Quiz Night

a) What is Jersey Shore?

1. The latest sign of the apocalypse and/or MTV's utter demise
2. A festering nest of morons which serves as a vector for STD's
   
3. A neat slice-of-life involving Italian-Americans
4. The best thing evuh! It Rawwwwks!

b) You're having a serious problem with your nuts. It's like they're frozen. Who do you talk to?

1. A doctor
2. Your best friend
3. Rosie Palmer and her five sisters
4. Popular Mechanics

c) What's the word of the day?

1. Schadenfreude
2. Ciao
3. Eunomious
4. Comeuppance

d) What is Fagin's Law?

1. Hindsight is a perfect science
2. The rule of threes as pertains to the effect of compound interest
3. "If you spill your mate's pint, you buy a replacement."
4. The current state of play in American politics

a) 2 b) 4 c) 4 d) 1 and 4

I hope you enjoyed that.

Thems of you what know me, know that I am preoccupied with the question of how we know things, do we really know them, and are we making the right choices based on actual reality, rather than on our version of it. Chief Mario Vittone's point is that everything we know is wrong.

I think he's right.

And, in all seriousness, if you or your kids swim, read the bit on Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning. Watch the first 15-20 minutes of this video. It's Chief Vittone's discussion on how we got everything wrong. He's talking about Coast Guard training at the end, but his broader points deal with theories of knowledge; how we "know" things and why we're very frequently wrong. It may well be the most important thing you read or listen to this summer. If you're actually listening to him, it should change how you think, for the better.