Today is the day to find strange and interesting stuff on the Internet.

Completely Random

Dr. Ruth was a sniper.

Julia Child worked for the OSS.

There Really Are No Snakes in Ireland

There are no snakes in Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand or many South Sea islands.

Crab Recipes from the Baltimore Sun

The Gentlemen’s C Presidency

When you go to a lot of trouble to gather those who are supposedly the best and the brightest, how do you accommodate those who are the richest and best-connected but not otherwise qualified?

In George W. Bush’s day, the accommodation was called the “Gentleman’s C.” Those who received it acquired the “gentleman” designation not by virtue of behavior but by birth, and the “C” on their transcripts should never be interpreted as “average” for it usually indicated frequent absences from class, papers from the frat file that had been used two or three times, and blue books that revealed a stunning lack of contact with the course material.

I have no idea as to the veracity of this, but the website where I found it is generally full of thoughtful and truthful posts.

Soprano Deborah Voigt was sacked after being told she was too large to wear her Royal Opera House stage costume

Soprano Deborah Voigt, 43, said she received many letters of support after her Royal Opera House dismissal, as she prepared for her Carnegie Hall recital debut and the release of her first solo album.

It’s hard to beleive that opera, of all things, would discriminate against someone who was heavy. I mean, when most people think of opera, they typically think of big women dressed in Wagnerian Ring Cycle garb.

Japanese actor a specialist in playing corpses

Fukumoto reckons he’s been killed more than 20,000 times — fans say it’s at least twice that — in thousands of TV appearances and nearly 100 movies over his 45-year career. But he can’t say for sure. Scripts often crammed in several killing scenes, which meant Fukumoto would die as one character and reappear later as another to get slain again.
…
In his 2001 autobiography, which has sold 80,000 copies, Fukumoto said he learned by studying stuntmen. But his hero was Charlie Chaplin, whose over-the-top antics were a useful model because Japanese death scenes are stylized, featuring actors who shudder violently and flop to the ground when killed.

Sicilian village spooked by seemingly spontaneous combustion

Spontaneous fires started in mid-January in the town of Canneto di Caronia, in about 20 houses. After a brief respite last month, the almost daily fires have flared up again — even though electricity to the village was cut off.

(via Neil Gaiman)

Vampires Everywhere!
From this article, it’s easy to see why movies and TV have changed a few things….

Theirs is not a Hollywood tale, and they laugh at Hollywood conventions: that vampires can be warded off by crosses or cloves of garlic, or that they can’t be seen in mirrors. Utter nonsense. Vampires were once Catholics, were they not? And if a vampire can be seen, the mirror can see him. And why would you wear garlic around your neck? Are you adding taste?
…
Ion Balasa, 64, explained that there are two ways to stop a vampire, but only one after he or she has risen to feed.

“Before the burial, you can insert a long sewing needle, just into the bellybutton,” he said. “That will stop them from becoming a vampire.”

But once they’ve become vampires, all that’s left is to dig them up, use a curved haying sickle to remove the heart, burn the heart to ashes on an iron plate, then have the ill relatives drink the ashes mixed with water.

Staking vamps through the heart and having them turn immediately to dust is certainly more dramatic.

And surprisingly less icky.
(via Language Log)

Congratulations to Lithuania!
Lithuania, and several other countires, joined NATO today. Huzzah!

Congratulations Senator Byrd!
Congratulations are also in order for Senator Robert Byrd who, if I heard correctly this morning, yesterday cast his 17,000 vote in the Senate, far surpassing Strom Thurmon’s record.

Although Senator Byrd is not the longest serving member of of Senate, he has by far cast more votes than anyone else.

In other words, he shows up and does the job we sent him to Washington to do.

In the Clash of Religion and History
There was a fascinating interview last night on Fresh Air, with John Dominic Crossan. He is a biblical scholar and discussed the history of crucifixion and the world during the life of Jesus. Absolutely fascinating.

Thanks Ben!
And thanks go out to my cousin Ben, who sent me an e-mail that had me repeatedly laughing out loud. One of his closing lines was this: “send cookies. if you do i will climb a mountain for you. or a rock face, please specify size.”

He’ll be remain in Kyrgyzstan until the end of this year, when his term with the Peace Corps ends. Not sure what he’ll do then, but I have tremendous respect for him, for leaving his family for over two years to go live among strangers. I couldn’t do it.

We came home last night to the following message on our answering machine:

“Hey, I got the wrong number, sorry, but what a great message!”

I had to listen to the message, because I had no idea what message I’d done. Oddly enough, I thought the message on the cell phone voice mail was more amusing, but as long as I’m making people happy…

Went to check my horoscope today, and read this:

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
You might consider picking up some holy water and a few stout wooden stakes. They’ll come in handy soon, although I’m not sure how.

I laughed, and then read this to Gina, who sits right next to me.

Gina also laughed, and then asked, “Hey! What’s mine?”

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Your incisors will seem to be getting longer today, and you will find sunlight hurts your eyes. Probably just a cold, and nothing to worry about.

Oh. I see.

To celebrate/mourn the fact that Michael and I finally finished watching Deep Space Nine, here is a list of some of my favorite Garak quotes, starting with:

“I believe in coincidence. Coincidences happen every day. But I don’t trust coincidences.”

Friday is the last day to vote for the WV state quarter!

If we don’t do our civic duty to vote, we as a state may be stuck with the horrible “Appalachian Warmth” quarter.

Remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.

It was Tiddly POM! Thanks Epacris!

This was Piglet’s song

(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

The more it snows
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How gold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

–A.A. Milne

I was thinking about fears, and how each person’s fears are unique—not necessarily the fear itself, but how they developed that fear, assuming they even know why.

I was thinking tonight of my quirk, my strange fear, when I started to think about the details of that fear, and whether others remember it the same way I do.
(more…)

And y’all said it was worthless information…

Here’s some Arcata Eye:

Saturday, January 3 1:48 a.m. No license plate or headlights. That’s kind of a dealbreaker when it comes to driving.

Monday, January 26 9:52 a.m. A woman hadn’t planted a gray, four-wheel-drive truck in her J Street flower garden, so it was rolled back into the street.

3:41 a.m. Construction sites fascinate teenagers.

“The Mob was afraid of me because I was hungry”
–Gina

Sylvia Nasar
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening

WVU’s Festival of Ideas kicked off with a lecture by Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography of the mathematician John Nash.

Her talk was good—I think you could tell she was a writer—however her question and answer session was a tad bit rambling and disjointed. It seemed as if she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say as she was saying it. It was a somewhat disappointing finish to a good talk.

Her lecture was the life story of the mathematician John Nash. I would guess that she was chosen as the opening lecturer, because John Nash was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, so it seems only appropriate to kick of a West Virginia University lecture series with a talk about someone born in the state.

For those handful of people like myself who have neither seen the movie nor read the book, John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who developed debilitating schizophrenia at the age of 30, and by 90s it was assumed by most people that he was dead. What made his story so compelling, and what made Sylvia Nash want to write his story, is that he eventually overcame his mental illness, and won the Nobel Prize for his work in Game Theory on his Theory of Human Conflict and Cooperation (done prior to his illness). Although he made contributions in pure mathematics, his work in game theory influenced many different fields, such as economics, geometry, biology and political science.

She spoke little of his childhood in WV, other that to say he had eccentric amusements, but one can assume that he probably did not fit in. She also never mentions whether he returns home, so one is left to assume that after leaving the state he does not return. But I’d be pleased to be proven wrong.

Although the mathematics are beyond me, I found the description of Game Theory quite interesting. Initially it was worked as a zero sum game, but John Nash focused upon the more realistic concept, of a non-zero sum game, when there can be a gain for both sides, and also in a theory involving multiple players. This of course made Game Theory applicable to the real world, especially in his description of the equilibrium point, or the theoretical set of circumstance where everyone involved has done their best and is satisfied with the outcome. The whole idea of being able to derive logical rules about human behavior is quite fascinating, as we humans do not particularly care to see ourselves as predictable entities.

One interesting point she brought up, is that when Nash was asked why someone so logical could believe such strange and outlandish ideas, Nash replied that his schizophrenic ideas came to him the same way that his mathematical ideas did. It would have been interesting if she had further addressed this point—is there a relationship between madness and genius? I would also be curious as to whether he would have been willing to give up his genius if that would have meant a normal life.

Sylvia Nash emphasized that the story of John Nash was in fact a love story, and she discussed how Alisha remained with John throughout his illness, despite their divorce and his institutionalization, and she seemed to be saying that it was Alisha who led the way for his eventual recovery, in her believe that Bash’s only hope was to live in a community where at least a few people knew who he had been.

Although that is interesting, I don’t find the love story nearly as compelling as the questions brought up by his madness. Are madness and genius linked? Can you cure one while leaving the other? What was it that allowed John Nash to recover from his schizophrenia later in life? Yes, it is believed that the biological changes of aging have some influence, but what other components affect this? Could these biological changes be studied to determine what leads to the onset of schizophrenia and what causes it to go into remission.

All interesting points, and perhaps ones that will be address by someone else some other time.