Skip to content
Permalink
main
Switch branches/tags

web-hack-mirror/mirror/1999/09/08/www.dailyglobe.com/askj.html

Go to file
 
 
Cannot retrieve contributors at this time
261 lines (177 sloc) 16 KB
Raw Blame
Open in GitHub Desktop
<HTML><HEAD>
<Title>The Daily Globe: ASK "J" ANYTHING</Title>
<META name="description" content="Ask J Anything: Fill out the online form with your question. The Daily Globe showcases famous birthdays, holidays from around the world, historical events, and fun facts for each day of the week along with a database to look up any day of the year.">
<META name="keywords" content="advice, questions, answers, useless, calendar, dates, history, birthdays, holidays, time, weekly">
</HEAD>
<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="/cgi-bin/mailto">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="confirm" VALUE="/u/usr1/jrb/www/confirm.html">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="subject" VALUE="Ask J Form">
<BODY BACKGROUND="img/wmap.gif" link="#000000" vlink="#000000" alink="#00FFFF">
<A NAME="TOP">
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=2>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<IMG SRC="img/wrldmov.gif" WIDTH="16" HEIGHT="16">
<A HREF="index.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Go to The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"><FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Daily Globe</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>X</FONT>
<A HREF="addlink.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Add a Daily Link to the Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Add</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>&</FONT>
<A HREF="menu.html" onMouseOver="window.status='See a Table of Contents of everything here at The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">
Menu</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>2</FONT>
<A HREF="ads.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Information about advertising in the Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Ads</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>-</FONT>
<A HREF="mailto:jrb@dailyglobe.com" onMouseOver="window.status='E-mail The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">E-mail</FONT></A>
</TD>
</TABLE>
<BR>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD valign="middle">
<IMG BORDER=0 SRC="img/jwrld.gif" WIDTH="248" HEIGHT="96">
</TD>
<TD valign="top">
<IMG SRC="img/jw-glob.gif" WIDTH="75" HEIGHT="76">
</TD>
</TABLE>
<FONT SIZE=+1>
<A HREF="menu.html"><B>Menu</B></A>:
<FONT SIZE=+1 FACE="Comic Sans MS">
<A HREF="j_world.html"><B>J World</B></A>:
</FONT>
<FONT COLOR=red SIZE=+1 FACE="Comic Sans MS"><B>
Ask J Anything
</B></FONT>
<BR><BR><BR>
<HR WIDTH=50%>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD WIDTH="380">
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=+3>J</FONT> has long had a reputation for being annoyingly right about a lot of things. When friends and colleagues have a tough question, need some information, want a couch to lie on and talk about their mom, or ask for advice, "J" is who they call. Now you can ask "J", too. Just fill out the form below and "J" will post an answer to your question, assuming it isn't a completely stupid question, at the bottom of this page. At least one answer per week will be posted. Best of all you can ask him anything; whether it's advice, information, or psychoanalysis you seek. So give "J" a shot at your question, you could do a lot worse. Simply type your question below and click "ask" when you're done. Older questions and their answers can be found at the <A HREF="answers.html">Ask "J" Answers Archives</A>.
</TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<H2><IMG SRC="img/wrldmov.gif" WIDTH="32" HEIGHT="32"><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS"> This Week's Ask J Anything Question & Answer</FONT></H2>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD WIDTH="380">
<FONT FACE="Courier">Sue, from chicago, writes to ask "what was the name of the Major on 'I Dream Of Jeanie'? I can only remember her calling him 'Master.'</FONT>"<BR><BR>
<B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">J</FONT>:</B> Actually, he was only a Captain. His full name was Captain Tony Nelson and he was played by Larry Hagman.<BR><BR>
</TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<CENTER>
Other recent <A HREF="#MORE">Questions & Answers</A>
</CENTER><BR>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<H2><IMG SRC="img/wrldmov.gif" WIDTH="32" HEIGHT="32"><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS"> My Question To Ask J Is:</FONT></H2>
<TEXTAREA NAME="Description" ROWS=10 COLS=70>
Type your question here.
</TEXTAREA><BR><BR>
<B>Your name:</B> <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="realname" SIZE="30" MAXLENGTH="50">
<BR><BR>
<B>E-mail address:</B> </B><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="email" SIZE="30" MAXLENGTH="50"><BR>
<B>(optional; I won't write back unless you want me to)</B><BR><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="ask">
<INPUT TYPE="reset" NAME="reset" VALUE="clear">
</FORM>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<H2><A NAME="MORE"><IMG SRC="img/wrldmov.gif" WIDTH="32" HEIGHT="32"><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS"> Recent Questions & Answers</FONT></H2>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD WIDTH="380">
<FONT FACE="Courier">Dan R., somewhere in America, writes to ask "How many M&M's are made in a year, how many since the candy was created, and how much would a cubic pound weigh?" And Jamie F., also somewhere in America, inquires about Mars' e-mail address.</FONT><BR><BR>
<B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">J</FONT>:</B> According to my "friends" at Mars, they make 100,000 M&M's every day. So a year's production at that rate would be approximately 36.5 million M&M's. Plain M&M's were introduced in 1940 and Peanuts in 1954. Mars doesn't have a tally of how many M&M's they've made to date or at least they don't want me to know. I think that's a mistake. Wouldn't you like to see one of those billboards with the big LED lights showing the number of M&M's increasing rapidly? But assuming that production grew steadily from the initial years plain and peanut were introduced, a very, very rough estimate starting with some questionable assumptions using the integration of an estimated exponential growth function would be 615,839,648 M&M's. As to the last part of the question, "cubic" is a measure of area while a "pound," of course, is weight so this is unanswerable.<BR><BR>
This is the last Mars Candy question I'll answer, so don't even bother asking. After the way I was treated by Mars this time and the <A HREF="answers.html#"SNICKER">last time</A>, you're on your own. Oddly enough, Mars has a website devoted only to its <A HREF="http://www.baking.m-ms.com">M&M Chocolate Baking Bits</A>. The e-mail address there is "bakerman@www.baking.m-ms.com". P.S. - Mars also advised me that they have a consumer hotline at 1-800-222-0293. You too can experience the joys of pulling teeth.<BR><BR>
</TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD WIDTH="380">
<FONT FACE="Courier">Tom of unknown origin writes to ask "What is the meaning of life?"</FONT><BR><BR>
<B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">J</FONT>:</B> I love the easy questions. I bet Tom sent this in as a joke. The quick answer, of course, is 42. Anyone familiar with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" will immediately smirk at this; the rest of you will likely tilt your head like a confused dog. Seriously, though, this question <I>is</I> a lot easier than "why are we here?" Despite philosophical, theological, and other spiritual arguments, the only reason we're here that holds up to any scrutiny is to perpetuate the species, that is, (whisper when you say this), sex. As much as we've tried to separate ourselves from the animals, I think it's inescapable that we are simply the most complex life form on this planet . . . so far. We share the same common genetic code and amino acids with every other life form scientists have ever encountered. We <I>are</I> animals. It certainly explains your cousin Lenny, doesn't it? Do you think rabbits contemplate their lot in life, discuss it around the hutch water bottle on a carrot break? It's our level of complexity that has allowed us to ponder this question. But why we <I>think</I> we're here is a vastly different question than why we actually <I>are</I> here. Any other reason but survival through procreation is open to interpretation, belief, opinion, conjecture, etc. Because of this uncertainty, any such theory cannot therefore be correct.<BR><BR>
And so it is with the meaning of life. Meaning is defined as that which provides value or significance. Life is defined as not dead. OK, it's slightly more complicated; life is that which distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. Quite a mouthful, isn't it. Life's and meaning's vague individual definitions are only the beginning of the problems in determining a meaning <I>of</I> life.<BR><BR>
Next problem; like why we exist, there is no one meaning of life which will hold up to scutiny for every single person. I think you'd have a hard time finding 2 people who can agree on what makes a life meaningful, let alone 6 billion and counting. There are more ways of defining the meaning of life than McDonald's has sold hamburgers. Accordingly, there can be no universal meaning of life and so life's meaning is ultimately personal. Problem three; since we decide what is meaningful through upbringing, education, experience, and societal relationships, our society in large measure determines what we will find meaningful or at least the parameters of what is considered meaningful. So the collective we're born into plays a significant role in deciding the range and scope of what will imbue our life with meaning. I know there are exceptions to this rule of thumb; persons who've turned their back on society or emmigrated and immersed themselves in another, completely different, culture or lifestyle. But such metamorphoses are relatively rare with respect to the population as a whole. Most people are born, live, and die in the same culture which bore them. Each person fine tunes their meaning of life to suit his or her needs and personal taste within their belief system, culture, and society. Problem four; what happens when one person's meaning of life conflicts with anothers? This accounts for Jihads, regular wars, murder, and a host of other unsavory acts against our fellow man. The diversity of ideology accounts for the richness of life but is at the very heart of conflict between each individual and between societies.<BR><BR>
Any belief system which punishes non-believers is ultimately doomed to fail because there will <I>never</I> be a belief system which everyone can agree on. At a minimum there will always be someone like me who questions things for the sake of it. So intolerance itself will doom it. And the only reason people want you to believe as they do is basic insecurity; the safety of numbers. The more people who profess to believe as they do, even if forced, either societally or by knife-point, the less uncertain they can feel about the inherent uncertainty of their beliefs. Belief requires faith; but people want to feel more certain that they're right. And apparently it's a lot easier to kill, conquer, and enslave those who disagree than it is to live by the strength of your convictions without regard to what the other guy believes.<BR><BR>
Hegel's principle of the dialectic talked of history working toward perfection, what he called the "absolute idea." Many people believe he predicted the end of communism using this reasoning. In the context of belief systems, that perfect system <I>must</I> include the ability to effortlessly co-exist with other and even opposite meanings of life.<BR><BR>
Do we really want everyone to believe exactly the same way? Is that the goal? To hear the major belief systems tell it, yes. I can't avoid the fact that a world with one way of thinking would be unimaginably boring. Conflict provides society with a mechanism to evolve. Change occurs only out of differences and disagreements. If there were no conflicts, society would stagnate. If we can just keep the conflicts peaceful, the benefit to society of the peaceful exchange and assimilation of constantly changing belief systems is very real and very great.<BR><BR>
So where does that leave us? It almost seems as if I've gone off track here. But, of course, I haven't. The question is what is the meaning of life? Like a math problem, the above represents me showing my work. Here is the answer. The meaning of life is whatever each individual decides is meaningful to him or her based upon both personal and common criteria to the extent that system allows for the effortless acknowledgement and understanding that he or she is no more correct than the next person. Does somebody have a hard question to ask?<BR><BR>
</TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD WIDTH="380">
<FONT FACE="Courier">Greg, of unknown origin, writes to ask about "origins of Twister?"</FONT><BR><BR>
<B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">J</FONT>:</B> Twister was introduced by Milton Bradley in 1966 and was a success from the very first spin. Johnny Carson played the game on the Tonight show several times during it's first year of release, including games with Ted Cassidy (Lurch from the "Addams Family") and Eva Gabor. The largest game of Twister was played in 1987 by 4,160 students from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.<BR><BR>
</TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<CENTER><B>
Even more <A HREF="answers.html">Questions & Answers</A>
</B></CENTER><BR>
<HR WIDTH=50%><BR>
<BR><BR>
<CENTER>
<A HREF="http://www.pointcast.com"><IMG SRC="ad/point.gif" WIDTH="476" HEIGHT="56"></A>
</CENTER>
<BR><BR>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=2>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>G</FONT>
<A HREF="#TOP" onMouseOver="window.status='Go back to the top of this page'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"><FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Top</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<IMG SRC="img/wrldmov.gif" WIDTH="16" HEIGHT="16">
<A HREF="index.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Go to The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"><FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Daily Globe</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>&</FONT>
<A HREF="menu.html" onMouseOver="window.status='See a Table of Contents of everything here at The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">
Menu</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>2</FONT>
<A HREF="ads.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Information about advertising in the Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Ads</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>]</FONT>
<A HREF="links.html" onMouseOver="window.status='The Daily Globe Daily Links'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"><FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">Links</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>[</FONT>
<A HREF="j.html" onMouseOver="window.status='The Daily Globes fearless leader'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">J</FONT></A>
</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR=navy>
<FONT COLOR="gold" FACE="WingDings" SIZE=+1>-</FONT>
<A HREF="mailto:jrb@dailyglobe.com" onMouseOver="window.status='E-mail The Daily Globe'; return true" onMouseOut="window.status=''"> <FONT COLOR=gold SIZE=-1 FACE="COMIC SANS MS">E-mail</FONT></A>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<FONT SIZE=-1>
Email <A HREF="mailto:editor@dailyglobe.com">editor@dailyglobe.com</A><BR>
&#169; 1997 The Daily Globe, All Rights Reserved<BR>
Berkeley, California, USA, North America, Earth
</FONT>
</CENTER>
</BODY></HTML>