Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Rule No. 253 (borrowed from Esquire)

If you see a line outside a club or bar, before you queue up, count the number of men wearing striped button-down shirts. If that count numbers at least 75% of all sausages in line, move on.[1] That club screams "tools only."

[1] This rule does not apply to anyone holding an M.B.A., currently enrolled in business school, or planning to attend a business school.

Monday, October 03, 2005

The Talented Mr. Linkly

No, I have nothing better to do with this space than to pass off links that will open up whole new worlds of procrastination. In today's installment, I present the Implicit Association Test, which will purportedly measure your unconscious biases on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, political parties, and other discrete groups. Each bias is measured by a single test. I've taken three of these Harvard-devised babies, which run about eight minutes to take. And if the results are remotely accurate, it turns out I have a strong unconscious preference for Bill Clinton over George W. Bush (hardly a surprise), a slight association of Asian faces with Americans and white faces with foreigners (somewhat of a surprise, though growing up in an Asian-heavy neighborhood in the United States might help explain this counterintuitive response), and a slight unconscious preference for European-Americans over African-Americans (no, dammit!).

Quite interesting. Also interesting is Mike D'Angelo's post about the coming Singularity, which is either a more stunning revelation than "peak oil", global warming and "grey goo" combined, or the mere fabulous musings of a smart nutcase. I can't make up my mind just yet, though I look forward my new nano-tech exo-skeleton, which I hope will allow me to mentally control my molecules like The Sandman (or maybe Molecule Man). Beats the snot out of being Left Behind, in any event. Is it time to bet heavily on nanotech and genetic engineering stocks? Will we enter an phase in humanity where money won't matter anymore? Nothing to kill or die for? Will John Lennon be resurrected as a seer and saint? I wish I had some background in analyzing this idea's potential, but a few lower division college courses in each of evolution, biology, and general psychology just doesn't cut it.

MLB predix: Angels in 4, Red Sox in 4, Cards in 3, 'Stros in 4. Angels over Red Sox in 6; Astros over Cards in 7. Astros win the Series in 6.