By The Numbers!

numbers

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m a numbers nerd.  That’s right!  Unlike everybody else I know, I didn’t get the numbers kicked out of me in school.  Yeah, algebra was a pain in the ass, and I’ve never used it since Mr. Wells ruled the halls of Kitsilano High, but I still love its symmetry.  The thing is numbers never fail, yet they remain as mysterious as the Sphinx.  For example, nobody, not even Watson (the Uber computer) can calculate Pi (π) but it still delivers the area of a circle every time. (Not that anybody has a burning need to know that – but it’s pretty cool.)  Actually, when I was a starving student at university, I used to play with numbers to win drinks.  I must confess that when you’re sipping hops with wannabe poets and Jane Austen fans, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, but … free beer is free beer … and I still don’t feel guilty.

Here are two bits of numerical magic that I remember.  (There were more.)  One of them has only failed once, and the other hasn’t failed yet.  Play along (be honest and no googling) and I’ll bet you a beer that — wherever you are in the world — my mastery over the telepathic power of numbers will let me know your answers.  And I’ll prove it at the end.

1 – Take the 8 digits of your birthday (DD – MM – YYYY) and write them down.
Scramble the numbers any way you like and write that down.
Subtract the smaller number from the larger one.
Place a 9 either at the beginning or the end of your answer.
Add all the numbers together until you get a single digit.
Subtract 6
Multiply by 41.
Regardless of what day you were born I already know the answer.

2 — Think of any 4 digit number.
Multiply it by 9.
Take the answer and add all the numbers together.
Place a 9 either at the beginning or the end of your answer.
Add all the numbers together again until you get a single digit.
Subtract 5.
Using the method 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=D, 5=E, 6=F, etc. find the letter your number represents.
Think of a European country that starts with your letter.
Take the last letter of the country, and think of an animal that begins with that letter.
Take the last letter of the animal, and think of a fruit that begins with that letter.
If you did the puzzle in English, I already know your answers.

pi

Numerical Magic One

If you’re under 100 years old, the answer is 123.  (I used it as the graphic.)

Numerical Magic Two

Your answers were Denmark, kangaroo and orange.

Somebody owes me a beer!

Time Is On Our Side

sand of time

There’s a guy in Norway who wants to do away with time.  We all know, strictly speaking, that’s impossible, so my guess is he actually wants to get rid of clocks.  (The article was poorly written.)  While this is an admirable sunshine-and-lollipops endeavour, it has its roots in a far stupider idea.

Ever since Lucy (Australopithecus) and her sisters decided to go for a walk in Ethiopia, 3 million years ago, there have always been people who want to abandon the march of civilization.  Their contention is that humans are inherently pastoral, and we’re not meant to be regulated by the time-counting machines we’ve created.  In other words, we’d be a lot happier if we just ate when we’re hungry, slept when we’re tired, had sex when we’re horny and enjoyed a few more sunsets.  This idea gets a lot pf play on college campuses and during after-dinner conversations (with the second bottle of wine) but it ignores one essential fact – 3 million years of history.  Oops!

There is actually no evidence to suggest humans were ever a come-day/go-day, God’ll bring Sunday type of species.  The only reason some sophomores jump to this conclusion is our closest biological cousins, chimpanzees, behave that way– and the assumption is, back in the evolutionary day, we did too.  Wrong!  The truth is, all – ALL – the archaeological evidence points to the undeniable fact that humans have always been workaholics.  We didn’t become the dominant species on this planet by hunting, eating and then lying around digesting for the rest of the afternoon.  (I’m looking at you, bonobos!)  No, we used the bonus time between full and famished to work our asses off.  Why?  Because, unlike all the other animals Noah put on the boat, from aardvarks to zebras, we realized that the sun was going to come up again tomorrow.  And our long evolutionary crawl from the savannahs of Africa to the Mars Rover is a litany of labouring for that future.

Everything human beings do, from building the Pyramids to buying more than one potato, is based on our unflappable faith in time.  It’s one of the amazing imaginary concepts (like religion, ownership and fair play) that’s hardwired into our DNA.  But more than that, time is also one of our essential tools, like language and mathematics.  That’s why we’ve always tried to measure it so accurately.  We use time to regulate, manipulate and evaluate our existence; without it, nothing we see around us would exist.

Personally, I believe the quaint notion that humans could live quite happily without clocks comes from the benevolent society we’ve created that allows us massive amounts of leisure time.  We have time to think, and sometimes the things we think are wrong-headed.  Seriously, suggesting that we should turn our backs on hours and minutes because our primeval ancestors didn’t have alarm clocks is as preposterous as saying we shouldn’t have elevators because humans are not supposed to live and work in the skies above Mother Earth.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion — but stay tuned cuz I’m already planning another one in 4 days, 96 hours or 3,960 minutes, depending on how you want to measure it.

Stuff I’ve Learned From Life

life

I’ve been wandering around this planet for quite a few years now, and I’ve discovered a whole pile of cool things.  Most of it is useless information — like James Bond never wears lace-up shoes – and while that might be good for a few drinks on Quiz Night, it doesn’t exactly pay the rent.  In fact, these days, Wikipedia has put smart people like me out of business.  However, some of the stuff I know just isn’t generally available, and sometimes it can make life’s journey a whole lot easier.  So, here are a few things (in no particular order) that are kinda neat to know.

Venice isn’t fun anymore — it’s full.  One more busload of tourists and they’re going to change the name to Atlantis.

Never play peek-a-boo with a toddler on a transatlantic flight.  You’re trapped — and they’re relentless.

When the voice at the other end of the telephone says, “Your call is important to us,” you’re going to be on hold for a loooong time.

People with an accent are smart enough to speak at least one more language than you.

As you get older, the printed word gets proportionately smaller.

Hygge is real, and so is Pyt.  If you don’t recognize these words, you need to google them immediately.  It could change your life.

Saying “sorry” doesn’t do anything.  The idea that it’s some kind of emotional antibiotic is just contemporary crap.  The trick is not doing things that you have to apologize for.

Always eat the last cookie in the package.  Leaving it is an act of cruelty to the next person who thinks they’re getting cookies but … ends up with disappointment because who looks forward to eating just one cookie?

Hobbies are just work you enjoy.

For some weird reason, candlelight makes food taste better.

The minute somebody says, “I don’t judge” — they already have.

The difference between movies, films and cinema depends entirely on what kind of a pompous ass is talking about them.

Anybody can sell their soul, but it takes a real dick to get full value.

And finally:

Life is actually just a constant struggle between sexy and comfortable — but when the two of them show up in the same place at the same time, it’s absolutely fabulous.