Octopodial Chrome

Well, today I finally surrendered: I have purchased a cell phone and a minimal plan. I’m replacing a VoIP phone which has been less than useless, and plan to replace my pager if this works out. I decided that I’d much rather have the option of working from a coffeehouse a day or two a week rather than being cooped up at home. Although the phone’s only for work, I fear that it might become my master, as seems to be the nature of the accursed things.

I really don’t want people to call me. But given that they will, I’d rather they reach me sitting at a charming table in a pleasant cafe, flirting with a pretty waitress, watching the world pass by & drinking a bitter espresso—yes, I’d far rather they reach me thus than sitting in my underwear, unkempt, unwashed, unshaven, having seen neither man nor woman for days. The former is far more preferable.

Here’s a map of American urban centres displaying gender disproportionality amongst singles. This, obviously, is why I’m still single: Denver has tens of thousands more men than women! Interestingly, the East has more single women and the West has more single men. I wonder why that is. Maybe men move from the East to the West more often than women do?

It turns out that 3.7–3.85 percent of fathers have been cuckolded. Over a million men are stuck caring for someone else’s child—and no-one seems to care. Many physicians and genetic counsellors will not tell you if it turns out that you’re unrelated to your children, even if they have sure evidence thereof.

I think it might be appropriate for a man to still be emotionally attached to children he’s raised, and he might wish to provide for them financially. But if he discovers that he is not their father, then he has every right to stop paying for them if that is his choice. No man should be forced to pay hundreds or thousands a month to support another man’s children.

Apparently sunspots are at a 1,000-year high. In the past a correlation between low sunspot activity and low temperatures (including the Little Ice Age). Over the last hundred years sunspots have been increasing; could this possibly be why the globe is warming? Nah, it couldn’t possibly be the massive fusion reactor in the sky.

The article does note that sunspot activity has been constant for the last twenty years, and that in 1,150 years it has never been as active as in the past sixty. Is it possible that sixty years ago activity increased, and now it’s at a peak, and over the past twenty years temperatures have been increasing to catch up? Maybe not—I’m no climatologist.