Things They Should Invent: proper instructions on how to skip double dutch

I was googling for how to skip double dutch, and everything I can find talks extensively about how you need to get two ropes and two people to turn and one or more people to jump, and how to turn the ropes so they're opposite to each other, all of which I know. And then when it gets to the point that I want to know about, it says "Jump in!" Then it goes on about how you can do all these tricks and stuff, but never actually elaborates HOW to jump. I've never been able to figure this out! The turning isn't the hard part, the jumping is! Give us better instructions people!

What if...

- Suppose someone's got you cornered and is about to beat you up, and your cellphone rings, and you say "Just a moment, I have to take this call." Would that stop them, at least briefly before they go "Hey, wait a second..."

- Suppose you see someone else being attacked, and you just walk in calmly, completely ignoring the fact that there's an attack going on, and start talking to the victim and take them by the hand and lead them out "Oh, there you are, I thought we were supposed to be meeting over on the corner. Come here for a second, I need you to look at my car, the windshield wipers have been acting funny..." Again, would that throw off the attackers just long enough to make an escape?

- Suppose media coverage of the US elections (aside: are they going to be campaigning straight through until November? or do they get a break?) just didn't mention the fact that Hilary Clinton is female and Barack Obama is black. If the media stopped mentioning it as a factor would it continue to be a factor?

- In places where people like to go around shooting abortion doctors, what if the abortion doctors had extremely elite well-trained pregnant bodyguards? So if you shoot at an abortion doctor, a pregnant woman will jump in and take the bullet. Logistical and ethical issues aside, would that be an effective deterrent to the shooters?

Things They Should Invent: "comfortism" as a separate concept from materialism

Materialism is about having things. "Comfortism" (still taking suggestions for a better word) is about the ease and/or comfort that those things bring to your life. It would be very helpful to separate those concepts.

I love my ipod not because it's a sleeky shiny pricey toy, but because carrying around all my music at once makes life more pleasant. I love my appliances not because they're the very latest thing in energy-efficient appliances, but because they make life so much easier. I love my computer not because it looks cool and was when I bought it faster than anyone else's computer, but because it allows me to do whatever I need or want to do without any waiting or technical difficulties.

These motivations for owning consumer goods should not be given the same label as the motivations of someone who wants to own something to show off or be cool or impress other people or so people will go "Whoa, they have a solid gold Hummer, they must be rich!" (If people actually have these motivations - I've found that people are quick to ascribe truly materialistic motivations to others, but if you ask people about their own motivations it's for ease or comfort or convenience).

The problem with holding conventional opinions

The problem with conventional opinions is that to the onlooker, a conventional opinion that you've blindly accepted without a second of critical thought looks exactly the same as a conventional opinion that you've analyzed deeply.

Suppose I say, "I don't believe in photons". Regardless of how sensible you think that opinion is, it's clear that I've thought about it rather than unquestioningly accepting what I was taught in science class.

However, if I say, "I think democracy is a good thing," you have no way of telling whether I've given the matter any thought or whether I'm just blindly accepting society's opinion.

Deep thoughts on US politics

Barack Obama's name always sounds backwards to me. He should switch it around and be Obama Barack instead. Plus, then he's be higher up on the ballot.

Open Letter to my Subconscious

Dear Subconscious:

Sex is a nice thing to dream about. So is flying. A quest or adventure dream is always good. Being a character in any work of fiction is a fun way to spend a night, and being given a plot that I can use to write my own fiction is always worthwhile. Barring that, I can appreciate any dream that will make a good anecdote, even if it is a nightmare.

So why the fuck did you make me spend all last night being 11 years old and stuck in the back of my parents' car while they drove all over suburbia doing boring errands???? Frankly, I'd rather have had a panic attack dream that woke me up at 4 in the morning! At least then once I'd recovered my equilibrium I could get some gaming in before my alarm went off!

Analogy for why I am not a musician

In Grade 12, my English teacher made us memorize the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet, which was a perfectly normal assignment. On the test, we had to write out the soliloquy. Perfectly reasonable, right? Except that he was also marking us on whether we had memorized the exact punctuation! This was really surprising, since he also taught Drama, so I figured he would appreciate that the punctuation is not that relevant. As long as you know the words and understand their meaning and emotional arc, it doesn't matter if there's a period or a comma or a semi-colon or a colon or a dash between "To be or not to be" and "that is the question".

I stopped music when I came to the realization that I was never expressing myself artistically or creatively through that medium. I know other people do, but it doesn't work that way for me. When I worked on music - and I did have to practice and work extremely hard just to be competent - it was like memorizing the punctuation in Shakespeare. The more I worked the more I knew about music, the more familiar I was with the mechanics of the piece, the better I could play the piece, the more it became something my fingers could do automatically without involving my brain, but it was never artistic or creative. It never had soul, just like memorizing the punctuation in Shakespeare isn't going to give your performance soul.

Now I'm quite good at learning new things. I can pick up a book and learn fingerings and/or embouchure, then pick up an instrument and practice relentlessly, and with hard work I will eventually be able to play all the notes as written. But that doesn't make me a musician any more than a voice synthesizer reciting Shakespeare is an actor. I can learn knowledge and technical skills, but I can't fake having soul. I had to leave the church for that reason, and I also had to stop being a musician for that reason.

This always reminds me of this commercial. She wanted to be a gymnast, she was too tall, so she ended up being a pole vaulter. So impossible is nothing? No...being a gymnast was impossible because she was too tall. You can't set out to do one thing, fail, end up doing a completely different thing, and declare success on that basis. I can't go around saying "I always wanted to be a musician but I don't have the soul for it, so I ended up being a translator. See, you can do anything you put your mind to!" Not that people should be castigated when their original plans don't work out so they switch directions to something more suitable, but you can't use that situation to illustrate the idea that impossible is nothing.

A statement that is perfectly logical today but was utterly nonsensical a few short years ago

"I have a phone full of videos."

Thank you to Tabatha Southey for successfully articulating what I haven't been able to yet

"Saying, "I'm a feminist," is almost like saying, "I have no problem with Pakistanis" - we're all just going to assume that one, okay? Unless you say otherwise."

I'd love to link but the Globe & Mail won't let me

A playlist for the aliens

They're broadcasting Across The Universe into space (the original Beatles song, not the movie).

Very appropriate from the point of view of us down here on Earth, I freely admit, but is that really the best thing to send to the aliens? A lot of the meaning is in the lyrics, so they would have to be able to manage the concept of music, then recognize the many different instruments, then recognize that some of the sound is vocal, then have the concept of verbal language, then work out the English language except that one sentence is Sanskrit. I think even Hoshi Sato would have trouble working out a language if the occasional sentence was in another language. Plus, if it's the recording I think it is, there are some birds and stuff in the recording, which is non-linguistic (or, if it's linguistic it's another language completely irrelevant to the message) vocalizations from a whole nother species! That's an awful lot for the aliens to work out!

Better music to broadcast out to the aliens would be something with no lyrics, only one instrument, and a very clear structure so they can see there's intelligence behind it. Goldberg Variations anyone?

Sidewalks

Is it just me, or are people not being nearly as diligent about clearing their sidewalks this year?

Things They Should Invent: stop tasing people as part of training

Often much is made of the fact that police officers and taser salespeople get tased as part of their training.

I think this is a shitty idea and they should stop it immediately.

Why? Because the person being tased might live.

Stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

Every once in a while people die from being tased, and we aren't sure exactly why. They don't know when they tase a person whether they'll die or not. So a taser isn't actually a safe stun gun, it isn't like setting your phaser to stun, it's a randomly lethal weapon. Believe me, if they were reliable never-lethal stun guns, I'd have one in my night table and one in my purse - whether they were legal or not!

If you've never been tased, you appreciate how they're randomly lethal, because you have no idea whether you'd survive a tasing or not (and what you'd experience while dying). But if you've been tased and then walked away with nothing more than a bit of a headache (or whatever), then you're more likely to think "Hey, it's no big deal! I've survived it myself!"

New Rule: stop staying "Googlegänger", start saying "Doppelgoogler"

It has come to my attention that people are using the word "Googlegänger" to mean another person who comes up when you google yourself.

Good, well-intentioned coinage, but unfortunately it's wrong.

Googlegänger is a blend of "Google" and the German "Dopplegänger", meaning an exact double of a person. "Dopplegänger" itself is a blend of "dopple" meaning double, and "gänger" meaning literally "goer".

So as you can see, whoever coined "Googlegänger" inadvertently chose the wrong part of Dopplegänger to retain. A more accurate word would be "Doppelgoogler".

As a special incentive program, I have been authorized to permit anyone who switches from Googlegänger" to "Doppelgoogler" to use an umlaut on the O of their choice for purely aesthetic reasons, even though it is lexically incorrect.

How to be funny

Anything can be funny, no matter how offensive. The trick is, it has to be funnier than it is offensive. You get positive points for funny, you get negative points for offensive. If your net result is >0, you're funny. In theory, you can say something that's -10^100 offensive, and it will work if and only if it's +(10^100)+1 funny. This is why Sarah Silverman tends to work for me.

The thing most people don't realize is the audience gets to delegate these points however they like. The comedian doesn't get any say in it (which is why people who insist that they're funny even when the audience doesn't agree come across as mad crazy assholic). If the audience finds it more offensive than it is funny, the comedian loses.

I had this big long explanation about how to calculate whether something is going to be offensive to the audience, but I just realized it comes down to one simple thing: if the audience identifies with the victim of the joke, and they feel like the comedian is a threat to them - like the comedian wants to hurt them and then laugh at them for it.

So if a comedian wants to tell a joke with an offensive element to it and wants to maximize the chances of the audience finding it funny, what they have to do is disarm themselves and/or empower the audience until they get to the point where even if they audience identifies with the victim, the comedian is so powerless ineffective that they couldn't actually hurt the victim. Again, I think this is why Sarah Silverman works - her character is such an ineffective person that she couldn't successfully act on her offensive impulses even if she tried. (I can't think of an example offhand, but I have seen comedians go too far with this, casting themselves as the victim in a that I can identify with, and leaving me uncomfortable because now I feel like the whole world wants to hurt me and laugh at me for it.)

As usual, Eddie Izzard is very good at this. In his Heimlich Manoeuvre bit, he takes a joke just up to the point where he's about to pose a threat to the audience, then promptly disarms himself, all in about 30 seconds.

The part I'm talking about starts at 2:00:



Watch from 2:00 to 2:22, then pause just after he says "Your hymen's been removed?... You need it removed?"

Now if this joke were being worked out for the first time, the obvious next step would be for him to thrust his groin or something. But that would ruin everything. The audience would be sitting there, imagining themselves choking to death in a restaurant, and suddenly someone comes up and starts trying to have sex with them. That's not fun at all!

Now press play and watch how Eddie gets himself out of this one.

First he mimes surgical equipment - pretend surgical equipment that doesn't exist in reality. So now whatever this idiot has in mind, at least he isn't going to try to stick his dick in you while you're choking to death. Then he says "I don't know how to remove a hymen." BOOM, threat eliminated. He doesn't even know to stick his dick in places, so he's no threat at all! In fact, since the audience does know how to remove a hymen, he's put us in the position of power. We can now feel slightly superior in any number of ways, ranging from "Good, let's keep it that way," to "Come on, we don't believe that for a minute," to "Why don't you come here and I'll show you?" That's got just about everyone in the audience covered.

The net effect isn't hugely funny, but it does end up with positive points because he was able to make his little "Heimlich manoeuvre sounds like hymen removal" joke while not making anyone in the audience feel like he wants to rape us while we're choking to death or would think it's funny if someone raped us while choking to death. And all because he's willing to swallow his ego enough to pretend for a moment that he doesn't know how to have sex.

Let's all stop being feminists

From last Saturday's Globe and Mail: Is Feminism Going Out of Style?

This article has inspired me: let's declare feminism obsolete! I have a much better idea anyway:

Every time you have an opinion that would normally fall under the category of feminism, pluralize it in a gender-inclusive way.

Instead of 10 million women use prescription contraception, 10 million Canadian families rely on prescription contraception (heterosexist, yes, but perhaps that's a safe bet since we're talking contraception?)

Instead of women in Prince Edward Island don't have access to abortion, the entire province of Prince Edward Island is without access to abortion!

Instead of the media is paying too much attention to Hilary Clinton's clothes and husband, the media is paying too much attention to presidential candidates' clothes and spouses instead of focusing on the real issue!

These aren't women's issues, thus declaring them irrelevant to half the population. These are major social issues that affect people everywhere!

Stupidest thing ever EVER!

So it seems some pathetic losers who need to get a life are going to picket Heath Ledger's funeral. Because apparently he once played a gay character in some movie or another.

Apart from how tasteless and idiotic that is, I have a serious question:

What, specifically, are they trying to accomplish?

I mean that literally. When you're picketing or protesting, you have a specific tangible goal. You want a better collective agreement or you want trans fats banned or you want war to stop. Usually if the right person signs a piece of paper that says the right thing, you've won.

But in this case, what is their goal? He can't UNplay a gay character. And even if he could, he's dead now so he can't do anything about it.

(Aside: when I hear about things like this, sometimes my first thought is that someone of the same sex should walk up to them and give them a big ol' snog. Which of course is completely inappropriate - everyone should have the right to go around in public and even protest stupid things in public without having unwanted snogging forced on them. Plus it disturbs me that I'm thinking in terms of using sexuality as a weapon. But I do wonder what the legal status would be if you gave them due warning: "If you keep gaybashing him, I will kiss you - with tongue! If you shut up now, I will not kiss you." And then they keep up with the gaybashing so you kiss them. Would that be any less assault than unwanted snogging with no warning?)

Did someone die?

From my normally eerily prescient iTunes:

Aerosmith's Full Circle
k.d. lang's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah
The Beatles' Let It Be

If someone died, I think I'm going to delete all my music and never listen to music again...

Religious theory

I have a bunch of long posts in mind, and I'm too lazy to type them all out. So instead here's my latest religious theory:

If the messiah is in fact going to be born of a virgin impregnated by the holy spirit as postulated in the bible, it has already happened.

Why? Because between 2000 years of missionaries and evangelism, and today's mass media capabilities, everyone's already heard the story. So here's how it would go down today:

Archangel Gabriel: "Do not be afraid, for I bring you glad tidings. You have been blessed among women!"
Virgin: "Oh no you don't! I heard what happened to the last girl you said that to!"

Cringe

The only thing worse than googling something and accidentally landing on one of my own translations is googling something and landing on a text that contains all the worst features of my translations, but I can't tell if it's something I did or if someone else just wrote it in English in a way that sounds like my translations.