Have you ever noticed that thing where when there is a group of people and a portion of the group is listening to one person while others are listening to another then all the attention shifts away from one of the speakers the audience-less speaker will just kind of stall while looking around for anyone to continue telling the story to, even if the new audience has no overlap with the old one. And there's that awkward bit of eye contact language as the story teller tries to drag people in and audience members try to avoid glances or get sucked in.
I find the whole eye contact communication fairly funny. But what I find especially amazing is how little it matters who gets sucked in to hear the rest of the story. If someone starts talking you can give the person the benefit of the doubt that she/he thinks there is information the audience would appreciate knowing (or would find amusing or...). Then when the audience is lost if the person only started again upon regaining the attention of the original audience it would be one thing. But as far as I can tell it rarely matters who gets sucked in by the eye contact game. Which I think eliminates pretty much any possibility other than the story teller is talking purely for his/her own sake. Not that this is such a terrible thing - telling others a story can be very therapeutic. But the instances of this scenario really make it seem like a huge portion of communication must be more for the sake of the speaker than listener. Yeah I know I'm far from the first person to come to this conclusion. And yes as I started writing this post I did realize the irony of writing about people who talk for their own sake without caring who is listening on my blog.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Dollhouse
Semi-spoiler alert.
So my understanding was that Whedon had a 5 season plan for dollhouse. They made it 1.5 seasons in before Fox decided to cancel the show. That left 9 hours of dollhouse. I really think they are covering the whole 5 year plan which means each episode is about 0.4 seasons and it does feel like each episode is covering a half season story arc. As the guy in the attic said - that's ahead of all projected schedules. I'm getting extra mad at fox because the last few episodes haven't been as enjoyable since the plot is so rushed, but they do seem like they would be awesome multi-episode plots. But with the speed they are going through the story I'm barely caught up with the idea that Echo has gone from slave to super hero. At least we got to see Victor being Topher.
So my understanding was that Whedon had a 5 season plan for dollhouse. They made it 1.5 seasons in before Fox decided to cancel the show. That left 9 hours of dollhouse. I really think they are covering the whole 5 year plan which means each episode is about 0.4 seasons and it does feel like each episode is covering a half season story arc. As the guy in the attic said - that's ahead of all projected schedules. I'm getting extra mad at fox because the last few episodes haven't been as enjoyable since the plot is so rushed, but they do seem like they would be awesome multi-episode plots. But with the speed they are going through the story I'm barely caught up with the idea that Echo has gone from slave to super hero. At least we got to see Victor being Topher.
The Eye of the World
Lending someone a book you think they'll like seems like it would be nice, except it is a bit less clear when it is first book in the third longest novel series (in latin or cyrillic characters). Wow, just looked up #1 on the list - that is a giant ball of silliness.
There is a definite sense in the book of struggling against an overwhelming enemy who can be set back but never really defeated. I think Robert Jordan helps bring this out by giving the reader an overwhelming number of pages to read. No matter how much I read in a day it barely dented the book, and finishing the book is barely denting the series.
I actually really liked The Eye of the World and appreciate Julie lending it to me. This book is very lord of the rings, although based on the ending I expect it to start diverging in the next book. And I think the actual writing style is somewhat different (well the most obvious is there aren't many songs and poems in this one).
One of my few criticisms of LOTR is that Tolkien made Gandalf so powerful that he then had to handicap him by giving him orders to not intervene too much. I still think Gandalf is awesome, but I do think that in The Eye of the World the power of the characters is a bit more balanced so no one is artificially holding back (well, later books might correct that). Although I am left wondering if those three characters are so important why is there only one Aes Sedai with them? What are the others up to that's so important? I imagine this will be answered later so if you know the answers to these questions don't tell me.
There is a definite sense in the book of struggling against an overwhelming enemy who can be set back but never really defeated. I think Robert Jordan helps bring this out by giving the reader an overwhelming number of pages to read. No matter how much I read in a day it barely dented the book, and finishing the book is barely denting the series.
I actually really liked The Eye of the World and appreciate Julie lending it to me. This book is very lord of the rings, although based on the ending I expect it to start diverging in the next book. And I think the actual writing style is somewhat different (well the most obvious is there aren't many songs and poems in this one).
One of my few criticisms of LOTR is that Tolkien made Gandalf so powerful that he then had to handicap him by giving him orders to not intervene too much. I still think Gandalf is awesome, but I do think that in The Eye of the World the power of the characters is a bit more balanced so no one is artificially holding back (well, later books might correct that). Although I am left wondering if those three characters are so important why is there only one Aes Sedai with them? What are the others up to that's so important? I imagine this will be answered later so if you know the answers to these questions don't tell me.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Office and Counterpoint
I think that what The Office has been doing recently is kind of interesting. The show started off with the typical office humor point of view where there's a normal person or two, the boss is incompetent and each coworker has their own bit of insanity. Pretty much the Dilbert formula. I'm not saying there wasn't anything original about The Office (well, ok there was nothing original about the American version), but the perspective was pretty standard. Over the past couple of seasons as Jim has taken on more responsibilities we've seen hints about the transition to come. And now that Jim is a co-manager they've really flipped the situation around. We learn that while Michael is a weirdo and somewhat incompetent, some of the insanity is on purpose and Jim who is expected to know better is actually needing direction from Michael.
Nothing that extraordinary, but if office fans are the Dilbert crowd who go through their day convinced they know better than their boss then the show is in some way now making fun of their fans (or at least correcting them). Seems like a bit of a strange move. Luckily Michael still comes off insane so it is not a complete reversal of views.
This sentence is acting as a transition between topics.
When news and talk shows have Jenny McCarthy on to talk about vaccines I scream "WTF IS GOING ON? WHO'S BEEN HANDING OUT THE STUPID PILLS?". Oh, that's not where I was going with that. Let's try again. When news and talk shows have Jenny McCarthy on to talk about vaccines it might seem appropriate to have another guest who is a vaccine specialist at the CDC or some university explain why vaccines are actually good and talk about the extensive studies that show they don't cause autism.
However, that's not the counterpoint that should follow her appearance. The guest after Jenny McCarthy should be a vaccine specialist at the CDC or some university and should be wearing a sport coat with chalk dust on it over a t-shirt with Maxwell's equations, too loose pants and pure white tennis shoes, also acceptable is a free t-shirt from a career fair plus jeans that were purchased in the early 80s and birkenstocks with white socks, bonus points for taped glasses and extra bonus points for soldered glasses. The scientist should be there to provide a counterpoint to Jenny McCarthy's choice of outfit.
If McCarthy cries foul because she went to the "university of google", the scientist can explain that he went to the university library and read all the books on fashion he could find, most of which happen to be from previous centuries, but hey he read a bunch of stuff so he's just as qualified to discuss fashion as she is to discuss vaccines.
The weird thing is I don't even watch the shows that have McCarthy on, but it generates so much buzz that I hear about it on NPR and news websites. Hm, I just admitted that I'm complaining about interviews I've never even seen. Well I guess I should go ahead and dedicate this post to everyone attending the "university of google" where poorly informed rants like this post count as reading assignments. Remember that anytime a claim from this blog is cited it can be proceed by, "My source, who has a graduate degree from MIT, says...".
Nothing that extraordinary, but if office fans are the Dilbert crowd who go through their day convinced they know better than their boss then the show is in some way now making fun of their fans (or at least correcting them). Seems like a bit of a strange move. Luckily Michael still comes off insane so it is not a complete reversal of views.
This sentence is acting as a transition between topics.
When news and talk shows have Jenny McCarthy on to talk about vaccines I scream "WTF IS GOING ON? WHO'S BEEN HANDING OUT THE STUPID PILLS?". Oh, that's not where I was going with that. Let's try again. When news and talk shows have Jenny McCarthy on to talk about vaccines it might seem appropriate to have another guest who is a vaccine specialist at the CDC or some university explain why vaccines are actually good and talk about the extensive studies that show they don't cause autism.
However, that's not the counterpoint that should follow her appearance. The guest after Jenny McCarthy should be a vaccine specialist at the CDC or some university and should be wearing a sport coat with chalk dust on it over a t-shirt with Maxwell's equations, too loose pants and pure white tennis shoes, also acceptable is a free t-shirt from a career fair plus jeans that were purchased in the early 80s and birkenstocks with white socks, bonus points for taped glasses and extra bonus points for soldered glasses. The scientist should be there to provide a counterpoint to Jenny McCarthy's choice of outfit.
If McCarthy cries foul because she went to the "university of google", the scientist can explain that he went to the university library and read all the books on fashion he could find, most of which happen to be from previous centuries, but hey he read a bunch of stuff so he's just as qualified to discuss fashion as she is to discuss vaccines.
The weird thing is I don't even watch the shows that have McCarthy on, but it generates so much buzz that I hear about it on NPR and news websites. Hm, I just admitted that I'm complaining about interviews I've never even seen. Well I guess I should go ahead and dedicate this post to everyone attending the "university of google" where poorly informed rants like this post count as reading assignments. Remember that anytime a claim from this blog is cited it can be proceed by, "My source, who has a graduate degree from MIT, says...".
Mind Reading Showers
First off for all the Stars Wars fans there's this.
Ok, now for the overly thought out terrible idea.
I want a hat that I wear when I take a shower that reads my EEG. Over time I would train it to learn when I'm feeling too hot and too cold. Once it has caught on to what pattern indicates my feeling about temperature it could take over control of the shower temperature. If you think having an EEG learn when I feel hot vs cold is the most impractical part of this idea, I think you'd be surprised - this is when a link to an article about one of those devices that let people move a mouse cursor with their mind would be helpful, but it's too late at night to bother. Might be able to make the problem easier by also looking at something like rates of nerves firing on the skin, especially for an early indicator if the temperature is too high or low. Of course the feedback system would have to be carefully designed so that it wouldn't make changes too rapidly or overshoot the goal by too much, but that's not terribly difficult (basically just need to make it an over-damped system or critically damped if a little overshoot is acceptable).
This might sound super lazy and it is, but I am annoyed when I have to keep adjusting the knob up and down to maintain what feels like a comfortable temperature. There should also be a shutoff button that both electronically and mechanically shuts off water to the shower in case the system went haywire and cranked up the temperature. If the EEG was connected to the shower by wires that would get in the way, but all of this could be done wirelessly, especially if the hat did some of the data processing. Hm, I guess the hat would get in the way of washing my hair, but do you really have to wash hair since after a while you cut it off and grow new hair anyway? Well, I guess clean hair is nice so instead of a hat for EEG the shower could be built inside a fMRI. I'd have to keep perfectly still, but if I'm spending a million dollars on a shower I could probably have it wash me without it needing me to move.
Somewhat more seriously I'm surprised that I've never seen a digitally controlled shower. I wouldn't expect it most places, but maybe fancy hotels - well maybe fancier hotels than I go to.
Ok, now for the overly thought out terrible idea.
I want a hat that I wear when I take a shower that reads my EEG. Over time I would train it to learn when I'm feeling too hot and too cold. Once it has caught on to what pattern indicates my feeling about temperature it could take over control of the shower temperature. If you think having an EEG learn when I feel hot vs cold is the most impractical part of this idea, I think you'd be surprised - this is when a link to an article about one of those devices that let people move a mouse cursor with their mind would be helpful, but it's too late at night to bother. Might be able to make the problem easier by also looking at something like rates of nerves firing on the skin, especially for an early indicator if the temperature is too high or low. Of course the feedback system would have to be carefully designed so that it wouldn't make changes too rapidly or overshoot the goal by too much, but that's not terribly difficult (basically just need to make it an over-damped system or critically damped if a little overshoot is acceptable).
This might sound super lazy and it is, but I am annoyed when I have to keep adjusting the knob up and down to maintain what feels like a comfortable temperature. There should also be a shutoff button that both electronically and mechanically shuts off water to the shower in case the system went haywire and cranked up the temperature. If the EEG was connected to the shower by wires that would get in the way, but all of this could be done wirelessly, especially if the hat did some of the data processing. Hm, I guess the hat would get in the way of washing my hair, but do you really have to wash hair since after a while you cut it off and grow new hair anyway? Well, I guess clean hair is nice so instead of a hat for EEG the shower could be built inside a fMRI. I'd have to keep perfectly still, but if I'm spending a million dollars on a shower I could probably have it wash me without it needing me to move.
Somewhat more seriously I'm surprised that I've never seen a digitally controlled shower. I wouldn't expect it most places, but maybe fancy hotels - well maybe fancier hotels than I go to.
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