Do You Like American Music

There are days when I don't know what to blog about, and then there are days when someone names the favourite musician for each U.S. state.  Okay, it's not the favourite artist, but the most distinctive artist.  That is, the artist who's popularity in the state most exceeds their national popularity (for instance, Alan Jackson is the distinctive artist for New Mexico, since he is the 45th most popular artist there, but only 425th nationally.

There's a few oddities about it:

• There aren't that many obvious selections.  I mean, Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey is the only "No, Really?" choice.
• Indie props to Alaska, whose artist is Ginger Kwan, 33rd in the state but 12,062nd nationally, and so obscure that she doesn't even have her a Wikipedia entry.
• Rush in Delaware?  Of course, Delaware has so few people that it could be thrown off by only a few big fans.  And I'm betting Joe Biden is one of them.
• Sufjan Stevens is famous for his tongue-in-cheek attempt to make an album dedicated to each of the fifty states.  He's only done two of them, but one was for Illinois, and apparently that meant a lot to the state.
• Tegan and Sara in Idaho?  Okay, I guess I don't really know what I should expect from that state.  The only mental picture I have of them is people farming potatoes while dreaming up trick football plays.  But from now on, I will also assume they are singing "Closer" to themselves as they go.
• The Virginias went with Matchbox 20 and the Dave Matthews Band.  I didn't see them as being the laid-back states.
• Rhode Island is America's enclave of grunge.  Wouldn't have called that one.
• Looking up some of the names I wasn't familiar with, I find that many of the musicians that are popular in their own state are folk or hip-hop artists.  So apparently those are the most regional genres.

Go West, Life Is Peaceful There

There's been a recent wave of anti-gay laws in Africa. It's a strange phenomena, given that gay rights in the west has been accelerating to a pace I never thought it would achieve.

To make things even weirder, it turns out that a lot of the impetus for African anti-gay bills comes from western organizations. Further, their current laws against homosexuality are mostly vestiges of colonial (usually British) laws. Ironic, given that Britain is now one of the more gay-friendly countries.

So these African countries are taking laws imposed on them by the west (but not actually used by the west anymore) and expanding them on the advice of westerners (who are no longer welcome at home.) And that's what I don't get about this: Africans have become understandably sceptical of western advice over the years, so why are they so quick to take western advice that the west doesn't follow?

One explanation is that they see our adoption of gay rights as a western taint on the concept. Rather than see homophobic laws as western ideas so bad even the west has left behind, they're seeing it as evidence that gay rights is part of western decadence.

Another, more sinister explanation is that this is nothing personal against gays, they're mearly an easy scapegoat. If western religious nuts are going to come in and demonize a group at their own expense, then that's a great deal for a government who could use a convenient enemy to distract their people from the state of the nation.

Books To Get Excited Over

On the Internet, you can find lots of lists of Top 100 books, or books everyone should read.  At Modern Library, they have provided a list, and also made a list based on reader's votes:

Their board of authors' list has the usual suspects, but the top ten of the readers' list shows a great example of what produces passion among readers:

• 4 Ayn Rand books
• 3 L. Ron Hubbard books
• 2 books that are commonly assigned in high school
• The Lord of the Rings.

So that's what literati stuff the ballot-box for.  I have to admit (at risk of losing my nerd card) I've never read The Lord of the Rings.  But I probably should, as it's the only book in the top ten without religious/philosophical connections, and that the readers weren't forced to read.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About The Future, #11

You'll buy a sandwich of shaved steak on flatbread with sriracha sauce, and for some reason you'll think of this as a "sub."

Vive L'Écosse Libre!

Scotland is going to be voting on independence later this year.  As a Canadian watching from abroad, it's fun to watch for the similarities to Quebec's sovereignty struggles.

The campaign seems to have come to the point where the separatists' promises of an easy independence are hitting the brick wall of reality.  It turns out an independent Scotland wouldn't just automatically get to use the British Pound, nor would they automatically get into the European Union.  In fact, they'd have to do all the boring and expensive things any independent country has to do, not just fun things like giving Mel Gibson honourary citizenship, and staring trade wars with Canada over Irn-Bru

Do all separation efforts run this same con?  I know, it's inevitable that the supporters of any political initiative are going to put a positive spin on the results.  And they're going to gloss-over the negatives.  But when it's something as big as creating a new country, you'd think that the potential ramifications would be so big that they can't be ignored.  It's pretty ridiculous that Scots would just assume that the rest of the UK would happily continue giving them a say in control of the Pound.  And yet the British government has to point that out.  You'd think that even the most starry-eyed Scottish nationalist would have assumed this, and come up with a counter-move ahead of time.

But for some reason, it seems that separatists on both sides of the Atlantic have the common fault of believing their own claims, to the point that they are caught off-guard when reality imposes itself.

I've Got A New Complaint

You know I'm a fan of independent media, take an interest in technology, and am a child at heart. So it will be no surprise that I've jumped on the bandwagon of the burgeoning indie video game scene. That is, if you were aware that indie video games are a scene, and that they have burgeoned to the point of having a bandwagon.

So it's a disappointment to see the news about Flappy Bird. If you haven't heard, it's a simple game created by Dong Nguyen, a solo programmer in Vietnam, that became a breakout hit. And if you further haven't heard, he withdrew the game from app stores at the height of its popularity because of the stress its success had put on his life.

Some reaction to the end of Flappy Bird

That's kind of troubling when you combine it with the experience of Phil Fish. He created a cool game called Fez. It was popular and critically-acclaimed, but in the middle of creating a sequel, he abruptly stopped and retired from the business.

One starts to wonder if the Internet's underbelly of anonymous anger might be curtailing individual work. A company can avoid a lot of this vitriol - the company itself attracts the attacks, and that imaginary person doesn't have feelings to hurt.  But an individual has to take the Internet's firehose of criticism all by themselves; it's an awkward middle-ground in a world where most of us are safe because of either wealth or anonymity. 

So perhaps future businesses will be more anonymous, if creators decide that avoiding the catcalls is more important that getting personal credit. That Bitcoin guy may be on to something.

Bearing Up

I'm sick right now, so I don't have much to say.  Instead, I'll leave you with this thought:

• Many flavours of Halls cough drops contain eucalyptus oil.
• Koalas' diet consists mostly of eucalyptus leaves.
• Therefore, koalas taste like Halls.