Confirmation Bias

It was an ordinary day. Drizzly and cloudy, the occasional bursts of sunshine only served to remind everybody how gloomy everything was. Yes, an ordinary day it was.

Not for the chubby little boy who waddled his way home from school lost deep in thought; because our young prodigy had figured out a cast-iron test for one of the most important questions of all time.

Is there God?

The test was simple. He'd count to three, and if anything spectacular happened, that'd prove that God was real. He poked at his methodology from all sides, and he found it sound. An involuntary chuckle slipped out his pursed lips as he admired his own ingenuity.

One.
A droplet of rain fell on his forehead breaking apart with a near imperceptible shudder. A stray leaf fought a mighty gust, swaying this way and that. A dog began its hourly lament in the distance. A lorry driver began to toot out a masterpiece on the horn. A bored girl began to walk into view at the edge of his vision.

Two.
Another droplet of rain fell, this time on his outstretched arm. YES! This was it?! No, because a twin droplet followed the last and fell on the other arm, which wasn't quite outstretched. The dog's wailing cut off abruptly. YES! No, it started again, indistinguishable from the last. The lorry driver's toot entered the middle section, his favourite bit. The bored girl took another step. The boy sniffed.

Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.

The boy stopped counting. Why was he counting again? There had seemed to be an important reason.

BZZZT! BZZZT!

'Oh, hey mom. I'm almost home. What's for dinner?'


On another day, the chubby little boy, now a fine, young, rotund under-achiever in an air conditioned room, pondered the sudden sense of deja vu that'd overwhelmed him momentarily. God, these sudden, unexplained thoughts were the worst. Why couldn't he be like everybody else thinking about nothing all the time? God? He sighed.

He knew that he could never get back to working hard at twenty percent efficiency unless he took this thought to its logical conclusion. He sighed again. How many times had he had the same thought before? Presently, a flare of enthusiasm wiped away his weariness and he almost totally forgot about all those other times. This time would be different. He started to count.

One.
A tubelight flickered in the distance, towards the far end of the aisle. (When would they fix that?) The loud sound of open mouthed chewing came from a cubicle nearby. God, these mannerless geeks really drove him up the wall, he ruminated, as he bit loudly on his seventeenth bourbon biscuit of the day. A beep from his laptop signified that yet another email had arrived, affording him the opportunity to do more non-work by replying to it. A crumb made its way from his sloppy mouth and began an inelegant tumble to the floor at glacial pace.

Two.
The flickering tubelight continued to flicker. WAIT! Was that last flicker slightly longer than before? Probably not. The loud sound of open mouthed chewing morphed into the sound of open mouthed crunching moderated by open mouthed gulping, like the rumble of mansion sized potato chips being washed away in a thunderstorm. Coke and chips again, that geek was not only mannerless, but tasteless to boot. That crumb of bourbon biscuit slipped and slid its way down the smooth curve of a well tended belly. Another beep from his laptop. WAS THIS IT? It somehow sounded different! God was speaking to him? Oh. It was the different tone of a meeting invite.

Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.

The man stopped counting. Why was he counting again? There had seemed to be an important reason.

'PNNNNG!' 'PNNNNNG!'

< hey. ya gt da invite. join u in a bit. brb. >

On a different ordinary day, in a different place, far way, an old man squinted his eyes against the piercing afternoon sunshine. God, what would he do for a bit of rain! It was almost like he was being punished for the decades he'd spent doing nothing in an air conditioned room. Hmm.

A sudden thought crossed the old man's mind. His mind was now a fickle thing, with the boredom of retirement, but this thought seemed to strengthen and tame all the other threads into submission. In addition, this particular thought bore a familiarity which disconcerted him. It focussed his mind.

'Hey God, I haven't really ever had the cause to doubt your existence, but it's not like I have really felt your presence strongly either.' the old man mused, with a remarkable effort of concentration.

'How about you prove you're real? I'll count to three, and if there's a sudden spot of rain that cools this bloody afternoon, I'll concede that you might exist. Easy peasy right?'

One.
The noisy neighbour lady's phone began to ring. KRICKIT! That was a strong case for the existence of the devil, if anything, the old man felt. The timing was impeccably awful. A wasp began to buzz by his ear; a gnarled hand involuntarily started to swish it away. The faint sound of a slamming door reached his ears. With his hearing, it was probably next door, but darn, kids these days were so careless! Somebody should smack some sense into the little imps. Meanwhile, unnoticed, the old man's glasses began to slip off his nose.

Two.
KRICKIT! KRICKIT! KRICKIT!
'YES!' 'WHAT?' 'I DIDN'T QUITE CATCH THAT', the noisy neighbour lady barked in a rapid monotone. That proved it then, the Devil was real and he was a joker. God was still playing hide and seek though. The wasp of yore alighted casually on the old man's left ear, and naturally, the old man didn't feel a thing. A joint here twinged with pain, and a joint there sighed with pain. A car door slammed nearby.

Three.
'AAAAARGGGGH', the noisy neighbour lady screamed in agony. The old man chuckled - she'd probably dropped the phone in the bathtub or something. (He wasn't to know, but she was to die of an inexplicable heartattack in a second.) A suddenly bored wasp flew away, mysteriously enticed away from sinking its stinger into the juicy flesh of an old man's left ear. The ebb and flow of human voices, which could vaguely be resolved into the annoyed drone of a parent chastising a child for slamming doors, filtered into the old man's ear. Startled, the old man jerked in shock, and due to a happy coincidence, that pair of glasses that had damn near made up its mind to fall to the floor and shatter, righted itself on a stubby nose.
A momentary shower of water fell on the old man's thinning hair, and then, to use a well worn phrase, all hell broke loose.

The young lady upstairs was mortified. She'd just wrung the water from some of her laundry off the balcony, and right into somebody's face! She couldn't begin to explain this one; her embarrassment turned to fear when she saw who her victim was. The old man would verbally lash her to death!

'Er, sir.' she began to squeak hesitantly, only to stop in shock as she registered the pure, unadulterated joy on the old geezer's weathered mug.
He was screaming.

'I KNEW IT!'
'I KNEW YOU WERE REAL, GOD!'
'WHO ELSE COULD HAVE CHASED THAT WASP AWAY?!'
'WHO ELSE COULD HAVE SAVED MY PRIZED GLASSES FROM BREAKING?!'
'AND WHO.. ELSE... COULD... POSSIBLY.. LISTEN TO ME AND MAKE IT RAIN. EVEN IF ONLY FOR A BIT?!'

Adult Humour

... is not very adult, is it?
Bonus points for catching me contradict myself in a glorious display of irony below.

3G Connectivity, Unicorns and Quantum Physics

I have come to realize that a fundamental reality of the physical Universe - a strange, surreal reality, a reality that's so at odds with everyday experience that most are inclined to disbelieve it - is actually much more commonplace than we think. This is the reality of the Uncertainty Principle, and the commonplace manifestation I'm alluding to is the uncanny tale of the uncertainty of the third generation of mobile telecommunications technology.

That made no sense, eh? That's all right. High science-ese is not for everybody. In plain words then:

'You either see the 3G indicator on your mobile phone display, or you have 3G connectivity.'

This deceptively simple law is of profound significance. A practical example may further illuminate the ramifications of this law:  if you see the 3G ('H') indicator on your mobile phone screen 95% of the time, you do NOT have 3G connectivity 95% of the time. Don't believe me? Try watching your favourite Youtube clip when you have that 3G ('H') indicator flashing seductively on your screen.

What? Can't... what? I'm sorry - what you're saying is getting lost in all the stopping and starting and buffering. Oh.. 2G. QED.

If, at this point in time, you're hyperventilating in breathless shock, take your time to recover. (How can this be? I spend 42% of my salary on 3G connectivity?!) The blunt fact of this law will wait for you, even if time and tide won't.

Back?

So, if your cranial gears have been busy, you'll wonder if there's a way out.

'What if I do NOT see the 3G indicator 95% of the time?'
'What if I force the 2G ('E') indicator on 95% of the time? Applying the uncertainty law in reverse, doesn't that mean that I'll have 3G connectivity 95% of the time?'

Unfortunately, while this is an astute observation on your part, especially given that you're half dead from apoplexy, you've failed to account for the third principle of Mobile Phone Graphical User Interface Design:

'You do not have 3G connectivity if you do not have the 3G indicator on your mobile phone display.'

Work through the implications of both these fundamental laws, and you'll come to realize that you're - to use a little layman-speak - screwed. At this point, you'll skip through the five stages of grief rather quickly and reach acceptance, because it'll occur to you that the implications of these laws are remarkably in tune with your experience so far.

And your experience so far is that you never, ever, ever really get 3G connectivity.

Ah, well.

The Burden Of Geekhood

Me, when somebody calls himself (or herself) a self-professed geek.

Where's My Chair?

Here's the enthralling tale of the new guy in office who needed a chair. 

(For some reason, Blogger seems to be making the image smaller, so opening the image in a new tab won't make the text any clearer. Here's the original image for your perusal - don't forget to click! https://www.flickr.com/photos/52214053@N04/18491193850/sizes/o/ )

The Illusion called Nutrition

I was privileged enough to witness what will go down in history as one of the most momentous occasions in the short life that human beings have been on planet Earth; leave alone the even shorter life that nutrition has had as a field of science.

It was a press conference.

Us newspaper hacks knew nothing except that this gathering would bring together some serious heavyweights - I thought I’d retire that pun, but hey, this could be the last time I use it - there was the rotundly effete president of the Association of Health (commonly shortened to ‘Ah’. Ah.) There was the corpulently wishy-washy chairman of the multinational Nutritional Union of The States (NUTS), a body that had become the de facto substitute for the United Nations since obesity had grown to replace corporate imperialism as the greatest threat to humankind. And there were, of course, the leaders of the all the surviving nations, in their various homages to the spherical form and the ideal of inutility.

And then there were innumerable, indistinguishable men and women - a remarkable achievement, attaining indistinguishability so powerful you’re sexless - in identical suits and goggles and practiced deadpan expressions - representatives of the dominant ruling paradigm of the late twenty second century - corporatocracy. There were also, hunched fearful and rat-like in the shadows, the intellectual flag bearers from two centuries ago - men and women, consigned to the dregs of society for choosing to while their time away trying to answer irrelevant questions like how the world worked. Scientists, I believe they were called. If that lot were here, then surely everybody was, and this was going to be something big.

A loud harrumph broke the silence. Or would have, had there been silence. So it sort of half shushed the frenzied whispering.

Rows and rows of faces - both physical and electronic - looked up.

A second harrumph followed. ‘We,’ wheezed the portly figure of the President of Ah, cleverly called ‘Ah-man’.

‘We have gathered here to make an important announcement.’

A soundless sigh rustled through the room. Get on with it, Ah-man!

‘We have gathered here on this momentous day,’ Ah-man dithered, only to wince under the force of a million glares - some bleeding into the ultraviolet - and tighten his act, ‘to fold our hands in front of you and offer a heartfelt apology.’

‘We have spent many decades, centuries, aeons even, trying to convince everyone that we had the answers to the problem of happiness.’

‘Yes, it wasn’t always phrased like that but the pursuit of health, which we represented, only made sense if it was intimately tied to everyday happiness, and we worked our best to strengthen those ties.’

Looks were hastily exchanged, and there were the occasional collisions between face and monitor as a consequence. Ah-man trundled on.

‘We believed that the solution to obesity was nutrition science, and the solution to making people listen was to come up with an unchanging dogma of nutrition science. But that doesn’t quite work in the world of science, does it?’ Ah-man took off his $50,000 pair of vanity spectacles and rubbed his eyes with a certain cosmic weariness.

‘Yes, it doesn’t. One day, we would tell you to have heavy breakfasts. Studies would back this up, of course. The next, we would tell you that skipping breakfast was the key to a healthy work life balance. That too would be backed up by studies, of course, we’re methodic like that. And the day after, we’d tell you that skipping breakfast was bad, but it was equally bad to have breakfast immediately after waking up.’

‘We told you, for approximately four Gregorian centuries that more frequent, smaller meals were good. Studies had assured us - ‘ Ah-man paused, in a rare moment of self-awareness, and decided not to finish that sentence. ‘But then we started telling you that the number of meals you had didn’t really matter.’

‘We told you, for near about three score years that milk was essential for a healthy life. But we told you, for near about three - ‘ Ah-man looked askance at a raised hand in his entourage ‘ - or, as I was just corrected, four and a half score years that not drinking milk probably doubled your life span.’

'I think it's safest to not go into the gluten fiasco at all.' Agreeing titters erupted in the room.

‘We told you many things - and we told them like they were fact - and they were all wrong.’

Ah-man mopped a brow. Now there was silence, and the silence in the cavernous hall was absolute. A snoring mouse could have caused tinnitus.

‘We have now come to the conclusion that the field of nutrition science has been a well-intentioned but ultimately delusory pursuit. We have decided to relegate it to the same bookshelf as the religions of old, and various beliefs regarding black cats, mirrors, ladders and salt thrown over one’s shoulder. We have decided to retract everything we’ve told you so far, save one.’

The silence was now so sharp and the air was so heavy with tension that you could have floated an anorexic baby on an air current. I jiggled my ample belly in anticipation.

‘We have found out that the stress caused by the painstaking application required to sort through our numerous contradictory nutritional diktats would far offset any gains in health one may obtain by dutifully following said diktats.’

‘In other words, you’re likely to be far healthier and live longer, more fulfilling lives if you do not make any effort whatsoever to follow... anything.. we... say.’ Ah-man dragged himself through the last handful of words, like sprinting through treacle, and promptly burst out in a flood of tears.

Everyone else, well, corporeal or otherwise, it was said, made the twenty four hours that followed the announcement the biggest party humankind had ever seen. It was estimated that thirty three percent of everyone present suffered an aneurysm as a direct result of their ecstatic manoeuvrings. I didn’t know, as I’d promptly passed out as the result of a minor aneurysm. 

Nap Power

(Because I already have a comic called 'Power Nap' but this one really is about the power of power naps. Power Nap Power?)