Is He Ever Going To Swing?

You may have seen the quick news item that Jerry Dior, the creator of Major League Baseball's iconic logo, has died.

It's a pretty nice design.  It's recognizable, bright but not gaudy, and it gets across the message of baseball in America. And it's aged fairly well - I had no idea how old it is (since 1968, apparently.)


But it's also led to imitation.  The NBA has a similar logo, featuring a silhouetted player that even borderline fans like myself seem to know is Jerry West. I don't know which league had the idea first, but fine, they both use it. Then someone started using it with a skateboarding image on t-shirts. Still fine: I appreciate pop-art references as much as I like lists. Then the Indy Racing League couldn't think of a better idea for its logo. When the National Lacrosse League used a similar symbol, it's clear that this is some sort of default league logo. Is it even still iconic anymore? At what point does it become a visual cliche?

So please: pop artists and fledgeling sports leagues alike, come up with something else to rip off.  Perhaps the NHL crest, or whatever that new MLS thing is.  Or just copy FIFA.  They won't sue you; I hear they're distracted right now.

Hack Writer

It was only a few years ago that I was seeing people in the computer biz lamenting the loss of the word "hack" (and "hacking," "hacker," etc.)  Originally, a hacker was a person who used a computer a lot.  That is, a programmer was a type of hacker.

But all that changed when the media needed to talk about people who use computers maliciously.  They seized on the word "hacker" to describe these people. And this was at a time when the word was still only vaguely understood by the general public.  So the word that had been semi-affectionate term for people with a common interest became a scary and slanderous word only a few steps up from "terrorist."  Some computer fans tried to rescue "hacker" by promoting the made-up word "cracker" as a replacement for people who break in to systems.  That never got far.

But in the past few years, the positive connotations of hacking have made a comeback.  Websites like Lifehacker have promoted the word as a more general term for clever, non-standard action.  I'm seeing this new (old) use of "hack" in more and more places, so it's safe to say the public has bought in to the idea that hacking can mean positive things.

Corrupted File

The world's media has been buzzing about the FIFA officials arrested for corruption. And apparently a lot of the legal work was done by the Americans, even though they are hardly FIFA's most important market. Of course, that could be because they have some objectivity and distance from the problem, sort of like how hockey agent Alan Eagleson's crimes were exposed and charged in the U.S. rather than Canada. Perhaps the Americans could rent themselves out going after corruption in sports they don't care about. I'm hoping they'll tackle Formula One next, and I hear Cricket has some problems too. 

And now the story gets stranger. Well, it was stage to begin with that everyone in the organization is on the take and President Sepp Blatter was supposedly not involved, and didn't even know anything bad was going on. But now it's time for the next election for the organization's president. Blatter is not only still running, he's still likely to win.

Each country's national soccer association gets a vote for President. The media is trying desperately to explain how much of the world (largely the non-Western world) will be giving another term to this guy. The reason is usually given that he's been good to the developing world. After all, he did oversee the World Cup coming to Africa.

But quick look at a map of corruption problems shows a disturbing correlation between areas that support Blatter and areas that have corrupt governments. A better way to explain his continued support is this: the sort of person who somehow got a cushy, high-paying job from a corrupt government is the sort of person who supports Sepp Blatter.

Afternoon Debate

I remember years ago reading an interview with an exec from TSN, then Canada's only sports network. It was when specialty cable channels were new, and a lot of their programming was Aussie Rules Football and monster trucks. But he was outlining where he wanted the network to go, and he mentioned foreseeing a day when they had an array of "lifestyle" programming related to sports during the day, like exercise shows.

Of course, that didn't happen. Today that seems quite naive and old fashioned, reminding us of a time when: daytime television appealed to housewives, cable channels stayed on topic, and people cared about exercise.

I'm reminded of this because today's daytime sports programming is dominated by sports discussion shows. The people on them change from one hour to the next, but the format is mostly the same, with a relatively-rapid-fire succession of topics to be argued about briefly and discarded. And the shows are quick to apply the tropes of sports coverage, with time limits and on-screen lists of upcoming subjects.

Even in our divisive and sports-obsessed world, I can't believe anyone needs this much sports talk. Each show covers the same stories; how many people do we need to debate one day's sports news? Are you sure no one out there wouldn't rather watch an exercise program?

But somehow this is the most profitable programming for sports networks' daytimes. I guess that's not too surprising - with one set and no writers, they must be dirt-cheap to make. And that's the modern approach to specialty channel programming: find a type of show that will make you money, then crank out as many variations on it that you can get away with.

My Own Private Israel

There's been some refreshing news from the middle East. No, it's not good news: it's more violence and intolerance. But at least it's small violence and intolerance. No one was even killed this time.

In Israel, a soldier of Ethiopian descent was beaten by police officers. That was a breaking point for Israel's Ethiopian community, and led them to protest their poor treatment. What, you didn't know there were Jews in Africa? Yes, they're everywhere.

This is a depressing situation on many levels. For one thing, this is a country founded to defend a traditionally abused minority, and they've apparently developed a tradition of abusing a minority.

• The Ethiopian Israeli situation is similar to the situation of African Americans: a cycle of poverty, mistrust from the majority, and excessive incarceration.
• Fortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken out against the treatment of Ethiopians. That's good of him, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one who read that as, "guy who built his career on demonizing Arabs condemns racism."

I'm not Jewish, so I've never really grasped the place Israel has in people's psyche. You're part of a minority that's poorly understood if not outright hated, but then there's this place far away that you can go to, where everyone is like you. You go there, and the minority culture you've struggled all your life to explain to friends and colleagues is the majority, the expectation.

(As an aside, above when I described Jews as "poorly understood," my phone interpreted that as "porky understood." I think my phone is anti-Semitic.)

As a straight, white, able-bodied, WASPy, cis male, it's hard for me to relate to that. The closest I can get is to relate it to my my geekiness. It would be pretty nice to have a Geekland that I can go to and feel at home. Geekland? Geekistan? I don't know, we'd probably just call it Westeros.

So you get on a plane as an outsider with interests few others share, then get off it on the other side of the world as an accepted member of the majority. One problem with it is that you have lived in the outside world for so long, that you might feel overwhelmed when you go to the homeland and find you aren't geeky enough. I know I'd probably get deported as soon as they found out I only watched three episodes of Firefly. And sure enough, Israel has similar problems: people come from different denominations and different places, then find that it's hard to reconcile the fundamentalist and liberal believers.

Geekistan wouldn't fare much better. I mean, we don't even have to share the same space, and yet the culture is tearing itself apart online on two different fronts. And that's the problem with having a place for your people: even if you have one major thing common, like a religion, there are still so many ways we differ and disagree, and we'll discover them when we're forced to share the same venues and institutions.

Darlin', You Gotta Let Me Know

Last week, Britain had an election. The Conservatives won again, though this time with a majority. Since their ineffectual minority partners, the Liberal Democrats, didn't make much of an impression anyway, it's hard to see how this election made any difference.

Outside of Scotland, anyway. One interesting aspect is that the separatist Scottish National Party won nearly every seat in Scotland. So it's official, Scotland is in full Quebec mode: not wanting to work with the rest of the country, but also not quite willing to commit to a split.
Speaking of people who won't quite separate, the big news is that the Conservatives will be holding a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union. It's such a big deal, they've even given it the already-grating name, "brexit," for British exit.

This decision should be interesting, since the British have developed a strange relationship with the EU: everyone seems to hate it, bit no one does anything about it. It's fitting that they use the word, "Eurosceptic" to refer to someone who dislikes the UK's membership in Europe, yet you never seem to hear anyone described as simply, "Anti-Europe." Politicians - including PM Cameron have used Europe as a crowd-pleasing punching bag, but now they'll have to put their money where their mouths are.

But I'm not sure they will. Someone over there floated the idea of renegotiation. That is, the idea that, rather than accept the obvious options of stay or go, there's also the possibility that they could just renegotiate the terms of their membership. And that's the second Quebec connection: they've introduced a hypothetical possibility that they can get the best of both worlds through the magic of negotiation.

I'm certainly a fan of talking, negotiation, and compromise. But I recognize that they are limited by the obvious fact that there's another side to the dealings. I'm amazed at how often people get taken in by this idea that they can get anything through negotiation, even when it's clearly something the other side would never agree to.

So this whole process could get frustrating to watch, but at least we'll have the satisfaction of watching the UK simultaneously separator and separatee.

Astro Down Memory Lane

The Blue Jays' recent series in Houston didn't go well for them. But I did notice something interesting in the crowd: the preponderance of old Astros shirts.

To review: Houston's baseball team was originally called the Colt 45's. But when the city built the world's first domed stadium, it was named the Astrodome, in honour of the city's connection to the space program ("Houston, we have a problem.") Also, it was the 60's, and the future was still cool. So the team chose the name Astros. They also started taking their logos and uniforms in a bolder direction, by the mid-70's, they adopted snazzy white, orange, yellow and red uniforms, with an unapologetically modern font (Futura Bold?) Of course, traditionalists cringed.

Over the last quarter-century, the Astros have had a variety of inoffensive, but unmemorable uniforms and colour schemes. Today, their current black-and-orange unis hint at the old ones, but the traditional trim and fonts seem incongruous.

But the weird thing is that you still see a lot of the gaudy old shirts in the stands. In fact, it seems like there are more of them than their current style. So it seems that the fans have spoken, and whatever the marketers say, they think their team identity lies in those crazy 70's shirts.

Hopefully the team will realize this and build on it. I'm not expecting them to go back to that style, but they could come up with a design that pays tribute while looking more timeless. Essentially, the Blue Jays did this on a less extreme scale, bringing back their World Series era logo, fonts, and uniforms, albeit with some well-placed updates (it's amazing what a difference serifs make.)

I'm glad to see this. While baseball's history and tradition give it a gravitas most sports lack, it can get rather stuffy when self-appointed gatekeepers decide what is and isn't available. It's good to see that the sport still has room for a little irony.

And if there can be rehabilitation for the Astros' notorious uniforms, maybe some others have a chance. The Raptors' old purple shirts still make a lot of appearances in the crowd, despite their tasteful current red and black. The Washington Capitals have brought back their outlandish star-spangled shirts. But the ultimate would be if the Vancouver Canucks and their fans warm to their old black, red, and yellow.

Faith No More

I saw this interesting new study on the popularity of religions in the USA.  That is, they polled people on what they said their religion is. I'll give you the quick version:

• All Christian denominations have declined in popularity (as determined by the percent of the population that considers themselves a member.) Though Christianity still makes up a big majority.
• The proportion of white people has declined in almost all Christian denominations.
• Non-Christian religions have nearly all gained, though their numbers are still small.
• The member of people saying they belong to no religion has increased fast. And young people are more likely to have no religion, and are leaving religions faster.

A couple of interesting things stand out to me. One is how universal the dripping Christian numbers are. The impression I had was that moderate denominations were leaking members on both sides, with people either leaving churches all together, or getting drawn to more conservative sects. This would lead to a "hollowed out" religion made up of the fundamentalist and the lapsed with few in between. But that's not what's happening. It does appear that liberal denominations are losing members to the conservative denominations, but that's small compared to the numbers they're both losing to "none of the above."

The other interesting point involves those people who say they aren't a member of any church. The survey has options for "atheist," "agnostic," and "none." While all three have been gaining, there are far more people in the last category (at 3.1%, 4.0%, and 15.8%, respectively.)

That could mean a number of things:

• They're Christian, but don't feel right saying they belong to a particular church given that they haven't been there since childhood.
• It could be that these people still have some religious beliefs, but they don't fit into Christianity.
• They are no longer sure what they believe in, as with people who give that cryptic description "spiritual, but not religious."
• They don't know what "atheist" or "agnostic" mean.
• They're straight-up atheist, but even they are turned-off by the the attitude of the new atheist movement.

Fortunately, they say future research will look into that, it seems like a big distinction. Among young millennials, self-described Christians make up only 56% of the population, so this is a pretty big slice of the population for us to not understand.

Hollow Movies

This year there's going to be a live-action movie based on the 1980's cartoon, Jem and the Holograms. A trailer has been released, and fans are up in arms.

I didn't really understand the controversy, since the show was after my time. It was my experience growing up that kids watch cartons, but then around the time they get to the teens, they figure they've outgrown them. But by their late teens, they often come back: they've realized that the rest of television isn't that great, and they can use irony as an excuse for why they're watching cartoons even as they enter adulthood. Or maybe they just get high.

So I looked up the show on Wikipedia to try to understand it, and sure enough, it was on during my early teens. As the title suggests, it's about a rock group. But this being an 80's carton, it can't simply be about a rock group: the singer leads a double life using a holographic appearance generated by an advanced computer and projected through her magic earrings. Of course.

But judging by the trailer, the movie chucks all this, and has a straightforward story of teen girls hitting it big in the music biz after a YouTube clip goes viral. It's got themes of being true to yourself and your friends, and looks like an episode of Behind the Music as produced by the Disney Channel. So I can understand why fans of the original show are angry.

The Wikipedia article notes that the trailer for the movie has alienated the movie's target audience. Not so fast, anonymous Wikipedia editor: it's pretty clear the movie is being aimed at teenage girls, not the thirty-somethings who watched the original show. Of course that's more frustrating, since it means the studio might just get away with this cynical rebooting.

But it does bring up a question I've wondered about with this and many other movie remakes: why bother?  I know, most of them make sense. Of the last Batman movie made money, a risk-averse studio will want to make a sequel out reboot. More distant tie-ins like Battleship are less obvious, but they are trying to cope with our fragmented and international media in which it's difficult to promote a movie, so you base it on a game that everyone alive has played.

But Jem and the Holograms was only on for a few years, and unlike contemporaries like Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it didn't really have a lasting media legacy that younger people might recognize. So why would you buy the movie rights to a show young people won't recognize, so you can make a movie for young people? It would make sense if you were buying out for an good premise that you think would appeal to me generations as it did with precious ones. But that's not the case here: they ignored the premise, and used only the name. If your audience doesn't know the brand, why not base it on an all-new concept that you don't have to pay someone to use.

Worse, the people who will recognize the source might be the parents of the target audience. Good luck getting teens to see a movie that gives their patents find memories.

Microtronicom

This little corner of the mall in Guelph has always seemed frozen in time. It's weird how tech terms can come and go. Unfortunately, Softron and Compudata - fine businesses, I'm sure - are saddled with names made of parts straight out of the eighties. Of course, the horizontal lines in the font doesn't help.

But the good news is that time catches up with all techno terms. Somewhere out there are businesses called "iCyber" or "social.com" that will get left behind too. Now you can understand why so many successful tech companies have nonsense names.

Sizing Up Sports

I've heard it said that one reason for baseball's popularity is that it seems like an everyman's sport. Yes, many baseball players are athletes, but there are also many who are just schmucks that happen to be good at this one odd skill of hitting a ball. There's something to be said for that: a lot of sports fandom is about fantasy, and it's easy for any of us with Y chromosomes to imagine ourselves playing baseball. You can be as thin as Ted Williams, as heavy as Babe Ruth, as tall as Randy Johnson, as short as Craig Biggio, or as whatever as Kirby Puckett.

That's something that's missing in other sports. Football is played by people who are increasingly far from the mean. Offensive linemen are expected to be 300+ pounds, linebackers have to be big enough to push aside people who weigh 300+ pounds, and Drew Brees is considered small at six feet. The running backs are the closest to normal size, but have the life expectancy of a fruit fly.

Hockey used to be played by average people (can you believe Rocket Richard was 5'10"?) But increasingly it's dominated by large people. Yes, there's still the odd Johnny Gaudreau, but they're pretty rare. During the draft, count how many time teams take a chance on a small player, and how many times they draft a big, unskilled player, assuming he'll learn eventually.

But the ultimate physically-unreachable sport has always been basketball. When all the seven-foot-tall people on earth get drawn to this one sport, it's hard to feel like those of us with lesser genetics even have a chance. But it's not just the super-tall people: you need to be about six-and-a-half feet to be considered for the "small forward" position. 

And it's not just the size of the players: even the players nearer the hump of the bell curve seem to be perfectly balanced muscular specimens. Not like baseball's spectrum from the lanky to the muscle-bound.

All of this is why the NBA's new MVP Stephen Curry is a breath of fresh air. It's not just his relative lack of height, it's that he's downright scrawny. He looks like the "before" picture to Lebron James's "after." And yet here he is, not just competing but dominating in a sport that that's usually too busy celebrating superstars to even notice the underdogs.

Hopefully this is a turning point for basketball. Maybe someday we'll feel like you can succeed in the sport without winning the genetic lottery, and that a team can succeed without winning the draft lottery.

Out Of Time

Today I was checking the Best-Before date on my honey mustard, and it said, "BB/MA 2015 JN 17". So I thought, May 2015, that's this month, so it should be fine. But wait, June 17? Which is it? It seems to be saying, " Best Before May 2015 June 17. That doesn't make any sense.

But then it hit me: the "MA" isn't short for "May," it means "Meilleur Avant," French for, "Best Before." Hence the slash between BB and MA.

That's great, but now I'm paranoid about how many times I've misinterpreted these dates in the past. I know I checked the expiry on something recently and it was close but still okay. Maybe it actually said Meilleur Avant Novembre.

Shouldn't this be one of those things every Canadian must know? I can ask where the bathroom is in both official languages, but this seems more important. We need public service announcements about this. I'm sure the government would agree to it because they can phrase it as one of their pseudo campaign ads: "Your taxes are protecting you from expired bilingual mayonnaise."

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #23

You know those adorable little crackers in the shape of goldfish? You can now get them in "Xtreme Pizza" flavour.

Binary Digits

I've been having some computer problems lately, which is why I haven't posted in a few days. When you're wrestling with this issue, it's easy to take it personally and conclude that your computer hates you. I try to tell myself it's just my imagination, but then I played the following Minesweeper game, which I swear I have not doctored:

Teddy Bear Market

By now it's become a popular joke that with Bluetooth headsets for phones, you can no longer tell who is talking on the phone and who is talking to themselves, or some imaginary person. And since our inner cities are dominated by young professionals and those who fall through the cracks in the mental health system, it could believably be either.

Well I've now seen something that looks stranger: a parent talking on the phone, while with a small child. Yesterday I saw a woman pushing a child in a stroller through the grocery store, chatting away. As she got closer, I realized that she was discussing the effect of unemployment numbers on investor confidence.  There was a brief moment when I wondered why she would be discussing that with her kid. He didn't look old enough to understand "going to work," never mind, "consumer confidence impact on rates of return." True, the baby talk that adults use to talk to kids is often as unintelligible as economic jargon, but I quickly realized that she must be in the middle of a call.

I should note: I didn't actually see a Bluetooth headset on her, so it's possible that:

• She was hallucinating an economist who doesn't like children.
• Her child is (or is being groomed to be) an investment prodigy.