1 May 2008
Driving in to work this morning, I suddenly felt my vision go blurry to the point where I literally couldn’t see anything. Fortunately, I was able to pull off the road into the parking lot of a small office building before causing an accident. After I stopped and waited for the blurriness to subside, the first thing I saw was the mailbox for the office building, which had a street number of: 2048. Rather than wonder what the crap was wrong with my eyesight, or frantically try to decide whether to go see a doctor on the spot, instead the first thing I thought was hey: That’s 2^{11}.
Then, after making it to work with no more blurry vision attacks, I walked up to my office — the same office I have been entering and exiting since summer 2001 — and looked at the office number and saw it: room 128. Of course, I’ve never had a problem remembering my office number But for the first time in seven years, I noticed, hey: that’s 2^{7}.
So, maybe the blurry vision attack was me suddenly gaining the superhero power of being able to recognize powers of 2 with lightning quickness. If so, I somehow don’t see the Justice League of America saving me a seat anytime soon.