The Jokes Practically Write Themselves

My favorite inexpensive Asian restaurant features the unusually-named condiment pictured below:

Feel free to make up your own slogans.  (The picture's blurry because I shot it surreptitiously with my phone while I was having lunch.)  It's a good reminder that, if you're thinking of expanding your business into international markets, you may not want to go with the low bidder where translation work is concerned.

This brings up another point about the fallibility of memory.  This sauce seems to be available only intermittently.  One time I went to the restaurant and there was Cock Brand Special Fish Sauce on the counter.  Then I went back several times and it wasn't there.  For a while, I absolutely did not know if I had really seen it, or if I had dreamed or imagined it. Finally I snapped a picture, just to be sure.

As is often mentioned in places like the Brain Science Podcast, memory isn't an infallible tape recorder.  It's more like a story that gets repeated again and again, and changes a little each time.  It's entirely possible to delude yourself into thinking you saw something you didn't see.  Or, as in my case, to try so hard not to let that happen that you question what you did see.

Your Brain on Magic

Here's a link to an article that pushes my scientific and my entertainment buttons:


Link

The authors, who include the magicians Teller and James Randi, argue that neuroscientists can learn a lot by studying what happens in our brains when we're fooled by magic tricks.

It has nothing to do with this article, but both of those fellows were kind enough to let me be photographed with them last year at The Amazing Meeting.













In addition to being a brilliant entertainer, Teller is somewhat taller than me. He only looks small when he's standing next to Penn!
















On the other hand, it's easy to tell Randi from me because he's the one with the magnificent beard. Of course he's also a guy who has done more than anybody I can think of to promote science and reason. If you're not familiar with James Randi, you can see what he does at

randi.org