Friday The 13th, Part Two.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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What do you know, it’s Friday 13th AGAIN.

Second one in two months and there will be another in November 2015 too.

How lucky is that?

Well, I guess not so lucky if you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia (also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia), which is a fear of Friday the 13th, or even triskadekaphobia which is the scientific name given to a fear of the number 13 itself.

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise really. The longest period that can occur without a Friday the 13th is 14 months, and every year has at least one and sometimes, like this year, three Friday the 13ths.

There is no written evidence for a “Friday the 13th” superstition before the 19th century, the first reference to an unlucky Friday the 13th coming in an 1869 biography of the composer Rossini who died on Friday November 13, 1868.

The superstition only gained widespread distribution in the 20th century, although the origin is believed to have come from the Bible, the association stemming from the idea that the 13th guest at the Last Supper was the one who betrayed Jesus prior to his death, which occurred on a Friday.

Hotels, skyscrapers and even hospitals have been known to skip out on creating a 13th floor due to its unlucky connection and even airports sometimes quietly omit gate 13. The Curtis Hotel in Denver, Colorado, on the other hand uses the superstition as a gimmick to amuse guests by playing the “dun, dun, dunnnnn!!” theme in the elevator shaft for guests as they arrive on the 13th floor.

Sometimes research seems to add weight to the superstition. A study in Finland, for example, has shown that women are more likely to die in traffic accidents on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays.

And, according to a report from U.K.’s newspaper, The Mirror, 72 percent of United Kingdom residents have claimed to have had bad luck experiences Friday the 13th. The readers polled admitted to avoiding traveling, attending business meetings and making large purchases on this unlucky day, with 34 percent admitting to wanting to “hide under their duvet” for the upcoming dates. The study did not speculate if their luck would have been better if they had gone about their normal business!

Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a strong fear of the number 13 and refused to host a dinner party with 13 guests or to travel on the 13th day of any month. US President Herbert Hoover had similar fears.

Maybe he did what superstitious diners in Paris do – hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

I don’t think Cuban leader Fidel Castro had the same fears because he was born on Friday, August 13,1926, as was the celebrated outlaw Butch Cassidy (born on. Friday, April 13,1866).

Speaking of outlaws, Oklahoma bandit Crawford “Cherokee Bill” Goldsby murdered 13 victims, and was captured after a reward of $1300 was posted. At his trial, 13 eyewitnesses testified against him, the jury took 13 hours to render a verdict of guilty. He was hanged on April 13,1896 on a gallows with 13 steps!

Stock broker and author Thomas W. Lawson, wrote a novel in 1907 entitled “Friday the Thirteenth,” about a stockbroker’s attempts to take down Wall Street on the unluckiest day of the month. Reportedly, stock brokers after this were as unlikely to buy or sell stocks on this unlucky day as they were to walk under a ladder, according to accounts of a 1925 New York Times article.

The independent horror movie Friday the 13th was released in May 1980 and despite only having a budget of $550,000 it grossed $39.7million at the box office in the United States – not unlucky for it’s backers. In fact the “Friday the 13th” film franchise continues to sweep up its box-office competition. According to  BoxOfficeMojo.com, the dozen films named after the haunted holiday have raked in more than $380 million nationally, with an average gross of $31 million per feature.

Another director noted for his suspenseful psychological thrillers, Alfred Hitchcock, was born on the Friday 13th in August 1899, although he also had a run in with bad luck on that date too when his directorial debut movie called “Number 13,” never made it past the first few scenes and was shut down due to financial problems. He is supposed to have said that the film wasn’t very interesting. We’ll never know!

Also with movies in mind there was a feature film based on the unlucky events of Apollo 13, launched on 13:13 CST, April 11,1970, which barely escaped becoming a doomed flight when an explosion disabled the craft occurring on April 13th (not a Friday in case you are interested).

According to Thomas Gilovich, chair of Psychology at Cornell University, our brains are known to make associations with Friday 13th in a way that would give favor to the “bad luck” myths. He explains this by saying that “if anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind and all those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored.” It’s a bit like remembering the good old days and forgetting the bad ones!

Always contrary, pagans believe that 13 is actually a lucky number since it corresponds with the number of full moons in a year and in Spanish-speaking nations, Tuesday The 13th is regarded as unlucky rather than Friday!

So I guess you just have to make up your own mind whether you believe Friday 13th is unlucky or not.

I’m hoping of course that the fact that you have landed on this blog today is good luck rather than bad.

It was good luck for me, please call again.

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I’m Almost Afraid To Look At Today’s Post!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No I haven’t been stricken with Fasabophobia, not yet anyway, and I hope none of you have either.

As you will see there are plenty of other afflictions already in existence without creating any more.

Today’s list of phobias covers some of those listed from ‘L’ to ‘N’.

Enjoy!

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Lachanophobia ……….fear of vegetables.

 

Laliophobia or Lalophobia ……….fear of speaking. (This one only very rarely affects women.) 

 

Leitourgophobia ……….fear of public servants.

 

Lepidopterophobia ……….fear of butterflies

 

Leprophobia or Lepraphobia ……….fear of leprosy.

 

Leukophobia ……….fear of the color white.

 

Levophobia ……….fear of things to the left side of the body.

 

Ligyrophobia ……….fear of loud noises.

 

Lilapsophobia ……….fear of tornadoes and hurricanes.

 

Limnophobia ……….fear of lakes.

 

Linonophobia ……….fear of string.

 

Liticaphobia ……….fear of lawsuits.

 

Lockiophobia ……….fear of childbirth.

 

Logizomechanophobia ……….fear of computers.

 

Logophobia ……….fear of words.

 

Luiphobia ……….fear of lues, syphillis.

 

Lutraphobia ……….fear of otters.

 

Lygophobia ……….fear of darkness.

 

Lyssophobia ……….fear of rabies or of becoming mad.

 

Macrophobia ……….fear of long waits.

 

Mageirocophobia ……….fear of cooking.

 

Maieusiophobia ……….fear of childbirth.

 

Malaxophobia ……….fear of love play. (Sarmassophobia)

 

Maniaphobia ……….fear of insanity.

 

Mastigophobia ……….fear of punishment.

 

Mechanophobia ……….fear of machines.

 

Medomalacuphobia ……….fear of losing an erection.

 

Medorthophobia ……….fear of an erect penis.

 

Megalophobia ……….fear of large things.

 

Melissophobia ……….fear of bees.

 

Melanophobia ……….fear of the color black.

 

Melophobia ……….fear or hatred of music.

 

Meningitophobia ……….fear of brain disease.

 

Menophobia ……….fear of menstruation.

 

Merinthophobia ……….fear of being bound or tied up.

 

Metallophobia ……….fear of metal.

 

Metathesiophobia ……….fear of changes.

 

Meteorophobia ……….fear of meteors.

 

Methyphobia ……….fear of alcohol.

 

Metrophobia ……….fear or hatred of poetry.

 

Microbiophobia ……….fear of microbes. (Bacillophobia)

 

Microphobia ……….fear of small things.

 

Misophobia or Mysophobia ……….fear of being contaminated with dirt or germs.

 

Mnemophobia ……….fear of memories.

 

Molysmophobia or Molysomophobia ……….fear of dirt or contamination.

 

Monophobia ……….fear of solitude or being alone.

 

Monopathophobia ……….fear of definite disease.

 

Motorphobia ……….fear of automobiles.

 

Mottephobia ……….fear of moths.

 

Musophobia or Muriphobia ……….fear of mice.

 

Mycophobia ……….fear or aversion to mushrooms.

 

Mycrophobia ……….fear of small things.

 

Myctophobia ……….fear of darkness.

 

Myrmecophobia ……….fear of ants.

 

Mysophobia ……….fear of dirt and germs

 

Mythophobia ……….fear of myths or stories or false statements.

 

Myxophobia ……….fear of slime. (Blennophobia)

 

Nebulaphobia ……….fear of fog. (Homichlophobia)

 

Necrophobia ……….fear of death or dead things.

 

Nelophobia ……….fear of glass.

 

Neopharmaphobia ……….fear of new drugs.

 

Neophobia ……….fear of anything new.

 

Nephophobia ……….fear of clouds.

 

Noctiphobia ……….fear of the night.

 

Nomatophobia ……….fear of names.

 

Nosocomephobia ……….fear of hospitals.

 

Nosophobia or Nosemaphobia ……….fear of becoming ill.

 

Nostophobia ……….fear of returning home.

 

Novercaphobia ……….fear of your step-mother.

 

Nucleomituphobia ……….fear of nuclear weapons.

 

Nudophobia ……….fear of nudity.

 

Numerophobia ……….fear of numbers.

 

Nyctohylophobia ……….fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night

 

Nyctophobia ……….fear of the dark or of night.

 

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Twenty-Three 23

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They’ve been ‘beautiful’,  they’ve been ‘big’  and they’ve been ‘unusual’.  Today we have ‘significant’ number, twenty-three, 23, so-called because of its use and the beliefs surrounding it.

Enjoy.

 

Twenty-three

Until the recent Jim Carey movie that highlighted the Discordian fascination with the idea that everything that happens on earth and in all of existence is somehow related to the number 23, that number was really only of significance to a few conspiracy theorists.

Discordia is a rather rare belief that is based on the study of random events and numbers. The number 23 is sacred because it belongs to a Greek Goddess named Eris. She is the Goddess of Chaos and her followers practice a form of ritual worship called chaos magic.

 

In Religion

• Although the Old Testament is unspecific, it is widely held that Adam and Eve had 23 daughters;
• The 23rd verse of the first chapter of Genesis brings the act of creation to a close;
• the 23rd chapter of the book of Genesis deals entirely with death, namely that of Abraham’s wife, Sarah;
• The 23rd Psalm alao known as ‘the psalm of David’, and even better known to many by its first line ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ is the most famous and most quoted of the Psalms;
• The Ancient Egyptians hailed the New Year on July 23 – the day Sirius rises behind the sun;
• According to ancient Mayan prophesy on December 23, 2012 the world will end;
• In Islam, the Qur’an was revealed in a total of 23 years to Muhammad;
• Muslims believe the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, on the 23rd night of the 9th Islamic month.

 

 

In Maths

• 23 is the lowest prime that consists of consecutive digits that are also primes;
• Prime numbers have been described as being the building blocks of the world of numbers and therefore also the building blocks of the reality that we experience;
• The Birthday Paradox states that a group of 23 randomly-selected people is the smallest number where there will be a probability higher than 50 per cent that two people will share the same birthday.

 

Graphical representation of the Birthday Paradox

In Metaphysics

• The number 23 has also been studied by many great metaphysicists, including Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson who wrote three books about the number. The number is seen by these authors as being the key to illumination and they also claim that major shifts in collective consciousness and world events can be seen in each cycle of 23 years.

 

In Love

• Twenty three is also a significant number in love. This is because in ancient China, the number two was assigned a feminine role and the number three was given a masculine role. The number 23 then became to symbolize marriage, procreation, and progeny.

 

In Psychology

• The great psychologist and anthropologist Carl Jung also thought that the number 23 was special and defined it as a number of synchronicity.

 

In Politics

• The 23^rd President of the United States was Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901). Served as President from March 4, 1889 to March 4, 1893.   Party – Republican.  VP – Levi P. Morton;

Benjamin Harrison 23rd President of the United States of America

•  The Twenty-third Amendment (Amendment XXIII) to the United States Constitution permits citizens in the District of Columbia to vote for Electors for President and Vice President. The amendment was proposed by Congress on June 17, 1960, and ratified by the states on March 29, 1961. The first Presidential election in which it was in effect was the presidential election of 1964. Prior to the passage of the amendment, residents of Washington, D.C. were forbidden from voting for President or Vice President as the District is not a U.S. state. However, they are still unable to send voting Representatives or Senators to Congress.

 

In Space

• The tilt of Earth’s axis is roughly 23o accounting for the changing seasons and the procession of the Zodiac;
• The first Apollo landing on the moon was at 23.63 degrees east; the second was 23.42 degrees west;
• On July 23, 1996 the “Mysterious Eyes” of comet Hale-Bopp are first sighted.

 

In Militaria

• The most famous aircraft with the 23 designation is the Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Flogger’.
• It is a third generation variable-geometry fighter aircraft, and was the first attempt by the Soviet Union to design look-down/shoot-down radar and one of the first to be armed with beyond visual range missiles. It was also the first MiG production fighter aircraft to have intakes at the sides of the fuselage.
• Production started in 1970 and reached large numbers with over 5,000 aircraft built. Today the MiG-23 remains in limited service with various export customers.

Mig-23

• In America, the Northrop YF-23 or Northrop–McDonnell Douglas YF-23 was a less commercially successful single-seat, twin-engine fighter aircraft designed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The design was a finalist in the USAF’s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition, battling the Lockheed YF-22 (developed by Lockheed, Boeing and General Dynamics) for a production contract. Two YF-23 prototypes were built with the nicknames “Black Widow II” and “Gray Ghost”.
• Although the YF-23 was stealthier and faster, but less agile than its competition. After a four-year development and evaluation process, the YF-22 was announced the winner in 1991 and entered production as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
• The U.S. Navy considered using the production version of the ATF as the basis for a replacement to the F-14, but these plans were later canceled. As of 2009, the two YF-23 prototypes were museum exhibits.

Northrop–McDonnell Douglas YF-23,  nicknamed Gray Ghost (foreground), with YF-23 Black Widow II

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• On the ground the Soviet ZU-23-2 anti-craft gun was developed in the late 1950s. It was designed to engage low-flying targets at a range of 2.5 km as well as armoured vehicles at a range of 2 km and for direct defense of troops and strategic locations against air assault usually conducted by helicopters and low-flying airplanes.
• In the Soviet Union, some 140,000 units were produced. The ZU-23 has also been produced under licence by Bulgaria, Poland, Egypt and the People’s Republic of China.
• Development of this weapon into a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) led to the ZSU-23-4 Shilka. (see below)

The ZU-23-2 in Saint Petersburg

• However, the best known piece of ground militaria is probably the  ZSU-23-4 “Shilka” is a lightly armored, self-propelled, radar guided anti-aircraft weapon system. The acronym “ZSU” stands for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka, meaning “anti-aircraft self-propelled mount”. The “23” signifies the bore diameter in millimeters; the “4” signifies the number of gun barrels.
• It is named after the Russian Shilka River. Afghan soldiers nicknamed it maszyna do szycia (sewing machine) due to the sound of firing guns and because of the similarity of the name “Shilka” to the Russian word meaning “to sew”). It is also referred to by its nickname of “Zeus”.

The ZSU 23-4 Shilka

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In Sport

• The New York Yankees won the World Series 23 times;
• Devin Hester, whose jersey number is 23, becomes the first person to return the opening kickoff for a touchdown in a Super Bowl ( XLI );
• Basketball legend Michael Jordan wore 23 for the Chicago Bulls; his dad was also murdered on July 23, 1993, during a botched robbery;
• World record-breaking basketball boy wonder LeBron James also wears the number 23 shirt;
• English soccer star David Beckham took the number 23 when he joined Real Madrid; he said it was in deference to Jordan;
• 23 was the shirt number worn by tragic soccer player Marc-Vivien Foe when he was at Manchester City; the Cameroon international died after collapsing on the pitch during a Confederations Cup semi-final;
• In darts, 23 is the lowest score that cannot be gained with the throw of a single dart.

 

Michael Jordan action shot in the famous # 23 shirt

 

In Movies and TV

• In the film Airport, the mad bomber has seat 23;
• In the film Airplane II, the name of the spaceship is XR-2300;
• The original Star Trek, as well as Babylon Five are set in the 23rd century;
• In Star Wars Princess Lea was held in cell AA-23;
• The German movie 23 explored an obsession with the number, based on a real-life story;
• In the Beatles film Yellow Submarine, The Butterfly Stomper, who destroys all things of beauty, wears a shirt with the number 23;
• In Die Hard III the train derails in subway station 23.

 

 

The Darker Side

• In the Kaballah, the Hebrew studies of gematria, the number means severity or judgment. It is associated with apocalypse. In fact, the date to beware of in the future would be the year 2023, according to that system of predictive numerology;
• Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he was assassinated;
• 230 people died in the conspiracy plagued TWA flight 800 disaster;
• There are 23 chapters of the Cult Awareness Network;
• THE average smoker gets through 23 cigarettes a day;
• The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8.15am (8+15= 23);
• The United States set off 23 atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific;
• The Unibomber killed or wounded 23 people;
• Rock star Kurt Cobain was born in 1967 and died in 1994. Both years bizarrely add up to 23 if counted as individual digits: 1+9+6+7=23. 1+9+9+4=23;
• The date of the terrorist attacks on America on 11 September 2001 (9+11+2+0+0+1) add up to 23.

 

9/11 Memorial (AP photo by Mark Lennihan)

 

Other things about 23

• Homo sapiens are given 46 chromosomes from their parents, 23 male and 23 female;
• The human Biorhythm cycle is 23 days;
• It takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the human body;
• There are 23 joints in the human arm, and 23 vertebrae in the human body;
• A full turn of the DNA helix occurs every 23 angstroms;
• The first Morse code transmission is reported to have been “What hath god wrought?”, a Biblical quote from Numbers 23:23;
• In telegraphers code 23 means “break the line”;
• There are exactly 23 characters, numbers and letters, on the face of all U.S. coins;
• Every 23rd wave crashing on a beach averages twice the size as normal;
• The Latin alphabet has 23 letters;
• Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859 – 1+8+5+9 = 23;
• AOL chat rooms only allow 23 people at a time;
• The address of the Freemasons lodge in Stafford, England, is 23 Jaol Road. In New York City it’s on 23rd street;
• The letter ‘W‘ is the 23rd in the alphabet and has 2 points down and 3 points up;
• US Cavalry legend General Custer was promoted to the senior military rank at the age of 23;
• William Shakespeare was born on April 23,1556 and died on April 23, 1616; the two 23’s obviously equals 46 which was Shakespeare’s age when the KJV was published; in Psalm 46 in the KJV Bible count 46 words and you arrive at the word ‘shake’; count 46 words backwards from the end of the chapter and you end on is ‘spear’;
• The author William Burroughs was obsessed with 23. While living in Tangiers, he met a Captain Clark who ran a ferry between Spain and Morocco. One day, Clark told Burroughs that he had been doing the route for 23 years without incident. Later that day, the ferry sank, killing the captain. While Burroughs was thinking about the incident, a radio bulletin announced the crash of a Flight 23 on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark. The events prompted an obsession which saw Burroughs record every occurrence of the number 23 for the rest of his life.

 

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A Little Knowledge IS A Dangerous Thing, When It’s In The Mind Of The Moron

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I mentioned a while ago in a post about Prof Cipolla’s “Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity” that two psychologists at Cornell University had written a study with the fabulous title, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Leads to Inflated Self-Assessments”.

Their names were Dunning and Kruger and their work developed into what is now known as the “Dunning-Kruger Effect”. They were awarded a Nobel Prize for their paper on the subject in 2000.

 

Graphical representation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

 

Stated scientifically, the “Dunning–Kruger Effect” is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average.

This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

It further states that actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding.

Kruger and Dunning conclude, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others……..this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.”

The effect has been shown by experiment in several ways. Dunning and Kruger tested students on a series of criteria such as humour, grammar, and logic and compared the actual test results with each student’s estimations of their performance.

Those who scored lowest on the test, in the bottom quartile, were found to have “grossly overestimated” their scores. Conversely, those with the highest scores underestimated their performance in comparison to others.

The tendency for those who scored well to underestimate their performance was explained as a form of psychological projection: those who found the tasks easy (and thus scored highly) mistakenly thought that they would also be easy for others.

This is similar to the “impostor syndrome” — found notably in graduate students and high achieving women — whereby high achievers fail to recognize their talents as they think that others must be equally good.

The Imposter Syndrome

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Put in layman’s terms, people who suffer from the “Dunning Kruger Effect” are so dumb not only do they fail to realize that they themselves are dumb, they actually believe themselves to be much more competent than everyone else.

It is a very dangerous phenomenon.

 

The idea isn’t a new one. Many people have come to the same conclusion independently, many of them a lot more famous than these two scientists.

For example, in 1871, Charles Darwin, in “The Descent of Man”, stated that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”.

In the 1930s Bertrand Russell, in “The Triumph of Stupidity”, said that “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

And in his 1996 book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot”, Al Franken described the phenomenon of “pseudo-certainty” which was rampantly being displayed by pundits and politicians such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who would use “common sense” as the basis for their confidently-made assertions, which were made without actually backing them up with time-consuming research or actual facts. In his own way Franken associates all this quite candidly with the term “being a fucking moron”.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect in action

 

So there you have it. It really isn’t just me sounding off or having a bit of a rant now and again. There is hard scientific evidence to show not only that stupidity exists big time, but that many of those possessing this infirmity are blissfully unaware of their problem.

Remember folks, please “Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”