I’m still analyzing the results from the population ethics quiz from last week, so in the meantime here are some notes I’ve written to myself that you might find kinda neat.

Russell conjugations in nutrition

A Russell conjugation is when you say the same thing but in a different way depending on who you’re referring to. Example:

I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool.

Here are two Russell conjugations about nutrition:

  1. I refuel my body with electrolytes; you season your food with salt; they indulge on sodium.
  2. I purify my body with antioxidants; you eat processed food with preservatives.

(Technically, electrolytes and salt and sodium are not exactly the same thing, and antioxidants and preservatives are distinct categories (with heavy overlap). But the extreme divergence in their connotations is out of proportion to the differences in their technical definitions.)

Terms that aren’t as serious as they sound

  1. “Federal crime” sounds like a super serious crime but it just means it’s illegal according to the federal government, as opposed to most crimes which are enforced at the state or local level. Crimes involving interstate commerce are federal crimes, even though they’re much less serious than murder, which is not a federal crime.
  2. “High explosive” sounds like a super big explosive, but a high explosive isn’t necessarily more powerful than a low explosive. It just means the wave of decomposition moves faster than the speed of sound; it has nothing to do with the amount of energy released. (I learned this from a Tom Scott video.)
  3. “Legally blind” makes it sound like you’re mega-blind. So blind that the government bureaucracy has no choice but to recognize your blindness. But really, it basically means “not blind”. It means you can probably still see, but your vision is bad enough that you qualify for disability support. (Only 15% of legally blind people are fully blind, according to Wikipedia.)

“If you can’t explain it so a five-year-old would understand it, then you don’t really understand it”

Nope. That’s wrong. If it were true, then anything that’s understood by one person must eventually be understood by everyone in the world over the age of five.

If Alice really understands something, then she can explain it to Bob so that he really understands it. And by definition, he must then be able to explain it to Carol so that she really understands it—otherwise Bob didn’t really understand it, and if he didn’t understand it, then Alice didn’t understand it. By this chain of mutual understanding, eventually everyone in the world will understand it. If at some point someone fails to explain the concept to a five-year-old, then it logically follows that nobody in the WORLD ever understood it.

Tier list of characters who fought against Chuck Norris in the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, based on how useful they’d be in the fight

S Superman
A every single power ranger, Darth Vader, Captain Kirk1, Gandalf the White, Gandalf the Gray
B Doc Ock, Lo Pan, Terminator, Robocop
C Spock, Blue Meanie, Jiambi the Genie
D The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Benito Mussolini, Bill S. Preston, Theodore Logan, Cowboy Curtis
F Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight

Context:

Isn’t it weird how the pinnacle of a comedy career is to become a late-night talk show host?

Talk shows aren’t even funny.

Speaking of comedy:

Comedy medium tier list

S sketch, standup, improv2
A sitcoms, commentary3
B movies, music
C jokes4
F talk shows

Why aren’t people like Alexander/Caesar/Genghis Khan more reviled?

The concept of “I’m gonna kill people so I can be famous” is widely (and rightly) regarded as evil, but for some reason if you kill enough people, you become cool again?

I don’t know much about the other guys but I believe Caesar’s whole motivation was basically “I want to kill a ton of people so that I can be famous like Alexander was.” And it worked! Why did we let it work?!

A few months after writing this note in my journal, I learned that Eddie Izzard had the same thought:

If somebody kills someone, that’s murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that’s what they do. 20 people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. Over that, we can’t deal with it. Someone who’s killed 100,000 people, we’re almost going, Well done, well done. You killed 100,000? You must get up very early in the morning.

How to interpret t-stats

  • 0–1: nothing
  • 1–2: could be something. more research required
  • 2–3: you can build a career off of this, but it probably won’t replicate
  • 3–4: probably real
  • 4–6: strong result. you’re in comfortable territory here
  • 6+ : definitely real, unless it’s a Garbage In Garbage Out situation

Fun fact about Linkin Park

The reason why it’s called Linkin Park instead of Lincoln Park is because they wanted to be able to get a dot-com website, and lincolnpark.com was taken. (source: Mike Shinoda)

Lame claims to fame

Weird Al has a song called Lame Claims to Fame. The song is mainly about celebrity encounters, and I was thinking you could have some lame claims to fame that don’t involve celebrities. Here are a few I came up with:

  • I got 11th place in the city-wide spelling bee and I would’ve gotten 10th if they hadn’t tripped me up with [insert funny word]
  • I was only three seats over from a guy who caught a fly ball at a Yankees game
  • the radio offered a prize to the first five callers and I was sixth
  • I went to an improv show and shouted out a suggestion and they used my suggestion

John Mulaney makes a point that I have long agreed with

Your authentic self might be strange, cryptic one-liners. It’s not like you have to be confessional or anecdotal about your life in order to be authentic. There’s nothing more authentic about being personal. (source)

People talk as if “being the real you” means you’re speaking openly about your introspective experiences and emotional tribulations. But that’s not what the real me wants to do. If you read my private journal, you won’t find a lot of emotional processing. You’ll find tier lists.

Speaking of which, I don’t think this post has enough tier lists yet:

Tier tier list

S S. super cool stuff goes here. best tier for sure
B. the tier for normal stuff. it’s essential to have a “normal” tier
A F. you need a tier for stuff that’s shit. F plays an important role
B A. good stuff goes here. but this tier falls between S and B so it’s not critical to have
C. same deal as A tier: it’s an in-between tier that’s nice but not necessary
C D. don’t really need it. you can just put stuff in C or F most of the time
S+. kinda fake tier. too many people over-saturate S tier, and now they need S+ due to grade inflation
F S++. even more fake than S+. what are we even doing at this point

A paradox about The Princess Bride

These are all true facts,5 and yet they conflict with each other:

  1. I prefer watching movies over reading books.
  2. The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies.
  3. The book is not one of my favorite books.
  4. The book is better than the movie.

Are there any logicians out there who can explain this one to me because I’m confused.

Notes

  1. Obviously Kirk is not remotely on the same power level as the other A-tier combatants, but I think he deserves this placement due to his excellent leadership skills and his ability to plan on the fly. ↩

  2. Improv is the hardest kind of comedy to do well, but when it works, it really works. ↩

  3. When I think of “commentary”, I think of YouTube channels like Drew Gooden and Danny Gonzalez. There’s also commentary-based comedy on TV shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight, although I don’t find those as funny. (Are there commentary TV shows that aren’t political?) ↩

  4. Like, jokes that you tell. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” or whatever. ↩

  5. Or opinions? If I say “my opinion is that The Princess Bride is good”, then that’s a fact, right? Because it is factually true that that’s my opinion. “The Princess Bride is good” would be an opinion, but “that’s my opinion” is a fact. ↩