Rational/Contemporary » Everyday garbage

Greetings and modes of transportation

joshuah — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:06:40 +0000

To get to work, I have to pass through a guard station and have my badge checked. The guards are mostly big, beefy guys in SWAT gear, but friendly. When I drive in, I usually get a “Thank you, sir” or “Have a good day, sir.” When I bike in, however, I get a “How’s it goin’, man?” or “Hey, man,” followed with “Have a good one” or similar. Apparently on a bicycle I am more a man of the people. That, or I command less respect.

joshuah — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:28:12 +0000

I was listening to PBS NewsHour yesterday and was struck by some of the messages from corporate sponsors. For example:

…solving climate change is going to require energy. What if that energy came from an energy company? Chevron. Harnessing the power of human energy.

And then:

Bank of America. Helping America out of the financial crisis.

Apparently it was “corporations pretending to solve the problems they helped create” night for NewsHour sponsors.

Liveblogging unemployment

joshuah — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:42:17 +0000

When I was in the crunch of finishing several projects before my fellowship ended, I had all kinds of fantasies about the many things I would do during my partly-hoped-for, partly-fated break in employment. One of those things was a return to blogging, which I entirely neglected in said crunch.

Desire to be online as a function of time online

However, oddly enough, I have less inclination to go online now in total than I used to during non-work hours (when I was already spending most of the day online). My friend put it this way, describing her experience on maternity leave: “You get inside your own bubble, and you don’t want anything to intrude on that bubble.” That includes news, phone calls, emails. I wonder if spending time online isn’t a diminishing returns phenomenon. Like you most want to spend more time online only after you’ve been online a lot (see figure).

One thing that has surprised me about unemployment so far: some things that used to seem hopelessly tedious are somewhat satisfying, such as practicing scales and reading bottom-of-the-stack, good-for-you books like “People’s History of the United States” and a macroeconomics textbook (after the financial crisis, I figured I should understand macro econ better).

Well, back to not working…

Everybody say “queso”

joshuah — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:14:21 +0000

International tourists are common near my office. This afternoon I was passing a group Spanish-speaking tourists taking a group photo. The woman holding the camera intoned “Uno, dos, tres … queso!” Now, I always thought the tradition of saying “cheeeeeese” while one’s picture is being taken stems from the approximation of a smile one’s mouth forms when making the “ee” sound. But could it be that cheese is simply a cross-cultural symbol of happiness? Or was the woman making an ironic cultural reference? Or is saying “cheese” for a picture something spanish-speakers have adopted from English in contradiction with the original motivation? Any of those explanations is kind of hilarious.

Investment banking

joshuah — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:22:49 +0000

Classical strategy: “Buy low, sell high.”

Enron executive strategy: “Buy high, hide your losses with phony accounting, collect your bonus and get out.”

Lehman Brothers executive strategy: “Buy high, hide your risk with complex financial instruments, collect your bonus and declare bankruptcy.”

Other large investment bank’s executive strategy: “Get ‘too big to fail’. Buy high, sell low. Make up the difference with government bailout money. Continue collecting bonuses.”

Keep off the grass

joshuah — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:34:30 +0000

A sign on a small patch of lawn outside my workplace reads “Keep off the grass. Motion-activated sprinklers in use.” Is this to keep people from walking on the grass? I think we can put this in the category of things we somehow allow machines to do, even though it would never be acceptable for people to do the same. Could you imagine a guy standing on the edge of the lawn with a hose, spraying anyone who stepped onto it? Also in this category: someone reading your personal email and then trying to sell you things based on the contents.

Nonsensical hyperbole

joshuah — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:51:25 +0000

I was thinking today about how I often find nonsensical hyberbole really funny, like “Christ on a stick! You are going to hurt your hand if you keep using your iPhone that way.” Or “That woman is dumber than a box of hair.” I appreciate this humor, but I would never use it myself. Somehow I don’t feel qualified to say something like, “Sweet barrels of oil, take a right turn already!” It’s best, of course, with confidant, over-the-top delivery. Perhaps I don’t feel I can pull that off. But, whatever the reason, it makes me wonder how much the humor we appreciate diverges from the humor we use.

I love pockets.

joshuah — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:47:43 +0000

Especially, I love being able to take things out and put things in my pockets without breaking stride. Like sunglasses or a hat. Or a cellphone, sometimes. If it is a text message, then taking the cellphone out, quickly checking the message, and slipping the phone back into a pocket is quite satisfying. Receiving a call or having to reply to a text while walking is too awkward, however, sapping all the pocket-satisfaction from the experience. Clothing without pockets, or without usable pockets, saddens me (in fact, fake pockets might be even sadder than no pockets). I would go so far as to say that the feminist critique of women’s clothing hasn’t given enough attention to the fact that women are so often deprived of the joys and utilities of pockets.

Since I’m on the topic of pockets, let me mention one other issue: boarding passes. Why aren’t they pocket-sized? Or at least one fold from pocket-sized (for instance, by creasing the standard ones in the middle instead of near the end)? You have to “hold on” to the damn things while you go through airport security. How many hands do they think we have that we can take off our shoes, empty our pockets, take off our coat, remove the liquids from our luggage, take the laptop out and put it in a separate bin, and load everything onto the conveyor belt while holding on to the boarding pass? And hurry up while you’re at it. Even if you have a pocket after taking off your jacket, the boarding pass will not fit in it. The breast pocket of a button-up shirt is a possible exception, depending on the width of the pocket and of the boarding pass. When it works out, having the pocket for the boarding pass makes the whole process significantly easier.

In conclusions, clothing makers, airline companies, you must respect the pocket.

Refrigerator note

joshuah — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:04:19 +0000

A note on the office refrigerator states that during the last fridge cleaning, “We can’t say for sure, but we know some items date from as far back as March, 2006. And while we realize this is EPA and we do believe in sounds science, this refrigerator is probably not the place to conduct experiments.”

The sadness of Mann

joshuah — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:26:39 +0000

I love Aimee Mann, but I can’t say her music has much emotional range. I feel like 90% of her songs convey the same dispirited sadness — quiet tragedy viewed through a lens of “oh well” nihilism. (I formulated this before realizing, via google search to determine if anyone else has had this thought, that she played a nihilist in The Big Lebowski. Coincidence?)