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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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| Art History. Another subject I know almost nothing about (though, no, I'm not here to mock liberal arts degrees). Lack of knowledge has never stopped me from blogging about something, however. So, from The Conversation way back in 2017: If you're wondering why I picked this article in the first place, well, there are several reasons, not least of which is that it's tangentially relevant to the title of my blog. How? Well, there's a detail from Great Wave there at the article link. Now, look at this detail from the fractal Mandelbrot Set,  an iconic image of the strange and wonderful properties of complex numbers.This is either coincidence, or Hokusai was tapping in to the same chaotic properties of nature to create that painting. I'll save the other big reason for the end. Hokusai’s The great wave off Kanagawa remains the enduring image of Japanese art. And it even includes Fuji-san, which as I understand it is at least as important to Japanese art as tentacles are. Although diminutive in scale, the importance of Hokusai’s “Great Wave” cannot be overstated. The work profoundly motivated the French Impressionist movement, which in-turn shaped the course of European Modernism, the artistic and philosophical movement that would define the early 20th century. I'm going to have to take the author's word for that, because, like I said, I don't know much about art history. But I do detect a whiff of Euro-centrism there. I could be wrong about that, though. The most immediate and attractive aspect of Hokusai’s wave is its colour. I mean, maybe? Again, I'm more interested in the fractal boundaries, its depiction of the froth on the waves. But there's good reason I'm not an art person. The story of this blue pigment highlights the role of cultural exchange at the heart of creative discovery and ranks among the more contradictory tales in the history of art. The vibrant hue, long considered to be quintessentially Japanese, was actually a European innovation. Okay, that's more than a whiff of Euro-centrism. I'm not saying it's wrong, mind you. But lots of Japanese things are quintessentially Japanese not because they necessarily invented it, but because they elevated it. Tea, for example. Automobiles. Whiskey. Tempura. Anime. In truth, it had been invented half a world away, 130 years before Hokusai’s wave broke, in an accident involving one of Europe’s most colourful figures: Johann Conrad Dippel. Born in the actual “Castle Frankenstein” in Germany in 1673, the enigmatic theologian and passionate dissector believed the souls of the living could be funnelled from one corpse to another, thus becoming the rumoured inspiration for Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, Frankenstein. "most colourful figures?" Oh ho! I see what you did there! In his thirties, Dippel had become captivated by the proto-science of alchemy, but like so many in the profession, had failed to convert base metals into gold. If the spelling of "colour" hadn't tipped me off already, this sentence would peg the author as very British. Because that's a fine example of the British art of understatement. No alchemist was able to convert base metals into gold; any that said they did were perpetrating hoaxes. He instead settled on the apparently easier task of inventing an elixir of immortality. The consequence was Dippel’s oil, a compound so toxic that two centuries later it would be deployed as a chemical weapon in World War II. Also a quintessentially British sense of irony. Well, the author is actually, apparently, Australian. But they're even better at irony and understatement. Anyway, the article goes into the history of blue. Well, kind of. It may seem odd to us today, when we can go to Blowe's and get house paint in any one of millions of shades, but back in the old days, certain colors were precious, rare, or even unattainable. There's a reason purple was associated with royalty in the West. Then: Perhaps the single most vividly identifiable influence upon the European modernist founders is Van Gogh’s celebrated Starry Night, which owes everything to Hokusai’s blue wave from its colour to the shape of its sky. In letters to his brother, Van Gogh professed the Japanese master had left a deep emotional impact on him. As regular readers might know, I'm fascinated by cultural exchanges like this. I don't have to know anything about art history to follow what the article is saying. In reality, Hokusai had skillfully blended European colour and structure with Japanese motifs and techniques into a seamless work of international appeal. One of my most prized possessions is a T-shirt that a friend gave me. It features a copy of the Great Wave. But towering over the Wave, the doomed boat, and Fuji-san is one of the other great contributions of Japan to world art and culture: Godzilla. |
| Couple of things to warn everyone about concerning today's link. First, and most importantly, it's from Metro (a UK tabloid), so it's not exactly reputable. Second, though most relevant, the page contains images that you probably don't want your boss or coworkers to see you looking at (in other words, NSFW). These include poorly-rendered nude sketches. It is not, however, pornographic. In short, view at your own risk. Disclaimers out of the way, here it is: Yes, they mean the Voynich Manuscript.  Which I'll call the VM from now on because I'm lazy.The Voynich manuscript has fascinated both scientists and the public for more than a century since it was rediscovered by a rare books dealer in 1912. Many "rediscovered" books turn out to be more modern hoaxes. If the VM is a hoax, it's a very, very good one. So good that it's still worth figuring out the purpose of it. Now however, two historians from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, think they may have found the meaning behind it – sex. Lots of people have made guesses, educated and otherwise, about what it's for. These range from aliens having a laugh at our expense to, well, this, which I'll call the Oz Hypothesis. Claiming it's about sex is a sure way to get people to notice, much as my cat refuses to pay attention to me until I say, "Treat!" But while we don’t know who the first owner was, it’s fair to say they lived during a rather prudish time. ...says the article, immediately following the sentence with two illustrations from the VM featuring nekked wimmin. Writing for The Conversation, study co-author Dr Keagan Brewer said: ‘One section contains illustrations of naked women holding objects adjacent to, or oriented towards, their genitalia. These wouldn’t belong in a solely herbal or astronomical manuscript. To make sense of these images, we investigated the culture of late-medieval gynaecology and sexology – which physicians at the time often referred to as “women’s secrets”.’ I probably would have been better off just linking that Conversation article, but then I wouldn't have had the opportunity to snark on the hilarious juxtaposition of "lived during a rather prudish time" and illustrations of women apparently bathing. This suggests to avoid censorship, the author used a mix of the cipher and illustrations to share their message. The problem with the Oz Hypothesis is that ciphers only work for communication when they can be, well, deciphered. The VM has been analyzed more thoroughly than a postmodern stream-of-consciousness novel, by some of the most accomplished cryptographers in the world, and no one has been able to crack the code. This is also a problem for pretty much every other guess about the VM, with the possible exception of "space aliens playing a hoax." Anyway, the article touches on some of the evidence for the Oz Hypothesis. Which, to me, is no more or less compelling as evidence than several other hypotheses (well, more compelling than "aliens," maybe). But the sex angle is practically guaranteed to generate clicks. |
| Okay. Fine. Sometimes, clickbait works on me. It draws me in, fuels my outrage, makes me want to read more so I can rant about it.. Which is exactly the kind of thing I would say if I were a billionaire and the poors kept grumbling about dragging me and my head to a guillotine. It's like when they try to convince us that "money can't buy happiness" while they're flying in their private jets, smiling and sipping a gin and tonic made with low-paid laborer tears. But let's hear this rich guy's take on it, anyway. Richard Branson doesn't want to be defined by his money. Well, you could give it all away and see how you're defined then. (Preferably, to me.) "Maybe in America, 'billionaire' is a sign of success, but that rankles me," says Branson. "I think that your reputation is what you create." Didn't his company declare bankruptcy recently? Oh, yeah, one of them did, last year. Such success.The company is largely responsible for his estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes — but he chafes at the idea he created it to make money. Bet he wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it'd be profitable, though. In fairness, $2.5 billion is small potatoes compared to people like Bezos or Musk, both of whom I mention because they're his direct competitors in the spaceflight field. Of course, success is never guaranteed. If you do follow your passions, you'll still need factors like talent and perseverance on your side to avoid falling flat, experts say. Mostly, though, you need luck. And the real reason I decided to snark on this article? (In truth, I have nothing against Branson.) It's that the article ends with a promotion for one of its publisher's offerings, and the ad begins with the bolded phrase: Want to make extra money outside of your day job? Still not sure if that constitutes irony or not, but I got a good laugh out of it. Regardless, sure, success can only be defined by the individual. But having lots of money, no matter what problems it might bring with it, is always better than wondering how you're going to make rent next month. |
| Thank you to everyone who commented here on Saturday about my travel plans. It clarified a few things for me. Today, I'm going to discuss an article about numbers: this 2018 Ars Technica discussion of statistics. Trigger warning: math ahead. “Fixed mindsets” might be why we don’t understand statistics Study finds people prefer complicated methods because that's what they're used to. Just reading the subhead there triggered my skepticism. People prefer complicated methods? Not in my experience, piped up my inner skeptic. People like things simple. And then I remembered that we're reading and writing in English, with all of its confusing and complicated grammar and spelling rules, and how every attempt to simplify the language has met with indignant resistance. Sure, I'm used to it. I've spent a lifetime trying to improve my command of the language. If we suddenly decided that everything should be spelled consistently, I'd have to learn a whole new set of rules, and even if those rules are simpler, it's more work. Besides, shouldn't everyone else have to put in the same work I did to learn something? Anyway, that has nothing to do with statistics (well, not directly). It was the first analogy that popped into my head. A new study in Frontiers in Psychology examined why people struggle so much to solve statistical problems, particularly why we show a marked preference for complicated solutions over simpler, more intuitive ones. Chalk it up to our resistance to change. The study concluded that fixed mindsets are to blame: we tend to stick with the familiar methods we learned in school, blinding us to the existence of a simpler solution. As I noted above, it wouldn't be a "new study" anymore. I mostly mention the time frame because the article's publication was before the entire world got hit by a working example of statistics. Now, I know I keep harping on this, but one study isn't sufficient to establish fact. I have no idea if any follow-ups have been done in the 5+ years since this article was published. Fortunately, this is handled by weasel words like "might be." Roughly 96 percent of the general population struggles with solving problems relating to statistics and probability. 67.56% of statistics are made up on the spot. Okay, no, I just made up that number, but if you're going to assert something like "96% of the general population" does anything, shouldn't you back that up with some sort of citation? Assuming it's true, though, would it surprise you to know that I'm one of the 96%? I necessarily encountered statistics and probability in my education, but that doesn't mean I don't "struggle." I'm not an expert, and it doesn't come naturally to me. It's one reason I like blackjack at casinos: it exercises that part of my brain. Sure, it can be an expensive education, but so is college. I think the bigger problem is that many people don't even try. Recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from four percent to 24 percent when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format. The "natural frequency" thing is explained fully in the article (basically, saying something like 1 in 4 instead of giving it a 25% probability, the two of which are mathematically equivalent). But I had to chuckle at the way they phrased this... using percentages. What I finally figured out they meant by "four percent to 24 percent" was: the 4% is the complement of the 96% above, and "natural frequency format" lowered the "struggle" rate from 96% to 76%. But the way that was presented was somewhat ambiguous. I encounter this sort of thing sometimes in video games. Say you have a 30% chance of scoring a critical hit on an opponent. You find some item whose description includes "raises the crit hit chance by 10%." Now: does that mean it's additive, raising the crit hit chance to 40%? Or does it increase your chance of scoring a critical hit by 10% of the current probability, raising it to (30+0.1*30=) 33%? This matters because the latter might not be enough of an edge to justify the opportunity cost of using that item rather than, say, one that makes you prettier. And these games are generally designed, at least in part, by nerds who oughta know better than to be that ambiguous about numbers. The article goes on to describe a Baysean probability problem (in brief, Bayes' Theorem takes into account prior knowledge), and the thing that amused me there is that at the end of the section, which involves a bit of math, there's an editorial comment in italics and brackets: [corrected]. The implication is that even the author got it wrong. Which I'm not going to snark on them for, because I get it wrong sometimes, too (there's one particularly egregious math error in an old blog entry that I'm really hoping doesn't come up in one of my Revisited posts, because I'd then be honor-bound to publicly kick myself for getting it wrong). But if you're specifically writing an article about how people get statistics wrong, and in it you get the statistics wrong, well, that's funny. The students had to show their work, so it would be easier to follow their thought processes. Weber and his colleagues were surprised to find that even when presented with problems in the natural frequency format, half the participants didn't use the simpler method to solve them. Rather, they "translated" the problem into the more challenging probability format with all the extra steps, because it was the more familiar approach. A while back, I encountered an article about second-order polynomials. The quadratic equation is traditionally taught as a rigorous method for finding their solutions. In my experience, I had to memorize the quadratic equation long before anyone really explained to me why it worked, which I find to be essential for my true understanding of something. The QE is somewhat complicated, involving square roots, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; not to mention that it's got that pesky "plus or minus" sign, because the square root of any positive number can be either positive or negative (sqrt(4), for example, can be 2 or -2). Anyway, this article presented a faster, simpler method for deconstructing polynomials. As I recall, it's indeed simpler. And yet, on the rare occasion these days when I want to think about this sort of thing, I still go to my hard-fought memorization of the QE. So I can believe the conclusion reached in the study. But that just means I have to be more skeptical of it. |
| We're looking back into November of 2021 today, selected at random as usual. Since the process is random, sometimes there's something of substance, but other times, we get to revisit stuff like this: "Experience" Which, honestly, suits me just fine because I might be a little bit hung over. The 30-Day Blogging Challenge was running that month, and the prompt, if you don't want to click on that link, was: "An easy prompt for tonight. I'm tired, don't want to think much, so an easy one. What did you do during the 'Great Shutdown For The Upgrade' of WDC today? Tell us all the 'gory' details!" I doubt most users even noticed, and doubt even more that, without entries like these, most people remember it now. I've logged in here every day for several years now, but even I can live without it for a few hours. Hopefully everyone knows we have regular Zoom parties every other week. Those, of course, no longer happen. Nothing bad; just we all moved on to doing other things. Similar to the 30DBC itself. All this server migration, website coding, and hosting stuff might as well be sorcery as far as I'm concerned. Any sufficiently advanced technology, etc., etc. I think most of us have things like that - specialties that, to other people, seem like magic. For that matter, being able to write a coherent and compelling story can seem like magic. Hell, these days, it's a miracle if everything in a story, essay, or blog entry gets spelled correctly. Even with spellcheck. Besides, I'd rather learn about beer. Preferably through hands-on experience. Well, last night, it was wine, not beer, but for at least the next few hours, my education is going to have to take a break. |
| My passport expires in two years. I would like to use it at least once before I get it renewed. Plans I had to travel internationally got interrupted by you-know-what. Yeah, I'm not doing an article today; I want to talk about this, instead. The last time I left the country was over 10 years ago; I went to England and stayed with WDC friends there. It didn't require a lot of planning or schedule-keeping on my part, except for, obviously, the flights: no hotel itineraries, no figuring out how to drive on the wrong side of the road, no dining reservations, no navigating a wildly different language (just a moderately different one). I had a great time, but like I said, I've been languishing in the US (and maybe a little bit in Canada, which hardly counts) since then. My desire to visit Belgium still stands, though the person I was going to travel with has other priorities now. Which is fine; I'm used to traveling alone and actually enjoy it. But I've gotten it into my head that, first, I want to go to France. No, not because of the Olympics. Fuck the Olympics and its crowds. If you ask me "what could possibly make Parisians more grumpy," that would be my first answer. Hell, it might even drive them in Seine. (Not sorry.) No, it's because un) je comprends un peu de français maintenant, deux) il y a de bon vin là, trois) j'ai entendu que les bières en France sont mieux qu'avant. (Okay, fine; that's intended to mean "I understand a little French now," "There's good wine there," and "I heard that the beers in France are better than before." Chances are I screwed something up, but at least I tried.) Of course, there's no reason not to do both countries in one trip, except for that pesky "planning" and "transportation" thing. Unlike the UK, I don't know anyone in France (yet). Or Belgium. And that's mentally blocking me from traveling there alone. I know that's a "me" thing. Another "me" thing is that I despise flying, especially flying steerage. It's not fear; I've internalized that I'm safer on an airplane than I am sitting on my deck where a tree could fall on me or a mosquito could bite me with a dread disease. No, it's the discomfort, inconvenience, and security theater. Either of those "me" things by themselves, I can deal with. I've flown across the US, including once to Hawai'i and back. I've also driven across the country (though obviously, not to Hawai'i) solo, without seeing anyone I knew for days at a time. Not to be a dick about it or anything, but I can even ameliorate the coach-class issue by upgrading; since I haven't traveled much in the last four years, my budget for that sort of thing is well-padded. There are other considerations, too. For example, I know some people travel to get away from it all. I do not. I require guaranteed internet connectivity. Supposedly, my mobile carrier has options for this, but I still don't fully understand them. At a bare minimum, I'd want access to Google Maps. At a slightly less naked minimum, I have a Duolingo streak going that I am loathe to give up. There's also the daily blogging streak that I was hoping I could extend until the end of this year, but as I hate writing on a phone keyboard anyway, that can slip if it needs to (I've already decided I'm not bringing the laptop). For another example, I'm still a little unclear about how to pay for stuff while out of the country. Even in England, sometimes they had trouble with taking my ass-backwards American credit card, even though it's supposedly specifically tailored for international travel. I imagine that's even worse in the Eurozone. And I don't know how to deal with actual currency exchange. Still, American tourists infest Europe like a disease; obviously, they've found a way to accommodate us. I just don't know what to expect or plan for. Speaking of which, I also hate being a "tourist." I'd rather be seen as a visitor. Hawaiian shirt and camera notwithstanding. I shouldn't let these things slow me down, but I do. I'll need to work on that. On the plus side, I have an electric plug converter that should work in any country civilized enough to have electricity in the first place. You know, for charging up the mobile phone I'm not going to travel without. In any case, if this happens, it'll be after the goddamn sports thing. I don't necessarily want to visit Paris, but I suspect that crowds everywhere will be worse during that event. One option I'm considering is, unlike international travel itself, something I've never done: putting it all, or most of it, in the hands of a travel agent. This appeals to my inherently lazy nature, but I expect it takes a lot of the spontaneity and control out of my hands (yes, I know that "spontaneity" and "control" are basically antonyms, but we've already established that I'm weird). I also have no idea how to go about it, but I'm pretty sure I can figure it out. I know some readers are seasoned international travelers and might find my hesitation perplexing. But, as I said, I'm just not used to this stuff. My experience with it is limited. So that's today's blog. I did it mostly to get my own thoughts in order, but advice and comments are always appreciated. |
| When I found today's article, it was like my cat finding the stash of catnip I'd left for her. Red, White, and Misused: How “Born in the U.S.A.” Became an Anthem for Everything That It Wasn’t On the deep, rich history and many misinterpretations (accidental or otherwise) of the Bruce Springsteen classic, which turns 40 on Tuesday Except for the unfortunate subhead, that is. "On Tuesday," forsooth. For context, the article is dated June 4 of this year. Well, that, and the article ventures into territory I try to avoid in here, so it took me a while to decide to put it on my list. As this is a fairly long article, though, I'll just highlight a few key (to me) parts. The “Born in the U.S.A.” video is a lament and a tribute. Mixed in with... 16-millimeter concert footage of a denim-draped Springsteen belting out the song, there are handheld shots of factories, construction workers, an amusement park ride, a check-cashing store with a long line, soldiers, a small Asian American child, and a military cemetery. I'm not sure I ever saw that video. Not then, when I was in college and didn't have cable TV; not later, before MTV turned to shit and I lived in an apartment and still didn't have cable TV; not after the internet and YouTube somehow made music videos widely available on demand. I know, seems strange, right? You'd think I'd have searched out and viewed every single Springsteen video, but that turns out not to be the case. I did see the famous "Dancing in the Dark" video (the song is from that same album), several times, though never because I sought it out. It's not like I have anything against music videos, as should be obvious; it's just that, for me, the music stands on its own terms, sans visual interpretation. And of course I like the song. That summer of '84, I was doing hard physical labor, outdoors, with a land surveyor. That summer job gave me sunburn, poison ivy, yellow jacket stings, mosquito bites, ticks, muscles, an appreciation for desk jobs, exhaustion, and not a lot of money, but I'd get up before dawn as required by the boss (not the Boss; the surveyor boss) and limp back home after dark. Never called in sick, never shirked. Except for the day Born in the USA came out; that day, I took off so I could go buy the LP at the music store, as was the custom at the time. The misuse of “Born in the U.S.A.” has been so blatant that it’s distracted us from its message. As Nietzsche put it, “The text has disappeared under the interpretation.” The misinterpretation is so glaring and has gone on for so long that it’s still a punch line. I honestly didn't even expect there could be misinterpretation. Some of his songs, sure; but that one? The message was, to me at least, pretty damn blatant. We're not talking about mumbled lyrics, something Bruce has been known to do, or mondegreens, like "cut loose like a douche" from his "Blinded by the Light." No, it's straight-up "my country has failed me." Well, more nuanced than that, but the point is, it's no "God Bless America." (barf) But, again, this was 1984. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Etc. The article veers into the political sphere, albeit from a 1984 perspective. The year, not the book. It was, of course, an election year, and Reagan would go on to win a second term in what turned out to be the biggest electoral landslide (I'd even call it an avalanche) in history. As the article notes, at one point in his campaign, he famously misinterpreted the song we're talking about today. But politics is something I try not to harp on in here, especially shit that happened 40 years ago. Nevertheless, this paragraph in the article stood out for me: Springsteen spoke out again the next night, this time without mentioning Reagan by name. “There’s something really dangerous happening to us out there,” he told the audience. “We’re slowly getting split up into two Americas. Things are getting taken away from the people that need them and given to people that don’t need them.” As big a fan as I am of the guy's music, I don't think he has special mystical powers (beyond an abundance of creativity and talent). But that quote was so spot-on, so prophetic, that I started to think he might have been channeling Madame Marie. Madame Marie was a fortune-teller in Asbury Park. Bruce ended up immortalizing her in his song "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" from his second album around, oh, 1973 or so; don't make me look it up. She, of course, wasn't actually immortal, but lived into the 21st century. The story goes that, at some point before he released albums, she told Bruce he would become a famous musician. At the time, you couldn't swing a guitar in Asbury Park without hitting a musician; reportedly, Bruce shot back with something like "I bet you say that to all the guys." She ended up being right, of course, in that particular prophecy, perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps by the shotgun effect. Or, I don't know, maybe she actually heard him perform and knew talent when she saw it. That Bruce quote, though, seems more like genuine insight. Enough like genuine insight to verge on the prophetic. But you can read the article for the political stuff if you want. I have more musical commentary. Born in the U.S.A. was released on June 4, 1984. It was the poppiest record Springsteen had ever made. The first single, “Dancing in the Dark,” reached no. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is still the biggest hit of Springsteen’s career. I gotta disagree with the "poppiest" description. I mean, okay, sure, compared to his previous six albums, maybe. But again... this was 1984, in the throes of a worldwide epileptic seizure of synthpop and electronica. The biggest hit of the year was Prince's "When Doves Cry," which I won't say anything bad about from a creative perspective, but it, like most of the "hits" that year, suffered from overproduction. The only song from BitUSA that I'd describe as "pop" in the context of 1984 was that one, "Dancing in the Dark." At one point, I can't remember when, I heard Bruce talking about the making of BitUSA the album, and he said something like "most of the songs were done in two or three takes. Not a lot of editing. Except for maybe one." Well, I knew right away what that "one" was. It stands out like a broken middle finger on an album that's otherwise just two steps away from a live performance. I'm not saying it's a bad song, mind you. I'd never say that about any Springsteen song. Just that when I first heard it in the context of the whole album, and yes, I remember this clearly from 40 fucking years ago, my thought was, "Someone told him he needed a pop hit." “‘Dancing in the Dark’ was grabbed on to immediately,” says Carter Alan, who back then was a DJ at Boston’s WBCN, one of the country’s most influential rock stations. “A lot of [Born in the U.S.A.] was danceable. And that’s a very danceable song. I mean, they made a 12-inch dance mix out of it.” Of all the qualities that make me like a song, "danceable" isn't even in the ballpark. I care primarily about lyrics (which shouldn't be too surprising in a writer). Sure, the music's important, too, but as much as I've tried, I just have no musical talent whatsoever, so I can't always articulate why I like a song musically. Sometimes, though, I get the impression that I can write words and explain why I appreciate what others write. No surprise, then, that one of the things that does make me enjoy "Dancing in the Dark" is the line: "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here tryin' to write this book." To Alan, that message was obvious. “Some singers mumble, but Springsteen’s all about the words,” he says. “And he makes damn sure you can understand them. He doesn’t bury himself in the mix. There’s a lot of sound and noise going on in that song. I mean, those drums are like cannon shots. But you can hear everything he says.” Um... have you heard Springsteen? Hell, the only way I learned what he was actually singing sometimes was via the liner notes. And sometimes, even those were wrong. But yes, I think he tried a lot harder to make himself understood on BitUSA. So, I usually follow up a music entry with an appropriate video (with a few exceptions, like my Total Eclipse of the Heart entry a couple of days ago). As I said up there, I don't recall ever seeing the BitUSA video, though I'm sure I've listened to the song over a thousand times, including live performances. Consequently, what could be more appropriate than to post it right now so that I can see it for the first time? There are approximately 45,000 versions on YouTube, though. I hope I picked the right one. Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I'm ten years burnin' down the road Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go |
| Solstice today. At least, it's today in my time zone. Australians have to be different, so it's tomorrow if you're in Oz, and winter instead of summer. I mean, the event occurs at the same moment for everyone, but at different times depending on your location. It can all be very confusing, I know. I know a guy who likes summer, but gets sad at the summer solstice, because it marks the start of shortening daylight hours. I can understand that. I always mark the winter solstice by noting that daylight will increase, but for some reason, I ignore the complementary effect six months later. Probably an example of willful ignorance on my part. It happens. Some people have a favorite season. I used to, I guess, but I came to the realization that you can't have a favorite season without having to experience the other seasons, too. I do have a most hated season (winter) and a most hated month (February), but that's about it. Which is kind of odd, because, by some definitions, February is mostly in spring. ("Okay, Waltz, you need to get your head examined.") No. Well, maybe, but not for that reason. Astronomical seasons indeed go from solstice to equinox, or vice-versa. Summer (in the only hemisphere that matters) starts today and will end on September 22. It also features four, not the usual three, full moons this year; the one in August will thus be a Blue Moon. Meteorological seasons go by calendar month: June 1 to August 31 for summer, September 1 to November 30 for autumn, etc. They do this because temperature and weather cycles tend to lag solar quarters. And by folklore, in some cultures, the solstices and equinoxes mark the middle of their respective seasons, not the end points. Midsummer is today (again, being a hemisphere snob). Midwinter is at the winter solstice. I've never heard of midspring or midautumn, but they follow logically. By the folkloric definition, spring starts around Groundhog Day, which is one reason why there's a Groundhog Day: will winter weather linger, or start acting like spring? (That rodent is wrong more than he's right, so it's wise to bet against him over the long term, Bill Murray movies notwithstanding.) Similarly, Halloween (or Samhain) marks the beginning of winter by that definition. The actual date is closer to Guy Fawkes Day, but whatever. Point being that as of today, per some definitions, summer's already half over. Reason enough to be depressed, as if we needed another one what with... *gestures helplessly at everything* ...and all. In short, the events—solstices and equinoxes—are objectively real transition points, but the meaning we put on them can vary. Yes, I've written about this sort of thing before, notably at the last winter solstice, and made many of the same points. But I can't expect everyone to read every entry. Hell, I don't read every entry. Apologies to those who do, for the repetition. But hey, this (astronomical) summer, we might get treated to a nova. I wrote about it back in March: "Celestial Spheres" So that's something for us astronerds to look forward to.If, that is, we live in the northern hemisphere. |
| Way back before the solar eclipse, I saved this Atlas Obscura article to my queue. But the topic itself is timeless, so there wasn't any rush, and the Random Number Gods saw fit to wait until today to bring it forth. ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ Was Almost a Meat Loaf Song Bonnie Tyler’s classic rock epic nearly got the ‘Bat Out of Hell’ treatment. Hardly the usual AO fare; they usually concentrate on place oddities (hence the name) or food. They were doing special "eclipse" articles, and this was one of them. Everything here tracks with stuff I already knew, but I didn't fact-check it further. When Bonnie Tyler’s husky, powerful “Total Eclipse of the Heart” hit the radio in 1983, rock ballad fans around the world fell in love. Well, some did. Some hated it. Still do. I can always tell if someone is worth hanging out with based on their feelings about that song alone. But for one musician, the history of the tune, which was written by composer Jim Steinman, is as torn as the dark love ballad’s lyrics. Meat Loaf was the one who was supposed to have sung that song. Confession time: I possess, and have read, a copy of Meat Loaf's autobiography (unsigned, unfortunately). But I can't remember whether I knew the above from that or through other sources over the years. But the way I see it, ML was famous anyway, still one of the best-selling performers in history; and it boosted Bonnie Tyler, so no real losers here. As the article notes later, ML didn't seem to hold any of this against Tyler. Meat Loaf had long worked with songwriter Jim Steinman, including on his hit 1977 album Bat Out of Hell. What I did get from the book, I think, was that that album was supposed to be a collaboration between singer and songwriter, not purely Meat Loaf with the writing credit added as an afterthought. (Many of the session musicians on it were also members of the E Street Band, adding to its awesomeness.) Meat Loaf’s next planned album, the never-made Renegade Angel was poised for recording, and was supposed to include the track “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” There are at least two things in music history that almost happened that I wish had happened, and that's one of them. The other also involves Jim Steinman—he was meant to collaborate with Andrew Lloyd Webber on a stage production. Just as well that the latter didn't happen; Broadway would have been sucked into a black hole of melodrama. Amid mysterious and abrupt problems with his voice and a psychologically damaging aversion to fame, Meat Loaf’s success and partnership with Steinman began to slowly unravel, forever changing the sound and trajectory of the ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It changed a lot of trajectories, really. And that sentence glosses over a lot of drama. The article dips into this a bit, then: Meat Loaf, under contractual obligation, went ahead with his next record, Midnight at the Lost and Found, a collection of songs written by various songwriters, which Meat Loaf later came to regret. (Steinman meanwhile released songs that he initially thought up for Meat Loaf on his own solo album, Bad for Good.) I bought that Steinman album on LP when it came out. I also acquired the CD several years later. I like it. It's not for everyone. Steinman's voice just didn't work in the same way Meat Loaf's did. Most of the tracks on it later showed up on different Meat Loaf albums, after they reconciled, and the difference is plain if you hear both versions of a song. But that's kind of a sidebar; the point is, Steinman was a prolific songwriter, but lacked the performance talents needed to turn his ideas into popular music. For that, he needed other talent. Preferably people who could pull off melodrama, like Meat Loaf... or Bonnie Tyler. This Rolling Stone article has more on that.So back to the actual topic of the article (and this entry): The song’s music video, which featured prep school boys with glowing eyes, gymnasts, dancing men in leather jackets, and lots of floating fabric, also spawned a Literal Video spoof in the early 2000s that highlights the super weirdness of the visuals. I've posted that Literal Video in here before, so I don't want to do it again. It's still up on YouTube, attesting to not only the power of the original song and video, but to the wonder of parody. Yes, I can like an original and also appreciate the parody. Despite the song's title, though, it wasn't really part of my eclipse soundtrack. No, that was mostly Pink Floyd. |
| It's refreshing to find a science article that seems to get the facts straight (though necessarily simplified). Surprisingly, it's from CNN. Before I get into it, though: no, time is still not an illusion. It's just tricky. This is analogous (but not exactly so) to answering a question like "How long is this iron rod?" when the answer depends on temperature and other factors, and probably can't be answered past a certain degree of precision. On the lunar surface, a single Earth day would be roughly 56 microseconds shorter than on our home planet — a tiny number that can lead to significant inconsistencies over time. Sure, that doesn't sound like a lot. Over one (earth) year, it only adds up to about 2 hundredths of a second. But they're talking about long-term effects, and highly precise instruments. Never mind that the length of a year (and a lunar month) change slowly over time, too. Scientists aren’t just looking to create a new “time zone” on the moon, as some headlines have suggested, said Cheryl Gramling, the lunar position, navigation, and timing and standards lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Rather, the space agency and its partners are looking to create an entirely new “time scale,” or system of measurement that accounts for that fact that seconds tick by faster on the moon, Gramling noted. CNN calling out other sources' headlines for being misleading probably falls under "irony." Astronauts on the moon, for example, are going to leave their habitats to explore the surface and carry out science investigations, she said. They’re also going to be communicating with one another or driving their moon buggies while on the lunar surface. It should be obvious that they can't exactly use Google Maps to navigate. I have no idea if it would even be technically possible to set up an equivalent GPS array for the moon. Even if it is (our natural satellite's gravity field has been described as "lumpy"), I imagine the cost / benefit analysis might not work out. GPS comes with its own time issues, too, having to do with relativistic effects, which the article notes later. And it requires a great deal of precision. General relativity is complicated... Ya THINK? ...but in broad terms, it’s a framework that explains how gravity affects space and time. Eh, fair enough. The article goes on to explain quite a bit more, fortunately mostly in plain language. Then it gets into the bit I really wanted to address: Accurate clockwork is one matter. But how future astronauts living and working on the lunar surface will experience time is a different question entirely. On Earth, our sense of one day is governed by the fact that the planet completes one rotation every 24 hours, giving most locations a consistent cycle of daylight and darkened nights. On the moon, however, the equator receives roughly 14 days of sunlight followed by 14 days of darkness. If we don't doom ourselves or give up entirely, this won't be the last time such adjustments have to be made. While there are robots on Mars now, there's always been talk about sending humans there. As I'm sure we all know, a Martian "day," (which they call a "sol" to distinguish it from our familiar 24-hour cycle) is longer than 24 hours, but not by much. As a reader (and sometimes writer) of science fiction, I've often wondered whether we'd keep our circadian rhythms there, or try to adjust them to the Martian day/night cycle. Considering that any Mars colonies will be entirely indoors, and probably underground, I could see it going either way. In a way, Mars is harder than the moon to figure out this sort of thing, because it's much closer to the cycle we're used to. Not to mention we'd have to answer these questions for any other planet we choose to visit. (Please note that this isn't an entry about whether we could or should. Mostly, I very much needed to make the pun in the title.) I mean, sure, the article mentions this sort of thing, too, but without details. Guess I'll have to do what other writers do and just make stuff up. |
| Today's article, from SciAm, is an ad. Though it's for a book, which I've repeatedly insisted is appropriate here (much as movie previews are appropriate ads before movies), I just wanted to state that up front. Can Scientific Thinking Save the World? A physicist, a philosopher and a psychologist are working together to bring better, smarter decision-making to the masses As I've also repeated, my default answer to any binary headline question is "no." I mean, I'd like it to be "yes," but the world stubbornly refuses to conform to my wishes. Spurred by what they saw as a perilously rising tide of irrationality, misinformation and sociopolitical polarization, they teamed up in 2011 to create a multidisciplinary course at the University of California, Berkeley, with the modest goal of teaching undergraduate students how to think—more specifically, how to think like a scientist. Seeing that now, 13 years later, that particular (red) tide keeps rising, I'd say the world stubbornly refuses to conform to their wishes, too. Now the three researchers are bringing their message to the masses with a new book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense. Like I said: ad. And their timing is impeccable: Our world seems to have only become more uncertain and complex since their course began, with cognitive biases and information overload all too easily clouding debates over high-stakes issues such as climate change, global pandemics, and the development and regulation of artificial intelligence. Perhaps they're just pissing into the ocean. Scientific American spoke with Perlmutter, Campbell and MacCoun about their work—and whether it’s wishful thinking to believe logic and evidence can save the world. The rest of the adarticle is in interview format. I find it interesting, which shouldn't be surprising, given that the disciplines in question are ones I've discussed here on numerous occasions. But no point in rehashing points. Instead, since the subhead up there cries out for it, I'll attempt to make up a joke: A physicist, a philosopher and a psychologist walk into a bar. Bartender says, "What'll it be?" The physicist says, "The answer depends on the level of our knowledge of all the prior states of the system." The philosopher says, "The future is unknowable; we just have to wait to find out." The psychologist says, "I'll have a beer. These two chucklefucks want wine." ...I didn't say it would be a good joke. |
| I try to do these retrospectives on Sundays, picking an old blog entry at random and checking in with the topic and how my thoughts may have changed. I have a few self-made rules, though, one of them being that any entry from less than one year ago is excluded. Well, today's randomly selected older entry barely squeaks by that restriction, having been posted just over a year ago: "A Whole Lotto Nonsense" The primary point of the linked article (which is still available) is to question the scary narratives trotted out every time a lottery jackpot gets big enough to attract the attention of reporters, or what passes for reporters these days. Apart from a few instances of lousy editing on my part, mostly involving punctuation, I don't think I'd change any of my commentary on it—not too surprising, as nothing major has happened in the past year to change my mind about that subject. I also have another lottery story in the queue, but I have no idea when it might come up. Like lottery winners, I pick one using random numbers when I'm ready to do an entry. Could be tomorrow. Could hang out there for a year (in which case it probably won't go in this blog, because I have fewer than 300 entries left before it's full). So, spoiler alert: the particular article awaiting my public scrutiny will provide a somewhat more nuanced view of windfalls, showcasing some of the pros and cons, and focuses on just one data point (that is, one lottery winner). Instead of rehashing stuff you can just click on a couple of links to read, today I'll provide an aside about probability and chance. It's tempting to think that if there's a one in a million chance for something to happen, it will definitely happen if you try a million times, or that once it happens once, it'll take a million tries for it to happen again. You see this sometimes in reporting about floods and such: two "100 year" floods happen in back-to-back years, so some people scoff at the entire concept of 100 year floods (which, to be fair, hydrological statistics are kind of up in the air right now what with climate change, but their problem is generally with the math, not the science). I'm not going to go into the math here; you can look it up elsewhere; I try not to bore or confuse people too much, and it can be confusing, even to me, and hydrology was something I actually trained in. But what a 100 year event really means is that it has a chance, based mostly on historical data, of 1% (1 in 100) to occur in any given year. The probability of an isolated event, such as a particular result of a die roll or a coin flip, is independent of any previous occurrences of the event. You flip a coin, it lands on "heads." You're tempted to bet that the next flip is "tails." This is the gambler's fallacy; in reality, the next flip has a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails. Shuffle a deck of cards. Cut it. The chance of the cut card being an ace is 1 in 13. Shuffle again, and cut. What's the chance of it being an ace again? That's right; 1 in 13. On the flip side (pun intended), you could repeat this exercise 13 times and never once cut to an ace. No, I'm not going to calculate what those odds are. Lottery odds are much smaller than any of these examples, but the idea remains. Part of the reason lotteries are described as a tax on people who are bad at math is because very large and very small numbers can be difficult concepts to deal with. When it comes to that, most of us are bad at math. Hell, it's hard for most of us to conceptualize the difference between 10 million and a billion. Yes, even me. It's not intuitive, like the difference between 1 and 100 is... and those are the same ratio. All of which is to say: don't let the scare stories about lotteries affect your decision. There are plenty of good, actual reasons not to play the lottery (generally several million of them, as in your chance of winning is one in several million), but fear of bad shit happening to you shouldn't be one of them. After all, unlike the numbers picked in the lottery drawing, you have some control over your attitude and actions (philosophical issues about free will notwithstanding). In other words, your chances of getting bitten by a shark drop to very close to zero if you never choose to go swimming. And they were pretty damn low to begin with. |
| From The Guardian, a fairly recent article featured in their "The High Road" section, by that prolific author named Anonymous... Hey, now, I'm less presentable and less productive, and I don't smoke weed. Well, not often, anyway. When the pandemic came, I moved back in with my parents in Los Angeles. It was extremely boring. So are those sentences. One night we had completely run out of things to do so they decided to go to a local dispensary and pick up. I don't understand "completely run out of things to do." There's always something to do. Like, maybe, weed. Smoking with them in the pandemic turned me into a habitual user. That's right, your parents made you do it. Now every morning I wake up, I get a fresh pot of coffee brewing and I finish the joint I was smoking last night before bed, which is sitting on my bedside table. When I’ve finished that, I roll another and continue. Congratulations! You just discovered "Wake and Bake." Literally no one has ever done that before! Last week my therapist asked me what it’s like being this kind of low-level stoned all day... Well, there's an obvious way for the therapist to find out firsthand. Am I addicted to it? Probably, but it works for me and I’m functional. The first step is to admit you have a problem. The second is to lean into it and decide you like the problem. Maybe it makes me less motivated, but I don’t really want to be more motivated. I consider wanting to be more productive very lame, like you’ve been cucked by the patriarchy and capitalism. And that, folks, is a major reason the patriarchy and capitalism have spent the last century or so demonizing cannabis. I smoke behind the wheel, using my car’s coin tray as an ashtray. Fuck me, I'm old enough to remember when we used car ashtrays as coin trays. Personally, I think weed just doesn’t do what alcohol does to you, especially in slow LA traffic. Obviously it is dangerous, but the only road accidents I’ve been in were from before I smoked weed – like driving past an ex-boyfriend’s place and being so in my head that I drove straight into a stationary car. Okay, look, we all know I like to drink booze. And I generally have no problem with cannabis and would like to see it widely legalized. But driving while impaired is a line I don't cross. Now, sure, you can probably argue, though I don't have the data to back it up, that driving stoned isn't as bad as driving drunk or texting while driving. The problem isn't that you could hurt yourself, but that it's dangerous to other people. I hate sounding all mud-sticky about this sort of thing, but that's where the author kinda loses my sympathy. "The only road accidents I've been in were from before I smoked weed" could very well be a matter of luck and survivorship bias, like if I said it's perfectly safe to ride in the bed of a pickup truck because I did that when I was a kid and I'm fine. Last week, my dad called me while I was driving to work and smoking a joint. I made the mistake of picking up and he told me off for driving while I’m high. Yeah, gonna side with Dad here. Obviously this means my car smells powerfully of weed, which is not really a problem until I have to use valet parking, but the valets usually find it funny and ask me if they can hotbox it. Clearly, the author's been lucky enough to never be stopped by cops, either. That's the #1 excuse they give to establish probable cause for a vehicle search, which gives them the opportunity to plant evidence for things that are more clearly illegal, like unregistered guns or meth: "A strong odor of marijuana was noted." (Police reports love to use passive voice.) In the author's defense, though, cops have been known to claim that when they just feel like harassing someone. I once got kicked out of the parking lot at work for smoking weed and listening to fast jazz too loudly... Ugh. Jazz? Pfeh. I guess the old scare tactics were right about the connection between weed and jazz. Me, I'd prefer the traditional musical accompaniment: Pink Floyd. Which, honestly, I prefer to enjoy sober. But to each their own... except, in my opinion, when it comes to driving. |
| There are lots of subjects we don't fully understand. This is a good thing and it makes life interesting. Interesting, but also amusing, because here's an article about time from Time. Or is that from Time to time? In our everyday lives, time is a precious commodity. We can gain or lose it. We can save, spend or waste it. If our crimes are revealed, we risk having to do time. Notice the phrasing in that last sentence: "If our crimes are revealed..." Not "If you do crime and get caught," no, straight to "You know what you did even if the authorities don't, yet." To scientists, time is something we can measure. Clocks have, over the centuries, been the high tech artifacts of their era—the water clock, the pendulum clock, Harrison’s chronometer, and so forth up to the incredible precision of atomic clocks—marvels of modern technology, albeit without the evident aesthetic quality of more traditional timepieces. You know, it occurred to me the other day that the first computers were clocks. When you think about it, they have the ability to compute the current time based on an input value (the time you set it at). I got this insight when I saw an astrolabe—a device that computes the movement of sun, moon, and planets—described as an early computer. But what's a clock besides a simpler astrolabe, one that only focuses on the sun with respect to the earth? I guess it's a categorization thing, like with hot dogs or Pluto. The article spends a few paragraphs going into the history of our conception of time, delving into philosophical, religious, and scientific matters, but not telling me anything new. Then: The traditional view, even among those who accept Darwinian evolution, is that we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. Yeah, that may be the "traditional" view, but there's no evidence for this egocentric idea. Not that there's any compelling evidence against it, besides pedantically wondering what "culmination" means, when we could be wiped out while other species (cockroaches being the most popular example) continue to exist. But even in the immensely concertinered timescape that modern cosmology reveals, extending billions of years into the future as well as the past, this century is special. It’s the first in the 45 million centuries of Earth’s history when one species, ours, can determine the entire planet’s fate. We’ve entered what’s sometimes termed the ‘anthropocene.’ Actual scientists have denied the idea of the anthropocene, but the name's stuck in public consciousness now, and good luck digging that tick out.Perhaps our remote descendents will have a much-enhanced lifespan; they might even become near-immortal. Or perhaps they'll lose capacity for cognitive function. We're already seeing that happen. Assuming, of course, that the collective "we" will have descendants. That "traditional view" up there assumes that evolution is about gaining functions such as what we call intelligence, but really, it's about genetic survival (that's simplistic, of course, but close enough for my argument). When "intelligence" stops being a survival trait, evolution starts to select against it. So this is more of a philosophical essay on the state of humanity than anything meaningful about time. That's okay, though. I'd comment on more of it, but it seems I'm out of time. |
| Speaking of words, here's a list from Cracked: 11 Old-Timey Curse Words That Make You Sound Like Yosemite Sam At the very least they might increase your ‘Scrabble’ score Nowhere is the expression "words have power" more true than in the Land of Cuss. Cursington. Swearsburg. Naughtywordville. Whatever. But repetition makes almost any word lose its magic, until it becomes just another word. That's why I think it's important to switch things up a bit, by making up new curses, or, as this article does, resurrecting old ones. Even in my lifetime, the social acceptability of full-on sailor-mouth has become much more accepted. My father would be offended by that description. He was a sailor, but rarely cussed. I guess he was trying to set a good example for me. Did it work? Shit, no. I would have been hesitant to let loose a “damnit” around my parents in days of yore... I once got upbraided by a Mennonite for saying "damn" in front of them. No, that's not how this works. How this works is: if you're around me, you put up with my curses. Because I do, in fact, give plenty of damns. Now, like the headline says, there are 11 of these, and I can't be arsed to comment on all of them. 9 Gadzooks You know a curse word has lost its power when it ends up as the name of a mall stalwart. A what, now? Never heard of it. A name that feels much grimmer once you realize that gadzooks is a bastardization of “God’s Hooks,” referring to the nails used to crucify Jesus. You gotta wonder if that naming was on purpose. If any mall store should have been called Gadzooks, it should have been Claire’s, given that they handled piercings. There are two major classifications of naughty words: One celebrates and uplifts the most base subjects, like "shit" or the all-powerful F word. The other classification is blasphemous, like "goddammit" or "Christ on a crutch." This is why it's likely that the most perfect curse ever created is "holy fucking shit." What's blasphemy to one religion, though, might be nothing to another. It's hard to blaspheme around me, for example, unless you try to tell me that my favorite beer is pisswater. 5 Rantallion At first glance, you’d assume rantallion was a relative of “rapscallion,” but you’d be plum wrong. It’s a penis, but not just any penis: It’s a penis that's specifically shorter than the scrotum. But what if you just happen to have low-hanging balls? 4 Quim Quim is an antiquated synonym of a modern curse word, though it’s one that, at least in America, still gets you kicked out of a Panera Bread posthaste. One of the most delightful things in any Marvel movie ever was when Loki got away with calling Natasha a "mewling quim" in a PG-13 movie. I mean, I knew what the word meant. Perhaps the MPAA did not. 1 Defenestrate Okay, I'll admit, this isn’t a swear, but it is a delightfully antiquated word that everyone deserves to know. Yeah, that's cheating. But it is a glorious word that deserves more popularity. As in, "The Mennonite threatened to defenestrate me for saying 'damn' in front of him." |
| I tend to be skeptical about the sort of thing featured in this article from Mental Floss, because there's a lot of fauxtymology out there, and I've called out a bunch of it in here before ("tip," for example, which most definitely did not start out as an acronym for "to insure promptness" but that crap keeps getting repeated as truth). So I'll just note, by way of disclaimer, that I can't guarantee that all of these are true. The Racist Origins of 7 Common Phrases From ‘cakewalk’ to ‘no can do,’ the origins of these common idioms and sayings are surprisingly dark. Even the most nonsensical idioms in the English language originated somewhere. I could get pedantic about it and note that the true "origin" stretches all the way back to whatever proto-language our distant ancestors used to hunt antelopes or whatever, but I think I can stick to the intent of the article, here. While these common phrases are rarely used in their original contexts today, knowing their racist origins casts them in a different light. Let's also point out that meanings and connotations change over time, like how the swastika was once a symbol of peace and harmony and now... it's not. It can go the other way, too, from bad to innocuous or good. If someone calls you "nice," that doesn't mean they think you're foolish. Necessarily. 1. Tipping Point No, this isn't directly related to the gratuity kind of tipping. In the 1950s, as white people abandoned urban areas for the suburbs in huge numbers, journalists began using the phrase tipping point in relation to the percentage of non-white neighbors it took to trigger this reaction in white city residents. I'm still not sure if that's racist in itself, or just calling out racism. Given that it was the 1950s, it could go either way. Tipping point wasn’t coined in the 1950s (it first appeared in print in the 19th century), but it did enter everyday speech during the decade thanks to this topic. So it's not really an origin. And if you use "tipping point" in relation to, say, climate change, that doesn't make you racist, either. It's a fairly common and descriptive term in other areas of science, too. Like, maybe, the stress at which steel stops acting elastically and starts to deform permanently. 2. Long Time, No See In contrast, this one is clearly and deliberately racist. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this type of isolating construction would have been unusual for the indigenous languages of North America. Rather, it originated as a way for white writers to mock Native American speech, and that of non-native English speakers from other places like China. By the 1920s, it had become an ordinary part of the American vernacular. Other sources emphasize the Chinese immigrant stereotype over the Native American one. 3. Mumbo Jumbo In the Mandinka language, the word Maamajomboo described a masked dancer who participated in ceremonies. Hardly the first, or last, word or phrase mangled from another language, though other sources peg it as "uncertain origin." While it does reflect a disdain for African language on the part of colonials, if you want to get technical about it like I did way up there, all our words have African origins. 4. Sold Down the River Before the phrase sold down the river meant betrayal, it originated as a literal slave-trading practice. So, yeah, not great, and there's more about it here. A roughly equivalent expression of betrayal is "thrown under a bus," which, given the implied violence, I'm not sure is much better. 5. No Can Do Similar to long time, no see, no can do originated as a jab at non-native English speakers. This one was more explicitly mocking Chinese-Americans. 6. Indian Giver Merriam-Webster defines an Indian giver as “a person who gives something to another and then takes it back.” I think even Kid Me recognized that this phrase was culturally inappropriate. It's pretty damn obvious from the "Indian" part of the name, which didn't refer to Asian Indians. 7. Cakewalk In the antebellum South, some enslaved Black Americans spent Sundays dressing up and performing dances in the spirit of mocking the white upper classes. The enslavers didn’t know they were the butt of the joke, and even encouraged these performances and rewarded the best dancers with cake, hence the name. As this one was about getting one over on the oppressors, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing. Anyway, I've tried to avoid using the obvious ones. As writers, I think it's important to know the tools (words and phrases) we're working with, and make more deliberate decisions about them. Hence my sharing of this list. Besides, a lot of them are cliché anyway. |
| One of the immeasurable joys of getting older is we get to go visit doctors and other medical professionals more often. For instance, me, this morning, so this is going to be a fairly brief personal update rather than deep philosophical musings about whether Chicago pizza is actually pizza (it's not) or scorn at the sorry state of science reporting. Some long-time readers might remember that back in the dark ages of 2021, I had cataract surgery in both eyes. Today's visit to the eye doctor served as a general check-up and 2.5-year follow-up to that. Now, I know I like to kvetch, whinge, moan, and complain in here. But this time, I have nothing to complain about. Everything, according to the eye doctor (don't make me spell optha-whatever), is fine. Sure, my vision is slightly worse than it was 30 years ago, but it's a lot better than it was 5 years ago. What I mostly wanted to share, though, was that the doc, who I go to both because she's very thorough and because she's married to a former colleague of mine, is a massive nerd. I mean, you expect that from science-oriented professions, but she keeps up with the latest ocular-testing gadgets, and this time, she had a new toy: a virtual reality headset programmed to do part of the eye exam. You put on the headset, and a little blue floating cartoon lady (you can tell the gender from the voice and the ponytail; I have a ponytail sometimes, too, but my voice and goatee give away the game) walks you through an exercise where they measure your visual focus distance. This involves staring at a target while a light show goes on all around you like you're moving through space in a game. Turns out my focus isn't quite right, but not off enough to cause serious eye problems or require glasses. Which is still weird to me, not needing glasses for anything at my age. Well, sunglasses for protection from the harsh glare of the accursed daystar, sure, but not prescription ones, and I've always needed shades. And the only reason why? Science. I'd be effectively blind right now without science. Well, not really; without science, I'd have died before I could go blind. So if you ever wonder why I bang on about nerd stuff in here a lot... well, that's one reason why. |
| The person (P.Z. Myers) who writes the blog I'm linking today is a scientist—but he's a biologist, not an astronomer. So his take on astronomy probably isn't any more reliable than mine. This doesn't stop either of us from writing about it. I'm sharing this because 1) I would love to see a supernova before I kick it (though hopefully not one that's too close) and 2) I'll take any opportunity to call out misinformation. Something funny is going on 650 light years away…or should I use the past tense? Something funny was going on 650 years ago. Yes, we know light has a speed, and we don't have good grammatical tenses for it. The way I look at it is: what matters is when we see the event; the distance (or time) when it happened is immaterial. The star Betelgeuse is/was acting up, dimming and then brightening (well, it’s always been flickering a bit, but this was a greater reduction in brightness than usual.) This is cool by itself, because it contributes to astronomers' understanding of how stars work. And now some people are saying it’s about to go supernova! Well, it is. For cosmological definitions of "about to." There is a real-time deathwatch on YouTube. “LIVE Betelgeuse Supernova Explosion Is Finally HAPPENING NOW!” it says. And that's where the misinformation, or at least misunderstanding, comes in. I'll let PZ explain there at the link, or at least quote actual star-gazer type scientists. Awww, but it sounds like it will be spectacular when we do get the Giant Space Kablooiee, and not spectacularly dangerous, the best kind of spectacular there is. The Giant Space Kablooiee is not to be confused with the Horrendous Space Kablooie, which was, to the best of our knowledge, what kick-started this enormous thing we call the Universe. It's not even in the same ballpark. To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction, it's not even the same sport.But yeah, the science-talkers who should know stuff about these things don't think it'll do much, if any, harm to Earth when it happens. But "spectacular" is an appropriate adjective. I do wonder if that guy running the live video feed is prepared to keep it going for 10,000 years. No, but he's probably prepared to collect ad revenue from YouTube, taking advantage of the misinformed. Which is why I'm not going to click on that video. Perhaps I am more cynical than PZ. To be clear: we don't know enough about stellar lifecycles to predict just when Betelgeuse, or any other star of appropriate mass and age, will become a supernova. When it happens, next year or 10 millennia from now or somewhere in between, if there are still scientists around at that point, we'll learn more. Hell, even the "650 light years" thing might not be correct. For whatever reason (it's discussed at the link I'm about to provide, though with an overwhelming amount of math), it's incredibly hard to estimate that star's distance with high certainty. Wikipedia puts it at 400-600 ly, which, even on the low end, is still supposed to be comfortably far for a supernova (though close enough to look awesome).Now, I've written about the probably-not-a-supernova-anytime-soon bit before, notably here: "Stardust" . Today's update is more about the "live feed" nonsense. And maybe a bit of a distance correction.If you want a live feed that's actually interesting, I usually remember to check this one out occasionally around late spring/early summer. Bears! |
| Delving into the depths of the past once again, the random numbers landed me on this origin story of sorts, from all the way back in 2008: "Housekeeping" On my computer at work, I have a Favorites folder called "Blog Fodder." Fortunately, I no longer waste time at work, and my Blog Fodder list resides on my laptop. Nowadays, of course, these things are portable between devices, just when that feature became nearly useless to me. Into it I drop the random links people send me, some of which end up here. Every once in a while, someone will still send me a link, and I usually appreciate it. But I find most of my material from other sources. No, not social media, which I generally shun. But there's usually more links than I want to blog about, or maybe some of them fit a theme while others don't. Obviously, I ended up resolving this non-issue by picking just one at random when it's blogging time. The rest of that entry was me cleaning house (hence the entry title) by dumping three links with brief quotes and commentary. I won't bother rehashing that bit. The links are, remarkably, all still active as of right now, but being older and dumber now, I don't think I find them as amusing as I did 16 years ago. And it's not really an origin story; apparently, I'd been commenting on links for a while even then. But that might have been the first time I explained anything about my process. |
| This piece, a recent one from The Guardian, is about communication, so it may be of interest to writers here. The big idea: the simple trick that can sabotage your critical thinking Influencers and politicians use snappy cliches to get you on side – but you can fight fire with fire Ha! I see what you did there, headline writer. Since the moment I learned about the concept of the “thought-terminating cliche” I’ve been seeing them everywhere I look: in televised political debates, in flouncily stencilled motivational posters, in the hashtag wisdom that clogs my social media feeds. No, you've always been seeing them. Now, you recognize them for what they are. Coined in 1961 by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, the phrase describes a catchy platitude aimed at shutting down or bypassing independent thinking and questioning. These days, when I see or hear "platitude," I picture an angry platypus (one with an attitude). Look, it helps me, okay? Apparently, the word derives from the French plat, meaning flat or dull (I guess in the same sense that we use "flat" for non-glossy paints). But in that same language, plat also means dish—in the same way that, in English, "dish" can refer to both a plate (a word obviously also derived from plat) and the food you put on it to eat. This makes a platitude feel like something easily prepared and consumed, which is really damned appropriate. Also, I'm pretty sure it was Ogden Nash who came up with the phrase "duck-billed platitude." But I digress, as per usual. In his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton wrote that these semantic stop signs compress “the most far-reaching and complex of human problems … into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.” That's a whole lot of words to express what I call "bumper-sticker philosophy," which I suppose is my own thought-terminating cliché. As the article points out, though, TTCs (do not expect me to type the phrase every damn time) aren't necessarily bad. Like any word or phrase, they can be used for good or evil. Unfortunately, mere awareness of such tricks is not always enough to help us resist their influence. For this, we can blame the “illusory truth effect” – a cognitive bias defined by the unconscious yet pervasive tendency to trust a statement simply because we have heard it multiple times. This gets weaponized a lot, too. Keep repeating things like "greed is good," and people start to believe it. Or, like someone we all know of, continue to lie and your minions lap it up as divine Truth, even though it's objectively a lie. But what if we could do that with the actual truth? To compete in the marketplace of thought-terminating cliches, then, our best bet might be to take what we know about illusory truth and harness it to spread accurate information. Like that. Beyond repetition, studies show that people perceive statements as more believable when presented in easy-to-read fonts or easy-to-understand speech styles, such as rhyme. Or, you know, alliteration like in my example above. This, of course, is where writers come in. And a 2021 study showed that humour is among the qualities that make information more memorable and shareable. A titbit is “just more likely to spread if it’s funny”, says Scheirer. Did you know that we here in America call small morsels of food or information tidbits instead of titbits because our Puritanical sensibilities required the change? Yeah? Then you were subjected to misinformation. Probably. I mean, it felt right to me, too, because I'm not without bias, myself. But apparently, "tit" has at least two entirely separate etymologies. It doesn’t only have to be shameless disinformers who exploit the power of repetition, rhyme, pleasing graphics and funny memes. “Remember, it’s OK to repeat true information,” says Fazio. The trick, of course, is to know what's true, and in a postmodern world, that's becoming increasingly difficult. Even facts that should be universally accepted, such as the approximate shape or age of the Earth, are subject to strong opposition. As the article implies, though, this doesn't mean we shouldn't make the attempt. |
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