Voicemail Messages

There have been a lot of things going on in my life right now, so I hope you all have some ideas for this one.

Anyway, since I make a lot of calls doing my job (and since people rarely pick up,) I get to here a lot of voicemail messages.

This one is everyone's favorite:

"Hi. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate the phone 90° and try again."

I also kind of stole this intro here.

Wait... there's already a site for this! Apparently it's http://www.creativevoicemailmessages.com/. I commend the people who made this site! You guys are awesome.

However, I don't see a section for nerdy voicemail messages...

Any suggestions?

Is Black a Color?

Okay, now I'm just trying to start a fight in the comments.

This seems to be a topic that most people have strong opinions on, despite its being a relatively harmless one. It goes without saying that there are two main arguments:

1. Black does not exist on the visible light spectrum. Therefore, it is not a color.

2. Black can definitely be listed as someone's favorite 'color.' We use it with all of the other colors. Therefore, it is a color.

And that's pretty much all there is to say about that. It would be great to see all of the different interpretations, but it's interesting that people's opinions are so polarized on this one topic.

On a very, very slightly related note, I really enjoy the use of black as an adjective to imply shade. I mean, there's one mineral that's supposed to be the 'blackest' thing we can experience. Did black get promoted to a feeling? Or are colors too closely tied to our feelings for us to differentiate between both?

Oops. I gave away my stance.

Is black a color?

The H Algorithm

There's an interesting property about the letter h in the English language. Namely, you can insert quite a few h's into any word and not change the pronunciation. Let's take the word 'name': if we spell it nhahmheh, it's still recognizable and pronounceable as the same word.

What happens if we make an algorithm which figures out how many instances of h that could be found in a word without changing its sound?

Assume vowels do not change sound when followed by an h. Well, part of that has to do with not adding multiple h's, so the word isn't inrecognizable. If not, we're cognitively golden with the vowels- but only for a familiar word. And only for now. Alright. Let N(w) be the number of h's in the word. Let L(w) be the number of letters in the word. So, here's the first part of the algorithm:

N(w) = L(w)

This assumes that you can just add an 'h' after every letter in the word. If the word suddenly got an h appended in front of it, the first 'h' would have to be pronounced. However, this algorithm is so imperfect that it hurts. What about existing h's in the word, such as in 'the'? This is simple, just subtract one h for every existing h. Therefore, 'the' becomes 'theh.' So, let H(w) be the number of preexisting h's in the word:

N(w) = L(w) - H(w)

What about consonants which would change sound if followed by an h, such as sh or ch? We'd have to do a huuuuge comparison function. I'm going to pass w, along with all of the consonants which would change sound significantly:

N(w) = L(w) - H(w) - ?(w, c, soft g, p, q, s, t)

And, lastly, let's assume that vowels do change sound. So, in general, long vowels subtract one h, but all others do not. (Check me on this one.) I mean, the 'a' in 'name' is a long a, and it would change, but the alternate a's in 'and' and 'all' would not. 'Y' does not count. Y is a consonant here.

N(w) = L(w) - H(w) - ?(w, c, soft g, p, q, s, t, long a, long e, long i, long o, long u)

which is just

N(w) = L(w) - ?(w, c, soft g, h, p, q, s, t, long a, long e, long i, long o, long u)

To be fair, we do lose information here: the nature of the vowel before the h was added. Going back to the example of 'theh,' it can be pronounced a couple of ways, either the traditional 'the' or with the 'e' having the same sound as it does in 'empty.' Drat. This is even worse- how do you make an algorithm for determining long vowels? Soft g is a bit easier, but long vowels? Is there a rule?

Does anyone feel like making a program? How about stress-testing the algorithm?

Internal Voices

A friend of mine, Tracy, found this really cool article. Read it before continuing with this post.

Is that not the most awesome article ever?

What I find interesting is that if you go down the columns, a very distinct style emerges between each kid. Barney likes to make complex words with numbers and -er, Raimi had short and intuitive names, Max applied color and imagery, and Jem sounds like an engineer in training. Also, all of these names sound like a result of their own internal voices. I define internal/inner voice as "how one communicates their own ideas to oneself using words." Yeah. WARNING: I am going to use the phrases 'internal voice' and 'inner voice' to mean the same thing, because my brain uses them interchangeably.

Most people I've talked to about this have an internal voice, and if they feel unable to communicate something, the bolder ones sometimes resort to what their inner voice is saying. One of the more fun ones is onomatopoeia. (Stress is "RRRRRRRRRRR.") Maybe inner voice allows us to express feelings or ideas to ourselves, and is based more on association than actual words. We can associate things with each other that we can't really name. For example, look at a pencil. There are so many properties that we can't name, or possibly don't have words for, but we know exactly what it is. What would you call a pencil if it didn't have a name? It's the same with Lego pieces, love, etc.

Speaking of inner voice, do you guys remember Lewis Carroll? I love this poem because you can basically understand what he's saying, even though quite a few words are made up. This is kind of like inner-voice nomenclature, because it focuses on association rather than the words themselves. My favorite line is "and the mome wraths outgabe." We can tell that mome wraths are some kind of creature, and I always think of "outgabe" as grazing.

Your assignment for this week is to use all of the made-up words from the Jabberwocky in conversation. Or make up your own. Or use onomatopoeia. Go.

Going back to the Lego example, this nuance of internal voice is something that would be invisible unless they were prompted to communicate while playing. An observer simply watching them play may not be able to discover this aspect of their personality. I feel that this is the same for everyone- unless you can get inside the person's head, there's really no reason to assume what their personality is like. Judging by actions may even be dangerous, because these obviously different individuals would be grouped in the same group if they were all seen playing with Legos together. Most of the misconceptions I see on people's character come from judging by their actions. No matter how strong your powers of deduction are.... it doesn't work. You can't hear what the person is thinking, and you can't hear the person's inner voice. BUT I DIGRESS.

How do you speak to yourself inside your mind?

Reader Question: What Song?

Sorry this is late, I was doing homework.

Anyway, since I have to get up for my job tomorrow, today is a reader question day.

If you had to make a music video of your life, which song would you cast it to? Feel free to get into details.

Arguing graciously: How NOT to argue

It's really difficult to argue a point convincingly, especially when the person disagrees with you. I can think of a few ideas on how to handle your opponent so that they feel more inclined to agree with you, but that has to wait for a time when I don't have as much work.

It just so happens that what NOT to argue is just as fun to read. Especially when people do strange things in arguments like...

1. POINT OUT WHAT THE OTHER PERSON IS DOING

A while ago, when the Victoria's Secret thing was still on everyone's mind (Hahah! Now it spells out HARVEY MUDD ROX BOO CALTECH*,) we were mentioned by a certain Something Awful thread.

If that previous link doesn't work, it's because I don't have a Something Awful account and I am getting a big banner ad instead of the forum. All you need to know is that a dialogue took place that looked something like this:

Guy: You did that with a bot.
Mudder: We started off by isolating the captchas and building a webpage that the entire campus started particpating in by filling in captchas nonstop. It was very efficient and we got a lot of votes. Then someone made a bot that automatically fills many of the Victoria's Secret captchas and we ran that.
Guy: Yup, you're definitely using a bot.
Mudder: Here's a graph of what happened. You can see the changes in the beginning of the graph from when most people went to sleep, then a steady, non-fluctuating slope from when we started running the bot.
Guy: What's that graph? It looks just like a bot.

This doesn't look like you're using your argument effectively, it just shows that you're a little too eager to show everybody that you know what a bot is. I'm sure you all have seen great examples of this in your time, like:

Me: I like this person!
Guy: You're interested in him because you like him, aren't you?

Me: The author is doing this... (REALLY long analysis)
Guy: You're just pointing out what the author is doing.

What the cornhumping hell?

The only reason this shuts us up is because we're so confused as to why anyone would say that. What does that have to do with your point?

2. GIVE SOME CRAZY FICTIONAL PARABLE

I'm looking at you, Aesop.

Let's say you want to argue that communism is destructive, because no one has ever, ever done that before. You decide that the best way is to present an analogy that focuses on a communist society. It goes something like this:

"Once upon a time there was a communist society. Everyone was extremely unhappy because they did not have capitalism. Then everyone got so unhappy that society fell apart. Then all the communist leaders died. This is why communism is bad. The end."

Does anyone see a blatant problem with this? If the author has complete control over their fictional scenario, how does it prove anything to have the scenario crash to pieces? All it proves is the author's own opinion on the subject.

I see this a lot in science fiction writing. For a wonderful comic about this, check out Caveman Science Fiction from Dresden Codak. Great comic.

3. TREAT POLITICAL PARTIES LIKE SPORTS TEAMS

If someone's a huge fan of Mathletes or Calculicious or... I don't know many sports teams, bear with me... there's no way you're going to convince them to root for a different team just by listing good qualities. The sad thing is, I see people do this with political parties.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DEMOCRATS WOOOOOOOOO WE WON"

"UGH THAT NEWSPAPER IS A LIBERAL RAG HAHA ALL LIBERALS ARE GAY THEY SUCK"

Seriously, I swear that the media could label an extremely liberal dude as a Republican conservative and most people wouldn't tell the difference. Oh! Or if the person had no views in common with the "conservative" team of the U.S.A., except that abortion should be illegal. This isn't so much the media -whatever the media is- labeling candidates as such as it is people interpreting the labels instead of the views themselves.

How about this? Lol! It's funny because our team lost, but the other team sucks! I could say the same for the person with the Ginny avatar. You call that defending?

4. USE THEMSELVES AS AN EXAMPLE FOR WHAT IS RIGHT

I'm sure we've all heard this one.

PERSON 1: I don't think people should use 'retarded' as an insult. It's degrading.
PERSON 2: Why? I've never used the word 'retarded' as an insult.

There are a couple problems with this. First, your actions probably don't apply to everyone else in the world, especially if it's in a context that someone has to argue over. Second, it sounds a bit condescending. In order to sway someone to your side, you should probably be connecting with them. Even in a non-argumentative context, it sounds kind of suspect:

PERSON 1: I don't really want to go on the rollercoaster.
PERSON 2: Why? I've been on the rollercoaster, and I didn't think it was scary.

Why not replace it with something neutral, like:

PERSON 1: I don't really want to go on the rollercoaster.
PERSON 2: Are you sure? It doesn't look that bad.

Much, much better. Person 1 will be so much happier now.

5. ASSUME THAT BECAUSE SOMEONE WON, THEIR ARGUMENT IS RIGHT

This one is self-explanatory. I could give an example, but the only one I can think of pits evolutionism against creationism, and I don't want to get mobbed in religious debate.

Ok, fine. Let's say a professor is arguing against a student in a philosophical argument that neither can prove. For the sake of argument, assume that the professor knows how to argue better. Does knowing how to argue better mean that the professor's ideas are correct? On the other hand, does being the underdog mean the student's ideas are correct?

Ideas are ideas, and it's fun for some people to debate, but this assumption can sometimes end in disaster. Come to your own conclusions based on facts, not debates. (Unless the conclusions are about one of the people debating.)

Anything else? Any funny debate stories?
*DISCLAIMER: I do not hate CalTech.

Party Ideas: Adventure Game

Argh! Tech school is taking its toll on my sleep schedule. It's midnight somewhere.

Anyways, here's a cool party idea. You could model your entire party around an adventure game. By 'adventure,' I'm referring to things like the Monkey Island series. Puzzle point-and-click adventures. The games where we watch a guy run around in circles and pick up things and we just sit there watching him.

One thing that I'm sure all of us would like to happen in real life is that people in adventure games find items everywhere. It's so great. They don't even have to have jobs. The difference between adventure games and real life, though, is that the designers of an adventure game get to control what the player gets to pick up. In the right setting, this can be fun rather than damaging to the environment. Perhaps an outside setting would be better, to keep household items out of prying hands.

If you can encourage item-sharing and incorporate your items into a large puzzle, all the better for you! The more people you had, the harder the puzzle would be to implement (if the puzzle relied on specific items.)

Another thing to do at the beginning of the party would be to possibly give out character stats. I know, Guybrush didn't have character stats, but some people get interested more easily if they have something to strive for. There is a potential problem here- how do people gain stats? Should the host or a helper cut out little badges out of construction paper for players to find? Do people get stats by fulfilling orders or quests given by the host? Are the inital values randomly assigned or assigned by other players based on the person's personality? Why not make a list of superpowers and have everybody pick one randomly?

Since people love to play as a character, roleplay would be an exciting element to add. The concept of alignments isn't new (I'm Chaotic Good!) and neither is dressing up. At least it's cool to be a nerd now, so people can actually do this. Beware: this statement comes from someone who owns multiple corsets.

It's your game, too- you can control the environment. If you confine yourself to making up rules before the game, you can miss out on a lot of fun afterwards. You could change the national currency to a previously useless item that shows up everywhere, assign specific players to be spies for an evil regime, or have an earthquake that sends everyone inside to eat cake. The players could even organize a revolution to overthrow the host's monarchy.

One of the things that can ruin a good party or game is having too many rules. For an open-ended adventure game, you may be able to get away with just a general goal and hiding items all over the place. Unlike other party games, this one could be open-ended and go in many directions depending on how it is implemented. Heck, you can even pretend to be a game designer. I'm just waiting for someone to do this.

Has anyone had a party like this? Any more good ideas for things to do?

Exploring Equality and Balance in Art

What's that? You don't like my blog? Why? Not enough images?

Oh, I'll give you images.

Anyway, last night my brain decided that it wanted to think about how to artistically balance two elements. Luckily for me, it provided two elements, shown here: Two V-shaped things made out of rods: one purple and one clear. (Brain, you made me play with layer effects to get that clear rod. Why did it have to be clear?) You can see all the details in the image- one rod of each pair longer than the other, alternating colors per rod size. They were interesting shapes, but I was upset with the way they were organized. They needed to be put in a more interesting pattern. My goal was to arrange these two shapes in a way that would show some structure, but would be interesting in contrast to each other, while keeping the original 'character' of the shapes constant. I mentally rotated one and put it on the end:
... and was immediately upset. This appears off-balance to me. Why? I seem to like alternating colors, but here the colors seem to be separated with one on each side. Just for kicks, I decided to alternate their positions:
... and automatically regret it. Now, not only are the colors still separate, but now the piece is closed-off and confined. I can barely see the original V shapes, now they look like a clear L and a purple L. This is even more off-balance than the last one. Yuck. Take it apart!
Well, that looks worlds better. The shapes show their original character, and now the colors aren't so clumped together. The parallel lines compliment each other, and there is still a sense of balance even though they aren't touching each other. It would even make a good logo! Not satisfied, I asked my brain: hey, what happens if I do the first thing, except with the bottom one flipped?
Dude, no. Even though the colors aren't on the same side of the picture, they still give the character of being part of one element. Now it's just two intersecting lines, more than anything else.

Is anyone starting to feel that no simple rotations or obvious movements will keep these two shapes in an artistic balance? That's what I started to feel. This is what the last image looks like separated a bit:
Wow, so there seems to be some sense of coherence there. It looks better than it would have if both were the same shape. Once again, the parallel lines compliment each other. But do we have to rely on the parallel lines? At this point, I also wanted a greater level of chaos. None of that vanilla 90° rotation crap for me, no sir. Keeping things straight and parallel was not the way to go with these shapes. The shapes are really similar enough so that we can do some fancy things:
Is the original V-ness of the shapes lost? Nah, to me the color difference still makes it look like two contrasting V-shapes. More importantly, it looks like a real-life image. It looks like an office chair with motion lines. With some nice sans-serif font, it makes a perfect logo for an office chair delivery service.

That's the stuff.

What else can you do with the rods to make them balance artistically while still keeping them interesting? Do you own an office chair delivery service?