David is curious why Kevin chose "Jessica Alba Plateau," with its inflammatory associated yellow-on-yellow-crime acronym, to describe his...

...Hot/Crazy Postulate, when “Pre-Downward Spiral Jennifer Love Hewitt Plateau (PDSJLHP)” would have worked just as well.

Kevin Presents the Crazy/Hot Postulate

One day when I was watching an episode of CBS’ hit TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother, one of the main characters in the show makes a provocative mathematical representation of a woman’s “datability.” In this, admittedly overly simplified definition, a woman’s datability is determined by her ratio o f hot to crazy. Please watch the video for the full theory as defined by Barney.

So what Barney has done is define a classical economics indifference curve, with datable women above the graph and undatable women below. Now while his ideas are interesting, it’s ultimately too simple. To start off, every man has differing Crazy/Hot Graphs (CHGs), representative of their preferences. In Barney’s case, he prefers his women to be hotter than they are crazy. However, there is no reason why the preference ratio has to be 1:1 or better, nor does that ratio need to be consistent throughout the graph. The linear graphical depiction as presented in HIMYM is a rather unique case. To make a more generalized graph that fits the majority of guys, I would like to present my own Crazy/Hot Postulate).  While the details are up for debate, the general idea is there and 60% of the time this will apply every time 

To start off, we should define the parameters of our graph. Starting with the X axis, we start off with 0 crazy, indicating a completely rational logical human being. Basically a man with boobs and better hygeine. This axis then runs to 100% crazy, on the level of Elizabeth Bathory of Hungaria or perhaps the classy broads of 2Girls1Cup. On  the Y axis we have a pretty stereotypical 0-100 Hot Scale. With 0 as Hillary Clinton and 100 being ludicrously hot (insert your ideal woman here, as long as it’s not Hillary Clinton). 



Figure 1: Crazy Hot Graph


Now let’s move to the plot itself. In my estimation, the y-intercept can not be 0. No matter how not Crazy a girl is, there’s a certain Hot threshold that most guys simply will not dip below. Starting from there, we have a traditional exponential rise. In the beginning there is not a significant demand of Hotness for an increase in Craziness because the total Crazy is so low. But as the total Craziness builds, every additional increase in Craziness warrants a much higher increase in Hot. In lay terms, if your girlfriend is low in Craziness and high in Hotness (much like the significant other of yours truly), she sits well above the curve. Any minor increase in Craziness will not nudge her past the line into undatable territory. But if you happen to have a girl that’s sitting right on the curve, any prolonged or permanent increase in Craziness without the necessary increase in Hotness (or vice versa, as stipulated by her location on the graph) will make her as unappealing as a conversation  on cramps and bloating.

Let’s continue. As you can see there is a point at which the graph no longer rises continuously, instead there is a discontinuous jump to a platform we designate the Jessica Alba Plateau. The jumping off point is personal to each guy depending on his risk tolerance. We arbitrarily drew the line at the level of Crazy where there is SIGNIFICANT risk of physical harm. When the risk is already that high, any further increases in Craziness is virtually unnoticeable. After all, if you’re gonna get stabbed in the leg with a butter knife, what’s another fork in the arm? Thus there is no further demand on Hotness with additional increases in Craziness. The extra demand is made at the initial jump point. This Hotness differential between the endpoint of the continuous graph and the start of the JAP is the luxury tax a girl must pay to be THAT crazy and still datable, something we call the Preposterously Bananas  Levy (PBL).



Figure 2: Area under the curve = bad times


Well that basically sums up the major points on the graph. Now let’s look at one final thing, a simple integral. From here you notice that the integral defines the entire undatable zone. Since the area changes drastically with individual  CHGs, this is reflective of each guy’s selectivity factor.

David Anticipates an Unexpected Consequence of Kevin*

After reading Kevin’s latest post, one can’t help but envision the following probabilistically inevitable scenario:

Kevin tells me his name is quite common amongst immigrants from the motherland. A quick Google search for “Kevin*” confirms this to be true, returning 22,800 hits. Given this high number of Kevin*s running around and the extreme virulence of the aforementioned disease, it seems likely that there might come a day when one of those countless Kevin*s was…wait for it…infected with Kevin*. How exactly would that doctor-patient interaction go?

------

Doctor: Kevin, I have some unfortunate news. You have Kevin*.
Kevin: Excuse me?
Doctor: Kevin*, you have it.
Kevin: Are you stupid? Have what?
Doctor: Who’s on firs…Err, there’s a disease called Kevin*, Kevin. Unfortunately, you’ve got it.
Kevin: You’re kidding?
Doctor: Actually I’m not.

Kevin: ...

Doctor: ... 

Kevin: ...

Doctor: What are the chances, eh? If you think about it, it’s actually kind of fun–
Kevin: Die.

------

One can only imagine what would happen if the original Kevin* was this Kevin*’s doctor, delivering the news and explaining his reasoning for naming the disease. Or maybe bad karma would win out and original Kevin* would get ALS.

These are the things I think about sometimes. Why does my brain hate me…

Kevin considers Infectious Disease

Back in the glory days of medicine when old white men ran the show and nurses wore skirts and paper hats, medical research was pretty egotistical. Whenever someone discovered a genetic disorder, he would inevitably name said disorder after himself. Thus you have your well known diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Tay-Sachs... the list goes on. Yet, even back then, no one wanted to name infectious diseases after himself. Dumb. Infectious diseases are the crazier, flashier, version of their more homely counterparts. The evidence is in the movies.  Infectious disease has given us adrenaline-pumping thrillers such as Outbreak, 28 Days Later, I Am Legend just to name a few.   Genetic disorders on the otherhand gives us Bubble Boy, a trainwreck I'm sure Jake Gyllenhal would like back.  

You decide

So that gets me thinking. Naming such diseases after the infectious agent is boring and predictable.  If I become an infectious disease specialist I will dedicate my life's work to finding the most dangerous virus/bug out there. But I wont name it something boring like Africanized AIDS (although that has promise). No, I will name it after myself. Why, you might ask. I'll tell you why. Imagine the headline possibilities.

AFRICA IN CHAOS AS KEVIN* RAGES ACROSS CONTINENT

Or maybe something more akin to the movie Outbreak:

CALIFORNIA UNDER MARTIAL LAW TO CONTAIN KEVIN*

"Oh my God his body is completely destroyed by Kevin*"

I'm pretty sure  that would cement my place in the medical as well as the history books.

*Obviously I would use my whole name to maximize my glory and minimize confusion, but for internet purposes, first name is enough.

David: Harry Potter and the Glaring Lack of Wizardkind’s Collective Social Conscience

Today during lunch, the conversation turned to logical inconsistencies in popular entertainment. All kinds of movies require the audience to take large leaps of faith in order remain engaged in the storyline and enjoy the show. Can dinosaurs really be made from DNA taken from the blood sucked out of fossilized mosquitoes? In order for me to realize my life-long dream of riding on a pterodactyl, I can only pray that they can. But to really enjoy the movie, we all have to overlook that potential snag and get ready for the people-eating. In the end, no one gets hurt from the suspension of disbelief. Science may suffer briefly, but people aren’t looking for old tree sap to clone another T-Rex. Everybody wins.

                                                   
                                                               If only…

Unfortunately, things are not always so harmless. Eventually, our lunchtime babbling focused on Harry Potter. (Harry Potter, for those who don’t know, is about a physically and emotionally scarred little boy who undergoes the trials and tribulations of adolescence. All the while, Harry fights some unspeakable evil that is really scary, yet somehow manages to be continually defeated by the power of love and unicorns and stuff. Forgive or correct me if that is wrong, but that’s the story as I know it.) Now, I am not entirely familiar with all of the rules of the wizard world or the guidelines J.K Rowling imposes on what wizards can and can’t do, but I’ve seen most of the movies, read some of the books, and have a general idea of what’s going down in Candyland. And as far as I can tell, Harry Potter is a terrible influence on today’s youth. Forget all of the religious conservatives that see the series as sacrilegious or anyone that may think believing in magic gives children false hopes or distorts their sense of reality. My major complaint is the blatant lack of a social conscience displayed by witches and wizards to those outside of their magical kingdom.

Wizards, it appears, can do whatever the hell they want. They can fly on brooms, conjure random shit out of midair, make food with magic, heal people, and do a million other things that could be ridiculously useful. Yet they never seem to apply their prodigious talents to saving non-wizards. What ‘s up with that , Harry et al? Basically, the next 10-plus years of my medical education will be spent learning to do things some magical person could do with unintelligible gibberish and the flick of the wrist. There would be no starvation, no disease, and no embarrassing ascites. The Gates Foundation’s philanthropic efforts would border on puppy-kicking in comparison to what a few wizards could do. Need a house/school/new pony? No problem, I’ll whip one right up! Oil conflict? Let me conjure a Hummer H4 that runs on baby laughter. If a normal person walks down the street, sees an accident, and fails to help in a situation where he might be reasonably expected to lend a hand, it's negligence. Jerry, Elaine , George and Kramer went to jail for that shit. Yet wizards let genocide happen without batting an eye. It's like one community-sized Milgram experiment gone wrong. On a more personal level, just today, on the way back from lunch, my friend got pooped on by a bird. Even now, I can see the solitary tear welling up in his eye. Magic could have stopped that from happening.

What are you teaching our children, J.K.? That it’s OK to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people who aren’t magical? That fighting some random bald dude who looks like a snake excuses one from addressing the greater problems of the world? I for one am saddened. For shame, J.K., for shame.

(On a mostly unrelated side note, how exactly do wizards decide what creatures are special or magical? Is it completely arbitrary? Everyone knows that dragons and centaurs are magical, that’s just common sense. What about alligators? They’re basically modern dinosaurs, but wizards don’t seem to give them much respect. Duck-billed platypi? Those mammals can lay eggs, for Xenu’s sake! Sounds like advanced witchcraft to me. And if talking is a general prerequisite – which it seems like it shouldn’t be – who’s to say the platypus can’t talk? I sure as hell haven’t ever seen one. I know I wouldn’t underestimate anything that looks like this:

                                       
                                                    How is this guy not magic?

I bet the platypus wouldn’t have let the bird poop on my friend…)

David: Hello World

Since this is my inaugural entry, I’d like to start out with a brief mission statement for my contributions to Yellow Magic. Since my true Asian-ness has been diluted by generations of the American Dream and the sweet air of democracy, I did not jump on the Xanga bandwagon in high school or college like so many others. I had no outlet for my late-adolescent/early-adult self-discovery and, tragically, was forced to wallow in sadness without a forum for my archives of digital pictures in which I flash the V sign with both hands or point to the creases of my wide, wide smile, again with both hands.

Well, those days are finally over, so here’s what any of the paltry number of people that accidentally clicked to this page can expect from me. I can’t draw, and I’m not smart enough to come up with something funny anyway, so I will leave that stuff to Kevin. Instead, 60% of the time, I will be finding myself 100% of the time. I will make sappy metaphors about life, dramatic emo statements, follow everything with ellipses, and apologize for nothing. Poems that don’t rhyme? Don’t mind if I do…

Enjoy.

Kevin hates saying "Hi" to people

I always hate it when I walk through campus or T-wing and I encounter someone I know and must say "Hi". The act of saying "Hi" is not bad part, the motions I have to do leading up to it is the bad part. I must note that this only pertains to people I know and thus feel obligated (and want) to say Hi , but not well enough to actually stop and have a conversation. And i alos MUST stress that it's not the person I hate but the awkward series of motions I need to do just to say Hi.
Anyways, the awkward moment is if I see them walking towards me from really far away. At this point I am completely unsure as to what to do, they are too far to talk to, you can't tell if they are actually looking at you, and any kind of hand motion could be meant for someone else. To make matters worse, even if you COULD communicate with them, by the time you've said Hi and held the canned mini conversation (I'll talk about that later), they're STILL in front you of and you have a super awkward moment where you are actually walking past each other and theres nothing else to say.
In order to remedy this, although not necessarily efficiently, I employ what I call the "autistic patient with Down's" maneuver. By this I mean I will first notice the person from far away, I will gauge their walking speed and my own and their distance from me. I will then either look down, left , right, basically anywhere but in front. I will continue to do so until they're at an acceptable distance for me to look up, "notice" them, feign surprise, wave high and hold the usual conversation of
"Hi'
"Hi, how are you"
"good, you?"
"good good".
If the timing is perfect, the final "good good" will occur just as the person passes. Wow that's quite a lot of analysis for something so small. Oh well, atleast it beats staring at the person for a full 30 seconds before speaking to them.