At Borders Bookstore

Interesting time at the Union Square Borders:

Good juxtaposition of books in the reference section: "Amazing Things to do as a Family", "Pessimists Guide to History"

Finding philosophy in the screenplay writing section (am I becoming Californian after all?). Rollo May definition of existentialism: dissonance between belief that universe has a purpose and the lack of purpose in one's own life.
"How to write an unlikable protagonist" - interesting chapter.

Travel section is very crowded, one chubby guy in cheap half-suit stands in front of the US travel section; Idaho

Guy sitting in coffee shop area with a big stack of webprogramming books. Moved on from them, skimming through magazine: "Practical guide to handguns"

At Starbucks

Friday night I'm at Starbucks, writing, around 10pm at night.
Attractive girl approaches, friend waiting hesitantly around the corner.
Offers to give me a free haircut.

Explains that she works at an upscale salon down the street and needs models for practice.
I ask "Are you serious?" "Yes"

Monday I walk past Prada into Vidal Sassoon for a supposedly 100$ haircut.
Not bad.

Ridiculous Stress Test News

From the WA Post:

"The government will not require Bank of America Corp. to raise any new capital as a result of its stress test, although the company will be required to increase its holdings of common equity, the most dependable kind of capital, by about $35 billion"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050602182.html?wprss=rss_business

"the most dependable kind of capital"- how much less knowledgeable could this article possibly sound?

It makes sense after you read that they are switching the gov's preferred shares to common, but not getting more, however they still seem pretty clueless.

Majority voting is inconsistent & cyclical

Condorcet's voting paradox demonstrates how solid democracy's foundation truly is.

Persons 1,2,3 are voting for candidates A,B,C with the following individual preference lists:

Person1: A>B>C

Person2: B>C>A

Person3: C>A>B

Using a majority voting rule, we can see that A would beat B, since A>B in two out of three peoples' preference lists. Similarly, B>C and C>A. 

But then A>B>C>A which is obviously unreasonable. 

The Dow Knows all

The Daily Show: The Dow knows all

Irrationality

News

The Onion is the only news network telling the truth

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/al_qaeda_also_fed_up_with_ground

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/9_11_conspiracy_theories