Six word stories? Not so much.

A while back, Wired asked a number of writers to follow in Hemingway's footsteps. (No, not with the suicide thing - besides, Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't sell guns anymore.) The backstory is included in the article, but I'll recap: Hemingway once wrote a six-word story ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn."), and according to legend claimed it was his best work. So Wired decided to see what other authors could do in six words, and asked for submissions from a variety of writers in the fields of sci-fi, horror, & fantasy.

I remember seeing this piece in Wired when it was originally published. It's interesting that very few of those submitted to Wired have the same power that Hemingway's piece does. Hemingway's example uses specific details to force the reader to imagine the story behind those six words, and creates characters for whom we can have some empathy. Thinking about the tragedy of a child's death and its impact on the prospective parents made me realize that as much as I don't really enjoy much of Hemingway's work, he clearly had talent. So many of the pieces submitted to Wired lacked that. Meretzky's "I win lottery. Sun goes nova." and Lee's "Automobile warranty expires. So does engine." generate a momentary chuckle, and Moore's "Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time" is clever, but so few of these offer that deeper meaning that Hemingway provided. Even the writers I love (Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Margaret Atwood) didn't quite get there, although I did enjoy "Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so."

All your web sites are belong to us

Way back in the day, when I was a surly, unmannered LVS at One BM, our documentation had to be translated into multiple foreign languages. We sent it off to the translation centers (one of which may or may not have had herpes), and waited for them to send the foreign-language versions back. (Sidebar: how would you outsource that? Would you have India do all the translations, or would you have the work done by college students studying the corresponding language?)

My understanding is that the bulk of the translation was done by computer programs that would flag problem areas for a real person to examine. This was a big reason we needed to be careful about word choices ("Execute the command," for example, might transl(iter)ate in unusual ways.)

Anyway, it looks like machine translation has not progressed much in the intervening years, as evidenced here. The Duisburg-Nord Landschaftspark is built on an old industrial site in Duisburg Nord, Germany. The designer (Peter Latz) took a unique approach to recycling filthy industrial urban land, and this park is one of my precedent studies for my capstone project. (Fun side note: The translated version of the park's official web site indicates that its size is 200 acres. In actual fact, it's 230 hectares, or just under 570 acres.)

College newspapers are (still) funny

In the "Oxymoronic Idealism" section today, "600 fast for hunger relief." I never thought of not-eating as an effective means of relieving hunger, but I guess I'm not a college student who enjoys pointless acts intended to raise awareness. I'm more the type who'd like to DO something about my hunger, so I typically just pop down to the vend-o-mat and grab a candy bar & a soda.

In the "You tattooed your WHAT!?" department: "Students getting tattooed on the rise." I can only assume that the word "rise" is a newfangled slang reference to a body part, since I don't know of any areas of campus referred to by that term - though I imagine The Knoll comes close. Then too, I've never seen any tattooing going on there.

If I had more time, I'd actually open the paper and find more craziness to document. Regretfully, I have to get this report written for my 9:05 class tomorrow morning. (Yes, they offer a semester-long class on the subject of 9:05. Really!)

Random silliness and other updates

My lappy died last week. It's still under warranty for a few more months, but blah blah words, I'm replacing it. We'll ship it in & see if they can fix it, & if so, then Ben has a lappy too. Yay! The sad part is that despite my vehement exhortations that I would never buy another Windows box, I can't afford right now to (a) buy a Mac and (b) buy Mac versions of the software I need for school. So I'm trapped in Windows land again. This makes me grrr. But so what? How does this affect you, the reader? I'll have limited access to the Internets until my new lappy arrives, and so will not post as often. The result is that you will need to find another way to spend your hard-earned Internets time.

Random fun notes:
An issue of the Minnesota Daily last week included a story about a first-year student (18 or 19 yrs old) who last spring (1) went to a party, (2) was served alcohol by a 20-year-old student, (3) become very intoxicated (0.31% blood-alcohol level), (4) left the party, and (5) fell to his death from a parking structure. All tragic & shit, but my favorite part is the end of the story, where the UMPD's chief is quoted as saying, "A death like this can have life-changing effects."

In today's Daily, a front page story about sports injuries includes this gem from Jennifer Kearns, associate director of NCAA public relations: "It could be a temporary condition or it could be, in some cases, a permanent condition." Really. It could be either one of those. So, y'know.

College newspapers are fun

The Minnesota Daily, our university newspaper, has a "question of the week" in today's edition. The question is something about YouTube, blah blah words, but the fun part is at the end.

[Student name] said, however, that too many people are posting videos for recognition rather than to get a valid point across.

"I feel like people aren't (posting videos on YouTube) to get things across, but just to get recognition," she said.

Comp 1001: Writing to convey information

Let me regale you with another example (is that really something one can be "regaled" with?) of poor textbook writing from my GIS text. The authors are discussing maps, and the issue of map scale - that is, the ratio that tells how much of real life distance is represented by a specified unit of measure on the map. One common way to show the scale is with a representative fraction (RF)....

This is a simple ratio in the form of 1:1,000,000 or 1/1,000,000. In an RF, the number on the left side is the map distance, and its value is always unity.

Unity. Not 1 (or one). Presumably that would be too.... pedestrian? I mean after all, we're academics. We're supposed to be smarter than other people, and we ought to express ourselves in such a way as to make clear how smart we are. Am I right? By using the term unity in its mathematical sense as a reference to the numerical value of 1, we show the reader, who has never met us, that the tops of all our hats have worn thin in the center.

Then, just for giggles, let's look at the brief mention of temporal scale as it applies to maps: "The unit of measurement of a temporal scale can be years, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds." But nothing else, apparently. Decades, centuries, and larger units are not to be used (it would seem).

Irrelevant and obfuscatory

If I ever write a text book, I'm going to try really hard to make it actually useful. And provide relevant content. And make sure it's clear - or at least reasonably so.

Within the first 3 days of classes, I've been frustrated by both of my textbooks.

In one of them, the author(s) is/are discussing the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning, we're told, is informally called "top-down" - it starts at the higher level of theory and works down to details and observations. Induction, in contrast, works from specific observations up to general theories. For this reason, it is sometimes called a "bottom-up" approach to research. Then we get this little gem, inserted parenthetically:

(Please note that it's bottom up and not bottoms up, which is the kind of thing the bartender says to customers when he's trying to close for the night!)

Yes, they include an exclamation point, presumably to emphasize the importance of this clarification between the two phrases. And thank goodness for that, because if I'm in a discussion with someone and they mention inductive reasoning, I don't want to embarrass myself by looking around for a glass or bottle to drain before grabbing my coat, slapping a fiver on the counter, and dashing out the door! Not only was the information irrelevant, but it completely derailed my train of thought. Now every time I see an opening parenthesis, I don't know if I should be paying attention or not.

In my GIS textbook, the first sentence of the first chapter is:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are also commonly known as Geographical Information Systems outside North America.

I had to read it four times to figure out what they hell they were telling me. I wrote technical documentation for 5 years, and I'm pretty sure that sentence would never have made it past my reviewers (and they weren't writers).

Obviously, expertise in a field of study does not translate into an ability to communicate one's expertise. Sadly, it seems that most textbooks are chosen by others who, while experts in that field, frequently share that lack of understanding good communication. I guess it's the college textbook version of the circle of life.

I can has explanation?

From Language Log, we learn about this memo from the Walt Bettinger, President and COO of Charles Schwab:

On August 16, you may have experienced difficulty accessing Schwab online or through our phone centers as a result of our systems slowdown. We want to apologize and let you know what happened.

In the process of expanding system capacity earlier that morning, a systems slowdown occurred. As a result, if you tried to access Schwab online or via the phone, you may have experienced slower-than-normal service, or in some cases, may have been unable to access our services at all.

Read Geoffrey K. Pullam's reaction and (and explanation) here.

Another week (or so), another poll

Results of most recent poll:

Q: Complete this sentence: "I was unable to find my keys...
A:
-- in time to prevent Armageddon." 0/5 (0%)
-- , you know, the ones on the Hello Kitty(TM) keychain." 1/5 (20%)
-- among the various and sundries in my purse." 1/5 (20%)
-- , Jennifer." 1/5 (20%)
-- because the bats had hidden them so well." 0/5 (0%)
-- , and as a result I had no choice but to smash this priceless Art Deco stained glass window." 0/5 (0%)
-- ." 1/5 (20%)
-- , but if we're lucky, Shamu has a spare set." 1/5 (20%)

Total: 5/5 (100%)

New poll will be up shortly.

Hyphenation? Yes, please!

If you were writing a longish paper (say 14 pages) in Microsoft Word(TM), and wanted to automatically hyphenate the whole document so that the right-hand side of the text would look less ragged, how would you do it?

Would you look under Edit? Hmmm, nothing there looks promising. No, probably Format, since that's what I'm doing - I'm trying to format the appearance of the document. Let's see... no Hyphenation item there, but let's try Paragraph. That would make sense - I mean, that's where I'd go to determine line justification, line spacing, indentation, and so forth. Hmm. Gee, I don't see anything here about hyphenation.

Hrmph. What about Tools? Let's see here.... Spelling and Grammar, Research, Language, ... Track Changes, Protect Document, Online Collaboration, ... Macros, ... Customize, Options. Well, let's try those last two, just for shits.

Customize... Toolbars, Commands, Options - yeah, these are for customizing the interface, not for working with the document. What about Options (from the Tools menu, not from the Customize dialog box).... Oh my! All these tabs! Let's see... we've got View, General, Edit, Print, Save, ... Compatibility, Spelling and Grammar... Yeah, this is no good. It's just more interface customization options.

Hey - maybe Page Setup... (humming tunelessly to self) File > Page Setup. We've got Margins, Paper, Layout. Let's see... I can turn the paper sideways, but that's not what I'm looking for -- ooh! I wonder how many pages I'd end up with that way? Still 14. Boooooring. Okay, let's look at this again. Headers and footers... nope, that's taken care of.

Well dammit, now I'm going to have to use the "Help."

(doo-de-doo....) <F1>, Search for hyphenation. .... (It's searching Microsoft Office Online - this'll take a minute).... (humming Taking Care of Business) Did you hear we're in a flood watch toni---- oh there it is. We've got "About Hyphenation," "Insert a nonbreaking hyphen" (I wonder if there should be one in "nonbreaking"?), ... Here we go: "Hyphenate text."

Huh - I can "Automatically hyphenate all of a document" or "Automatically hyphenate part of a document." I'd like "all," please.

(Mouthing words while reading text, muttering softly)... Tools menu... Language - What? I was just there! Okay, what next? Tools > Language > Hyphenation. Select Automatically hyphenate document. Well, there we go. Ooh, I can Limit the number of consecutive hyphens, set the "Hyphenation zone" ... I wonder if that's like that danger zone? ... I can even Hyphenate words in CAPS! That's silly. Why would a word be wearing a cap?

Well, that's taken care of then. Although I don't understand why Hyphenation is Language (hanging out with Set Language, Translate, and Thesaurus (thundering across the Jurassic plain...)).

Wait, I didn't see anything in there about hyphenating part of a document.... Let's see what the "Help" says about that.

(Mumbling) Select the text you don't want to -- wait. The first step under "Automatically hyphenate part of a document" is "Select the text you don't want to hyphenate"? This is getting more confusing by the minute. Okay, select the text... then Format > Paragraph > Line and Page Breaks... oh, there's a check box for Don't hyphenate. Well, THAT makes a lot of sense. I have to tell it to automatically hyphenate the whole document, and then I not hyphenate the rest of the document, then the part of the document that I want to hyphenate will be hyphenated.

Dammit, now I need a drink.

i can has jeebus?

Pharyngula links to this hilarious item. Make sure you check out some of the comments on that post - hilarity and brilliance abound!

Binge blogging

I went for a few days there early this month with no entries. I was feeling like crap and avoiding the world, spending as much time as possible unconscious. Now in the past 3 days I've made 9 posts (out of the 13 for this month). Granted, a couple of them are of the Tourette's variety, but still. I'm wondering if friends will be staging an intervention and sending me into a 12-step program. I'm concerned about my ability to control my blogging. I keep telling myself, "I can tell when I've had enough. I can quit when I want to. I'm in control, really." But I'm not sure if I believe it.

Will ours be one of the thousands of homes torn apart by blogging? If I over-blog, will I become abusive and mean? Is this going to affect my ability to hold a job? Can those people over there smell the blog on my breath? Is that an alien-Elvis hybrid watching me from that unmarked government surveillance vehicle!?

AAAAAGGGGHHHH!

How'd that ultrasound machine get in my septic tank?

From Slate magazine:

Update on fetal sex selection: At least eight small skulls have been found in a septic tank near New Delhi, India, and investigators are digging for more. An ultrasound machine was also found. Officials say it appears to be another "case of female feticide." Other recent discoveries: 437 baby bones near a hospital in Madhya Pradesh in February and 25 fetuses in a well in Punjab, also associated with an ultrasound facility. In the state where the eight new skulls were found, the ratio of female to male residents is only 86 to 100. (To debate the morality and legality of sex-selection abortions, click here.)

As gruesome and horrible as this story is, that line "an ultrasound machine was also found" makes it sound, well, funny.

Summer Vacation, Part 3

I think I can officially count today as the first day of summer productivity, from a mood perspective. Yesterday I started work for my summer class, and today I feel all energized & shit. I've already been to the grocery, and am ready to get my reading done, and tomorrow I meet with my instructor for the first time. I've got my primary text here, all marked up, and I've decided to write up short summaries of each reading as well, to help my brain get into writing mode. There are a couple of additional texts that I ought to pick up, so I'll be stopping by the library tomorrow as well. Oh, how exciting!

Huzzah for urban form! Huzzah for urban design! Huzzah for reading copious literature and writing papers! Huzzah, I say, huzzah!