Regruntled.com

This image is a mixture of randomness and regularity. There is are two similar patterns repeated on a square grid; but in each cell of the grid, the choice of pattern is determined by a coin toss. The patterns are busy enough and similar enough that the result looks almost-but-not-quite regular.

And yet, there is something else going on. If one stands back far enough from the screen, another pattern emerges, a diagonal maze:

I’ve been reading about Critical Discourse Analysis and thought I’d apply it to a recent letter from my bank.

Account Information Enclosed

Sounds important, doesn’t it?  Better open it.  The letter actually contains checks for cash advances from my credit card.  The letter mentions the last 4 digits of my account number, so I suppose it does contain some account information.

Access your funds with ease.

This suggests that the money is already “mine” and is just waiting for me to spend it.  The theme of ease is reinforced with phrases like “simply use”, “an easy way”, and “in two easy steps”.  Of course, I haven’t borrowed it yet, so it’s not mine, it’s the bank’s.

This may give you the ability and flexibility to do what you want when you want.

Freedom!  This is reinforced with “make the most of your account” and “you can benefit”.  Of course, going into debt is the exact opposite of freedom. 

New 4.99% Promotional APR

This is psychological pricing.  Come on, it’s 5 percent!

(Transaction fees apply.  See left panel for details.)

Some  very small print says there’s a transaction fee of 4%.  The promotional APR expires after 6 months, so it’s really 8% annualized.    (Actually more than 8%, because the fee comes off the top, while my balance declines with each payment.)  Look what they’ve done.  They just offered to lend me money at over 13% while making it sound like 4-point-something.

Save More

This is reinforced with “continue to save” by using all three check instead of just one.    The bank quotes two rates, the standard rate and the promotional rate, and offers me the lower rate, thereby allowing me to “save”.  Of course, at either rate, borrowing is the exact opposite of saving.

Write a check today

Urgency is reinforced with “call today” and an expiration date on the checks.

We can help with your cash needs.

The framing is insidious.  “Needs” suggests that I have a problem and need to be “helped”.  Of course, they have access to my credit report and if I really did need help, they wouldn’t have sent me the letter.

So:  an offer to lend me money at 13%.  They deliberately try to mislead me as to how much it costs to borrow the money.  (”Borrow” appears only once, in the fine print, and “debt” is never mentioned.)  But they’re going to “help” me by making it easy to access “my” money.  Save by borrowing!  Set yourself free by going into debt!  Easy!  Write a check today!

Science Made Stupid is a hilarious parody of science.

At the end of the Creosote era, two new classes arose to challenge the ruling reptiles - birds and mammals.

The success of the birds was due in large part to their development of the feather. As you may recall from chapter 2, Galileo demonstrated that a feather falls more slowly than a lead weight. Being covered with feathers thus gave the birds a definite advantage over the flying reptiles, which were covered with lead weights.

Consider the plain weave (4th position, bottom row).  Over, under, over, under.  Very boring.  Or the basket weave (bottom right).  Over, under, two at a time.  If the basic unit of our pattern is 4 threads by 4 threads, how many different patterns are there?  At each crossing, the horizontal thread can be over or under the vertical thread, so 2 to the 16th, or 65,536.  I decided to add a couple of constraints:

• Each horizontal thread goes over twice and under twice
• Each vertical thread goes over twice and under twice

Together, these constraints result in a “balanced” pattern.  For example, if the horizontal threads are white and the vertical threads are blue, each side of the cloth will show half white and half blue.  Now we have a more interesting problem, and we can have the computer grind out all 65,536 patterns and count the overs and unders in each row and column.  The we eliminate near duplicates where one pattern is like another except shifted over by one or two threads.

It turns out that there are exactly 10 weaves that satisfy our constraints, and they’re shown above.  In addition to the plain weave and the basket weaves, we have a couple of 2/2 twills (last 2 in top row). 

Alternatively, we can count patterns as being the same if one can be rotated or transposed into the other.  For example, if we take one of our 2/2 twills and rotate it 90 degrees, we get the other 2/2 twill, so we could count them as the same pattern.  If we count this way, we get 6 patterns instead of 10.

The most interesting patterns, I think, are the ones on the left.  If I look at the top left pattern one way, it looks like diagonal white chains on a blue background.  If I tilt my head a bit, I see blue chains on a white background, on the opposite diagonal.  What can I say?  I have astigmatism and I’m easily amused.

Bacon Camp has instructions for making a a bacone, like an ice cream cone, except made out of bacon.

Fill the Bacone with a mixture of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and cheese (I use colby jack). Fill the Bacone until almost full and add a layer of country gravy. Atop the gravy, add a biscuit.

Wait a minute… Bacon Camp?  How come I never went to Bacon Camp?  I feel so deprived.

Corrupted-Files.com offers Microsoft Word files that are guaranteed not to open on a PC or a Mac.  The idea is that a student who is up against a deadline for an assignment can turn in a corrupted file, and get a few extra days to work on the paper before the instructor notices.

This download includes a 2, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 page corrupted Word file. Use the appropriate file size to match each assignment. Who’s to say your 10 page paper didn’t get corrupted? Exactly! No one can! Its the perfect excuse to buy yourself extra time and not hand in a garbage paper. Cheating is not the answer to procrastination!  - Corrupted-Files.com is!

The problem is that if the instructor opens both files in a hex editor, he will see that the files are unrelated.  One is not a damaged version of the other.