Awareness

I love doing too many things. My interests cover such a wide gamut that I wonder if I’ll ever settle on a career path. But that’s not why I decided to write this blog post.

I’ve been writing JavaScript for a long time. It all started when a friend of mine showed me how you could make a webpage using nothing but Notepad in the late nineties. I was immediately hooked. But HTML was so limited (especially back then), and I wanted more. It began with copying (stealing) and modifying a simple mouseover script for making an image change when you hovered the mouse over it, and from there it exploded into rewriting Minesweeper (poorly), creating my own “encryption” software (ha ha, “encryption”), writing simple chat bots, making guessing games, and occasionally even making a website for one thing or another (with plenty of mouseover effects).

But I soon learned that programming could be so much more than what I was using it for. After a decade of believing that I could never learn object-oriented programming (the ideas just seemed too advanced for me), as recently as last year I learned that JavaScript handled everything in the code as an object and that it was an object-based (even object-oriented) language.

This opened up worlds of possibilities. I had heard many wonderful things about what one could do in an object-oriented environment. I was excited to dive in and try it.

My favorite hypothetical usage for objects in programming, and something I had never really grasped how to accomplish with JavaScript, was the idea of defining one object with its own behaviors and attributes and setting many of them loose in an environment in which they could interact. I immediately wanted to try something like this, but it proved too difficult for me at first.

So I applied my new knowledge about JavaScript objects in other projects. I was timid and unimaginative about it at first. Looking back at those early projects that incorporated custom objects I can’t help but imagine that I was afraid of these new blocks of code. It felt foreign, and my code was awkward (not that I’m doing much better now). Eventually the idea of objects clicked, and I was ready to try my idea again, but I didn’t realize it right away.

Then, last weekend, I was sitting on the couch with my family watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (written, apparently, by Ian Fleming, with a screenplay co-written, oddly enough, by Roald Dahl), and the idea seized hold of me again. It was the scene where the children raid the castle toward the end. They rushed the adults, and I pictured it from a bird’s eye view as dozens of little dots moving in and attacking other little dots.

Not an hour later I was writing code. I started by defining an Army object, then I wrote the Warrior object constructor. It was complex, with dozens of little stats to track, and several complicated functions for thinking, targeting, moving, attacking, defending, and more (nearly 300 lines of code just for the Warrior object). I wrote code to define the starting position boxes for the armies (bases, essentially), code to draw the objects as stylized DIVs on the page, and I wrote an HTML page with a basic framework to display it all. I’ve been learning to use the CANVAS element for drawing, but I wanted to stay away from it as this was going to be a project I could play around with at work where they still have us using IE8 and the CANVAS element isn’t recognized.

Surprisingly enough, when I first ran it (about five hours after I wrote the first line of code) everything worked (kind of) as expected. I had to rework the rendering code (I was trying to redraw everything each frame, and with hundreds of little HTML objects that initial approach was impractical). After fixing the rendering issue it ran smoothly and most of the behavior was exactly as I had imagined it.

I’ve tweaked several of the systems since then, but the essential framework hasn’t changed. You can try it here if the link doesn’t get overloaded (who am I kidding – I couldn’t possibly generate enough traffic to take down a dropbox link). The one item I re-worked the most was the targeting code. In fact, I’m still not happy with a lot of things in this project, but there are even more things that I love about it.

First, it’s the very first time I’ve made something visual with what I would consider emergent behavior. I wrote a primitive chat bot (I cannot be held responsible for anything Jimmy says) once that had some pretty unpredictable responses (many layers of code analyzing your input and outputting based on more criteria than I could keep track of), but that “emergent” behavior wasn’t always contextually appropriate (Me: “Hi there! How are you?” Him: “You’re not being very nice.”). My little battle simulator behaves very much like a little battle. The winner is determined by a mixture of attributes (leadership scores, strength and number of warriors, amount of supplies available, location of base, etc.) and circumstantial happenings. I’m just as incapable of predicting the winner as anyone else, yet there is very little variation between the armies in the way of random number generation.

If you do check out the link, I apologize in advance for some of the Leader names. The idea of giving each army a leader is credited to my co-workers, but the names for those leaders were also their ideas. I made some slight modifications to a couple of the names, but one of them I left in a fairly inappropriate state simply because changing it would have taken away from the effect. Some of the names are not child friendly, just so you know.

The thing I’m least happy about with this is the targeting code. It’s limited, inefficient, and doesn’t accomplish all the goals I had for it. I realized yesterday that what I really wanted was a collision detecting framework. I imagined a centralized process being aware of everyone’s location and allowing any one of the Warrior objects to perform a simple query to get his nearest neighbors. I was unfamiliar with actual collision detection methods for software, and was pleased to learn that what I had devised wasn’t too far off from reality.

In my current system each individual on the screen has to scan every other army’s soldiers and rule out targets that are outside of his visual range. This takes a lot of processor time, and whenever anyone was selecting a target there was an awful performance drop (especially at the very beginning of the battle when nobody had selected a target yet). I did a couple of things to mitigate this: any time around half of the soldiers in the army’s array are dead it clears out the dead from the array, shortening the amount of time it takes enemies to scan for a new target (since they no longer have to process dead people); and I spread the search function out over several frames rather than attempting to do it all in one rendering cycle (I also learned how to make recursive or pseudo-recursive functions this year).

Obviously, with each and every dot doing his own collision detection and targeting it’s still pretty inefficient. I need a centralized collision detection system.

But now I have to learn how to implement something like that. I might implement it in my current project, but I think starting a new project would be better. I want to redo a lot more than the targeting. Perhaps version 2.0 will be rendered in the CANVAS element with animated graphics, explosions, terrains, etc. I wanted to incorporate tanks and other vehicles, other soldier types (archers?), goal oriented behavior (capture the flag), stealing supplies from enemies, communicating with each other when in proximity (“hey, watch your back”), and other behaviors that would require something like “sight” to be implemented. But most of all I want their movement and behavior to feel just a little more deliberate. As it is they inexplicably fail to engage each other sometimes, their movement isn’t very confident looking or smooth, and there are a lot of undesired artifacts that come from the fact that I’m still not all that great at writing code that does what I want it to.

One final, and related, note. A good friend of mine shared a post on Google+ recently (yes, some people actually use that – though I almost never use anything but Notepad++ lately) and she reminded me of one of the primary reasons I love programming. I used to want nothing more than to program robots. You can see the video from her post here.

In the video they mention a piece of software they created called Robot Virtual Worlds. It looks like something that should have been made twenty or thirty years ago for me! The other link from the conversation at right is for a website where you can register for their Robotics Summer of Learning. In conjunction with the Robotics Summer of Learning, it appears as though you get a limited (Summer only, I think) license for Robot Virtual Worlds when you buy(?) ROBOTC. I’m not going to pretend to know which version of ROBOTC you need (poking around on the site for a minute didn’t give any answers, but I plan to return on May 20th as they suggest on the website to find out more), but even just playing around with Robot Virtual Worlds for one summer could be super fun. I’d have to learn C, but how hard could that be? Right?

Aptronyms in The Hunger Games

Wordsworth the Poet, Aptronym Extraordinaire

This month the Oxford English Dictionary added the word “aptronym.” I found out about this wonderful word when the Grammar Girl did a quick blurb about it on her blog. My immediate thought upon reading her article was, “hey, I saw a ton of aptronyms in The Hunger Games.”

Although I had never known a word for the idea, I’ve always been fascinated by its use in fiction. Sometimes I find it childish or annoying when every character in a book has a name that blatantly describes his personality. Other times it’s done so cleverly and even subtly that I am thoroughly impressed by the author’s wit. (Interestingly, the Wikipedia article has a list of real-world examples that I found to be entertaining.)

I began reading The Hunger Games sometime in November last year. Progress slowed to a halt after the first third of the final book due to some of my classes and changes at work, but I’ve since resumed making progress. This post isn’t meant to be a review of the story in any way. Rather, I hope to shed some light on what I feel are some pretty clever aptronyms in the books.

Three basic rules that I feel apply in these character names are as follows:

1. Primary characters generally have subtle and clever aptronyms.
2. All other characters have simple, sometimes blatant (and even annoying) aptronyms.
3. Not all characters have aptronyms, or if they do it’s so abstract that it’s easy to miss.

Essentially, it’s not hard to see which names the author labored over carefully, and which names the author selected without much deep thought. Some of the connections  between personality and name that I found might be considered a stretch by other readers. In fact, many of them may have been unintentional on the author’s part. I know I read into things a little too deeply sometimes, but there are some interesting things to be found when you dive that deep into something.

In fact, I’m sure the author, Suzanne Collins, would have a good chuckle or two over my analysis. This comes to mind:

Before we begin, a quick note:

I noticed that many names in The Hunger Games included references to Greek and Roman (mostly Roman) historical figures. This was purposeful, almost aptronymic, and it helps the reader do a couple of things with the characters in their minds.

First off, it distances them from us in time. Since the reader knows this book is in the future, but the names come from the past, it gives him a sense of backward progress. Rather than sounding futuristic in a positive, progressive way, these names from the future bring us back to more primitive, violent times.

Secondly, we often view Roman names in light of Roman mythology, powerful rulers, and unethical drama. Mythology lends itself to the futuristic technology (which, to us, is indistinguishable from magic), the powerful rulers remind us of the ironfisted dictatorship President Snow operates, and unethical drama is what encircles the entire basis for the plot.

I researched all of the following items on my own, but in the midst of my research I came across a book that I am now interested in reading. If aptronyms, symbolism, and The Hunger Games are all interesting to you, I suggest you check out what appears to be a well researched book, Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

So here we go. I now present, for your amusement, a list of characters from The Hunger Games and how I see their names as aptronyms:

Katniss Everdeen

The main character’s name was carefully chosen and is intricately woven into the story. Anyone who’s read the first book knows the bit about her father telling her, “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve.” Katniss is an aquatic plant (also known as Sagittaria or arrowhead, among other names), the root of which is edible. Additionally, according to Wikipedia:

The generic name means “belonging to an arrow” in Latin and refers to the shape of the leaves.

Katniss Everdeen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And:

The plant also shares its name with a constellation in the Zodiac called Sagittarius, or “The Archer”, which may also reference Katniss’s skills in archery.

But wait, there’s more. Katniss (the character) is said to be very beautiful, thus it is no mistake that the plant has a flower. And here’s where I start getting too deep into it, but I found it interesting that her relationship with her sister’s cat is as complex as it is. In fact, at one point she even hisses at the cat. Perhaps there is a connection between this behavior and the first syllable of her name.

Even the last name was chosen purposefully. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Suzanne Collins said:

Katniss Everdeen owes her last name to Bathsheba Everdene, the lead character in Far From the Madding Crowd. The two are very different, but both struggle with knowing their hearts.

I found that to be interesting, even if it doesn’t directly add to the aptronymic value.

Peeta Mellark

I still remember the first time I thought of this name as being an aptronym (though the word “aptronym” didn’t come to mind since I hadn’t heard of it before). In my head it went something like this:

Hm. Peeta. Pita. Baker. Pita bread. Bread. Baker, pita bread. Oh boy, how clever I must be.

Peeta Mellark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But there’s more. Petra, the Greek word for stone, also came to mind. Later he painted himself to blend in with the rocky terrain.

Then I found the name on babynology.com and found a few more things. The name is a girl’s name. Peeta’s a “pretty boy.” Well, he’s not described that way in the book in those words exactly. Katniss says he’s got a “stocky build and medium height with bright blue eyes and ashy blonde hair that falls in waves over his forehead.” That just reeks of “pretty boy” to me.

Also according to babynology.com, the meaning of the name in Finnish is stone. So I was right. And in addition to painting himself to look like stone in the book, he’s also a figurative rock in the life of the main character. He is a constant, someone whose behavior is predictable, honorable, and steady. Stone, stone, stone.

But what of the last name? My first thought made me chuckle:

Mellark? How about malarkey. He’s full of it.

The thing is, Peeta’s got a talent for words. He makes me think of a politician. I’m not sure if it was intentional on the author’s part, but the last name feels like a blatant aptronym to me.

Gale Hawthorne

This one was pretty easy for me to spot as well.

His first name is, I think, pretty blatant. Gale, wind, storm. A gale is typically defined as a very strong wind. Wind, when thought of as a personality, is considered fearless and ever changing. Gale’s role in the main character’s life is constantly shifting around. He is fearless and strong, but in the end not much more than a gust that has blown through the life of Katniss, our heroine.

The last name was interesting. I got some initial ideas from the book’s text, but some research uncovered a lot more.

My initial impressions were related to the “thorne” part, thinking of him as someone who is a bit thorny on the outside. He seems to get angry over little things quickly (like the wind, quick to change), and can respond sharply to people, even those he loves.

Research unveiled that “Hawthorne” was probably, essentially, a “hedge-thorn.” These would be thorns that were used to form defensive barriers around homes, cattle, and more. His role as a defender and protector in the book is clear, making even his last name a strong aptronym, even though you’d have to have already known the meaning of it to get the full effect.

Haymitch Abernathy

The author actually invented (or appears to have invented) the name Haymitch. Frankly, this one doesn’t feel as much like an aptronym, despite being nearly a primary character. If you have any thoughts on how this one indicates his personality, please let me know in the comments.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but the only thing I can come up with is the “mitch” part – Mitch comes from Mitchell, which descended from Michael, which means, “who is like God.” In a small way Haymitch is like God to Katniss and Peeta, since he guides them through something that could have been fatal. I know, it’s a big stretch.

His last name, however, is real. It means, “mouth of the river Nethy (a river in Scotland).” Nethy may mean gleaming, and its root is lent to many rivers in the region. When I think of all the gleaming alcohol flowing straight from the mouths of the bottles from which Haymitch regularly drank in the books, I am certain this name could have been chosen purposefully. However, I somewhat doubt it was intentional, and I’m fairly sure Collins just liked the way it sounded.

Primrose Everdeen

The aptronym is straightforward here. Primrose is a family of flowering plants, and Prim is said to be a beautiful, young girl. However, she has a lot more to her, so what else can we glean from her name?

Her name is shortened to Prim much of the time, the word itself having a little more to offer her personality. She is often portrayed as being prim and proper. She is much more multidimensional than all of that, but I do feel that the first name is a pretty strong aptronym, even on the surface.

Her last name was inherited since she had to be sister to the main character, but I think she shares some of the same traits as her sister when it comes to what I felt her last name indicated. Again, for both of them, I don’t feel that the last name is as much as an aptronym, but it certainly is fitting.

I had one final thought on this one. Some people may be familiar with the phrase, “to lead someone down the primrose path.” This means that someone (usually a hypocrite) leads someone astray by means of deception. A lot of that happens in The Hunger Games, but how much of it has to do with Prim? I’ll leave that to you to decide.

President Coriolanus Snow

This one is a big one. This primary antagonist was named after an anti-democratic Roman general who was eventually assassinated before a trial could be carried out for his crimes. Though we haven’t gotten this far yet, the judge and game maker Plutarch got his name from the historian who tells us the story of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. Interestingly, Plutarch’s representation of the facts surrounding Coriolanus is disputed, and for a respected historian to misrepresent facts about a historical figure could point to some kind of conflict of interests. In the books, Plutarch turns out to be one of the rebels fighting against the evil dictatorship of President Snow. This assumed relationship could be quite a stretch, but I found it to be an interesting possibility.

The last name, Snow, has me thinking about the cold, emotionless way that he runs Panem. He does not care about people, and he regularly commits acts of murder. The snow comes during a time of death and sadness. It is winter; nuclear winter, even. Even still, he presents himself to be such a clean, innocent man, much like the crisp, clean, freshly fallen snow.

Plutarch Heavensbee

I already mentioned how his first name relates to President Snow. Additionally, as a historian, Plutarch (the historical figure) had a strong influence on how history appears to us. Plutarch (the character in the book) strongly influenced history by strongly aiding the rebellion from within the capitol.

But what of his last name?

I thought of it as “heaven’s bee.” He was like a bee, dangerous and painful, sent from heaven to assist the rebellion against President Snow.

Finnick Odair

This guy. Sheesh. I feel that his name is meant to highlight two things. First, the finicky nature of women. He is handsome, tall, and flirty. Though he doesn’t have a strong effect on Katniss, I can’t help but feel that he had her second-guessing her emotional disposition toward him a few times. Eventually their relationship smoothed out into a good, platonic friendship, but until that point “finicky” is the word I would choose to associate with their interactions.

Then, the Odair name. He has a sense of class about his public image. The name oozes high society, class, opulence, and luxury (to me). I think it definitely lent some ideas to my overall impression of the character.

Rue

This one’s easy, but I thought it worth mentioning here (rather than below, with the rest of the obvious ones). The plant, rue, has medicinal applications, but as a verb it fits more nicely. “To rue the day” means to regret it bitterly, to feel sorrow over it, or wish it had never happened. I am sure Katniss felt all of those things for Rue.

Seneca Crane

Fascinatingly, the first name, Seneca, doesn’t appear to do much for this character (other than what I mentioned above about the Roman names), but the last name did a lot for me.

I immediately thought of Ichabod Crane: the amoral, self-interested man who was haunted by a ghost after failing at his pursuit, and eventually disappeared and was rightfully assumed dead at the hands of the ghost. Even the first name, Seneca, at least has the same number of syllables as Ichabod.

Effie Trinket

Effie’s name reminds me of all things petty (the -ie on the end of her first name), superficial (the ‘trinket’ of her last name), and a little of France (like the Eiffel Tower, even though it’s a big stretch).

The name, Effie, is of Greek origin, and it means well spoken. She was, of course, careful and precise with her words.

President Alma Coin

Alma, in Spanish, means soul. She is the heart and soul of District 13, running things smoothly, if a little heartlessly.

She is also hard, and a little two-sided, like a coin. And coins are part of our monetary system, which symbolizes capitalism and often greed. Just thought I’d throw that in there.

Caesar Flickerman

Like a flickering television, Caesar is as flashy and showy as the name itself (think: Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas).

Obvious Ones

Finally, a list of the ones that I felt were too obvious to discuss.

• Glimmer
• Gloss
• Cashmere
• Cato
• Clove
• Brutus
• Beetee and Wiress
• Mags
• Blight
• Woof
• Thresh
• Chaff
• Seeder
• Madge Undersee
• Mayor Undersee
• Delly Cartwright
• Hazelle Hawthorne
• Greasy Sae
• Tigris

The Hunger Games isn’t my favorite series of books, but it’s also not a bad series. I think many books are deserving of an in-depth analysis of what the author was getting at when they named characters (among other things), but I can’t think of a more prominent book today that is as well-deserving of this type of analysis. As mentioned before, if this is your thing and you enjoy learning about this stuff, I am sure the research that went into the book I linked to before will interest you.

Also, I encourage you to look through the list of characters from the books, and see if you can find any that I missed (or any additional information that I didn’t include).

Happenings

It's like I found a magic lamp or something, and squandered my wishes...

Several long-time desires of mine have recently unfurled into something palpable. I wouldn’t say my dreams are coming true, but it’s close enough.

Where to start?

We’ll start with the most recent and work our way backward.

Hm. That’s tough. We’ll start at the… Well shoot. This is tougher than I thought.

Forget chronological order. Forget any order.

More photos can be seen at the link.

I recently completed the first draft of my real leather Link’s Adventure Pouch 3DS Case.

I can’t say I’m 100% satisfied with it (see my notes in the album I shared at the previous link), but I am looking forward to the second version. Each photo in the album has my notes on what I’ll do differently next time, but if you’re an expert who can tell me how to keep the darned surface of the leather from cracking, please leave a comment!

In addition to completing the leather pouch, I recently ended a 10 year search for something.

Yes. Ten years.

For the last ten years I’ve gotten this song stuck in my head. I knew it was from an upwards scrolling puzzle video game, and I knew that video game has Yoshi in it, and I knew that video game was on the Game Boy. I had asked around, I had search the Internet, I had spent years trying to figure this thing out.

Finally!

Then one day I ask someone, and they said, “Sure, I just played that game last week. It’s called Tetris Attack.”

Sure enough, he was right. The song that got stuck in my head all these years was Yoshi’s theme. I could finally hear the full song after only remembering one small phrase of it all these years!

Then I found the game used and bought it for my Game Boy Advance. It is a fun game.

So that’s a happy ending to that search. There are still a few memories I am trying to fill in, but that was the biggest, most frequently bothersome one.

Last of all (for this post) I finally got to see a real space shuttle. Sure, I had been to see Enterprise at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center, but Enterprise never flew in space. It was hardly a shell of a shuttle. It was the right size, and the right colors, but that’s about it. No real action. No battle scars.

But this last week OV-103 Discovery was flown out to replace Enterprise at the Udvar-Hazy Center, and on Saturday I took my daughter to see the shuttle.

This shuttle is COOL.

It was awesome.

And while I was there I got a new picture of myself in front of the shuttle for use on social networks. I liked the angle of the old photo better, but this one with a real shuttle is better since A) it’s a real shuttle, and B) I am wearing my super awesome hat.

Alright. That’s going to be it tonight. I didn’t need to write a blog post tonight, but I wanted to. I hope it was worth your time, because then it will have been worth my time.

Oh, and real quick: in related [to the shuttle] news, I am making slow progress in the design of my deep space exploration vehicle. I worked on the escape pods and their hangar bay today. Not done yet, but happy with the progress.

Related to escape pods-I recently read parts of an extraordinarily interesting article (I’ll read the whole thing later because it is relevant to my interests) and in that article the author notes that he doesn’t feel escape pods ever make sense for a deep space exploration vehicle.

The point he makes is that if you have to escape the vehicle quickly, it’s usually (in science fiction, at least) because the ship has a problem and the “reactor core” or something is going to blow up. He notes that leaving the comfort and life support systems of the larger ship makes little sense. You should just eject the core.

My system is designed to completely separate into its separate modules in the event of any mechanical emergency anywhere on the ship. Even each of the six main engines can act as emergency life boats, and so the dinky escape pods (which seat twenty adults) are not meant to be actual life boats. Everything separates after all the passengers are on the life boat engines or in the escape pods (which can dock with the engines if needed), and the computers on each module of the larger ship assess damages. Any module that is still usable docks back together and the escape pods and life boats all transfer the people back into the habitable parts of the ships. Even damaged modules attempt to repair themselves or salvage useful resources.

So emergencies would more or less be handled in a way that makes sense. You’re not permanently leaving the ship behind, but you aren’t sticking around to see if everything is going to explode either.

I think my system adequately addresses the author’s concerns, even though I didn’t read any of his remarks until after I had designed my system.

Because remember: Dream big or go home.

Science Fiction and Dreaming Big

Your average politician when asked about manned missions to the stars.

A while back I watched a video that spoke to my inner child and reminded him of why he is so depressed. In the video, Neil deGrasse Tyson explains that we, as a human race, have stopped dreaming. Watch the video here:

I look around me, and it’s true. Those who dream are shot down by politics, finances, or safety concerns.

Did the men who broke the sound barrier worry about safety? Yes. As much and as ridiculously as we do? No. What about the Gemini astronauts, or the Apollo astronauts? Some of those men died. A few of them came close to dying. They were heroes, and they knew the risks when they signed up.

These guys almost DIED for science.

Now though, we’re not even allowed to risk the life of an animal for scientific advancement. Remember Laika? It wasn’t that big of a deal back then. Why now? Why are people so afraid to dream and take risks to make those dreams a reality?

Then I read an article in my Popular Mechanics magazine titled, “Why We Need Big, Bold Science Fiction.” That got me excited. Even if people won’t accept the risks, or are too afraid of being politically incorrect to sacrifice a dog to test human safety systems, we can still create inspiring science fiction. Our generation may be paralyzed by political poison, but perhaps our children’s world will be different. They may be willing to take the risks.

And that is why I love to dream. I love to write. I love to create those systems that cannot yet be created.

You can tell me why my deep space exploration system won’t work, but it doesn’t matter. That’s why it’s called science fiction.

Some of my favorite television science fiction is Star Trek: The Next Generation. Remember tricorders? Yeah, so does this guy who is building them. He was inspired to do something amazing, just by watching a television show.

Someday...

What will my science fiction inspire some day? Probably nothing. But it’s worth it to dream. It’s worth it to take the risk of being ignored, so long as the possibility remains that I could one day inspire a mission to another solar system and beyond.

Don’t stop dreaming.

Cool New Facebook Feature

Image via CrunchBase

I joined Facebook when it was “The Facebook” and you needed an approved school’s .edu email address to join. I’m talking around six months before it was opened up to all colleges, and then opened up to the public.

I’m not trying to be all hipster on you. I’m making a point. Bear with me.

Back then I only joined because my classmates all joined in a frenzy when our school’s .edu address became accessible in one of that last waves of schools to be added. If I didn’t join, I would have missed out on all the sharing of assignment tips and whatnot on there. Being that I went to an art school, we weren’t sharing answers (since most of our grades were from projects). We really were sharing tips on how to get the uncooperative gouache to work right, or reminders about what the professor would be looking for in the finished project.

Then I quit going to school, Facebook opened up to the public, and I started having problems with Facebook. So I quit using it. In fact, I deleted my account and stayed off the site for two years. Then my coworkers wanted me on there, so I joined up again and resolved to keep it simple. No applications, no “friends” I didn’t really know… I thought I had it figured out (and for the most part, I did).

Though I still doubted whether I really needed it.

Then I did an experiment to see if I really needed my Facebook account and friends. Eventually, I concluded that I could (and should) live without Facebook (mostly for simplicity’s sake).

So these days I watch Facebook (and people on Facebook) with a bemused detachment.

Boy did I have a good laugh at their latest feature: Groups for Schools.

HA! At first I thought it was some sort of joke. But a quick Google search revealed that this is for real. Facebook is actually introducing an exclusivity angle for .edu addresses, rolled out to groups of schools in waves, as though it’s something new. So let me get this straight:

1. Introduce exclusive social network for schools.
2. Realize everyone wants in and open it up to the whole world.
3. Attempt to sell idea of exclusivity again.
4. ???
5. PROFIT EVEN MORE? Yeah right.

Wow. Are they just trolling college students?

Rhino Skull Troll-Face: U MAD?

Actually, I’ve seen something like this before. I read about it on the New York Times website a while back. It was a really neat article about how marketing companies pry into our private lives and use psychology to get us to buy and use their products.

When they first got started, it seems Febreze had problems selling a product that eliminated odors. They were actually doing very poorly as a business. However, their researchers (or someone) stumbled upon a woman who actually used their product. When they visited her, they found that she was using it as a finishing touch in her household chores, not to eliminate odors as it was intended to be used.

This crazy lady would make the bed with fresh bedding, then spray some Febreze on it. She’d wash and fold her laundry, then spray some Febreze on it. The bottle said, “eliminates odors!” Yet she was spraying things that already smelled good.

Rather than asking the lady from what height she was dropped on her head as a baby, they asked why she did it. Of course she wasn’t all that sure, but she knew she liked the way it smelled. So the Febreze guys looked at each other in disbelief, returned to the lab, and increased the perfume in their product. Then they turned around and marketed it again.

This time it wasn’t marketed as a product that eliminates odors; it was marketed as a product to make clean things smell nicer: Like a spray-on liquid air freshener that makes things smell pretty. Their commercials showed people doing what that crazy lady was doing: spraying it on things that were already clean.

Eventually the product really took off. This baffles me to no end. But the funny part is, once they were selling really well and making a ton of cash, they changed their advertisements again. They started telling people, “Oh yeah, and our product eliminates odors too.” They actually never removed that feature, but people didn’t care about it at first. After Febreze got big and made that announcement though, people were going, “oh cool.”

Sheesh.

Anyhow, perhaps what Facebook is doing isn’t all that different from what Febreze had to do. Maybe Facebook is trying to get back to its roots.

Or maybe they are just crazy.

Rewarding Creativity

Caine's Arcade

Have you heard of Caine’s Arcade? If you haven’t, you can be forgiven. But if you don’t go read about it right now, and dedicate ten minutes to watching the short film about it, then you are less likely to be forgiven.

My most immediate thought was, this is one heck of a father. Rather than getting on to his son for the “mess” he’s made of his business, he’s been tolerant, patient, and supportive.

And man, when you see the look on his face when he realizes what’s going on, you’ll see how creativity pays off. You  just can’t put a price on stuff like that.

We can all learn something and feel good watching a story like Caine’s Arcade. These sorts of stories are certainly one of a few redeeming things about the Internet, and perhaps even our species.

Tiny Things

I had most of these high quality McDonald's toys.

When I was a kid I had some great toys. I’m sure I complained to my parents from time to time that I wanted more, or that I was bored (despite having a room full of wonderful toys). That hasn’t stopped me from looking back with fondness on the toys that I had, the adventures we shared, and the array of senses recorded in my memories.

I liked some of my toys for a particular smell they had, others had great textures. Some of them were pleasing to the eye, with nice shapes. There were probably a few that I enjoyed for the way they tasted (even after my toddler years I was known to put toys in my mouth). I remember a handful of my toys for the sounds they made.

Most of my favorite toys though appealed to two or more of my senses.

The thing I liked best about toys though was that they were small. Little toy guns, little hats, little torches, little boats, little planes, little cars, little swords, little knives, little instruments… I loved shrinking my imagination to play with those tiny things, and the world we created together was so huge that even my immense imagination couldn’t fill the expanse.

I absolutely LOVED Mighty Max toys.

Perhaps one of my favorite things that I ever watched (a strong claim for someone with so many favorite movies) was an ABC Weekend Special titled, “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

The boy had a toy motorcycle, much like many of my toy vehicles, and the little mouse could actually ride it. He had a tiny helmet too.

Oh how I wished to have a little friend who could play with my little things like they were full sized things! I had a rubber ducky (a cool one, not like the crummy ones they sell in stores now), and my dad gave me a sailor’s hat from one of his G.I. Joe action figures (his own childhood favorite) because it fit perfectly on my rubber duck.

I often wonder what became of that rubber duck and his hat.

Perhaps my favorite little things though are LEGO. I love their MINIFIGURES and the little accessories you can get for them.

When I was little I had a LEGO pirate set that came with a cool lantern, and I used to love that lantern. It was actually several pieces that you had to put together, but I held on to it. When I was sad, I’d sit in a corner in my room, pull out my lantern, and gaze at it for what felt like an eternity. I soaked it in. Every detail of it is forever recorded in my memory.

Fortunately, I held on to the lantern. I still have it. It is part of a small collection of my favorite little things. My son ended up with most of my childhood LEGO collection, but the lantern remains with me.

I may give it up one day, but sometimes I still like to pull it out when I’m feeling sad.

This isn’t to say that physical possessions make me feel better. I love the idea of owning the fewest possible physical items. I love simplicity. I love mobility (and you aren’t very mobile when you’re burdened with tons of stuff). But I do enjoy having a few personal possessions that mean something to me. They may bring me a little comfort, but they don’t make me happy. Happiness is not found in a drawer or shoe box.

Yes, Mighty Max was awesome for being SUPER TINY.

Anyhow, my favorite things are miniature things. I love smaller versions of things that we use. I love little dollhouse furniture, I love tiny tool chests, tiny computers, miniature books, and the list goes on. The idea of miniature things is just pleasing to me. It’s not so much that I think they are cute. It’s almost more like an impulsive desire to collect these things.

The other day I was looking at a small tin (like an Altoids tin, I suppose) and I wondered what the inside would look like if a tiny person lived inside. It could be a fun craft project someday.

A long time ago I saw this cool street art where the artist took tiny people and put them in the world doing things that big people should do. Some of them were construction workers, except that instead of carrying boards or windows, they were carrying cheese puffs. They looked gigantic in the little people’s hands. I loved the art, but at the time couldn’t find any information about the artist.

Well, I found him. He goes by Slinkachu. The name is funny. It reminds me of when my daughter asks to play “the Pikachu game.” I tease her by calling it “the stinkachu game,” or sometimes “stinkychu,” “stinkypoo,” or anything else I can make up that sounds like Pikachu.

Regardless, I really like a lot of Slinkachu’s work because it’s so tiny. I wouldn’t necessarily want one of his prints, and I’m not as into tiny figurines as I am into tiny accessories for tiny people.

I spent a good deal of time looking at Slinkachu’s installations though, while simultaneously working on clearing out some of my Amazon.com wish lists (they get out of hand sometimes because when I get depressed I go into “collector” mode and try to collect all the stuff I’d need to take up a new hobby or assemble the perfect first aid kit). In one of my Amazon wish lists I found a bunch of tools and things for working with leather.

Off and on throughout my life I’ve had a mild interest in doing leather work for fun. Not stamping, but sewing it. I want to make myself the perfect leather satchel. But in researching the tools, supplies, raw materials, and work space requirements, I discovered that it will be a hobby better suited to my later years than now, since I lack the funds and space required to do real leather work.

Tiny Satchel: I will make you.

Then I had an idea. What if I started small? What if I started really small? I could make the perfect leather satchel for a 12″ tall guy. Then I could go smaller or bigger. I could get a small bit of thin, quality leather, and print the patterns right on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper. I could hand sew it all in no time since it’d be so tiny.

Heck, I’ll bet I could even make a miniature version of my favorite hat, and I could find a toy to wear it.

This blog is about me, right? So I wanted to share this with you, because tiny, miniature things are an obsession with me, and now you know.

Charlotte and Jonathan

Charlotte and Jonathan

I generally avoid writing about things here that are trendy or popular. If I find out about something on a social network, I avoid writing about it.

Sure, I’ve discussed current events from time to time, but I generally avoid it (mostly because the media annoys me so).

But a day or two ago I added a video to my YouTube “Watch Later” list from a post on Google+ and I just watched it.

I just now watched it.

There are still a few tears lingering in my eye, and that doesn’t happen often. Not from YouTube videos.

I’m just not the sentimental type. So for me, it’s always embarrassing when something tears me up, especially a YouTube video.

Anyhow, if you haven’t already heard of this Britain’s Got Talent performance by Charlotte and Jonathan, you should go watch the video.

Two mice; the mouse on the left has more fat stores than the mouse on the right. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s the thing. I’m generally pretty critical of the large number of overweight people in the world (especially America). I try to avoid judging the individuals, but the fact that our society is producing so many people that are morbidly obese bothers me. I feel that most of it is due to poor choices in lifestyle and health, and thus it is preventable.

But people complain about it.

If it’s preventable, and you don’t prevent it, then you don’t complain when people talk about it.

Right?

But I do understand that some people, no matter how much exercise and healthy-eating they do, just can’t avoid putting on weight. And the severity of this condition varies. So when I see people like Jonathan lumbering about, I try to assume they have some sort of genetic problem.

Here’s the kicker. I am by no means a saint, but I also am not the most harsh when it comes to judging these overweight people. There are some very cruel people out there who completely dismiss heavy people as being irresponsible, unhealthy, lazy, or otherwise unworthy due to their physical appearance. These meanie-heads would never stop to wonder what kinds of talents the big people might have, or what they might be able to contribute to the world around them. Even I have sometimes found myself inappropriately labeling obese people as being more of a burden on society than a contributing member.

So when fat, obese, ridiculed Jonathan opened his mouth and let a powerful, rich, clear, steady stream of vocal energy loose on the microphone, I nearly let tears fall.

I’m sick of these talent shows with all of the singers. Music is wonderful, and singing is a beautiful talent, but for more reasons than I care to mention here, I wish those talent shows would quit showcasing the singers so much. But in this case, I make an exception. Jonathan, at only 17 years old, has reminded me that each and every soul on the planet can contribute something to the world to make it a better place.

No amount of disfigurement, handicap, obesity, or even poor choices can remove a person’s intrinsic value. Their kinetic (actual) value may vary based on their current choices and actions, but every human being has an intrinsic worth that should not be overlooked based on their outward appearance or circumstances.

Oh yeah, and Charlotte was OK too, though I’m pretty certain she missed at least a few notes on a couple of occasions in there. But I still like her.

And Now for Something Lighter

After the last two completely serious posts on here, I thought I’d share something that made me smile today.

I subscribe to an RSS feed for a website with a less than nice title, but the animated GIF images they share are generally fun.

The post I saw in my reader today was awesome. You can click the link to see it at the website, or behold it here:

I love it!

It’s like that little monkey was determined to murder that guy, but the dumb glass wall stood in his way. I’d pay real money to see a version of this where the glass was not there.

The whole thing is so perfect. At first I thought it might be a CGI hoax. But after doing a little research, I found the YouTube video from which the GIF was ripped.

A little further research uncovered that this awesome guy (the monkey, not the human) lives at the Memphis Zoo (in the China exhibit area). He’s actually a gibbon, which is somewhere between monkey and great ape (but closer to monkey, so I’ll call him a monkey).

According to this post that I found, the gibbon is close friends with a cook who works at the zoo, and he might be getting a little defensive about the spot where his friend usually interacts with him.

The YouTube video comments I read seem to indicate something else (having to do with an employee at the zoo who taunts and teases the monkey), but I find YouTube comments to be less than reliable most of the time.

I looked on the zoo’s website to see if they had anything official to say about this particular gibbon, but I couldn’t find anything.

There are several other videos of this happening on YouTube, but most of them are from a distance and outside. Most of the time the monkey dances around angrily after slamming into the glass, which (to me) indicates that at least some people are taunting him.

If anyone knows more about the background of this particular incident, I’d love to hear it in the comments! Also, if you live close to Memphis, go say hi to this monkey for me!

And until I know the monkey’s gender and name, I shall call him Epic Ninja Monkey of Doom.

Freedoms, Rights, and Justice

This has got to be my most ironic post (especially following my previous one), my most controversial post, or perhaps my most naive post.

As I posted in my Favorite Quotes blog, I’m not too impressed with the human race these days. Frankly, I’m concerned. And watching the news doesn’t help.

Lately the news has been full of a bunch of political nonsense peppered with stories about this Trayvon Martin shooting case (<- link to the Wikipedia page in case you live under a rock and want to get spun up).

Frankly, I am not very well versed in all of the facts surrounding this case (I haven’t even read the Wikipedia article I linked to), nor do I claim to be. Obviously it’s still an open case, so nobody can truly claim to know all of the facts, but here is what has been bothering me.

Not long ago I saw that one of the people I follow on Twitter retweeted this thing that supposedly Will Ferrell said, about how we live in a world where Kim Kardashian gets flour bombed and the perpetrator gets arrested on the spot, but Trayvon Martin is murdered but the killer goes free.

I don’t know, something like that.

First, Will Ferrell doesn’t have a Twitter account, so that was obviously a fake account trying to get more followers by tweeting about a current event. Also, the girl who flour bombed Kim Kardashian was only detained (not arrested) and she was released pretty quickly since Kim (who I generally don’t like, but have gained a little respect for because of the flour bombing incident) didn’t want to press charges. Finally, it turns out that a fake Will Smith account used the same tactic to get followers, and the juxtaposition of the two cases is an Internet meme.

"Kim Kardashian" (Photo credit: Scott From TX)

But what really bothered me was that anyone was even a little upset about that. I mean, to me, this represents a perfect example of one of the few things about our justice system that still works right.

We are innocent until proven guilty.

The Kardashian flour bombing happened in front of tons of news cameras, fans, celebrities, and anyone else you can think of. The Kardashians rarely go anywhere without an entourage, and if you do anything that could be taken as a hostile act toward someone around that many witnesses, you’re going to be grabbed by the police. There is plenty of evidence that you are guilty. That lady was obviously guilty, and there wasn’t even a hint of a chance she might have been innocent of the crime.

Sure, her crime was minor, but what if it had been an attack? There could have been anthrax in that bag of flour. The story itself has a happy ending, but it could have gone very differently.

Now enter George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. As far as I know, there are no eye witnesses. If any have come forward, that’s wonderful. But in view of the lack of hard evidence surrounding the case, I’d say it’s going to be pretty tough to claim that Mr. Zimmerman is guilty.

I’m not defending him, but here’s what I know: He admitted to killing the boy, he handed his weapon to cops immediately, he has studied criminal justice, he has a clean record, and he has been completely cooperative during the investigation.

If I’m wrong about any of that, feel free to let me know. But either way, he has not yet been proven guilty. Therefore, under our awesome justice system, he is free for now.

Before you go ranting about anything, let me remind you that I’m not defending him, nor am I saying he’s innocent. I’m saying he must be treated as an innocent person until he can be proven guilty.

Yes, there is racism. Yes, there is an unfortunate stigma surrounding hoodies. Yes, Florida’s self defense law probably needs to be rewritten. All of these things need to be fixed. But the fact that George Zimmerman is free right now is awesome.

Imagine living in a society where you could be considered guilty until proven innocent.

Holy crap.

Can you really come up with a good alibi for why you weren’t involved in the murder of the lady who was killed a few blocks away from you while you were home alone watching a movie? If that was our law, and the police officer simply didn’t like you, then there would be nothing you could do to avoid being harassed by law enforcement. You would have no rights in a situation like this.

Being considered guilty until proven innocent means that the police can grab you, lock you up, and treat you like a criminal, all while you are completely innocent.

I’m not saying this doesn’t happen in the United States, I’m saying it would happen a lot more if it weren’t for that one simple rule.

Trayvon Protest (Photo credit: werthmedia)

What really bothers me is that people are demonstrating and clamoring for justice, but they have already decided what “justice” they want – they want George Zimmerman behind bars.

The case may appear simple to them, but lucky for them and all of us, our justice system is designed in such a way that these sorts of crimes must be investigated. If we take everything at face value, it’s easy to make someone look guilty and get them arrested (my favorite Stephen King book, The Eyes of the Dragon, deals with just such a framing). That’s why, in the face of a lack of condemning evidence, the police should not immediately arrest Mr. Zimmerman.

The entire case against Mr. Zimmerman is, from what I understand, based on the idea that Trayvon is completely, 100% innocent and he was shot simply for wearing a hoodie (looking suspicious) and being of a particular race. But the only witness of sorts was a girl on a cell phone whose contribution to the case ends when the line went dead after someone shoved someone. That’s all we know. Perhaps Trayvon did start the quarrel. We don’t know. Most of us don’t know Trayvon, and we don’t know George. We don’t know what kinds of people these are, what motivated their actions that night, or what it would have felt like to be either one of them.

Now if George, in his knowledge of the law, knowingly took advantage of the self defense laws in Florida in order to carry out a hate crime against someone whose skin color he didn’t like, then shame on him and I hope the justice system exposes evidence supporting those charges.

But if George truly felt that he was in a danger that was serious enough to use deadly force, then I wonder how all of these protesters and angry people would feel if they were in George’s position – an innocent man being assumed guilty by millions of people judging in haste.

Isn’t hasty, angry judgement what these people are accusing George of? Isn’t that, in a way, prejudice?

Related articles

• Trayvon Martin’s Killer Should be Punished, Right? (mschuettblahblahblah.com)
• Justice and Comparisons (morgankhyde.wordpress.com)
• Mob Rule: The End of a Republic (bukcarmichael.com)