Pet peeve: this metaphor sucks

Today's Paul Krugman column says:

Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?

I’m referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it’s in and is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time.

Why? Why is it a useful analogy? It only confuses the issue to spread the urban legend that frogs won't jump out of boiling water, and then say "Okay actually they will, but the analogy stands."

At least Krugman has the presence of mind to point out that it's an urban legend... most people quote the frog legend as if it were true. But frankly, by repeating the urban legend you're reinforcing the false story and increasing the likelihood of cementing it as a true story, by people who miss the instant retraction.

Here's a better idea: somebody ought to find a new metaphor to describe a person who doesn't notice they're in trouble as their situation gradually changes. If you can't think of one, then maybe metaphors just aren't the way to go here, because they muddle the issue rather than clarify it.

Al Franken wins -- o rly? ya srsly

Yes I have jumped the gun on this story a time or two, but this time it seems pretty definite.

Gold mania

Via the Freakonomics blog I just learned that there's a racket going on in Germany where they have vending machines that sell gold coins and bars at 30% above the current market rate. Brilliant!

When economic times get tough, the tough think of creative new ways to steal from the fearful. I've been noticing with much bemusement how full show-length advertisements on Christian radio loudly exhort their listeners to buy gold, and before that I've been fascinated by a precious metal pyramid scheme known as "Liberty Dollars."

Now this one... you really have to stand and goggle in awe at the sheer unmitigated chutzpah of a company whose business model provides a service that is so utterly worthless, and which displays so much naked greed.

Let me explain this again. Gold is an investment. Maybe it's a good investment right now, and maybe it's a bad one, but that's not the point. The point is that [edit: for most people] gold has no other value than as decoration or investment, and it's a really freaking bad investment if you have to pay 30% overhead up front.

Vending machines are for impulse buys. If you are walking past a vending machine in an airport and you see a candy bar for $1.50, and you say "Hmmm, a candy bar sounds mighty tasty right now" then to you at that moment, the candy bar is worth $1.50. Never mind that the same candy bar would cost you half as much or less if you bought it from a store. It has utility value to you.

Gold doesn't have has very limited utility value, and if you buy an investment with impulse dollars at a 30% markup, you are beyond stupid. Go home, do some freaking research, and buy it from a reputable vendor who will charge you 1-3% up front. You don't have to own the gold RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT. I mean, if you're in an airport at the exact moment when The End Of The World As We Know It hits, maybe you could make a case for raiding the gold vending machine. But if that's the case, I think you might want to focus a little more on fleeing for your life at that point.

Replay [Book, ***]

I haven't read a lot of fiction in the last few years. During the two years I've been in grad school I had to put most recreational reading on hold, and since then I've mostly read either more technical books, or nonfiction about politics or philosophy. I decided that this is something I miss in my life, so I recently raided the Round Rock Library and checked out two books. Replay by Ken Grimwood is something I browsed in a bookstore a few months ago and found interesting enough to put on my mental wish list. Dune by Frank Herbert is a book that everyone praises but I have somehow not gotten around to yet. I finished the first, so here's my review.

Replay predates the movie Groundhog Day by a few years, and uses a similar high concept. I love that movie, as I love most sci-fi that involves time travel or other creative reorganizations of time. As in Groundhog Day, Replay involves a main character trapped in an unexplained time loop. Unlike Groundhog Day, where the scope of the loop is one day, the book has its character reliving 25 years of his life.

It opens with the death of the main character, Jeff. Trapped in a loveless and childless marriage and an unfulfilling job, Jeff experiences a heart attack at the age of 43 in 1988, keels over, and awakes to find himself trapped in the past, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that the next leap will be the leap home. Oh, wrong story. But you get the idea.

Jeff lives his life about five times that are noteworthy. As Bill Murray did, Jeff goes through various stages in his attempt to come to grips with what's happening. He uses his knowledge of the future to become insanely rich. Then he tries to fulfill himself with a better committed relationship, which works out pretty well but is entirely erased on the next round. Then he spirals into hedonism and drug abuse, then finally meets a kindred spirit who understands what he's going through. Then they try to save the world.

Unlike Groundhog Day, a fair amount of time is devoted to speculating about the real cause of the time loop, but the effort is largely wasted because they never come to anything resembling a conclusion. In fact, the whole book didn't feel like it had much of a conclusion. Jeff wanders from one life to the next and does a whole lot of stuff, and makes some effort to throw out philosophical thoughts about the implications. But the book just ends, and nothing that happened seems all that significant. Jeff's learned something, I suppose. And there's a one-off epilogue that seems to try to make it feel more significant, but didn't much work for me.

Replay was still an enjoyable read. Ultimately it's simply about a whole bunch of stuff happening, and the stuff is interesting to read about. I don't feel like I got a greater message out of it in the end, so I'll categorize this as a good diversion. It does make you think about what you would do with multiple lives, though.

*** (out of 5)

Music and patriotism

I've been a bad blogger lately. It's been well over a month since I've written a proper post either here or on Castles of Air. Partly that's because I've had abundant life stress on multiple fronts, which I don't really want to go into here. But I think it's a good time for me to update various things that have interested me lately.

I have a chorus concert coming up tomorrow evening. The music selection is better than it has been in a while, so if you live in Austin and like music, there are worse ways you could spend your evening tomorrow night than buying a ticket and attending.

The lineup is:
W.A. Mozart, Missa Brevis
Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms
Haydn, Te Deum
Frank Tichelli, Earth Song
Randall Stroope, Homeland

The last two obviously aren't as well known as the other three. Both of them are a lot more musically simplistic but very emotional sounding. The Tichelli strikes me thematically as sort of a hippy song -- "The shattered earth cries out in vain..." and "Music and singing have been my refuge" and ends with "I'll see peace." It's corny but the music is actually quite nice. And there's a giant PowerPoint presentation over our heads, with pictures of people crying or enjoying themselves, and sunsets and rainbows and things.

Now, the last one, the Stroope, is interesting. It is set to the tune of "Jupiter" in Holst's The Planets. You can hear the original performed here, or a high school chorus singing Stroope here. It does seem to be very much geared towards a high school group, fairly lacking in subtlety and also very patriotic.

Now, typically blunt patriotism turns me off. I like the way Ambrose Bierce described it in The Devil's Dictionary: "In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first." It's not that there's anything wrong with being proud of your country, and inspired to make it as good as possible. It's just that naked worship of country, as in "My country right or wrong" or "Why do you hate America?" rubs me the wrong way, just as all blind faith would.

But while rehearsing this piece, I've found myself getting choked up a few times. When I analyzed this feeling, I noticed I'm actually feeling more real patriotism than I have in a long time. I don't feel that the country is being run perfectly, but I think that policy is again being driven by people who care a bit about research and results more than ideology. Feels good.

Senator Al Franken

It's about time.

Please format your arguments properly

I enjoy reading email arguments, but they are hard to read if you don't format them the right way.  I was going to email this advice as instruction to a friend, but it occurred to me that I should blog it so I never have to write it a second time.

Normally people do not indent their own replies when answering. Instead, they leave the other person's replies indented (with the leading character, like ">" or a vertical line, left in the post) and move the response to the left margin.

The advantage of this system, if both parties stick to it, is that older replies get more indented. It looks like this:

> > > I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
> >
> > I just paid!
>
> No you didn't.

I did!

> > And anyway, that was never five minutes just now!
>
> It most certainly was.

No it was not!

If you are looking for a particular level of the conversation, or only new comments, you can easily see where you are by scanning the text. Try it. (In the above conversation, "I just paid" and "And anyway..." were part of the same email.)

Some people reply to a post by leaving everything at the same indentation level, but setting their replies in a different color, like blue or red.  This is fine in principle, as long as there is only one round in the exchange. If it goes longer, then you either have to pick different colors, or else leave everything the same color.  If you use the same color, it can become impossible to separate the old red text from the new red text.  If you don't use the same color, it forces the reader to check back and figure out which color goes with which message.  Needless to say, this can become impossibly confusing in a long exchange.

I hope this helps.

SEE? I'm not the only one!

Considering how many times I've had exactly this dream, I feel vindicated or something.