WANTED: Do you see that Rat in the middle of our NOTES? That is MATHUZALA (our Resident Rodent Guest Columnist) who has gone missing. We are afraid of the worst. The Anti-Rat people in NYC have been have been mum in response to our queries to find out if they know (or did) anything. Were you have any knowledge of MATHUZALA‘s whereabouts, please contact us immediately. We need more than ‘Thoughts and Prayers’.
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THINGS TO KNOW (Interesting or important Information gleaned from the smaller headlines):
- “Night Owls” die sooner. There. The debate is settled. People who stay up late and do things that people do who stay up late, have shorter lives than people who go to bed earlier. Staying up late can cut two years off your life – if you live it out.
- Over 400 million Chinese cannot speak Mandarin, the official language of China. India has 30 distinct languages, each one of which is spoken by more than a million people. (Almost all Americans speak ‘American’; but half of them do not understand the other half.) It is estimated more people speak ‘American’ than there are Americans. What does all this mean? Only the future will tell; but what language the future will speak in, nobody knows.
- The Tyranny of Popularity: Things that are “Popular” tend to get more popular. Online Reviews, Social Media exacerbate the situation by creating steep popularity curves. 12% of all of the Musical Performances (individuals/acts) receive 77% of all the money generated in the business. It is estimated 70% of Book ‘reviewers’ have not read the Book they review. The same 70% estimate holds true for Hotel & B&B reviews in that few actually visited them for their review. YELP is often dominated by Social media experts, not by Critics, or actual customers. Who can you trust? ….aaahhh, that’s a big question.
- Dinosaurs, it turns out, did not roar. They made cooing sounds at best, and mostly they made loud, burping noises. Disgusting. No wonder they were hit by a rock.
- Scientists are pushing animal life back in time another 85,000,000 years due to an Australian Fossil they found. The date now goes back to 555,000,000 years ago. (The Christian fundamentalists are sticking with 6,666). You Pick. I think the Scientists should try to see if they can push animal life forward, rather than back; but then I’m not a scientist, …and maybe there is no money in the future.
- DATA: My data, apparently, is worth only an 8Oth of a cent to the Algorithmers…But if I get Alzheimers or Diabetes, then They want to know who and where I am and could actually pay up to a penny for my personals. The Algorithmers would pay more to get my data so they could sell it to the Drug people who could then sell me some concoctions to make me feel better – while I am in good enough condition to buy drugs.
- FROGS: Did you know ‘They’ are still dissecting frogs in high schools across the land? It’s true. However, I read in 2019, a high school in Florida experimented with dissecting synthetic frogs; but I could not find out how that went. I wonder if those high school graduates are better off than the ones who had to dissected live frogs as part of their curriculum. More needs to be done on this. It is interesting that Florida, of all States, may be in the avant-garde in this woke, frog life saving field.
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There is no Column from MATHUZALA this week See Top photo and lead paragraph for more on this matter. MATHUZALA was last seen to be en route to meet with the Mayor’s Rat Czarina…but there has been no hide nor hair of him since. We repeat: ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ are not good enough.
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A quote or two:
- “There were five exabytes of data created between the dawn of creation and 2003, but that much information is now created every two days.” -Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at GOOGLE
- “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” -Sherlock Holmes.
- “Nobody goes there nowadays – it’s too crowded” -Restaurant review by Yogi Berra
- “Trust but verify.” -Ronald Reagan. Movie & TV actor
That’s it for this week and a Happy Anniversary to La Pamela, wherever you are.
