Don't Forget To VOTE

I don't wanna, you know, push anyone in one direction or the other (snort) but really? Is anyone actually still planning to vote for this guy? Really?Photo from yahoo. Thanks to Sundry for finding it.

Wangston's Law

Earlier today I was listening to Weekend America on NPR. There was an interesting segment, a short amusement driven piece, about something called Wangston's Law.

Wangston's Law states that: Humans should not waste their time discussing any question that can be answered by a robot (google, wikipedia, etc.)

This "law" is actually invented by some guy (not named Wangston) who pulls it up at parties whenever he thinks the conversation is too mundane. I guess it's an interesting idea. His point, I think, is that we should focus our energy on higher pursuits and let the matrix handle the easy stuff.

The way I see it, we should take the opposite approach. In these days where (relatively) accurate information is available, from anywhere, within seconds, it seems like a shame to not find out the answers whenever you can. If the thought: I wonder... ever enters your head, why aren't you typing it into a toolbar window? In a way, both ideas are promoting the same thing. Wangston's law wants us to work on a higher level mentally, and so do I. Only I think the best way to enrich our brains is to fill it with as much information as possible. We really have a ways to go before we run out of room.

Matt and I actually have a rule to that effect. Whenever one of us says "I wonder" we try to write down the question and look it up later. When I get an iphone the later part will go away (Matt's got a smartphone but often questions occur to us while he's driving). The extremely obvious theory behind the rule is that if we do this, we'll learn new things all the time. We don't follow it perfectly, but we've already learned many things we never would have known. For example:

Dolphins sleep with half their brain at a time.

Swallows mate in flight.

The movie Apollo 13 did all the null-gravity scenes the same way astronauts train for it: steep diving airplanes.

Will any of this information ever come in handy? Who knows. If it's so easy to find out though, why shouldn't I try to know more than I did yesterday? True, useless information is not particularly helpful, and in some cases it might actually be harmful. I see a big difference though, in filling up on unnecessary information for the sake of knowing it (as with rote memorization) and learning things because they interest you. Obviously the things Matt and I look up do interest us, or we wouldn't be asking the question. So I want to propose that the rule Matt and I (sometimes) follow should be another law, to counteract Wangston's Law.

Wanker's Law: Humans should take advantage of the ease of information provided by robots (google, wiki, etc.) whenever a question arises.

Why Wanker's Law? Because it all comes down to mental masturbation. Humans as a group won't follow either law. Individuals are generally not motivated to learn. We love to discuss over-discussed topics like who won American Idol, because it's easier than contemplating the mysteries of life. Meanwhile we're far to lazy, intellectually, to type every question into google. It's not that pushing the buttons is too much work, it's just that we aren't used to exerting the effort of keeping a question in our mind long enough to look for the answer.

REM & Improv Everywhere

Some of you may remember a stunt I posted on by Improv Everywhere a couple months ago. A group of I think 300 agents infiltrated Grand Central Station in NYC and froze simultaneously for five minutes. If you haven't watched it yet, it's surely worth it.

Well a couple days ago REM posted this video, which IE was calling a shameless ripoff.

I guess it kind of is. I mean they're obviously doing the same sort of thing, and that is in fact a ripoff... sort of.

Wired Magazine picked this up yesterday and made a few counterpoints. The main one being everything is copied from something these days, so what's the big deal? While I don't agree with that statement necessarily I think it could be fair to say this video was inspired by, rather than ripped off from the IE video. It's even possible that they thought of it independently based on a common influence. Thill at Wired says, "It has been done before, differently and similarly, which is to say that the frozen-in-time routine is hardly an 'original idea.' As James7777777 commented on Geek Gestalt, the U.K. spoof Just for Laughs pulled the same trick almost a decade earlier, albeit in a convenience store rather than Grand Central Station."

So you could say it's not a ripoff, get over it, except that yesterday in response to the backlash REM PR people apologized, admitted that "us on team REM love the stuff you guys do," took it down and are currently redoing the video to include a nod to IE. By taking those steps, REM basically admitted that yes, it was in fact a ripoff. Honestly I don' t think there's anything wrong with that, and I'm even impressed that they're taking steps to repair the hurt feelings. Because in this case that's all it is... as far as I can tell there was no possible legal action IE could have taken as far as copyright stuff goes. (Lori, are you out there? Am I right about that?)

Here's my issue. In spite of REM's response, I don't really think this was a ripoff. For one thing the REM version doesn't take place in Grand Central Station which takes one degree of similarity away. As far as the style of the stunt, as James pointed out, freezing in a public place to confuse and weird people out? Been there. The main connection between IE's stunt and REM's stunt was the number of spectators and agents involved and the simple admission by REM that they ripped it off. That isn't enough of a similarity for me. The biggest single difference between these two videos in my mind is intent.

The purpose of the REM video is to look cool (and it does). It also succeeds wonderfully in capturing the attitude of the band REM. While the spectators involved probably didn't know what was going on, the people freezing were likely paid actors, or at least an informed group of people who wanted to be associated on video with REM rather than the stunt itself.

The IE video on the other hand uses hundreds of agents who, before they meet up right before the stunt, have no idea what they're going to be doing. In away the spectators, while even less informed, are every bit as involved as the players. And the main difference is that in IE the intent is to play, to confuse, to interact with people and spaces. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of REM.

I guess my point is that while it might have been copied it's not even possible for REM to ripoff what IE did in Grand Central station. It's the difference between art and marketing.

And since we're talking about Improv Everywhere, I'll finish off with the latest IE video from the The Boston Society of Spontaneity.

Weirdest thing ever?

Ok, if this is for real it's both the weirdest and the coolest thing I've ever heard. Go read it before you go any further.

Did you read it? Crazy yeah? Talk about science fiction (or Greek mythology depending on your preference). Except when you just look at the physical facts I guess it's not all that weird. Biologically he's a she, as he points out he never took any steps to change his reproductive organs so the ability to bear a child isn't all that odd. I think its sort of amazing that this couple wanted a child, the wife was unable to bear children, and rather than having to wait five years to adopt or find a very generous friend/family member (which from reading the article sounds unlikely anyway) willing to lend out a uterus, had a husband who was able to do it instead.

My main concern with this is that if doctors have been so unwilling to help them (they inseminated at home) what happens when he goes into labor? Yeah, I know babies have been born for eons, but not to transgender men or women.

Picturing Matt

Some of you may have noticed that pictures I post on this site with Matt in them do not actually show his face. That's at his request, because Matt would prefer that his photograph not appear on the web. I can understand this. Obviously I have my own photo on the web, have made a conscious decision to do so. As an aspiring artist and writer I need to market myself, and I believe part of that is having my image available.

For reasons of his own, Matt doesn't want his photo online but as he does intend to publish, and in some ways, also needs to market himself, he would like to have some kind of image associated with himself. He came up with a rather clever compromise I think, by asking David Mack to draw a picture of him. David Mack is best known as the writer and illustrator of the popular Kabuki series of graphic novels which are some of the most beautiful comics I've ever seen. I mean, ever. Mack did a quick $20 sketch and agreed to let Matt use it as the image for his websites. Matt is currently using it as his blog "photo." I suppose this might get more complicated later on when Matt does start publishing, but then again, maybe not. David Mack seems pretty laid back and is also one of the nicest artists I've met at a Comic Book convention.

Rigging It

I realize this has nothing to do with design, or art, or writing, or, directly, my life, but I've been musing about the Kenyon elections a bit lately. When I first heard about the riots, the deaths, I was mostly just sad because Kenya is one of the only countries in Africa that's generally safe and stable. Shame. The more I heard about it the more I was dismayed, thinking why do they have to turn to violence, is this really something worth dying for?

Then I checked myself and wondered why I was so skeptical. What does it say about me, that I think they're overreacting? This is America, right? We're supposed to stand for justice and democracy and everyone's vote counting, but in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote, we all (and by all I mean people who weren't all into Bush obviously) bitched a bunch and got on with our lives. That alone isn't even that bad, really. The electoral college decided it was for the best to go with Bush, and Gore decided not to fight the decision. It was a little shady, but all more or less legal. What IS bad though, is that there were many many allegations of rigged elections. Rigged voting machines, corrupt voting officials, and again, we bitched about it and then forgot it. Why not? We were comfortable.

So in 2004 when the same thing happened again, only worse, what did we do? The same thing obviously. Kerry didn't even come as close as Gore, but there were definitely some illegal things going on. Not even left wing conspiracy theory illegal things, but obviously illegal. Here in Ohio we saw some of the worst examples. In the greyer areas were voters being discouraged from voting, being turned away or intentionally misdirected. Then in the "obviously shite" category were things like the CEO of Diebold promising to deliver Ohio to Bush, and Blackwell bragging about doing the same thing. WTF? And we did NOTHING, nothing but bitch and moan and threaten to move to Canada.

It's starting to piss me off that the media is condemning Raila Odinga for NOT requesting that his followers turn away from violence. He said in an interview, "there is no peace without justice," it's a commonly said phrase and it's TRUE. I realize in Kenya there's more to the story. Allegations of genocide and tribal feuding complicate the story and make it all the more tragic. If the allegations are true they clearly need to be addressed. And honestly, I don't even pretend to understand exactly what's going on over there. But if there's one thing we shouldn't be condemning, it's rioting over rigged elections. Maybe we should be condemning ourselves for not rioting.

There is a (possibly) Ben Franklin quote that's been thrown around a lot lately: "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither." Whether Franklin said it or not, it's a great quote. In this case, I think we can substitute Liberty with Rights, and Security with comfort, and we've got the basic state of most Americans. We won't fight for our rights, for our VOTE because it doesn't threaten our comfort.

We're too damn comfortable. Maybe if we were a little closer to death and instability on any given day we'd have a better understanding of their relative value. What's happening in Kenya could never happen in the US, but it's not because our government is too well protected with checks and balances, it's not because we're free enough from corruption, it's because we're too lazy to do anything more than complain.

I ask myself: Am I willing to risk my life because our elections were rigged? I know the answer. I'll watch someone take my ballot and spit on it and tear it into pieces, then I'll go home and tell my friends about it, and about how disgraceful it is. I've always considered myself someone who would stand up for what I believed in. But when I get right down to it, I missed the boat. The time to fight has already come, and the truth is I'm not willing to die for my rights. I don't deserve them. None of us do.

*Pics linked to sources

The power of words

I ran across an article on MSN the other day that I found interesting. It talked about how using different words in real estate ads effected the time it took for a house to sell and the final sale amount.I don't find it surprising that words can have an effect on these things, what I do find surprising is how much of an effect they can have. Just including the word "landscaping" for example, makes a house sell (statistically) 20% faster than other properties, and sell for 6% more. That's a pretty impressive difference. Of course, as the article points out, just adding in the word landscaping won't help at all if there's not actually any landscaping, but it's interesting that mentioning it can have such an impact.

Other words and phrases had negative effects or mixed effects. It shouldn't be too surprising that describing yourself as a "motivated" buyer is likely to drop the selling price by an average of 8%, but I was surprised to learn that it slowed the house sale by 30%. Defining a house as a good rental property, an income line, was even worse, slowing the sale by a whooping 60% and docking the price by 9%. Some terms, such as "handyman special" lowered the price but also sped the sale.

When I look at real estate ads, I assume the description is bullshit. Subjective terms such as "beautiful" can't be called false advertising, so the only price in tacking it onto the ad is the paper's word count. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that positive words help a place sell (for more) while negative ideas (even dressed up in positive sounding jargon) hamper a sale. I'm just surprised that many people are buying it (the description, not the house). So what I've really learned in reading this article is that I've got a few years to figure out how to get my apartment style condo some "beautiful landscaping."

*picture's from flickr, linked.

Wedding STUFF

So Matt and I are getting married in about ten months. This is wonderful and exciting and slightly terrifying. Not, mind you, terrifying in the "oh gods am I doing the right thing" sense, but rather in the "HOLY SHIT WE HAVE SO MUCH TO DO" sense.

We were supposed to get Save The Dates out before the end of the year. Oops. By all polite wedding schedulers we're probably supposed to have actual invitations out soon. Oops, oops. Half of what we're supposed to do I probably can't even think of.

I was intending to do up a design for Save the Dates today for my drawing, but... I'm in an extremely lazy mood. I'm feeling very blah and apathetic today. It's the new start of a semester, and I'm suddenly (or not so suddenly) horribly sick of being a student. It's not the classes (although I'm thrilled to be on my last one) and it's not the novel, it's just being in school. I'm ready to be OUT. I guess it's about anticipation. Anticipation of actually finishing a novel (and proving to myself that I can), anticipation of not being in school anymore, anticipation of finally being married... added to the enormous amount of stuff I and we need to do between now and then. Has anyone else noticed that the more you have to do, the harder it is to get anything done at all?

*I'm lazy and a horrible person, so I usually don't bother to actually write down credits for photos... I just link them. Today however I'm so impressed with the cake that I want to encourage you to visit this lady's flickr site... she has tons more seriously cool nontraditional wedding cakes. Her user name is PinkCakeBox. I urge you to check it out purely for visual enjoyment.