42. And Some Friday Links for August 21, 2009.

I didn’t become a math and science nerd until later in life, which means my early attempts at grokking my multiplication tables were laughable.

In third grade, Mr. Turnquist – easily the best teacher I had in all of my elementary school years – began drilling the “times tables” into us, thinking that our third-grade brains could stop thinking about Star Wars and robots and noises you can make with your armpit long enough to learn what one number times another number equaled.  It was a bit disturbing when most of the other kids seemed to easily pick up this arcane, useless art, but every time I began to think about this, I drew R2-D2 on my desk and everything got better.

After a while, Mr. Turnquist assumed every one of us dummies knew the times tables.  He began throwing out colloquial equations in everyday lessons, which most kids responded to with a nod and a smile.  I, on the other hand, thought the equals sign looked like two laser beams.  I was OK with this.

Until The Day.

Mr. Turnquist was in the throes of one of his lectures again about numbers and math and how it somehow applied to the real world, when he began to congratulate us on how well we learned our multiplication tables.  He said he was seeing it become automatic for us, that we didn’t have to think very long before providing an answer to just about any basic problem.  This conversation was largely ignored by me and a few Star Wars nerd friends, when suddenly I heard Mr. Turnquist end a sentence with the most terrifying thing in the world:

“…and it’s really become easy for you guys.  Quick, Jeff Ventura, what’s six times seven?”

I looked up from my drawing, which depicted Darth Vader squatting and/or sitting on Luke Skywalker (prescient, no?), to see Mr. Turnquist standing at my desk looking at me.  I did everything I could to maintain a cool, collected face, even though my brain instantly and completely forgot every single bit of everything it knew, let alone times tables.  I could barely blink without conscious effort.

The entire class stared at me.  Darth Vader looked up at me from my drawing like, “Well, dummy?”  Even Luke looked nervous.

Of everything that was going through my head at that time – numbers, colors, spinning triangles, TIE fighters, soccer balls, farty noises, cucumbers and pizza – my mind decided to spit out one thing, and one thing only.

“42,” I said cooly.

Mr. Turnquist moved on without a hitch. “See?  That’s what I mean, everyone. Multiplication has become automatic for everyone in this class, and that’s great to see.”

Back at my desk, I had the dim realization that I would never win the lottery, because I just used up every bit of luck I would ever have in life.  I could have just as easily said, “5,688” but somehow I spit out a completely random number that just so happened to be the answer to the multiplication problem that I barely heard and certainly didn’t know.

Think about that. Given an infinite scale of numbers, I picked the one that happened to answer a basic arithmetic question.  It’s no mystery why today I never win free golf clubs.  I spent my entire wad in third grade.

Anyway.

The Internet had a good week, which is a horribly sloppy segue from my story above, but it will have to do.  Here goes:

• Our roommate: Google depicts Google as a new roommate of two other 20-somethings.  If you like the first episode, here are episodes two and three.
• Speaking of Star Wars, John Scalzi discusses the most epic FAILs in Star Wars design.  I love the R2-D2, C3PO and blasters ones. Awesome.
• The Bystander Effect essentially postulates that the probability of getting help in an accident/emergency is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders in a given situation. In other words, if you get seriously jacked up and need help, do it when only a few people are around.
• Having trouble reading longform books?  Yeah, so is LA Times Book Editor David Ulin.  I suspect this is a widespread problem these days.
• Matt Zoller Seitz has put together a smart collection of scenes from Quentin Tarantino’s movies to describe what Seitz calls “the filmmaker’s Socrates-in-a-dive-bar mindset” in terms of character dialogue.  As a Tarantino fan, I find this fascinating. (thx kottke)
• Oh, by the way, stress and anxiety make allergies worse.  Who knew?
• John Gruber serves up another helping of Claim Chowder by recalling what Steve Ballmer said about the iPhone’s chances in the smartphone market back in April of 2007: There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.
• Finally, here is Dana Carvey’s original SNL audition reel.  I’ve always dug this guy.

Have a good weekend, everyone.