1. When a poll says something you don't want to have to explain around, adjust it. Multiply the margin of error by two, add or subtract to the actually reported number as desired, and claim, based on expertise as a statistician, actuary, mathematician, or other numbers expert, that you think it's more like that.
Example: "The recent poll by Quargnax shows Bocain ahead by 15 points." "Oh, I think that's more like six or seven, but..."
2. Talking more loudly and interrupting the other person shows that you care. About your argument. Which is right.
Example: "Well, when you look at France and the way it's handled - " "FRANCE WAS HANDLING THINGS GREAT, AND THEY DON'T SHARE A BORDER WITH A MAJOR ... BLAH BLAH BLAH."
3. Don't forget to pluck that personality in the morning! A well-groomed personality acts as a mask if you happen to not know what you're talking about. Every question that puts you out of your depth is a good question, and a smile of condescension.
Example: "So what about those negative power couplings?" "Well, that's a good question. Certainly, smile smile smile, gab gab gab."
4. When you have five seconds left before the host will stop you, talk faster.
Example: "And as for those marriages in California, just-think-of-the-children-and-ask-whether-you'd-want-children-coming-from-that-marriage-because-ewwww!"
5. If it is your distinction in life to have a verbal pause, either make it as quiet or as distinctive as possible.
Example: "The tomatoes are auuuuuughm delicious."
6. Credentials, credentials? Remember that one time you worked under President George H.W. Bush? That makes you more knowledgable about every policy under the moon than 99.99% of Americans.
Example: "I recall when I was working in the white house... they had good chicken strips."
7. Twenty-four hour news means that you're truly needed to make, discuss, and otherwise interpret news. Be like the third stomach of the cow; after the anchors report it, and then discuss it, get ready to receive that cud and digest it out until the fourth stomach, the news summary broadcast, can reduce it to mind-numbing oblivion.
Example: "And of course you've heard about the guy who bought a slushie. I don't think that picking raspberry was a good thing. Especially with that murder that happened twenty feet away."
8. It does good to use some phrase that other people were using, if it's effective.
Example: "And Harry Potter 7 is truly the battle of the hexes." "And then the battle of the hexes." "Har har blah blah battle of the hexes." "And now the battle of the sexes, I mean hexes."
Jun 23, 2008
Jun 21, 2008
Reference Books
I have found one of my dream reference books.
First, what makes the ideal one to buy? Of course they're all good for something or another. But the book has to be full of information of specific interest. That is, it's no good just buying an encyclopedia set, or an almanac on everything, but a book on mythology is good, and if it's a book about a specific mythology, that is great. But the book also has to convey information that isn't easily found elsewhere in such an easily accessible form. So this hypothetical book on, say, Greek mythology can't be simple retellings of certain myths and 200 word descriptions of each major god. It has to go through all kinds of stories, talk about all the gods and goddesses, heroes, heroines, princes, princesses, magical creatures, and villains. It has to be as detailed as it could reasonably be, even discussing different versions of certain tales.
And so I've found it. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature. From the table of contents and introduction, it appears to be everything I would ever want from a reference guide on the subject, detailing the history and literature of Arthur from the fifth century to the twenty-first. When it retells stories, the retellings are barebones, but enough so that I can be intrigued into searching certain stories out... or not.
First, what makes the ideal one to buy? Of course they're all good for something or another. But the book has to be full of information of specific interest. That is, it's no good just buying an encyclopedia set, or an almanac on everything, but a book on mythology is good, and if it's a book about a specific mythology, that is great. But the book also has to convey information that isn't easily found elsewhere in such an easily accessible form. So this hypothetical book on, say, Greek mythology can't be simple retellings of certain myths and 200 word descriptions of each major god. It has to go through all kinds of stories, talk about all the gods and goddesses, heroes, heroines, princes, princesses, magical creatures, and villains. It has to be as detailed as it could reasonably be, even discussing different versions of certain tales.
And so I've found it. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature. From the table of contents and introduction, it appears to be everything I would ever want from a reference guide on the subject, detailing the history and literature of Arthur from the fifth century to the twenty-first. When it retells stories, the retellings are barebones, but enough so that I can be intrigued into searching certain stories out... or not.
Jun 15, 2008
I've been visiting Leslie for the past several days. It's been fun. :D
I was walking through Best Buy tonight (alone, since Leslie's working), and I was looking for a particular DVD, Labyrinth. But I was flummoxed for a moment about what place to look for it. Once I thought about it a bit, it was easier to guess (ah, sci-fi). But the better I know a particular movie or book, the tougher it is for me to place it in only one genre. At first, genre will mean those different sections in a book or video store where items are arranged electronically.
For Labyrinth, it can fit into a few different genres. It could be considered a children's movie, because it has muppets and fantasy. It could be considered fantasy, because it has trolls and such. It could be considered sci-fi, because many stores put fantasy in sci-fi.
Pride and Prejudice DVDs can occur in a few different places. Drama, romance, TV miniseries, BBC productions... what have you. The book itself can appear in romance or general fiction, though it most often gets placed in some classics section.
But these easy ambiguities are only a small shadow of the more difficult ones that come when considering a book, not for where it appears in the bookstore, but for how we might describe it.
To start with a familiar example, the Harry Potter series is certainly intended to appeal to children, so they might be called children's books. At least in the earlier books, the reading level and other aspects, including the ages of the characters, maintain that. However, it also has very potent roots in modern fantasy and mythology, drawing ideas of wizards and witches that are already apparent in Earthsea and other novels, centaurs and other magical creatures from various mythologies (and some fantasy like Narnia), and dragons from both. It is also a Bildungsroman depicting the growth of a boy into a man. It could be considered an educational treatise from the way Hogwarts is depicted, a satire of real world politics in a world of magic, a travelogue in an imaginary world, a journey of friendship, or any number of other things. Not all of them have to be genres or are typically considered as such, and alone, they carry nothing of what Harry Potter actually is. But like any body, where marrow in the skeletal system produces cells for a circulatory system run by a muscular pump, they are an interconnected part. And so while for brevity one might pick the most prevalent genre to describe the book as a children's book or fantasy book, it is difficult to pick between one, the other, or any other, for prime descriptive value.
But it is occasionally because we do so anyway, trying to describe something with the greatest efficiency with a limited vocabulary and capacity to articulate thoughts, that we sometimes come out with such travesties as making an introduction to a book sound pretentious when it is coy, vain when it is witty, and so on.
I was walking through Best Buy tonight (alone, since Leslie's working), and I was looking for a particular DVD, Labyrinth. But I was flummoxed for a moment about what place to look for it. Once I thought about it a bit, it was easier to guess (ah, sci-fi). But the better I know a particular movie or book, the tougher it is for me to place it in only one genre. At first, genre will mean those different sections in a book or video store where items are arranged electronically.
For Labyrinth, it can fit into a few different genres. It could be considered a children's movie, because it has muppets and fantasy. It could be considered fantasy, because it has trolls and such. It could be considered sci-fi, because many stores put fantasy in sci-fi.
Pride and Prejudice DVDs can occur in a few different places. Drama, romance, TV miniseries, BBC productions... what have you. The book itself can appear in romance or general fiction, though it most often gets placed in some classics section.
But these easy ambiguities are only a small shadow of the more difficult ones that come when considering a book, not for where it appears in the bookstore, but for how we might describe it.
To start with a familiar example, the Harry Potter series is certainly intended to appeal to children, so they might be called children's books. At least in the earlier books, the reading level and other aspects, including the ages of the characters, maintain that. However, it also has very potent roots in modern fantasy and mythology, drawing ideas of wizards and witches that are already apparent in Earthsea and other novels, centaurs and other magical creatures from various mythologies (and some fantasy like Narnia), and dragons from both. It is also a Bildungsroman depicting the growth of a boy into a man. It could be considered an educational treatise from the way Hogwarts is depicted, a satire of real world politics in a world of magic, a travelogue in an imaginary world, a journey of friendship, or any number of other things. Not all of them have to be genres or are typically considered as such, and alone, they carry nothing of what Harry Potter actually is. But like any body, where marrow in the skeletal system produces cells for a circulatory system run by a muscular pump, they are an interconnected part. And so while for brevity one might pick the most prevalent genre to describe the book as a children's book or fantasy book, it is difficult to pick between one, the other, or any other, for prime descriptive value.
But it is occasionally because we do so anyway, trying to describe something with the greatest efficiency with a limited vocabulary and capacity to articulate thoughts, that we sometimes come out with such travesties as making an introduction to a book sound pretentious when it is coy, vain when it is witty, and so on.
Jun 5, 2008
"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Scott and Dad are watching it right now. I love all of the actors... Whether it's Mandy Patinkin, or Andre the Giant, who said before he died that he was never happier than when he was doing that movie.
Let me tell you a story. There is this site online which has targetted advertising based on your profile. (Oh, you can probably already tell it's Facebook.) When it sees in Leslie's profile that she is engaged, it targets her relentlessly with wedding ads, some innocuous, and some horrendously prejudiced.
When it sees that I'm engaged, it only offers up one wedding advertisement, for men's wedding bands. What other advertisements does it offer? View my odyssey between two instances of an advertisement:
Wedding band
Baseball
Healthcare
Arrested Development Tees
Indiana Jones T-shirts
Free Online Game (based on the "true story of Alice in Wonderland")
Make money for surveys
Big Beautiful Women
Beer
Political thing
College loans
T-shirts
Baseball
Shoes
Firefighters
Wedding band
So you see a few trends. First, most of them have nothing to do with weddings at all. And at least one of them has something that would to all perceptions be contrary to my being engaged, would it not?
Hmmm, I say, hmm. Because a woman is supposedly wedding-crazy, or because I have no concern whatsoever for wedding planning, such a discrepancy in advertising is generated. Are they reacting somewhat to some statistical tendency? Perhaps. Are they also perpetuating it and aggravating people in the process? Probably also true.
Do I ultimately think it a bad thing? Somewhat. In what way? Well... I've been leery of socialization through advertising for a while now. It's fine when parents do it, when school does it, when other kids do it, even when they aren't the desired influences, because they're local, and can be accounted for. How can one account for advertising, whose prime motive is not to make you function in society, or to make you happy, but to make money. That motive isn't evil in itself, but it can be blind. If negative gender oppositions are harmful, then how is playing with them to make a sale good? (I look in your direction, "Bridezilla"... yes, it's a show.) In this case, where Facebook's advertising is creating a standard whereby engaged women are constantly reminded of what their duty is (to the wedding), and engaged men are free to peruse big beautiful women while playing MMORPGs and wearing t-shirts and shoes for their favorite baseball team ... no wonder I'm a little leery.
Let me tell you a story. There is this site online which has targetted advertising based on your profile. (Oh, you can probably already tell it's Facebook.) When it sees in Leslie's profile that she is engaged, it targets her relentlessly with wedding ads, some innocuous, and some horrendously prejudiced.
When it sees that I'm engaged, it only offers up one wedding advertisement, for men's wedding bands. What other advertisements does it offer? View my odyssey between two instances of an advertisement:
Wedding band
Baseball
Healthcare
Arrested Development Tees
Indiana Jones T-shirts
Free Online Game (based on the "true story of Alice in Wonderland")
Make money for surveys
Big Beautiful Women
Beer
Political thing
College loans
T-shirts
Baseball
Shoes
Firefighters
Wedding band
So you see a few trends. First, most of them have nothing to do with weddings at all. And at least one of them has something that would to all perceptions be contrary to my being engaged, would it not?
Hmmm, I say, hmm. Because a woman is supposedly wedding-crazy, or because I have no concern whatsoever for wedding planning, such a discrepancy in advertising is generated. Are they reacting somewhat to some statistical tendency? Perhaps. Are they also perpetuating it and aggravating people in the process? Probably also true.
Do I ultimately think it a bad thing? Somewhat. In what way? Well... I've been leery of socialization through advertising for a while now. It's fine when parents do it, when school does it, when other kids do it, even when they aren't the desired influences, because they're local, and can be accounted for. How can one account for advertising, whose prime motive is not to make you function in society, or to make you happy, but to make money. That motive isn't evil in itself, but it can be blind. If negative gender oppositions are harmful, then how is playing with them to make a sale good? (I look in your direction, "Bridezilla"... yes, it's a show.) In this case, where Facebook's advertising is creating a standard whereby engaged women are constantly reminded of what their duty is (to the wedding), and engaged men are free to peruse big beautiful women while playing MMORPGs and wearing t-shirts and shoes for their favorite baseball team ... no wonder I'm a little leery.
Jun 3, 2008
Dear Atlanta Braves,
Hey, what's up? Yeah, Jeff Francoeur, how's it going? Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Yunel Escobar, Mark Teixeira, all you others, yeah, doing good?
I just have a few observations to make.
First, Chipper Jones, your bat is on fire. You're averaging over .400, .413 to be exact. After two months of play. That is extremely difficult, and I have to tip my hat to you. In a level of play where the pitchers are tricky, the fielders are fast, and ... well, you know the other considerations better than I do, because you trump them.
Second, why are you guys always losing away games? You do fine at home. I forget the statistic of how many you've lost away, but it's ridiculous. If you even won a third of the away games, you'd probably be leading the league.
Third, and the real reason why I write, what the heck was up with the game last night? It was a home game, which is of course why you won, but you made it very close. In the ninth inning, when you only needed two outs to win, there were two seperate plays where gloves failed to come up with balls, and runners got around the bases more. Maybe Smoltz should've struck them out, the way you outfielders were playing.*
And then at the bottom of the ninth, Jeff Francoeur steals home when the catcher loses the ball. And in the tenth, a man is hit in, and the game is over. Those were two good plays that wouldn't have happened if someone hadn't made a mistake, but... sometimes those plays don't happen. So good work, all of that. Try not to make the errors, and win them as terrifically as that if you happen to.
Best wishes,
Doctor Professor
*I used to be an outfielder, so I know a lot about making mistakes out there. Poor guys. >_<
I just have a few observations to make.
First, Chipper Jones, your bat is on fire. You're averaging over .400, .413 to be exact. After two months of play. That is extremely difficult, and I have to tip my hat to you. In a level of play where the pitchers are tricky, the fielders are fast, and ... well, you know the other considerations better than I do, because you trump them.
Second, why are you guys always losing away games? You do fine at home. I forget the statistic of how many you've lost away, but it's ridiculous. If you even won a third of the away games, you'd probably be leading the league.
Third, and the real reason why I write, what the heck was up with the game last night? It was a home game, which is of course why you won, but you made it very close. In the ninth inning, when you only needed two outs to win, there were two seperate plays where gloves failed to come up with balls, and runners got around the bases more. Maybe Smoltz should've struck them out, the way you outfielders were playing.*
And then at the bottom of the ninth, Jeff Francoeur steals home when the catcher loses the ball. And in the tenth, a man is hit in, and the game is over. Those were two good plays that wouldn't have happened if someone hadn't made a mistake, but... sometimes those plays don't happen. So good work, all of that. Try not to make the errors, and win them as terrifically as that if you happen to.
Best wishes,
Doctor Professor
*I used to be an outfielder, so I know a lot about making mistakes out there. Poor guys. >_<
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