Author: Ben

Ben http://benjaminfenster.com/

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Sophie at dinner:

If this were in the newspaper, it would say, “The silliest family in the world is the Fensters. They have a dad, a mom, and a daughter. The daughter is the silliest, then the dad… no, then the mom, then the dad. And if you want to visit them, they’re in (Our Neighborhood), (Our Street), (Our House Number).”

And if people read that, they’d keep the newspaper forever.

 

I’m a Millionaire

Fidelity announced some enhancements to its website and published this helpful diagram to illustrate them. If I’m reading this correctly, the most significant change is that I now have $1,148,150.96 in my account.

Fidelity's Enhanced Portfolio Positions Page

Fidelity's Enhanced Portfolio Positions Page

I have to go shopping now.

If You’re Angry and You Know It

Sophie threw her first full-scale temper tantrum as a first grader today, with the requisite tears and screaming, shutting herself in her room, threatening not to come down to dinner unless we met her terms, screaming “I’M SORRY!” in her angriest voice, and other general unpleasantness.

When she finally calmed down, I sent her upstairs to get ready for bed. And she skipped up the stairs singing, to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”:

If you’re angry and you know it, throw a tantrum.
If you’re angry and you know it, throw a tantrum.

 

Stay on Road

Sunshine Canyon

Sunshine Canyon

I enjoyed careening down Sunshine Canyon on this delightfully quaint dirt road yesterday. The snow and ice already on the ground, the 10°F temperatures (much lower with windchill), and the lack of guardrails all made the experience particularly excellent.

I appreciated most that a road crew had taken the time to install (in lieu, I suppose, of a guardrail or some roadside reflectors) a sign saying “Stay on Road”.

Thanks for the tip! So, you’re saying I should not veer suddenly off this cliff, killing us all?

See if you can guess on Progressive’s graph of our speed throughout this trip which part was on the snowy cliffside dirt road and at what point we reached more level pavement:

"Careening"

"Careening"

Fun fact: The several points where we stopped momentarily all represent when someone in an SUV came racing down the mountain behind us at easily triple our speed and I had to stop to let them pass.

35 Days of Christmas

Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas

Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas

ABC Family is advertising (honestly) a “Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas”.

So, they have a 25 Days of Christmas event, effectively counting down to Christmas. But since that’s not here yet, for the last ten days of November they’re having a countdown for when they can have their Christmas countdown. But even that isn’t here yet, so all they’re doing right now is advertising that they’re going to have a countdown until the other countdown.

And what will really eat at you if you think about this is that somewhere at ABC there had to have been a meeting where someone said, “So, how many days until we can start airing the promos for the Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas?”

LAX to Disneyland

I asked Google Maps how long it takes to get from LAX to Disneyland. Its answer suggests driving right into the theme park and onto Main Street USA:

LAX to Disneyland

LAX to Disneyland

And they don’t even have Street View in there!

This Sucker’s Electrical

Electric Delorean

Electric Delorean

That’s right. DeLorean Motor Company announced an all-new, all-electric DeLorean. It debuted last week, and the want it in production by 2013.

I did the math so you don’t have to. Given typical electrical efficiences of present-day electric cars, 1.21 gigawatt (hours) would power a car for about 7.5 million miles.

Lightning-powered cars. Tell your friends.

(Bonus question: how large would the flux capacitor have to be to power a car at 12 volts for a 30 mile round trip?)