Technology: boon or bane? Or: why I hate the shuffle function on my mp3 player

As my regular readers will now by now, I am a big fan of a lot of new technology. Maybe it is just growing up with Star Trek (where automatic sliding doors were just about as impressive as teleportation), but I really really like the email, mp3-players, the Internet (with Wikipedia, music sites, etc), gps, smartphones with apsolutely fantastic aps, streaming videos, etc etc. But there are a few aspects of modern technology that I don't like, and the shuffle feature is one of them. Whoever invented that should be put up against the wall ... and left there!

To be fair, the shuffle we know from mp3-players is really only the latest incarnation of the same feature for CDs. And that in turn was just an automation of something people already did manually, with vinyl records. Of course, those people also belong up against the wall (and certainly anybody who did that to my records - I won't name any names, but you know who you are!).

Possibly the worst type of shuffle - the multi-disk CD player switch randomly between CDs - has mostly disappeared, thankfully. I still remember (with the sort of utter horror that makes me wish Hitchcock was still here to recount it) settling in, happy and relaxed, to Glenn Gould's rendition of the Goldberg variations by Bach, only to have my eardrums assaulted by some Wagnerian sporano.

Nowadays, you can limit the random play to individual albums, which is better, but still not good: the songs were actually put in that order for a reason, the same way that the pieces of a symphony have an order. And I have gotten used to that order. So much so, that I often "hear" the beginning of the next song on an album as soon as the previous one ends.
Of course, you could also argue that I am just old-fashioned, that I have gotten used to a certain order and am too inflexible, that I should be out playing shuffleboard with the other pensioners. Fine, whatever. As long as there is wifi ...

Shakespeare's monkeys

Random thought of the day:
They say that if you stick enough monkeys in a room with typewriters, one of them, one day, will reproduce Shakespeare's works.
I wonder: does this mean that if you have enough people retyping Shakespeare all day, one of them, one day, will turn into a monkey? 

Hanging out the dirty laundry

After several entries that were more favourable towards the male point of view (such as The dishwasher conundrum and The dishwasher revisted), and in the knowledge that there is a real danger of leaning beyond the point of no return and becoming a grumpy, whiny mal(e)content, I have decided to compensate and write a little bit about something that many men do poorly: the laundry.

Many men have complicated relations with washing machines. They are perfectly happy to move them or sit on them when they are slightly out of kilter, but actually using them to do the laundry can be a problem. The behaviour of many single men can serve as a first red flag: if they have a good job, they will hire someone else to do the laundry, if they have a crappy job, they will try to get their mother to do it. (Single men who do their own laundry in laundramats are excluded from these pseudo-statistics because too many of them are really only there to strike up conversations with potential partners, and especially those that are good at doing the laundry).

Contrary to what you might think, however, this is not simply laziness. Yes, laziness is definitely involved, but it is reinforced by several other factors, including the male identity, which means getting as dirty as possible when doing any kind of physical job (plumbing, carpentry, vehicle maintenance, etc), the fact that they do not smell themselves and therefore have no reliable indicator of when something should be washed, and - most important of all - their inability and/or unwillingess to distinguish the main types of fabrics (cotton, wool, satin, etc.). This last skill takes time and effort to develop, and for most people, the process is very hit-and-miss. I sure you all recognize the batch of clothes that was once white but had become some kind of undefinable grey or pink, or the beautiful cahsmere sweater that only fits a 6-month year old baby. 

When this happens to men, their female partner may wonder "Is he doing this on purpose?".
I can see how you might want to ask this question, but you can't, because it focusses too much on failing, ignorance, etc. Men do not like being blamed for anything (especially not for things they actually did wrong). Also, it might suggest that he did it to annoy you, which is hardly ever the case, but the moment you even hint at it, he will try to annoy you for having made such a ridiculous suggestion. No, the question to ask is: is the situation going to get any better? Was this just part of of the learning curve, or is it his way of saying (though not in so many words) that doesn't want to be doing this? My advice: ask him, point blank, if he is willing to learn to distinguish the fabrics. If he evades the question or become belligerent (e.g. by calling the question "stupid" or making scoffing noises), you have your answer: he doesn't. At which point, hopefully, he will offer to do some other household chore.

Sorry to stop here, but it's time for me to take out the garbage (which, BTW, I will deal with in another entry).

Another can of worms: the weekly shopping

If the reactions to my recent entries on dishwasher loading techniques are any indication, the things that men and women see or do differently are a can of worms that most women would probably prefer to leave shut, but men cannot help opening: I have had several responses from males, and none whatsoever from females. There are in fact so many (usually poorly hidden) male frustrations that I very am tempted to create a separate blog just to give the male perspective on such issues. I could call it "The Dishwasher Diaries", and it could contain everything from folding maps and asking for directions, to always needing to have a sip of whatever you are having or insisting you try a bite of whatever they are having in restaurants. 


I will however limit myself to another entry in the same category: doing the weekly shopping. To me, doing the shopping is a boring, sometimes frustrating and often mildly unpleasant ordeal, which is why I try to be as efficient as possible. In fact, I only have one, very simple rule for the weekly shopping:

Only buy what you need, when you need it. The best way to prepare for this is to jot each item down as you finish them off (regular items) and/or opening cupboards and checking their contents (less regular ones). Do not rely on your memory (if it is good enough to remember the 50 or 60 items you need, you should be using it to win prizes in quiz games, not for doing the weekly shopping). 

And a single corollary to that rule:  Keep experimentation to a minimum. Once you find something you like, stick with that.

Exception to the rule: you are allowed to buy items ahead of time (e.g. because they are on sale), but only if you already buy these exact same items. DO NOT fall into the trap of buying things you do not need just because they are on sale (and if you do, PLEASE don't add insult to injury by bragging how much money you just "saved").

Exception to the corollary: it is permitted to occasionally try out new foods and recipes - on OTHER people (in-laws, neighbours you didn't really want to invite over, etc).  Millions of men have led long, healthy, happy and productive lives on the same meat and potato (oh, alright, and vegetable) dinners year after year. It ain't broke: don't fix it!

And then there were three ...

I think it is safe to say that humans really like the number three. It comes back again and again, in science,  relgion, literature and art. Our predilection for (or even obsession with) certain numbers is easily explanable: we have a decimal numeric system because we have ten fingers, the number two is important to us because our bodies are bilaterally symmetrical and because there are two sexes (which is presumably somehow linked to the fact that we tend to think in terms of opposites such as yin and yang, right and wrong).

But what about the number three? Could it be a reflection of the fact that each human child is the product of a mother and father (which, I can't help thinking, is very similar to Hegel's creation of three-ness from two-ness: Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis). Or is it perhaps more closely linked to the fact that space consists of three dimensions? Or both the same time?

Whatever the case, it is clear that I also suffer from numberitis, because while writing this entry I realised that there are three types of threes (or triads, or trios).

1

One type of trio consists of elements that are different but of comparable value, such as the Roman Catholic virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three sources of power: violence, wealth, and information (Alvin Toffler), the three spatial dimensions, triptychs, the three witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three musketeers, the three stooges, the three rings for the elven kings (The Lord of the Rings), the rock-paper-scissors game, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly etc.

2

The second type consists of similar elements that succeed either other in a chronological order, such as the first, second and thirds acts of plays, most trilogies, the three stages of society (the agrarian, industrial and the post-industrial (again Toffler)), the 1-2-3's of so many self-help guides, and the fact that in many fairy tales, the hero has to try three times before succeeding (a pattern which is repeated in many jokes).

3

In the third type, there are differences in aspect, degree, or quality, such as Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, degrees of comparison (good - better - best, or, in software evaluation terms, must have - should have - nice to have), and protons, neutrons, and electrons. This category includes The Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs – you might think they are equal, but the main point of the story is that they are not.

The title of this entry, in case you were wondering, comes from a Genesis album - their first album as a trio.
(And the thing that prompted me to write is was a recent comment quoting Eleanor Roosevelt.)

The dishwasher revisited

Several of my male readers had absolutely no problem in grasping the dishwasher conundrum (no surprises here). And, being male, they also try to find solutions. For those readers, I have compiled a list of some of the options considered at some point in time by every male that shares custody of a dishwasher with a female.

1. Don't touch the dishwasher with a ten-foot pole. Ever.
2. Follow the "clean up your own shit" rule, i.e. whoever loads the dishwasher also has to unload it.  
3. The male loads the dishwasher, the female unloads it.
4. Whoever has time loads the dishwasher, and the male rearranges everything according to his own logic before flipping the switch.  This can be done furtively, in the small hours of night, or in broad daylight, depending on your respective characters (and especially, whether she cares if you do this).
5. Explain why you load the dishwasher the way you do, and hope that she will start doing things the proper (= your) way.

And now for a reality check. 

Option 1: Nice in theory, but not really feasible for most family men nowadays. Expect an expensive divorce.
Option 2: Good, fair solution, that may or may not work, depending on both of your schedules. And in addition, it requires considerable restraint, because you are not allowed to rearrange anything, or make any comments. 
Option 3: Another good and fair solution which again depends on your respective schedules.
Option 4: A practical but not very satisfactory solution in the long run, because after a while you will start resenting having to do this, and blame her for it. (Why can't she just ...?)
Option 5: dream on. You might be able to achieve some improvement, but in the long run, she will resent you for it, because of your paternalistic attitude and the presumption that you know best.

Which only confirms my earlier moral of the story: dishwashers ... can't live with 'em, can't live without em.

Or maybe you can, but chances are, your partner will not even discuss that last option (life without a dishwasher).

Blog statistics addiction

I have written about addiction before in this blog, and now I have to admit that I, too, am becoming an addict - to my own blog statistics. These last few weeks, I have checked them almost every single day (sometimes more than once), and I often spend several minutes trying to figure out what it is I am looking at. A while back this was very difficult, because there seemed to be something wrong with the hit counter (I kept getting lots and lots of 8 hit-peaks, at irregular intervals. First I thought these were crawler visits, then I realised that is was far more likely that each group of eight was actually a single hit, but it still made it very difficult to distinguish any patterns), but now, hopefully, the hit counter is working as it should again.
Basically, I get three types of hits.
1) Friends, family and colleagues who will drop by every once in a while to read what I am writing (I know this because they sometimes comment on my entries in person);
2) Companies that scour the internet for clients and visit blog sites in the hope that the author will return the favour (I have actually done this myself, out of curiosity) and buy their wares;
3) Readers that do not know me or vice versa.
- any of which can be one-offs, repeating visitors, or regular readers.

Personally, I am most interested in the last category of readers. That is also why my entries are usually quite general; they are written so that as to make some kind to any reader, not just people who know me. And of this huge pool of possible readers, I am of course most interested to know what is it that captures people's initial attention, and what makes them come back.

To answer the first question, I look at the traffic sources. Most of my hits come from Google searches for specific combinations of words. Some (like "effort + result") are aimed at finding specific content, others are aimed at finding my blog ("surviving + western + civilisation") or at finding specific entries in my blog. Other sources seem to indicate that people have bookmarked a specific entry, and use that as the entry point to my blog. That makes it more difficult to distinguish between entries that are popular for their content, and entries that are only popular because they are certain regular visitors way of accessing the blog, but it is still nice to know that someone found my blog interesting enough to create a favourite or bookmark for it.

Interesting as all of this is (to me, anyway), there is one important thing I would very much like to know, but don't, and that is know how many hits actually resulted in somebody reading the content. The only way to know this is if I get a reaction, but unfortunately, the comments feature does not seem to work properly.
(And just in case you didn't pick up the hint: please try placing a comment or a "like", just to see if the features work).

The dishwasher conundrum

This is a tale of a man, a woman, and a dishwasher. Let's call the man "Bill", the woman "Jane", and the dishwasher "dishwasher".

Bill is a typical male, who believes that there is a good, logical and efficient way to fill a dishwasher, if only you spend enough time thinking things through. He has in fact done so, and has come up with a number of simple principles designed to avoid damage to the plates, maximize the number of items that fit in the dishwasher (to save water, soap, and ultimately the environment) and to make cleaning out the dishwasher as painless and quick as possible.

Jane is not a typical male (she is a female), and she believes that although there might be a good, logical and efficient way to fill a dishwasher, it isn't important enough to spend any time on, and consequently will fill it any way she likes, differently every time, without any rules, principles or guidelines.

In itself, this would have been absolutely no problem, had Bill and Jane lived in separate homes, because they are both perfectly happy with their way of doing things. Unfortunately, Bill and Jane live in the same house. Worse still, Bill and Jane are not one in a million, they are one of a million: there are millions upon millions of Bills and Janes that share homes, because Bill and Jane are in fact the cornerstone of Western society. And the dishwasher problem is the tip of an iceberg to Bill and Jane's Titanic marriage, and the two together are a disaster waiting to happen. 

And this is because Bill, being Bill, cannot accept that Jane wants to do things her way, because Bill's way is obviously best for everyone. Jane does not necessarily agree or disagree with him, it is just against her nature to spend so much energy on something so unimportant (as opposed to selecting the right shoes to go with her latest outfit, which is of primordial importance to the whole human race, and can therefore easily take several hours), so she will continue to do things her way, until Bill looses it completely and they have a big argument. This is a problem for Jane, because she really does not like arguments, especially about things that do not really matter to anyone (except of course Bill). Chances are, she will promise to change her ways, only to have the same argument again several weeks/months/years down the line.

Moral to this story: dishwashers, you can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em.

More about ads

It seems likely that almost everybody is influenced by ads in some way or other, and that there are basically three groups of people in this respect: some people are so gullible/such pleasers they will actually do what ads want them to do. This is the relatively small group of people that give a lease on life to certain types of teleshopping companies that sell products of very dubious quality. Another, equally small group of people are extremely critical, will try to resist any attempt at being manipulated into doing or buying something, and may even take decisions that are against their own interest in an attempt to avoid being manipulated. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle: their reaction or response to most ads is moderate (although they might still react in one of the abovementioned extreme ways for certain ads).

Most people would probably call this "moderate" behaviour reasonable, because (contrary to what the title of one of my previous blog entries on the subject might suggest) not every ad is bad. Of course there are ads that succeed in convincing people to buy things they don't really need or want, but other ads can also simply call attention to a real need or desire. And of course there are ads that can fool you into believing that one product is better or even much better than another, but you can also use ads as a first step towards choosing the right product for you.

An example.
"Read my blog - it's funny and interesting!"
Anyone with a little bit of common sense will realise that there is no way I can be sure that you will find my blog funny or interesting (and to be honest*, most of my entries are not at all funny, although I do hope they are interesting). They are however criteria that you may want to consider when deciding which blogs to read.

*And how about this little piece of surreptitious advertising: did it work? Do you think - on the basis of this entry - that I am being honest (and am therefore honest by nature)? Or have the alarm bells started ringing?

No milk today - computer says no

... due to lack of inspiration. A bit ironic, the week after Whitsun (the day commemorating that the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples to help them understand recent events, and especially the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ), but not a simple coincidence: holidays for the kids are often quite heavy on the parents, and this last week was no exception. My creative center needs some downtime, has gone offline, has closed shop. Or to put it in terms that anyone who has ever watched Little Britain would understand "computer says no".

Don't stop me now, I'm on a (toilet) roll

There are four main types of toilet roll changing behaviour.

1. Some people will use what they need (irrespective of whether this means finishing the roll), and change the empty roll when done. To me, this is the normal, efficient, and socially desirable behaviour.

2. Others will use what they need, and not change the empty roll. This is irritating, especially if it happens regularly, and is also a clear indication that these people don't give a shit (pardon the pungent pun) about other people.

3. Then there are people who leave a nearly empty roll. Unfortunately, I do not have enough data to know for sure why they do this, and - this being a bit of a taboo - I don't dare ask, so I have to guess. Some people who do this are probably like the previous category (don't give a shit, but are full of it), others might do it thinking that we can save lots of trees that way, and some might even have a toilet roll changing phobia, and adapt their toilet paper usage to make sure they don't finish the roll (sick, in more ways than one). 

4. Lastly, there are people who see that the end (of the toilet paper) is nigh, and change the roll before that happens. Some of these people will then continue with the old roll (fine), others will start the new one. Curiously, the last type of behaviour (leaving toilet rolls with a small amount of paper left) seems to be contagious, especially in public or semi-public toilets, where you sometimes find three or four of such rolls. And even more curiously, some of these rolls go unused so long that - like bread - they go stale, and have to be thrown away, because no-one wants them anymore. So in fact, changing the roll before it finishes - ostensibly very thoughtful behaviour - has its disadvantages too.


(From the environmental point of view, of course, the most important thing is how much toilet paper you use in the first place. Save a tree: eat less. )

No ads are good ads

I just turned off the ads on my blog. I would like to think that it is mostly because the sort of ads people were getting lately (online dating with oriental ladies, ads to lose weight, or invest in gold bullion) do not sit well with me. (The first is fake, the second misguided, and the third, although probably sensible, appeals too much to people's fear and/or greed.)

But I have to admit that it is probably also a question of sour grapes (as in Aesop's fable): after more than a year of ads, I have earned exactly 0.18 Euros. My soul (and my readers, hopefully) is (are) worth more than that.