Popcorn's Dark Secret

Let’s go to the movies!  OK...its raining cats and dogs but we don’t mind standing in line for five minutes for the luxury of paying ten dollars for a ticket...cause its raining.   Let’s get some popcorn and treats!  We don’t mind waiting in line another ten minutes to pay six dollars for popcorn, another 4 dollars for chocolate treats and three dollars for a diet Coke (brown drool).  

Uh oh...we're now late for the movie!  But wait...the movie hasn’t started due to a lineup of poorly produced local ads serving as prologue to a string of previews...all of which hurt my ears (and my eyes).   Good thing the sound of crunching popcorn filling my head is louder than the special effects. (Perhaps that is why they make the previews so loud.) 

But through it all, the love of movie popcorn makes  the whole experience worth it....or at least it did until I stumbled upon this latest research on the salty, buttery treat.  A large tub of popcorn at Regal Cinemas, for example, holds 20 cups of popcorn and has 1,200 calories, 980 milligrams of sodium and 60 grams of saturated fat. Adding just a tablespoon of butter adds 130 calories. And don’t forget that it comes with free refills, which nearly everyone gets.

Dude...the medium size popcorn, which comes in a bag, contains the same amount as the large!  And even the small, at 11 cups, delivers 670 calories, 550 milligrams of sodium and 24 grams of saturated fat...and I and others have always thought it was relatively healthy snack. 

Actually,  plain air-popped popcorn is low in calories, free of saturated fat and tastes like the styrofoam peanuts that conveniently are included in every UPS shipment.  Movie theater popcorn, however, is popped in oil — often coconut oil, which is 90 percent saturated fat. Add salt to the enormous portions, and your once-healthy snack turns into a health offender.  

“The issue here is quantity,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University. “One of those large tubs is three-fourths of a day’s calories.” 

One thing is for sure, those hot actors with their perfect bodies are not eating movie popcorn.  If Jennifer Anniston is eating popcorn, she is choking down her air popped with copious quantities of imported mineral water. (Air popped...air head?  Naw, that’s too easy.)

Well, here we are watching Jen in yet another ultra-light romantic comedy involving either a dog, a monkey or a gold fish.  Good thing we can cut the boredom with a package of M&Ms, the 12 oz movie size.  Mix these with the popcorn and it adds another 1500 calories.  

This salty, sugary mix is very popular with movie goers in eastern North Carolina and LA (lower Alabama) and can replace the daily meal, although it usually augments it.  

The sugar and caffeine buzz from the coke and candy, combined with the blood pressure spike from the sodium creates a sort of euphoria that actors like Hugh Grant count on,  such that you may be fooled into believing he is actually talented.

I sort of hit the wall on all of this when I donned 3-D glasses for a screening of Piranha! and couldn’t see the fishes teeth because of all the coconut oil smeared on the lenses.  

Even worse, I had sworn off movie popcorn, but the glasses smelled of a fresh tub, and made me give in to the urge.  I proceeded to eat an entire tub whilst watching the movie in 2D.  I left the glasses sort of stuck in the sticky goo that comprises the floor in the theater...along with an imprint of the bottom of my sandal. 

The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People

The #1 best seller, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”  by Steven Covey has sold over 15 million copies in 38 languages since 1989.  This means a lot of people worldwide have figured out that they are not effective and will probably fail at what they are doing.  

Like most self help books, living up to the recommendations of the author is all but impossible.  I think that it might be easier to change for the good by trying to pin point the things you are actually doing wrong, and then try to stop doing them....so much.

A useful tool in this regard is “The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People”, which for me is easier to relate to.  It was compiled by Dan Ariely, a Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke.  I assume he located in the Triangle to have more direct access to the large numbers of ineffective people who live here, such as the members of the North Carolina Legislature and the Wake County School Board. 

According to Dan, “The thing about habits is that for good and bad they require no thinking".  (Sort of like watching “Wheel of Fortune” or “Fox & Friends”)  

“An established habit, whether getting ready for work in the morning or having a whiskey after, is a pattern of behavior we’ve adopted—we stick to it regardless of whether it made sense when we initially adopted it, and whether it makes sense to continue with it years later."  (Like letting your dog sleep on the bed).   

“From a human irrationality perspective this means that something we do “just once” can wind up becoming a habit and part of our activities for a longer time than we envisioned.” (Remember, NEVER let the dog on the bed...even once).

Dan did not say that short attention span was a bad habit...it's more of an affliction.  So for the sake of the afflicted, his abbreviated list with a brief comment from me is as follows:

1. Procrastination. Well it did take me a few days to get around to writing this.

2. The planning fallacy. It DID take longer to write this than I thought it would.

3. Texting while driving. OMG...WTF...ACDNT. Will NVR rite blog on 440 again  :-(

4. Checking email too much.  Dan says checking email is addictive in the same way gambling is. All I know is that there is a lot of money in Nigeria and they do have problems getting it out, so its a gamble not to check your email    often...because the offers from there come in fast and furious.

5. Relativity in salary. This one says that its a waste of time and energy to worry about how much you make in relation    to your friends and family...and evidently we do this a lot.  I agree, but it still pisses me off that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates   make more money than me.  We are the same age...and are in the same industry.  Talk about unfair!

6. Overoptimism. However, I still think I have a chance to make that kind of money next year...when the economy recovers.   

There is not a seventh habit...Dan says that “sadly we are often overoptimistic” and that his “most recent example of this was just a few hours ago when I sat down to write an essay entitled:  “The 7 Habits Of Highly Ineffective People.” 

I think there should be an eighth Habit of Highly Ineffective People.  It would be believing everything your read.

It’s a Smart Squirrel World After All

Kitty, I and our dogs love/hate squirrels.  In a previous discussion and blog we sort of deduced that squirrels must be inherently evil, because its the only way to explain their annoying and bizarre behavior.  

We also convinced ourselves that our prodigal dogs, being able to sense paranormal activity (they see auras in black and white) are both fascinated and incensed by squirrels due to a “satanic” connection they have.  This revelation,  which occurred live on her morning show, changed Kitty’s dog walking and gardening habits due to a new and profound fear of squirrels.

However brand new research seems to show that squirrels may not be evil after all...they are just smart.

People who study squirrels argue that their subject is far more compelling than most people realize, and that behind the squirrel’s success lies a phenomenal “elasticity of body, brain and behavior.” 

Squirrels can leap a span 10 times the length of their body, roughly double what the best human long jumper can manage. They can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, and so keep a grip while climbing no matter which way they’re facing. 

Squirrels can learn by watching others — “cross-phyletically”, if need be. (If anyone knows what that means please email me). The researchers described how a squirrel that seemed eager to cross a busy street near the White House waited on the grass near a crosswalk until people began to cross the street, “and then it crossed the street behind them.”  Many humans aren’t this smart...required warning signs and annoyingbeeps to manage a safe crossing.  Begs the question:  Why did the squirrel cross the road?

Even Darwin didn’t get how smart squirrels are.  The researchers say their what with their keen visual system, the sensitivity and deftness with which they can manipulate objects, their sociability, chattiness and willingness to deceive, squirrels turn out to be surprisingly similar to primates. They even act like us! 

We are one evolutionary link above chimps...could we be related to squirrels as well?  Wouldn’t you love to see the opening scene from “2001 Space Odyssey” when the chimps find the “chocolate bar” re-shot with squirrels.  They’d be crawling all over the thing, mysteriously sticking to it.  Later in the scene, one of them would discover a nut cracker.

Squirrels are good family members as well. They nest communally as multigenerational, matrilineal clans, and at the end of a hard day’s forage, they greet each other with a mutual nuzzling of cheek and lip glands that looks just like a kiss.  However, no evidence exists that they can or will mix a martini for the object of their affection.

And they don’t just kiss any other squirrel, since their squirrel’s peripheral vision is as sharp as its focal eyesight, which means it can see what’s above and beside it without moving its head. They also have the benefit of natural sunglasses, pale yellow lenses that cut down on glare.  Cool.

Squirrels use their sharp, shaded vision to keep an eye on each other to aid in their hoarding behavior, which turns out to be remarkably calculated. Squirrels are opportunistic feeders eating cheeseburgers, crickets, gummy bears or a baby sparrow if need be, but they really like grain and seeds. They’ll gather acorns and other nuts, assess which are in danger of germinating and using up stored nutrients, remove the offending tree embryos with a few quick slices of their incisors, and then cache the sterilized treasure for later consumption, one seed per inch-deep hole.

But the squirrels don’t just bury an acorn and come back in winter. They bury the seed, dig it up shortly afterward, rebury it elsewhere, dig it up again. The researchers saw squirrels dig up and rebury acorns as many as five times,”. The squirrels recache to deter theft, lest another squirrel spied the burial the first X times.  This obsessive compulsive behavior is treated with drugs in humans, but is obviously tolerated in squirrel culture.

When squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth.  According to the researchers, this is how squirrels are like us...they are deceptive, cunning, and paranoid.  Explains a lot.

So squirrels scare us because they are like us?  Is believing that squirrels are evil sort of like the pot calling the kettle black?

Kitty tells me that because of this new research she is very much reformed in her view of squirrels.  She gone back to happily gardening her tomatoes without fear of reprisal from above (in the oak tree). In fact, instead of fearing and abhorring squirrels, she is now holding street crossing lessons for her furry new friends.  Her dog, however, is not happy.

You Now Can Be in Two Places (or more) at Once

Ok...today, not tomorrow or sometime in the distant future, you can own a robot that IS YOU, and he/she can be located anywhere in the world (with internet), giving you real time video, audio and other information from “your” other location.  This new machine gives you something called “telepresence”

A new company called Anybots is selling the “QB mobile telepresence robot”, which is a moving AV cart of sorts with a LCD screen on top...comprising the head, on which a still or video image of YOU runs in real time.  The head also serves as a control panel for, among other things, a slide show you might want someone to see or maybe the latest from The Weather Channel.

I travel for business quite a bit....and for the most part would like to avoid it.  We have been using web conferencing for a few years now to cut down on our travel, and it does have a positive impact.  However, as they have always said, nothing beats being there...face to face.  So what if you could sort of split the difference...

The QB Bot thing (that is you), is 5-foot, 9-inches, and weighs in at 32 pounds. This is a great weight for a women with an eating problem, but doesn’t do men justice.  Kitty says that the video of your face would allow some Photoshopping for weight loss, but I had to remind her that the camera adds 10 pounds as well.

The rolling QB bot combines several computers, the Internet, mobility, and some “self-awareness and autonomy”.  It is designed to replace the frequent phone calls, instant messages, and even some video conference calls that distant co-workers have to make to stay in touch and keep on top of work and ongoing projects.  

Here's the geeky stuff:  The bot rolls around at up to 3.5 mph (approximately human walking speed) on two, 12-inch wheels and is self-balancing, sort of like those Segway things.  Its got a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, (making it smarter than the you already) and captures video though its 5-megapixel eye and audio through is super sensitive microphone, delivering it to a browser-based interface on any computer.  

I would order mine with a kick-ass Bose sound system as well.  I want to be heard clearly where ever I am.

One user of the robot says, "We're putting QBs in the manufacturing facility and logging in remotely so we can 'walk' down production lines and meet with engineers and talk with them. It's an interesting use-case scenario—so you can have a remote presence in China or Taiwan," where, obviously, many America companies manufacture products. 

Wow...in this case, you could speak and understand Chinese as well.

Anybots plans to ship QB sometime this fall and is clearly targeting the business market. At $15,000 a pop, they say it's unlikely that anyone would look at as a virtual physical presence for an always-on-the-road parent.  

Au contrare, I think at that price point they will sell all they can make.  Think of all the things you could be doing right now if you had QB bots deployed all over the globe.  

I would keep one in Paris to crawl the museums non-stop and occasionally enjoy a virtual cigarette at a corner bistro with an eye “video camera” trained to the local talent that would be sashaying by.  

I think of would have one of me FedEx’d to large sporting events...surely there would always be room for another monitor and opinion in the press box.

I believe that keeping one of myself in Amsterdam would be a good use of the product as well.

Well I am up to three...maybe I can afford a fourth.  Oh yeah...I would put one in LA in our office there....but mostly just to stare out the window.

The Dude Colony

There are a whole lot of ants on the planet, forming 15–25% of the terrestrial animal biomass. (this is more biomass than all of the BBQ eaters in the American South). The colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.

Now, scientists have discovered a single mega-colony of ants that has colonized much of the world. These “argentine” ants are living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan and belong to the same colony...and contrary to the image of ant colonies waging war with each other, the members of this global ant race refuse to fight each other.

Welcome to the real “creeping socialism”.

One Big Ant Family

Researchers actually mixed different members of the colonies together in several experiments. These ants rubbed antennae with one another and never became aggressive or tried to avoid one another. In short, they acted as if they all belonged to the same colony, despite living on different continents separated by vast oceans. It would be like an American arriving in Japan, and already knowing everyone and the language.

According to the scientists, “The most plausible explanation is that ants from these super-colonies are indeed family, and are all genetically related. When they come into contact, they recognize each other by the chemical composition of their cuticles. Its kind of like they all like the same perfume.

In fact, ants communicate with each other using pheromones or smells. These chemical signals are very developed in ants, and they use the smells to transmit all sorts of messages. They mark trails, they send alarms, they even have “propaganda pheromones” to confuse enemy ants and make them fight among themselves. Something can disturb the ants on one side of the colony and the other side, miles away can get the message almost instantaneously.

This combination of propaganda and speed easily outdoes Fox News or CNN on any day.

In Europe, one vast colony of ants is thought to stretch for 3,700 miles along the Mediterranean coast, “The Garlic Colony” while another in the US, known as the “The Dude Colony” extends over 560 miles along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan, “The Sushi Colony” and even in the US South, the now famous “Bubba Mound” is dominate. My favorite is the huge “Eurotrash” colony that stretches from Spain to Siberia.*

What’s so wonderful about these ants is that in contrast to the people from those regions who could not be more different, can barely understand each other’s language, and like to wage World Wars against each other, these ants when mixed together act like old friends.

All of these ants get along by acting collectively en masse, for the good of the whole. Many scientists believe these behaviors will enable ants to survive long after humans are gone. Many believe that ant behavior is analogous to “collectivist” societies like China that have colonized all of the WalMarts.

Most American’s, however have an aversion to this type of societal organization, preferring the rugged individualism taught by Ann Rand, pure market driven economies as explained by Adam Smith and the deification of wealth as demonstrated by Donald Trump.

Perhaps the best way for societies to survive is for individuals to behave somehow halfway between collectivism of “The Dude Colony” and the comb-overed extravagance of “The Apprentice”. BTW...I stayed at a Trump Casino one time and the service was great...the hired help swarmed all over the place like ants on candy...the candy of course being the rugged individualists hammering scotch and dropping coins into one arm bandits.

*Please note that I renamed these colonies such that the geographical significance of their location would be enhanced for the benefit of my readers.

Do We Really Need to Sleep?

My droopy eared bloodhound, just like Jed Clampett’s, sleeps around 20 hours a day.  My wife needs around 9 hours and I do just fine with 7.  Albert Einstein got by on a couple of hours a night...and some animals can sleep for months...then stay awake for weeks at a time.   Most humans spend roughly one-third of their life asleep, and researchers still do not know why. 

Yep, the purpose of sleep remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Leading theories suggest it has to do with memory consolidation or other to benefit other physiological or neural functions. But a new theory holds that sleep is merely a good way to increase an animal's efficiency, by hunting only when the hunting is good, for example, and minimize its risk: The risk of an accident goes down when you're sleeping.  

While sleep is often thought to have evolved to play an unknown but vital role inside the body, the new theory now suggests it actually developed as a method to better deal with the outside world.

Scientists also wonder why their so much variation in sleep patterns. Newborn dolphins and killer whales and their mothers show an almost total lack of what might be called sleep for several weeks after birth, when these animals normally migrate. Birds can fly for days on end.  It raises the question, if sleep has a vital universal function, how are they able to survive without it?

So let’s consider our favorite morning personality,  Kitty Kinnin’s view of this.  Because Kitty gets up at 4:30 am to do her show...and has a busy social calendar  at night, she considers herself  chronically tired from lack of sleep.  This new research would seem to indicate that Kitty doesn’t really need sleep, she just thinks she does.  

Maybe this explains why people have insomnia.  Perhaps they really don’t need the sleep...they just think they do.  So they have tremendous anxiety because they think they need 8 hours and aren’t getting it.  Sleeping pills and other strategies are next, adding yet more stuff to worry about...thus making sleep even more difficult.

I think humans sleep because they are bored.   Before TV there was literally nothing to do...they couldn’t even hunt at night for lack of night vision goggles.   Even reading books was hard because the lighting was bad.  And for hundreds of thousands of years there wasn’t even a book to read.  

TV has been blamed for us NOT getting enough sleep...because it is actually something to do when the sun goes down.  People did get more sleep before its invention. So now most people go to bed after the 11 o'clock news, but thats because there nothing good on late night TV except for Letterman...and even he is getting old.  

Some people do stay up all night all the time.  Einstein, Leonardo DaVinci and almost every software coder I have ever known did not sleep much...they had too much to think about.  So sleep is just a learned habit, like drinking a beer at five o'clock or brushing your teeth the wrong way.  

So the way you feel when you consider yourself sleep deprived may be more about withdrawal symptoms than actually being tired.  Jeez, this whole issue makes me fatigued....I think I'll take a nap.

The Gulf Oil Disaster is Our Fault

Everyone is furious at BP for causing the worst man made environmental disaster in history.  The logic is that somehow BP was negligent, irresponsible, even criminal.  Maybe.   But it was we, the people, who gave them the right to drill offshore in the first place.  It was we, the people, who  ignored the ramifications of an offshore drilling accident.  And it is, we the people, (and the animals) who will suffer the consequences.

Anything humans can conceive of and build will be imperfect and thus will eventually fail.  Witness the computer on your desk, the car in your driveway, the ice maker in your fridge and the lawnmower in your yard.  If any of those things fail...and they most certainly will, at most its an inconvenience and a pain in the butt.  Certainly no one would consider your overgrown yard an environmental disaster (although the garden club would appalled).

Even the most technically advanced things we build fail.  Space shuttles blow up, airliners crash, the cable TV goes on the blink.  How did we ever think that something as risky as drilling 18,000 feet into the ocean floor for oil would be just another day at the beach?

The next time some politician on TV blathers "Drill Baby Drill" or emphatically claims that your economic future relies on giant concrete plants and such being located in your community, think about the last computer crash you had.  In that case, you picked up the phone and called the "Geek Squad".

In the case of oil spills and mercury poisoning that will affect your children and their children, ....who you gonna call?