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Hoodies, parkas and a change in perception
Every time I see a group of kids hanging around wearing hoodies, I feel a bit anxious. Why? I don’t know. Mostly, they’re just hanging around, talking and having harmless fun. But it’s not the way we looked when we were kids, I’m sure. And something about that makes me think something sinister’s going on – there’s going to be trouble.
Then I thought back to my childhood days. Yes, we dressed differently to the kids today, but we also dressed differently to the previous generation. And what did that previous generation think of us? The way I remember, we were just mucking about, having fun. Some of us had parkas, some of us those snorkel jackets, those ones where if you zipped up the hood it stuck miles out the front making you look like a reject from Jabba the Hutt’s Tatooine palace. We wore our jackets just by the hoods; they streamed out behind us like capes as we tore around the neighbourhood on our bicycles.
We must have looked like right tearaways, maybe even instilling a little unease. How different were we from the kids of today?
So what’s changed? Me and my perceptions. Before you know it I’ll be prefixing all my complaints with “When I was young…”.
False memories?
Memories. They’re funny things.
Generally rock solid just after the fact, but they tend to change over time. Eventually they can become less a memory, more a fantasy. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve re-read a book after several years, only to find that I’ve vastly exaggerated the ending in my own head. The same goes for films.
Then there’s old TV series. When I watch them now, they’re not nearly as good as I remember. But then, I’m basing them on a child’s memories.
So now I have to wonder about the weather. I’m firmly convinced that “summers were better when I was a kid”. Of course, being able to constantly moan that the past was better is one of the cool things about getting older. But is it true about the weather? Sure, 1976 was an amazing summer. It was a drought, with associated hosepipe bans and whatnot, but all I remember is fun summer days. Was it always great in August or was is usually like it is now? 20 degrees, raining, occasionally we see the sun. People are wearing coats. Last week it got warm and my flat and I opened a window, wondering what was going on. Then I realised that it’s mid-August – isn’t it supposed to be like this?
I think it did used to be better. But that’s only what I remember.
Where did all the money go?
Where is all of this? (Image by epSos.de via Flickr.)
I’m writing this because I have no clue. We frequently hear how various countries owe billions of pounds. So who has it all?
Sometimes I imagine a person in a villa at the top of a mountain somewhere, surrounded by piles of cash. Or maybe inside an extinct volcano covered by a big sliding door with a lake on top.
I don’t know if all the countries have met together and worked out if they can cut some of the debt off, lower the total amount of debt out there. For example, all get together and see who owes what to whom and maybe shuffle things around so that if one country owes money to a second country and that second country owes money to a third country, the first country could give money straight to the third country. Of course, the second country probably wouldn’t go for that – they need the money now!
Of course, if a country looks like it’s going bankrupt, all the other countries band together and bail them out. But all those other countries are also heavily in debt, so where do they get the money to lend? I assume they borrow it. From the IMF? But all these countries are already contributing to the IMF. Do they send money to the IMF so they can borrow it back to lend to someone else? I’m confused. It’s a good job I’m not in charge of all this.
I addition, I guess all sorts of private concerns can buy up debt. So maybe there’s a lot of debt owed by countries held by private companies.
So at the end of all that, I still don’t know who has all the money. All I know for sure is it’s not me.
Monkeys and typewriters
Okay, so it's a chimp with a laptop. I was fresh out of monkeys and typewriters.
I was thinking about that old saying, which goes something like this:
“If you give an infinite number of monkeys typewriters, then given enough time they’ll eventually produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare.”
Or presumably any other text. I assume a single monkey given infinite time will also produce the same (there are several versions of this saying).
Now, this works because infinity is huge. Huger than huge. In fact it’s the biggest number ever, and then some.
That makes me wonder what infinity plus one is, but that’s another story. Fortunately, infinity’s more of an abstract concept (in my mind), rather than an actual thing, so we don’t need to worry about that.
Now, back to the monkeys. Here’s why they won’t ever produce anything.
We’ve all seen monkeys at the zoo. We all know what they do to amuse the tourists.
Yes, that. I won’t spell it out. We all know what I’m talking about here.
Well, fully half the monkeys will be too busy doing that and won’t be interested in the typewriters.
The other half will be far too busy panicking that although there’s an infinite number of monkeys, no-one thought to provide an infinite number of bananas. Even their limited monkey brains have worked out that this is “not good”.
So there you have it. The theorem of infinite monkeys disproved on practical grounds.
Of course, infinite monkeys could be just a metaphor or something. But I like to think that someone, somewhere, is setting this experiment up. Cool!
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