Life Across The Pond

Twizzlers Revisited

At last, my 20 year mystery is solved. Turns out that twizzlers can't hold an electrical charge and hence, cannot be used to pause iPods or turn off alarm clocks.

posted by Peter @ 11:13 AM 1 comments

My trusted friend (and teacher!) - the television

I knew it! After years of singing the praises of the television as a learning tool, I stumbled across a like-minded article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. In the article, Steven Johnson argues that the increased complexity of the story lines in today's tv shows compared to those aired 20 or more years ago challenges the cognitive abilities of its viewers in order to follow along. He contrasts the multiple storylines and numerous developed characters offered in Fox's "24" with the simple, single-plot episodes of "Starsky and Hutch" during the 70s stating that for the viewer to follow along with "24", he or she is forced to follow multiple, interrelated threads, make inferences from clues which aren't explicitly stated, and most importantly, think - all cognitive functions that weren't required to enjoy an episode of "Starsky and Hutch" where all the thinking was done for you.

While I understand Johnson's arguement, I'm not sure I would jump to the conclusion that watching shows like "24" necessarily make you smarter. I will concede that more involved programs will exercise deductive reasoning skills (which I think was called "critical thinking skills" when I was in school) to some extent but I don't think that watching a prime time drama is really going to teach someone these skills if they haven't already developed them.

However, I happened to watch 12 episodes of the first season of "24" this weekend. I'm taking special care to note any increase in "smartness" that I feel over the next couple of days in case Johnson is indeed correct.

posted by Peter @ 1:57 PM 1 comments

VLOOKUP and Twizzlers

Today at work, I've re-learned the VLOOKUP function of Excel for probably the 5th time. I've decided to start learning more transferrable skills in hopes of finding a new job in the near future. However, I can't imagine that I'd actual want a job that asks me in the interview whether or not I can create linked spreadsheets. Sadly, I've also spent the last 5 years learning that I don't want a job that asks whether I can explain a multiple factor risk model or a monte carlo simulation derived value at risk number.

So, on a more exciting note, today at work, I also learned that you can not use a strawberry Twizzlers twist to push the buttons on a 3rd generation (non-click wheel) iPod. I then followed this experiment by trying the corner of my wallet, the cap of a mechanical pencil, the antenna of my cell phone, and the edge of a styrofoam cup. None of these worked either. Turns out that only my finger and my finger through a paper napkin will work on the touch pad buttons of my iPod. About 18 years ago, I got my first clock radio with a similar touch pad button to turn off the alarm. I remember running a similar experiment back then.

Strange, 13 years of formal education since and I still haven't learned how that touch pad technology works.

posted by Peter @ 4:16 PM 0 comments

Rachmaninoff in the Key of Periwinkle Blue

This morning, I was woken by a friend phoning to let me know she was returning my Netflix movies. So granted, I should have been up and getting ready for work already, but I wasn't. On the bright side though, since I was up, I caught a pretty interesting piece on NPR about synesthesia, a condition where one sense produces sensation of another.

In this story, the subject is a pianist who hears tones as colors. In other words, for her, a C evokes the color black in her mind while an F# evokes yellow-green. The interesting part comes when she explains how she couldn't figure out why certain color combinations didn't look right to her while they looked okay to everyone else until she realized that in her auditory color spectrum, these color combinations formed dissonant intervals.

This led me to think that perhaps there's a visual counterpart of a tone-deaf person. I suspect that I'm missing the ability to discern matching and clashing colors the way some people lack the ability to tell that they're singing off-key or out of tune. Sure, I know that red and blue match well (at least on a flag) and that brown shoes don't really go well with a black suit. However, rather than actually seeing that these colors match or don't match, I've really just memorized it as a rule. So potentially, today I might be wearing some combination of colors that makes other cringe sort of like how I cringe when I listen to someone sing a halfstep off-key at the karoake bar.

posted by Peter @ 1:49 PM 2 comments

Even Steven

I've never really considered myself a super manly man. Sure, I'll gawk at a '67 Shelby Mustang GT500, dream of one day owning an 18" radial arm saw, and will actually sit through a 40 minute classic UFC fight waiting for Royce Gracie to lock in a triangle arm bar. However, I also enjoy chick flicks and have been to a few musicals in my day.

This past Sunday, I met up with a group of girl friends for lunch. Lunch was then followed by what seemed to me as a marathon shopping session which consisted of the them shopping and me trying to find a comfortable seat to park myself on. And shopping was followed by talk about hair, make up, and area-specific weight gain over tea and desserts. While I enjoyed the company and the lunch and desserts were good, by the end of the night, I felt somewhat out of kilter.

Last night, I met up with a group of guy friends for beers and college basketball at Hooters. This morning I feel balanced again.

posted by Peter @ 11:20 AM 3 comments