Get a Big Box of Electricity Here
Jan 20th
Another pic from the Africa trip — this sign was all over Kigali, and it always made me smile:
The way they're electrifying the country now is, well, electrifying. But the way the sign is phrased, I couldn't help but imagine they had these big tubs of the stuff sitting around on shelves.
You come in, maybe carrying a cardboard box or a plastic bag, and they pour you a bunch, with lots of little sparks dripping down the sides, and you go on your way.
Jeopardy! Man v. IBM Computer Matches: Simply a Matter of Time
Jan 16th
Thanks to my own 13 games of Jeopardy! and the book about it and all, lots of people (including the New York Times) have asked for my opinion about the whole IBM computer vs. Ken Jennings vs. Brad Rutter cage match.
I'll say here what I've said all along: when you're playing at million-dollar tournament level, all of the players know (or can rapidly figure out) nearly all of the correct responses, no matter how arcane. Trust me, I've been there.
IBM wouldn't unveil their computer unless they were sure it would function similarly.
Ultimately, the difference between winning or losing usually comes down just to the ability to time the milliseconds between the time Alex finishes the clue and one of the producers activates the signaling devices.
Since a computer can obviously react more rapidly and consistently than a human can, it will probably win unless it is programmed to have a human-like random delay of a few milliseconds before hitting the buzzer.
Judging from news reports about the warm-up game, the computer has no such delay, and can buzz in instantly.
So that's the computer's advantage: not knowledge, not processing speed, not math or game strategy… just reflexes. And so unless the buzzer-response is programmed differently in the games that count, I think the computer is likely to win.
Brad and Ken will both be still a heck of a lot more fun to hang out with after the game, though.
(Full disclosure: Brad and Ken are both friends of mine, so I have some emotional interest in seeing them do well against the cyborg. Also, I was invited to play the computer in its last warm-up round, but I couldn't make it since I was still getting over the typhoid I picked up in Tanzania. Y'know, as always, my life is so boring…)
Australia Floods: Blow-up Sex Toys are “Not Recognized Flotation Devices’’
Jan 16th
And this is why I love Australia.
Almost 50 years of Tanzanian history in one photo
Jan 12th
Glimpsed on the street in Stone Town, Zanzibar, on one of my microfinance trips:
The green and yellow sign ("I love Zanzibar, vote yes for me, choose CCM, choose Dr. Shein") is a campaign ad from Tanzania's ruling CCM party (from the Swahili abbreviation for "Revolutionary Party").
Giant signs like these are everywhere. On major roads, you might easily see five or six at once.
Since the dawn of Tanzanian independence, the CCM and its predecessor have run things from day one, even when that necessitated rigged votes and occasional electoral massacres (including one here on Zanzibar as recently as 2001). But that doesn't mean an election isn't a chance to spend some public money to tell the public whose money you're spending about how wise you are with the public's money.
And while there's a major opposition party gradually gaining support among the business class in Arusha and Mwanza, everybody already knew who was gonna win this one, just like always.
Sure enough, President Kikwete of the CCM was re-elected by a 35-point margin.
And so the people below the powerful smiling heads continue their long slow heavy slog uphill.
Three intercontinental airline fares to love
Jan 11th
I might just be doing all of these on my next trip, and I'm amazed at the deals out there. Seems only fair to share:
Air Arabia: Mumbai to Beirut for $252.
EasyJet: Tel Aviv to London for $170.
Iceland Express: London to NYC for $260.
Yowza!
Zanzibar: The Unanswered Questions re Patty Duke’s Cousin
Jan 6th
This is the scene immediately after arrival in Zanzibar, the exotic spice island and historic crossroads of East Africa, as you step off the morning ferry from Dar es Salaam. Could this possibly be any more colorful?
You're practically atop the equator with some of the cleanest air in the world overhead. On a clear day, your eyes almost vibrate from the intensity, even just walking down a random alley.
Btw, I don't like to admit this, but I wound up humming the 1960's Patty Duke Show theme ("from Zanzibar… to Barclay Square!") for the first few minutes. Sorry to be such a tourist, but there it is.
Which brings me to a fun fact that wildly improves Patty Duke Show reruns on TV Land:
Barclay Square (which is the lyric, per any source you check) is in Tartu, Estonia.
Once you consider what this means for the sitcom's mythology, that's fantastically weird.
What the hell was Patty's mysterious British cousin Cathy Lane doing in Estonia under Soviet rule, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, right at the height of the Cold War?
Espionage. Had to be.
This whole innocent sitcom suddenly reeks of intrigue. All the hiding and confusion and pretending to be other people — it's hard not to start imagining that this was the classic development of an intelligence "double."
Y'know who else was in the Soviet Union in 1962 and suddenly came back? Lee Harvey Oswald, that's who.
Plus, Cathy's father was the Chronicle's "foreign correspondent." Probably his CIA or MI5 cover. So he could go overseas and keep an eye on his psycho sniper daughter.
And suddenly the "identical cousin" thing starts making a lot more sense. Plastic surgery to create a cover? Probably.
Then again, once the third cousin, Betsy, showed up in the second season, looking like a total clone of the other two… you have to wonder about genetic engineering.
Dear gods, how many other mind-controlled identical cousins were wandering around, awaiting their orders? What were their masters planning? And was their evil plot averted when the show was cancelled? Or did they just go underground…?
But I digress. Zanzibar. Really beautiful. Even if Cathy Lane was once based here to covertly monitor Soviet arms smuggling in East African shipping lanes.
Blackbirds falling from the sky and fish washing ashore in four states can only mean one thing
Jan 4th
M. Night Shyamalan has started directing our entire lives.
And we're only on page 3.
Well, dang.
Next, watch for aliens, ghosts, demons, alien ghost demons, and exposition shots of Philadelphia.
In four months, there will be a surprise twist that is not remotely surprising.
It will either be (a) our environmental regulations are too lax, or (b) we all actually died during the Bush administration, and the last two years have been a collective hallucination inside Mel Gibson's head.
Sometimes, watching the news, it all feels way too much like (b) anyway.
Our Kiva team: $200,000 and counting!
Jan 2nd
Friends of Bob Harris, a team of 279 generous people I'm honored to nominally lead, has just passed the $200,000 mark in total funds raised.
That money has gone to help fund nearly 8,000 microloans to schools, clinics, and mom-and-pop businesses in more than 50 countries across the developing world.
If that's not specific enough, here's an example of what these loans do:
Meet Jacqueline, a mother of three in Kigali, Rwanda, who has used loans like these to grow a tiny business trading cassava and sweet potatoes into a small grocery store — thereby providing a better home, better food, and a better overall life for her beautiful children.
Jacqueline was generous and sweet in sharing her story for my book — a story typical of microfinance clients I've met on four continents so far.
Want to kick in a few bucks? You get paid back about 99 percent of the time, after all. Join us!
Mmm… creamy, delicious wall paint
Jan 1st
Delightful strangeness, noticed while walking around Kigali:
Dude, do you really want me to taste your wall paint?
If not, why are you advertising it to look like lemon custard?
The real Bank of Bob – in Bhutan
Jan 1st
My friend Lisa Klink informs me that there is an actual "Bank of Bob" out there — in Bhutan.
Hoping to visit and see for myself while I'm in Asia this spring. Cool!
Happy New Year! Here’s to a fantastic 1997!
Dec 31st
Everybody else can welcome 2012. But I say, why gamble on the unknown?
Besides, 1997 was awesome, at least when it was still the future. In sci-fi, 1997 was when HAL 9000 was activated, the Jupiter II launched, Skynet blew up mankind, V began his Vendetta, and Snake Plissken escaped from New York. All in the same year.
How did I not notice all that? I must have been busy doing my radio stuff the whole time. Man, that was a great year. Except for the complete destruction of mankind.
Somalia looks just lovely from the air…
Dec 30th
But this flight was as close as I intend to be for a while.
In Dubai, “pork” is just one letter different from “porn”
Dec 29th
I've got 100s of travel pics I've never posted, and it's about time I start… in the back of a Dubai grocery, here's the dark, shameful, forbidden pork booth.
On the other side of this secreted nook, porcivorous heathens creep around in the darkness, lusting after taboo bits of flesh, while the righteous avert their eyes.
Change just one letter, and it's oddly like the back of magazine shops before the internet.
(Btw, the red-white-and-blue color scheme made it feel weirdly like an Arabian Kroger.)
“Bones” episode I wrote to be rerun tomorrow
Dec 29th
Just a heads-up: the episode of Bones I wrote will be rebroadcast tomorrow (Thursday) night at 8pm. Enjoy!
Who Needs an Exit Door? Just Cut Here in Emergency
Dec 28th
Seen over the wing of my Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to Kigali:
Because, y'know, an actual door would be so much less exciting.
I hoped that inside there would be a big pull-tab, like on a can of Spam, but no luck.
Our Kiva team passes $65,000 for December!
Dec 28th
Friends of Bob Harris, the team I'm honored to "captain" (which means mostly just cheer while everybody else does cool stuff) at Kiva.org, just blew past the $65,000 mark for December — and over $100,000 total in the last two months of 2010.
That money is lent – not donated — to doctors, clinics, farmers, and thousands of other deserving small enterprises in more than 50 developing countries worldwide.
This means that the 267 members (and counting) of our team get paid back about 99 percent of the time, then have the opportunity to reinvest, over and over again, while helping build economies all over the world.
It's a kick and an honor to be a part of this, and I'm loving the work of writing this book.
Female millionaire, 84, engaged to 24-year-old guy: a headline you’ll never see
Dec 27th
A lot of folks are weirded out by Hugh Hefner's engagement to a 24-year-old Playmate — and, yes, ewww — but can you imagine the total freak-out if the genders were reversed?
There's the obvious point about men being able to reproduce in their 80s (albeit with frayed sperm and a whole gallon jug of little blue pills) while woman can't. But if marriage were defined by how likely you are to have functional offspring, the British royal family would have been strapped with chastity belts long ago.
So this really is a magnificent double standard.
I think Hefner is only marrying her because he's still waiting for his dream girl to be born.
My blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts are now all linked.
Dec 9th
My fingers would tremble at the awesome power. If this were either awesome or power.
Three thoughts on having one’s junk touched
Nov 19th
Thought One: How long until we learn that sex addicts are signing up to work for the TSA, since frankly if you’re into latex and frequent junk-touching, it’s now the greatest job ever?
Thought Two: Since new research indicates the RapiScan see-you-naked porno scanners they’re now using are about as likely to kill you as being hijacked by a terrorist, does that not mean there is no conceivable public safety rationale for using them? Other than fun for the new recruits, obviously.
Thought Three: It seems clear that this discussion is the moment when the word “junk” solidified its rightful place in the national dialogue. Historians take note.
