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BLATANT ENDORSEMENT, MORE SECURITY STUFF,
THE INDONESIAN TESTS, AND ROMANCE ON THE NYC SUBWAY.
[Note: still no response from either Florsheim
about their magnetic shoes, or from DKL Labs about their dowsing
stick!]
Okay, here's the "blatant endorsement"
I'm offering readers this week. I usually prepare this page from
my office on Saturday morning, and I tune in to NPR radio while
I'm driving to the JREF. And that means that I'm listening to
"Car Talk."  This
is just about the most entertaining, informative, stimulating,
and downright funny program to be heard on radio today. The reason
I'm mentioning this to readers of this web page, is that the
logic and the reasoning process entered into by the hosts, Tom
and Ray Magliozzi, known here as Click and Clack, the Tappet
Brothers, is stunning. They are great fans of Martin Gardner,
who used to write the Scientific American column Mathematical
Puzzles and Diversions, and they feature weekly puzzles on
the show and web page. Click and Clack have a weekly show on
450 National Public Radio stations, and a newspaper column in
300 papers, they've been featured on ABC's 20-20, and CBS News
"60 Minutes," and aside from being amateur comedians,
they really, really, know cars. And, they're "M.I.T. educated
grease monkeys," according to their web page, at www.cartalk.com.
My radio talents pale when compared with this
pair. All I can suggest is that you tune in on Saturday mornings
(consult your listings) and see what I mean. But be prepared
to sit in the parking lot, as I often do, to hear the program
out before getting on with your Saturday. In fact, I often glance
over at fellow-commuters along the highway, and see them laughing
out loud, as I am, and we exchange knowing glances. The Brothers
are hilarious and effective educators, and even if you don't
give a rap about car problems, you will be hugely rewarded by
this pair. Trust me.
...........................................................................
A reader ("Stu" will do) sends this
in as a comment on the Airport Insecurity note I had here. See
if you can guess what country's airport he's entering. Interesting
. . .
As someone who travels over most of the
world, I've been in and out of some strange places and at strange
times but one of the most bizarre happened a few years ago...
Travelers Log 30.10.98. "Whose bag is this?" The all-too-familiar
question rings out at the security checkpoint, "Well, that
would be mine," I reply. "Please open it up, you got
any wires, batteries, knives, guns?"
The last inventory of "my bag":
Laptop computer -- current primary occupant. Other occupants
of "the bag," 2 AA "Mag lights" and a single
AAA backup, Leatherman, needle-nose pliers, Dykes, buck knife,
8-in-one screwdriver, tweeker, greenie, Sharpies, co-ax stripper,
co-ax tool, LCD video monitor, Jaz drive, GPS. My pocket ref.
and PC ref. books along with a Blonder Tounge RF reference book,
"the essentials" (tooth brush/paste, floss, 1 pr. socks,
underpants, set of spare batteries, all the various wires, connectors,
international phone, phone and power adapters, PCMCIA cards,
bag of various audio, video and RF adapters) -- about 10 lbs,
a bunch of CD's (software, not music), a box of floppies and
Jaz media. Altogether, about 40 lbs of stuff, plus my suit bag.
"What's this for?" "That's
my GPS…" "What's that fur?" "Tells me
where I'm at…" "What's this?" "That's
a 10 BaseT and modem in one PCMCIA card" "??"
"That's a dongle -- it connects to the phone line…"
"That's a SCSI card…" "You got any ID?"
I pass them the "passport" which
has been punched more times than the average feather weight boxing
contender and by more places than they can remember from high
school geography, then they want my drivers license, business
card, my reason for travel. The contents of my bag are spread
over the entire table, they keep finding things to open and unzip
each time like they are going to find something forbidden --
and more questions.
"Why did I have all these things they
don't like in my bag?" "What exactly did I do for a
living?" (My wife has given up on that one). "Why did
I have such things?" "What were these for?" "What
does that do?"
When they discovered my foreign currency
stash (taxi fare for about ten different countries) they were
sure that they had some sort of international terrorist on their
hands. Thirty minutes later, after re-packing the bag they eventually
let me pass.
Rest assured middle America, the guards
are wide awake at our frontier outpost of: Burbank, CA!
PS: although I've had the odd security
guard measure the blade of the buck knife (Japan, most recently)
none has ever not let it pass and none has ever opened the Leatherman
which has, count them, two rather nasty flip open blades . .
.
No, I've no idea what "Dykes, tweeker,
and greenie" might be, either, but maybe I don't want to
know . . .
...........................................................................
Professor John Sohl has been kind enough to
supply us with a report on the recent preliminary testing of
the Indonesian claimants for the JREF million-dollar prize. Through
their two American representatives, these folks applied in the
regular way, submitting the notarized application form, and we
arranged for representatives -- including Professor Sohl -- to
conduct the preliminary test. As we announced last week, they
failed the test.
I will briefly outline here a few of the expected
"hallmarks" of this procedure as they took place in
Utah at the Ott Planetarium of Weber State University at Ogden.
In the pre-trial demonstration, which I had suggested so that
their regular operating methods could be clearly seen, and at
which they would be very successful, they achieved 100 percent
results using their own blindfolds and their own blindfolding
techniques. That was to be expected, of course. Though the "Master"
performer of the group simply refused to be tested, a student
with "over 20 years of Vibravision experience" did
submit to examination.
In the preliminary test, done under the conditions
chosen by the claimants, the results for 100 percent correct.
At that point, proper blindfolds were applied to conduct the
formal preliminary tests. To quote Professor Sohl, the "subject
voiced repeated concern about the blindfold and was clearly concerned
about it. After over 45 minutes of delays, he managed to free
the blindfold enough to see (which is caught completely on video
tape). The clearly-loose blindfold was reapplied at which point
the subject became distressed again. Finally, after many more
delays the subject ran the test . . ." After a series of
delays totaling over an hour, the results were three correct
out of 19 trials, while the odds by chance alone would have called
for 3.2 correct.
This is what always happens during these preliminary
tests. No one has yet passed any preliminary tests for the JREF
prize. What made this set of tests of particular importance was
that the two American sponsors had invested a total of $80,000
in these claimants, thoroughly confident that they would win
the prize. Though Andrew Harter and myself tried to warn the
Americans not to make such an investment, our pleas -- as they
say -- fell on deaf ears.
 We want
to thank sincerely all those who were involved in acting on behalf
of the JREF to conduct this test. I'm sure there was a certain
amount of dismay on their part when they saw the extreme disillusionment
of the sponsors. I have assured them however that those who were
deceived always manage to make adjustments in their thinking,
and can rationalize away such failures for reasons that have
nothing to do with whether or not they were cheated, lied to,
or swindled. We can look forward to hearing from the Americans
that they are still convinced of the magical powers of these
martial artists - who have obviously discovered that there is
more advantage in promoting nonsense and superstition than in
teaching a legitimate art.
You may wish to go to www.merpatiputih.com,
the web page of
I. G. M. P., and see just how much they will charge to teach
blind people to see. It amounts to $116,500 for the full course.
To quote their advertisement:
Objects around us generate vibrations and
ILMU GETARAN MERPATI PUTIH relies on our innate ability to detect
the vibrations of objects nearby. This ability or sense can be
improved by practice.
Well, 20 years of practice doesn't seem to
have improved the Indonesian practitioner who performed for the
preliminary test in Utah. He did no better than a Chinese fortune
cookie. And just why didn't the "Master" of these performers
allow himself to be tested? There has to be a very good reason
for that, though the believers will reason around it. This group
is very similar to the Mexicans I tested some years ago on Japanese
television, in that they, too, claim that they can teach the
blind to see. This is a cruel hoax and deception. We at the JREF
are very distressed to know that these things are going on, and
that we are essentially powerless to stop them.
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I offer you this photo snapped in a U.K. bookshop,
and sent to us by a reader. The book, "Supernatural A to
Z" is the U.K. edition of my "Encyclopedia of the Claims,
Frauds & Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural." What
company we keep!
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Finally, it's puzzle time.
Situation: Stan, a young chap living in Manhattan
right near a subway stop that goes north-and-south (uptown-and-downtown)
is fortunate enough to have two equally attractive and single
girlfriends, one who lives in the Bronx (north on the subway)
named Nora, and the other in Brooklyn (south on the subway) named
Sophie. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent). Stan
really can't make up his mind which of these two lovelies he
will ask to marry him. And, when he visits one of them, he never
announces that he's going to be there, because he's part of this
puzzle, and it wouldn't work if he didn't behave that way.
Trains in each direction arrive once an hour.
Trains bound for the Bronx always arrive at 10 minutes
past the hour, and Brooklyn trains always arrive on the
hour. (Obviously, this is a fictional situation, because I know
from long experience that you'd never encounter such regularity
on the NYC subway system.) But this schedule hasn't dawned on
Stan, who just goes into the subway station at any old time,
waits on the upper platform until he hears a train (Bronx- or
Brooklyn-bound, he doesn't care) pulling into the station. At
that point he goes to the train that's arrived, boards it, and
goes to see the lady who resides in the direction the train is
traveling.
We introduce here the wise opinion of our
consulting psychologist, who opines that the lady Stan sees most
often will undoubtedly be the one he ends up marrying. We will
take that as a valid point.
Who will Stan marry? And, part two, what are
the exact mathematical chances that he will marry that girl?
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