October 23rd, 2007 at 10:12 am ()
It’s funny how the people who happily embrace “I can’t” bristle at the thought of being told “you can’t.”
Not funny in a “ha-ha” kind of way, though.
I guess it depends on who’s telling them, and why the declaration is so important.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:44 am ()
I always try the opposite of what the door tells me. If the door says “Pull,” I try pushing it. If the door says “Push,” I try pulling it. I think the whole idea of marking doors “Push” or “Pull” is ridiculous. How many different ways can a door be operated? Only two. So, basically, you have a fifty percent chance of getting it right and if you don’t, then no harm done and you can just do the opposite.
Most of the time, the doors can be operated both ways.
When I compare the amount of energy needed to push or pull a door erroneously, compared to the amount of energy required to produce fancy signs that instruct us to “push” or “pull” (when most of the time it doesn’t matter anyway), it makes me think we really have some weird priorities.
And furthermore, when I sit and watch one of these doors, quite often, people try it the wrong way anyway. Even with a door marked “Pull,” they’ll try pushing, or vice versa. So, not only are we wasting energy on signs, we’re wasting energy on signs that lot of people don’t even bother reading (unless, like me, they’re experimenting).
(if you think it’s funny to watch someone trying to push a door marked “Pull” or vice person, note that it’s seventy-three percent funnier to watch people try to push/pull doors that are turn-a-knob-to-open. Once they finally figure it out, you can tell from their expression that they’re mad at the door.)
October 19th, 2007 at 1:02 pm ()
If ever I should be confronted by an ultra-powerful space alien, and it tells me that unless I show it something uniquely contributory, it will destroy the Earth, I will offer it a blackberry milkshake.
I will not offer it a blackberry milkshake because I think blackberry milkshakes are uniquely Human gifts to the Universe (although I think they are). I will offer it a blackberry milkshake because so many humans have a deadly lactose intolerance, and I’d basically be gambling the great taste of the shake would distract it long enough for it to either die outright, or start vomiting so uncontrollably that it would think we are tough-as-shit creatures not to be fucked with.
And even if none of that worked, I’d at least get a blackberry shake out of the deal.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pm ()
Don’t do the things you do because it will make you popular. If you do that, then you may or may not end up being popular, but you will be empty.
Do the things you do because your soul demands it and follow scrupulously those demands, as if they are given to you by the most important person on Earth.
As before, you may or may not end up popular, but at least your soul will be intact, and you will have deceived no one who offers admiration.
October 15th, 2007 at 3:33 pm ()
The problem with “mute points” is that the folks who claim to be identifying them don’t know what a “moot point” really is, nor do they know what being “mute” means, although I wish they were better versed on the latter.