book group flashbacks

Today was apparently the day for me to find myself directed to content relevant to past book group meetings. First, a friend directed me to this podcast on Guns, Germs, and Steel, in which reasons why the Book of Mormon can't be literal are discussed. When we discussed the book in our book group I tried to avoid bringing religion in (not wanting to destroy any body's faith that day--or today, for that matter), and though religion came up anyway, we didn't veer into questions of the veracity of the BOM, sticking instead to the literalness of the Adam and Eve story.

This evening I came across this article on creativity that notes,

In middle childhood, kids sometimes create paracosms—fantasies of entire alternative worlds. Kids revisit their paracosms repeatedly, sometimes for months, and even create languages spoken there. This type of play peaks at age 9 or 10, and it’s a very strong sign of future creativity.

In our discussion of Peter pan I admitted to having an imaginary world I played in until I was probably 10 or so (I don't remember exactly when I stopped pretending the mouse paths in the bushes were the roads of a fairy town). Somehow it's comforting to know I'm not totally weird for having an intense imaginary life for as long as I did.

Two sigma

Derrick is on his way to Oregon, from whence he will leave on a research cruise for about a week. While we were driving to the airport, Derrick suggested that instead of giving speeding tickets for going over the speed limit, speeding tickets be given for going more than two sigma over or under the average speed of traffic (that being, theoretically, the speed suggested by the current speed limits). I could just envision a world where, under the speed limit sign, you see a histogram of the speeds of other drivers on the road, and from that calculate where your speed lies on the distribution. I'm so glad my husband is a nerd.