Francis Bacon And The Sorceror's Stone

One of the hottest pop culture trends is the mashup. You take two or more disparate ideas, creative works, images or DNA sequences, and you combine them into a cohesive whole capable of generating offspring.

My friend Ben is a big fan of Girl Talk. The musician takes hundreds of soundbytes from various songs and blends them into one track. Ben is a pretty popular guy, so I assume that his likes and dislikes are representative of all Westerners. Girl Talk must be awesome.

Another example are the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. These take the classic Jane Austen tales and complement them with scenes of monstrous mayhem.

Unfortunately, I have no musical talent, so song mashups are out. And even if half the novel is already written for you, it's not like I have the time to write half a novel. I am a busy guy, and time doesn't grow on trees.

So I am left with trying to figure out a way to mashup my blog. A blog mashup might look something like this:

Wizards of Waverly Place is an Emmy Award-winning live-action Disney Channel Original Series which stars Selena Gomez, David Henrie and Jake T. Austin, as three siblings with magical abilities.

The show centers on the Bacon family, which includes Alex, her older brother Justin, and their younger brother Max; Alex's best friend Harper is also part of the storyline. The three Russo siblings are wizards and live with their father Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban KC, an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and a former wizard.

Bacon served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific revolution. He is also a former wizard, who chose to give up his powers to marry his wife Theresa, a mortal, due to a rule forbidding wizards to marry mortals.

Bacon's works established and popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method or simply, the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. He is proud of his magical ancestry and teaches his children about the proper uses of magic in "Wizard Training Class."

The children are not allowed to use magic without supervision, and only one of the three will keep their magic abilities once they are adults; this will be determined by a magic competition. Alex often gets into trouble for using magic unsupervised. Justin always makes sure Alex does not get into any more trouble than she's already in. Along the way, all of the kids learn moral lessons relating to friends, family, and school.

The Bacon family owns a sub-sandwich shop on Waverly Place.

A Great Companion For Long Road Trips

Science made a new announcement today. Apparently, cockroaches do not have to urinate in order to survive. They recycle all of their own waste and turn it back into usable materials. Roaches really are the pinnacle of evolution.

The ability to reuse their own waste originates from their symbiotic relationship with an unusual microbe known as Blattabacterium. According to Science, this microbe breaks down waste uric acid and turns it into ammonia and urea, which it then uses to construct amino acids and repair cell membranes.

Because it reuses the normally toxic uric acid rather than expelling it, cockroaches need far less water than most species. This microbe, therefore, is one of the keys to the cockroach's extreme durability.

Now that Science has discovered how cockroaches are such perfect little recycling machines, the path forward is clear: Voluntary Human Extinction. When faced with such an optimum example of life, we must do what Kasparov did against Deep Blue, and knock over our own king.

Long live the roaches.

The Great Dan Brown Experiment

We interrupt our regular scheduled blogging for two important announcements.

First, Dance With Sunflowers will soon migrate to a new location, at entropy2.com. The process of starting up the new website and switching over will take another month or two, and in the meantime I will continue posting here. The new site will include several new blogs and other exciting endeavors I will tell you about later. Be on the look out.

Second, as part of the new website, I will be conducting my first live blogging event. I will be reading Dan Brown's new novel, The Lost Symbol, over the course of 24 hours, with a running journal of my reactions. Join me as I experience the best selling book (2 million copies sold in the first week) for the first time, with immediate feedback on what will surely go down as a modern classic.

Of course, being invested in the novel might influence my impartiality. So I am looking for someone who will lone it to me in the next few weeks. Please do not buy it with the specific intention of giving it to me, as that will defeat the purpose. But if you already have it, I will be happy to take it off your hands.

When I have a date for the Live Blogging session, as well as the debut of the new website, I will let everyone know.

To whet your appetite, here are some facts about Dan Brown's previous novel, The Da Vinci Code:

• According to Wikipedia, it has sold more than 80 million copies to date.
• 80 MILLION! That equals The Catcher In The Rye, and easily surpasses Charlotte's Web, To Kill A Mockingbird, or Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
• That's right, more than the dictionary
• In fact, the only novels to have sold more books in the history of humankind are: Le Petit Prince, She, Dream Of Red Chambers, The Hobbit, And Then There Were None, The Lord Of The Rings, and A Tale Of Two Cities. That's it. The entire list. The Da Vinci Code is already the 8th best selling novel of all time
• It is almost entirely based on the Umberto Eco novel, Foucault's Pendulum, which predates it by more than a decade.
  

Monkey Economics, Or The Evolution Of A Patriot

The newest trend in academics is trying to find evolutionary connections between humans and other species. It has been established with parrots. It has been done with dolphins. But the surest way to send creationists into a tizzy is to mention the behaviors we share with monkeys and apes.

That's what makes the concept of monkey economics so gratifying. Researchers around the world are finding that the ability to understand and practice commerce is not limited to the human species. Dr. Laurie Santos has conducted experiments that show capuchin monkeys can learn how to operate in a market environment.

The monkeys are taught that a token can be exchanged for food. When given the choice of whether to trade for apple slices or jello-cubes, they in general trade for each about 50% of the time. But when one of the sellers decides that he will sell jello-cubes two for one, they stop buying apple slices and spend most of their money on jello.

But when the experiment is shifted, the monkeys' behavior adapts in a significant way. The two sellers begin to both offer apple slices, but the first appears to offer one slice for one token, but upon receiving the payment, actually gives two. The second presents three apples, but takes one apple away after receiving the token. When presented with this scenario, the monkeys overwhelmingly buy apples from the first seller, even though statistically, they are getting the same deal, two slices for one token. This type of behavior is known as loss aversion.

Interestingly enough, when humans are subjected to similar experiments, the results are nearly identical to those with monkeys. Both monkeys and humans seem to care as much about a sense of fairness as they do with their own economic gain.

Keith Chen has taken the experiments even further. He has discovered that not only do the monkeys have a thorough understanding of the value of the money, they have taken to stealing it. One day, when a monkey was brought out of his living area into the adjacent testing area, as soon as the door was open, the subject charged at the tray of tokens and flung it behind him, sending the other monkeys into fever as they rushed to get the pilfered booty.

Even more remarkably, as Chen was trying to restore order and get the tokens back, he observed a male monkey take a token and offer it to one of the females in exchange for sex. After getting her payment, she promptly took the token and offered it to one of the scientists in return for a grape.

Yes, this is a true story!

I would like nothing more than to have Chen lock some capitalist monkeys in a room with a group of intelligent design supporters and see what transpires. It must be hard for religious right wingers to read about these results. On the one hand, here is further proof of the evolutionary link between humans and primates. But on the other hand, it is also provides evidence that these monkeys are proud supporters of capitalism.

The Life And Times Of Baron Manfred von Richthofen

Contrary to popular belief, the Red Baron was not a Robber Baron. It is a common mistake, since they have the same surname. The Red Baron was a famous World War I fighter pilot. He was very successful at his job, but he did not have a monopoly on aircraft, nor did he become a millionaire. He did however go on to star in the comic strip, Peanuts.

The Red Baron's real name was Manfred von Richthofen. No wonder he changed his name to the Red Baron. His name looks German. Since he fought in the World War on the side of the Germans, we can safely conclude that he was indeed German himself.

The Robber Barons were not German. They were American entrepreneurs. They could not fly airplanes because airplanes had not been invented yet.

Some people surmise that the Red Baron was descended from the Robber Barons. This is stupid. Obviously, once it is realized that the Red Baron is German, and the Robber Barons were American, this does not make sense. If you read this on Wikipedia, you will regret not paying for a membership at Encyclopedia Britannica.

The German word for Baron is Freiherr. It means Free Lord. How ironic! If the Robber Barons had been Free Lords, they never would have become so rich. They made all of their money by selling the products they had monopolies on. This is how an economy works. Look it up with your new Encyclopedia Britannica membership.

They do share one thing in common. They are both wicked cool. The Red Baron shot down 80 planes during World War I. If he had been in Top Gun, he would have had one of the really good nicknames, like Ice Man, not something stupid like Goose. The Robber Barons, specifically Andrew Mellon (who according to Wikipedia had a fruit monopoly), created supply side economics.

Sometimes I wish the Red Baron were descended from the Robber Barons. My life would be much simpler then.


Lyric Of The Day:

Come on, come on let's have a song
the morning sun is soon to come
we don't have time to linger on

There comes a time, there comes a
time to make it right when I was wrong
and someday girl we'll get along.

Goodbye to all your plans
you can listen to me now
your head is bent out of shape
but your feet are on the ground
but all in all, the ceiling's coming down

I take my time to face the day
it's good to hear you talk this way
so we'll keep this up as friends

this time, nothing's wrong
I'll stand up as I'll shake your hand,
we'll be alright

Then I'll do it all again

"Bows + Arrows"
-The Walkmen