Weather Does Not Compute

Do you know what Southern California needs? Cyborg weathermen.
   This time of year the weather is very important in LA, because it's the only time of year we get weather. You can see the giddy excitement building in our local weathermen starting a little before Thanksgiving, when the winds start to change and things cool off. Slightly. But then come Christmas, oh man, they go nuts.
   But there are so many of them, on too many channels. You got your Johnny Mountain, your Fritz Coleman, your Dallas Raines, your Kaj Goldberg and other less-colorfully named weathercasters, a veritable legion of people trying to bring me up-to-the-minute weather. They each put their own spin on what is essentially the National Weather Service forecast, and I don't know who to listen to.
   If we had a cyborg weatherman, though... ah, that would enforce consistency. Cyborgs don't need to eat or sleep, so they could be up all the time, 24x7, during severe weather. You'd only need one cyborg per channel, and you could use the salary expense saved to get more accurate forecasts - for the three months that sort of thing makes a difference here. If the eggheads at CalTech aren't already working on this, they should be.
   Let's see... who to cyborg first? I'd love to put metal parts on Fritz Coleman, but I think Johnny Mountain should lead the pack on this one, he would benefit the most from rigorous computer-based thinking.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

Sometimes I worry that I might get hit by a meteor. And not because I'm afraid I'll get a white-hot piece of space rock embedded in my skull, I'm just worried that getting hit by a meteor will completely blow my chances of winning the lottery.
   See, the odds of actually getting hit by a meteor - or is it meteorite? - are vanishingly small. But not zero. It could happen. So, let's say that the odds are 1 in 10 trillion. Pretty long odds, but stranger things have happened to me.
   The odds of winning the Mega Millions drawing are about 1 in 175 million. That's six orders of magnitude less than 10 trillion. It's waaaaay more probable that I would win the lottery. Which does give me hope.
   If you think about it, though, as uncommon as it is to win the lottery, it's far, far, far, far more uncommon to win the lottery TWICE. And that's what would happen if I got hit my a meteor and then also won the lottery. Just not gonna happen.
   This is why I keep my eyes on the skies. If I see a streak of flaming debris headed my way, I'm going to jump aside. Because they don't give you money for getting hit by rocks.

Geniuses And Construction Workers

I live about a mile, more or less, from CalTech. This is the place where my hero Richard Feynman spent most of his academic career, and it's the place where the guys from Big Bang Theory are supposed to work. And the math guy from NUMB3RS too. It's a big-brain kind of place, where researchers ask all sorts of important questions about the way the world works, from economics to cosmology.
   It's also a place where people appreciate a good, cheap carne asada taco, and they're not afraid to rub elbows with construction workers to get one.
   Just on the outskirts of CalTech there's a small, independent convenience store, Papa George's. It's crammed with the regular convenience store stuff, but they have a kitchen too, where they make fast, cheap Mexican food and the staff's first language is Spanish. It's the kind of place where the local gardeners stop in for lunch, crowding the parking lot with work trucks. So you know it's good.
   The other day I was there to buy a Lotto ticket - you can't win if you don't play - and I witnessed an amazing confluence of different social strata. The regular guys were there for lunch, construction workers covered with dust, fresh from their work putting up a new building for CalTech; they were speaking Spanish and joking around as blue-collar guys do. Right beside them were two guys who had quite obviously never worked with their hands in their entire lives, and with their crazy hair and neglected wardrobe, they were also quite obviously CalTech professors; they were talking mathematics, and joking around as nerdy math guys do.
   Both sets of men were waiting for exactly the same thing, three carne asada tacos to go. When the cook put the bag on the counter and announced 'tres tacos, carne asada,' one construction worker went for it, and one of the professors did too. I thought for sure there was going to be trouble, by which I mean I thought I'd see a construction worker punch a nerd.
   Turned out the professor also spoke Spanish - not very well, I could tell - and conflict was avoided when they consulted their numbered receipts. But I was just amazed that two men who would otherwise certainly never have met - ever - shared a brief laugh together over the fact they ate exactly the same thing.
   Makes me wish more people went to Papa George's for lunch, we might have less trouble in the world.