Ordinary Nothing

The head of the cleaning company in my office brought in a new worker with him today.

While she was cleaning the floor, and emptying the garbage bins, in our manufacturing room I heard her complaining to him “There is a lot of garbage here!”. With an obvious tone indicating that it’s bothering her, and prevents her from doing her work quickly and easily.

Maybe it didn’t occur to her that if we didn’t have any dirt and garbage then we wouldn’t need anyone to clean?

Weird Tales are offering a free PDF copy of their July-August 2008 edition, as a promotion and a way for people to properly sample the magazine without having to gamble on the money to buy it.

The subscription price varies dramatically based on whether you are subscribing from within the US, or internationally. And by “dramatically” I mean the price doubles^[1] for international shipping.

And if you look at the subscription option for US addresses, they want to really make sure you are from the US. They have this sections under “fine print” (all emphasis in the source):

This offer is only for addresses within the United States. Other countries, please use our discounted international subscription options:

Which, well, makes sense. But immediately bellow that, they also have:

CANADIANS PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST USE THE INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION OPTION. CANADA IS NOT PART OF THE UNITED STATES. WE CANNOT SEND BULK MAIL TO CANADA, MUCH AS WE WOULD LIKE TO.

Which cracks me up. Are there really any Canadians out there who think that Canada is a part of the US? Real people, living in Canada, who actually believe that? And enough of them to make it an issue that justifies adding this to the page? That’s a weird tale right there.

And that’s not all. They also have a similar bit on the page for international subscription orders:

CANADIANS PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST USE THIS INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION OPTION. CANADA IS NOT PART OF THE UNITED STATES. WE CANNOT SEND BULK MAIL TO CANADA, MUCH AS WE WOULD LIKE TO.

For anyone who wants to play spot-the-differences, in the US page the text says “You must use the international subscription option”, while in the international subscription page it says “You must use this international subscription option”. I guess it’s accurate enough, if also a bit amusing.

Apparently Canadians also either have much easier time reading in all-caps than the rest of us, or they generally enjoy being shouted at. Nothing else on those pages (except some very short headers, or “BUY” links) is in all-caps. HINT TO WEIRD TALES: DO NOT WRITE TEXT IN ALL CAPS. IT’S EXTREMELY HARD TO READ. AND IT’S RUDE. IF YOU WANT TO MAKE IT MORE OBVIOUS, USE A BIGGER OR STRONGER FONT. OK?

So, just to make it absolutely clear: Canada is not a part of the US. You might have been tipped by the fact that it has a different government, their own military force, a border, their own military force, independent legal system, their own military force, their own ambassadors and foreign relations, their own military force (it bears repeating, in case someone failed to notice), and so on and so forth. But if not, well, I’m glad I could join with Weird Tales and help to clarify matters.

On an unrelated issue (well, related to Weird Tales, not related to Canada), Weird Tales need to update the site link they print in the magazine. The free copy has in it at least 5 place where it asks you to go to www.WeirdTalesMagazine.com. That site just automatically redirects to their current actual address of WeirdTales.net. An address which was registered in Nov 2007, so it’s not quite a last-minute surprise, I should add. It’s not broken, but it looks unprofessional.

And it’s not just the old printed magazines (though, frankly July-August 2008 isn’t that old), the old address is still listed on the site used to order the subscriptions. That’s an online copy, easy to change.

1. $30 USD to $59.95 USD. That’s for 6 issues of Weird Tales, and apparently two special issues of H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror[back]

It’s pretty much a nonsense post, but I found it amusing, so why not bother the rest of humanity with it, right?

Last night I passed by the gas station to fill out my car’s tank.

The price of gasoline here has climbed to exactly 6.66 ILS per liter, which is what the display at the pump showed^[1].

I passed my credit card in the pump, and entered my ID number. (A few years ago most pumps started to ask for ID numbers when you operate them yourself with a credit card. I have a hard time imagining a crime wave of people stealing credit cards only to rush to fill the gas tanks of their cars, but apparently that was imminent, as I can’t figure out another reason for this).

After the ID number the pump asked for my car’s license plate number. This is more recent, less than a year I think. Not all pumps on all gas stations do it, but the number is growing. In this case I think it’s not for crime prevention (it doesn’t stop you from entering whatever number you want), but rather to save work for people who need receipts for tax deductions. Previously you had to go to a worker at the station, and ask for a manual receipt, even if you filled the tank on your own. Something which wastes time and is quite bothersome.

I don’t tax-deduct my gas, so I don’t need my car’s license plate number on the receipt. And I don’t see any reason to give any more personal information than I really have to. So as a rule I just press the number “6″ once, and go with it^[2].

And something happened to the keypad. This is a pump in a station, near my house, which I use a lot. And the keypad is usually clunky and unresponsive. But this night, I just gently touched the key, and it fired multiple time. First time this happened, in years. The result license plate number? “666″.

1. That’s 7 USD per gallon, with today’s exchange rate, just in case anyone is curious[back]
2. I did mention that there’s no verification, right? “6″ is not a valid license plate number here, AFAIK[back]

Surveys are complex. There is a lot that you can do wrong. Actually, looking at many surveys around, there is a lot that is done wrong. Time after time.

Sometime it’s the big stuff. Sometimes small.

Sometimes the surveys are not done to get answers, but to show what you want the answers to be, by skewing the questions. That’s bad for academic research, but very popular in politics.

And sometimes you really do want answers. Which is hard to do right. Ask the wrong question, ask them in the wrong way, or give the wrong options for answers, and the results may not say what you think they do, or may be impossible to analyse properly. That’s why there are those who deal professionally with surveys, know the theory (and, hopefully, statistics), have done it many times before, and should be able to avoid most of the mistakes.

They usually don’t do the really big mistakes.

They do, however, often do small, or really incomprehensible, mistakes. I guess finding a professional can be a problem as well.

Take, for example, a survey currently being run by iPerceptions , for InforWorld and ComputerWorld.

Both these clients are one client, belonging to the same company. And they do very similar things. So the surveys are practically identical (I did the ComputerWorld one originally, and just now noticed they also run it for InfoWorld. I progressed a little bit, and they’re the same questions in the same order with the same possible answers. Just the name of the company in the survey changed).

This survey has some strange points.

One main problem was that they apparently forgot that some questions may not apply. There was one (maybe 2-3) question where they did have an option to indicate the question is not relevant, or that I don’t know or can’t judge. For all the rest, and there were many of them, I was asked to rank the sites on many criteria, some of which really didn’t interest me and I didn’t know. But the options were just to rank.

Assuming that I’m not the only person who goes through a site that has many different sections, and doesn’t know (or use) all sections, this means that the answers they receive are worthless. What do you pick when you don’t know, or can’t rank? Do you say that it was excellent, since you don’t know it’s bad, causing a potential problematic part to appear good? Do you rank it as very lousy, since it didn’t do anything for you, thereby causing a potentially excellent service to appear bad? Do you rank it in the middle, trying not to judge either way, but still making anything really good, or really bad, seem more average and undeserving of attention?

This is why these things usually contain an answer to state that this question isn’t relevant for you, and you don’t have a real answer for it. But here, no. Good luck to them in the later analysis.

A second point is much less severe, but far more amusing and baffling.

In the personal details, at some point they asked for year of birth. And provided a field to type the year number in. With a maximum of 500 characters. Yes, you read that right, 500 characters to answer the question “In what year where you born?”. They also made the text box large enough to type a small essay in.

What sort of an answer where they expecting? Hmm… Maybe…

That’s a tough question, there. I don’t know what year I was born in. It was a cold, harsh, dark year for my family. My parents were moving a lot. I don’t have no birth certificate, ’cause they were always running from them cops. Who need a stinking certificate? My mom knew I was born. And I had a tough childhood, so people tell me I look 40, but I bet I’m younger. I don’t remember much from those years, really can’t say. Is this important? If it is, I can try remembering, just let me know. Yes?

That’s not a true story (for me, anyway), but it does have exactly 500 characters. For comparison, writing something like 2008, or 1912, takes 4 characters (as does “NOYB“). They could have even been generous, cover all their bases, and give 5-6 characters (You know, for time travellers, or for really really old people). Maybe 3 digits more, for a space followed by “AD”, in case they’re actually worried? A little longer still, so they can get “year of the dragon”? Why the heck 500 characters?

You want to know what’s even more strange? This is in the third part of the survey. In the first part they already asked most personal questions (gender, business, people working in same company, etc), including one about age. But there they just gave several age groups (e.g. 24-35 or something like that), so I suppose they really needed the birth year too.

Then again, if they ask for birth year, why bother asking for age? Odd, that.

Well, I was in a nice mood (this was more amusing than annoying), so I decided I’ll let them know. At the last page of the survey they had a link to provide feedback. I was actually impressed with that, since sometimes I have comments, and nobody official to tell them to. This was nice. Or so I thought.

It was a mailto style link, that contained an email address, and a prepared subject line with the code/number of this survey (Good idea, so they won’t have to wonder what survey it was, and I won’t have to try and describe it too much to ensure they identify it).

There was just one main problem with it. The email address they provided? It wasn’t correct.

I sent a message. I got back a bounce.

<info1@iperceptions.com>:
208.65.144.12 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 553 mailbox info1@iperceptions.com is restricted (Mode: normal)
Giving up on 208.65.144.12.

Impressive. This is a company that specializes in running surveys. In getting feedback from people for their clients. Except they can’t seem to arrange to get feedback for themselves.

It seems like a typo. The “1″ in the email address does not belong. I checked later on their site, and this address is listed there, without the “1″, in their contact page. But, well, by that time I was out of the helpful mood, and into the annoyed and unimpressed one. Which I think is perfectly understandable.

When a group of several people eat together at a restaurant (or bar, coffee shop, etc…) there are common ways to split the bill:

• One person pays everything.
• Split evenly.
• Each pays for their own portion.

The exact values are of course a bit fluid on the last two options, since the numbers may be rounded. Currency is discrete rather than continuous, after all. Not only that, but it’s often simpler to divide up to the main coin and not the sub-coins^[1].

The payment can be done by cash. In that case the people would usually just collect enough, pay with it, and divide the change between themselves when the change comes back. The work on properly dividing the charge is on the customers in these cases.

Sometimes, though, people pay with credit cards. Which means that many times the waiters will just receive a bunch^[2] of cards, with simple instructions on how to divide the charge between them.

The common one is of course “Split it evenly”. And these are the cases where money is often rounded to higher coins, since apparently most waiters have a problem with fractions. I can recall maybe 1-2 cases, ever, where the individual charges weren’t rounded with one person paying the extra.

When things are not split evenly, well, that’s when the fun begins. And by “fun” I mean an all too common tragic comedy of errors.

The simple case is when the customers still calculate the amounts in advance. In this case the waiter receives exact instructions in the style of “Put 100 on this card, and 150 on that card”. Simple. Easy.

And they still sometimes manage to get it wrong:

1. The bill comes back split evenly.
2. The amounts are charged correctly, but on the wrong cards. In this example, the first card is charged 150, and the second 100.
3. All of the cards are charged the same amount, which is one of the sub-amounts. So, for example, for this 250 bill either both cards will be charged 100, or both will be charged 150.
4. Some of the cards may be charged correctly, and some will be charged an unrelated amount. This is because the complexity of the task got the waiter confused and he/she charged an amount due for another customer entirely.

I had all of these happen to me, as a customer in restaurants.

One time I had two of them happen in a series. The waitress made a mistake (#3 above), I alerted her, and she came back with a “correction” that included another type of mistake (#4 above). When there’s a charge, and a cancellation, as a customer you’re requested to sign on both. If you simply don’t sign on the charge, it creates all sorts of complications. So I ended up having to sign five times for my bill that day. What did I tell you? Fun!

It also happens, though, that the job of dividing the charge is placed on the waiter. Sometimes the customers know the difference between what they’re supposed to be billed for, but not the final amount.

In which cases someone has to do the calculation. It’s a simple enough calculation, you know the total, and you know the differences.

And the natural tendency would be to let the waiter do it. People just had a meal, are finishing up, and they need to pay the bill. Why would they want to do the work, as easy as it is, when there’s a waiter that will have to process the charges anyway and is being paid for it?

Makes sense.

Except it doesn’t. Because many waiters seem a bit deficient in the math department.

The latest time this happened to me was a couple of weeks ago. I was finishing a meal with a friend. We basically shared the dishes, so almost everything was supposed to be split evenly. The only difference was that I had an extra glass of some medium-pricey alcohol.

The waitress arrived, and saw the two credit cards on the tray with the bill. The dialog between me and the waitress went something like that:

Waitress: Should I split this up?
Me: Yes, but it’s 70 more on this card.
Waitress: Right. 70 on this card, and the rest on the other card.
Me: No. Split it between the cards, so that this card is charged by 70 more than the other card.
Waitress: Eh…
Waitress: Hmm….
Waiterss: I’m…. err… not….
Me: It’s simple. Just split evenly, add 35 to this card, and reduce the other 35 from the other card.
Waitress: Ah. Yes. OK, sure.

And this is the math lesson for today. If you want to divide a sum X between N people so that everyone pays the same except for one who pays an extra Y, this is what you do:

1. Divide X by N. Let’s call that A for average. You already know how to do that. This A would be what you’d charge each card if you had to split evenly.
2. Divide Y by N. Let’s call that B. This value is like the average of the differences. Mathematically it’s the exact same process as the previous step, so if you knew how to do it, you know how to do that.
3. Everyone, except the person who has to pay more, pays A-B. You know how to do subtraction already. It’s the same thing you’d do if someone paid part by cash and part by credit card, and you’d have had to reduce the cash amount from the total to get the credit card charge.
4. The person who has to pay more pays A + [(N-1)*B]. Basically all the B’s you reduced from the bills of the other people, you add to this one’s bill. You already know how to do addition too. It’s just like what you’d do if someone asked you to charge the tip on the card as well, telling you how much is the charge and how much is the tip. You already know how to do multiplication as well, it’s what you’d do if you got everyone else’s cards and they all told you they have to pay B.

That’s it. Easy. Simple steps. And these are all things that waiters are supposed to know how to do already.

Except sometimes they don’t.

In this case, for example, I was indeed charged 35 more. The other card? Charged exactly the amount of an even split.

Wait, wait, I know what you’re thinking. In this case it would mean that the total would come to 35 more than the real total, right? So the waitress, or at least the cash register computer, should notice something is off, right?

Right.

But they had a simple solution for that. You see, the final bill came back printed with three items:

• Credit card charge : A
• Credit card charge : A+35
• Refund : -35

So the total was absolutely correct, making the waitress feel perfectly happy about it. No problem if it all adds up, after all.

Except that, of course, we didn’t get that refund. The bill did not come back with 35 cash, nor did one of the credit cards get a refund (which would have kind of defeated the whole purpose, but at least would have meant the amount of money passed from us to the restaurant would have been correct).

Our poor waitress didn’t quite see the problem. It all adds up after all, and the total is right. Luckily another waitress/supervisor did see the light immediately after a very brief explanation.

Waiters should learn a little basic math. Me, I should learn not to trust waiters to do even the most basic math. I think I learned my lesson. Now it’s their turn.

1. OK, Poor terminology here. I mean that, for example, to split 25$ between to people you’d sometimes, often, see one charged 13$ and one 12$, rather than 12.5$ each.[back]
2. 2 is also valid for “bunch”[back]

From a spam email I received today, after the link to their site:

Greeting yaron
get rid of that self-esteem once and for all.

I think I’ll keep my self-esteem, but nice of them to offer.

The standard No Entry / Do Not Enter road sign is pretty, well, standard.

Almost all over the world, the same red circle with a white horizontal bar.

And it means pretty much the same thing, all over the world, including here. An indication that the road it is attached to is going the other way, and it’s forbidden to drive into it.

Where do you usually see those signs? At the exit of one-way streets, pointing the other way. Often at both edges of the road, to be visible from all directions.

Where do you usually don’t see those signs? On places which are not roads, and where no driver will try to turn to anyway.

Such as, say, at a side of a road where there’s no turning, no diverging road, and surrounding a large concrete and wood pillar standing ahead of several trees.

That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, as you can see, it sometimes works differently.

Say you were sentenced to 30 months in prison for forgery. And say you think it’s the prosecutor’s fault (Because, after all, it can’t really be something you did, right?). What would you do?

That’s right, you’d try to get the prosecutor assassinated, to punish him for not being able to show on trial that you’re not really a dangerous criminal. Makes perfect sense.

Then you need to pick the right hitman. It’s complex. There are, for example, some things you may want to void:

1. Your first choice of a hitman should not be the judge that tried you. Judges make terrible assassins. And they often refuse these jobs. Go figure.
2. If you do want to hire the judge to be your assassin, make sure to offer enough money to make this a real offer. For example, a district court judge in Texas would probably expect much more than $5,000^[1].
3. If you do offer the judge the small money, and he turns you down, your next best option is not the lawyer who was your defense attorney during the trial. Lawyers are bad assassins as well. And your defense attorney knows what a slimeball you really are, even if he lied and said nice things about you during the trial.
4. If you do try for the defense attorney, at least offer him more money then you offered the judge. You should already know that’s not enough money by now. Defense attorneys often don’t earn that much less than judges. Not necessarily even the lousy ones.
5. Oh, and stick to your target. Don’t change your mind and ask him to actually kill the judge. Yes, it was very rude of the judge to turn down your offer. But killing a judge would cost extra. And besides, the prosecutor is still out there, right?
6. When you make all these offers, don’t write them on paper with your own handwriting. Don’t touch that paper with your fingers to add your fingerprints to it. Those things are, like, proof, you know? It can get you a much longer jail time than those forgery charges.

All very sensible and sound advice.

Someone didn’t get the memo. Probably didn’t get a lot of working braincells either.

Galveston County District Court Judge David Garner said Connelly, 34, of Santa Fe, was among those defendants who “think outside the box” for allegedly writing a letter offering him $5,000 to kill former prosecutor Donnie Quintanilla, now in private practice in Galveston.

Connelly wrote a second letter to his defense attorney, Houston lawyer Jonathan Cox, offering him $5,000 to kill Garner, special prison prosecutor Alice Gregg said.

He will get the jailtime, though. And hey, maybe the next judge would be more cooperative, who knows?

1. That’s not even a single month’s salary[back]

Some people don’t understand that using drugs, not to mention very large amounts of serious drugs, can have side effects. Bad side effects, I mean, not just seeing the pretty colours.

Like the guy from this story, coming to the ER totally out and in shock. But his friend is sure it’s not related to the tons of drugs he’s on because… he does that often and usually doesn’t react badly. So sad it’s actually very funny.

I personally saw an event that went in a totally different direction, a few years ago. A patient came to an ophthalmologist, to have his eyes examined, because they were red and itching.

In the examination it looked like he had acute conjunctivitis^[1]. A viral infection. And yes, it’s easy to tell the different kinds of conjunctivitis apart, usually. It’s surprising in how many obviously different ways, under magnification, the tissue can react, when all you see without magnification is red and some swelling.

The doctor gave him a prescription for steroidal drops to reduce the inflammation^[2]. And also gave him the usual explanations on how to avoid infecting others in the meantime.

A real problem, and he received treatment. Nobody questioned him about what happened, or hinted in any way that his problem may be anything else than the viral infection it was.

And yet before he left the guy felt the need to explain that his eyes are red because he has a problem, not because he’s been smoking marijuana. He said that he doesn’t smoke drugs. In case it wasn’t clear enough, he further clarified that it’s not just that he doesn’t smoke, it’s that he doesn’t do drugs at all. And he repeated that therefore his eyes are not red because of drug use. Can’t be, since he isn’t smoking or using any.

He repeated that several times, stressing the point. Before he calmed down, and left, the doctor had to assure him that he believes him, and that the eyes have another legitimate reason to be red.

Of course, marijuana does other things beside making people’s eyes redder. And just because there’s something else that makes the eyes red, doesn’t mean there’s no marijuana in the body anyway. Just saying.

1. Inflammation of the conjunctiva, the white part of the eyes[back]
2. Germs are easy, there are plenty of good antibiotics. Viruses are harder, usually you just reduce the symptoms and wait until they die off by themselves after a couple of weeks[back]

It’s time for yet another post where I either mock (usually), or take seriously (rarely), search phrases people typed into search engines just in order to get to… well… here.

These are all real. People actually searched for these phrases I underline here, and for some reason one of the pages found were on this blog.

It so happens that I have a large amount of them lately, so I think I’ll split this batch. A few will come now, and the rest on another post in a few days.

before changing into another lane you should?
Signal. Actually, in your case, if you have to look for this on the Internet then you probably shouldn’t be driving, so it’s a trick question.

everybody is stupid
Yes.

INCONSIDERATE CO-WORKERS WITH LOUD RADIO
Buy earplugs. Otherwise you’re the inconsiderate co-worker who forces everyone to work without some music. Or, option two, find some music you like, and play it even louder. Or at least closer. Headphones work too.

friend loaned me their car i was arrested car was impounded how do i get a car out of impound
It’s the friend’s car. I’m afraid the friend will have to go to take it out of impound. Sorry, but if you hope to keep this a secret from your friend, well, life’s hard. On the bright side, maybe this will teach your friend that he, or she, needs a better taste in friends.

why eyelid flickers naturally
Normally for two reasons. The first is that it helps to keep the eye clean, and the second is that it keeps the eye moist. All important if you want to avoid serious eye damage.

LAPD recruit drug usage limit
I’m not sure, but I expect and hope that they put the limit at no usage at all. Yeah, bummer, I know. Looks like you won’t be accepted.

private viewing disqualifies my security clearance
Well, next time when you’re having a security clearance try not to view your privates in public.

what disqualifies you for a security clearance?
Private viewing, apparently. Possibly also drug-usage. Working for the other side is also a good disqualifier. Asking stupid questions usually doesn’t, though, so you may be in the clear.

“long hair” intelligence
Sorry, but so far there is no research indicating a relationship between intelligence and length of hair. Apart from the fact that subjectively many people feel pretty stupid when their hair is so long it drags on the floor and collects dirt, anyway. If you’re a bible reader, though, there is at least one anecdotal reference to a correlation between hair length and strength. But personally I believe muscles are a better indicator for that.

pregnant belly how they look like
Have you seriously never seen a pregnant woman before in your life? Seriously??

what does the acronym lol mean in webmail
I’m still Laughing Out Loud thinking about you getting an email with this and not understanding.

is it illegal to have homework in the summer?
No.

aria words
Your best bet would be to search in the Aria Database. They don’t have everything, but they do have quite a lot.

fully clothed porn links
Someone looking for porn with fully-clothed people… A little unclear on the concept.

REPUBLIC OF cHINA 2005+hotmail address
ways of making legistimate money on the internet
free emailer equipped bcc without any one notice another
+1 “email address of BUSINESS MEN”
Just three of these came from addresses in Nigeria. But we all know what they really want to do, right?

“how to send spam”
This came from Poland. At least they’re honest.

sure fire way to make my money grow
Sorry, dude. If I had one I would have used it myself. But a good one is to study hard, and then work hard. You don’t need me to tell you this, though.

how to annoy people online at aim with aim bots
You don’t have to annoy people with AIM bots. The AIM bots annoy people all by themselves.

I speak Hebrew/Latin to God, English to my friends, Italian to the ladies, Spanish to my maid, and German to my car
So Google is your friend, I take it, since you speak to it in English. Well, let me tell you, you’d get better results out of this friend if you’ll speak to it in a Language it can understand. For example, if you’re looking for a quotation, put the phrase in double-quotes. That will help immensely. Oh, yes, and speak to your therapist about speaking to your car, you need help.

quotes for idiots
quotes for idiotism
I have two right here.

marry is a lesbo
Thanks for sharing. And I was so looking to that date…

perfect women
You won’t find her on the Internet, you dork. You’re looking in the wrong place.

israeli salary in ILS
See, the surprising thing about Israel is that we have this really crazy economic system. Which includes some totally insane stuff like paying different salaries for different jobs in different places. Seriously. Not all Israelis earn the same. Amazing, eh?

killing cockroaches freezing
That will work. But if you already have the cockroach in a box, or a bag, it would be faster and easier to just squish it instead of putting it in the freezer. And there are some more hi-tech alternatives coming soon.

dark chocolate dangers
It tastes good. Which is a very dangerous thing if you’re trying to keep a diet.

secret phone code
The code is… No, wait, sorry, I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.

causes for 2005 minivan engine not to start “after frontal collision”
This is just a wild guess, but I think the reason the engine doesn’t start has something to do with it being smashed in a frontal collision.

Accidental Insulin sprayed in eyes
How did you manage to do THAT? I’m totally flummoxed. Insulin doesn’t come in anything that accidentally sprays. You’ll have to put it into a syringe, and drip it into your eyes on purpose. Which is totally pointless since it doesn’t do much of anything like that. I think the most important thing for you will be to try injecting your insulin when you’re not totally stoned, OK?

unhealthy for eyes to wear sunglasses all the time
No, it isn’t. Not unless you get actual glass lenses, stretch that “all the time” to include when sleeping, and then manage to roll over and break the glass into your eyes. But apart from that you’re perfectly safe as long as the sunglasses are halfway decent. Oh, yes, and as long as it’s not so dark that with the sunglasses you’re blind, because that can cause accidents too.

besides drinking “red bull” other uses include
Funny, I never figured this stuff to be drinkable. You’re way ahead of me in uses of it already, can’t help you, sorry.

There’s this site, 1000 Arten ein Bier zu öffnen (I believe a rough translation would be “1,000 ways to open beer” or something of the sort), that depicts lots of ways in which one can open a beer bottle.

So far the list merely goes to 984, but there’s noticeable progress.

It’s in German, but that doesn’t matter because they have pictures. Three for each method: before, during, and after.

Many are boring, just using various surfaces. But some are quite bizarre, and plenty are truly hilarious.

Researchers from Brussels, in a research funded by the EU (for a sum of 3 million Euro), have developed a small robot that smells like a cockroach.

OK, that was an overly simplistic way of presenting it.

The kick in the mandibles comes from a Belgian-led team who spent three years developing a mini robot that can convince cockroaches to creep out of dark holes and gather in light places. The InsBot looks more like a pencil sharpener than a household pest, but it smells like a cockroach.

The InsBot has a cocktail of pheromones and molecules painted on its body, allowing it to infiltrate the cockroach community.

Imagine, working for three years just to develop something that smells like a cockroach. Wouldn’t it have been better instead to work on something that can take away the smell of one once you crush it? These bugs stink.

Cockroaches, it turns out, are very social creatures. No, really. Yes, yes, I know that staying put even after you yell at someone to get the heck out of your house is usually considered a very asocial behaviour. They’re not social with people. Just with other cockroaches. Go figure.

And if there’s something they think is another cockroach, like a mini-robot with the right smell, they’ll tend to get friendly and stick around. So if the robot slowly wanders around near them, and then goes and stand outside on the floor, a bunch of them are likely to congregate around it.

Yes, that sounds strange to me too. Because I’ve seen many cockroaches in my life, but it was always one on one^[1].

But the researches say that cockroaches tend to stick together in group. And they spent three years of intense study, not nearly thirty years of sporadic encounters. So maybe they do know better than me.

Now you must be wondering what is so exciting about being able to get the cockroaches to stick around the robot. Does it shoot them? Electrocute them? Spreads poisonous bug-spray on them? No. That won’t be fun. It won’t be sporting. And it won’t allow them to release that disgusting smell of squashed cockroaches.

The plan, the 3 million Euro plan, is far simpler, and much more direct. It could draw them all out into the middle of the floor, where a person could squash them with a shoe. Or, if there are enough of them around, maybe jump around in a marry little dance crunching and stomping cockroaches under heel with every step. How fun.

Can you imagine the cost of the extra software and electronics needed to allow the timing to be right? Because this is not automatic. Automatic means you’ll have cockroach parties in the middle of the living room when you’re sleeping, or out at work.

So there will need to be some signalling mechanism, or some pre-set timer. Letting the robot know when is it the right time to draw the little cockroaches in so you could step on them.

I wonder if it will take another research just to come out with the fact that the cockroaches, while highly social, are not entirely insane. When a person comes stomping in, do you think they’ll stay and keep the little robot company? Hell, no! They’ll scatter around, leaving the poor stomper in no better position than had he^[2] just spotted a lone cockroach randomly.

Plus, how is one expected to go around stomping cockroaches when smack down in the middle of them there’s a complex, and expensive, electronic device, in the form of our erstwhile robot? You put down your leg too hard, you’ll break the robot. Unless the robot is very tough, in which case you’ll break the leg. None of the two options seems appealing.

So, given all the problems that I can think of^[3], why are they still doing it? Are cockroaches really such a big problem?

In a breakthrough for the battle against mankind’s most diehard enemy – the cockroach – European scientists have hoodwinked a group of them into congregating in a place where they can be stamped on easily.

Aha! Cockroaches are mankind’s most diehard enemy.

Our greatest, and toughest, enemies. And all the EU invests in fighting them is a measly 3 million Euro fund?! And a small group of researchers from just one university?! All this with no assistance by other world countries and superpowers?!

Shocking. Truly shocking.

Plus, while fighting such a dangerous, tough, vicious, insidious, and diehard enemy, they put in the research team a traitor who sympathizes with the enemy. Seriously:

But, for now, Deneubourg is not taking his eye off cockroaches which he describes as ‘no dirtier than flies’ and victims of a ‘bad press’.

Bad press. Would that be the same press calling them “mankind’s most diehard enemy”, I wonder?

He believes it will soon be possible to develop an ‘intelligent roach nest’ in which robots are positioned to tease the creepy-crawlies into human stamping range.

Brr. Am I the only one getting odd vibes from the Terminator movies, with the robots designed to look like humans and infiltrate into their camps in order to betray them to the machines to be killed?

1. Me and the cockroach, Mano a mano. Two begin, but only one comes out alive. And it’s not the cockroach, let me tell you.[back]
2. Women don’t squish cockroaches, they yell “Ewwww!” loudly, and wait for a man to come and do it.[back]
3. And I did it with no funding, and hardly any time invested in research. So they, with the time and funding, probably came out with more.[back]

Because there’s nothing that screams “cool toy here!” louder than a surplus gas-mask.

We had (still have) gas-masks at home. From all the tension with Iraq way back when, before it came under U.S. occupation. What a pity we kept them closed in the box, apart from those few cases we had to put them on and get into an airtight shelter.

If only someone would have pointed out the fun aspects back then… I could have played, and played, and played. Ah, the fun I didn’t have, for simple lack of imagination.

Look, we all know why people buy toilet paper, where they put it, and what they most likely plan on doing with it. Right?

When toilet paper rolls with delicate designs such as light drawings of flowers, puppies, or abstract shapes came out, I didn’t really get it. I care about the texture, but not about how it looks like.

Ideally I prefer not to look at toilet paper. Not for long.

But apparently everything is a market, and even toilet paper makers have aspirations and imagination.

A few weeks ago I discovered there’s black toilet paper. Deep uniform rolls of black toilet paper. Quite pricey, too.

And now I see another version, going not for the artistic angle, but for the useful-pastime angle. Sudoku toilet paper. With a new Sudoku puzzle on every sheet.

What toilet paper innovations are we likely to see next?

Some guy in Kiev found a unique way to show, or maybe test, his faith in God. He went into the lion’s den in a zoo, expecting God to save him:

“The man shouted ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

The result was not a big surprise. Expect, perhaps, to the man himself:

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

I’m not exactly sure what was it supposed to prove. If the guy believed God existed, and that God would protect him, he should have said that instead of an “if he exists”.

Because even assuming God does exist, and is actually bored enough to bail stupid people out of lions’ dens (Mind you, there’s only recorded case, Daniel, and that poor sap didn’t exactly venture into one of his own free will, or solely in order to see if God will save him. Even if you accept that biblical case as fact, a single instance is still a long way from proving God will save anyone going in front of a bunch of lions), this sounds more like a challenge by a sceptic. So it would be perfectly understandable if God would decide to let someone like that become a meal.

Another option is, of course, that God exists, but is the God the lioness believed in. It can be rather safely argued that when you’re stuck in a middle of a large cage, it would actually take an act of God to get an extra-large protein-pack jump in and walk towards you while making loud noises.

Then again, maybe God doesn’t exist. In that case the events that took place also make perfect sense. It just begs the question of why did the idiot jump in there, if he wasn’t sure himself. Him being killed doesn’t prove the point one way or the other.

Actually, him not getting killed wouldn’t have proven the point either. But it might have had a stronger case if he walked in there claiming his belief in God, instead of merely claiming it was an option he was testing.

In addition to the story itself the article provided some background information that I found to be of… questionable value:

The incident, on Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction.

So normally people don’t jump into the Lion’s den at that zoo claiming God will save them if he exists? Good to know. Still, the lion’s God be willing, maybe it will be the beginning of a trend.

The brilliant Texas governor, or maybe a really drunk aid, have come up with a new plan to help prevent illegal immigration across the border from Mexico.

What’s the idea?

The Texas governor announced his plans for streaming the border surveillance camera footage over the internet at a meeting of police officials on Thursday.

“A stronger border is what Americans want and it’s what our security demands and that is what Texas is going to deliver,” Mr Perry said.

The cameras will cost $5m (£2.7m) to install and will be trained on sections of the 1,000-mile (1,600km) border known to be favoured by illegal immigrants.

Yep, placing lots and lots of cameras covering huge stretches of the border. Then wiring them all up, and broadcasting the footage on the Internet for anyone who wants to monitor.

The practicalities of effectively covering such an area with cameras are beyond me. For comparison, the entire border of Israel, with the sea and all neighbouring countries, is slightly more than 1,000km. They’re talking about 160% of that.

The price they quote for the job also seems widely inadequate. This should cover all the cameras, installation, wiring required to connect everything, computer servers to collect all the footage and store it, and bandwidth costs for transmitting all that video over the Internet?

No way. They’ll run out of money before even beginning to deploy and set the infrastructure, not to mention maintenance costs.

Heck, they current estimates I see for their fence idea is at $8 billion. This is a third of the length, but walls have much lower maintenance and upkeep costs, don’t require electricity, and don’t have to be wired. So maybe $5 billion is more likely than $5 million.

And that’s not even the biggest problem with the idea, I think. Who exactly do they expect to sit and watch those border cams??

Sure, some may be placed in locations with nice scenery, so may become popular. But most of the cameras will just be covering empty stretches of a deserted border. And totally deserted and eventless videos are mainly one thing: boring.

This is a part of why normally people who monitor such surveillance cameras are paid money. It’s a boring job. Nothing is happening, and there’s nothing to see.

Sure, the singular event of actually noticing a group of Mexicans trying to sneak in can be exhilarating and exiting, no doubt. But most people won’t get to see that even if they’ll wait hours, days, weeks, and months, just staring at a camera feed. It’s a very long border, I remind you.

Watching such a huge amount of cameras will require massive manpower dedicated to the task. Texas can’t employ so many people on this job, so they’re trying to get it done for free by the public.

But nobody will do it on their spare time. Not unless their alternatives are even more boring and dreary than watching a motionless camera feed.

Can there really be that many Texans out there who are constantly so bored out of their minds?

–
Hat tip to Make You Go Hmm

This first link contains screenshots from a DVD of Star Wars: Episode III. Except that this is the version which was translated and dubbed to Chinese, showing English subtitles.

The subtitles’ English was translated back from the spoken Chinese, after the dubbing.

And the results are hilarious. Some of the lines are very amusing even if you never saw the movie, or any movie in the Star Wars series.

The other two links include pictures of Chinese restaurants’ menus. Including the translated names of all the dishes and courses in English.

Some are just plain bizarre, and some are terribly funny.

I just hope official documents and international agreements are translated better than that…

Having laws against being drunk while driving is pretty common, happens in a lot of countries, and is something I see as perfectly fine and correct.

But in Texas they take further, too much further, I think. Now it seems they’re arresting people for being drunk while drinking inside bars.

It doesn’t matter if they don’t plan on getting out of the pub until much later when they’re sober. Or if they intend to go out and walk, not drive. Or if they really won’t do anything bad while drunk.

No, being drunk is the offence. Not doing anything problematical because of being drunk.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

This is Marvellous. Most people who get drunk do not hurt each other. Someone getting overly drunk and hurting someone, while getting much more publicity than someone being drunk and going to sleep (not exactly a news event, is it?) is rare. And the most common way this does happen is by people driving drunk. Something which people are mostly aware of, and can choose not to do, even while intoxicated.

So if someone wants to go to a bar to drink, either to try and drown some big sorrow (doesn’t work, but people still try), celebrate something, or just have a fun evening which includes drinks, this is now dangerous to do in Texas. Anyone getting drunk, without doing anything wrong, without harming anyone, without even thinking about driving, can get arrested.

This is not going to be good for the bars, I bet. Most bar patrons don’t plan in advance to get totally drunk, just to have a drink or a few, but I guess most aren’t entirely and completely sure they won’t drink a little more than planned. And now it’s dangerous. They drink to much, they can get arrested for it. Getting into a bat to have a couple of drinks now carries risks. Bye bye bars, hello coffee shops and restaurants.

And I can’t help but wonder about the next step. They’re arresting drunk people because they may do things. Things which they’re not doing, didn’t do, and don’t plan on doing. But because they’re theoretically capable of them, they get arrested. How is arresting drunk people, because they may drive, different from arresting angry people because they may decide to hit someone? Or arresting people who carry firearms because they may decide to shoot someone?

If you want to go and arrest people before the do something dangerous, well, you might as well just hit the streets and arrest every single person you see. Some of them are going to do dangerous stuff. Why take the risk, when it’s obvious they’re capable of it?

Anyone not bed-ridden should be arrested, and the sooner the better. Everyone will be much safer that way.

I never gotten really drunk in my life, but right now I’m very happy that I don’t live anywhere near Texas…

Not really a post, I just thought that since it’s Purim again, I’ll link to my post from last year, So what is this Purim all about?.

The post is a humorous recounting of the story from the Scroll of Esther. There is one extra character not included in the original bible version of the story, but what makes the post funny is how very very close the rest of it is. Except the interpretations of course, those aren’t in the original. The actual deeds and happenings are, though.

I do realize that it could use some extra styling and editing, but I’m too lazy to do that, so it will just stay as-is for now. Maybe next year…

I have no idea what this site is about, or what the images are supposed to represent, since it’s probably written in Japanese, which I can’t read. But the images on the various pages linked to from this index page are certainly amusing.

They’re mostly of dolls, and I mean delicate women’s dolls with the typical feminine clothing, in various combatant and military positions.

Some come next to what may be sketches from military manuals, or photos of soldiers, and the dolls are arranged in the same positions, holding similar weaponry.

Other seem to be images depicting stories in which those dolls are seen attacking and taking military outposts and vehicles, manned by real soldier dolls.

Quite hilarious, seeing a delicate doll in a bikini attaching mines to a jeep, or well armed and sneaking on a bunch of soldiers…

Maybe it’s just payback for the fact that everyone likes to torture their Barbie dolls.

In my own army unit they had strict limitations on phone usage. Well, not all that strict, we needed to talk on the phone, and we could. But there was a limit. And if a department strayed from the limit, they noticed. Quickly. And the department was reprimanded. In some cases repeat offenders simply had their phones cut off, or limited to only certain outgoing numbers, for a time.

The British Foreign Office, in comparison, is much more lax on phone usage. It can take them more than a year to notice very excessive charges. To destinations which were not related to operational needs. On phones that were stolen (but they didn’t notice this too, so that may be a good excuse). In Iraq.

It certainly was not part of Britain’s plans to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. But the Foreign Office has been apparently paying for an adult sex chatline in a Baghdad street for 17 months without knowing it.

…

FO officials had already admitted that the lost phones had cost them £594,000 in unauthorised phone bills but it is now bracing itself for an extremely critical report from the Commons public accounts committee on how it came to pay phone bills, which at one stage hit £212,000 in one month, without asking questions.

…

Sir Michael said initial inquiries had revealed a series of blunders. The phones were already activated when they were sent to Baghdad and they were not properly logged in – so no one realised at first that they had been stolen. None of the bills were initially challenged until people realised the phones had gone missing.

This is such a long string of errors and blunders, one after the other, that it would have been really sad if it wasn’t so funny. Or maybe the other way around.

When shipping something abroad, they should track it. Always. If it was sent, and nobody received it, someone should have noticed. Private companies track inventory. Military units track inventory. Why can’t the British FO track inventory? Yes, there are items which aren’t tracked individually, but come on, a mobile phone isn’t exactly a paper-clip.

The fact that they didn’t monitor the billing for those phones is also amazing. The 17 months the article mentions is over a fiscal year. The charges should have been noticed after a month, I think, but not to notice such a bill after a whole year is almost beyond belief. I can’t think of any organization with such a free calling policy.

And these aren’t phones in an office at their HQ. These are phones sent to a foreign country, with all the confusion and potential problems that this entails. How can anyone expect that everything will be alright, and that no monitoring at all will be needed?

Not to mention, they also obviously didn’t screen the phones for permitted and forbidden destination. In an office, in the UK that would have been understandable. Too many places someone may need to call. But in the field, in Baghdad? These phones should have had a pretty limited list of allowed destinations, with a procedure set in order to allow others. And tight monitoring to make sure they’re not used otherwise. I believe those phone sex lines were not officially approved by anyone.

At least that’s one sex scandal that will be duly paid for by the guilty authorities, and in hard currency too.

I just had a short conversation with a friend who recently finished a university test. And two of the sentences I found just too amusing to let slip quietly into oblivion.

Just to make sure that these won’t give the totally wrong impression, the friend is quite an intelligent person, usually. I suspect this is more because the subject matter of that test was totally outside my friend’s interest. From the sample questions I heard, the test was absurdly easy, but that’s entirely not the way my friend, and the other classmates, apparently saw it.

And please notice that these were both said in an highly indigent tone.

Quote number one was in an attempt to explain to me why the test was hard, despite me thinking that the material should have made it very easy:

They didn’t ask us exactly about the things they said in class. To answer these questions we had to think about them.

Ah, a shame about this foul academic practice in which students are required to understand the material, instead of just parroting back what the lecturer said in class, isn’t it?

The second quote is from an attempt to demonstrate that not only was the test unduly difficult, but that the university made the students take it under uncommonly hard conditions:

And they didn’t even let us copy. I mean, at all!

I wonder if they have a case to appeal to the dean. That’s very cruel, and hardly fair…

It makes sense that being perfect would be good, or perfect even. But is being a perfect part of a perfect group still as good?

Many women, I noticed, tend to believe they’re perfect, and wonderful. Or at least tend to claim they are. I think at one point or another a conversation with nearly any long-time women friend of mine reached a point where they jokingly mentioned that they’re perfect, and so men should be very grateful and appreciative for knowing them and being in their presence. Especially given the fact that men in general (or their particular BF at the time, if they had any) are far from perfect.

Now, whether the premise is correct or not (And that’s really open for discussion), is not what this post is about. Let’s assume the claims made by those women are true, for the sake of the argument. Let’s also assume, because this is the context under which the statements were made, that men and women desire each other’s company.

Given those premises, then, the conclusion makes perfect sense. If a specific woman is perfect, or nearly so, and most men are far below perfect, then men should indeed show that woman the utmost respect and admiration. The poor wretch who is blessed with her presence, should know he’s in the presence of extremely superior perfection.

Not so fast, ladies. Don’t rejoice yet. There’s more, you see…

The problem starts with them all continuing the argument by stating that it’s not only them who are perfect, but rather all women. Although they were all, so far, quick to agree that maybe all is too strong a term, and there are some bad women out there too. They don’t generally drop to some, however, but rather just to a very large most.

Because of that, they claim that as a general rule men should be a lot more respectful towards all women, and show them all awe and admiration.

On the very face of it, if we accept the premises, this would appear to make sense. If all (I’ll round it up a bit, since the exceptions are generally claimed to be rare. Though for a some reason they’re often a part of the small circle of women the one I’m talking to actually knows. Go figure.) women are perfect, and all men are lousy, pathetic, and dense, then any man who is with a women is in the presence of someone obliging him despite being much better than him, and he should act accordingly.

This is where these conversation threads usually end, with the poor women failing to grasp the big gaping hole existing in the theory they raised in their perfect little heads.

Because, you see, if we do accept all these premises, and apply them to the real world, the conclusions would be very different.

Here’s one fact that should make it obvious. The number of women in the world, for the sake of this argument, is equal to number of men. Now, I do make some rough generalizations here. Statistics show that there are more women than men. This actually strengthen my claim, but isn’t as relevant because it mainly results from the fact that women live longer.

The birth ratios are indeed almost equal, with average number of born men equal to the average number of born women. This is for simple evolutionary reasons. In a population tending to have more men than women, a women will have a smaller chance of not managing to find a mate, so a bigger chance of having children and passing her genes onward, making it a more viable genetic strategy to have women instead of men as kids. The reverse holds as well. So populations will tend to be stable around equal numbers from each gender. This does not take into account people beyond the child-bearing age, which is why the statistics show we have more women.

China, where the severe birth limitation, and cultural biases, caused people to get rid of daughters in order to have more sons, is not considered here. Both since the current huge ratio of men to women there is just a temporary condition, and because the women I had these conversations with were not Chinese, so as far as I am, or they are, concerned this does not apply.

The important part is that there are not more men than women in the world.

And remember, we also assume that men and women want to be together, in couples. Never mind that it’s not a universal truth, it’s most common, and more importantly it’s the assumption existing in all the conversations where the above statements and false conclusion were made.

What does it mean? Simply put, it means that the very large majority of women will end up with a men, and the very large majority of men will therefore end up with a women.

And this is where it becomes interesting. If there were just a few perfect women, they would be highly sought after. Everyone would prefer to be with a perfect and wonderful woman, instead of a plain one.

But remember, they’re all wonderful. All perfect. Even if they say so themselves.

So? So any man knows that if it doesn’t work out with a woman, there are plenty of other ones, all perfect and wonderful, he has a good chance with. The risk of losing perfection isn’t that big if you know you can easily get perfection to replace it. Men are far from perfect, remember. And since all women are perfect and wonderful, even a perfect and wonderful women doesn’t have anything to ensure she could keep one attracted better than any other women could.

And what happens from the women’s point of view? Men are really not up to par. They all have many faults, and many problems. So any man who is a little less lousy, a little less dense, a little less infested with faults, is a relatively great catch. They don’t take him, they’ll have to settle for a worse model.

Do you sense the pattern here? Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Under these premises women are the ones who should be extra nice to men. Men don’t have much to worry about, since nearly whatever they do, they can still end up with a perfect women. But the women can only hope they’ll catch one who is a little better than the rest, and never know if when a relationship will fail they won’t have to settle for much worse afterwards.

Quite the opposite of what these women friends of mine were claiming, isn’t it? With the most ironic point being that this is not despite women being all perfect and wonderful. It is because of it.

By claiming that they’re perfect and deserve better treatment, they’re doing alright. But by extending that claim of perfection to the entire gender, they’re getting the absolute opposite effect. They want treatment as they deserve as perfect creatures. And by insisting to have men agree that all women are perfect, the treatment they deserve as perfect creatures becomes far less than what is sought after.

Now I just need to find a way to explain it to them without being physically beaten… I’m afraid I may not be able to pass the point quickly enough, about why I should be better treated and my life preserved.

P.S. Yes, this is not a serious essay. If you read this without noticing the amused and cynical undertone, you’ve been doing a bad job. Or I have been. I don’t believe all women are perfect, nor do I preach for men to treat women badly. Clear?

NASA is running a research experiment in which they will crash a probe into the Tempel-1 comet, trying to gain insights from the impact, and hopefully learn more about the composition of the comet’s core. This is called the Deep Impact mission.

Some people, though, aren’t happy. One is unhappy enough to go and sue NASA over the mission. Marina Bai, a Russian “self-published author and spiritualist”, is suing in a Russain court, over moral damages:

“Somewhere deep inside me, a voice told me the whole mission had to be stopped,” she said in an interview. “I fear that it could have an impact on all humanity.”

In court papers, Bai asserted that Deep Impact would “infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability of barbarically interfering with the natural life of the universe, and the violation of the natural balance of the universe.”

I just hope that the voice which told her that was a metaphor. If she’s really hearing voices, this may cause people to believe she may be a bit mentally imbalanced… Oh, heck, as if the rest of the lawsuit doesn’t make that point strongly enough as it is. The women is nuts.

The people at NASA think that she’s insane as well. Though they said it in one of the nicest ways I ever encountered. Not too hard to read between the lines, though:

Dolores Beasley, a spokeswoman for NASA, said it would be “inappropriate” to comment.

Is there any real danger, a chance that the impact will noticeably divert the comet? The scientists don’t think so. Of course, since they’re not yet entirely certain about the composition, they may turn out to be wrong, but the current estimations still allow for a very wide margin of error:

Scientists have dismissed fears that the collision might break up or divert the comet, comparing the impact to a mosquito striking a Boeing 747.

Still, even if she could prove the moral damage, and if the judges would for some reason rule in her favour, how bad can it be? How much can those damages be worth? Well, apparently according to Russian law, it can amount to quite a lot:

Bai’s attorney, Alexander V. Molokhov, said the damage claim was calculated under Russian law, which allows plaintiffs to recover an amount equal to the cost of the undertaking that allegedly does the harm.

So that would be around the entire cost of the mission. An interesting law I must say, granting compensation based on the cost of causing the damage, rather than on the damage itself.

If we had such a law here, I guess stuff like the current disengagement plans would have never happened. Imagine if every person who sees this as a moral crime and affront would sue, for the entire cost of the plan? If the court would accept that there were damages (and in this case a theoretical moral damage could be easily proved, since according to the believes of some of these people that’s really a big deal), the country would go broke… Hmm, there are Gush Katif residents who are immigrants from Russia, and who I think still have their Russain citizenship. I’m not that much of an expert on international law, but I wonder if they can sue using Russian courts, despite them also being Israeli residents and the better jurisdiction of Israeli courts…

In any case, a very interesting lawsuit. I doubt any sane judge will rule in her favour, especially considering the request compensations. Still:

Steven P. Maran, a spokesman for the American Astronomical Society and author of “Astronomy for Dummies,” reacted to Bai’s claims with humor.

“I get dizzy just thinking of this lawsuit,” he said. “But I don’t think the outcome is written in the stars.”

On the bright side, if she does win, the money will do good. The women obviously have some taste and good sense. I don’t know about those alleged oligarchs, but I wouldn’t have bought a soccer team either:

If she wins the case, she said, her nonprofit Transformations fund will spend the award on environmental and social programs.

“Unlike the oligarchs, I’m not going to buy a soccer team with the money,” she said.

The story got covered in plenty of papers. And surprisingly (or maybe not so suprisingly, given the fact that reports all to often bother to do a lot less fact-checking than they should) enough there are some factual differences between the reports.

Like for example, the above quoted article claims she asks compensations for a sum of $311 million. While other reports claim the actual investment in the mission was more like $330 million. It may sound like a small differece, a mere 6 percent or so, but I assure you that 19 million USD is not a small sum. Seriously.

Or, as another example, while the article I quoted states that scientists compared the impact to a “mosquito striking a Boeing 747″, the article linked in the above paragraph, about the mission itself, states that the scientists compared it to a “mosquito running into a 767 airliner”. The 747 is only double the size of a 767, so while a collision with a mosquito won’t matter much to any of them, that’s still a major difference.

Marina Bai herself, who is described in most places as a “self-published author and spiritualist”, is on other articles, some from Russain sources, described as a “local astrologer”.

Almost makes it seem as if reading the papers is as accurate as reading the map of the heavnens…

Christianity Today, the Evangelical Christian periodical, also publishes various specific studies and publications, which they sell for a modest fee to pastors. Not being an evangelical Christian, I never noticed them until I stumbled upon the page for this study, titled Sex as God Designed It. Catchy name, and since I find it hard to take such a thing as designed, I decided to take a look.

I did not actually pay for the article, but there’s plenty on the product page to explore. Now, I know that Christianity is a big supporter of marriage. And I know that it probably isn’t too enthusiastic about free sex. But from there, to what this study seems to claim, well, there’s quite a bit of a distance.

The church has a vital part to play in spreading the good news about sex.

Good news? News? As in something new which people didn’t know until now, and was just recently discovered? And here I thought the church was somewhat conservative and old fashioned, not running cutting-edge research on topics like sex.

Overview:

Western civilization is overstimulated and oversexed, says Philip Yancey. We are thoroughly saturated with sexual images and constantly surveyed about sexual attitudes and practices.

I don’t know about Mr. Yancey, but personally I am not (unfortunately) overstimulated and oversexed. Not only that, but I am not constantly surveyed about sexual attitudes. Come to think of it, I think I was never once surveyed about my sexual attitudes. So who the heck keeps coming back to Mr. Yancey to survey him?

But something essential and precious has been lost. Sadly, a persuasive Christian approach to sexuality is missing that could act as a balance to secular cynicism and obsession and help believers rediscover the elements of sacredness in a healthy sexual life.

I know sex should be great, but people who refer to it as sacred, or holy, are usually taken away by the nice people in white jackets, and hospitalized. Besides, if the purpose of a sexual relation was to be sacred and worship god, it would have been, like other things in that category, even more exciting and fulfilling, right? Sex might have been as fun as taking communion, maybe even as exciting and uplifting as praying, or going to confession. But since sex really pales in comparison (Right? Be honest, which would you rather do? So there you have it), then it should be obvious it can’t be nearly as sacred.

In this study, we’ll endeavour to understand God’s design for sex and discuss how the church can help spread the word.

About the only seriously good thing I have to say about this study, is that at least the author think that it’s possible, and desired, to understand God’s working and decisions. There are plenty of religious attitudes that claim trying to understand and analyse God is wrong, and thankfully this isn’t one of them.

Still, there’s really no need for the church to spread the word about sex. People know. It’s one of the worst kept secrets of all times.

So far for the overview, let’s take a look at the main points of the study article, see what it’s really about:

—Teaching point one: God created and designed sex and sexual expression to be experienced in a marital relationship.

So what Mr. Yancey is saying here, is that God is a terribly bad designer, and had no idea what she was doing during the design phase, no? Because, let’s face it, the fact that sex and sexual expression were designed specifically to be experienced in marital relationship explains a lot. It explains, for example, why nobody is ever sexually attracted to a person they’re not married to. It also explains why people always remain sexually attracted to people that they are married to. And, last but not least, it explains why nobody who is married is ever sexually attracted to anyone beside their spouses, for even the briefest of instants. Yes, wonderful design job. If you’d have bought something home with that design spec, and that actual performance, you’ll be running back to the store for a refund, and sue the company for false advertisement and sloppy design.

Ah, and let us not forget, this of course means that ever since the day of creation, everyone married. Historically speaking, there was never a time, and never a civilization, that had sex, but did not have marital relationship. The two come hand in hand. Right? Otherwise it would mean that through major parts of human history all people were just blatantly ignoring God.

—Teaching point two: When society loses faith in God, the purposes and practices of sexual expression become perverted.

Because, of course, nobody who isn’t Christian ever had a proper marriage between a man and a women, just like Mr. Yancey God likes. And we should be grateful for being notified that if society will lose faith in God then, among all the other horrors, something terrible will happen… People may come to think that sex is… fun. Dreadful, isn’t it?

—Teaching point three: The church must reclaim its teaching and pastoral role to provide a godly perspective and a well-grounded witness for sexuality.

The way I read that point, he says that priests and pastors should provide sex-ed classes in church, and should sometime sneak into people houses to make sure the sex they are having is only with their spouses. But that can’t possibly be what he means, can it?

Apply Your Findings

No, I’m not kidding. In the study about sex, and the dangers and perversion of out-of-marriage sex, one of the topics is getting the priests to apply their findings. I have nothing to say about that, except to wonder if that refers to the married evangelical priests, or the unmarried evangelical priests. Probably both. Well, have fun applying your findings then, guys. Darn, I like that euphemism, and predict it’s only a matter of time before it will hit the mainstream. I wonder how “Hi there, gorgeous. Would you like to come with me and help me apply my findings?” will go as a pick-up line…

Doesn’t matter why it crossed the road. The law doesn’t concern itself with reasons. Just as long as the chicken will recieve a fine for crossing the road, all is well.

Luckily, after some delibration a judge threw away the fine.

Not because it’s bloody silly, mind you, but because the judge was convinced that this specific chicken was domesticated, and not just livestock. If it was livestock, the 54$ fine would have stood. At these rates, I think letting a chicken cross the road probably costs a whole of a lot more than a whole chicken.

Maybe a better answer to the Why did the chicken cross the road? question would be because it chose to exercise its legal road-crossing right…

Via Letters of Marque.

I kind of took a look at that Laugh Lab research several weeks ago, but it didn’t look all that interesting, so I lost interest. But now they claim to have finished the research, and have some results and conclusions about what makes jokes funny, and which jokes were judged to be funniest.

Go read that article and you could see just how corny and unimaginative is what they call the world’s funniest joke. Well, they do say that the tastes changed across geographical, and supposedly cultural, barriers. This is why they list the jokes that were found funniest in several different regions. All pretty dull and simplistic, if case you’re wondering.

What’s really funny is some of the other things that their research indicate, like for example that jokes with 103 words are especially funny. Now, that’s funny. As is the notion that people the jokes funniest at 6.03pm on October 7 (Alas, no time zone specified in the article). Or the claim that jokes mentioning ducks were seen as funnier than other jokes.

Oh, yes, and they now sell a book with their findings. This may explain a few things… That, and the fact that the raw data is web based votes, and we all know how scientifically sound these are, right?

This thing really makes me sorry I’m not a Catholic.

I mean, look at the guy, what a perfect picture…

And it’s not just the white collar of the priest behind him, that got captured in just the right position. It’s also the look on his face, which I suppose was meant to be an endearing and benevolent smile. Except that it’s, well, not. Heck, if someone would have asked him to put on a scheming evil smile, and if he did his best to comply, he still might have failed to do it so perfectly.

You just gotta admire the sheer amazing timing of this photo. It must have been an act of God. At least, most Catholics should think so. Because there’s no way a good Catholic God should have allowed this to happen if it wasn’t intentional. Heck, I know exactly what fanatic Muslim insurgents are going to use from now on in order to scare away little children.

Can’t you just picture it? Anyone and everyone that opposed the Church is going to love that. It’s scary if you aren’t familiar with the relevant horny-Satan image, and downright evil and nefarious if you do.

Poor Pope.

taken from Amy’s Robot.

[Update: I got a message from someone claiming that:

I am Jewish, I'm American and I take deep offense at what, in my opinion is a blasphemous misinterpretation of the holiday of Purim. It is not only a misinterpretation but such irresponsible explanations engender anti-Semitism.

If you want to give explanations of holidays, I'd suggest giving straight ones.

So, just to make it absoloutly obvious for the extra obtuse, this is supposed to be homour. Yes, it's closely based on the actual Scroll of Esther and the holiday customs, but the tone, and the interpretations, are pure satire/comedy. OK? CLEAR?]

This being the Jewish holiday of Purim now, you might have asked yourself what is this Purim all about, where does it come from, and what does it mean. Right?

Well, wonder no longer, here is the full explanation. First, we’ll go over the story from the scroll of Esther, which details the whole thing, and when we’re done, we’ll cover the ways it’s currently celebrated.

Now, the scroll of Esther leaves a lot of important details out, but have no fear, in here, for the first time, you’ll get a behind-the-scene and honest look.

Who is this Esther you ask, and why is the scroll named after her? Well, Esther is the dumb Jewish blonde which through sheer stupidity and incompetence managed to nearly fail in every opportunity presented to her to prevent a great war. But she’s a beautiful blonde, so as often happen when men write the history, she’s considered one of the heroes of the tale, and gets a lot of the credit.

Now, onward to the story.

It all supposedly took place a long long time ago, in ancient Persia. The king of Persia at the time was called Achashverosh (Yes, it’s a funny name, but nobody told him after he executed the first few). And he had a very beautiful wife (Funny how this is the main criteria for all these ancient kings in choosing wives, isn’t it?) called Vashti.

If this was an episode of the original Star-Trek series, Vashti would be the ensign expendable… Achashverosh was having a large feast, inviting all his important friends from all over. And after a few days of celebrating he thought it may be a good idea to bring in the little misses, to show off to his guests. So he sent for her. Alas, Vashti wasn’t really a party person, and was having a bit of a headache, so she said no. After much discussion with all the advisers, they reached the inevitable conclusion, and he had her executed. No, seriously. He also passed a law that women should do what their husbands tell them, so some would say it wasn’t all bad.

And so started the search for a new queen. Obviously, this time he wanted someone smart, intelligent, and a good conversationalist, to make for a good marriage. No, no, kidding! Got you there for a moment, didn’t I? He wanted someone beautiful. So agents were sent to scour the country, looking for beautiful women. Then these women were pampered for a whole year to make them look pretty, and presented to the king.

Now, you’d expect this to be a huge hit, with everyone sending their cross-eyed daughter as well, in case they’ll get lucky and score the king as a husband. And mostly, that what happened. Kings are always considered a good catch. Now, remember Esther? Well, Esther was different. Maybe her mum dropped her on the head when she was little, or maybe it’s just the blonde thing. In any case, she spent something like four years trying to run away and not get found by the agents. Yes, this also mean the king was so picky that he didn’t find anyone pretty enough for all those years, I guess those Persian women weren’t something to behold…

Well, eventually Esther was caught. In comes the next actor is our story Mordecai. Mordecai was a relative of Esther, and the guy who raised her. Mordecai was also one of those paranoid Jews, who were sure everyone were out to get the Jews, even though at this time nobody really was. So the main advice he had to give Esther was to not tell anyone she’s a Jew. Seriously.

Fast forward a year later. Esther is finally to be presented before the king. Being a petulant girl, she refused to wear the standard perfume and make-up. Luckily, this otherwise pretty stupid act was actually a good move, since after seeing hundreds of heavily perfumed and more heavily made up women, Achashverosh was probably just very happy to see someone with a normal skin tone, and who didn’t stank of myrrh. So he married Esther and made her queen.

She didn’t tell him she was a Jew, of course, so I suppose the marriage wasn’t Jewish. Terrible.

One thing you need to know, is about Mordecai. According to the scroll, the guy was constantly at the palace gate, and wandering around the palace. Most critics take it to mean he was important and respected. A more sensible outlook would be that he was a beggar hobo, but one of those odd characters which goes everywhere, and which everybody knows. This would fit the facts perfectly. Now, at some point during the following years these two servants decided to try and kill Achashverosh. Maybe they were blonde too, but in any case they talked about it at great length, without paying attention to their surrounding, so Mordecai was walking by, and heard them speaking. Being a good citizen, and probably hoping for a warm meal, he reported it. The two servants were caught, and, as you probably guessed, went to meet their makers. Now Esther made sure that the king be aware the credit belongs to Mordecai, and it was even written in the annals of the kingdom. What further did the king do about it? Nothing! Who cares if some hobo saves your life? It’s his duty, after all, no?

Fast forward a little more, and introduce our new actor, Haman. Haman was one of those egotist and ambitious persons, who have enough charisma to make people like and trust them. So he became one of Achashverosh’s advisers, and at some point the head advisor. This is like head vizier, and anyone who have ever watched a Disney movie know how they come out, right? Evil, scheming, and full of himself. Haman fit the bill perfectly. And, as is always the case, the king really listened to him and gave him nearly free reign.

One of the first things Haman did was arrange for a law forcing everyone to bow down to him. It made him feel all important inside. Which takes us back to Mordecai. As we already mentioned, the guy had some odd notions about what being a Jew meant, and decided he won’t be bowing his head to anyone except to god. This annoyed Haman a great deal, but being all important he couldn’t really complain, since people would laugh at him, so he just let it simmer inside, and took it all on his wife.

Well, not entirely. He wanted to get rid of Mordecai. But how do you do it without admitting the hobo gets to you? A problem, indeed. Here comes in the character which isn’t mentioned in scroll, or in any other place. Yes, you get here an exclusive first tale of what really happened. There was a witch involved, you see. An evil witch, scheming mischief throughout the kingdom. She noticed Haman’s malice (Witches are good at that), and knew exactly what to do. So she came over, and suggested a solution. Get rid of all the Jews. All of them, to the last. Since Mordecai is a Jew, that would neatly take care of the problem.

Haman of course liked the idea, and went about it. Now, he didn’t want it to happen too soon, so if anyone saw him talking with the witch, it won’t be apparent. So he decided to cast a random lot. In Hebrew, this can be called a "Pur", and this is why the holiday is called "Purim". Yes, seriously! Absurd, isn’t it? Anyway, he picked a date, and went to the king.

Now the king might refuse if he was told "Listen, I wanna get rid of the Jews, what do you say?", so Haman put a spin on it. He told the king that there are people in his country who plot against him and do not obey his rules. He got the king so worked up about them, that when he offered the customary bribe, the king refused. He gave Haman his signet, and told him to deal with it however he wants to. Remember the signet, it will be important later.

Haman, being like all great viziers too fond of overly elaborate and complex plans, wrote and order for the Jews to be attacked and destroyed on the given date, and sent it throughout the realm.

The Jews heard about it, and were bewildered. It really did came out of nowhere, since nobody had a problem with Jews. Remember, this was not a release of old cultural angers, but rather a revenge against Mordecai that was manipulated and blown out of proportion.

In typical Jewish fashion, Mordecai did what any intelligent men would do when hearing such news. He tore off his clothes, and wore sackcloth and ashes (Probably got them at a sale, and was looking for a good excuse to use them. Who knows?). And this being a grand gesture, the other bewildered Jews followed suit.

But Mordecai wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew the queen is a relative, and as a queen may have an effect on the king. So he approached her, and asked her to talk to the king. Esther, being an excitable blonde, reacted even more dramatically, and in a fit responded that she’ll first go on a fast, and that she won’t (imagine much stomping of feet) talk to the king unless all the Jews do likewise. So they did.

Actually, there was another reason she didn’t want to talk to the kind directly. See, Achashverosh, being an important king, was not to be disturbed. If you approached him without being invited, well, off with your head! Now, a normal beautiful queen would probably have been able to figure out that just wandering near him scantily clothed may get her an invite. If not, it was always possible to send a message. The king was seeing people, like all his advisers, and many servants. But, you know, blonde.

So she fasted three days, to make sure she’ll look haggard instead of beautifully radiant, and then just walked over to him. Luckily, he noticed her before she quite reached him, and invited her to come over. The king was still besotted, so she asked her what she wanted, up to half his kingdom (They always do that, did you notice? No wonder there were all those tiny kingdoms around, everyone getting anything from any king ever was always offered half the kingdom, odd).

What would you have done? Asked to spare the Jews, of course. They weren’t close to being half the kingdom. But Esther, well, blonde. It has been three days, so she didn’t really remember what she wanted, only that she really needed to ask the king for something, and that Haman was somehow involved. Also, she hadn’t eaten for three days, so was thinking about food. So what boon did she ask? That the king and Haman will drop over for dinner. Yes, seriously.

They came for dinner, had lots of wonderful small talk, and at the end of the evening the king again asked her if she wants anything. But she still wasn’t able to really remember, so she just invited the both of them to come again tomorrow evening.

Now, flash back to the undocumented story of the witch. She got her nefarious plot in place, but had one problem. Witnesses. She knew of the trouble brewing, and needed to find a way to make sure Haman would die when everything will fall into place. Come in Haman’s wife Zeresh, which according to the scroll is going to be introduced in the scene later that evening. But this is a little flash back for background. You See, according to the scroll, she was a pompous women as well, who desired the glory and advancement of her husband. This could not be further from the truth. They had ten kids, which she had to raise by herself while he was having fun at the palace. She had to take care of the house. She had to do whatever silly thing her husband demanded, by law. And worst, she had to bow to him all the time, even if she was doing the dishes. She hated the guy’s guts. So a few weeks before this evening she went to look for someone to help her get rid of him. An apothecary to sell her poison, or some such. And the witch found her, and promised to help, without evidence that Zeresh had something to do with it, provided at the right time Zeresh would do as she tells her to.

Back to the scroll time line and documented plot. Haman is just leaving dinner, more full of himself than ever, on account of being invited to eat with the king and queen. And he passes the ever lurking Mordecai, who doesn’t bow. Haman knows what is going to happen to him pretty soon, but he still fumes, especially this night.

The witch makes her move, goes to Zeresh, and instructs her. When Haman comes home, instead of patiently ignoring his usual whines and fuming, she pretends to really care, and suggests a solution. She tells Haman to build a huge gallows, and that later he would find a reason to hang Mordecai there. He was so astounded that his wide suddenly gave him the appreciation he deserved, that it seemed to him like a good idea, instead of as a totally silly one, and promptly arranged for a gallows to be built.

Now, at this night, like many others, Achashverosh couldn’t sleep. So he asked for the annals to be read to him. Usually the parts were selected in random (seriously. Maybe it helped keep him interested). This time, we can say that a certain meddling witch passed certain bribed, and among the randomly selected bits was the not so randomly selected story about how Mordecai saved his life.

And, as expected, he decided that maybe he should do something about it. He was in a good mood himself, after all, and felt magnanimous. But as you may have noticed, he was more accustomed to killing people than in having them honoured, so the next day he called his trusted assistant Haman for consultation.

Now, everyone of you who worked with pompous bosses, or with clients, will agree that they are usually very bad at saying what they really want and need. Achashverosh was no different. Instead of saying "Remember that Mordecai guy who saved my life once? What do you think would be a nice way to show my appreciation, and to make sure that the rest of the population see how magnanimous I am?", he just said "So, Haman, what do you think I should do with a person that I like really want to honour?" . And so, understandably, Haman thought it was all about him, and suggested the should be dressed in all the kings regalia, and paraded throughout the city on the king’s horse by one of the king’s trusted officers.

To which, to Haman’s chagrin, the king replied "Cool, so go do that to Mordecai, will you?". And poor Haman had no choice, and had to parade Mordecai throughout the city. But he knew what was going to happen to Mordecai soon, so this must have been great comfort to him throughout.

Forward to the evening. Another dinner with Esther, Achashverosh, and Haman. This time, Esther nearly managed to collect her wits together, and when the king again asked what is it that she wanted, she asked to spare the lives of her and her people that are being destroyed by an evil person. Now, you all remember that Mordecai told her not to say she was a Jew, so up to this point it never occurred to her it could be a good idea to change that. Ergo, the king looked at her totally stunned, and asked what the heck she was talking about. Esther, being ever vigilant about her priorities, told the king it was Haman, but didn’t quite paid enough attention to mention the whole being a Jew thing and that there is already a decree  against the Jews. As the furious king was wondering what to do about Haman, Haman tried to beg the queen for forgiveness. The king was apparently insanely Jealous, since when he saw Haman holding the queen, he assumed Haman was assaulting her, and got even madder.

At this point another servant, previously primed and prompted no doubt by the witch, mentioned the gallows which were just finished. This seemed perfect to the king, and Haman was hanged. Knowledge of the witch’s involvement went to the grave with him, not to surface again until now.

The next day Mordecai noticed that something is still missing, so he dragged Esther, and they went to talk to the king about that decree. This is where you needed to remember the signet for. Apparently, anything signed with the royal signet cannot be revoked. yes, again, seriously.
I mean, how stupid is that? The king cannot change his mind if he signed something with the signet? And this king? I want to see how long will someone stay alive after telling the king "No frigging way, your highness, your signet is on it, forget about it!"… Not to mention the possibility for conflicting edicts. But in any case, that’s the way it was.

This was all too complicated for poor Achashverosh, who has just lost his head advisor so couldn’t even consult him. Can you guess what he did? Gave the signet to Mordecai, and told him to deal with it in whatever way he wants. Very free and loose with his signet, this Achashverosh dude…

Now, given that much power, many things could have been done. The previous edict, while not revoked, could have been altered. Even something silly like "but you can only try to kill Jews for the first five minutes, and don’t try too hard", or something like that.

Instead, Mordecai chose differently. He arranged for a law allowing the Jews to defend themselves against anyone who would attack them. And notified all the Jews throughout the land about it.

Yes, seriously. Because, of course, otherwise being good citizens, the Jews would have certainly just rolled over nicely and turned the other cheek, no doubt. The entire thing is very unclear. What’s important is that on the day there were fighting throughout the land, many houses were razed, and many people died, both Jews and otherwise. Fun all around.

But Jews survived mostly, so officially they won. The scroll even mentioned that they were generous, and didn’t take spoils from the war. Well, duh! The queen pretty much took care of this for them, in a frenzy for being a nice Jew and giving away to the needy. Trust me, after a little civil war, they were all needy. why object to the spoils going to the crown, if the crown will give them back, eh? In fact, this was so blatant, that tons of gifts were sent, and many delicacies and food items were distributed in the days of wild feasting afterwards.

Oh, yes, and Haman’s sons were hanged as well. Why not, right? I don’t think the daughters were, but nobody paid much attention to daughters anyway these days…

Mordecai was made an advisor to the king (and hopefully gave back the signet, though it’s not explicitly stated), and is remembered as one taking good care of his people. Today we’d say he was robbing the kingdom in the favour of his own constituency, but then he was just a good Jewish guy.

And there concludes the story. On to the customs of the holiday.

The first one is of course lots and lots of partying. You’re supposed to party madly and get so drunk you won’t even be able to tell Mordecai and Haman apart (pretty easy, they both probably look like specks of dust these days). Probably to symbolize the crazy drunkard victory celebrations and non-looting that went after winning, and the victims be damned.

Another one is using a loud and annoying rattler (called gragger in English for some reason I don’t fathom) whenever the name of Haman is mentioned. Officially he is "The Evil Haman", and this is so that we won’t have to hear his name. Yep, Jewish logic again, instead of not saying it, make more noise so it won’t be heard. Of course you have to know when it is said to do that, so you don’t really lose any information. Very bright.

The most important of all is the wearing of costumes. Everybody dresses up. Traditionally there are many Mordecai and Esther outfits, but everything goes. As the years go by, it becomes as commercialized as Halloween, only without the morbid undertones. Whatever is popular for kid’s books and TV shows, or movies, goes.

Then there are the special cookies, called Hamantashen in English. In Hebrew it’s "Ozney Haman", which means Ears of Haman. Someone at some point, maybe after drinking enough alcohol, decided those triangular cookies look like ears. I don’t see it. You make it by making a round thin layer of dough, put filling in the middle, and fold it from three direction so that you get an open triangle with the filling showing in the middle. Poppy seeds are the common filling, but variations abound.

Gifts to the poor are officially another holiday custom. Practically, you don’t see it so much on a personal level. This is of course to celebrate the plunder that was divided after the fighting subsided.

And the "sending gifts of food", in Hebrew it’s "Mishloach Manot", which is like Sending Rations or something of the sort. Basically, you take a bunch of cookies, candies, and small toys, pack them with pretty ribbons, and give them as gifts to friends, or strangers (not much of that going on, except for schools where you sometimes randomly switch between class members). Sadly, the custom is being ruined in recent years by modern and healthy versions of those gift baskets.

And that’s about it. Happy Purim everyone!

This is another one of those things I originally posted elsewhere, but decided to also copy here. The story was very slightly edited to keep her anonymous.

Before I get to the sad tale itself, here are a couple of reviews about it, which made me think that it may merit reposting:

I laughed so hard, I was afraid I was going to wake up my mom (and then I realized she didn’t go to sleep yet. LOL)

Followed by

LOLOLOL, know what you mean, I did wake up my roomy – and she wasn’t happy!! :)

So you see, it has to be good. Has to!

Anyway, here goes:

Well, let me tell you the harrowing tale of how she broke my heart and then forgot all about it. Twice.

We were sitting on some lecture in the university. I won’t mention which since she still has trauma from it, and hate for the explicit names being mentioned. In any case, at some point she came up with some harebrained theory about the effects of global climate conditions, and long-term the climatic behaviour (The lesson was in Economics, it was potentially relevant to the topic discussed at the time).

And she told me to suggest this theory to the lecturer.

Which is when I made my *big* mistake. I said no.

At the time I thought I had a good reason. Her theory made no sense and was obviously wrong. Totally so. Due to that it seemed logical to avoid raising it in class (even though the lecturer was probably dumb enough to consider it).

So, to repeat the sad moment, I said no.

At which point she gave me this gorgeous, but oh so sad, pout, raising tears of sympathy to my eyes. I was overwhelmed by the desire to repent, and suggest her claim to the lecturer, anything to remove the hurt look in her eyes. But before I could do so she told me…

Excuse me for a minute there, I need a short break before I can continue…

She told me… That she didn’t love me anymore.

Now you have to realize that she never did tell me that she loved me before that point. Yet, surely, she cannot stop loving me if she never did, right?

So for the briefest of moments, a mere tiny fraction of time, my heart soared and leaped to unimaginable heights, knowing that I had her love. Only to come crashing and tumbling down, the long long way down, when the realization hit me that she no longer does. Worse, I did not get to bask in the glow of her love while I had it, and only found out about it once it was so abruptly taken away…

My heart, as I said, fell down and hit rock bottom, all in an instant. And if you didn’t know, the preservation of momentum and kinetic energy hold sway even in matters of the heart. Because it soared so high the moment before, the landing was so very hard.

My heart, which I thought so durable up to that moment, shuddered, and broke into billions, nay, trillions, of tiny microscopic pieces, spread all over the place. Many flew so far and wide that I to this day know not where they landed. The rest was spread around me, the glittering dust of my heart that now felt like ashes of despair.

And then she turned around, and we continued with the lesson.

With the utmost investment of will power I managed to hold a semblance of calm, not showing the turmoil raging inside me. I managed to go through the rest of the day, the rest of the following couple of years, in a daze of pain, sorrow, loss, and yearning, while maintaining an amicable façade to all those around.

Then, at some point much later (about two years), while talking with her, she asked if she could ask me to do something. I replied with a flippant "Have I ever said no to you", and as the pain of memory lanced through me, added hurriedly "apart from that last time?".

And she gave me a totally blank and puzzled look. As if to say what one time are you talking about?. And then she really did ask "What one time are you talking about?". I tried to give broad hints, since surely the most tragic event of my life must have left some memorable impression on her. But no.

Eventually, I had to relive the entire terrible moment, retelling the whole story. And as I concluded, and silence filled the room, laying heavily between us she said…

Please give me another moment here to collect myself…

She said in the most light and indifferent tone, "Oh? Really? I don’t remember that at all. Well, never mind, I take that back".
And turned around to go on with what she was doing before.

For a second, it was as if the ashes of my heart where trying once again to string themselves together into a remnant, but fuller remnant, of the whole that once was. She didn’t mean that she didn’t love me after all. But then it hit me that in the same breath she then didn’t mean that she did. And my heart came apart again, not having enough time to glue itself.

Then it became worse. The whole incident meant nothing to her. Nothing.
I was a ruined, devastated, and destroyed man, and she didn’t even notice, didn’t bat an eyelid, didn’t bother remembering.

And life went on. Until a few months later when she again asked me if I can do something for her. And having temporarily repressed the memory of the previous incident, I gave the same answer. And can you guess what she said? Can you? Let me give you a hint… "What one time are you talking about?"…

Yes, she forgot it again! Twice!

And so it stands up to this very day…