From a neat blog posting summarizing some research on sex and intelligence:
By the age of 19, 80% of US males and 75% of women have lost their virginity, and 87% of college students have had sex. But this number appears to be much lower at elite (i.e. more intelligent) colleges. According to the article, only 56% of Princeton undergraduates have had intercourse. At Harvard 59% of the undergraduates are non-virgins, and at MIT, only a slight majority, 51%, have had intercourse.
Crystal posts a link to a Boston Globe story about property prices in Massachusetts.
Houses here cost so much because there are too few of them for all the people who have been drawn to Boston because it’s such a great place for great minds to do great things. But that reputation, which has kept Boston competitive all these years, is beginning to buckle under the weight of absurd home prices.
We were in Harvard Square a couple of weeks ago, and I got a sudden chocolate craving. We went into Cardullo’s in search of something other than American chocolate. Inside was a huge man. He wasn’t merely fat, he was clinically obese, huge, a gargantuan avalanche of flesh. He was carefully looking over the chocolate bars.
I almost walked straight out, and it gave me an idea. As a public health exercise to fight obesity, they could pay guys like that to stand around in candy stores and fast food joints, wearing T-shirts saying “AFTER”.
Hilary Rosen has stepped down as head of the RIAA, to be replaced by (Republican) Bill Frist’s right-hand-man Mitch Bainwol. Will this lead to a kinder, gentler approach by the RIAA? Will they try enticing people to buy downloadable music, rather than suing 60 year old grandfathers for hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Well, to get the likely answer to that question, consider that Bill Frist was a medical student at Harvard.
After a day of working from home, I had to get out of the computer room. I went to Harvard Square in search of a 2x mono 3.5mm jack to 1x stereo 3.5mm plug converter. I found one at Radio Shack, but it’s a blocky thing that won’t plug directly into the camcorder, so I need to either find a really short 3.5mm stereo headphone extension cable, or wire up my own converter.
Picked up negatives of San Francisco photos, scanned them. Treated myself to a can of Irn Bru found in Harvard Square. Did a bunch of other stuff I don’t remember, and suddenly it was late at night.
Walked to Porter Square, got my hair cut good and short. Walked to Harvard, made a hopeless attempt to get the Autechre Gantz_graf DVD. Everywhere had sold out. Someone must be really surprised by how many people are interested in Autechre DVDs. (Note to webmaster@warp: Told you so.)
Tried Alewife Newbury Comics. No luck there either, but unfortunately I found a copy of Stephen Jones: 1985-2001, the ultra-rare album of soundtrack work by the man who was Baby Bird.
Yesterday was already going pretty badly when I started to get abdominal pain at around 16:00. It initially felt like indigestion, but so did my last kidney stone attack…
About twenty minutes later there was a wave of pain and nausea. I made it to the bathroom, rallied a little, but eventually had to give in and have a lengthy conversation on the big white telephone with Ralph and Hughie.
On Sunday, we walked into Dunkin’ Donuts in Harvard Square to get coffee. There were five Cambridge cops standing at the counter in front of us, in full uniform. I was really, really tempted to take a discreet photo, but I decided I didn’t fancy risking a beating.
Unfortunately, Harvard insisted that the Dunkin’ Donuts in the square not have the usual big pink and orange sign, otherwise I’d have gotten a great photo of four Harleys and a squad car parked outside.
Went to Twisted Village in Harvard Square and discovered way too many cheap CDs.
Boards of Canada Geogaddi (2002). Meant to get it when it came out, but there was no way I was going to pay $17 for a CD. Picked it up for $8.99. Dunno if it’s used, but it’s in mint condition.
Bang on a Can Industry (1995).
Silica Gel 50) Noisy Children Party (1993)—A Seeland / Wifflefist co-release, so you know it has to be interesting.