Ever since I was old enough to realise that girls who can't (or won't) be your girlfriend make really cool friends, these buddies of the opposite sex have often turned to me for advice on catching (or keeping) that elusive 'perfect man'.
Maybe that's because, when I'm not distracted, I can be a good listener and my keen ADD enhanced powers of observation allow me to dispense some pretty solid advice. I'm also brutally honest, not necessarily because I'm brutally honest, but more because that same ADD means that, at times, the filters on my brain that should stop me from blurting out what I really think don't work so well. (Like the other day when I told our new PR person that she should take a tub of whey home because "it's a great way to shed a few kilos"... oops!)
If you're female, single, contemplating being single again, or in a relationship that involves the half of the species that has a dangly bit in the front, then pay careful attention, because I probably won't let you in on any Secret Mens' Business ever again.
Are you listening?
WE'RE DIFFERENT! Our brains are wired differently to yours, and are actually a little bigger (which doesn't make us smarter, by the way... but more on that later).
We're also EXTREMELY PREDICTABLE, and that you are constantly surprised or disappointed by our behaviour only underscores the fact that YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.
So stop judging the behaviour of the men around you as though they are your girlfriends. We're not, and it's time you learned why not.
I'm going to preface this advice with a warning. If you're easily offended, or if you can't accept harsh reality, please stop reading, switch off the computer and head down to Borders, Angus & Robertson or some other purveyor of fine books. Buy yourself a Jackie Collins Bodice Ripper and be done with the whole courting thing because if you don't understand some of this, then you're never going to be in the game.
Really. I mean it. What follows here has no judgement or moral assessment attached to it... it's just the way it is, because that's how we're wired.
The FIRST RULE...
Men are basic creatures, driven by a very small, reptillian brain that is remarkable in its simplicity...
...because all straight men, from the age of around 15 or 16 to so old it's no longer relevant, perform a stunning little "cost/benefit analysis" on every female they meet. It's a subconscious thing, and it happens in a blink, but its outcome dictates much of our behaviour towards women.
What we're talking about here is the cost/benefit of sleeping with you.
STOP. I know what you're thinking, because I've had this conversation too many times and the initial reaction is always the same so before you judge us by your girl standards, just stay with this a little while longer.
The cost/benefit analysis goes something like this...
Will the benefits of getting to sleep with you outweigh the cost? Notice that I said "benefits of getting to sleep with you" and not just "sleeping with you".
The assessment might be that in order to sleep with you, the guy would need to court you, date you for years and eventually marry you. The cost, therefore, is extremely high. The benefit, though is that not only does he get to sleep with you, he gets to marry you as well.
Or... The assessment might be that in order to sleep with you, the guy just needs to buy you a drink. The cost, therefore is low, but the benefit, being an hour or two of gratuitous sex, may be perceived to be higher than the cost, in which case he'll buy you that drink. If he doesn't have that perception, take it personally... he just not attracted to you. I know. I know. I've heard it before... not all men are interested in gratuitous sex. Wanna bet? Those that you think are not are just pretending, and often pretending to themselves, because that's the way our reptillian brains are wired.
This cost/benefit thing works on all sorts of levels, sometimes simplistically...
...she's 17, gorgeous and the boss's daughter... so the cost is likely to be far higher than the benefit. Or she's 60, overweight and lives in a caravan (trailer) park... so while the cost might potentially be very low, the benefit is extremely low. Or it might be that you live 50km away, which means his cost is the $20 on fuel every time he comes to pick you up for a date. If he doesn't continue to perceive a greater benefit in getting to sleep with you (whenever that might be) than that $20 in fuel, he won't keep coming.
Somethimes, though, there are so many layers of what construes cost and/or benefit that it's no wonder our brains are bigger than yours.
The trick for you, girls, is to know what this cost/benefit means, and how it works. It's to understand that your job is to make the benefit greater than the cost, whatever that cost might be, because the cost/benefit analysis isn't what we use to decide whether or not to stay in a relationship... it's what we use to decide whether we want to be bothered chasing it in the first place.
This means you have to set the benefit high enough to keep him interested long enough to really get to know you. Brutal honesty coming here and I don't care what your pesonal morality is. The cost of getting to sleep with you can NEVER be higher than the perceived benefit. Therefore, if you're a fifth date kind of girl, make him think it's the third date until the benefit justifies the fifth. You can take that literally or figuratively... just understand what it means, which is that even if you're a marry-me-first girl, you're unlikely to be able to draw that boundary on the first date... you have to paint the benefit that justifies the cost and that's going to take time.
The SECOND RULE...
Men do NOT live in the now. We live some little way into the future, and expend a great deal of brainpower exploring the world that might be instead of trying on endless pairs of shoes or reading about why Jennifer and Brad will never get back together.
Yes... we have a different set of priorities when we're devoting brainpower resources, which is frustrating for you because it sometimes means we don't want to talk about some of the stuff you want to talk about, especially if it's trying to over-analyse some past event.
For example, generally, we don't need to be told more than once that we've screwed up. Talking about it over and over does not help us undetrstand it better. We've moved on, ok?
It also means that if you talk to us about a problem of yours, no matter how personal, we'll try to come up with a solution. So many of my female friends say something like "I didn't need him to try and fix it, I just wanted to talk about it." Sorry... for us, talking about it IS trying to fix it... otherwise, what's the point of talking about it?
The THIRD RULE...
We don't like to be ambushed. It's biology. We didn't like to be ambushed by that sabre toothed tiger when we're out hunting for dinner, and we sure as hell don't like to be ambushed at home even more.
Therefore, don't set us up to get into trouble by asking some leading question. We'll only fall for that once, after which our answers to your questions will become more and more obtuse.
The FOURTH RULE...
It is possible for a man's brain to be completely blank. It's biology. We expend a great deal of brain power just keeping our model of the world in our heads (see below). Sometimes we don't feel the need to overlay that with anything at all. Therefore, just because we're quiet doesn't mean we're thinking about anything in particular and it especially doesn't mean we're thinking bad things about you. If we say "nothing" when you ask us "what are you thinking?", the chances are we're telling the truth.
Or if we are thinking about something and don't want to share it with you, it's almost certainly not because it's about you. The reality is, if we tried to tell you what we're really thinking, you're a)not going to believe us, and b)aren't going to understand or be interested in the boy things we think about (which often involve speculative engineering or tomorrow's hunt).
The FIFTH RULE...
While it IS possible for a man to multi-task, often we choose not to. In other words, don't try to talk to us while we're watching the football.
And FINALLY...
Our brains are bigger than yours not because we're smarter, but because we have superior spatial and temporal perception. That is, the model of the world we hold in our brain has more geographic detail than yours, and we're also more aware of how that geographic detail relates to time. It's just biology... we are the hunters, so it's important for us to track the animal through the forest, kill it, AND find our way back to the village with it before you starve to death.
Ok. I'm done. This was your first and only opportunity to get a glimpse into the complex world of male psychology. Ignore it at your peril.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Boring Is Relative
Our weekend "store manager" at our little baby retail store has finished her law degree and has headed off to do whatever it is young lawyers do these days, and until we find a replacement, that means the duty falls to moi.
Being there has given me an opportunity to contemplate the meaning of "boring job". You see dear reader, this store, quite deliberately, isn't in a high traffic location and there's a limit to the amount of shelf cleaning and stock filling we can do before it's all done. After that? Well let's just say the internet connection at the sales desk gets a bit of a work-out.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying retail is boring. I used to do Thursday nights and Saturdays at our local department store when I was in high school, and it seemed like an ok life, even if it wasn't going to be my career. I just started wondering, though, about "boring" and "interesting" jobs.
If I'd asked you to describe life with the US Military fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, you probably wouldn't use the word "boring". There are lots of words you might use and your choice will probably be influenced by your political perception, but I'm reasonably certain that without first hand knowledge, "boring" isn't on your list. However, before you decide, read this blog from a soldier on the front line. (It will open in a new window or tab.)
Ok. Maybe fighting the Taliban is an extreme example. It's not so much a career choice as a policy position for whatever politician sent you there, so what about a career behind the camera in TV or the movies?
Our office is right next door to Fox Studios in Sydney, which means we often see film crews out and about doing whatever it is they do. From the outside, this looks like not much at all. There's a lot of people standing around and by the look of them, each has about 5 minutes of very specialised work to do at some point during the day-long shoot. The rest of the time.... hmmmm... apparently you can't even whip out a book because you're supposed to look interested and be alert in case your five minutes comes up in the next five minutes.
A friend of mine used to be what's loosely described as a "top fashion model", except that she had (has) a brain, which, if you're a model, isn't a great asset. Her common description of her modelling career is "tediously boring", which she acknowleges is a tautology, but which she uses anyway to somehow add additional emphasis.
And can someone tell me what an Astronaut does? I mean, career "astronauts" get to fly into space maybe two or three times in their lives, IF they're lucky. That's maybe twenty or thirty days tops. The rest of the time is spent on terra firma with the rest of us, training, and going to parties where you get to tell people you're an astronaut.
These are supposed to be the cool jobs people... glam, exiting, dream jobs that always get a "wow" from whoever asks the "what do you do?" question. Bah!
Ok... so let's look at the slightly more mundane... at what my parents would have called "a real job", like being a 747 pilot flying between Sydney and LA? Sounds great, yeah? I'm sure it gets the right reaction at those same parties but let's see... you arrive at work, spend forever going through a tedious but very necessary pre-flight check list, and then you drive the bus out to the end of the runway, push the throttle forward and whoosh... off you and your flight computer go. The next 30 minutes climbing to cruising altitude would go by rather quickly and...
... for the next 13 hours, there's really not much for you to do. You can't even sit back and watch a movie or play chess with the co-pilot. And post 9/11, you can't even talk about gladiator movies with young cockpit guests. At the end of the flight, you have 30 minutes of being told "descend", "turn left", "turn some more", "climb", "hold", "change radio channels", "turn right", and then you land. Doing rolls or loop-the-loops isn't allowed under any circumstances. The job generally only gets "not-so-boring" if you're not doing it properly, or if some idiot in maintenance didn't do his properly, but on balance, this doesn't happen nearly often enough to keep things interesting. Of course, you get paid quite well, which is the only reason another friend of mine keeps doing it.
An ex girlfriend is a "plant pathologist". When she first told me, I had this image flash into my straw brain of a tree walking into her office to get a sap test. She used to get really excited about plant pathology. For me... well let's just say I have difficulty deciding if the plant in my office is real or plastic. She spends her day staring down a microscope in some CSI style government agriculture lab trying to decide if the Wheat Blight came from the field to the north or the east. Exciting huh?
Our recently departed law grad isn't going into law. To quote her... "are you serious? Can you actually see me processing damned property contracts for the rest of my life? I think not." She hasn't decided what she wants to do... she just knows it won't be either law or retail. I think she wants to try a modelling career.
A guy I went to school with is a procedures analyst for a major supermarket chain. His job is to look at the day-to-day procedures of running a store and make recommendations that are supposed to make the stores run better.
Seriously. This is what he does... He observes how a store runs and writes up store manuals that stay stuff like "Twenty Dollar Notes shall be removed from the register and folded so that the picture of Hargraves faces out. This will allow for easier counting when the cash reaches the store's counting room." Clearly, he hasn't spent any time standing at the checkout that's emptying its register because otherwise he'd know just how pissed off those of us standing there get while the check out chick takes the time to properly turn and fold the cash. Actually, he's now the Procedures Analysis Manager, which means he trains and runs a team of people formulating these policies. Inevitably, of course, local store staff just think it's all a joke, which means he suffers terribly from depression and feelings of insignificance.
I was at the local Police Station the other day (perhaps a story for another time) and the officer was complaining about the amount of admin she has to do each day. I asked her how much of her time is actually devoted to catching bad guys or running crowd control duty at some local event. "Oh, about 5%". The rest, she said, is just boring paperwork. "But at least I'm not the security guard standing outside the local bank", she added, as though the tedium of others somehow made it all ok.
The most boring job on the planet was, in my estimation, that of a toll collector on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At least that's what I thought until just after 9/11 when some great mind in the Government decided that we'd better put a security guard on the pedestrian walkway to guard against a terrorist attack.
This, of course, is an utterly failed strategy because if a terrorist was going to hit our most famous icon, they'd probably just drive onto the bridge in a truck filled with something that goes boom, about which there's little a lone guard could do because a)trucks can't get onto the walkway and b)he's not going to last long wandering across the lanes of 70kph traffic checking trucks for people who may or may not be terrorists. He's therefore left to spend his day wandering aimlessly backwards and forwards among the walk-to-workers, joggers and tourists.
At least, sitting behind this sales desk, I can ramble on in a blog to kill a few minutes.
Being there has given me an opportunity to contemplate the meaning of "boring job". You see dear reader, this store, quite deliberately, isn't in a high traffic location and there's a limit to the amount of shelf cleaning and stock filling we can do before it's all done. After that? Well let's just say the internet connection at the sales desk gets a bit of a work-out.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying retail is boring. I used to do Thursday nights and Saturdays at our local department store when I was in high school, and it seemed like an ok life, even if it wasn't going to be my career. I just started wondering, though, about "boring" and "interesting" jobs.
If I'd asked you to describe life with the US Military fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, you probably wouldn't use the word "boring". There are lots of words you might use and your choice will probably be influenced by your political perception, but I'm reasonably certain that without first hand knowledge, "boring" isn't on your list. However, before you decide, read this blog from a soldier on the front line. (It will open in a new window or tab.)
Ok. Maybe fighting the Taliban is an extreme example. It's not so much a career choice as a policy position for whatever politician sent you there, so what about a career behind the camera in TV or the movies?
Our office is right next door to Fox Studios in Sydney, which means we often see film crews out and about doing whatever it is they do. From the outside, this looks like not much at all. There's a lot of people standing around and by the look of them, each has about 5 minutes of very specialised work to do at some point during the day-long shoot. The rest of the time.... hmmmm... apparently you can't even whip out a book because you're supposed to look interested and be alert in case your five minutes comes up in the next five minutes.
A friend of mine used to be what's loosely described as a "top fashion model", except that she had (has) a brain, which, if you're a model, isn't a great asset. Her common description of her modelling career is "tediously boring", which she acknowleges is a tautology, but which she uses anyway to somehow add additional emphasis.
And can someone tell me what an Astronaut does? I mean, career "astronauts" get to fly into space maybe two or three times in their lives, IF they're lucky. That's maybe twenty or thirty days tops. The rest of the time is spent on terra firma with the rest of us, training, and going to parties where you get to tell people you're an astronaut.
These are supposed to be the cool jobs people... glam, exiting, dream jobs that always get a "wow" from whoever asks the "what do you do?" question. Bah!
Ok... so let's look at the slightly more mundane... at what my parents would have called "a real job", like being a 747 pilot flying between Sydney and LA? Sounds great, yeah? I'm sure it gets the right reaction at those same parties but let's see... you arrive at work, spend forever going through a tedious but very necessary pre-flight check list, and then you drive the bus out to the end of the runway, push the throttle forward and whoosh... off you and your flight computer go. The next 30 minutes climbing to cruising altitude would go by rather quickly and...
... for the next 13 hours, there's really not much for you to do. You can't even sit back and watch a movie or play chess with the co-pilot. And post 9/11, you can't even talk about gladiator movies with young cockpit guests. At the end of the flight, you have 30 minutes of being told "descend", "turn left", "turn some more", "climb", "hold", "change radio channels", "turn right", and then you land. Doing rolls or loop-the-loops isn't allowed under any circumstances. The job generally only gets "not-so-boring" if you're not doing it properly, or if some idiot in maintenance didn't do his properly, but on balance, this doesn't happen nearly often enough to keep things interesting. Of course, you get paid quite well, which is the only reason another friend of mine keeps doing it.
An ex girlfriend is a "plant pathologist". When she first told me, I had this image flash into my straw brain of a tree walking into her office to get a sap test. She used to get really excited about plant pathology. For me... well let's just say I have difficulty deciding if the plant in my office is real or plastic. She spends her day staring down a microscope in some CSI style government agriculture lab trying to decide if the Wheat Blight came from the field to the north or the east. Exciting huh?
Our recently departed law grad isn't going into law. To quote her... "are you serious? Can you actually see me processing damned property contracts for the rest of my life? I think not." She hasn't decided what she wants to do... she just knows it won't be either law or retail. I think she wants to try a modelling career.
A guy I went to school with is a procedures analyst for a major supermarket chain. His job is to look at the day-to-day procedures of running a store and make recommendations that are supposed to make the stores run better.
Seriously. This is what he does... He observes how a store runs and writes up store manuals that stay stuff like "Twenty Dollar Notes shall be removed from the register and folded so that the picture of Hargraves faces out. This will allow for easier counting when the cash reaches the store's counting room." Clearly, he hasn't spent any time standing at the checkout that's emptying its register because otherwise he'd know just how pissed off those of us standing there get while the check out chick takes the time to properly turn and fold the cash. Actually, he's now the Procedures Analysis Manager, which means he trains and runs a team of people formulating these policies. Inevitably, of course, local store staff just think it's all a joke, which means he suffers terribly from depression and feelings of insignificance.
I was at the local Police Station the other day (perhaps a story for another time) and the officer was complaining about the amount of admin she has to do each day. I asked her how much of her time is actually devoted to catching bad guys or running crowd control duty at some local event. "Oh, about 5%". The rest, she said, is just boring paperwork. "But at least I'm not the security guard standing outside the local bank", she added, as though the tedium of others somehow made it all ok.
The most boring job on the planet was, in my estimation, that of a toll collector on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At least that's what I thought until just after 9/11 when some great mind in the Government decided that we'd better put a security guard on the pedestrian walkway to guard against a terrorist attack.
This, of course, is an utterly failed strategy because if a terrorist was going to hit our most famous icon, they'd probably just drive onto the bridge in a truck filled with something that goes boom, about which there's little a lone guard could do because a)trucks can't get onto the walkway and b)he's not going to last long wandering across the lanes of 70kph traffic checking trucks for people who may or may not be terrorists. He's therefore left to spend his day wandering aimlessly backwards and forwards among the walk-to-workers, joggers and tourists.
At least, sitting behind this sales desk, I can ramble on in a blog to kill a few minutes.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A Thanksgiving Travel Tip
Here's a tip for anyone who wants to go to Disneyland or Universal Studios. Go on the Monday after Thanksgiving... there's absolutely NO-ONE there.
Dr J and I were in the Excited States this time a couple of years back, and went to Universal on the Monday. Seriously, Hamas could have detonated a suicide bomber in the Back To The Future queue and not hurt anyone. The place was empty.
You know the big signs that say "Wait Time From This Point". Zero Minutes. We'd get off Jurassic Park, and just get straight back on. A couple of times, they didn't even make us get out of the boat. Waterworld was about as well patronised as the Monday of a NSWvSA Pura Cup Cricket Match (4 people and the ubiquitous cocker spaniel routinely turn up to day 4). On the Studio Tram Tour, they actually suggested that we bunch up into one tram carriage. No-one paid attention of course.
We went to Disneyland the next day. Same thing. No-one there. Well, hardly anyone anyway. The longest we stood in line for anything was at the Churros stand. (I have a bit of a weakness for a good crunchy Churros. Fortunately, they're hard to find in Oz.) Imagine turning up at the Indianna Jones ride at 11am and walking straight on. Or being able to have your photo taken with Mickey at Mickey's house twice in the same session. Or being the only people in the stretching room at the Haunted Mansion. Or not even having to get out of the Splash Mountain log/boat thingmy.
Speaking of which, here's me at Splash Mountain.
Dr J and I were in the Excited States this time a couple of years back, and went to Universal on the Monday. Seriously, Hamas could have detonated a suicide bomber in the Back To The Future queue and not hurt anyone. The place was empty.
You know the big signs that say "Wait Time From This Point". Zero Minutes. We'd get off Jurassic Park, and just get straight back on. A couple of times, they didn't even make us get out of the boat. Waterworld was about as well patronised as the Monday of a NSWvSA Pura Cup Cricket Match (4 people and the ubiquitous cocker spaniel routinely turn up to day 4). On the Studio Tram Tour, they actually suggested that we bunch up into one tram carriage. No-one paid attention of course.
We went to Disneyland the next day. Same thing. No-one there. Well, hardly anyone anyway. The longest we stood in line for anything was at the Churros stand. (I have a bit of a weakness for a good crunchy Churros. Fortunately, they're hard to find in Oz.) Imagine turning up at the Indianna Jones ride at 11am and walking straight on. Or being able to have your photo taken with Mickey at Mickey's house twice in the same session. Or being the only people in the stretching room at the Haunted Mansion. Or not even having to get out of the Splash Mountain log/boat thingmy.
Speaking of which, here's me at Splash Mountain.
I have no idea who anyone else in the log was. Dr J hates roller coasters so she wouldn't come on this one (she'd had quite enough of Jurassic Park the day before). And notice that I was the only one in the log who went over the waterfall with their arms in the air. So there!
I was talking to one of the park managers on the way out. Her name was Bobby-Joe. Really. It said so on her badge. She said the few days after Thanksgiving were their quietest days of the year, and she said it was the same for every park and major tourist attraction in the USA.
So there's a tip for you.
Monday, November 20, 2006
I Can See! I Can See! Oh... Never Mind.
It's one of the curses of growing old... you just can't see like you used to. For me, it's not the distance stuff that's deteriorating. I've worn coke bottle glasses (can I say that without incurring the wrath of the coca-cola company?) since I was in the 3rd grade and without glasses or contacts, I absolutely can not see the clock next to the bed without physically picking it up and bringing it to within about two inches of my nose.
Actually, without my contacts, I think I'd be legally blind. I'm wondering whether that qualifies me for a diabled parking permit... you know... being blind is classed as a disability.
No, it's not he distance stuff. Like most people in their 40's, it's the close up stuff that starts to disappear. You start grumbling about why there's an inverse relationship between the price of the meal and the size of the type the restaurant writes its menu in. Or you start to wish you'd bought the street directory with "NOW IN EXTRA LARGE PRINT" emblazoned across the front.
So a few years ago, my friendly local optomestrist suggested that I try "dual focus contact lenses". Now before you get all excited, what he really meant was "let's put a contact in your right eye that's great for distance stuff, and one in your left eye that's not quite strong enough, which means the distance stuff will be a little blurry but reading will be easier". "Ok", I said, let's give that a try.Just to put you in the picture, here's what I've been seeing when I look out of my window.
Actually, without my contacts, I think I'd be legally blind. I'm wondering whether that qualifies me for a diabled parking permit... you know... being blind is classed as a disability.
No, it's not he distance stuff. Like most people in their 40's, it's the close up stuff that starts to disappear. You start grumbling about why there's an inverse relationship between the price of the meal and the size of the type the restaurant writes its menu in. Or you start to wish you'd bought the street directory with "NOW IN EXTRA LARGE PRINT" emblazoned across the front.
So a few years ago, my friendly local optomestrist suggested that I try "dual focus contact lenses". Now before you get all excited, what he really meant was "let's put a contact in your right eye that's great for distance stuff, and one in your left eye that's not quite strong enough, which means the distance stuff will be a little blurry but reading will be easier". "Ok", I said, let's give that a try.Just to put you in the picture, here's what I've been seeing when I look out of my window.
Apparently, the brain figures it out, overlays the blurry image with the sharp image and I end up with "acceptable" vision.
That's all well and good, but I had the opportunity this week to try out a few different combinations. I'm getting older, so my eyes are getting worse, which meant the optometrist wanted to recommend a bigger gap between what I get and what I need. I hated it, so he gave me some different strengths to play with.
The last one I've tried throws away the whole dual focus thing and gives me 20/20 vision.
WOW!!! FECKEN WOW!!! I can see!
Basically, anything more than about a metre away is now in PERFECT focus. The TV, the clock on the clubhouse wall, the lint on my floor, the dead cockroach just outside my front door, the people sunbaking topless across the bay... oh... wait... one of them's a bloke. As long as it's more than a metre away... WOWEEEEE.
Then I sat down at the keyboard to do some real work. Ah well. I've been able to push the monitor to the back of the desk so it's almost a metre away, and who needs to see a bloody menu anyway... just bring food.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The Icecap Still Melteth
I'm still wrestling with this whole global warming thing, and the problem this bear has with the debate is twofold.
First, we're basing our judgement on changing climate using records that are only slightly more than a couple of hundred years old. That would be like trying to gauge the health of a human based on something that happens in their bodies for a nanosecond.
And second, yes, we're polluting this planet and there can be no doubt that we've had a significant and negative impact on the environment, but the total concentration of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by all of the industrial activities of humanity has resulted in increases in total atmospheric CO2 that's measured in parts per million. Maybe this is enough to tip a balance, maybe not. I don't know.
I want to take you back, though, to the "hole in the ozone layer" issue of ten or twenty years ago.
You remember... a big hole appeared over the Antarctic, and apparently it was growing at such an alarming rate that we were all going to die of skin cancer by the end of the millenium. Yes, THAT end of the millenium. (I'll bet you've still got that stockpile of candles you secretly bought because the Y2K bug was going to take out the power grid. )
So here's this hole over the ozone layer. We were told that it was caused by CFCs and other man made chemicals. We all stopped using spray cans for about a week because we were so concerned. Of course, once we found out how bloody inconvenient roll-on deodorant was, we went back to our bad habits but that was ok because by then they'd started using hydrocarbons instead of those evil CFCs, and even if this wasn't better for the environment, it was more fun because a spray can and a box of matches could now provide hours of entertainment for the whole family.
The story of the hole sounded plausible... except for one rather large detail that no-one has ever been able to explain... it was over the SOUTHERN hemisphere.
You may not know that the atmospheres of the Northern and Southern hemispheres barely mix. People in the US and Soviet militaries figured that out as a matter of priority at the height of the cold war when they were looking for some place to stash their families in a post nuclear apocalypse world. Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires all looked pretty good, though the Soviets never did have much influence south of the equator. Anyway, as usual, I digress.
Atmospheres... don't mix... let me think...
Where were the CFCs? Hmmm... wait... I know I can answer that... just give me a second or two... ummm... they'd be in those places where most of the people and most of the industrial development was... places like... ummm... North America, or um... Asia or... wait... there's another one... don't help me... ummm.. ah... Europe. These are all in... ummm... [Chester reaches for an Atlas]... oh yes... there they are.
Now that line across the map is the equator, so that must mean all of those places, and hence nearly all of the CFCs, would have been in the NORTHERN hemisphere. So why was/is the hole over the Southern hemisphere?
Because NASA found it there. They sent up a satellite to measure the ozone layer and whammo... there it was... this bloody great hole exactly where no-one expected a hole to be. I wish I'd been at the press conference...
ME: Was it there before?
NASA: Well we hadn't ever measured it before.
ME: But wasn't this satellite equipped with all sorts of fancy new gizmos that had been put there just to measure the ozone?
NASA: Yes. That was the point. It was the first satellite we've put up just for measuring the ozone layer.
ME: So it could have been there before.
NASA: We've never measured it before.
ME: But it could have been there, you just hadn't measured it.
NASA: Our satellite has detected a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
ME: Maybe I'll try another tack... how long has the hole been there?
NASA: We first saw it last year, and it's growing.
ME: But was it there the year before?
NASA: If we extrapolate the growth rate backwards, it first appeared in 1952.
ME: So you're confident that the growth of the hole has been constant.
NASA: We don't have any data. We first saw the hole last year, and this year it's grown.
They detected a hole, and made an immediate assumption that the hole wasn't there before. I know. I'm speaking herasy here, but think about it people... the bloody hole was over the WRONG hemisphere. There's still argument about the hole. It gets bigger. It gets smaller. It gets bigger again, and the longer we watch it (now that we actually can), the more we learn that we don't understand it.
Back to global warming. There is no doubt that climates change. The 16th century in Europe was described as being a "mini ice age". (Ok, it might have been the 14th... my knowledge of European Dark Age & Renaissance history is a little scratchy.)
We know sea levels rise and fall. There are entire cities and ports in parts of the Med that are metres under water. They didn't sink... the sea level rose. (Ok, maybe one or two of them sank, but mostly, the sea level rose, ok!)
The point is, the earth's climate is not some static thing we can absolutely rely on from year to year. That the last hundred years or so have been relatively stable simply underscores the point that we can only measure the last hundred years or so.
We don't really know what the weather was like the day Mark Antony started bonking Cleopatra. We don't know what the temperature was when Martin Luther nailed that proclaimation to the church door. We don't know what the weather was like when Leif Ericson first landed in Iceland, or when Ming took delivery of his first vase.
There isn't any dopler radar image or five day forecast for January 26, 1788, the day Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet sailed into Sydney. They just described it as "hot". But what is "hot"?
I'll tell you what "hot" is... hot is somewhere warmer than wherever it was that you were before. So if it was bloody cold in England, and warm and mild in Sydney Town, then 22C (71F) would be hot. Then again, if you've lived in Singapore all your life, and you arrive in Sydney on a mild summer's day, it's cold. You see? It's all relative.
I've seen it myself... go to the tropics... Cairns or Miami, on a cool day in the middle of winter. There will be dozens of tourists walking around wearing T-Shirts while the locals rug up.
So, back to global warming. Apparently, the last 5 years have been the hottest 5 years on record. Hmmm... age of earth is 5 billion years + (or 5 thousand years + depending on your religious belief). And accurate, objective records go back... um... about 160 years. So I'm happy to accept that the last 5 years might have been hotter than the 160 years before that, but what about the 4,999,999,840 years/4,840 years (pick one) before that?
Ok... I hear you... botanists tell us that they can get a longer measurement by looking at tree rings. Really? Just remember the piece I wrote yesterday about subjectivity. If you go into the forest looking for something to validate whatever it is you believe, you'll find it.
Ice core scientists tell us they can give you an accurate picture too... but that's over, say, a hundred years. They have to make assumptions about how much snow fell, not just in the period they're looking at, but each year since. They make educated guesses but the chances are those guesses will be influenced by the same subjectivity.
We may be responsible for global warming, or we may not. If we are, and if the politicians REALLY believe we are, then there's a simple solution... spend whatever it takes to develop the technology to fix the problem. The Americans did it during WWII with the Manhattan Project, and the world could do it again right now. Actually, the immediate job wouldn't be that difficult because most of the technology already exists for a short term fix.
If we're not, and I'm not convinced either way just yet, then this seems like a very convenient issue to allow politicians the world over to prance about and make us think they're doing something, because right now, they're not doing much more than prancing.
One more thought on the environment... back in the early 1500s, Henry the VIIIth was so concerned about preserving the forests that he enacted what is widely considered the world's first environmental conservation law. You see, back in those days, most of England was covered by huge and mighty oak trees. Henry was so worried about the rate at which the oaks were being cut down and turned into wood coke that he outlawed the felling of oak trees for fuel. Like many things back then, including stealing a loaf of bread or marrying the King, it was a capital offence.
That lead to two things... first, it meant that when Elizabeth I took the throne, there were huge forests of oak trees available out of which she could build a navy, thus setting up Britannia to rule the waves for the next 400 years.
Second, people had to find some other way to keep warm (remember the mini ice age?). They turned to a curious black rock that you could dig out of the ground in parts of Wales that burned hotter and longer than the wood coke. They soon found out it was a much better fuel, and because they could now burn the furnaces hotter, they could make stronger steel, out of which they could build the machines of the industrial revolution, which, of course, needed even more of that black rock to make steam so they could make more machines to burn more black rock to make steam.
Within a couple of hundred years, the acid rain from burning all that coal the peasants had learned to burn because some conservationist wanted to save the trees, had decimated the forests Henry's law was supposed to save, which, in turn, meant the British had to learn how to build their ships out of iron or steel, which meant they could build the ships bigger, which meant more people could now travel more cheaply, which meant ideas were more readily exchanged, which meant the pace of technology could accellerate, which, if we're responsible for global warming, caused the whole bloody problem in the first place.
So blame Henry VIII.
First, we're basing our judgement on changing climate using records that are only slightly more than a couple of hundred years old. That would be like trying to gauge the health of a human based on something that happens in their bodies for a nanosecond.
And second, yes, we're polluting this planet and there can be no doubt that we've had a significant and negative impact on the environment, but the total concentration of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by all of the industrial activities of humanity has resulted in increases in total atmospheric CO2 that's measured in parts per million. Maybe this is enough to tip a balance, maybe not. I don't know.
I want to take you back, though, to the "hole in the ozone layer" issue of ten or twenty years ago.
You remember... a big hole appeared over the Antarctic, and apparently it was growing at such an alarming rate that we were all going to die of skin cancer by the end of the millenium. Yes, THAT end of the millenium. (I'll bet you've still got that stockpile of candles you secretly bought because the Y2K bug was going to take out the power grid. )
So here's this hole over the ozone layer. We were told that it was caused by CFCs and other man made chemicals. We all stopped using spray cans for about a week because we were so concerned. Of course, once we found out how bloody inconvenient roll-on deodorant was, we went back to our bad habits but that was ok because by then they'd started using hydrocarbons instead of those evil CFCs, and even if this wasn't better for the environment, it was more fun because a spray can and a box of matches could now provide hours of entertainment for the whole family.
The story of the hole sounded plausible... except for one rather large detail that no-one has ever been able to explain... it was over the SOUTHERN hemisphere.
You may not know that the atmospheres of the Northern and Southern hemispheres barely mix. People in the US and Soviet militaries figured that out as a matter of priority at the height of the cold war when they were looking for some place to stash their families in a post nuclear apocalypse world. Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires all looked pretty good, though the Soviets never did have much influence south of the equator. Anyway, as usual, I digress.
Atmospheres... don't mix... let me think...
Where were the CFCs? Hmmm... wait... I know I can answer that... just give me a second or two... ummm... they'd be in those places where most of the people and most of the industrial development was... places like... ummm... North America, or um... Asia or... wait... there's another one... don't help me... ummm.. ah... Europe. These are all in... ummm... [Chester reaches for an Atlas]... oh yes... there they are.
Now that line across the map is the equator, so that must mean all of those places, and hence nearly all of the CFCs, would have been in the NORTHERN hemisphere. So why was/is the hole over the Southern hemisphere?
Because NASA found it there. They sent up a satellite to measure the ozone layer and whammo... there it was... this bloody great hole exactly where no-one expected a hole to be. I wish I'd been at the press conference...
ME: Was it there before?
NASA: Well we hadn't ever measured it before.
ME: But wasn't this satellite equipped with all sorts of fancy new gizmos that had been put there just to measure the ozone?
NASA: Yes. That was the point. It was the first satellite we've put up just for measuring the ozone layer.
ME: So it could have been there before.
NASA: We've never measured it before.
ME: But it could have been there, you just hadn't measured it.
NASA: Our satellite has detected a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
ME: Maybe I'll try another tack... how long has the hole been there?
NASA: We first saw it last year, and it's growing.
ME: But was it there the year before?
NASA: If we extrapolate the growth rate backwards, it first appeared in 1952.
ME: So you're confident that the growth of the hole has been constant.
NASA: We don't have any data. We first saw the hole last year, and this year it's grown.
They detected a hole, and made an immediate assumption that the hole wasn't there before. I know. I'm speaking herasy here, but think about it people... the bloody hole was over the WRONG hemisphere. There's still argument about the hole. It gets bigger. It gets smaller. It gets bigger again, and the longer we watch it (now that we actually can), the more we learn that we don't understand it.
Back to global warming. There is no doubt that climates change. The 16th century in Europe was described as being a "mini ice age". (Ok, it might have been the 14th... my knowledge of European Dark Age & Renaissance history is a little scratchy.)
We know sea levels rise and fall. There are entire cities and ports in parts of the Med that are metres under water. They didn't sink... the sea level rose. (Ok, maybe one or two of them sank, but mostly, the sea level rose, ok!)
The point is, the earth's climate is not some static thing we can absolutely rely on from year to year. That the last hundred years or so have been relatively stable simply underscores the point that we can only measure the last hundred years or so.
We don't really know what the weather was like the day Mark Antony started bonking Cleopatra. We don't know what the temperature was when Martin Luther nailed that proclaimation to the church door. We don't know what the weather was like when Leif Ericson first landed in Iceland, or when Ming took delivery of his first vase.
There isn't any dopler radar image or five day forecast for January 26, 1788, the day Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet sailed into Sydney. They just described it as "hot". But what is "hot"?
I'll tell you what "hot" is... hot is somewhere warmer than wherever it was that you were before. So if it was bloody cold in England, and warm and mild in Sydney Town, then 22C (71F) would be hot. Then again, if you've lived in Singapore all your life, and you arrive in Sydney on a mild summer's day, it's cold. You see? It's all relative.
I've seen it myself... go to the tropics... Cairns or Miami, on a cool day in the middle of winter. There will be dozens of tourists walking around wearing T-Shirts while the locals rug up.
So, back to global warming. Apparently, the last 5 years have been the hottest 5 years on record. Hmmm... age of earth is 5 billion years + (or 5 thousand years + depending on your religious belief). And accurate, objective records go back... um... about 160 years. So I'm happy to accept that the last 5 years might have been hotter than the 160 years before that, but what about the 4,999,999,840 years/4,840 years (pick one) before that?
Ok... I hear you... botanists tell us that they can get a longer measurement by looking at tree rings. Really? Just remember the piece I wrote yesterday about subjectivity. If you go into the forest looking for something to validate whatever it is you believe, you'll find it.
Ice core scientists tell us they can give you an accurate picture too... but that's over, say, a hundred years. They have to make assumptions about how much snow fell, not just in the period they're looking at, but each year since. They make educated guesses but the chances are those guesses will be influenced by the same subjectivity.
We may be responsible for global warming, or we may not. If we are, and if the politicians REALLY believe we are, then there's a simple solution... spend whatever it takes to develop the technology to fix the problem. The Americans did it during WWII with the Manhattan Project, and the world could do it again right now. Actually, the immediate job wouldn't be that difficult because most of the technology already exists for a short term fix.
If we're not, and I'm not convinced either way just yet, then this seems like a very convenient issue to allow politicians the world over to prance about and make us think they're doing something, because right now, they're not doing much more than prancing.
One more thought on the environment... back in the early 1500s, Henry the VIIIth was so concerned about preserving the forests that he enacted what is widely considered the world's first environmental conservation law. You see, back in those days, most of England was covered by huge and mighty oak trees. Henry was so worried about the rate at which the oaks were being cut down and turned into wood coke that he outlawed the felling of oak trees for fuel. Like many things back then, including stealing a loaf of bread or marrying the King, it was a capital offence.
That lead to two things... first, it meant that when Elizabeth I took the throne, there were huge forests of oak trees available out of which she could build a navy, thus setting up Britannia to rule the waves for the next 400 years.
Second, people had to find some other way to keep warm (remember the mini ice age?). They turned to a curious black rock that you could dig out of the ground in parts of Wales that burned hotter and longer than the wood coke. They soon found out it was a much better fuel, and because they could now burn the furnaces hotter, they could make stronger steel, out of which they could build the machines of the industrial revolution, which, of course, needed even more of that black rock to make steam so they could make more machines to burn more black rock to make steam.
Within a couple of hundred years, the acid rain from burning all that coal the peasants had learned to burn because some conservationist wanted to save the trees, had decimated the forests Henry's law was supposed to save, which, in turn, meant the British had to learn how to build their ships out of iron or steel, which meant they could build the ships bigger, which meant more people could now travel more cheaply, which meant ideas were more readily exchanged, which meant the pace of technology could accellerate, which, if we're responsible for global warming, caused the whole bloody problem in the first place.
So blame Henry VIII.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Overwhelmed & Biased
I found myself an unwilling participant, yesterday, in a study into the nature of perception. Not that there really was a "study" in any formal sense of the word. No. It was more an observation following on from several real studies that took place around the world when nations were debating the whole WMD thing.
Back then, the research discovered something disturbing, especially to people like me who claim to have the power of objectivity. It discovered that when assessing evidence, our brains subconsciously assign "importance points", and the closer the evidence is to what we already believe, or the closer the information is in its presentation to the presentation we would expect from information that is accurate, the more importance points are assigned. Conversely, the brain assigns less points to information that contradicts what we believe, or is presented to us in a format that is not what we would expect for accurate data. In other words, when you come across information supporting your belief, or which conforms with your expectation of accurate presentation, you are more likely to see it and pay attention to it, not matter how unlikely it is, and when you come across information that contradicts what you believe, or is presented in a manner not consistent with your expectation of accuacy, you are more likely to miss it, or ignore it, no matter how likely it is.
Here's a simplistic example. You're handed information scribbled on a scrunched up piece of paper. The spelling is poor, the grammar worse and the handwriting is child-like. You're handed other information presented to you beautifully printed and bound, with an official looking insignia on the cover. If you have no preconception, you're more likely to believe the bound report. You are only more likely to believe the scribble if it supports a fundamental belief, or if the bound report contradicts some fundamental belief.
Let me give you another simplistic, though marginally more complex example. Let's say you believe the earth is flat, and you're standing on a high cliff looking out over the ocean. Your brain will not see the curve of the earth at the horizon, even though it is there and is objectively measurable. The person standing next to you believes the earth is round, and says "wow, look at that curve". Your most likely reaction will be "what curve?", and you still won't see it, even though it's been pointed out to you AND it's there.
I was doing some research yesterday, trawling through hundreds of research papers looking for links between whey protein and a beneficial effect in preventing or fighting cancer, and especially breast cancer.
Hundreds of papers.
And suddenly, I noticed that I was either subconsciously dismissing or glossing over papers which did not support the belief, or I was overly critical of such studies, and far more accepting of studies which confirmed the link, even though some of those studies were poorly constructed.
I realised that this sort of filtering happens every day. Our brains look for information that validates our pre-existing understanding of the world. We're far more likely to notice things that fit into the little model of the world that sits inside our heads, and equally likely to ignore things that do not fit into that model.
Even more important, is that our brains add more importance or credence to information that comes to us in a form that is either more expected, or more attractive than other information.
Think about that, and what it means to the way companies sell stuff to you. Many years ago, when marketing was more a dark art and less an evil science, a gin company had a leading brand. They were losing market share so they decided to find out why.
When they did a blind taste test, their brand ALWAYS scored higher for taste than the competitors brand. That is, more people thought their brand tasted better. They then repeated the experiment (with different subjects), but this time, those subjects could see the bottles from which the gin was poured. The competitor's brand ALWAYS scored higher. Finally, they repeated the experiment again, but this time, they switched the contents of the bottles, that is, they put their gin in their competitor's bottle, and vice versa. The one in the competitors bottle (theirs) now scored higher again.
The test subjects perceptions of what they were about to taste was influenced more by the way they saw the product, and less by the actual taste. The company changed their bottle and regained market dominance.
If you doubt whether this applies to just about everything we buy, take a look at the cosmetic industry. Here, form over substance triumphs, because the consumers' brains are far more likely to believe something in a beautiful package is going to make them beautiful than something in a plain dull package.
I read a book once called "Supressed Inventions and Other Discoveries". It had stories about a whole raft of "new technologies" that its author was suggesting had been supressed, either by government or by competing commercial interests. I will tell you that I have no doubt that some of the stories in that book were more likely to be true than not, but one less paranoid explanation may be that those evaluating the new technology simply couldn't see the evidence that it worked.
We see it in medicine every day. As recently as last year, an Australian doctor was being investigated because his patients were claiming that he had cured their incurable cancers. He was using microwave radiation therapy, and setting the wave lengths of the microwaves to specifically target individual types of cancers.
There were hundreds of patient files, almost all of which showed near miraculous recovery from cancer previously diagnosed by another, more recognised oncologist as terminal, Almost all of those patients were still alive, years after they were expected to have died, and almost all of them were cancer free.
The authorities charged with the responsibility of evaluating this radical new treatment ignored the patient files and instead focused on the mechanism. Their conclusion was that as there was no known mechanism by which this treatment could be killing the tumours, the treatment therefore had no validity and did not warrant further investigation. The investigative team did not talk to a single patient, and did not refer, in its final report, to any patient files.
For some, this was clear evidence of conspiracy by the evil drug companies. I think the explaination is a great deal simpler. The investigators just didn't believe the treatment could work (probably because they had been indoctrinated by the aforementioned evil drug companies), so they only gave credence to evidence that would support that position.
What I'm trying to say here is that the same mental processes are at work. We see stuff that we want to believe. That belief may be that a particular fact is true, or it may be that something more beautiful works better than something less beautiful.
Sadly, though, there's no solution. We're overwhelmed by input and all of it is subjectively dealt with in our brains. If you start second guessing your motivation for assigning validity to one piece of information, or one product over another, I suspect you'll go nuts. But maybe knowing why people don't see what you see might help keep you out of an argument or two.
Back then, the research discovered something disturbing, especially to people like me who claim to have the power of objectivity. It discovered that when assessing evidence, our brains subconsciously assign "importance points", and the closer the evidence is to what we already believe, or the closer the information is in its presentation to the presentation we would expect from information that is accurate, the more importance points are assigned. Conversely, the brain assigns less points to information that contradicts what we believe, or is presented to us in a format that is not what we would expect for accurate data. In other words, when you come across information supporting your belief, or which conforms with your expectation of accurate presentation, you are more likely to see it and pay attention to it, not matter how unlikely it is, and when you come across information that contradicts what you believe, or is presented in a manner not consistent with your expectation of accuacy, you are more likely to miss it, or ignore it, no matter how likely it is.
Here's a simplistic example. You're handed information scribbled on a scrunched up piece of paper. The spelling is poor, the grammar worse and the handwriting is child-like. You're handed other information presented to you beautifully printed and bound, with an official looking insignia on the cover. If you have no preconception, you're more likely to believe the bound report. You are only more likely to believe the scribble if it supports a fundamental belief, or if the bound report contradicts some fundamental belief.
Let me give you another simplistic, though marginally more complex example. Let's say you believe the earth is flat, and you're standing on a high cliff looking out over the ocean. Your brain will not see the curve of the earth at the horizon, even though it is there and is objectively measurable. The person standing next to you believes the earth is round, and says "wow, look at that curve". Your most likely reaction will be "what curve?", and you still won't see it, even though it's been pointed out to you AND it's there.
I was doing some research yesterday, trawling through hundreds of research papers looking for links between whey protein and a beneficial effect in preventing or fighting cancer, and especially breast cancer.
Hundreds of papers.
And suddenly, I noticed that I was either subconsciously dismissing or glossing over papers which did not support the belief, or I was overly critical of such studies, and far more accepting of studies which confirmed the link, even though some of those studies were poorly constructed.
I realised that this sort of filtering happens every day. Our brains look for information that validates our pre-existing understanding of the world. We're far more likely to notice things that fit into the little model of the world that sits inside our heads, and equally likely to ignore things that do not fit into that model.
Even more important, is that our brains add more importance or credence to information that comes to us in a form that is either more expected, or more attractive than other information.
Think about that, and what it means to the way companies sell stuff to you. Many years ago, when marketing was more a dark art and less an evil science, a gin company had a leading brand. They were losing market share so they decided to find out why.
When they did a blind taste test, their brand ALWAYS scored higher for taste than the competitors brand. That is, more people thought their brand tasted better. They then repeated the experiment (with different subjects), but this time, those subjects could see the bottles from which the gin was poured. The competitor's brand ALWAYS scored higher. Finally, they repeated the experiment again, but this time, they switched the contents of the bottles, that is, they put their gin in their competitor's bottle, and vice versa. The one in the competitors bottle (theirs) now scored higher again.
The test subjects perceptions of what they were about to taste was influenced more by the way they saw the product, and less by the actual taste. The company changed their bottle and regained market dominance.
If you doubt whether this applies to just about everything we buy, take a look at the cosmetic industry. Here, form over substance triumphs, because the consumers' brains are far more likely to believe something in a beautiful package is going to make them beautiful than something in a plain dull package.
I read a book once called "Supressed Inventions and Other Discoveries". It had stories about a whole raft of "new technologies" that its author was suggesting had been supressed, either by government or by competing commercial interests. I will tell you that I have no doubt that some of the stories in that book were more likely to be true than not, but one less paranoid explanation may be that those evaluating the new technology simply couldn't see the evidence that it worked.
We see it in medicine every day. As recently as last year, an Australian doctor was being investigated because his patients were claiming that he had cured their incurable cancers. He was using microwave radiation therapy, and setting the wave lengths of the microwaves to specifically target individual types of cancers.
There were hundreds of patient files, almost all of which showed near miraculous recovery from cancer previously diagnosed by another, more recognised oncologist as terminal, Almost all of those patients were still alive, years after they were expected to have died, and almost all of them were cancer free.
The authorities charged with the responsibility of evaluating this radical new treatment ignored the patient files and instead focused on the mechanism. Their conclusion was that as there was no known mechanism by which this treatment could be killing the tumours, the treatment therefore had no validity and did not warrant further investigation. The investigative team did not talk to a single patient, and did not refer, in its final report, to any patient files.
For some, this was clear evidence of conspiracy by the evil drug companies. I think the explaination is a great deal simpler. The investigators just didn't believe the treatment could work (probably because they had been indoctrinated by the aforementioned evil drug companies), so they only gave credence to evidence that would support that position.
What I'm trying to say here is that the same mental processes are at work. We see stuff that we want to believe. That belief may be that a particular fact is true, or it may be that something more beautiful works better than something less beautiful.
Sadly, though, there's no solution. We're overwhelmed by input and all of it is subjectively dealt with in our brains. If you start second guessing your motivation for assigning validity to one piece of information, or one product over another, I suspect you'll go nuts. But maybe knowing why people don't see what you see might help keep you out of an argument or two.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Invitation to Sydney
If you don't understand just how stunningly beautiful Sydney really is, here are some pics of a typical New Year's Eve.Seriously readers. If you don't live here, you just don't know what you're missing.
It's not too late. There are flights here from just about anywhere and we're coming into summer. Yes... summer... where the days are hot, there's barely a cloud in the sky, and the nights are mild and balmy.If I've neglected to give proper credit to the photographer, please accept my apologies. The pictures arrived in my mailbox today as part of a powerpoint presentation, and had no crdits.
I Might Have Been Mistaken
This bear has never had a problem admitting he may have been in error. After all, it is only by recognising one's mistakes that we can learn and grow.
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece suggesting that an increase in volcanic activity rather than industrialisation might be the root cause of global warming.
What I've discovered since then is that geologists think the total CO2 released by volcanoes of all types amounts is anywhere between a half and one percent of the total CO2 created by anually by industry.
If you're remotely interested, there's a report from the British Geological Survey HERE.
I'm not going to totally concede just yet though. There are some significant inconsistencies in the data across a number of sources, bringing the total CO2 emission estimate into some question. For example, in that report, the total CO2 emission from Pinatubo was estimated at 60million tonnes, yet extrapolation of USGS data would indicate that it might have been 10 times that amount. And no-one seems to be able to explain the near parallel between increasing global temperature and increasing volcanic activity so maybe there's something missing in the puzzle.
However, I if my somewhat simplistic expose has caused any further damage to the environment by allowing people to think driving a V8 SUV was ok, then I wish to unreservedly apologise.
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece suggesting that an increase in volcanic activity rather than industrialisation might be the root cause of global warming.
What I've discovered since then is that geologists think the total CO2 released by volcanoes of all types amounts is anywhere between a half and one percent of the total CO2 created by anually by industry.
If you're remotely interested, there's a report from the British Geological Survey HERE.
I'm not going to totally concede just yet though. There are some significant inconsistencies in the data across a number of sources, bringing the total CO2 emission estimate into some question. For example, in that report, the total CO2 emission from Pinatubo was estimated at 60million tonnes, yet extrapolation of USGS data would indicate that it might have been 10 times that amount. And no-one seems to be able to explain the near parallel between increasing global temperature and increasing volcanic activity so maybe there's something missing in the puzzle.
However, I if my somewhat simplistic expose has caused any further damage to the environment by allowing people to think driving a V8 SUV was ok, then I wish to unreservedly apologise.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Screw You
A month or so back, I deviated from my usual dull and benign musings on every day life to comment on the over sensitivity and hypocracy of some in the Islamic world.
I'm sorry readers, but I'm compelled to do it again, because today, Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, announced the winner of its deplorable, tasteless and disgusting "International Holocaust Cartoons Competition".
If you can be bothered, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story. Click here.
Let me get this right...
It's ok to deny the holocaust, and make jokes at the expense of the 6 million Jews who were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis, but it's not ok for the Pope to make a comment that might reflect poorly in Islam.
Or it's ok for the Mufti of Australia, in a sermon last week, to suggest that women who dress inappropriately in public (that is, not covered head to toe by a hijab) deserve to be raped because they are akin to a piece of meat left outside uncovered and eaten by a cat, but it's not ok for those of us with any shred of decency to object. Yes... he really did say it, though at first he denied it, then when presented with the tape and transcript, said he had been misinterpreted. Yeah. Right..
You know what? Screw you. I'm sick and tired of the double standard. Whatever caused that chip on your shoulder, get over it. Devote your energy to making a positive contribution to the world instead of blaming the Americans and the Jews for your problems.
I'm sorry readers, but I'm compelled to do it again, because today, Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, announced the winner of its deplorable, tasteless and disgusting "International Holocaust Cartoons Competition".
If you can be bothered, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story. Click here.
Let me get this right...
It's ok to deny the holocaust, and make jokes at the expense of the 6 million Jews who were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis, but it's not ok for the Pope to make a comment that might reflect poorly in Islam.
Or it's ok for the Mufti of Australia, in a sermon last week, to suggest that women who dress inappropriately in public (that is, not covered head to toe by a hijab) deserve to be raped because they are akin to a piece of meat left outside uncovered and eaten by a cat, but it's not ok for those of us with any shred of decency to object. Yes... he really did say it, though at first he denied it, then when presented with the tape and transcript, said he had been misinterpreted. Yeah. Right..
You know what? Screw you. I'm sick and tired of the double standard. Whatever caused that chip on your shoulder, get over it. Devote your energy to making a positive contribution to the world instead of blaming the Americans and the Jews for your problems.
Sleep Deprivation
It's about two hours after "bedtime" and I'm still sitting here wasting time in front of this keyboard.
I'll eventually get to bed, and I'll get about four or five hours' sleep. Tommorrow will be somewhat wasted because my brain won't actually start functioning until after 11, which is about an hour after my first meeting ends.
I wish I could say this was unusual but I'm almost ashamed to admit that it's the norm. Yes... "ashamed", because the way I figure it, I don't have enough self discipline to know when to get some sleep. It's rare that I'm in bed much before midnight. 1 or 2 am is "normal".
They say most of the western world suffers chronic sleep deprivation. Then again, "they" say a lot of things, and the more I read what they say, the more cynical I get about their motivation for saying it.
See? Sleep deprivation also leads to mild paranoia.
I'll eventually get to bed, and I'll get about four or five hours' sleep. Tommorrow will be somewhat wasted because my brain won't actually start functioning until after 11, which is about an hour after my first meeting ends.
I wish I could say this was unusual but I'm almost ashamed to admit that it's the norm. Yes... "ashamed", because the way I figure it, I don't have enough self discipline to know when to get some sleep. It's rare that I'm in bed much before midnight. 1 or 2 am is "normal".
They say most of the western world suffers chronic sleep deprivation. Then again, "they" say a lot of things, and the more I read what they say, the more cynical I get about their motivation for saying it.
See? Sleep deprivation also leads to mild paranoia.
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