Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Time Moves So Slowly!
Time can really move slowly when you are waiting for Christmas to get here or you are stuck in a cabin on the back forty in the middle of nowhere with a chronic case of cabin fever. However, cabin fever can be treated effectively. For me the condition is reversible. I step outside in sub-freezing temperature and I suddenly have a flaming urge to get back inside the cabin. That’s just life in Alaska, I guess. But what to do if you have too much time on your hands and you are sick and tired of solitaire games and fantasy football just doesn’t cut it anymore? Here are a few suggestions from real life.
Wheresgeorge (George Washington) is a game played by writing wheresgeorge.com on US currency, then registering it on the official Wheresgeorge website and then waiting to see where it shows up by use of a tracking number. Some people seem to have a disproportionate amount of slow time on their hands than others do! To even make the leaderboard one must have over a 100,000 bills registered and that is a lot of moola no matter how you count it. One chap has registered 407,998 bills. Tenth place is currently held by Larry, Moe and Curly from Kent, Washington, and that should tell you a lost about who actually plays this game. Haines, Alaska, would be a great place to play. It is not that far from Whitehorse, Yukon, across the Canadian border and when the ferry and planes are not operating, you can hop up there and play Where’s Willy, the Canadian version of the game—named after Sir Wilfrid Laurier, their former prime minister.
Another great game is Rubic Cube Competition. There are scores of international RubicFests. One of the most famous is the Caltech Open. Be forewarned! Competition is stiff! Very stiff! Leyan Lo just set a world record in the tournament with an 11.13-second time. That time did not even earn him first place in the overall competition. There are also contests for blindfolded participants, individuals who are game enough to try it with their feet and of course the one handed version. There is as I write this no “one hand tied behind the back” contest. One strange rule is that all entrants must be fully dressed.
Pi calculation is another healthy pastime as long as we are not talking about scarfing down pies. Last week Chris Lyons of Melbourne, Australia, recited the first 4,400 digits of pi—a feat that only took him 2 ½ hours to complete but one full week of study time. In July 2005 a Japanese psychiatric counselor set an unofficial world record of reciting pi to 83,431 decimal places. And you just thought they were taking notes while you talked away on their sofas. Tech types have now calculated the forty trillionth bit and found it to be zero. This was done using idle computers, which obviously have too much slow time on their hands. Idle computers are also being used in the SETI projects searching for signs of extra-terrestrial life, and there is also a sign-up list for computers with time on their hands to sift through millions of photos searching for microscopic bits of cosmic dust.
If you have a religious bent like Ignatious Loyola and happen to be stuck in a castle with a broken leg, try reading and re-reading the Bible. There is actual a place you can go to and get a word for which to search in the Good Book and then mail back your word count. If you get bored quickly with that, then switch to a more modern translation. You also can watch a movie like Police Academy for a hundred times and then turn on the mute button and recite the dialogue from memory. For those who still don’t have a clue as to how to while away your time, try writing a blog.
Time can really move slowly when you are waiting for Christmas to get here or you are stuck in a cabin on the back forty in the middle of nowhere with a chronic case of cabin fever. However, cabin fever can be treated effectively. For me the condition is reversible. I step outside in sub-freezing temperature and I suddenly have a flaming urge to get back inside the cabin. That’s just life in Alaska, I guess. But what to do if you have too much time on your hands and you are sick and tired of solitaire games and fantasy football just doesn’t cut it anymore? Here are a few suggestions from real life.
Wheresgeorge (George Washington) is a game played by writing wheresgeorge.com on US currency, then registering it on the official Wheresgeorge website and then waiting to see where it shows up by use of a tracking number. Some people seem to have a disproportionate amount of slow time on their hands than others do! To even make the leaderboard one must have over a 100,000 bills registered and that is a lot of moola no matter how you count it. One chap has registered 407,998 bills. Tenth place is currently held by Larry, Moe and Curly from Kent, Washington, and that should tell you a lost about who actually plays this game. Haines, Alaska, would be a great place to play. It is not that far from Whitehorse, Yukon, across the Canadian border and when the ferry and planes are not operating, you can hop up there and play Where’s Willy, the Canadian version of the game—named after Sir Wilfrid Laurier, their former prime minister.
Another great game is Rubic Cube Competition. There are scores of international RubicFests. One of the most famous is the Caltech Open. Be forewarned! Competition is stiff! Very stiff! Leyan Lo just set a world record in the tournament with an 11.13-second time. That time did not even earn him first place in the overall competition. There are also contests for blindfolded participants, individuals who are game enough to try it with their feet and of course the one handed version. There is as I write this no “one hand tied behind the back” contest. One strange rule is that all entrants must be fully dressed.
Pi calculation is another healthy pastime as long as we are not talking about scarfing down pies. Last week Chris Lyons of Melbourne, Australia, recited the first 4,400 digits of pi—a feat that only took him 2 ½ hours to complete but one full week of study time. In July 2005 a Japanese psychiatric counselor set an unofficial world record of reciting pi to 83,431 decimal places. And you just thought they were taking notes while you talked away on their sofas. Tech types have now calculated the forty trillionth bit and found it to be zero. This was done using idle computers, which obviously have too much slow time on their hands. Idle computers are also being used in the SETI projects searching for signs of extra-terrestrial life, and there is also a sign-up list for computers with time on their hands to sift through millions of photos searching for microscopic bits of cosmic dust.
If you have a religious bent like Ignatious Loyola and happen to be stuck in a castle with a broken leg, try reading and re-reading the Bible. There is actual a place you can go to and get a word for which to search in the Good Book and then mail back your word count. If you get bored quickly with that, then switch to a more modern translation. You also can watch a movie like Police Academy for a hundred times and then turn on the mute button and recite the dialogue from memory. For those who still don’t have a clue as to how to while away your time, try writing a blog.
