Pause to Wonder

Have you misplaced a 27 meter tall silo-type object?

If so, it’s washed up on the beach at “Stinky Bay” in Scotland. Please claim it before it rolls over bystanders. Local authorities have cautioned the curious to “just observe it from a distance”. Wise advice.

Here’s the BBC article.

And what’s with the funky seaweed?

I’m not American, but everyone knows that America bills itself as “The Land of The Free.” And for a long time the whole world has enjoyed pointing to that in admiration or disgust, idealizing or vilifying.

The latest pin in the balloon is from a NYT article:

“Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal…”

Disloyal in what sense? They bought cheap Chinese imports instead of American Made? Maybe they liked those foreign movies from countries that spoke funny so’s you had tuh read the words at the bottom an’ it done gave yuh a head-ayche.

Disloyal to who? To what? It’s hard for it not to sound disturbingly paranoid.

No matter where we live, we always tell ourselves that fascism/totalitarianism happens elsewhere. And that assumption, of course, is what allows it enough time to get its foot firmly wedged in the doorway.

– so his replacement (?) will be fitted with a satellite tracking device to deter thieves.

Who’s going to buy a “hot” baby Jesus???

I think they should implant a little two-way communications device while they’re at it. Why hast thou stolen me? Thou art busted. The cops are on their way…

Two interesting things in this story.

The first, is that modern man is incapable of wrapping his mind around the fact that someone could say no to money and fame. The only explanation is some sort of mental disturbance. But what if he just doesn’t want to be rich or famous?

And the second interesting thing (which would have come first if my math was better) is that the above mentioned Dr Perelman appears to have solved the Poincaré Conjecture back in 2002. I’ve read a couple of interesting explanations of this problem here and here and if you speak math: here.

So I’m running to work (quite literally) because I’m late (as usual) and I run past a strangely-shaped piece of foam lying in the gutter. Half a block further, I realize it’s going to haunt me if I don’t document it — so I run back and snap a picture with my phone, then turn and run for the subway stop again.

I was ten minutes late, but now I have this fine photo to ponder. Okay it’s kind of a crappy photo - ’scuse the hell out of me! - but it shows you how grubby the foam was and the oddness of the shape. It looks like a giant ping pong paddle. It was about two feet (60 centimeters) long and had these strange holes in it as you can see.

So, the million dollar question is — what the hell is it?!? Most likely it was used to pack something for shipping, but then the question becomes what on earth would that something be?