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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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Another entry for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+] today:Charmeuse Unlike some people, I'm not proud of my ignorance. Nor do I pretend I don't have any. It's always a great moment for me when I learn something new, even if it's about a topic I don't have a lot of interest in... such as fashion, which is the theme of this month's JI. So until these prompts were posted, I don't think I'd ever even seen or heard the word "charmeuse." And I also restrained myself from looking it up, just in case it became one of the eight out of sixteen prompts that I'd end up picking at random and I could proclaim my ignorance in public. And behold, it was. So let's see. Before I look it up, I have some guesses. The word "Charmeuse" is in the section of Fabrics prompts, along with nylon, silk, and wool—all of which I am familiar with, so why couldn't I have gotten one of those... oh well, I'd have less material (pun absolutely intended) to work with. So I will start out by assuming (and shut up about "ass-u-me" already; we all make assumptions all the time just to get by) that charmeuse is a fabric. Easy enough. What else? Well, the word seems French, so my next assumption is that the initial sound is more like sh as in shit than ch as in chit. Look, even after three and a half years of French lessons, I don't consider myself fluent, but I see patterns (though I have no idea, as yet, if charmeuse is a patterned fabric or not). And if I had to take a stab at "charmeuse," I'd guess it's the feminine word for "charmer" or "one who charms" (the masculine version being most likely "charmeur" if it indeed exists in the language). This is like how "singer" (the vocal thing, not the fabric sewing machine company) can be translated as chanteur or chanteuse. I should emphasize that I'm using masculine and feminine in their linguistic meanings, not the sociopollitical meanings, which have become a minefield. Alternatively, it refers to someone who prefers Charmin toilet paper, much as "bounty hunter" refers to someone who was searching for paper towels during the pandemic supply shortages. It being French tracks, because when you think of fashion, you think of Italy, France, and maybe Mobile, AlabamaNew York City, the latter of which uses Italian and French names for fashion to make themselves seem superior. I can also provisionally rule out nylon, silk, and wool as being synonyms, so it's probably a completely different material... though my confidence level on that isn't very high, as you also have, say, felt (the fabric, not the past tense verb), which is a different form of wool in much the same way as graphite is a different form of carbon. And that's the limits of my guesswork. Let's see how I did, courtesy of Wikipedia: Charmeuse (French: [ʃaʁmøz]), from the French word for female charmer... Il est d'accord. Point pour moi. ...is a lightweight fabric woven with a satin weave, in which the warp threads cross over four or more of the backing (weft) threads. Another thing I learned fairly recently: satin isn't a base material, like wool or silk, but a particular kind of weave. But satin is, as I understand it, most closely associated with silk. So deduct a point for me guessing it didn't have crossover with the other prompts. I have a vague idea what warp and weft are in relation to fabric, but only vague, and there's only so far I'm willing to go down a Wiki rabbit hole this morning. Charmeuse differs from plain satin in that charmeuse has a different ratio of float (face) threads, and is of a lighter weight. "Plain satin?" Charmeuse may be made of silk, polyester, or rayon. Cue the "one of these things is not like the others" earworm. It is used in women's clothing such as lingerie, evening gowns, and blouses, especially garments with a bias cut. See? I told you bias was everywhere. It is occasionally used in menswear. And yet it's still called charmeuse in that context. There's more detail at the Wikipedia link, though I shouldn't have to remind anyone that I wouldn't use it as a definitive source (and I can't be arsed to follow all those links at the bottom). Any day when I learn something new is, in my opinion, a good day. Especially when it's source material (yes, I used that pun before) for comedy. |
| Speaking of words... We’ve all experienced how certain sounds can grate on our nerves, such as the noise made by dragging your fingernails across a blackboard or the cry of a baby... I suspect most people don't know what their own fingernails sound like dragged across a blackboard. Partly because who uses blackboards anymore, since like the 90s, and also partly because most people aren't evil enough to do it themselves. I, however, know exactly what my fingernails sounds like dragged across a blackboard. Certainly I was a baby, but I don't remember how annoying my cries were. Knowing me, "very." ...but it turns out that the sounds of some words (like “virus”) can also affect how we feel and even give us a clue to what they mean (something to avoid). I'd expect it to be the other way around: the name for something you want to avoid takes on a bad connotation. But that's why I'm reading the article, isn't it? This phenomenon, where the sound of a word triggers an emotion or a meaning, is referred to as “sound symbolism”. Yet the idea that there might be a link between the sound of words and their meaning flies against accepted linguistic thinking going back more than a century. And? Sometimes paradigms get reversed. In our book... Of course it's another book ad. What else is free on the internet anymore? Apart from this blog, I mean. ...we outline a radically new perspective on how we, as humans, got language in the first place, how children can learn and use it so effortlessly, and how sound symbolism figures into this. Okay. Well, that first part sounds like speculation, but okay. For example, if you pick a language at random that has the concept of “red”, the corresponding word is more likely than not to have an “r” sound in it — such as “rød” in Danish, “rouge” in French, and “krasnyy” (красный) in Russian. Um. The way an R is pronounced can be way different in different languages, such as the trilled R of Spanish or the nearly-German-CH sound of the letter in French. Made-up words can be sound symbolic too. All words are made up. Some just longer ago than others. And I'd be more surprised if newly minted words didn't have sound symbolism. Like when people go "whoosh" when a joke flies over someone's head. In a classic study from 1929, the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler observed that when Spanish speakers were shown a rounded shape and a spiky one and asked which one they thought were called “baluba” and which “takete”, most associated baluba with roundedness and takete with spikiness. So much for flying against "accepted linguistic thinking going back more than a century." Computer modelling of how children learn language has revealed that, as a child’s vocabulary grows, it becomes harder and harder to have unique sounds to signal different aspects of meaning (such as that all words relating to water should start with a “w”). Indeed, in a study of English sound-meaning mappings, we found that words that tend to be acquired earlier in development were more sound symbolic than words that are acquired later. Computer modeling is a powerful tool, but it's only part of science. Also, I'm quite surprised these authors don't go into the "m" sound widely present in words associated with motherhood. Maybe they do, in the book. I don't have much else to say, really (except "moist"). The article is less substantive than most book ads (which, again, I don't have a problem with here on a writing site), but the little bit of speculation I saw in it doesn't make me want to delve deeper by buying the book... and I'm predisposed to appreciating books on linguistics. Still, I feel like it's something to keep in mind while writing, especially (but not limited to) writing that's going to be spoken, like a speech or screenplay: that the sound of words matters as well as their literal meaning. |
| Today's entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] is about something that I never notice until it fails. Hem This word has a few definitions, but since the overall theme of this month's JI is clothing, I'm going to assume it's not referring to a makeshift fence or one of the sounds of indecision (along with "haw," which also pairs well with "hee.") A while back, some bored scientists decided to program a computer to trace the evolution of language (specifically English, because these were UK scientists) backwards and forwards, both predicting where it might go from here, and delving deep into times from which few written records survive. This, of course, was reported in various outlets as "Scientists discover oldest words in English!!!" Which is sensationalist and misleading as all fuck. There's an press release on it here, but it only gets more sensationalized the further you get from the source.If you can't be arsed to click, their candidates for Oldest Word in English are I, we, who, one, two, and three. As these words supposedly predate English, and long predate Modern English, it's a matter of definition to call them the oldest words in the language. And a while back, I did a blog entry on the word "lox," which they think hasn't changed in 8000 years. Here's the blog entry; unfortunately, the link is already broken: "Lox Pie" . I did, however, find an updated link to the original article, or at least some version thereof.So, what's all this hemming and hawing about? Well, in the course of researching this entry, I discovered that the word "hem," as used in fashion, dates at least from the 12th century C.E., and possibly from even earlier. Which makes it about 1/10th as old as "lox," but also puts it firmly into a time when some form of English was being used.This wasn't, presumably, figured out by a computer that may or may not have been programmed correctly, but from what sparse written records survive. I can't be sure about that, but I would believe that "hem" is quite old, because, in general, shorter words live longer, and the idea of hemming a cloth garment is not something that's changed over time (though obviously, the technology to do it has). One hems a garment to adjust its size, but the primary practical use is to keep a cut edge of cloth from fraying. Like a splice on the end of a rope, only in two dimensions. So when it comes to discovering the origins of words, there's no need to be a-frayed. |
| It's Sunday (some say Easter Sunday), so it's time once again to forget the worries of the present and focus on the disaster of the past. Apparently, back in 2020 (a pretty bad year from most perspectives), I'd had a few blog entries, most of which I vaguely remember, talking about panpsychism, the persistent belief (for it is a belief, not scientific knowledge) that consciousness arises in complex life because every thing in the universe, including subatomic particles, has a rudimentary form of consciousness. I may not be getting it exactly right, but that's the gist of it. Naturally (pun intended), I push back—not from any deep-seated need to be special, but because it's not, as far as I've been able to tell, a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. Apparently, I pushed back a few times, based on the title of the entry ("Once More With Feeling" ), and the first line:This is probably the last bit about panpsychism I'll be linking. For now. Maybe. And I can't be arsed to scour every day since August 11, 2020 to see if I talked about it again until now. But let's turn this into a Merit Badge Mini-Contest. Yeah, I know, I haven't done one of these in a while. Interest seemed to peter out. But maybe I'll start them up again, perhaps once a month. Not today, though. Anyway, the link (available at the original entry above) is still active, if you're interested in what this publication, and one philosopher, has to say about it. This entry is about what I have to say about it. In the link above, I copied the "elevator pitch" for panpsychism: In our standard view of things, consciousness exists only in the brains of highly evolved organisms, and hence consciousness exists only in a tiny part of the universe and only in very recent history. According to panpsychism, in contrast, consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. And today, rereading this, I realized that I didn't address the misconception about evolution: that there are "highly evolved organisms" as opposed, apparently, to less-evolved organisms. That point of view is dangerously self-centered. Every living being on Earth shares a common ancestor. Every living thing on Earth has therefore been subject to evolutionary pressure for the same amount of time (3-4 billion years; the exact time is irrelevant to this discussion so I won't bother splitting hairs on it). We have certain adaptations that have made us very good at becoming an invasive species, even to the extent of being able to live in places like Antartica and, for at least a little while, on the moon. But that doesn't make us "highly evolved," any more than a bacterium is "highly evolved" because it acquired antibiotic resistance from its progenitors. None of this means that panpsychism is right. I'm just pointing out that the "standard view" noted in the quote is kind of a straw man. I can accept the idea that any living thing has some form of consciousness, but every nonliving thing? I'mma need evidence. "Consciousness pervades the universe" is more in the realm of theology, which requires no evidence. Anyway, the original entry goes deeper into other arguments, which I won't rehash here. Bottom line is, sure, it's a legitimate philosophy; it's also older than recorded language in humans (in the form of animism). It makes for good creative writing, and excellent (if later forgotten) stoned dorm room conversations. What it's not, is science. It may be, someday, when we know more. Which is why we do science. |
| I do like the occasional "well, actually..." piece, so here's one from Mental Floss: By "Civil War" they mean the American one in the 19th century, not the one we're in now, not another country's war, and not the Captain America sequel. I should note that I didn't fact-check this, but I did go to some of the links and it looks like they did their due diligence. Just don't blame me for any continued inaccuracies on their part. The American Civil War is a pivotal and ugly moment in American history, but it's more misunderstood than you would think. I wouldn't think. Given the near-deific significance it's accorded by Americans, northern and southern alike, I'd expect people to get its history right. But as is often the case, I overestimate people—or, at least, ACW fanatics. 1. Misconception: Lincoln’s policies enjoyed widespread support in the North. I find that, in hindsight, an event in history is usually more clear-cut than it was at the time. I wouldn't expect that everyone in the North supported Lincoln, or that everyone in the South wanted to secede. It's kind of like "the colonies wanted to break away from oppressive England" without considering how many colonists wanted to keep saying "pip-pip-toodleoo." Take a look at the article for some well-sourced examples. 2. Misconception: Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were staunch secessionists. I've known this was wrong for a long time (again, details in the link), but pointing it out now seems to be a failure to read the room. 3. Misconception: The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery When President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, it declared: “[All] persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Well, clearly not, as slavery still exists. Even after the 13th Amendment (which the article covers). 4. Misconception: All amputations were done without anesthesia. Sure, but it makes for a more compelling movie to ignore that. 5. Misconception: Only men fought during the Civil War Pretty sure that if you look at wars throughout history, there were almost always women finding a way to join in the fun. 6. Misconception: Abraham Lincoln was the keynote speaker on the day of the Gettysburg Address. Honestly, this one's pretty interesting. Not surprising to me, but has details I wasn't aware of. One thing that you might not know about the address is that Lincoln wasn’t pegged to be the main speaker on that day. That honor belonged to Edward Everett, a distinguished scholar and orator who took the stage before the president. Everett’s speech would go on for around two hours, totaling upwards of 13,000 words... After Everett finished his speech, the president shook his hand and told him, “I am more than gratified, I am grateful to you.” Then the Thunder-Stealer-in-Chief rang out with “Four score and seven years ago ...” and made Everett’s magnum opus a historical footnote in under 180 seconds. The original Rap Battle. 7. Misconception: The war was fought entirely in the U.S. Well, duh, because technically, the CSA wasn't part of the US; hence the war. But no, this part's mostly about naval battles. I'd also add misconception #8: Everyone knows the war is over. |
| Some of my entries this month are for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]. This one, for example. Sweater I've always disliked sweaters. There's this vague recollection from when I was a kid and my mom called an article of clothing that her mother gave me a "sweater." I immediately hated it. Not because the sweater was ugly—at that age, I couldn't have assessed its attractiveness, or lack thereof. Not because it was scratchy—which it was, but lots of the clothing I got foisted upon me back then was scratchy. No, it was because of the name. Sweater. Sweating, Kid Me reasoned to the extent of his limited abilities, is Bad. Why would I want to do something that's bad? Now, half a century or so of not wearing sweaters later, because of this prompt, I got off my ass and actually looked into the etymology. It didn't help. As with many articles on Wikipedia, I walked away more, not less, confused. From the extensive discussion of "sweater" on that site, we get:The OED gives "sweater" as appearing in 1882 and gives its definition as "A woolen vest or jersey worn in rowing or other athletic exercises, originally... to reduce one's weight; now commonly put on also before or after exercise to prevent taking cold. Hence a similar garment for general informal wear; a jumper or pullover" You know what's an even worse name for an article of clothing than "sweater?" Jumper. Also jersey, but okay, I can see an English word for an article of clothing named after a place in the UK. I'm not disrespecting the British here. Just saying that with "sweater," at least the word has at least some connection to what a person wearing it does. But "jumper?" Come on. Picture in your head a proper British person jumping. Can't do it, can you? Whether or not they're wearing a knitted or crocheted garment. "Pullover" at least makes some sense. If you ignore the buttoned kind (usually called a "cardigan," and don't get me started on wtf that word might mean), one dons a sweater by pulling it over one's head. But there are numerous other articles of clothing, notably t-shirts and sweatshirts (which are etymologically, but not fashionably, related to sweaters) that are also put on by pulling it over one's head. French is no help, probably because there's a bit of cross-pollination between French and British English. You know what they call a sweater in France? It's not pronounced "sweat-ay" like you might expect. No, the French equivalent of a sweater is called a pull. Just. Pull. Meanwhile, the French word for the verb form of pull (at least the one relevant to this rant) is appuyer. Which is pronounced with an "ay" sound at the end. Fashion words sometimes make no sense to me, and I've got seven more to do before the end of the month. Wish me luck. |
| Today, we're looking within. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to at least 1% of your readers. I saved this one because, fairly recently, it came to my attention that while I see spoken words as text in my head, not everyone does that. It may be a reason I'm pretty good at spelling: lots of practice. When you hear someone talk, do you see the words in your mind’s eye? Or do you see what they’re saying as a movie? It’s easy to assume that the way you perceive the world is the same for everyone. I know I've said this before, but when I was a kid, I had a deep, philosophical conversation with another kid, one which amounted to "how do I know that the color I see as 'red' is the same color as what you see as 'red?'" Much later, on the internet, such a question popped up as a profound revelation. Me, I'd spent the intervening years occasionally wondering how one would go about investigating such a thing. The reason I bring this up is to note that I've been open to the idea that we each perceive things differently for a long time, and yet, it still sometimes surprises me. We range from those who are “mind blind” and cannot visualise things mentally to those who have brilliant images in their mind. Some people see shapes in their mind when they hear music, or imagine colours when they see a number (a phenomenon called synaesthesia). Yes, the article uses British spellings. Those don't usually appear in my mind when I hear words, but I can see them when someone speaks with a British accent. There’s even a type of synaesthesia in which people’s minds run a written text on a mental ticker tape. Even though ticker tape (or subtitle) synaesthesia (TTS) was first studied in 1883 by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton, little was known about it until lately. Yeah, I don't think it's quite like that for me. I do remember some instances of synesthesia (American spelling), like when I was a kid, each day name (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) had a different color associated with it. What those colors were, I can't describe. But ticker tape was already obsolete by the time I started reading. I saw it in action, once, when I was very young, and never since. I'd expect that a person's inner experience would be based on stuff they're familiar with; today, one might see words in their mind as text on a small screen. Any reason to mention Darwin here other than name-dropping? Your science should stand on its own, regardless of the accomplishments of your more famous cousin. (Darwin, incidentally, had a lot of cousins. Hell. He married one.) A study published recently, one of the first to explore this condition in more depth, found that of the 26 participants with TTS, most had additional types of synaesthesia, most commonly space-time or number-space, where they experience time or numbers as a location. 26 is hardly a compelling sample size, but considering the apparent rarity of TTS, it's understandable. I just wouldn't make any far-reaching leaps based on the study. While many adults can imagine written words when listening to speech if asked to do so, people with TTS are different because of the ease with which it happens. In fact, some cannot stop, even when it makes it difficult to follow conversations when lots of people are talking at once. But the ability to process information from different senses at the same time is often helpful. There is an evolutionary explanation for this. Of course there is, but it's speculative and possibly wrong. FFS, I have to explain this again: Yes, evolution is fact. But asserting that such-and-such is the case in our minds "because our ancestors needed it on the savanna" or whatever is, at best, an interesting thought experiment, and, at worst, utter nonsense. Unless they can back it up with actual evidence. In this case, a moment's thought might suffice to convince you that our savanna-dwelling ancestors didn't see written words when someone spoke, because writing hadn't been invented yet. The more general informational-processing argument, okay, sure. But that would also apply to all the other animals that share, to one degree or another, our sensory array: sight, hearing, etc. And thus be a holdover from way before apes. Okay, enough of my perennial ragging on evo-psych. Skipping that part of the article. Except for this gem: So if we also saw, or even smelled an animal in the scrub behind us, we could more easily determine if it was a dangerous predator we needed to escape from, or a fluffy little rabbit. As they evolved, our brains became experts in tying information from different senses together. Which of course made my mind conjure an image of the Killer Rabbit from Holy Grail. Researchers recently suggested fewer people are born towards the end of the low-visual-imagery spectrum. Extreme forms of aphantasia, people who do not have visual imagery at all, are rare. Less than 1% of people have this form. While I've known about synesthesia for years, this is probably the first time I've encountered aphantasia, and I love the word, even though it describes a condition I hope I never experience. Some research suggests we are not born with the ability to imagine. Instead, visual images emerge and develop during early childhood. This is followed by a decline in visual imagination in adulthood. Okay, this strikes me as being like saying "we are not born with the ability to speak." Obviously, in reality, no child has ever popped out and immediately said, "Hello, Mother. Nice tits." No, we learn that later, but our capacity for speech (or imagination) is inborn. For most people. Despite my issues with some of the claims here, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the basic idea: that we each have a different interior world. And, as the article notes at the end, there's a lot more to discover. We just have to begin by imagining... |
| The final prompt from this round of "JAFBG" [XGC]... What current topic/craze are you sick of hearing about? Well, I'm old enough to say "All of them." But I suppose that at the top of the list sits TikTok. "Oh, is it because the government is trying to ban it?" No. I don't care. "Because China uses it to spy on us?" Nope. "Because it's what kids these days like?" Whatever. Kids have always liked, will always like stupid things. I did, when I was a kid. No, the reason I wish TikTok would go away (though I don't agree with a government ban) can be summed up in one alliterative, two-word phrase: Vertical video. Vertical video is, in 99.9 percent of cases, an abomination against everything that is good and right. Let me provide a bit of background. One of the earliest computers I played on was back in the 70s. It barely even qualified as a computer, being dedicated to word processing—a typewriter with a floppy disk drive. Not one of those solid-case tiny plastic disks, either, oh no. Nor one of the larger, but still below-average, 5-1/4". No, this word processor took massive, throbbing 8" disks. But the other "feature" of this glorified typewriter was its screen. We're used to looking at paper—typewriter paper, e.g.— in vertical orientation. So the makers of this early word processor (I think it was Wang) oriented their green CRT monitor in a vertical orientation to emulate a typewritten page. And no, it didn't have a preview function; all your codes (think early versions of {i} and {b} and {indent} here on WDC) were visible on the screen but not in the printout, so you had to print a test copy. Anyway, the point is, this seemed weird to me even then. Paper is paper, but screens, monitors, and TVs were, by that point, standardized in a horizontal format. Mostly something like 3V:4H. Through time, I've had several different computers, and their screen evolution went something like this: CRTs with 4:3 ratios, monitors with even more horizontal exaggeration, actual widescreen monitors. Movies released in widescreen format often had to be edited or letterboxed to fit a 4:3 monitor. Anyway, point is, I think we finally settled on an ideal ratio, whatever it is, but it's horizontal. This conforms with human vision, which has a much greater range side-to-side than it does up-to-down. Which is one reason that the inability of some mobile phone video makers to turn the fucking phone sideways enrages me to the point of apoplexy. One of the earliest examples I saw was some dude trying to capture the aftermath of, I don't know, a car and truck accident or something. Holding his goddamn phone vertically, he had to frantically pan side-to-side in order to catch all the carnage (not literal carnage; I don't recall there being bodies or anything). If he'd only turned the assmunching phone sideways, he could have captured the entire scene. Since then, I have refused to watch any video in vertical format, on my phone or on the laptop. Well, with two exceptions: 1. Explosions. I don't really care about format if I'm watching shit blow up. 2. Rocket launches (with or without explosions). These are the only events that demand vertical format, because, well, everything important happens vertically. As an aside, I don't have the same issues with still photographs or paintings. When I did photography, I'd orient the camera as appropriate: vertical for portraits (hence "portrait" mode) and horizontal for groups or landscapes (hence "landscape" mode). But videos are different. As I blame TikTok for the appalling rise (pun intended) in vertical video, I choose to rant about TikTok in general. So that's it. Tired of hearing about it, so writing about it. Paradox! |
| I saved this one a long time ago (relatively speaking), and I don't remember why. Let's find out together, shall we? One Word That Fights Off Both Viruses and Loneliness There's a way to limit your exposure to the dangers of illness and isolation. "One word?" But "chicken soup" is two words. Also, what about limiting your exposure to the danger of being around people? Have you ever gone to bed at night feeling sad or lonely? Well, that's not a good question. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone over the age of, I dunno, zero, who has never gone to bed feeling sad or lonely. Then, you woke up not feeling refreshed, but exhausted and on edge. You are not alone. Yes. Yes, you are. Otherwise you wouldn't have been feeling lonely, would you? We all know how Covid has produced higher levels of isolation. Wearing masks, as important as they are, is the equivalent of placing an emotional wall between yourself and others because you can't recognize facial expressions. Oh, boo hoo. Most of my human interaction takes place on the internet. Facial expressions are entirely optional, with practice. What surprised me, with my partial face-blindness, was how I'd manage to recognize people even with masks on. I quickly came to realize that I don't rely on mouths at all, noses somewhat less, mostly hair and eyes. Speaking of which, eyes are very expressive, and they're generally not covered by N-95 masks. Furthermore, the lack of daily contact caused by sitting in front of a computer screen (I'm certainly guilty of that) is no substitute for real, person-to-person contact and human touch. Extrovert-like typing detected. See? I can tell nuance just from phrasing. But, okay. Most people are extroverts, so while very little of this applies to me, it's a window into that other world, the world of (shudder) people. A study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that "Prior-day feelings of loneliness, sadness, threat, and lack of control were associated with a higher cortisol awakening response the next day." When cortisol floods the body and the brain, it has been shown to put the brakes on our immune system by reducing T-cells; cortisol has been shown to kill NK cells—important immune cells that help fight off viruses and even some kinds of tumors. If I cared, I'd check that link and double-check some of the claims here. For our purposes, though, I'll take them, provisionally, at face value. Imagine you had feelings of loneliness that lasted for days or weeks or longer. I'm not a psychologist, but isn't that called "clinical depression?" This could produce a chronic state of stress resulting in chronic health conditions. In fact, it's been reported that eight of 10 commonly prescribed medications are for symptoms of stress. Or, and bear with me here, maybe people are stressed because they find themselves having to work long hours at a shitty job for subpar wages. That's where mindfulness comes in. Oh. That's why I saved this article. To help reduce suffering, mindfulness teaches us how to experience the world through immersive inter-being with our surroundings. This means seeing ourselves mirrored in our human community, the air, the water, the planet, the plants, and all creatures large and small. Too much work. And I've heard rumors that you can get such an experience through the use of certain pharmaceuticals. Oh, hey, maybe that's a reason why micro-doses of LSD are reported to cancel depression? In our culture, it's commonplace to put a high value on our independence. This illusion of independence was lifted for me when I was in the monastery and had my first meal with the monks. This came out of left field, but think "eastern," not "western." If you haven't guessed by now, the "one word that fights off viruses and loneliness" is relationships. There. Saved you a click. The next evening that you feel lonely, remember that your body is listening in on your social and emotional experiences of the day. This is why that matters: If you feel alone and lacking support, then your body will boost your cortisol response to prepare you for what it thinks will be a stressful day. I'm not going to deny the link between mental and physical health, though it's probably way more complicated than a mere cortisol response. But I have a mantra for just such (rare) occasions: "Damn, it's good to be alone." Alone doesn't mean lonely. Alone means you're not obligated to mitigate your actions for others' comfort or convenience. You don't have to watch your words or apologize later when you failed to. You don't have to concern yourself with whether or not someone else is hungry or tired. And best of all, you don't have to explain yourself. Which is not to say I'm antisocial. I enjoy being around people, usually. Like on Saturday, when I went on a wine-tasting adventure with four other people (plus the very well-paid driver). Had a great time, found some delicious wines, saw some great views (it's a real privilege to live in Virginia). Then everyone else went home, I passed out, and later, I got to nurse a hangover without worrying about how loud other people were being. Back to the fluffy article: Create mutually positive and satisfying relationships. This can take time, but the best mountain climber in the world can only take one step at a time. Start tonight by taking a simple, first step that connects you with another. A "simple, first step" like "Hey, girl, I wonder if your software is compatible with my hardware?" My days of using pickup lines are long gone. My days of successfully using pickup lines are but a distant memory. The article has a "conclusion" section, but I'm substituting my own: Conclusion: Thank you for your visit to our copium den. Buy our books, subscribe to our website! Because you aren't already financially overextended. And remember, kids, if modern society has you beaten down into a corner, it's your fault, not society's. |
| Just two prompts left in "JAFBG" [XGC]. Might as well go the distance. I also intend to participate in "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] this month; if you like open-ended blog entry prompts, that should be fun. Well, that's easy to say. Tell us about something that sounds easy but you find incredibly difficult. Oh, there are a lot of these. Like "Just talk to her," or "Call the doctor about that." Sometimes the hardest thing for me is just getting started, even if the task itself is easy. Like, say I've decided that today is pencil-sharpening day, the day I set aside to make sure all of my standard pencils are nice and sharp. Easy, right? Maybe a little bit boring, but ultimately satisfying to see those little curls of wood peel off the points. So it's not like I don't want to sharpen my pencils. It's just that I don't want to stop wasting time on other things. "Okay, Me, stop looking at YouTube videos and go sharpen your pencils." "No." "That video ended. Let's go sharpen pencils." "But there's another one in the recommendation queue. See?" This was especially dangerous when I was working. The number of times I cursed myself out going, "Just. Do. The. Thing." only to have my inner voice go "Don't wanna" is embarrassing. I don't actually have a pencil-sharpening day. As an engineer, I favor mechanical pencils. Better yet, computer solutions. The point isn't the task; the point is something that's easy it is to do while being almost impossible, psychologically, to start. I even talked to a shrink about it once, in a session. He just shrugged. "So, you don't want to." "But I do want to." "Clearly, you don't." "Okay, clearly, I don't want to. But I want to want to." It was, I think, at that point that I acquainted myself with the concept of infinite recursion in my own brain. I want to. I want to want to. I want to want to want to. And so on to infinity, while, in the meantime, the task goes undone because I'm contemplating the vastness of the universe. But. All of those mental blocks pale in comparison with the one phrase that is guaranteed to freeze my thoughts and actions, sending the chill of intergalactic space through my whole being, rendering me utterly incapable of action. The one phrase that strikes terror in my scarred and stony heart, because I have no idea how to implement it. The phrase? "Be creative." |
| In the course of picking, at random, an older blog entry to revisit, I ignore anything less than a year old. I figure it needs time to become vintage, and one year is generally enough for that on the internet. Today, I got my first result from 2022—but it was from early January, so it's more than a year old. As it turns out, I do have something to say about it. The entry was mostly the answer to a former prompt from "JAFBG" [XGC]; if you're following along, you know I've been working through the current iteration of prompts there.As for the entry itself, here's the link: "Judge, Mental" It starts off with a personal update: Yesterday morning, we got a few inches of ugly, dense, watery sn*w which brought down branches, leaves, trees, and a nearby transformer (the electric kind, not the Michael Bay kind, though I did get to hear it explode). And my home generator picked yesterday to go on strike for higher wages and better working conditions. To be fair, any wage would be higher that what I'm paying it now, but come on, you only have to work like twice a year; get over yourself. It took me several weeks, as I recall, to find someone to look at the generator. Fortunately, I didn't need it during that time. They did whatever they needed to do, and then, the next time the power went out... the generator failed again. Fortunately, that time wasn't during an intense cold snap. I think it's finally back in shape, after I called out someone competent. Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on your perception), it hasn't been fully tested under adverse field conditions, as this winter was mild. If the power hadn't popped back on in the middle of the night, they'd have had to chip my corpsicle out of the solid block of ice that had once been a house. I also have a vague recollection that, once I got the central heat working again that early morning, the thermometer on the thermostat said it had gotten all the way down to... 58F. Nowhere near literally freezing; just above, in fact, the ideal temperature for some darker beers and red wines. But enough for me to freeze my nads off. In my last Comedy newsletter ("The Weather" ), I described with only a little bit of hyperbole how cold my dad kept the house, which you might think prepared me for a life comfortable with persistent hypothermia (my dad certainly thought, mistakenly, that it would toughen me up), but, in fact, the opposite became true.Look, I live in Virginia. I expect this kind of shit at least once per winter. It doesn't mean I have to like it. And this year, I found out what I like even less: not having to put up with "this kind of shit" all winter. I mean, sure, it was nice to have only a couple of sub-freezing days, and no sn*w to speak of, but it ain't natural. Hell, there was an extended period over the winter where it got up to the 70s (F again, of course) during the days. That's warmer than it's expected to be today. Not entirely unusual for that to happen occasionally in a Virginia winter, but the lack of sn*w beyond a few non-sticking flurries was out of the ordinary. It's April, now, obviously, and it's been known to sn*w in April here; we'll see if we get any. The rest of the entry doesn't really need embellishment; it's all about a thing I'm judgemental about: beer. About the only thing I can say is: I've been working on it, and I think I'm fairly successful in, if not being less judgemental about it, at least being less of a prick. |
| Well, April 1 is here. Remember, folks, pranks are only funny if they're not played on me. Today's article is arguably funny, but it's not a prank; it's from Cracked: Even though the thought experiment in theory is supposed to be a pure philosophical discussion — a conundrum cooked up to change your viewpoint on an issue in a compelling way — it’s lost a little bit of that shine, especially thanks to the internet. Thought experiments have some limitations. That's why they should be left to professionals. Kind of like comedy. Of course, a good thought experiment is a wonderful thing to kick around the old noggin. You’ve got your classic trolley problem, which only becomes more prescient now that cars are driving themselves (terribly). People make fun of the trolley problem (and sometimes, rightly so), but it's not just autonomous vehicles that use it as a model. Pretty much any intervention can be likened to a trolley problem: Some large number x of people will face negative consequences if we do nothing; if we do something, some smaller number y will face negative consequences. Difficulty: y is not necessarily a subset of x. As for AVs, that's a separate rant that I'll probably update at some point. In particular, here are five thought experiments that the world doesn’t need and nobody asked for… Four. Dang editors. 4. Buridan’s Ass Ba-donka-donk. The ass in question is a boring old donkey, who is starving, and standing equidistant between two bales of identical hay, each precisely as easy to reach and eat as the other. I'm just going to pause here so you can get ass puns out of your system. Ready? Okay: The question is, which bale of hay does the donkey choose, or — and this is a real situation people present — would the donkey simply be torn by indecision so deeply that it starves. No. Come the fuck on. 3. The Life You Can Save Here’s the gist of it: If you were walking in your expensive work clothes and saw a drowning child, would you jump in to save them, even if it would ruin your fancy clothes? The answer to this, unless you are a sharply dressed sociopath, is obviously yes. No, because while I learned how to swim as a child, I've forgotten everything about it. I jump in, regardless of what I'm wearing, there'll be two victims instead of one. Including, most importantly, me. But alas! By answering yes you have fallen into Singer’s great trap! Because by the same belief, how could you freely spend money the way you do while a child starves somewhere else in the world! You are undone! How does that petard feel, dummy! This is the most grandiose false equivalence bullshit I’ve ever heard, and it’s created in service of something everybody already understands anyways: Yes, it’s easy to dehumanize people when you can’t directly see them. All of these things are Not My Problem. 2. Roko’s Basilisk This is, beyond the merest shadow of a doubt, the stupidest, inanest (?) excuse for a thought experiment ever concocted. I won't even dignify it with further comments or explanation. If you want to learn about it, there's the link up there, or just Google it. 1. Hamlet Monkeys As much as I love monkeys, I never need to hear this tired-ass “thought experiment” ever again. It’s one of a whole smorgasbord of hypothetical situations created to constantly try to reinforce the idea that yes, infinity really does mean infinity. It’s a delightful mental picture, but it’s wholly unnecessary. If someone doesn’t understand that infinite time creates infinite possibilities, best of luck to them. If you love monkeys, you've never been around monkeys. Here's the thing most people get wrong about this one: the original formulation is this: The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. (Wikipedia) This has gotten twisted over time into, instead of "infinite," "very large." And there's the problem: "very large" is still infinitely smaller than "infinite." While it's quite droll to observe that the idiocy you find on the internet disproves the infinite monkey theorem, we're only talking about a few billion apes (not monkeys) typing for the last, oh, let's be liberal here, fifty years. Neither of these numbers is anywhere even close to approaching infinity. So we shouldn't feel too bad that we haven't been able to surpass Shakespeare. Well, some of us haven't. Cracked sometimes comes close. |
| Very close to completing all the prompts at "JAFBG" [XGC]... Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week. Ah, yes, the recurring reason to rant. Thing is, if I'd drawn this prompt with my random numbers earlier this month, I would have been stumped. For most of it, I didn't experience more than minor inconvenience, nothing worthy of a full-blown rant. All that changed starting last Saturday. Friday, with two pills left in each of my daily prescriptions, I called the pharmacy for refills. This is an automated system, which is fine; you just key in the prescription number for each one, the robot confirms it, and then, when you're done, you get told when they'll be ready for pickup. In this case, they clearly and unambiguously said "Saturday at 11 am." Now, there's something else you need to know about my prescriptions. I think I've ranted about it before, but just to recap: My insurance sucks. The doctor sends a prescription for a 90-day supply. If I use my insurance, I have to get a 30-day supply, and it costs about $30. Here's the whatthe part: If I don't use insurance for the prescription, they happily sell me a 90-day supply. For about $30. You read that right: With insurance, $90 for a 90-day supply. Without insurance, $30 for a 90-day supply. There are other details, but that's the outline of it. So, getting back to the timeline here, remember, the prescriptions would be ready by 11am on Saturday. Well, I had other stuff to do Saturday, so I showed up at the pharmacy at 3pm. This particular pharmacy is in a grocery store, and I'm pretty sure they have standing orders to delay things to encourage people to shop. Still, I fully expected that, having been told the pills would be ready at 11, surely, definitely, without fail, they'd be done four hours later? If you're reading this, you can guess what didn't happen. And this wasn't the usual "oh, it'll be ready in 20 minutes; why don't you take a look at our lovely endcap displays and seasonal merchandise while you wait." No, it was "It might take an hour or so, if you want to come back." Well, I told them I'd come back the next day. Which was, if you've been keeping track, Sunday. I walk in and the cashier is like "I can't find it." I felt rage boiling up inside me. None of those pills are specifically for rage, either pro or con, but I'd cut it too close: failure to receive my prescriptions that day would mean missing at least one dose. Which, to be fair, probably wouldn't kill me, but I'd feel obligated to report it to my doctor later, and she'd undoubtedly shake her head in disapproval. Which is crushing. So it wasn't really about the pills themselves, at this point. It was more about being jerked around by robots and cashiers. "But Waltz, isn't that just another minor inconvenience?" Yes, except that I have to deal with some kind of bullshit every time I get the pills, which, if you're following along, you know is four times a year. It wears on me. At least it's not 12 times a year, though, right? My boil was short-lived, however; she somehow found the prescriptions. But then my brain went to: "Okay, if they forgot and used insurance, I'm going to blow my shit." Fortunately, everything was in order. So the saga ends, anticlimactically, but at least without bloodshed. |
| I've always had a desire to go places I'm not allowed. What's through that door? How's the view from that tower? Wouldn't it be cool to climb the cables of a suspension bridge? That sort of thing. I've never done it, though. I tend to follow rules. Well, not never. I've never been caught, though. Still, most of the things on this list don't trigger my wannago. 1. Ilha da Queimada Grande Ilha da Queimada Grande, or “Snake Island,” is an island off the coast of Brazil that’s home to a rare and incredibly deadly species of snake called the golden lancehead... The snakes are so dangerous that the Brazilian government has forbidden people from visiting the area. Right now, most of you are going NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. Personally, I think this would be cool (except for the venom part). I once visited a snake island near Antigua, and while the serpents there weren't venomous, a lot of people cowered in the boat. Me, I went actively looking for reptiles. 3. Ise Grand Shrine The first iteration of this Shinto shrine in Japan was constructed around 2000 years ago, and since the late 7th century, it’s been torn down and rebuilt every two decades... While tourists can view it from the outside, the inside of the shrine is only accessible to the highest priestesses or priests. This sort of thing is not uncommon in religion. Respecting it is one reason I tend to follow the "do not enter" rules. Still, I'd love to see it. 4. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault No desire to go there. Not because it wouldn't be interesting, but because it's in fucking Svalbard. 5. The Vatican's Secret Archives Established in 1612, the Vatican Apostolic Archive (formerly the Vatican’s Secret Archives) contains the personal documents of all the popes. Fiction makes this place out to be a collection of everything the CC doesn't want the rest of us to know (which, in a way, it is), but the reality is probably far less interesting. Also, I'd wager few, if any, of the documents would be in the only language I can read fluently. 7. Uluru (Formerly Ayers Rock) Following petitions from the Anangu people, the board of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park finally announced plans in 2017 to ban hikers from the site for good. Oh, good. Now do Bear Lodge (aka Devil's Tower). 10. Montserrat’s Designated Exclusion Zone When the Soufrière Hills volcano awoke from dormancy in 1995, the nearby town of Plymouth was evacuated and eventually abandoned altogether as eruptions continued. Ash consumed the town, turning it in a modern-day Pompeii. While the volcano is not as destructive as it was a few decades ago, there’s a chance it could erupt again, which means more than half the island is still a designated exclusion zone. I... well, I might have gone a foot or two (or maybe more) into the exclusion zone, just so I could say I did. It remains the only active volcano I've watched (the ones in Hawai'i were inactive when I visited), so that's something, anyway. 12. Area 51 There are lots of places I won't go out of respect for the people involved. Then there's this place, which I won't go to out of respect for not wanting to get shot. 17. The Ethiopian Church That Claims to Hold the Ark of the Covenant Ethiopia claims that it’s home to the Ark of the Covenant. It’s kept in a church in the city of Aksum that’s so closely guarded, even Indiana Jones would have trouble getting in. Ethan Hunt wouldn't. And then he'd be disappointed, because the Ark of the Covenant isn't there. But at least he could add it to his list of "places he went to that he shouldn't ought to have." |
| Another prompt from "JAFBG" [XGC] today... Do you think that kindness is its own reward or should people be grateful for acts of generosity and kindness? What if they're not? I find that there's a vast, yawning chasm between "should be" and "are." Many people seem to labor under the delusion that they should be self-sufficient at all times. Which is silly; every life has its ups and downs. Any "help," therefore, generates not gratitude but resentment—resentment that while they're struggling, someone else is doing just fine; well enough, in fact, to dribble charity from their champagne glass. They might grit their teeth into a rictus and mutter thanks, but inside, they're seething. Possibly even plotting revenge. Not everyone is like that, of course. But enough are that, if you're feeling generous, you need to be careful. Read the room. Sometimes, the best help you can give someone is to let them sort things through themselves, kind of like in the "tough love" prompt from a few weeks ago. On the other side, though, performing an act of generosity or kindness should, by definition, come with no strings attached. No expectations, not even of gratitude. Again, we run up against that chasm: some gifts have strings attached, which is just another source of resentment. Me? I've been in tight situations, and only gotten out of them because of the kindness of others. I don't rely on the kindness of others, because that would be sort of like relying on the clouds to part when you're trying to view a lunar eclipse (it could happen, I want it to happen, but I don't count on it). Consequently, when in a position to help, I try to do so—always bearing in mind that it could be a trap, because there are also those who would take advantage of kindness. Still, if someone's scamming, that's on them. If I fail to help in a situation where someone genuinely needs it, that's on me. Gratitude is optional, but it makes the experience that much more pleasant. |
| Ever wonder why we here in the US use an archaic system of measurements? This article Britsplains it. It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system How did the world's largest economy get stuck with retro measurement? Surprisingly, the answer isn't "because apart from the Revolution, we don't like change." I don't know how historically accurate this is, but it's a good story. In 1793, French scientist Joseph Dombey sailed for the newly formed United States at the request of Thomas Jefferson carrying two objects that could have changed America. He never made it, and now the US is stuck with a retro version of measurement that is unique in the modern world. That's rich coming from Brits who a) definitely do use miles to talk about distance, while measuring petrol in liters and b) didn't decimalize their currency until like 1970. The first, a metal cylinder, was exactly one kilogram in mass. The second was a copper rod the length of a newly proposed distance measurement, the meter. Since that time, the way SI units are defined has changed. The copper rod, especially, would have been subject to thermal expansion and contraction. Sure, nowadays you can keep it in a climate-controlled room, but in the 18th century? Jefferson was keen on the rationality of the metric system in the US and an avid Francophile. But Dombey's ship was blown off course, captured by English privateers (pirates with government sanction), and the scientist died on the island of Montserrat while waiting to be ransomed. I've been to Montserrat. There are worse places to spend your last days. Well... there were, before a volcano devastated the island. The reason for this history lesson? Over the last holiday period this hack has been cooking and is sick of this pounds/ounces/odd pints business – and don't even get me started on using cups as a unit of measurement. You know, actually, I get it. I've mentioned before the difficulty in measuring, say, one cup of broccoli. And you're supposed to use a different "cup" for liquids and solids. So much better to use grams (or even ounces) for more consistency. Some recipes do that, and I'm grateful for it. It's time for America to get out of the Stone Age and get on board with the International System of Units (SI), as the metric system used to be known. That's... not precisely true, as I understand it. Which is to say, any measurement system that's self-coherent and is decimal (using powers of ten) is "a" metric system. SI is a particular metric system based on, primarily, the meter, the kilogram (not the gram, for some arcane reason) and the second. There's a certain amount of hypocrisy here – I'm British and we still cling to our pints, miles per hour, and I'm told drug dealers still deal in eighths and 'teenths in the land of my birth. Thank you for acknowledging that. Also, a British pint isn't the same as an American pint. The cylinder and rod Dombey was carrying, the former now owned by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, was requested by Jefferson because the British system in place was utterly irrational. Perhaps, but once you learned it, you didn't want to change. To make things even more confusing, individual settlements adopted their own local weights and measures. From 1700, Pennsylvania took control of its own measurements and other areas soon followed. But this mishmash of coins, distances and weights held the country back and Jefferson scored his first success in the foundation of a decimal system for the dollar. So if you've ever wondered why we managed to use decimal currency while the UK held off for nearly 200 years, well, that's on Mr. Jefferson. "I question if a common measure of more convenient size than the Dollar could be proposed. The value of 100, 1,000, 10,000 dollars is well estimated by the mind; so is that of a tenth or hundredth of a dollar. Few transactions are above or below these limits," he said Which is kind of like Bill Gates' possibly apocryphal saying that no one would ever need more than 32 megabytes in computing power. Or whatever; can't be arsed to look it up. Incidentally, though they share the same prefixes, computer memory isn't decimal; it's based on powers of two. Like, a kilobyte isn't 1000 bytes; it's 1024 (which is a power of 2). You know, just in case we weren't confused enough. America was a new country, and owed a large part of the success of the Revolutionary War to France, in particular the French navy. The two countries were close, and the metric system appealed to Jefferson's mindset, and to many in the new nation. I'm sure "many" others were vehemently opposed. And this desire for change wasn't just limited to weights and measures. Also in 1793, Alexander Hamilton hired Noah Webster, who as a lexicographer and ardent revolutionary wanted America to cast off the remnants of the old colonial power. Webster wrote a dictionary, current versions of which can be found in almost every classroom in the US. Yes, and from what I understand, that's why we spell "color" without a "u." Wow. Much change. Such revolution. What has kept the metric system going is its inherent rationality. Rather than use a hodgepodge of local systems, why not build one based on measurements everyone could agree on configured around the number 10, which neatly matches the number of digits on most people's hands? I would argue that base-12 makes much more sense. What's a quarter of 10? 2.5. What's a quarter of 12? A much more easily comprehended whole number, 3. Above all it's universal, a gram means a gram in any culture. Meanwhile, buy a pint in the UK and you'll get 20oz of beer, do the same in America and, depending where you are, you'll likely get 16oz – a fact that still shocks British drinkers. The differences are also there with tons, and the odd concept of stones as a weight measurement. Yeah, except a standard gram is a unit of mass, so its weight is different at the South Pole than it is at the equator, or in an airplane. As for the beer thing, most US breweries measure in ounces. Ask for a pint, and they'll verify if you mean "16 ounces." As for stones, it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that one out. This is down to convoluted systems like 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 1,760 yards in a mile, compared to 100 centimeters in a meter and 1,000 meters to a kilometer. A US pound is 0.453592 kilograms, to six figures at least, these are the kind of numbers that cause mistakes to be made. What's less well known is that the US actually uses SI standards. All of our common measurements are defined by SI units. This doesn't help with conversion issues, of course; as with the Mars probe that missed Mars (the author goes into this further). And don't even get me started on Celsius and Fahrenheit. With Celsius water freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100 at ground level, compared to 32 and 212 for Fahrenheit. It's a nonsensical system and the US is now the only nation in the world to use Fahrenheit to measure regular temperatures. It's not "nonsensical;" it just uses different benchmarks. The advantage of Fahrenheit is its ability to easily record subtle differences in temperature. To get a similar granularity with Celsius, you have to use half-degrees. Also, it's a lot more impressive to say "it's 100 degrees out!" than "it's 38 degrees out!" But yeah, okay, Celsius makes more sense. The article delves into more history, and I won't repeat more of it, but it's there if you're interested. I'll just share what, to me, is the stupidest reason for not converting (there are less stupid reasons, like retrofitting old piping systems): "We'd have to change football fields!" For fuck's sake. It's not as if sports can't continue to use yards, feet, miles, whatever. Nothing says that abomination called American football can't continue to talk about the 30-yard line or whatever. Hell, there's even precedent: horse races are still measured in furlongs. And have been fur a long time. |
| A prompt for "JAFBG" [XGC]... What's your opinion on bias in the media? There's not enough of it. Allow me to explain before jumping on me: Every media outlet, indeed, every individual, has bias. Some of it is conscious; some of it isn't. With media outlets, some of them have an obvious slant in one direction or another. Others attempt to be neutral, though even choosing which stories to run shows some bias. And it's in that attempt to be neutral that, sometimes, you run into problems. Let's take a possibly extreme, fictional example. I'm totally cribbing this from Superman: Say there's an independent scientist who discovers that the planet's about to blow up. He brings this to the planetary council. The planetary council, who all have a vested interest in the planet not blowing up, ignore his findings despite overwhelming evidence. So he takes it to a nice, objective, attempts-to-be-unbiased news distributor, presenting all of his scientific evidence and his argument for why the planet is going to explode. The media outlet promptly checks his story with the council, which scoffs at the very idea. So the journal, in an attempt to cover "both sides of the debate," meticulously prints the opinions of the independent scientist, who had evidence, and the council, who basically just don't want the planet to blow up (not that I blame the council for that). This gets out to the average Kryptonianmedia consumer, who probably doesn't understand all the science involved, and pretty soon the planet's divided in two parts (for a few days before being divided into a billion parts): one, we trust the scientist because he presented decent evidence, and two, we trust the council because, well, because they're the council, I guess. There are the inevitable follow-up stories, interviews with the folks on the street. "What do you think of the claims that the planet's about to blow up?" "I think we should take this seriously." Or, "I think it's a load of hogwash" (Or whatever the inhabitants of that planet used to clean their equivalent of pigs.) (Yes, I know that's not where "hogwash" comes from.) So, here's the problem with those media outlets: they're treating informed, scientific findings with the same weight as uninformed, wishful thinking, which in turn acquires the same weight as the blithering of anyone who has a vested interest in the matter. Now that I think of it, maybe this was the real reason Clark Kent became a reporter. But I digress. The point is that, in their attempt to be perfectly fair and unbiased, the news outlets did their planet a disservice, resulting in the planet blowing up and there being only one survivor (or two, or a whole bunch, depending on which timeline we're talking about... sorry, digressing again). Now, sure, you get some old bearded guy with signs off the street who keeps proclaiming, "The world's about to end," and clearly, you either a) want to see his evidence or b) want to get as far from him as physically possible. But someone who researches this sort of thing? Maybe they have a point. Maybe ask other people who research these things, and not Bil-Bob in front of the weed dispensary. Sure, scientists can be wrong, but the ones to make that assessment are... other scientists, not politicians or social workers. Or, for that matter, journalists. All of which is to say that if you have an article about how the Spring Solstice happens because of axial tilt, don't think you have to interview a flat-earther for an "alternative viewpoint." |
| Pulling from the time portal, let's see here: A 30DBC response entry from January of 2020: "Invincible" Ah, yes, the Before Time, when one could talk about travel and doing stuff with other people without garnering controversy. But the prompt was pretty simple and open-ended: What are you waiting for? I'm one of those people - yes, those people - who usually answers rhetorical questions literally. And "What are you waiting for?" is normally a rhetorical question. "Will you take the trash out, dear?" "Sure." "...Well? What are you waiting for?" "The sweet release of the Apocalypse." It's been pointed out to me, repeatedly, that this shit isn't funny. But it is. When it's not a rhetorical question, it implies a call to action. "You say you want to go to Belgium. Your passport is up to date and you have money. What are you waiting for?" For a while there, it was travel restrictions. Then it was just a general distrust of travel, combined with the shitshow that flying has become. Now, there's a war going on in Europe. Still. But mostly, it implies that I should be doing something other than what I'm doing right now, but whatever it is I'm doing right now is generally what I really want to be doing. In the battle between "should" and "want," "want" wins every time. That's just the way I am. Very likely, it's the way most people are. I'm just aware of it and turn it into a virtue. Really, I'm not waiting for anything important. I have a few set plans: there's a wine tasting tomorrow, of Bordeaux wines hosted by an actual French person from France I remember that vividly, as it was my final wine tasting before everything went to shit. Cold night, long walk (I did a recap in the next blog entry), delicious wine. Well, we have a wine tasting tour planned for this Saturday. Yes, April Fools' Day. All in all, not much has changed from that entry—while at the same time, everything has. |
| I've been wanting to share this arti- SQUIRREL! We’ve always been distracted Worried that technology is ‘breaking your brain’? Fears about attention spans and focus are as old as writing itself If you suspect that 21st-century technology has broken your brain, it will be reassuring to know that attention spans have never been what they used to be. No, technology hasn't broken our brains. Endgame capitalism has. Even the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger was worried about new technologies degrading his ability to focus. Sometime during the 1st century CE, he complained that ‘The multitude of books is a distraction’. For the record, this was after the fall of the Library of Alexandria. By the 12th century, the Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi saw himself living in a new age of distraction thanks to the technology of print: ‘The reason people today read sloppily is that there are a great many printed texts.’ "But Waltz, I thought Gutenberg invented printing in like 1450" No, he mostly just put together movable type and lots of actual moving parts. And in 14th-century Italy, the scholar and poet Petrarch made even stronger claims about the effects of accumulating books Depends how big your storage space is. A torrent of printed texts inspired the Renaissance scholar Erasmus to complain of feeling mobbed by ‘swarms of new books’, while the French theologian Jean Calvin wrote of readers wandering into a ‘confused forest’ of print. Calvin was easily confused. We can now worry that the cognitive circuitry of the brain has been ‘rewired’ through interactions with Google Search, smartphones and social media. The rewired mind now delegates tasks previously handled by its in-built memory to external devices. Yes. This is a good thing. Unless you want to win bar trivia games without cheating. Writing during the 13th century, the grammarian Geoffrey of Vinsauf had plenty of advice for writers overwhelmed with information. A good writer must not hurry; they must use the ‘measuring line of the mind’ to compose a mental model before rushing into the work of writing: ‘Let not your hand be too swift to grasp the pen … Let the inner compasses of the mind lay out the entire range of the material.’ That's great, Jeff, but we have a deadline to meet. The article is fairly long, but has lots of interesting historical bits. Unfortunately, my attention span petered out about halfway down the page. |
| Let's do another random prompt from "JAFBG" [XGC]... Share some of the worst advice you've ever heard or received. Thing about bad advice is that if it's really bad advice, then it's blindingly obvious that it's bad advice. Well, I should say "blindingly obvious to anyone with a rudimentary brain," because apparently, people have actually attempted to charge their iPhones in a microwave. No, what's worse is advice that seems, at first glance, to make sense, until you actually do it and face the consequences. Something like... "You know, you should always carry a balance month-to-month on your credit cards, to build your credit rating." Yeah... no. Oh, it might help with the credit rating compared to not using credit cards at all, but you'll end up paying loads of interest. The correct solution is to use the credit cards and pay them off in full at every billing cycle; there's usually a grace period before interest kicks in. (This applies in the US; I don't know about other places.) Another lousy one is "follow your passion." I've no doubt it works for some people, especially people whose passion is lucrative. But, like, if your passion is video games, maybe pick something else for a career. Everything I've heard about the video game industry makes it seem tantamount to slave labor, which is enough to make your passion not your passion anymore. Maybe take up knitting. On the other hand, "passion" used to be a synonym of "suffering," so maybe that's not as bad a piece of advice as I'm making it out to be. I also can't abide "Be creative." I'm no expert on creativity, especially in other people, but for me, it's not something I can do on demand. "Oh, I need a special word here. Something different and unexpected. Something creative." "..." (8 hours later it comes to me) "Goddammit." Which is related to the common writing advice, "Write what you know." While not inherently bad, it's constraining. I prefer "Know what you write." But, by far, the worst advice you can ever give or receive? "Be yourself." First of all, it's literally impossible to be, say, Robert Downey Jr., unless you're actually Robert Downey Jr. One has no choice but to be oneself. At least, with current technology. Second, and perhaps less literally, you know when you're really yourself? It's when you're, like, taking a shit and picking your nose at the same time. Best not to do that in public, you know. Or maybe during sex, with your inhibition transmission stuck in neutral. No one wants to see you having sex in public, do they? Well, I guess some people do. I won't kink-shame. But the vast majority of us would prefer you keep that behind your curtains. No, in most situations, you don't want to be yourself; you want to be the best version of yourself. As for how to do that, well, I'm all out of ideas for the day. |
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