Month: May 2019

O Poet! my Poet! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
   Here Poet! dear teacher!
            Your words live in my head!
                  It is some dream that on this earth,
                        You’ve long been cold and dead.

Today is the 30th day of the 5th month of the year, and also the 150th day of the year. If you multiply the day of the month (30) by the number of the month (5), the result is the number of days in the year so far (150).

How rare an event is this? Is this something we can say is true for many days of the year? Obviously it is true for all 31 days in the month of January, but that’s a sort of degenerate case.

Not counting January, how many days in the year have this unusual numerical property?

Let’s hearken back to a time pre-millennial
For today is a calendar date most centennial
When Eddington went on the trip of all trips
To Príncipe, where he measured the total eclipse
Which led to a truth most perennial

‘Twas a topic, they say, of some sensitivity
Noted physicists felt extreme negativity
Toward Einstein, whose spirits were certainly lifted
When all of the stars on the photo-plate shifted
Which confirmed, for all time, relativity

Yes, in case you were wondering, as we all watch the daily outpouring of idiocy, the thought has indeed occurred to me: Our so-called “president”, and the current U.S. “administration”, is in fact a parody created by Mad Magazine.

The only thing that puzzles me is this: Has Mad Magazine ever sunk to this level of juvenalia? I would have thought that even they would have had more dignity than this.

Alas, I have a suspicious feeling that if Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Gaines were alive today, they’d be turning in their graves — not from despair, but from jealousy. It has taken more than half a century, yet finally somebody has succeeded in creating a parody that is ridiculous beyond even their wildest dreams.

Is there one here among us, who dislikes the tea fungus?
How lucky for me, to drink kargasok tea
I hear Titus Andronicus drank fungus japonicus,
And down in the Congo they like to sip hongo
In old Vietnam they’re enjoying teeschwamm
Meanwhile in Madras they drink loads of teekwass
And the knights toast their leige with a pint of cajnij
Whereas in Macao they all drink fine haipao
After which thereupon they will take some kwassan
While somewhere in Toronto they will serve you spumonto
Where a start-up (a Newco) prefers fresh tschambucco
And sometimes for thrills they will try wunderpilz
So perhaps it would suit ya to drink some kombucha

talking it all through
won’t always solve the problem
but it couldn’t hurt

At a meeting the other day at our lab, one of our invited guests was Professor Hiroshi Ishii from the MIT Media Lab. After experiencing our co-located VR technology, he issued the following challenge: How can we know when our technology has really succeeded?

But Hiroshi went further than that. What he was really seeking was a clear and concise answer.

So he looked at everyone around the table, and challenged us to convey our answer in the form of a haiku. I thought this was a very fair test, and I gave him the following seventeen syllable response:

      i foresee a day
      when we’ll use our tech within
      a meeting like this

At the moment I am riding on a train backward. The train is going one way, whilst I am facing the opposite way.

It’s definitely a different perspective. Instead of focusing on things that have not yet happened, you have the luxury to ponder where you have been, to take a few moments to savor the experience.

Sure, it is inarguably true that when you are in this position on a train, you can’t quite see where you are going. But the nice thing about riding on a train backward is that you can always see where you have been.

Looking back on what I have just written, I realize that I am on a train of thought. I will take a few moments to savor the experience.

Suppose you could randomly insert as many extra hours as you wanted into your day — for example to make those pesky deadlines. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, doesn’t it?

But suppose this gift came at a high price: For every extra hour you get now, two hours get subtracted off the end of your life.

Would you go for it? Or would you balk at the steep interest rate?

For me, just knowing such a deal was available would make me think long and hard about how I spend my time. Rather than accepting the offer, I think I’d end up spending my existing hours more efficiently.

One day, hopefully a long time from now, I’m sure I would thank me.

(last name first)

---

Fly, May		She’s too flighty to last long.
Fold, Manny		He’s all surface.
Gagger, Lolly		She’s always late.
Gamesh, Gil		This kid’s got an epic story.
Gory, Ali		He isn’t what he seems.
Gram, Ana		She reminds me of Mara Ang.
Guard, Van		He’ll be first in his class.
Ho, Ida		She is always in a state.
Idian, Flor		I like her tan.
Ificent, Mal		He’s a bad kid.
Light, Skye		She’s extremely bright.
Lightful, Dee		I really like this one!
Livit, Glen		I think he’s Scotch.
Mander, Jerry		He’s all over the place.
Manity, Hugh		He’s just like everyone else.
Metric, Barry		Kid can’t take the pressure.
Munn, Otto		This guy’s a couch potato.
Nomial, Polly		She loves math.
O’Bite, Gig		He’s got quite a memory.
Oh, Pattie		She likes hanging out outdoors.
Ovan, Dennis		Is he a Neanderthal, or what?
Pyre, Em		She’s got ambition.
Ramony, Pat		I hear he inherited a fortune.
Russe, Bella		Is that a Russian accent?
Shire, Devon		I love her accent.
Stick, Joy		She’s so controlling.
Tard, Leo		He just came here from the gym.
Tedd, Jill		I hear her boyfriend dumped her.
Torius, Vic		This one’s a winner.
Tosterone, Tess		She’s a tough one.
Trope, Zoe		She keeps going in circles.
Tucky, Ken		He’s from the South.
Uflect, Jen		She’s so polite!
Undrum, Ken		This one’s a puzzle.
Vation, Sal		He’s very religious.
Walker, Jay		He never follows the rules.
Ward, Lee		Ugh, I can smell him from here.
Warm, Luke		Don’t know if I like this guy.
Winkle, Perry		He’s always blue.
Yuery, Jan		She’s just starting the year.
Yurism, Ann		She gives me high blood pressure.