Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
More Magic 8 Ball
Jake’s giving me a heart attack. He asked the online M8 Ball, “Will I live to see my next birthday?”
And the first answer was “No.”
He went for best two out of three, and fortunately, the next two were variations of
Yeah, Jake, go ahead, give your superstitious old man a heart attack. See who pays for your college education then.
ANYWAY: I need one of these Magic 8 Balls for my office. You wouldn’t believe how often people ask me questions which are far more appropriate for the 8 Ball than for me.
Is this antibiotic going to work?
Is it a bad idea for me to go flying this weekend?
Is my nose just going to start bleeding again?
One thing is for certain: if I start whipping out the 8 Ball every time I’m asked one of these questions, I’m gonna get one hell of a rep.
D.
1. The antibiotic question: you’re a doc, you’re supposed to know these things. Of course, you should point out that yes, I’m a doc, and I’m prescribing it, so, yes, I *do* think it’s going to work.
2. Flying: this is always a bad idea.
3. See, now this one, you’re supposed to know that. The way the guys in the dark ages could look at chicken entrails and see the future? You are supposed to be able to do that with vein (or is it artery?) patterns in the nose. “Yep, nosebleed, tomorrow, four o’clock. Have a pail handy.”
I’m too much into probabilities. I think the antibiotic will work, otherwise why prescribe it? But I can’t be sure. I think you’ll do fine on the plane, otherwise I’d tell you not to go. But how can I be sure? And so forth.
Some patients can’t handle even that degree of uncertainty.
Has Jake seen “The Adams Family” with Christina Ricchi (spelling?) as Wednesday? They are perfect for each other.
shit, that stupid ball told me i’m gonna catch the flu (my roomie has it).
*goes to take more airborne+vitamin C*
We used to go to a local veterinarian center, where each visit you’d get a different vet and a different prognosis for the same diagnosis. A Magic 8 Ball may have worked better.
Sis: he could do worse than Christina Ricci. Hell, I could do worse than Christina Ricci. CUTE.
Shaina, did you get one of those 8 Balls with an MD? (If someone can write the code for the 8 Ball, I’d gladly write the captions!)
Dan, human medicine is exactly the same. You just don’t realize it because you usually stick to the same doc.
Shouldn’t be too hard to write such a script, but I would be concerned about copyright infringement.
More Magic 8-Ball Info
You know, I wonder if anyone has done a study on the randomness of the Magic 8-Ball? You have a 50% chance of a positive response, 25% chance of a negative reply and a 25% of a non-committal answer. But, that would be based on pure mathematical chance, while the actual movement of the answer icosahedron would be affected by the friction of the fluid surrounding it. Since the letterforms on the icosahedron’s faces are raised, certainly that would result in varying resistances on the different sides, which could skew the results ever so slightly. The non-committal responses tend to have a larger character length, which could create more drag on those sides, perhaps making those sides less likely to appear in the answer window than the 25% chance would suggest mathematically.
Anyway, I think it might be interesting to do some time, when there is a lot of time available to sit around with the Magic 8-Ball. Maybe I can get a government grant? LOL!