Sunday, February 14, 2010

We Need a Nerdlympics

I love the Olympics. I love the international part and I love the fact that the competitions are quick (races like swimming or speed skating and prancy-dancy things like gymnastics and ice dancing usually take a few minutes each, which I think is why the races and prancy-dancy things are always more popular in the Olympics than, like, hockey or baseball or whatever). But I do think there's an aspect of it that's a little outdated: It's athletic.

Let's be frank -- physical activity is a bit passe. There was a time when physical strength was really a ticket to personal success. You had to swing extremely heavy swords to chop the limbs off of Huns. You had to plow fields like a mofo to feed your family. Big muscles were pragmatic.

Nowadays, athletic ability is little more than window dressing. The winners in life are the nerds who start computer companies or the CEOs who connivingly back-stab their way to wealth. The musclebound types might get chicks in high school , but in real life, they either make the NFL or they get really good at hauling trash. Even if you're a soldier, you do better if you know how to program computers for drone attacks than if you ran into a terrorist cell with your shirt ripped off yelling "ROOOAAAAR!!" like a movie monster. It's brains, not brawn, that wins in modern life.

I mentioned the NFL because yes, there are some brawny types who do well in professional sports. But the people who actually get paid to play sports comprise one millionth of one percent of the all the jocks in the world. And it underlines my main point -- that this appreciation of athletic prowess is a vestigial instinct, one that once would have rewarded those who can provide and produce wealth, but now is tantamount to making national celebrities out of the people who have the best haircuts. It's nice, it's attractive, but it's really pretty useless in real life.

That's why I propose a Nerdlympics. I haven't really figured out the events yet, but I was hoping you guys could help with that. The only rule is that success can not have anything to do with athletic ability. And also, the competition should at least be kinda interesting to watch. It doesn't have to be riveting to do well in an international competition -- look at luge, where they run against a clock and every single run looks exactly the same. And people still watch that and cheer like lunatics. So the bar is pretty low.

It has to be relatively comprehensible too. You can't have a math competition (sorry Emily) because most people don't understand math. It has to be something that people do actually find enjoyable, typically. I think Scrabble should be one.

I'm a bit biased because I'm a Scrabble freak. But I think it could be a lot like televised poker. I've never really enjoyed playing poker, but I admit, it's not bad to watch on TV. Taking a page from televised poker, you would need to see each person's hand on TV, so you could shout at the TV "No, 'qi' on the triple word score, you moron!" That would really be the fun of it. And when they put down a weird word you've never heard of, the TV guys should define it for you. And each turn should be timed to keep things moving.

And honestly, wouldn't you rather root for some nice old grandma who happens to be a Scrabble master than Apolo Anton Ohno and that stripper's pussy on his face? Aren't we all a little tired of rooting for jocks? Hell, reality shows are nothing but non-athletic competitions -- singing, cooking, bug-eating -- and we love them to death. We need that kind of stuff on an international scale, only every four years, and decide that it's a really big deal. That part just seems to make it so much more fun.

So what events would you put in the Nerdlympics?

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Things Joe Finds Irksome: Movie Monsters

This one has been bugging me for some time now. And I suppose it follows up on Ed's recent list of movie conventions. Monsters in movies - from dragons to dinosaurs to aliens to snakes - behave so ludicrously, especially when they're in pursuit of people, that I long ago stopped being terrified, and adopted an attitude of impatience, tempered with disgust, whenever I see their scaly/slimy/monstery figures onscreen. In particular, I can't stand it when they roar for no particular reason. Why? Let's find out, shall we?

Let's start by thinking a little about the behavior of predators. Say you're traipsing by a water hole in the Okavango Delta. You get thirsty, so you lean over to get a drink of cool, delicious water. Suddenly, with a tremendous splash, out comes a great crocodile, with sharp teeth bared. You look awfully tasty to him. What does he do next? There are two options, but the answer depends entirely on whether he is a movie monster crocodile, or a real-life one.

Option One (Movie Monster Crocodile Outcome): He looks at you with his squinty, evil eyes, rears up, and roars at you at the top of his lungs: ROAOAOAAAARRRR!!!!! You, who had been paralyzed with fear merely by the sight of the crocodile splashing out of the pond, take opportunity of this roaring interval to turn and run into the jungle. The crocodile, thoroughly enjoying his full-throated roar, waits until it's quite done, and then notices - oops! - you're getting away. So he starts menacingly plodding after you, oh-so-intent on catching you. You weave in and out of trees, and he deftly follows/knocks trees over, until finally at the last minute you make some quick turn that he can't negotiate, and you're safe! The crocodile looks despondent as you continue to run away, and lets loose a great sad roar: ROAOWAAAhahaaaaaoohmmm(sniff)!

Option Two (Real-Life Crocodile Outcome): He chomps on your leg, and drags you under the water until you die. Then he eats you.

In real life, a crocodile would invariably choose Option Two. Movie monsters always - always - choose Option One.

There are two related problems with Option One. First, movie monsters haven't grasped the idea that, in general, chasing is not a good plan for predators. Unless you're a cheetah, the most effort you want to expend is a short burst to get your prey. Better yet, just hang out, hidden, until something happens to walk by or get a drink of water, and then - snap! - chomp on them. Chasing takes a lot of energy, and most prey have evolved to be quicker and nimbler than you.

Second, the monsters don't get that all that chasing wouldn't even be necessary if they'd JUST KNOCK IT OFF WITH ALL THE STARING AND ROARING! If they're close enough to roar in your face, they're probably close enough to eat you already.

Pointless roaring plus chasing equals lots of hungry nights for movie monsters and their offspring. It's really the roaring that kills me. There's not an animal in nature, I'm willing to bet, that winds up and roars at its prey first rather than chomping at it. Roaring and hissing are warning or communicative sounds. They're not particularly helpful for hunting.

Imagine some Cro-Magnon dude, walking through an ancient European forest with his spear, when look! Over there! A deer! Steathily he approaches, with spear cocked, until he comes within a few feet of the doe. He gets in position, and then.... "AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!! HEY, DEEEERRRR! WHOOOOOOOP!! I'M GONNA EAT YOUUUUU!!! HOOHOOOOO!!!!!" And so the chase is on! The deer wins, of course, because it's really fast. Try to explain that one back at the cave. "Aw, honey, you should've heard my intimidating whoop! That deer looked SO scared before it took off into the woods." " We can't eat intimidating whoops, dear. Go get us some berries."

Movie monsters don't understand how unhelpful a giant roar can be. Impressive, yes. I'm sure all the escapees tell great stories in front of their fireplaces about how impressive and guttural that roar was; how piercing those eyes that kept staring at you; and so on. The point being, these people are sitting comfortably in their homes, instead of being processed by your digestive system. Think substance over style, my monster friends.

I don't know where this trend began, but my guess is Jurassic Park. All those dinosaurs wandering around, back from extinction, and what do they do with their second chance at existence? Waste it on hissing and roaring at the few helpless humans they actually come across. Followed by fruitless chasing, of course. Ugh. Maybe that's why they went extinct in the first place.

The true problem, of course, lies not with the movie monsters themselves, but with their computer-image-generating creators. I think they do a horrible job, by and large, of conceiving and executing terror/evil when it comes to monsters. I think they don't realize that the visual details of the monster are the least important part of terror inducing. I picture them sitting around their tables, or iPads, or iTables, saying, "You know what's scary? Fangs. And scales. And slobber. Let's make something that's made out of nothing but fangs and scales and slobber!" Which is fine, as far as it goes - those things can be scary, after all.

But once they've designed their fearsome thing, they find themselves making two irreconcilable requests of the audience: Be Very Afraid, and Admire My Monster. They want you to put yourself in the shoes of the onscreen character, but they also ask you to sit back and dispassionately examine every scaly inch of their creature that they worked so hard to create. You can't have both. The Rear Up and Roar maneuver attempts to bridge the two opposing requests, but that's like getting fans of Brahms to agree that Wagner's programmatic use of orchestral music doesn't detract from the intrinsic beauty and worth of the music itself - ain't gonna happen, you know?

And so we wind up with this contrived monster convention that serves no purpose but to attract attention to itself and away from the emotion of the moment. It irks me.

Friday, February 5, 2010

I Called It!

On my favorite political blog, Fivethirtyeight.com (terrible name, by the way, especially for those of us with a bad memory for numbers), they're advocating having a President's Question Time, like Britain's Prime Minister's Question Time:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/few-questions-about-questiontime.html

Which I of course agree with, and signed the petition -- but dude, I called it!

http://edykhuizen.blog.friendster.com/2005/05/we-need-presidents-question-time/

My idea! Me! Me, me me me me me me! Mimi! Mi-o-my-o-me! Midi! Me-wee Herman! Me-sothelioma! Me-ter maid! MEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Me.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

OK, Just One Quick Political Thing

Anyone else sick of hearing about these "tea party" activists? Do they even know what they're fighting about?

I just heard a report on them on the radio. They talked a lot about fighting for freedom and protecting the Constitution, which is kind of like taking a strong stand in favor of cute puppies and against puppy-eating Nazis. They said the Constitution was being violated, but didn't say what part, and how. (It's probably the 3rd Amendment, about quartering of soldiers. Lord knows I'm tired of Navy Seals dropping by my St. Paul condo and demanding room and board.)

There were a precious few substantive things mentioned, in fact. They hated the stimulus package, the health insurance bill, and especially the bank bailouts. Let's focus on the bank bailouts, because that's the one that's most universally despised.

A history lesson is in order. In 1929, the stock market crashed. Bummer! But not something that hasn't happened many times before or since. The crash in 1987 was actually bigger. The one in 2001 was no picnic either. And these kinds of stock market crashes often bring about recessions. So that's no good.

But here comes the truly bad part: In 1930, banks started to fail. The Hoover administration took a hard line, saying screw 'em, they deserve to fail because they're dumb. Bad move. When banks started failing, people started panicking, and took their money out of perfectly healthy banks, in what's called a "run" on the banks. Then those banks didn't have enough capital to operate, and they started failing. Think of George Bailey at the Bedford Falls Savings and Loan. He stopped one of these kinds of bank runs by saying "Well, it's because Bob's money is paying for Fred's business right now!" and then stammering adorably. That's how banks work -- they use one person's money to pay for another person's loan. If all the Bobs take out their money, then the bank can't loan the Freds anything any more, and his business goes under, and no new Fred-based businesses get funded, and the bank doesn't even have enough deposits to operate, and everyone loses.

It's this kind of chain reaction that pushed a recession into a depression. This is exactly what would have happened if the government let the banks fail in 2009. Think about it -- the stock market is mostly gravy. You put your extra money in the stock market, plus your retirement, which is very important but not crucial to your survival (there's always Social Security). But banks are the average person's financial lifeblood. That's where your checking is, your savings, your mortgage, your loans -- if that all went away you'd be really screwed.

Then there's also the fact that this is one of the two major tasks of the Federal Reserve. It is a reserve of cash to prop up banks and other major institutions that are on the verge of collapse. (The other major task is the interest rate fiddling-with that you hear so much about.) It was created to do this exact thing after the Great Depression hit. There are those who object to the very existence of the Federal Reserve, which is insanely dangerous but at least logically consistent -- if you're against the bank bailouts, you should be against the Federal Reserve, because bailouts are half of its job.

So anyway, when Obama says that we had to bail out the banks to avoid a depression, he's right. And c'mon -- you think Mr. Liberal Obama would really bail out the banks because he loves them or has buddies there or something? Bush would have bailed out the oil companies if gas went under $2 a gallon.

And while we're at it, where was all this anti-big-government rage during the Bush administration? Bush presided over the largest expansion of government since LBJ. He turned the budget surplus into a major deficit. Granted, Obama has made the deficit much larger, but it was out of necessity -- when no one else is spending, the government has to step in and be the spender of last resort. If he didn't, we'd be in a depression right now.

Plus, we are getting most of the money back from the banks now. And the banks definitely should be punished for not making loans and paying out these huge bonuses. I'd be in favor of a punitive tax on all bonuses coming from institutions that still owe bailout money. Think of it like the wage garnishment you undergo when you owe money to the IRS. I'm also in favor of bringing back regulation that would prevent banks from getting too big to fail and would disallow the kinds of wild speculation that got them into trouble. I'm not happy with the banks either. But I am happy that the Obama administration did the smart thing and not the popular thing. I am very much in favor of the bank bailouts.

Oh, one last thing. Did you know that the Boston Tea Party was actually a rebellion not against taxes, but against a reduction of a tax? It was an explicitly pro-tax demonstration. See, there was a tax on tea coming in from Great Britain. At the time, we were part of Britain. Britain decided to reduce that tax, which meant that British tea became cheaper. This gave it an edge over the tea that people like John Hancock were smuggling in from Holland. (I read about it in a great book called "I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode Or Not," by Richard Shenkman.) So basically, the Boston Tea Party was a revolt over cheaper goods competing more favorably with illegally smuggled goods. It's like if our government reduced the taxes on pharmaceutical companies, who then cuts costs on drugs, which those caused all those guys with the Web sites promising CHEAP VIAGARA!!! to react by knocking over pharmacies and throwing all their drugs into sewer gratings.

OK, it's not entirely like that -- it's more symbolic of rebelling against a perceived oppressive government. Considering that the government is not imposing any onerous anything right now, but instead rescuing failed institutions and providing incentives for job creation and etc., it seems very misplaced. But I just feel like in so many ways, the Tea Party is a collection of confused people who are pissed off about losing their jobs and/or seeing their friends lose their jobs and are doing what comes naturally -- blaming the government. You can be pissed off at banks but you can't really do much about it the way you can start a political campaign, so they're going with the campaign, whether it really makes sense or not.

And I guess it's hard to blame them, on some level. I wish they could direct that rage against something that is actually at fault, but I understand the frustration with an economic system that has left the middle-class behind for so long, and is now just dumping them out entirely. I believe that liberal economic policies -- supporting unions, taxing the rich more heavily, instituting a nationalized health insurance system -- can actually correct the top-heaviness of this economy, support the middle class and get more average people to work. But it will take time, and by the time it happens, these tea party folks might vote out the very people who stand a chance of actually fighting for their interests instead of those of the rich. Sigh. If only people knew stuff.