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I ist un cosmopolitan twat

You know you're in a multicultural society when you (an Indian) have lasagne (prepared by a Korean cook) with your Chinese and Danish friends in your basement apartment in Toronto which you've rented from a Filipino family and watch some guy in Tokyo play English Christmas carols.

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On a broccoli.

On Vegetarianism

The inside of the TTC is plastered with a wide variety of advertisements, presented to the discerning viewer in a variety of ways ranging from the reasonable (Join Ryerson University!) to the desperate (Please, please visit the UK!) to the morbid (Thinking of suicide !?! Let us help!). Recently, the Vegetarian Society has put up a few ads which probably belong in the last of these categories. Each of these ads features two little animals sporting illegal levels of cuteness. One of them is a a puppy, or a kitten or some such pet wannabe. The other is a calf or a piglet or a similar aspiring main course. The poster goes on to talk of the cruelty of factory farming and exhorts the reader to turn vegetarian. Above the whole affair, in large judgmental letters is the question: Why LOVE one but EAT the other !?!

I suppose a lot of Koreans reading the ad ask the exact same question - WHY love one but eat the other !?! If you like dog, eat dog. Anyway, jokes aside, I do agree factory farming is cruel, unnecessarily so. And perhaps the kind thing to do is to stop animal product usage or convert to free range or whatever. The thing is though, that the ad is put up by the Vegetarian Society... Mark that. Not the Vegan Society but its softcore sibling. That brings me to my question:

I eat meat. I don't eat much pork or beef or even fish. Chicken is pretty much it on most occasions. A lot of my friends (especially the Muslim and Jewish ones), eat only beef and chicken. Now, would there be ANY benefit to the animals if we converted to vegetarianism !?!

The reason I ask this is thus: Beef and chicken are meats from 'dual purpose' animals. That is to say, they supply milk and eggs as well as meat. I would assume that the efficiency focus of factory farms would mean most of the cattle raised for meat are also milked. Similarly, meat chickens are, umm, egged. So, even if people stopped consuming their flesh, they would still be kept in similar numbers (if not the same) for their other products. Considering that the main objection of the Vegetarian Society is not how these animals are killed (which is a pretty highly regulated practice and which would be carried out by the egg and milk industry anyway; old animals would be killed to make way for younger high productivity ones), but rather the conditions in which they are kept alive, isn't vegetarianism going to make little to no difference to the animals in the poultry and beef industry !?!

In summary: would giving up all meat apart from beef and chicken be morally equivalent to becoming a vegetarian !?!

(The argument assumes that the most chickens and cattle are used for more than one purpose. I am not sure why I am assuming this when Google is at hand. Whatever - live with it.)

Bach In Space

There's a popular story, attributed* to Carl Sagan, where, when asked whether the music of Bach should be included on the Voyager Golden Record**, he replied, "No, that would just be showing off."

Well, apparently aliens did get to hear of Bach. And they like him too. Have a listen:

* Actually this little story features in an essay by a guy called Lewis Thomas

** The phonograph records that contained various sights and sounds of Earth and were sent out on the Voyager spacecraft

Disney Again

When done well, animated cartoons have always appealed to the engineer in me. I don't mean as childish entertainment, nor as films in their own right - though they are appealing in both these regards too. I mean as an expression of visual art. As drawings, as paintings. I suppose what really appeals to me is the fact that there is something like an objective standard to which I can compare each frame in the animation, viz., the immediately preceding and succeeding frames. Not only must each frame appeal by itself, it must also look almost like the ones on either side - thereby proving the ability of the artist to be consistent. It is a particular skill that most other visual art forms don't necessarily require. I know that, in this day and age of computerisation, that consistency is no longer so demanding as it once was. In many ways, it has even become trivial. But that doesn't diminish the impressiveness of the cartoonists of the pre-computerised animation era. And in that era, no one did it better than Disney.

Now, I'm not an artist, nor do I claim to have a connaisseur's fine sense of the artistic. But I do know what looks 'pretty'. And Disney's cartoons were that. In an age when the many competing cartoons' visuals were only functionally good, Disney was taking pains to make its cartoons really visually memorable. This is obvious even in films that are supposed to be a few minutes' entertainment for toddlers:

But when they were asked to let their hair down, as they were for Fantasia, Disney's artists were simply superb. Again, I don't know whether it is any 'serious' art critic's idea of art (by which I mean I know it's not), but it is mine. Have a look:

Disney's 'Snow White', which was shown first in 1937, was a landmark achievement in the history of cinema. As the first feature length, fully animated film, it showed everyone that such a film was possible and could be a commercial success too. And in an age without computer graphics, it must have been a Godsent revelation for movies that needed special effects. Upto that point, anyone wanting to depict a centaur, say, would have to show two chaps in half a horse suit. No matter how accomplished the actors, that's just not going to work for anything other than the most ribald of slapstick sketches. And I'm sure everyone will agree that it takes something of the gravitas away from a film when the devil in a Faust adaptation is seen wearing a rope up his arse for a tail and twigs for horns. Animated cartoons solve the problem beautifully. Since the mundane and ordinary is depicted using the same pseudo-realistic drawings that depict the fantastic, everything blends and nothing jars or feels out of place. Take a look, for instance, at this centaur courtship:

This begs a question:

Disney had a lot of rivals (HB, Warner Bros, etc...). Why did none of them make full length animated films as often as Disney, or with the same level of visual artistry !?! And why didn't people who wanted to make fantasies use full length feature films more often !?!

Charities

Here's a question to any economists out there. What the heck are you doing wasting your time reading this crap !?! Seriously though, the question is as follows:

Let us say that, tomorrow, all of a sudden, the thousand richest people in the world agree with all those Wall Street Occupants that they have far too much money. They decide that they will keep a relatively small part of it themselves (say $50 million each), and give the rest to charity. Let us also say that the average wealth of these 1000 people is $1.05 billion - implying that they will give a clean billion to charity... each. That's one trillion dollars.

What is the effect of one trillion dollars suddenly flooding the economy !?! Surely the impact on things such as inflation and devaluation of the dollar must be immense. It could perhaps cause more trouble than good. Even if this trillion dollar tidal wave does not materialise, smaller large acts of charity must be doing something similar on their own scales. Has anyone ever looked at the negative economic and fiscal impact of large scale charity !?! Furthermore, considering that taxes are, in a loose sense, charitable funds, would high taxes also have these side-effects !?!

I realise that the trillion dollars I mentioned above weren't exactly locked away in vaults. Also, a lot of that wealth of the hyper rich isn't really cash in the attic, it's largely an index of the value of their stock and whatnot. Nevertheless, I expect that the question stands in principle. 

YouTube And Copyright

Production houses have been making YouTube come down hard on a lot of copyright violations lately. They have been making YouTube take down the video entirely, or if the copyrighted material is just the audio bit of the clip, YouTube mutes it.

Now, I'm sure the ethical angles on the subject of piracy and copyright violations have been thrashed out in detail elsewhere. In this case though, surely the smart thing for the companies to do would be to tell YouTube to leave the clip up, but to degrade the quality of the audio and the video. Not so much that it would make the clip unwatchable, but enough to make the bad quality noticeable. People who then like the clip's content could pay for the full HD product - either just for the clip on the spot (say $0.15) in which case both YouTube and the production house get money, or by buying the DVD from which the clip was taken.

The thing is, we live in a world where there is absolutely no shortage of entertainment options. It isn't like the TV of bygone decades where you had a more or less captive viewership. If your show is hard to get, many of your potential customers will just go somewhere else. In the context of such a situation, the low quality video on YouTube just acts as free advertisement. People who like it a lot will probably buy the full HD version. People who don't like it much wouldn't have bought it anyway, so you aren't really losing any money by showing them the clip for free. And the stated free advertisement might get you quite a few new customers.  But if you just don't put up the clip, chances are that people just won't know what you have to sell. And with so many options to choose from, they aren't going to go through the hassle and cost of finding out what you have to show when your competitors are showing free content. Moreover, those who look for your stuff will likely find someone's pirated videos of your content which have managed to evade YouTube's sweeps.

Perhaps right now, while TV is still going quite strong as a stand alone service, you may get away with sticking to the heavy handed model. After all, TV does this 'free advertising' bit for many people - and those who didn't watch the show on TV can stuff it. But the day when TV merges with the internet is not very far off. The amount of proper content on YouTube that is independently made (i.e. genuinely directed and produced stuff, and not just some shaky video off of someone's handycam of their dog farting) is increasing as is the amount of content with expired or deliberately unenforced copyright. YouTube IS TV for a lot of people. And they're members of a rapidly growing club.

Once Upon A Time

After a chat with my parents that bizarrely involved Ghadafi, Walt Disney and the snobbishness of literary critics, I ended up spending a good 45 minutes YouTubing clips of Disney cartoons. Of course there can be no denying that the main reason behind doing so was nostalgia - at least initially. But rather quickly, I genuinely got caught up in the madness of the clips. I was surprised, after watching many of my childhood favourites again, to find out just how batshit insane they were. Take 'Alice in Wonderland', for instance. I had recently watched 'Alice', Burton's take on Caroll's story. And it was slickly done, as you would expect from that guy. But for all that Burton is an undisputed genius of the weird and wacky, the film comes across as what it is - a polished attempt by an accomplished but sane filmmaker to tell you a trippy story.

Disney's take, on the other hand, genuinely has the feel of dreamlike insanity. It doesn't feel like the artists and scriptwriters were trying to tell you anything bizarre - it seems that, while they were writing the story, they were themselves in an altered state where their grip on reality was loosened. Put it this way, if Burton's film was an accomplished actor trying to portray an eccentric man, Disney's film WAS the eccentric himself. Of course, a great deal of the madness happens to take inspiration from the original story in Lewis Caroll's book. But while Burton tries to merely re-interpret that surreal quirkiness for today's generation, Disney uses it as a launching pad for bold journeys into the heart of good natured insanity.

And it isn't just 'Alice'. There are so many other films that have that streak of insane brilliance running through them that you have to wonder whether Disney forced his artists to drop acid regularly. I mean, just look at this:

I used to be terrified of this one as a child. I remember leaving the room while this bit was on and returning for the concluding hymn. And damn it, I was right to be freaked out. Good heavens, that's really not the sort of thing you show children.

'The Sword in the Stone' does its bit to haunt kiddy dreams. The battle between Madam Mim and Merlin isn't in the same category as 'Bald Mountain', but it's still quite scary in a surreal way. Have a peek:

OK, fine, that was a pretty bad example, that's just fun. But don't tell me they weren't on something pretty whiffy when they made it.

And anyway, while that wouldn't scare a child, the 'escape into the woods' scene from Snow White would:

Even when they were trying to be playful, many scenes would come out as just weird and surreal. This was from my first Disney film - "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day":

I was going to go on and make some kind of serious point regarding Disney. But at this stage, I'm not sure whether I'm arguing for or against Disney, or for that matter whether this post even needs a point. I'm just busy enjoying someone else's acid trip. Shut up and watch.

Why We Panic

I had wondered in a previous post why humans have largely descended from people who panic rather than those who don't. Here's are two theories of mine. The first is less likely, but establishes panic as an actual survival trait. The second is more likely, but says that it was the reduction in the number of cool headed people that led to the current state of affairs.

Scenario 1:

Consider the following scenario: Six hunters go into the woods. They are attacked by a tiger. Three of the hunters faint. The other three now have a choice. They could turn and run - leaving their comrades at the mercy of the tiger, or fight the beast. The thing is, if they fight, they will quell the tiger with, say, a 30% chance that one of them will die in the attempt. If they turn and run, however, the tiger, perhaps more attracted by their motion, will chase them rather than stay and eat any of the fainted three. If that does happen, each fleeing hunter has a 33% chance of being the tiger's chosen prey. If chosen, that hunter's death is guaranteed.

Therefore:

Fleeing - 33% chance of death

Fighting - 10% chance of death

Fainting - 0% chance of death

I admit the tiger going after fleeing prey as opposed to just devouring the fainted hunters is a big assumption. I am, however, basing it on the advice we've all been given as children about pretending to be dead when approached by bears (and I presume predators in general) since, apparently they only eat fresh. However, if the assumption is valid, then, in such circumstances, fainting seems to actually work well as a survival trait. Obviously, it would be disastrous for everyone to faint (predators might prefer fresh, but are unlikely to look a gift corpse in the mouth), so I suppose that over time the fainter - fighter ratio will stabilise so that there are just enough fighters to see out the danger. If that number is a small fraction of the overall population, we end up with a society comprised largely of panicky people. 

Scenario 2:

Alternately, over time, only the level headed hunters are trusted to go out and do the dangerous (but necessary) stuff. Since they are exposed to all sorts of dangers, it is obvious that their numbers - relative to the panicky ones - will do down. Again, at stabilisation, the cool thinkers will be a minority.

To be fair, scenario 1 seems pretty far fetched. But it was fun to think up, so what the heck.

On The Late Rise Of Modern Medicine

It took people some thousands of years to make remarkably simple connections in the field of medicine. Consider how long it took them to find out the link between, well, shit mixing with food and food poisoning or shit in drinking water leading to cholera. For some reason, medicine took astonishingly long to reach the level of 'common sense' that we seem to take for granted and see in other fields of science from a lot earlier. I wonder why.

March Of The Machines

When Gary Kasparov finally surrendered humanity's supremacy over the sixty four squares to Deep Blue, there was an air of finality to the whole affair. After all, Kasparov had reigned supreme among humans for over fifteen years before this encounter and went on to stay on top of the human pyramid till he retired some six years later. And he still has the highest rating ever achieved by a human player - which means that he is still the best we've ever had. On the other hand, in terms of raw computing power, Deep Blue probably had less power than, well perhaps even my netbook, for all I know. And I have no doubt that the algorithms have been refined tremendously in those intervening years. It would be interesting to use Kasparov - or the current world number 1 at chess (Magnus Carlsen, I believe) as one qualitative benchmark to see how much computers have progressed in the past fifteen years. Hold a tournament with the world's top 5 grandmasters and about 10 computers of varying power and chess sofware and see where the humans end up after a round robin tournament. I know there are much better ways of quantifying the progress of computing power than this - but this provides a direct comparison with humans and that too in a competitive, combative way. As a child of the '80s and '90s which were so gripped by the whole 'machines taking over' thingy (Terminator, Matrix) I would like to see this. In a masochistic way, I guess.

Beer Ad

I don't really drink. And so, I have to judge beers purely based on ads. And to be honest, shit is par for the course for most beer ads I've seen (though by no means all - some are really good). But I believe a company called 'Coors' has really broken new ground in shittiness. All of their latest ads are pretty dreadful all round. But what really gets me is that the 'theme' around which the whole series of these ads centers is how cold their beer is.

What the heck!?! How shitty does your beer really have to be in every other way (taste, body - whatever that is, alcohol content) that even you have to admit that its strongest selling point is a factor that is beyond your control !?!

A Note On E-Readers

After work, I often go to the Starbuck's that's on the upper landing of the Chapters Store in the Eaton Centre. To get there, I have to pass a display of Kobo Ereaders. I have been intrigued by these for a while and recently, I stopped and tried one of them out. They are cheap, but that's all I am really prepared to say in their favour. In fact, I will even retract that - the model on display costs $139 which is as much as a cheap tablet of the same size - and I happen to know that some Sony models cost almost twice as much. The points that are supposed to be in their favour are that they are clear, that you can read them easily in very bright sunlight and that they last for many weeks, even a couple of months, on a single charge.

The thing is, I'm not sure I've much to complain about the displays of most of the other devices. I mean, my Ipod Touch has a pretty clear display that's pretty easy on the eyes and for those who need a larger screen, I'm sure the Ipad or any other good tablet will more than suffice. Also, I'm not sure how critical the clarity of the e-paper in bright sunlight actually is. I know professional photographers love to show students lounging about on lawns reading novels, but it is something that I have seen done fairly rarely in practice and even then only in the summer, which is a somewhat narrow slice of the year in most of the Western world. Most reading is generally done in the shade. Moreover, from personal experience, unless the sunlight is directly aimed at the screen, I can read off my IPod quite easily even when I'm outside. Similarly, while the ability of the device to go for months without needing to recharge sounds really good, in practice most people are always in fairly easy reach of a power outlet. A device that can hold its charge for about 8 hours is quite adequate. After all, I have yet to read a book that is simultaneously so huge and un-put-down-able that I would just have to read it without stopping (even to plug in the device it's loaded on) - for weeks.

Now consider the various flaws of these ereaders. The first is that they are pretty useless for any other purpose and that's a huge drawback when you consider that many tablets cost the same. But much more importantly, even for their designated purpose they are pretty rubbish. Most of them have an intensely irritating habit of doing a slow white to black to white again flicker you turn a page. If you have to turn many pages, and you do, this gets on your nerves pretty quickly. More irritating is their sheer slowness when it comes to turning the pages. This probably isn't such a big issue when you're reading novels and are not really going to go back and forth often. But if you're reading a technical journal article studded with equations, you will want to do just that. And in that case, these devices are really bad. Furthermore, as more and more journal articles are read online, and representing colour online costs nothing, many papers now use colour in their online formats to state their points more vividly. If you're reading such an article on an ereader, well you can suck it.

The thing is, these devices are very popular. In the past few months, especially, I have seen a huge increase in the number of people on the subway and the streetcar reading from them. So, my question is this: Why have they spent so much money on these devices, especially when better options are available !?!

My personal, cynical take on it is this: they are objects to show off with. Since they can only be used to read books, having one of them on the bus advertises the fact that you are the sort of person who reads. Also, the fact that you have spent so much on the devices proves that you value reading very much. Furthermore, an ereader implies that you read A LOT, and you need such a device to manage your huge collection. And by having an ereader instead of a tablet, you proclaim that such modern distractions as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are beneath you. You sir (or madam) are a serious, cultured, refined and educated individual.

Ereaders are the new phrasebooks.

Accounting For Time In Cost Of Public Transport

Here is one reason why people select the much more expensive option of driving a car over using public transport:

I'm going to make numerous ball park assumptions here because I'm lazy and besides, it's not as if policy depends on this blog's rantings anyway, so what the heck.

Canada's average per capita income - ~$46000

Average hours worked per year (assuming full time employment): 1820

Average pay/hour: ~$25.27

Based on my experience it takes about 50 minutes to get to work.

Google Maps claims that a car would make the same trip in 20 minutes.

Assume this is representative.

Hence, the daily work commute takes one hour longer on public transit. Let's assume that we consider a person's time to be worth their wage rate (this is a big assumption and not really accurate, but let's assume so anyway).

Therefore, public transit would cost ~$6317.5 (Don't ask me why I bothere with a .5 after saying the figure was approximate.) in terms of hours spent.

Hence the total yearly "cost" of public transport (the actual money you shell out for a transit pass + this cost) = ~$7817

That brings the cost a lot closer to the $8500 figure the CAA mentioned as the yearly cost of an average car.

This makes the decision of people who buy and drive cars a LOT more sensible. And this is not counting the innumerable small trips one would have to make as a parent to satisfy the demands of kids, little trips to the grocery store, etc...

In conclusion, time matters to people. So if you want more people to hop onto a bus, you have to make the bus commutes a lot faster.

Why I Like Canada

I was walking along Marlee Avenue (which is close to where I live) when I saw an elderly lady struggling with a couple of grocery bags. I asked her where she was headed and whether I could help her with the bags. She thanked me and told me that she was going to the bus stop. So I carried her bags to the stop and, since the bus arrived even as we got there, I put the bags on a seat inside for her.

Anywhere else in the world, I would have been thanked by the lady. This being Canada, I was thanked not only by the lady, but also the bus driver and two of the nearer passengers :).

Made my day.

Told You So - Part 2

I have said before that commuting in Toronto sucks, and now StatsCan agrees with me - so there.

On Panic

Why do people panic !?! Or perhaps more accurately, why do they turn into brain frozen, jelly limbed wrecks when they do !?! I mean, surely it is a disastrous trait to become functionally useless at the precise time when danger is clearest (and presentest). I realise that there are some people whose response to danger is to become very level headed - to stay calm and cool in the midst of a crisis. But these people are very clearly in a minority. Moreover, in our long evolutionary path to the present day, humans must have been put in panic inducing situations many, many times and it is more or less obvious that in such situations, the calm ones must invariably perform better than the gibbering twits. And by perform better, I mean survive. How is it then, that most have descended from the flailing, simpering gits and not the brave, calculating icemen !?! How does evolution account for this!?! Conversely, since this trait has obviously withstood the test of time, what purpose does it serve !?!

Told You So

"Six months after Mubarak surrendered to millions of Egyptians, the same generals still rule. Arbitrary detention and allegations of torture are commonplace, if less widespread than before. State media still demonises critics of the junta, and the military – without public consultation – will decide exactly what process is supposed to lead to democratic elections and a civilian government. Reformers and revolutionaries fear the military, stronger now than under Mubarak, will outmanoeuvre them. And they fear Islamists will sweep the elections and control the writing of a new constitution, leading to a democratic Egypt that's neither secular nor liberal."

(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/12/future-of-egypt-thanassis-cambanis)

As I said, democracy without a strong legal structure and tradition which protects basic human rights will lead to a hell of a lot of trouble .

Not that I have any pretensions to political punditry, of course.

A Possible Project For A Sociology/Psychology Grad

While on the topic, I was really surprised to know that cars cost $8500/year. That means that, even accounting for the occasional cab ride, taking the public option saves you about $6500/year. That's a lot of money. It sort of reinforces my earlier claim - there must be something genuinely important that cars provide that public transport currently doesn't, otherwise people wouldn't spend so much money on them.

How To Save The Planet

Maybe, instead of spending all their (or rather the tax-payers') millions on projects that look for viable ways to harness alternative energies, enviro-activists should spend some of their time and money looking for something else. I mean, consider my friend (call him Dick).

My friend drives a Honda Civic. It's old, and not in the vintage way. It cost him a fair amount to buy, costs him a fair amount to maintain and insure - and then of course, there are the fuel costs. Let us consider a basic, ball park estimate of things:

Yearly costs: $8000-$9000 (source: CAA)

Yearly public transport cost: < $1500

Also, while buses are just as likely to get caught up in traffic jams, subways aren't. Also, even if your bus is in the jam, you aren't driving, so you could read, chat, sleep or do any number of other things.

So, of course, my friend, and millions like him, are silly to drive cars when they could go public right !?!

Well, maybe. But here's the thing. My friend, and many like him, is not rich. The money invested in the car is a hefty chunk of his annual income. The car he drives is nobody's status symbol. And he is well aware of the public option. And yet he persists with the car. As do millions of others like him. There must be something that the cars provide which public transport doesn't. And perhaps, instead of just calling these people irresponsible, enviro-activists should try to find out what exactly that something is. Finding that and then providing it in a public transport facility will do a lot more to help drivers switch than any amount of emotional blackmail.

To me, that seems like a much more immediate way of helping cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption. I'm not saying we shouldn't keep searching for greener energy alternatives - of course we should. But maybe, in the meantime, this could help.

An Ignored Impact Of US Health Care Reforms

An aspect of 'optimizing' political decisions is playing off internal interests against external interests - what is good for your voters/citizens against what is good for people outside of your precint as and when their interests are in conflict. Obviously, you have to satisfy your own voters, but at the same time, pissing off foreign allies and trade partners makes for very difficult situations. How much will, can and should you screw over everyone else for 'your people' !?!

Consider, for example, Obama's healthcare reforms. No doubt, for Americans it's a pretty good deal - at least for the average people on the street, if not necessarily for insurance companies and other corporate types. Of course, a hit to financial corporations has repurcussions that hit all areas of society down the road - so over time whether or not the decision is good for Americans is something that, well, time will decide. At least, in the short run, it's good for regular Americans.

But to follow through with the reform promises which will suddenly make healthcare available to tens of millions of Americans who hitherto were denied it either partially or completely, Obama will have to hire shiploads of new doctors. Given the timeframe, he will have to do so quickly. This means getting more homegrown doctors is not a practical option. He will have to import most of them. Now, most of these doctors are going to be taken from poor countries like the Phillipines, India, China, Bulgaria, etc...

This means that a lot of poor countries, which are already starved for good doctors, will be deprived of even more of them. And remember, the US is not going to take the run of the mill, average physicians, it's going to take the cream of the crop. Furthermore, as you go on adding doctors to a population each new doctor added helps fewer and fewer people. However, the number of people deprived of doctors increases exponentially with every doctors who leaves. This means that every doctor who comes to the US from, India or China, will be helping far fewer Americans than he or she will be hurting Indians or Chinese.

In summary, Obama's decision is likely help many Americans (at least in the short-medium term) while screwing over many more in the third world. As the US president, of course, his duty is to his people, so of course you can't really blame him for his decision. But it is an awkward decision to have to take. More than anything else, this highlights the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' nature of politics.

It's probably a stretch connecting this medical piracy with invading people for oil. After all, the US isn't exactly invading the countries it's going to be taking doctors from. However, taking thousands of doctors from a country is obviously going to cause all manner of medical crises among the society left behind. The case could be made that this decision could really hurt a lot of poor people in the third world. In a world where India, China and other poor countries - despite their poverty - are becoming too powerful for the US to treat lightly, this may make things very hot for the President.

I should point out as a sort of disclaimer, that this very pessimistic post is based on an assumption that the US will need many more doctors, and that this is how the US will go about getting them. This may not necessarily be the case.

Engineers In Politics

It is in the nature of politics that there always has to be compromise. So I'm always rather surprised that more engineers and mathematicians are not involved - given how much of optimization is required. For instance, you are perpetually trying to maintain a very fine balance between taxation and providing public services and that requires considable opmization. Maybe there are loads of engineers working behind the scenes, I'm not sure.

The general drawback to having engineers as political optimizers, I suppose, is that they tend to be people who look at the problem completely dispassionately. This is fine if what you want is the best objective solution to the problem at hand, but that may not be what the voters want. When you consider voter demands - and you have to; that's kind of the point - you are bringing emotion into the problem, and engineers are not exactly experts at handling that. Perhaps engineers do get hired, but only after they get an MBA or something to get people skills and learn how to be pricks. It would be interesting to see how many politicians/beaureaucrats have backgrounds in engineering or mathematics or some other technical science.

Fun In The Sky

Speaking of glass floors, they should have an all glass section on airplanes. That would be amazing. Vomit everywhere.

Tall Tale

I went to the CN tower some time ago. I don't mean near it - I pass it on most days. No, I went up the tower. They have an observatory close to the top. The view is nice enough, though all told, you're still looking at Toronto, so there's only so much niceness to be got out of it. They really should move the tower to Vancouver - now that would give people a view. Anyway, the point is, the observatory has a glass floor. Most of the glass is carpeted over, but one small slice is left uncovered so that people can experience the joy of vertigo, I guess. On the day I was there, I was joined, among other visitors, by a very sweet young family - mum, dad, a boy of about 5, and his year old sister (asleep on dad's shoulder). The boy, with the typical abandon of young children was prancing on the glass floor, along with the other young kids, many of whom were practically jumping up and down in an effort to break the floor. Dad followed him with marked gingerness. But mum was absolutely terrified. She just refused to go anywhere near that arc of exposed glass. So, of course, the kid made it his mission of the day to get her onto it. He took her hand and tried to lead her to it. He jumped up and down to show the glass was sturdy. He even trotted out the claim the tower employee had made to everyone on the way up - that the floor could take the weight of eleven elephants, so there was nothing to worry about. But mum just wasn't convinced. The whole episode, and espicially the little bugger's insistence on getting mummy on the floor was hugely amusing.

This got me thinking about the nature of belief and knowledge. Most people seem to assume that belief exists only in the absence of adequate knowledge. If you know, you don't need to believe. And yet, here was another case where someone knew there was a floor, could see many other people actually walking on it, and yet couldn't bring herself to walk onto it because she just didn't believe. Sometimes you just have to have faith, I guess.

My musing had got to this point when it was interrupted by one of the sweetest incidents ever. Dad, who had started out gingerly (and had probably walked onto the glass floor purely under the influence of ego) had by now managed to get comfortable. He put the infant, who had woken up, down to crawl about with the other little ones. Then he walked over to his wife, picked her up and took her over to the glass floor. After a while, when she felt confident enough, she stood on the floor while holding onto him. And then, on a little slice of glass on the top of the world, they danced.

Taste

People always talk of how taste is all about the tongue and the palate and the olfactory bulb. And these are all valid claims. The thing is, no one seems to mention the throat. And yet, to me, when it comes to food, there is tremendous pleasure in the swallow. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's strange that no one seems to have written about this.

The Essence Of Test Cricket

T20 may well be the rage of the age, but it will struggle to provide this:

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --

Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.

(From Newbolt's 'Vitai Lampada')

More On Democracy

On a related note - can a pure democracy exist, even in theory !?! Surely it is a contradiction in terms. Consider the following chain of reasoning:

1. In a pure democracy, everything is dictated by the will of the majority.

2. A person's rights, however, exist regardless of popular opinion.

3. Therefore, in a pure democracy, there are no rights, only privileges which people enjoy as long as the majority allows them to.

4. If there are no rights, there is no right to vote.

5. If the right to vote does not exist, then the government in power cannot be a democracy.

6. But the government in power IS a democracy.

7. This is a contradiction.

8. Therefore, a pure democracy cannot exist. QED.

Is this proper reasoning !?! If not, what gives !?!

On Democracy

I find it funny that a lot of my well-meaning, lefty friends from Vancouver constantly extol the virtues of democracy while simultaneously talking about the divine nature of human rights. As I see it, democracy is antithetical to the very concept of rights. A person's rights exist regardless of popular opinion - that's kind of the point of rights.

In a goverment where everything is dictated by the will of the majority, there can be no rights. People can only have privileges which they enjoy as long as the majority allows them to. The rights which we enjoy, therefore, exist not because of democracy, but in spite of it. And, importantly, they protect us from the excesses of democracy.

I note this because there is a tendency (in Canada, the US and all the other Western countries which are currently trying so hard to bring the 'peace of democracy' to the world's many troubled regions) to assume that democracy is the supreme good - that once that is achieved, everything else will fall neatly into place. On the contrary, democracy, if established before the establishment of a strong tradition of the observance and protection of human rights will only lead to tribal warfare and mob rule. I wonder if the policy makers have considered this and accounted for it in their democratic crusade. I hope so, because the alternative is altogether too depressing.

Sweetness And Abundance

"In 2000, Redondo transferred to Serie A club A.C. Milan, in a highly controversial £11m move, which left many Real Madrid fans perplexed. During his spell, however, he was consistently injured, most notably with knee problems; in fact, he managed to injure his knee just three minutes into his first treadmill session. Because he was unable to play for 2½ years due to his physical condition, he suspended his £2.74m-a-year salary, and even tried to give back the house and car which the Milan board had given him." - [Source: Wikipedia]

The board, on its own part, refused to take the gifts back.

That's remarkably sweet on the part of both parties. Especially when you consider that footballers and their clubs are not whom you think of when gentlemanly behaviour is concerned. Perhaps it just goes to show how people just tend to be nice when they are already in a position of plenty - as both said parties no doubt were (and no doubt, are).

Maybe that's why Canadians are uniformly sweet and nice. Canada is, after all, a country with a huge abundance of resources and very few people - resulting in there being a lot to go around.

Drink And Bike

What's the law on drinking and biking!?! Does that constitute a suicide attempt!?!

Japanese Birthrates

Given that the tendency to have sex (and babies) shoots up after times of stress (e.g. after the 9/11 bombings), I wonder if the earthquake might result in a boost to the Japanese birthrate. I'm not trying to be flippant, I'm just trying desparately to find something good to say under the circumstances.

I'm really not sure why the plight of the Japanese seems to have affected me so much. It's not like I've anyone close from the place. Maybe it's the sheer contrast between their hyper bubbly game shows and the horror of what's happened over there. It's a bit like watching a video of happy little seals playing in the ocean one moment and, without warning, being torn apart by orcas the next. It's all the more jarring for the contrast.

What's In A Name, Part 3

Kadafi

Khadafi

Khadaffi

Gadaffi

Ghadafi

Ghadaffi

Qadafi

Qadaffi

Quadaffi...

Dude must have a shit load of bank accounts

A Tale Of Two Countries

Consider two countries which have recently suffered from devastating earthquakes - Haiti and Japan. Both - yes, even the Japanese - are in need of aid. (I know the Haiti earthquake happened a while ago, but I would be very surprised if its effects have been completely undone.) My question is this:

Arguably, Haiti needs aid more than Japan does.

Also arguably, given that the situation in Haiti is so chaotic, while the Japanese have managed to maintain control and stability, aid sent to Japan will be used much better than any sent to Haiti.

If you could had give aid to one, and only one, of these two countries, which would it be!?!

Let us say you were given $100 and told you were allowed to donate to both, how would you split it!?!

Shitting My Pants On A Saturday Morning

If you ever avail of the services of the TTC - I pity you if you have to and I advise against it if you don't - you will see advertisements on the inside of the streetcars and subway trains. One of these advertisements urges anyone who will care to look to keep the TTC public. Now, whether public transport should be run by the government or by private companies is a debate for other people - people who have studied the issues, who have spent time considering all angles and, importantly, who give a shit. What I have an issue with is this: As examples of privatized failures the TTC has chosen the systems in the following three cities:

1. London

2. Vancouver

3. Melbourne

Now, I have never been to Melbourne. I have, however lived in the other two for fairly long stretches of time. And in terms of the quality of service provided, their public transport systems beats seven shades of shit out of the TTC's pathetic offerings. In fact, I have lived in a few different cities - Bombay, Hafr-Al-Batin, Jubail, Guildford, London, Gloucester, Vancouver and, now, Toronto. And I can safely say that, among all the aforementioned cities that so much as pretend to have a public transport system (and the two Arabian cities don't), Toronto has the very worst. Listen, Toronto, I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in principle. But if you want to point to a model and call it shit, at least make sure your offering is better. And relative merits apart, you want to make sure your system isn't outright rubbish. When your system compares unfavourably to that of an overcrowded, poor city like Bombay, you really shouldn't be so snottily smug and arrogant in your defence of it.

Why the TTC is bad enough to deserve the above rant is a matter for another blogpost. Suffice it to say that it is. A practical consequence of this was that last Saturday, having left home early-ish to get to work - and hence leave - equally early, I spent about half an hour in the cold March wind waiting for a streetcar.

That would have been unremarkably bad. However, in that half hour, I was subjected to one of the most terrifying (and at the same time the most amazing) spectacles I have witnessed personally. Near the bus stop was a mouse, searching for scraps in the nearly melted slush. On a tree about 20 metres away, was a crow, watching it. As I looked, the crow swooped for the mouse. Missed. There was a mad scramble which ended in the mouse finding a hole to hide in, just out of reach of the crow. The crow went back to its perch and waited for the mouse to re-emerge. When it did, the crow went for it again, with the same result. Back to perch, wait, swoop - but this time it swooped so as to land between the mouse and the hole. The mouse, in utter panic scrambled all over the place and when it was farther away from the hole, the crow went after it. And missed again. The mouse somehow evaded it and finding the hole unguarded, ran into it again. The crow, once again, went back to its perch. Time passed. The mouse came back out and went about its scrounging.

But this time the crow did not come after the mouse. Oh no. It flew across the street, picked up a stone and returned to its vantage point. Then, it swooped again - again to land between the mouse and the hole. And this time, it plugged the hole with the stone. Fucking hell. And then, it actually sauntered, lazily, after the utterly, utterly terrified mouse as if to say, "Your move, you little shit!"

I really wouldn't have thought any animal other than a human could plan like that. It wasn't a million monkeys at a million typewriters scenario - the crow wasn't randomly trying different things and hoping one of them would work. It was cold, calculated planning. I have to say, I felt for that mouse. A small part of me really wanted to shoo the crow away. But another part felt that that kind of foresight and planning deserved a reward. Besides, fucking hell, I did not want to make an enemy of something that formidable. I have seen "The Birds".

Another Random Thought

I am almost certainly not the first Toronto resident to have made this connection after Burns' night, but nevertheless:

I live on Glencairn Avenue which is very close to Eglington Avenue. That's one street named after one of Burns' most ardent supporters and another after Burns' childhood playground. It may be coincidence, but I know many streets, roads, pubs, landmarks and towns all over the world are named after Burns or take inspiration from his poems in some way or another. Maybe the Torontonias tried to be subtle while doing just that.

Serious Comedy

When I said I thought the Irish punched above their weight in the literary arena, I mentioned playwrights and poets, but somehow neglected to mention stand up comics. This was because comedy, whether in novel form or stand up, just isn't considered serious literature (no pun intended) by a lot of critics. Fuck a lot of critics. I know a lot of stand up is just cocking about on stage, but you do get a lot of brilliant stuff as well. And not just brilliant in terms of jokes and wordsmithy, but also in terms of social insight. The same holds true for humorous novels. Is it even possible, come to think of it, to write sustained and great comedy without commenting on social or philosophical issues!?! Take Pratchett for instance. One of the funniest authors alive. He highlights social issues with the same brilliance with which he writes gags - and that is no surprise as so much of the humour stems from social absurdities. Even a "pure" comic author like Wodehouse - who claimed to have no moral message in his novels whatsoever - derived considerable humour by pulling the legs of the various English classes - a gentle commentary on society perhaps, but a commentary nonetheless. However, neither author will ever be considered a true "literary great" by the formal establishment twats. Why!?! Why is comedy treated as literature's pariah!?!

Unlike novels however, plays do seem to get respected even if they are funny. Great comic plays and playwrights enjoy immense respect - in the formal sense of the word. Indeed, the greatest playwrights through the ages - Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw - all excelled at witty comedies. Shakespeare himself wrote many comedies - and I have been told in his day, they were considered properly funny. I wonder how playwrights managed to keep comedy within the realm of "serious literature".

Nostalgic Musings

In a fit of nostalgia, I spent a good hour yesterday watching clips of "My Fair Lady" on YouTube. (The nostalgia had to do with the fact that I had watched it as a child.) This time around, I understood a lot of the social commentary that had eluded me as an 11 year old. I had always expected this. What took me by pleasant surprise were the lyrics. They had struck me as awfully clever back then, but I had assumed that as an adult, with a more sophisticated understanding of language and its nuances and hidden meanings,I would have found them somewhat less impressive. Not a bit. They were even more charming and clever. What is more, having attempted writing - admittedly casually - in the meantime, I was able to appreciate not just the elegance and intelligence of the words, but also the sheer effort that must have gone in their crafting. Combined with a good plot and a poignant social message, they make the film a true accomplishment.

On a side note, a friend of mine recently became an Irish citizen. By recently, I mean yesterday. The news, coming as it did during my nostalgia based YouTubing, reminded me that Shaw was Irish. And that got me thinking of the huge literary contribution of the Irish to English literature. Swift, Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw - all pretty much the Shakespeares of their day and age - all Irish. (I'm certainly not the first to make that connection - in one of the episodes of Yes Prime Minister, the prime minister, asked to name English playwrights other than Shakespeare, proudly reels off, "Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw" and is promptly told that they were Irish. Note to self - next nostalgic indulgence: Yes Prime Minister.) I have always been an unabashed Anglophile and have always marvelled at how such a small island of so few people has managed to accomplish so much. It seems that, at least where the written word is concerned, the Irish are even more remarkable. Maybe there is something to that Blarney Stone after all.

Fractals

From lightning and shorelines to trees, sea urchins and peacocks, fractals can be found everywhere in nature. Humans can exhibit fractal formations too - Glenn Beck has an arsehole.

Here We Go Round The Snobbery Bush

When I was a child, I was often made to play a game called 'Dumb Charades' or just 'Charades'. I never really liked it all that much. Moving awkwardly in front of a group of people was embarrassing for a rather shy seven year old. The fact that the people in question were working themselves up into a right frenzy (usually culminating in an orgasmic shriek of "Free Willy!", or something similar) didn't help much either. To top it all off, there were always some kids in the group who used to really get into it. They used to argue about how a particular action was not allowed ("Oh, yes it was!") or how someone spoke, or how the title was just too difficult and so on. Now, all this was fair enough. After all, it WAS a game, it WAS a party and all they were doing was enjoying it. The fact that it wasn't my cuppa was more my fault than theirs.

But some of these people have gone all poncey and decided to consider themselves 'artists'. It's not a kiddie game anymore. Oh no, it's 'interpretive dance'. Look at me as I express my innermost feeling by making swooshing movements and falling suddenly to the floor. Watch me bare my emotions (and much else besides) in my skin-tight but artistically torn spandex costume.

It's not the fact that they call it art that irritates me, though. I'm sure some of the performances are genuinely that. No, what pisses me off is that so many of these dancers - and much more importantly, people who claim enjoy watching these dances - consider themselves somehow more creative and artistically accomplished than the others who haven't quite embraced this art form with their fervour and enthusiasm. To remain unmoved by the sight of a grown, pot-bellied man writhing in an unnecessarily figure hugging costume is, apparently, to be uncultured.

This snobbery extends to other areas too. Take sushi, for instance. It's raw fish slapped onto rice, for fuck's sake. A ham and cheese sandwich is more of a culinary accomplishment. And yet there is no shortage of people - from arts undergrads at university to film actors portraying high-powered businessmen - talking about how the uncooked slab of orange flesh in front of them is the pinnacle of the art of food. Now don't get me wrong. I've had sushi. I like it too. Quite a bit, in fact. But to call it sophisticated cuisine is just ludicrous.

And it's not just the artsy classes either. The tough, cool crowd practice it too. I like some rap songs. But by and large, rap is banal poetry, recited badly by people flailing their arms about. And most of the lyrics seem to be disturbingly violent and misogynistic. And yet, if you don't like it, you ain't cool, mothafucka. It seems to be specific to rap too. You're allowed to dislike rock or jazz or any other kind of music without being judged.

But the most irritating of the bunch, personally speaking, are the Mac brigade. Now, I have nothing against Apple's products. I have an iPod Touch myself and love it. I don't have any beef with the people who claim Macs are better than PCs either. Maybe for what they do with them, they are. No, the irritating ones are those who believe that, just because they have bought a Mac, they have somehow BECOME more artistic and sensitive than the rest of us. You've just bought yourself a laptop that's twice as expensive as others with the same specs and all you're going to use it to do is write essays, because you're a third year student majoring in English Literature. Does it mean you're more artsy!?! No, it means you're a sucker.

None of the art forms/products mentioned above is bad in itself. I have personally seen genuinely good interpretive dance, tasted great sushi, heard very intelligent rap lyrics and, as stated, owned and loved an iPod. It's the attitude of many of the people who are aficionados of said art forms/products that gets on my nerves. "I'm a pelican! Now I'm a giraffe!" No, sir, you're a massive cock.

Randomness

"There's some basic animals and plants here, but th' planet seems to be devoid of intelligent life cap'n... No, wait, there's... there's summa happenin' in th' north."

"What is it Scotty !?!"

"There's... it's a bunch o' blokes cap'n... It's the same blokes we saw on tha' other planet last week! Th' ones wi' th' wings all flyin' an' shit!"

"Really!?!"

"Yeah! An' there's th' same bloke on th' ground wi' a beard tellin' 'em wha' t'do."

"What're they doing, Scotty !?!"

"They... well, they... they seem t' be buryin' great big bones deep in th' ground, cap'n."

"Really!?! Just like on the other planet!?! That's weird, eh!?!"

"Yeah. Looks borin', really. God knows why they're doon it. "

"How many times have I told you Scotty - there's no such thing as God. Now get ready to beam up, we must be getting along."

"A' righ' cap'n."

On Leaving Vancouver

I must be a git. Now, before you deny

This claim, gather round, and I'll tell you why

For five great years, I lived in a city

That is so lovely, so amazingly pretty

That you could be forgiven if you surmise,

"By George, it seems I've found paradise."

You wouldn't be far wrong - you can certainly bet

This is as close to heaven as this world can get

The lushest of forests with the loveliest trees

Great mountains that kiss the most shining of seas

And the nicest people you ever will meet

Greet you warmly as you walk down the nicest of streets

I have had now to move from this place onto

Cold, windy, drab and dreary Toronto

No, that's harsh, Toronto's fine, as far as I can tell,

But after paradise, even earth seems like hell

Now, so far so cheesy - I'm sure you don't need

To be told that this poem is awful indeed

But it has all been written out just to frame

A good case to support my original claim

Good folks go to heaven forever, you see

I had to leave in five years - what's that say about me

Refunds

When companies say that they will gladly refund my purchase if I'm not satisfied with it, I always get weirded out. Not by the refund - that's fine. It's the fact that they claim they will do so 'gladly'. It seems to imply that they're just happy that I'm satisfied with the refund and not suing them shitless as they were clearly expecting me to do. This, I find unsettling.

The Untold Chronicles Of Narnia

"- and finally, it killed and ate Edmund as well......
...
...
Remember kids, it may talk, but it's still a fucking lion."

Luggage Restrictions

I am packing to move to Toronto. To that end, I’ve been looking at airline ticket prices and also the amount of luggage allowed. Now, different airlines have slightly different luggage limits. However, each airline imposes the same limits on every passenger who flies with them, regardless of how much they weigh. I don’t think that’s really fair. I weigh 155 lbs. I should be allowed more luggage than someone who weighs 250 lbs.

I propose an overall weight limit of - say - 330 lbs or so. If you’ve done too well at the buffet table and ballooned to 300 lbs, then I’m sorry, you’re only allowed 30 lbs of luggage. If you’re anorexic, on the other hand, I’m sure you could take your family along for free. So long as they’re happy in the luggage compartment.

Lip Reading

If I watch a foreign language video that has been dubbed, the fact that the lips do not match the words does not disturb me at all. However, if the video is not dubbed, but the audio is out of sync - even a little - I find it very disturbing and distracting. Why is that !?!

More On Cars

Here are three Jaguars - I got these images after searching for Jaguar XJ on Google Images. The first one is from a few decades ago, the second one is relatively new and the final one’s pretty recent. All are XJs.

Now, the latest one is much more aerodynamic than its predecessors. The second one itself is more sleek than the first one. My question is this - the people who designed the earliest car must have known it was not the most aerodynamic shape for a car. Aerodynamics must have been well understood by then - it’s not as if a breakthrough in physics in the intervening years led to people realising that the new shapes was more sleek. No, the people at Jaguar must have known all along that the second shape was a closer approximation of what they were aiming at and the third one even more so. So why did they not go with the latest shape from the start !?! I realise that aesthetics are not always guided completely by aerodynamics - look at Lamborghinis for instance - but nevertheless, they do play a big part. And for a given underlying “core shape” of a car, the engineering must be trying to make it as aerodynamic as possible. So why were the older versions of the same car model not as sleek and slippery as newer ones !?! Were there manufacturing challenges involved !?!

State Of Rage

Is it just me or does anger strike other people as being a pleasant sensation too !?! I know I find it intoxicating and addictive. I hate the thing/person/situation that made me angry, but the feeling of anger itself is strangely satisfying. When I do get angry, I feel the inner urge to fan the flames so that I get angrier and angrier (always on the inside of my head - I’m too meek to really get it out into the open). I find the final state of fury very, very nice.

If this state of rage is somehow punctured, I feel almost dejected. For instance, consider this scenario: I’m stewing over some minor news article that reported something I did not want to hear and my friend comes over and asks if I would like a spot of tea.
My friend’s just trying to be nice - I really cannot get angry with him for intruding on my inner tantrum. But the interruption irritates me. It deflates my anger, takes the winds out of the sails of my boat of fury. I try desperately to stay furious, but it’s no good. At the end of a couple of minutes, I’m not angry any more. Now, I’m not complaining about this new state of mind. I like it fine. But that transition is unpleasant - it subjects me to withdrawal symptoms which I really find nasty.

I wonder if other people feel like this too. Certainly there is no shortage of people in the world who are permanently in a state of anger. Maybe they are just too addicted to the intoxication of rage to let go.

A Question About Cars

Have a look at this car:

This is a Ferrari Enzo. It is a car built to go insanely fast. To that end it has a 6L, V-12 engine which produces 651 hp and 485 ft-lb of torque. It does 0-60 in 3.1 seconds and can go as fast as 226 mph. Predictably, it costs more than a million dollars to buy. All in all, it has very little in common with this car:

 This is a Toyota Prius. It's designed to be economical (fuel-wise anyway) - it is claimed to squeeze 66 miles out of every gallon of petrol. It has a 1.8L engine which produces 98hp and 105 ft-lb of torque. The electric battery does add power, but it still only get 134hp at most. Top speed: Unremarkable.

However, for different reasons, both cars share one common interest - reducing drag. Both cars would like it if the air surrounding them presented as little resistance to them as possible.

This brings me, in a very roundabout way to my question: I may be wrong, but I assume that, of these two, the Ferrari is designed for better aerodynamic performance - after all, it is more likely to be going at speeds where drag is a huge issue. So, if drag is a major player in economy and mileage and the Prius’ party piece is its endurance - why does it not try to emulate the Ferrari's body shape !?! Heck, why aren't ALL cars built to look like supercars !?! Maybe copyright issues may be a reason, the need for family cars to have rear seats and a boot may be another, but nevertheless, they can surely be made to look similar.

People With Experience Need Not Apply

I completed my graduate studies at UBC early this year. Since then, I have been practically unemployed (notwithstanding the occasional tutoring and other odd jobs). Now, one of the major barriers between me and 40 hours per week in a cubicle has been lack of industry (or as all the ads put it, real-world) experience. Almost all of the companies hiring people with my background require 3+ years of experience. Since the recession has helped lay off many, many people, there are loads of engineers/programmers/software developers out there who have 5+ years of work experience and are currently jobless. My total work experience in years: 0 (or, to put an optimistic spin on it, 0+) . This has not made for an easy job hunt.

Anyway, long hours searching for jobs (and swearing at companies asking for decades of work-ex) coupled with longer hours of not actually having a job have resulted in a minor epiphany. Most jobs demand heaps of work-ex. But there must be many jobs where work experience is not necessary. In fact, there must be jobs where having work experience is - or rather, should be - an actual hindrance.

Consider dishwashing at a restaurant, for instance. It's a minimum wage job. It's dull, monotonous and, since you are alone at the back away from the other staff and guests, lonely. The skills you need to perform an adequate job need, literally, minutes of practice. And once you start performing at that level of competence, there is no real incentive to perform any better. Even in those restaurants where the diswasher gets a share of the tips, these tips are not the result of his or her work, so why work harder than necessary!?!All in all, it's the kind of job you do for the bare minimum time you have to do it, and then move on. Under these circumstances, any person who has the work ethic to really try hard at dishwashing and take pride in doing it well is not going to remain a dishwasher for long. He or she will invariably find a more rewarding job doing something else. What this means is, the dishwashers who DO have lots of dishwashing experience... are incompetent slouches who couldn't get any other job.

Would you really want to hire such a person to clean your restaurant's dishes !?! Dishwashing, then, is a job where - if employers stop to think about it - experience is a disadvantage. (Not that employers do pause and think like this, but , you know, IF they did...)

I know this analysis won't apply to everyone, so if your ARE a competent and experienced dishwasher, please don't flip out. Take pride in being a rare breed.

I wonder if there are any other jobs that fall into this category. There must be some.

Ten Little Emails - A Story

The story has a lot of images and blogger was being a pain in the arse about them. I have therefore, put it here.

It's a word file and you may have to download and open it. This may not be worth your time.

Unfaithful Recollections - Chapter 2: Snobs

[[Chapter 1]]

I have never had to use the rape whistle my father gave me. This is just as well, because I strongly suspect it would have been as useful as the French-English phrasebook that was my mother’s gift. In which case, if I ever had cause to use it, I would have been fucked in a big way. As it were.

For those phrasebooks are useless. The point has been made many times, especially over the internet, where it has been argued with great passion and bad grammar. Nevertheless, for the benefit of those who may have missed out on those great debates (most readers), and of those who love a self righteous rant about the uselessness of said phrasebooks (me), I shall endeavour to say a few words about them.

Phrasebooks are neither sufficient, nor are they necessary. Let us say that you go to France, with one of these books at your service. To Paris, where there are literally dozens of places to see. You go up to one of the locals for directions.

You (slow and constipated): Pardonay mua, misyoo, may pooryay voo si voo play ditt mua le shema du Louvre!?!

Local: ...

Quite what the local says in response is irrelevant. He could give you clear, concise directions to the Louvre. He could tell you that he’s sorry, but he’s not from around there and he doesn’t quite know the way. He could tell you that his feet hurt and he has irritable bowel syndrome. It doesn’t matter. At the end of his reply, the two of you look at each other thinking one of you must be retarded, and both of you have a pretty good idea which one it is. For while the good book tells you how to ask the questions, when the answers arrive, you’re on your own.

But even if there were a phrasebook out there that lets you understand the answers – at least the simpler ones – it would be unnecessary. When you venture out to see the world, you go and see the world as packaged by the tourist industry. Anyone you meet during your stay in foreign lands is likely to be a tourist sector employee, and thus, at least functionally conversant in English. What this means is that you don’t need to speak that foreign twaddle. And even in places where people speak practically no English, they recognise key English words which allow you to navigate with relative ease. I have been in cabs whose drivers spoke no English whatsoever. However, I’ve never gone, “Airport!” and had the driver turn on me as if I called his mother a crazy slut. Airport, train station, prostitute, Holiday Inn, these are all common words everyone knows. Admittedly, the more respectable cabbies won’t take you to the Holiday Inn – they have to draw the line somewhere – but they know what you’re talking about.

So, to reiterate, phrasebooks are useless. Or so I used to think. I recently found that they do have a purpose, though it’s not what they are advertised for. They aren’t to help the earnest traveller converse with locals in their native tongue. They’re to help pretentious twats say, “Ooh, I speak a little French.”, or, “Ooh, I speak a little Italian.”

On the subject of pretentious twats, I have noticed a lot of these people in Canada. This is not to say that India is free of them, of course. However, there is a difference in the nature of the pretence in the two countries. In India, partly no doubt due to it being a poor country, the pretentiousness takes on a very materialistic form. It’s all about what you have and how much it cost you to get it. In Canada, on the other hand, it’s all about where you’ve been and what you’ve done. An Indian would take out an iPhone and go, “Look everyone, I have an iPhone…. Behold, it is shiny and it cost shitloads…. Do you have an iPhone!?! Wait, do you even have a phone!?! I do, I have an iPhone…. Look, iPhone…

…

…

iPhone!...”

The Canadian knows that this is meaningless trumpeting. Anyone could go to their local cell phone operator, sign a contract and, lo and behold, they have an iPhone too. BUT, “I was in Peru just last week, near Macchu Picchu in fact, taking photos of the place with the inbuilt camera, and I fell into conversing with the locals. The phone has a very useful Spanish-English phrasebook, really superb, I tell you, and I could really bond with the locals. You must go there. It’s beautiful and the culture’s great - and the people there are soooo nice. Went out of their way to come and talk to me. I was never alone for a day….. By the way, have you seen my notebook!?! I haven’t been able to find it since I came back. I know I had it ….. And did I lend you my camera!?!”

The interesting thing is, people change the nature of their snobbishness to fit the culture they’re in. I have friends from India who came here flaunting the “Look what I have” and changed over time to the “Been there, done that”. After a couple of years, one such friend decided that he just had to go see Europe. Not out of any love of European culture, or art or architecture, mind you. He didn’t give two shits about any of that. No, it was just so he could say he’d been there. So he went on one of those 10-day, multi-country European trip packages.

Day 1 saw them in Paris, France. City of romance. Loads of things to do, places to see, and, this being France, people to shag. The guide was waxing lyrical about the city and its joys. As they passed each landmark, he told them about the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Triumphal Arch, about how they came to be and the people who made them. He told them about the Paris of bygone days, when magic ruled the earth. He regaled them with folk tales and fairy tales, tales of ancient villains and ancient heroes who roamed the streets of the city and the fields that had once stood in their place ere Paris was born. He showed them the Champs Elysees, where…

“Pardonnay mua…”

The guide turned around, irritated at the interruption. His eyes beheld a swarthy, pot-bellied Indian, laboriously reading aloud from a two-penny phrasebook, “Pardonnay mua, may kee es lay bateemon lay ploo saylaybray eesee !?!”

Guide: Pardon!?!

Friend: Pardonnay mua, may kee es lay…

Guide: I can speak English.

Friend: Oh… umm… OK… which is the most famous building here!?!

Guide: I…. Really….

Friend: Well!?!

Guide (indecisively): Umm… the tower, I guess!?!

Friend: Thank you.

He then took a camera from his right trouser pocket and took a photograph of the tower. From his left trouser pocket, he took a small notepad on the front page of which were jotted the names of all the countries which the trip was to show him. Next to France, he put a big check mark. Then,

“OK, that’s France. When’s lunch!?! And please, none of your frog legs. Show me the nearest Indian restaurant.”

Day 2 brought them to Brussels. Part French, part Dutch, the city showed them the best of both cultures. The guide showed them the stunningly beautiful Grand Place, the cheeky Manneken Pis, and the awe-inspiring Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule. He told them of the history of the city and its people. He told us of how the European Union…

“Pardonnay mua…”

The guide turned around slowly. He’d been dreading this.

Guide: Yes!?!

Friend: Pardonnay mua, may kee es lay…

Guide: I speak English!

Friend: Don’t shout. So… which is the most…

Guide: The cathedral. Look at it for Pete’s sake!

Friend: I thought the pissing kid was funny.

Guide: Fine! Take a photo of that! Keep that as your Belgian memento!

Friend: Thank you.

Camera. Notepad. Checkmark.

“When’s lunch!?!”

The same protocol was strictly observed in Stuttgart.

The Day 4 city was Zurich. Here, my friend hit a snag. He did not have a visa for Switzerland. He wasn’t alone in this; half the tour members lacked the visa. The tour management had accounted for this. Those with a visa could go to Zurich and sample the considerable (and Swiss) delights of that city. Those without were to be put up at a charming rural German resort where they could do all kinds of German things (presumably making cars and eating sauerkraut) till the others returned and the tour continued.

My friend did not like this at all. He had seen Germany. He had the photo and the checkmark to prove it. On the morning of the 4^th day, when the privileged party had left for Zurich, he watched them go with longing. In his distress, he started pacing up and down in the open field outside the resort while his other denied tour-mates were wearing lederhosen and eating bratwurst. From where he was, he could see Switzerland. The border was only 500 metres from where he was, beckoning him, taunting him. He could so easily cross over and say forevermore that he had been to that blasted country, but bureaucracy denied him. There was a checkpoint only a few hundred metres from where he was. Musing on this all the while, he started to walk, somewhat absent-mindedly, towards the border. The guard at the check post saw him do so and started to walk over to intercept him (presumably to merely see his papers and let him in). My friend saw him approach and promptly lost it completely. Instead of turning back, or even pausing, he panicked and broke into a run for the border. The guard, now alarmed, started running too, to try and cut him off at the border. Tourists and locals were treated to a re-interpretation of “The Sound of Music” with my friend desperately trying to enter Switzerland before being caught by the obviously fitter German guard. Finally, panting like the out of shape engineering student that he was, he jumped over the border just ahead of the guard. And stopped. The guard, clearly not anticipating this admittedly unconventional manoeuvre on the part of a fugitive, nearly ran into him and only avoided collision by twisting his whole body out of the way and falling flat on the ground. From that undignified position, he looked at my friend with puzzlement and irritation. Both emotions intensified when my friend, instead of helping him up, took a camera out of his pocket, snapped his picture and checked off something in a small notepad. And then turned on his heel and walked back across the border with an air of quiet satisfaction.

There are no morals to be gleaned from this. My friend was not punished in any way for his pretentiousness. Instead, he got an amusing story he used to dine out on for years afterwards. At one of these dinners, he introduced me to a certain Mr. Rajinder Thind, of North Surrey, Vancouver. What happened thereafter is a whole different blogpost.