About the only thing that I found amusing on the internet on April Fool’s day was Think Geek’s April Fool fake products.
My favorite was the Super Pii Pii Brothers for the Wii. Knowing the Japanese, I wouldn’t be too surprised if someone actually tried to make this game.
The video is hilarious!
The Spring “light switch” was turned on over the weekend. It’s time to get back outside!
From the NYTimes.com: And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw
An interesting story about the Monty Hall Problem a counter intuitive mathematical problem.
In the Monty Hall Problem you are a contestant on a game show and are presented with three doors. Behind two of the doors there are goats and behind a third a new car. You are asked to select a door. After you choose a door, Monty Hall opens from the remaining two doors a door with a goat. Now you have the option to keep your door or switch to the other door that Monty Hall did not open. What do you do? Do you stay with the door you initially chose or the third door?
The answer is that you should always switch doors. Play the game below to understand why.
From NYTimes.com: Asian Inflation Begins to Sting U.S. Shoppers
First, developing countries now produce nearly half of all American imports. Second, inflation in these countries is coming at the same time that many of their currencies are rising against the dollar.
That puts American consumers in a double bind, paying at least some of producers’ higher costs for making their goods, and higher prices on top of that because the dollar buys less in those countries.
It’s not clear what we can do about this inflation. The Fed is pretty powerless to stop it since it’s based on global demand and rising wages around the world. Normally, a week dollar would make U.S. goods more attractive, but what goods can we export besides commodities or services? Most of the really innovative and new U.S. technology products are manufactured overseas now.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then this product must take after its father. It’s the IGg iPhone Camera Telescope Case with 6x Optical Zoom Lens. It’s only $24.99, but I can’t really think of a reason for having one, even if it were for free.
From NYTimes.com: Thieves Leave Cars, but Take Catalytic Converters
Theft of scrap metals like copper and aluminum has been common here and across the country for years, fueled by rising construction costs and the building boom in China. But now thieves have found an easy payday from the upper echelon of the periodic table. It seems there may not be an easier place to score some platinum than under the hood of a car.
The catalytic converter is made with trace amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium, which speed chemical reactions and help clean emissions at very high temperatures. Selling stolen converters to scrap yards or recyclers, a thief can net a couple of hundred dollars apiece.
I had read this article a couple of weeks ago and was reminded of it by the same story on the Today show this morning. It seems that SUV’s are a big target because they’re a little higher off the ground for easier access, plus the larger size of the catalytic converter means more precious metals. If you see someone crawling under a car with a saw, call the cops!
From CNN.com: McCain says he was wrong to oppose MLK day
McCain, then a first-term congressman, voted against creating a government holiday for King in 1983. On Thursday, he suggested he was unaware of King’s legacy at the time.
That just sounds stupid. I was 13 in 1983 and even I knew the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. at that time!
The music from Battlestar Galactica is one of the most underrated parts of the show. Often moody and mysterious, the original compositions set the tone for the show. There’s a song that isn’t an original song- Metamorphosis Five by Philip Glass. It’s first played when Starbuck returns to her apartment on Caprica and puts in a tape of her father playing the piece.
Here’s a YouTube video of a live performance of this song being played.
Metamorphosis Five by Philip Glass on iTunes
