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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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The penultimate entry into this round of "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]:Bobcats are fighting pythons Actually, I just like saying "penultimate." Kid Me took a while to figure that one out, because it was before the internet and I never could be arsed to open a dictionary for a word that gets used so rarely. So for a long time I thought it was a synonym of "ultimate," like how "inflammable" means the same thing as "flammable." Speaking of English weirdness, the sentence up there is ambiguous again. Are bobcats really pythons who are fighting? That would certainly be surreal. I like it. Let's go with that. Oh, wait, no, I guess the bobcats are fighting against pythons. Pretty sure there are a few high school sportsball teams called the Bobcats. Are any called the Pythons? Probably. There are a lot of high schools in the US, and sometimes you have to get creative with the names. I went to two high schools, in succession. I didn't move; a new school got built and I was in its district. We all got to vote on the name of the new school. Now, what you need to know is that the mascot of the elementary school I attended, which didn't have organized sports (and they never let me play the disorganized ones because I was a nerd), was the Little Indians. You'll see why in a second. The middle school was the Spartans, for some utterly obscure reason. And the first high school was the Indians (which of course explains the elementary school mascot). So, two years into high school, and I never got to be at a school whose spirit animal was... well... an animal. I should point out right now that yes, of course these days we understand that a lot of "Indian" type mascots are horribly racist. However. The high school's nickname was chosen in acknowledgement of the local tribe. As soon as people started seriously questioning things like "Redskins," naturally (and appropriately), they started to question that one as well. So they did the right thing and actually asked the tribe, many of whom had gone to that high school. Basically, the tribe said, "We like the name, but lose the feathered headdress. That's not even historically accurate." So they changed the logo but kept the name. Anyway. As I was saying, after two years as an Indian (the mascot, not the heritage), they went to choose a name for the new high school and had us vote on it. Whether our votes were fairly counted is a question we will never know the answer to, but at least they pretended to give us input into what the school would be branded as. This being before the Internet, no one suggested "Schooly McSchoolFace." But, as it was 1981 and all the cool kids were reading X-Men comics when we weren't fanning ourselves over Star Wars, we (supposedly; I'm still not convinced the vote was fair) collectively decided on the Wolverines. So even though I finally went to school with a nominally animal mascot, I knew, deep inside, along with all the other kids who voted for that name, that it was actually named after a fictional Canadian mutant antihero whose only connection to anything in the area was... well... nothing. Hey, while we're on the subject of mascots, there's a professional sportsball team nominally out of New York called the Jets. They're actually based in New Jersey, though, which is yet another example of how New Jersey gets fucked out of the spotlight in favor of a few islands to its northeast. But I digress. Would it really be too much to ask that another NFL team change its name (the team formerly known as the Redskins had the chance, but blew it) to the Sharks? I mean, come on. That would be awesome. You know that would be awesome; admit it. Jets. Versus. Sharks. |
| Y'all might have figured out by now that I have a thing for cryptid legends. Come to think of it, I wonder why there isn't a cryptid associated with the Great Dismal Swamp (from yesterday's entry). I guess because the reality was fucked-up enough that they didn't need to invent a... I dunno... bearigator or something. I swear if I find stuff about a bearigator all over the internet after this, I'mma get angry. Unless they credit me for what is, really, come on, an awesome idea. There are no alligators in the GDS, by the way. Not yet, anyway, not that they know of. I've seen them a bit southeast of there, though, around the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so what with climate change and all, it's probably only a matter of time. Anyway. Today we're talking about our neighbor to the northwest. If there’s two things the state of West Virginia is known for, it’s an unfortunate dependence on the dying industry of coal mining, and the legend of the Mothman. That's a joke, right? It is Cracked, so I'm assuming it's a joke. If there's two things West Virginia is known for here in Real Virginia, it's strippers and hillbillies. If there's three, it's also stripper hillbillies. I'm not saying I've gone to hillbilly stripper clubs in West Virginia, so don't ask me how I know this. More seriously, though, don't believe all the stereotypes. It's a beautiful state and the part they're talking about here, Point Pleasant, is a rare case of a town actually being named something descriptive (see also: Lynchburg, VA). The first sighting of the beast comes from November 1966, in Clendenin, West Virginia. The first people to spot him were a group of gravediggers, which seems like a great job to pick up if you want to be creeped out all the time. Ever notice that in movies and shows, no one ever digs up a grave during the day? It's always at night. That way no one's surprised when zombies attack. The gravediggers described a huge flying figure dashing from tree to tree. They further described its appearance as a “brown human being,” which sounds like something a nervous neoliberal mayoral candidate would say while campaigning in a black neighborhood. Another thing WV is known for is rampant racism, but I don't think this is a case of that. It's more a case of... cryptidism? The article goes on to quote the newspaper account of the Mothman's second sighting: "Two Point Pleasant couples said today they encountered a man-sized, bird-like creature in the TNT area about midnight last night. Sheriff's deputies and City Police went to the scene about 2 o'clock this morning but were unable to spot anything. But the two young men telling their story this morning were dead serious, and asserted they hadn't been drinking." Suuuuuuure they hadn't. However, he also said that it looked like “maybe what you would visualize as an angel,” which is like, the number one thing not to say if you’re trying to avoid a rubber room. Yeah, I don't know about that. People claim to see angels fairly often. It's when their opposites, demons, start whispering in the person's ear that they get fitted for a nice canvas jacket with straps. The legend continued to grow over the years, but one thing that never received further clarity was the Mothman’s motives, or relationships with the population he was allegedly haunting. There are no reports of direct violence or aggression. You want to find out his motives? Ask him. I'll be right over there.  Perhaps the most unsettling sighting was the claimed sighting of the Mothman standing on the local Silver Bridge, which would collapse the next day, killing over 40. This served to add a new supernatural level of mystique to the Mothman, that of an omen, or for the especially suspicious, a saboteur. I should note here that I don't know where the Silver Bridge was, or if it's been rebuilt, but the whole point of Point Pleasant is that it's located at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. So there are a good number of bridges in the area. Some of them have even stayed up. Oh, and yes, I've been there. There was, in the Before Time, a brewery pretty close to the Mothman statue. They brewed, among other things, hemp beer. It tasted like Mothman piss. The statue, by the way, is illustrated in the link. It is GLORIOUS. I talked about the brewery before, about a year ago: "Liberating the Angel" Some researchers note that this appearance is very common in the description of sleep paralysis demons, the sightings or hallucinations of which can stick in the subconscious and manifest later during times of fear. I've never actually seen -- or, I guess I should say, I never hallucinated -- a sleep paralysis demon, despite my struggles with the affliction. Usually it's an inchoate presence. Sometimes there are footsteps, which you wouldn't expect from a flying cryptid. The flying is also not a particularly unique detail in a location with plentiful wildlife, specifically occupied by populations of herons, which are, well… huge, man-sized birds. From this comes one of the most compelling scientific theories of the Mothman. Dr. Robert L. Smith postulates that the original Mothman, the one seen frequently and in detail in the 1960s, was in fact a sandhill crane. Yeah... I looked up "sandhill crane," and a) they're not human-sized and b) they don't live in the Ohio River Valley. I'm all for finding logical explanations for these sorts of things, but I'm not convinced about this one. On the other hand, it's sometimes hard to tell actual size at night, and birds sometimes fly outside their established ranges. So, okay, maybe. When you take all this into account, it seems very likely that the area was occupied by an unusually large sandhill crane, perhaps even one that did possess some level of mutation caused by chemical leaks. Common enough in the Ohio River Valley. I will point out, though, that genetic mutation doesn't work that way. You don't expose a crane to gamma rays and thereby turn it into Heron Hulk. The lifespan of a sandhill crane is around 20 years, and one could assume even less if the bird was indeed mutated or sickened by chemical leakage, which would explain its fairly brief reign of terror. Which is to say, the Mothman was probably dead long before you were born. Except the first sightings were during the year I was born. Not all your readers are whippersnappers, Cracked. Anyway, the reason I'm fascinated by cryptids is not that I "believe" in them; it's because of what the legends tell us about ourselves. Was there an actual Mothman? Hell no. But I accept that people saw something, and part of the fun of life is that we can't definitively explain everything. |
| I want to talk about this article, but I don't want to get too bogged down. The Hidden and Eternal Spirit of the Great Dismal Swamp For nearly all of its modern existence, the Great Dismal Swamp has been excluded from U.S. history. Now there’s a push to bring its significance to light—and it’s revealing what really goes into remembering the truths of our ancestors. This swamp is in my state (and also extends into North Carolina), and I've been there. It may not be as famous as the Everglades, but it's pretty cool in its own way. For one thing, it contains one of only two lakes in Virginia that were not formed by human-built dams. That said, the article's author apparently subscribes to the New Yorker school of rambling prose. It irritates me. For example, the lede: By a quarter past eight, the woods were bright and humming, and the summer heat had rolled in off Route 17. The early August air was soft and humid by the canal on the eastern side of the Great Dismal Swamp’s Virginia half. The bikers, the joggers, the hikers, the bird-watchers, and the couple loading up their dusty SUV each chimed “morning” one after another, all cradling the letter m at the roofs of their mouths. Honestly, normally I'd Stop Reading Right There. Too many linking verbs, and that last sentence is just so fucking precious. But as I said, the subject matter interests me. I've been to the Great Dismal, even hiked a ways into it. The article starts out with some of its history, especially as it relates to slavery when there was still slavery there. Then... Since the beginning of the 20th century, protection of the Dismal has been framed as an environmental issue. After 200 years of heavy logging left the territory at less than a third of its original size, the Union Camp Corporation gifted the swamp to the U.S. government in 1973. And honestly, it is an environmental issue. For a long time, swampland was considered a nuisance, something to be "drained" or "filled" or "reclaimed." But of course swamps (honestly, I'm a bit vague on the differences between swamps, marshes, bogs, etc., so I'm using "swamp" generically) are wetlands, and hopefully I don't need to explain just how vital wetlands are in ecology. All of which is interesting enough, but I already knew that. What this article does is delve into the human history of the place. It's long, but again, I think this is stuff that needs to be more in our consciousness. And be warned: some of it is quite graphic. Still, some of the photography is very striking. |
| Today's article might be a little fishy. What Archaeology Tells Us About the Ancient History of Eating Kosher A new study of fish remains deepens scholars’ understanding of how the dietary laws came to be Just a few points to clarify here before we begin, for anyone who may not have a lot of background in the whole "kosher" thing: 1) Kashrut, the dietary laws, apply year-round 2) There are additional special dietary laws that apply only on Pesach (which ends today). 2a) Contrary to popular belief, God did not command us to eat gefilte fish, and I wouldn't do it even if he did. 3) The dietary requirements laid out in the Torah, which gets all the publicity, were later expanded and fenced in by far more stringent rules in the Talmud, a set of documents set down by religious leaders sometime around the first century C.E. This article seems to be about the pre-Talmudic commandments. 4) Not all practicing Jews today keep kosher, and some ignore the Talmud. Now, on to the actual article, which I think is pretty fascinating as a historical investigation, regardless of one's religion or lack thereof. After Adler spoke about his research on the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, Omri Lernau—senior research fellow at Haifa University and Israel’s top authority on all things fish—spoke about remains of aquatic creatures unearthed in ancient Judean settlements. He mentioned catfish, skate and shark. Adler, who works at Israel’s Ariel University, was instantly intrigued. According to the Jewish laws of kashrut—the set of rules written in the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, that outline foods suitable for human consumption—these species are deemed non-kosher, and therefore unfit to eat. There are at least two ways to approach this kind of thing. The first is to assume that every word in the Torah is literally true, laid down by you-know-who, and go from there. The second, which is my approach, is to ask why people wrote what they did in what would become the Bible, and one of the ways to answer that is through archaeology. It's not my purpose here to ignite a religious argument, just to explain where I'm coming from in this entry. According to the study, archaeologists have found the remains of three non-kosher species in the two ancients Judean settlements—the Kingdom of Israel in the region’s north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. Judah residents in particular ate a lot of catfish. I should become a copy editor. Scholars don’t know exactly when these rules and practices were written down into the Torah, but in his upcoming book, Adler argues that evidence for its observance does not appear until the Hasmonean period that lasted from 140 B.C. to 37 B.C. And the point in history at which Judean citizens adopted the dietary rules prescribed in Torah into their lifestyles, essentially becoming kosher, is also not certain. Another case for a copy editor. I could be wrong about this, but one does not "become kosher." One "keeps kosher," or "starts keeping kosher." Only the food is kosher or not. The two scientists didn’t have to dig deep for the vestiges of aquatic life— Lernau had a collection of about 100,000 fish remains gathered from dozens of sites in Israel, which spans 10,000 years, from the Neolithic times to the present. I'm imagining a bunch of those cartoon fish bones, like when an animated cat eats a fish and pulls the bones back out of its mouth. The reality is likely far less amusing. The collection resides inside his home’s Fish Bone Cellar, which doubles as a bomb shelter during times of armed conflict. "The Palestinians are shelling us again." "Better go down to the Fish Bone Cellar." Lidar Sapir-Hen, archaeozoologist at Tel Aviv University, who also studied the history of Judeans’ dietary restrictions but was not involved in this study, found similar evidence that Judeans weren’t following the laws of kashrut around similar dates that Adler examined. She had examined pig bones found in ancient Judean settlements. Pork is another type of non-kosher food and yet some digs yielded a number of pig remains. Probably the most well-known proscription is the one against eating pork. My amateur opinion has long been that it's mostly a cultural thing, a desire to differentiate themselves from neighboring tribes. It's like if people in New Jersey looked at the people in Pennsylvania and said, "Those ungodly heathens eat cheesesteak, so we're going to pass a law that forbids cheesesteak." (Of course, cheesesteak isn't kosher either, as it blends a meat product with a dairy product, but that's not important right now.) Other people have speculated that the anti-pork lobby was due to incomplete cooking practices and the possibility of trichinosis and other diseases that can lurk in improperly cooked pig. That explanation never really sat well with me, because it assumes that a) people before modern stoves couldn't cook for shit and b) other cultures were too stupid to notice that they were getting sick from eating pork. As a lot of people from other cultures survived munching on bacon, and even populated the rest of the world, neither assumption seems to be reasonable. It's good to have actual archaeologists working on this, though. Perhaps they'll come up with a reason better than the above or "because God said so." |
| Here's another one for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] Large Tree Planting Projects "They're going to make us dinner." So my cleric said to the party upon encountering a group of trolls tonight. Sure, I suppose it was within the realm of possibility for the DM to have planned for the trolls to cook a nice venison roast and serve it to us. More likely, though, they were going to turn us into the main course. The way English works, though, the sentence is indeed ambiguous. Is "us" the direct or indirect object of "make?" Other languages have no such ambiguity. "They're going to make dinner for us" is distinct from "They're going to make us for dinner." So, coming off a D&D high and pulling this prompt at random from the list, initially I read it as (Large Tree) (Planting Projects). So I imagined much bigger versions of the trolls (they were big to begin with) running around and planting large trees everywhere. But it could also mean that people are planting little trees that will eventually grow up to be large trees. As opposed to, I dunno, dogwoods, which never get too huge. One could, I suppose, also read it as (Large Tree Planting) Projects, which, I don't know, could be read to imply that the trees are the things doing the planting? Though I guess you could do that with the first example, too. These two permutations aren't really all that different. Then there's the interpretation that, I assume, was actually intended: Large (Tree Planting Projects). This one implies that the tree planting projects are large in scope. In other words, "large" is actually modifying "projects" as opposed to "tree." That would make more sense, wouldn't it? A small project to plant trees wouldn't be very effective. It would be like if one person in the world recycled, and no one else did. Maybe you could initiate numerous such projects, but that would involve getting people who don't give a shit to give a shit, which ain't gonna happen. According to sources whittled down into Wikipedia , "In the 12,000 years since the start of human agriculture, the number of trees worldwide has decreased by 46%." Also, "...about 15 billion trees are cut down annually and about 5 billion are planted." But that last quote doesn't tell me anything about tree life cycles. With or without us, trees get seeded, grow, reproduce, and die.I almost typed "natural tree life cycles" there, and then I remembered a) beavers and b) anything we, as part of nature, do is also part of nature. But taking those numbers at face value, that's a net loss of 10 billion trees a year. Which certainly seems like a lot -- it exceeds the human population of the planet -- but according to the same source, there's probably about 3 trillion trees. That's... oh, hell, I'm entirely too wiped tonight to do the math. Let's just say that we're in no danger of running out of trees anytime soon. Which doesn't mean, of course, that any net loss is a good thing. And I get the impression that it's not just the number, but the distribution. Deforesting the Amazon rainforest probably has a much bigger negative impact than, say, losing them more or less evenly all over the globe. That would, of course, imply that it matters where any of these large tree planting projects are taking place. Which may be obvious, because, for example, you can plant all the trees you want in the Sahara; they won't grow. So whatever these projects are, assuming I parsed the phrase correctly, I hope they're successful. My D&D party was, by the way. Successful, I mean. It took a while, but we eventually dispatched the trolls. Now if only we could do that with the ones on the internet... |
| The random number trolls have presented us with a second consecutive "money" article. This one's maybe a bit less esoteric and perhaps applicable to people outside the US, though it's still obviously US-centric. Well, here's a guy with a PhD in economics from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, talking about money matters. So everything he says has got to be true, right? Maybe. I've said before, in here, some version of "ask six economists, get ten answers." Moreover, expertise in macroeconomics doesn't necessarily mean expertise in microeconomics, and vice versa. So of course I'm going to argue with the professor. We all want money — some of us dangerously so. Thankfully, there are simple and powerful ways to get rich without gambling your hard-earned savings. Off the top of my head and not following his link: 1) inherit it 2) steal it 3) win the lottery 4) marry it 5) run a ponzi scheme For sure, they won’t all just stick in your brain. And many will change over time as Uncle Sam reforms our taxes and benefits, and as new and better financial products come on board. By "reforms," I think he means "screws with;" and by "new and better," I assume he means "for the banks." This not being Cracked, the numbered list actually increments rather than decrements. I won't copy all of his advice here. If I leave something out, it doesn't mean I agree or disagree; it means I'm way too hung over to say anything relevant. In other words, make up your own minds. 1. Don’t borrow for college. It’s far too risky and expensive. I don’t say this lightly. I’m a college professor. But you can get a fine education without mortgaging your future and potentially dashing your career plans. It simply involves pursuing scholarships and applying to less expensive, if generally less prestigious, institutions. 2. If your parents are borrowing for your tuition, discuss who will repay. I'm considering these two together because after I got done being stunned by the degree of privilege assumed, and marveling at the usual Harvard snobbery, I noticed the contradiction. 3. Strive to own your home, not rent — and try to buy in cash. I'm just. I. Wow. I'm not saying this is bad advice, though buy vs. rent needs to be evaluated on an individual basis (if you're only going to be somewhere for a year or two, renting might make sense). What I am saying is that, well, how many people can actually take this advice seriously? 5. Owning a home can reduce longevity risk. Here’s another reason it’s better to own instead of rent. Let’s say you’re 70 and have found your dream location... Again, not arguing, but who's his target audience here? He starts with college applicants, moves on to presumably working-age consumers, and now we're in senior territory. People need money advice at all ages, sure, but it's going to be different for different life points. 8. Don’t worry about career and job hopping. How can you not shop around when there are so many options? I thought this was pretty much the norm these days. Why even bring it up? 9. Consider working for yourself. I tell this to my students often. If you start the right business the right way, it will raise your remaining future earnings and provide unmatched job security. And if you start the wrong business, or the right business the wrong way, or the wrong business the right way, or the wrong business the wrong way, you're boned. Way more businesses fail than succeed. We usually only hear the success stories (in contrast with lottery winner stories, where we disproportionately hear the sob stories), so there's significant survivorship bias. 11. Your living standard is your bottom line. Simulate its potential paths based on alternative investment and spending strategies to see where these strategies can land you. I'll be sure to put a pin in this and circle back later; I'm sure we can leverage the optimal outcome here. 12. Marriage beats partnering long-term. It may mean somewhat higher net taxes, but it comes with an array of valuable implicit insurance arrangements... 13. If you do get married, count on getting divorced. Why am I even still reading? 18. The Social Security Administration’s Program Operations Manual System has thousands of rules, which its staff can get wrong, in part or in full. Talk to multiple offices and do your own research. Leaving aside for the moment that it's clear that people who "do [their] own research" these days are basically just scrolling Facebook looking for things to confirm what they already think (and are wrong about)... "talk to multiple offices?" How much time does this guy think people have to sit on hold with a government agency, even in retirement? 21. If you’re worried about downside risk, play the stock market like a casino. Think of the investment in stocks as cash you take to the casino: Don’t spend a penny of your winnings, if you make any, until you’ve left the building. Wow. Just. Wow. This has got to be, hands-down, the worst piece of advice I've ever seen anyone give anybody apart from, maybe, just maybe, "Hey, you should spend a stormy night in this Victorian mansion built on an orphanage graveyard." No. If you want to gamble, gamble. That's fine. It can be fun. Try not to overdo it. The house will win in the end, but at least you've had some good times. The stock market is the one place where you can bet with the house, and enjoy at least some of their advantage. To do so, you need to buy and hold for several years. With proper diversification, you get minimal downside risk over a long enough time frame. And if you're afraid of the stock market, just keep your money in a mattress where it's guaranteed to lose value over the long term. Or, you know, buy Dunning-Krugerrands with it. That's no worse advice than some of the stuff here.   I keep forgetting to do this for a movie I saw on Sunday because my brain keeps skittering away from the experience. One-Sentence Movie Review: Everything Everywhere All at Once: Whatever everyone involved in the making of this movie was smoking, snorting, shooting and/or swallowing... I need it. Rating: 4.5/5 |
| Today's link will probably only make sense to people in the US. Or, more accurately, some people in the US. 401(k) Plans No Longer Make Much Sense for Savers The inherent extra return participants enjoyed for many years has almost disappeared because of changes in tax laws and high fees. So if you don't know what the hell this is all about, congratulations. The tax advantage of a 401(k) depends on four factors, all of which have changed dramatically since 1980 to the detriment of 401(k)s. I'm certainly not going to argue the numbers here; they seem right. I do wonder if one can truly extrapolate the average situation here, as the author does, to give advice to everyone. Nevertheless, the reason I'm sharing this article isn't to nitpick it, but to point out something that I should formalize into a Law of Life, though I'm not quite sure yet how to boil it down to bumper-sticker philosophy (or even if I should) That observation is this: Any advantage the ordinary person might enjoy will promptly be socially engineered out of existence. There's also this bit from the article: Reducing taxes on 401(k)s will cost the government money, but it could be a good investment if it results in retirement security for more middle-income households. Except that it would be an even better investment for the government to ensure that people don't retire, so they can continue to pay higher taxes until death. When I was a kid, saving was considered a virtue. Not that I was any good at practicing that or any other virtue, but at some point, most likely coinciding with the 1980s, we collectively decided that saving was for suckers, and to keep the economy going, we should spend, spend, and spend some more. And then borrowing money became easier for most people, so the economy retooled itself again. Can't afford something? No problem, just go into debt. We offer easy finance terms! Younger people today don't expect to ever retire anyway, so why bother saving anything? This, of course, plays right into the hands of our economic overlords. So how do you get ahead? Well, I don't know. Some people never will, though it's important to hold out a carrot of hope to them, usually in the form of a lottery. Even without state-sponsored gambling, though, a lot of it comes down to luck. The whole deal with any kind of retirement account, at least here in the US, is a trade-off: do I pay taxes now, or defer them until later? Deferring them until later requires that you make some assumptions about "later." What will inflation look like? How will tax brackets be handled, and where do I expect to be in them? Will the government cave in to short-sighted efforts to increase the capital gains tax rate? Will all of this effort be in vain because we're going to get nuked anyway? If you asked these questions in 1982 about 2022, you'd have gotten the answers wrong. Back then, we all figured we'd either be radioactive craters by now, or populating a Mars colony. Or maybe even both. The reality, as always, turned out to be way worse. |
| Just so we're clear, all urban legends were made up by someone. By definition. Sometimes that person is otherwise known for other things, though. By "celebrities" here, Cracked isn't talking about, like, Brad Pitt or Kim Kardashian, but some well-known historical figures. Celebrities: They're just like us, except people actually care what they have to say. Ah, but which is chicken and which, egg? Famous people have been accidentally etching bullshit into the public consciousness since, well, as long as famous people have existed. "Accidentally" gives some of them too much credit. 6. The Jersey Devil Myth Was Started By Ben Franklin The Jersey Devil is kind of a less-famous Bigfoot -- a humanoid reptilian cryptid with a fearsome appearance that lives in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. There is (or was; there's been a business-shattering pandemic since I went there) a brewery in New Jersey called River Horse. You might recognize River Horse as the literal translation of "hippopotamus." So their mascot is a hippo. But on one of their beers, that hippo is drawn to look a lot like the Jersey Devil. If, of course, there were such a thing as a Jersey Devil. I mention this because I think Ben would have been amused, too. As Cracked has previously mentioned, Franklin had a lively rivalry with a local New Jersey politician and publisher, Titan Leeds. Leeds made for quite the easy target, as he was a proponent of astrology and backed the unpopular local governor. In his usual "ain't I a stinker" way, Franklin attempted to smear Leeds by writing a joke article claiming a monster was born to the Leeds family. It wasn't the classiest display, and in an unfortunate coincidence, the Leeds family had some disabled members, and one was born in the same year as that eventually attributed to the Jersey Devil. And that, kids, is also how trolling was invented. Franklin, through the magic of his words, summoned a powerful force that, once unleashed, cannot be killed. That force is called Bullshit, and its dark powers are not to be trifled with. Truth. 5. The Hollow Earth Theory Was Invented By Edmond Halley (Of Halley's Comet Fame) I cut Cracked some slack because it's not pretending to be The New Yorker, but calling some things a "theory" is an affront to actual theories. Still, the theory persists to this day among people who have no idea how planets work. Which, the more I see of the internet, is a whole hell of a lot of people. This one came from Edmond Halley. The comet guy. The year was 1692, and Halley was an astronomer who liked to pal around with Isaac Newton. Halley did a shitload more than observe the comet that would end up named after him and eventually bookend the life of Mark Twain. But no, let's call him the "comet guy." That's a bit like calling Einstein "the photoelectric effect guy." In order to explain variations and inconsistencies in compass readings, Halley proposed that the Earth we lived on was just an outer shell, and that there were one or more concentric layers of inner-Earths surrounding a central core Earth, each separated by their own atmospheres. I mean, it's not terrible science to put forth a hypothesis, however outlandish it may seem to modern eyes. Wouldn't have taken much to disprove, sure, but weirder explanations have been proposed for shit we didn't understand until we did. Oh, and there was also maybe an advanced civilization within the Earth, glowing lights, and seeping gas that created the aurora borealis. That too. It seems to be human nature to believe that since we live in civilizations, other life-forms must also create civilizations. Hell, Star Trek is pretty much based around that idea. As yet, there is no evidence that evolution must produce civilization-developing species; only that it can. Four centuries and a few hopeful scientists and explorers later, lots of educated people still buy this hilariously stupid theory. Well, shit, now we're wondering if that comet is real. Well, I've never seen it. And never will, unless by some quirk of fate I live into my 90s and can still see. 4. The New York Sewer Alligators Were Popularized By Best-Selling Novelist Thomas Pynchon Gravity's Reptile? The story goes that New Yorkers of the early to mid-1900s brought back baby alligators from Florida vacations, only to be dismayed at the animals' striking increase in size. What to do? Flush them down the terlet, of course! I remember some kid repeating this one in middle school, very seriously. I don't know whether he bought into it, or if he was messing with me. Probably both. (I was known to take trips to New York even then, with my family.) To be fair, he didn't invent the ridiculous myth out of whole cloth -- he just cemented it in the public consciousness. As with Ben Franklin, someone like that writes something, someone's bound to take it seriously. A generation earlier, in 1935, the New York Times reported that a single 125-pound alligator had been found in the sewers, but was killed because it turned savage. Okay, well, I'm no herpetologist (never had herpes), but from what I understand about gators, they don't "turn" savage; they "are" savage. At least from an anthropomorphic perspective. 3. Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde Convinced The World The Chinese Loved Opium Dens They're always shadowy places run by cunning Asian stereotypes who deal in organized crime and every depravity known to man. The floor/furniture is littered with passed-out addicts. And, as you might have guessed, they're almost entirely a fictional invention. Well. I suppose it's good to know that drug panics and racism have gone hand-in-hand for at least a couple of centuries. I said "good to know," not "good." The irony is that most Londoners at the time would have been able to buy opium at their local chemist in the form of over-the-counter cough syrups -- the substance wasn't destroying the East End, it was destroying the irritation in their sore li'l throats. But forget about facts, there's racial fear-mongering to be had! At least some of the modern versions of this -- meth labs, Purdue Pharma, etc. -- expanded the moral panic to other races. 2. The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste Was Created By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Which I was only introduced to by an early (relatively speaking) Doctor Who episode. I think it was the Fourth Doctor, which would put it in the 1970s. And if I recall correctly, they solved the mystery: it was Daleks! The mystery of how those rolling pepper pots were able to board and exterminate all the sailors on a ship with multiple decks wasn't addressed until the series reboot in the noughties. Like the authors who would follow, he grabbed attention by advancing a particularly salacious theory about what went down: The ship's abandonment was caused by a black passenger staging an uprising against the white crew. He hijacked the ship, sailed it to Africa, and murdered everybody. Yes, Doyle knew that pushing those racial buttons would sell. Sigh. He went on to create Sherlock Holmes a few short years later, a character obsessed with sorting through bullshit to find the truth. Feeling guilty about something, Mr. Doyle? To be (somewhat) fair, it was pretty much standard practice in pre-modern fiction writing to pretend that you're telling a true story, and even claim it to be fact, not fiction. This was generally understood, as far as I know, to be a literary device. So I don't know if Doyle could have expected his writing to be taken at face value -- though, apparently, he wasn't too upset that it was. 1. Virginia Woolf Invented The Puritanical Victorians But, as Cracked has mentioned before, the idea of the Victorians as prudes isn't borne out by the facts. This perception was largely started by a group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group, which included the famous economist John Maynard Keynes, writer E.M. Forster, and the legendary wordsmith Virginia Woolf. They were cool. "They were cool." Honestly, could anyone wish for a more beautiful epitaph? It's not that the Victorians were stuffy and sexless; it's that every young creative thinks their parents are stuffy and sexless. This too-cool-for-old-school clique's most famous member was Woolf, who attacked the values of her elders through her writing and took pride in her generation's supposed rejection of them. Like so many before them, the Bloomsbury Group sought to bill themselves as progressive by knocking the olds. OK Boomer. It's like I've been saying: today's generational split is but a rhyme of all of those that have gone before. So there you go: If you want to create a story that will withstand the test of time, first and foremost it must be something that people really want to believe. Which, after all, explains a lot. |
| Another entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]: Fashion Waste When I was a little kid, homonyms confused me. I suspect I'm not alone in this, though I learned to read earlier than most, so I got them straightened out quickly enough. However, this might explain my unfortunate (for other people) predilection for punning. One confusion that I remember in particular was when my mother was explaining where a person's waist was. I had already picked up on the idea that the belly was where digestion happened, after which whatever was left over came out as poo -- and like most toddlers, Kid Me found poo hilarious. Point being, it took me a while before I understood the difference between "waist" and "waste." I mention this because one of the key measurements for a lot of clothing is the waist size, so this particular prompt brought back the memory of my younger self's confusion. Pants, for example, start out with a waist and end up as waste. Another thing that fascinated Kid Me -- a few years later -- was science fiction. I particularly enjoyed seeing what authors thought would happen in the future. Nowadays, periodically I'll see an article about "what science fiction authors got right/wrong about the future." But those miss the point. Science fiction doesn't make predictions; it comes up with ideas. The only way it could be a "prediction" would be if the writer buried his or her prediction under a rock or whatever without telling anyone what it was, and then, however many years later, someone dug it up and went, "Oh, that's laughable," or "Wow, that's pretty close to whatever happened." As it is, that kind of science fiction exists in a kind of Platonic realm of ideas. In order for something -- a chair, a computer, a starship, whatever -- to become part of consensus reality, first someone has to think of the concept, the idea. You don't have to be a science fiction writer to come up with it, but SF writers do it a lot. Once that idea is out there, though, other humans who didn't think of it in the first place can then consider ways that it might become reality. And so you go from having handheld flip-top communicators on Star Trek in the 1960s to having flip phones in the 1990s. Sure, it's possible someone would have come up with those eventually without Star Trek, but the point is that Trek neither invented an actual communicator nor predicted its development, but provided the idea that would eventually become the flip phone. Which led to one of the most amusing meta-jokes ever made on TV, when William Shatner's character in Boston Legal flipped a phone open and it emitted the distinctive communicator chirp. A less well-known example is that Robert Heinlein conceived of the waterbed before anyone ever built one of the suckers. What's less common in science fiction is introducing a possible technology for the future, and then having that technology go away, the way flip phones and waterbeds did. Or how we never did go back to the Moon (though I'm aware that plans are in the works). All of which is to say that one trope in the science fiction of my youth was how wonderful disposable clothing would be. Buy a cheap suit, wear it once, discard it. Yeah... that sounds like a great idea to those of us living in the future, doesn't it? So. Much. Waist. And yet, people are doing it. It's nothing new for high-society people to wear an outfit once and only once. In some circles, to be seen wearing the same dress more than once is considered vulgar. But they're not necessarily the problem; I mean, those are some rarefied social circumstances. No, the problem is when the rest of us unwashed masses do it, too. And even then, as with so many other things, putting the blame, or even the responsibility, on the individual misses the mark. Now, me, I get an article of clothing and I wear it until it starts to fall apart. Other people go even further and do things the old-fashioned way, sewing and applying patches and whatnot. But I've only ever followed "fashion" so that I can mock it. And, going back to that long-ago time when I was a kid, when some article of clothing wore out past the point of repair, my parents would attach it to a mop or otherwise use it as a cleaning rag. Come to think of it, I don't remember what they did with clothes I'd outgrown. I didn't have a little brother to hand them off to. Now, I guess I'll never know. What to do about the problem of fashion waste, I don't know. People are going to buy cheap shit if it's available. There's not a goddamn thing we can do as individuals that would do more than scratch the surface of the larger issue. Sure, if enough people scratched the surface, it would eventually fall apart, but that's not going to happen because people see "oooh, five dollar pants" and buy the shit out of them instead of investing in a long-lasting $75 pair. The latter of which would certainly have a sturdier waist. |
| I was involved in designing several planned communities in my career, so this sort of thing catches my eye. How the Disney dream died in Celebration Disney invented Celebration as an ideal American small town. But recession, a brutal murder and a suicide have killed the magic First of all, when I see "ideal American small town," fear ignites in the pit of my stomach. And that's before the murder part. This is because some Amercans' idea of the "ideal" is racist, sexist, and theocratic. But I repeat myself. Guardian link, so British spelling. There once was a place where neighbours greeted neighbours in the quiet of summer twilight. Where children chased fireflies. And porch swings provided easy refuge from the cares of the day. The movie house showed cartoons on Saturday. The grocery store delivered. And there was one teacher who always knew you had that special something. Remember that place? Yeah. I also remember the screams in the middle of the night, the black eyes, the furtive glances. The first paragraph of this article is lifted verbatim from the town's original sales brochure from 1996, written by Disney's famous "Imagineering" team. Verbatim? I doubt it. I can't imagine Disney's team would have spelled it "neighbours." The words were matched in visual form by the new town's seal, which was stamped on everything from storm drains and mugs to golf towels. It showed a little girl with a ponytail riding a bicycle past a wicket fence and an American oak with her dog running dutifully behind her. Why does the American oak have a dog? The news that Celebration – population 11,000 –had suffered its first murder with the bludgeoning to death of a 58-year-old retired teacher? Followed less than two days later by the sight of a Swat team in an armoured car staking out a house, which ended with the homeowner's suicide? How do you fit these events into the Disney dream? You'd think they'd have learned by now: one person's heaven is another's hell. There are shops with names such as Day Dreams selling Barbie dolls, the streets are lit by olde worlde lanterns and you are followed everywhere by muzak from the 40s and 50s piped out of speakers hidden beneath palm trees. Jingle Bell Rock, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Oh Come All Ye Faithful – the theme is unrelentingly Christmas. Case in point. No, it wouldn't drive me to murder or suicide, but it would drive me right out of town. But of course that's what Disney's all about: the stitching together of reality and fantasy so finely that you can't tell where the one ends and the other begins. Which of course is perfectly fine in their movies. Desirable, even. But at the end of the movie, only memories remain. Why he was so drawn to live here? "I think it was because of the way Disney does things. You knew the parks and the streets would be clean, the grass cut, all the houses would look the same, it would be family-oriented and everything would work just right. A lot of people wouldn't like to live in that sort of place, but for me . . ." Tonight, I shall have nightmares. On 29 November Matteo Giovanditto was found bludgeoned and strangled inside his apartment where he'd lived with his chihuahua. Ah, the motive becomes clear. No one likes to live near a chihuahua. Walt Disney always had a dream to build a model town. It was part of his master plan to create a new magic kingdom in Florida. I think the guy who designed The Villages beat him to it. That place also freaks me the fuck out."Walt Disney was an authoritarian. Yes he was an artist, but he was also a control freak. People tend to see the Disney creativity, they often miss the centralised control that lies behind it." This is a big part of my hatred for the concept. It's like the worst diabolical HOA you can think of, raised to an exponent of fakery. Then they boiled all the ideas down into a pattern book that dictated every detail right down to the plants that could be grown in the yards. There were only six house styles permitted, and only a limited range of colours – white, blue, yellow, pink and buff, all in pastel shades. All your creativity are belong to us. The extent to which the Disney corporation went to control the warp and weft of Celebration speaks to one of the central paradoxes of modern American life. For a country that prides itself so fiercely on its untrammelled individualism and freedom, it has a strong streak of conformism. Such an outsider perspective is often needed. Other people have said this before, better than I can, but every time you get a bunch of individualists together, they always end up converging on some style or another. Counterculture becomes conformity. Yet Celebration has not been immune from the devastating economic collapse in America. As a symbol of its economic ailments, a couple of days after Thanks- giving, its cinema, a striking mock art deco building by the lake, shut down. I should have noted this before, but this article is from 2010, when the worst problem we had seemed to be a recession that everyone knew wouldn't last forever. Now? I look back on that simple time with the same nostalgia that Celebration was meant to inspire. If I cared, I'd try to find out how that planned community is doing now, after a pandemic, rampant inflation, another housing crisis, and World War III. But I don't care. I'm staying well away from that little slice of Hades. |
| One of the many euphemisms we used for "drunk" (as an adjective) in college was "cabbaged." I haven't used it in a long time, but today's article reminded me. The word also has the distinction of being the longest one I can think of that can be spelled with musical notes. Admittedly, I'd have to be pretty cabbaged to make these, which would pretty much contraindicate the use of a grill for cooking. Or anything else, for that matter. Okay, we know these are not quite grilled steaks made out of meat. Not "quite?" They're not even in the same universe. But considering the price of dead bovine (and everything else) lately, alternatives may need to be considered. I'm just not convinced that this should be one of them. But whether or not you're vegetarian, these cruciferous "steaks" are potentially even better. "Potentially" being the key word here. I wonder if they might steer us wrong? (Bad cow pun) Cabbage is a chameleon ingredient, good and good for you and affordable. Econ 101: the more people buy cabbage, the less affordable it's going to be. To make sure your cabbage steaks stay in one piece on the grill, pick the most compact head of cabbage when you're out shopping. Or, if you're me, try to get the Instacart shopper to pick a compact head of cabbage. Don't be surprised when they don't. All you need to make grilled cabbage steaks is cabbage, oil, salt. Everything else is optional, but it's the optional things that make life what it is. Another "optional" thing is to try something else. We top this grilled cabbage Ă la wedge salad with bacon, blue cheese, AND ranch dressing for good measure. Thus negating any health benefits one might derive from cabbage. But with all of that, it sounds... well, not terrible, anyway. Still, if you're going to fake French for the "Ă la wedge salad" part, the least you could do would be to spell it "bleu cheese." Other fantastic options would be a buffalo-style cabbage, a Caprese-style cabbage, or a lemon-garlic dressed grilled cabbage with lemon and garlic. You really can't go wrong! Except that you already have. The article, of course, goes on to provide the actual recipe. Which, in their defense, looks dead simple to prepare -- even easier than actual steak, assuming of course that you take the time to prepare a marinade for said steak like a civilized person instead of just flopping it from the package onto the grill like a barbarian. Which I've done, because when it comes to cooking, for me the operative word is "lazy." In fact, the hardest part would seem to be actually slicing the head of cabbage, which I definitely don't recommend doing while cabbaged. |
| I finally managed to set up my new computer today. Fortunately, my bookmarks seem to have transferred with no problem. Thus, I continue to talk about articles I've found online. This one is about writing. I'm betting those last three are way more important. And possible. If you can believe it, Japanese novelist, talking cat enthusiast, and weird ear chronicler Haruki Murakami is over 70 years old. Not to sound provincial or anything, but... who? Apparently he does write in genres I read, but I've still never encountered his work. To celebrate him, and as a gift to those of you who hope to be the kind of writer Murakami is when you are in your 70s, I’ve collected some of his best writing advice below. I highly doubt I'll make it that far. But I'll read the advice anyway. “I think the first task for the aspiring novelist is to read tons of novels. Sorry to start with such a commonplace observation, but no training is more crucial. To write a novel, you must first understand at a physical level how one is put together . . . It is especially important to plow through as many novels as you can while you are still young. Everything you can get your hands on—great novels, not-so-great novels, crappy novels, it doesn’t matter (at all!) as long as you keep reading..." Okay. Check. I read a lot more when I was young than I do now, and what I did read, and continue to read, include badly written books. After all, a negative example is still an example. “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” Well. We get new words all the time. I'm especially fond of "yeet." But still, context can give words new strength and meaning. Explain yourself clearly. I'm often amazed at how many writers think this is bullshit advice. They usually write in the "literary" genre, where obfuscation and incomprehensibility are often mistaken for depth. Share your dreams. Look, do you want people to read my stuff, or run away screaming in terror? Stephen King would look at my dreams and go, "goddamn, that's fucked up." I can only assume he means, here, the other kind of dreams, not the sleeping ones. “I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.” That's... okay, great, that works for him. Just don't put a butler in it, I guess. Hoard stuff to put in your novel. Yeah, I think he means ideas here, but I have plenty of physical stuff hoarded, too. Anyone know what to do with an obsolete computer or five? “When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation..." And we're done here. Okay, not really, but again: four a.m. is sleepy time, not wakey time. “After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance..." I'd say this is probably true for any work, not just the creative kind. Write on the side of the egg. ...you'd have to go to the link to try to make sense of this one. I still can't. “In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.” Welp, I'm boned. . . . unless you work really hard! Yep. Double boned. Anyway, I thought it was worth sharing, even if you've never heard of this particular writer. I like seeing how others view the work. |
| An entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]... Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone From what I've heard, the Earth looked a little different 65 million years ago. Here's a drawing: https://images.slideplayer.com/16/5101171/slides/slide_2.jpg Some of the continents are vaguely recognizable. You can make out South America, Africa, Australia as it was divorcing from Antarctica. In between Africa and Australia, just east of what is already recognizable as Madagascar? That'll become India in several million years as it migrates north and forms the Himalayas. And that big explosion-looking thing in red? In what's going to become the Gulf of Mexico? That's the impact crater that they say probably killed off most of the dinosaurs. Though they're still speculating about that, last I heard, it remains the most likely scenario. Whatever the actual cause, there's little doubt that it was around that time when the non-avian dinosaurs died off, paving the way for mammals to take over, which eventually led to the evolution of some clever apes who, in the span of about 100 years, wiped out a lot of the deposits of crude oil that it took billions of years for nature to sequester underground. What is certain is that the impact would have killed off anything in its immediate vicinity. The rest was, so the speculation goes, devastated by the resulting sudden change in climate. It's a myth that crude oil is dead dinosaurs. A myth, but a persistent one. Sinclair still uses a dinosaur for its logo, which was originally a brontosaurus, then an apatosaurus, and now they're saying no, wait, it's actually a brontosaurus after all. No, the bulk of these deposits were formed long before the dinosaurs. Had they developed oil wells, perhaps they would have sucked the planet dry before we even showed up on the stage. But they didn't, so it waited another 65 million years or so until we came along and decided we needed energy. And one of the places we get that energy from happens to be the Gulf of Mexico. We all know about the massive oil spill there from over a decade ago, but that wasn't the only one. These spills killed a bunch of shit and drove the rest off. Another Gulf of Mexico dead zone. Not from a sudden impact, but in geological time, 100 years might as well be a minute. People can't help but speculate: what comes after humans, after we've experienced the inevitable extinction event? Will another civilization arise? Maybe cockroaches will learn to build and drive cars? Well, no. Because we've sucked all the oil out that powered those cars. And taken away all the low-hanging fruit -- the once-easy-to-find minerals that kick-started each of what we like to call "ages:" stone, bronze, iron, nuclear, whatever. It will take millions, even billions, of years to recover those, if it happens at all, as continents continue to drift and new material gets sucked up from the mantle. No, if another species on earth ever managed to learn to make tools and use them to fight each other over other resources -- they couldn't, because there's nothing left on the surface, not enough to make a difference, anyway. The Earth will recover, as it did from the mass extinction that ended the Cretaceous. Life will, uh, find a way, to paraphrase Jurassic Park. But that's it for what we like to call "civilization." I can't say the planet will be worse off for it. Sucks for us, though. |
| It's important to question the things we think we know from time to time. This is one of those times, courtesy of that bastion of fact-checking, Cracked. Brains are weird; we’ve known that since the first caveman tried to impress a girl with the Stone Age version of an acoustic rendition of “Wonderwall.” Or as I call it, Wonderbra. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out those little balls of electric meat, but we have to do that with our own stupid balls of electric meat, so sometimes we get it way, way wrong. Especially when we fall victim to anchoring bias. I've been guilty of that myself, and I have to wonder what else I think is true that has been proven to be not exactly the case. Since these cases deal with psychology, there's also a lot of confirmation bias involved. That is to say, if we're inclined to believe the worst of people, we'll see examples of it everywhere, and lock onto any purported information that seems to show how shitty we can be. Now, there are 15 of these (as a countdown, of course), and I won't be repeating all of them here. 15. Stanford Prison Experiment If you're unfamiliar with this, Google it. Apparently they gave people roles to play: prisoner or guard. The "guards" ended up being shitty to the "prisoners." Its authors claim that the Stanford prison experiment basically proves that power corrupts, but there’s evidence that its subjects knew what they wanted and intentionally played up their roles of prisoner or guard or even were coached to do so. This is an early example of the shit they apparently pull on "reality" shows, which also make people look worse than they really are. 14. Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect This one made it into popular culture at least once, in the original Watchmen graphic novel. Turns out nearly everything we knew about it was sensationalized by a media outlet (go figure). The murder of Kitty Genovese, purportedly witnessed by 38 apathetic neighbors, inspired the theory that people won’t help someone if they assume someone else will do it, but in reality, only about six people witnessed any part of the attack, and no one saw it in its entirety, so it wasn’t clear how serious it was. While the murder itself was of course a tragedy, it wasn't compounded by witnesses failing to do anything about it. 11. Birth Order It’s long been believed that oldest siblings are the most mature and responsible, middle children are needy attention seekers, and babies are, well, babies, but a recent study of more than 1,000 people revealed no correlation between birth order and personality. Though it wouldn't surprise me if, as with astrology and generational labeling, if you tell someone they've got such-and-such a personality, they might actually incorporate it into their personality. This thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So why not just tell people that we know they'll do the right thing? I know it won't work all the time, but can it hurt? 7. The 10,000-Hour Rule Confession: this is one I chose to believe. In my defense, it's not about how shitty people are, but how they can improve themselves. It turns out that practice only accounts for about 12% of skill mastery and there are plenty of people who will just always suck at stuff. Like me with music. I know I've spent more than 10,000 hours practicing various instruments, and I still can't carry a tune in a paper bag. 4. Maslow’s Hierarchy I see this one referenced everywhere, and it honestly surprised me that it's in dispute. ...but more recent research shows little support for the order of the hierarchy or any hierarchy at all. I can't say I took it at face value, but a lot of people seem to. 2. We Only Use 10% of Our Brains Perfidious nonsense, and the only thing that surprises me here is that people believed it wholeheartedly. There are no extraneous brain parts just bumming around in there, but the myth is so pervasive that one Brazilian survey from this century found that half of people still believe it. There was even that terrible Scarlett Johansson movie. Aw, it couldn't have been that bad if it had Scarlett Johansson in it. Like how Catwoman wasn't so bad because it had Halle Berry in it. 1. The Milgram Experiment I've seen this one bandied about, too. The idea being that, given the opportunity, it's in all of us to be unquestioning authoritarian assholes. If anything, it just proved that a lot of people are trolls. Which is still being an asshole, but at least not one of the fascist variety. A while back, someone designed a hitchhiking robot. As described in that link:It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, but in 2015 its attempt to hitchhike across the United States ended when it was stripped and decapitated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And lots of people used that story to vilify Philadelphia (which, to be fair, is easy to vilify), the US as opposed to other countries, or even humanity in general -- ignoring that the vast majority of people who interacted with HitchBOT, even in the US and part of Philadelphia, either left it alone or actively helped it. The point being that this supports my Lone Asshole Theory, because eventually it was going to come across someone with a baseball bat (I'm assuming baseball bat because it was Philly) or a crowbar (also Philly), but until then it traveled unmolested. Yeah, some people suck. But all the dubious studies, shitty kids-on-a-deserted-island books, and made-up statistics just don't provide enough evidence to show that all of us do. |
| I'd never heard of this before reading the article, so here it is: For Enslaved Cooks, Persimmon Beer Combined Ingenuity and Joy A conversation with Michael Twitty about the powerful history behind a centuries-old beverage. When I was a kid, we had a persimmon tree. Apparently, the trick to persimmons is you have to wait for first frost (usually around October 15 in my area) to pick them, because they only ripen with extreme bitter cold (I consider anything below 45F "extreme bitter cold"). Never did appreciate the taste of them, but all kids have weirdnesses about food. Michael Twitty, the James Beard Award–winning culinary historian, estimates he has brewed his grandmother’s persimmon beer about a dozen times. Made by fermenting Diospyros virginiana, the diminutive North American persimmon, with sugar, honey, and yeast, persimmon beer is more akin to fruit wine or liqueur than anything brewed with barley, malt, and hops. In general, beer is fermented grain, while wine is fermented fruit. However, exceptions abound. Cider, usually from apples or pears, is its own category. Japanese sake is most often known as "rice wine" in English, probably because its alcohol content is higher than most beer and it's generally not bubbly. For example. So if someone wants to call this "persimmon beer," well, they don't need my permission. For generations of Black families across the American South in the 18th and 19th centuries, persimmon beer played an integral role in daily life. In his quest to uncover more about the foodways of his ancestors, Twitty learned that American persimmon trees are a genetic echo of fruit trees in West Africa, and that both the plant and the beverage provide a thread across the history and geography of the African diaspora. Now, that is interesting. Of course, humans also all have genetic roots in Africa, just some more recent than others. Persimmon beer was really important for the people working in the fields. That was a typical thing to be brought to them in a gourd or a bottle or a crock. Remember, they didn’t have Gatorade. I can't imagine Gatorade would have been better. Or permitted. Some of these foraged foods that are the grandeur of younger white folks that are into this now, quite frankly, this is not white people food. One of the best quotes I’ve ever seen in reference to pawpaws was “The food fit for Negros and Indians.” We had pawpaw trees too, growing wild. The article delves into some cultural issues that I think are relevant. It does not, however, provide an actual method for preparing persimmon beer -- but the mere fact of its existence should be enough, and probably it's in the book the guy is trying to promote. |
| Wading into sensitive waters today... Ministry that once nourished Duggar family’s faith falls from grace Scandal brought “19 Kids and Counting” to an end, coinciding with the waning influence of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. I suppose you can call it a ministry. I call it a cult. When the Duggar family caught the public’s eye in 2004 with its first television special, “14 Children and Pregnant Again,” the lifestyle depicted on screen was alien to many viewers. As it should be. I suppose I should disclose that I never watched the show in any of its incarnations, so I'm not going to comment on its content. Yet some Americans recognized their own values in the fundamentalist Christian family, as well as the influence of one man: Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. One defining aspect of a cult is a single charismatic leader. The Catholic Church has a single leader, too, but he's not all that charismatic. But today, the IBLP is losing income, and Gothard, 87, has been forced out over allegations that he abused young women working at its headquarters. Which is another defining feature of a cult. And the Duggars’ shows have been canceled: “19 Kids and Counting” in 2015 amid revelations that their eldest son molested four of his sisters as a young teen and “Counting On” last year ahead of his child pornography trial and eventual conviction. No one seems to want to draw the obvious conclusion, connecting the dots between being a cult member and practicing deviant sexual behavior. And I can't say for certain that A is the direct cause of B, but I can say that one should consider the possibility and perhaps investigate that connection. The Institute in Basic Life Principles began in 1961 as seminars by Gothard, an evangelical minister from Illinois with a master’s degree in Christian education. Over 30 hours, he taught attendees how to lead successful lives by following his interpretation of Biblical principles and warned them away from television, popular music, alcohol, dating and public schools. Well, I kind of agree with the television bit. But that makes it all the more hypocritical that the thing that drew this family into the public eye was being on television. At the heart of Gothard’s teachings was the importance of respecting “God-given authority.” He preached a strict hierarchy of divine authority, with Jesus at the top followed by church elders, employers and husbands, who are responsible for protecting their wives and children below them. And that right there sums up a big part of everything that's wrong with society right now, and has been for a long time. In marriage, a man’s role is to provide “servant leadership” while “the woman responds with reverent submission and assistance,” preached Gothard, who has never married. I will note here, without condoning or condemning, that while Catholic priests are famously forbidden to marry, Jewish rabbis pretty much have to be married. Because, the reasoning goes, how can one give marital advice as a spiritual leader without any personal experience therewith? The Duggars’ wholesome image made them a poster family for the IBLP as their TLC show “19 Kids and Counting” became a ratings hit: Elder daughter Jill Duggar’s two-hour wedding special in 2014 drew an audience of over 4.4 million. Again the disconnect between prohibiting television while participating in its worst excesses. The IBLP said in a statement that it had “no comment with respect to the claims alleged,” because of a confidentiality order. Gothard has since denied any wrongdoing. He declined to comment when reached by phone. I'm also not going to comment on whether Gothard is guilty of those particular charges or not. Not my department. But in a hypothetical situation where a charismatic cult leader gets accused of inappropriate behavior from multiple sources, I'm inclined to take the word of the accusers at face value. A year after Gothard resigned, the Duggars had their own fall from grace. In May 2015, a leaked police report from 2006 revealed that the eldest Duggar son, Josh, had been accused of molesting five girls as a teenager. While that never led to conviction, apparently the guy was later convicted on other charges. Barr, the Baylor University history professor, said Gothard’s fundamentalist patriarchal teachings help create environments where abuse is more likely to go unchecked. “As a man, they have more authority than women,” she said. “Their voice counts more, and women have this propensity to be valued more for their sexual role, so it allows abuse to flourish.” Okay, so maybe someone is trying to connect the dots. Still, to be fair, that's not exactly scientific evidence. And also to be fair, they claim to preach Biblical principles, and I don't recall anything in the Bible forbidding child porn. So I guess that, to them, they're still on the right side of morality. I just disagree with their definition of morality. |
| Another entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]... Chat Piles in Oklahoma Well, I know what an Oklahoma is (a state containing mostly cows and oil wells); I know what piles are (hemorrhoids); and I know what chat is (French for cat or, alternatively, a casual discussion). But that particular combination of words is nonsense to me, unless "chat" is also Oklahoman for "cow manure." Contrary to popular belief (which I foster), I don't know everything. I could, of course, follow the link in the JI forum, and probably even learn something from it, but it's way more fun not to. Besides, after being reminded of my Green-Eyed Monster drink creation yesterday, naturally I had to make one in the evening. And then I had to make another one to ensure I got the proportions right. I didn't, so I had to try again. You know... for science. (As a reminder, a Green-Eyed Monster is the result of me looking at a bottle of absinthe and a bottle of Midori and going, "Hmmm..." It's like 1 oz of each, and then add another 1-2 oz of tonic water, over ice. Garnish with, I dunno, some sort of fruit if you want; I don't care.) So my head is pounding way too hard to click on a link and absorb its contents. And I was about to bitch about Oklahoma's stupid alcohol laws, but just as I was getting ready to do so, a little voice told me, "Waltz... things change; you'd better look this one up." So I did, and behold, Oklahoma's alcohol laws are not nearly as stupid as they used to be, which is remarkable for a state whose constitution, upon creation as a state, reeked of the foul stench of Prohibition. Now, the only foul stenches coming from Oklahoma are the oil wells and cow piles. And maybe the state capitol, but that's no different from any other state. "Waltz, you won't click on the link, but you went and looked up Oklahoma alcohol laws?" Well, yeah. Priorities, people. Since I don't live in Oklahoma, and it's usually a state I drive through, not to, it doesn't affect me much, but I always felt for those poor innocent Sooners who were limited to either 3.2 beer, or room temperature beer. Well, apparently there have been some reforms, so I suppose it's possible there will be more craft breweries there, which I will have to visit, and then maybe I'll find out what chat piles are. Or, you know, I could go ahead and click on the link in the prompt in the JI forum. Nah. I'll do it later so I can be embarrassed by this entry. |
| I'm not going to go over every one of these, don't worry. First, though, a couple of disclaimers: 1. The linked article contains some artistic sideboob in a photo. Just so you're aware if you decide to open it at work and your work frowns upon such things. 2. I didn't verify any of these. Some of them seem off to me. If you use any of them at cocktail parties, you may face scorn. Some sayings are now so commonplace, we’ll utter them with no idea of where they came from. But every phrase, saying or proverb starts somewhere, and thanks to the Phrase Finder, we’ve uncovered the (often disputed) authors, meanings and stories behind some of the most commonplace sayings. Not included: "rule of thumb." I got screeched at one time for using that phrase, because the screecher was convinced that it came from an old law about the size of the stick a man was allowed to beat his wife with. That is not the origin of the phrase. But her mind was made up and she was impervious to facts. I walked away. Also not found: the falsehood that the F-word came from "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." While that was a pretty good Van Halen album, it is not the origin of that word. I note these because there's a lot of misinformation floating around about word and phrase origins (and don't get me started on "blue moon" or we'll be here all day -- just search that phrase in this blog, as I've flogged that dead horse to undeath). Which is why I'm not sure how many of these are accurate. Like I said, I'm just going to pick a few to comment on. Chow down 'Chow down' was first used by the U.S. military during WWII. 'Chow' is a Chinese breed of dog, that became a western slang term for food due to the Chinese's reputation for eating dog meat. If this is true, wouldn't that make "chow down" kind of racist? Hair of the dog that bit you This term for a hangover cure is another medieval saying, originating from the belief that once bitten by a rabid dog, the victim would be cured by applying the same dog's hair to the wound. This origin is probably correct, but I should point out that neither use of "hair of the dog" does jack shit. Off the record This American phrase was first attributed to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, who was recorded in The Daily Times-News saying "he was going to talk 'off the record', that it was mighty nice to be able to talk 'off the record' for a change and that he hoped to be able to talk 'off the record' often in the future." So he's on the record saying he'd like to speak off the record? Whatever. As happy as Larry This saying has Australia and New Zealand origins, but who is 'Larry'? Unlike the others in this list, I'd never heard this one. Perhaps it's unknown in the US. (This article is from the UK.) Two peas in a pod Referring to the fact that two peas in a pod are identical,this phrase dates from the 16th century... Having shelled more than my share of peas when I was a kid, I can tell you that not all the peas in a pod are alike. I suspect the phrase persists more for the alliteration. Fly by the seat of your pants This aviation term emerged in 1938 in US newspapers, to describe pilot Douglas Corrigan’s (slightly perilous) flight from the USA to Ireland. Look, you're leaving out the best parts of that story. He was called "Wrong-Way Corrigan" for a reason. Green-eyed monster Shakespeare coined this term in The Merchant of Venice, when Portia says: "And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love, Be moderate;". I've talked about this phrase before, in "The Play's the Thing" -- another one about phrase origins. There, the claim was it originated in Othello. More importantly, though, it became the name of a drink I invented featuring absinthe and Midori. How was it, you ask? Hell if I remember. Absinthe makes the mind go wander.Mad as a hatter 19th century Mercury used to be used in the making of hats. This was known to have affected the nervous systems of hatters, causing them to tremble and appear insane. As far as I know, this one's truthful. What's not mentioned is that Carroll's Mad Hatter was based on the mercury poisoning thing, and not the other way around. Now, some would say that such phrases as these are trite or cliché. Perhaps they are. But almost every cliché starts out as profound poetry. Besides, knowing word and phrase origins is just fun. I saw this on Sunday and I kept forgetting to do a review until just now. You'll see why. One-Sentence Movie Review: Morbius: With basically the same plot as pretty much every other comic-book character origin movie, though less well edited than most, this film is pretty forgettable except for the excellent special effects and the way Matt Smith rules as a villain. Rating: 2.5/5 |
| That's right, I said your mama. Once again, leave it to Cracked to explain the most important aspects of our cultural history. Today what we’re talking about is the most popular response to literally anything anyone could ever say to you during middle school. Since I have a good memory only for the stupidest things, here's a joke from my own middle school days. Two kids are having the old "my dad vs. your dad" argument. "My dad's better than your dad!" "Nuh-uh! My dad's better than your dad!" And so on for a while until one of them stops and goes, "Well... my mom's better than your mom." "Can't argue with that," says the other kid. "That's what my dad says." Wikipedia’s page for it is titled the “Maternal Insult,” a comically dry name for the much hated yet much celebrated “Your Mom” category of joshing. And the "your mom" thing still makes me chuckle. Not because of the insult itself, of course. And certainly not because I like seeing mothers disrespected. It's one of those things that's only funny in a meta sort of way, like "we're too old to make your mom jokes, and we know we're too old, but we're doing it anyway, and you know we don't mean anything by it." The oldest maternal insult comes to us from the distant times of 3500 BC, from ancient Babylon. A tablet found by researchers contained the riddle “…Your mom is by the one who has intercourse with her. What or who is it?” While we can’t answer the riddle owing to the fact that our PhD is in comparative chili judging rather than ancient Babylonian culture, we assume the answer is probably the person who wrote it. It’s just the way of the world. The oldest known maternal insult, that is. As with beer, you know they were making it before anyone wrote it down or, in this case, made wedgie marks on clay about it ("Your mom makes wedgie marks.") Anyway, I feel like the answer is "anyone." Next, we have good ol’ Willy Shakes using it in a few of his plays. Perhaps the best comes from act four, scene two of Titus Andronicus, one of the “lesser” tragedies of the bard’s oeuvre: Demetrius: "Villain, what hast thou done?" Aaron: "That which thou canst not undo." Chiron: "Thou hast undone our mother." Aaron: "Villain, I have done thy mother." I don't remember that play (or the movie based on it) well enough for context, but it's good to remember that, at the time, Shakespeare was low comedy. (The article does provide context, but it's not all that important for the point.) The joke came into its own, of course, on school playgrounds and classrooms in the 1990s. Wait, whaaaaat? Look, kid, your generation didn't invent the your mom joke. As you have pointed out in this article, it's as old as history. Nor was it your generation that perfected the art. And hell, it probably wasn't mine, either, but like I said above: we were trading momma insults back when I was in middle school. Unlike the other things we did in middle school, like listening to disco and wearing bell bottom jeans, the mama joke endured. So why did this format suddenly become popular among schoolchildren in the 90s? Well, we have the sketch show In Living Color to thank. And you think they didn't steal it from others? Come on. That sketch is where such classics as “Yo mama so fat, she had to get baptized at SeaWorld” came from. Oh hell no. We were saying shit like that all the time. "Yo mama so big she got her own area code." That sort of thing. (That particular joke doesn't work as well these days.) So what’s next in the evolutionary process of this most ancient and venerated of insult humor? We could start insulting people’s fathers, but “Yo daddy’s so stupid…” doesn’t have the same bite to it, not to mention the already weird sexual connotations the 21st century has awarded to the word “daddy.” Ahem. Get off my lawn again. Not only were they using "daddy" like that in the 70s, there's goddamn jazz music from like the 40s that uses "daddy" for "lover." Anyway, point is, some jokes are timeless. Until the inevitable robot uprising, anyway, at which point one robot will turn to the other and say, "Yo mama's a human." And they'll get in a fight. |
| Yay, here we go again. I've talked about this sort of thing before, specifically in "How Low Can You Go?" from December, but this is a different article. Technically, more than three ways, but I'll get to that. First I want to address the actual headline: "Why U.S. Population Growth is Collapsing." First of all, it's US-centric, which, okay, fine, that's your audience. But then it gets all misleading. I'm not sure I can explain this very well without graphics, but I'm going to try. You have population, which is a fixed number at any given moment. As an analogy, imagine driving your car on the road. At some given moment, this corresponds to your position. Call it x, because mathemagicians love x. You also have an instantaneous velocity. You can call that v. Or you can call it x' (x-prime) because it's the first derivative of position. I'll call it x' for reasons. That velocity could be constant, or you could be braking or stomping on the go stompy thing, causing acceleration (deceleration is negative acceleration). Call that x'' (x-prime-prime). That's the analogy. What it's an analogy to, of course, is the population of a geographic area, in this case the US. That's x. The population is still increasing; that's x'. The headline makes it sound like population is, or is at least in danger of, decreasing (negative x'). But that's not what it's actually saying. It's saying that x'', the rate of change of population increase, is not itself increasing as fast as it used to. And the cherry on top of that parfait of clickbait is the use of the word "collapsing," which makes it sound like it's a fucking catastrophe. But it's not. Population is still growing. Population growth is still increasing. It's just not increasing as fast. Makes sense? Maybe? I don't know; ask someone else who understands derivatives of mathematical functions. U.S. growth didn’t slowly fade away: It slipped, and slipped, and then fell off a cliff. The 2010s were already demographically stagnant; every year from 2011 to 2017, the U.S. grew by only 2 million people. In 2020, the U.S. grew by just 1.1 million. Last year, we added only 393,000 people. See? Still adding people. A country grows or shrinks in three ways: immigration, deaths, and births. Four: Taking over another country and adding its population to its own. I'm looking at you, big country in Eurasia. America’s declining fertility rate often gets the headline treatment. Journalists are obsessed with the question of why Americans aren’t having more babies. And "fertility rate" makes it sound like it's a medical problem. While it's certainly such for some people, I mean, look around. Kids are a drain on financial resources, and a lot of people just aren't making enough money to buy a house big enough to shove kids into, let alone the cost of the brats themselves. Add to that the knowledge that the next generation will almost certainly have it worse than we do, as regards the economy and climate change catastrophes, and I can understand choosing not to have kids. Because those are some of the reasons I didn't. First, we have to talk about COVID. Sigh. I suppose. The pandemic has killed nearly 1 million Americans in the past two years, according to the CDC. Those are official numbers. The actual number, going by deaths in excess of average, is higher. This is important because more people than usual have died over the last two years, and it matters when you're talking about a decrease in rate of growth of population. Excess deaths accounted for 50 percent of the difference in population growth from 2019 to 2021. That’s a clear sign of the devastating effect of the pandemic. But this statistic also tells us that even if we could have brought excess COVID deaths down to zero, U.S. population growth would still have crashed to something near an all-time low. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. At least some of that excess was people not seeking out medical treatment for other issues because hospitals were full or they didn't want the 'rona on top of cancer or heart disease or whatever. As recently as 2016, net immigration to the United States exceeded 1 million people. But immigration has since collapsed by about 75 percent, falling below 250,000 last year. And this is a sore point for a lot of people, but I'll say it again: An adult immigrant is more useful to the US economy than a child. America’s bias against immigration is self-defeating in almost every dimension. “Immigration is a geopolitical cheat code for the U.S.,” says Caleb Watney, a co-founder of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank in Washington, D.C. “Want to supercharge science? Immigrants bring breakthroughs, patents, and Nobel Prizes in droves. Want to stay ahead of China? Immigrants drive progress in semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing. Want to make America more dynamic? Immigrants launch nearly 50 percent of U.S. billion-dollar start-ups. The rest of the world is begging international talent to come to their shores while we are slamming the door in their face.” All of this, of course, doesn't take into account the loss to whatever country they're coming from. But again, the article is US-centric. Declining births get a lot of media coverage, with mandatory references to Children of Men, followed by mandatory references to Matrix-style birthing pods, followed by inevitable fights over whether it’s creepy for dudes like me to talk academically about raising a nation’s collective fertility. My personal opinion is that wanting and having children is a personal matter for families, even as the spillover effects of declining fertility make it a very public issue for the overall economy. And here we get to the brunt of the issue: our economy absolutely depends on population growth. Scare articles like this one always concentrate on just how absolutely catastrophic it would be were the population to decline. And yet, as I've said before, a declining population -- not just a decrease in population growth, but negative population growth -- would begin to solve a lot of other issues, mostly environmental. The implications of permanently slumped population growth are wide-ranging. Shrinking populations produce stagnant economies. Stagnant economies create wonky cultural knock-on effects, like a zero-sum mentality that ironically makes it harder to pursue pro-growth policies. (For example, people in slow-growth regions might be fearful of immigrants because they seem to represent a threat to scarce business opportunities, even though immigration represents these places’ best chance to grow their population and economy.) The sector-by-sector implications of declining population would also get very wonky very fast. Higher education is already fighting for its life in the age of remote school and rising tuition costs. Imagine what happens if, following the historically large Millennial cohort, every subsequent U.S. generation gets smaller and smaller until the end of time, slowly starving many colleges of the revenue they’ve come to expect. As scary as it may be to contemplate a negative-growth population from an economic perspective, I need to point out that the opposite is, in the long run, even scarier: how sustainable do you really think it is to demand exponential population growth... indefinitely? Keep that up, and you're looking at Malthusian collapse, and it won't be a nice steady decrease in population, but a sudden, drastic, massive die-off of humans. That's a Thanos snap. I don't want that. Only psychos want that. Even if you’re of the dubious opinion that the U.S. would be better off with a smaller population, American demographic policy is bad for Americans who are alive right now. Dubious, my ass. Look at the price of housing and how it's increased recently. This is, at least in part, due to econ 101: supply and demand. Demand goes up, price goes up. Supply goes down, price goes up. Add people without adding housing? Price goes up. Fewer people competing for the same number of homes almost has to drive the price of housing down. Obviously there are other factors involved and it's never that simple, but you're going to have to do better than "bad for Americans who are alive right now." So that's my rant. I hope it made some kind of sense, even if you disagree with it. |
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