Author Archives: Rob MacD

or “The Voyager Probe Has Left The Building”

Yes, after more than 26 years and 8 billion miles of hurtling through space, the Voyager space probe is leaving our solar system. How can we put that in perspective, in terms of how that relates to the rest of the universe? Here’s one explanation that caught my imagination:

If the universe was 100km long, then Voyager has so far travelled the grand total of 10 millimetres.

Also, the nearest stars to us are multiple light-YEARS away from us. So far, Voyager has travelled one-half of one light DAY.

Thanks to Steven Garrity for pointing me to the theory of everything. Now I’m looking for a spoon to scoop up my brain, since it’s leaked out of my ears upon watching the 3 fantastic hours.
String Theory theorizes that *everything* is based on, and created from, infintesimally small strings of energy. How small? It’s impossible to imagine. However, imagine that an atom (already too-impossibly small to imagine) is the size of our universe (already too-impossibly large to imagine). A single string would be the size of a tree in this universe-sized atom. That’s small.
String Theory was discovered/invented/imagined so that a single, unifying mathematical equation or formula could be used to explain our universe. The problem with String Theory is that it cannot be proven or disproven. Scientists are excited about it because the math seems to indicate that it’s viable, even if they are forced to invent/imagine a universe in which 11 dimensions must exist for string theory to work.
Of course, after watching the program, I am now an expert, and have a valid opinion on the whole thing. My opinion is this: String Theory is as valid to string theorists as the existence of God is to Christians. It is no more factual and likely than any other philosophy of existence. To me, there are simply too many leaps of faith, assumptions, and if-then scenarios required of string theory, many of which are unprovable, to put my faith in it.
If this kind of stuff interests you in the least, I highly recommend watching this. It’s mind-blowingly fascinating.

or “The Voyager Probe Has Left The Building”

Yes, after more than 26 years and 8 billion miles of hurtling through space, the Voyager space probe is leaving our solar system. How can we put that in perspective, in terms of how that relates to the rest of the universe? Here’s one explanation that caught my imagination:

If the universe was 100km long, then Voyager has so far travelled the grand total of 10 millimetres.

Also, the nearest stars to us are multiple light-YEARS away from us. So far, Voyager has travelled one-half of one light DAY.

So far, I’ve managed to identify 42 of the 95 pop icons from the quiz at this site. It’s an .xls file, so you need some type of Excel program in order to open it.
Some of them are pretty tough and obscure. The majority are music related, with a slight 80’s and British slant to it. One of them is Rick Astley, for cripe’s sake, so what does that tell ya?

In reference to this story about what Prince Charles did or didn’t do, I would just like to make it clear that I also heartily disclaim any knowlings or involvementations of any and all such events which have and/or have not taken place; also I impunicate myself from any and all such events which may have taken place but not with my direct involvementary physication or brainial attunedness; or of any and all such events which may have taken place, and of which I was informationally implicatory to, yet moralistically disinclinated from.

That being said, does anyone have any idea what Prince Charles supposedly was involved in?

The first year of 24, I was sucked into it big time. I could look past the wonky time-jumps (5 minutes to drive from downtown L.A. to the outskirts of town?) and illogical plots and motivations, and just enjoy the action-packed goodness that year 1 of 24 provided. I even enjoyed the situations that Jack Bauer’s daughter Kim got herself into.
The second year of 24, I was sucked into it even bigger time. The illogicals were still there, but the energy and excitement was elevated greatly. The Year-2 “Kim” plotline was ridiculously awful but not to the point where it could derail the show entirely. Scenes with Kim merely had to be tolerated last year.

The following was written between 10:30am and 10:33am:

10:30 tick tick tick tick…
So far this year (granted, only 2 episodes into the 24), the show has been slow to get going, and I am skeptical that it will ever catch fire like it did last year. Both Karyn and I screamed in agony when we saw that Kim was back and inexplicably working as a computer/terrorist expert at CTU. So far, her storyline continues her penchant for whiny, self-absorbed petulance, and this year, it’s really dragging me down.
10:32 tick tick tick tick…
But I’ll still watch and expect that it will get more exciting than it’s been so far. I think the problem this year is that the time-gimmick doesn’t seem to play a part yet. That is, the urgency of time hasn’t yet emerged in the storyline. I expect it will. I expect I’ll continue to hate any scene in which Kim is involved. And I expect you will be able to guess where I am every Tuesday night at 10pm for the next 22 weeks or so.
…tick tick tick tick 10:33

Here are some absolutely awful album covers.

I must say that Julie’s 16th birthday doesn’t look like it’s a great day.

Parity (through the salary-cap structure) in the NFL means no teams dominate anymore. Means that there still can be some god-awful teams, but that the rest tend to rise to about the same level of quality and ability. It means that it’s that much harder to pick who’s going to win each week.

At least that’s what I’m blaming this week’s abysmal record on. Usually, I manage to hover around 60% accuracy. This week, though, my picks fell apart big time.

Out of 14 games played this weekend, I only picked 4 winners correct. Horrendous.

My Toin-Coss experiment, however, managed to get 7 right. 50%. Just what one would expect if winning was a random event. Which, in the NFL, it seems to becoming.

Next week, though, I suck it up and make some more picks. Forget about going against the randomness of coin-flipping. Next week, I take on a babe in the woods. Next week, I go up against my son and his NFL-innocent picks.

Okay, I’ve been reading (to the limit of my comprehension, it seems) responses here to the following puzzle:

You are in hell and facing an eternity of torment, but the devil offers you a way out, which you can take once and only once at any time from now on. Today, if you ask him to, the devil will toss a fair coin once and if it comes up heads you are free (but if tails then you face eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve). You don’t have to play today, though, because tomorrow the devil will make the deal slightly more favourable to you (and you know this): he’ll toss the coin twice but just one head will free you. The day after, the offer will improve further: 3 tosses with just one head needed. And so on (4 tosses, 5 tosses, ….1000 tosses …) for the rest of time if needed. So, given that the devil will give you better odds on every day after this one, but that you want to escape from hell some time, when should accept his offer?

The replies have gotten over my head somewhat, but I’m wondering if they are all missing the boat on what the answer is. Or do I just not understand probability mathematics?

It would seem to me that you should take the devil’s offer on the very first day. Because wouldn’t your odds remain the same – 50% – each day, regardless of how many flips of a coin you get each day? Isn’t it incorrect to make the assumption ‘if I have x number of flips today, my chances are greater that one of them will be heads’? Don’t you have to take each flip individually, as a separate entity unto itself? And don’t the odds remain the same – 50% – for each flip?

In other words: with one coin flip, there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll turn up heads. In a thousand coin flips, there’s also a 50/50 chance that each flip will turn up heads. Am I wrong in assuming that your odds don’t improve the more times you flip a coin?

If I am wrong, then am I also wrong in my assumption that the 649 Atlantic from Atlantic Loto is a rip-off? They are selling you the notion that because it’s only played in Atlantic Canada, you have a better chance of winning (winning a much smaller jackpot, by the way), when in fact, you still have to match 6 of 49 numbers. They (or, we the gullible buyers) incorrectly imply that you are competing against fewer people so your chance of winning is greater. But you’re not competing against others. Your competing against the odds of matching 6 of 49 numbers. So, your chance of winning the 649 Atlantic is as slim as winning the national 649. Or am I wrong on that too?

That is the day I can expect to die, according to The Death Test. I will be 75 years old. There is a 40% chance my death will be from cancer or heart attack. 10% chance that it’ll be from alien abduction. 7% chance that either loneliness or auto-fellatio will be the culprit.

Personally, If I have to go then, auto-fellatio seems like the preferred method.