from the comments
This many-monkeys-typing-Hamlet thing has always interested me for oblique reasons. What are the odds that a person would arrive at the point of thinking about monkeys or randomness in this way? And what happens when we throw in the probability that monkeys would evolve over a few billion years of typing? I know I know, that’s not the question being asked. But it reminds me of many aspects of complexity theory (Santa Fe Institute, et. al.), and the notion that growth toward complexity isn’t just a curve of the most basic incremental steps, given that whole ordered parts may be assimilated along the way. Instead of giving them typewriters, read and perform Hamlet for the monkeys many times. Soon you would see great “To Be, or Not to Be” poses all over the place, and wonderfully elastic lip movements.
the critical biological limit is imposed by time
An article on the theoretical ability of humans to run 40mph.
The new work shows that running speed limits are set by the contractile speed limits of the muscle fibers themselves, with fiber contractile speeds setting the limit on how quickly the runner’s limb can apply force to the running surface.
“Our simple projections indicate that muscle contractile speeds that would allow for maximal or near-maximal forces would permit running speeds of 35 to 40 miles per hour and conceivably faster,” Bundle said.
That would make an interesting subject for photographs
Richard Thompson, Calvary Cross (I’ll Be Your Light ‘Till Doomsday)
The Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy / Tortoise version:
Amsterdam, 5am, 21Jan2009
Meant to post this yesterday. This was the expat election party at Boom Chicago, a comedy show club in Amsterdam on the Leidseplein near the center of town. It’s been an interesting year since then.
photo out of context
I used to hate the internet
and would have completely agreed:
If someone approached me even five years ago and explained that one day in the near future I would be filtering, collecting and sharing content for thousands of perfect strangers to read — and doing it for free — I would have responded with a pretty perplexed look.
Things I Don’t Do
(Aeroplane Edition)
Check baggage of any kind, no matter the length of stay.
Sit in an aisle seat.
Go to the bathroom.
Talk to anyone else.
I need numbers
Everyone planning to attend clusterflockstock II, now is the moment where I need to know officially if you intend to be there, and who you’ll be bringing with you. Memorial Day weekend 2010.* Go.
* Almost definitely Colorado.
This Is A Metaphor For Something
(via)
This is going to take a while…
How long would it take all those monkeys to type the complete works of the bard?
There are about fifty keys on a standard typewriter keyboard. Even ignoring capitalization, the chance of a monkey typing “h” is one in fifty. The probability of typing “ha” is one-fiftieth of one in fifty, or 1 in 2,500. The probability of typing “ham” is one in fifty time fifty time fifty, or 1 in 125,000. The probability of a monkey typing out a phrase with twenty-two characters is one divided by fifty raised to the twenty-second power, or about 10^-38. It would take billion billion monkeys each typing ten characters per second, for each of the roughly billion billion seconds since the universe began, just to have one of them type out “hamlet. act i, scene i.”
…and they wouldn’t even capitalize properly.
Ihnatko on the Nexus One
A fantastic review of the new Google phone (via):
As I sat down and started sketching out this column, I contemplated imposing a rule on myself: every time I mentioned the iPhone, I would have to take one of my 24 precious, newly-purchased, limited-edition cans of Dr. Pepper Heritage — made with real sugar, for God’s sake — and pour it down the sink.
Drastic measures. But it was an important gesture and the rule has been long overdue.
quote out of context
My wife made a good observation yesterday when we were talking about this story, and that is, “Hey, wait a minute, the Taliban and the extremists — what is it they say just before they blow themselves up which kills somebody, they say, ‘Allahu Akbar’.” So if anybody’s making this a religious thing, they started it.
dear clusterflock
What happened to gum commercials?
all politics is local
You know when one of the Republican candidates for Texas Governor is endorsed by Bush the first, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove — and she’s the moderate! — your state is fucked.
same-sex sexual behavior in animals
Scientific theories for the adaptation of same-sex sexual behaviors in animals.
First, there are the adaptive hypotheses, which provide an explanation for same-sex behaviour that would boost the biological fitness of one or more of the individuals involved. For example, several species, including bottlenose dolphins, seem to use same-sex behaviours to promote social bonding. Others may have evolved them as a form of intrasexual conflict. Indirect insemination, as in the flour beetle, provides a third possible adaptive advantage. Then there is the practice hypothesis, that individuals are honing their skills for mating, which seems to hold good for male fruit flies at least.
Several other adaptive explanations have been invoked to explain same-sex behaviour in humans, including kin selection – helping to further the genes you share with close family members – and “over-dominance” – the idea that certain genes somehow increase fitness in individuals who possess a single copy of them but are associated with same-sex behaviour in people with two copies. Then there is “sexually antagonistic selection” – the idea that alleles promoting same-sex behaviour in men are favoured by selection because they increase the reproductive chances of their daughters.
There are also various non-adaptive explanations. Mistaken identity could indeed be one cause. Van Gossum’s damselflies exemplify another idea, known as the prisoner effect, in which depriving individuals of interaction with the opposite sex prompts them to mate with members of their own sex. Then there is the evolutionary by-product hypothesis – selection for some other independent trait, such as high sexual responsiveness, might make individuals more likely to participate in same-sex sexual behaviour. It has also been suggested that same-sex behaviours appear when organisms are imperfectly adapted to their environment.
Also, it feels good.
Hatfields and McCoys
I often wonder if senators, congressmen, and political pundits even remember why they are arguing.
portrait of the artist as a young man
A water color of the young Edgar Allan Poe will be shown publicly for the first time at auction this Saturday.
It is unclear what Poe thought of the finished watercolor — though he was not fond of Smith’s sketch. In 1844, he wrote to James Russell Lowell, “You inquire about my own portrait. It has been done for some time now — but is better as an engraving, than a portrait. It scarcely resembles me at all.”
It’s unknown who paid the artist, and the painting’s whereabouts before 1978 are unknown. That’s when Krainik bought the portrait from a collector’s vast estate in Charlottesville, Va. He knew immediately that it was Poe and paid only a few dollars for it, he said.
“I knew it was of historic importance,” Krainik said. “I didn’t think of it like, ‘This is a steal.’”
Solar Impulse
Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss pilot, will fly his solar powered airplane around the world.
“We believe that if an airplane can fly around the world with no fuel, nobody can say after that it’s impossible to do it for cars, for heating systems, for air-conditioning, for computers and so on,” he said.
spam name
Schmuck Geschenke.
Luddites and sabotage
Took this in August 2008. While the locals claim adamantly that the movement introduced the word “sabotage”, Wikipedia is more cautious:
Claimed explanations include:
- That it derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, feeling the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.[1]
- That it derives from the French sabot (a wooden shoe or clog) via its derivative saboter (to knock with the foot, or work carelessly).[2]
- That it derives from the late 19th-century French slang use of the word sabot to describe an unskilled worker, so called due to their wooden clogs or sabots; sabotage was used to describe the poor quality work which such workers turned out.[3]
- That it was coined during a French railway strike of 1910, when workers destroyed the wooden shoes, or sabots, that held rails in place, thus impeding the morning commute.[citation needed]
- That it dates from the Industrial Revolution: it is said that powered looms could be damaged by angry or disgruntled workers’ throwing their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots, hence the term Sabotage) into the machinery, effectivelyclogging the machinery. This is often referred to as one of the first inklings of the Luddite Movement. However, this etymology is highly suspect and no wooden shoe sabotage is known to have been reported from the time of the word’s origin.
One can never be too careful.
Elena (possibly spam)
I must be the luckiest guy in the world:
Hello.My name is Elena. I think my email for you is surprise. And i hope it is a nice surprise.I think you will have a question about “where did i find yours email address. I used a services of dating agency,They asked me what kind of men i like, and then they offer me to start a correspondence with you via email.This agency said me that your email address they found at dating site.
And now i want to tell you a little about myself. I hope it will be inetersting for youand we countinue our dating.
As i said you before my name is Elena. And i am 29 years old. And i am absolutely lonely girl.I was born and live now in Russia in small town in central part. The name of my town is Pavlovo.My birthday is 18 of December. My sign of zodiak is Sagittarius. I have no children, but i love them.And i think that children love me too. Because i can talk easy with them. And i am sure i can be perfect mother in future.I have parents, mother and father, they are pensioners. And i live separately from them now. I live alone.
Ofcourse, you will ask about my work. I work as a librarian in school library. I like read books very much, and ihappy that my work with books and children.It is a little about myself. I hope it was interesting for you, and we will countinue our corespondence.I will be waiting your answer very much. Please tell me some about yourself too. And if you can send me your photo.I sending you my photo with this email. And hope you will answer me quickly.My email ellolett@gmail.com
Yours new friend from Russia. Elena.
I like read books too.
Both serve impressive pommes frites
This is not to diminish the thoughtful criticism that is often lobbed at McDonald’s. Many accuse the fast-food chain of enslaving diners with precision-engineered, high-fat, high-salt food that is nearly drug-like in its power to induce a delirious, short-lived “high”, followed by an uncontrollable desire for more. It is just that this pretty much describes the food at the French Laundry, too, just at a considerably higher personal financial cost.
Machotaildrop
The movie trailer gives me a The Who’s Tommy vibe with some flashes of Hook, the early 90s Peter Pan film.
(via Kitsune Noir)
jacket+bookmarks
The people seemed to love it on twitter, so I don’t think I should deprive all y’all.
