Useless Theories

Soap removes evolved essential secretions from the epidermis and only a person who stinks would use deodorants.

I don't pull out my hair. I pull off the lugs when they are precariously attached and will fall off themselves in a few days.

Whoever heard of baldies pulling their hair out. I'm not that impressed with your comprehension or your incontinent rush to judgement but I make allowances for them because of all your other charms besides which those are minor quibbles and might even be said to have a charm of their own.

I don't comb my hair either. I can't. It's a mass of little curls.

Okay, we finally pegged down spendius

That's not a mass of curls. It's been primped in a uni-sex hair salon. Mine is as if it had dried from a dunk in a horsetrough. I used to charge to let young ladies run their fingers through it. And older ones too only they paid double.

And I never look meaningfully into a camera. I was never redolent with promise. I was up front about it.

People get sick from viruses unless their immune systems produce enough antibodies to deal with the viruses. And when the immune system receives too little energy because the body spends it on keeping up its temperature instead, some humans will get sick. Maybe not you, but some.

I think that there are of course, people with less efficient/poorer immune systems, but again, viruses have to be present.

Everybody gets/feels cold/cool at times but they don't always get sick.

I don't believe that a lot of Everest or other high altitude climbers get sick with colds. There sure is a lot of cold there but it doesn't result in a lots of colds and these are folks who are severely compromised in a lot of physical ways.

I think that the presence of cold in the cool/cold seasons has left people with a false impression. Lots of "advice", "don't stand in a draft, wear your coat, don't forget your hat ---> you'll get a cold" has led to some wrong thinking.

I believe the cold room kills the virus. It is the warm room in winter that causes many people to get colds. The low humidity form a warm room in winter also robs the mucous membrane of moisture which leads to colds. In winter the atmosphere cannot hold as much moisture and the heated room add to the moisture problem. The hot air can hold more moisture but warming up the cold dry winter air dries even more. The moist mucous memebrane is the first line of defense.

I have a theory about the body builders I observe in the gym. Some of them take steroids, some don't. (That's not a useless theory, that's just a fact.) I'm curious to figure out how you can tell one group from the other.

Here's my theory about that: You can tell the steroids-users by their earlobes. When they're thick, meaty, and---I'm tempted to say---muscular, that's probably a steroid user. I mean, hard training can expand your biceps, or pump up your shoulders, or turn your abs into a sixpack. But what workout would build muscles on your earlobes? I can't think of any. I'm pretty sure that's a side effect of doping.

The theory is useless because I have nothing to test it against. Obviously I can't take blood test, so the only control for "is taking steroids" is that I already have other reasons for suspecting the guy of doping.

I believe the nuts shrink too. Testosterone is artificially produced so the testicles are working less.

Now, that's useful.

Bad Thomas

There's something about the jaw, too.

On the train today, I developed a useless psychological theory.

I am a card-carrying introvert* in real life; as a result, I often feel I'm an oddball. Everywhere around me, people seem engaged in small-talk for the sake of talking, business meetings for the sake of meeting (nobody thinks or has anything to say there), and parties for the sake of partying. (Everybody goes to just because everybody else goes there, too.) It's a depressing picture.

Where in this picture are people like me? People who think before they talk and then say it once? People who have something to say at meetings or else don't attend them, or at least shut up and listen? People who don't attend parties unless they actually take an interest in the host? Since I never saw them, I had always assumed they didn't exist, and that I'm a lonely outcast in a crowd of people whose personalities are diametric opposites of mine.

All of this changed today, and this is where my theory comes in. Today it occurred to me that my previous perception may have been no more than observation bias. Maybe there are just as many introverts as extroverts. Maybe we introverts just don't see each other because, instead of hanging out at the party to be seen, we're home on our couches reading a good book, driving our cars through the night thinking our own thoughts, and just generally doing our own thing without craving external validation all the time?

The theory seems useless because I don't see how one would test it. But it makes me feel good about myself and people like me---and to me as an introvert, that's the only thing that matters about it.

Introvert power!

-------
* well ... I would be if card carrying wasn't such an extroverted thing to do.

So introverts aren't as noticable as extroverts. Aha!

extroverts are people who are uncomfortable being with themselves so they go out and bother other people instead...

And cancer.

Do you flip it like a coin, or throw it over your shoulder?

I think women don't look at a man's penis first. They look first at their eyes, especially if they are bald.

BBB

Exactly.

I have a useless theory about highway intersections in the American East.

When we think of the word "intersection", it conjures up a pretty specific geometry in our minds: Two highways, more or less straight, crossing each other at more or less right angles. Or, to describe the same thing from the intersection point's perspective, you have four "arms" reaching out in right angles. And in Europe and the American West, pretty much all intersections look like that.

Not so in the American East. To be sure, the "classical" intersection geometry is common there too. But, you also have a lot of "odd" intersections, where three five, or some other crooked number of "arms" seem to end at the intersection point. And even with your classical four "arms", the angles are often very small or very large. (Which, for the uninitiated driver, is a pain in the arm to navigate.)

Here's my useless theory about that: Early in the East Coast's history, development started with some kind of landmark---farms or springs, perhaps. The first roads the settlers built were point-to-point connections between those landmarks, so the direction to the next landmark determined the angle at which roads intersected. (Today the landmarks are gone or paved over, so the crazy geometry has no rhyme or reason anymore.) In Europe and the American West, by contrast, the roads were there first, so the engineers who designed them were free to have them intersect at the most convenient angle.

I wonder if there's any way to test this theory? But then again, the theory wouldn't be useless anymore if there was, would it?

I always thought east coast cities and roads were laid out according to ancient, well-trodden pig runs.

Cycloptichorn

Some of my the useless theories...

1. Thoery of Dismissal: It always rains when you dismiss the possibility and leave umbrella home.

2. Thoery of Relativity: The slice of pie always looks bigger in your sibling's hands.

3. Thoery of Circumstances: Your fart would always smell during a office meeting in an enclosed room with at least 10 people or more in it.


Borrowed...

Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.