Friday, April 13, 2012
I Must Be In The Front Row
You can't just walk up to a baseball stadium and buy tickets for the front row - so everyone you see on camera at a ballgame behind home plate must have known well ahead of time that they were going to be there. So why do you always see them waving at the camera while on the phone telling someone they're on TV? They could have told everyone they know ahead of time.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
The Spring Flags are Out
It must be spring - today I saw someone selling flags at the side of the road. I'm not sure about this guy: on the one hand, he actually had a South Sudan flag, so he must really be, um, hip to the flag scene. On the other hand, he had both a Confederate flag and a rainbow flag. I'm thinking the flag-impulse-buy crowd is small enough already, without cancelling-out most of the audience with those two flags.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Lies, Damned Lies, and Facebook Memes
I recently saw a posting on Facebook pointing out that this July will have five Sundays, five Mondays and five Tuesdays, and that furthermore, this only happens every four-hundred years or something.
This reminded me of a calendar I had as a child. It was a calendar of that year (I'm figuring it would have been 1978) but a blurb at the top of the calendar pointed out that it would also work for the then distant year of 2006. Needless to say, this blew my preschooling mind. But the point is, I was introduced early on to the fact that there are only a limited number of possible calendars that keep getting re-used. If you think about it, it's only fourteen (it's either a leap-year or it isn't, and each of those two types of years can start on any one of the seven days of the week.)
My point is, the claim about this July being really exceptional is not true. For myself and most of my friends, it isn't even the first time in our lives that we've seen a July like that (dig out your 1984 calendars, guys.) Big deal, you say, something on the Internet wasn't true. Well, I've long been used to the idea that there are lots of dishonest people out there. What surprises me is what silly things they're being dishonest about. Oooh, you fooled people about the details of the Gregorian Calendar, you must really feel superior now.
Another great example comes from the video below. It was sent to me in an e-mail, but being loath to click on an e-mail link, I looked it up on YouTube instead, where the comments tipped me off to the inaccuracies.
It's entertaining, but like I say, those claims appearing in the video were not entirely accurate. It turns out it wasn't made with old farm equipment, and it didn't take 13,000+ hours to set up. And it wasn't actually build by the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory or the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa, nor is it on display at the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall. And it turns out none of those places actually exist. And neither does the machine in the video - it was all computer animation done by a company showing off its technology. Someone made up the story around it, added the graphics describing that made-up story, and uploaded it to YouTube, presumably starting the e-mail as well.
Why? To fool a bunch of people who have never been to Iowa into believing that a certain fictitious pair of schools exist, or that a grainy computer animation is real? Is there some psychological condition that makes people enjoy really mundane hoaxes? Convincing people that Paul is dead was impressive, but if you're going to start a lie this lame, you should really find a way to get money or political power out of it.
This reminded me of a calendar I had as a child. It was a calendar of that year (I'm figuring it would have been 1978) but a blurb at the top of the calendar pointed out that it would also work for the then distant year of 2006. Needless to say, this blew my preschooling mind. But the point is, I was introduced early on to the fact that there are only a limited number of possible calendars that keep getting re-used. If you think about it, it's only fourteen (it's either a leap-year or it isn't, and each of those two types of years can start on any one of the seven days of the week.)
My point is, the claim about this July being really exceptional is not true. For myself and most of my friends, it isn't even the first time in our lives that we've seen a July like that (dig out your 1984 calendars, guys.) Big deal, you say, something on the Internet wasn't true. Well, I've long been used to the idea that there are lots of dishonest people out there. What surprises me is what silly things they're being dishonest about. Oooh, you fooled people about the details of the Gregorian Calendar, you must really feel superior now.
Another great example comes from the video below. It was sent to me in an e-mail, but being loath to click on an e-mail link, I looked it up on YouTube instead, where the comments tipped me off to the inaccuracies.
It's entertaining, but like I say, those claims appearing in the video were not entirely accurate. It turns out it wasn't made with old farm equipment, and it didn't take 13,000+ hours to set up. And it wasn't actually build by the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory or the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa, nor is it on display at the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall. And it turns out none of those places actually exist. And neither does the machine in the video - it was all computer animation done by a company showing off its technology. Someone made up the story around it, added the graphics describing that made-up story, and uploaded it to YouTube, presumably starting the e-mail as well.
Why? To fool a bunch of people who have never been to Iowa into believing that a certain fictitious pair of schools exist, or that a grainy computer animation is real? Is there some psychological condition that makes people enjoy really mundane hoaxes? Convincing people that Paul is dead was impressive, but if you're going to start a lie this lame, you should really find a way to get money or political power out of it.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Futures We Were Promised
People who grew up in the fifties and sixties often complain that they never got the flying cars or jet packs that they were promised everyone would have in the future. While I'm sure that was disappointing, they should spare a thought for those who grew up in the thirties and forties. Those poor folks have to deal with living in a future where we have the technology for Dick Tracy wrist radios, we just don't bother making them.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Things Only Canadians Wonder
Why is it that Sweden and Finland are good at hockey, but not Norway, but Norway and Sweden are good at Curling, but not Finland?
Friday, April 6, 2012
Things I've Had Enough Of, Part 1
I've had enough of: The Philosophy of ________ books
It was a cute idea to do books on the philosophy behind pop cultural phenomena. Some things, like The Matrix lent themselves to the idea. And other entertainment franchises tend to lead to obsession in their followers (e.g. Twilight,) so in-depth study seems warranted. But now it seems half the Philosophy shelves at Chapters are "The Philosophy of..." books. Do we really want to know The Philosophy of Metallica?
But rather than stopping, it's now spreading to other fields of study. I looked up "psychology" at the local library, and found that a lot of the top suggestions were Psychology of Something. In this case, "something" was: Batman, Twilight, Dexter, and Survivor. Where is this going to end? I've already seen books on the physics behind various science-fiction creations. Where else can we go? The Economics of Mad Men? The Sociology of World of Warcraft? The Kinesiology of Cirque de Soleil? Someday you'll be able to get an entire PhD related to your favourite pop-cultural franchise.
It was a cute idea to do books on the philosophy behind pop cultural phenomena. Some things, like The Matrix lent themselves to the idea. And other entertainment franchises tend to lead to obsession in their followers (e.g. Twilight,) so in-depth study seems warranted. But now it seems half the Philosophy shelves at Chapters are "The Philosophy of..." books. Do we really want to know The Philosophy of Metallica?
But rather than stopping, it's now spreading to other fields of study. I looked up "psychology" at the local library, and found that a lot of the top suggestions were Psychology of Something. In this case, "something" was: Batman, Twilight, Dexter, and Survivor. Where is this going to end? I've already seen books on the physics behind various science-fiction creations. Where else can we go? The Economics of Mad Men? The Sociology of World of Warcraft? The Kinesiology of Cirque de Soleil? Someday you'll be able to get an entire PhD related to your favourite pop-cultural franchise.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Odd Trash Analyzed
Litter is so prevalent in our world that I long ago stopped even noticing it. That's pretty bad, but now there's so much litter that I find myself starting to noticing the freakish, exceptional trash. For instance, I don't even see fast food wrappers discarded by the side of the road. But every now and then, something more unusual stands out, like an empty can of tomatoes. How did that happen? Someone was driving by, and threw it out a window? A pedestrian just finished twenty-eight ounces of tomatoes and dropped the can?
This concept came up a few days ago I was in H&M, and noticed, on the otherwise clean floor, one goldfish cracker. I don't spend a lot of time there, but I find it hard to visualize someone eating crackers of any sort in H&M. If anything, I'd find it easier to believe someone was having soup and the goldfish was only an accompaniment.
Once, while waiting for the elevator in my building, I noticed a banana peel stuffed into the ashtray that had been re-purposed as a garbage receptacle. Why would that be there? Either someone was eating a banana while leaving their apartment, and were so rushed that they couldn't stuff the last couple of bites into their mouth, or someone was eating a banana while coming home, finished it just before arriving at their apartment, and couldn't be bothered to carry it the fifty feet from the elevator.
This concept came up a few days ago I was in H&M, and noticed, on the otherwise clean floor, one goldfish cracker. I don't spend a lot of time there, but I find it hard to visualize someone eating crackers of any sort in H&M. If anything, I'd find it easier to believe someone was having soup and the goldfish was only an accompaniment.
Once, while waiting for the elevator in my building, I noticed a banana peel stuffed into the ashtray that had been re-purposed as a garbage receptacle. Why would that be there? Either someone was eating a banana while leaving their apartment, and were so rushed that they couldn't stuff the last couple of bites into their mouth, or someone was eating a banana while coming home, finished it just before arriving at their apartment, and couldn't be bothered to carry it the fifty feet from the elevator.
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