives us many new words but he also predicts the chances of their success. His factors are:
1. Frequency of use
2. Unobtrusiveness
3. Diversity
4. Generation of other forms and meanings
5. Endurance of the concept.
OK, let's take a non-word from my Non-Words page. Try rurale, for instance. This means uncouth, crude, or ill-mannered, and is the opposite of urbane. Here is my ratings of it: Frequency, 0; Unobtrusiveness, 2; Diversity, 0; Generation of other forms, 1; Endurance of the concept, 2. It gets the two zeroes because no one has used them much except me; that is a problem with most of the words on my Non-Word page. It fits into language like a glove: "… behaving like a bunch of rurale brutes…", getting the 2 for unobtrusiveness. It has only one other form (ruralely), but the concept of well-mannered versus ill-mannered was around when I was a child and will continue, as I see it, well into the future. Total score is 5. If I start using it a lot, it will gain in Frequency and Diversity, and it then would have a good chance of entering the language. It main positive attribute is its Unobtrusiveness.
Mr. Metcalf, the book's author, rates atmosFear 0, and weapons-grade9. Thus atmosFear is going to get nowhere, while weapons-grade is likely to become part of the language. I agree with him on atmosFear, because in speech that does not sound different from "atmosphere",and on the page the F makes it look ugly. I agree with what Mr. Metcalf says about weapons-grade as well, that it has a good chance to enter our vocabulary, but I think it is ominous that this will happen. The word is violent; it implies that to be excellent you have to show some willingness to hurt people or things. So I hope it doesn't enter the vocabulary. I feel the same about blockbuster, which was named after a weapon capable of destroying an entire city block. But I think it is a good book anyway and I hope you have fun trying to predict which of my non-words will make it into the language.
Incredible media priorities
NBC News tonight (2003 January 1) showed an incredibly warped sense of priorities in its news reporting tonight. This past week was one in which a major disaster occurred. Entire islands had almost all life destroyed on them by Cyclone Zoe with its 217 mph winds. 2,000 people lived in these islands, and though these islands are so remote that information from them is still sketchy, it is likely that a huge number of these died. A thousand or more people dying constitute a major disaster and a major news story. It ought to have been the lead story tonight; it is possible that a number of deaths approaching what occurred on 2001 September 11 could have occurred, and that was a lead story.
Instead, NBC did not make it the first story. In fact, they did not even include it anywhere in their broadcast! They instead featured the "war" on terror and the injury of one person in a firefight in Afghanistan. To me this is an appalling lack of judgment in the prioritization of news stories. Someone needs to be done about NBC reporting. I can't tell what the other networks did, partially because some of them chose to broadcast sports instead of news. Google got it right. The story appeared as the second lead story on their news page. It is good that we have Google now, so we can hear news from wherever it comes, without having to put up with the antics of NBC and other networks.
(a cyclone is a tropical storm with winds exceeding 74 mph that occurs elsewhere than in the northwestern Pacific, the northeastern Pacific, or the Atlantic. Such a storm occurring in the Atlantic would be called a hurricane.) .
NBC News tonight (2003 January 1) showed an incredibly warped sense of priorities in its news reporting tonight. This past week was one in which a major disaster occurred. Entire islands had almost all life destroyed on them by Cyclone Zoe with its 217 mph winds. 2,000 people lived in these islands, and though these islands are so remote that information from them is still sketchy, it is likely that a huge number of these died. A thousand or more people dying constitute a major disaster and a major news story. It ought to have been the lead story tonight; it is possible that a number of deaths approaching what occurred on 2001 September 11 could have occurred, and that was a lead story.
Instead, NBC did not make it the first story. In fact, they did not even include it anywhere in their broadcast! They instead featured the "war" on terror and the injury of one person in a firefight in Afghanistan. To me this is an appalling lack of judgment in the prioritization of news stories. Someone needs to be done about NBC reporting. I can't tell what the other networks did, partially because some of them chose to broadcast sports instead of news. Google got it right. The story appeared as the second lead story on their news page. It is good that we have Google now, so we can hear news from wherever it comes, without having to put up with the antics of NBC and other networks.
(a cyclone is a tropical storm with winds exceeding 74 mph that occurs elsewhere than in the northwestern Pacific, the northeastern Pacific, or the Atlantic. Such a storm occurring in the Atlantic would be called a hurricane.) .
2002/12/29
Stocks going down even more
For a long time we have had prosperity and upward-rising stock prices. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and Standard and Poor stock averages were going up by 20% a year or more during the 1990s. Many stock analysts thought this was a bubble - a temporary inflation in value that eventually punctures like a balloon and falls back to normal long term trends. The bubble was caused by hypered-up dot-comism and to a lesser, but still significant extent, by cheap oil and gasoline. It seemed that everything was going on the Internet with dot-com and computer technology companies popping up all over the place. The people in the Internet-site industry were trying to convince us that they got some great products that will cause us to enjoy unbridled prosperity. And so we went along with this, investing in Quixtar and in stocks of all types, and unusually large growth rates occurred.
Some people were predicting that this trend would continue to go on, even into the zero-zero decade, as the baby boomers still continue to be active in the workplace and continue to push up the value of stocks. Some said this would continue even into the 20 teens, as with Schwarz and Leyden in their "Long Boom". Others, such as Harry Dent, said a crash was coming at the end of the decade and a long decline was going to occur, caused by retired baby boomers dragging the economy.
So I expected stocks would continue to go up into the 21st Century. They didn't. They hit a peak in early 2000, then have declined ever since. I did a little analysis recently and believe I have found out what is happening. The Big Dot-Com Lie was revealed, the bubble burst, and down went Enron, WorldCom and others. I feel we are headed back to long-term trends. But what are they?
I created a chart based on Dow Jones data. I fitted a least-squares exponential curve to the Dow Jones average all the way back to 1910. This shows an annual growth rate of 5.1% and is indicated in the magenta line. The actual average is in dark blue, and you can notice how all of a sudden the average leaves the long-term and starts heading for the sky. It is now headed back down. The yellow line is a least-squares exponential curve drawn since early 2000, when the Dow was around 11700. Notice that it continues to go down until late 2007, when it intersects the long term trend. The dot-com bubble burst is only half over. The remaining half has yet to play itself out. The Dow Jones average should be down to about 6500 or so in late 2007, after which it should follow the red 5.1% long term line and start to go up again, if other things don't occur, such as the running out of cheap oil.
I don't think this will be a steady decrease. A war in Iraq is likely, and the most likely (I hope!) outcome is a quick defeat of Saddam and an establishment of an interim government. If this happens, a gusher of oil will flood the developed world and cause prosperity to come back. So I expect a smaller bubble will occur, and the Dow will increase slightly in the next few years, to about 9000. After about two years, a crash or big decline will occur and the Dow will be at 6500 or so in 2007.
I don't think this is a good time to invest in stocks, however, since there is too much uncertainty in this forecast. The long term trend is downward until 2007, and this increase that I foresee may not come about. I say invest in bonds, money market funds or certificates of deposit, and pay off any debts, if you can. This decade should have been boom times with a 5-10% increase every year, but the Great Dot-Com Bubble ate all that up. After the long term comes back in 2007, we have the Fourth Turning coming so that I don't expect stocks will be a good investment for at least a decade or two.
For a long time we have had prosperity and upward-rising stock prices. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and Standard and Poor stock averages were going up by 20% a year or more during the 1990s. Many stock analysts thought this was a bubble - a temporary inflation in value that eventually punctures like a balloon and falls back to normal long term trends. The bubble was caused by hypered-up dot-comism and to a lesser, but still significant extent, by cheap oil and gasoline. It seemed that everything was going on the Internet with dot-com and computer technology companies popping up all over the place. The people in the Internet-site industry were trying to convince us that they got some great products that will cause us to enjoy unbridled prosperity. And so we went along with this, investing in Quixtar and in stocks of all types, and unusually large growth rates occurred.
Some people were predicting that this trend would continue to go on, even into the zero-zero decade, as the baby boomers still continue to be active in the workplace and continue to push up the value of stocks. Some said this would continue even into the 20 teens, as with Schwarz and Leyden in their "Long Boom". Others, such as Harry Dent, said a crash was coming at the end of the decade and a long decline was going to occur, caused by retired baby boomers dragging the economy.
So I expected stocks would continue to go up into the 21st Century. They didn't. They hit a peak in early 2000, then have declined ever since. I did a little analysis recently and believe I have found out what is happening. The Big Dot-Com Lie was revealed, the bubble burst, and down went Enron, WorldCom and others. I feel we are headed back to long-term trends. But what are they?
I created a chart based on Dow Jones data. I fitted a least-squares exponential curve to the Dow Jones average all the way back to 1910. This shows an annual growth rate of 5.1% and is indicated in the magenta line. The actual average is in dark blue, and you can notice how all of a sudden the average leaves the long-term and starts heading for the sky. It is now headed back down. The yellow line is a least-squares exponential curve drawn since early 2000, when the Dow was around 11700. Notice that it continues to go down until late 2007, when it intersects the long term trend. The dot-com bubble burst is only half over. The remaining half has yet to play itself out. The Dow Jones average should be down to about 6500 or so in late 2007, after which it should follow the red 5.1% long term line and start to go up again, if other things don't occur, such as the running out of cheap oil.
I don't think this will be a steady decrease. A war in Iraq is likely, and the most likely (I hope!) outcome is a quick defeat of Saddam and an establishment of an interim government. If this happens, a gusher of oil will flood the developed world and cause prosperity to come back. So I expect a smaller bubble will occur, and the Dow will increase slightly in the next few years, to about 9000. After about two years, a crash or big decline will occur and the Dow will be at 6500 or so in 2007.
I don't think this is a good time to invest in stocks, however, since there is too much uncertainty in this forecast. The long term trend is downward until 2007, and this increase that I foresee may not come about. I say invest in bonds, money market funds or certificates of deposit, and pay off any debts, if you can. This decade should have been boom times with a 5-10% increase every year, but the Great Dot-Com Bubble ate all that up. After the long term comes back in 2007, we have the Fourth Turning coming so that I don't expect stocks will be a good investment for at least a decade or two.
2002/12/26
Intelligent design?
There has been a theory for the past few years that the Universe and all the objects, physical laws, animals, beings and stars were created by an intelligence of some sort: the "intelligent design" theory. The reason proposed for this theory is that the circumstances upon which we came to exist on this planet are so remote (developing life and intelligence, right orbit, right physical constants and so forth) that there had to be some intelligent being out there that created all of this. Some criticize this as a rehash of the Biblical creation theory. My feeling is that it is more than just that. There is a problem with intelligent design that is similar to the theory that God has feet:
The most advanced structures in our life are animals, including humans. Cats, chimps, and humans all have feet. God must surely be at least this advanced, therefore he has feet.
This sounds like a silly argument, but replace feet with intelligence:
The most advanced structures in our life are animals, including humans. Cats, chimps, and humans all have varying degrees of intelligence. God must surely be at least this advanced, therefore he has intelligence.
It's exactly the same argument. If there is some sort of God or Supreme object, it doesn't have feet, because it is beyond animals and humans, and hence beyond feet. If there is some sort of God or Supreme object, it doesn't have intelligence, since it is beyond animals and humans, and hence beyond intelligence. In fact, God, if it exists, is beyond all of our ability to comprehend it, so that a better model for the Ultimate would be the Tao: The tao that can be expressed is not the real Tao.
It's like my "Just add one" philosophy. If you can imagine a God, you can imagine one even more grander and higher yet; just take "God plus one". Therefore, you haven't imagined the real God, or rather, Tao.
There has been a theory for the past few years that the Universe and all the objects, physical laws, animals, beings and stars were created by an intelligence of some sort: the "intelligent design" theory. The reason proposed for this theory is that the circumstances upon which we came to exist on this planet are so remote (developing life and intelligence, right orbit, right physical constants and so forth) that there had to be some intelligent being out there that created all of this. Some criticize this as a rehash of the Biblical creation theory. My feeling is that it is more than just that. There is a problem with intelligent design that is similar to the theory that God has feet:
The most advanced structures in our life are animals, including humans. Cats, chimps, and humans all have feet. God must surely be at least this advanced, therefore he has feet.
This sounds like a silly argument, but replace feet with intelligence:
The most advanced structures in our life are animals, including humans. Cats, chimps, and humans all have varying degrees of intelligence. God must surely be at least this advanced, therefore he has intelligence.
It's exactly the same argument. If there is some sort of God or Supreme object, it doesn't have feet, because it is beyond animals and humans, and hence beyond feet. If there is some sort of God or Supreme object, it doesn't have intelligence, since it is beyond animals and humans, and hence beyond intelligence. In fact, God, if it exists, is beyond all of our ability to comprehend it, so that a better model for the Ultimate would be the Tao: The tao that can be expressed is not the real Tao.
It's like my "Just add one" philosophy. If you can imagine a God, you can imagine one even more grander and higher yet; just take "God plus one". Therefore, you haven't imagined the real God, or rather, Tao.
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