A Perfect Day for Bananafish

"Here comes a wave," Sybil said nervously.

"We'll ignore it. We'll snub it," said the young man. "Two snobs." He took Sybil's ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil's blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.

With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, "I just saw one."

"Saw what, my love?"

"A bananafish."

"My God, no!" said the young man. "Did he have any bananas in his mouth?"

"Yes," said Sybil. "Six."

The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil's wet feet, which were dropping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.

"Hey!" said the owner of the foot, turning around.

"Hey, yourself! We're going in now. You had enough?"

"No!"

"Sorry," he said, and pushed the float toward shore until Sybil got off it. He carried it the rest of the way.

"Goodbye," said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel.

--J.D. Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

Tablet

Speculation on the Apple tablet, to be introduced next week.

Puffin

NASA has introduced designs for a personal flying system.

(image credit: NASA/Analytical Mechanics Associates, via nytimes.com)

Song of the Day, Conan Was Screwed

Vampire Weekend, "Cousins" on Conan O'Brien. Here is Conan's letter, he really wasn't given a fair chance.



Old Timey Baseball is here. Hurl your best apple, hurler.

Neurons that Shaped Civilization?

Neuroscientist VS Ramachandran on mirror neurons, the brain cells that some researchers believe instrumental to language, empathy and morality. More from Ramachandran on Edge here. I also recommend What's Next? edited by Max Brockman which includes an essay from neuroscientist Christian Keysers on mirror neurons. Wikipedia tracks the research and controversies.

2020

Nature looks forward to 2020. Two entries focus on the 100 trillion microbes that you live with. There's also Peter Norvig on search, Jeffrey Sachs on global governance (Glenn Beck alert), Thomas Baer and Nicholas Bigelow on lasers and desktop accelerators, and George Church on synthetic biology:

The obvious application will be in manufacturing and delivering drugs more efficiently. However, these treatments might be superseded by smarter ones, such as oral vaccines and 'programmable' personal stem cells or bacteria (which exploit sensors, logic and actuators harvested from natural and lab evolution) that could, for example, sense a nearby tumour, coordinate an attack and drill into the cancer cells to release toxins. Another application is in the production of chemicals, biofuels and foods — for example, the development of parasite-resistant crops or photosynthetic organisms that can double their biomass in just three hours.

The Immutable Law of Sports

College football's champ is chosen tonight without any real idea of who was the best team in 2009. Boise State didn't play a great schedule in the WAC but they beat Oregon and TCU. TCU was undefeated in the regular season this year and beat Utah who of course beat Alabama (my pick tonight) in a bowl game last year. Of course, this is unfair. But it suggests the absurdity of the present system. I wrote about this a while back:

the current system maximizes the incentive to set a lame schedule, rewards teams that play in well-respected (even if bad) conferences, and insults the integrity of players and the notion of team. Football, by virtue of its violence, has less frequent and much more heavily scrutinized and intensely played games than other sports. Every down in a football game is a battle. A team is forged over a season - players emerge, strategies are refined, cohesion is hard-won. This suggests two often overlooked truths. 1) A loss can make a team better. 2) Apparently overmatched teams with lesser recruits can beat apparently superior teams through strategy, cohesion and sheer force of will. The present system rewards teams judged best in the preseason, necessarily on history and before any games are played. Those teams will remain on top if they don't lose and will receive substantial reconsideration even if they do lose. Opinions, often set in the preseason, are a horrible substitute for playing games. Despite myriad objections from athletic directors, college presidents and bowl game sponsors, a playoff system in college football is viable. A college football playoff might become the biggest sporting event in America. And it would restore to college football the immutable law of sports: Winning makes you the better team. People seem to have forgotten that.

(image credit: Boise State celebrates, Jacobsohn/Getty, via nydailynews.com)