What Time Is It?

I have this Citizen watch that is incredibly complicated.  It runs on solar power.  It has a perpetual calendar.  It connects to an atomic clock via radio waves every night to make sure it is displaying the most accurate time.  At any rate the other day the watch quit working, as if the battery died (it doesn't have a battery, however).  I let it sit in sunlight for a few hours and it started to tick again, albeit at a pace slower than every second (more like every other second).  I couldn't figure out how to get it to set the correct time so I had to get online and download the instruction manual.  An instruction manual to set a watch...how ridiculous.  Even after reading the manual I can't get it to set the right time.  Apparently after it loses complete power it needs to be rebooted to reset and show the correct time and date.  As I was going through this process the watch quit ticking again and so far I can't get it to start again.  Who knew something as seemingly simple and common as a watch would be so complex?

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Madness

The opening weekend of the men's tournament isn't even over yet and my bracket is mostly ruined.  Kansas and Oklahoma State going out early killed me, and the Syracuse and Duke losses didn't help either.  I filled out two brackets, one for one of the offices I work for, the other for a competition with Sarah.  In my office bracket I had Kansas winning the entire tournament (stupid, stupid, stupid - They always win the Big XII then choke once they get to the big dance.).  I have Michigan State winning it in my bracket with Sarah.  So far Sarah and I are mostly even, though a couple of my losses (Kansas and Oklahoma State) I had going far into the tournament and most of Sarah's losses I don't think will impact her as much. 

It is impossible to predict this tournament.  I think usually the better teams go on to win, but who honestly picked Mercer to beat Duke?  Even if you did predict that upset (probably only Mercer fans did) it was a lucky guess more than a real prediction based on facts.  Before the tournament started with all of the talk around the Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge, I googled the odds of correctly filling out the entire bracket.  The number I continued to run across was 1 in 9.2 quintrillion.  This comes from the fact that there are 64 teams in the tournament (not counting the play in games) and since the final team can't play itself, there are 63 possible winners.  If you take 2 to the 63rd power you get 9.2 quintrillion.  I really think this is a quite crude estimate and isn't even remotely close to the real odds.  I briefly tried to come up with an equation to better predict the odds but ran out of time before my next patient arrived.  Suffice it to say that while I think 9.2 quintrillion is a bit high, the odds are still very much in the favor of Warren Buffett.  This highly unpredictable nature is what makes this tournament so great.  Except for now on I think I'm going to start picking who I want to win instead of who I think should win.  Or maybe I'll go with the coolest mascots or prettiest cheerleaders. 

Cosmos

We've been busy with work and the kids (who are doing well by the way) recently which is why it has been 3 weeks since my last post.  One of the things I'm excited about this spring and that will require me to set aside an hour per week is the updated version of the show Cosmos.  I find science and outer space and physics absolutely fascinating.  However, since I am busy with the aforementioned things, it is difficult to really read a lot on the topics.  That is why I like shows like the Cosmos - they are a brief introduction to all that is around us.  I watched the original version by Carl Sagan and read his book and I enjoyed both, so I am looking forward to this newer version.

In the first episode they covered the cosmic calendar, which is one of my favorite features from Sagan's original show.  The cosmic calendar says that if the history of the universe was represented on a calendar and the beginning was midnight January 1, all of written history takes place in the final seconds of December 31st.  Mind blowing...