Y. Karp? Why Not!

In the movie " The Pursuit of Happyness " [sic] the protagonist describes a period of his life as "Riding the Bus", where he seems to constantly be going somewhere on the bus or chasing after it as it pulls away from the curb. Right now I am writing this blog while on a bus. And I am also running up against a deadline - my battery is only at 17% and I have to finish this before the battery light flashes orange and the short, determined beeps signal an imminent shutdown. But is forcing a shutdown so bad? Sometimes, during the hectic life I seem to lead, it is good to "shutdown" once in a while. By that I don't mean collapsing in a heap on the couch, unable to move because every bone in your body aches. Nor do I mean the type of shutdown that comes at the end of one's life. I'm talking about the type of shutdown that is followed by a "restart". Thinking about it, it is probably a good idea to turn off, once in a while; to detach yoursel...

As you can see from my profile picture, I used to have a beard. It was a good beard. A thick, solid, bushy thing. That beard and I spent many years together. It kept me warm and was an amusement for children. But now it is gone and I am beardless. It was a snap decision that I mulled over for a number of weeks. One morning I decided to trim my beard and then I just couldn't help myself - I went too far and there was no going back. Everyone says that I now look 20 years younger. Someone mistook me for my younger brother. My daughter's friend didn't recognize me. It's like a new lease on life. They may say that the clothes maketh the man, but I think it's the facial hair. In fact, it may be so fashionable to "mow the lawn" that some don't stop at the face. They keep going north. According to Wikipedia, "Head shaving is much more common among men. It is often associated with religious practice, the armed forces and some competitive sports such as swi...

I went kayaking the other day. Although the circumstances around how the boat capsized may be entertaining, I will keep them aside in my dubious collection of heroic stories to tell my children and grandchildren. But the truth of the matter is that the kayak overturning took me completely by surprise. One moment I was quite happily paddling along in a boat with a crew of four and the next moment I found myself under the water. Thinking back on that event, I realize that when accidents happen you really are quite unprepared for them. Let's analyze my little dip in the river. Firstly, I remember very clearly that the boat was suddenly no longer underneath me, the place where it was supposed to be. In a few microseconds my brain processed the fact that I was under water and so my eyes shut automatically, like "shields up" on the Starship Enterprise. I held my breath and I kicked my legs, expecting to surface. I shot myself upwards, my head colliding with the upturned boat. T...

I remember that when I was a kid we were honored by a visit from an encyclopedia salesman. One evening he came to our house and sat himself at our dining room table. I remember thinking that he was a young fellow, or at least he seemed so. Clean cut, jacket and tie, pearly white smile and shiny black brogue shoes. I also remember that he was a smooth talker. He was a great salesman. Pitching the Encyclopedia Britannica couldn't be easy, but it was the 1980s and Wikipedia didn't yet exist. He spoke with great honesty about all the benefits of the 20-volume set to a family with teen and pre-teen kids. "And what would you use it for?" he asked me as I leaned awkwardly against the piano, fidgeting the way a 9-year-old does. "For school work, I guess". The salesman smiled and spread out his hands, palms open, gesturing at the children. He beamed. I'm sure that my parents didn't hear the spiel. I'm positive that they were oblivious to the salesman'...

Let's say that you wanted to open a new business. Whatever name you choose for your business will have to say a lot about it in only one or two words. For example, choosing a name like "Nik's Cakes" does tell consumers that you sell cakes, but why is "Nik's Cakes" better or worse than "Bob's Cakes"? It's boring, unimaginative and not very sexy. Go to http://www.biztrek.com/articles/Naming%20your%20business.htm and you will get lots of good advice about choosing a business name: Curl Up and Dye may sound cute now, but after six months, you and your customers will become very weary of the joke. Yeah, especially if you sell cakes. If choosing a name for your business is hard, how difficult it must be to choose a name for yourself. Imagine that you had just ratted on a mafia boss and were taken into the witness protection program. You get to live in a new location with a new job, new life and, of course, a new name. What are you going to...

I am the first to admit that my level of mathematics is not top notch. Numbers make me dizzy. I once had to be quietly escorted out of a 67th floor elevator. The night-janitor found me curled up in the corner in the fetal position, softly calling for Mamma. All those buttons. All those numbers. So when I posted my last blog , I didn't really look too carefully into my sources. In fact, as soon as I saw numbers and formulae, my eyes began to glaze over. Digits danced before me in a hazy cloud of fog. If the author says there is a 2.5 billion to one chance of winning the lottery, then that is good enough for me. Subsequent to that post, I was made aware that I should have done the math myself. It seems I could have increased my chances of winning by 720 times. I was told that if I had read my source's entire article, not just the one paragraph, I would have come to a different conclusion. I didn't have the patience or the inclination to delve into the intricacies of the matte...

G-d is playing with my mind. A few months ago my wife and I decided to buy a lottery ticket. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. What irked me was knowing, not so very deep in my heart, that I was flushing money down the drain. I mean, what are the odds? According to this site on Lottery Math, The odds of a "Lotto" style lottery can be found with the formula: n! / (n - r)! r! where n is the highest numbered ball and r is the number of balls chosen. This is called in math a combination . An easier way to think about it is if there are 40 balls and 6 are chosen, there are 40 possible numbers that can come up first, leaving 39 that can come up second, then 38, 37, 36, and finally 35 on the final number. To find out how many numbers that is you multiply 40 ×39 ×38 ×37 ×36 × 35 = 2,763,633,600 making the odds 2 and a half billion to one. Two and a half billion to one?! The money spent on the ticket could easily have gone to purchasing at least one bottle of beer with a 100% cha...