Halloween Awareness

Via

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Washington DC Sports (in a nutshell)

- Ringo Starr and Dave Grohl interview each other. Interesting stuff.

- Battleships with frickin' LASERS

- Sony shutting down their PlayStation Vue streaming service. Competition in the streaming video arena getting pretty fierce.

- OK things have gone too far!

- Bob Weir septuagenarian workout nut. Pretty inspirational workout incentive from an unexpected source.

- An Anthony Bourdain documentary is in the works. Can't wait to watch that.

- Awesome (but no way its real)

Halloween

Cool

Hard to follow Bob Dylan lyrics sped up?

Or a nonsense song meant to demonstrate what English sounds like to non-English speakers.

Wolves, REM Sleep and the Advent of Man

While reading the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD I was struck by the thought that maybe, just maybe the taming of wolves by Homo Sapiens allowed early man to get more REM sleep while the wolves "stood guard" at night.

This extra REM sleep may have allowed for better brain "health", more vivid dreaming and maybe just that extra ingredient to allow mankind to become the dominant species on the planet.

As I said - maybe, just maybe.

Ghosts

Well that explains why we dress up in sheets when we pretend we are ghosts. But why do ghosts say "Boo!"?

Every kid is taught that ghosts say "Boo!" Who decided this? According to our culture and accepted norms - ghosts say "Boo!"  But why would your spirit in death say something you never uttered in life? When's the last time you said "Booo!" when you weren't impersonating a ghost?

Even though I still think it would be funny if someone replaced Patrick Swayze's dialog in the movie Ghost with him just repeatedly saying "Boo!" this is one reason why I've decided not to believe in ghosts.

Another reason I've decided not to believe in ghosts is because of the scientific method. If ghosts were proven to be real and that they could affect things in the real world then that would put the outcomes of any scientific experiment in question. A literal ghost in the laboratory could invalidate almost any experiment. That would spell the end of science and the scientific method.

Although ghosts could prove to be an interesting defense for anyone pulled over for drunk driving. "I'm not intoxicated officer - just haunted by ghosts who like to mess with breathalyzers."

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- US Air Force's X-37B Space Plane lands after record 780-day mystery mission. It's like watching the US Space Force being born in real-time.

- Sometimes I have the humor of a 12-year old boy.

- How to get infected with malware. (HT Stephen Landry)

- NYC secretly exports homeless to Hawaii and other states without telling receiving pols. This program is disturbing enough but equally disturbing is the number of "public servants" in the article who won't or can't account for how the public funds are being spent. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

- Very Cool - Van Gogh's Starry Night reproduced using Hubble Telescope images.

- Baghdadi story reveals divided - and broken - news media.

Thomas Peterffy - Freedom To Succeed

This video is from the 2012 election but it seems even more relevant today. I'm curious if Mr. Peterffy comes out with another commercial defending capitalism this election cycle.

Scary Modern Halloween Pumpkins

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Keep waiting for one of the Democrats running for President to have a Dukakis in the tank moment. You know its coming... But I guess a Socialist choosing to be filmed in front of empty grocery shelves will have to do for now... Hollywood legend Robert Evans passes away aged 89. I really enjoyed the bio-documentary about Evans The Kid Stays in the Picture... "Practiced execution become game results."- Mike Lombardi... I laughed too hard at this (especially enjoyed the guy's facial expressions)... What comes next? Another MLB pitcher getting to 300 wins or another NFL coach getting to 300 wins?... The embarrassing handling of the death of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi by the Washington Post and others reminds me of the time the Obama campaign actually took contributions from "Osama bin Laden" - twice!...

My Kind of Protest

Hemingway Quote for the Day

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." - Ernest Hemingway

Something very powerful to ponder.

Dovetails nicely with Naval Ravikant's question, "If you're so smart - why aren't you happy?"

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Here's my thoughts on the World Series: I'm rooting against the Astros because of the way they handled that female reporter from Sports Illustrated but I want Mattress Mack to win his bets although I'm not going to subject myself to a four hour game if there's any football on that I can watch instead... I'm going to hell for laughing at this (make sure the sound is on)... "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."- Thomas Huxley... Hard to believe but the last head coach of a Cleveland Browns team to win an NFL playoff game is none other than Bill Belichick... Heh heh - vintage birth control... I seriously spend time wondering if the Harry Potter movies could have been better if they were made by Pixar instead. Perhaps someday Pixar will get the rights to reboot the series... There's less than 100 days until the Super Bowl and I'm still wondering where the hell did the summer go?... Who knew? The first scientist was a woman. Before Mary Somerville - people were called "men of science"... 

Bill Belichick and 300

Bill Belichick goes for his 300th win as an NFL coach today (268 regular season and 31 playoffs). It's an incredible achievement for an incredible leader.

As coincidence would have it his 1st NFL victory came as coach of the Browns against the Patriots and today he's the coach of the Patriots playing the Browns for his 300th.

The quote that really stood out for me from the article was what Belichick told his team prior to Super Bowl XLIX Patriots vs Seattle:

"If at any point in this game you start to think beyond the next play, if you start to think about after the game, if you look at the score and think about what could possible be if we win this game, stop and go right back to where you're at and focus on the play that you're about to play. Every single play is a new play and an opportunity to execute and do your job. Because if you don't do that, and your mind starts to wander from what the task is at hand, you're not going to be able to execute."

Be prepared. Be focused on the play at hand. Do your job.

That's how you get to 300 wins in the NFL.

Missouri Executive Order 44

Extermination Order Day:

"...the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description."

Missouri Executive Order 44 passed on this day in 1838. The law made it legal to kill Mormons in Missouri. The law was not repealed until 1976.

It blows my mind to think this law was on the books for 138 years!

Heh Heh

Via Powerline's week in pictures (which I always look forward to)

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Heh Heh

- Very good poker tip.

- And just like that my Sober October was over

- The Art of the Elevator Pitch. A pitch should always be easy to say and easy to remember.

- Steven Pressfield - A Prayer to the Muse

- Photobombing in the 15th Century

- The high tech version of Buster Douglas KOing Mike Tyson? Microsoft win $10 billion DoD cloud contract over Amazon.

Farnam Street Knowledge

- Farnam Street's Recommended Reading 2019. I've read only one book on the list and have only one on my reading list. Time to check out some of these book recommendations.

- Ayn Rand on Why Philosophy Matters. Not a huge Rand fan but some excellent points to ponder in this essay.

- Eisenhower Matrix: Master Productivity and Eliminate Noise. One of the simplest yet most effective ways to organize your priorities.

- The Bed of Procrustes - 20 Aphorisms from Nassim Taleb

How an Aurora is Created

Interesting

A Modest Proposal

Here's a modest proposal to help reduce the national debt. Get rid of the penny.

Hear me out!

The national government announces that the US will no longer be minting pennies. And that from now on every tax will be ROUNDED UP to the nearest nickel. At the same time every check the government sends out and every expenditure will be ROUNDED DOWN to the nearest nickel. .

All the extra revenue gained from rounding up would be applied to reduce the national debt. And the rounding down would add up to some serious savings overall. It helps on both sides of the financial ledger.

Think the plot to Superman III or Office Space but on steroids and on a much larger scale.

How would this not work? People wouldn't even notice.