ectoblog.com

Older people can’t remember who they’ve told what, study suggests

It’s just one useless study after another. It’s the same goddamn stuff rehashed decade after decade.

To investigate the effects of aging on destination and source memory, researchers recruited 40 college students between the ages of 18 to 30, and 40 older adults between the ages of 60 to 83. In one experiment, participants read 50 facts aloud to the images of 50 celebrities on a computer screen. Next, they were asked to remember which fact they told to which person. For example, they might have told a picture of Oprah Winfrey that “A dime has 118 ridges around it.” This experiment measured destination memory: Whom did you tell what?

I don’t even care. The researchers who set up this experiment, the people who published it, and the peers who reviewed it should all be flogged. Of what possible use can this information be? Never mind the short term, where its uselessness is painfully obvious; of what possible use can this information ever be?

“It’s part of a big jigsaw puzzle. We’ll see how it fits eventually.” Fucking bullshit. Whatever puzzle it’s a part of will have long ago been thrown out by real scientists doing real science before it could conceivably have any use.

Psychology, bluntly, should be transferred to university communication departments so it can better fulfill its sole remaining reason for existence: how to build a better propaganda machine. As a science, it’s an embarrassing disaster.

I swear I wish I could get into a time machine, go back to 1983, and shoot myself to keep me from deciding to major in this worthless, backward, gap-toothed relative of the real sciences.

Or have I already told you that?

Lawyer: Beheading planned in Saudi sorcery case

What a bunch of fucking lunatics. The Kingdom is a disgrace to the 18th through 21st centuries.

In a recent commercial for Allstate, Dennis Haysbert intones that drivers who switched from Geico to Allstate saved an average of $396 per year on their auto insurance. He then intones “Surprised?”*

Not really, Dennis, and here’s why:  My guess is that most (if not all) drivers who switched insurance companies switched because the switch saved them money. But there are all these other drivers who didn’t switch, and they didn’t switch because they found out the switch wouldn’t save them money.

So for the purposes of disingenuousness, Allstate selected out all the people who came to the conclusion that switching companies was expensive and stupid before they averaged anything. Those left over–90% of everyone? 3.5% of everyone? Allstate doesn’t tell us–those left over saved some average amount of money. Allstate tells us that average was $396. Allstate doesn’t tell us how much money the other 10% or 96.5% of drivers saved, on average, by sticking with Geico. They left that up to Geico to do in some caveman or googly-eyed money-wad commercial somewhere down the road.

And they knowingly left us to mis-translate their carefully-crafted copy in our heads, so we’d be left thinking that the average driver would save $396 by switching to Allstate, instead of what they really said, which was merely that the average driver who discovered a reason to switch saved $396 by doing so. Crafty!

It’s a pretty disingenuous commercial, but you have to be suspicious and cranky to realize it. That’s where I come in. You’re welcome.

How’s Dennis feel about the commercial?

Haysbert… is happy to be in the Allstate ads. He says it’s the first ad work he’s done in about 15 years, because “most commercials are not very dignified.” But, he says, Allstate is different: “These had integrity. They have a team of lawyers that hover over each word I say. It might be a little frustrating, but it works. I can have the confidence and knowledge that what I’m saying is true.”

I conclude that Haysbert is neither suspicious nor cranky enough for his own good. And he has lawyers hovering over each word he says, like angels.

Microsoft spent time and money on this video:

Somebody came up with this idea, other people okayed it. Actors were hired.

In the paraphrased words of Ignatius J Reilly: “Filth! How dare they pretend to be virgins. Look at their degenerate faces. Rape them!”

The Quiet Coup – The Atlantic May 2009

Anything that is too big to fail is too big to exist.

I don’t pretend to understand the convoluted way we got here. I do understand why we got here; we got here because of greed. Pure and simple. And when the greedy are the very ones making the rules, you have disaster.

Citigroup is too fucking big. So is JP Morgan, Delta/Northwest, Microsoft, and Mosanto. They’re too fucking big. So when disaster hits one of these gargantuas, disaster hits everyone. And the answer is NOT to allow them to gobble up other companies in the name of market efficiency. Because, given enough time, disaster always strikes an individual company; always. That’s why there is no company called Amalgamated Boulders or Amalgamated Myrrh.

Those that didn’t understand this either weren’t paying attention or had a vested, selfish interest in playing the violin while the ship went down. Unfortunately for us, the violinists were the ones writing the rules. How could the government, even a Republican government, be so obtuse that it would let this happen? It’s hard to believe.  I’m afraid that it’s easier to believe that they were evil.

I used to like to say this: Republicans are evil, and Democrats are stupid. I’m now inclined to think that I was at least half right when I said that. Hopefully, that’s all I was: half right.

If Obama fucks this up, we are in a world of hurt.

So when do you think the people who keep calling World Depression I “The Great Depression” will be considered old-fashioned and quaint? I’m thinking ‘12 or ‘13.

At Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror blog: Profitable Until Deemed Illegal

I’d never heard of this thing before. But it is amazing. Somebody called it a tax on people who are bad at math. Jeff Atwood says

In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I’ve ever seen…. It is almost brilliantly evil.

It really is amazing.

Just now I finally took the Obama-Biden sticker off my truck, because I’m hauling it down to Long Beach to give it a general enema. It may be paranoia–but I don’t think so–to think that it will be serviced inadequately (if not actually sabotaged) because of a bumper sticker. But that’s my feeling, living here. Frankly, I can’t afford the courage of my convictions just now.

I long for the days when Madonna’s splitting up with some English dude would have been front page news in the morning paper.

Enemies won’t test me, McCain says – CNN.com

He attacked Obama, his Democratic rival for the White House, for saying that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

That is “certainly not something I would ever do,” he said.

HOW ON EARTH DID HELPING THOSE WHO ARE LESS FORTUNATE BECOME SOMETHING SOMEONE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT SHOULD SAY THAT HE WOULD NEVER DO?

The reasoning is, of course, that the economy and (as a consequence) everyone who participates in the economy benefits when people know that they get to keep all their money when they become rich. Because things trickle.

People who agree with this view are either rich, or have some asinine idea that they’ll one day be rich. They further think that this idea is subtle; that people who don’t hold this viewpoint are simply unable to grasp the complicated reasoning behind it.  Keep that in mind; they think they’re seeing behind the curtain.

These are the same people that believe they know how things really work, and you don’t,  while they check their horoscopes and rail against the eggheads teaching weird shit to their kids at the university down the road.

Republicans have a profoundly different idea about what the United States should look like than I have.

I’m not for penalizing genius, and I’m not for penalizing hard work. Genius and hard work deserve to be recognized by money. I am for managing luck. I believe the unlucky should be made less unlucky. The only way to do that is by taking money from the lucky and giving it to those without it.

Take Bill Gates: a hard-working genius. And a very, very lucky man. What is he worth, 18 billion dollars? Some absurd number that I refuse to look up. I’ll allow a billion dollars to him on merit. Maybe he deserves a billion dollars. The other 17 billion should be ripped out of his hands and given to the people who got sick, or shot, or made astute bets on the wrong horses. Because when lucky gets out of hand, society gets a little closer to revolution.

They’re always trying to make it relevant, or hip, or something. As far as I’m concerned, the idea of creation, godhood, underlying meaning of it all should be the bastion of the unhip. It’s painfully embarrassing to watch televangelists/charismatic preachers doing their thing, as if the idea is the kind that has to be sold, branded, or advertised. Part of its greatness is that it is a thing that does not need to be dressed up; it’s a thing that can only be diminished by doing that. People become more worldly, more sophisticated, more cynical with each passing minute and hour living in our world, paying attention to the things society makes us pay attention to.

The beginning idea is the one thing that can’t be touched by that. One should never become blasé or smug about the meaning of existence, like it’s a hula hoop or something. I won’t stand for it. That is why I race past the channels on the television that are passing out the Word. That is why the TV preachers outrage me. Don’t treat the final root idea like it’s a goddamn soft drink whose market share needs to be increased. How unbearably cynical. Don’t fuck with what should be an inviolable refuge against hype and cynicism.

When the Thundering Herd Comes up Lame

–Keith Fitz-Gerald

I’m sick and tired of hearing how “we” caused this … how, according to the mainstream media, “we” somehow did this to our financial system.

Baloney.

For the most part, “we” didn’t do squat. The average American had nothing to do with this. For the most part, “we” pay our taxes, “we” pay our credit card debt and “we” pay our mortgages – on time, and in full.

…

While I truly feel sorry for the people who honestly didn’t know better, or for whom there was no other option, I cannot extend my sympathies to others like my neighbor who spent through his home equity to buy a Hummer, a new boat, two jet skis, and a lavish European vacation.

He’s now about to lose his toys – and his home – not to mention his marriage.

Nor can I extend my sympathies to the modern robber barons like the corporate chieftains of Fannie, Freddie and the other bailout candidates – who pocketed millions while shareholders lost billions.

I don’t see any of these guys offering to return their bonuses, or to forgo their “golden parachute” severance packages, to help their former employers pay off the debts they helped these companies accrue. And forget about them reimbursing the U.S. taxpayers, who are stuck with the bill for cleaning up this mess.

No, instead these ex-boardroom warriors are now lying low somewhere in Old Greenwich, out at The Hamptons, or out on their yachts somewhere – until the storm blows over.

The fact that the profits from this colossal fiasco will be privatized while the losses will be socialized fills me with hatred for these people. The fact that the public is maneuvered into a position that requires socializing loss in order to prevent system collapse creates in me the urge to crush skulls.

IF I COULD REACH OUT AND CRUSH SKULLS

Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent

“This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names.

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember’d;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day”

Governments are in the business of redistributing wealth. That’s what they do. Political parties make it their business to direct this redistribution in the way that suits them; that’s what they do. My party, the Republican Party, makes it its business to redistribute wealth in a way that suits the captains of business and industry, our only real constituents. That’s what we do.

This is a challenging task, of course, because this constituency is very small. To facilitate the process, we as republicans must create a much larger, nominal constituency that supports this aim. The cheapest way to do this is to support issues that are cost-free yet also lead large sections of the electorate to vote for us without realizing they are voting against their own best economic interests. These fear grenades–abortion, flags, the pledge of allegiance, handguns–disguise the real aim of the party, which is to funnel wealth toward the rich. It’s just that simple!

How does one become rich enough to benefit from republican policy? I mean, how do you gain enough wealth to benefit from real republican policy, instead of the cheap, red-meat issues with which we chum the waters to attract your support?

First of all, it’s important to understand that the Republican Party doesn’t want you to be rich. We are already rich; all of our friends are, too. The only thing we want from you is your vote, which will enable us and all our friends to keep buying expensive things while people who aren’t our friends work hard for little benefit. But if, by chance, you somehow become rich–despite the rules and regulations that we have put in place to prevent this from happening–you will be allowed to become our friend. That’s what makes this country great! And if, by some chance, you become rich, then lose it all through illness or serendipity, you will no longer be our friend. It’s a tough world! But please continue to vote for your old friends, because maybe, just maybe, you will become rich again.

I ask you to keep in mind that the future is a magical place where anything can happen. In the magical future, you are not poor. And while it may be true that your former friends are laughing at you in contempt while you continue to vote for them, belief in the magical future still allows you to laugh in contempt at the other poor people around you who vote for republicans because they have been directed to fear non-bible thumping and non-allegiance pledging. And don’t despise your former friends for continuing a policy here or there that allows poor people to continue to be poor instead of dead; throwing a few bones to the hoi polloi is, regrettably, necessary to avoid having to step over their lifeless bodies in the streets, civil war, and the Wall. We republicans have great respect for the Wall, and would prefer that the rest of you never get smart and line us up against it.

So here’s to magical thinking, fear grenades, and the inability to understand how desperately fucked you really are.

Thank you for your support!

Obama lays out energy, tax plans, criticizes McCain’s – CNN.com

Obama says McCain’s gas tax plan would “actually do real harm” and take “$3 billion a month out of the highway trust fund and hand it over to the oil companies.”

Doug Holtz-Eakin, the McCain campaign’s senior policy adviser, told reporters in a conference call Thursday that McCain “is not out of touch with the pressure on gasoline prices. He proposed a gas tax suspension for the summer that would put $600 in the pocket of a trucker buying diesel fuel, take some of the pressure off the price increases of all the things that they deliver, help American families get through the summer.”

So McCain is focusing on getting us all through the next few months. If we can just make it through the summer.

Finally! A politician who understands the underlying desperation and pointlessness of existence!

McCAIN IN ‘O8.

China seeks earthquake aid from Japan – CNN.com

China is having problems with lakes dammed by earthquake debris. The natural dams will eventually burst, causing widespread flooding and death. China is trying to avoid that, of course. As it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the sheer volume of water involved, a Chinese engineer helpfully provides a comparison for one of the new lakes:

The lake is holding 130 million cubic meters (170 million cubic yards) of water — equal to about 50,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Liu Ning, chief engineer of the Ministry of Water Resources.

The main thing to notice about Mr Ning’s comparison is that it doesn’t help at all. 50,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools? I don’t comprehend 50,000 of anything. I don’t care if you stack them to the moon or line them up on the equator; you’re not helping me. 50,000 is just too many. And it’s cute how everything’s so goddamn Olympic over there right now. But the visual didn’t really make it, Mr Ning, I’m sorry.

“Wait, how about a stadium full of people. An Olympic stadium; perhaps a velodrome. That’s 50,000, right? Maybe more? You can see that, right? I mean, if you have a ticket?”

Sure, why not. Let each dot equal one person. Let each person equal one Olympic-sized swimming pool. That’s a shitload of water. I get that. I get that it’s a lot. But I can’t even visualize 50,000 people when I see them in a stadium. It’s just this seething mass of other. If we want to call that seething mass of other ‘50,000,’ that’s fine, just please don’t pretend that you’re really grokking how many people that is, or how many swimming pools they represent. You’re not, either, you know.

Also funny about that quote: the 130,000,000 cubic meters of water = 50,000 Olympic swimming pools equation is attributed to Mr Ning. As if AP or CNN has nobody on staff who could POSSIBLY verify that through the magic of mathematical calculation: “Well, Mr Ning says this equals that, but we really have no way we can think of to back that up. He seems like a very nice young man, though, so we quoted him.”

Is this what news agencies have come to? They have neither the time nor the resources to verify even the smallest, most easily verifiable factoid that crosses their desks?

This doesn’t lead me to fear for humanity, exactly, because humanity has undergone worse trials than overworked fact-checkers in the last couple thousand years. That’s true. But I used to assume things would get better as I got older. I think we all did. And it’s just not the case. There is an absurd number of lazy or dishonest people out there, and that number seems to be growing every day. Probably at least 50,000 of them by now.

Thank you! You’ve been great!

1880: Soldiers cowering behind a bulwark as Din delivers water to the dying on the battlefield, bullets whizzing round his head.

1911: Farmers resting on bales of hay while Din tirelessly tills the fields before the crows descend and eat the seed.

1936: Migrant workers listlessly setting up camp as Din canvasses the surrounding region for job opportunities for himself, and his compatriots too, if there’s enough work.

1955: Townsfolk searching high and low for communists while Din allows an out-of-work screenwriter to stay at his apartment “for a day or two, until this thing blows over.”

1964: Police shooting protesters with water cannons as Din limits his use of the word “nigger” to twice a week.

1992: Investors bidding up the armaments industry on rumors that the US is about to increase weapons buying while Din throws his money into biotechs because he sees a chance to make a tidy profit while riding the “it’s also making a difference” angle.

2008: Net surfers scouring the web for the last scrap of child porn as Din downloads the youtube movie, you know, the one with the pack of hyenas and the theretofore unconcerned German tourists filming them from the open jeep.

“Aye, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

Imagine if your job were set up in such a way that your value within the company rose over time, yet that value could not be extracted and put to work at any other company. For example, you’ve been working for IBM for 15 years, but now IBM does something that really pisses you off. Yet you can’t pack up and leave for Google, because they will not recognize your 15 years at IBM. They will only recognize your several minutes (and counting) of time at Google, and pay you accordingly. Imagine that.

You could respond by saying “I’d never go into a field that was set up in such a way; I’d do something different.” But say you really liked doing what only IBM does. Or say your natural progression through life led you down this path, almost unbeknownst to you, until you finally had a chance to look back to see where you came from. In other words, your tenure at IBM is a kind of fait accompli. And if for whatever idle reason you ended up at General Motors or Best Buy or Barney, Barney, and Tate instead, other people, people you know, just like you, ended up working at IBM through the magic of statistical probability. It’s like this: some people are blue-eyed, some people have a recessive gene for dwarfism, some people work for IBM. There is a certain amount of choice involved in working for IBM, but some bodies, many bodies, work for it, and that is ineluctable. Try to remember how you fell into the job you have now, and remember how serendipitous that was. Remember?

Imagine that IBM is old, its industry is hoary. Generations of workers have imagined it as their goal, and a great press of workers is ready to do IBM’s work for almost any amount of money, because they don’t know any better. But IBM cannot hire these workers for any amount of money; they can only hire them for a contractually certain amount of money. A union-bargained amount of money.

Imagine that Unionism caused the devaluation of your work at comparable companies at the same time it caused your value to increase at IBM, but that this is not ipso facto a consequence of unionism itself. One can point to other industries where this did not happen, because a union was nascently and presciently fashioned to include all companies in the industry, not each company individually. But for IBM the time of nascence is long passed; the union is what it is, and too many people would be economically hurt to change its charter now. So from a worker’s standpoint, there are better and worse ways for a union to have come about. An industry-wide union will exist and bargain and allow its workers to prosper for as long as the industry exists; a company-specific union will exist and bargain and allow its workers to prosper for only as long as the company exists and prospers. Imagine there were political reasons that the latter was the only initial path to Unionism for IBM’s workers.

Imagine all that; now tell me how distaste for unions and Unionism can arise in workers without a concerted political effort to undermine unions and Unionism by powers that would rather hire workers for any amount of money, and fire workers for any reason. “But my distaste for Unionism comes from my personal, considered distaste for unions’ excesses and corruption;” but what unregulated or poorly regulated social or political agency ever maintained its original aims? And now that unions are better regulated, and have been better regulated for decades now–much the same way that some industries (oil, mortgage, health insurance) and the management of those industries have not– now that this is true, from where does the distaste arise? From considered thought? Or from politically-managed perception?

“I’m a manager at IBM. I can tell you that the unionized workers here are lazy, that they hide their laziness behind their contract, and that they feel entitled to that laziness.” With all due respect, Mr Manager, there are inefficiencies on both sides of the managerial divide. Inefficiencies are what make a job bearable. Inefficiencies are what keep one from being forced to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The difference between managerial and worker inefficiencies is that the workers bargained for theirs, and you take yours when you think the Board isn’t looking or doesn’t care. That’s the difference. And if by some chance the Board does glance your way and sees you taking a little personal time in between moaning about the workers’ sense of entitlement, and fires your ass, you have the opportunity to pack up and start over at Google at a comparable salary, because that is the way your job was set up long before you took it.

I have no idea how I ended up working in a unionized industry. I look back, and all I can say is that it just sort of happened that way. But now that I’m here, now that my life is intertwined with the well-being of my union (and the well-being of my company, since that is how the Unionism ball bounced in my industry), now that all that is true, I find myself paying attention to how Unionism is portrayed in the media. It’s not a good portrayal; the public does not view Unionism in a good light. Perceptions have been managed.

Imagine that this kind of perception management happens all the time, in other ways, for other movements. Liberalism, for example. That’s not hard to imagine, is it? How else can we reconcile the way many citizens vote against the very people and things that would help them most? Or vote for the very people and things that help them the least; that, in fact, willfully cause great misery in their lives?

There is no way.

And how can we justify the actions of the worker who votes against fellow workers because raising their standards of living will be an inconvenience?

There is no way.

“First they came for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then they came for me;
And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”