Think in blag form

Two blag ideas I’ve had are (a) The Thomas M. Menino, Mayor Blag and (b) the lonely glove blag. This is in line with mildly amusing but utterly time consuming ideas such as my friend’s Drug Rep Toys blag and another friend’s Papyrus sightings blag (both of which tickle me).

Menino is the mayor of our fair city, and he has this sneaky way of putting his name on EVERYTHING that probably is funded by the city – posters, bus stops, buildings. Probably his small children are branded with a little placard that says, “Thomas M. Menino, Mayor.” It’s brilliant in a sense because his name is out there for us to stare at and curse silently while we wait for the bus. Hmm, maybe that wasn’t such a bright idea after all … anyway the blag would be photos of all the crazy Menino-branded things in the city.

The other blag would be photographs of individual lost gloves which are strewn all over Boston. There are hundreds. A friend of mine had differing hypotheses about which hand of a glove would be most lost. Considering a large majority of the population is right handed, he posited that the right handed glove would be more frequently lost than the left, because people are more often removing the right handed glove. I think they would be equal. My preliminary data is inconclusive (n = like 5) but appears to favor the result of his hypothesis, though not necessarily the cause.

The lost gloves idea has been done before, which was funny to learn because they went all the way and tried to do perform the noble task of reuniting gloves. Oh well – these are likely two silly ideas of mine that won’t soon come to fruition. Someone with more time and interest in these oh-so-fascinating subjects should definitely take the initiative.

Consider the universe as a point …

Consider A Spherical Cow is a new blag that I’m hoping stimulates conversation about things that are on my mind. In the finite time of our lives, I’m hoping to engage more and more folks in meaningful dialogue. For those whom I know, I’m always happy to talk in person.

Who am I? I am a Christian pursuing my Ph.D. in computational neuroscience who is interested in music, science, fruit, constitutional law, running, and other sports such as football (soccer). And strangely, I don’t believe that tells you almost anything about who I am.

Again, I welcome conversation. Please let me know if you have any thoughts.

By the way, the name of this blag comes from an old joke from physics, in which one takes a complex object like a cow (or an atom, etc.) and considers spherical, to a first approximation. The thoughts contained here are taken to a first approximation. Math geeks can think of this blag as O1, perhaps.