Waiting for the Power to go Out

As I've mentioned before, it used to be that being inside on a bad weather day was actually kind of fun. But in the past decade or so, I've lived in places with abysmal power grids and bad weather just means an inevitable loss of power. And so I live in fear every time the wind speed goes over 10 mph. This is nearly intolerable, given our country's wealth and resources. We haven't lost power yet which is remarkable given this horrible winter (3 snow-days for my kids in 2 weeks), but our luck must run out some time.

Unlike the summer brown-outs, which can be avoided (we're told) by reducing energy use, the winter weather blowouts are unavoidable. I still have the summer habits as my initial thought, i.e. "if I turn off all the lights, maybe the power will stay on!" But no. In fact, I should do the opposite: use as much energy as I can before the shaky trees and 50 year old made-in-Burma transformers implode.

And unlike the summer, where at least the roads are accessible during an outage, in the winter we're stuck indoors with no heat, no power, no fridge, and I get flash-memories of The Shining.

The Draft and Playing to Lose

The NFL has draft concept, shared with the other sports, that the worst teams of the previous year get to draft earliest.  Personally, I think the rule should be changed because it's very tempting to play to lose.  Players were kicked out of the last Olympics for doing this, yet it's an open secret that in the NBA (and possibly MLB) this can be done.  MLB has a bit of sense in that you can bring players up from the minors, and send others back, so at least you're actually developing talent... but it's disgusting.

The way to fix it is to give the top draft picks to the C teams not F teams, i.e. the middle of the record not the bottom feeders.  Why? Because C teams were at least trying.   The F teams are there, at least in the NFL, usually because of (a) key injuries, or (b) bad owners.  It's not even the bad coaches, because from what I've seen a "bad" coach is often just in the wrong system, and the only *really* bad coaches are hired by bad owners.

I've said in many occasions - and the standard caveat for all of this is that I only really know the NFL for now - that the worst teams are the ones doomed by bad ownership.  They consistently make bad decisions, throw money around, and kill good players.  Why keep throwing #1 picks into bad environments?

Bad teams have bad owners who then usually have terrible scouting departments and bad playing environments.  The middling teams are more likely to try harder and will be a quicker turn-around.

As it is, we keep throwing good picks into terrible environments and I think it's likely that bad teams don't have good scouts and in my idea they'll need to develop their scouting departments.

One illustrative case for my idea are the Cleveland Browns.  I think finally they may turn aronud and all because they changed owners.  When Paul Brown was fired by the skeevie Modell's, the team took a nose dive.  When they re-formed in 1999 they have remained a silly, childish team (see here for a video of their recent history (YT: Cleveland Browns 1999-2012: A Documentary)

).  A team with bad owners will just waste their draft picks!  Look at their 2012 draft.  They had 2 first rounders and they decided to draft for need - which everyone says not to do, but I wondered why because it sounded like a paradox.  You draft every player because you have a need!  What's the difference?  Again, look and learn from the doofus Browns.

To draft for need means you go for the best position candidate at your pick instead of the best player.  So the Browns, thinking they needed these 2 positions went for a Running Back and Quarterback in the first round.  Sadly, both turn out to be middling (Richardson, but there are reasons) or terrible (Wheeden).  [The opposite technique is - for lack of a better term - "draft against non-needs."  For example, the Steelers shouldn't draft in the first round a QB or center because those are non-needs.]   If the Browns had drafted the best players at their spot, then those positions would be stellar for a long time, and that will always help a team. 

Another example of draft dizziness are the Redskins.  While I like RGIII, his injuries demonstrate why you don't spend multiple draft picks on anybody.  Because everyone can get injured, and when you have a few 1st rounders on your roster, they can carry your team while the rest falls apart.  Their 4th rounder, Cousens, seems to be a fine QB - can you imagine DCs fate if they had more draft picks and a decent QB (Cousens) instead of what they face now?  Their terrible draft position is wasted because they threw it away to another team!


(always a sign of idiocy).  "Drafting for need"
in point for all of this On a related drafting note: if you ever want to know why you never draft for need, look at the 2013 Browns. In 2012 picked

Geico Problem

The only TV I watch is (a) live sports, or (b) the ESPN/NFL network (everything else is off commerical free steaming Netflix).  So the main commercials I see are geared for men, which means (a) insurance, (b) cars, (c) crazy medications, and (d) beer.

Like most people, I think the Geico commericals are very good, a quite memorable.  Their ad execs must have superpowers or something, because I'd say it's one of the best campaigns of the past 10-15 years.  So much so that when my wife and I first got a car, we went with Geico.  

Here's the problem: they sucked. 

We found this out when some idiot hit our parked car in a parking garage.  Geico had the car fixed with authorized mechanics who messed it up so badly, repeatedly, that we had to get a new car.  And new insurance.

As a result, while I can enjoy their commercials, I know they put way more money into their ads than into their service/product.

Pre-Superbowl Thoughts

As I've mentioned before, I need need need San Francisco to lose. In my ranking of Superbowl fun, in fact, the number 1 is for the Steelers to win (of course) and number 2 is for SF to lose! Seriously.* So even though on a normal Sunday I can't abide the Ravens, I will gleefully root for them to ruin the 9ers perfect record.

I should add the caveat that since I'm an old-school fan, my hatreds go to older teams: Cowboys and Raiders. I don't care about the Browns and Bengals, and the Oilers are long gone (ontologically, did they become the Titans or the Texans? I vote for the latter). There are teams I don't have any respect for, true: (1) Jets - who are pathetic from top-to-bottom, (2) Seattle - because they have an unfair home-field advantage, (c) the Broncos for the same reason, but I still like Elway, (d) the Saints since Bountygate. The only modern day team that I can't stand are the Patriots and that's actually only about Belichick. When he leaves, I may be able to tolerate my brother & son's favorite team.

But the Ravens? I respect them; I have laughed at the fact that they never made the big show while the Steelers did thrice, even if I can't say that now. There are things to like about them, which boil down to the things the Steelers do: (1) they recruit and scout well, all because of Ozzie Newsome and this is a lost message for NFL fans. Unless you have a superlative athlete (e.g. Lawrence Taylor or Troy Polamalu) success comes from coaching, team attitude, and astute bargain-hunting in the draft; (2) the Ravens are a ground-n-pound team with a solid defense. This is the Steelers DNA and it's not surprising the Ravens also hold that way. One way to understand NFL history is that rivals can either go in two directions, for these purposes I'll call them the Ravens or the Browns. When you have a great rival you can try to match them - like the Ravens do the Steelers - or you can basically just give up, like the Browns have done for decades.**

Anyway, I need the 49ers to lose, and once they beat the hapless Falcons (can that team ever sustain a lead??) I needed the Patriots to lose to the Ravens for two reasons: (1) SF has to lose and the Belichick Curse means the Patriots need to lose a SB for each one they cheated to win, and they have 1 more to go, so SF would've won! The second reason is more mystical, but since SF is coached by Jim Harbaugh, I felt that only a Harbaugh can beat a Harbaugh. And while I as a rule root for little brothers, in this case you go with the older brother, who's more used to creaming his little bro. Jus' sayin'.

So besides the above iron rule, there are two reasons I think the Ravens will win, besides the general feeling that any team that can march through Mile High and Foxboro and beat 2 of the best QBs ever - on the road - versus SF who almost lost to the pathetic Falcons in a dome. The two reasons are:
(1) While Colin Kaepernick is impressive, I don't trust rookie QBs in big games.*** Technically it's his second year, but he didn't start until November 19 2012! I think the gravity of the Superbowl, and the weight of Montana/Young, will be hard to handle for him. On the other side you have grizzled veterans, and especially Joe Flacco who is an underrated big-league QB who seems to have no fear (his eyes suggest serial killer, not as much as Schaub, who doesn't help matters with his skinhead crewcut and prominent Adam's apple). I think SF has gotten far with a good defense, good running, and a surprise QB, but I believe the Ravens are nastier, older, and even more physical.


The second reason is that (2) the 49ers kicker is basket case. If that persists, SF will have trouble, even in a dome. Special Teams is still underrated, and the Ravens have been superlative in that.

My score prediction (caveat: I suck at this): Ravens 21, 49ers 20.


And one comment about Harbaugh v. Harbaugh. I'm actually serious about that, a bit, because the advantage each brother has over others is that Harbaughz Iz Crazy! They do aggressive risky things, and this catches their opponents off guard. But these two idiots have been competing against each other for 40+ years! They know the others' temperament and tendencies. This is crucial, to me, because I desperately need the 9ers to lose.

How Can a Steeler Fan (Me) Root for Baltimore?

There are people are outraged that actual Steelers who are rooting for the Ravens. They want the good old days when you hated the rival team. What the haters don't get is that the 'team' doesn't exist in the same way after free-agency/salary cap. E.g. Rod Woodson is one of the best Steelers of all time, but he played for 3 other teams, including the hated Ravens and Raiders! After retirement he identifies as a Steeler, but the players themselves have to know it's just a business and they can move on. So I full understand why the players not only don't hate a rival team, but they can actually like 'em. I've also read that many players, when on the field and the game clock is running, would ram their own mama's if they're wearing the other jersey. This also is part of Football.

I also agree with Lamarr Woodley who said that he's hoping the Ravens win, for one reason because: "the Baltimore Raven are in our division so it makes our division look good." I agree with that wholeheartedly! I have pride in my team, my birth-city, and when it comes to Football, my division. I was proud when we had 3 teams from the AFC-N in last year's playoffs! And maybe I just think more like one of the players than the fans, but I think Woodley shows a healthy sportsmanlike attitude.

Also, if the Ravens win that means that the Steelers were able to beat that year's world champs at home with a third string Quarterback. Heh heh heh.

FOOTNOTES:
* = Number 3 is for Steelers to lose, because at least they've increased their appearances, Number 4-7 would be for the Browns, Lions, Vikings and Bills to be in and lose, unless its to one of the hated rivals (e.g. Patriots, Cowboys, Raiders etc). I think these guys getting in would be funny - Lions & Browns have never gone, and Vikes & Bills have gone 4 times and lost all of them. I guess I'm supposed to hate the Eagles, but I basically try not to think about Philly at all (which is tough now that I live in Central NJ).

** = This is part of my grand theory for why the NFC were dominant for the 13 year stretch of 1985 to 1997. The first point is context - most of this was during the era before free agency, which meant that once you built a superstar team you were able to keep those players and just dominate. That's why we had so many dynasties back then, and why none now (Patriots don't count because they cheated, period. But the closest way to get a dynasty now is to get a superstar QB, e.g. Colts under Manning). So the reason why the NFC was dominant comes down to two people (1) Bill Walsh and (2) Lawrence Taylor. The simple one first: (a) Walsh (like Newsome above) was able to both build up his team with an eye for talent (Montana, Rice, Young), and (b) he was an incredible coach who was able to drive this unchanging roster of people to their top performance (people say that Montana was not a superlative athlete but Walsh made him so, FWIW). So this is why SF was so dominant. The (2) Lawrence Taylor factor reflects the second point above about the Steelers/Ravens - LT was so incredible that he forced the other teams in his division - specifically the Cowboys & Redskins - to react. Joe Gibbs, another genius coach, could have given up and accepted that LT was going to destroy them every game. Instead Gibbs basically invented the "Hogs" - a superlative offensive-line. There were more innovations, but basically because of a great player, and great coaches, the NFC East reacted and had to become great. I don't think the AFC had this quality coach (Noll lost steam after '80... I blame Reagan) and the unfree-agency cuts both ways. A great team can dominate the conference - Bills, Broncos - but just not have the oomph to overcome the NFC's twin advantages.

*** = This years' rookies have been so hyped, it's nuts. There are two big reasons they've all been great and why I believe next year they'll crash to earth: (1) there's not enough tape on rookies, so defenses don't know all their tricks. One off-season of studying and look what happened to, e.g., Cam Newton. Rookies have that advantage of surprise and I don't give them credit for it until they can keep it up for more than a year. A second advantage is that these QBs - RG3 in DC, Wilson in Seattle, Kaepernick, is that their coaches are letting them run with the ball. The now acceptable "read option" (which was mocked when Tebow was doing it... mainly because Timmy doesn't throw a normal ball, but still it's ironic) - allows the QB to run. But as we saw with RG3, running is extremely dangerous for your expensive QB. In today's NFL, the QB is more important than any other player, and if you've got a top-notch QB you don't risk him flying down the field. If the coaches let these rookies keep running then they will all end up like RG3. People are fooled because Kapernick hasn't played enough to risk the injuries, and Russel Wilson got to hide behind his damned stadium. Anyway, the read option won't survive long in the NFL because of those two reasons - which the short-sighted sports reporters are ignoring - and also because Defenses catch up quick in the NFL.

Itunes Idiocy

Microsoft finally "upgraded" (an Orwellian term) Windows Media Player so many times that it finally became useless. So a few years ago I switched to Itunes since Mac controls music now (as I painfully found out when I got an Ipod years back, before that hunk of junk broke in a few months). I'm very serious about my music collection and I was sad to see that Itunes isn't very good. Observe this list:

Things Itunes doesn't do that I really liked from WMP:
A. Enable deleting missing files en masse
B. Very easy to change song data en masse
C. Background process to consolidate and organize the music library.

I've been searching for a long time for simple fixes. Sure, the simplest would be for Apple - for an ironic twist - to copy what Microsoft does well, instead of the vice versa. I could buy third party software, but hell hasn't frozen yet. Recently I got fed up enough that I renewed my efforts to solve 'em with online advice. Here's what I found:

A. Finding and Deleting Files En Masse

I found online advice and it actually worked! How To Remove Broken Songs From iTunes Library It also clued me into the glory of "smart playlists" - which makes up for the very irritating itunes interface. Thanks intertube stranger!

B. Change Multiple Names at Once

You can change song titles, artists etc, but NOT THE SONG NAME. Why can't it be done? Hatred?

So here's my homemade solution which WORKS! Alert!

My solution is to use the powerful search function of Windows 7. I discovered that you can change song data in Windows via "Properties."

For example, I have a lot of bootleg albums of Led Zeppelin (which I've been assured is completely legal). And I want to change the song name from "Moby Dick" to "Moby Dick (Live)"

It helps if you have one Music folder (I did this even though itunes refuses to sort them easily, see below) but I guess it can be done if music is scattered all about.

1. In the search box (F3) of your folder, I entered: "album:live artists:zeppelin"
   
2. sort by song title
   
3. higlight the songs you want to change
   
4. right click for 'properties'
   
5. click on the 'details' tab
   
6. go to the field you want to change, in my case it's 'title'
   
7. insert new title
   
8. click OK or Apply
   
9. enjoy a milk bone in a commie free world

Addendum: Actually there's a slight glitch in that Itunes did not recognize the new file names until I played the song (or some other such modification). So my trick was to find all the files whose names I changed and then adjust their rating to 1 star (or whatever) and that updated the names.

C. Consolidate the Library There's an option in Itunes already to do this but it retains the original locations as well, which means you need to have space memory in the computer to have 2 sets of files. I'm not a fan of that, so I'll keep searching. UpdateHere's another version of the milkbone cartoon.

Low-Cost Bus Fatalities High

So, guess what, according to the Transportation Safety Board, the Low Cost Buses (e.g. Fung Wah, or as I call it, Fung Ow My Femur) are really dangerous. My reaction:



If you pay $15 for something that ordinarily costs 10 times as much, you should wonder where the money is saved. Evidently your life is worth about 80 bucks in savings.

Steven Fry on Language Pedants

I agree with Steve Fry here, quite a bit. Ah, if I were able to simulate a British accent!

h.t. TNC

Friendly Note of Bile

A piece of cynicism I created a bunch of years ago came up in conversation this morning so I felt I should put it out on the tubes. There was a hippie slogan from the 60s: "What if they gave a war, and nobody came." This is in line with John Lennon's doofus song "Imagine" (great song, moronic context).

The bile is: Well if nobody came, then the hippies win. If only one side comes, then that's called conquest.

Pic from here.

Moonraker (Two Thoughts)

Moonraker is now on. OK, I promised not to live-blog this, but just two thoughts: (1) for those making lists of necessities for evil overlords, need to make room on their rosters for The Countdown Guy ("twenty seconds and counting...")
(2) The ending is fine, it has the "big battle in the enemy strong-hold" that we loved in other films, even if it's a crazy cheezy space battle. But the part of the movie where Bond needs to shoot down the death-gas capsules with the space-shuttle laser is one of the best scenes in all Bond-dom. I must admit this, in sheer honesty.

And, because I can't let it rest, I must explain why the ending is so damn good: because it's necessary within logic and the plot. Most of Moonraker involves absolutely idiotic, near suicidal, behavior. Nobody does anything that makes a lick of sense; even though numerous action sequences occur, false tension is created, but no logical person would feel emotion since everyone is a cartoonish gasbag. But the ending is necessary, plausible, and tense. Honor due.

The Spy Who Loved Me

Many stupid Bond fans think this is a decent movie. It ain't. It's on TV now, and I want to comment via live-blogging.

"The Spy Who Loved Me" was made during the plot-rails Roger Moore era. His plots usually were driven by the external Hollywood need to have exciting action and not to follow earthly human reason. Basically, the series had gone on long enough that the writers/producers stopped making 'spy thrillers' and just made 'Bond films' (which meant: gadgets, exotic locations, and weird fights).

The movie's premise is stolen from You Only Live Twice - e.g. a third party terrorist kidnaps vehicles from the US and USSR in order to induce WWIII - and this includes the fun 'major army takes over kooky evil man base.' That's good, no question, but it's derivative. And YOLT was better because (a) it was first, and it had (b) Connery, (c) ninjas and (d) a volcanoo. Also, the plot point of a eugenicist billionaire was recycled for the next, and even worse, movie (Moonraker).

But a key problem of recycling from YOLT is that while that movie used a spaceship to swallow up other (US/USSR) spaceships, TSWLM has a big boat swallow up submarines. OK, so lets see how the premise doesn't carry. In 1965, spaceships were basically just non-maneuverable orbiting bricks and so there's some logic that they could be kidnapped by being swallowed from behind.

But submarines being swallowed by a surface ship? They are called submarines for a reason. They just need to go DOWN! And if thinking in 3-dimensions is too hard for Hollywood writers (I assure you, all mariners and aviators are trained to do so, but hack writers can't) then the submarine still has guns and torpedoes! Shoot the frickin' boat before it swallows you! It's what they sub does at the end of the movie when it needs to escape, so it's not like they didn't know about guns in their planet.

Also, each ship was kidnapped because the bad-guy wanted their nuclear weapons (which, unbeknownst to the crew, were to be launched against all major world cities - in a purposeful plan of world annihilation). That's a quite crazy plan, admittedly, but I believe that all nuclear sub crews would kill themselves willingly than let their subs be captured by a hostile - because even one rogue nuke is a world nightmare.

Logical, no? So when the submarine is swallowed by the supertanker - by sitting there on the surface, like Tanya Roberts being kidnapped by a blimp in "A View to a Kill" - and Stromberg threatens to kill the crew with cyanide, they all give up. Why?! Given, the dire nature of captured nukes, they should never had been there in the first place and should also fight to the last man.

Anyway, skipping to the end: after Bond succeeds in diverting the nuclear missiles, and enjoys some success, suddenly the ship starts exploding - forcing their escape. Why?! There's no actual cause for the explosion! Except, as they say on TV Tropes, it's made of explodium.

Hollywood Idiocy: The Showdown

At the end of the movie, Bond asks the Pentagon to hold off destroying Stromberg's base so he can save Anya. Bond builds a jet ski (seriously; even though the sub has to go the base anyway in order to shell it - this is a worthless action by Bond) and then sails to Stromberg. When he shows up, Stromberg tries to kill him with the elevator, but Bond outsmarts him (it's dumb). Then Bond, gun drawn, confronts Stromberg - asking him where Anya is. Stromberg doesn't say and instead he asks Bond to sit down... and Bond does! Why?!? He has only a few moments before the sub shells the station, and he sits down?!

Ah, it's because the plot requires it. Ya see, Stromberg has a clever device - a gun that is immobile and only can kill someone if you're sitting in JUST THAT CHAIR, and so Bond is forced to sit there. Oh, the gun has only one shot. So Bond sits down, Stromberg pulls the trigger, and Bond jumps up before the bullet - made of marmalade? - travels down the bullet tube. OK, so then at that point Bond gets angry and kills Stromberg by pointing the gun in the exact tube and firing - thus shooting Stromberg in the gonads.

Do you understand the logic in all this? Bond kills Stromberg - which he could have done when he came in, but waits to get some info - and after Stromberg is disarmed... Bond shoots him anyway. Stupid and pointless. It's only there to allow Bond to blast the bad guy in the nuts.

Anyway, earlier in the movie, Stromberg recognizes Bond as an enemy agent. Earlier in the film, Stromberg kills some scientists by dropping them through a false bottom in his elevator. He doesn't do this to Bond. Rather he lets Bond go and tells Jaws to kill him outside the ship. Why? Stromberg was already willing to kill people in his own ship before. The only reason to do this is to create a chase scene. Which hurts my brain!

And Jaws' plan for killing Bond? To send a motorcycle equipped with a rocket propelled bomb disguised a sidecar. Which of course misses. Then, when that fails, Jaws chases after Bond in a car - shooting at him with a pistol. Then when that doesn't work, he has the best looking Bond babe ever (seriously), named Naomi, shoot at Bond with a machine-gun toting helicopter.

Now, I'd like to explain how a person is supposed to write a fiction plot: there's supposed to be a correspondence to how people in the actual world think and act or otherwise people (like me) cannot suspend our disbelief - because logic is the food of consciousness. Without logic, my brain rebels.

OK, so according to the writers, Stromberg, the genius billionaire's, plan is to not kill Bond in the same secret untraceable way which worked before but instead to do so in public using a wildly untested method of unguided remote control sidecar explosives. Why? So it would look like an accident? And he said to himself "We'll use the sidecar bomb and even though it's foolproof, you Jaws should follow after him in a car and shoot at him with a pistol - even though shotguns are better at that range and for hitting moving targets, and we doubtless own shotguns if we can purchase or manufacture a custom made motorcycle bomb.... Oh, and above all, surveillance will be from a highly effective helicopter, used the world over to destroy tanks, and it will only be used if my idiotic stuff fails."

Nope, nobody but an idiot - or a Hollwywood writer - would use their resources in this manner. It's only there to create a chase scene modeled after a video game; that's all. and it hurts my brain. The fact that people like this movie is as explicable as people liking the latter Lucas films - most movie-goers, even the nerds of TVTropes - do not possess logic sensors in their heads.

Note, every single problem I've just elucidated, is present from the very first minute in Moonraker, which starts with Jaws surviving a free fall from thousands of feet because he lands on a circus tent... and goes downhill from there. A similar live-blogging of that movie would burn up my keyboard.

Second pic from here.

Triceratops

No thank you, I don't like Ceratops.

That joke comes courtesy of the first Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode my brother and I watched back in the 90s; a joke of such quality that we felt this show would go places.

Anyway, I was told recently that "scientists" had discovered that the Triceratops isn't; that it's just an immature stage of another dino (the Moogooraptor or whatever). I surmised that since everyone in the Western world grew up, and has loved, the Triceratops, and no layman has heard of the Doofusatops, that "they" would just allow the old standby to win. Right? Well, hard earned bitter experience reminds me that the popular will of American 8 year-olds didn't save the Brontosaurus from being renamed the dippy "Apantsasaurus" or whatever. This is the same case? Will the 'tops go the way of Bronto?

Well it looks like sanity, taste, and the combined might of our inner 8 year old has prevailed 'Triceratops' name will stay: "'Triceratops' name will stay" say the newspeople.

This triumph of art and taste over scientific tin-ears gives me hope that maybe we can now save Pluto!

Pic from here.

Droid Update

As mentioned here and here, I purchased a new phone, the Motorola Droid, to replace my aging and cracked Palm 680 Treo. It's been a few months and while I still need more time to test it, my confident judgment is that this is not only the worst cell-phone I've ever owned, it may even be the worst purchase I've ever made in my life.

I hate this phone so very much. My biggest problems are (a) its dependence on the touch-screen (I understand that all phones are going this way, aping the accursed I-Phone, but I still can ladle my hate on the subject) - I believe my fingers aren't made for touch-screens, or something, but I'm constantly doing things I don't want to do with this freakin' phone because the screen alternates between being unresponsive and too-sensitive. Hate hate hate.

(B) The second, and big, problem is that the phone sucks up energy. My treo could sit for a day or two without draining its battery, but the Droid eats energy just by sitting there. Hate^3.

I'm stuck with this tech-turkey for another year or so. And I have nobody to blame but myself (oh, and the entire country of tech users who have forced all phones to be these asinine toys instead of TOOLS).

Pic from here.

Tea Party?

The current Tea-Party takes their title from the Boston Tea Party. From the beginning, I've been disturbed by the imagery because even though the original Tea-Partiers became heroes of the American Revolution, at the time they were committing treason. And the current teabaggers, by using that event as a standard, are thus declaring to the world that they intend treason. No?

That established, the Tea Party is in fact the wrong image - because bottom line, the rebellion/treason that they intend to enact is Fort Sumter. Not just because the Teabaggers are generally egotistical misanthropic crackers, but also because they hate non-Whites and especially our Black president.

Image from here. And, note, these people are proud of their Frankenstein imagery.

The History of Assaulting Progress

I own many books in the genre of "non-fiction miscellany" (I find 'trivia' to be too, uh, trivial a term for these things). In any case, I just read in Panati's "Browser's Book of Beginnings" about the formation of FM radio (p.221-2). Basically, Edwin Howard Armstrong patented FM to provide a clearer, less static, signal than the currently dominant AM radio. His patent was in 1933 but FM didn't become available until the late 40s. Why? Well, before I answer that, I will ask you that if you *do* listen to radio, do you do so on AM or FM. I believe the majority will answer FM. OK, so let's continue.

According to Panati and the Wiki, RCA successfully sued the FCC to prevent FM from being allowed on the radio. The suit lasted years. Sarnoff, head of RCA, also sued to prevent Armstrong from getting patent royalties from inventing FM and Armstrong committed suicide in 1954 as a result of that battle.

Why did RCA try to block FM? Because they owned AM. Did RCA succeed in getting the FCC to hamstring and restrict FM? Oh yes indeed. Was this good for the world. No, I don't think it was - considering that everyone prefers FM.

Does this remind you of anything? I'm sure somebody put a list up somewhere, in some book, about these types of things - The History of Assaulting Progress - where a company, or the government - uses all of its resources to hurt others, and hurt progress, in order to keep its own money flow.

I'm not naive, so I am not arguing against commerce or against companies looking out for themselves. But if there's any mature theory of government (libertarians, Marxists, and fellow travelers need not apply), all of these theories try to strike a balance between individual rights and community rights. The corporation ("Big Business") is basically a private collection of individual rights - but the rest of society has a right to progress.

I'll look for the list of those who've assaulted progress but off-hand we can include all those Oil Companies, and their marionettes in the Republican Party including their bought and paid for President G.W.B, who furiously try to keep us from alternative fuel.

Pic of RCA from here, of Armstrong from the Wiki.

Cockney Rhyming Parenting

I declared back in 2003 that it should be heretofore known that Cockney Rhyming Slang is not cool. It's actually less cool for Britons to use it than Americans because we Yanks just assume everything in a British accent is fancy. Hence, Americans will consider high-class London, Manchester, Cockney, Irish, Scottish, and Australian all 'British accents' and high class. So if an American uses Cockney Rhyming Slang its usually in the same sentence with the word "gov'ner" and a few lines from Austin Powers.

When the British use it, though, it's the UK version of "jive talkin'" and it sounds ridiculous. White boys from Chicago suburbs aren't ghetto and pasty-faced Britons still sound irredeemably wussy even if they attempt to redeem some toughness with the Rhyming Slang.

Moreover, the entire concept is anti-meaning - the phrases are arbitrary and irrelevant. What thief needs to make a code for his wife ("trouble and strife," har har Andy Capp).

Parenting Use

Yet after that devastating rant of mockage, my wife and I actually found a use for Cockney Rhyming Slang that is both legitimate and practical. And thus my derision for the verbal form is now modified: if a person is actually employed as a thief/spy/parent and uses CRS in it's intended manner, then you are spared the otherwise heavy criticism automatically triggered in all right-thinking people.

I'll explain. Every parent, as you know, needs a special language so they can discuss things in front of the kids. My parents (and many of ya'lls, I assume) used Yiddish. However, while my wife knows many languages, I'm stuck with Hebrew and Spanish. The kids are learning Hebrew in school, so that's out, and Spanish is all over PBS (besides being intuitive for most English speakers, as this sound file attests).

So the other day, my wife, to her immense credit, realized that we should just use Cockney Rhyming Slang (we just had a Guy Richie movie marathon so it was in our heads). And it works! So here's some of our terms, for use for the public weal.

[Key: Original Term = CRS (Annotation)]

1. Nap = Ginger Snap (This is by far the best one, and most redolent of the original art form. Say the word 'nap' - even spell it out - and the kid dissolves in tears, hence we now say "ginger")
   
   
2. Lollipop = Boughs of Holly (We use sugar-free lollipop as a reward/bribe but if the boys hear the word, they go nutso in demanding them - so now we say Hollies. It may not work for long so our rejected backups are: "Seward's Folly" or "Lassie, Assuming She Was a Collie")
   
   
3. Television = Long Division (other options: "nuclear fission" or "gone fishin'" or even "double vision" which may be too close to the original; my wife thinks that this weak entry may need to go to "Telly" and then it could be "Jam & Jelly" which sounds satisfyingly like the original form.)
   
   
4. Blankie = Yankee Doodle (If a blankie is missing, it leads to more wailing, so we now use "Yankee" - doodle actually has other uses in our home; another option: "fish tankie")

Pic from here. Oh, see also this google book, cool eh?

Vacation, Intertube Problem

We arrived in our vacation spot (my parents' home) last night. Alas, they have limited intertube access (the network key was set my malevolent monkeys and cannot be recovered because it is their holiday today), so I'm posting quickly on the only working computer to say that I'm not going to post much. Happy day, I hear you say.

Shabbas.

Pic from here.

Another Person's Invisible Pain

This Citizen Dog reminds me of a long time pet-peeve of mine: people cannot see most of the pain a person can suffer. Unless there's a cast/bandage/missing limb, the pain is invisible. And many of our words for ailments or injuries are not menacing enough: headache, allergy, a cold, and depression. These terms each have either a range (headache can go from mild to migraine), or are used colloquially (when a person is feeling 'depressed' it can mean either they are feeling the blues or are clinically diagnosed and can be a suicide-threat).

Bellyaching personally [warning: the next paragraph is wangsty], I suffer from many problems that are invisible: allergies, stomach weakness, back pain, etc, that make me appear normal but on the inside can render me inoperable. And, self-conscious that I am for appearing as a malingerer, I have fantasized that as a type of super-power to throw my maladies onto another person for a minute. And, as part of this fantasy, once the person is suddenly stricken, he will collapse stunned and agonized. In fact, this led to my enacting a basic curse: for anyone who thinks I am lazy/shirking or making my problems up/exaggerating, my curse is that they should suffer my pains for a minute, like in the fantasy.

OK, enough unseemly ranting. But this observation comes from a greater point which is the need to exaggerate a self-description in order for your listener to take you seriously. See the Dilbert above for my point; transcript (from here):

That's right...cough-cough! ...I won't be in to work...cough-wheeze-cough... - Bad cold? Well, no, actually I have a bad headache... - But I don't know how to make a headache sound over the phone.

[I actually worked on this idea, within semiotics, for my Princeton JP and one day I will publish it BE"H.]

No Snowflakes Alike?

Prompted by this Citizen Dog: I've long doubted this factoid. First of all, how many snowflakes are there in 1 snowfall on 1 day in 1 square mile? Millions? In the world at this second, there must be billions or even trillions of snowflakes. Today alone. And of those snowflakes none are 'alike'? Well what level of similarity are we restricting here? This seems to render the definition of 'alike' useless.

The wiki quotes the claim that:

It is next to impossible that two snowflakes are exactly alike due to the roughly 10¹⁸ water molecules which make up a snowflake, which grow at different rates and in different patterns depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere that the snowflake falls through on its way to the ground united.

So thank goodness, the resident genius of the Straight Dope is on the case: whose answer demonstrates that we think so much alike that I should declare here and now that we are not the same person:

Chances are, in fact, that there are lots of duplicates. What the snowologists really mean is that your chance of finding duplicates is virtually zero. It's been calculated that in a volume of snow two feet square by ten inches deep there are roughly one million flakes. Multiply that by the millions of square miles that are covered by snow each year (nearly one fourth of the earth's land surface), and then multiply that by the billions of winters that have occurred since the dawn of time, and it's obvious we're talking unimaginable googols of flakes. Some of these are surely repeats.

See!

Second pic from here.

The THX Menace

This may be my favorite, or at least most quoted, Citizen Dog: about the evil of the ear-blasting THX intro. Does anyone enjoy that? It seems designed by bullies and braggarts: "we need to hurt your ears, and waste your time, to show you how great we are." A pox on whoever invented that promo and for every filmmaker that includes it at the start of their film.

Worst Product Placement Ever

My wife and I have been watching Bones at night (it's syndicated via TNT or TBS or Bravo - who can tell nowadays). It's yet another one of the 'police procedurals' that infest prime-time television, but it's also a cross-over with the medical procedurals that have been around for a while (so, in Hollywood speak, it's CSI meets House!). But while I don't like those other shows that much, Bones is a winner because of (a) the smart and funny writing, (b) the relatively open plot possibilities (they follow every type of grisly murder, even cold cases - and oh man, the grotesqueness is over the top), but most importantly (c) the ensemble cast is top-notch.

Ensembles are usually the silver-bullet for long running TV shows. That's one key reason why Star Trek has lasted so long, but also M.A.S.H., Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, The West Wing - all of them went beyond the possibilities of plot because any small item can be fun to watch when the characters are well known enough to make even minor gestures or phrases payoff. Listen up Hollywood: this will save you a lot of grief.

Note, this is possibly why I have more trouble with Law & Order and such - same 2 cops, same 2 lawyers every time!

Anyway, down to the worst product placement: last night was a new episode on its home, non-syndicated, channel. In the plot, three of the geekier male characters are enthused to the point of distraction because 1 guy managed to score tickets to the best movie evah: Avatar! 'No way' you say. 'Yes way!' I retort.

The main subplot, thus, was how these three guys needed to camp out on line to await the film (even though they had tickets?! yes!) And were telling unbelievers that Avatar wasn't just a movie, it was the total geek experience. They knew all the trivia about the movie and how it was the bestest to ever be presented to modern eyes. Furthermore, not only did they wait on line for a few days - needing to make flimsy excuses to their boss for why they aren't doing their forensic work to catch the on-the-loose killer (because Avatar is more important!) - but while waiting on line, they meet a bunch of very hot, promiscuous women who intend to sleep with all three of these geeks.

Yes, Avatar is so cool that you need to skip your life-and-death deadline job to wait on line to see it even though you still have tickets. And while on line, you will meet and sleep with beautiful women. Got all that?

Now the first commercial of the first commercial break was for: what? Avatar, of course. No problems there. Why not? But the crass, blatant product placement within a normally decent show, made me look up the information on the network Bones is on - which I discovered was Fox. And you get one guess as to who produced "Avatar:" Fox again.

It all came together and I was repulsed. I will not see the movie, out of spite, for how crudely that tried to carry that off. What an insult to my intelligence as a viewer. Blah.