Meanwhile, in your car...

Depending on your age, you either cry when you see a sign outside of a gasoline station, or you look in awe/amusement as your mom is crying when sees the current price of gas.

This isn't news to anyone-- gas has been expensive for about as long as we've been using it.  This is actually more true than you might expect, after adjusting for inflation, there really is no way around it.  Dead dinosaur jelly costs a fuckton.

the red line there is price adjusted for inflation.  Notice how high it is all the time

I don't want to get side-tracked into economics with this post, so to put it simply: the red line is how much the gas used to cost in relation to how much it costs today.  Also known as, the only metric that makes sense for comparison, because you weren't thinking about gas prices back in 1975.  You only care that prices from back then seem cheaper than they are today.

Unless, of course, your some sort of immortal sonofabitch.  Named Richard.

Now, obviously, gas used to be cheaper- even after adjusting for inflation.  But it never got better than the $1.50 mark, which means that it was never drop-dead cheap.  Sure, if it ever went down that low again we'd collectively piss our pants, then get shitfaced and have the biggest party ever known to man, but the dollar meter on the pump has always been going up faster than the gallon meter.

Recently, the price has been going up at an alarming rate.  In my opinion-- for people who are thinking about getting their own car soon or have just got their first car-- this is a good thing.  You don't even have to be smart to figure out that the price of gas drives innovation into making your car use less of it.  Which is good, by proof of previous points (QED).

It means that when we start going car shopping, our rides'll be spewing a lot less crap into the atmosphere, which is good because the Earth is, in fact, getting warmer, we produce 29 gigatons of CO2 via fossil fuel burning, and carbon dioxide is a green house gas.

Nope, not allowed to debate that.  These are things that are happening-- rate and effect are not being discussed here.  Go straw man somewhere else.

So, then it seems to make sense that we're starting to go to more and more electric based cars.  However, don't count out the internal combustion engine as a murder engine for the environment and your wallet fueled by zombie dinosaurs (I call the novel rights to that!) just yet.

You see, by making some new changes to how we design engines we can totally get 60 to 100 mpg out of our cars.  That's... that's outright mind blowing.  100 miles on a single gallon?  Do you know how astronomically far that is?  You could drive across Rhode Island on a single gallon of gas.  All of it.  An entire state. 1 gallon.

On a single tank of gas (we'll assume your tank holds 12 gallons) you could drive across Colorado.  Longways.  Without ever stopping to get gas.  Ever.

Yeah, the future is so awesome.

The iPhone 5: The Paradox

I don't know if you were aware, but the iPhone 5 recently came out.

Yeah, I know.  It was really easy to miss, very much under the tech radar.  I mean, Apple fanboys (or I guess Apple fanpeople to be politically correct) were going batshit about it, but hell, they do that like every Tuesday anyway.  I'm fairly positive they'd go batshit over a new iDevice charger, for chrissakes.

My own opinions are pretty neutral.  I'm not a big fan of OS X (in any iteration), as it's pretty much Linux with a very unfortunate layer of junk on top.  The mobile operating system is pretty solid, but from a developer standpoint, Android has managed to attract more people willing to write cool things for it.  To be totally honest, I have very little idea why-- I've heard that its a lot easier to learn to write for iOS than it is for Android, but whatever.

Apple still overprices hardware harder than a used car salesman with a cocaine addiction.

... nuff said.

ED: I know that's my second cocaine joke in a while.  I spent a good five minutes trying to think of a good joke involving the word 'erection' but I couldn't do it.  Then I looked myself in the mirror and took a very, very long shower.  But I'll always feel dirty.  Forever.  I'm sorry.

Anyway, new iPhone.  It seems like its the same old iPhone, with some minor updates.  Like a larger screen, slightly louder speakers, being lighter, and a new connector (that'll render all your old connection cords).  So, you know, probably not worth shelling out $200 for.  But who the bloody heck am I kidding, if you were going to buy one, you have already.

I personally believe that cults have just modernized.  Drank basements and old churches are soooo the '90's man.  Apple stores are where it's at these days.

I mean, in any way you look at it, the phone is a success.  It's already breaking all kids of sales records, it has all kinds of glowing reviews and industry experts consider it the death of Apple as an innovative company.

Waaaaiiiiiiiit.  What about that last thing again?

Some experts think that Apple is actually slowing innovation all across the wireless market.

Slow down asshole.  I mean, its not like people think Apple's competitors are doing any bet--

No wait, they do think Google and Microsoft are being more innovative.

How can that possibly be?  Industry success = innovation, right?  We, as a consumer base, will kill for the newest gagety-techy-thing.  Didn't Nintendo prove this with the Wii?

And by my calculations... the answer is blue.  With a giraffe 

Clearly not. Why?  Great question.  I think it mainly comes down to the amount of people in the tech market these days.  Namely, everyone.  If the amount of people playing Angry Birds is any indication, than quite a lot of people have gotten smart phones.  This is a new technology for them, so minor increments do feel like world shattering innovation.

It won't last, of course.  The new guys'll get sick of it and start clamoring for true holographic displays, just like everyone else.

Self-Control part II: How to eat the marshmallow and not be a giant douche-shaped leech on society

So, last time we talked about how it turns out all you need in life is the ability to wait 15 minutes before getting what you want.

Well, actually, I just lectured at you.  To be totally precise, you read it and I wrote it and at no point were we ever within speaking distance.  Unless, of course, you're that lucky reader I've been stalking.  You read the blog right before you go to sleep, and I watch you while you sleep like a character from Twilight.

Jesus, that's my second stalking joke in a week.  I need to get out more.

As I ended the last blog post, ever since the marshmallow experiment, the prevailing opinion on self control has been that it works like a limited resource-- you have so much of an ability to focus on a task and/or delay getting what you want, and as you deplete the amount of self control you have, the worse you become at focusing until you need to take a break or you'll just start saying obscene things in public, like some kind of torrent of hateful bullshit.

 Maybe Santorum worked really hard when no one was around, and during public events just couldn't help himself?

There is, in fact, a lot of papers that seem to support this view.  Chapters of textbooks have been written with this perspective in mind.  It's a popular theory, and seems to check out-- people show the same sort of behavior with a depletion of self-control as they might with a depletion of strength or energy.  Generally, people like to lump self-control in with a sort of "willpower" pool that people have-- you expend so much will to get a task done (or resist performing a task) and then after that you have less willpower to use for other tasks.

I think its safe to say that psychologists are avid fans of tabletop games.  Or D&D is actually a crowning achievement in person modeling.

So, all of this is well and good, but what do you do if your willpower pool sucks ass?  Go out and find a tome of +4 willpower?

Well, you can try to start small-- it turns out, successfully completing a task, or keeping a schedule, or resisting temptation refunds your willpower pool somewhat and also expands it for future use, so the best way to go about getting more willpower is to just brush your teeth every morning.  Or keep some other trivial resolution.

Seriously guys, I think we're on to the most lifelike RP ever. 

 

So then, by keeping an easy goal, you can build up your self-control.  And then move on to harder goals, and build up your self-control more until you snowball and become a Buddhist monk.  If, of course, self-control is a limited resource after all.

Newer studies show that self-control (and maybe overall willpower) is tied to several other things, most of them dealing with emotions.  The ability to focus on one task you don't want to do may be tied to things like perceived task difficulty, emotional state, attention span, personal beliefs about willpower and feedback on the task at hand.

Looking at the aggregate of those qualities, you may be able to boost your self-control by simply believing that what you're working on is easy and that you have massive stores of willpower.  Of course, trying to go this route and then not being able to deliver means that you'll either end up an entitled crackhead, or crushingly depressed.

So yeah, maybe go for the small steps at a time method.

Self-Control, part 1: Marshmallows

Self control.  Its a pretty ubiquitous trait, especially in modern times.  It turns out, you can't just brain the asshole walking 0.0005 mph (and somehow managing to block your every attempt to pass him) with your stone club.

Hell, even Andrew Jackson lived in different times- if he disagreed with you, he'd just slap your face with a white glove, laugh a bit, and then shoot you.  And he was an American president.  Nowadays, if you tried to do that, people would be clamoring for you be put in prison for some silly thing called "first degree murder".

Life was simpler back then, is what I'm saying.  Because you didn't have to exercise nearly as much self-control.

Has anyone ever used the "roleplaying as the seventh president" defense for shooting someone? 

Historical musing aside, life is complicated and self control pretty much permiates throughout our entire existence.  And not in the 'don't murder everyone' way.  The ability to turn down a short term gain, or something you want to do in the heat of the moment, is pretty essental for you to get just about anywhere in life.

And, as you might expect, scientists have been researching the ever-loving shit out of self control.  Actually, I take that back, psychologists have been studying the ever-loving shit out of self control.  And if I've learned anything from my college education, its that psychologists guestimate and real scientists do not.

But don't ever say that out loud.  A psych major will repel down the celling like a damn specal forces secret agent to come and tell you how wrong you are.  Which is a thing that happened to me.

Psychologists are the ninjas of academia

But, back to self control.  I'm sure all of you know about the Standford marshmallow experiment.  What the researchers did was place a bunch of kids, from ages 4 - 6, in a room, and gave each of them a marshmallow (or treat of their choice, but I like the word marshmallow).  The scientists then told all of the kids that they were going to leave.  If a child did not eat the marshmallow, when the scientists got back, that kid would get a second marshmallow.  The researchers then left the room for fifteen minutes.

What fallowed was an epic test of will as the children struggled to not eat the marshmallow.  Well, most struggled- a minority ate the marshmallow as soon as they saw it on the table.  Because fuck you, marshmallow.  But the rest of them stared down the marshmallow, straining to resist its foul temptations.  They searched despertly for the inner resolve to resist the seductive whisperings of "eat me" coming from the marshmallow.  They strained, they fought, they battled.

And in the end, only a third of the kids managed to get two marshmallows.

Although older kids were generally better at it than the younger kids (which was what the research was trying to prove), it turns out that those that got two marshmallows are, to this day, better overall human beings than their marshmallow eating friends.  In just about every possible aspect.

In a followup 10 years later, the researchers found out that those who did not eat the marshmallow out-scored the other kids by a whopping 200 points on the SAT.

In many other follow ups throughout the years, kids who have a better innate ability to put off instant gratification do better in college, are thinner (see previous post about obesity), have a clean criminal record and higher annual incomes.

 It's "I can wait 15 minutes to get what I want" man! 

It's pretty clear then, that to be successful, you don't actually have to be pretty, have any talent or be smart.  You just have to not eat the damn marshmallow.

Due to the ages of the initial study, however, the results also imply that the amount of self-control you have is innate.  You're born with x ability to resist getting what you want right now. If you didn't get it big in the genetic lottery, well, sorry.  Guess you get to be a garbage man.

But the story doesn't end there.  See you guys next time for part II: how you can eat the marshmallow and not be a giant douche-shaped leech on society.

Crazy Homosexuality Myths, A Cross Section.

Don't let the unicorns, ponies, rainbows and love of the color purple deceive you, I'm single and free (ladies).

That being said, I have some great friends who are gay, and sometimes we hang out in public, and sometimes they like to make people think we're a couple, and sometimes it ends in me buying them drinks at a bar.

Believe it or not, that story is a lot longer and more boring than you might expect.

You see that girl in the right part of the shot that wants to die?  That would be you if we went into details.

It should come as no suprise that I'm pretty pro gay rights and all that.  I won't dig into it, as you can find better sources on that debate.  I will, however, say that it is kinda silly that its a debate at all, but that's a minor amount silliness compared to what we're about to delve into:

The absolutely bat-shit bonkers fringe theories about homosexuals.  Because, holy shit, bitches be crazy, yo.

First things first, I don't know if you were aware, but it turns out homosexuals are actually unicorns.  I know, right?  Duh.  It all fits!  Obviously, unicorns must have been left behind when Noah sailed on his arc, and managed to use their magic to survive the flood.  But they didn't want to bring God's wrath back down on the world, so they used an ancient unicorn magical ritual under the light of a full moon to become gay men.

This works because unicorns reproduce asexually via spores.  Which, of course, you already knew.

No one move, its a gay man in his natural form!

Well, if gay people aren't unicorns, then where do they come from?

Porn.  Which of course you saw coming, obviously.  Because literally an entire industry built around the concept of having sex with just about whatever you want will eventually make you want to have sex with people of your gender, and only of your gender.

Never you mind that gay porn only accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of the market.  Porn makes you gay.  Which, now that we've finally figured this out, means that we should be able to hit the porn market right where it hurts-- adolescent boys.  Because, you see, boys are naturally homophobic and if told porn will make them gay, will stop buying porn.

It's airtight.

There is some weirdness on the other side of the rainbow colored banister as well.  Being gay is really complicated, apparently-- there are just as many steps to kicking an alcohol addiction than to figure out your sexuality.  Because figuring out what kind of sex your into is just as complex as trying to kick a drug your body has become dependent on.

And here I was thinking that you just sorta drunkenly one-night-standed your way through figuring out what you were into.  Huh.

I could do this all day, to be honest.  But I'll keep the rest around for a rainy day when I don't feel like writing.

Oh, and by the way, Jesus was gay.

Weight Loss and You

Anyone who knows me in real life knows a few things about me:

1)  The cocaine is hidden in a secret cache, behind the loose brick three places from the top left corner
2)  I am one of the worst people in exsistence to give dieting/weight loss advice.

It's not that I'm in shape.  It's that I'm a thin, waifish thing, more akin to a piece of paper than a fellow human being.  And what makes it better/worse isn't that I have some kind of freak metabolism.  Although, I can eat a box of doughnuts for dinner and gain absolutely no weight, but I make up for it self-loathing.  No, it's better/worse because I also regularly only get one and a half legit meals a day.  I straight up do not eat food.

 The cocaine habit also helps with the whole weight loss thing 

So, not only can I eat a lot and get nothing for the trade, but I often don't eat.  I'm not trying to loose weight, I'd kill for an extra 20 lbs or so.  I just only eat when I'm hungry, and stop the moment I get full.  And due to the fact that I burn about 10 calories a day, my body has adjusted my food intake to pretty much nothing.

So, now that all of you with self-esteem problems hate me, I'm about to dump even more craptastic news on you.  Sometimes, when it rains, it pours and sometimes chocolate rain is just goddamn gross.

 Lock and load, I have some days to ruin

I have a question for you: where do you think fat comes from?  I'll wait for you to shout the answers at your monitors.  Never fear, I will hear you.  I always hear you.  I know what you've been doing late at night.  Yes,  you.  No, not that.  The other thing.  Yeah.  That one.  You really should just burn your rug, it's really not fit to be in a house anymore.  Pro tip.

Where was I.... oh, yeah, fat.  Most of you probably blame extra pounds on fast food, or lack of exercise.  So, by dieting and getting more exercise, you should be able to loose weight.  It can't be that hard.

I'm here to tell you that there is a good chance science says you're royally fucked.  The numbers have been run... and you can loose a small amount of weight.  Something along the lines of 10-15 lbs.  Anymore than that, though, and you'll have to face a very unfortunate truth.

There is no hard, statistical evidence that you can loose weight and not gain it back.  Read that as: statistically, the number of people who have lost weight and kept it off rounds down to 0.  Oh, its easy to loose weight- but so few people manage to actually keep the weight off that you might as well say that they're about as rare as unicorns.

So then, how much weight on average do people need to loose?  Well, a third (more or less) of the over 20 US population is obese.  And there is no goddamn way they will ever get to a healthy weight.  Look at some of the tables there-- if we make a small assumption that people are evenly distributed in each weight category, than over half the people that are only "overweight" will never get back to a healthy weight.

See, it works like this-  you want to get to sexy abs castle (or maybe "take up only one seat on an airplane" castle, whatever).  But the only way to get there is to swim through an inconceivably massive moat, one not measured in months, but in years, because you have to reprogram your body to deal with a lower intake of food and your body sucks at patches.

Oh, and the moat is filled with paranas.  Because you better believe your base survival instincts are thinking that you're constantly starving yourself to death every second you loose a pound.  Your own body resists your attempts to loose weight.  Its like when Harry Potter found out that the last part of Voldemort's soul was part of him, and the only way to get rid of it was to kill himself.

Shit, that metaphor turned dark on me.  Sorry about that.

Aww, way to ruin it, asshole!

Interestingly enough, it would seem some factors that make you end up being the size of whale aren't even really your fault.  Even the Center for Disease Control is aware that part of the reason why you're a fatass is your genetic makeup.  But before you go crying about how you rolled snake eyes in the genetic lottery, science, like always, has your back.

It all comes down to type of genetic molecule called a microRNA.  MicroRNAs were considered more or less scrap DNA that your body just had lying around, like the can of beans in your pantry.  You don't remember ever buying it, but it has always been there.  You'll be damned if you eat it, and yet you can't bring yourself to throw it out.

MicroRNAs are that, but with your genetic makeup.  Or so scientists thought.

It turns out that microRNAs are several kinds of important.  A particular pair of them- which both have long, neigh unspellable names- control how well cells burn through energy.  Which means that if your body has a lot of fat because your genetic makeup makes you store calories as fat like a walrus preparing for winter, by removing these two microRNA molecules from your cells, you'll burn more energy at rest.  And if your burning more energy doing nothing means that, by default, you must loose weight.

So, the future is basically a cross between The Biggest Looser and Gattica.

Scientific Method: You better believe it matters

I once, a few years back, was posed a question: "What do you think the most important scientific discovery ever was?"

Without hesitation, I replied, "The scientific method, of course."

This response got me looks, quiet chuckles, and mutterings of, "Seriously?  Out of all the scientific stuff, that?   Over, like, lasers? nerd."

Years later (because I don't hold grudges, and didn't spend the next few days crying into a bathtub with a bucket of ice cream or anything) this is my reply.  It's long winded and has some required reading before we dig into the subject, but I do stand by the scientific method as the most important scientific discovery to have ever happened, and further- the scientific method is the single most important discovery to happen in the history of humanity, and the only way in which we will be able to solve some of the hardest problems that plague our world (or just the United States of America) today (see: global warming, economic slump, massive wealth gap between the rich and the poor, etc).

First things first, let me get all the obvious schematics out of the way.  I know someone is going to be calling foul on technicalities (because the silly little technical details will be all they can grasp with, mentally).

Obviously, the scientific method (or SM for short) required quite a bit of human progress before it even became able to be considered.  [ed: please don't confuse SM with S&M.  Wait, damnit, I made the correlation easier.  Forget I typed that.  But don't, because don't confuse them.]  You could run a very weak (but sound) argument that any of the technologies or revolutions in understanding that happened before SM are more important than SM because with out them, no SM.  Fine.

The (also unstable) counter argument is that you don't, in fact, know what SM requires to be discovered, so you can't list other discoveries as pre-requisites.  Discoveries in real life don't actually work like a technology tree from the Civilization series.  Its why two men can both independently discover calculus at about the same time, and spend a good chunk of the rest of their lives trying to discredit the other.  Which is why calculus symbols seem to be totally random.

Got that? Great, now that we can safely (sorta) say that you can't judge a discovery based on what was discovered before it, its time to go through part II of stuff we need to do before getting to the good stuff: read this article.    But don't just read it-- you'll need to ponder and at least acknowledge its conclusion.  I didn't say accept-- if it really cuts you to the core that the stories you listen to affect you on a subconsciousness and fundamental level, then you don't have to agree.

But you do have to get behind the idea that the conclusions might be true.  It is on you to disprove them, and if you can't, then you either:

A) need to work harder in your disproof/counter proof
B) deal with the fact that this article may, in fact, be true.

Under no circumstances are you allowed to pick:
C) brush the article off because it conflicts with what I believe about myself and pretend like I didn't read it

And you absolutely are not allowed to even think about picking:
D) get personally offended by the article, decide that is is the villain and start actively crusading against it, proof or no proof be damned.

If you pick D, by the way, the article proves its point.  C may also prove the article's point, but its more roundabout and complicated.  Either way, if you pick C/D, you won't get any more out of this.  You've made up your mind, and no amount of logic I can show you will change that.  Ever.  Go home, brew yourself a nice cup of tea, sit down, and try to piece out why you're so depressed all the time.

I want to draw attention to A/B-- note how both these options are the only correct way to interpret new information that may conflict with your knee-jerk reaction to the article.  Also notice how this is basically mimicking the scientific method, more importantly, how the scientific method deals with conclusions.

I'm going to skip the part of this that tells you what SM is and how it works.  You've all been through grade school science, you know it.  If you don't, go back to working on your homework, buster.  Mother will be in by 8:30pm to put you to bed, so if you want to do anything fun tonight, you better get cracking.

Conclusions from an experiment, according to SM, draw two responses- the experiment confirms your hypothesis, test again or the experiment rejects your hypothesis, test again.  Now replace hypothesis with "preconceived beliefs", experiment with "article" and test again with "find proof" and suddenly, we have a very clear model as to how to go about dealing with new information.

If you're willing to buy into the fact that we have notions about everything before we get information it (and, if you're more than five, you do, so you better), then this boils down to:

get new information --> agree --> find backing material

or

get new information --> disagree --> find backing material

In the event backing material can not be found, then you need to change how you view the new information, or search harder.  I want to stress here- searching harder is always an option.  Enstien hated quantum mechanics and spent his entire life rejecting the idea (as far as I know anyway, I could be wrong.  Enstien is a hotbed of misquotes).

He also spent his entire life trying to prove it wrong.  He ended up being unable to-- the Hesienburg uncertenty principle stands to this day.

But, look at all this takes out of new information.  You're not trying to fit things into a narrative structure, you're not trying to anthropomorphize your data into good guys and bad guys.  There is just information, what you think about it, and backing up your claim.  That's it.

It's neat, clean and simple, and entirely removes all the crazy bullshit where you build a filter between yourself and the world, and you try to get the world to fit.  The world either won't fit (and then you end up with things like a fast food chain having a stance on gay marriage) or you'll have to do all sorts of absurd things to make it fit (like oppose gay marriage based on the fact that we use the word "marriage", but you'd be fine if they used any other word, like "civil-companion-joint-love-venture" or something).

It works for personal problems too-- stop trying to see all of your ventures as uphill struggles of some bold hero going against the odds and more in terms of the SM.  I'll use weight loss as an example:

I'm trying to loose weight, but today I found out despite all my efforts, I've gained a pound.  This is absurd, I disagree with this-- I've been working so hard to loose weight!  But, when I reflect about it, maybe I'm eating more calories than I think I am-- HOLY SHIT, A DOUBLE QUARTER POUNDER HAS WHAT?!?  Ok, lets not do that and try the experiment again-- this time, I won't get a "tiny snack" at McDonalds, no matter what their commercials say.

Sometimes it works against you too-- I wanted to run a post a while about how hacking the power grid was crazy, based on how I disagreed with an article that claimed it possible.  But when I went to get my own research done to counter it, I found that, hey, holy shit, hackers could totally disrupt the power grid on a terrifyingly large scale.  Balls.

Needless to say, that post was never used and I needed to apologize to someone for laughing at them.  It was a humbling moment.

It all boils down to: information, stance, attempt to back that stance.  There is another huge upside (despite the fact that it takes out all the story-telling bias bullshit):
You always have a plan, or a goal.

With an SM-based world view, your intake of information is active, rather than passive.  You challenge what you're told, and actively search for an interpitation of information that fits the way things actually are.  But when you map it back on to your own life, you're no longer searching for meaning in what you do.  You're no longer trying to live up to the monstrous expectation that you're a hero in some great story, and that what you do will change the world.  There is no troublesome quest for purpose, no great crusade to embark upon.

There is just information, your stance, and trying to resolve your stance against that information.  Or, maybe putting it a different way:

Just the current life you are living, how that makes you feel, and what to do about it.

Aristotle wrote that the unexamed life wasn't worth living for a human being.  He also wrote the only way to find happiness was to contemplate life all day and that tall women were always prettier than short women.  As many of the ancient Greek philosophers, he gets personal bias tangled up in objective analyses, but he was, in fact, on to something.  You need to be able to objectively view your own life in order to get the correct reaction from it.

Step away from the ideas of personal obligation when it comes to life goals.  There is no way to win at life- the only obligations you are required to fulfill are the ones you set out for yourself, which you are allowed to change.  If you're honestly happiest living as a bum off of welfare, then shit, why are you still on the Internet?  You've got some food stamps to collect.

And that's the lesson for today, folks.  I'm writing again on a regular basis, after several months of needed downtime, I'm back, bitches.