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May 09 2012
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Al Observes Things

Al 1, All the Kings Men 0

Dear Mice,

Thank you for leaving a small plate of cracked egg shells on the kitchen counter for me before you left for work. Obviously, as you knew, I have been working unsuccessfully on what I have called “Project Humpty Dumpty” for the past few years, but now with your generous contribution, I have finally been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Al 1, All The King’s Men 0

However, what I did not count on was the true story behind Humpty Dumpty. You see, Humpty Dumpty was not just an egg that enjoyed sitting on walls (as we all do). Humpty Dumpty was actually an egg-warlord, and now that I have reconstructed him, he has raised a small army and is now commanding them using egg puns.

He is currently in your room with his fellow eggs-patriots, and they will spare no eggs-pense to eggs-punge you and Tootsie from the room. He’s looking through your belongings for embarrassing things to use for eggs-tortion, and he has no plan to stop until you agree to an eggs-ile far, far away (as he also plans to eggs-tend his domain over to Jeet’s room as well).

Fortunately for both of you, Tootsie and I don’t take shit from eggs, so we dealt with the problem. That’s why there are now broken eggs splattered all over your room.

You’re welcome.

The best roommate,

Al

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Apr 30 2012
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Al Observes Things, Fitness

Stop it with all the gimmicks!

Ever notice that everywhere you look, someone’s peddling some gimmicky weigh loss program? There’s lots of programs that’ll say stuff like:

  • Here are 15 easy exercises that will absolutely TORCH fat and don’t really require much work!
  • Don’t diet. Just detox by drinking a bunch of diuretics!
  • It’s not what you eat – it’s when you eat: any time you hear Al Roker’s voice!

Actually, I guess unless you live with Al Roker, the last bullet point probably will help you lose weight, but my point is: I’m here to tell you to stop it with all the gimmicks! What you really need is:

Mike’s Gimmick Free Workout Plan

Mike’s Gimmick-Free Workout Plan guarantees weight loss with:

  • Minimal effort (most of our workouts are performed sitting down)
  • No calorie/carb counting (we don’t even know math!)
  • Unlimited cheat days (consecutively!)

And all of this WITHOUT ANY GIMMICKS

Why should you trust Mike’s Gimmick-Free Workout Plan? Because Mike is his own customer!

mikefat mikekilomanjaro
BEFORE
Mike always looked displeased when he was climbing mountains.		 AFTER
Mike summits both a literal and metaphorical mountain… of gimmick-free weight loss!

How does Mike’s Gimmick Free Workout Plan Work? It’s simple. We take advantage of Muscle confusion – your muscles are going to be like, “hey wait… why aren’t you making me exercise? I r confused”

So sign up today for Mike’s Gimmick Free Workout Plan!

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Apr 26 2012
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Al Observes Things, Fitness

A Life Lesson About Flexibility

I received an email today from my gym saying, “hey everyone, great news! We’ll be doing some construction so the weight room is going to be closed for a week.” That’s minus 5 points to my gym for inconveniencing me, but it’s plus 4 points for making it sound like good news that I’m being inconvenienced.

Anywho, I was annoyed about my missed workouts for that week when I realized that it was ridiculous that I would get so upset just because someone threw a wrench (literally???) into my plans (okay not literally). What I really needed to exercise was a little flexibility.

So while the weight room is under construction, I’ll be in the group fitness room stretching to work on my flexibility. Then I’ll make a triumphant return to the weight room when it’s re-opened to move some heavy objects and the return them to their original positions.

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Apr 05 2012
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Al Observes Things

Re: your newegg package

Dear Mike,

As you may have noticed, you received a package in the mail today from Newegg, and since you are currently in Miami, I took it upon myself to pick it up for you. Upon opening it (to check for security threats), I noticed that it was a piece of computer hardware, and in an act of altruism, I promptly installed it into my computer (to prevent it from oxidizing).

Unfortunately, after installing the hardware into my computer, the hardware, in the tradition of almost every episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” where someone installs a piece of hardware into something, became sentient and fused into my computer. Looking more closely at the fused parts, I, as an aspiring doctor of both computers and people, have decided that the computer part cannot be removed without “killing” a sentient life form, and therefore the only ethical way forward would be for you to purchase a new part from Newegg. To prevent this from occurring again, please schedule the shipment for a time where you will be in New York to receive the package.

The Best Roommate,

Al

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Apr 04 2012
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Al Observes Things

It’s nice that speech is free

Otherwise we’d have a financial incentive to put thought into the things we say, and that just sounds taxing.

So what’s the right amount of thought to put into your speech? The answer: just enough so that you think you’re clever. As long as it passes your own “oh, yeah, this can’t possibly be wrong” gut-check (which can’t possibly be wrong), you’re good to go.

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Feb 29 2012
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Al Observes Things

How much ram is enough?

dual-opteron-mb-ramAs a former software engineer at Microsoft, I often get the question of “how much RAM is enough?” Since I imagine that this is a pretty common question, I figured I’d address it on my blog.

The real answer is, “it depends.” It actually depends on a lot of factors: are we talking about raising sheep for subsistence or commercial farming? Are you mainly using them to breed more sheep or are you planning to sell ram mutton? Are you concerned about inbreeding or are you intentionally trying to minimize genetic variation?

Rams, also known as the luckiest male animals on earth, can actually breed with up to 100 ewes in a single mating season (approximately 3 to 4 per day roughly), but it’s generally recommended to maintain a ratio of 1:30 rams per ewe. For those of you planning to start a commercial farm of more than 500 sheep, this means that you’ll likely need closer to 20 rams. However, for those of you looking to maintain a small farm of maybe ~10 sheep, one ram is probably “enough.”

If you’d like to learn more about sheep breeding, here are a few of my favorite sheep breeding resources:

  • Sheep101 – Click to learn more about what’s considered a “satisfactory scrotal circumference” for rams.
  • Things to consider before you get sheep – This is probably my favorite one as the guy talks about buying sheep like we’d think about starting a new diet or getting a tattoo.

Hope this answered your question!

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And by the way, no, I don’t think it’s that gross.

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Feb 29 2012
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A brief history, Al Observes Things

Common Misconceptions: Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius

Caduceus

The caduceus

Often, we see the symbol of a staff with two wings and two snakes intertwined around it, and we assume that it somehow represents medicine. Even the US Army Medical Corps adopted this symbol as part of its branch plaque. This symbol represents the caduceus, a staff carried by the ancient Greek god Hermes (the messenger of the gods, protector of merchants, and provider of high end luxury goods).

The caduceus, however, has nothing to do with medicine, and when it is associated with medicine, it’s being mistaken for the rod of Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine and healing. They are quite easily mistaken for each other as both involve serpents entwined around a staff. The actual rod of Asclepius, however, depicts only one serpent, and it looks like this:

Jafar-Iago-Sultan-jafar-17879401-1263-759

Pictured: Jafar uses the rod of Asclepius to hypnotize the sultan

Hope you found this edifying!

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Feb 23 2012
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Al Observes Things

Halogens and Golden Girls!

Any time I hear someone refer to the element bromine as “Br,” I really want them to follow it with “thur!”

br

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Jan 21 2012
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Al Observes Things

The mathematics of football

I don’t know much about football other than what I’ve learned from movies. I am, however, really good at math. In fact, I’m so good at math, I can solve an easy-difficulty LA Times sudoku in fewer than 30 minutes. So, inspired by the football playoffs, I’ve decided to put together this mathematical analysis of football strategy. So, here we go!

The following is a table of various types of scoring and their point values:

Touchdown 6
Field goal 3
Safety 2
Extra 2 points after a touchdown 2
Extra point after a touchdown 1

 

The following is a bar graph based on the data above:

image

We then applied a scatterplot analysis of the data above and created this output.

image

We then attempted to curve fit the data above. We found that it fit a polynomial regression with an R2 value of .9382 further confirming that our data must be correct.

image

Conclusion – here are the ITG Keys of the Game:

Offense: touchdowns are twice as good as field goals, so all things being equal, teams should also go for them. Also, based on the rules of football, it always makes sense to attempt either an extra point or 2 extra points after a touch down. There’s almost no reason not to.

Defense: getting safeties is good, but if you can gain possession of the ball and score a touch down, that’s at least 300% even better.

Next week: The mathematical analysis of the point value of Kevin Love’s 3 pointers. (Hint: They’re worth 3 points)

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Jan 20 2012
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Al Observes Things

Universal office supply safety rules

my-staplerUnbeknownst to most, January is Office Supply Safety Month. Though many would question the value of an “Office Supply Safety Month,” we should all remember the time that Plaxico Burress brought a stapler to a club and stapled his foot to his sweat pants. If that wasn’t enough, who can forget the press that Gilbert Arenas got when he brought an unloaded stapler to the Wizards locker room? Sure, the stapler was unloaded, but the incident did create a sense of unease for fellow teammates who always considered the locker room to be a sanctuary for piles of documents to remain unattached to each other.

So here are a few rules that we should all follow in being safe with our staplers:

  1. All staplers are always loaded.
  2. Never point a stapler at anything you’re not willing to attach to each other.
  3. Keep your fingers on one side of the fulcrum until the target is properly aligned in the stapler.
  4. Always be sure of your target and what is behind and beyond it.

Following these simple rules will ensure that everyone can enjoy their staplers year around.

Coming up next week: Paper – Useful office supplies or tree-y knives?

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