-----Original Message-----Okay, so, no offense to my burgeoning incarcerated readership, but presumably we can all agree that this message is a prank. However, it seems a pretty elaborate (if peculiar and sophmoric) prank. I mean, did the person get an e-mail address especially for this? The message itself seems like it took awhile to compose, especially to work in the various references to actual content of my weblog. I mean, somebody couldn't have composed this and then sent it to a whole bunch of different bloggers. Emily thinks it's a high school student who stumbled across my weblog somehow. Or she wondered if it might be a friend of hers who has read my weblog and is, in her words, "clearly a sociopath." Or, apropos of nothing, she suggested it might be Elisabeth Shue (star of Adventures in Babysitting and Leaving Las Vegas; ex-girlfriend of Freaktoastt J and the late Alan Thicke; here, I'll include a picture of her above, especially since Emily agreed with JD's suggestion that I include more photos of attractive women on the weblog). All of these plausible enough, I suppose. In any event, the question is whether the prank is by (a) someone I know, (b) someone who I don't know but has come to read my weblog via referral from someone I know, or (c) someone I don't know at all. Any guesses or math tips for JD, pass them along.
From: JD [fakename] [dointimejd @ [domain].com]
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 2:29 PM
To: [my sbcglobal address]
Subject: hAya
Deeer doct or profss or Freese
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
iDont no u but I like you I get special compter prileges here in jail an I find yur wblg thingy i reed it when I can,, donnt you worry none cause I aint no crazy stalker kinda feller, no I done sole drugs an stole stuff nuttin violent an al. Pluz I am turnen me life around C we got lots incommon) Im now in the educatshon biznes like you now)) Im fixn toget my GED degreee - I wanna go to colag.e I cannt make up my mind what /i shuld studee - weldentruckdrven ora hairweeveng or preeschen scool bnutt 1ist I half ta passt this here gedbs witch why I writ uyo.> U beeng s mrt an all culld hep Me wit thes Ged stuf ; I dunnknow thee math stuf 2 wel an u alwys taklen buot number stuf to Bee tellen the truef, i donnrt reely under stand much wht you bee talken bout, butt Im lik en ya"" Yu r good 2 yur MAMA liken i Is> I tel mi MaMAA boot you win she cu m seee me| SHe say i schuld writ you an, all so i Is.
Thss writen stufhard tha gurdd telen me I gots ta huryy UPCuld you hlp me wit mie gED stuf/???/ Iam heer in jaile en [place]. I sniched on sum peepal an tha lwyerss ay tht i cannt goto the state pen cauuse so thy send me heer 4 myn own saftee
Gob hald you en his hendlikeMe!!!!!!!!!!
JD
Pee sss yioculd yuo pleez putt sum piks off chiks on yourn welblog thngy THe jayl half A filtrr thingy n wil not leten me luuk ayt gurlzx.,I licke y urne frend hteh abraacrambee chik
"For years, at thousands of New York City intersections, well-worn push buttons have offered harried walkers a rare promise of control over their pedestrian lives. The signs mounted above explained their purpose:Incidentally, as a contrast to the false sense of causality highlighted in this story, I should note that I just received word that Blogrolling.com has been bought out by a larger company, a mere three days after it received national prominence upon being linked to from my weblog. Who says one cannot change the world from the comfort of one's RV?
To Cross Street
Push Button
Wait for Walk Signal
Millions of dutiful city residents and tourists have pushed them over the years, thinking it would help speed them in their journeys. Many trusting souls might have believed they actually worked. Others, more cynical, might have suspected they were broken but pushed anyway, out of habit, or in the off chance they might bring a walk sign more quickly.
As it turns out, [as usual], the cynics were right.
The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on, according to city Department of Transportation officials. More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos, city figures show. Any benefit from them is only imagined."
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- Estelle Axton, co-founder of the famed Stax Records Co., which generated hits from acts including Sam and Dave, Otis Redding Jr. and The Staple Singers, has died. She was 85.Update, 9:20pm: iTunes does not have "Disco Duck" available for online purchase!
[...]
"Were it not for her, there's no way Stax could have become what it became," said David Porter. [...] Between 1960 and 1975, Stax's roster also included Booker T. and the MGs, Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, The Mar-Keys and the Bar-Kays.
Axton and other family members went on to establish the Fretone label which produced Rick Dees' 1977 hit "Disco Duck."
From: Onion Promotions [mailto:promo@theonion.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:23 PM
To: Jeremy Freese
Subject: Re: goats
You win!
Your name will appear on the guest list as "(your name) +1"
Enjoy!
> From: "Jeremy Freese" [jfreese@ssc.wisc.edu]Awesome! I'll update you when/if I find out what it is I just won tickets to. As long as it has goats, I'm happy.
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:01:45 -0600
> To: [promo@theonion.com]
> Subject: goats
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> Jeremy Freese Office: 8105 Social Science
> Assistant Professor Tel#: (608) 262-1217
> Department of Sociology fax: (608) 265-5389
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> 1180 Observatory Drive
> Madison, WI 53706
> ___________________________________________________________________
Todd:Click and send. Granted, my half-sister Dahlia might be annoyed that I signed her name to the message instead of my own, but the New Me does not want to risk backsliding as the result of getting pulled into any colloquy regarding Nader.
I used to have the same kind of relentless and seething anger toward Nader for the 2000 election as you did. Through breathing exercises and grudge-reducing crystals, however, I have been gradually able to let this go. As a result, I would say that I now feel better--more free, more healthy, more connected with myself--than I ever could have imagined with a Republican in the White House. While I appreciate the eloquence with which you articulate your rage, I would urge you to work on your own Nader issues and to consider the possibility that some of the anger that you believe you feel toward Nader is really anger you feel toward, in Michael Jackson's words, the "Man in the Mirror."
Give Peace a Chance! Let Love In Your Heart!
"if you take a hard look at the turnout argument, you see that the legions of nonvoters are the spectral cavalry of the marginals -- the phantasmagorical saviors waiting in the canyons. Nader invoked them in 2000. Howard Dean invoked them this year. They are an argument of last resort in political fantasies."
Even some of Nader's closest progressive allies have their doubts. "I love and appreciate him, but I definitely want to get Bush out of office, so I won't vote for him, which would be a first for me," says Medea Benjamin, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from California in 2000. She says it's good that Nader is not running as a Green Party candidate, because it will allow someone else within the organization to gain national attention as a presidential candidate.
A friend of mine who used to work for a new car dealership told me thatWell, that pretty much rules that option out.
the salespeople (actually, I think salesMEN would be accurate in this
sentence) he worked with bragged about having sex in the cars on the
showroom floor. I have no idea if this is true but it if so I would
think a discount of $300 is not quite sufficient.
Hello Jeremy,
Thanks for getting back to me. I have some great news for you.
Volkswagen is offering a low 2.9% financing special for up to 66 MONTHS!.
Also, if you wanted the one on the show floor, and chose to sign up for it
this week,(you could take delivery any time this month.) we could offer you
an additional $300 off. If you choose to take advantage of the low interest
rates, at 66 months works out to be $xx9.10 per month. That's with $x000
down.
It ends up being a pretty sweet deal. We also have Fresco Green with
gray cloth on the lot. Thanks for the interest and let me know what you want
to do.
"Who did you vote for?"You can see where some people (say, 15 or so) might think that you are meaning 'support' in some sense beyond just voting for him.
"Dean."
"So, have you ever supported Dean's presidential bid?"
OutKast fans [are repeatedly instructed] to "shake it like a Polaroid picture," but the instant camera maker is warning consumers that taking the advice of the hip-hop stars could ruin your snapshots. [...]
[T]he company says that shaking photos, which once helped them to dry, is not necessary since the modern version of Polaroid film dries behind a clear plastic window.
The image "never touches air, so shaking or waving has no effect," the company said on its site. "In fact, shaking or waving can actually damage the image. Rapid movement during development can cause portions of the film to separate prematurely, or can cause 'blobs' in the picture."
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 10:22 AM
To: 'jfreese@ssc.wisc.edu'
Subject: Passat....
Hello Jeremy,
I just wanted to thank you for stopping in on Saturday. I'm glad
that you enjoyed the Passat and I'm also happy that I could be of
assistance. If there is a time that you could stop back and take another
test drive, I would be glad to help.
Have you come up with any other questions over the weekend? We still
have great specials going on right now and want to do whatever it takes to
earn your business. Mostly, however, thanks for your interest and time. You
can reach me at the number below or email if you prefer. Thanks again.
Does U.S. Sen. John Kerry now have the Democratic nomination in his grasp?Or is this really a CoS? Is the Too Early To Say category just an incoherent version of "No," or is it to provide grounds to express the philosophical position that Kerry indeed now does either have or have not have the Democratic nomination in his grasp, but that we will only later be able to determine which it is.
Yes
No
Too early to say
Molly gets better grades in school and does better on academic tests than Polly. Molly has more friends who are high-academic-achievers than Polly, and she belongs to more nerdy extracirricular activities (e.g., debate, the school paper). When you talk to Molly and Polly's parents,they seem to have higher aspirations for Molly than for Polly. For that matter, Molly herself also reports having a greater desire to go to college than Polly does.It would seem reasonable to imagine that these above differences are all somehow connected to one another. But how? Two possible narratives:
REPLICANT1 recommendations, in order: 1. Rushmore; 2. 25th Hour; 3. The Royal Tennenbaums; 4. The Hustler; 5. Reservoir Dogs; 6. Chasing Amy; 7. Igby Goes Down; 8. Rocky; 9. Lost In Translation; 10. Punch Drunk Love; 11. Boogie Nights; 12. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; 13. Gattaca [first movie not in set of movies recommended yesterday]Conjecture: The three experimental conditions last night were run concurrently. Perhaps the website, through its sinister web-cookie-insertion technologies, actually did not treat SCIENCE1, SCIENCE2, and SCIENCE3 as three separate users after all, but just as the same user. Anyway, let's shut everything down and then start over with brand new user REPLICANT2.
REPLICANT2 recommendations, in order: 1. Rushmore; 2. Rocky; 3. 25th Hour; 4. The Royal Tennenbaums; 5. The Hustler; 6. Reservoir Dogs; 7. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; 8. Lost In Translation; 9. The Insider [recommended yesterday, although not in the list above; alas, this is where the server connection aborted, and the study had to be, at least for now, abandoned]The second list is similar, but not identical, to the first list, which means that it is also similar to the movies generated last night. To be sure, What to Rent really thinks I'm itching to see Rushmore again. I should also note that every movie in the above list that I have seen (~2/3) I liked, to varying degrees. That, the degrees to which I liked them are completely (or, perhaps, mildly inversely) unrelated to the order in which they were recommended by the site.
Type I Recurring Nightmare (a.k.a. Jeremy's Meta-Dream): In this dream, I have this realization that I am dreaming and that, for whatever reason, it is desperately important that I wake myself up. So the whole dream is about me trying to mentally get myself to wake up, which usually involves this thing where I am trying within the dream to get myself to open my eyes or to cry out. I spend some time being thwarted and increasingly desperate in these efforts. However, given that we tend to only remember dreams if we awaken while having them, the occurrences of this dream that I remember are those where I have actually succeed in waking myself up.I've had variations of the Type I nightmare maybe 2-3 times a year for as long as whenever I first noticed the pattern, at least college and maybe high school or before. The first time I had the Type II nightmare was maybe six years ago and it completely freaked me out. I've probably had it once a year or so since.
Type II Recurring Nightmare (a.k.a. Jeremy's Meta-Meta-Dream): In this dream, I have this realization that I am dreaming and that it is desperately important that I wake myself up. I manage to wake myself up. So then I'm in my bed, awake. Maybe I even get out of bed and am walking around. But then I realize that I'm not really in my bedroom or that there is something otherwise amiss. I realize that I must still be dreaming, and that it is even more desperately important that I wake myself up. I manage to wake myself up. I realize that I'm still dreaming and need still more desperately to wake myself up. This can repeat for 6-7 times, ending with me really actually waking myself up.
Wouldn't Do It: 1. Rocky, 2. The Royal Tennenbaums, 3. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, 4. Chasing Amy, 5. The Shawshank RedemptionDISCUSSION: If there is any pattern here, either in terms of the similarity of suggestions made within any scenario or to the differences between scenarios, I have no idea what it is. Still, I feel good for having just done some real science.
Have Such Monetary Desperation, Short-Sightedness, or Low Self-Regard That I Would Strap on an Ugly Fanny Pack for Life for $1000: 1. 25th Hour, 2. Reservoir Dogs, 3. Dirty Harry, 4. Lost in Translation, 5. Boogie Nights
Have Such Severe Monetary Desperation, Short-Sightedness, or Low Self-Regard That I Would Strap on an Ugly Fanny Pack for Life for $100: 1. Rushmore, 2. The Hustler, 3. The Insider, 4. Igby Goes Down, 5. Punch Drunk Love
Question 8:We're talking the rest of your life here, and the most they are willing to sweeten the deal is to $1000? For anybody planning on living more than 30 more years, we are talking about something southwards of a dime a day. Who would agree to this, even if they thought it was a comely neon green fanny pack?
How much money would it take for you to wear a neon green fanny pack around for the rest of your life. You would not be able to tell anyone you were paid to wear it. (A one time payment in American dollars.)
Wouldn't do it.
$100
$500
$1000
Which team has the best chance to finish the regular season unbeaten?As the reader points out, the question as worded would seem to have three answers: either Saint Joseph's has the best [sic?] chance, Stanford has the best chance, or they would both have the same chance. There could be a fourth category for "don't know," I suppose, and a fifth for "don't care," et cetera. But, as you can see, this is not what the poll has done. Instead, they allow to choose either that both teams have the best chance of winning, or that neither team has the best chance. What are they thinking? The reader from March supposes that the question is asking a different question than the question one is supposed to read into the answer categories (the latter being something like 'Which of these teams will finish the regular season unbeaten?'). Could be. A separate but closely related possibility is that the espn.go pollsters intended this to be a half-full/half-empty semantics-measurement question, where the readers can interpret exactly equal probabilities as meaning either that both teams should be regarded as having the best chance or that neither does. An entirely different possibility, on the other hand, is that the pollsters use of "best" is the grammatical gaffe it might seem. Instead, perhaps "neither" is meant to suggest the possibility that the reader believes there is another team out there, who, despite having been 'beaten' according to the standards of NCAA record-keeping, is in reality 'unbeaten' and more likely than either Saint Joseph or Stanford to remain so.
Saint Joseph's (45.9% of answers so far)
Stanford (20.3%)
Both (6.7%)
Neither (27.0%)
Humans, the human body, or any human body parts may not be listed on eBay. Examples of prohibited items include, but are not limited to: organs, bone, blood, waste, sperm, and eggs. You may not include such items as a gift, prize, or giveaway in connection with an item listed on eBay. Items that contain human hair (such as lockets) as well as skulls and skeletons that are used for medical purposes may be listed on eBay.
[...] There would seem
to be two competing theories as to why the feat is impossible, or
seemingly impossible. A model of control basically looks like this:
---------------|
| | |---------------|
| Central | Control signals | |
| Cognitive | --------------------> | Motor system |
| Processor | | |
| | |---------------|
|--------------|
Of course, it's a great over-simplification, but it will do to explain
the competing theories. The idea is that the central processor has to
arrange a sequence of signals to the motor system so that the actions
are carried out as desired (waving a hand to form a 6, or moving a foot
around clockwise). Often the control signals are considered a "fixed
language" and learning occurs by having the central processor
incrementally build chunks of signals to have useful scripts performed
by the motor system. Typically a lot of trial and error is involved in
assembling these chunks of signals. Most of this happens with little
conscious awareness.
One theory (the hardwired/nativist theory) is that the language of the
control signals is not rich enough to provide contrasting instructions
to different segments of the body. Again, to over-simplify for the sake
of clarity, perhaps there is a directional bit that needs to be set
whenever circular motion is needed. A '1' indicates clockwise and a '0'
indicates counter-clockwise. If there is only one bit for both hand and
foot, then it would be impossible to do the double-dare.
The alternate theory (learned behavior) is that it is difficult for the
central cognitive processor to assemble the needed sequence of signals
to issue the instructions for performing the double-dare. One possible
reason for the difficulty is that the central processor tends to use
pre-fabricated chunks as much as possible. In other words, it's usually
most efficient to issue instructions composed of micro-routines that
have already been developed and are well rehearsed. (By the way, this
is my best bet why it's really hard to get rid of an accent when
learning a foreign language) It might be the case that we are generally
practiced to only give consistent sets of instructions. Also, it might
also be difficult to assemble these two scripts simultaneously because
we are not very rehearsed with either one.
I'm going to practice the double-dare with a variety of techniques. IfOkay, so I've just been trying this again. It seems that I can do this as long as I employ one of two strategies: one is to make big slow looping circles with my foot and then slowly trace the six; the other is to make really fast circles with my leg so that I've got some momentum going when I start to make the six. The biggest problem I have is trying to make an honest assessment of whether or not I am successfully doing it. What seems to happen when I am not successfully doing it is that my leg magically reverses direction, like the e-mail claimed, but that I stop making real circles with my leg and instead it is more or less just moving straight up and down instead of in a circle.
I master it, that should lend some doubt to the first theory.
[name] tried to explain the physiological principle underlying
this inability (first, she said "you can't make an 8 either, can you?"
okay, it is not specific to the number 6). I did not understand
exactly, but seems to be that our brain must aggregate together the
motions it thinks we will make simultaneously -- like the zillions of
motions that are necessary to walk -- if we were to try to disaggregate
them, we would overload the brains processing ability and, thus, be
unable to walk. Which would be worse of course, than not being able
to spin our foot clockwise while tracing a 6 in the air. I guess our
brains did not anticipate that we would one day have so much free time
on our hands that we would feel the need to do such an odd pairing of
things simultaneously.
1. Favorite movie of the past year: "Old School"I suppose #1 is a more objective cause for alarm, while #2 reflects my own concern about the continued manifestation of general American innumerancy in the Oval Office. At least he didn't say "Fuzzy math."
2. Worst subject in school: Math
1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.Wait, wait, now I just wheeled away from my desk and did it in the middle of the room where I could have my foot making big circles and my hand making a large 6. Then I could do it no problem, where I'm confident I was making a 6 and my foot kept going clockwise. Part of the things that's hard is trying to keep track of what both parts of your body are actually doing so you know whether you've done it all.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.
3. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.
You don't know how you've made my day. I saw your weblog post about the $X million space pen. When I was in high school, the coach of my academic decathlon team... gave us all space pens. I have held on to mine since then, though sometime along the way the ink ran out. Periodically, I would look in stores for replacements but I never found any. I followed the link to the debunking-the-pencil site, and found replacement ink cartridges. I ordered one, and it came today... And my new pressurized ink was waiting for me. Now, I can lay on the sofa and write upside down. Yippee.
