The Folly of Multitasking

A popular question in interviews is: "Can you multitask?" Here is the answer I would be giving. Multitasking is defined as doing two or more tasks simultaneously. Yes you can do one task, stop, then do another, stop, then do another, but that is not multitasking. The human brain can only process one input at any given moment. Even a computer with a single processor does not multitask. It can switch a hundred times between tasks within a single second, but only one task can be active at any given moment. It is the same with the human brain. Our mind can only be at a single point at any given moment. A few years back I was driving down a very straight road in the late evening, when I suddenly noticed a very bright light in the left of my peripheral vision. I leaned to the right and turned my head to the right as well, just enough so I could still see the road ahead. Then the side window exploded and the car rocked violently. I pulled over, just as the teenage driver got out of the car still on his mobile. He was driving straight as well and wanted to make a left turn. Too bad for him I was in the way. Yes you can drive and talk on the phone, but you can either pay attention to the road or the conversation, but not both. Sure you can do both half axe, but obviously not both very well. But we have now the "hands free" law. It does not matter where your hands are, but where your mind is.
There is something to be said for single tasking. You focus on one task, do it well and in my opinion there is less stress. Try to do more than one task at the same time your stress level goes way up.

In the Checkout Line

The day before yesterday I went to the grocery store as this day is always my day to stock up on food for the week. I usually go to a Fred Meyer as they have a great organic selection. The Johnson Creek store has a really cool thunderstorm imitation before they sprinkle the veggies. It is the coolest thing, really. Anyway, after I was done with getting what I needed, I went to the checkout line and piled my stuff on the conveyor. Reusable bags first of course. Fred Meyer is supporting the ban the bag movement and does not offer single use plastic bags since August 1st anymore at their Portland stores, which is great. Even my cat joined the movement.
I noticed the heavily inked lady in front of me pretty much only got fruit and veggies on the conveyor. So I go: That are a lot of veggies. She replies: Yes, that is almost the only thing I can eat. I guess: Are you a vegan? She confirms that and I tell her I have been a vegetarian for over a year now. She notices the organic almond butter I am buying and asks me if it is any good. I told her that it is great. She tells me that her friend makes her own peanut butter, but only gives her very little to try. She talks about her kid and her other handicapped kid. I feel for her, because my sister has a child with down syndrome herself. By that time she gets ready to pay and pulls her Oregon Trails card out, which is food stamps and she also has a debit card to make up the difference.
I think this is not good, so I give her a five and a jar of organic almond butter therefore paying for it and giving it to her. She is pretty touched and I tell her happy birthday.
On my way home I am thinking that we as a society have become a sad story when families and children go hungry. Also there are three times as many calories available than needed in the US and a lot of food lands in the trash everyday. It is very easy to take a full fridge for granted, but for many Americans it is not. In fact ever more Americans struggle to put food on the table than before. Things like that should get better, not worse. But that confirms the fact that only God has answers, but the world does not have any.

Albert Einstein

Today after I finished my volunteer shift at the Portland Sunday Parkways I headed down to OMSI. OMSI has free Admission this weekend, so I though I take advantage of that and check out the Albert Einstein exhibit as I read his biography before. He was definitely a gifted scientist and won the Nobel Price in 1921 for the explanation of the photoelectric effect. He wrote a paper in German on the Theory of Relativity "Relativitaetstheorie" which made him famous. Under Newtons law mass was a matter like an apple and energy was the force that could move that matter. Time was a constant and absolute. Now with Einstein's Theory the speed of light is constant which means time and distance are now variables. Time is relative depending on the point of view of the observer. And mass is equal to energy. E=mc2. There are two important statements in this equation. First: Mass is stored energy and energy can be transformed into mass. They are both equal. Second: c is the speed of light and that is a large number. When you multiply a large number by itself you get a huge number. Even if the mass is a tiny number and you multiply it with a huge number you still get a large number. This equation does not tell you how to build a nuclear weapon, but it tells you the amount of energy that gets released when you split the atom. An atom has a tiny mass, but when you split it a fraction of that mass is transformed into energy and that amount is large as it was demonstrated with the atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945 respectively. Only less than 1gram of mass was converted into energy in the bomb over Nagasaki. That tells you the immense amount of energy there is when you split the atom.

Now Einstein was born Jewish, but he was not practicing it. He did not belief in a personal God, but he acknowledged and believed there is a God and that the Universe had a beginning. "The fact that all of the universe, stars and planets happened by chance is highly unlikely." Besides that he was also a great humanitarian and dedicated his last decade to the eradication of nuclear weapons.

The Matrix Revisited

I am finally chillin' after a busy and sizzling day and looking at that opposing wall, that has a Matrix Movie Poster hanging on it. Besides the fact that is was a great movie there is one scene in it that I think is a remarkable symbol of our lives. I am talking about the scene where Neo is in that glass cocoon that is filled with liquid and he is hooked up to all those tentacles. In the movie the human body is used to feed energy into the Matrix. In real life the tentacles symbolizing all the good and bad responsibilities/entities that either drain or feed us. One big one would be the marketing machine that is trying to create needs we do not have, so we buy things we do not need, with money we do not have, to impress people we don't even like. 70% of the US economy is based on consumer spending. That is a very large percentage, which ties it to a must have healthy job situation. Otherwise things go south or stagnate.