Tuesday, February 7, 2012

winter/summer

did you know elite chessplayers are more likely to be born in late winter and early spring? also schizophrenics.  I'm too cheap to pay the $45 to actually read the article, but I found a Gobet powerpoint where he describes the finding as "56.9% vs. 43.1% for players above 2500," whatever that exactly means. The abstract describes "explanations ranging from purely biological to purely environmental," which I guess means sunlight/vitamin D exposure in utero vs. the impact of the age cutoff for the World Youth being your age as of Jan 1 (a la Malcolm Gladwell's Canadian hockey players)?! please comment.

I was surprised to come second in the CLO contest, as I'd forgotten I'd written anything. Jenn points out that I've come second the last four years. I need to step up.



Brooklyn Castle will premier next month at the film festival South by Southwest!  I'm thinking about going, if it's on a weekend. I like the new short trailer a lot, and especially the theme song.

I came across some old Regents homemaking exams. quite amazing.  a sample:

6. When Gordon's aunt called him back for his raincoat, he asked "Why? It is not raining!" His aunt's best reply would have been
a) "Because I told you to"
b) "You know your mother would want you to have it with you."
c) "It looks very much as if it is going to rain."
d) "Because you look so well in your raincoat."
e) "Put it on dear, just to please me."

there is a surprising lot of technical knowledge tested. but it's funny how the entire subject seems pretty useless now. I guess that's what google does to knowledge.
I'm enjoying the BBC series Sherlock. It's set in the present, texts instead of telegrams, the plots are complicated and clever, well written and acted, I'm really enjoying the show. Sadly, there seem to be only 3 episodes (but each an unusually 88 minutes long).

I'm looking forward to bringing 30 students to Amateur Team East. It is the most social weekend of my life.

After that, the state championship, the long month of March, high school and junior high, and then summer. I need to start thinking about what I want to do/ where I want to go this summer. any suggestions?

5 comments:

Keith Ammann said...

Chicago.

Anonymous said...

Hawaii

Anonymous said...

f) Whichever one of the above answers is actually true.


Rick Massimo

Gurdonark said...

I suggest Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba. You can get a great luxury cabin on one of the many lakes, the woodlands are quite nice,
it's not very expensive, if you pick the right cabins on the right lake, it's not crowded, it's not far from Winnipeg, which is an interesting prairie capitol, there's great wildlife, great kayaking and in particular birds nearby. All in all, it's a less exotic but still very satisfying destination. We've been a couple of times, and enjoyed it each time.

Julie said...

Hi Elizabeth - Strange to stumble upon you and this and to have access to the article. (Though no suggestions for summer, sadly). The article is very short (a few pages) and not all that illuminating (for me, anyway), but I would be happy to send a PDF. Happy to see you are continuing your long-standing awesomeness! - Julie Meredith (who still has a bartending certificate from Columbia in a drawer somewhere... ) julie.meredith [at] gmail