NOTE TO SELF: MAKE VACATION PLANS - WORLD IS SAFE
After reading doomsday scenarios - I'm big on these - it's a relief to read that the 2012 Mayan cataclysmic end-of-the-world scenario has been cancelled. At least according to a new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010). As much as this news is a relief, there is no correction or re-prediction of when the end will come.
According to the critique which I haven't read, the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar could be off as much as 50 to 100 years. Good. Still time to place my bets in Vegas. Since the Mayan calendar ended in 2012, earthlings interpreted this as an omen or indication that our time was up on planet earth.
In an article published on the Live Science site: ( http://www.livescience.com/culture/mayan-apocalypse-miscalculated-calendar-101018.html) "the Mayan calendar was converted to today's Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter's author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies."
Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus. There is a further explanation focusing on the rationale for reaching this conclusion in the Live Science piece.
Over the years and centuries, there have been numerous end-of-world predictions, obviously all of which have not panned out. The James Randi Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization, "aims to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today." The Foundation offers a $1,000,000 prize to any person or persons who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind under mutually agreed upon scientific conditions. This prize money is held in a special account which cannot be accessed for any purpose other than the awarding of the prize.
The site features an impressive list of end-of-world prophecies that have failed over the centuries. For example:
- October 3, 1533, at Eight A.M. Mathematician and Bible student Michael Stifel (known as Stifelius) had calculated an exact date and time for Doomsday from scholarly perusal of the Book of Revelation. When they did not vaporize, the curiously ungrateful citizens of the German town of Lochau, where Stifel had announced the dreaded day, rewarded him with a thorough flogging. He also lost his ecclesiastical living as a result of his prophetic failure.
- 1665 With the Black Plague in full force, Quaker Solomon Eccles terrorized the citizens of London yet further with his declaration that the resident pestilence was merely the beginning of The End. He was arrested and jailed when the plague began to abate rather than increasing. Eccles fled to the West Indies upon his release from prison, whereupon he once again exercised his zeal for agitation by inciting the slaves there to revolt. The Crown fetched him back home as a troublemaker, and he died shortly thereafter.
- October 13, 1736 London was once again targeted for the "beginning of the end," this time by William Whiston. The Thames filled with waiting boatloads of citizens, but it didn't even rain. Another setback.
There is a whole list of failed appocolyptic prognostications listed on the site, in alphabetical order that actually make interesting reading.
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html
The bottom line to all of this is in my humble opinion, people really don't want to know when the end of the world will be. I mean, even if any of the predictions were accurate, what can we humble human beings do about it? Build a bunker deep down in the earth's bowels and wait it out in hope that we will survive? Actually, there are companies that are in the business of doing just this - for a price of course.
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/end-world-shelter-company-selling-bunker-space
Meanwhile, I'll take my chances in Vegas - odds are that I will lose some money - and that's a sure thing.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
People 50+ could be happier according to poll
NOTE TO SELF: LET A SMILE BE YOUR UMBRELLA
Never really gave it much thought but according to a British poll, Brits turn into grumps once they reach their 50th birthday. Actually, thinking further, many people are miseries earlier in life but that as they say, is another subject. The poll conducted by researchers from Glamorgan University surveyed the laughability of 2000 Britons. It would also be interesting to know what qualifies them as experts in this category and how much money the researchers received for conducting this study. British surveys do tend to cover interesting subjects. One wonders what the researchers are going to do with the results of survey. How do you convince those in the 50-plus age category to lighten up and laugh more?
The study claims that Brits laugh a lot less once they reach 52. Why 52 one asks or why not say...51...or 53. Furthermore, the researchers feel that the art of telling jokes is dying and good jokes are limited to one or two passable gags. Fourteen percent of people have never told a joke. Perhaps that's because some jokes go over like a lead balloon, as mine frequently do. There is nothing worse - IMHO - than telling a joke and nobody laughs, or you have to explain the joke. I mean, why be embarrassed!
Statistically, people laugh 300 times per day but only six times per day by the time they reach their teens. In other words, we take joy and find the world a happy place in which to live as children but learn otherwise once we reach adult-hood.
People in their 20's laugh a mere 4x per day but re-aquire a sense of humor when they have children. Once in their 30's, the average goes up to 5 laughs per day with almost 47% being people who have children. However, once we reach our 50's, our laughs decrease to 3x per day. Twice as many males turn into cranks than females when they reach their 50's. What is interesting is that being around children makes adults happier people.
So all of these stats leads one to wonder how they formed these conclusions. Did they interview people in the various age brackets and ask them to tell jokes and then rate the jokes, or ask them to keep a diary of the number of times per day they laughed, showed them comedies and gauged their reactions? There's no information on the criteria and also humor is subjective. What some people find funny, others find inane and stupid. Another thing to take into consideration is that this is a poll focusing on Brits. It would be interesting to know if polls have been done in other parts of the world and if the results are/were similar.
Basically and IMHO, this poll really can't be taken seriously and perhaps it's fitting given the subject matter being humor.
Never really gave it much thought but according to a British poll, Brits turn into grumps once they reach their 50th birthday. Actually, thinking further, many people are miseries earlier in life but that as they say, is another subject. The poll conducted by researchers from Glamorgan University surveyed the laughability of 2000 Britons. It would also be interesting to know what qualifies them as experts in this category and how much money the researchers received for conducting this study. British surveys do tend to cover interesting subjects. One wonders what the researchers are going to do with the results of survey. How do you convince those in the 50-plus age category to lighten up and laugh more?
The study claims that Brits laugh a lot less once they reach 52. Why 52 one asks or why not say...51...or 53. Furthermore, the researchers feel that the art of telling jokes is dying and good jokes are limited to one or two passable gags. Fourteen percent of people have never told a joke. Perhaps that's because some jokes go over like a lead balloon, as mine frequently do. There is nothing worse - IMHO - than telling a joke and nobody laughs, or you have to explain the joke. I mean, why be embarrassed!
Statistically, people laugh 300 times per day but only six times per day by the time they reach their teens. In other words, we take joy and find the world a happy place in which to live as children but learn otherwise once we reach adult-hood.
People in their 20's laugh a mere 4x per day but re-aquire a sense of humor when they have children. Once in their 30's, the average goes up to 5 laughs per day with almost 47% being people who have children. However, once we reach our 50's, our laughs decrease to 3x per day. Twice as many males turn into cranks than females when they reach their 50's. What is interesting is that being around children makes adults happier people.
So all of these stats leads one to wonder how they formed these conclusions. Did they interview people in the various age brackets and ask them to tell jokes and then rate the jokes, or ask them to keep a diary of the number of times per day they laughed, showed them comedies and gauged their reactions? There's no information on the criteria and also humor is subjective. What some people find funny, others find inane and stupid. Another thing to take into consideration is that this is a poll focusing on Brits. It would be interesting to know if polls have been done in other parts of the world and if the results are/were similar.
Basically and IMHO, this poll really can't be taken seriously and perhaps it's fitting given the subject matter being humor.
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