Cone of Silence » myTooSense

The Shakes

Dave — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:28:19 +0000

I have wondered this for a long time…

How much caffeine is in decaf?

Now I know. AND I can give side-by-side comparison of various caffeinated liquids.

	Qty (ml)	Caffeine (mg)	Caffeine/8oz	Caffeine / standard container
Coffee	350	222	171.6	171.6
Red Bull	250	80	61.8	123.7
Chocolate Milk	500	14	10.8	10.8
Cola	406	41	31.7	47.5
Tea	240	24	18.5	18.5
Decaf Coffee	350	4	3.1	3.1

The above table tells me that a cup (8oz) of decaf has 1% of the caffeine of it’s full-bodied brother.

Additionally, since my source data purported to compare caffeine/ml it did not use a standard so I could not see the relative ranking of each.

For all the hype of Red Bull it’s only 1/3 the caffeine of a standard cup of coffee, and a cola is 1/2 of that.

Even a 16 ounce can of Red Bull does not match the caffeine in one cup of coffee at my diner down the street.

So tell me, why are we so concerned about our kids and their consumption. Many coffee drinkers I know consume more than 1,700mg of caffeine daily.

Happy Birthday?

Dave — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:27:18 +0000

What do you say when the first birthday you’ve had the privilege of acknowledging took 265 years to happen?

Tonight the planet Neptune completes its first trip around the sun since humans first discovered the gas giant planet.

Neptune is the only planet to have been discovered by mathematics. French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier noticed irregularities in the motions of other planets, and from these perturbations calculated that there must be an eighth planet lurking out beyond Uranus.

Using Le Verrier’s calculations, German astronomer Johann Galle at the Berlin Observatory located the new planet on Sept. 23, 1846.

Now it’s 265 years later and the planets’ aligned as it was when James K. Polk was president. The same year the United State House of Representatives says “No more!” to sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom. Also, that is the year the Liberty bell was cracked while being rung on George Washington’s birthday.

I guess it was a pretty big year – just too bad my great-great-great grandparents forgot to remind me to keep a look out.

The Moon or Bust

Dave — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:52:08 +0000

Finally space tourism has opened beyond low-Earth orbit! For only a 9 digit figure one can book a trip to the moon and back. Let’s see… that’s $100,000,000+ I guess I won’t be on that first trip.

Sounds like there is one taker to date and as soon as number 2 signs the contract it will be 3 to 5 years and they’ll get to journey to within 62 miles of the moon and see what only 24 other people have ever seen.

I’ll bet those Apollo astronauts did not have itemized on their annual Benefits Summary page “Value of: ‘All expenses paid round trip to the moon = $100,000,000′ “

Automatically Manual

Dave — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:17:39 +0000

Does this mean you need to manually activate the automatic door, thus nullifying the name automatic?

Or does this mean that the manual door will automatically function, thus contradicting the meaning of the word manual?

Maybe the door is semi-automatic. Maybe it only opens automatically when you reach out to pull on the door – or maybe it opens manually just after you walk into the glass and discover that it is not in automatic mode.

What would you call this door if it were locked?

The Hedgehog, Internet and Mayan Calendar Connection?

Dave — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:13:06 +0000

News that the Internet is out of addresses leaks out on the same day Punxutawney Phil sticks his head out of the ground? I smell a rat.

Ok, here are two “seemingly” unrelated news stories. You conspiracists should be all over this, but remember you heard it here first.

The top-level authority that governs such addresses will distribute the last batches on Thursday, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.
…

The current Internet address system, Internet Protocol version 4, has been in place since the 1980s. It allows for a theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion addresses in use, far beyond what was thought necessary for what was then mainly a network for academic use.

… On Wednesday, National Geographic gave us a giant lesson on Phil that totally buried the lead: “Romans also believed that conditions during the first days of February were good predictors of future weather, but the empire looked to hedgehogs for their forecasts.”

Hedgehogs? Hedgehogs?! We’ve been looking to the wrong animal all this time? Turns out when German settlers came to the United States, they couldn’t find any hedgehogs, so they settled on groundhogs instead. So that’s why we get 40 percent accuracy!

I knew it all along. We’ve become all too complacent that the Internet would be there. We’ve relied on it for our news, for our trivia and for communicating with one another. We take it for granted. Isn’t this the lesson of the groundhog? We’re lulled into believing life is moving forward, that everything is OK.

40% accuracy and we trust Phil. 4.3 billion addresses and we assume things won’t come to a grinding halt. It’s not mere coincidence these two news articles present themselves on the same day. The paths have crossed in the year the Mayan calendar ends. Think about it.

Five Second Rule

Dave — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:09:32 +0000

The five-second rule is a popular fiction regarding the eating of various objects that have fallen to the floor or ground. The origin of the rule is unknown. The substance of the rule is that if food falls on the ground, it may be safely eaten as long as it is picked up within five seconds.

There are many variations on the rule. Sometimes the time limit is modified so that it is known variously as the “three-second rule”, “seven-second rule”, “thirty-second rule”, and “ten-second rule”, among others. In some variations, the person picking up the food arbitrarily extends the time limit based on the actual amount of time required to retrieve the food. This also can vary based on the surface on which the food was dropped. In Russia there exists a similar rule: “Promptly picked up is not considered fallen”.

Although it has received little scholarly attention, the five-second rule has been studied as both a public health recommendation and as a sociological effect. It has been proven un-true.

In 2002, intern Jillian Clarke of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign found in a survey that 96% of the men and 13% of the women surveyed were familiar with the five-second rule.
source: Wikipedia

So, why are men more familiar with this rule than women?

Isn’t this “rule” nothing more than an excuse to justify to others what we’d do if they were not there?

The Soundtrack of Life

Dave — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:22:37 +0000

Why doesn’t life of one of those cool soundtracks. Music orchestrated and tuned in to the events of our lives. How cool would that be. You’d have music to match life. Even better you’d have a clue about what’s coming.

Think about it. You’re selecting your groceries and the intensity of the music picks up when you squeeze that bad tomato and relaxes as you select that perfect head of lettuce. Or get this, the intensity of the music increases as your hands hovers over the tomato. The music will guide your selection.

Can real life match the whiz, bang, bamm sound effects? Never.

Life would be so much more interesting with a sound track.

Father of the Internet Arrives 195 Years Ago

Dave — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:56:57 +0000

On November 2, 1815 the man considered the father of modern logic, George Boole was born. In 1848 a paper on the mathematical basis of logic, written by Boole, was published in Mechanics Magazine. Boole is credited with being the first to realize that logic was more closely related to mathematics than philosophy.

Boole founded what would much later be understood as the basis for the field of computer science. All it took was a man named Claude Shannon to understand that Boolean algebra could be applied to an electric circuit in order to solve problems, all based upon whether a circuit was on or off. Out of this spawned the modern digital technology we cannot survive without. Calculators, e-mail, web pages, video games, and even that picture on your phone owe their accomplishments to the mathematics of 1′s and 0′s to solve the most complex of problems.

Al Gore can wax philosophical about his role in the Internet, but we all know better – it wasn’t what philosophy did to logic that gave us the Internet, it was something only mathematics could do.

Top Movies by Gross Ticket Sales

Dave — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:01:40 +0000

For years I have pondered what so many seem not to notice.

I can honestly say ranking movies by gross ticket sales was very high up on my list of top annoyances. Maybe I’m odd, but as soon as I heard the newest hype my mind would go to the fact that 1980 ticket prices were no where near matinee prices of 2010. If that were the case movie studios would long ago have gone out of business.

The reason this interested me is because I wanted to see how the populous-at-large rated movies in comparison to my perception. The current studio system is all built around making their current flick sound like the hottest thing since pop-up toast. Sure it just broke a record in ticket sales but then ticket prices are at an all-time high. Guess that’s the game but it left me without a standard.

Finally persistence and the Internet paid off. Thanks to Box Office Mojo I can now see such a list. Finally!

Ok, so I have seen 86 of the top 100 domestic films. The list is very interesting in that it is so far removed from the typical fare.

Oft misgquoted

Dave — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:35:35 +0000

“Money is the root of all evil,” or is it “The love of money is the root of all evil,” or is it “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil?”

I can only say for sure it’s NOT “Money is the root of all evil.” The other two are possible translations. Which is right?

Does not matter? Yes and No. In application of the basic principle, no, but if trying to determine if all evil is related to the love of money it does make a notable difference.

Why do I care? Not sure I really do, just thought I’d bring it up.