about the universe forum commander Shop Now Commanders Circle
Product List FAQs home Links Contact Us

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

RANDOM THOUGHTS #30

Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.

1. I hear lots of commercials saying you should buy gold, and I would have to agree (to a very minor point) that having a couple of gold coins in the bottom of your sock drawer might be worth having for a rainy (post-depression) day. However, I hear people whom I respect saying that gold is on a bubble that will burst and that buying gold now is a really awful idea. Over the last five or ten years, gold was a swell investment, but over the last 50 years, it was pretty awful. That said, let me give you some advice (which is worth what you're paying for it). Buy bullion gold, not collector gold. (Pre-1932 double eagles are sold at "collector prices" which go up and down much faster than the gold price.) If you must buy gold coins, buy American Eagles or Krugerands or Maple Leafs (which trade at the spot gold price), not Austrian or Chinese or other foreign coins (which trade at a discount of 3% or more). But really, if you're buying it for post-depression investing, you'd do better to pay off your house. If you're buying gold for post-apocalypse investing, you're better off to buy ammunition (of common calibers, such as 22LR, 38 special, 45acp, 9mm, 223, or 762x39). After that asteroid hits or something else makes society collapse, nobody is going to trade you a sack of potatoes for a shiny gold coin, but somebody will trade you potatoes for ammunition that fits his gun. I'm just saying.

2. Something that applies in a lot of situations is the concept of "It is not about THIS time. It is about NEXT time." This explains why military forces are willing to get several people killed to rescue one downed pilot. (If every pilot knows what nobody will come after you if you are shot down, nobody wants to fly.)

3. The closest human relative (species) alive today in not the chimpanzee but the bonobo. Notice that I didn't try to convince anyone which is descended from which.

4. I was very upset by a recent episode of Hawaii Five-O. First, Steve & Danno call the governor (tricking her into thinking it's official business) to horn in on a federal investigation for personal reasons (the FBI is investigating Danno's stock broker brother). Then, despite being warned that doing so is a felony, Danno tells his ex-wife and then his brother about the investigation. The brother had been trying to work a deal to launder drug money in order to make enough profit to cover what he stole from his hedge fund, but (warned by Danno) he walks out of the deal (ruining an FBI sting and a chance to disrupt a major drug cartel). Danno's brother then steals the rest of the money from his hedge fund (so his victims won't get anything back, instead of getting half of it), and flees the country. Steve lies to the FBI and sends them on a wild goose chase to another part of the island, allowing Danno to go after his brother (presumably thinking that Danno would bring him in). The brother tells Danno "shoot me or watch me leave" and gets on a Gulfstream. Danno, unable to shoot his own brother, does nothing (when he could have shot the tire of the plane's nosewheel, stopping his brother from leaving, and then arresting him). To my mind, the FBI is now conducting a secret investigation of Five-O that is going to destroy the task force (and the governor) and get Steve & Danno sent to prison, and frankly, they deserve to go.

5. I watch all of the CSI shows, and I have to ask: why are crime lab technicians (and the head of the crime lab) smashing through doors, serving warrants, and arresting bad guys? Ok, I know that Hollywood wants the high paid actors to be the heroes, but this is just stupid. CSIs have jobs to do in the lab, and are hardly up to full speed on serving felony warrants.

6. Crucifixion is a nasty way to die, but few really understand how it works. (There are a lot of ways to do it, but most work more or less the same.) With your arms elevated, you cannot breath out naturally, but have to force yourself to exhale. When you get tired of that, you push up with your legs into a position where you can breath naturally, but your legs get tired and sore, so you sag back down. After a few hours, you're too exhausted to do either, and you suffocate.

I am going to stop here to keep these all about the same length.