October 16, 2000

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.

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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 . . .

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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?