Paying Attention

When I'm interested in something, I focus--like miss obvious things going on around me kind of focus. This led me (in college, I think) to discover a nifty little trick.

The next time your in a mid-sized audience, say 15 to 100 people, for a speaker, try something. Pay attention. I mean close attention. Ignore your friends, watch the speaker, and try to anticipate what they'll say next.

Assuming your friends aren't trying the same thing, you'll notice something after about 10 minutes. The speaker, unless blinded by stage lights or very, very professional, will be talking to you. They'll spend 40-60% of their time looking directly at you. They'll wait for you to nod slightly at important points or smile at jokes. They'll drift slightly toward you if you're off to one side. They won't lose their topics, but they may lose the rest of their audience.

Works for almost anyone but professional storytellers, whose audience contact is part of how they tell the story. Works for professors, for introverts, for high corporate mucky mucks. I've even moderated a panel discussion at a convention from the audience this way. Their moderator wasn't doing much, I asked a couple of questions and listened to the answers, et voila. Pretty soon everyone on the panel was waiting for me to look at them before they spoke. Very strange, but kind of cool.

One word of caution: listening this way in a one-on-one situation can have a very different outcome. You may end up with a new best friend who has to tell you all their troubles (because you're so understanding), or someone may feel the need to tell you, nervously, that they're just not interested. So be careful where you practice.

GTA4

Grand Theft Auto 4 has some problems, and I'm not talking about the ones that get lots of press. I mean it hangs consistently on some game systems. We have one. After trying five copies from a local big-box retailer and finally persuading them to find a way to work around their no-return policy on games, we decided to try a specialty game store to see whether we might have better luck with a different pressing of the disk.

We walked in, and it was just us and the young woman (yay!) behind the counter. Ben asked, "So, have people been returning GTA4?"

She said yes, and we sighed. He explained our situation and that we were hoping they'd be able to fix it. "Oh," she said. "I hadn't heard about that. They returned it because it was too violent."

Blink.

Blink, blink.

Blink.

"Right. We'll take a copy then. Thanks." We managed not to laugh until we got out of the store.

What planet do you have to live on not to know what to expect from a GTA game? How do you maintain that level of ignorance and still be in a position to buy and play it?

That copy didn't work either, by the way. So now we're screaming for the patch.

What We Take for Granted

Working in the yard is a great way to meet the neighbors. People stop to find out what you're planting or weeding or just to say how happy they are that you've done something prettier than grass everywhere. Usually it's a quick "Hi. How's it going? The yard looks great. How about this weather. Have a nice day." conversation. But every once in a while, about one time in five, I get a reminder that I'm not living in the same world I grew up in.

The most memorable conversation last summer was with the four kids from a few doors down who were riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk on our block. The violets were in bloom, and they had never seen anything like them--this common weed that I encourage to grow wherever it wants. They wanted to pick some and to chase the butterflies. I explained what would happen to the flowers if they walked through them. I did pick them some violets, and I invited them to watch the butterflies from the walkway.

While they were hanging out, I took the opportunity to point out that if they stopped turning their bikes in the middle of the boulevard, the daylillies planted there would bloom later and attract more butterflies. For their part, the kids wanted to know whether I owned (in hushed tones) "a car?" They were very excited when I said I did. They wanted to see it, but that was when the youngest showed up again. At some point, probably when the conversation turned from butterflies to cars, he realized they were all talking to a stranger. He'd run home to get Mom's authority to tell them they were doing something wrong, which ended the conversation. The kids went back to riding their bikes, but they did stay out of the daylillies. I think they'd moved by the time the boulevard bloomed.

This Saturday, I was picking up the trash that accumulates on a corner lot when I had a pretty typical yard/weather conversation. Only this time I could tell that the fellow had something else on his mind. Once all the pleasantries were out of the way, he said, "Excuse me, but what are the initials for?" I had no idea what he was talking about. He pointed behind me, and I looked. "Oh. That's the company that made the windows. They're new. Those come off." Then he went happily on his way.

I picked up more trash and reminded myself that not everyone grows up somewhere where good windows are important and more people could really use them but are never going to get them. I felt particularly lucky, not to be able to afford the windows, but to live in a place where I can't take them for granted.

Want to See a Migraine?

Warning: these visual illusions won't be comfortable. They may, in fact, have the potential to cause seizures if you're so prone.

The page says simply, "This page may feel you sick." (It's Japanese.) It didn't. In several places, I didn't even register the anomalous motion that was supposed to occur. Then it hit me. I could see it, but I was discounting it. The scintillating effect the author talks about is what I see when I have a migraine, only I'm looking at a normal computer screen (or the sidewalk, or the wall, or the inside of my eyelids). I'd just forgotten that most people don't see that at least once a week.

Welcome to my world.

Via Greg Laden, only at his old site.

Breaking Rules, Part II

I'm bad with rules. Really bad. I get too close to a rule and I itch to reach out and break it. If something can't be said, I can barely think of anything else to say. If it mustn't be done, I have to sit on my hands to keep from doing it. The only way to cope is to give myself permission to smash the rule to bits. Once the rule is no longer "in force," I can look at it rationally and decide whether I want to accept the consequences of breaking it.

Since everyone and their sister seems full of "rules" about writing, and since these are frequently presented in such concrete language as to invoke the worst of my contrarian nature, I've spent some time looking at the consequences of breaking the rules about writing.

My conclusion? Break any rule you want. Break two, or six. If.

Now, it's one hell of an if, having mostly to do with what a writer is doing in the bits where they're not breaking rules. There are, of course, also consequences.

Writing rules, at least the less arbitrary, more agreed-upon ones, are a codification of the contract between writer and reader as it has evolved through the ages. They're a way of making sure the reader gets enough reward for the work they put into reading. So most of the rules are about not making your reader do too much work to reach the reward. Cut the flab, use simpler words wherever they'll do, don't switch POVs, watch your verb tenses, vary sentence length, keep characters sympathetic and their names distinctive, don't lose sight of your conflict, don't radically change tone--all designed to make the read easier.

There's just one problem. If you read in any significant quantity, chances are that you've found a book that follows all the rules. It may well have bored you to tears. Why? Because it didn't surprise you in any way.

On the other hand, that book with the antihero, the one with the delightful off-topic rambles or the intricate descriptions that put you fully in the scene, the one with the odd sentence structure that made you pay attention to every word, even that one that really had no plot--those were magic. Why?

Because the writer had enough control to know which rules they were breaking and how to follow the rules they were observing. That contract is all about work and rewards. Breaking a rule makes more work for the reader. The more rules a writer breaks, the more they must nail everything else. They must provide more reward. Apt language can sustain a book through a number of diversions, and great insight can pull readers through nearly any number of POV changes.

As I mentioned before, there are consequences, even beyond having to be better at everything else. For every rule, there is some percentage of a writer's potential audience who cannot abide seeing the rule broken. Sometimes it's the happy ending; sometimes the sympathetic character. No matter how good the rest of the book, a writer will lose these people by breaking their pet rule. It's just going to happen.

But knowing that and knowing the extra work or skill it requires, if you want to break a cardinal rule of writing, go right ahead. I'm certainly not in any position to complain.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

So I'm on this client team at work, one of several. I have my own tiny little fiefdom, a project I run pretty much independently. I took it over because someone had to, and it turned out my experience was a good fit. Everything runs smoothly. The client, who wasn't happy with how the project was going before I took over, is happy with me. So far, so good.

Then we hit a few weeks ago. That was when I discovered that the client is not as thrilled with other parts of their experience with us. Suddenly, "They're always so happy with you and your work," which I've heard before and didn't think much of, has context. It has weight. Suddenly too many people know who I am. All the tiny little decisions I make every day have echoes I wasn't hearing before.

Now people want to meet me. Tomorrow, in fact. I'll walk into the room with a real smile on my face and be very happy to see everyone, but that will be surface. Underneath will be the constant little whisper of "I didn't sign up for this. I agreed that a bunch of stuff needed to get done and I could do it, but I don't remember promising anything like this."

And I haven't a clue what I'll wear. Yeesh.

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

It doesn't seem like it's been a year, but it has. In celebration, you're invited to enjoy my stories here. "Among the Trees" is new for this year.

Irony of the Day

...or, Why I Just Love Arial to Bits (Preferably Lots of Small Ones).

I had a project that was just big enough to use OCR on rather than retyping before I made changes. It happened to contain the word "kern." OmniPage, of course, read it as "kem."

Oy.

Duck, Duck, Owl

The earliest sign of spring in Minnesota (since it keeps snowing and covering up all the others) is the activity of the birds. In the past two weeks I've seen the usual suspects: robins, juncos, starlings, grackles, gulls, wild turkeys, herons, Canadian geese, mergansers and coots and more other kinds of ducks than I can differentiate. I've had to work to speak over a yard full of red-winged blackbirds and passed a park with a ring of tall trees and crows cawing from every available branch, wondering how long it would take to understand them if I stopped and listened.

I've also seen a bald eagle perch on the retreating edge of lake ice. I couldn't tell whether it was hoping the fish would have forgotten it over the winter or checking whether the mergansers had all made it through migration in good shape. They all scattered quickly enough when it flew across the water. The geese and trumpeter swans ignored it and its mate.

The hawks are looking plump again, instead of just fluffy. Yesterday, in an hour-long car ride, I saw more than half a dozen, which means I wasn't paying much attention. There was another eagle too, perched in a tree about twenty feet from the edge of the road. The standout of the ride, though, was the barn owl sitting on the fencepost in broad daylight. I don't know why he was hanging out instead of sleeping, but he very kindly spread his wings a bit to aid our identification. I hope he made it comfortably to nightfall.

Despite the dreary weather, I finally feel like spring is here.

Mixed Messages

I was passing a Victoria's Secret when I saw this in the window.


I think somebody's product development department just got a little more honest than they intended.

New Science Fiction Movie

Not that the makers of Expelled have copped to the fact that their film is fiction or that the little bit of science in it is ripped off from an educational video, but hey, it's still science fiction, right? I can't recommend it though. Even the Nazis (yes, there are Nazis) aren't enough to keep it exciting. When even Fox News calls your anti-science film "sloppy" and "not just a little boring," you know you've got problems.

Did I mention it's narrated by Ben Stein? Depending on your reaction to his voice, that makes it either a great cure for insomnia or a recipe for working yourself into a homicidal rage.

Spend the money on good popcorn instead. It'll leave a better taste in your mouth.

Thanking My Teachers

I've been involved in a few discussions lately in which public school education and teachers got pretty thoroughly dissed. I keep pointing out that good teachers exist and that many teachers play larger roles than they know in their students lives. I say it from personal experience, and I think it's about time I thanked my own teachers rather than (or in addition to) standing up for the profession on principle.

To start, I should point out that I could have been a poster child for recent resilience studies--the ones that say good outcomes are possible for kids with less than stellar home lives, as long as those kids have an involved and interested adult in their life. I should also mention that I'm likely to shortchange at least one teacher before sixth grade, since I really don't remember much before then.

The first teacher I remember who made a difference was my third sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Becker. She was my third teacher because we moved twice that year. I was pretty traumatized by the family drama that prompted the moves and was dealing with multiple culture shocks. To make a long story short, I made no friends that year, except my teacher. She had a place in the country to which she invited groups of students on weekend afternoons. She spent even her spare time on her students. I'll never forget picking watercress in the near-freezing stream that ran through her property or being talked to like a human being instead of a responsibility.

The next year, I had several very good teachers. Mr. Foley, who taught life sciences, was memorable for keeping a piranha--and our attention, even when there was a goldfish sharing its tank. But the real standout was my math teacher, Mr. Neuenfeldt. I'm not sure what made him so special. He got so exasperated with us sometimes, but it was always obvious that he just wanted us to learn--not to absorb his lessons, but to learn. He was the teacher who introduced me to the cool puzzle game that is identities. I joined the drama club because he ran it, and I took two years of math from him. I was already starting to work ahead in the second year, and he was always happy to take the time to help me through the tough spots, even though he'd be covering them for everyone else in a week or two.

I had to give up Mr. Neuenfeldt when I moved on to high school. I had a very good English teacher, Ms. Lammers, who was lovely about not freaking out when budding goths chose Millay at her most self-destructive for their poetry readings. And a great grammar lab teacher who started the year by telling us, "It isn't your fault you think grammar is hard. People insisted on trying to teach you before your brains were ready to take it in. Forget all that, and let's start again." We did. It worked, at least for me.

Doc Wilson, who taught choir, demanded more of me than any other teacher but not more than I could give. I learned a lot from him about singing, more about not deciding beforehand what I couldn't do. And there was the math and programming teacher, whose name I have no business blanking on, who never blinked when his quickest pupil was one of the few females.

Then came Mr. Bauer. I took three years of physics from him. He was my second teacher to make science really cool. Physicists have some of the best toys, and Mr. Bauer collected great demos. He could flick our homework at us from ten feet away and the pieces of paper would head straight for us. He assigned quarter-long, independent study projects for one class despite the chaos and despite the extra work it must have taken to keep us all on track. He threw erasers and turned the fire extinguisher on us when we got too rowdy and patiently wrote on the board for us as we collectively worked problems in class. He took a small lab/large storage space and turned it over to the physics club for use during lunches and study hall. We installed a coffee maker and stereo. It was our geek haven and so was he. Not surprisingly, he was awarded a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.

There were more great teachers in college, but they'll get their own post at some point. To all the teachers mentioned above, and to the others who taught me well even if they didn't save my life, thank you. I was a self-centered brat in school so I never said it then. I say it now. Thank you.

Funniest LOLcat Evar

Intelligent Design for Smart Alecs

Somebody putting together the Enrolled Actuaries Meeting schedule had fun with this one.

Intelligent Design After 409A

Section 409A was added to the Code by the American Jobs Creation(ism) Act of 2004. As regulations have gone through an evolutionary process, employers have struggled to comply. A diverse group of speakers show you how job creation has evolved into intelligent design.

Who says actuaries don't have a sense of humor?

Statistics for Fun

I got into a little slapfight on a blog this week with someone who claimed, among other things, that, "We do know that rates of young men entering college these days is in the toilet". There were no citations, of course, because that isn't the point of a slapfight, but it made me curious. So as long as I was avoiding some particularly tedious work this weekend, I thought I'd find out.

Answer: um, no.

And no.

Sure, enrollment rates among males aren't growing as quickly as among females, and achievement among females has finally caught up. There was perhaps reason for concern when male enrollment dropped from 1970 to 1980, although there were extra incentives for young men to be in college in 1970 that didn't apply in 1980. All in all, though, it's a bit much to be calling record-high levels of enrollment and achievement "in the toilet."

Next time, I'll tell him so.

Sources
U.S. Census Table A-1. Years of School Completed by People 25 Years and Over, by Age and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2007
U.S. Census Table A-6. Age Distribution of College Students 14 Years Old and Over, by Sex: October 1947 to 2005
U.S. Census population data by age and sex