An old Dave Barry column…

Rob and his roommate, Hal, stay up all night discussing Deep Questions and figuring out the universe, and when they have it nailed down — The Rob and Hal Theory of Everything — Rob calls me up, all excited, and starts talking about time travel, the Fifth Dimension, the Big Bang, etc. I try to follow him, but I am hampered by a brain that for decades has firmly believed that the Fifth Dimension is the musical group that sang ”Up, Up and Away.” So I quickly become confused and testy, and Rob gets frustrated and says, ”Don’t you understand? THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS TIME!” And I’ll say, “YES THERE IS, AND RIGHT NOW IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!”…

This is not to say that I know nothing about physics. I studied physics for an ENTIRE YEAR in Pleasantville High School under the legendary Mr. Heideman. We learned that there are five simple machines: the lever, the pulley, the doorbell, the hammer and the toaster. We learned that the most powerful force in the universe is static electricity, which Mr. Heideman demonstrated by getting a volunteer to place his or her hand on a generator, which caused the volunteer’s hair to stand on end, unless the volunteer was a girl with the popular early-’60s ”beehive” hairstyle held rigidly in place by the other most powerful force in the universe, hairspray. Presumably, if Mr. Heideman had cranked the power up enough, the static electricity buildup would have caused the volunteer’s head to explode, and we would finally have found out if — as widely rumored — many ”beehive” hairstyles contained nests of baby spiders.

Yep. Or should that be Yup? Anyway, according to the Mobile Register,

The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Attorney general Wednesday shut down two businesses where patrons used computers to participate in Internet sweepstakes, authorities said.

No arrests were made in Wednesday’s raids, but at least 60 computers and other items were being catalogued and confiscated from Lisa’s Internet Cafe on U.S. 90, just outside Theodore, and Jackie’s Internet Cafe on Schillinger Road. Arrests may follow after a lengthy investigation, authorities said.

At the businesses, patrons could buy prepaid Internet cards enabling them to log onto www.hello-money.com to participate in games while their points were tracked on the debit type provided by the cafes, Sheriff Jack Tillman said.

Look on the bright side. Gambling is one issue on which the inhabitants of the Deep South see eye-to-eye with Osama bin Laden. What a country!

According to The Observer, Paul McCartney is planning to boycott China — because of the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals there. Hmmm… No mention of that country’s cruel and inhumane treatment of human dissidents.

Fascinating insights from a Nokia researcher. Excerpt:

A couple of years back I carried out a multi-cultural research project with Per Persson and a number of other colleagues to figure out what objects people consider to be essential when they leave home. We spent time studying 17 urban dwellers in San Francisco, Berlin and Shanghai and Tokyo with shadowing, home-interviews, plus 129 street interviews and numerous observation sessions. One of our screening criteria for in-depth subjects was that people had to own a mobile phone although during the screening process we made no assumptions about whether they considered the phone a necessity or not.

In the cultures we studied 3 objects were considered essential across all participants, cultures and genders were keys, money and mobile phone. Whilst this may seem obvious the interesting part of the study was in understanding the reasons why people considered these objects essential (largely survival, safely & security), why they were not always present (forgetting, awareness, making a conscious decision to be out of touch) and strategies people adopted to help them remember to take these objects. A lot of times money will be carried in a wallet or purse, but when it comes down to it, the money (cash and notes) are considered the essential objects before the other objects that are also contained there.

Full paper reporting this research downloadable from here.

The one periodical I try to read every week is The Economist. Although I often disagree with its editorial line, it’s very well written, has terrific journalists and a very wide range of interests. It is also the best-subbed periodical I know — which is why it was so strange to come on a lexicographical error on page 84 of the issue of November 12th. (The first time I’ve detected one in years of reading.) Here’s the relevant extract from the online edition:

Trade associations representing publishers and authors are suing Google, claiming that the very act of scanning books without permission is an illegal reproduction. The case promises to keep the lawyers busy. Google seems to have begun back-pedalling, noting that the books it is currently scanning are ones that are out of copyright. It is even working on a model of pay-per-view charging, according to one publishing executive.

Nothing wrong there, you say, and you are right. But in the print edition “back-pedalling” is “back-peddling”. Only a small thing, I know, but we pedants notice these things. And even Homer nodded occasionally.