Prohibition

You sometimes read about unfortunate people who, during Prohibition, drank nail polish, or rubbing alcohol, or antifreeze. I suppose they were in withdrawal, and needed something to substitute for alcohol, even if they often died. But what gave them that stupid idea? I'm going to guess that your average 1920 alcoholic doesn't know enough about chemistry to realize that ethylene glycol can substitute for alcohol in some neurochemical etc.

Did he just get desperate, and in the throes of DT's, start stumbling around the house, drinking anything chemically-smelling that he could find? Rubbing alcohol smells kind of like liquor, I guess. Why didn't Mr. Alcoholic try drinking the bleach, or the Lysol? Maybe he did, and we just never heard of it.

When Prohibition was enacted, did the major newspapers run a feature (in the "Life" section) about which household products were least fatal? They're all pretty fatal. A few mouthfuls of methanol is deadly, and no true alcoholic is going to stop after the first swig.

Maybe it was spread by word of mouth. Someone drank a whole bottle of antifreeze, didn't die, and suddenly everyone was doing it. That doesn't explain where he got the idea to drink the antifreeze in the first place. Maybe he was an alcoholic doctor? Maybe he was just a pioneer, one of those half-crazy people who goes where destiny takes him. It is thanks to unsung heroes like him that we know: Antifreeze is slightly potable.

"Duke Philips is not himself. He has been mixing Nyquil and Dayquil"

I have a cold! Me! And apparently, it's attacking the part of my brain that likes to blog. Let's get this over with.

Things I did while I was gone:

• Fell down in the snow
• Twice
• Ate a tiny hamburger
• Fell down in the hallway

Okay, you're all caught up. Just remember, if your life isn't being lived at a mile a minute, you're not me.

I Ask the Hard Questions

Why are cathode-ray tube monitors never black, and why are LCD monitors never beige?

Instant Coffee

I guess this is becoming one of those food blogs I keep hearing about. First milk, and now coffee. Stay tuned for what will doubtless be my upcoming article on cornmeal. (Sneak preview: Not as good as flour.)

Instant coffee is the bomb. I'm not afraid to say it. Yes, it's not as "classy", or "good" as the fancy Hawaiian coffee that you like to swill. But you can't really afford that anyway. I guarantee that it's at least as good, cup for cup, as Folgers, or some other crummy coffee, and not much more expensive, but so much more versatile.

For one thing, you can add it to baked goods. Of course, you can brew coffee, and add the resulting liquid to your cake, but what if your cake has no water in it? What if the only liquid is eggs? Instant coffee is the only way to get a coffee-flavored cake. What if you are making tiramisu, and need intense coffee syrup? You can't brew ten cups of coffee in a cup of syrup. Instant coffee again.

And it's good for drinking, too. Brewing strong coffee is annoying. You need a minimum of water to dissolve all the coffee efficiently. Brewed coffee only gets so strong. But triple strength instant coffee is a tablespoon away. Even better, you don't need boiling water to make instant coffee. About 1/5 of the time, I burn my tongue when I can't wait any longer. But instant coffee dissolves in water that's merely hot, or in milk for that matter. I may just be reiterating the main selling point of instant coffee, but it bears repeating. Coffee when you want it is not a trivial thing.

Everything Old is New Again

I had a glass of milk today, for the first time in 10 years. I had thought it was disgusting, but milk is actually pretty good. If you ever find yourself in this position, my advice is to go for it. Otherwise, you might have a day so boring that you couldn't even say that you had a glass of milk. I know I almost did.

Campaign Blogger

If you've been following the news and the internet at the same time, you probably know there was a flap about some "campaign bloggers" for some presidential candidate or another. Words were said, feelings were hurt, but at the end of the day, we all learned a lesson and had a metaphorical, political hug.

One question lingers though. "Campaign blogger"? Is this a necessary part of a campaign apparatus? I don't go to candidates' websites. Nobody goes to candidates' websites. Who goes to their websites? Only wieners. This is a transparent attempt to look cool, and I am not interested. In 20 years, we are going to wonder how we could be so faddish, and it is mostly your fault, John Edwards.

Or maybe the campaign sideshow paradigm needs to go still farther. Maybe Barack Obama needs a Campaign Molecular Gastronomer. Mitt Romney is way ahead of us with the MySpace page, but perhaps Giuliani can catch up with a Campaign Flickr page (featuring mostly baby animals.)

What about in the past? Would Al Gore have pulled it off if he had had a Campaign Reality TV Show? I think John Anderson could have improved his chances with a Campaign Arcade Game. Did Thomas Jefferson have a Campaign Pamphleteer? Was he censured by the Federalist press for using foul language? Those pamphleteers, man. It's almost not worth hiring them, with all the oppo research Adams' people do.

Probability

What is it for something to be probable? This is a question that is probably all over the philosophy journals, but I don't have a very good idea of how to look up philosophy papers by topic. So let's reinvent the wheel, and investigate what probability is.

It's not an easy question. First, let's decide (1) whether we're talking about the probability of a single event occurring, or (2) the probability of, say, random event E occurring N times out of M. In the latter case, all we can say is that if the probability of event E occurring N times out of M is N, then event E is most likely to happen N times. This has some implications, of course; if you are in a gambling pool, bet on N. But what it does not do is reduce probability to anything. All we can say is that there is some probability, Q, of E happening N times (and some probability Q1 of E happening N-1 times...). We have changed the second problem for the first.

So let's look at the first problem. What is it for a single, one-time event to be probable? For instance, it's possible that an asteroid will hit the earth in 2012. (possibility is its own problem, but I'm satisfied there's a good explanation for what it is.) We universally agree that this asteroid impact is improbable, but what do we mean by that?

Perhaps we mean that the smart money is on the asteroid not hitting. That if (A) a million people bet against the asteroid hitting, and (B) a million people bet on its hitting, then in 2013, then (A) will be richer. But that's not necessarily true. If the asteroid doesn't hit, then (A) will make money, but if it does hit (and it is possible), then (B) will be richer. So all we can say is that (A) will probably come out ahead, but that doesn't help at all.

Do we want to say that there are more possible worlds in which the asteroid does not hit than in which it hits? That would be weird. First of all, is there a finite number of possible worlds? Doubtful. If not, of course, "60% of all possible worlds" doesn't mean anything. So assume there is. The trouble is, if physics is determinate (yes, quantum mechanics, but that has no effect on an asteroid in space) then in all possible worlds, the fact of the matter is that the asteroid will or won't hit the Earth. At best, there are a few possible worlds in which billions of rogue neutrinos knock the meteor off course, but the probability of that happening has nothing to do with our intuitive estimation of the probability of impact.

It seems more likely that the belief that the asteroid won't hit is based on some complete guesses. Something like this: "The asteroid won't strike the Earth unless there is a star at point S to deflect it towards us. We can't detect star S, because the moon is in the way, so we have to guess whether it exists. So, uh, say that the probability that star S exists is 1%. Done!"

Some astronomer is going to have to correct me on the details, but I'm sure all of our odds-making works kind of like this. So-and-so will happen unless X and Y and Z, or W and V happen. And that may be true, but what are the probabilities of X etc? We guess. Most likely, our guesses are based on the outcome of similar cases in the past -- if it was later discovered that 1% of postulated stars behind the moon exist, then run with that.

So we reduced the first question to the second. This is not progress. It's frustrating too, because probability is a real thing. The smart money is on the asteroid not hitting. And I say this as a man who hates astronomy.

Carpets

Or, Make a Compelling Argument For Them. Carpets are one of the strangest interior-decoration mainstays there is, and I don't use that designation lightly. Why would you cover the floors in your house with carpets? Especially wall-to-wall carpets? Not too many good reasons. Maybe if you want a colorful floor, the only way to achieve that is with rugs, but come on. Nobody wants a colorful floor. A good interior decoration scheme lifts the eye up, away from the floor, and towards the majesty of God.

The most popular answer I have received is, carpets keep your feet warm. Walking on a bare wood floor is cold! That is probably true, if it's a cold day out. But that fact cuts both ways. Carpets keep your feet hot if it's a hot day. Your floor, that huge heat sink, is inches away, but you are covering it up with the thickest insulation you can find.

Moreover -- keep your feet warm? What the heck? Wear socks. Wear slippers or shoes. I get cold feet too, but I also don't lose much heat through them. With socks and shoes on, I lose practically none. Yes shoes track mud, but you could wear slippers inside, like the Japanese. Or, since you don't have carpets, you don't really have a problem. Bare floors are easy to sweep, and bare feet are gross. They're ugly and the best times of my life have been spent with socks on. Try it. I am sure you will love wearing socks.

Are there any other benefits to carpets? I am accepting nominations. You already know what's wrong with carpets. They trap grit and dirt and smells, they get stained and burned and soaked, they conceal thumbtacks, they are attractive places for cats to pee, and they are just generally not useful, because your feet are not going to get any warmer. It's a blood circulation problem, you know.

Astronomy Log

3:56:04, 2/5/07

1)

Did stars always twinkle? I know what they say, but for the first 21 years of my life, I never noticed them winking in and out. Now it is twinkle city down here. Is this something I should be concerned about?

2)

I saw a shooting star tonight for the first time ever. It was bright orange, 2 degrees long, and moving half a degree per second. It was pretty, but I was afraid that I was being hoaxed somehow. On further reflection, I don't think I have anything to worry about. More details forthcoming when I learn to care about astronomy.*

*Never.

New From Wikipedia

Mathematical mixed metaphors:

"The ant goes under this archway along the dotted green path. Then the ant passes through a surface belonging to the same archway (a "passage barrier"), like a ghost passing through a wall, then walks along the inside surface of another tentacle -- a "passage" -- which feeds into the cave entrance which the ant previously walked through. Now the ant walks along the yellow path (inner surface) towards the root of the "tentacle" which leads directly into the inner chamber. The ant walks in the inner chamber towards the bottom and lands in the same point where it started, but oriented inwards."

The Spaghetti Laboratory

You know I love pasta shapes. Most people do, judging by the huge variety sold. But we could be taking our noodle technology so much farther. After all, m0st strains of pasta date back hundreds of years, to little Calabrian villages where the only technology was old woman hands. Pasta-extruding machines have helped us achieve angel-hair levels of thinness (I forget. Which is considered better? Coarse hair or fine hair? I could go either way.) but those machines are just glorified meat grinders.

We live in a modern society. We can do better. I don't believe that the composition of normal spaghetti-type pasta doesn't allow for more slimming. Capellini is pretty sturdy, all things considered. You can rattle a box in the store, and place it at the bottom of your shopping cart, and most of the noodles will remain intact. With gentle handling, even thinner pasta would survive. And if you used science, you could probably re-engineer the noodle recipe to allow for extra sturdiness. Carbon nanotubes? Yum.

But diameter is not all. It must be possible to make pasta in the shape of a Klein bottle. Boil them plain, or stuffed. For that matter, how about Moebius strip fettucini? I know we already have very long noodles, but I don't think anyone has tried curving the noodles back on themselves, to make them circular. They would have to have a smaller diameter than a large pot -- otherwise, you couldn't cook them -- but I think it would be a good effect.

Man realized a long time ago that pasta tastes boring. If he tried to circumvent that problem by inventing interesting shapes to please the mind, then why should we abandon that project? We live in a fast-paced society, and even the little bow-tie pastas are ashes in our mouths. If our malaise can't be cured with technological, scientific pasta... well we might as well give up the whole civilization project, because this is what we have been striving for, perhaps without even knowing it.

I Have No Class

Now that Molly Ivins is dead, the world is a little less overrated. This is a person whose greatest contribution to political thought was to call George Bush "Shrub". That's not even a pun. That's, like, a half-pun. Where is the market for this stuff? Will Rodgers did it, and now we've got Jim Hightower and Garrison Keillor (when he is not engaged in his culte de moi on A Prarie Home Companion) sometimes gets into it. Ann Richards took it to the governor's mansion, so it must have some selling power.

But really, who wants to hear some folksy guy's politics? If I want to hear someone from Texas -- and I don't -- I'd rather hear about cleaning guns or eating dirt or something. Whatever it is Texas does especially well. I do not want to hear about your legendary dislike of George Bush, colored by your colorful local color. A lot of people are liberal. One of them is me. I get it.

Wozzeck

If a healthy person stopped eating anything but powdered starch, or sugar (i.e. nothing but carbohydrates) what would he die of first? The vitamin deficiencies that people get most often, they get because those vitamins are hard to come by. For instance, vitamin E is everywhere in nature, and people almost never die of deficiency.

But suppose someone cut vitamins and minerals (and protein and fat) out of his diet altogether. Would he die of protein deficiency? I don't think protein deficiency even has a name. Is there such a thing as fat deficiency? I guess you could calculate how fast each nutrient is used in the body, and how much we start with, and extrapolate, but the curve would probably be non-linear in a dying man. I cannot believe that this has not been studied in rats.