{"id":17761,"date":"2018-09-01T22:22:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T02:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=17761"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:42:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:42:53","slug":"thoughts-at-large-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2018\/09\/thoughts-at-large-57\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts at Large: 57"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022 As the legendary 19th-century mathematician and master of infinities Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor<\/a> said, “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are one of those kinds and those who are not.”<\/p>\n

\u2022 After many dozen online contests, I have found there are three types of Scrabble games.\u00a0 One may draw lucky letters and score one great word after another, an embarassment of riches; or one draws a few good letters among mostly mediocre ones, just enough to give one hope during the uncertain struggle; or one’s letter tray follows a winding road, veering between six consonants and a vowel and one consonant (surely a V) and six vowels (mostly I’s and U’s), delivering a stern lesson in frustration and powerlessness.\u00a0 That’s life.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Actually, I am tiring of online games.\u00a0 And more to the point, I am growing tired of luck.\u00a0 If my prospects when entering a given endeavor are no better than 50-50, perhaps it’s time to pick a different endeavor.\u00a0 No point being quixotic at this point of my life.\u00a0 Better to use what I know, whatever that is, to produce good things, whatever they may be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u2022 At the supermarket, one can buy 20 tablets of the brand-name laxative Senokot for $6.98 (or 35 cents each), or one can buy 100 tablets of the generic version of the same laxative, sitting right next to the Senekot, for $3.78 (4 cents each).\u00a0 Simple choice?\u00a0 Note the empty space in the tray where several boxes of Senekot once sat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 This<\/a> (click on it) is the most annoying television commercial I have had the misfortune to watch in a long, long time.\u00a0 It gives a bad name to being progressive.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The enemy of one’s enemy may be one’s friend, but it does not follow that a foolish man pointing out another fool is smart.\u00a0 Indeed, he may be a stable genius.<\/p>\n

\u2022 What we call nations<\/em> are simply land-collectives.\u00a0 They may be founded under variously-stated precepts and principles, but in the end they are about people holding onto land.<\/p>\n

\u2022 H\"\"<\/a>ere’s another supermarket find, from the same store on the same day (click image to enlarge).\u00a0 You may choose (on the left) 8 oz. of Premium Saltines for $2.97 or (on the right) 16 oz. of Premium Saltines for $2.98.\u00a0 The 8-oz. box is made for people who are afraid to have too much of a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Someone close to me recently made an intriguingly-stated observation: “The dead trees look great not there.”<\/p>\n

\u2022 A few weeks ago, there was a story about mothers waiting in line for hours on end at shopping malls across the nation, with their young children in tow, to take advantage of a Build-A-Bear promotion<\/a>.\u00a0 I wonder how many hours those people will stand in line to vote.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Procter & Gamble, the maker of Tide and Pampers, is trying to obtain trademark rights<\/a> for millenial catchwords and phrases such as LOL and WTF.\u00a0 This is a pretty radical idea for such an old-and-storied company — are we about to see a product in our supermarkets called “WTF Is In This Diaper?”\u00a0 In any event, two can play this game.\u00a0 If I had lots of cash and a suitable lack of brains, I would develop a Star Trek-themed funeral-home franchise called “He’s Dead, Jim,” a toilet-bowl cleaner called “Grime of Thrones” and a line of roach-killing products under the “CU-L8R” brand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 As the legendary 19th-century mathematician and master of infinities Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor said, “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are one of those kinds and those who are not.” \u2022 After many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-at-large"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17761"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17978,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17761\/revisions\/17978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}