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Archive for April, 2007

THIS DAY IS HISTORY

Monday, April 30th, 2007

1939 – “World of Tomorrow” opens:
For those out there that believe that science has become a religion, well, this giant exposition may have been its biggest, big-tent revival ever. Featuring exhibits designed to reveal the machine-mediated world of The Future, the overall message was clear: Science is good. Science will make the lives of all people comfortable, clean, and free. Pity it didn’t work out, though. Looking back, the whole exercise seems like a naive, Utopian fever-dream. We’re not sure when the whole notion of technological optimism died in the mass-consciousness, but we can be pretty sure that this was its coming-out party.

1967 – Elvis marries Priscilla:
Truly, a marriage made in Heaven. No, wait — it was that other place: Las Vegas. Priscilla was 22 when she married The King, and she looks about 40 now, even though she’s in her sixties; one imagines that she did not share her husband’s taste in food. Priscilla and Elvis had one child, but we forget her name at the moment, since she’s not the sort that chases publicity with cheap stunts.

1971 – Amtrak goes into service:
They’ve had their ups and downs, but Amtrak just keeps rolling along (with plenty of government funding, of course). Sure, passenger rail is dead — cargo is much more profitable, and doesn’t tend to complain or use the bathroom — but, considering the state of air travel these days, one can’t help but think that it’s time for it to come back. Think of the possible quality of the amenities on something like a train. It would take longer to get where you’re going, but you could do it without waiting on the tarmac for eight hours. Unfortunately, if you’ve got the money, you can afford to rapid air travel, and if you’re broke, there’s always the bus; nevertheless, we still believe in the golden hope of the open rails. Have we ever taken an inter-state train trip ourselves? Oh, hell no!

2003 – Mission Accomplished:
While April might have been the deadliest month for U.S. troops serving in Iraq, it is somewhat heartening to think that, as of this date in 2003, major combat operations are over. Sadly, few but Keith Obermann and his twelve regular viewers keep this date on the calendar.

THE END OF THE WORLD, PART 1,000,001

Friday, April 27th, 2007

Spotted this response to Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur.

All Keen’s talk about the coming ultimate interconnectedness of all things sounds a lot like the stuff they used to talk about in Wired magazine, circa 1996. Of course, they were much more upbeat about the idea. Still, I wonder if Keen realizes that most revolutions in information that promise to destroy civilization (“Oh my god! The peasants are learning to read!”) generally don’t.

What’s also interesting to me is how whenever a profession (like writing, photography, or criticism) is threatened by the rise of amateurs willing to do the work for free, the arguments quickly escalate through a few distinct stages:

1. “This is my job. If the amateurs take over, my family will starve.”
2. “If they amateurs drive out the professionals, then all writing/photography/criticism will be uniformly terrible, and you don’t want that.”
3. “If we let just anybody write/take photos/criticize things, we might as well just kiss civilation good-bye!”

We’ve survived so much as a species, I just can’t get all that worked up about this. But then, I’m part of the problem, aren’t I?

People have been saying that art is dead for much longer than I’ve been alive; maybe this time, they’re right. I hope so, if only for the fact that it would mean books like The Cult of the Amateur don’t have to be written.

SNAKE OIL

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

After spending a little more time with the speed-reading book I recently purchased, I started to get suspicious. The main focus of the book seemed to be primer on studying. Useful — but not what I was looking for.

What’s more is the fact that the author kept bringing up “stunning successes” — tales of people who had mastered the program, much to everyone’s surprise; why is the book trying to sell me on the book? I’ve already bought it, after all.

Doing a little more research on the web brought me to this Wikipedia entry.

So, it seems I was taken in by a fraud. I allowed wishful thinking to get in the way of sound judgement, and I’m out five bucks. Every time something like this happens, I always hope that I’ve learned something from the experience. But then again, I’m an idiot.

THAT’S HOW WE LIKE ‘EM

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

I’m beginning to believe that reading about scientific studies in publications that try to press that whole, “Can you believe it?” angle is bad for the brain.

Here’s one that I just ran across: Brains no requirement for wealth:

A nationwide study found that people of below average intelligence were, overall, just about as wealthy as those in similar circumstances but with higher scores on an IQ test.

Why is this so shocking? The only rich people that we all tend to see on a regular basis are those wealthy, famous-and-can’t-handle-it folks on television.

Even if we consider the cabal of old-monied, out-of-sight rich people, their continued incredible wealth is a product of inertia as much as anything else.

More to the point, however, is this: we need to change the way we define intelligence. The ability to rapidly complete puzzles, or to create anagrams of long words without aid of pen or paper might be handy if you’re already rich (what with all that free time you’ve got), but they sure won’t get you to the promised land. (Or the gated community, for that matter.) The kind of intelligence tests that I’ve seen don’t seem to relate to any practical life skills.
I would contend that, beyond the possession of some basic common sense, we really don’t have our heads around that whole, “intelligence” thing. If we can learn anything from this study, however, it is this: stupid people can get rich, have gotten rich, and are currently rich. Wealth, therefore, is not a reliable indicator of intelligence, but the wealthiest people are often those with the most power.

Have a good day.

RIGHTFUL PLACE

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Back when they started playing ads for “Night at the Museum”, I thought there was something odd about it. It just didn’t seem like the kind of thing that should be shown in a “movie” theater. Sure, it may have had many movie-like aspects, but light a cloud of dense, hot gas that fails to become a star, it seemed to fall far short of its goal.

Now, however, they’ve started showing ads for the DVD release on TBS. You know, that third rate cable channel that repeatedly shows crappy films that weren’t any good when the first came out. And I realized, that’s the rightful place for a movie like this. To be shown eight times in one weekend on basic cable.

We’re almost there.

Archive for April, 2007

THIS DAY IS HISTORY

THE END OF THE WORLD, PART 1,000,001

SNAKE OIL

THAT’S HOW WE LIKE ‘EM

RIGHTFUL PLACE

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