Today was clear and cold. That proved problematic for me.
As part of my bike commute to work, I make a left turn through a busy intersection. I usually move into the left turn lane and turn with traffic on a green arrow, as instructed by my state’s bike safety manual. Today was no different… until I reached the middle of the intersection.
A patch of black ice had formed on the asphalt, and I didn’t see it. I started to turn. I had a fraction of a second to realize that something wasn’t quite right about the way my wheels were responding before the bike slipped right out from under me.
For a moment, I felt like I was in some kind of action movie. More than once I’ve seen a scene in which a motorcycle rider turns sharply and drops, letting the bike slide across the ground usually to avoid some deadly collision or to create an explosion. Similarly, though without the flair, I sat down hard on the asphalt and watched for a second or two as my bike skidded across more ice, wheels-first, in the general direction of the opposing traffic (which was still stopped by a red light).
I stood up quickly, grabbed my ride, and rushed it to the sidewalk. I think I even laughed while doing so, which was probably just a side-effect of the flood of epinephrine hitting my bloodstream. I was unhurt save for some minor impact-related pain in my left thigh. The bike was fine save for a scrape on the left pedal and a dislodged chain. It was easily fixed, and I was on my way again.
I think it was more embarrassing than anything else. I was confidently and capably riding through an intersection one moment; I was sitting on the ground and blocking traffic the next moment with a dozen pairs of headlights pointed straight at me. On one hand, I’m glad I was able to get right up and out of the way so quickly. On the other hand, I almost feel like I should have made more of a show of it by looking up at some of the motorists, shrugging nonchalantly, and laughing at my predicament.
I may know how to drive on icy roads. I guess I haven’t quite learned how to properly bike on them yet.
30 December 2010
29 December 2010
Characterization
I read a lot of books. When I read fiction, I want believable characters. I can think of several ways in which an author could ruin a good story, but one of the most prominent ways is to write unrealistic characters.
I recently read Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. It was a fairly standard fantasy-style adventure story with several well-crafted satirical passages. The main character was a unique person. He was a kind of anti-hero who did not want fame and glory, who did not want to save the princess or the world, and who really didn’t want much more than to take care of his own personal needs. Through a highly amusing series of events, he finds himself doing much more than he had planned and getting much more than he wanted. I can’t say that he always reacted the way I expected him to react because some of his actions were unorthodox, even in a fantasy realm. However, everything he did was believable because it fit with the personality and history the author had established for him, such as repeatedly attempting to just take the money and run when financial compensation or reward was offered to him.
I followed that book with a science fiction novel called Back to the Moon by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. The science in the book was reasonably sound, involving retrofitting a single large engine onto a NASA shuttle while in orbit and taking the shuttle to the moon to find a rare substance that could provide fuel for clean and safe energy production on earth. Toward the end of the book, I did start to get a little tired of the continuous miraculous escapes from certain-death situations, but overall, I enjoyed the narrative of the adventure. Or, rather, I would have enjoyed it if I didn’t have to put up with such flat characters. They had clear personalities, but their actions did not match their motivations. One main character, Jack, had lost his wife in a tragic accident, and the author repeatedly described how much Jack missed his wife terribly, couldn’t think of being with any other woman, and even scoffed at death because of how little he felt he had left to lose. Another main character, Penny, openly admitted to a strong dislike of men, and her actions toward all the other male characters she met seemed to solidify that. Then, suddenly, while on the shuttle somewhere between Earth and the Moon, Jack and Penny decided to hook up and were portrayed as lovers for the remainder of the story, even with more mentions of Jack’s deceased wife and Penny’s bad encounters with men. The relationships were forced (at best), and I frequently found myself wanting to argue with the author about what a real person would do in these fictional situations.
A story is only as good as the people in it.
I recently read Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David. It was a fairly standard fantasy-style adventure story with several well-crafted satirical passages. The main character was a unique person. He was a kind of anti-hero who did not want fame and glory, who did not want to save the princess or the world, and who really didn’t want much more than to take care of his own personal needs. Through a highly amusing series of events, he finds himself doing much more than he had planned and getting much more than he wanted. I can’t say that he always reacted the way I expected him to react because some of his actions were unorthodox, even in a fantasy realm. However, everything he did was believable because it fit with the personality and history the author had established for him, such as repeatedly attempting to just take the money and run when financial compensation or reward was offered to him.
I followed that book with a science fiction novel called Back to the Moon by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. The science in the book was reasonably sound, involving retrofitting a single large engine onto a NASA shuttle while in orbit and taking the shuttle to the moon to find a rare substance that could provide fuel for clean and safe energy production on earth. Toward the end of the book, I did start to get a little tired of the continuous miraculous escapes from certain-death situations, but overall, I enjoyed the narrative of the adventure. Or, rather, I would have enjoyed it if I didn’t have to put up with such flat characters. They had clear personalities, but their actions did not match their motivations. One main character, Jack, had lost his wife in a tragic accident, and the author repeatedly described how much Jack missed his wife terribly, couldn’t think of being with any other woman, and even scoffed at death because of how little he felt he had left to lose. Another main character, Penny, openly admitted to a strong dislike of men, and her actions toward all the other male characters she met seemed to solidify that. Then, suddenly, while on the shuttle somewhere between Earth and the Moon, Jack and Penny decided to hook up and were portrayed as lovers for the remainder of the story, even with more mentions of Jack’s deceased wife and Penny’s bad encounters with men. The relationships were forced (at best), and I frequently found myself wanting to argue with the author about what a real person would do in these fictional situations.
A story is only as good as the people in it.
25 December 2010
Compatibility
Today I received many exciting gifts from friends and family, and I gave them things that I hope they will enjoy as well. One gift from my wife was particularly noteworthy. It was a Christmas tree ornament in which I had recently shown interest. I want to tell its story.
A few weeks ago, we attended a Christmas event that included a display of many “Nativity” or “Creche” scenes depicting the most widely accepted story of the birth of Christ. Among those displays, I found one small ceramic figure that I found fascinating. It showed a baby boy, loosely wrapped in white cloth, laying in a manger of hay. Opposite the baby was a modern Santa Claus figure with the full white beard, red suit with white trim, and black boots. He had removed his hat and was clutching it to his chest, revealing a bald head as he knelt before the child. It was clear that the Santa Claus figure was humbling himself before the Christ child in reverence and respect.
The juxtaposition of the two iconic figures struck me first as an incompatibility. Many Christians often complain that the Christmas holiday, which is, among other things, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, has become too “commercialized,” and they often cite Santa Claus as a culprit. They do not like the idea that a day they use a religious holiday has been usurped by a figure that, for some, can be seen to stand for greed and obsession with material possessions. This almost makes the Christmas holiday feel like 24 hours of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Santa Claus or Jesus Christ—one or the other, but never both.
But it seems to me that some short-sightedness has come into play here. The American version of Santa Claus is not the only one, and his modern image is far-removed from its origins. Santa Claus was not always seen as a magical fat man who lives to bribe children with toys in exchange for good behavior. His story started with that of the philanthropic Saint Nicholas, an early Christian who must have accepted the Biblical account of the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ and who, given the opportunity, would naturally have knelt at the manger.
Even the modern story of Santa Claus is not meant to incite greed and condone bribery. It can be used as an example of generosity, which is a trait that often seems sorely lacking in our society.
Some people claim that Jesus Christ is a myth and those who believe in him sorely misguided. More claim that Santa Claus is also a myth and that thousands of children worldwide are deliberately led down paths of inevitable disappointment and disillusionment. However, if we can for just a moment accept that both figures do exist, is it really that great a stretch of the imagination to believe that Santa Claus is just a man (with extraordinary abilities and means) who wants to follow the example of Jesus Christ (whom he has accepted as the son of God and as his savior) by doing some good for the rest of humanity by bringing smiles to the faces of the world’s children?
The two stories can be compatible… if we let them.
A few weeks ago, we attended a Christmas event that included a display of many “Nativity” or “Creche” scenes depicting the most widely accepted story of the birth of Christ. Among those displays, I found one small ceramic figure that I found fascinating. It showed a baby boy, loosely wrapped in white cloth, laying in a manger of hay. Opposite the baby was a modern Santa Claus figure with the full white beard, red suit with white trim, and black boots. He had removed his hat and was clutching it to his chest, revealing a bald head as he knelt before the child. It was clear that the Santa Claus figure was humbling himself before the Christ child in reverence and respect.
The juxtaposition of the two iconic figures struck me first as an incompatibility. Many Christians often complain that the Christmas holiday, which is, among other things, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, has become too “commercialized,” and they often cite Santa Claus as a culprit. They do not like the idea that a day they use a religious holiday has been usurped by a figure that, for some, can be seen to stand for greed and obsession with material possessions. This almost makes the Christmas holiday feel like 24 hours of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Santa Claus or Jesus Christ—one or the other, but never both.
But it seems to me that some short-sightedness has come into play here. The American version of Santa Claus is not the only one, and his modern image is far-removed from its origins. Santa Claus was not always seen as a magical fat man who lives to bribe children with toys in exchange for good behavior. His story started with that of the philanthropic Saint Nicholas, an early Christian who must have accepted the Biblical account of the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ and who, given the opportunity, would naturally have knelt at the manger.
Even the modern story of Santa Claus is not meant to incite greed and condone bribery. It can be used as an example of generosity, which is a trait that often seems sorely lacking in our society.
Some people claim that Jesus Christ is a myth and those who believe in him sorely misguided. More claim that Santa Claus is also a myth and that thousands of children worldwide are deliberately led down paths of inevitable disappointment and disillusionment. However, if we can for just a moment accept that both figures do exist, is it really that great a stretch of the imagination to believe that Santa Claus is just a man (with extraordinary abilities and means) who wants to follow the example of Jesus Christ (whom he has accepted as the son of God and as his savior) by doing some good for the rest of humanity by bringing smiles to the faces of the world’s children?
The two stories can be compatible… if we let them.
23 December 2010
Appetite
Spiders do eat other spiders.
I’m sure I’ve read or heard that before, and I don’t suppose it should really come as much of a surprise to me. Still I was skeptical of this “fact” until today, in spite of knowing that some female spiders eat the males that come courting.
Cannibalism is not uncommon. Praying mantises eat their mates. Wild chimpanzees sometimes kill and eat other chimpanzees from rival social groups. Numerous animal species have been known to eat their own young. It may be rare, but humans do eat other humans on occasion.
I suppose it’s just surprising to actually see such a thing happen.
I was at my computer. I noticed a tiny spider (not much larger than the head of a pin) descending on a thread about two inches from the window frame. On the wall next to it was another spider that I recognized as the “jumping” variety (I have long been slightly unnerved by that type of spider because of their tendency to lean back, look at me, and sometimes even wave a leg or other appendage at me), which was two or three times the size of the other one. As the dangling spider slowly descended, the jumping spider would hop a little further down the wall. Suddenly, the jumping spider jumped (which should not have surprised me, considering the name of the creature, but it did anyway) away from the wall, caught the dangling spider, fell back to the wall thanks to an anchor line it had released as it jumped, and hopped a few more inches to the corner between the wall and the window frame.
Fascinating.
I did some research later and learned that this is perfectly normal behavior for jumping spiders. They are predators of other spiders and will typically drop an anchor before attacking. According to my research, they pose little or no threat to humans, and, if allowed to live in or near a house, can even significantly reduce the likelihood of more aggressive or dangerous spiders taking up residence.
I’m sure I’ve read or heard that before, and I don’t suppose it should really come as much of a surprise to me. Still I was skeptical of this “fact” until today, in spite of knowing that some female spiders eat the males that come courting.
Cannibalism is not uncommon. Praying mantises eat their mates. Wild chimpanzees sometimes kill and eat other chimpanzees from rival social groups. Numerous animal species have been known to eat their own young. It may be rare, but humans do eat other humans on occasion.
I suppose it’s just surprising to actually see such a thing happen.
I was at my computer. I noticed a tiny spider (not much larger than the head of a pin) descending on a thread about two inches from the window frame. On the wall next to it was another spider that I recognized as the “jumping” variety (I have long been slightly unnerved by that type of spider because of their tendency to lean back, look at me, and sometimes even wave a leg or other appendage at me), which was two or three times the size of the other one. As the dangling spider slowly descended, the jumping spider would hop a little further down the wall. Suddenly, the jumping spider jumped (which should not have surprised me, considering the name of the creature, but it did anyway) away from the wall, caught the dangling spider, fell back to the wall thanks to an anchor line it had released as it jumped, and hopped a few more inches to the corner between the wall and the window frame.
Fascinating.
I did some research later and learned that this is perfectly normal behavior for jumping spiders. They are predators of other spiders and will typically drop an anchor before attacking. According to my research, they pose little or no threat to humans, and, if allowed to live in or near a house, can even significantly reduce the likelihood of more aggressive or dangerous spiders taking up residence.
22 December 2010
Word
I recently read a book about philosophy. One chapter touched on the difficulties that software developers have encountered while trying to create artificial intelligence. One of their major hurdles has been programming a computer (or robot or other machine) to understand human speech. I understood the explanation in the book well enough to read the chapter without confusion, but I doubt I could repeat it. Suffice it to say that language is much more complicated than it seems and that tonal and contextual nuances in speech can drastically change the meaning of a word or sentence.
As much as I complain about it (which I frequently do), this knowledge gives me a new respect for the programmers who created the grammar-checker in Microsoft Word. It’s not perfectly accurate. It has warned me about sentence fragments when I didn’t have any, and it frequently points out nonexistent subject-verb agreement errors. I even got it into an infinite loop once where it convinced me to correct what it thought was an error only to tell me to correct the correction back to the original, which it thought was still wrong. I realize now what an impressive bit of programming it really is.
However, Word’s grammar-checker is not perfectly reliable. It misses errors all the time because it does not understand the contextual facets of language. It is not a substitute for old-fashioned proofreading.
At work the other day, I received an informational email about a series of health and safety videos available to employees and accessible through the organization’s intranet. One of those videos was about breathing and asthma. It was titled “Breath Easy.” The person who created the title failed to add an “e,” and Word didn’t catch the error. It knows that “breath” and “breathe” are two different words, and it knows that one is a noun and the other a verb, but it does not know which of the two words should be used in a phrase with “easy.”
Shortly after receiving the email about easing my breath, I got another bit of advice about leaving packages and shopping bags in the car. It was suggested that I should keep such things “out of plain site.” This is even more difficult for Word to deal with because “sight” and “site” are both correctly-spelled nouns, but the difference in their meanings is significant.
I don’t think the English language is being destroyed as some die-hard grammarians might insist. However, I do think it is being severely beaten by people who either did not get a good education (because of a poor school system, because of an incompetent teacher, or because of personal inabilities or laziness) and who do not now care enough to take the extra time to make sure their writing is correct.
But until I figure out what to do about this problem, I’ll be sure to keep my purchases out of plain location after I go shopping.
As much as I complain about it (which I frequently do), this knowledge gives me a new respect for the programmers who created the grammar-checker in Microsoft Word. It’s not perfectly accurate. It has warned me about sentence fragments when I didn’t have any, and it frequently points out nonexistent subject-verb agreement errors. I even got it into an infinite loop once where it convinced me to correct what it thought was an error only to tell me to correct the correction back to the original, which it thought was still wrong. I realize now what an impressive bit of programming it really is.
However, Word’s grammar-checker is not perfectly reliable. It misses errors all the time because it does not understand the contextual facets of language. It is not a substitute for old-fashioned proofreading.
At work the other day, I received an informational email about a series of health and safety videos available to employees and accessible through the organization’s intranet. One of those videos was about breathing and asthma. It was titled “Breath Easy.” The person who created the title failed to add an “e,” and Word didn’t catch the error. It knows that “breath” and “breathe” are two different words, and it knows that one is a noun and the other a verb, but it does not know which of the two words should be used in a phrase with “easy.”
Shortly after receiving the email about easing my breath, I got another bit of advice about leaving packages and shopping bags in the car. It was suggested that I should keep such things “out of plain site.” This is even more difficult for Word to deal with because “sight” and “site” are both correctly-spelled nouns, but the difference in their meanings is significant.
I don’t think the English language is being destroyed as some die-hard grammarians might insist. However, I do think it is being severely beaten by people who either did not get a good education (because of a poor school system, because of an incompetent teacher, or because of personal inabilities or laziness) and who do not now care enough to take the extra time to make sure their writing is correct.
But until I figure out what to do about this problem, I’ll be sure to keep my purchases out of plain location after I go shopping.
21 December 2010
Recency
In the first post I made on this blog, I referred to the opening line in Charles Dickens’ novel A Christmas Carol. Today I watched the video version of that story as told by Jim Henson’s Muppets. In doing so, I discovered a mistake.
I quoted the opening line of the story this way:
“The Marleys were dead, to begin with.”
In reality, Dickens wrote:
”Marley was dead, to begin with.”
Where did I go wrong? Why did I make a plural where it should have been singular?
Dickens told of only one man named Marley (Jacob) who had died and returned in spirit to warn his mortal colleague, Ebenezer Scrooge, of the horrors that awaited selfish men in the next life. To make use of their existing characters, the Muppet team pluralized that figure into two men named Marley (Jacob and Robert) and used the two old hecklers (Statler and Waldorf) to represent them. For any Muppet fan, having Statler without Waldorf or the other way around is just not right.
My error was likely caused, in part, by the recency effect. It has been a long time since I read A Christmas Carol. I have seen the Muppet retelling several times after my initial reading, giving my brain a chance to accept that version as correct simply because it is the most recent in my memory.
I quoted the opening line of the story this way:
“The Marleys were dead, to begin with.”
In reality, Dickens wrote:
”Marley was dead, to begin with.”
Where did I go wrong? Why did I make a plural where it should have been singular?
Dickens told of only one man named Marley (Jacob) who had died and returned in spirit to warn his mortal colleague, Ebenezer Scrooge, of the horrors that awaited selfish men in the next life. To make use of their existing characters, the Muppet team pluralized that figure into two men named Marley (Jacob and Robert) and used the two old hecklers (Statler and Waldorf) to represent them. For any Muppet fan, having Statler without Waldorf or the other way around is just not right.
My error was likely caused, in part, by the recency effect. It has been a long time since I read A Christmas Carol. I have seen the Muppet retelling several times after my initial reading, giving my brain a chance to accept that version as correct simply because it is the most recent in my memory.
18 December 2010
Delay
It’s easy to fall behind. I know that this blog has limited readership. It may seem that I have abandoned it. However, allow me to offer my assurances to those few who are interested in the odd ideas that flutter across my mind that I have not stopped thinking, nor have I stopped recording my thoughts. In fact, I have several topics and posts ready to go. I’m just having trouble keeping them organized while keeping up with all the other things that happen in the “real world” around me.
Additional tales of cognitive boredom are forthcoming, and I will backdate some of them according to the time that they occurred, which will fill in the current six-month gap.
Additional tales of cognitive boredom are forthcoming, and I will backdate some of them according to the time that they occurred, which will fill in the current six-month gap.
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