So how's that iPad workin' out for ya, Keith?

I'm so glad someone asked. This iPad is great!

My main reason for getting an iPad was to have Siri and dictation available on a mobile device. My iPod Touch is too old; it lacks these features. My fondest wish for the device was that it would give me a way to record ideas without using my computer.

It met my expectations, and more. Now I can pause a football game, reach for the iPad and talk an idea into it. Does dictation make mistakes? Yes, but not often if I speak clearly. And this is the interesting thing: when it gets a word wrong, if I put my finger on the word to highlight it, it suggests the correct word. This is true although the correct word may be lightyears away from the original word it produced.

I think what happens in these cases is that dictation thinks "it's this word or this one" and puts one of them out there. If I click on it, it suggests the other word it was pondering, and this is almost always the correct word. And I suspect that all the while, it's learning about my voice and improving itself. Very cool. So I got what I wanted, in terms of dictation. I've been writing entire blog posts with dictation. I'm typing this one but I dictated "Goodness gracious" below. Works great!

As for Siri, if I have a pressing need to know the population of Pakistan during a game (and I do, sometimes), I ask Siri and boom, there's the answer. Plus, as I've noted here before, Siri is great with sports. I say, "show me the NFL schedule for Sunday" and there it is. I ask "what NFL teams are playing tonight" and Siri shows me the Steelers game, with the start time. I love Siri.

And I love my iPad. Everyone needs one of these, especially writers.

Pattern-matching is the new frontier

I've been saying this for years. There are patterns all around us, often taking place in disparate arenas, that describe the same information (arcs, trends, distribution, etc.). Here's an excerpt from a new one that's just been found in sports.

Rankings are a direct measure of a player or a team's performance and come in different forms. Some sports are ranked using a points system, while others are ranked using earnings. By statistically analyzing the rankings and plotting them onto graphs, the researchers found that the distributions for each sport were almost identical.

In the past, research has shown that the frequency of words in different texts, the size of cities and people's income all abide by the same power law.

In all of the sports analyzed, 20 per cent of the players possessed 80 per cent of the total scores of the whole system.

These patterns surround us in our daily lives but we don't see them. As more and more are identified, the relationships between all sorts of seemingly unconnected things will become clear, and this will point the way to yet more powerful "power laws". A giant leap in understanding will come our way when tie these links together. It's the final frontier.

Patterns, patterns everywhere. This means something, kids.

Useful forms of aggression

I'm getting a kick out of the aggression currently being exhibited by NFL players and managers. They're going at it like mad, dissing each other with real venom in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. It's fun.

But do you realize this form of "show aggression", exemplified both by hurling epithets at other teams and actual play on the field -- is a very helpful thing for men to do?

Sports provide a harmless outlet for the aggression that evolution built into us. That aggression is still with us, still a part of our lives though there is little call for it in modern life.

Without a receptacle for their aggression, many men spend their lives getting in trouble. This instinct rides around inside us (and by us, I mean men) although there are no longer any mastodons to bring down, or giant, predatory birds to chase. There is nothing constructive for aggression to do in modern life. And so it bursts out in emotional moments, bringing bloodshed, mayhem and sorrow to the world. This is mankind's greatest problem and it has dogged us for millennia.

Sports provide a way to channel this aggression into non-violent games or challenges. They are a proxy for our aggressive instincts, a remedy, a way out of a hole that even now pulls young people into gangs, men of all ages into jealousy and rage, jilted male suitors into murder, and politicians into endless wars.

These thoughts are flooding my mind lately because I reread "On Aggression" by Konrad Lorenz last month. Although written in the 1970s, it is an illuminating book with an urgent message for our times. Lorenz takes us on a tour of aggression in the "lower species", particularly fish, and does so in lovely prose reminiscent of Dawkins. He presents a panoramic view of how non-human creatures handle aggression, especially in situations where the aggressor (almost always a male) should not attack. So what do these animals do instead?

They engage in formal aggression meant only for show. This serves to release the aggression without endangering either "combatant". This is what modern men must learn to do. If we truly understood this principle and took steps to re-channel our aggression into acceptable venues, we might no longer find ourselves engaged in perpetual wars.

Politicians, above all, should be forced to read "On Aggression". And we should quiz them afterward on the subject matter -- and if they fail the test they should be removed from office. This is a principle that must be learned.

In the meantime, maybe they could watch some sports -- and think about the lessons they are seeing play out before their eyes. We don't always have to kill. There are other options.