Thursday: Hili dialogue

December 3, 2020 • 6:30 am

We’re racing into December—and into VACCINE TIME! It’s Thursday, December 3, 2020, and National Peppermint Latte Day, celebrating a vile libation. It’s also Canadian Bacon Day, 33 Flavors Day, celebrating Baskin-Robbins (but there’s an error here!), National Cold Cuts Day, National Mulled Wine Day, International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs Day. Speaking of the latter, here’s a British ad for milk, one I’ve shown before but is always worth watching (see more here):

News of the Day:

Matthew just joined a long list of distinguished geneticists in winning this year’s JBS Haldane Lecture Award, given by the Genetics Society of the UK. The lecture honors work in outreach: making genetics accessible to the layperson. Matthew will give his Hadane lecture next November, when the pandemic is over (fingers crossed).

The New York Times has a nice illustrated article about what must surely be the world’s oldest store: a toasted mochi shop in Japan that’s been going for over one thousand years (many businesses in Japan are over a century old).

Breaking news: a ten-year-old, 50-pound wallaby is loose in Colorado, having escaped from the Zoology Foundation in Larkspur. They haven’t caught the little bugger yet, but they’d better before the really cold weather sets in!

More insanity—from the Guardian via reader Jez. It shows that people don’t understand statistics (emphasis below is mine):

An unusual sequence of numbers drawn by South Africa’s national lottery has left players dumbfounded and sparked accusations of fraud after 20 people won a share of the jackpot.

The consecutive numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and a “PowerBall” number of 10 were the South African national lottery’s winning combination on Tuesday night.

Twenty lucky players hit the jackpot and won 5.7 million rand (£277,000) each. Another 79 won around 6,283 rand ($407) for guessing the sequence but missing the PowerBall.

“Congratulations to tonight’s 20 winners of PowerBall draw,” the lottery tweeted late on Tuesday. “These numbers may be unexpected but we see many players opt to play these sequences.”

Many perplexed South Africans used social media on Wednesday to allege the results has [sic] been fixed.

The coronavirus is raging, with the CDC now saying that the U.S. could have 450,000 deaths by the beginning of February. Fortunately, multiple vaccines should be available around then. But I feel terrible for the people who will die before the spring, with their loved ones knowing that if they had just hung on a few more months, their lives could have been saved.

Yesterday President-Eject Trump held a Christmas party at the White House, and, in violation of all health recommendations from rational experts, it was elbow-to-elbow with few masks to be seen. To wit: a photo from the party’s live Facebook feed.

Also, the Head Moron suggested that he may run again in 2024. What is he thinking? Can he really be a Republican candidate again?

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 273,518, a big increase of about 2,900 from yesterday’s figure, representing about 2 Americans dying per minute. The New York Times reports 2,762 deaths—the figures vary, of course—and that is still the record total for any day since the pandemic began, with hospitalizations topping 100,000—for a single day! The world death toll is 1,501,302, another big increase of about 12,600 over yesterday’s report—about 8.8 deaths per minute. 

Stuff that happened on December 3 includes:

Here’s the Grand Union flag, a British/American hybrid:

And here’s a remembrance of Darwin, who was seasick on the Beagle the whole five years of the voyage:

Here’s Claude with a demonstration. Two years later he sold the first neon sign to a barbershop in Montmartre:

  • 1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration.
  • 1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

Here’s a Pioneer picture showing Jupiter with its famous red spot:

  • 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.
  • 1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

Here’s a haunting and widely-circulated picture (also used to raise funds for survivors) of a child killed by the leak:

  • 1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world’s first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.

Here’s the text message (a bit early):

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s Stuart’s most famous work: an unfinished portrait of George Washington (1796, when Washington was 65). It adorns the American one-dollar bill:

The bill (from Wikipedia):

  • 1833 – Carlos Finlay, Cuban epidemiologist and physician (d. 1915)
  • 1895 – Anna Freud, Austrian-English psychologist and psychoanalyst (d. 1982)
  • 1922 – Sven Nykvist, Swedish director and cinematographer (d. 2006)
  • 1925 – Ferlin Husky, American country music singer (d. 2011)
  • 1927 – Andy Williams, American singer (d. 2012)
  • 1963 – Terri Schiavo, American medical patient (d. 2005)
  • 1965 – Katarina Witt, German figure skater and actress
  • 1985 – Amanda Seyfried, American actress

Those who popped their cork on December 3 include:

  • 1888 – Carl Zeiss, German physicist and lens maker, created the optical instrument (b. 1816)
  • 1910 – Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader and author, founded Christian Science (b. 1821)

Here’s Eddy in her thirties. Would you trust this person with your faith?

  • 1980 – Oswald Mosley, English lieutenant, fascist, and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (b. 1896)
  • 1993 – Lewis Thomas, American physician, etymologist, and academic (b. 1913)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, HIli is grumpy because Andrzej woke her up to take a photo:

A: May I interrupt your nap?
Hili: I hope you have a very serious reason!
In Polish:
Ja: Czy mogę ci przerwać drzemkę?
Hili: Mam nadzieję, że masz bardzo ważny powód!

Two memes from reader Bruce:

And from Nicole:

A tweet from Titania about the transsexual announcement that the former Ellen Page is now a man named Elliot Page. The thing is, Page is now really a straight man, as he was a lesbian and is married to another woman, but I bet some people take Titania’s tweet seriously.

From Simon, a cool cartoon tweet about the new RNA Covid vaccines. In these, messenger RNA is injected into your body, directing it to make a harmless piece of the virus’s “spike protein” that is then used by your body to produce antibodies to the virus. Read more about it here; it’s a triumph of human ingenuity.

Tweets from Matthew. The first one (sound up) is a very sweet story:

This and similar tweets are deceptive: birds are not feeding fish! As Matthew notes,

Not as cute as it appears. as someone says in response “Waterfowl like to get their food wet before consumption. This has absolutely nothing to do with them ‘feeding’ the fish. It’s normal animal feeding behavior. Opportunistic fish are just trying to get the crumbs and food particles in the water around them.”

I think this article does come close to the best Wikipedia entry; I don’t know of a better onel. (Wait! I just found one almost as good!)

This cat has a big job ahead—to charm each sheep individually:

More cat stuff, but look at that footprint!

I had to look this up to make sure it was true. It is! Even the part about the male tucking in his willy!

52 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Don’t worry. All those people at the White House were BLM protestors, so masks aren’t necessary.

    1. Where I live, most BLM protestors wore masks and attempted to not get too close to one another. You may have noticed that BLM protests took place outdoors. I don’t think your comment really makes much sense.

      1. Also, the height of the protests happened months ago; back then, the virus was more isolated and the hot spots centered around large urban areas. (Not to say these didn’t overlap with the protests.) But presently, we’re in a full blown outbreak and cases are climbing in every state. I looked at the Covid map in the NYT this morning and I couldn’t believe how many states were completely orange to red. Including your neck of the woods…stay safe. And as you mentioned, transmitting the virus outside is rare. Maskless, indoor events with no social distancing are Covid’s favorite playground.

  2. Such is Trump’s arrogance and separation from reality that I suspect that he is not only capable of standing in 2024, he could even go so far as to run as an Independent if he fails to secure the Republican nomination. Of course it would be difficult to mount a campaign from a jail cell, and there seems every chance that such will be his address in 2024.

      1. It would certainly doom any chances Republicans have of retaking the White House in 2024, given that they’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections as is.

    2. If Trump does try to officially announce his 2024 run during Biden’s inauguration, it is going to be interesting to see which even Republicans decide to attend. Trump will undoubtedly make inquiries beforehand to avoid potential embarrassment if they decide to go to Biden’s affair. Should be interesting.

      1. From a purely political point of view, it would be good for Democrats if tRump did pull this trick. Republican legislators will be damned which ever way they move.

        1. Perhaps but I fear underestimating the thickness of the Trump/GOP bubble. Would such an event draw the ridicule it deserves or be the kickoff for the Biden administration’s delegitimization according to a third of the country? Probably both.

          1. That third of the country is already convinced that the election was a fraud. They aren’t going away regardless. Republicans are being forced to choose between reality and even crazier-than-they-already-are fantasyland. They are doomed and tRumpian antics to keep the base convinced that the Deep State now includes Bill Bar and Governor Brian Kemp will be political manna for Democrats. Not that this is good for the country in general, mind you.

  3. To put the daily covid deaths into context – Japan has had 2172 deaths total – the US blew past that in a single day. In the meantime Trump is having superspreader events and spending time on serial lying from the White House. Roll on 2021.

    1. I’m making it even money Trump doesn’t come back from Mar-a-Lago after the Christmas break. He’s already forsaken performing his governmental duties. Why not stay at his glitzy Palm Beach trash palace and hit the links?

      It’s as easy to send mean tweets and spread transparent lies from there as from the inhospitable weather and political climate of Washington, DC.

  5. The election of 1800 was just the first of many screwed up elections since and after all these years, it still has not been fixed. How can democracy be so hard for a democracy? They will do the right thing only after all else has failed. The system that brought you D. Trump is still in play.

    1. When my son was around 11-12 years old, we were talking about the latest Illinois Lottery numbers, which were a common sequence, and therefore had numerous winners to share the prize. I said that you should not pick common sequences if you buy a lottery ticket, because all sequences have the same probability to be picked, the common sequence ones would inevitably have more winners. He thought about it for a few minutes, then said, “What if the numbers were something like, 1, 3, 7. 13 19, 40, came up and 100 mathematicians came to collect. They would all be saying, “D’oh! I KNEW I shouldn’t have picked such an easy series!””

  7. Love the Four Horsemen of Narration! I would add two more Americans as runners-up: Peter Coyote and Sam Elliott.

    1. Love Sam Elliot, but Peter Coyote puts me right to sleep in his Ken Burns gigs. Tooo slooooowwww.

  9. Now I’ve got to thinking we need to be fair to the distaff narrators. Who would be on the list of the Four Horsewomen of Narration? Three who come readily to my mind, since I’m a Chicagoan, are radio announcers Felicia Middlebrooks of WBBM, Lisa Flynn of WFMT, and Lisa Simeone of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

  10. This is a water opossum from S & C America. It’s the only marsupial species whose males have pouches. They put their genitalia in it before swimming.

    So evolution produced the prototype jockstrap?

      1. The entire time I ever wore an athletic supporter (while swimming or otherwise) I was never once attacked by a candiru fish either. So clearly the concept works.

  12. The next question might be. Will you act any different after getting this vaccination than you were before? I would guess not but it’s a thought. I had all those diseases when I was a kid so I have never had the MMR that I recall.

    1. I assume that’s a reply to 11. Right, you shouldn’t change your safe behaviors. The research suggests you would have a much milder case of COVID than without the immunization. But you could still have a hard time and be able to pass it on. If you had these diseases in childhood, you will have some immunity, but it gradually diminishes. Good idea to get the booster, I’d say. Another bit of research showed that in countries with only partial MMR immunization coverage, almost all the COVID deaths were among those who were not immunized.

      1. Yes I thought I had clicked on reply but who knows. Hope I did this time. Strange it said, even if you had the MMR vaccine, if exposed to the viruses you could still get them.

  14. 20 winners! Well there goes my idea.

    I always figured that picking consecutive numbers was a good strategy, since while the odds never change, innumerate people will think such tickets are less likely to win, will avoid consecutive numbers, and therefore you’re increasing the expected payoff (i.e. by picking a combination unlikely to be shared with any other player).

    But, I guess in hindsight it’s not surprising that a bunch of people think that way.

    1. Maybe this should designated the “Eric Paradox (or How the Numerate Outsmart Themselves)”.

      1. I would never have picked low numbers though. You gotta start your sequence higher than 31, to avoid birthdays and other dates.

        Uh..oops. Forget I said that. Low numbers are definitely the way to go. Yes, you can’t go wrong with a sequence of low numbers, trust me.

    2. I recall reading that the number of people who do 1 2 3 4 5 6 in the UK Lottery is in the thousands. If they ever won they’d get a few pounds each.

    1. Yes matthew. Ditto! As a member of the general public, i have truly enjoyed and learned from your many lectures, interviews, and writings over the years. Nice to see your efforts officially recognized.

  16. According to Firesign Theatre, back in the 1960s a fraternity at U-C Berkeley enrolled a dog for classes and saw him through to graduation:
    GEORGE LEROY TIREBITER

    1. When I attended the University of Hartford in the late 1980’s, there was a basset hound named Leo who lived nearby and strolled around the campus like he owned it. Some students filled out an application for Leo D. Canine and sent it in. He was accepted. It made national news.

  17. “Also, the Head Moron suggested that he may run again in 2024. What is he thinking? Can he really be a Republican candidate again?”

    He could be elected president again even if he is a convicted felon, but not if he is literally behind bars. If he were a convicted felon, then the RNC would probably move heaven and earth to block his nomination. If he manages to come through the next few years unscathed, I can easily see him taking the nomination.

    EDIT: Actually, he could probably be elected even if behind bars. All he would need to do is pardon himself.

    1. He’ll keep running regardless no matter what. It is part of the grift operation he’s got going. As long as there are MAGAtists out there who will send him contributions he’ll be happy to keep on “fighting” for them.

      1. AIUI once one officially becomes a candidate (fills in the proper forms, etc.), there are strict regulations about how you can spend campaign contributions. So I’m skeptical he’ll ever officially run again. The spotlight would be very strong, limiting his grift. Heck, just this week Ivanka was deposed as part of a case against his 2016 campaign organization for paying twice the market rate to Trump owned hotels for events.

        But yeah, I agree with you that there’s a high probability he does a (post-2008) Sarah Palin – hints and implies he’s going to run for the next few years, never actually does it, and then legally keeps the contributions for personal use.

    2. Eugene V. Debs ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket in 1920 while doing a 10-year bid in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Got damn near a million votes for his efforts, too.

      Convicted felons are disenfranchised from voting in almost all states (at least while they are still serving their sentences), but nothing prevents them from running for US president. Go figure.

  18. When I was in college, my father asked me for the best six numbers to use for a lottery ticket. I told him all were equally likely so he might as well choose 1,…,6 because no one else would likely choose such a sequence and he wouldn’t have to share. (I was wrong about that, apparently). He told me that if he believed such a sequence was equally likely, he’d never buy another lottery ticket. Apparently he didn’t because he did. Even when he had six months to live he kept buying lottery tickets.

    1. I once tried to explain to some poker players that the odds of drawing any specific five-card hand were exactly the same, whether it was a straight-flush or rags; there’re just a lot more five-card possibilities for the latter than for the former.

      When they didn’t seem able to grasp the concept, I knew I was sitting at the right table to clean up.

  21. As an AFOL, had a Lego City with a monorail running through two small bedrooms by a connected closet. Resident cat at the time was a petite female, who daily walked through the set-up, never once displacing even a minifig.

    Later, I took in a larger male, who couldn’t quite make the floor to tabletop jump. He hooked his feet on the base plates, fell backwards, and pulled down a third of the display.

    Set up now is severely downsized, and behind plexiglass. That train owner is a lot more tolerant than I am.

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