Captain Obvious does a study

Here's the newsflash: When confronted with an expert's advice, people don't think for themselves.

Wait a minute! There's absolutely nothing valuable about that conclusion. The study in question suggests that people shouldn't simply follow the advice of 'experts,' but think for themselves. Honestly, I have enough other things to think about--I can't be an expert on everything.

I got into trouble with an atheist blogger because I likened one's 'belief' in the value of expert science (in situations where you are not an expert) to a type of faith. Since I don't know the science, I have to have faith that those who do, really do know what the flop they're talking about. Like the engineering behind that bridge I'm about to cross. I don't know the science that led to the final design, but I really have to trust that the engineer who designed it knew what he was doing. That was his job: to know the science behind the strength of concrete and steel, and how to calculate forces appropriately (I once took mechanics in college, but the TA had such a horrible accent I don't think I learned anything other than 'bim' means 'beam'). My job is to know how to design and build enterprise computer systems. It's non-trivial, though cars don't fall in the river if I'm wrong.

But I digress.

The blogger who argued with me insisted that since she could pursue the science and understand it, she didn't have to take it all on faith. I suppose it was an artifact of her deconversion that caused such an aversion to my use of the 'faith' term, because even though I understand science and the scientific method, I don't understand most of the stuff necessary to actually render a scientifically meaningful decision on anything. Instead, I tell myself the experts know. I choose to believe them. Yes, it's to my peril if they're wrong. But what are my alternatives?

The most interesting part of the blog post I cite is a comment that happens to be a quote from Kant. To paraphrase: Thinking is hard. People would rather not do it, and if they avoid doing it long enough the lose the ability to think, altogether. It's easier to let someone else tell us what to do. YMMV.

That the study discussed financial experts seems almost beside the point. It's not irrelevant, but whenever someone is giving you advice, particularly if the advice 1) sounds too good to be true, 2) portents dire consequences if you fail to act, or 3) doesn't seem to make sense on the surface, run like hell.

Captain Obvious would tell you that everyone is trying to sell you something, so the only questions you have to answer are: who wins, and who loses. And if you're smart, you have to answer those questions.

What am I thinking about?

Well, it's not the economy. I suppose I could be obsessing over it (I mean: I was, back in February) but I'm over that, now. What I've been doing is trying to finish the story I've been writing, A Far Sun. For what seems like a very long time. More than a year, and about 6 months too long by my initial estimate.

I was up to about 195K words when I took a look at where I was and how many more pages would be required to get to the end, and decided it wasn't progressing quickly enough. I had introduced too many subplots and other things and it was going to take many, many more pages to write my way out of it. It wasn't that I couldn't, it was that I realized it wasn't where I wanted the story to go. Bad juju.

So I cut the last 55K+ words off the end and started back up. I figured out where I went awry and how, and now I'm giving the ending another try.

I know I'm a perfectionist. Whether I'm "too much" of a perfectionist, or not, remains to be seen. Something bothered me about where I'd gone in the story, and it took a lot of thinking and rethinking to figure out exactly what was wrong. I think I've figured it out, now.

Of course I have the remainder of the story plotted out. There are only a handful of "really big" plot points yet to come, including the story's climactic scene. Frankly, I really want to get to that scene, because I've been visualizing it for more than a year.

Something I've discovered during this project, as well: Rewriting is something you just do. A lot. I'm learning how to let go of the words, my golden dewdrops of prose, and not be too much in love with what I've written. Sure, I come up with good ideas and construct well-written scenes. Over and over again. No reason to think I won't be able to do it again. So, throw away what doesn't fit or isn't working. Save it (maybe) in case you find a place for it, later, but for now, cut and rewrite. Oh, and keep doing that until you get what you want.

And less can really be more. I'm starting to trim down words (and recognize some of my own bad habits when I'm writing draft copy--which I don't try to fix in the first writing). The technique I've been using lately involves the following:

1. Just write the scene. Don't do too much editing or wasting time looking for the exact right word. Get it down as best you can. Try to say what you're trying to say, in whatever words that seem to convey your intent. (You'll fix it later.)
   
2. Keep writing until you feel like you've reached a good stopping point. It could be the end of a lengthy scene, or it could be the end of a chapter. It could even be the end of the page, if you're called to dinner.
3. Take a break. Eat dinner, watch TV.
   
4. Now, go back one or two chapters before your most recent starting point. Read from there, mostly to get back into the flow of the narrative.
   
5. Edit as required, but of course you will begin editing a lot when you reach the newest part. Don't fix everything now, you will go back over it, again.
   
6. If you get to the end, go back to step 1 and start writing, again. This is important, to keep progress going. Start writing even if you only write one paragraph.
   
7. Of course, stopping at any point may be necessary, since life sometimes must intrude. If this is the case, start working again at step 4.

I've also found that if I can't seem to go further in a given scene, I just stop there and start the next scene. On the go-back I usually figure out what was stopping/blocking me, and fill in and fix. I don't do this much, but rather than spend all day stuck somewhere, I'd rather forge ahead. The "go-back" is becoming a routine way to work through the story, though I don't necessarily reread every scene. Sometimes I've read (and edited) the same scene so many times that I'm getting bored of it. That's fine; there's always another edit in the future. Always.

As a wannabe writer I read and listen to a lot of writing advice. Michael Stackpole recommended not editing what you've written. He says you should make notes (handwritten notes, even!) and rewrite/edit on the second draft. If it works for him, then that's fine. As I gain more experience I may even start working more like he does, but for now I'm very comfortable with my overlapping write-edit-write-edit technique. I didn't recognize it before, but it's basically been working for me throughout this whole project. It's true--I'm not done, but I have written quite a bit and I'm making progress, and more importantly I'm happier with what I've got.

Here's a test I use in my story. The universe of choices for the writing is quite large. There are so many aspects of the story you could write about, and so many plot points you could hit, and these are even the ones that still tend toward your eventual ending. With this many choices it's easy to get sidetracked or lost. Since I'm a "discovery writer" I never really know what's going to happen before I write it, so every page is an adventure. Unintended consequences are always biting me. So the difficulty is figuring out what can happen that doesn't push your characters off into some unanticipated direction. That would screw up the whole thing. (And then you trash 50,000 words and rewrite, for example.)

With respect to deciding whether or not I have included all the sufficient and necessary things in my story, I do this: I take a particular plot point. A particular necessary plot point, one I would not change or remove. Then I look back over everything leading up to that point. If anything seems excessive, or doesn't fit, or makes me uncomfortable--then that's what I fix. It sounds simple, but ...

This is one of the things that convinced me to cut 25% of what I'd written and retell it. Well, it's worse than that: I couldn't even get to the next big plot point and that was beginning to frustrate me. I just knew there was a way to tell the story that would get me to the ending more quickly, so now I'm exploring the second try.

So that's what I'm thinking about.

iTunes: Now with more money-grubbing goodness

Yeah, the news is talking about a planned price increase on iTunes, where some songs will soon cost $1.29, instead of $.99. I don't shop iTunes, so it doesn't directly affect me.

I still haven't figured out why some tracks on Amazon.com's MP3 downloads cost $.89 and some cost $.99. Their cost to distribute is exactly the same. Either you make money at $.89, or you don't. I'm guessing that they do make money. But I over-simplify, because I'm not including the greedy record company's interests in this equation. So, how is it that the record company gets to set prices, anyway?

Sure, there's a price point that maximizes profits, but I really doubt they've found it because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the recording industry. They continue to complain that piracy and P2P are destroying their business, but yet whenever they have a chance to legitimately sell something at a price someone is willing to pay (despite being able to obtain the content for free), they insist on punishing their best customers by raising prices.

If it was really true that you could make more money on the popular tracks by raising your prices, then you really should raise your prices. Keep raising them until your sales maximize. Alternatively, if you raise prices and your revenue drops off, let me suggest you might want to lower them. Of course, here we are talking a non-scarce commodity--MP3 digital music. With this, the only reason to ever raise prices is greed. That's it.

I don't know why iTunes (run by Apple, in case you've been living under a rock) is raising prices on some songs, other than both they and the record companies are simply greedy and want to suck as much out of their customers as possible. That's OK, as long as you don't care if I don't play along.

The death of feminism?

Catchy title, but not exactly the point of this story. I've been sorta wondering how the last 30+ years of feminism has been transformed and applied to the girls of today. Badly, it seems. But, here's what I believe:

Feminism at its best offered women - and men for that matter - the idea that anyone should be able to achieve what she wants regardless of gender, and that loving and successful domestic relationships could consist of two equal partners.

But yet girls today, the same ones who think Rhianna got "what she deserved" from Chris Brown (look it up if you care) are only measuring their worth--their value--based on their ability to attract and keep a boy. It's not about being the best YOU can be, it's about being the best as seen by someone else. A stupid boy, or as the case may be, a stupid man.

This is what's wrong with Twilight, incidentally. The girl who is involved with the hot young vampire boy has no real identity outside of how she looks in his eyes. Whatever he wants her to be--she will be. If this is what we're passing off as valid entertainment for teenage girls (and teenage boys, as well) then we need to examine our motives. I almost said "reexamine" but I'm guessing that first inspection never took place.

In my stories, my heroines won't be perfect, but they won't define themselves in terms of others. And my heroes won't expect any heroine worth her salt to willingly subjugate herself just to be more of what he might want. Personally, I'd much rather have a partner who is the biggest person she can be. Challenge me, make me work for it. You see, I want to grow, as well. So I really do say "bring it on." I want your best stuff, because you deserve my best stuff.

Target rich environment

Gosh, where to start? Now we read that some of the people being held at Guantanamo are innocent. I remember ranting about this years ago, during the 2004 2006 election frenzy, when we were subjected to all those "terrorists have no rights" commercials.

Terrorists have no rights? How about innocent civilians? Oh, but I can hear the argument, now. "Wrong place; wrong time. You must be guilty of something." Put that with the old adage, "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." You can see how hollow that all sounds. It's been very clear to me for a long time that this problem, among many, is the reason we have so many laws to protect our rights under the law. We're already mired deeply in the morass of abuse of police power. When it's illegal to videotape the police, and when news reporters are no longer hanging around asking questions, who will oversee their actions? It has nothing to do with whether you're innocent, or not, but whether some cop doesn't like you.

It's very sad.

PSA: Financial article from 1999 not-so-strangely prophetic

Back in 1999 Congress passed landmark legislation that paved the way for the financial collapse of today. Back then they lauded this effort as paving the way to the 21st century. Little did they know (but they should have known) that the 21st century they were paving would be one of joblessness, eviction and foreclosure, cities shutting down whole neighborhoods, and fucking Wall Street banksters (portmanteau word from "bankers" and "gangsters," in the Al Capone sense of the word) laughing at us while we drown in insurmountable debt.

Here's the money quote FTA:

''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.'' [emphasis mine]

Nuff said. Or maybe not.

Cool object lesson in the benefits of Open Source

Without getting into a discussion about how Open Source is funded and developed (it must be worth something to someone, or it would have died by now), here is a short article about the benefits that can be derived from using a tool where the source code is freely available. Yeah, it's technical and probably not of much interest to non-programming types, but it does hint at the difference in motivation between your average JBoss developer and your average Windows developer. Well, maybe not for the average developer ... but you get the idea.

WotD: PENDEJO

Pronounced pen-day-ho. Apparently when you google it all you get are references to the Daily Show's Dora the Explorer segment. Hang around until almost the end of the video.

I want to clear up the confusion. Pendejo is the Spanish equivalent to calling someone a fuckwad. My spouse's Spanish-English dictionary (dead tree copy, so you know it's authoritative) defines it as "pubic hair," or imbecile, idiot, asshole, etc.

Carry on.

PI answer to stem cell research disagreement

This should take care of the problem. In more ways than one ...

Chuck Norris advocating sedition?

The only people who would actively advocate an "armed insurrection" are those who 1) have nothing to lose, 2) just like killing and maiming, or 3) are nuts. Mr. Norris probably doesn't fit the first category, and may fit the second. He certainly seems to be freaking nuts, though.

Here's the sentiment from the blog post, and I agree:

The burning question we all face is what the Obama administration will do to cope with those that promote violence and armed insurrection against our own country. We don’t need a “civil war” or any other type of violence that disembodies our Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Bill of Rights. Those who believe that violence is the only way to display their dissatisfaction with he Obama administration are committing treason - in my opinion - and I don’t seem to be the only one that share this belief.

I don't want to live in the Fascist States of What-Once-Was-America. There's a lot wrong, right now, and I'm not convinced this massive bailout is the right thing to do, but taking up guns to overthrow the government doesn't sound like a good idea. We need less polarization, not more.

I think he'd better watch it. He could be the first martyr of the failed wingnut "revolution." Most Americans are sheep, and I can say "baah" as well as anyone. It's called protective coloration.

What's the deal with A.I.G.? Well, here it is

From the New York Times Business pages: "Desperately Protecting A.I.G.'s House of Cards." I've read this type of analysis before, and am satisfied this is the case. They took advantage of the lack of regulation and let their greed overcommit financial resources HUGELY. Yeah, CDSs should have been treated just like conventional insurance--requiring capital to be set aside against losses. But no, they sold CDSs (credit default swaps--"insurance" on investments) like drunken sailors. Bad metaphor, I know. They abused A.I.G.'s triple-A rating and sucked it dry.

The US taxpayers are now paying to clean up the mess, and all this while we're going down with the ship. Fun stuff.

I can haz integrative journalism?

While on the subject of NCCAM and Senator Tom Harkin, I found this rather funny blog post by The Tufted Titmouse. It reminds me of the Tinkerbell Effect, but indeed, why not mix traditional journalism with creative writing. Consensual reality.

Ignorance is strength
-- George Orwell, 1984

I mean, just look at all those fundies. They're all clapping like mad.

Yeah, I have time on my hands today.

Is time an illusion?

I remember when I posted that time was immutable, but distance was subjective? Well, it seems time might be the illusory aspect. I wish they'd make up their minds. Of course, this idea opens up a few doors in my "other" time travel story. Here is the money quote FTA:

It is not reality that has a time flow, but our very approximate knowledge of reality. Time is the effect of our ignorance

What we perceive of reality is what gets represented as time; time doesn't actually exist. Kewl. (Dude, don't bogart that joint.)

"Clapping for Tinkerbell"

Sure. Anything can happen if you believe in it enough, right? Y'all go on clapping.

Dude, it could happen, you don't know.

Update: AKA "The Tinkerbell Effect" (see, I knew it was real!!)

Rush Limbaugh

Head of the Republican Party?

My first thought was: you got to be kidding. Then I thought: cool. They deserve each other.

Sorta like Al Franken becoming leader of the Democratic Party. Oh, wait. You mean Senator Al Franken? It could happen, and it doesn't even require winged monkeys and rectal exits. But I digress.

CNBC: House of Cards

This documentary (hosted on Hulu) will cost you 1:31:10 of your time to watch, but I consider it essential for insight into the current economic crisis.

I would clarify Greenspan's assessment, slightly. The aspect of human nature that caused this and will no doubt cause the next crisis is greed. Pure, unadulterated greed.

I hope you all have kept your jobs and your houses.