October 31, 2023 - Odds, Swinging, Grilled Cheese, Solids
Which would you rather drive farther, a car or a golf ball? Let's flip a coin, and have some world-class cheese.
Nuggets of Information: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor
In life, we often have to make decisions between two seemingly equal choices. The go-to for many such decisions is a coin toss. The expectation is that 50% of the time, the coin will come up “heads” leading to a fair, objective way of determining the choice. A recent study reported on by phys.org reveals a possible slight bias in thumb-originated coin tossing where the coin then lands in the tosser’s hand (not on the ground). “Frantisek Bartos, of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told AFP that the work was inspired by 2007 research led by Stanford University mathematician Persi Diaconis—who is also a former magician.” Diaconis proposed that due to a "wobble" and a slight off-axis tilt that occurs when humans flip coins with their thumb, the results would favor the side that started up approximately 51% of the time. Bartos led a study to test Diaconis’s hypothesis. He recruited 48 people who flipped coins from 46 different countries, who totaled 350,757 flips. The results: 50.8% of the time, the side facing up at the start of the flip ended up .. up.
But what if you have no coin? Rock Paper Scissors is another favorite, completely random, objective method. Well... maybe not. Turns out if you play against a computer, then you can take a more random approach. But playing against another person introduces game theory and psychological elements to the mix. In this video, Hannah Fry from Numberphile outlines two strategies for R-P-S, based on if you won or lost the first contest. Basically, if you lost the first contest, you expect the winner to play the same thing, and you play the thing that would have beaten the thing played that beat you. If you won the first contest, you know the loser will think you will play the thing that won, so you play the thing the loser just played because they will be playing the thing that would have beaten you. Clear?
While coin tosses are popular in sports, there are a few other methods of determining who goes first:
Tennis: Spin a tennis racket, using the position of the letter on the end of the handle to determine winner.
Ping-pong/table tennis: Play a point back and forth four times, saying P-I-N-G to count turns, then first to win the point wins.
Basketball ball - jump ball.
Chess – player one places a white pawn in one hand, and a black pawn in the other. Player two chooses a hand.
Bungee jumping – let the other person go first.
Pool - shoot a pool ball so that it goes the length of the table, then bounces back towards you. Whoever gets closer to the return edge of the table without hitting it gets to break.
Do you have a fun or unique way of deciding between two choices? Leave it in the comments!
Enrichment: Getting Into the Swing of Things
Last Saturday David “long balls” McCarthy and I went to Georgia Swing Shack, a fantastic new golf practice and play business located at 1009 Mansell Road, Suite A, Roswell, GA 30076. Their Facebook page explains: “We have eight fully interactive golf bays, and will be serving food, beer, and wine by years end. Come out and practice, play a round with friends, and hang out in our clubhouse!” We were invited to play by my friend and Swing Shack owner Sean Cabrey, as part of their Friends & Family soft launch. They open officially tomorrow, November 1st. The décor is warm and comfortable, described by patrons we met as “an upscale gentlemen’s club.”
Georgia Swing Shack Owner Sean Cabrey
David and I each took a bay for our warm-ups, then played against each other, choosing Pebble Beach as our course. The graphics of the simulator are much better than any I’ve seen before. Whether I was playing from the bushes, or the cliffs, or the Pacific Ocean, the realism was impressive. You’d have to ask David how playing from the fairway was. You can pick time-of-day, weather conditions, and wind patterns. Sensors overhead detect the ball when it is on the mat, and track it after it is hit. A full set of stats comes up after each hit, and pretty early on the system learns how you play and acts as a virtual caddie, recommending the correct club based on your performance. It even offers features that benefit my skill level (re-hits and mulligans). Your player profile and stats are tracked via the E6 CONNECT online system, so over time you can track your progress.
Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion.
Boo’s N.E.W.S. gives a big endorsement to Georgia Swing Shack. Beautifully decorated space, warm friendly staff, incredible golf simulations. Check out their Facebook Page for more details!
Workshop: Grilled Cheese
In the August 29, 2023 Boo’s N.E.W.S., I wrote about Parmesan cheeses. And while I do still sneak a handful of shredded parm late at night, my love for cheeses is not exclusive to the Italian beauties. Pictured above is some Halloumi cheese I threw on the grill the other night. Halloumi is a Cypriot cheese most often made from a goat & sheep milk blend, that is similar to mozzarella, and maintains its shape well, making it ideal for grilling or frying. I love it! You can find it at Trader Joe’s and Aldi, and other select grocery stores and markets.
If you are looking for a more crowd-friendly cheese prep method, fondue may be right for you. This Swiss dish of melted cheese and wine is served in a communal pot, called a caquelon, over a small stove. Bread or vegetables are dipped into the cheesy goodness via long-stemmed forks. Fondue has expanded to include chocolate (fondue au chocolat) and hot oil (fondue bourguignonne). Those who have been in Atlanta a while may recall Dante’s Down the Hatch, which served all sorts of fondue, in a unique restaurant space featuring a full-sized ship and live crocodiles.
The popularization of fondue in the 1960’s is an interesting story. It begins right after World War I, when the Schweizer Kaseunion, or “Swiss Cheese Union” was formed, a cabal of cheese manufacturers who controlled pricing, production and even the kinds of cheese that could be produced. Not content with just limiting supply, they wanted to increase demand. Their solution: fondue – popular with skiers in the Swiss Alps. Skiers are healthy and attractive, so if you want to be healthy and attractive, all you have to do is enjoy fondue!
Boo’s N.E.W.S. Muse Lisa is from Wisconsin, where, per state mandate, she had cheese classes throughout elementary and middle school. I had eaten cheese fried in various form factors, and had tried uncooked cheese curds, but until Lisa came into my life, I had not tried fried cheese curds. On an early trip to Superior, she introduced them to me, and as you could predict, I loved them, married her, we created a family, and here we are. Proof of the old adage – the way to a man’s heart is through his cheese-clogged arteries.
Just last week at the 35th Annual World Cheese Awards, Nidelven Blå, a semi-solid, blue mold cheese from cheesemaker Gangstad Gårdsysteri won the distinction of world’s #1 cheese out of 4502 cheeses submitted. I love blue cheese, but others may find it offputting. In this video by TikTok star Lubalin, he takes an actual random internet chat about salad dressing and turns it into a song, featuring guest stars Jimmy Fallon and Alison BRIE. Spoiler: Blue cheese has mold in it.
Selected Content: Batteries Included
Back in my day we used dinosaurs to power our automobiles. But now-a-days auto makers are racing to build the next great battery. The first electric car battery was a lead-acid battery, invented by French physicist Gaston Planté in 1859. Lead-acid batteries are still used in some electric cars today, but they have been largely replaced by lithium-ion batteries, which have a higher energy density and can store more electricity in a smaller and lighter package.
The first electric car to use a lead-acid battery was the Flocken Elektrowagen, built in Germany in 1888. The Elektrowagen had a range of about 30 miles and could reach a top speed of 12 mph. Good thing they had an autobahn!
Other early electric cars used a variety of different battery technologies, including nickel-cadmium batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries. However, lead-acid batteries remained the most common type of electric car battery until the late 1990s.
In 1997, Toyota released the Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid electric car. The Prius used a nickel-metal hydride battery, which was more efficient and durable than lead-acid batteries.
In 2004, Tesla Motors introduced the Roadster, the first commercially available electric car to use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have a higher energy density and can store more electricity in a smaller and lighter package than lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride batteries.
This July, Toyota announced it had simplified the production of the material used to make solid-state batteries, claiming they will soon produce a battery with a 745-mile range that can fully charge in less than 10 minutes and would be easier to produce than conventional lithium-ion batteries. Solid-state batteries are widely considered the next big breakthrough in EV technology. They work in a similar way to lithium-ion batteries, but they use a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte. This makes them safer, more energy-dense, and faster charging.
But why stop there? The quest for more power is a common theme in many areas of life, and batteries are no different. Letting our imagination stretch beyond any upper limits of current current tech, we approach a system that could operate indefinitely without an external energy source The classic perpetual motion machine! Other than those pesky first and second laws of thermodynamics, what’s not to love about perpetual motion machines?!? This YouTube video reviews several attempts at perpetual motion – some quite novel.