Bits and pieces

Writers and Olympic athletes have to deal with the fact that their best days and their best work may very well lie behind them. It’s an issue that creative types must deal with, but really everyone faces it to some degree. It raises a good question. What do you do if you’ve already written your one hit wonder (or your #1 NY Times best seller or 8 Olympic gold medals for swimming)? Elizabeth Gilbert has some interesting things to say about the subject.

I just read this New York Times article on how some people, in spite of the fact that they don’t have jobs, still maintain appearances by taking the same commute and donning the same attire. The difference is that these people, instead of going to a construction site or to an office, might be going to a local coffee shop or the library (which reminds me of this article about how librarians nowadays often deal with newly laid off people, but I digress). Stories like these are sobering looks at how everyday people are being affected by the economic downturn, and they’re doubly good because they manage to penetrate my college bubble and allow me a more informed perspective on current events.

Anyways, after the article presents this new phenomenon of unemployed people maintaining their daily routines, it speculates on the psychology behind their actions. The crux of the article is that this could be a healthy activity, at least in the short term. Just as smiling may offer a fleeting but actual boost to your overall happiness, expressions of pride can motivate you to be proactive.

It’s well known that expressions of pride will cause others to perceive you as high status. This by itself is old news, but recent research (detailed in the article) demonstrated that all pride looks the same, whether authentic (stemming from real accomplishments) or hubristic (stemming from narcissism or arrogance).

Then there’s the question of whether proud people will be perceived as arrogant and full of themselves. The results from yet another research study seem to say no. Instead, more prideful people strike others as both more dominant AND more likable. “We found that pride is quite undeserving of its negative reputation,” said David De Steno, associate professor of psychology and co-author of the study. “Pride actually constitutes a functional social emotion with important implications for leadership and the building of social capital.”

In a nutshell, temporary false pride is a useful psychological crutch for those who are now in hard times.

It’s really easy to make designs like this with the Fractal4D tool.

Me thinks me have serious problem. Me thinks me addicted. But since when it acceptable to call addict monster? It affliction. It disease. It burden. But does it make me monster?

– from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

I finally went through my YouTube account settings and found two little gems. Under Playback Setup, you can choose to have YouTube play higher-quality video by default. Also under playback setup, you can turn off annotations by default. At last, I don’t have to keep adding “&fmt=18″ to the ends of all my YouTube URLs.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t turn annotations off by default. There might be some cases where annotations help (I have yet to see one), but for the most part they simply detract from whatever video is being played.

On the other hand, I don’t REALLY need the high quality to be defaulted. But when I click HQ, I expect it to work. And when it doesn’t, it’s oh so irritating.

So, first of all, correlation != causation. Everyone got that? Good. Let’s begin.

From the creator of booksthatmakeyoudumb comes another site (chart really), musicthatmakesyoudumb. This guy pulled data from Facebook (back when it still had networks) of the top books listed by students in different networks, and crossed that with freely available data of average SAT score at each college he looked at. The result, a very non-scientific chart of listening and reading habits correlated to “IQ” (ie SAT scores). A few “facts” gleaned from a glance.

Lil Wayne is Bad For Your IQ. Hip Hop too, but it’s not as bad as jazz (gasp), or, even, GOSPEL.

In other news, jazz is correlated with low IQ. Say what? Jazz seems to me one of the most intellectually demanding genres of music possible, requiring constant creativity and a determination to push the boundaries of what constitutes “valid” music. It must be because listening to jazz doesn’t imply you actually create it.

Classic rock is better than rock, which (surprisingly) is better than classical. In fact, the placement of classical music alone makes me doubt the accuracy of this chart, especially when propensity to listen to classical music is often correlated with deeper thinking and concentration capabilities. But a possible explanation for it is that people enjoy putting classical music down as their favorite music more for the appearance, rather than as a true reflection of their musical tastes. Cause if you care enough to put down actual composers, I bet the correlation with higher SAT scores will be much more significant.

It’s somewhat fitting that Ben Folds is coming to MIT. He’s listed as correlated with high SAT scores (relatively speaking), only beaten out by Guster, Counting Crows, Sufjan Stevens, and Beethoven.

What college was so indie that they enjoyed Sufjan Stevens en masse to the point that he’s on the top music list for the school? Exclusive small liberal arts colleges, I’m looking at you. Only y’all would perpetrate such a thing, which would explain how he’d be listed so high.

It’s a waste of time to comment on anything besides the tails of this distribution. The data for artists huddled in the center must be so rife with error that predicting their actual averages would be a bitch and a half (read: impossible).

Technically, it’s not the act of listening that makes a difference. Just be careful not to enjoy any of your music too much and you’ll be perfectly in the clear.

The moral of this story? There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

So Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the US to meet with President Obama, and he came bearing gifts. Very weighty and thoughtful gifts, actually. One was a pen holder carved from the sister ship to the one that the desk of the Oval Office is made from. And these ships were both involved in working to curtail the slave trade back in the day. So really, there was another layer of meaning and respect inherent in the gift. And the other gift was a first edition copy of a seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. Obama’s gift to the Prime Minister? A set of 25 DVD’s. They all are classics, mind you, so at least he had good taste. But still, DVD’s? He really couldn’t think of anything better? At least Obama is very appreciative of the gifts that he was given.

And here are Jon Stewart’s thoughts.

Take a look at this map. It displays the different spending proclivities of the average person in different countries, with spending separated into a number of different categories. Just from this map, you can really tell which countries are on top, just by which countries spend mostly on recreation. Plus, the sheer scale of the spending on recreation (ie, more than the total average expenditures in many countries) is notable as well. The last interesting thing I noticed was that the alcohol and tobacco purchases in the lower tier of countries was almost always roughly the same as the recreational expenditure, if not more. It’s not a perfect case, but I wonder if that says that poorer countries are more likely to use their leisure time to drink.

And what’s up with Brazil, anyways? Does that imply they party all the time? From reading the comment thread, it sounds like the equivalent amount purchased is even understated because alcohol can be gotten so cheaply in Brazil. Perhaps a trip to Carnaval is in order to see for myself.

Pixar’s has released the details to their next animated short (the one that will precede Up):

Directed by Peter Sohn, Produced by Kevin Reher. “Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating “dangerous” babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more–Gus’s beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus’s creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck’s job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend’s fiery temperament?”

from /film

also, Mickey Rourke got tapped to be in Iron Man 2.

Songs You Used To Love

The title says it all. They’re songs that you’ll hear and realize you listened to back in the day. For example, the most recent two are Queen - We Are The Champions and Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want.

But what I’m loving even more is the Copy Cats music blog. It’s a blog completely and exclusively devoted to covers and remixes of songs. I’m currently loving Damien Rice’s cover of Creep. The theme of the blog seems to be “hit or miss,” as some of these songs are just terrible. But I still really appreciate hearing artists take old classics and spin them in different ways. The downtempo cover of Danger Zone is unexpected, and yet it still works.