Israelis and Palestinians, take note!

A winning match

It was one of those supermarket mysteries: Hot dogs came in packages of eight, typically, while hot dog buns only came in packs of six or 12. The reason was that hot dogs, as meat, are sold by the pound, and buns, as bakery products, are sold by the dozen or half dozen. As a result, families were constantly stuck with bunless franks or frankless buns.

Now two fine old Chicago companies -- Vienna Beef and Alpha Baking, home of S. Rosen's buns -- have announced a breakthrough: buns in packages of eight.

Although most improvements on the classic hot dog have fallen by the wayside -- who recalls hot dogs with the condiments inside? -- we predict this will catch on.

Like all changes, it comes with drawbacks: Having a few extra buns came in handy if one burnt while toasting, or if a parent began putting on mustard for a child who suddenly shouts, ''No mustard!'' And running out of buns led to the frank-and-beans gambit, which has its fans as well.

But we think the benefit in a more efficient marrying of hot dog to bun is considerable, reduces waste, and makes this move one of the more significant economic advances of 2005.

In this harshly competitive world, American companies need to be as smart as they can be, and this better use of a valuable resource -- our nation's hot dog buns -- bodes well for the future.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/output/commentary/cst-edt-edits19.html

Deep Thought

You have my Polish e-pal to blame for this. She got it from here.

Scientists in Cambridge spent three years calculating one of the fundamental keys to the universe - The Hubble Constant [the velocity at which a typical galaxy is receding from Earth divided by its distance from Earth] that determines the age of the universe. This process mirrored a passage in [Douglas Adams's] cult science fiction novel and radio series ' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' in which an alien race programs a computer called Deep Thought to provide the ultimate answer to understanding life and the universe.

In the novel, seven and a half million years later Deep Thought comes back with the result, 42.

In an extraordinary coincidence when the Cambridge scientists finally calculated the Hubble Constant they found the answer was also 42.

It caused quite a few laughs when we arrived at the figure 42," Dr Keith Grange later recalled, "because we're all great fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide!" (Sadly, estimates of the Hubble Constant now range between 57 and 78 kilometers per second per megaparsec.)

Darwin Pond

One of the type of games I like is Life Games, where life is simulated on screen. I haven't found my ideal life game yet, but I keep returning to this one, Darwin Pond. The creatures are called swimmers that are, well, swimming in a pool. They can have one or several limbs to swim with, can be of various colors, and do just the two basic behaviors of like: eat and have sex. Oh if our lives can be like that. No don't think this is x-rated! They... well... kiss and whamo, kids are born. But it seems to take a lot out of them and are almost always hungry afterwards. One interesting thing is that one can actually kill another by doing this, 'starving' the other. Each time new life is born, there is chance of genetic mutation. The theory of evolution is very much exploited. Survive or die. You can set up however you like or start out with one of the predefined setups with a large number of random swimmers. The common one has all the food and swimmers in the middle, called The Garden of Eden. Let it run for a few hours and see what happens. You can save it and let it run later, modify the genes, and save specific swimmers.

I recently done this. After a while, there were very little food left and there was mass loss of live. A country of green 1-limbers were on the top-left and on the bottom-right some 1-limbed blues. They grew, the large amount of food growth plummeted, and things evened out. Then the blues started overtaking the greens. There was also migrations as the bulk of swimmers changed locations from time to time. Recently some more variety of colors started to appear, but all still have one limb.

Be sure to read the manual!

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