Kumoricon 2008 Sunday Cosplay

These were some of my favorite pictures from Sunday at Kumoricon. My full article about the convention will be up at JLHLS in a few days.

More photos:

• Kumoricon 2008 Saturday cosplay
  
• Kumoricon 2008 Sunday cosplay

Kumoricon 2008 Saturday Cosplay

Today I went to Kumoricon 2008. I attended a panel called "Shakespeare and Anime," and another panel called "L vs. Kira" that organized a debate about the two Death Note characters.

As usual, my full article about the convention will be up at JLHLS in a few days.

Update - more photos:

• Kumoricon 2008 Saturday cosplay
  
• Kumoricon 2008 Sunday cosplay
  

Cape Kiwanda Longboard Surfing Contest

I went to watch the longboard surfing competition at Cape Kiwanda today. The conditions were not ideal, with high winds and fairly small waves, but the surfers still put on a very entertaining show.

See more photos of this event in my Flickr set.

Wipeout

A surfer wipes out at Cape Kiwanda, Oregon. What I love about this is how relaxed the surfer looks through the wipeout. Sort of like, "may as well enjoy this!" This could be one of those motivational posters, with a title like "Accepting the Inevitable."

Skateboarding Terwilliger To Tram

(Photo by davidgreystahl - Creative Commons)

On July 12, I completed a skateboarding adventure that I had been thinking about, daydreaming about, talking about, and planning for more than a year. It was a complete success and I really enjoyed it. Before I tell you about it though, I have to put in a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: This story is absolutely not a recommendation for anyone else to try what is described here. The activity described below is extremely dangerous and -- as the saying goes -- may result in serious injury or death. Skateboarding on the street is legal in the city of Portland. If you are an experienced skateboarder and feel comfortable skating down Mt. Tabor, this route would probably work for you. On the other hand, if you are more like, "Mt. Tabor, what's that?" then this route is not for you. Wearing protective gear is a must on a route like this. I wore a helmet, knee and elbow pads, and wrist guards.

I should point out that I'm no Tony Hawk, and the closest I ever get to doing amazing skateboard tricks is in video games. I'm also not a high-speed downhill rider. I like to carve turns and always be at a speed where I feel comfortable and I can quickly stop if needed. But I do like to do "adventure rides" on the street.

Last summer I had been doing a lot of street skateboarding around Portland. My favorite run was to skate the back roads down from the Zoo to Goose Hollow, then take the MAX train back up to the Zoo, almost like using the MAX as a ski lift. So I started to wonder if it would be possible to do the same thing using the Portland Aerial Tram as the "lift" instead of the MAX. I asked around a few skateboard shops to see if anyone had heard of this being done before. The reactions I got were always either, "no, that's nuts!" or "no, but hmm, that's kind of a good idea."

(Photo by Greg_e - Creative Commons)

I scouted the route by bicycling before attempting it on a skateboard. Then I did various shorter sections of the route separately before trying to link it all up.



View Larger Map

My basic plan was to skate down Terwilliger Boulevard into downtown, then from downtown skate to the waterfront, then along the waterfront, connect to Moody Ave, then to the lower station of the Portland Aerial Tram, then ride the tram back up to OHSU and skate down Terwilliger again. I started early in the morning on a Saturday, in order to minimize the number of cars that would be around.


View Larger Map

I started at the intersection of SW Terwilliger and SW Capitol Hwy. I walked up the jogging trail to the parking lot across from Westood Drive. Then it was time to put on my pads and helmet and start skateboarding in the street. It was going to be almost all downhill for several miles from here. My skateboard for this run was the Arbor Hybrid longboard, completely stock.

One nice aspect to Terwilliger is that there is a bike lane the whole way. So there is always room to move into the bike lane and let cars go past.

I wanted to skate in the street or bike lane the whole way. So this trip did not involve skating in the jogging path, that would be bad for several reasons: because it would annoy joggers and walkers, and because it is not really wide enough to carve good turns.

(Photo by Major Clanger - Creative Commons)

The route is almost all downhill, though there is a short uphill section near Hamilton Street, where I got off and walked up the jogging path until I got to the top of the hill again. The last section of Terwilliger from Campus Drive until SW Sheridan is probably the most fun. The hill right before Terwilliger intersects Sam Jackson Park road is a bit steep, so I had to do a lot of foot braking here. By the time I got to the Lilac Garden area, my legs were pretty tired. This is quite a long continuous downhill.

Once Terwilliger turns into 6th Avenue, the downhill cruising part of the ride is over and the ride becomes a downtown adventure. Riding on the streets downtown is fun, but the streetcar tracks are a hazard, and of course there are more cars coming from more different directions. Going down 6th I could keep up with the car traffic because of the low speed limits and the need to stop for so many red lights. 6th and Jackson is tricky because of cars coming in from the freeway off-ramp. There were one or two blocks here where I got off and walked, because the road construction made it impossible to have enough margin of safety if a car tried to pass me. I turned right on SW Market St and headed down the hill. Most of the time traffic was very light so I skated this, but here again there were one or two places when there was traffic coming in all lanes, and it made more sense to walk for a block or two instead of risking disaster.

When I got to Naito Parkway I crossed at the crosswalk, skated down to the waterfront, and turned right onto the wide multi-use path. This was all low speed flat pushing. From the path I turned up to River Parkway and then south on SW Moody Ave, back to skating on the street and bike lane again. The skate down Moody to the tram is very nice, most of it is very slightly down hill. The total distance from where I started at the top of Terwilliger all the way to the tram station is about 4.36 miles, almost all of it downhill or flat!

By the time I got to the tram, it was about 8:45 am, so I had to wait until 9am for the tram to make its first run (because this was a Saturday). After riding the tram to the top, I walked through the OHSU building, bought some coffee at the shop near the back, then went out the back door to walk down to Terwilliger along SW Campus Drive and take in the view.

This section (above Terwilliger) should be walked and not skated, for many reasons. First, I believe this section is private property, so skating may not be allowed there. Second, it is much too dangerous to skate there anyway. It is very steep with no bike lane, sharp turns, bus traffic, and cars pulling in and out of parking lots. The chances of disaster are too high to make this worth it. It's a great little walk though, with amazing views of the city.

Once I got back to Terwilliger, I had closed the loop. I repeated the lower part of the route as far as Naito Parkway and then got on a bus home. I had finished my dream route without injury.

HD Quote of the Week

Me: Wow, I haven't seen this show in HD before. It looks good. She looks good!

Her: You already knew she was pretty.

Me: Yeah, I knew she was pretty, but I didn't know she was "HD pretty!"

Ghost Streets

Lately I have seen a noticeable decrease in car traffic on some of the streets around SW Portland. People seem to be changing their habits due to high gas prices. In some ways it is nice to see the streets a bit emptier: it makes it that much more pleasant for me to bicycle and skateboard. But there is also something eerie about it. It reminds me of going out on the streets during the Super Bowl or some other occasion where most people aren't out driving much. It feels like the beginning of a very slow transition into a weird kind of ghost town where the buildings are still inhabited but the streets are empty.

Cuteness Gap Widens

(Photo by jonrawlinson - Creative Commons)

At the start of 2008, the cutest 1% of Americans had 39% of the total cuteness. This represents a substantial jump from 1998, when their share was only 22%. Kitten futures, traditionally a leading indicator of the cuteness economy, have spiked in recent months, though some economists blame this on international speculators.

But things are tough at the bottom: after inflation is taken into account, the bottom 25% of Americans are actually less cute than they were ten years ago. Some could have flirted their way out of a speeding ticket in the past, but now struggle to get strangers to make eye contact. Others only manage to get by with the help of federal assistance, such as the Cute Stamps program. Some drop in cuteness might be expected with an aging population, but this does not explain the phenomenal gains at the top. Cuteness inequality is rising, with no end in sight.

We risk becoming a two-tier society, where masses of barely-cute and plain citizens are reduced to begging for attention, while the mega-cute become so appealing that they can essentially get away with anything.

The New Guy

Today I went to a Walgreen's drug store to buy some razor blades. When I walked up to the counter, the guy working there looked at me with a shocked and horrified expression for a second, then he recovered and said, "oh man, you scared me, I thought for a minute that you were a new employee." I didn't understand what he was talking about at first. Then I realized that I happened to be wearing a blue shirt that was the exact same color as the employee uniforms. He thought at first I was some new employee he hadn't met yet.

The Cheese Tech Inversion

Price of a cheap DVD player: $24.99

Price of a pound of blue cheese: $36.00

Good thing gadgets aren't made out of cheese!

Quotes

Overheard at New Seasons: "But Whole Foods ice uses instant water."

Me at New Seasons: "Are there any of these cheeses that we should buy for investment purposes?"

Overheard at the L.A. airport men's restroom, some guy talking on a cell phone: "Tucson, this is Monkey Butt. Call me back. Bye."

My new T-Shirt

The Essential
by ironmonkey
Get this custom shirt
at Zazzle

I created this T-Shirt from a photo I took of one of my favorite road signs. The text says:

"The essential is to excite the spectators." - Orson Welles

The Interview

Bob: "So you got new, expensive, fancy shoes. Where are you going to wear them? I mean, I guess you could wear them to an interview for . . . what would you be interviewing for?"

Me: "Galactic Pimp Daddy?"

Quote of the day

[On the way in to the theater to see a play, we pass a sign that says something like, "Warning: tonight's play contains adult themes, sexual situations, and nudity."]

My mom: "Well, as long as there's nudity, I'll see it."

Chair Zoo

"Chair Zoo" is my description for a certain way of decorating a room, where the apparent objective was to fit in as many chairs as possible. Often many different types of chairs are used, adding to the menagerie effect.

It can be awkward to walk through a chair zoo because not enough space remains for comfortable traffic patterns through the room. I like having open space, and I like a room where there is enough space to lie down on the floor and make the "snow angel" motion without hitting anything. My house still has too many chairs, though, and I'm about to get rid of at least one.

Creators of chair zoos often argue that chair zoos are practical because at any moment a huge number of guests could arrive, and they would all need somewhere to sit. But I've found that at parties, most people do not sit anyway. They stand, wander around, and mingle. So the best rooms for parties are ones with a generous amount of unobstructed floor space.

The Cost of Energy

With high oil prices in the news, a certain talking point has gained traction, and it goes something like this: "When conventional energy prices get high enough, it will make alternative energy sources economically viable." This argument astounds me, because it is both literally true and at the same time not very helpful. It is bad news made to sound good. It is much like saying that once the price of a glass of water reaches $100, drinking a glass of Dom Perignon champagne instead will be economically competitive. That's great, except that most of us won't be able to afford either one.

What this talking point really means is, "in the future you might have a choice between expensive alternative energy and expensive conventional energy." That may be good news for the environment (if it results in less pollution and other undesirable side effects), but it is certainly not good economic news.

Sumo with Effects

Sumo, the way it was meant to be seen?

Tiltan's Tale

One misty morning, a clever young bookbinder named Tiltan Stumbledown prowled through the forest hunting for mushrooms, only to encounter the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen, trapped within a dome of shimmering magical energy. She waved at him, or maybe at something behind him. He stepped forward for a closer look.

"At last, someone has come," she said. "I am Aliarru, and you must rescue me!"

Tiltan approached the roiling barrier and sniffed it. Its bright purple color and aroma of fresh-baked bread told him it was Yi-yi Ka'tun, one of the most expensive imported brands of magical energy, worlds apart from the crap produced locally. With cheap local materials, he thought, a magic barrier would disintegrate in the first stiff breeze, or simply collapse from the shame of its inferior workmanship. But this, well, you could really stub your toe on this, couldn't you? Tiltan pictured a large black bear, charging at the barrier in deadly fury and then bouncing back off, and he thought about how hilarious that would look.

A pounding came from within. "Hey! Aren't you going to ask me how I got here, and how to get me out?"

"The first part has something to do with a wizard with a lot of money," Tiltan ventured, "and perhaps some sort of . . . breach of contract? I'm still working on the second part." He glanced around.

"No," she said, "you don't understand! The only weapon that can shatter this barrier, the Three-edged Sword of Meddling, lies far away in Spiral Cave, a place of great peril." Aliarru sighed. "Peril," she said, rubbing her shoulder with one hand. "Peril."

"You keep saying peril," said Tiltan.

"I like the sound of it."

"Oh. I bet you do. Anyway, go on." Tiltan picked up a rounded rock, considered it, then dropped it again.

"You'll have to descend to the bottom of Spiral Cave, where the sword is guarded by a vicious . . ."

"Dragon," said Tiltan, nodding.

"No, what's wrong with you? You believe in dragons?" Aliarru grimaced. "It's a Giant Frog!"

Tiltan chuckled and made frog noises. He picked up a flat, medium-sized rock and looked quite pleased with it.

Aliarru stomped one foot. "Don't take it lightly, it's extremely poisonous! If it even touches you at all, you are completely screwed, alright? First coughing fits, then mild hallucinations and difficulty operating machinery, then headache, then paralysis, coma and death. It is real peril. I mean true, all out, no-limits peril."

"That does sound p- . . . does sound like a nasty beast. This 'Giant Frog' is what, 20 feet tall? 30?"

"You're high right now, aren't you? I knew it. What's the biggest frog you've ever seen?"

Tiltan shrugged and put his hands about a froglength apart.

"Right," said Aliarru patiently. "So it's called a Giant Frog because it's giant for a frog. Like jumbo shrimp, or a giant clam, or an extra large hoodie. It's a frog up to two feet long."

In Tiltan's opinion, a 30-foot frog would have been somewhat more awe-inspiring, and he said so as politely as possible.

"Think about it," she said, "how would a 30-foot frog even get in there? Do you think Spiral Cave is over 30 feet in diameter the whole way? Haven't you ever gone caving?" In fact, Tiltan had indeed gone caving, and part of him suspected that a 30-foot frog could have entered whilst still small and then grown, like those obese people you sometimes hear about who no longer fit through their own front doors. But he chose not to make an issue of it.

Aliarru caught him smiling at the flat rock again, and she made a little snorting sound. She reminded him that no mere rock could shatter the barrier, that only the Three-Edged Sword of Meddling could do so. She explained that though the giant frog was the final guardian, reaching Spiral Cave was no easy task. As she listed out each segment of the journey and its many dangers, Tiltan put down the flat rock and picked up a stick. He walked around and around the barrier and examined it from all angles.

". . . climb up the waterfall and turn left at the twin pillars," she was saying. "Then enter the Swamp of Sorrows to find the amulet in a silver chest."

"Uh huh," said Tiltan. He leaned on the stick for a while.

"Are you paying attention?"

Tiltan nodded.

"What did I just say then? Repeat it back," she said.

Tiltan twirled the stick. "Something something swamp, something something breast."

"Chest!"

"Same thing."

"No it's not! You're not even listening!"

"Look," said Tiltan, "how do you happen to know all this? I mean, what are the odds that you'd know about the one thing that can destroy this barrier, and where to find it, and everything?" Aliarru replied that it was no coincidence, because she had learned these things on good authority from the wizard himself, remember him? The expert on the barrier because he created it?

"So some guy imprisons you, but then he turns around and gives you detailed, step-by-step instructions about what it would take to get out? That seems unlikely. He was just messing with you. Or it's a trap."

"Obviously he was taunting me with the solution, knowing I couldn't use it."

Tiltan looked thoughtful. "That's not a very good taunt, it's more of a clue, or a spoiler. A taunt would be more like: ooooh, look at this delicious cake just outside the barrier, bet ya'd like a taste of that, wouldn' ya?"

"He made a mistake in the heat of the moment," said Aliarru. "It's one of those character flaws. You need to go to Spiral Cave and get the Three-edged Sword of Meddling."

"Does it really have three edges?"

"It really has five, they just didn't want to brag."

"Seriously?"

Aliarru giggled for a long time, and finally said, "no, it's just a mistranslation."

"How many edges does it really have?"

"Zero." She winked at him. "OK, one. I mean it this time, it really has just one edge, and you really have to go and fetch it. Will you?"

"I have a much better idea." He leaned on the stick hard enough to push it into the ground, then laughed and grasped the flat rock again.

Aliarru tensed. "A rock can't shatter the barrier. Say it with me, a rock can't shatter the barrier. It's rated best in its class for rock-proof-ness."

"The barrier only goes down to ground level," said Tiltan. "We dig under, then you crawl out." He began to dig near the barrier using the flat rock.

"What? Dig? That won't . . . you're wasting your time."

After a short while of digging, Tiltan had moved enough dirt to create a roughly Aliarru-sized opening beneath the barrier. She wriggled through it, stood up, and brushed herself off. "Thanks," she said, and started to walk away.

"I imagined you'd be happier to be rescued," said Tiltan. "Happier, more impressed by my cleverness, more grateful, those sorts of things."

Aliarru stopped. "You didn't even try to get the sword. You didn't even make an effort. You just dug a hole."

"If I were on my way to Spiral Cave now," Tiltan said, "you'd still be trapped in that dome. I could be gone for days or weeks, and in the end maybe the frog would poison me after all. This way was quicker and much more reliable."

"Anyone can dig a hole. I could have dug myself out."

"Yes, but you didn't think of it! Most people wouldn't think of it. It's an elegant solution."

"Are you saying I'm not smart?"

"No, no, nothing like that. Just . . . most people wouldn't think of it, that's all."

"It's kind of obvious, actually," she said.

"It's only obvious now because you already know about it."

"I would have thought of it eventually."

"Eventually? You mean after the frog killed me and you had to go to Plan B?"

"No, if you had tried you would have triumphed and gotten the sword, I know it. Probably."

"Wouldn't you rather be free right now than eventually?"

"Of course. I said thanks." She started to walk off again.

"Wait, I just want to ask you one thing. If I had done all that business, and killed the frog, and gotten the sword, and come back and shattered the barrier, then would you have been impressed?"

Aliarru nodded. "In that case, yes, I guess so."

"So even though you got exactly what you wanted you're not impressed, but if only I'd used a worse solution that took much longer and had a high risk of failure, then you would be?"

"I guess so."

"Why?"

"Because anyone can dig a hole."

And so it was that Tiltan learned an important lesson. A valuable act can create a hero, but only if it is also very inconvenient.

Sakura-Con Report

I just posted my full Sakura-Con Report, with even more photos than the ones below, at JLHLS.

The Slants, at Sakuracon 2008

The Slants -- a band from my own home town of Portland, Oregon -- performed at Sakuracon in Seattle. I'll have more to say about the concerts, and the convention in general, later on JLHLS. These are just some photos to tide you over while I get my article organized.



One thing I noticed was that their recorded material sounds like retro-80's synth pop, in fact it reminds me of Duran Duran. But their live show has much more of a hard rock sound.

Update: read my full Sakura-Con Report

Sakuracon 2008 Dance, Part 1

Here are some photos from the rave dance on Saturday night at Sakuracon 2008. I will post more dance images here later.

Also look for my full convention report, coming soon at JLHLS.

I like how the photo above turned out, it looks like a ghost materializing, or someone being teleported in, or maybe like an apparition coming from the mind of the girl sitting on the floor.

This (above) is the guy with the big blue glow bar.

I like the way the same dancer is in this photo twice, on the left and the right side.

I think the other JLHLS photographer got better pictures of this dancer, but I like how the laser beam appears in this one, as if she is holding it.

Update: read my full Sakura-Con Report

Quote of the Day

TV Advertisement: "Some nights, it takes more than a pillow to fall asleep."

My girlfriend: "Yeah, it takes a hammer!"

Sakuracon 2008 Cosplay, Part 1

I went to Sakuracon in Seattle this past weekend, to cover the convention for JLHLS. Here are a few cosplay photos. Look for my full convention report at JLHLS soon. The cosplayers above are dresed as characters from the Soul Calibur video game. They had great costumes and poses.



The costume in the photo above looked amazing. I've seen professional costumes from movies that did not look this good.


I have a lot more photos that I will post later, including concert photos and pictures from the rave.

See also:

• my Sakuracon Xianghua Set at Flickr
• my Sakuracon Cosplay Set at Flickr
• The Slants at Sakuracon
• Dance at Sakuracon

Update: read my full Sakura-Con Report

Get A Grip

Some people seem to be having trouble grasping the credit crisis:

"But the overwhelming majority of homeowners are doing just fine. So how is it that a mess concentrated in one part of the mortgage business — subprime loans — has frozen the credit markets, sent stock markets gyrating, caused the collapse of Bear Stearns, left the economy on the brink of the worst recession in a generation and forced the Federal Reserve to take its boldest action since the Depression?" -- The New York Times

Look at it this way. The overwhelming majority of football players are doing just fine. So how is it that a late score in one football game could ruin so many problem gamblers?

A bad bet on a football game can cost you much more than the price of the ball.

A lot of the money in the economy is riding on bets. They're complicated bets that a lot of people don't understand, but in simple terms, they're just bets.

That shouldn't be so hard to understand.

Pink Unicorn Cocktail

Tonight I invented a new cocktail that I think is one of my best yet: the Pink Unicorn.

Pink Unicorn recipe:

• 1 part coconut juice
• 2 parts Absolut Mandrin vodka
  
• 4 parts watermelon juice
• add a bit of fresh grated Meyer lemon zest
• stir and serve over ice

This drink is delicious, its only possible drawback is that the ingredients and the name are somewhat girly. So I also created a much more masculine, heroic version, called the Pink Unicorn With A Rocket Launcher. The recipe is the same, except add two dashes of bitters.

Oblivion Sigil Stone Mad Dash

I've been playing Oblivion lately, and you have to close Oblivion Gates by getting to the top of these big towers and reaching the Sigil Stone at the top. Up until recently, I had been doing this the obvious way, by fighting my way through each room and level, then healing and repairing my weapons and moving on to the next, until I finally reached the top.

But then I realized something that should have been obvious. All you have to do to close the gate is get that stone at the top, nothing says you actually have to fight anyone! If you're fast enough, you can make a mad dash to the top, dodging and running from all the enemies until you finally tag the stone. They will chase you but they may not catch you. Sometimes you have to jump to get past enemies so they don't block your way, so Acrobatics helps. Athletics and speed enhancements are useful, and some healing potions are also helpful for when an enemy gets in a lucky hit as you swoop past.

You don't get any treasure or skill points on the way if you do this, and it isn't very heroic, but it is super funny, which is reason enough to do it at least once. It's the "Run, Forrest, Run!" strategy for closing a gate.

Bank Invents Time Machine For Losses

The New York Times reports that French bank Société Générale has put their 6.4 billion euro losses behind them, so to speak, by claiming that they occurred in 2007:

In moving the loss from 2008 — when it actually occurred — to 2007, Société Générale has created a furor in accounting circles and raised questions about whether international accounting standards can be consistently applied in the many countries around the world that are converting to the standards. -- The New York Times, March 7, 2008

In related news, though I lost money playing video poker last week, I am revising my statements to show that the events occurred when I was a small boy, and the experience helped
me get through the second grade. Once I perfect the technique, I plan to send my losses even further into the past, so that my distant ancestors can pay them off in goats and stone knives.

Expensive Placebos Are Better

Science Daily reports that expensive placebos work better than cheap ones:

Half the participants were given a brochure describing the pill as a newly-approved pain-killer which cost $2.50 per dose and half were given a brochure describing it as marked down to 10 cents, without saying why.

In the full-price group, 85 percent of subjects experienced a reduction in pain after taking the placebo. In the low-price group, 61 percent said the pain was less.

That settles it. From now on, I'm only using the most expensive, designer brand placebos. None of those cheap ones for me, only the best.

Also, wine tastes better when it costs more, even when it is the exact same wine:

The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines. [. . .] When subjects were told they were getting a more expensive wine, they observed more activity in a part of the brain known to be involved in our experience of pleasure.

So here's my plan. When I'm at a restaurant, I'll order a bottle of wine, then ask the waiter, "could you please charge me $10 more for it? I want it to taste a little better than normal."

World's Widest Border?

I recently heard about someone's theory that terrorists who "had been in Iraq" then "slipped across the border into Afghanistan." That would have been quite an amazing magic trick, possibly involving that teleportation gun from the video game Portal, since the two countries do not share a border.

A Piece of Rock

I've been pricing kitchen upgrades as part of planning some remodeling. You know what blows my mind? The price of granite countertops. I mean, it's a piece of rock. How can a piece of rock wind up costing more than a plasma TV? More than a computer? More than a pretty nice mountain bike?

It's a piece of frakkin' rock! It's not like it has internet access. It's not like it has complex moving parts. It's not like it has . . . parts. It has a part. It's a rock. A big rock. It's not even carved into something interesting, like the heads at Easter Island, or Michelangelo's David. It's a rectangle. I mean, a really expensive rectangle of rock is just one step above a really expensive dandelion.

Someday, someone will ask me, "Tom, just out of curiosity, what is the most expensive thing in your house?" And I'll have to say, "My bionic appendix, of course!" No, even worse, I'll have to say, "it's that slab of rock in the kitchen." Ugh. No, I won't be able to do it. I'll have to lie. I'll say "it's my genetically-engineered cat, a perfect replica of a cat from 100 million years ago that sat on the beach and ate pterodactyls." And they'll say, "Of course, I thought it had a funny look in its eye."

Explaining

A feature that is very hard to explain can be worse than a bug. At least with a bug, you can fix it and it will go away. But a confusing feature will keep confusing users forever, and you will keep having to explain it over and over again.

Their Purpose

Me: [Talks about seahorses]

Friend: I don't get it. I mean, what do seahorses do? What is their purpose?

Me: Well, what is our purpose?

Friend: To destroy the Earth.

A Message Back In Time

Recently I saw a thread about what you would say if you could send a message back in time to yourself, 20 years in the past. For me, I would say something like this to myself 20 years ago:

• Oddly, many of the bands you hear on the radio now will still have fans and still be touring 20 years from now
• Oddly, many of the video games you are playing now will still have fans and still be played 20 years in the future
  
• If this message cannot change the course of history, you will get in a bad motorcycle accident. But don't worry, you'll recover. In the long run, it won't be that bad.
  
• On the other hand, if this message can change the course of history . . . slow down and veer left :-)
• Computers get much faster and more powerful, as you might expect, but they do not get any less frustrating. In some ways they seem slower.
  
• Nothing truly disastrous happens to you in the next 20 years, so stop worrying.

Qualities

I posed a question to my brother the other night. Why, I asked, do people so readily admire the qualities of confidence, certainty, decisiveness, and charm in others? These could be good qualities, but they could just as easily be the typical traits of a sociopath. A sociopath is confident and certain because he has a delusional sense of his own superiority; he is decisive because he is impulsive and reckless, and doesn't care about the consequences of his actions; and he is charming because he is a natural liar who tells people whatever they want to hear. So these traits actually ought to be red flags that make us suspicious, certainly not things to instantly admire.

Why then, don't people instead prefer the type of person who says, "I'm not 100% certain, but from the information we have now, it seems like A is our best option. We also need a plan B in case it turns out that was wrong. And let's keep an open mind so that as new information comes in and the situation changes, we can take that into account and improve our understanding."

"Because," my brother replied, "that type of thinking gives most people the heebie-jeebies."

I think that says a lot about our world.

Portrait of a Spam Craver

My father hasn't been receiving spam e-mail lately, and he's not happy about it. I've teased him that he is probably the only person in the world who is upset about not getting enough spam. But he believes that this must indicate a problem with his e-mail, and that if spam is getting "lost" then other more important messages are probably being lost as well. He could be right, but I sent him some messages to test this theory, and they got through just fine.

He has even called tech support about this. "What did you say to them," I asked. "Was it something like, 'What happened to my spam? Give me back my precious spam, you bastards!'"

Apparently it wasn't quite like that. But they had no explanation.

"You've won!" I told him. "The spammers have given up on you and admitted defeat. All these years of resisting their ads have paid off. They've taken you off all the lists for good. You are the first man to achieve complete victory over spam!"

He didn't believe this. He said something about how inconvenient it would be to have to get a new e-mail address. He is actually considering getting a new e-mail address because the current one doesn't get spam.

But seriously, I think if spammers had some way to precisely target only those people most likely to respond to their ads, they would probably do it. They would get the same results with fewer complaints and less action taken against them. Could we be seeing the beginning of that strategy? Have spammers developed a vast A.I. that can figure out which people aren't worth bothering with? Or is my father just The Man That Spam Forgot?

Crackpot Inventor Syndrome

Every once in a while I run across another internet essay by a "Nice Guy" complaining about how "women don't like nice guys, they like jerks." Usually the Nice Guy then goes on to demonstrate his niceness by saying hateful things about women, and explaining his deep insights about how shallow and evil they are.

This really reminds me of the writings of crackpot inventors, who complain about how scientists won't accept the genius of their perpetual-motion machines. Typically the crackpot inventors then take up a second project, namely figuring out "what is wrong with scientists?" They quickly discover the answer: scientists are closed-minded, they are snobs, they are jealous of the superior intellects of crackpot inventors. They are unwilling to let an outsider into their club, and even less willing to let their hard-won knowledge be rendered obsolete by the breakthroughs of the inventors. In the end, really, scientists are insufferable jerks! They don't even deserve the perpetual-motion machine! They're too immature to handle the anti-gravity ray!

Nice Guys complain that they've been "just friends" with a woman for quite a while, but -- amazingly! -- it has not lead to anything "more." This is an odd attitude, because it actually defines friendship as a type of rejection. (Try to wrap your head around that one.) To normal people, friendship is a good thing and valuable for its own sake. But to the Nice Guy, friendship with a woman is something else: it is reserving a place "next in line" to be her boyfriend. To the Nice Guy, friendship is stalking from point-blank range. (I imagine I'd find that twice as horrifying if I were female.)

I'd like to explain to the Nice Guys that they have Crackpot Inventor Syndrome, but I don't think it would work. Nice Guys aren't out trying to understand the reasons why they're wrong. They have created inside their own heads a perfect vision of how the world "ought to work." Just like crackpot inventors.

HD Lord of the Rings

Today TNT HD is showing all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. I'm attempting to watch it all and I'm now about halfway through. It's quite the viewing marathon, but they are pretty spectacular in HD.

Update: I did watch all three movies back-to-back. Wow, with commercials that was really, really, long. I don't really recommend it.

Quote of the Week

"You can make a gamble more attractive by adding a strict loss to it! Isn't psychology fun? This is why no one who truly appreciates the wondrous intricacy of human intelligence wants to design a human-like AI."


-- From Evaluability (And Cheap Holiday Shopping), on Overcoming Bias

Haskell in the Shower

I thought this up while in the shower this morning. I think of the weirdest things in the morning when I'm half-asleep.

   ___         ___ _
  / _ \ /\  /\/ __(_)
 / /_\// /_/ / /  | |      GHC Interactive, version 6.4.1, for Haskell 98.
/ /_\\/ __  / /___| |      http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
\____/\/ /_/\____/|_|      Type :? for help.

Loading package base-1.0 ... linking ... done.
Prelude> :m +List
Prelude List> let primes ns = nubBy d ns where d x y = y `mod` x == 0
Prelude List> primes [2..100]
[2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47,53,59,61,67,71,73,79,83,89,97]

(Of course, this is not an especially good way of finding primes. It is more like a funny use of nubBy.)

Haskell Substring Function

Somewhere out there a programmer is wondering, "Why doesn't Haskell seem to have a substring function? Why is this brave new world of functional programming so harsh and cruel?" (Well, maybe not the second part.) The isInfixOf function in Data.List does what you want. It isn't called "substring" because it also works with other types besides String. (See also isPrefixOf, isSuffixOf.)

I haven't seen this mentioned in Haskell tutorials so I'm posting it here.

Prelude> :m +Data.List
Prelude Data.List> "bc" `isInfixOf` "abcd"
True
Prelude Data.List> "zz" `isInfixOf` "abcd"
False

Cardboard - The Ultimate Camouflage

680 News reports that thieves concealed themselves inside a cardboard box in order to break into businesses at night and steal from them.

Detective Sergeant Reuben Stroble said anyone driving by would see the box and simply assume it was a delivery for the business.

"The concealment, I mean, no one would ever think of someone being inside a box in front of a storefront window in the middle of the night," said Det. Sgt. Stroble.

Video gamers will recognize the cardboard box camouflage as a signature trick from the Metal Gear Solid series of games. When I played those games, I thought that was a silly gimmick that was very unlikely to actually work in the real world. What's next? Will we discover that random barrels and crates really do contain power-ups?

Tales of Garlic

The other day we went to a local grocery store that specializes in international foods, and I got a jar of "Garlic in Oil with Herbs" from Poland. It turned out to be quite good, and so a few times a week I would open up the jar, take out one or two cloves of garlic, and eat it as a snack.

Then a few days ago, I decided to read the label more carefully, to find out the exact ingredients and the nutritional information. I was shocked to discover that according to the label the jar contains 2 servings! Eating half a jar of garlic at one sitting is considered a serving. I can't even imagine doing that.

I Need To Work On My Lip-Reading

The new Bionic Woman TV show has the worst-mixed soundtrack I have ever heard. The latest episode sounds approximately like this:

"BAD MUSIC, whisper, BAD MUSIC, mumble, SOUND EFFECT, whisper, SOUND EFFECT, mumble."

At least 1/4 of the spoken words were too soft in the mix to be understood. It's like the sound engineers decided, "Hey, let's turn down those lines of dialogue because they're drowning out the dumb BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP noise that we worked so hard on."

Planning a What?

When I saw this headline . . .

Christina Aguilera Planning Duet With Aretha Franklin

. . . for a second I thought it said they were planning a duel. Now that would have been exciting! Flintlock pistols at 40 paces, at dawn?

Kumoricon 2007

I covered Kumoricon 2007 for JLHLS again this year. It was my third year at the convention, which was bigger than ever. The costumes were great, and it was a lot of fun.

The Uh-Oh Level

My girlfriend has the habit of saying "uh-oh!" with no further explanation. Often this happens when we are in different rooms, so I can't immediately see what the problem is. So today I told her that from now on after saying "uh-oh" she should say a number between 1 and 10 to indicate the severity of the issue. For example, "uh-oh 1" would mean something like, "uh-oh, I can't decide which pair of shoes to wear." But "uh-oh 10" would mean something like, "uh-oh, the house is on fire, and also some zombies are trying to break down the front door to come in and eat our brains."

We'll see how this works. So far I have gotten an "uh-oh 3" which meant "I can't find my iPhone."

Hollywood Version

Here's a mental game to keep you amused. Next time you're in a boring situation, imagine that instead you're in the Hollywood Version of the same scene. All the people around you are glamorous A-List celebrities. They are exchanging incredibly witty banter that took the screenwriters many drafts to get just right. The surroundings are impeccably designed and perfectly lit. And whatever it is that you are doing is not just some random, boring activity, but it is in fact a "pivotal moment" that fits perfectly into the clever plot and drives it forward.

The more over-the-top you imagine it, the better.

There's something quite funny about doing this exercise. You realize how completely unlike the Hollywood Version the real version is. I'm not sure why that's funny, but it is.

Early Summer Chatter

What To Get

Her: While I'm up, can I get you anything?

Me: Yeah . . . uh . . . a monkey.

Her: Let me rephrase that, can I get you anything that I reasonably could get?

Me: Well . . . um . . you could make us a pot of that "Monkey-Picked Oolong" tea.

Her: Why, because it was touched by a monkey?

Me: It has "monkey" in the name.


Slap Therapy

My brother: Slap me.

Me (suspicious): No.

[Note: if my brother wanted to spar, he would probably say something like "want to do some sparring?" Or if he wanted to try out some particular move, he would say "try to slap me." But just saying "slap me" as if he expected it to succeed made me think he was up to something.]

My brother: Come on, I won't hit you back. Slap me.

Me: No, I don't want to.

My brother, turning to my girlfriend: Slap me.

[She slaps him very lightly, almost a pantomime slap.]

My brother: Not like that, really slap me.

[She really slaps him.]

My brother: See?

Me: I don't understand the point of this.

My girlfriend: Hmm. Slapping him was kind of cathartic!

Me: Hey, you've invented a new type of therapy! You should write a book, and go on Oprah.

An Army

(Photo by Aaron Webb - Creative Commons)

Her: Time to clean the floor.

Me: We really need to have an army of robots for that.

Her: Nah, I'll just use the Swiffer.

Me: An army of robots would be cooler.

Her: Well . . . I guess it would be cooler.

Me: But eventually they'd rebel.

Her: And kill us.

Me: . . .

Her: I'll stick with the Swiffer.

Smart Cars? Why Not Smart Drivers?

From abc.net.au:

'Intelligent' cars fitted with sensors to predict traffic flow can deliver the same fuel efficiency as hybrid vehicles, a new study shows.

[...] 'intelligent' cars are conventional vehicles fitted with sensors and receivers called telematics, which work in a network, swapping information about the traffic ahead.

This traffic information is then relayed to the car to stop the vehicle or slow it down so that the ride is smooth, avoiding the stop-start phenomenon that drains fuel.

[...]

They calculated that a hybrid version of the car would deliver fuel economy of 15-25% over the unconverted vehicle.

But this saving was matched when the benchmark car was fitted with basic telematics that predicted traffic flows as little as seven seconds ahead, as determined by Australian driving conditions. [link]

Wouldn't smarter drivers be just as effective as smarter cars? Wouldn't that be cheaper, too? The only way to get drivers to drive more smoothly is to have a computerized car override their bad decisions? How sad. And if we're going that route, maybe the car should refuse to start at all during peak traffic hours.

It is possible to get better mileage simply by changing driving habits. See Hypermiling.

New WWO blog

I've started a new blog for my WWO posts. Check out MonkeyWithoutOil.

Iron Monkey's Law of the Imagined

We think we enjoy our imagination because it simulates reality, but the truth is that we enjoy reality because it stimulates our imagination.

We May Outlive the Net

[Note: This is a World Without Oil post.]

We may outlive the Internet. To everyone blogging and podcasting about a World Without Oil, I admire your efforts, but I also must ask: what's your Plan B for when the power goes out? This energy crunch will not just be about gasoline and driving. The electrical grid is vulnerable, too.

"In fact, severe power shortages and rolling blackouts will now become a daily occurrence around the country over the next few years, according to NERC, because the antiquated power grid will be continuously stretched beyond its means - mainly a result of electricity deregulation, whereby power is sent hundreds of miles across the grid to consumers by out-of-state power companies instead of being sent directly to consumers by their local utilities, which is what the grid was designed for."(link)

Suppose you have off-grid electricity -- you have solar panels or windpower, or your own backyard wood burning steam engine connected to a generator. Maybe you even have a hand-cranked laptop. Cool! You're still ready to browse the web! But has your ISP made similar preparations? What happens if these disruptions cause them to go out of business? Where will your net access come from then?

So far most people treat the oil shock like it is "the" crisis, but in truth it is only "a" crisis, one of many, and unfortunately it is the one that will multiply all the others. For example, we know consumers feel the shock to their budgets at the gas pump. But some at the same time will face rising mortgage payments from their subprime ARM loans. Maybe they could have handled one of these problems at a time, but not both at the same time.

Here's another one: if the honeybee die-off takes a heavy toll on America's crops, we get the double whammy of reduced supplies of food at the same time as higher costs to transport it. One or the other of those would have been bad enough, but both? The oil shock creates a multiplier effect on other problems.

Finally, what about our aging population? Younger people might be able to use bicycles instead of their cars, and they may well benefit from the extra exercise, but what about senior citizens? Is grandpa, who can barely walk up a flight of stairs, going to suddenly jump on a mountain bike and start pedaling 20 miles a day? I don't think so.

When I say we may outlive the Internet, I realize those are strong words. I do think that in the future there will still be computers -- for those who can afford them, at least -- and some of those computers will still be networked together. I suppose there will still be web pages, too, but there will be far fewer people reading them. The Internet as the powerful social and cultural force that we know today may be dead. Easy, frequent, reliable access to the Internet by huge numbers of people may be a thing of the past.

We will need other tools. And we will need some other form of entertainment, one that does not depend on electricity. Better start building those Thunderdomes.

[Update: July 7, 2008. It appears that there is now some evidence that the food supply is being impacted by the lack of honeybees.]

Sakuracon 2007 article

My Sakuracon 2007 article is up at JLHLS.

Club Sakura 2007

Here are some images from Club Sakura at Sakuracon 2007.



This one (above) was a 15 second time lapse shot.

Sakuracon 2007 Cosplay

Here are a few more preview pictures from my Sakuracon 2007 coverage for JLHLS. Starting with the picture above, I really like it when cosplayers do cool poses like this one. This was not entirely a pose for the camera -- she was already sitting like this before I came over to take the photo.

This handmade samurai-style leather armor was incredible, made from thick leather plates it had a real feeling of substance. It was one of my favorites from the convention. This cosplayer told me he had worked on it for three years, on and off, and he learned how to make it by researching it on the internet.


This costume was made of a cool fluffy material that caught my eye right away. It had a natural look (well, as natural as neon blue can be anyway), like a real animal.

Stay tuned for more, I got a lot of good pictures from the convention, and I am writing an article about it for JLHLS.

Sakuracon 2007

I am in Seattle covering Sakuracon 2007 for JLHLS. I will post some preview images here in advance of my main article. These two cosplayers were having fun, and really getting into character. (They are dressed as Kei and Yuri from Dirty Pair.) I asked them to pose outdoors to get the city lights in the background and they agreed. Moments after I shot this picture it started raining, so our timing worked out well.

The Manliest Purchase

Today I bought a chainsaw to cut up some fallen tree branches in my yard. I did not realize it until today, but apparently a chainsaw is the manliest, most impressive, sexiest thing you can buy. Other customers at the store looked at me in wide-eyed admiration, as if I were buying a jetpack or time machine. One guy told me, "wow, that looks serious!" The girl at the cash register smiled at me and explained that I was welcome to come by her place and help her with her yard.

I swaggered off towards the parking lot, grasping the chainsaw under one arm as if to say, "look, not only do I possess this extremely cool chainsaw, but with my huge muscles I can lift it with one hand as if it were a mere trifle, like a box full of feathers!" People look at you with more respect when you're carrying a chainsaw, even one that is still in the box. I think this must be what buying a Ferrari feels like, only much cheaper.

So I highly recommend buying a chainsaw, it is extremely fun. Buy one even if you don't need it. You can always return it the next day.

I told this story to my brother, and he immediately said I had ruined the effect by not also buying a hockey mask at the same time.

And that brings me to one of my brother's stories about buying things. He once told me that he went to Home Depot to get some caulk, and he couldn't find it, so he wandered around looking for it, getting more and more frustrated. I said, "why didn't you ask someone where it was?"

"Because I didn't want to have to say it," he said.

"Huh?" I thought about this for a bit before I caught his meaning. "Oh, I get it, you didn't want to have to say caulk out loud." I laughed. "That's silly. So what did you do?"

"I thought up another way to ask for it, so I called it that stuff that you use for sealing cracks. And it worked, they knew what I was talking about."

"But don't you think you're being a bit crazy? I mean, caulk is just what it's called. That's what everyone says. You're in a store, so they're not going to think you mean anything else."

"It's just really embarrassing," he said, "to have to tell some stranger that you want the caulk."

Photomanipulations

Lately I've been doing some photomanipulation art using GIMP:

• Geisha Gunslinger
• Wake the Zombies
• Temple Dancer
• The Long Silence
• Guarding the Way

It is fun to find interesting stock photos on deviantART and then think up a way to make them into something more. Wake the Zombies was the trickiest to do, but Geisha Gunslinger is probably my favorite.

Jazz and Abstraction

In a recent post, Dyske Suematsu says that Japanese people like jazz more than Americans do, and this is because Americans are uncomfortable with abstraction, and don't appreciate instrumental music.

Most Americans do not know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience must be filtered through interpretations.

I agree that most Americans are more comfortable with representational art than abstract art, and like pop music with lyrics better than instrumental jazz. But jazz used to be much more popular in America than it is today. What happened? Did Americans have a greater ability to appreciate abstraction in the past? How did they lose it?

Light and Glass

I got the camera out and noticed that the reflection of a ceiling lamp could be lined up with the pattern on the glass of my front door. The camera flash makes the glass sparkle.

Bugs

The Psychology of Security, an article by Bruce Schneier, is worth reading even if you aren't very interested in security, because it lists and explains a lot of mental biases that cause people to think illogically, such as the anchoring effect. (Start at the section called Risk Heuristics if you don't want to read the whole thing.) These biases are kind of like "bugs" in the human "operating system."

To me, the oddest thing about these bugs is that we are usually unaware of them. It is kind of like the tone-deafness that afflicts some of the American Idol contestants, causing them to believe they are good singers even though they are horrible. The problem combines poor performance with inaccurate evaluation of one's own performance. But unlike tone-deafness, the bugs described in Schneier's article seem to affect almost everyone. That is the weird part. Imagine living in a world where 99% of people perceived music the way that the very worst American Idol contestants do. Most people would not notice anything wrong, but a few people would be very annoyed and wear earplugs a lot.

Well, it turns out that we do live in such a world, except musical perception is not the problem. It is the various types of everyday judgements listed in Schneier's article that we all keep getting wrong.