If by "we" you mean a single guy and his wife toiling for years in obscurity, before teaming up with a crazed internet millionaire and a professional chemist, then yes, I can see how the outrage over four people working to create magic. COLOR. BUBBLES! would be upsetting.
I really think election days should be holidays. More people would vote if they didn't have to work that day.
posted by TenaciousPettle at 07:29PM UTC on November 08, 2005
I thought all the research had pinted towards the exact opposite. As I recall, when mail-in options become more lax, not only do fewer people vote, but those that do are still submitting it at the Post Office at the last minute.
To me, it seems that people are more inclined to vote when you threaten to take away their right to vote. SO, I think if you don't vote at least once every 4 years, then your income taxes double.
And employers that refuse to honor the vote-window laws are like employers that refuse to honor the National Guard Duty laws; they should be dropped off in Afghanistan without any pants.
I too noticed the fear. I think it's a 9/11 allergic reaction, actually. Or, more probably, a post cold-war allergic reaction.
Before the cold war ended, there was this nice hulking doomsday scenario hanging over our heads that was very real and very possible and very comforting. Smallpox epidemic? Eh, no big deal as I'm sure we'll all nuke ourselves to death before that ever happens. Global warming? Ditto. Peak Oil? Natch.
It was comforting, because all those really scary things in life could be easily compared to the doomsday scenario, and they wouldn't seem so scary anymore.
But now there's no more close-at-hand doomsday scenario, and so people jump at the smallest things to comfort them with impending doom. 9/11 didn't help matters much, becuase it proved that you could just one day go to work, and some whackos would plow a plane into your office.
Anthrax in the mail? Panictime! Get me some Cipro!
Mad Cow Desease? Panictime! Chicken only diet!
West Nile Virus? Panictime! I love the smell of Malathion in the morning!
Avian Flu? Panictime! Quick, to the Tamiflu-mobile!
And, as usual, in every case the panic-stricken mob creates more problems then NOT panicking would. Cipro has nasty side effects, and then stopping midcourse or even starting for no reason only helps breed resistant germs. Chickens are regularily fed rendered chicken, and the prion/chicken interactions are even more unknown then in beef. Seasonal Influenza remains a deadly killer a few orders of magnitude then West Nile, and if you love grandma, you'd get your kids all flu-shot up (but mostly we don't).
And now we sit in the wake of the avian flu panic.
So what's a rational person to do?
Have more sex, or course. It's good for you, and your kids will have geneic variation that will protect them from H5N1.
Eh, voting is the easy part. Getting people to accept the whole Winner Take All thing, that's the harder part. It only took the USA a bloody civil war and multple year occupation to finally get the majority to accept the principle, and that was preceeded by several score years of limited participatory republican democracy.
Taming Iraq for the Iraqis will, IMHO probably take at least 5 years and a massive investment of money and troops, of which we're not even prepared to do right now. So it'll probably go on for a few bloody years, we'll pull out, and then it'll all collapse in on itself until militant extremists use the anarchy as a stanging/training area for another WTC style attack, at which point we'll have to invade *again* and end up right where we're at right now.
Unless, of course, Nixon visits Mecca, which would totally change everything.
My understanding concerning hedging was that you should go in expecting to lose signifigant sums of money. The reason you hedge, is to protect yourself from losing LOTS, boatloads of money.
That being said, my personal opinion is that you should lock in whatever you can get. My understanding is that natural gas prices are volatile, and locking in will allow you to budget with some certainty. But then, I'm very conservative on these matters.
Having come from the future, I can say with utmost confidence that years from now, the Grenada Mississippi Daily Star will be the official paper of record.
My fellow time traveler, Chertoff, knows this as well and wanted to make sure the fact was noted in the future history of our autarchy. Sadly, as a fellow visitor from the future, Chertoff is bound by the Temporal Parodox, and cannot act to change our past, by being helpful in any manner.
Although this is regrettable, it is for the best, as the ensuing investigation will prepare the states for the Great Flood of 2031, when the Grand Banks of Florida are formed.
Along the same lines as EarWax, not to disparage all of the NO's finest, but I do believe that one of the large contributing factors in the mayor's election was the prevelant corruption in the police department (along with pretty much every other level of government). Low pay didn't help (Even in NYC, one of the finest police towns, starting pay isn't that much north of $28,000. Which was a shock to me. At $28,000, I'd have figured every rookie cop to be crooked.)
That being said, it appears that those that stuck it out had no communications, no support, had to fend for food and water on their own, and in general were left to twist in the wind along with everyone else. Now that they have some support from the National Guard perhaps they can get a well deserved rest, and return back to some semblance of normalcy (ie: professionalism). Of course, if the lack of any sort of communication within the beaurocracy continues, and the idiots running the show are still clueless, then you can dump in any many troops as you want, there will still be chaos.
Nice quote, kirkaracha.
Oh, and my boo hoo hoo comment wasn't meant in spite. My point was that there are a lot of people who didn't care for the legalities when the decision to invade was in the public debate, and probably still don't care now. Hammering home that point, whether it is true or not, would not signifigantly convince them that we need new direction/leadership in the Iraq debacle.
stanthebat made some interesting points:Yeah, well, that's a bit like shooting somebody and then saying, "Good lord- this man needs medical attention! We don't have time to fuss about who shot who..."
Actually, that's pretty much what we do all the time. You don't hold a trial at the shooting, you simply disarm and apprehend, or at least secure the area, call in the paramedics, and rush victim to the hospital. The trial and accountability is all settled up months if not years after the initial crime.
To use another analogy, you don't sit around arguing who the arsonist is if the house around you is burning down. You just grab who you can, get the hell out, and sort it out later.
If the people who made these decisions aren't held to account, they're going to pull some more pins.
Since I don't see anthing here that's gonna be an impeachment style smoking gun, I'm afraid we're stuck with who we have for the short term. Sorry, it's just the way it is. But that DOESN'T mean you can't put pressue on the administration to do the right thing. Of course, my point is that if you don't know what the "right thing" is, ie: the best future course of action, then you're doomed to impotence. GWB doesn't have to think about re-election, Senators and Congressmen do. GWB doesn't have to worry about popularity polls, RNC does. Already there are undercurrents of rebellion stirring, and that's where you attack, HARD. But this whole "the war is illegal boo hoo hoo hoo" crap ain't gonna fly in Red State minds.
The growing perception is that this war is turning into a quagmire, and that most if not all of the stated goals have failed. Nobody wants to repeat Vietnam, which you have to remember also took place in an atmosphere of "National Security" threats (only back then it was Communism). Give Republicans an exit strategy they can live with, and they'll take care of pressuring GWB to do what's in their best interest. I mean, you can't keep giving tax cuts to the wealthy if war dissatisfaction loses you your Senate seat, right?
IMHO arguing about the justifications (or lack thereof) is like arguing about who pulled the pin out the grenade. The more practical discourse should be what the hell are go gonna do with this grenade (hopefully before it explodes and kills us all).
Favorable comparison to WWII, however, is disgraceful. Korea or Vietnam would be better examples, Vietnam especially so as we have indigenous guerrilas, foreign fighters leaking into the battlefield, an inability to win either hearts OR minds, and an administration that has politicized the war planning to the point where field commanders and being handicapped by Washington.
Only, instead of one Ho Chi Min Trail, now we have thousands. And more then four times the area to cover. With fewer troops. And fewer friends. With another hot war running concurrently.
Yay us.
I've been puzzling over this brain teaser as well, and I've come to 3 basic conclusions, and 3 theories:
1) Nobody checks facts.
This being the interweb, for all we know that whole blog post could be just a joke that's taken a life of its own. It could also be a secret plot by the dolphin to distract us while they plot to take over the world (by taking control of key oil shipping channels). Either way, much more thought has been put into solving the puzzle rather then proving that the puzzle is valid. It wouldn't be implausable to speculate that THIS online discussion is in fact the ethnographic study. For example, I recall all those eating studies where college students are given popcorn and told to watch a movie and answer surveys on the movie, all without knowing that the popcorn eating is the real data.
2) People don't read.
Cupholder size and need for bathroom are specifically discounted as possible causes, and yet in the comments thread of both kottke.pro and the original blog post, the subject comes up again and again and again.
3) With a little spare time, people obsess over everything.
The lively debate on the nature of the proposed change is entertaining. Much thought goes into the wording "Everytime I drive by", as opposed to "Everytime I drive in", or "Everytime I drive through." Personally, I don't see the signifigance of the word "by". I think it's casual usage, as evidenced by the fact that it is a blog post. Thus, I don't think the solution is necessarily large and obvious and external.
And now my 3 theories:
From a casual rereading, the mystery reason has a practical solution, and that is the trickiest part to figure out. The solution is possible, but it is also somehow inconvenient to McDonald's to implement.
The obvious answer would be the face-to-face reason/solution. People say no need to upsize to a speaker, but less so to a person. Solution: just have a guy/gal standing in the sun taking orders and relaying them via bluetooth wireless magic thing-ama-bobby back to the kitchen. Easy to deploy, and yet not done because that would mean an extra employee, whereas the trend is for drive-though operations to be centralized in a remote location (and thus saving money through lower wages).
Another good answer is the enviroment reason. In-store you are captivated by the bright colors and the big signage and are subconciously induced to order bigger. Solution: Drive Through the store, not just next to it. Build a small enclosed tunnel mocked up like the store. Not deployed because the payoff wouldn't outweigh the capital cost.
My personal idea: People don't order bigger drinks because drive-through people are LAZY. "Do you want to supersize that?" "Nah, too much trouble." Solution: bundle the orders with the bigger drink from the get-go. Make the default size the SuperSize. People will be too lazy to unbundle the package. Not deployed because people will get all outraged over differential pricing.
I've spent far too much time thinking about this. See conclusion #3.
MonkeyFilter: You really don't see much and your unconscious mind actually fills in a whole lot of information.
posted by LarimdaME 18 years ago
In "Bubbles in Color"
If by "we" you mean a single guy and his wife toiling for years in obscurity, before teaming up with a crazed internet millionaire and a professional chemist, then yes, I can see how the outrage over four people working to create magic. COLOR. BUBBLES! would be upsetting.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Sony Rips Off Open-Source Software."
And they didn't even need to hire an A&R guy to do it.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Croatia to mark Tesla's 150th birthday"
Meh. The proper way to celebrate his birthday is do what he did, blackout Colorado Springs. Or maybe just split the Earth in two.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Curious George"
And network, network, network. From what I've heard from the photo-junkies out here, 70-90% of it is just knowing the right people. And weddings.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In ""The hardest riddle available on the internet.""
not pron = not interested I too would try it for a dollar
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "They just don't work."
I've said it all before, it's been a plot all along to sell you more aluminum. A message from your good friends at ITRI Ltd.: Better Living Through TIN-foil. Accept no substitutes.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "PSA: GO VOTE. "
I really think election days should be holidays. More people would vote if they didn't have to work that day. posted by TenaciousPettle at 07:29PM UTC on November 08, 2005 I thought all the research had pinted towards the exact opposite. As I recall, when mail-in options become more lax, not only do fewer people vote, but those that do are still submitting it at the Post Office at the last minute. To me, it seems that people are more inclined to vote when you threaten to take away their right to vote. SO, I think if you don't vote at least once every 4 years, then your income taxes double. And employers that refuse to honor the vote-window laws are like employers that refuse to honor the National Guard Duty laws; they should be dropped off in Afghanistan without any pants.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
I voted Gregory Peck for President!
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "The other good thing about sex."
I too noticed the fear. I think it's a 9/11 allergic reaction, actually. Or, more probably, a post cold-war allergic reaction. Before the cold war ended, there was this nice hulking doomsday scenario hanging over our heads that was very real and very possible and very comforting. Smallpox epidemic? Eh, no big deal as I'm sure we'll all nuke ourselves to death before that ever happens. Global warming? Ditto. Peak Oil? Natch. It was comforting, because all those really scary things in life could be easily compared to the doomsday scenario, and they wouldn't seem so scary anymore. But now there's no more close-at-hand doomsday scenario, and so people jump at the smallest things to comfort them with impending doom. 9/11 didn't help matters much, becuase it proved that you could just one day go to work, and some whackos would plow a plane into your office. Anthrax in the mail? Panictime! Get me some Cipro! Mad Cow Desease? Panictime! Chicken only diet! West Nile Virus? Panictime! I love the smell of Malathion in the morning! Avian Flu? Panictime! Quick, to the Tamiflu-mobile! And, as usual, in every case the panic-stricken mob creates more problems then NOT panicking would. Cipro has nasty side effects, and then stopping midcourse or even starting for no reason only helps breed resistant germs. Chickens are regularily fed rendered chicken, and the prion/chicken interactions are even more unknown then in beef. Seasonal Influenza remains a deadly killer a few orders of magnitude then West Nile, and if you love grandma, you'd get your kids all flu-shot up (but mostly we don't). And now we sit in the wake of the avian flu panic. So what's a rational person to do? Have more sex, or course. It's good for you, and your kids will have geneic variation that will protect them from H5N1.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "GTA has nothing on 1986's CHILLER"
What, no MAME pun in the title? Very disappointing.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Democracy Arrives In Iraq!"
Eh, voting is the easy part. Getting people to accept the whole Winner Take All thing, that's the harder part. It only took the USA a bloody civil war and multple year occupation to finally get the majority to accept the principle, and that was preceeded by several score years of limited participatory republican democracy. Taming Iraq for the Iraqis will, IMHO probably take at least 5 years and a massive investment of money and troops, of which we're not even prepared to do right now. So it'll probably go on for a few bloody years, we'll pull out, and then it'll all collapse in on itself until militant extremists use the anarchy as a stanging/training area for another WTC style attack, at which point we'll have to invade *again* and end up right where we're at right now. Unless, of course, Nixon visits Mecca, which would totally change everything.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Curious George- Gas Prices"
My understanding concerning hedging was that you should go in expecting to lose signifigant sums of money. The reason you hedge, is to protect yourself from losing LOTS, boatloads of money. That being said, my personal opinion is that you should lock in whatever you can get. My understanding is that natural gas prices are volatile, and locking in will allow you to budget with some certainty. But then, I'm very conservative on these matters.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Dodging a Bullet"
Having come from the future, I can say with utmost confidence that years from now, the Grenada Mississippi Daily Star will be the official paper of record. My fellow time traveler, Chertoff, knows this as well and wanted to make sure the fact was noted in the future history of our autarchy. Sadly, as a fellow visitor from the future, Chertoff is bound by the Temporal Parodox, and cannot act to change our past, by being helpful in any manner. Although this is regrettable, it is for the best, as the ensuing investigation will prepare the states for the Great Flood of 2031, when the Grand Banks of Florida are formed.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In ""It's going to look like Little Somalia""
Along the same lines as EarWax, not to disparage all of the NO's finest, but I do believe that one of the large contributing factors in the mayor's election was the prevelant corruption in the police department (along with pretty much every other level of government). Low pay didn't help (Even in NYC, one of the finest police towns, starting pay isn't that much north of $28,000. Which was a shock to me. At $28,000, I'd have figured every rookie cop to be crooked.) That being said, it appears that those that stuck it out had no communications, no support, had to fend for food and water on their own, and in general were left to twist in the wind along with everyone else. Now that they have some support from the National Guard perhaps they can get a well deserved rest, and return back to some semblance of normalcy (ie: professionalism). Of course, if the lack of any sort of communication within the beaurocracy continues, and the idiots running the show are still clueless, then you can dump in any many troops as you want, there will still be chaos.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Curious George;"
A 6.0 earthquake could hit NYC. We're a bit overdue for our centennial ~5.0.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Bush compares Iraq to WWII"
Nice quote, kirkaracha. Oh, and my boo hoo hoo comment wasn't meant in spite. My point was that there are a lot of people who didn't care for the legalities when the decision to invade was in the public debate, and probably still don't care now. Hammering home that point, whether it is true or not, would not signifigantly convince them that we need new direction/leadership in the Iraq debacle.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
stanthebat made some interesting points: Yeah, well, that's a bit like shooting somebody and then saying, "Good lord- this man needs medical attention! We don't have time to fuss about who shot who..." Actually, that's pretty much what we do all the time. You don't hold a trial at the shooting, you simply disarm and apprehend, or at least secure the area, call in the paramedics, and rush victim to the hospital. The trial and accountability is all settled up months if not years after the initial crime. To use another analogy, you don't sit around arguing who the arsonist is if the house around you is burning down. You just grab who you can, get the hell out, and sort it out later. If the people who made these decisions aren't held to account, they're going to pull some more pins. Since I don't see anthing here that's gonna be an impeachment style smoking gun, I'm afraid we're stuck with who we have for the short term. Sorry, it's just the way it is. But that DOESN'T mean you can't put pressue on the administration to do the right thing. Of course, my point is that if you don't know what the "right thing" is, ie: the best future course of action, then you're doomed to impotence. GWB doesn't have to think about re-election, Senators and Congressmen do. GWB doesn't have to worry about popularity polls, RNC does. Already there are undercurrents of rebellion stirring, and that's where you attack, HARD. But this whole "the war is illegal boo hoo hoo hoo" crap ain't gonna fly in Red State minds. The growing perception is that this war is turning into a quagmire, and that most if not all of the stated goals have failed. Nobody wants to repeat Vietnam, which you have to remember also took place in an atmosphere of "National Security" threats (only back then it was Communism). Give Republicans an exit strategy they can live with, and they'll take care of pressuring GWB to do what's in their best interest. I mean, you can't keep giving tax cuts to the wealthy if war dissatisfaction loses you your Senate seat, right?
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
IMHO arguing about the justifications (or lack thereof) is like arguing about who pulled the pin out the grenade. The more practical discourse should be what the hell are go gonna do with this grenade (hopefully before it explodes and kills us all). Favorable comparison to WWII, however, is disgraceful. Korea or Vietnam would be better examples, Vietnam especially so as we have indigenous guerrilas, foreign fighters leaking into the battlefield, an inability to win either hearts OR minds, and an administration that has politicized the war planning to the point where field commanders and being handicapped by Washington. Only, instead of one Ho Chi Min Trail, now we have thousands. And more then four times the area to cover. With fewer troops. And fewer friends. With another hot war running concurrently. Yay us.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
In "Curious George: Don't Supersize Me"
I've been puzzling over this brain teaser as well, and I've come to 3 basic conclusions, and 3 theories: 1) Nobody checks facts. This being the interweb, for all we know that whole blog post could be just a joke that's taken a life of its own. It could also be a secret plot by the dolphin to distract us while they plot to take over the world (by taking control of key oil shipping channels). Either way, much more thought has been put into solving the puzzle rather then proving that the puzzle is valid. It wouldn't be implausable to speculate that THIS online discussion is in fact the ethnographic study. For example, I recall all those eating studies where college students are given popcorn and told to watch a movie and answer surveys on the movie, all without knowing that the popcorn eating is the real data. 2) People don't read. Cupholder size and need for bathroom are specifically discounted as possible causes, and yet in the comments thread of both kottke.pro and the original blog post, the subject comes up again and again and again. 3) With a little spare time, people obsess over everything. The lively debate on the nature of the proposed change is entertaining. Much thought goes into the wording "Everytime I drive by", as opposed to "Everytime I drive in", or "Everytime I drive through." Personally, I don't see the signifigance of the word "by". I think it's casual usage, as evidenced by the fact that it is a blog post. Thus, I don't think the solution is necessarily large and obvious and external. And now my 3 theories: From a casual rereading, the mystery reason has a practical solution, and that is the trickiest part to figure out. The solution is possible, but it is also somehow inconvenient to McDonald's to implement. The obvious answer would be the face-to-face reason/solution. People say no need to upsize to a speaker, but less so to a person. Solution: just have a guy/gal standing in the sun taking orders and relaying them via bluetooth wireless magic thing-ama-bobby back to the kitchen. Easy to deploy, and yet not done because that would mean an extra employee, whereas the trend is for drive-though operations to be centralized in a remote location (and thus saving money through lower wages). Another good answer is the enviroment reason. In-store you are captivated by the bright colors and the big signage and are subconciously induced to order bigger. Solution: Drive Through the store, not just next to it. Build a small enclosed tunnel mocked up like the store. Not deployed because the payoff wouldn't outweigh the capital cost. My personal idea: People don't order bigger drinks because drive-through people are LAZY. "Do you want to supersize that?" "Nah, too much trouble." Solution: bundle the orders with the bigger drink from the get-go. Make the default size the SuperSize. People will be too lazy to unbundle the package. Not deployed because people will get all outraged over differential pricing. I've spent far too much time thinking about this. See conclusion #3.
posted by LarimdaME 19 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)