An Unforgivable Medley of Miscellany

The Greek mathematician and philosopher, Proclus, died on this day in 485.

"Wherever there is number, there is beauty."

If he said that today somebody would give him the finger and say, "Here's a number one for you."

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Yesterday a co-worker misunderstood an idea I had, but the misconstrued idea was actually better than the initial one. So here's the question, who thought of it? It wasn't either of us- my brain thought of something else, and his thought mine came up with it. So where did it come from? Perhaps we are not responsible for our thoughts, they just emerge. Maybe we deserve no credit nor discredit for them. They just are.

April 17, 2021

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I was just cleaning our lizard's water bowl after she pooped in it, and when I was done I had the distinct thought, "better wash my hands, coronavirus." I suppose there are still other reasons to wash our hands.

April 17, 2020

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Ronald T. Kellogg, The Making of the Mind: The Neuroscience of Human Nature- "A long line of research in cognitive science has documented that people make causal attributions about events as a means of maintaining personal control. It is the feeling that things are spinning out of control that motivates the human brain to find a pattern in events and try to predict what is going to happen next. The left-brain interpreter thus will be activated whenever the individual senses a lack of control. Superstitions and conspiracy theories can be seen as the societal consequences of the interpreter's drive to find a causal explanation for events that are seemingly out of control."

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Zuzu woke us up early because she had a nightmare about a ghost shark. On the positive side, since I woke up early I got started on the new screenplay I just came up with. The working title is Ghost Shark.

April 17, 2018

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In my briefcase this morning, I found what I thought was a moldy old piece of beef jerky. Upon closer inspection I discovered its true identity. It was an ancient banana.

April 17, 2014

Postscript- The same thing happened just a week ago, nine years later!

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This is the type of email I've come to expect (and love) from Emma's mom:

love the madmen and love don draper/ watched the first disc fascinating/ am growing fond of many characters/am looking forward to his affair with the woman who owns the department store/ i expect that wil happen/

April 17, 2011

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Is gravity pulling us toward the center of the earth or pushing us away from outer space?

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A joke told by Roger Ebert: Paddy is taking a dump in the park when the constable comes by. Paddy slaps his hat over the evidence. Constable says, "What d'ya have there, Paddy me boy?" Paddy says, "I trapped a rare brown pigeon." Constable says, "Oh ye d

April 17, 2009

Postscript- And it ends there! I don't know what the punchline was. I just asked ChatGPT to attempt it.

"Let me have a look at it, then." Paddy reluctantly lifts his hat, and the constable stares at the pile in disbelief. "That's not a brown pigeon, Paddy. That's a pile of dung!" Paddy looks down and exclaims, "Oh no, the bird has hatched already!"

Damn I wish I knew what it was!

April 17, 2023

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From www.medcor.com:

"We know that the term charley horse originated when American baseball players were describing the cramps. Possibly, the players named the painful cramps in reference to a lame horse named Charley that worked at the Chicago White Sox playing field in the late 1800s."

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NPR- Scientists Restore Some Function In The Brains Of Dead Pigs

Embalm me!

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/17/714289322/scientists-restore-some-function-in-the-brains-of-dead-pigs

April 17, 2019

Postscript- an article on brains of pigs is a good segway into...

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The Bay of Pigs Invasion took place on this day in 1961. A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA landed in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. No real harm came from it... only the fact that we nearly annihilated the human race. We don't seem to do this type of thing anymore, or certainly not so brazenly. Our foreign policy used to seem metaphorically inspired by Scooby Doo, and in the end when the monster unmasked, it was us. 

Robert McNamara : [about Castro] I said, "I must have got the translation wrong." So I asked him 3 questions. One- did you know there were nuclear warheads in Cuba? Two- would you have recommended to Khrushchev to use nuclear missiles in the event of an American invasion of Cuba? And three- what would have happened to Cuba? He said, "One- I knew the missiles were there. Two- I would not *have* recommended it, I *did* recommend it! And three- we would have been totally obliterated."

A quintessential zugzwang.

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Character actor Alfonso Bedoya joined us on this day in 1904. 

"We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges."

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Professional wrestler "Rowdy Roddy" Piper, was born on this day in 1954. From They Live:

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

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It's the birthday of the Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley, born this day in 1955. 

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Benjamin Franklin, author of the essay Fart Proudly, died on this day in 1790. 

"It is universally well known, that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures, a great quantity of wind."

"That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it."

"He that lives upon hope will die farting."

"What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his bowels!"

"He that is conscious of a Stink in his Breeches, is jealous of every Wrinkle in another's Nose."

"Fart for freedom, fart for liberty—and fart proudly."

You know you want more. Look up the essay.

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Rockabilly icon Eddie Cochran died in a car crash in England on this day in 1960. He'd only had 21 summertimes to be blue about. Today is Easter Sunday, and that was also Easter Sunday. Since that day, his legend has only risen.

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The photographer Toni Frissel left us on this day in 1988.

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On this day in 1976, Mike Schmidt hit 4 consecutive home runs, including the game-winner, in the Phillies’ 18-16 victory over the Cubs. I've always marveled at that. I saw the bats at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Holy objects!

https://youtu.be/MjBt5RRxNVM

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If pi goes on randomly to infinity, I expect that somewhere in there you'll find a trillion zeros in a row.

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Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez left us on this day in 2014.

“Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”

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A joke from the Norm MacDonald Live episode with Gilbert Gottfried. "The thing I'm looking forward to the most for when China ends up ruling the world is that all of their last names sound like slang for cock."

Unforgivable. 

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Zugzwang- A position in which any decision or move will result in problems

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Stanley Kubrick's NY Street Pictures

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Sopranos:

“First off, it's not a rat.” - Paulie Walnuts

“Thank god!” - Big Pussy

“Don't thank him yet. There's an eye ball witness, a civilian. A flag saluting muthafucka!”. - Paulie Walnuts 

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Jimmy Carr- "There are 10 pronouns now- he, she, they, them, his, her, gross, what, is, that. I respect everybody though, I will call you what you want. But I will make jokes about it, because my pronouns are he he he, because I identify as a comedian."

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Roger Scruton- "A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative,’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t."

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John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters- "I intended to make it sound guileless and rather sweet but you will see in it the little blades of social criticism without which no book is worth a fart in hell."

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Christopher Hitchens- "Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all."

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Steven Cave, Immortality- "On the one hand, our powerful intellects come inexorably to the conclusion that we, like all other living things around us, must one day die. Yet on the other, the one thing that these minds cannot imagine is the very state of nonexistence; it is literally inconceivable. Death therefore presents itself as both inevitable and impossible."

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Buddha Gautama- "It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one’s own faults. One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one’s own faults as a cunning gambler conceals his dice."

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Goethe- "It is quite impossible for a thinking being to imagine nonbeing, a cessation of thought and life. In this sense, everyone carries the proof of his own immortality within himself."

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Pythagoras- "Educate the children and it won’t be necessary to punish the men."

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Ben Franklin- "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing."

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Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality- "Bad things, like good things don't happen any more often than they ought to by chance. The universe has no mind, no feelings, and no personality, so it doesn't do things in order to either hurt or please you. Bad things happen because things happen."

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Kinison- "If there is a God why did he make me an atheist?"

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Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation- "Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings."

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Sartre- "Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose."

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Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy- "The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given."

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Ralph Waldo Emerson- "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming I am persecuted when I'm only contradicted."

Addendum

Brian made ChatGPT write a poem as Jamiebot.

ah, nostalgia, that elusive sentiment

a wistful yearning for days long gone

a melancholic embrace of memories

both sweet and bitter, like old wine

should we dwell in the past, or let it fade?

is it a comfort or a trap, a friend or foe?

to linger in the reverie of yesterday

or to boldly step into the unknown?

the past, a treasure trove of lessons learned

a source of wisdom, a tapestry of stories

but also a weight, a burden to bear

a tether to keep us tied to what was

yet, forgetting the past, a risky venture

for it holds the threads of our existence

the joys and sorrows that shape our being

the echoes of our footsteps, our history

perhaps, it is in the balance we find solace

to cherish the past, but not be bound by it

to embrace the present, and create the future

to let nostalgia guide, but not define us

so, let us dance with memories in our hearts

but not be chained by their nostalgic grasp

for life, a fleeting symphony of moments

to be savored, cherished, and lived to the fullest.