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September 30, 2003
Monkeys and Company Policies
Heard on the net:
Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling.
Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Soon enough,whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up.
Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder. One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.
Continue reading "Monkeys and Company Policies"
Posted by elise at 1:49 PM
September 23, 2003
Film - Lost in Translation
Enjoyed Lost in Translaton, directed by Sofia Coppola, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. A movie actor comes to Tokyo to do a Suntory whiskey ad and meets up with a young woman who has accompanied her neglectful husband to Tokyo. The film reminded me of my first and several subsequent trips to Tokyo, highlighting the most obvious absurdities. Bill Murray plays up his straight man comic genius as he tries to decipher Japanese English. A sweet film, the beauty in the subtleties.
Here's a NY Times article describing what truly was lost in translation. (Thanks Marc Escobosa)
Posted by elise at 11:46 AM
September 19, 2003
Googling for baby names
Another take on baby naming. David Brittan in the MIT Technology Review recommends using the google image search engine at images.google.com to enter baby names to see what visual associations those names reveal.
The true test of a name is, and always will be, how other people respond to it. And, unless that name is unique, people’s response will depend heavily on their experience of other people who bear the same name. So, in selecting a name, you want to know what associations it is likely to trigger in somebody’s brain. That means you need to get a good look at some real-life Jennifers, Dimitris, Ezekiels, Maximilians, Kazuos, Tiffanys, or LaToyas, and see what fires in your brain. You want to stand them in a row and size them up—give them the white-glove test. And now you can.I checked out "elise" and found a lot of images of a gorgeous sports car and a lot of healthy looking cheerful gals. Yet another useful way to use google.
(No, I do not have baby on the brain.)
Posted by elise at 3:44 PM
September 1, 2003
How popular is your baby's name?
The Social Security Department collects data on baby names. To see how the popularity of a given name has changed over the last few years, enter the name and the number of years (up to 12 years back). Please note that the name you select must be in the top 1000 most popular names in order for the name to appear in the table produced by your request.
Also fun to review are how the popular names have changed over the years. Here are the top 10 names by year of birth for years 1880 through 1997, based on a 1% sample:
Top 10 given names (1880-1919)
Top 10 given names (1920-1959)
Top 10 given names (1960-1997)
Posted by elise at 12:35 PM