My body doesn't make any goddamned sense.
Sometimes when I take a week off from work, after resting for a few days, I'll go for a long walk around my area to take a look around...sight-see if you will. It'll be a long walk, maybe twelve or so miles, and I'll come home with my legs hurting. I'll sleep extra long that night and be sore the following day.
Yesterday, after eight hours of sleep I walked two miles to work. I then spent eight hours on my feet, cleaning, and walking around throughout the store on various tasks. I had intended that day, after work, to go to Staples to pick up some CD-Rs and jewel cases (I'm old...shut up) in an effort not to do all of my shopping on Amazon. It would be, at most, a doubling of my usual two mile walk home.
However, to my surprise, that Staples store had shuttered since I was last there (curiously for the same purchase...I was old then too so shut up). Since I had already made up my mind to do this, I walked a few extra miles to another Staples location that I had remembered only to find that it too had been shuttered.
Luck was not on my side nor was the weather as it had grown suddenly cold overnight and while my coats and shoes were up to the task, my pants were not.
Undaunted, but starting to wonder if Staples had gone out of business and I had somehow overlooked that fact in my internetting, and stubbornly I continued to one last place I knew a Staples to be. Thankfully that location was still there and they were not in the midst of a Going Out of Business Sale so I was more a well-intentioned victim of downsizing I'd say as well as about six miles from home and now in the middle of a snow squall.
Yeah, the weather was all kinds of cold and crazy that day.
But I made my purchases which seemed a lot more expensive than they ought to have been (Amazon may yet win this war...) and set off for home. Boston Chicken would prove the beneficiary of my hunger as McDonald's, while it will offer all-day-breakfast, still does not sell hamburgers and McNuggets in the morning. I work overnights: morning is dinnertime for me! No respect for the graveyard shift...
Unlike my vacation walks, I made this unexpected journey laden for half of it. Based on my walking speed and the amount of time I was out there, I estimate I walked about twelve miles not including the two I did to get to work and the unknown amount of distance I covered on the clock doing returns so maybe fifteen miles total for the day. I then ended up staying awake for thirty hours before finally crashing, sleeping for less than eight.
And yet now, despite all that, not only did I not arrive home sore, I feel fine now and like I could do it all again today.
I don't get it either...
Friday, December 16, 2016
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
LINE OF THE DAY, part XLI
(from wendigo, a commenter on Cracked.com)
The spiders had been acting odd.
As far as I was concerned, everything about the damned pests was strange. This was different, though. On the first morning, day one, they started emerging from their hiding spots and abandoned their webs.
Black Widows, Orb Weavers, they all exposed themselves to any number of would-be predators.
You could barely walk through your yard without entangling yourself in the near-invisible threads they'd cast out into the breeze. It was as if a thousand tiny, inverted fishermen had dropped their hooks into the sky.
The web (of course) lit up with chatter. It was happening anywhere you'd expect to find arachnids. Within minutes, all the "Ask" sites and insect expert message boards filled up with annoyed queries.
"What are they doing?"
"Is this happening to anyone else?"
"Is this happening everywhere?!"
The true shock was still to come, as the creatures simultaneously reeled themselves UP those threads. It was an Indian Rope Trick to stupefy entomologists the world over.
The consensus at that point? Well, at least they're gone.
Then the sky began to cloud over.
Some caught on quicker than others. A few folks in my neighborhood, not necessarily ignorant folks, looked upward and determined a storm had set in. Myself, I immediately recognized the wrongness of it all.
The sunlight was being blotted out, ever so slightly, by one tremendous dome of webbing.
A plane came down over the hills near my house, its engines clogged with soft gauze and mashed spiders.
Five days in, birds started disappearing. Their songs all but ceased, and the only sign of their existence was the stray tiny, hollow bone that would drop from high above.
Dark spots could be observed with the naked eye. Using powerful binoculars or a telescope showed the viewer a myriad of small, cocooned bodies floating motionless in a lofty, darkening haze. Sparrows, Crows, Hawks, and even Bats became entangled in the grim construction.
Flights were cancelled soon after the original rash of crashes. Pilots thought they could simply break through the paltry web-work of such insignificant beings. Nearly ten thousand dead passengers and crew said otherwise.
The last plane to be cleared for take-off was the rare exception. There was a roar, a violent shrieking of engine blades, and then it just stopped.
It hung there, diagonally, until the entire thing was cocooned above our heads.
The bones that fell to the ground after that did not belong to birds.
It was after a week that "Arachnocalypse", as a term, had been officially coined. Newspapers and television networks spat the phrase out at every opportunity, and it took its rightful place alongside "Snowmageddon", and the rest.
For what it's worth, I think we could've made do, as a species, without use of the sky. Even though the haze grew thicker and our world grew darker every day, there were rain storms and natural collapses to give us small breaks in construction.
The rain, by the way, would come through cloudy and slick. I didn't want to know why.
The real problem, the one we couldn't work around as easily, was the spiders that remained on land. The jumping spiders, the hunting spiders, the tarantulas, all of those who seemed to have evolved past web-weaving.
They could produce some silk, but beyond that they were at a loss. You could almost feel sorry for them, standing tall on leaves and branches, preparing for an ascent that was never coming.
I heard stories about scorpions doing the same thing, but I never saw any proof for myself.
It was almost as if they knew. It seemed to drive them mad. When they weren't stoically waiting for their strands to take root above, they attacked and bit without any sense of reason.
I lost my pet, a loyal and loving Bulldog. She came in one night covered in clinging spiders, bites all over her body. Within moments, before I could even think of who to call (Vet? Poison hotline?) she collapsed and stopped breathing.
Daddy Longlegs... I don't even know if they were in on the plan, whatever it was. They seemed to cluster in homes, crawling over people as they slept, creating vast hordes of staring, though seemingly eyeless little horrors positioned on faces and chests.
When the things weren't engaged in frightening us to death, they would simply gather on ceilings and randomly "squat" upward as if it were some elaborate spectacle the human brain couldn't comprehend.
On the thirty-second day, when the Governments finally began working on possible solutions, everything changed yet again.
The Widowers crawled out from places unseen.
A Widower, about the size and shape of a man, seemed to have no interest in joining the growing, breeding masses in the skies. The black, armor-plated arachnid creatures only displayed one common goal.
Ensnaring us.
Daytime, as dark as it had become, was the only time it was relatively safe to go out. At night, Widowers could be all around you... in the trees, in crevices... and you'd never suspect. The last thing you'd see was the red hourglass on their abdomens.
That, and not-quite-human hands scrambling for your hair, your loose clothing, anything within reach.
Abandoned buildings were just as bad as the outdoors. I was with a group... I want to say this was about two months along... and we all took shelter in an old doll factory when it grew dark and we couldn't walk any longer.
The dismembered baby dolls, with their dark streaks of venom and plastic flesh wounds should've turned us away. Still, the webs they levitated in seemed old and abandoned. We figured the Widowers had their run of the place and long since moved on.
I didn't wake up to screaming.
It's weird to say that.
I wish I had woken up to screaming.
Instead, I lazily opened my eyes around what I assume to be Midnight. I reached out for a bottle of water, only to draw back a hand covered in burning, dark yellow venom.
I don't know if you've ever seen a bug trapped in a spider's cocoon. All they can do is silently rock. Back and forth, back and forth, bending at the middle. Sometimes there'll be a single free limb or antenna that waves around, trying to feel out any sign of help.
It's the same with people.
I'll have to live out the rest of my days remembering that sight. I'll have to live with the fact I ran away and left them there. People who had pulled me out of a burning truck. People who fed and clothed me when I had nothing.
There was nothing I could do. Logically, I know that.
The red hourglasses were already descending around me, and no matter what form it takes, an hourglass means time is running out.
My time.
Everyone's time.
The spiders had been acting odd.
As far as I was concerned, everything about the damned pests was strange. This was different, though. On the first morning, day one, they started emerging from their hiding spots and abandoned their webs.
Black Widows, Orb Weavers, they all exposed themselves to any number of would-be predators.
You could barely walk through your yard without entangling yourself in the near-invisible threads they'd cast out into the breeze. It was as if a thousand tiny, inverted fishermen had dropped their hooks into the sky.
The web (of course) lit up with chatter. It was happening anywhere you'd expect to find arachnids. Within minutes, all the "Ask" sites and insect expert message boards filled up with annoyed queries.
"What are they doing?"
"Is this happening to anyone else?"
"Is this happening everywhere?!"
The true shock was still to come, as the creatures simultaneously reeled themselves UP those threads. It was an Indian Rope Trick to stupefy entomologists the world over.
The consensus at that point? Well, at least they're gone.
Then the sky began to cloud over.
Some caught on quicker than others. A few folks in my neighborhood, not necessarily ignorant folks, looked upward and determined a storm had set in. Myself, I immediately recognized the wrongness of it all.
The sunlight was being blotted out, ever so slightly, by one tremendous dome of webbing.
A plane came down over the hills near my house, its engines clogged with soft gauze and mashed spiders.
Five days in, birds started disappearing. Their songs all but ceased, and the only sign of their existence was the stray tiny, hollow bone that would drop from high above.
Dark spots could be observed with the naked eye. Using powerful binoculars or a telescope showed the viewer a myriad of small, cocooned bodies floating motionless in a lofty, darkening haze. Sparrows, Crows, Hawks, and even Bats became entangled in the grim construction.
Flights were cancelled soon after the original rash of crashes. Pilots thought they could simply break through the paltry web-work of such insignificant beings. Nearly ten thousand dead passengers and crew said otherwise.
The last plane to be cleared for take-off was the rare exception. There was a roar, a violent shrieking of engine blades, and then it just stopped.
It hung there, diagonally, until the entire thing was cocooned above our heads.
The bones that fell to the ground after that did not belong to birds.
It was after a week that "Arachnocalypse", as a term, had been officially coined. Newspapers and television networks spat the phrase out at every opportunity, and it took its rightful place alongside "Snowmageddon", and the rest.
For what it's worth, I think we could've made do, as a species, without use of the sky. Even though the haze grew thicker and our world grew darker every day, there were rain storms and natural collapses to give us small breaks in construction.
The rain, by the way, would come through cloudy and slick. I didn't want to know why.
The real problem, the one we couldn't work around as easily, was the spiders that remained on land. The jumping spiders, the hunting spiders, the tarantulas, all of those who seemed to have evolved past web-weaving.
They could produce some silk, but beyond that they were at a loss. You could almost feel sorry for them, standing tall on leaves and branches, preparing for an ascent that was never coming.
I heard stories about scorpions doing the same thing, but I never saw any proof for myself.
It was almost as if they knew. It seemed to drive them mad. When they weren't stoically waiting for their strands to take root above, they attacked and bit without any sense of reason.
I lost my pet, a loyal and loving Bulldog. She came in one night covered in clinging spiders, bites all over her body. Within moments, before I could even think of who to call (Vet? Poison hotline?) she collapsed and stopped breathing.
Daddy Longlegs... I don't even know if they were in on the plan, whatever it was. They seemed to cluster in homes, crawling over people as they slept, creating vast hordes of staring, though seemingly eyeless little horrors positioned on faces and chests.
When the things weren't engaged in frightening us to death, they would simply gather on ceilings and randomly "squat" upward as if it were some elaborate spectacle the human brain couldn't comprehend.
On the thirty-second day, when the Governments finally began working on possible solutions, everything changed yet again.
The Widowers crawled out from places unseen.
A Widower, about the size and shape of a man, seemed to have no interest in joining the growing, breeding masses in the skies. The black, armor-plated arachnid creatures only displayed one common goal.
Ensnaring us.
Daytime, as dark as it had become, was the only time it was relatively safe to go out. At night, Widowers could be all around you... in the trees, in crevices... and you'd never suspect. The last thing you'd see was the red hourglass on their abdomens.
That, and not-quite-human hands scrambling for your hair, your loose clothing, anything within reach.
Abandoned buildings were just as bad as the outdoors. I was with a group... I want to say this was about two months along... and we all took shelter in an old doll factory when it grew dark and we couldn't walk any longer.
The dismembered baby dolls, with their dark streaks of venom and plastic flesh wounds should've turned us away. Still, the webs they levitated in seemed old and abandoned. We figured the Widowers had their run of the place and long since moved on.
I didn't wake up to screaming.
It's weird to say that.
I wish I had woken up to screaming.
Instead, I lazily opened my eyes around what I assume to be Midnight. I reached out for a bottle of water, only to draw back a hand covered in burning, dark yellow venom.
I don't know if you've ever seen a bug trapped in a spider's cocoon. All they can do is silently rock. Back and forth, back and forth, bending at the middle. Sometimes there'll be a single free limb or antenna that waves around, trying to feel out any sign of help.
It's the same with people.
I'll have to live out the rest of my days remembering that sight. I'll have to live with the fact I ran away and left them there. People who had pulled me out of a burning truck. People who fed and clothed me when I had nothing.
There was nothing I could do. Logically, I know that.
The red hourglasses were already descending around me, and no matter what form it takes, an hourglass means time is running out.
My time.
Everyone's time.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
LITHIUM: THE SEEDS OF GALAXY FORMATION?
There's a weird property of metals called "cold welding" whereby, in a vacuum, two pieces of the same metal will join together when they come into contact with each other. The description goes as follows:
This got me wondering, one of the mysteries of the universe is how large-scale structures like galaxies came to be in the nearly uniform densities of matter produced in the Big Bang. Randomness surely played a role but I get the impression from my readings that such randomness would've been too slow for protogalactic cores to develop into the enormous superclusters of galaxies and voids present in the universe today over a mere 14 billion years.
Dark matter is called into question as a possible attractor as the hypothesized material, while it has gravity, is only affected by gravity allowing the newly formed matter to gather around its mass whereas ordinary matter is affected by electricity, magnetism, radiation, and subject to gas properties like pressure, temperature, etc.
The trouble is, while scientists are certain dark matter exists, no one knows what exactly it is making it kind of impossible to test this hypothesis.
Now I have to believe something like this has been thought of before and discredited but nevertheless I'm putting it forth: what if something more mundane could've led to the creation of galaxies?
In the first few minutes of the Big Bang, the temperatures and pressures were still sufficient to convert the newly created electrons, protons, and neutrons into the heavier nuclei of deuterium, helium, and a smidge of lithium.
Of those three elements, lithium is a metal and when the universe became cool enough to allow the formation of atoms after 300,000 years, there would be lithium floating around amidst this ever decreasingly dense gas which I imagine would have formed vacuum-like conditions quite quickly.
Now if like atoms of metal cold weld for the reason stated above, does it not stand to reason that even the tiny, tiny amount of lithium theorized to have formed during the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis would have, through random interactions, found one and other and welded together forming ever larger seeds to acts as attractants to the far more enormous amounts of hydrogen, deuterium, and helium out there?
I would like to believe that over the millions of years between recombination and the first stars, there was plenty of time for atoms of lithium to make clumps of anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of atoms which would have collectively more concentrated gravity than the surrounding material which doesn't particularly enjoying interacting with one and other.
Helium is famously unreactive and hydrogen is content once it finds a partner to bond with. Neither will naturally clump...but lithium would...and might that be enough to begin the slow process of gathering ever larger clouds of gas together to form the first stars and protogalaxies?
I honestly don't know...but I like the idea.
The reason for this unexpected behavior is that when the atoms in
contact are all of the same kind, there is no way for the atoms to
“know” that they are in different pieces of copper. When there are other
atoms, in the oxides and greases and more complicated thin surface
layers of contaminants in between, the atoms “know” when they are not on
the same part. (Richard Feynman)
This got me wondering, one of the mysteries of the universe is how large-scale structures like galaxies came to be in the nearly uniform densities of matter produced in the Big Bang. Randomness surely played a role but I get the impression from my readings that such randomness would've been too slow for protogalactic cores to develop into the enormous superclusters of galaxies and voids present in the universe today over a mere 14 billion years.
Dark matter is called into question as a possible attractor as the hypothesized material, while it has gravity, is only affected by gravity allowing the newly formed matter to gather around its mass whereas ordinary matter is affected by electricity, magnetism, radiation, and subject to gas properties like pressure, temperature, etc.
The trouble is, while scientists are certain dark matter exists, no one knows what exactly it is making it kind of impossible to test this hypothesis.
Now I have to believe something like this has been thought of before and discredited but nevertheless I'm putting it forth: what if something more mundane could've led to the creation of galaxies?
In the first few minutes of the Big Bang, the temperatures and pressures were still sufficient to convert the newly created electrons, protons, and neutrons into the heavier nuclei of deuterium, helium, and a smidge of lithium.
Of those three elements, lithium is a metal and when the universe became cool enough to allow the formation of atoms after 300,000 years, there would be lithium floating around amidst this ever decreasingly dense gas which I imagine would have formed vacuum-like conditions quite quickly.
Now if like atoms of metal cold weld for the reason stated above, does it not stand to reason that even the tiny, tiny amount of lithium theorized to have formed during the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis would have, through random interactions, found one and other and welded together forming ever larger seeds to acts as attractants to the far more enormous amounts of hydrogen, deuterium, and helium out there?
I would like to believe that over the millions of years between recombination and the first stars, there was plenty of time for atoms of lithium to make clumps of anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of atoms which would have collectively more concentrated gravity than the surrounding material which doesn't particularly enjoying interacting with one and other.
Helium is famously unreactive and hydrogen is content once it finds a partner to bond with. Neither will naturally clump...but lithium would...and might that be enough to begin the slow process of gathering ever larger clouds of gas together to form the first stars and protogalaxies?
I honestly don't know...but I like the idea.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
NO SENSE OF BELONGING...
Lately I've been wondering if a belief in God (or Gods)...religion basically, is tied to one's sense of belonging. Like, did I lose my faith in God and slip into nihilism because I grew up feeling like an outsider to my family and schoolmates? If I had a sense of being included, would I have not skipped out on Confirmation in 7th grade? Would I have had friends? a girlfriend? the wherewithal to remain in college and see it through to graduation? connections? a decent job resulting from those connections?
I don't know...
But I think about two particular groups and their stereotyped behavior: Born-Again Christians and Atheists.
Both groups are notorious for having overly enthusiastic participants eager to get others to join or to attack when their efforts are challenged.
It seems to me that both those groups have only recently discovered a sense of belonging and in the one sense, it delights them to realize they are no longer alone but then I also think it makes them wish to confront those who had isolated them for so long. They want to know, once and for all, who their real friends are so they proselytize and it should come as no surprise that people who already belong to another group are not particularly interested in throwing all that away.
And the resistance of others strengthens their bond with their new friends, making them spiral inward to ever tighter and stubborn orbits. Where once they felt judged, now they are able to judge others knowing they have a community willing to back them perhaps for the first time in their lives.
And if there's any truth to that, it makes me feel even sadder that I never even found an Atheist group to feel like a part of. Talk about isolation! And in that isolation, I sunk to the even-lower level of nihilism: a belief in the utter purposeless of everything. It was the only thing left to rationalize my existence and its suckitude: life is not unfair, because fairness and unfairness are human constructs. No, life is a selfish attempt at perpetuation and the universe is indifferent to it all. Purpose is something we create, not something which is given. You are because you were born and you will die for the same reason. You will suffer the whole way through until you can bear the burdens of living and existence no longer...and my life's burdens are not offset by its joys.
Nihilism is the Atheist's atheist. I don't know...that made sense before I wrote.
I write this still never feeling like I've ever belonged. I never thought I had wanted all that much and it bothers me that I can't even have that...
I don't know...
But I think about two particular groups and their stereotyped behavior: Born-Again Christians and Atheists.
Both groups are notorious for having overly enthusiastic participants eager to get others to join or to attack when their efforts are challenged.
It seems to me that both those groups have only recently discovered a sense of belonging and in the one sense, it delights them to realize they are no longer alone but then I also think it makes them wish to confront those who had isolated them for so long. They want to know, once and for all, who their real friends are so they proselytize and it should come as no surprise that people who already belong to another group are not particularly interested in throwing all that away.
And the resistance of others strengthens their bond with their new friends, making them spiral inward to ever tighter and stubborn orbits. Where once they felt judged, now they are able to judge others knowing they have a community willing to back them perhaps for the first time in their lives.
And if there's any truth to that, it makes me feel even sadder that I never even found an Atheist group to feel like a part of. Talk about isolation! And in that isolation, I sunk to the even-lower level of nihilism: a belief in the utter purposeless of everything. It was the only thing left to rationalize my existence and its suckitude: life is not unfair, because fairness and unfairness are human constructs. No, life is a selfish attempt at perpetuation and the universe is indifferent to it all. Purpose is something we create, not something which is given. You are because you were born and you will die for the same reason. You will suffer the whole way through until you can bear the burdens of living and existence no longer...and my life's burdens are not offset by its joys.
Nihilism is the Atheist's atheist. I don't know...that made sense before I wrote.
I write this still never feeling like I've ever belonged. I never thought I had wanted all that much and it bothers me that I can't even have that...
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
BABYLON 5: RAMBLING ABOUT IMMORTALITY AND OTHER FIRST ONE IMPLICATIONS...
"We were born naturally immortal"
Lorien confesses this to Ivanova during the "Into the Fire" episode of Babylon 5. He goes on to say, "At first we were kept in balance by birth rate. Few of us were ever born, less than a handful each year. Then I think the universe decided, that to appreciate life for there to be change and growth, life had to be short. So the generations that followed us grew old, infirmed, then died. But those of us who were first went on..."
I've wondered about this. Details about Lorien's race and the groups of ancient, powerful aliens collectively known as The First Ones were always scant and deliberately so as, in the words of the show's creator J. Michael Straczynski (who may have quoting someone else...haven't listened to that commentary in a long time), "To define is to kill." It's how movies like Jaws worked so effectively. By keeping the shark unseen, the impact of its horror increased because we instinctually fear the unknown. Once exposed to a fear, we can face it. Likewise, once exposed to an unknown, we can demystify it.
This does not mean conclusions may not be drawn about them. One of the gimmicks in the show is the use of hyperspace to allow for interstellar travel in reasonable timeframes. Being able to access it is a game-changer for a species. Before that, a spacefaring species would be confined to its own solar system because space is VAST making travel between stars a generational consideration and not to mention a one-way trip. This was the fate of Earth prior to its encounter with the Centauri.
And that is typically how a younger race "discovers" hyperspace: they are encountered by another spacefaring race who already has access and that access is sold or rented for a time until that race manages to reverse-engineer the technology of jump gates and becomes a full-fledged member of the interstellar community.
The first conclusion drawn from hyperspace entry points called "jump points" is why they are colored orange for entry points and blue for exit points. This would be an example of the Doppler effect but applied to light rather than sound. If anything it shows how much faster hyperspace travel is because it is red-shifting the light of entry points and blue-shifting the light of exit points.
However, where those gates came from in the first place is never mentioned outright in the show. The clue given is via the First Ones. Shadow vessels appear to phase into normal space seamlessly. The Walkers of Sigma-957 explode electrically into normal space. This unnamed First One jumps into normal space as though cloaked in fire.
 |
| Shadow Vessels appearing |
 |
| The Walkers of Sigma-957 |
 |
| almost-as-old-as-the-Vorlons First One |
But when the Vorlons appear, they appear using the same funnel shape used by every other of the younger races depicted in the show.
 |
| Vorlon capital ships entering normal space |
Another thing I couldn't help but notice in the show is that despite the advanced age of the First Ones, the younger races seemed able to adapt to them quickly. Like, their technology was still far beyond our own but we could crack it. Maybe that's an effect of it being easier to reverse engineer something than it is to create it from scratch but I also wonder if it had anything to do with what Lorien had said about his race's initial immortality.
Using his own words, one can infer that with long life, comes slow change and that with short life, comes faster change. We don't know how long-lived the individual beings of the First One races are. We only know that the Shadows are the oldest of them. Personally I would like to believe that the Vorlons are the youngest of the First Ones because the show has a way of rhyming (in addition to the main rivals, the Vorlons and Shadows, being diametrically opposed) and it would seem appropriate if they were.
Lorien comments that the beings in the cloaked-in-fire ship are "almost as old as the Vorlons". The natural interpretation that statement in English carries the implication that they are younger than the Vorlons but it could just as easily be the other way around if you allow for it (and I am :-) ).
It's the same as when they are given names. The name of the homeworld of the Shadows is Z'ha'dum but the name of their species is said to be over 10,000 letters long, unpronounceable by the human tongue. The name of the Vorlons is just that and while their homeworld is once referred to as "Vorlon" by Lyta Alexander, it is usually referred to as "the Vorlon homeworld". Unless Lyta was correct, I would like to think the name of the Vorlon homeworld, like the Shadows's actual name, is over 10,000 letters long and thus unpronounceable to the human tongue so as for their respective species to rhyme, so to speak.
Anyways, what if the First Ones are mortal, but especially long-lived naturally? Another feature the First Ones have in common is that they are unlike the younger races in that they are not walking meat sacks like we are.
 |
| Lorien |
 |
| Vorlon |
 |
| Shadows in their raiment - they're ultraviolet, thus invisible to the human eye as energy beings |
To take a page for J.R.R. Tolkien's lore, I would say the immortal Lorien race could choose to cloak themselves in bodies as though raiment if they so chose but that they did not need such bodies to survive and could survive the loss of those bodies. However I'm assuming that they would need to use physical bodies in order to work the substance of the Universe but were slow to do so being immortal.
 |
| Lorien's raiment |
If I had to venture a guess, I would say the First Ones were born that way and were not the product of evolution like the younger races are.
As for the younger races, being one of them yourself, you know how vulnerable we are to death. It's like our bodies can't wait to die and that our souls, if they exist at all, appear inseparable from, and thus likely die with, our bodies.
But the thing is, for races millions to billions of years older than humanity, they're not inscrutable and I wonder if this has to do with them living longer. Human generations are only about 25 years long. Imagine if our generations were 1,000 times as long or even 10,000 times? You wouldn't be in as much a hurry to do things, now would you?
Human civilization is about 6,000 years old coming from 20-25 year generations. 250 generations built this city. But if those generations were a thousand times longer, just getting to the Moon would've taken millions of years. Maybe that's how it was for the First Ones: never in a hurry to get shit done because there wasn't one. Even more so for Lorien's race, thus his surmising that for there to be change and appreciation, life must be short.
And because human, Narn, Centauri, Minbari, Drazi, etc. lives are so short, they've gotten a lot farther in the short lifespan of their civilizations than the First Ones ever could have done in the same period of time.
I think it would at least explain how beings so old could be beaten by creatures so young as us as well as outmaneuvered in thought.
As for the charge that the Shadows and Vorlons who took it upon themselves to nurture the younger races like shepherds had become rigid and inflexible, perhaps (also an allusion to the Lord of the Rings), it is because they were cheating death.
The Vorlons did so directly. A rough draft script for a never-produced Babylon 5 movie stated that the Vorlons were not always immortal implying that they are now and thus weren't always. The Shadows are known for hibernating in-between their wars which may have been their trick to prolong their lives beyond reasonable measure (perhaps even doing so as a response to the Vorlons becoming immortal...if you're going to cheat, we're going to cheat too!). You could extend, say, a thousand year lifespan considerably if you were only awake for it twenty or so years at a time and in stasis for hundreds to thousands of years in-between.
The lack of change the Universe once corrected for by creating mortal intelligences would thus come into play again and need to be dealt with. Creatures living long beyond their natural lifespans, however long they already were naturally, would disrupt the natural flow of life and growth in the Universe.
Thus, they and the remaining First Ones had to go which was finally able to happen thanks to Sheridan and the Vorlon Kosh.
I've really lost my place but I'll publish this nonsense that you might enjoy it...somehow.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO DO...NOT EVEN ME
I hate that I have to state this outright because people can be fucking idiots but I'm not suicidal, not even when I'm low. I don't actually want to die no matter how annoyed I get at circumstances. I'd be perfectly content with immortality coupled with invincibility (and then making damn sure I keep out of cities and caves): I sincerely believe I have the kind of mindset one would need to tolerate immortality.
However, I know I'm going to die and in those moments of moriturism, I get frustrated. There's no joy in ellipsism nor is there in coming to terms with all of my being coming to naught. While some may escape into religious promises of an eternal afterlife, for a long time I've not been able to justify my fear of not existing in that manner and yet, despite that indescribable sadness that my borrowed time must some day be repaid, I'm reminded that I really do hate being told what to do and dying really seems like the ultimate form of that...at least when it's allowed to play out on its own.
Because some day my body WILL betray me and I will die. It could be sudden or it could be a long-term thing like cancer, but regardless of the form it shall take, death will become me and I will have no say in the matter.
Unless...
And then I thought how suicide is a curious solution to this dilemma absent me actually having been born a god and not having realized that yet. Suicide is the both the ultimate expression of wrath as well as a personal statement to the universe itself saying that, while I must die, I will not do so on your terms!
And I admit...I kinda like that.
Now if only I had a clue as to when my body planned on making its exit...
However, I know I'm going to die and in those moments of moriturism, I get frustrated. There's no joy in ellipsism nor is there in coming to terms with all of my being coming to naught. While some may escape into religious promises of an eternal afterlife, for a long time I've not been able to justify my fear of not existing in that manner and yet, despite that indescribable sadness that my borrowed time must some day be repaid, I'm reminded that I really do hate being told what to do and dying really seems like the ultimate form of that...at least when it's allowed to play out on its own.
Because some day my body WILL betray me and I will die. It could be sudden or it could be a long-term thing like cancer, but regardless of the form it shall take, death will become me and I will have no say in the matter.
Unless...
And then I thought how suicide is a curious solution to this dilemma absent me actually having been born a god and not having realized that yet. Suicide is the both the ultimate expression of wrath as well as a personal statement to the universe itself saying that, while I must die, I will not do so on your terms!
And I admit...I kinda like that.
Now if only I had a clue as to when my body planned on making its exit...
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part XII
Okay, look, the hotness of Ariana Grande aside, this song is a mess.
I'm not saying it isn't catchy. Of course it is. An impressive amount of cynical calculation goes into making today's pop music to ensure such outcomes. No, the problem (no pun intended) with this song is it's doing too much and yes, I'm saying 820.4 million views (as of this post) can be wrong...
First of all, I think this song was given to the wrong performer. And yes, performer. I'm not for a moment going to pretend that Ariana Grande is anything more than a performer in her industry. If you want to be an artist, you have to be able to do more than sing songs and Ms. Grande has not been presented to us as anything more than a singer of someone else's songs. There's no shame in that as it's a staple of the music industry. Not everyone can sing, write lyrics, compose music, plays such compositions, and arrange it all into a presentable piece. Farming out that work to professionals has created some of the best music we've ever been given.
I'm just not going to call you an artist for being a professional singer/performer. I'll reserve that title for people who can do at least three of those five things.
But the point I'm getting at is this song seems out of Ariana Grande's range. When I hear it played on the radio, I can barely make out what she's singing. She's trying to sustain notes either too high for her or too high at that tempo. Plus it sounds rather nasal, no?
Secondly, I hate featuring. Again, it's been done for a long time but in the past it felt more like something a friend was doing for another like Eric Clapton playing the solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or Greg Hawkes playing keyboards for some of Ric Ocasek's solo work. And featuring back then was another artist contributing to the work of the main artist. Nowadays featuring feels like an intrusion to the song you've been listening to.
This too goes back a while as I can remember some No Doubt songs off the album Rocksteady having featured artists and I think in the rap industry, it goes even further back.
Iggy Azalea, however, is an intrusion. Her presence takes away from, rather than enhances, the work. It's as though someone had changed the radio station in the middle of the song before changing it back. It's almost like a commercial you must endure before returning to your regularly scheduled programming.
Again, I get it. It's about money. Having hip-hop in your pop song gives it crossover appeal which means more $$$.
On a side note though... How is Iggy Azalea not considered to be doing something equivalent to blackface? She's a white Australian affecting a decidedly "black" voice. I guess that's considered okay now? Or is it one of those "it can't be racist because" things since she's not American? I don't know...
But perhaps the most glaring thing about this song is you can't know whose song it is. It's not Iggy Azalea's because she's just in it for the bridge but it's arguably not Ariana Grande's song either because should the band/performer be the one singing the chorus?
I mean, think about it. What is the chorus to "Problem"? It's nothing Ms. Grande sings. It's that guy whispering "I got one less problem without'cha": that's the chorus. Nothing else qualifies and that's something that makes this song very confusing. Its most memorable part (which is typically the chorus, though yes it can be a bitchin' solo) is not sung by the headlining performer but by another hip-hop artist named Big Sean so is it his song then despite his minimal presence?
I would have to say yes because that's how I feel when listening to songs. The chorus is generally the most important part as it's repeated, making it easy to learn quickly and allowing the song itself to become embedded in one's mind when it hits right. It focuses your attention on the song and since it's not performed by Ms. Grande, it makes the whole experience weird.
"Problem (feat. Iggy Azalea)" by Ariana Grande
It's not a bad song when taken in parts, but because it is messy, it needs to go away...
I'm not saying it isn't catchy. Of course it is. An impressive amount of cynical calculation goes into making today's pop music to ensure such outcomes. No, the problem (no pun intended) with this song is it's doing too much and yes, I'm saying 820.4 million views (as of this post) can be wrong...
First of all, I think this song was given to the wrong performer. And yes, performer. I'm not for a moment going to pretend that Ariana Grande is anything more than a performer in her industry. If you want to be an artist, you have to be able to do more than sing songs and Ms. Grande has not been presented to us as anything more than a singer of someone else's songs. There's no shame in that as it's a staple of the music industry. Not everyone can sing, write lyrics, compose music, plays such compositions, and arrange it all into a presentable piece. Farming out that work to professionals has created some of the best music we've ever been given.
I'm just not going to call you an artist for being a professional singer/performer. I'll reserve that title for people who can do at least three of those five things.
But the point I'm getting at is this song seems out of Ariana Grande's range. When I hear it played on the radio, I can barely make out what she's singing. She's trying to sustain notes either too high for her or too high at that tempo. Plus it sounds rather nasal, no?
Secondly, I hate featuring. Again, it's been done for a long time but in the past it felt more like something a friend was doing for another like Eric Clapton playing the solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or Greg Hawkes playing keyboards for some of Ric Ocasek's solo work. And featuring back then was another artist contributing to the work of the main artist. Nowadays featuring feels like an intrusion to the song you've been listening to.
This too goes back a while as I can remember some No Doubt songs off the album Rocksteady having featured artists and I think in the rap industry, it goes even further back.
Iggy Azalea, however, is an intrusion. Her presence takes away from, rather than enhances, the work. It's as though someone had changed the radio station in the middle of the song before changing it back. It's almost like a commercial you must endure before returning to your regularly scheduled programming.
Again, I get it. It's about money. Having hip-hop in your pop song gives it crossover appeal which means more $$$.
On a side note though... How is Iggy Azalea not considered to be doing something equivalent to blackface? She's a white Australian affecting a decidedly "black" voice. I guess that's considered okay now? Or is it one of those "it can't be racist because" things since she's not American? I don't know...
But perhaps the most glaring thing about this song is you can't know whose song it is. It's not Iggy Azalea's because she's just in it for the bridge but it's arguably not Ariana Grande's song either because should the band/performer be the one singing the chorus?
I mean, think about it. What is the chorus to "Problem"? It's nothing Ms. Grande sings. It's that guy whispering "I got one less problem without'cha": that's the chorus. Nothing else qualifies and that's something that makes this song very confusing. Its most memorable part (which is typically the chorus, though yes it can be a bitchin' solo) is not sung by the headlining performer but by another hip-hop artist named Big Sean so is it his song then despite his minimal presence?
I would have to say yes because that's how I feel when listening to songs. The chorus is generally the most important part as it's repeated, making it easy to learn quickly and allowing the song itself to become embedded in one's mind when it hits right. It focuses your attention on the song and since it's not performed by Ms. Grande, it makes the whole experience weird.
"Problem (feat. Iggy Azalea)" by Ariana Grande
It's not a bad song when taken in parts, but because it is messy, it needs to go away...
DIDN'T QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD...
Two Sundays ago I went gambling for the first time in my life. My cousin and his wife invited me to go to Atlantic City for the day. I took the night off work leading me to tell my coworkers that my gambling goal would be to win my lost wages. The trip down was disappointing in that it's very boring. I had no idea New Jersey has so many trees. The parkway is just an unbroken line of trees on one side and another unbroken line of trees on the other. It was only shortly before our destination that it opened up into what looked like salt marshes and a bay with electricity-generating giant windmills.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
A FAREWELL TO YOUTH...
She was there. She spoke to me briefly. She gave me a polite hug and kiss on the cheek. :-)
I never thought I would see The First One again with my own eyes or hear her voice and although my shitty memory dooms me to have already forgotten both, it did happen. She wasn't supposed to be there. I was prepared for that disappointment but for the first time in a while, my pessimism was wrong. I got to see, hear, and be near her one last time. Nothing would come of it, as expected, so I can only conclude that God does not me to believe in Him that badly. ;-)
It was my high school class's 20th reunion. There were more people there than I had thought were coming (I can't be bothered to come up with one-time nicknames - some are in the pictures I've downloaded, others with have to suffice with initials like RD (who brought The First One), AC, AT, RJ, KS, CM, MC, CN, MW, SG, and even JS (my brother's other crush) et al....I'm not even sure if these initials will help...probably have duplicates). I didn't get to say hello to them all. Unfortunately several were not present, including Patient Zero, whom I would really like to have seen again. She was always nice to me. The last person who saw me from my class (at work), EE, did not show nor did Smokeychick as she had business to attend to with her new home.
The four hours went by far too quickly and once again I found myself ruminating on what I didn't say and what I should've said because my happiness has never been permitted to last long. I took my friend, The Security Guard, with me because he is naturally more social than I am. I thought he would be able to help sell me better. Unfortunately, he was extra tired that day so he kept mostly to himself forcing me to do what I could to socialize on my own. I'm not mad though I'm curious how (and assuming it were possible to pull off - impossible now as her license has been suspended a second time for DWI) Winwood would have managed in that environment...especially with The First One there.
Still...it felt good. It has been a long time since I had last been steeped in such familiarity even if only from the recognition of faces last seen long ago.
I got an "award" for Person Who Has Changed Least Since High School. I don't normally say I deserve things, but I deserved that one. The First One got an "award" for Having Had the Most Work Done, haha.
Everyone there who spoke to me spoke to me kindly, some thanking me for my uploads to the event's Facebook page or just my posts in general. But no one except DOB lingered for any length of time with me...just like high school.
Overall, and perhaps because I've never felt much of a connection to my classmates (my fault...really. No...really), the event had the feeling of a wake. Hell, there were even photo collages and memorabilia! It was as though we had all come together one last time, in a spirit of obligation, to honor the memory of our deceased youth both literally in those classmates of ours who have since passed and metaphorically for those who could not be there with us that night.
Perhaps it's a twisted way of looking at such things but what else were we celebrating? Certainly not a future in which we would again be together. We would part ways that night, having left something behind and only taking that which we had brought with us. I don't suspect I will ever see any of them ever again with my own eyes aside from some rare random encounter...most likely at work. They were family to me in the same sense of my blood family: people brought and kept together by circumstance rather than choice.
I'm going to miss them. Really. And though last night was a step closer to the abyss which awaits us all, it was fun and most of all, it felt good, even if only for a little while...
I never thought I would see The First One again with my own eyes or hear her voice and although my shitty memory dooms me to have already forgotten both, it did happen. She wasn't supposed to be there. I was prepared for that disappointment but for the first time in a while, my pessimism was wrong. I got to see, hear, and be near her one last time. Nothing would come of it, as expected, so I can only conclude that God does not me to believe in Him that badly. ;-)
It was my high school class's 20th reunion. There were more people there than I had thought were coming (I can't be bothered to come up with one-time nicknames - some are in the pictures I've downloaded, others with have to suffice with initials like RD (who brought The First One), AC, AT, RJ, KS, CM, MC, CN, MW, SG, and even JS (my brother's other crush) et al....I'm not even sure if these initials will help...probably have duplicates). I didn't get to say hello to them all. Unfortunately several were not present, including Patient Zero, whom I would really like to have seen again. She was always nice to me. The last person who saw me from my class (at work), EE, did not show nor did Smokeychick as she had business to attend to with her new home.
The four hours went by far too quickly and once again I found myself ruminating on what I didn't say and what I should've said because my happiness has never been permitted to last long. I took my friend, The Security Guard, with me because he is naturally more social than I am. I thought he would be able to help sell me better. Unfortunately, he was extra tired that day so he kept mostly to himself forcing me to do what I could to socialize on my own. I'm not mad though I'm curious how (and assuming it were possible to pull off - impossible now as her license has been suspended a second time for DWI) Winwood would have managed in that environment...especially with The First One there.
Still...it felt good. It has been a long time since I had last been steeped in such familiarity even if only from the recognition of faces last seen long ago.
I got an "award" for Person Who Has Changed Least Since High School. I don't normally say I deserve things, but I deserved that one. The First One got an "award" for Having Had the Most Work Done, haha.
Everyone there who spoke to me spoke to me kindly, some thanking me for my uploads to the event's Facebook page or just my posts in general. But no one except DOB lingered for any length of time with me...just like high school.
Overall, and perhaps because I've never felt much of a connection to my classmates (my fault...really. No...really), the event had the feeling of a wake. Hell, there were even photo collages and memorabilia! It was as though we had all come together one last time, in a spirit of obligation, to honor the memory of our deceased youth both literally in those classmates of ours who have since passed and metaphorically for those who could not be there with us that night.
Perhaps it's a twisted way of looking at such things but what else were we celebrating? Certainly not a future in which we would again be together. We would part ways that night, having left something behind and only taking that which we had brought with us. I don't suspect I will ever see any of them ever again with my own eyes aside from some rare random encounter...most likely at work. They were family to me in the same sense of my blood family: people brought and kept together by circumstance rather than choice.
I'm going to miss them. Really. And though last night was a step closer to the abyss which awaits us all, it was fun and most of all, it felt good, even if only for a little while...
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
THE VALUE OF THE CENT
Often in collectors' circles they'll take about returning to real money, that is, coins comprised of gold and silver and following a gold standard. It's one of those little dreams we have, to possess coins whose value is not inextricably tied to the well-being of the country within which we reside. Fiat coins and currency are, in effect, value suicide pacts. If the United States (or country you live in) fails, all your coins and especially your paper money, is now worthless.
The coins only mostly so as copper and nickel do have some scrap value...though very little compared to its present face.
But I don't think a return to gold and silver coinage is either feasible or even possible anymore. Plus the metals have too much volatility. I can't imagine gold holding a steady value for a hundred years like it did when valued at $20.67 per troy ounce. Surely its value rose above that during the Civil War and World War I, but the nation held firm to it from 1834-1933. After that it was revalued at $35 per troy ounce but without accompanying gold coins for economic use and that only lasted a few decades (and the second World War) before rising again to $38/tr.oz. and finally to $42.22/tr.oz. before Congress gave up the gold window ghost in 1971.
Silver's value has been too unstable to make properly valued coins with, fluctuating from $1.29 per troy ounce to almost $50 per troy ounce between 1964 and 1980. The metal has been on a second wild ride since 2006, spiking as high as almost $40/tr.oz. back in 2011 (something I failed to take advantage of, though I did sell a bit of my holdings in 2008 when silver briefly topped $20/tr.oz.) before dropping back down to around $15/tr.oz. today. That kind of volatility would make it impossible to keep coin values stable enough to prevent hoarding.
But what if instead of pegging the value of our money to a metal or other commodity, we peg its value to an idea?
One thing that really bugs me about money today is just how worthless it is, especially our coins. We have cents, nickels, dimes, and arguably quarters, which have no purchasing power at all.
Presently the quarter-dollar is at its breaking point. A single quarter can purchase only a single hollowed-out gumball from a vending machine, a brick of Ramen soup, or a package of seeds in my local supermarket. I'm not even sure if arcade games will let you play a game for a single quarter anymore.
Why is it like that? Coins used to have real purchasing power so why can't they still?
If we're going to have cents, nickels, and dimes floating around, shouldn't they be able to buy things? Shouldn't the lowest value coin of the republic be able to buy something? And that's what I'm proposing. Not a gold standard, but a purchasing standard.
We go about that the standard by which our coin and currency is to be valued is that the lowliest coin is to have purchasing power. The smallest coin must be able to buy a certain non-zero number of things and the money supply must be kept in line in order to preserve that.
The advantage such a system would have is that the money supply would be able to expand in response to a growing population whereas under a gold standard, the money supply can only increase by adding additional gold to the treasury. Birth and death records are compiled annually and the Constitution requires a decennial census so we should have a good idea of what the money supply ought to be in order to have the one cent coin be able to purchase a certain non-zero number of things.
As things stand right now, it is arguable that our money supply is 20 to 25 times too large at minimum. If the quarter has reached its purchasing limit (and I did give three examples), then its role should be assumed by the cent thus allowing all the coins of the realm to reacquire purpose.
I wouldn't expect the change to happen overnight but I suspect the Federal Reserve Banking System could be employed to contract the money supply accordingly using its prime interest rate. The money it collects using that rate after subtracting its necessary uses like salary and maintenance, instead of being turned over to Congress and added to the general fund, would be destroyed.
The rate of this destruction would be only a few percentage points a year so deflation would be modest but over time, the money supply would have its value restored.
I'm sure there are faults in this idea. I wouldn't mind knowing what they are but I will reject any fault that basically reads like "it's bad because it hurts the wealthy". Deflation is whispered about as though it were a harbinger of the apocalypse. Deflation would benefit the poor and savers. Deflation only hurts the wealthy and I suspect that is why there is such opposition to it. As I've heard it said, if inflation were bad for the already rich, there wouldn't be any.
Besides, the only other way is to eliminate all coins below the half-dollar or to issue a revaluation whereby fifty dollars ($50) equals one new dollar (N$1) and I don't think anyone in Congress is willing to admit our money has become just that worthless yet...
The coins only mostly so as copper and nickel do have some scrap value...though very little compared to its present face.
But I don't think a return to gold and silver coinage is either feasible or even possible anymore. Plus the metals have too much volatility. I can't imagine gold holding a steady value for a hundred years like it did when valued at $20.67 per troy ounce. Surely its value rose above that during the Civil War and World War I, but the nation held firm to it from 1834-1933. After that it was revalued at $35 per troy ounce but without accompanying gold coins for economic use and that only lasted a few decades (and the second World War) before rising again to $38/tr.oz. and finally to $42.22/tr.oz. before Congress gave up the gold window ghost in 1971.
Silver's value has been too unstable to make properly valued coins with, fluctuating from $1.29 per troy ounce to almost $50 per troy ounce between 1964 and 1980. The metal has been on a second wild ride since 2006, spiking as high as almost $40/tr.oz. back in 2011 (something I failed to take advantage of, though I did sell a bit of my holdings in 2008 when silver briefly topped $20/tr.oz.) before dropping back down to around $15/tr.oz. today. That kind of volatility would make it impossible to keep coin values stable enough to prevent hoarding.
But what if instead of pegging the value of our money to a metal or other commodity, we peg its value to an idea?
One thing that really bugs me about money today is just how worthless it is, especially our coins. We have cents, nickels, dimes, and arguably quarters, which have no purchasing power at all.
Presently the quarter-dollar is at its breaking point. A single quarter can purchase only a single hollowed-out gumball from a vending machine, a brick of Ramen soup, or a package of seeds in my local supermarket. I'm not even sure if arcade games will let you play a game for a single quarter anymore.
Why is it like that? Coins used to have real purchasing power so why can't they still?
If we're going to have cents, nickels, and dimes floating around, shouldn't they be able to buy things? Shouldn't the lowest value coin of the republic be able to buy something? And that's what I'm proposing. Not a gold standard, but a purchasing standard.
We go about that the standard by which our coin and currency is to be valued is that the lowliest coin is to have purchasing power. The smallest coin must be able to buy a certain non-zero number of things and the money supply must be kept in line in order to preserve that.
The advantage such a system would have is that the money supply would be able to expand in response to a growing population whereas under a gold standard, the money supply can only increase by adding additional gold to the treasury. Birth and death records are compiled annually and the Constitution requires a decennial census so we should have a good idea of what the money supply ought to be in order to have the one cent coin be able to purchase a certain non-zero number of things.
As things stand right now, it is arguable that our money supply is 20 to 25 times too large at minimum. If the quarter has reached its purchasing limit (and I did give three examples), then its role should be assumed by the cent thus allowing all the coins of the realm to reacquire purpose.
I wouldn't expect the change to happen overnight but I suspect the Federal Reserve Banking System could be employed to contract the money supply accordingly using its prime interest rate. The money it collects using that rate after subtracting its necessary uses like salary and maintenance, instead of being turned over to Congress and added to the general fund, would be destroyed.
The rate of this destruction would be only a few percentage points a year so deflation would be modest but over time, the money supply would have its value restored.
I'm sure there are faults in this idea. I wouldn't mind knowing what they are but I will reject any fault that basically reads like "it's bad because it hurts the wealthy". Deflation is whispered about as though it were a harbinger of the apocalypse. Deflation would benefit the poor and savers. Deflation only hurts the wealthy and I suspect that is why there is such opposition to it. As I've heard it said, if inflation were bad for the already rich, there wouldn't be any.
Besides, the only other way is to eliminate all coins below the half-dollar or to issue a revaluation whereby fifty dollars ($50) equals one new dollar (N$1) and I don't think anyone in Congress is willing to admit our money has become just that worthless yet...
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
HEROES & VILLAINS...
I wish I didn't identify so much with the villains of stories. And I don't mean I think they look cool or dress fashionably or something otherwise superficial. I mean their motivations. Like I get that hurt that consumes them and shapes them into mighty opponents to the forces of good.
I feel like villains, at least in some stories, were supposed to be either normal people or even the good guys but that they didn't get from life what they were told they should get.
In my life, I was told if you did well in school; went to college; if you followed the rules; and if you stayed out of trouble, that your life would be pretty much set. You'd get a good job, find a good woman to make your wife, start a family, and safely and without obstruction, cross the various milestones of life.
But that's not how it goes. Sure, it does for some. But ultimately, it appears (and too late for me) that the rewards go not to the rule-followers but to the risk-takers. And that is not to say that risk-takers don't have their share of failure too, it just appears that it is the risk-takers, the ones who flout conventions rather than adhere to them, have the best chance of achieving something like the success promised to the meek, but bright, students who took following the rules to heart.
You grow upset that the rule-breakers go unpunished, seeing the unjustness in society, and you grow jealous of those who get the good jobs, the friends, the influence, the girl, etc. because you were told those things would come to you by being a rules-bound, dutiful soul but they got theirs by being rebellious and flouting.
You grow angry at a world that rewards relationships over merit. You question why you spent so much of your time doing what you were told was the right thing instead of building connections which could be exploited later for better jobs and relationship opportunities.
You grow impatient with a world that does not desire your intelligence or value the contributions you're capable of making.
You grow tired of being ignored and invisible.
You're then struck by your utter powerlessness. You'll never be the villain. You'll never make anyone pay for your suffering. It's very depressing. You wish you had the necessary charisma to sway millions to your way of thinking; to create a backbone to execute your nefarious plans and then you realize that had you had that charisma in the first place, you'd've made friends and the evil that is now in your heart would never have grown into its present, all-consuming form.
It's quite the paradox...
To have the skills of a villain you need the very qualities that would have prevented you from becoming a villain in the first place. Maybe villainy only works when discovered by someone already in power. I don't know...
But either way, when villains like Melkor, Father, the Shadows & Vorlons, the Sovereign, and Voldemort appear, and even one-dimensional ones like Mumm-ra, Skeletor, and Saw Boss...I feel a kinship with them. I understand where they're coming from even if they're incompetent. I root for them, even when their success would mean the end of all things.
I feel their suffering and believe that, like me, had they only been given a normal life...perhaps the normal life they had been promised, that they'd've never become the threats they were. Or to put it bluntly, I really can't believe Hitler would have been Hitler had he only gotten laid...
"Heroes and Villains" by The Beach Boys
I feel like villains, at least in some stories, were supposed to be either normal people or even the good guys but that they didn't get from life what they were told they should get.
In my life, I was told if you did well in school; went to college; if you followed the rules; and if you stayed out of trouble, that your life would be pretty much set. You'd get a good job, find a good woman to make your wife, start a family, and safely and without obstruction, cross the various milestones of life.
But that's not how it goes. Sure, it does for some. But ultimately, it appears (and too late for me) that the rewards go not to the rule-followers but to the risk-takers. And that is not to say that risk-takers don't have their share of failure too, it just appears that it is the risk-takers, the ones who flout conventions rather than adhere to them, have the best chance of achieving something like the success promised to the meek, but bright, students who took following the rules to heart.
You grow upset that the rule-breakers go unpunished, seeing the unjustness in society, and you grow jealous of those who get the good jobs, the friends, the influence, the girl, etc. because you were told those things would come to you by being a rules-bound, dutiful soul but they got theirs by being rebellious and flouting.
You grow angry at a world that rewards relationships over merit. You question why you spent so much of your time doing what you were told was the right thing instead of building connections which could be exploited later for better jobs and relationship opportunities.
You grow impatient with a world that does not desire your intelligence or value the contributions you're capable of making.
You grow tired of being ignored and invisible.
You're then struck by your utter powerlessness. You'll never be the villain. You'll never make anyone pay for your suffering. It's very depressing. You wish you had the necessary charisma to sway millions to your way of thinking; to create a backbone to execute your nefarious plans and then you realize that had you had that charisma in the first place, you'd've made friends and the evil that is now in your heart would never have grown into its present, all-consuming form.
It's quite the paradox...
To have the skills of a villain you need the very qualities that would have prevented you from becoming a villain in the first place. Maybe villainy only works when discovered by someone already in power. I don't know...
But either way, when villains like Melkor, Father, the Shadows & Vorlons, the Sovereign, and Voldemort appear, and even one-dimensional ones like Mumm-ra, Skeletor, and Saw Boss...I feel a kinship with them. I understand where they're coming from even if they're incompetent. I root for them, even when their success would mean the end of all things.
I feel their suffering and believe that, like me, had they only been given a normal life...perhaps the normal life they had been promised, that they'd've never become the threats they were. Or to put it bluntly, I really can't believe Hitler would have been Hitler had he only gotten laid...
"Heroes and Villains" by The Beach Boys
Sunday, March 20, 2016
TINDER RULES...
After futzing around on Tinder for a while, I've noticed the following consistencies in my "swipe left" rejection behavior:
1. When the girl mentions her height, I'm too short for her.
While I would be considered "minimally tall" at 5'10", it doesn't matter if she says she's 4'11, 5'2, 5'8, or 6'...if she's mentioned her height, she's looking for someone over six feet tall.
2. When the girl mentions she's not looking to hook-up.
Look, I'm not on this site to hook-up either but I'm fairly confident that if you have to go out of your way to mention it, you're not fun no matter how fun you claim to be.
3. When the profile has only one picture.
Best case scenario, it's a fake profile and you're just going to be led into what will eventually turn into a spam conversation where the girl tells you to go to an outside e-mail to see her "other" pics. Otherwise, and especially if that one photo is up-close, difficult to make out, or a cartoon/sports team logo...you've got nothing to work with.
Even if the one picture is fantastic, anyone can look good in a single photo.
4. When the girl has a foreign/ghetto name.
I want a fully-Americanized girl and I'm just not confident that a Lyudmila, Sirin, Jennyffyr, Yessica, Shayvon, Yeon-hee, Desserae, Huma, Shivani, Xiomena, Dharmista, or Meiying will be so. I'm not interested in dating another language and/or culture, especially if that culture prizes submissive femininity and/or values overly dominant/involved parents. I want a feminist girl: one who's her own woman.
4a. When the girl shows obvious signs of religiousness.
As a corollary to the above, if your religion is an important part of your identity, it's just going to clash with my atheism; even more so for religions (and lifestyles like vegetarianism/veganism) with dietary restrictions. But if you're just a Christian, Jew, or Muslim in name-only, I'm cool with that but say it in your Tinder profile.
This also applies to food allergies. I probably eat all-the-time what you're allergic to. Let's just not bother.
5.When a girl mentions she works with "special needs" people.
Doubly so if she has one or more close retarded family members. You know I'm a eugenicist, right?
6. When the girl has the same name as my Mom.
My Mom's name isn't a common one like Jennifer, so I won't ever be able to dissociate. And this is one of the few times I would totally understand being rejected for the complementary reason...
7. When a girl mentions she doesn't like cats.
Even though I'm not allowed to have animals where I currently live, I do look forward to the day I may have a cat of my own. I can tolerate dogs, but I'm not fond of them and if anything, I would want a cat-person too because it is really no joke just how many single women own dogs on these kinds of sites. I'm really convinced that it is a bad thing for a woman to be a dog lover...
1. When the girl mentions her height, I'm too short for her.
While I would be considered "minimally tall" at 5'10", it doesn't matter if she says she's 4'11, 5'2, 5'8, or 6'...if she's mentioned her height, she's looking for someone over six feet tall.
2. When the girl mentions she's not looking to hook-up.
Look, I'm not on this site to hook-up either but I'm fairly confident that if you have to go out of your way to mention it, you're not fun no matter how fun you claim to be.
3. When the profile has only one picture.
Best case scenario, it's a fake profile and you're just going to be led into what will eventually turn into a spam conversation where the girl tells you to go to an outside e-mail to see her "other" pics. Otherwise, and especially if that one photo is up-close, difficult to make out, or a cartoon/sports team logo...you've got nothing to work with.
Even if the one picture is fantastic, anyone can look good in a single photo.
4. When the girl has a foreign/ghetto name.
I want a fully-Americanized girl and I'm just not confident that a Lyudmila, Sirin, Jennyffyr, Yessica, Shayvon, Yeon-hee, Desserae, Huma, Shivani, Xiomena, Dharmista, or Meiying will be so. I'm not interested in dating another language and/or culture, especially if that culture prizes submissive femininity and/or values overly dominant/involved parents. I want a feminist girl: one who's her own woman.
4a. When the girl shows obvious signs of religiousness.
As a corollary to the above, if your religion is an important part of your identity, it's just going to clash with my atheism; even more so for religions (and lifestyles like vegetarianism/veganism) with dietary restrictions. But if you're just a Christian, Jew, or Muslim in name-only, I'm cool with that but say it in your Tinder profile.
This also applies to food allergies. I probably eat all-the-time what you're allergic to. Let's just not bother.
5.When a girl mentions she works with "special needs" people.
Doubly so if she has one or more close retarded family members. You know I'm a eugenicist, right?
6. When the girl has the same name as my Mom.
My Mom's name isn't a common one like Jennifer, so I won't ever be able to dissociate. And this is one of the few times I would totally understand being rejected for the complementary reason...
7. When a girl mentions she doesn't like cats.
Even though I'm not allowed to have animals where I currently live, I do look forward to the day I may have a cat of my own. I can tolerate dogs, but I'm not fond of them and if anything, I would want a cat-person too because it is really no joke just how many single women own dogs on these kinds of sites. I'm really convinced that it is a bad thing for a woman to be a dog lover...
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
POINTLESS ENTRY IS POINTLESS...
I miss the passion I used to have for this blog. The entries have dwindled practically to zero. It's not that I don't want to write anymore. It's just that I don't know what to write about.
I have this old running post idea that would get me to come back at least once weekly. My image macros folder on my PC is filled with images I could never post on Facebook because they would offend one too many sensibilities. They're things I find funny in their own absurd (and sometimes mean) ways. I just never got around to setting it up.
Maybe it's because I have too many open accounts online now. It'd be a job in of itself to keep up to date with all of them, especially a blogging site which requires some measure of dedication to generate an entry that's more than me just bitching about something.
My most popular entry to date is still the Carly McKinney one and that's entirely due to the pictures I posted within the post. People are finding the entry via Google searches so if anything, yeah...the right images can generate views but that entry had some sincere passion in it which took some time to plan out and compose. It wasn't just a post offering a gallery of pictures for viewers to ogle.
I don't know. I have occasional ideas but I'm not budgeting my online time well. Facebook and Twitter draw my time like television once did which reminds me, like with Twitter, I need to create a core group of friends on Facebook I definitely follow and have an "Everybody Else Day" for when I have the time or otherwise bored. I've already cleared my feed of the "Posts Too Much" crowd: those people who love oversharing links and whatnot. I feel like I must be on quite of few of them seeing as how few the reactions are to anything I post. I accept the emptiness on Twitter: it's part of its design. It's more depressing on Facebook.
It'll be another year before I update the America the Beautiful mintages and another two years before I update the Deliberately Circulated running entries.
Maybe I got out much of what I had wanted to say in 2010 and 2011 when this blog was new. It probably helped that I was still reading Gawker and listening to Opie & Anthony daily to keep my rage informed. Perhaps I've mellowed out?
I should never discount that I'm simply lazy...
I have this old running post idea that would get me to come back at least once weekly. My image macros folder on my PC is filled with images I could never post on Facebook because they would offend one too many sensibilities. They're things I find funny in their own absurd (and sometimes mean) ways. I just never got around to setting it up.
Maybe it's because I have too many open accounts online now. It'd be a job in of itself to keep up to date with all of them, especially a blogging site which requires some measure of dedication to generate an entry that's more than me just bitching about something.
My most popular entry to date is still the Carly McKinney one and that's entirely due to the pictures I posted within the post. People are finding the entry via Google searches so if anything, yeah...the right images can generate views but that entry had some sincere passion in it which took some time to plan out and compose. It wasn't just a post offering a gallery of pictures for viewers to ogle.
I don't know. I have occasional ideas but I'm not budgeting my online time well. Facebook and Twitter draw my time like television once did which reminds me, like with Twitter, I need to create a core group of friends on Facebook I definitely follow and have an "Everybody Else Day" for when I have the time or otherwise bored. I've already cleared my feed of the "Posts Too Much" crowd: those people who love oversharing links and whatnot. I feel like I must be on quite of few of them seeing as how few the reactions are to anything I post. I accept the emptiness on Twitter: it's part of its design. It's more depressing on Facebook.
It'll be another year before I update the America the Beautiful mintages and another two years before I update the Deliberately Circulated running entries.
Maybe I got out much of what I had wanted to say in 2010 and 2011 when this blog was new. It probably helped that I was still reading Gawker and listening to Opie & Anthony daily to keep my rage informed. Perhaps I've mellowed out?
I should never discount that I'm simply lazy...
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
YOU CAN BE WORTH TOO MUCH...
This isn't about God hatred. I don't really go for that. It's about that shitty handwaving mentality of "everything happens for a reason" I can't stand and this image macro post exemplifies it. I'm sorry things aren't going your way but it's because you're more valuable than the people who get what they want easily so you're just going to have to wait, and wait...and wait.....and wait some more believing that someday you, yes you!, will be found worthy of happiness long after the time it would've been useful for you to have.
Ugh...
There is such a thing as being too valuable. You see it in some convenience stores when they won't accept $50 or $100 bills regardless of how much you purchase. This poster says to me that while all your $10 and $20 friends get to have lunch, your $100 self will just have to go hungry because you're worth so much more than lunch right now when you need it...
Ugh...
 |
| Anyone got change? I need change. |
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
ATB QUARTER MINTAGES: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (2015 update)
2015's mintages have been released so it's time, once again, to update my comparison chart of America the Beautiful (ATB) Quarters mintages with that of the preceding 50 State Quarters program (1999-2009).
As of 2014, the total mintage of the entire ATB Quarters program had still yet not exceeded that of the first year of State Quarters (though just barely). That would be left up to 2015's mintages, which would put a significant dent in the 2000 State Quarters' production totals.
To recap, the mintages from the 1999 State Quarters program were 2.23 billion quarters produced at the Philadelphia mint and 2.21 billion quarters produced at the Denver mint for a total mintage of 4,430.8 million quarters which broke down as follows:
Total mintage for Delaware was 774.8 million pieces
Total mintage for Pennsylvania was 707.3 million pieces
Total mintage for New Jersey was 662.2 million pieces
Total mintage for Georgia was 939.9 million pieces
Total mintage for Connecticut was 1,346.6 million pieces
Additionally, we last left off with the production percentages of ATB Quarters to date compared to State Quarters production as follows:
Of the 1999 total: 98.6% with DE: 100% - PA: 100% - NJ: 100% - GA: 100% - CT: 93.4%
The combined production totals for 2010-2014 were 4,341.6 million quarters. For Connecticut, an additional 89.2 million quarters will be needed to exceed that state's mintage in the order and, for that matter, the entirety of 1999's mintage.
As we will be moving into the second year of the 50 State Quarters program's mintages, now would be a good time to break down its production totals.
The mintages from the 2000 State Quarters program were 3.67 billion quarters produced at the Philadelphia mint and 2.81 billion quarters produced at the Denver mint for a total mintage of 6,470.9 million quarters which broke down as follows:
Total mintage for Massachusetts was 1,163.8 million pieces
Total mintage for Maryland was 1,234.7 million pieces
Total mintage for South Carolina was 1,308.8 million pieces
Total mintage for New Hampshire was 1,169 million pieces
Total mintage for Virginia was 1,594.6 million pieces
2000 holds the record for the highest production totals in the program as well as the individual title holder for the highest minted State Quarter, Virginia.
The total production of 2015 ATB Quarters was 1,417.6 million from the Philadelphia mint and 1,573.2 million from the Denver mint for a combined total of 2,990.8 million quarters, nearly double 2014's mintage.
The 463 million total mintage of the Homestead quarter more than provides the 89.2 million quarters necessary to push out of 1999's production totals and into 2000's (that only took five years and change!) and combined with Kisatchie's 776.8 million total, we're just 1% shy of Massachusetts's mintage.
The combined mintages of the Blue Ridge Parkway (830.8 million pieces) and Bombay Hook quarters (481.4 million pieces) not only quickly surpass the mintage of our union's sixth state, but also overtake Maryland's total by 5%.
The mintage for the Saratoga quarter, the final ATB Quarter for 2015, provided an additional 438.8 million pieces to combine with the 64.3 million leftover pieces from Bombay Hook that exceeded Maryland's total, thus eating into, but not overtaking South Carolina's production total.
In conclusion:
Of the 2000 total: 44.8% with MA: 100% - MD: 100% - SC: 38.4% - NH: 0% - VA: 0%
2015 dated quarters are:
Of total 1965-1998 quarter production (37,463 million pieces): 7.98%
Of total State Quarter production (1999-2009 : 35,451.2 million pieces): 8.44%
Of total clad quarter production (1965-2015): 3.73% [about 1 in 27 quarters will be dated 2015]
And of all quarters made from 1965-2015 (80,246.6 million pieces):
1965-1998 clad quarters make up 46.68% of the total [about 1 in 2 quarters]
State Quarters make up 44.18% of the total [about 1 in 2 quarters]
1999-dated quarters make up 5.52% of the total [about 1 in 18 quarters]
2000-dated quarters make up 8.06% of the total [about 1 in 12 quarters]
ATB Quarters from 2010-2015 make up 9.14% of the total [about 1 in 11 quarters]
As of 2014, the total mintage of the entire ATB Quarters program had still yet not exceeded that of the first year of State Quarters (though just barely). That would be left up to 2015's mintages, which would put a significant dent in the 2000 State Quarters' production totals.
To recap, the mintages from the 1999 State Quarters program were 2.23 billion quarters produced at the Philadelphia mint and 2.21 billion quarters produced at the Denver mint for a total mintage of 4,430.8 million quarters which broke down as follows:
Total mintage for Delaware was 774.8 million pieces
Total mintage for Pennsylvania was 707.3 million pieces
Total mintage for New Jersey was 662.2 million pieces
Total mintage for Georgia was 939.9 million pieces
Total mintage for Connecticut was 1,346.6 million pieces
Additionally, we last left off with the production percentages of ATB Quarters to date compared to State Quarters production as follows:
Of the 1999 total: 98.6% with DE: 100% - PA: 100% - NJ: 100% - GA: 100% - CT: 93.4%
The combined production totals for 2010-2014 were 4,341.6 million quarters. For Connecticut, an additional 89.2 million quarters will be needed to exceed that state's mintage in the order and, for that matter, the entirety of 1999's mintage.
As we will be moving into the second year of the 50 State Quarters program's mintages, now would be a good time to break down its production totals.
The mintages from the 2000 State Quarters program were 3.67 billion quarters produced at the Philadelphia mint and 2.81 billion quarters produced at the Denver mint for a total mintage of 6,470.9 million quarters which broke down as follows:
Total mintage for Massachusetts was 1,163.8 million pieces
Total mintage for Maryland was 1,234.7 million pieces
Total mintage for South Carolina was 1,308.8 million pieces
Total mintage for New Hampshire was 1,169 million pieces
Total mintage for Virginia was 1,594.6 million pieces
2000 holds the record for the highest production totals in the program as well as the individual title holder for the highest minted State Quarter, Virginia.
The total production of 2015 ATB Quarters was 1,417.6 million from the Philadelphia mint and 1,573.2 million from the Denver mint for a combined total of 2,990.8 million quarters, nearly double 2014's mintage.
The 463 million total mintage of the Homestead quarter more than provides the 89.2 million quarters necessary to push out of 1999's production totals and into 2000's (that only took five years and change!) and combined with Kisatchie's 776.8 million total, we're just 1% shy of Massachusetts's mintage.
The combined mintages of the Blue Ridge Parkway (830.8 million pieces) and Bombay Hook quarters (481.4 million pieces) not only quickly surpass the mintage of our union's sixth state, but also overtake Maryland's total by 5%.
The mintage for the Saratoga quarter, the final ATB Quarter for 2015, provided an additional 438.8 million pieces to combine with the 64.3 million leftover pieces from Bombay Hook that exceeded Maryland's total, thus eating into, but not overtaking South Carolina's production total.
In conclusion:
Of the 2000 total: 44.8% with MA: 100% - MD: 100% - SC: 38.4% - NH: 0% - VA: 0%
2015 dated quarters are:
Of total 1965-1998 quarter production (37,463 million pieces): 7.98%
Of total State Quarter production (1999-2009 : 35,451.2 million pieces): 8.44%
Of total clad quarter production (1965-2015): 3.73% [about 1 in 27 quarters will be dated 2015]
And of all quarters made from 1965-2015 (80,246.6 million pieces):
1965-1998 clad quarters make up 46.68% of the total [about 1 in 2 quarters]
State Quarters make up 44.18% of the total [about 1 in 2 quarters]
1999-dated quarters make up 5.52% of the total [about 1 in 18 quarters]
2000-dated quarters make up 8.06% of the total [about 1 in 12 quarters]
ATB Quarters from 2010-2015 make up 9.14% of the total [about 1 in 11 quarters]
Sunday, January 10, 2016
POWER DYNAMICS AND FLIRTING...
I hate the lack of defined social etiquette when it comes to when it's okay and when it's not okay for men to flirt with women (and vice-versa). I say this somewhat ironically as I despise social conventions as unnecessarily restrictive but they have their purpose, especially in tense or otherwise in scenarios with too many variables. A defined social etiquette, or diplomacy if you will, helps take the edge off by allowing participants to follows established guidelines rather than risk accidental offense.
I accept, however reluctantly as a coward, that it is generally accepted that men make the opening moves when attempting to woo women ("woo" is a terrible word, isn't it?) however, while it is also generally accepted that not all situations are appropriate for male-initiated flirting, there is no clear-cut set of rules establishing when and where such behavior is appropriate.
I'm not sure I can define the scenarios mathematically but an obvious, all-too-cliché, example where it is perfectly acceptable to flirt is ye olde bar or a dance club. People, strangers, deliberately meeting up in a public place purveying in intoxication is the standard-bearer for male-initiated wooing via inviting female body language.
I'm not actually one to believe that the men are ever in control here. I feel, like in nature, women are generally always the ones holding all the cards and just make it look like the men are the ones doing so.
But I think it's also safe-to-say that people would agree that the supermarket or restaurant are not places where male-initiated flirting is acceptable. The difference being that the female cashier (and even customer) and waitress are not in positions of power like they are at a bar or club. They have to be nice to you. They can't get away. They can't tell you off. Etc.
Yet, as anyone can attest, guys still shamelessly flirt with such women all the fucking time. Now I'm not saying it's wrong, in of itself, for such flirting to happen. I'm saying it's wrong when the man initiates flirting when the power-dynamic does not favor the woman.
There is a way around this. If the female cashier, waitress, or customer initiates flirting with the guy, she is granting him permission to do so in a venue where his advances would otherwise (and should) be frowned upon. In this way, the power dynamic of the bar/club is preserved in places where it may not simply be assumed by the male.
The trouble is, I don't see anything like this actually going on nor when I was in school (or from posts I read online) were we ever educated in such a manner of when are where flirting is appropriate. Feminist posts will occasionally broach this topic but I've only ever read complaints about creepy men, etc. taking advantage of the topsy-turvy power dynamic, not calls for social etiquette.
Admittedly, this sucks for me as only very rarely has a female customer even kinda-sorta flirted with me. It sucks because some of my customers are very attractive and from the ones who do speak, sometimes immediately appealing too. But it only seems fair to apply.
I think of sexual harassment videos and shit from school and work. They always told you what not to do, but never what to do leaving cautious folk like me without guidance.
Additionally, I think of the rather unnatural world of online dating and how the power dynamic perhaps ought to play out there as well. I regularly read complaints about creepy guys or overly sexual guys bothering women on these sites, ruining the experience for everyone. Sites like Tinder which require a mutual match before contact may be made and Bumble which require girls to initiate contact with men might help somewhat but what of simply the overall etiquette? What should it be?
My thoughts on this are that it's okay for men to initiate contact on sites like Plenty of Fish and OKCupid but that it is not okay for them to ask for the girl's phone number. I feel by asking for the phone number, the men are violating the power dynamic.
Online dating isn't like real life dating as there is no face-to-face communication and all its attendant body language, eye contact, smells, etc. that both consciously and subconsciously go along with face-to-face meetings. As women will readily admit, they're kinda sussing the men out to determine if they are creeps, sexual perverts, or the ever classic, serial killers and they're denied this pass/fail opportunity when the man is demanding her private contact information before she is willing to give it.
Unfortunately, like the cashier and waitress examples, there are no defined and socially accepted rules for these scenarios so they continue to go often violated by men, making dating that much harder for the rest of us. I wish there were a way to socially shun the power dynamic violating men, but as of now, there isn't and as of now, it's still very hard for me to get a date playing by rules that I've effectively made up and may ultimately be projecting an apparent lack of interest when nothing could be further from the truth.
It makes me hate my life...
I accept, however reluctantly as a coward, that it is generally accepted that men make the opening moves when attempting to woo women ("woo" is a terrible word, isn't it?) however, while it is also generally accepted that not all situations are appropriate for male-initiated flirting, there is no clear-cut set of rules establishing when and where such behavior is appropriate.
I'm not sure I can define the scenarios mathematically but an obvious, all-too-cliché, example where it is perfectly acceptable to flirt is ye olde bar or a dance club. People, strangers, deliberately meeting up in a public place purveying in intoxication is the standard-bearer for male-initiated wooing via inviting female body language.
I'm not actually one to believe that the men are ever in control here. I feel, like in nature, women are generally always the ones holding all the cards and just make it look like the men are the ones doing so.
But I think it's also safe-to-say that people would agree that the supermarket or restaurant are not places where male-initiated flirting is acceptable. The difference being that the female cashier (and even customer) and waitress are not in positions of power like they are at a bar or club. They have to be nice to you. They can't get away. They can't tell you off. Etc.
Yet, as anyone can attest, guys still shamelessly flirt with such women all the fucking time. Now I'm not saying it's wrong, in of itself, for such flirting to happen. I'm saying it's wrong when the man initiates flirting when the power-dynamic does not favor the woman.
There is a way around this. If the female cashier, waitress, or customer initiates flirting with the guy, she is granting him permission to do so in a venue where his advances would otherwise (and should) be frowned upon. In this way, the power dynamic of the bar/club is preserved in places where it may not simply be assumed by the male.
The trouble is, I don't see anything like this actually going on nor when I was in school (or from posts I read online) were we ever educated in such a manner of when are where flirting is appropriate. Feminist posts will occasionally broach this topic but I've only ever read complaints about creepy men, etc. taking advantage of the topsy-turvy power dynamic, not calls for social etiquette.
Admittedly, this sucks for me as only very rarely has a female customer even kinda-sorta flirted with me. It sucks because some of my customers are very attractive and from the ones who do speak, sometimes immediately appealing too. But it only seems fair to apply.
I think of sexual harassment videos and shit from school and work. They always told you what not to do, but never what to do leaving cautious folk like me without guidance.
Additionally, I think of the rather unnatural world of online dating and how the power dynamic perhaps ought to play out there as well. I regularly read complaints about creepy guys or overly sexual guys bothering women on these sites, ruining the experience for everyone. Sites like Tinder which require a mutual match before contact may be made and Bumble which require girls to initiate contact with men might help somewhat but what of simply the overall etiquette? What should it be?
My thoughts on this are that it's okay for men to initiate contact on sites like Plenty of Fish and OKCupid but that it is not okay for them to ask for the girl's phone number. I feel by asking for the phone number, the men are violating the power dynamic.
Online dating isn't like real life dating as there is no face-to-face communication and all its attendant body language, eye contact, smells, etc. that both consciously and subconsciously go along with face-to-face meetings. As women will readily admit, they're kinda sussing the men out to determine if they are creeps, sexual perverts, or the ever classic, serial killers and they're denied this pass/fail opportunity when the man is demanding her private contact information before she is willing to give it.
Unfortunately, like the cashier and waitress examples, there are no defined and socially accepted rules for these scenarios so they continue to go often violated by men, making dating that much harder for the rest of us. I wish there were a way to socially shun the power dynamic violating men, but as of now, there isn't and as of now, it's still very hard for me to get a date playing by rules that I've effectively made up and may ultimately be projecting an apparent lack of interest when nothing could be further from the truth.
It makes me hate my life...