Curiosities
I wonder what percentage of dreams, as we get older, become simple mental replays of people who aren’t around anymore.
I find myself relating to Ed Tom dialogue more the older I get.
“And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make afire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”
I’ve always wondered if there was an official name for this phenomenon. Now I know the answer: it’s called The Cobra Effect.
The Cobra Effect is a term used to describe a phenomenon where an attempted solution to a problem ends up causing the problem to worsen. The term originated from a story about British colonial rule in India, where the government attempted to control the population of cobras by offering a bounty for each dead cobra. Initially, this led to a decrease in the number of cobras, as people hunted them for the reward. However, over time, some people began breeding cobras in order to collect more bounties, which led to an increase in the overall cobra population.
The Cobra Effect can occur when incentives or policies intended to solve a problem have unintended consequences. For example, if a company offers a bonus for employees who meet a certain quota, some employees may cut corners or engage in unethical behavior to reach the quota, which can ultimately harm the company’s reputation or bottom line. In the context of public policy, the Cobra Effect can occur when government interventions create unintended negative consequences, such as creating a black market, reducing overall quality of life, or creating new problems that were not present before.
The Cobra Effect is a cautionary tale that highlights the importance of carefully considering the potential unintended consequences of policies or interventions, and ensuring that incentives and policies are aligned with desired outcomes.
“We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green.” – G.K. Chesterton
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then? – George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four— Rudyard Kipling
These Lizards Have Been Playing Rock-Paper-Scissors for 15 Million Years
Find out how much lead is in your county’s water. https://www.nrdc.org/resources/whats-your-water-flint-and-beyond
I love google maps. I love finding random places, zooming in and out of the area in google earth view mode, picking out areas and roaming around in the street view. Check out the Husvaer / Kalvan / Brasoya area of Norway. Convince me this is not a slice of Heaven on Earth.
https://goo.gl/maps/VZK8jS2cPB22 – Link to open in google maps
US explorer completes first-ever solo trek across Antarctica .
An Oregon man has completed the first successful, unsupported solo journey across Antarctica, making the ‘impossible’ 930 mile trek across the icy continent entirely unaided.
Colin O’Brady successfully finished the 54-day extreme hike on Wednesday, and documented his grueling journey on Instagram, where he shared a triumphant selfie at the wooden post marking the end of the Ross Ice Shelf, where the landmass ends.
https://www.rt.com/usa/447499-antarctica-crossing-obrady-completes/