After defections by the Syrian Prime Minister and Syria’s only astronaut, I am just waiting for one more final defection.
Asma, you can put an end to this terror!
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More defections in Syria
Celebrations at NASA
This is what 2.5 billion $ get you at NASA: a room full of people hugging each other.
And for that, you don’t even get cigars which used to be part of any proper NASA celebration.
Russian TV explains Geography
Living in Lithuania, I also receive some Russian TV channels. On one of them, I spotted this show in which the size of Russia is compared to the size of other countries.
Not so fast, Usain Bolt
Whenever somebody says “Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world”, I cringe. My sense of logic feels under attack by this sentence – and by similar outrageous statements.
I am not saying that Usain Bolt could not be the fastest man in the world, but I am saying that we can’t know. And I am not even thinking of jet fighter pilots or astronauts falling back to earth. My objection remains valid if I restrict it to people walking or running.
There are 7 billion people in the world, half of them men, and – at a very low estimate – again at least half of them able to run. That’s 1.75 billion people.
Anyone who makes the claim that Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world would need to know for sure that none of these other 1,750,000,000 people runs faster. How could anybody know?? There could be faster runners who never bothered to compete in races. There could be faster runners who couldn’t afford to compete. There could be faster runners who prefer to keep their talent a secret. If I could run as fast, I still wouldn’t want to come to the Olympics because I don’t like big crowds, for example.
Yes, these are the kind of logical fallacies that irritate me like hell me when listening to the news.
Most Important Investment Advice # 3
James Bond “Skyfall” Trailer
After the rather disappointing first teaser trailer, here is the first full trailer for “Skyfall”, the new James Bond film due for 26 October 2012.
As a big fan of James Bond, it hurts me to say this, but I am not yet convinced. Rather the contrary. Let’s hope the producers are only playing the game of low expectations.
How can you take a villain like him seriously?
= = = = =
UPDATE
= = = = =
I have now seen Skyfall and it was better than expected. Read my review.
Milton Friedman, 1912-2006
If there was a market for Milton Friedman, he would still be around.
To be fair, he actually influenced my economic and political thinking a bit, especially in my younger years. I liked the general liberal outlook and the idea of the negative income tax. But like most economists, he was too simplistic after all, just looking at numbers and models instead of the people. That’s how you end up going to Chile in 1975 and talking about inflation instead of political prisoners. Wrong priority.
Without a satellite dish, it would be beautiful.
Lithuanian houses could be so beautiful, if only their owners would refrain from putting up satellite dishes.
(seen and photographed in Trakai)
(seen and photographed in Užupis in Vilnius where people put up even stranger objects on the roof)
You can’t copy Paris
London, you should not have tried to copy the Eiffel Tower.
Even with immense good will on the part of the beholder, it does not look anything like this:
With an effort like this, France still doesn’t need to worry about anyone leaving France for the UK.
The face that says “Oops, what did I do?”
“If only there had been a waiting period”, James Holmes is thinking.
