I joke with my students and friends, but...
Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some truth to the joke. When my students marvel at how much tax knowledge and trivia I have stored in my brain, I explain it away by saying "that's because I'm a mutant." I say this mostly when I'm reminding them that they don't have to memorize form numbers or publication numbers, even though I have almost all of the relevant ones I use memorized. Most good tax pros have those forms they use frequently committed to mind, and my students from years past now marvel at their own memories for such minutiae.
But as I sit here late on a Saturday night, I wonder if there isn't something different about me. Why? Because I'm writing this blog, while listening to two different songs on two computers and enjoying both of them. And in addition to listening to two songs and writing a blog entry, I'm also moving back and forth between the blog and a game I'm playing. If I had a third computer available, and another hand, I'm convinced I could do all four things at once.
I'm not complaining mind you. Multitasking is not such a big deal these days, and much of what I'm doing at the moment is more accurately described as time-slicing rather than multitasking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_slice#Time_slice). I can think of two good instances where true multitasking is on display in film/television.
In "D.A.R.Y.L." Barret Oliver plays 'Daryl' a young boy who has no human brain, but instead has an android brain. The title is an acronym for Data Android Robot Youth Lifeform, but he's actually more accurately labeled as a cyborg. We see him in the laboratory where he was being kept by the military multitasking on a number of video screens.
In "Star Trek: The Next Generation" we see Brent Spiner as 'Data' who is an android with a positronic matrix brain. He is capable of doing an amazing number of tasks simultaneously.
I'm no Daryl and I'm certainly no Data. But I think I'll keep listening to two songs at once while I write this, and see if I can beat the computer at chess again.
* * *
Art imitating life? Life imitating art? Back in the days after 9/11, work was done to identify and expose areas in the infrastructure of the U. S. that were vulnerable to attack. One such weakness that was identified was the fact that if key pieces of the system of transformers and other pieces of the power grid were destroyed or badly damaged, the entire U. S. could be plunged into an extended blackout.
"NCIS", in the episode 'Seadog' explored this weakness in a story where terrorists were trying to blow up three towers in the Virginia power grid. It was an interesting episode and should have helped bring about awareness of this problem.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal disclosed a confidential federal report that concluded damaging any nine of a few dozen key transformers could create a blackout that would take a year to fix. Why so long? Because it can take up to a year to manufacture replacement transformers, most of which are built overseas.
Clearly this is not acceptable. Improving security around these key substations, which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is doing is a step in the right direction. However the only real answer is to spend the money and construct enough redundancy in the system to eliminate the possibility that the grid could be taken down that easily.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The Associated Press reports that there's been a major change in the demographics of who is receiving assistance through what some still refer to as "food stamps." Now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the majority of current recipients are working-age adults. In the past it's been the older and younger segments of the population who needed SNAP. Still think the economy is improving?
Do rehab centers give return customers a frequent guest discount?
Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller are getting along now and hosted a birthday party for their boys at Sheen's house. Mueller's fiancée was there. Wait a minute, someone's proposed to her in the midst of all of the drugs, drama and other douchebag behavior in her life? Wow.
How could I have managed to get to be this old without learning what the acronym FLBP means?
Is asking that a pit bull who mauled a four year old child be spared being put down an indication that those people value the dog more than the child? No. But this pit bull had already killed another dog and now it's mauled a child. It should be euthanized.
I imagine Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps, Sr. may hang on for quite some time, despite reports that he is close to death. I'm assuming neither God nor Satan wants him around them for eternity.
OTOH, when he does pass, shouldn't we all go to his funeral and protest?
The defense counsel for that general who was being court-martialed for sexual assault claims the Pentagon interfered in the case. Wow, shocking. Who would have thought they'd do that?
For those who are defending the exclusion of "gay groups" from the St. Patrick's Day parades in NYC and Boston, imagine the reaction if it were Hispanic or Black groups that were being excluded. Maybe then you'll understand why the exclusion is morally wrong.
What is the best possible answer for the old chestnut, "why did the chicken cross the road?" I've always favored "to get away from Colonel Sanders."
The annual litany of deciding which teams were "snubbed" by the NCAA tournament selection committee is a waste of time.
The toughest part of picking a bracket that will win you $1 billion is going to be figuring out which #4 seed is going to be upset by a #13 seed and which #12 seed or seeds will topple #5 seeds in the first round.
Would someone please let the SEC know that there is no kickoff in basketball?
Okay, so it turns out that Paul Stanley of KISS is not just upset about being asked to have the band's original lineup perform at the induction ceremony enshrining them in the Rock Music Hall of Fame. He's pissed because the men who replaced Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the band's lineup won't be inducted with the original lineup. He has a point.
Dublin Airport wants you to know that it's St. Patrick's Day or St. Paddy's Day, but not St. Patty's Day. Patty is a woman's name.
Rocky. The Bridges of Madison County. Bullets Over Broadway. Matilda. All movies. All now being done as musicals on stage. Rocky? The Wall Street Journal did call it "a knockout hit."
* * *
March 17th in History:
45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.
180 – Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
455 – Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
624 – Led by Muhammad, the Muslims of Medina defeat the Quraysh of Mecca in the Battle of Badr.
1001 – The King of Butuan in the Philippines sends a tributary mission to the Song Dynasty of China.
1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.
1452 – The Battle of Los Alporchones is fought in the context of the Spanish Reconquista between the Emirate of Granada and the combined forces of the Kingdom of Castile and Murcia resulting in a Christian victory.
1560 – Fort Coligny on Villegagnon Island in Rio de Janeiro is attacked and destroyed during the Portuguese campaign against France Antarctique.
1677 – The Siege of Valenciennes, during the Franco-Dutch War, ends with France's taking of the city.
1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
1780 – American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".
1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
1842 – The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is formed;
1860 – The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed.
1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.
1921 – The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution.
1939 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins,
1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture.
1947 – First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.
1948 – The Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "californium".
1957 – A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
1958 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
1959 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
1963 – Mount Agung erupted on Bali killing more than 1,100 people.
1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.
1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
1970 – My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.
1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles, California murder spree.
1988 – A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143.
1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
1992 – Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Suicide car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.
1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.
2000 – 530 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.
2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2004 – Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Niš are destroyed.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Emperor Shijo of Japan
James IV of Scotland
Roger B. Taney
Ebenezer Elliott
Walter Rudolf Hess
Bobby Jones
Sammy Baugh
Nat King Cole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c33w9Ar-U8)
Meir Amit
Myrlie Evers-Williams
Rudolf Nureyev (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag_r-_lPvJ8)
Paul Kantner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR8LFNUr3vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj4gqJzlIvc)
John Wayne Gacy
Cito Gaston
John Sebastian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzzAUaOzsk)
Harold Brown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0DMbCKnAg)
Patrick Duffy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCEjeTb1rrs)
Kurt Russell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YeN3zXAmWw)
Scott Gorham (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo1HIcSVtg)
Chuck Muncie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiW3m3lS1zA this one is for my friend Joel)
Lesley Anne Down (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-SUyHtxb44)
Mark Boone Junior
Gary Sinise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqAbjHKO5jM)
Vicki Lewis
Sam Bowie
Rob Lowe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_GZnrr1nw)
Barry Minkow (you can't take the con out of the con man, at least in his case)
Patricia Ford
Coco Austin (39DD...wow)
Samoa Joe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qFcFP72s2U)
Rob Kardashian
But as I sit here late on a Saturday night, I wonder if there isn't something different about me. Why? Because I'm writing this blog, while listening to two different songs on two computers and enjoying both of them. And in addition to listening to two songs and writing a blog entry, I'm also moving back and forth between the blog and a game I'm playing. If I had a third computer available, and another hand, I'm convinced I could do all four things at once.
I'm not complaining mind you. Multitasking is not such a big deal these days, and much of what I'm doing at the moment is more accurately described as time-slicing rather than multitasking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_slice#Time_slice). I can think of two good instances where true multitasking is on display in film/television.
In "D.A.R.Y.L." Barret Oliver plays 'Daryl' a young boy who has no human brain, but instead has an android brain. The title is an acronym for Data Android Robot Youth Lifeform, but he's actually more accurately labeled as a cyborg. We see him in the laboratory where he was being kept by the military multitasking on a number of video screens.
In "Star Trek: The Next Generation" we see Brent Spiner as 'Data' who is an android with a positronic matrix brain. He is capable of doing an amazing number of tasks simultaneously.
I'm no Daryl and I'm certainly no Data. But I think I'll keep listening to two songs at once while I write this, and see if I can beat the computer at chess again.
* * *
Art imitating life? Life imitating art? Back in the days after 9/11, work was done to identify and expose areas in the infrastructure of the U. S. that were vulnerable to attack. One such weakness that was identified was the fact that if key pieces of the system of transformers and other pieces of the power grid were destroyed or badly damaged, the entire U. S. could be plunged into an extended blackout.
"NCIS", in the episode 'Seadog' explored this weakness in a story where terrorists were trying to blow up three towers in the Virginia power grid. It was an interesting episode and should have helped bring about awareness of this problem.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal disclosed a confidential federal report that concluded damaging any nine of a few dozen key transformers could create a blackout that would take a year to fix. Why so long? Because it can take up to a year to manufacture replacement transformers, most of which are built overseas.
Clearly this is not acceptable. Improving security around these key substations, which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is doing is a step in the right direction. However the only real answer is to spend the money and construct enough redundancy in the system to eliminate the possibility that the grid could be taken down that easily.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The Associated Press reports that there's been a major change in the demographics of who is receiving assistance through what some still refer to as "food stamps." Now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the majority of current recipients are working-age adults. In the past it's been the older and younger segments of the population who needed SNAP. Still think the economy is improving?
Do rehab centers give return customers a frequent guest discount?
Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller are getting along now and hosted a birthday party for their boys at Sheen's house. Mueller's fiancée was there. Wait a minute, someone's proposed to her in the midst of all of the drugs, drama and other douchebag behavior in her life? Wow.
How could I have managed to get to be this old without learning what the acronym FLBP means?
Is asking that a pit bull who mauled a four year old child be spared being put down an indication that those people value the dog more than the child? No. But this pit bull had already killed another dog and now it's mauled a child. It should be euthanized.
I imagine Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps, Sr. may hang on for quite some time, despite reports that he is close to death. I'm assuming neither God nor Satan wants him around them for eternity.
OTOH, when he does pass, shouldn't we all go to his funeral and protest?
The defense counsel for that general who was being court-martialed for sexual assault claims the Pentagon interfered in the case. Wow, shocking. Who would have thought they'd do that?
For those who are defending the exclusion of "gay groups" from the St. Patrick's Day parades in NYC and Boston, imagine the reaction if it were Hispanic or Black groups that were being excluded. Maybe then you'll understand why the exclusion is morally wrong.
What is the best possible answer for the old chestnut, "why did the chicken cross the road?" I've always favored "to get away from Colonel Sanders."
The annual litany of deciding which teams were "snubbed" by the NCAA tournament selection committee is a waste of time.
The toughest part of picking a bracket that will win you $1 billion is going to be figuring out which #4 seed is going to be upset by a #13 seed and which #12 seed or seeds will topple #5 seeds in the first round.
Would someone please let the SEC know that there is no kickoff in basketball?
Okay, so it turns out that Paul Stanley of KISS is not just upset about being asked to have the band's original lineup perform at the induction ceremony enshrining them in the Rock Music Hall of Fame. He's pissed because the men who replaced Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the band's lineup won't be inducted with the original lineup. He has a point.
Dublin Airport wants you to know that it's St. Patrick's Day or St. Paddy's Day, but not St. Patty's Day. Patty is a woman's name.
Rocky. The Bridges of Madison County. Bullets Over Broadway. Matilda. All movies. All now being done as musicals on stage. Rocky? The Wall Street Journal did call it "a knockout hit."
* * *
March 17th in History:
45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.
180 – Marcus Aurelius dies leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
455 – Petronius Maximus becomes, with support of the Roman Senate, emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
624 – Led by Muhammad, the Muslims of Medina defeat the Quraysh of Mecca in the Battle of Badr.
1001 – The King of Butuan in the Philippines sends a tributary mission to the Song Dynasty of China.
1337 – Edward, the Black Prince is made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.
1452 – The Battle of Los Alporchones is fought in the context of the Spanish Reconquista between the Emirate of Granada and the combined forces of the Kingdom of Castile and Murcia resulting in a Christian victory.
1560 – Fort Coligny on Villegagnon Island in Rio de Janeiro is attacked and destroyed during the Portuguese campaign against France Antarctique.
1677 – The Siege of Valenciennes, during the Franco-Dutch War, ends with France's taking of the city.
1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
1780 – American Revolution: George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".
1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
1842 – The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is formed;
1860 – The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed.
1891 – SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.
1921 – The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution.
1939 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins,
1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany, collapses, ten days after its capture.
1947 – First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.
1948 – The Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "californium".
1957 – A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines kills Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
1958 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
1959 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
1963 – Mount Agung erupted on Bali killing more than 1,100 people.
1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.
1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
1970 – My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.
1985 – Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles, California murder spree.
1988 – A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143.
1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
1992 – Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Suicide car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.
1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.
2000 – 530 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.
2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2004 – Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Niš are destroyed.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Emperor Shijo of Japan
James IV of Scotland
Roger B. Taney
Ebenezer Elliott
Walter Rudolf Hess
Bobby Jones
Sammy Baugh
Nat King Cole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c33w9Ar-U8)
Meir Amit
Myrlie Evers-Williams
Rudolf Nureyev (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag_r-_lPvJ8)
Paul Kantner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR8LFNUr3vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj4gqJzlIvc)
John Wayne Gacy
Cito Gaston
John Sebastian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzzAUaOzsk)
Harold Brown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0DMbCKnAg)
Patrick Duffy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCEjeTb1rrs)
Kurt Russell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YeN3zXAmWw)
Scott Gorham (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo1HIcSVtg)
Chuck Muncie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiW3m3lS1zA this one is for my friend Joel)
Lesley Anne Down (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-SUyHtxb44)
Mark Boone Junior
Gary Sinise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqAbjHKO5jM)
Vicki Lewis
Sam Bowie
Rob Lowe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_GZnrr1nw)
Barry Minkow (you can't take the con out of the con man, at least in his case)
Patricia Ford
Coco Austin (39DD...wow)
Samoa Joe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qFcFP72s2U)
Rob Kardashian
posted by me at 4:08 PM
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