My New Blog

Well, it's official. I'm shutting down this blog. The 11 months without a post was probably clue to any readers I still have left. Anyway, today I launched a new blog. This one is going to be more focused on issues of policy, politics, science, technology, and the shaping of the future (which means you can get the good stuff without having to sift through my rants, inside jokes, and self-indulgence). The blog will also serve as the new home for the BurgerMap. So here are the relevant links.

The blog: Policy, Science Burgers
The BurgerMap: BurgerMap Philly
My first bizarrely popular post: A Missed Connection (why is this one getting more hits than all the others combined?)

I've had a lot of fun with this blog, but it's been mostly a "play-blog." I like to think of myself as graduating to a real blog. I won't say goodbye; hopefully I'll see you on the new site. Thanks for everything, readers,

-Matt

Most Badass TV Character

Calling all Firefly fans! River Tam, a 10-seed in Awesomeopolis's Most Badass TV Character bracket poll, has made it all the way to the finals! After a huge upset by this spunky little badass over a strong 2nd-seeded Jack Bauer, she now faces off in the battle of the brains against Dr. Gregory House. Her opponent uses his brain to fight diseases, and River, well, she can kill you with her brain.

I'm not sure how many Firefly fans I have left reading this blog (I know I used to have a lot more...say hi if you're still out there), but I'd like to endorse River Tam over Dr. House in this match. She has a special place in my heart for a number of reasons (such as this one, this one, a memory or two, and the fact that I nominated her for this contest).

For those of you wondering how these two made it to the finals, Dr. House was supported by a huge community of Hungarian fans of House, MD, and River was catapulted past Jack by a collection of Sci-Fi nerds, Joss Whedon devotees, and lonely guys who think she's cute--all of whom spend way too much time surfing the internet.

My New Blog's Shoutout

So this new blogging project with which I may or may not be involved is running a bracket competition to determine the most badass TV character. This competition, primarily conceived and executed by the most badass roommate I've ever had the pleasure of living with, just got a shoutout in a blog on USA Today (7th from the bottom in the post called "Early buzz: Shins, Krasinski, Wanderlust and more").

I'd also like to endorse the Doctor from Dr. Who as the most badass TV character. As a fourth seed, this Time Lord wiped out two whole species, including his own, to save the entire universe. If that's not stone-cold badass, I don't know what is. Further examples of the Doctor's badassery as the competition continues.

Just posted on my new blogging project. Though it might appeal to readers here as well. It has graphs!

A new song to learn your state capitals. Any views expressed about Harrisburg Pennsylvania in this video that appear to correspond with my own are purely coincidental.

A simplified flash version of Super Smash Brothers. I just spent way too long playing it.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/333995

Here's a fun and easy logic game based on elementary geometric topology. I thought my readers might enjoy it:

http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games6/gameindex/lilly-hop.htm

It's no Hyperframe, though. For those of you who haven't beaten all 40 levels of Hyperframe, go do it now. It's amazingly fun, and I'm fairly sure people who beat it are smarter afterwards. I know I felt smarter:

http://www.addictinggames.com/hyperframe.html

Some updates: Rhyno, a quite successful math major, is correct. I did make an assumption of continuity, which, though warranted, is easily demonstrated through proof of differentiability. Thank you for adding to the proofiness of my proof (with a vocabulary like mine, I'm gonna be the next Colbert).

And thank you, Katharine, for pointing out the VERY interesting fact that the minimum value for f(x) = x^x (between x=0 and x=1) occurs at x = 1/e. I wonder why that is. How did you figure that out?

I'm starting to wonder, even if there are infinite pairs of x and y such that x^x = y^y and x=/=y, how many of those pairs are rational? Is there a finite number of rational values for which it holds true? What is that number? How does one find them?

My Air Force One

So I'm on my third consecutive sick day right now, and I've had a lot of time to do nothing. I'm now caught up on all the TV shows I like, plus, with the exception of 3 episodes, I went through the entire series of Entourage (to date) on the recommendation of DeluxX.

I also finally got to see Air Force One, the 1997 Harrison Ford thriller that my parents wouldn't let me see when it came out. It felt good. Take that, Mom! Only took me 11 years to thwart that particular "no."

I now have the syndrome Jim Gaffigan identified in his comedy, in which I just saw a movie everyone else I know (with any interest in it) saw years ago. "But I wanna talk about it now!" Thank you, blogosphere!

President Marshall is totally badass. And it got me thinking, how would other presidents, real and fictional, perform in the situation? First thing I did was start with George Washington. Then I realized his first reaction would have been, "Why am I in a giant metal box and what's with all these bright things that have no fire?" THEN I decided to NOT start with George Washington.

I don't think W would do too well in a hijacking. He'd just take the escape pod. That said, no one in their right mind would hijack W's plane to get a general released from another country's prison. World leaders don't really care what he has to say.

That said, it does beg the question: why bother hijacking Air Force One in the first place? It's much easier to break a guy out of any jail in the world than to hijack Air Force One. Seriously, the 10 most secure prisons in the world combined wouldn't come close to the security that surrounds the President of the United States (I'm talking about quality and difficulty to penetrate, not number of guards or total firepower).

OK, so acknowledging the movie plot is pretty stupid, I went from the current president to my favorite fictional president, President Bartlet from the West Wing. It wasn't a hard leap since they shared so many cast members (CIA Agent Eric Frost/National Security Advisor; Judge Evelyn Baker Lang/Vice President; Senator Hunt/AG; even that guy trying to write a constitution/that thug hijacker). I'm a huge fan of economists, but I don't think even Jed Bartlet would have done much good on that plane. That said, he had a much smarter staff and more capable security.

Speaking of West Wing parallels, it was interesting the way both that series and the movie dealt with the question of how to make federal decisions without an alive but absent president.

I think maybe Obama would have done the worst in that situation, but mostly by virtue of the fact that he has no military experience and has TWO young daughters, which means the hijackers could...hm...I was about to say "shoot one and still have a hostage" (in comparison to President Marshall who, in the movie, has only one daughter)...but then I thought to myself "Wow, if I blog that, will the CIA or NSA or FBI come knocking? Will it be seen as a threat against the president-elect and be investigated by the secret service? Will it prevent me from ever getting a job with the federal government?" I think I'd be in the clear, mostly because nobody actually READS this blog, but at the same time I think it's a sad state of affairs for free speech when I have to worry about such things while writing a hypothetical in which I compare how real and fictional presidents would fare if inserted into a horrible movie plot (by which I mean the plot was horrible and full of holes, I actually liked the movie).

Speaking of horrible plot points, though, how dumb do you have to be to give a press conference announcing that Air Force One has been hijacked? Back to the West Wing for a minute, they didn't even let a peep slip to the public when the landing gear indicator light went out on Air Force One, which is much closer to how anyone with a brain would actually behave in the real world. You don't ANNOUNCE to an entire world full of enemies that the president's plane has been hijacked, refuse to answer any questions about him except to say "he's still president" (but obviously not present), and then walk off. Seriously, if the people who run White Houses actually think at that level, I'd be a shoe-in for Obama's Communications Director (if the feds are reading, I'm available if you want to offer me a job as a senior counselor to the president).

Finally, I don't think I'd do very will in such a situation, personally. But that's mostly because I get motion sick.

Well, glad I got that off my chest. What did people do when they wanted to talk about a movie everyone else had seen years ago before there was blogging?

My Math Puzzles

So I've been missing academia lately. I've discovered something interesting, a set of values for which x^x = y^y. I wonder how many there are.

I also came across some old favorites, "proofs" that clearly aren't true, but seem like they work. For a fun puzzle, can you find the "mistake" in each one that makes the fake-proof work?

          a = b
        a^2 = ab
    a^2-b^2 = ab-b^2
 (a+b)(a-b) = b(a-b)
        a+b = b
         2b = b
          2 = 1


          x = (Pi+3)/2
         2x = Pi+3
   2x(Pi-3) = (Pi+3)(Pi-3)
    2Pix-6x = Pi^2-9
       9-6x = Pi^2-2Pix
   9-6x+x^2 = Pi^2-2Pix+x^2
    (3-x)^2 = (Pi-x)^2
        3-x = Pi-x
         Pi = 3


         -1 = -1
       -1/1 = -1/1
       -1/1 = 1/-1
 sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
        i/1 = 1/i
          i = 1/i
      i * i = 1
         -1 = 1

My New Poll

It came out this weekend, when discussing the election, that Lord Henry is of the opinion that on a PURELY PHYSICAL basis, Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin is more attractive than writer/producer/actress Tina Fey, who has on occasion portrayed Mrs. Palin quite expertly (I believe his exact words were "way hotter").

The new poll on this blog (see right column) is to test whether Lord Henry is correct, as he adamantly maintains, or if in fact the overwhelming opposition his declaration met is an accurate representation of the majority opinion (and ergo the correct answer, as hotness is a relative cultural standard). Vote now.

In the interest of fairness, I am including a few more representative pictures. The two above show from head to just below the shoulders. Here are two more close-ups:
Tina Fey
Sarah Palin
And here are two which show a more zoomed-out view:
Tina Fey
Sarah Palin

Go vote. Oh, yeah, and remember to vote on election day too. This blog recommends and endorses voting against Palin in both elections.

My Blog's First Award

No, I didn't win one. I'm giving one. I've noticed that blogs give awards sometimes, as do columnists and other people with too much time on their hand and an inflated sense of their opinion's value to society. Well, I'm in Harrisburg (former? check) and I've had and overheard one too many conversations with people in the hotel bar (latter? check)...and since I have a blog, I fit the bill.

This award goes to Artemis, a new character in my list of anonymous friends, many of whom are not imaginary. Artemis is a dear friend of mine from middle and high school. I'd say she's like a sister to me, but we don't talk or see each other enough for that, so she's kind of like that weird quirky cousin you don't know what to make of but always look forward to seeing at weddings and bar mitzvahs.

And since she is the first recipient of this award, which, by the way, will be awarded whenever I feel like it, the award shall thusly be named for her, in recognition of her surpassing extremism in the attribute her namesake web-award recognizes. In this case, the Artemisy shall be awarded for great and entertaining hypocrisy. I shall now present the award:

The winner of this first Artemisy is a high school history teacher, more a case of destiny than choice as this didactic heroine has been propelled by twin forces of fate, her 8th Grade History Prize and her aspirations for a small and manageable position as a minor dictator.

The following two sentences were typed to me by this winner a scant 54 seconds apart, when lamenting her inevitable departure for greener pastures. And by greener I mean full of grading papers of what I gathered must be less than interesting prose:
"High school kids need to right more interesting essays."
And then less than a minute later:
"I take off for spelling."

The winner of this week's/month's/year's/decade's Artemisy Award is...

The eponymous Artemis! Congratulations, mazal tov, and welcome to the blog. I hope this writing was interesting enough for you (I threw in a few big words just for your enjoyment). Enjoy the papers.

Read this.

My 150th My

This marks the 150th post since I started the theme of labeling posts "My [Something]." Sure, not all of them have titles (and 1 with a title began with "Our"), but I still feel like doing something special. I'm also especially giddy, as there is a state-wide smoking ban for Pennsylvania on its way to the governor's desk right now. But more on that if and when it gets signed.

In honor of my prestigious milestone, I've decided to once again follow in the footsteps of a TV comedy--this time not with a Futurama or Scrubs reference, but with a more general homage to the genre that has brought so much joy and saved me from reading so many books assigned to me by so many deluded teachers. Seriously, though, I'm doing a clips show! Below are links to some of My Favorite Posts. (Notably absent is the one after I found out Scott Adams published a Dilbert strip about me based on a story I sent in; it's not as awesome now that the strip is no longer online--though I do have 2 framed copies.)

Humor:
My Passover Diary
My Ruined Lunch
My Russian Education
My Special Children
My Four Year Old Fashion Column

Politics:
My Advice to John Edwards
My New Mayor
My New Mayor II
Our Children

Grab Bag of Me:
My National Pickup Line Contest
My Cure for Cancer
My Future Toilet

Fun with Links:
My Ridiculous Superbowl Hopes
My Best TV Segment Ever
My Last Question

My Baller

I'm not usually one to adopt the lingo of Lord Henry, but this guy--brought to my attention by the First Tiger--defies all description except for "baller." And I'm not even sure what "baller" means.

Buster Martin is poised to become the world's oldest marathon runner and the tender age of 101. In addition to holding world records for oldest person to run a 5k and a 10k, he recently became the oldest person to complete a half-marathon--and he did it in just over 5 hours. For starters, I'm pretty sure that's about as well as I would do. And even more impressively, he would have finished sooner but he stopped halfway through for a beer and a cigarette. That's right, Buster is a heavy drinker and smoker. He also was in a rock band whose members had a combined age of over 3,000, and he's fathered 17 (yes, seventeen) children. He likes kids, and wishes he had more.

Speaking of his love for kids, he's running for charity, supporting families with children who have life-threatening diseases.

How else CAN one describe a guy like that? Baller.

My Scattered Updates (March 08)

Apparently blogging can be good for your health! Social health that is. And since this is all based on survey results, it doesn't mean the bloggers are actually socially healthier, it just means they think they are (of course, if they're happier and think they have more friends and are more connected...isn't that just as good for one's mental state of being?). That kind of philosophy is beyond the scope of this blog.

Also, important safety tip I learned this week on a business trip: Harrisburg is not a great place for seafood. If you go out for a nice Italian meal there, the chicken parm's probably a safer bet than anything coming from a body of water. I thought my coworkers were joking about the fish coming from the Susquehanna River (which runs through the city), but now I'm not so sure. I still think they were joking, if only because a local source would have resulted in fresher fish.

Furthermore, Harrisburg would be a nice place to visit if only they had a smoking ban, like every other civilized city in the country. Unfortunately, Harrisburg isn't the kind of place that would pass such a city ordinance. Fortunately, though, the Pennsylvania State Legislature might. The House and the Senate have both passed smoking bans, but they are vastly different with lots of exceptions to the rule. Still, I expect there to be a state-wide smoking ban in place by sometime during 2010. My only fear is that the new one will be both more lenient than the Philadelphia one and include language that would render the Philly one null (though the Republican in me believes the local government should be able to add to the law, if not take away from it--the problem is if the PA smoking ban clearly PERMITS smoking, instead of just not banning it, in certain types of places). Hopefully my local representatives will fight for our beloved right to breathe in a bar.

Finally, the Lindsay Lohan thing worked. Despite having nothing to say on my blog for several days, my hits were about 30% higher than I would have expected. Maybe I should end every post with "Lindsay Lohan Naked" or some other timely reference to popular culture.

My Lindsay Lohan

I won't be blogging for the next few days, so I'm going to run a test. Apparently websites are getting more hits the more they mention Lindsay Lohan, so I'm going to write a post that basically just says "Lindsay Lohan" in it a lot. Basically, the rise in Lindsay's popularity has to do with the nude photographs of her recently published in New York Magazine (or something like that) in which she apparently does a fair imitation of Marilyn Monroe (which always makes me think of the Marilyn Monrobot from Futurama...Lindsay Lobot anyone?).

According to what I read, all I have to do is mention Nude Lindsay Lohan or Lindsay Lohan Nude or naked, and voila! Instant web traffic! So as long as I won't be posting much, I might as well run a little experiment:

Lindsay Lohan. Naked.

My 24,000 Calorie Breakfast

Yesterday morning, Joey Chestnut, the first and only human being (and the second Earthling*) to ever beat now-retired eating champion Kobayashi, won his third consecutive Wing Bowl Title. While the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest (where Chestnut beat his eastern rival) may be the most famous eating contest in the world, the Philadelphia Wing Bowl, always held early in the morning a couple days before the Super Bowl, has grown from a radio publicity stunt to the largest competitive eating event in the entire world.

Every year there's a sell-out crowd of around 20,000, with other gluttony-fans turned away at the door. And Joey Chestnut, 2 years after he made his glorious debut, has won his third straight crown, breaking the record with a hearty breakfast of 241 chicken wings (in under 45 minutes of eating). It was reported that each chicken wing is about 100 calories, making Joey's triumphant feast probably close to the--if not the single--most caloric breakfast in history. That's almost 2 weeks worth of calories for a normal person in one meal.

I don't like to toss around the word "hero" too liberally, but that's impressive. And it makes me hungry.

* - For those of you who are wondering, Kobayashi once lost a hot dog eating contest to a 900 pound Kodiak bear on Fox's "Man vs. Beast" special. I saw it; it was impressive. He had the lead for a while until the bear started swallowing multiple dogs at a time without chewing. Kobayashi retired after breaking his own world record for hot dog eating--in the same contest in which Chestnut broke it by slightly more. The Asian eating phenom had been having jaw problems and sought not to exacerbate them.

Another blogger has assembled a list of the 15 greatest spaceships of all time. While I disagree with some of the choices, it's an interesting topic of discussion. What do you think the greatest spaceships are?

I think any ship with a holodeck and a food replicator should be bumped up a few notches. Honestly, if we're talking about my personal enjoyment, I'd rather have the Enterprise D than the Death Star (plus you can outrun the Death Star if any Death Star owner gets envious of your superior food and entertainment).

My Ridiculous Superbowl Hopes

First Tiger and I have high hopes for this year's Superbowl. It all starts with a matchup between the undefeated New England Patriots, led by pretty-boy quarterback Tom Brady, and the Green Bay Packers, led by the legendary Brett Favre. The following is quite ridiculous, and is provided as support for our theory that, if we wanted to, we could easily fill in for the Hollywood writers currently on strike. (Some links are provided to explain things or give further information. Other links are to illustrations to help storyboard this thing in your mind.)

Allow me to paint you a picture with our imagination brush:

Our ideal Superbowl starts with an early Pats lead, thus deepening their eventual humiliation. The third quarter opens with a series of Packers touchdowns in quick succession--all thrown by Brett Favre himself. This series of touchdowns starts off as a come-from-behind effort full of moxie, and turns into utter domination. Then Tom Brady gets his turn at some comeback heroics, but falls tragically short when he needs to run the ball and gets brutally upended by the Packers defense. At this point, he begins to regret all the mean and cocky things he said before the game started about how great he was.

During a postgame interview with the winning quarterback, Brady trudges, helmet in hand, dejectedly off the field. Brett sees this out of the corner of his eye and says "excuse me one moment." In another feat of amazing athleticism, Favre launches a football high into the air and says "NOW I can retire happily." The interviewer remains confused, until the ball lands--hitting Tom squarely in the back of the head. Stumbling forwards, he hits Bill Belichick, the Pats head coach found guilty of cheating earlier this season, who breaks his hip in the ensuing fall.

CRASH! Both player and coach are on the ground, and as cameras and medical personnel rush over to the sidelines, they see what spilled out of Bill's ridiculous hoodie (that never fooled anyone about how fat he was anyway). It's a collection of miniature but powerful cameras! He didn't stop cheating at all, he just got better at it! Well, as they say in Mexico and certain part of Florida, no mas! Incontrovertible proof that will surely result in heavy penalties for the Patriots, as well as asterisks after--if not outright denial and rejection of--the records they set this season.

But wait! What's this next to the video equipment? It's two syringes full of steroids, one labeled "Brady" and the other "Moss!"

Then in a moment reminiscent of last year's legendary Fiesta Bowl, Mrs. Favre--inexplicably dressed like a cheerleader--runs down to the field to give her husband a big kiss. At this point she reveals that Brett's mail got mixed up with Tom's--and produces a giant stack of homosexual pornography!

Meanwhile, Ian Johnson, hero of last year's Fiesta Bowl, happens to be randomly on the field with his wife, Chrissy, who announced she's pregnant! Confetti falls.

During that announcement, Brady's Victoria's Secret lingerie model girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, has made her way down to the field to announce that in light of recent events, she's leaving him, and--though disappointed that First Tiger and myself are taken--thinks she'll be very happy with Chuck, my roommate.

And just as things start to quiet down, Eagles running back Brian Westbrook and former Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith--who have been in the audience the whole time--come onto the field as well, announcing that they've put their heads together and discovered the whereabouts of the wildly unpopular Osama bin Laden. It turns out their predictions are correct, and minutes later the terrorist mastermind is found with several other illegal immigrants in Tom Brady's basement! Oh no!

And to cap off the evening, all of the sudden a group of people HALO drop into the middle of the field! It's Al Gore, with his team of Vice Presidential Action Rangers, asking all of America to write in votes for the former Vice President and actual winner of the 2000 Presidential Election on Super Tuesday--just two days later.

Two days later, Al Gore wins in a landslide.