First Real Bloggiversary!

I've actually been writing this blog for four years, but since I thought it would be funny to start the blog on February 29th, this is the first real anniversary of this blog. So to celebrate, here are my favourite posts:

• Cracking the Maclean's code - I become a real-life Robert Langdon, with better writing
• Kansas, and friends of Dorothy - The untold story of American demographics
• Who, CPA - I make fun of nationalities across space and time
• We're Cruisin' For A Nukin' - In which I expose a little known Canadian attack on Britain
• And Now Here It Is, Your Moment Of Absolute Panic - My reasons for being the first to get on the Donald-Trump-is_scary-not-funny bandwagon.
• Half-Dialog - I explain that unrealistic video games are better than reality
• Selfie Steam - In which I make more photobooth jokes than anyone this side of Jay Leno
• Olympic Butthole Surfers - I try to broker some understanding between music and sports
• With Six You Get Beanroll - In which I help us empathize with the founders of Chinese restaurant
• I'm Sure They're Up To Plan Thirty Or Forty By Now - I explain that my reasons for hating Sharknado were far more sophisticated than yours.
• Panic! In The Winter - I get new respect for winter and Canadian Science Fiction
• Great Expectations - In which I disagree with Bono on how to achieve greatness
• I Declare This Post Didn't Really Happen - I come to understand the complexity of Star Wars
• How Not To Look Foolish On The Internet - pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?
• Soccer Stars - I complain about the Cristiano Ronaldo Galaxy
• Laettner Has Scored For America - an alternate view of Canada's Summit Series win
• Missouri - I finally understand the sixties
• I Think You Can Read 'Bout Dyson - In which I give the Dyson vacuum cleaner guy some advice
• I'm Going To Comic-Con As The American Middle Class - I explain cosplay and the decline of Western Civilization
• It's Gotta Be Da Symbol - In which I critique the then-new Raptors' logo

Thanks for reading!

That's No Moon

Some people have started a drive to come up with a name for The Moon.  See, Earth's moon is a moon, but it doesn't have a name; we just call it "The Moon," just like how people in Los Angeles call the San Fernando Valley "The Valley," as if it's the only valley in the world. But there are lots of other valleys on Earth, and lots of other moons in the solar system.

You might assume that this campaign is something a few physics students came up with while high, and in the age of Kickstarter, you end up kind of committed to crazy ideas like that.  Well, that might well be how it started, but it's actually pretty elaborate - they even have their own animation with adorable anthropomorphized moons of the solar system.  I never would have thought the Moon would sound so much like Linus from Peanuts.

Anyway, the reasoning is that calling it "The Moon" made sense when we only knew about the one Moon, but then we found that there were similar things for other planets, and called them "moons" too.  Apparently it's all Galileo's fault, since he was the first to study moons of other planets (Jupiter, to be precise.) I guess we're lucky he didn't decide to call these things "Galileos," with ours being a Galileo called "Moon."

Of course, there are a few things that could use names.  The Sun, God, etc. Really, this is a kind of retronym.  In the same way that we had to create the term "acoustic guitar" only after we invented electric guitars, we needed a name for the Moon only after realizing we had to deal with other moons.

As for the Sun, we at least have the sun/star distinction.  And we sometimes fall back on the name "Sol" when astronomers or science-fiction writers need to call it something specific.  Yeah, they also sometimes call the moon "Luna," and I suspect that would be the most likely name.

I like the idea of naming the Moon, and it's great that these people want to do it consciously, so we don't end up naming it after dirt (The Earth) or giving it a silly name without realizing what we were actually talking about (The Milky Way.) But I don't think it's too likely that this effort is going to work.  For one thing, look at the fuss over reclassifying Pluto.  And that's for something no one can see with the naked eye.  But more to the point, we'll probably only give our moon a name when more of us are conscious of the existence of the rest of the solar system.  That will only happen when we've moved on to realize our place in the universe. Damn - The Universe: another thing that needs a name.

Any Portmanteau In A Storm

You know what's really depressing?  The word "edutainment" doesn't even sound weird to me anymore. How did that happen?  Is it a symptom of our modern world that we're making up more words now?  Or am I just old enough that I've finally experienced the complete creation of words from coining to acceptance.

It's not just that: I'm totally accepting when the weather forecast calls for "tornadic" activity. Tornadoes have been around for a while, surely we haven't just started to need that word. L. Frank Baum didn't need to describe Dorothy being taken to Oz by tornatic activity. Okay, it could be that global warming is shifting climate systems to the point that we need new words to talk about them.  After all, we should really come up with a name for one of those storms that dumps snow up the U.S. Eastern Seaboard while missing most of Canada. How about an "ironicane?"

And then there's this Winterish we've been experiencing in Southern Ontario.  We experienced a frigiweek (one week of genuine winter) but since then it's been subjectemps (temperatures that seem really warm, even though we'd find them frightfully cold if we experienced them in the fall.)

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, # 29

Toronto has a basketball team, named after a dinosaur. No, not one of the ones you've heard of; it's one made famous in a movie in 1993. And the team has a farm team in Mississauga. It's named after the area code.

The End Of The Road

Toyota is cancelling Scion. In case you didn't understand all the words in that sentence, I'll explain that Scion is a brand that Toyota created to sell some of its cars in North America. That's not really unusual - many companies create brands to sell to a new audience. But that's usually to sell to a different tax bracket. For instance, Toyota created the Lexus brand back in the 80's, knowing rich people wouldn't feel right buying from a cheap brand like Toyota, but might buy cars built by Toyota if they were sold under a new name.

But Scion was a little different. Toyota was successful, but concerned that its customers' average age was rather high. So they decided to create a new brand aimed at young people. And for that, we should ask be grateful, since the alternative would be endless commercials trying to convince us Toyotas aren't just for old people, like Buick has been doing.

That seems like a good idea. I've always thought it would work if a company split its brands based on style rather than class. instead of cheap and luxury brands, you'd have conservative and funky brands. The trouble is, you'd have to work hard to keep the funky brand stylish and fresh. Scion, however, always seemed to get little of Toyota's attention. Their small, boxy cars seemed cool at first, but got dull over their decade on the market. It's a shame, because it could have worked: essentially the Kia Soul (that's right, Mom, the hamster car) was what they were aiming for, and it's been successful.

The other big automotive cancellation of the week is that Chrysler (oh, I'm sorry, "Fiat-Chrysler") has canceled its main compact and midsized cars, the Dodge Dart and the Chrysler 200. Losing the Dart is an embarrassment, since it was only recently introduced, a highly-touted modification of an Alfa Romeo design.

The 200, however, seems more to have been put out of its misery. Its predecessor, the Sebring, was a low, curvaceous design at a time when tall, boxy cars were the style. they tried to rectify this by grafting a square grille on to it, resulting in an odd-looking beast. They replaced it with a retro restyling of one of their other car designs. Then they wanted to redesign it, but didn't have the money while in bankruptcy, so they just refreshed the styling again, renamed it to "200" and got Eminem to drive out in a Superbowl ad. After the merger with Fiat, they finally redesigned it from the ground up, only to flop on the market.

But what's really notable here is that Chrysler will now concentrate on SUV's and crossovers. So they are essentially the first major manufacturer to give up on cars, other than niche models like the Challenger or Fiat 500. I find it hard to believe that this is a good strategy in the long run. Cars may be less profitable, but they still dominate the roads, and the cleverest manufacturers in the world still find them worthy of time and money.

I Still Get Paid The Same As I Normally Do, Right?

You remember clip shows?  That's where a TV show makes an episode out of clips from previous episodes, usually set up by the characters reminiscing about the past. They don't seem as popular as they once were, and I imagine that in the Netflix era they'll completely disappear.  After all, if the viewers want to relive past episodes, they can just relive past episodes.

But why not do the same thing for blogs?  I could put together a post that's made up of links to past entries.  I got the idea for this because in the last week I've often found myself thinking, "I should write about that - oh, wait, I already did, history is just repeating itself again."

I see OK Go has made another memorable video that's getting viral attention.  Once again, they're surprisingly comfortable with that set up.  But I believe I mentioned that before...(Imagine blurry dream-sequence effect then click here.)

Stephen Fry was criticized for joking during the BAFTA awards that a certain recipient looked like a "bag lady." That he would take flak for that is significant, since he's complained in the past that people in today's society are too fast to take offense.  After receiving the criticism, he quit Twitter.  Boy, for a guy who expects everyone to accept jokes and insults without offense, he sure gets offended easily.  Didn't I say that once before?...(click here.)

Hey, there's more news about the supposed Apple car.  There's a company in California that is believed to be owned by Apple, and neighbours are complaining about "motor noises" coming from one of their buildings.  That same company has bought an oddball classic car, possibly as design inspiration.
There's talk that internally, Apple execs are worried that the project is draining too much time and attention from the company's other businesses.  I could have sworn I heard someone say that building a car would be much too large an undertaking...(Cut to a much younger version of myself typing away at a keyboard and click here.) 

Having said that, Jason Torchinsky from Jalopnik has an unusual but intriguing theory about the nature of the project.  He thinks Apple is building a fully-autonomous vehicle for goods only, not human passengers.  Order something on line and your car will automatically go out and pick it up.  That's essentially flipping the script on e-commerce as usual: instead of Amazon using mail, couriers and drones to get things to your door, you take responsibility for going and getting them.  I'm not sure that's any more efficient, but making a vehicle not meant for people would relieve Apple of a lot of the difficulties of car design, like crashworthiness standards.

Appologies for that bit of original thought at the end of an otherwise repetitive article. But I see the flimsy excuse to have all our characters sit around talking about the past has cleared up, so we can go on with our lives.  See you for original adventures next week.

Pray For Peace, Or Don't, Whatever

I've heard it said that when religions begin, they go through a period of extreme proselytizing where the adherents truely believe they are going to change the world and win everyone over. But after a while, they cool it; they haven't given up their beliefs, or ever their goal of convincing the whole world to join them, but they start to realize that it's going to take a while. Any spiritual revolution will take centuries, and the current faithful will not be around to see it. It becomes clear that in the meantime, they're going to have to deal with living on a planet where most people disagree with them.

And that's how so many people around the world get along with one another. Yes, there are plenty of examples of people not accepting each other's re beliefs, but even the most cynical has to concede that the majority of people get along the majority of the time. They may have profoundly different views of the nature of the universe, but they realize that at some point you just have to get on with your life.

Which brings us to atheism. Or specifically, "New Atheism," the more assertive brand being championed by folks like Richard Dawkins. Atheists tend to dislike being classed as a religion, so they may not like where this is going. I'm not saying it's a religion, but for the purpose of this discussion, it has sufficient similarity: it's an idea about the nature of reality, and an idea that some people agree with, and others disagree with. Even if those ideas come about in a different way than religious belief, people with that belief still have the same challenge as any religion: how to deal with people who disagree, and are unlikely to be convinced.

I think that's the source of many of New Atheism's missteps. Although atheism has been around since the dawn of time (however you see it) it's only been a cooperative, political force in the twenty-first century. And thus, it's still at the stage of seriously believing that it can win over everyone.

This came out recently with the news that Dawkins suffered a minor stroke. (Fortunately, it appears he's going to be alright.) When news of his illness came out, the Church of England put out a tweet urging prayers for Dawkins.

Prayers for Prof Dawkins and his family https://t.co/KxBBkBrECk

— Church of England (@c_of_e) February 12, 2016

A lot of people were upset by that, accusing the church of either trolling or being passive-agressive. But really, this is a good example of the need to get along with others. Part of getting along is allowing others to do the little harmless things they feel is important but you don't believe in. It may seem nonsensical to thank someone for doing something that you are sure is not helping, but it's better for our shared society if you do.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

What's the deal with the new-bathtub-over-the-old-one concept? I mean, I understand the concept, and it's actually pretty clever. It's just that they seem to be selling it pretty hard. You see the ads on TV, in newspapers, even kiosks at the mall. I'm just suspicious of something they have to work so hard to sell. And also the fact that they have to keep explaining it. I mean, I rent, so I'm not in the market for such things, yet I've picked it up the concept just by osmosis.

And is it just me, or is the concept a little lazy? Don't take the old thing out, just cover it up. If that's such a good idea, why hasn't it been extended to other things? You could easily cover sinks the same way. And if there were anything in the bathroom that you'd just throw up your hands and say cover out over, I don't want to deal with it, it would be the toilet. Surely they could have a new toilet they could just drop over the existing one. Heck, apply this to entire houses: Don't rebuild, just put a newer house inside the old one.

Of course, that new house would have to be smaller, out at least have smaller rooms. But that brings up the question of the bath fitter endgame. After a few generations of covering up our inconvenient tubs, each time making them a little smaller. we'll be stuck with these big, chunky bathtubs, which are too narrow for us to fit in. So we'll all have to lose weight. But why struggle to build a new body when you can just put a new one over your old one.

A Rush Of Blood To The Face

I have to admit, I feel sorry for Coldplay.  I've never been a big fan of them, though they do have some good songs.  But they seem to be nice, friendly people, and they've tried to do some good with their fame.  And you have to appreciate this:

So it bugged me when media seemed to revel in saying that Beyonce stole the show from them at the Superbowl halftime show. The fact is that Coldplay is an easy target with their laid-back sound and non-aggressive-male personae.

What's weird is that in the lead-up to the game, much of the media was referring to the show as being "Coldplay, with Beyonce" which was a weird way of presenting it, since, you know, she's the biggest artist in the world.  And the fact that they had Coldplay on first, leading up to Beyonce taking the stage in dramatic fashion, seems to indicate that the show's producers saw her as the main star too.  So all in all, it seems like Chris Martin and friends were set up for failure.

And yes, I know, I'm complaining about a vague slight against a bunch of rich white guys, when American right-wing media has been trying to demonize Beyonce for incorporating Black Power symbolism in her performance. But I'm just ignoring that because they find some aspect of everything to get angry at.  These are probably the same people who got angry at the Carolina Panthers themselves because their logo shows a black panther. It's not like mainstream Canadian politicians attacked her.  What?  They did? Oh, Toronto City council, how many Rob Fords are you hiding?

One Nightmare Down, Three To Go

So why did Donald Trump lose in Iowa? It might be dirty tricks by Ted Cruz, as he asserts. It might be a vote-stuffing conspiracy as some of his supporters say. Though most people will be assuming that his supporters - who are, for good or bad, not your usual primary voters - just don't translate their stated support into votes. If that's the case, then his campaign is in trouble.

But here's another possibility, based on an interesting fact that came out recently: Trump likes to brag that his campaign has spent less than most other candidates. Unlike many things he brags about, that's absolutely true. He's actually spent much less than some candidates who are far behind him *cough*Jeb*cough*.

It's not hard to understand why: he gets so much free publicity from saying controversial things, he doesn't need to pay to get media exposure. But campaign spending is more than just buying publicity: it's also to get data to find the most likely supporters, and do the work to get those folks to vote, the so-called "ground game." Now here's the interesting fact, which I swear I'm not making up: the Trump campaign has spent more money on those "Make America Great Again" hats than it has on research and data.

On the Democratic side, Hillary and Bernie were separated by only a tiny amount. No one seems to have picked up in this, but Clinton's margin of victory was less than Martin O'Malley's share of the vote, so he can at least claim he had some effect on the campaign.

As Bernie Sanders rose in the polls, people asked if there was anything that could stop his momentum. My answer was, Donald Trump. No, I didn't mean in the election, I meant that the longer Trump (or Cruz) stayed at the top of the Republican polls, the more Democrats would remember that they aren't choosing a president, they're choosing a candidate that has to beat an opponent very opposed to their own beliefs. The more the Republicans get enamored with extremism, the more it would seem that the coming election will be an existential fight for America's soul, one they must win at all costs. Thus they'd decide to go back to the candidate with the better chance of winning, even if her ideology doesn't sit as well with them.

But once again, I overestimated the pragmatism of the far left. Instead of seeing Trump's rise as a sign that this election is a must-win, they've figured that the election is a guaranteed win for the Democrats. Thus, there's no need to go with a safe moderate candidate, they might as well choose the candidate they want to win.

For pragmatic lefties like myself, this has led to the nightmare scenario that the election will pit each party's idealized candidate, each equally unpalatable to mainstream America. Then the election would just be a contest to see which party can better ridicule their opponent. Yes, I know there have been polls showing Sanders would beat Trump, but I don't believe people would still prefer him after the Republicans have unloaded a billion dollars of attack ads at him. In an election between the intellectually laughable and the nerdy, I'll always bet on the former.

But now there's another nightmare scenario for the Dems. If, as I suspect, Clinton hangs on to win the nomination, it's not clear how the Sanders supporters will react. So much has been invested emotionally in his campaign. And although it's been relatively civil between the candidates, on the ground (and the Internet) it's often been quite angry. So will the Sanders supporters vote for Hillary, or stay home in disappointment and disgust? Essentially, this is the mirror-image of the Republicans' trouble with Trump: even if he doesn't win, his supporters may be angry and sit out the election, or back a third-party candidate.

As if that's not enough, here's a third Democratic nightmare scenario: Marco Rubio's strong third place in Iowa has made him the choice of non-extreme Republicans, and I suspect that will win him the nomination, now that all the establishment money will come his way. And that's the problem: as I said earlier, many Dems are supporting Sanders because if the Republicans are going to nominate a crazy candidate, then any Democrat can win, even a self-described socialist. But if the Republicans switch at the last minute and back a relative moderate, then the Democrats will end up looking like the extremists.

Things The Twentysomething Me Would Never Believe About Life In The Future

It will take over twenty years for them to make a miniseries of the O.J. trial.

Okay, to be exact, there were a couple of made-for-TV movies earlier, but that just doesn't get across the sheer scale of the trial. And I found out O.J. Simpson is Kim Kardashian's godfather. Did I already know that and just block it out?

The Mostly-Star Game

This weekend was the NHL All-Star "Game." I put it in quotes because they didn't play a traditional game between two teams, but rather a mini-tournament between four teams, representing the league's four divisions. And on top of that, they'll be playing shortened, three-on-three games, rather than regulation matches.

In some ways, that's clever. After all, pro leagues have difficulty making their half-hearted All-Star games seem exciting and relevant, so the NHL doesn't even bother pretending it's a real game, so much as an extension of the skills competition. And hockey, like football, has the problem that it's hard to put on an exhibition bloodsport: the game is never as physical as the regular sport, and thus biased towards offence. So why not just go with that and build an All-Star game around quick, fast, high-scoring hockey? But it's also a little embarrassing that the event that should be the big celebration of the sport is not actually playing the sport.

Speaking of which, the other big controversy in the game is the presence of John Scott, the journeyman grinder who would never normally get anywhere near this game without a ticket. Fans voted him onto the team as a lark. The press tried to turn his inclusion into a scandal, or at least an embarrassment to the league, especially after Scott was traded, then sent to the minors. But they seemed to think better of it when it turned out the fans kind of liked the idea of having him at the game.

The story took an even stranger turn when Scott scored two goals and was named MVP, and will surely go down as a hockey folk hero. It's too bad Stompin' Tom Connors isn't around to write a song about him. It was great publicity for the league, if in an unexpected way. And I think it's kind of fitting. Hockey is often promoted as a sport of highly-skilled stars, especially at the All-Star Game.

Yet the fans seem to appreciate it as a grueling physical challenge; a test of toughness. Really, a player like Scott is a better symbol of the fans' ideal than the game's talented stars are. So it was good to see not only Scott getting his due, but the fans getting what they really want.