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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| It's the final day of September, so I thought I'd take a break from trolling internet articles to do some personal updates and plug a few friends. Er, I mean, plug a few friends' items here on WDC. Home Ownership By which I mean, the continuing process of being owned by a home. Last week, in "Hard, Erect Deck"  , I detailed some of the tribulations involved in replacing my house's back deck. Basically, I'd put it off as long as I could, but the old one was about ready to fall over, most likely with me on it, so this was much-needed home maintenance. However necessary it was, though, neither I nor the cats took kindly to the change. Now, though, it's about half done, with the entire superstructure in place; they still have to do some electrical work to put in some lights and outdoor outlets, and finish up the drainage system. But here I am, tonight, sitting on the new deck getting cancer from the treated lumber fumes.It rained some last night, and I took great pleasure in being able to stand, dry, on the patio beneath and watch the drainage system in action. Said pleasure was mitigated somewhat by watching the trees in the backyard sway in the thunderstorm's stiff breeze. I don't want one of those trees to fall onto the brand-new deck (or, you know, my house) in the next windstorm, so I guess my next project is to cut down some trees. Let me rephrase that: my next project is to pay someone to cut down some trees (the ones in question are nearly dead anyway). The only downside to the new deck is that my cats were accustomed to leaping up to the old one from down below. They can't do that now because the new railing is too dense for even a cat to get through. Something about building code changes. I told the contractor this yesterday, and he volunteered to use some scraps to put a cat ledge on the outside so they can jump to that, and thence onto the rail. He also reduced the price somewhat as lumber prices have come down since we signed the contract. I like this guy so far and will probably hire him for other work; sadly, he doesn't do trees. Meanwhile, some pipes broke in the house so now I have to deal with plumbing issues as well. It never rains but it pours. In this case, it pours discharge from the dishwasher through a cracked pipe. So I also have to clean up that mess. Fortunately, I got the worst of it fixed yesterday, so at least I can run the dishwasher. Bite Me Went to the dentist yesterday for a routine cleaning. He found work he says needs done. I was like, how much. They showed me. I nearly had another heart attack. Which would be expensive and probably fatal, but at least then I wouldn't have to take out a mortgage to get my dental work redone. Transportation I still don't have a car. I can walk most places or, as I did today to go to the dentist across town, summon an Uber. Two things need to happen before I buy a new car. One, they need to fix supply chain issues so I'm not paying more for the car than I did for the deck. And two, even though I can see just fine for now with glasses, I want to wait for after the cataract surgery. Which leads me to... If Looks Could Kill I have an appointment with the eye surgeon late in October. Unfortunately -- or fortunately, if you're as phobic as I am about shit touching your eyeballs -- it's not for the actual surgery, but for a pre-op consultation and verification that I indeed have cataracts. My vision continues to deteriorate, so it's a race to find out if I'll still be able to see a goddamn thing when they finally schedule the surgery. If I quit writing in here, it's because I lost the race. Don't get old. It sucks. And it's expensive as fuck. One star, do not recommend. Yes, I know what the alternative is; my recommendation stands. Le Français On the plus side, I'm still doing French lessons every day. I have a hell of a streak going on Duolingo. One of my Uber drivers yesterday was from Paris. Fortunately, I didn't find this out until after the ride was over (he had an accent, but I didn't peg it as French at the time) and I went to tip him in the app. This is fortunate because I managed to avoid embarrassing myself by attempting to pronounce words in French in front of him, which surely would have resulted in him giving me a one-star rider rating, if not blackballing me from the app altogether. I said I'm learning. I didn't say I was any good at it. Like I said, getting old sucks. Movies I know I haven't done a one-sentence movie review in a while. That's because I haven't been to the movies in a couple of weeks. That, in turn, is because nothing's appealed to me. This should change next month. Provided I can still see the screen.  Some of my blog entries next month, assuming I don't go blind first, will be for:
There's still space for other contestants, and I never win that one so don't be all like "I'm not entering a contest Waltz is in." What? You weren't all like that? Okay, cool. So enter. You know what October means. Halloween shit everywhere. Creative October-themed WDC handles. Pumpkin spice everything. No more Green Day for another year, because September's done ended already. Christmas bullshit appearing in stores, if it hasn't already. Leaves falling off the damn trees for me to rake. And, of course, preparing for NaNoWriMo:
You have until the 3rd to sign up, but why wait? And some fun ongoing things that don't require you to get into an October mood:
No competition, no signup, just hop in and participate.
What, I'm not funny enough for you? Add that blog to your favorites for a daily assault on your humerus. There's plenty more going on here, of course, and I'm not trying to snub anyone by not plugging them right now. Feel free to add your own (or someone else's) in the comments below. Tomorrow, it's back to the usual programming around here. |
| I have to get up at an ungodly cow-milking hour (8) for a routine tooth torture session, so it's just as well that I don't have much commentary on this one. I saw the original Star Wars in a theater in 1977 (and of course its direct sequels later). When I went to see some other movie in the 90s -- pretty sure it was a science fiction flick, but I can't remember what it was -- they showed the preview of the re-release Episode IV. I remember that the theater was completely packed full of people primed for space movies. At the end of the trailer, when (spoiler alert) the Death Star blows up, there was a moment of awed silence. Then someone said, "I think I just saw God," and the whole theater erupted in whoops and cheers. If only we'd known... Rolling Stone interviewed Lucas later that summer, and he bemoaned how the movie was insufficient and only "about 25%" of what he wanted it to be, adding: "There is nothing that I would like to do more than go back and redo all the special effects." And that was way back in August 1977. So when the film's 20th anniversary rolled around, and Lucas wanted to update the movie, it shouldn't have come as a shock. Lucas convinced Fox to pony up $10 million in what was advertised as a restoration of George Lucas' artistic vision, which had been tragically ruined by 1977's conspicuous lack of desktop computers. I took a cinema class as a humanities elective in college one semester for the easy A and an excuse to watch movies every Wednesday night. This would have been nearly 10 years after the original Star Wars. I don't remember much about the class, but I do remember the otherwise very stodgy professor proclaiming that there were two movie eras: pre-Star Wars, and post-Star Wars. Whatever you think of the movie itself, the way it changed the way movies were made clearly made an impression on stodgy film class professors. It's 35 years later now, so maybe there's another era. Post-Matrix, maybe. I don't know; I'm not a professor or a critic; I just like movies (but not The Matrix). No, Lucas trumpeted that he had "gone back and fixed the trilogy." To him, this was Star Wars, and the public had merely gotten accustomed to his rough drafts along the way. And it's not as though we didn't get a heads up about this; the '95 VHS release advertised that it was everybody's "last chance to own the original Star Wars." I actually own those. Of course, I can't fucking watch them. While many of the new effects blew away audiences at the time, other changes immediately rubbed some fans the wrong way. Most notoriously, the awkward shot of Greedo ineptly firing his blaster milliseconds before Han drew fan outrage even before the film hit theaters, thanks to primordial internet communities. Goddammit, HAN SHOT FIRST. I have spoken. After all, in hindsight, why would a trilogy that ends with a tribe of woodland teddy bears begin with a dude murdering someone in cold blood? "In hindsight," I should have taken the Ewoks as a sign that Star Wars had jumped the shark. The article argues that this is something different than Director's Cuts, which I can kinda see. But I'd counterargue that the idea of re-releasing new versions of old movies owes its proliferation to the success of the Director's Cut of Blade Runner, which was the first movie I was aware of being re-released as something substantially different from its original theatrical form. The DC was, by every measure, a far superior movie, though it was not without its flaws as well, leading to the eventual release of the "Final Cut" (which I don't believe for a second that it actually is). Since it was so much better, I think audiences were primed to believe that updating would improve the movies. I insist that it's entirely a coincidence that Harrison Ford was in both films. Anyway, this was supposed to be short, dammit. I didn't quote much of the article; it's there for you to read if you're interested. |
| Today's science article, courtesy of a dick joke site: Yeah, I know I've written about sleep paralysis in here before. I have to experience it, but the only way I can share the misery is to write about it. You're welcome. Ever wonder what the sensation of dying in your sleep might be like? Nope. Don't have to wonder. Oh, and with an obscure presence by your side? And what if this figure resembled one of your fears? An eye surgeon? Nope, haven't had that one yet. A physical feeling of entrapment, sleep paralysis is a troubling sensation that one may experience while waking or falling asleep. It's a "troubling sensation" the way a hydrogen bomb is an explosion. Usually accompanied by hallucinations, you may see disquieting images as your mind is active while your body remains asleep. "Hallucinations," also known as "the same shit that happens during dreaming." Also, seeing is only part of it. You get to hear it, too. Footsteps approaching the bed. Someone calling your name in anguish. A dog barking. Which wouldn't be so bad if I had a dog, which I don't. What is known is that while dreaming, the mind is at rest and the body's muscles relax as a means of not harming itself in case you dream about snapping your pinkies in half to see what'll happen. Thanks, I really needed that image. I think -- but I don't have any data to back this up -- that sleep paralysis is the other side of the sleepwalking coin. In the former case, your mind disengages your body while you sleep, but that can continue into a mental waking state. In the latter case, the clutch mechanism, as it were, engages, so your body moves while your mind's checked out. Either way, shit's not working right. When the paralysis creeps in, it causes a disruption in our REM cycle and awakens the mind while the body remains confined in a paralyzed state (cue the horror music). You'll want to scream but can barely contort your face, and no one would hear you. And that might be the worst part of all. The instinct is to call out for help, but you can't even manage a whisper, let alone a scream. You might as well have been shoved out an airlock into the void. For example, "you might mistake your cat sleeping at the foot of the bed as some sort of goblin," and as ridiculous as it sounds, it's the truth. Actually, the cat is a comforting presence for me. But I can imagine this happening to someone more ambivalent about our feline overlords. The scariest of hallucinations is referred to as the "intruder" and is just what it sounds like, a sensation of an intrusive figure at your side. Mainly, it has been reported that this sense manifests itself as "the sounds of doorknobs opening, shuffling footsteps … a shadow man." It's worse when it's a shadow ex-wife. That's happened. The author also describes tarantulas. I haven't had those, but other bugs have invaded this mental state. (Yes, I know arachnids aren't technically bugs.) In my experience with sleep paralysis, it's a lovely thing to sense a presence of danger as you lay there, frozen helplessly in the dark. You don't have a darn clue what to do because you can't do anything. One theoretically cause is unbalanced sleeping patterns, so the best advice to treat it seems to be: Get more damn sleep. Yeah, I don't know. It's happened to me when I was chronically sleep-deprived, and it still sometimes happens to me when I get enough to be well-rested. In my experience, the only thing that makes it subside is... exercise. Sometimes that's worse than the nightmares. At least with sleep paralysis, I end up with story ideas.  Mini-Contest Results! Thanks for all the comments! Some of those I was familiar with, others not so much. Warped Sanity, that's one I hadn't heard of, but now I want to check it out. The thing about science fiction is that it's not a stand-alone genre; it always has some other angle: often action/adventure, sometimes mystery or, as this one seems to be, horror. ForeverDreamer, I read A Clockwork Orange at a very impressionable young age, and a lot of it stuck with me. I also enjoyed (well... appreciated) the Kubrick movie. Kåre Enga in Udon Thani, I never quite got into Pern. Probably I could attempt it again; it's been a very long time and I think a lot of it was beyond my childhood mind (which, as I noted above, was warped by A Clockwork Orange and other stories). WakeUpAndLive️~🚬🚭2024, a lot of people really liked The Matrix. I had just been learning about historical Gnosticism when it came out, though, and through the movie I was like "this is just techno-gnosticism." Beautiful effects, and I do like Reeves as an actor, but especially afterwards, when people started to take seriously the whole "what if we're living in a simulation?" nonsense, I went from "meh" to "bleh" on it. Personal opinion of course, and I definitely understand why people liked it. Cubby~Cheering House Florent!, oddly, I read the novel before I saw the movie, and at the risk of being a cliché, as ForeverDreamer noted, the book was better. In the book, Lastday was at the age of 21, not 30, for starters, and the scope is far grander. Then I made the mistake of reading the sequels, but that's another story... Prosperous Snow celebrating, I can't argue with Star Trek. It's far from perfect, and the screenplays vary greatly in quality, but overall I think it's been a positive cultural influence. I do also like Star Wars; I see no need to choose between them, either. Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008, I always meant to read The Handmaid's Tale and never got around to it. I know it's been adapted now, but it's on Hulu, and I won't deal with that site. Eventually, I will read the book. A lot of these comments were compelling; like I said, I'm not picking the winner based on agreement. This day's Merit Badge will go to Warped Sanity for mentioning a book I haven't even heard of and explaining exactly why it's worth reading. I'll do this again, so there will be more chances at an MB. Next month. |
| I've been reading (and viewing, and sometimes writing) science fiction for most of my life, so this article might as well have been written for me. Science fiction has struggled to achieve the same credibility as highbrow literature. That depends on whose perspective you're looking for. I find "highbrow" literature to be mind-numbingly boring at best, useless at worst. It's just as fictional as science fiction, and lacks the imagination and extrapolation that characterizes science fiction. (Also, the whole "brow" thing comes from phrenology, which was long ago debunked.) In 2019, the celebrated author Ian McEwan dismissed science fiction as the stuff of “anti-gravity boots” rather than “human dilemmas”. While there is certainly crap, that's true of pretty much every creative endeavor. Theodore Sturgeon, an SF author, famously pointed out that ninety percent of everything is crap . He was reacting to the same sort of criticism noted here by pointing out that there's crap everywhere.According to McEwan, his own book about intelligent robots, Machines Like Me, provided the latter by examining the ethics of artificial life – as if this were not a staple of science fiction from Isaac Asimov’s robot stories of the 1940s and 1950s to TV series such as Humans (2015-2018). Oh for fuck's sake, the very first science fiction novel examined "the ethics of artificial life." It's been a through-line in science fiction from Frankenstein up through the latest installments of Star Trek. And it's not going to let up anytime soon. It's burned into the DNA of the genre, and we own that shit. Which that guy would know if he'd actually read any SF instead of just ragging on it sight-unseen. Psychology has often supported this dismissal of the genre. The most recent psychological accusation against science fiction is the “great fantasy migration hypothesis”. This supposes that the real world of unemployment and debt is too disappointing for a generation of entitled narcissists. They consequently migrate to a land of make-believe where they can live out their grandiose fantasies. I can't say that's not the case for every SF fan. I don't doubt that some people are into the escapist aspects, much as furries are furries because they're furries. But SF explores possibilities, and questions everything about what we are, what we do, what we can be (and, perhaps most importantly, what we should not be). That's not escapism; that's a study of human nature. It also has the unique ability to step outside our human bubble and try to look at things from an outsider's perspective, something that is sorely lacking in some circles right now. And while it often gets the science wrong, an astute reader can use it as a springboard to know exactly what it got wrong, and what the actual science tells us. For example, see my post from a few days back about why sex in zero-g would be a frustrating endeavor. Science fiction is the one mode of entertainment that's not narcissistic. But, while psychology may not exactly diagnose fans as mentally ill, the insinuation remains – science fiction evades, rather than confronts, disappointment with the real world. Right, tell that to all the readers of dystopian future stories. But don't just take my word for it: In her review of The Iron Dream, the now-celebrated science fiction author Ursula Le Guin – daughter of the distinguished anthropologist Alfred Kroeber – wrote that the “essential gesture of SF” is “distancing, the pulling back from ‘reality’ in order to see it better”, including “our desires to lead, or to be led”, and “our righteous wars”. Le Guin wanted science fiction to make strange the North American society of her time, showing afresh its peculiar psychology, culture, and politics. While Le Guin's writing style never appealed to me, there's no doubt she was highly influential and knew what the hell she was doing. Rather than ask us to pull on our anti-gravity boots, open the escape hatch and leap into fantasy, science fiction typically aspires to be a literature that faces up to social reality. It owes this ambition, in part, to psychology’s repeated accusation that the genre markets escapism to the marginalised and disaffected. Look... any form of entertainment can be escapism. It's frustrating that some of the same people who rag on SF can be found on weekends at sportsball stadiums, all dressed up and painted in their tribal colors, waving foam fingers (if that's still a thing; I don't know) and displaying their fandom to all the world on giant stadium TV screens. No, sports fans lost the right to rag on SF/Fantasy cosplayers a very long time ago. Note, I'm not dunking on sports fans either. Makes 'em happy, great. But this is one big giant "stop liking what I don't like" with a touch of "NEEERRRDDD!" added on for good measure. I guarantee you, though, that if con-goers ended up rioting through the town after a convention, breaking windows and making noise, they'd ban cons. Even though that's exactly what some sports fans do. I think it's time to stop ragging on escapism in general, though. I mean, look around. Who doesn't want to escape from time to time? It only becomes a problem when it's an obsession, but the same can be true for any obsession, be it sports or sex or whatever. As I've noted in here more times than is probably necessary, I don't believe that aliens are going to come down and land in their flying saucers and ask to be taken to our leader. But if it ever does happen, no one - no one - will be more prepared for the encounter than a science fiction fan. And because I promised more mini-contests... Merit Badge Mini-Contest! Maybe you're a science-fiction fan, maybe you're not. But I'd find it hard to believe anyone hasn't encountered any of it (note: Star Wars is not science fiction; it's fantasy with SF props). Reading or viewing, what's your favorite science fiction story / series? Any book(s), TV shows, movies, all count as long as they're at least partly SF. Comment below, and the one I like best will earn its writer a Merit Badge. Deadline, as usual, is midnight at the end of the day today, Monday, according to WDC time. Note: I won't necessarily pick the one I most agree with; tell me why you like a certain story or series, regardless of whether you know I like it or not. |
| And we're back to another Cracked article about history. Or, I suppose, prehistory, as written records are basically nonexistent. If you’re from a part of the world that doesn’t bother to teach American Indian history in schools (and that includes every part of the US that’s more than a ten-minute drive from a casino) chances are you’ve never heard of the Mississippian Culture, a once-great American Indian civilization that spanned across almost a third of the continental United States. I had, in fact, heard of the Mississippian Culture (and can even spell it), but as I said a few days ago, there's always more to learn. And while it’ll take historians decades to puzzle together some of the only remaining pieces, what we can do in the meantime at least is to question the when, what, why and who behind the disappearance of the Mississippian Culture. (Spoiler alert: It’s white people.) Even the name is modern; I don't think that's what they called themselves. Interestingly, "Mississippi" comes from a phrase meaning "Great River," so the Mississippi River is the Great River River. Lots of that kind of thing around, and not just in the US. I'm not going to do my usual thing here; the article is fairly long, but absolutely worth the read, especially with the comedy spin Cracked is really good at and I can only wish I could emulate. Besides, it's getting late and I just don't have time tonight. Probably, I'll have more to say (on another subject) tomorrow. |
| I have had a complicated relationship with mead. The Quest to Recreate a Lost and ‘Terrifying’ Medieval Mead Bochet vanished for centuries, but meadmakers are bringing it back—at least in spirit. Any sugar can be converted into alcohol. Feed it the right yeast, and magic happens. Well, actually it's science, but it might as well be magic. For beer, first you have to convert the starch of a grain, usually barley, into sugar. That's easy enough, chemically. Saliva does that all the time, but of course these days other processes are involved. With fruits, though, such as apples for cider or grapes for wine, it's a more direct process. Honey is basically just sugar, and it's used to make mead. But this mead is different than the kind you occasionally find in the stores. It starts with a cauldron, an open flame, and a good measure of raw honey. Then—double, double, toil and trouble—stir constantly until the honey spits black steam at you. Add water and stand back as it erupts, volcano-like. Throw in some yeast and spices and, after it ages a bit, behold: bochet, a mysterious and lost style of mead. Most mead is pretty straightforward. Not that I've made it myself, but I had a friend who did. I've had a few friends who created mead, actually, hence my complicated relationship with it: unless you do it right, it tastes more like ass than like honey. As for commercial mead, it also varies in quality. Oddly enough, in all of my travels to different breweries, I've only encountered one or two that have messed around with bee vomit to make mead. There's one in particular in a suburb of Minneapolis that I would totally revisit... but I digress. This stuff, though? Bochet? I'd never heard of it. “Caramelizing honey is kind of terrifying,” says Ontario microbiologist Bryan Heit, the brains behind popular homebrewing reference site Sui Generis Brewing. While Heit experiments mostly with beer, particularly traditional styles, he’s been intrigued by bochet for years. Fortunately, I don't need to know how to make it when there are other people more than willing to do it for me. “It truly is a lost style. It’s not a historical style that has survived into the modern era,” says Heit. “It’s literally something that disappeared.” Why revisit something that's obviously died out? Well, why do anything? Bochet is mentioned, briefly, in French texts as early as 1292, according to research by independent scholar Susan Verberg, published in 2020 in ExArc Journal. The first and only complete recipe for the drink—and the primary source for modern recreations—turns up in 1393, in what might be considered a manual of mansplaining. The history of fermentation isn't well-documented, but fragments exist. I think I've linked the oldest known beer recipe in here before; it was from ancient Mesopotamia, and it wouldn't have resulted in anything much resembling what we know as "beer" in all its glorious styles. So in terms of history, 1292 C.E. is quite late in the game, but from a modern perspective, it's still old. (Mead itself is probably about as old as beer.) I should note here that as accomplished as the French are at creating wine, their beer tends to suck on ice. While I have had decent French beer, it was all from the east, near places that actually know how to brew beer, such as Belgium and Germany. So it's not surprising that they once made mead, although the fermentation of honey is more associated with the Norse. What would be surprising would be if it was any good. A preserved recipe for an extinct beverage is a rarity, and its unique method tantalized historic reenactors and homebrewers alike, including myself. While I’ve made small-batch meads in the past, they have all been based on modern ratios, and none involved a cauldron. Commercial meadmakers have been particularly intrigued by the idea of caramelization: The process offers new possibilities, unlocking “all those roasty, toasty, nutty flavors,” says Jen Otis of KVLT Mead in Tacoma. Caramelization isn't unique to honey; it's used on sugarcane to make molasses, which leads to rum -- but rum is a distilled spirit; if there are fermented beverages available from sugarcane, I'm unaware of them (this doesn't, of course, means that they don't exist). Likely they did, prior to the relatively modern process of distillation. There are distilled spirits made from honey, too, but as far as I know, I've never tried them - just the mead, which as I've noted, can be of greatly varying quality. The rest of the article, which is fairly long, goes into the author's re-creation attempts, and is quite fascinating, but there's no need to rehash it here. There's also the modern version of the recipe that she used. I'm not tempted to do it myself -- too much like work, and I don't really have the setup for it -- but if I ever see bochet available, you damn right I'm going to try it. |
| Cats don't like change. Oh, I'm sure there are exceptions, as there always are to such blanket statements. But my cats aren't one of those exceptions. Ever since I've had this house, 25 years now, there's been a deck over a patio in the back (on the north side). While it's been patched every now and then, it's been basically the same deck. It was never waterproof; any rain or melting snow would just drip down onto the patio which, it being on the north side, rarely got any sunlight and hence stayed damp for a very long time as well as making it utterly useless in actual rain. The deck itself, being higher up, does get some sun, especially around the summer solstice when the accursed daystar is not far from overhead. During the shit season, winter, the house itself shades the deck. Still, having a table set up with a big umbrella makes the deck, if not the patio beneath, useful to me in a wide range of weather conditions; it's only when the wind and/or rain is too strong that I'm forced to stay inside. And as much as I like to complain about the not-so-great outdoors, I do enjoy being on the deck (it's only a couple of steps to the refrigerator where the beer is). My cats, and those to whom my housemate belongs, have made great use of the deck as well. Some of them like to leap up onto it from a nearby fencepost rather than doing the difficult work of walking all the way around to the steps. Mostly, the cats like to find sunbeams to sit in, or shade if it's July. Also, they're quite fond of hopping up and sitting on the kitchen windowsill, outside, when they wish to inform me that it's time to bring them inside to give me the privilege of serving them a meal. Ever since I got the house, though, I've wanted to get the deck rebuilt with a drainage system to keep most of the direct rain off the patio. No one seemed to understand what I wanted there, and I can't be arsed to build the damn thing myself, so I let it slide for many years. A couple of years ago, I started looking again in earnest. Got a few quotes, almost had another heart attack. Finally, last year, my neighbor recommended a guy whom he'd hired several times, so I got a quote from that contractor that seemed reasonable. But they wouldn't be able to get to it for another year. Okay, fine, it's waited this long. The deck probably wouldn't collapse in the next year. Probably. Maybe. Hey, structural engineering wasn't my best subject, okay? I put down a deposit and signed the contract. Then the contractor sent me a message over the summer: "Yeah, lumber prices have blown up. I can either refund your deposit or we can agree on a higher price." Normally, a contractor pulls crap like that on me, I assume they're scamming and drop 'em. But as you probably know, lumber prices did indeed jump into the stratosphere over the summer, and besides, no one else seemed willing to tackle the job, so I agreed. Monday I get an email: "We're starting tomorrow." Great notice there. Still, not going to delay this any more, so fine. Tuesday, they tore out the old deck. The cats' brains went fizzle. As far as they were concerned, the world was ending. Some of them sat at the kitchen door that would now open onto a 12 foot drop, attempting to get me to make the deck magically reappear. They have the same reaction when it rains. They want very, very badly to go out on the deck, and then when I graciously obey their command by opening the door, they see disgusting water falling from the sky, and they look at me with that air of having been betrayed. How dare I make it wet? Don't I know that water is Cat Kryptonite? And don't get me started on snow. I have so many pictures of a single paw print in a dusting of snow on the deck. A single print, because they'd stick one little foot into it, go "Nope," and huff off back inside with a twitching tail, and then take the next hour to lick the offending substance off their tender paw pads. Thing is, though, I understand their reaction to the construction. I'm not a big fan of changes in my environment, either. I mean, sure, sometimes I purposely get away and go somewhere else, but that's not the same thing; I know I'll be coming back to pretty much the same house and neighborhood. Like I said, I've lived here for a quarter-century, nearly twice as long as I lived in the place I always called "home," where I grew upspent my childhood between the ages of 4 and 17. And since 1996, apart from a couple of repairs, the deck and patio have always been there. I know the replacement will be better. I have wanted this for a very long time. It's not even going to be that different, in terms of size: about 12x24 (that's in feet; for those who use a more rational system of measurement, call it 4x8). There will be lights. It will be sturdier, not feeling like it's going to collapse if I step too hard. And of course, the drainage will allow better use of the patio below. And yet I felt a sense of loss; something that has been a vital and everyday part of my existence just suddenly wasn't there anymore. So I, too, was unsettled, even though, unlike my feline overlords, I have a pretty good idea what to expect from the construction. Wednesday it rained almost all day, so they didn't do any work. Yesterday, Thursday, they got the supports up and the deck framed, complete with joists. After they'd gone for the day, I glanced out the kitchen window and behold, there was my void cat, Robin, sitting on the sill outside looking distressed. Seeing the deck seem to reappear, she'd made her usual leap from the fencepost and then further up to the sill. There was only one problem: the actual deck boards hadn't been set, and there's about 18" (do your own centimeter conversion) of yawning emptiness between joists, so she had no way to hop down when I opened the door to let her in. Nor would she be able to retrace her steps. And contrary to popular belief, cats can get seriously injured dropping from a second-floor ledge onto patio flagstones. I had to step outside, balancing on the joists, and pick up the very reluctant cat with both hands. All four sets of claws had activated, so I also had to keep those murder needles away from me, stepping from joist to joist whilst holding a squirming, frightened feline at arm's length, until I could deposit her onto the kitchen floor. Whereupon she retracted the claws, shook herself, and flounced off like, "That wasn't so bad." "But Waltz, why didn't you just open the kitchen window to let her in?" Because the cats have been known to react badly to that while on the sill, and I didn't want her slipping off while I did that. Anyway, I know this is long -- and late; if you didn't see my notebook post from yesterday, I was indulging in some evening ethanotherapy -- so I'll stop here. Right now they're hammering away outside, and it is So. Damn. Loud. |
| No matter how much you learn about history, there is always more. This Cracked article, for example. As per usual, the story's broken down into bite-sized, numbered chunks for those of us with limited atten-SQUIRREL! 6. Our Story Begins With Our Hero's Death When you were in school, maybe they taught you something about Pilgrims coming to Massachusetts in 1620 because they, unlike those evil people back in England, believed in religious freedom. It's a nice story that falls apart a little when you hear the settlers soon turned to expelling and even killing people for their religion. Now they're stealing my schtick. I've been saying things like this for years. Many Quakers moved to Rhode Island, where they responded to their past persecution by setting up their own restrictive society, as is tradition. They're getting to the point, I promise. Amy and Jeremiah Wilkinson had 12 kids. They named child number eight Jemima, after a daughter God gave Job after killing his other kids to win a bet, which is the sort of thing that might set a kid up for a religious life. In October 1776, while founders were passing around and signing a declaration of independence, 23-year-old Jemima caught a serious disease, possibly typhus. This disease proved fatal. No, no relation. Two archangels greeted the soul in heaven then announced that God had a new plan, as well as a new identity to confer unto the departed. And so Jemima awoke and answered to "Jemima" no more. Now, they were to be known as "The Public Universal Friend." Remember this story next time you're tempted to think of gender dysphoria as a 21st century phenomenon. 5. A Ministry With Absolutely No Sinister Foreshadowing "...when someone asked outright whether they were a man or a woman, the Friend replied with another Bible quote: "I am that I am." The speaker behind this quote in the Bible was God, suggesting that maybe the Friend was claiming to be God, made flesh. This would cause some trouble later on." Ya think? For now, though, enthusiastic followers grew in number. Help the poor, said the Friend, and followers said, "Yeah, that sounds right." Oppose slavery, said the Friend, and followers said, "Right on." Stay celibate, said the Friend, and followers said, "Hold on, let's not go crazy," and most ignored this advice and married. An exception: 50 women stayed single and formed a group within the movement known as the Faithful Sisterhood. If that name make them sound like militants willing to respond with violence when necessary, good instincts. Keep that thought in mind. I've been told violence becomes more necessary the longer you go without sex. 4. The Murder Accusation A bit too convoluted for me to quote just pieces of, but summary: someone tried to kill someone and the Public Universal Friend ended up being implicated (although they were in a whole nother state at the time), but not officially accused. 3. The Gore Commune No, this isn't where the internet was invented or climate change became real. At this point, we understand it sounds like this whole tale is building toward some kind of religious mass slaughter. So, let's warn you now that no such slaughter is forthcoming, but it's going to sound even more like one is, when you learn the Friends opened a commune known as The Gore. Robbed! With the Public Universal Friend having maybe tried killing someone according to the rumor mill, a mob assembled outside their home and rioted, pelting the place with "stones, bricks, bats, et cetera." There was no friendship to be found from the Quakers either. The church expelled two of the Wilkinson boys for joining the Revolution, expelled two of the Wilkinson girls for attending unauthorized religious meetings, and expelled Public Universal Friend for founding their own religion (this is a dealbreaker for most churches). Yeah, they tend to dislike competition. A little bit more time there revealed a new problem: Life in the wilderness sucked. These were people used to living in towns, and this commune lacked a whole lot of stuff, such as food. They set about growing crops – anyone raised Quaker back then had oat-based superpowers -- but it still wasn't a comfortable life. Note to self: Learn how to live in the wilderness before going to live in the wilderness. (Don't worry; I won't do it - the wi-fi sucks out there.) 2. Arrested For Blasphemy According to the dubious story, Public Friend had called people to watch them heal William's recently deceased daughter Susannah. Then someone, suspicious, asked to stick a blade into the corpse to make sure she really was dead. At this point, Susannah jumped up and fled the room, still wrapped in her funeral shroud. Dubious or not, I'm totally going to use that in a story plot. 1. And The Verdict Is ... Lewis dismissed the case, because, "What is this crap? Blasphemy isn't a crime. And if there were a law making it one, that would be unconstitutional." Even if the Puritans hadn't been so great about religious liberty, America had enshrined the freedom into law through the recently ratified Bill of Rights. Then Judge Lewis invited Public Friend to deliver a sermon to the court. Which might not be totally in line with the establishment clause as we know it, but hey, baby steps. For some reason, I found this darkly hilarious. And when Public Universal Friend did die, their congregation watched over the body, wondering if, maybe, they would resurrect once again. They did not. But still, just by living, they had proven that America is a place where you can be whoever you want. Religious founder? No problem. Neither male nor female? Sure, no one can stop you. And there you have it: A story from history that I had never even heard the slightest whisper of. Certainly someone else has, but it was all new to me. It has pretty much everything you'd expect: death, betrayal, religious freedom, religious persecution, mistaken identity... everything but car chases and explosions, though to be fair there weren't a lot of those in the 18th century. I'm just surprised no one's made a movie out of this yet. Or at least a Broadway musical. |
| I've seen several UFOs. But as usual, the answer to the headline question is "no." In this case, a qualified "no." The Pentagon has been quietly investigating unidentified flying objects since 2007. The fact that they think they might exist is good news to those who claim to have seen them There's a difference between acknowledging that there are things in the sky that we can't identify, and jumping to the conclusion that they must be sentient alien life. UFO, as everyone knows, stands for Unidentified Flying Object. The Pentagon attempts to change this to UAP, or Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon, which sounds to me like they're trying to lump in things that don't qualify as "objects" while at the same time taking away the implication of "aliens" that has encrusted the term UFO like barnacles on a barge. So when I say I've seen several UFOs, I mean I've seen shit in the sky that I, personally, couldn't identify (some of which I did, in fact, identify later on); that doesn't mean I saw flying saucers (which I didn't). The unclassified version of the report (there was also a classified version seen only by US lawmakers) found “no clear indications that there is any non-terrestrial explanation” for the sightings. But neither did it rule it out. Of course it didn't rule that out. I can't rule out the existence of vampire bats living in Saturn's rings, either; that doesn't mean that there is one there. If the US military has been quietly and seriously investigating UFOs (or, as the Pentagon would have it, UAPs) since 2007, and if the Pentagon’s official report cannot rule out the existence of extraterrestrials, is it time we looked again at claims of close encounters and the people who have made them? There is one fact that we can take as a certainty (or as close to a certainty as anything): People have reported UFOs. Some of those reports were hoaxes. But there is no doubt in my mind that some people have seen something. I'm not denying the existence of UAPs; I'm just cautioning against making the cognitive leap to "it must be visitors from outer space." Andrew Abeyta, professor of psychology at Rutgers University, co-authored We Are Not Alone, a study into why some of us want to believe in aliens. Abeyta explains that belief in aliens is akin to religiosity: unfounded beliefs in unfalsifiable ideas, which require a leap of faith. The comparison of jumping to that conclusion to believing in some sort of god hasn't escaped me, either. I tell Abeyta about an interview I carried out with a young man in Florida. The man, who did not want to be named, described an ambiguous close encounter that took place during his sleep. My working hypothesis for any described encounter that takes place when a person is asleep is always "sleep paralysis." Because I've had similar experiences; the only difference is I recognized them as the effects of sleep paralysis. Again, that doesn't rule out other explanations, but you're going to have to give up more evidence than "I was asleep and suddenly I was being probed on a flying saucer." However, now even the Pentagon has conceded there’s more to UFOs than that. In its nine-page report it states: “Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers and visual observation.” In other words, there was something out there and the images were not technical glitches. Any mechanical/electronic recording device is a much more trustworthy source of information than the human memory. Again, I'm not denying there was something there. Godfrey, a no-nonsense Yorkshireman born and raised in Oldham I'm just leaving this sentence here to note that the Guardian is clearly not above repeating itself. (There is no such thing as a non-no-nonsense Yorkshireman.) Is it time to start taking these stories more seriously? “I’m not saying that I believe it’s literally true that these are alien spaceships,” says Pope. “But at the very least, these people who were previously disbelieved and ridiculed should be listened to and given a hearing. This, I can accept. If someone says they encountered something, they shouldn't be ridiculed for it. On the other hand, we should always keep in mind the possibility that they're perpetrating a hoax -- many Bigfoot sightings have been revealed to be hoaxes, for example. Does Pope think ETs are among us? “I don’t know. I am certain that they are out there, but whether they’re down here or not? I don’t know. I think it’s much more likely that we’re dealing with unmanned probes.” Insofar as it's possible to draw comparisons between humans and entirely speculative technological creatures from other worlds, it stands to reason that just as we sent robot probes out to other planets before sending humans there, any hypothetical technological civilization might easily do the same. That's still speculation, though. Anyway, the article is worth reading even if, like me, you're a skeptic. I know I've talked about this sort of thing before, but I'll reiterate my basic thoughts on the subject: 1) Life almost certainly exists on other worlds; 2) There is no certainty that the evolution of said life produces a technological civilization; 3) Any technological civilization will be made of life that has been evolving for a very long time (it took Earth 4 billion years). 4) During that "very long time," the planet would have to avoid all major cataclysms and have comparatively few minor ones (such as the dinosaur-killer). I'm calling the dinosaur-killer a minor cataclysm only because it didn't completely clear the planet of life. For major cataclysms, I mean like the planet breaking up or spiraling into a gravity well; the sort of thing that would wipe out all life. Basically, I find it unlikely. Some say that to think we are unique, or alone, is hubris -- I say that the hubris is in thinking that evolution necessarily produces something like us. It does not. Evolution only selects for traits necessary for survival, and there are plenty of species that survive quite well without having developed big brains and the ability to produce spaceships; and only one that did so (on this planet). Therefore, I'm not saying technological aliens don't exist; I'm saying they're probably exceedingly rare. (Also, please spare me the "we're a bunch of fucking assholes so why would anyone be interested in us" bullshit -- we study geese, and geese are assholes too.) And if you want me to believe that space aliens exist, show me one, or at least their devices. So if some of these people aren't perpetrating hoaxes, if instruments detected something unidentified, if some of the stores are compelling -- okay. But none of that is positive evidence of alien visitation. |
| Hey look - it's a link about writing. ‘I don’t care’: text shows modern poetry began much earlier than believed Academic finds that lines widely reproduced in the eastern Roman empire are ‘stressed’ in a way that laid the foundations for what we recognise as poetry "I don't care?" Wow, Generation X is older than I thought! For Taylor Swift, the “haters gonna hate”, but she’ll just “shake it off”. Now research by a Cambridge academic into a little-known ancient Greek text bearing much the same sentiment – “They say / What they like / Let them say it / I don’t care” – is set to cast a new light on the history of poetry and song. Good thing that copyright long ago expired, huh? The anonymous text, which concludes with the lines “Go on, love me / It does you good”, was popular across the eastern Roman empire in the second century, and has been found inscribed on 20 gemstones and as a graffito in Cartagena, Spain. I mean, seriously, how many of us have seen poems like that? Or, well... written them? In my defense, I was 14. Before the emergence of stressed poetry, poetry was quantitative – based on syllable length. Honestly, this is a distinction I never could wrap my head around -- hence why most of my forays into "poetry" are doggerel or parody. “We’ve known for a long time that there was popular poetry in ancient Greek, but a lot of what survives takes a similar form to traditional high poetics. This poem, on the other hand, points to a distinct and thriving culture, primarily oral, which fortunately for us in this case also found its way on to a number of gemstones,” said Whitmarsh. This kind of reminds me of children's rhymes. Not the widely-known ones, but the ones that rarely, if at all, get written down, and are passed down to younger children exclusively from older children, who continue to pass it down in an attempt to look cool. Since they're not written down, they usually transform like a generational game of Telephone (what do they call that these days, anyway? "Reply All?") This poem pushes back the earliest appearance of stressed poetry by at least 300 years,” he said. “It has this sort of magnetic rhythm to it, four beats to the bar, a stress on the first beat, and weaker stress on the third beat, which is rock’n’roll and pop music as well.” I once heard a theory that rhythm -- whether drumbeats or poetry -- was connected to heartbeat. No idea if that's the actual case or not, but it makes sense. I also find it fascinating that, even in classical antiquity, there was a distinction between "low art" and "high art," and this seems to be one of the few instances of "low art" that survived. I suppose it's possible that a lot of modern music, especially folk and the like, owe its existence to those half-forgotten words and rhythms. A message across time. We may be facing different challenges now, but we're not so different than those working-class Greeks of old, are we? |
| The pace of society sometimes moves too fast, and we don't always understand when the rules change. So I present to you these fifteen *crash* er, TEN commandments. Well. Some of them, anyway. You'll have to go to the link to read the others. Be aware it's a British site, but most of them are applicable to life in the US as well. Thou shalt use thy indicators when driving for other motorists art not able to gaze into the intent of your soul, knobhead. Good to see this isn't just a US problem. I guess they have BMWs over there, too. Buy thee not the Mail nor the Sun, for loathsome rags are they that doth inspire hatred in their readers for their fellow man. Nor is exempt the Guardian. Come on, now, the Guardian doesn't completely suck. Honour thy waiters and waitresses, for they doth not deserve to put up with thy bellendery. Yea, and honour them in cash so the chain takes not 20 per cent. Hm. I was led to believe that tipping was mostly a US insanity. Either way, servers are hono(u)rable people and surely they'd report even their cash tips to comply with the laws, right? You can look up "bellend" on your own. Worship not the false idol of your phone while in the cinema for it distracteth from the movie, nor discourse with thy neighbour, nor munch loudly on sustenance. You know, commandments like this one make me extra glad to live within walking distance of an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Do that crap in an Alamo and you get kicked right out. Send not dick pics to anyone unless they specifically requesteth them, which they shall not. Oddly, I got that request once. I still didn't oblige. You wanna see it that bad, buy me drinks first. Neverspoons, verily. Okay, this one I'll have to explain for the non-Brit readers, but I may get something wrong because (surprise) I'm not British. As I understand it, Wetherspoons is a massive UK/Ireland company that runs pubs. Lots of pubs. What's wrong with pubs? Nothing. It's just that Wetherspoons is, like, the Squall*Mart of pubs. Support local businesses, especially those that are providers of the Holy Nectar. Worse, the higher-ups in the company supported Brexit, and don't get me started on the bullshit they pulled during the pandemic lockdowns. I also have it on reliable authority that they plain suck, but obviously that's a matter of opinion as, somehow, they're still in business. Anyway. The Daily Mash is a parody site, much like The Onion here on this side of the pond, but sometimes I learn more about British culture from them than I do from the BBC. |
| Not all philosophers had big bushy beards. I'm still bingeing Lucifer on Netflix, so this is a short one. When we conjure up ancient philosophers the image that springs to mind might be a bald Socrates discoursing with beautiful young men in the sun, or a scholarly Aristotle lecturing among cool columns. Well, there are definitely togas (or whatever they called them in Ancient Greece) involved. And beards. More than two millennia later, intelligent, verbal women still struggle to have their own voices heard. So here are six ancient female philosophers you should know about. Some of these I'd heard of. Others I hadn't. Hence my saving the link for the blog. 1. Aspasia of Miletus She was not only remembered for her captivating beauty, but also for her captivating mind. Socrates himself called Aspasia his teacher and relates he learned from her how to construct persuasive speeches. After all, he tells us, she wrote them for Pericles. For some reason, male philosophers are never remembered for their hotness. 2. Clea Clea (most active around 100 CE) was a priestess at Delphi — a highly esteemed political and intellectual role in the ancient world. The religious practitioners at the shrine received frequent requests from world leaders for divine advice about political matters. Clea was part of this political-religious system, but she believed in the primary importance of philosophy. You know that scene in 300 with the Oracle at Delphi? I have reason to believe Snyder took a few liberties with it. 3. Thecla When she first appears on the scene in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Thecla (most active around 1st century CE) is leading a normal middle class life, sequestered at home and about to make an advantageous marriage. But leaning out of her balcony, she hears the dynamic preaching of Paul and decides on a radically different path. The Acts of Paul and Thecla is part of New Testament apocrypha. I'm guessing it wouldn't have done to have a story about a woman (apart from the obvious) in what would become the Bible, so the Council of Nicaea threw it out. 4. Sosipatra She was surrounded by male experts, one of whom was her husband Eustathius. But according to Eunapius’ biography in his Lives of the Philosophers, her fame was greater than any of theirs, and students far preferred her inspiring teaching. I'll have to remind myself to look into this one further, as Neoplatonic philosophy is cool. 5. Macrina the Younger Macrina (circa 330-379 CE) was the oldest of ten in an expansive, influential well-educated Christian family in Cappadocia. Count this as one I should have known about, but didn't. 6. Hypatia of Alexandria Most famous for her dramatic death at the hands of a Christian mob, Hypatia (circa 355–415 CE) was a Neoplatonic teacher admired for her mathematical and astronomical works. This is the one I knew most about, which unfortunately still isn't saying much. Also, there's an asteroid named after her (the trivia floating around in my head comes out at weird times). In any case, the article is rather light on information, but contains helpful links. Which I'll follow. When I'm done bingeing Lucifer. |
| Ready for a dictionary debate? Arguments about words are literally the worst! Is ‘irregardless’ a real word? We asked our journalists as battle rages on Merriam-Webster insists irregardless is a word – but not everyone agrees with the dictionary’s take Disclaimers: Guardian link from last year (but relevant irregardless). Merriam-Webster has weighed in on the debate over the word “irregardless”, confirming that it is a proper, dictionary-verified word. Because this is the Guardian, I'm going to go ahead and assume that this sentence uses the British definition of "proper" rather than the American definition. The difference is subtle, and to provide a proper explanation I'd have to go to a dictionary... but the article questions the veracity of dictionaries, so that would be ironic. The debate over the word is age-old (the word appeared in print as early as 1795) but continues to upset some people – teachers in particular. Evidencing the controversy over the word, Merriam-Webster’s own dictionary definition for irregardless includes a frequently asked questions section, for which the first question is: “Is irregardless a word?” A dictionary, in English at least, is descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, there is no Pope of English, no Diction Dictator, no Académie Anglaise. Even the phrase "The Queen's English" is misleading: the British monarch may be extremely influential, but even she (or he; man, it's going to be weird to talk about a king again) doesn't get to decide what's English and what isn't (especially here in the US; we fought a war over that exact thing 250 years ago, and won). No, English is democratic -- except it's not about majority usage, but some lower threshold. Personally, I think the greatest addition to the language in recent times is the word "yeet." While there exist many synonyms for throw -- hurl, toss, fling, pitch, etc. -- none of them are as intrinsically hilarious as "yeet." The past tense, by the way, is "yote." As in "That guy just yote a snowball at my car!" Sure, you can say "yeeted," but it just doesn't have the same intrinsic hilariousness. But many neologisms are abominations that need to be stamped out. I'd provide examples, but that would be the polar opposite of stamping them out. Anyway, my actual point here is that the only requirement for a word to make it into the dictionary is if "enough" people use it, as the article notes. And, like it or not (I don't), people use "irregardless." It's also, as further noted in the article, far from being a neologism. I feel more strongly: you can’t just add “ir-” to a word and decree it a new word. “Irreally” is not a word. “Irractually” is not a word. I’m sure there are words that Guardian copy editors don’t know – we’re all always learning, aren’t we? – but “irregardless” is not one of them. Because it’s not a real word. I have a somewhat vivid memory of learning that "flammable" and "inflammable" are synonyms. I was quite young, but I do remember being corrected on that subject (I mean, it's kind of important to know if something is flammable or not when you have a proclivity for playing with matches). Lots of people have come to this realization; I think The Simpsons even used it in an episode. See, most words, when they take the "in-" prefix, become their opposite, or at least something different. Compatible, incompatible, that sort of thing. Easy enough; kids pick up on that shit right away. So it's only natural to think that "flammable" and "inflammable" are antonyms. But then you realize that "inflammable" comes from the verb "inflame" and it starts to make sense. Something similar happens with the prefix "ir-," but it's not quite as common. "respective" and "irrespective" have different usages.(amusingly, one synonym for "irrespective" is "regardless," adding to the confusion here). Someone in the article makes a tangential point to this: "It feels like an accidental word, created by someone stuck between irrespective and regardless." But that's later. Clearly, if enough people use a word – including irregardless – it is a word. But clearly anyone who uses the word irregardless is an idiot. Irregardless of nationality or social status. Apparently an entire country – the United States – is happy to use the phrase “I could care less” instead of the logical, coherent and correct “I couldn’t care less”. So, as the linguists say, all you need to validate a word is a community of speakers. It’s just that they’d all be wrong. Bite my Yank arse. I never say "I could care less" unless I mean that I could, in fact, care less (that never happens). If you want to really piss off a language nerd, say "I could care fewer." And it’s all well having this debate behind a screen, but do those who think irregardless is an abomination think they’d come out looking good or smart if they corrected someone’s use of it in person? This is true of most internet arguments. Still, if there were a way, in spoken English, to differentiate between "its" and "it's," and someone I was talking to used the wrong one of those, it would be almost impossible for me to not correct them. Unless I feel like they could take me in a fist fight. Having said all of that, I just can’t abide the word irregardless, I’m sorry. It is a mouthful, there is a word that exists that already does the job better, and it is double negative (the prefix “ir-” and the suffix “-less” are both negatives, so the word undoes itself). It creates more confusion than it does clarity – so really, what is the point in its existence? There are plenty of words that do the same job; what's the point of any of those redundant ones? I don't like it either, so I don't use it (except when I'm ragging on it), but I also don't use "decimate" to mean anything other than "remove one tenth of" (the word you're actually looking for there is "devastate"). Regardless (see what I did there), arguments about words are almost always fascinating because of what they reveal about the arguers. Literally. |
| Another one from Cracked today. The Random Number Generator moves in mysterious ways, its wonders to behold. I've been a science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. This doesn't mean I like all of it. I can even put up with playing fast and loose with science for the sake of plot. But when I started watching The Expanse, I almost stopped at the first episode (which would have been a mistake, as it turned out, because the story is very good.) What was it that almost stopped me? Sex. No, I'm not a prude. Nor is there any truth to the rumor that nerds never get laid. It's just that one of the opening scenes features zero-gravity sex (I don't consider it a spoiler if it's at the damn beginning). I have heard a lot of people, SF authors included, gush effervescently at the thought of being able to bone in free fall. Now, if any astronauts have gotten it on in orbit -- and I can't believe they haven't -- they've kept mum about it so far. So I don't have any actual data or even anecdotes about the practice. But if you've ever had sex, and also possess the ability to think critically about it while thinking about it (admittedly, a quality sadly lacking in humans in general), a moment's thought would make the entire idea of how great it must be flare and burn up in re-entry. Basically, unless there's a custom-made harness (which, given that space travel is now opening up to the wealthy portion of the general public, I really should design), sex in microgravity would be a -- I can't help this pun; sue me -- real pain in the ass. All it takes to understand this is a basic comprehension of Newton's Laws of Motion. I won't go into detail because I like keeping this blog 18+, but it simply won't work the way you think it'll work. So when that scene was up there setting the tone for the rest of the series, I almost switched to something more realistic, like Stargate or Lost in Space. Because I'll believe instant travel to distant planets, and sentient robots, before I'll believe that ZG sex without physical aid is even possible, let alone satisfying. Anyway, the point of all this rant is not to get you thinking about sex (which I know you are anyway), but to segué into other things that will suck about space, and for that, there's Cracked. 5. To Put It Plainly, The Radiation In Space Will Mess You Up Space looks empty and serene, but it's a chaotic hellscape of radiation. In addition to cancer-causing solar ejaculations, astronauts are bombarded by cosmic rays, produced by the cataclysmic deaths of stars that dwarf the Sun -- stars so big and mean they play keep-away with the Sun's Ninja Turtles lunch pail. When they explode, they launch protons and nuclei from heavy elements, like iron, at nearly the speed of light. These microscopic cannonballs obliterate any atom in their way, which spells bad news for astronauts, who are made of atoms. Incidentally, I'm not fact-checking all of this. What's written there that's also in my prior knowledge base, though, is entirely factual, if phrased for humorous effect. So you might be thinking, "But what about all the people on the ISS? They're not in the atmosphere; wouldn't they be affected by this?" Well, they've still got most of the magnetic field protecting them. The astronauts that went to the Moon were outside its protection for days or weeks at most, so their dosage wasn't all that bad. But a trip to Mars, for example, will take nine months with current technology. And while they're actually on Mars, the article points out: Researchers calculated that an 8-inch-thick layer of fungus could negate an entire annual radiation dose on Mars, which is 66-times greater than on Earth, where we're protected by an atmosphere and magnetic field. Alternatively, just go underground. 4. Space Life Constantly Introduces New Medical Problems A study used ultrasound to track astronauts' circulation as it passed through the left jugular vein in the neck, which collects blood from the brain. Six of the eleven astronauts displayed stagnant blood flow, which sloshed back and forth, or reverse blood flow, which traveled (the wrong way) up toward the brain faster than those "return this nickel to feed a child" letters travel to the trash. All of our systems are "designed" (that is, they evolved) to work in approximately one G. We're clever, and we can usually find workarounds, but when a whole lot of systems - skeletal, circulatory, muscular, etc. - start failing all at once, you get chaos. Not the mystical version, but the physical one, where tipping one thing a tiny bit could have massive repercussions. The gravity on Mars is about 0.4G, and as far as I know, we don't know if that's enough to mitigate some of this. But they're talking about putting a colony on the Moon now, which sounds awesome, but the gravity there is about 0.17G. I'm sure the guinea pigsbrave pioneers who first join that colony will provide reams of scientific data about surviving (or not) in a low-G environment. 3. Spacefarers May Be Eating Subpar Urine Tomatoes Pretty sure that's what they sell at the local Food Lion anyway. Popular science-fiction gets one thing (partially) correct: colonists on the Moon and Mars will have to grow their food. Not in expansive Martian greenhouses or lush hydroponic gardens, but in tanks are full of piss that could provide an essential food source to sustain cosmic exploration. Unlike astronauts aboard the ISS, colonists can't rely on terrestrial supply lines. So the German space agency, DLR, hopes to solve two problems at once by turning urine into fertilizer. All of this sounds gross, I know, but just remember: everything you drink or eat contains molecules that were once in somebody's excretions. Nature recycles all that. All we're doing is streamlining the process. Chances are, it won't be as good as an ecosystem, but pretty soon we won't have one of those anyway, so, so what? 2. Colonists Will Be Weak-Boned And Kidney-Stoned According to mainstream science fiction, colonists will need to be hard and hearty for all sorts of strenuous space activities, be it farming, building shelters, or engaging in high-speed, low-gravity rover chases. But when space colonists arrive on other worlds, their bones may be too brittle to outrun and outgun space pirates and Martian sandworms. That's because the stresses of gravity are essential for maintaining bone strength. This goes back to what I said before: we evolved on a one-G world. 1. Space Colonists' Living Accommodations Will Be Less Than Luxurious Life on other planets is going to be sah-weet! We'll live in giant domed cities with tree-lined pavilions, drive flying cars, and attend soda fountain socials like back in the '50s! Or that's what we've been promised. Yeah, maybe, eventually. But for now, I'm content to read about other people drinking their own piss, tunneling underground, and not having satisfying sex in space. |
| This one's about one of my favorite subjects. Yes, it's from Cracked. One of the few bright spots of living in this world today is that we can get food from practically anywhere. Not everything, sure; some things don't ship well, and there's not enough demand for others. But restaurants from other regional cuisines crop up everywhere, and I don't care what anyone says, this is an unmitigated boon for society. But then there's stuff like this. 5. Suburban Ohio's Proudly Uncooked Pizza ...the local specialty of Ohio Valley pizza, where the cheese and toppings are added on cold, after the sauce and crust come out of the oven. Everyone has an opinion about pizza. For me, it's that New York style pizza is pizza, and everything else (yes, including anything in Italy) is, at best, a pale simulation thereof; at worst, as with Chicago style "pizza," it's not pizza at all. But I make an exception for Ohio. The pizza there is different from New York style: thinner crust, and sometimes they cut it into (mostly) squares. But it's delicious. Many years ago, I used to find any excuse to go to Ohio just for Massey's Pizza (we can get NY style here in my town, but not Ohio style). Last time I went to one, though, either they'd changed the way it was made, or my tastes had altered -- whichever, it ain't what it used to be. But this? This, I'd never heard of. 4. Hawaii's Guilty Pleasure Spam Sushi "Decolonize your bookshelf" is one thing, but decolonizing your plate is impossible: So many foods that feel too normal to even think about happened because of colonialism. Without empires and armies, Italy wouldn't have tomatoes, Ireland wouldn't have potatoes, and the Pacific islands wouldn't have Spam, which is just as important as the other two. When it comes to food, I don't give a shit about "cultural appropriation." The most popular Spam dish by a mile, though, is Spam musubi, a kind of Spam sushi that consists of a fried slice of the pink stuff, a big ball of sticky rice, and some nori to wrap them together. Unlike the pizza, this one I've seen. Note I said "seen." I cannot ever bring myself to eat Spam. No, the one Hawaiian dish I crave is Loco Moco, which is ground beef and fried eggs over rice. It's a week's worth of calories in one dish, and it's worth every pound. But I can't be arsed to make it myself, so I'll have to wait until I can either go back to Hawaii, or the local Hawaiian place wises up and starts serving it. 3. Cincinnati's Challenging Chocolate-Cinnamon-Cheese Chili On paper, it should be impossible to make chili weird enough to earn a spot on its list. The whole idea of chili is you do it your way, and say "screw you" to anyone without the taste buds to handle it. Veggies? Meat? Spice? Thickness? Toppings? Oh, but they neglect to mention that there are people in Texas who will shoot you dead if you put beans in chili. You can't go wrong ... but you can go to Cincinnati, and that's pretty close. This doesn't just mean chili. I don't know if I've had official Skyline chili as the article describes, but I did once try the general chili-pasta combination and... well, it's not bad. 2. A Sloppy Joe That Isn't The Joe You Know ...there's no real reason that a Sloppy Joe needs to be ground beef on a bun. If you feel crushed under the tyrannical boot of Manwich's dominion, then there's a place where you can escape: northern New Jersey, where a sloppy joe is a triple-decker deli sandwich with cold cuts, cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing. I've been to New Jersey way more than I've been to Ohio, and I've never seen this. Depending on the cold cuts, though, that could be damn delicious. You might know similar versions of these sandwiches as a Reuben or a Rachel -- as if those names had any more meaning -- but these Sloppy Joes actually have a way better documented history than the cafeteria kind. According to the Town Hall Deli in South Orange, the deli sandwich is a recreation of a house specialty from Cuba -- specifically, the specialty of a spot in Havana named Sloppy Joe's. Okay, no. There may be a superficial similarity, but a Reuben is hot. Always, always, always. Only idiots in the South try to serve it cold (by way of fairness, the North can't do grits or biscuits & gravy, so it tends to even out). 1. Dirt, Just Dirt ...you know what? I'm going to let you bask in this one all on your own. And for once, after linking a food thing here, I find I'm not hungry at all. I mean, I started to feel some pangs in the middle, there, but after that last one, I don't think I'll be eating anything for a while. Now I need an article on regional liquors and where I can find interesting ones. Eventually I'll be able to road trip again... I hope. |
| Finally, vindication! This isn't confirmation bias talking at all. Sarcasm Spurs Creative Thinking Although snarky comments can cause conflict, a little verbal irony also stimulates new ideas Yeah, sure it does. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence,” that connoisseur of witticisms, Oscar Wilde, is said to have remarked. No, fart jokes are the lowest form of wit. The reason is simple: sarcasm carries the poisonous sting of contempt, which can hurt others and harm relationships. By its very nature, it invites conflict. That's only if people detect it. Or, in my case, when I do detect it, I play it straight, like I didn't. That sometimes throws them off balance. Sarcasm involves constructing or exposing contradictions between intended meanings. Because no other forms of expression do that. And yet behavioral scientists Li Huang of INSEAD business school, Adam D. Galinsky of Columbia University and I have found that sarcasm may also offer an unexpected psychological payoff: greater creativity. Sure, yep. That's why I'm so damn creative. And sarcasm can be easily misinterpreted, particularly when it is communicated electronically... All of my attempts at turning Comic Sans into the Official Sarcasm Font have failed miserably. Anyway, the article goes on to describe a psychology experiment -- like most psychology experiments, the guinea pigs were college students -- to test the author's claim in the headline. Given the risks, your best bet is to keep conversational zingers limited to those you know well, lest you cause offense. Nope. I'd rather piss off strangers on the internet. Not here, usually - I have other sites for that. Anyway, it's an interesting result though, to be serious about it, I have doubts concerning the sample size and lack of diversity in experimental subjects. But it's probably worth pursuing further. Not by me, though. I'll just have to read about it (this article is five years old and for all I know, they've already followed up). But I'm reminded of an old story -- could be a joke, could be real; I can't tell -- about a college English class where the professor was talking about the double negative. He said something like, "You can string two negatives together to make a positive, but there's no instance of stringing two positives together to make a negative." To which one student muttered, "Yeah, right." Mini-Contest Results! Great comments! Thanks for all of them. Hard to pick just one that stood out, because everyone had some real gems, but I'm going with Kåre Enga in Udon Thani's five rules (though I must note that Lilli's point about tequila is absolutely true). For everyone else, I'll do this again soon! I really want to do MB entries more often; it's just that usually I get caught up in the post and then I forget. I'll try to be better at it, at least 2-3 per month (spaced out so I don't have to worry as much about CR eligibility). |
| Well, after two days of heavy shit, how about a good old-fashioned Bloomberg roast? After 45 Birthdays, Here Are '12 Rules for Life' Don't lose friends over politics. Don't lose a spouse over pickles. The headline made me laugh. The subhead made me stop laughing. But of course, the article is from early 2018, before politics became life-or-death, and pickles were cheaper. Yesterday was Jan. 29, meaning that Oprah Winfrey and I are each a year older: 64 and 45. Of all the crappy reasons to name-drop, sharing a birthday has got to be on top of the list. Why not brag about being an Aquarius while you're at it? Forty-five is somehow a very definite year; there is no question that you are middle aged. Average age of death is roughly 80 years, being generous and also noting that the writer is female (statistically longer-lived). Half of 80 is 40. So 31-50 is what should be considered middle age. Sorry, Megan, you're now (three years after this article) two years away from being an old lady. At 45 one takes stock. I think it's the rule that any Bloomberg article has to have the word "stock" in it. The building years of your life are over, and what you are now is pretty much what you are going to be. Soon it will be what you were. Bite my ass. You can no longer tell yourself that you might move to Lisbon, learn Portuguese, and take up the guitar. You cannot learn Portuguese at your age. You can’t remember new words anymore; you can’t even remember where you have left your keys. Bite my ass hard and then kiss it better. And you may want to go get a cognitive test. I started learning French two years ago, at much older than 45. Sure, it's taking me longer than it would some kid, and my memory is far from perfect, but I'm not ready to stop learning yet. J'apprends ce que je veux apprendre. Oh, and I know exactly where my keys are (Je sais où sont mes clés). And my phone (mon portable), and my glasses (mes lunettes). Not sure about my cat (Je ne sais pas où est mon chat), but they tend to wander about on their own. (I'm not trying to pretend I know a lot of French, and I'm certainly not fluent, but I am making the point that she's wrong about the language thing.) So it seems a good opportunity to do two things. First, to wish Oprah Winfrey a happy belated birthday. She's not going to sleep with you. And second, to address this “12 Rules for Life” meme that you young whippersnappers have got up to on the social medias. Did I forget the "12 Rules for Life" meme? Oh, no, wait, I didn't give a shit or follow les réseaux sociaux so whatever. I am probably more than halfway through my life now; I ought to have some rules. If you're lucky, yeah, but again, might want to get that memory checked out. And no, it works exactly the other way around: the older you get, the less you need rules, and the more you can cheerfully break the ones society has laid out for you. To demonstrate this, I'mma destroy this punk's "rules." 1. Be kind. Mean is easy; kind is hard. While it doesn't do to be a bully, sometimes you just have to kick someone's ass (metaphorically; I'm not into actual violence unless it's absolutely necessary). Someone says something stupid? Call 'em out. To be fair, that might be a lesson learned since early 2018. 2. Politics is not the most important thing in the world... If you have to choose between politics and a friendship, choose the friendship every time. Yeah, no, I've cut off more than a few freakin' idiots who are on the wrong side of the aisle. Especially over the past 18 months or so. 3. Always order one extra dish at a restaurant, an unfamiliar one. I'm all for trying new things from time to time, but dammit, commit. Just order the new thing. I hate taking home leftovers and I'm not ordering (and therefore eating) two meals in one sitting. 4. Give yourself permission to be bad. You know what you’re really good at? Things you’ve done many times before. Mastery is boredom. Typed like someone who's never mastered anything. 5. Go to the party even when you don’t want to. Okay, I'm an introvert and I've never not wanted to go to a party. Leave early? Sure, sometimes. I guess it's because I get invited to parties, like, once a year. Less now. So I have to take advantage of it when I am. 6. Save 25 percent of your income. Yeah, right, this- no, wait, I can't argue with this one. She's right. 7. Don’t just pay people compliments; give them living eulogies. Yeah, if you're a chick you can get away with this. If you're an old guy with a beard, you get labeled "creep." 8. That thing you kinda want to do someday? Do it now. I mean, literally, pause reading this column, pick up the phone, and book that skydiving session. RIGHT NOW. Before-Time-like typing detected. 9. Early modernist critics used to complain about the sanitized unreality of “nice” books with no bathrooms. The great modernist mistake was to decide that if books without sewers were unrealistic, “reality” must be the sewers. This was a greater error than the one it aimed to correct. And so we ended up with post-modernism, in which nothing matters, everything has to be dissected and deconstructed, and nothing can be enjoyed for what it is, only blasted for what its implications are. Incidentally, I finally got to the point in my chronological Trek watching that I heard a reference to a bathroom. I think it was on DS9. It took until the mid-90s. 10. Don’t try to resolve fundamental conflicts with your spouse or roommates. Don't have fundamental conflicts with spice or roommates. Better yet, don't have a spouse or a roommate if you're going to be picky about things. I mean, like... I have this thing about sticks of butter. They have to be cut square, or the rest of the stick is ruined. Fortunately, my housemate has her own butter stash, so it's not an issue. 11. Be grateful. No matter how awful your life seems at the moment, you have something to be grateful for. Focus on it with the laser-like, single-minded devotion of a dog eyeing a porterhouse. Okay, I like that image, but still...  12. Always make more dinner rolls than you think you can eat. Look, I'm a big fan of bread, and I like to eat, but I'm older than this lady, and there are limits to how much I can stuff into my dough-hole. So of course, I had to come up with my own 12 Rules for Life. They don't parallel hers. But these are things I've learned with my far greater life experience: 1. Never go grocery shopping while hungry. 2. Don't pretend to like (or dislike) something just because everyone else likes (or dislikes) it. 3. Eat what you're craving (just maybe not too much of it). 4. Sleep when you're tired. 5. Sex is overrated. 6. Don't interrupt my writing unless something is on fire, or you want to be. 7. Always have a backup for critical systems (e.g. keep a paper map in your car for when your GPS craps out). 8. Make sure there's always booze in the house. (Or, you know, whatever your favorite drink is.) 9. Own, don't rent. (This isn't just about housing.) 10. Pay extra for quality shoes. 11. Money isn't everything, but it can buy you anything. Maybe it can't buy happiness, but it can buy beer, and that's good enough for me. 12. Automate everything you can. Maybe you have your own Rules (or Guidelines). Which means it's finally time for another... Merit Badge Mini-Contest! Got your own Rules for Life? Doesn't have to be 12, but say a minimum of 5. Post them in a comment on this entry. It's okay to use one of the rules above (hers or mine), but put your own spin on it if you do so. The comment I like best will earn its author a Merit Badge tomorrow (Wednesday). As usual, the deadline is midnight WDC time at the end of today, Tuesday, September 14. |
| Today's article is a long one, and I couldn't blame anyone for not reading the whole thing, because I started skimming it after a while, myself. Meet the People Who Believe They’ve Traveled to a Past Life Christopher was an ancient Egyptian prisoner. Stephanie's dating the man who had her murdered. They and many others swear by the controversial benefits of past-life regression. I also couldn't blame anyone for going right now, "Waltz, why are you even giving this bullshit oxygen?" Bear with me on this one. No, I don't "believe" in past lives. But we also don't understand how the mind works, and we have to start somewhere. The unsettling visions and sensations Benjamin experienced while imprisoned thousands of years ago were part of what he thinks may have been a past life. His mind traveled to that time and place during a session of past-life regression, a practice in which a person, under hypnosis or in a meditative state, experiences a memory that they believe is from a time when their soul inhabited another body. I get unsettling visions and sensations sometimes, too. They're commonly known as bad dreams. We may not know much about the mind, but we do know it's capable of giving us sensations with little to no connection to external reality. The American Psychological Association is deeply skeptical of past-life regression’s viability, and there are serious questions about the ethics of using it as a treatment. Skepticism is good. Outright rejection can be counterproductive. But, Bliliuos says, “In hypnosis, you go always to the most important memory you’ve experienced,” whether that’s in this life or perhaps a previous one. I feel obligated to point out -- in case you skim the part where the article mentions it -- that another thing we do know is that hypnosis is very, very good at installing false memories. Notions of reincarnation are diverse and nuanced, but for past-life regression advocates like Eli Bliliuos, the New York hypnotist, “The basic belief is that we are souls; we choose to incarnate these bodies for purposes of learning from experience, growing from experience.” I want to respect peoples' beliefs, but at the same time, how about some real evidence? Or, at the very least, a plausible mechanism whereby memories can be transferred? And what about other hypotheses about what's going on here? Like, for instance, as I noted above, false memories or dreams? Full disclosure, though, I've had dreams that seemed to be about past lives, also. That doesn't mean that it's any more than "seemed to be." I've forgotten, on a conscious level, almost everything I've ever read or heard, but who's to say that some tidbit from history or a novel set in the past didn't lurk in my subconscious? As support for this, I also read a lot of science fiction, so one might expect unconscious visions of the future, spaceships or other worlds in such instances, and behold, yeah, I get those too. Once a traditional psychotherapist, Weiss... has written that he was a past-life regression skeptic at first. But a hypnotized patient of his, whom he called “Catherine” in one of his books, recounted past-life memories that were so precisely outlined and, as it turned out, historically accurate, that he felt it was impossible she could have invented them. One way to verify reincarnation would, of course, be to find details that fit historical facts. But the question would always remain: how can you tell the difference between that, and someone's vivid but subconscious memory of reading history books or memoirs? Bliliuos and other advocates of past-life regression say that you don’t have to believe in reincarnation to benefit from the experience. He recalls one session with a client who told him that they thought their past-life regression was a figment of their imagination. “That’s perfectly fine,” Bliliuos responded, but he asked them to at least consider whether the vision might be a message from their unconscious. If it had some relevance to their life now, then the important element of the experience was the lesson they took away from it. “Who cares if it’s ‘real’?” he adds. For me, though, this is the important bit. The fact of a phenomenon remains even if none of the explanations for it fit (I have another article in the wings about UFOs, or UAPs as they're trying to get us to call them, and I had many of the same thoughts reading that). I look at the past-life thing as a kind of a metaphor, and humans can be better at relating to metaphors than to reality. If it helps one deal with one's problems, then what's the harm? Well, for one thing, the harm is that if you start believing bullshit, there's no end to the bullshit you could believe. I once had a conversation with Kid Me. We were chatting back at the place where I grew up, a sunny summer day, everything golden, green and still, with the oppressive humidity that anyone in the general vicinity of Washington, DC knows all too well. Not to mention the clouds of gnats that we both swatted at during our discussion. Sight, smell, sound... all there, all achingly real. Going into the conversation, I had no memory of speaking to my older self. What we actually talked about, I don't remember. Of course it was a dream. But I woke from the dream with the strange sensation of remembering the conversation from both points of view: Kid Me and Decrepit Me. More, though, I was at peace about... something. Damned if I remember what, but I vividly remember the sensation of being calm and content. It was as if the conversation had settled something that had been bugging the back of my head (like those goddamned gnats) for all those years. I'm under absolutely no illusion that I "actually" went back in time and talked to my younger self. It was a dream, a construct of a sleeping mind. But the dream, or hallucination, or mental exercise, whatever you want to call it, had a real effect. At least for a while. Then I had to go do something or other and it was back to the daily annoyances. But the point is that something about it changed my mental state, at least temporarily. So, similarly, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that "I" (however that is defined if there's no continuity of consciousness) experienced an actual past life, but if there's something in the story, metaphor, or memory that helps me come to grips with something... well, that's okay. But will it, though? That's the real question. As the article points out, it can also lead to harm. I just wish people wouldn't attribute extraordinarily unlikely things to the activities of one's mind. Sure, I can't rule out reincarnation, any more than I could rule out unicorns or underground lizard people or Bigfoot or space aliens. But I need more than just "I experienced X, so Y *must* be true." It doesn't follow, and there's no plausible mechanism for it. “My conclusion, then,” Andrade states, “is that it is better to play it safe.” He advocates that people seek out more evidence-based forms of treatment instead. Absolutely agree with this. But at the same time, we (by which I mean, people who train for this sort of thing) should be working on finding out more about how the mind works. More evidence, as it were. |
| This article is from back in April, and some things might have changed since then. But I'm linking it anyway, because I have things to say about risk management and science. Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime The CDC has finally said what scientists have been screaming for months: The coronavirus is overwhelmingly spread through the air, not via surfaces. Last week [again, this is from back in April], the CDC acknowledged what many of us have been saying for almost nine months about cleaning surfaces to prevent transmission by touch of the coronavirus: It’s pure hygiene theater. Some of us have been calling the stuff the TSA does at airports "security theater," and for similar reasons. It inconveniences and embarrasses people while not contributing significantly to actual safety -- but it makes it look like they're doing something when they make you take your shoes of because one fucking asshole tried to light a shoe bomb that one time, and failed. But. To get one thing straight: science changes, refines, and sometimes backtracks. There is very little absolute truth in science, just levels of certainty. This bothers the living shit out of some people, who expect things to remain the same all the time. For many people, the first thing they hear is The Truth, and anything later that contradicts it must be a lie. Science works exactly the opposite way. So when they say "clean surfaces to reduce possibility of transmission," then a few months later say, "Well, no, it turns out it's mostly airborne," that reflects the ongoing refinement of the body of knowledge. Neither is Truth or Falsehood; they're both the best they could do with limited information. I'm not quoting much from the article, I know. You can read it at the link. Like I said, it's not the specific content I wanted to talk about, but the process behind it. I said I also wanted to talk about risk assessment. Consider the following scenario: There is a person who is scared shitless of flying. Absolutely terrified, to the point where they have to take a sedative on the flight. Of course, any flight includes a risk; airplanes have, in fact, been known to drop right out of the sky. That's scary, right? But this person has to fly anyway, for business or for family, whatever, so they suck it up, take the pills, and get it over with. But what they should be worried about isn't the flight. The chances of a disaster are vanishingly small. Not zero, of course, but really damn tiny. No, if they're worried about being killed, what they should be concerned about is the drive to the airport (whether they're driving or ridesharing or on a bus). Your chance of being killed in an auto accident -- that is, doing something that most of us do every single day -- is many orders of magnitude greater than your chance of being killed on an airplane. And yet many people blithely drive around, maybe taking basic precautions but still doing stuff like texting while driving, without the massive anxiety that flying gives them.Risk also isn't just about probabilities. It's also about consequences. Think of the probability of an event as a continuum from low to high. That's one axis. How bad the effects might be would be a continuum from "whatever" to "holy shit." It's like... I used to design dams. Not big honkin' dams like Hoover, but little pond and lake dams for stormwater management. Dams can fail, of course, just like anything else. So you design to minimize the risk of failure (you can't, of course, reduce the risk to zero; it reaches a point of diminishing returns). But what you do depends, in part, on what's downstream of the dam. If there's a subdivision there, you put in some more safeguards because there's the risk of serious damage. If it's just a bunch of wilderness and then a river, well, you still don't want the thing to fail, but the potential for damage or loss of life is significantly smaller. Or take a thing that actually happened to me once. I was out at a jobsite, looking at how deep a gas line was after they exposed it with an excavator. Now, this wasn't an ordinary, residential natural gas line; it was the big-ass pipeline delivering methane to the entire city. The excavator exercised extraordinary caution (we had to know how deep it was actually buried), and the lines had been built sturdily enough, but you never know with these things. So there I am, on the edge of the pit, watching as someone took out a tape measure. Some old guy, I don't even know who it was, comes up to the edge of the pit smoking a cigarette. In that instance, the chance of there being a gas leak was really, really tiny. But the potential consequences of sparking that leak were absolutely disastrous - big boom, gas cut off to the entire city, etc. Risk management also has to do with what steps one needs to take to mitigate it. In that example, there was one simple step, and only one, that needed to be made: don't smoke near exposed gas mains. Cheap, simple, and you don't have to be an engineer to understand it. But as I said, risk reduction reaches a point of diminishing returns. It's why most school buses don't have seat belts: in part, it's because the cost to install them is too high relative to the marginal increase in safety they'd bring. It's why levees aren't generally 150' tall, able to withstand any imaginable flood event, but rather designed for 100 year or 500 year storms, depending on what they're protecting. (The misconceptions about x-year storm events are also a problem, but this has gone on long enough already.) The bottom line is, it's impossible to eliminate risk. The best any of us can do is risk management. Masks don't completely stop spread of aerosolized viruses, but they help. Vaccines don't completely stop the spread, but they're a huge help. And, as this article points out, surface transmission is probably a lesser factor, and it's nice to have clean things, but if you go overboard you're taking resources away from other options, and the marginal decrease in risk isn't worth heroic efforts. I've seen people throw up their hands in despair: if something can't be perfect, might as well not do it at all! Why bother? Well, this is why we bother: even if the risk can never go to zero, reducing it is still a worthwhile goal, especially if the methods used to reduce it are cheap and simple. And that's all the ranting I'm going to do about that for now. |
| It might be that we're interpreting history wrong. Not to mention prehistory. What the caves are trying to tell us Whatever they once said to their authors, they scream their message of no message across the millennia to us now. Every so often, I get the urge to drag someone into a cave, and show them something unspeakable. Pervert. Plenty of caves would do, but let’s take him to the Cueva de la Pileta in Andalucia, Spain. There, we’ll push him into one of its huge, damp, cool cathedral-halls of fractured rock, where the darkness and the vastness of empty space seem to press themselves tightly against your skin, close and clawed and ancient. We know that there were people here, some 20,000 years ago. They left their millstones and their axe-heads; they left walls blackened with soot from fires that went out eons ago, leaving traces across a chasm of time that could swallow up the entirety of recorded history four times over. They left the bodies of their dead. And they left marks on the walls. The people who lived in this cave 20,000 years ago, people who lived lives it’s impossible for us to even imagine, are still trying to talk to us. Oh. Never mind. Were our ancestors just playing, with a child’s hesitancy, at the perilous game of turning bits of pigment into an abstract form beyond space and time? Or had they, long before we realized, found a way to make dead objects speak? Not coherently. Anyway, the article goes on to relate those cave drawings to thoughts on evolutionary psychology, which I've ragged on in here before because, at least in its popular version, it's extraordinarily unscientific. Evopsych combines every unscientific pop-science trope that makes people feel smart for believing in bullshit: a fetishism of geneticism and evolutionary processes, a refusal of diachronicity, and a dogmatic insistence on the cosmological principle that blankets the universe and its past in crushing sameness. It's one thing to appreciate science. It's another thing entirely to misuse it to bolster one's own biases. We saw it with eugenics, as people cited so-called science to enshrine their self-appointed genetic superiority; we saw it with quantum physics with mystics claiming it proved Eastern philosophy or some such. And we see it all the time with evolutionary psychology. It works like this. You start with a vague stereotype about the failings of other people that you’d like to lend some scientific heft — to take Damore’s example, the idea that “women generally have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men.” You note that this behaviour is not particularly useful in an environment where just about everybody has to feign interest in some kind of tedious nonsense just so they can feed themselves; it’s not, in evolutionary parlance, an adaptive trait. But humans are no longer biologically evolving; if people are behaving in this way, it must be because these traits evolved to be advantageous in what’s called the “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness:” an assumed, theoretical environment of pure biological utility which is supposed to have existed in the Pleistocene, the hunter-gatherer era stretching from two and a half million years ago to just ten thousand years short of the present, the age that produced those strange markings in the caves of Europe. This environment, it’s assumed, was exactly the same for everyone, and those primitive plains still haunt our perceptions today. If women aren’t making as much money programming Google gadgets to collect data on every aspect of our lives, it must be because evolution once gave men the skills needed to throw a stick at a reindeer, while women were stuck with the traits for childrearing and patience. The obvious and glaring problem with these "theories" is not just that they beg the question (in the original sense of the phrase), but that males and females aren't different species, and we all have traits from both parents. In scientific terms, this is bullshit. None of its accounts are testable or disprovable; evopsych is, for all its pretensions to rationality, a collection of just-so stories. As I've been saying. The real social danger of this sort of thinking is, as far as I can tell, related to the naturalistic fallacy. If, for example, you assume that every individual of a species must reproduce in order to advance the species, you end up marginalizing asexuals, homosexuals, and even people like me who make a conscious choice to avoid having kids. It completely bypasses the true nature of humanity -- we don't rely on genetic evolution, but on social evolution, which is a lot faster. Why is pink associated with girls and blue with boys? Ignore the fact that as recently as the 1920s the gender-color identification went the other way around; it’s because women evolved to spot pink-colored berries in the forest, and men evolved to hunt between the open plain and the wide blue sky. Why is there still a gender wage gap? It’s not the fault of our own society; it’s the fault of the Stone Age. Yep. You can come up with bullshit "evolutionary" explanations for just about anything. The next part of the text goes back to focus on the cave paintings, with a brief history of what people thought about them (spoiler: it usually reflected the in-vogue philosophies of the times). It's fascinating, because it gives more insight into the thinking of modern scholars than into the cave-dweller mind. As is appropriate. Within the mainstream, many theorists quietly assume that the caves served some kind of religious or proto-religious function. Their location deep in the bowels of the earth might have brought to mind some connection with a shamanic underworld or spirit realm where the animal-gods move in eternal masses. Or -- and bear with me here -- they demonstrate survivorship bias. It could be that prehistoric humans drew and painted everywhere: cliffs, trees, each other, animal skins, the ground, as well as in caves, but only the caves could preserve the art for thousands of years. I've also often been suspicious of "It was a religious thing," because, well, how do we know that except by comparison to recent history? Fortunately, the article addresses that, too. Of course, as a writer, I have my own bias: the idea that the symbol (be it representational art or its successor, the written language) stimulates a mental connection to the object it represents. In a sense, the picture becomes the pictured. This is a reflex in humans. If I show you a picture of a duck, you're may be just as likely to go "It's a duck!" as you are to go "It's a picture of a duck." At base, it's neither; it's a collection of pixels or paint on canvas or precise patches of pigment on photographic paper. What we call something doesn't always reflect its reality. We interpret it as a duck, though, and for most purposes, that's all that matters. But drill down far enough, and you're left with quantum uncertainty and the squiggles of wave functions; pull out far enough, and you can't see it at all. For me, it's meaningless to search for meaning beyond the personal. We can't even agree on the meaning of something that happened 20 years ago; how can we possibly hope to come to a consensus on what is a thousand times older than that? Still, this doesn't mean we should stop trying. If there is meaning to life, it's in the trying, not the success or failure. We're making our own cave drawings now, and maybe whatever's around in 20,000 years will put their own spin on things. |
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