Mummies

Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt ...Treasures from the British Museum

I checked out this exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana on Saturday. It's great... especially if you have a fascination with ancient Egypt like I do (I could just sit there all day poring over the hieroglyphs.) Exhibit is running until the end of March if you're going to be in town.


Also visited this exhibit:

GEMS! Colors of Light and Stone

which was a feast for the eyes. Michael Scott, the owner of the collection, is the first CEO of Apple and a resident of my former city, Los Altos.

Here comes the prediction?

So here's the thing about making predictions. There are two strategies you can use.

One strategy is to aim for having as high a success rate as you possibly can have. The best approach to use in that case is to take no risk in your predictions. Predict the obvious, and then voila, you'll be about 75% right. Actually, what's amazing is that when you try to predict only the completely obvious, you can still be 25% wrong.

The other strategy is to not worry about whether your predictions will be very accurate or not. Then at least you can try to say something interesting. On the other hand, since you're probably going to be wrong, "interesting but wrong" is not actually very useful.

Doesn't sound like a very winning game to me.

When I try to make predictions, I tend to predict that improbable things will happen, and then maybe one of them does, but the other ones all don't, so I look like I don't know what I'm talking about. So maybe I should try to mix them up a little more.

Are those enough caveats? OK. See, I don't have a lot to work with here. Here are some things that I think will happen in 2008:

- In the summer of 2008, there will be record hot days, which will be attributed by some to global warming.
- The Dow or NASDAQ will close above its 12/31/2007 closing level.
- Obligatory Presidential election predictions: Michael Bloomberg will not run for US President. No third-party candidate will capture more than 1.5% of the vote.
- I will buy a new car.

So I'm going with the "not too exciting" strategy. Let's see what happens.

More on the straw poll

This is the way the Republican version of the AOL straw poll looks right now. I don't put any faith in the absolute numbers here, but it is interesting to see how the regional support of the candidates looks so sharply defined.

Strolling around La Jolla earlier today

Right now (early afternoon) it is warm and sunny... this morning in La Jolla it was a bit hazy, but if that's my only complaint, I'm doing pretty well.

Change of style

It has been the practice on this site for links to other sites to pop up in a new window. I've been doing this primarily because it works well with the way I use my browser -- my browser is not maximized to use the full screen, so when I click on a link, it is convenient to have both a new window with the linked article in it, and the original page on the Western Syndicate that I was looking at.

This doesn't work well if your browser is maximized though. It's confusing. I don't have a way of knowing how many of my readers use their browser that way.

So this is what I'll do -- links will just act the default way from now on -- if you want them to pop up in a new window, you can use your standard browser mechanism for doing that, for example by right clicking on them and selecting the appropriate menu item to create a new window. That way I am not violating your default expectations about how a browser works.

Let me know if you liked it better the other way.

Changes the world

I don't know if "the story changes the world", but this article in the LA Times gives evidence that the economy of China is not as large as we thought it was. Interesting.

Feeling insightful?

Any predictions for 2008?

Straw poll

Here's the AOL straw poll web site for the Presidential contest. The results so far are interesting, and it's also a pretty good Flash widget if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Tiger

Some news video of the tiger attacks in San Francisco this evening here.

(more)Yahoo reports this with the headline "Tiger kills man at San Francisco zoo". Apparently "Man kills tiger at San Francisco zoo" also. I think man still has the upper hand.

Merry Christmas

Hope you had a nice Christmas today -- mine was so nice that I forgot to post here!

We'll be back in "business" later this week...

Sun

Some urban exploration. Here's the (still) abandoned old Sun HQ building down San Antonio Road from my old house. (No, I didn't shoot these photos. I've never been in there.)

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm

Have you been tested?

What will Hillary do about this latest health care crisis?

Rudy Giuliani Visits Missouri

In the interests of giving equal time to the other candidates, check out this video of Rudy Giuliani's visit to Missouri.

No I don't, but this is interesting

Got fleas? Get the vacuum

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vacuum cleaners kill fleas just as well as any poison, surprised U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said a standard vacuum cleaner abuses the fleas so much it kills 96 percent of adult fleas and 100 percent of younger fleas.

So no need to worry that a vacuum cleaner bag may turn into a fleabag breeding ground for the pesky, biting creatures, said Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University.

(more here at the original article)

Quick show of hands

How many people think this is the best debate answer they've seen in a long time? (from Ann Althouse)



Just think, a few months ago I promised that I wasn't going to fill this blog up with politics. Am I being sucked into this campaign stuff in spite of myself?

Ron who?

Ron Paul did great in my local straw poll last week.

There will be plenty of head scratching, and more than a little disbelief, if Republican voting in Iowa and New Hampshire mirrors a recent straw poll conducted by the Republican Party of San Diego County.

Top vote-getter: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 37% (117 votes). No big surprise there, though he was in a distant second place in a California Field Poll in August behind Giuliani.

Second place: Texas Rep. Ron Paul, 23 percent (73 votes). No, that's not a typo. And that may be a surprise to some of you, but given the number and intensity of questions from Paul's supporters during weekly Union-Tribune online political chats, no surprise here. Okay, we were a little surprised.

The full article is here: Straw men (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Turkey

More seasonal quotes from G.K. Chesterton.

A TURKEY is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, He has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.

'All Things Considered.'

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

While I'm in a mood to be passing out videos today, here's a great video about the Ron Paul campaign (visit that link, then click on the "PREVIEW" link on the right side of the page) -- the full program can be viewed on your PBS station later this week, check your local listings.

If you like Wall Street

and you like Family Guy...

Fortune

Human Felicity is produced not so much by great Pieces of good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day.

--Benjamin Franklin (Autobiography, 1771)

These days you can't trust politicians

Strange

... maps. Strange maps, that is -- a really fun web site to browse through.

Good language

Here is an interesting article from Inside HIgher Ed about enrollments in language classes at U.S. Colleges. Spanish is still the most popular language taught in America. American Sign Language is growing rapidly. I was pleased to see how well Latin is placed in the rankings, too.

Here's a seasonal one

Christmas ads have already been around for months -- getting tired of it yet?

ALL the old wholesome customs in connexion with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favour the editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice.

'All Things Considered.'

To quote or not to quote

You all are going to be subjected to the fact that I dug up a list of Chesterton quotes, and as long as I have a fascination with them I will probably be posting them here. Actually I have squirreled away lots of lists of quotes, but I have been able to contain myself so far.

Maybe I should bring back the Quote of the Day from years past.

WE had talked for about half an hour about politics and God; for men always talk about the most important things to total strangers. It is because in the total stranger we perceive man himself; the image of God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of the wisdom of a moustache.

'The Club of Queer Trades.'

Someone's in trouble

toothpastefordinner.com

The moving walkway is ending. Please look down.

Here's an article over at the Holy Whapping about the Pope's new wheels. However, I link to it because I am really digging this idea for some reason:

Somehow, I'm reminded of our plans for the Vatican's airport, complete with deacons chanting "Ite, Missa Est" at the ends of the moving walkways.

Looks tasty

Another tasty menu item from a Chinese restaurant.