Human perception is a weird and wonderful thing. There's a joke that goes:
1st Girl: You know Brad?
2nd Girl: The fireman?
1st Girl: Yeah! I caught him outside the house in his car - with a pair of binoculars the other day - he said he didn't know how to come and say hello.
2nd Girl: That's so sweet! Are you going out?
1st Girl: Totally! *pause* Y'know Tim, that geek from accounts I went on that date with texted me again last night as well.
2nd Girl: Eww. Total Stalker.
And it's funny because it's true. The difference between someone being a Total Stalker and someone's Soul Mate is almost entirely in the control of the adored, and not in any way in the control of the adorer. Tough luck for those suffering unrequited love. You can never win if they're just not that into you. This applies to all facets of human emotion of course, but it's love that polarises us most. Given this what most people don't realise is that the real art of seduction isn't so much what you do, as how the other person perceives what you do. Now when you see dating tips they usually don't acknowledge this, but the tips they give actually help the situation. In fact women love confident men, to the point where if they can't get confident their next preference is arrogant - presumably they're thinking: "If this dickhead thinks he's so great, maybe he is and I'm missing it."
In this situation the confident/arrogant guy is controlling perception to a degree - probably unconsciously - because if someone has no doubts about themselves then half of the social anxiety has already gone. Guys - you know those rich short fat guys with hot women? Hate to break it to you - but when those women declare their love for the lil' guys they're probably being honest. Lil' guy might seem to be half the man you are, but he KNOWS he's twice the man you are and sees no reason not to let others know it. Doh.
Of course this all applies everywhere, professionally, with loathing, loving, trusting, partnerships and friendships. Remember being 5? Remember people ordering you to be their best friend? And you denying someone best friend status, because
you already had a best friend (Hey Jack!)? 5 year olds don't really get it yet - if you say a relationship is a certain way then it is - why complicate it? Betrayal and viciousness teach us to stop trying to dictate relationships eventually so
that's all gone by about 8 or 9, but do we ever learn the lesson we should have learnt?
I think I have a pretty good relationship with my wife. But I can't be sure - I can only go from our interactions and her reality isn't mine - so to speak. But we talk a lot, and complain to each other - even about each other. And sure we fight now and then - but that's a good thing. If nobody is really invested in the relationship there's no reason to fight, really - there's no terms to negotiate when nothing you have the other wants. So we fight, we make peace, we jockey for position in our relationship - unwittingly and unconciously most of the time, but we do it nonetheless. This month she has the advantage, the next month it's mine. Who does the dog love most? What's my role? Why does she do that thing where she tells me to decide what we're doing, but means decide what she wants us to do? Because I'm pretty sure she doesn't *really* want her ass kicking on COD:MW2 or SF4 and I'm not idiotically optimistic enough suggest it. Though I don't see why this means I should watch Britains Next Top Shoemaker or whatever either. So we fight, and we negotiate and we compromise, and I go and play PS3, but somehow finish up *listening* to Britains Next Top Shoemaker and occasionally tell her that those thigh-highs are horrific during those damn unskippable cut-scenes (Seriously WTF? Screw your Artistic Integrity - I'm just trying to shoot shit here, Mr Game Designer). And we get to go another day in our makeshift togetherness. And occassionally, just occassionally, Britains Next Top Shoemaker is actually Glee or Lie To Me, and I love it and we find another connection. And very very occasionally that SF4 is Wii Sports, or that COD:MW2 is Singstar, and not only do we find another connection but it was my connection! Found by me! I made us that little bit stronger! Yay us! And me, obviously. :)
And now and then we get to sit down, and really talk, and see how each other have changed, and change our opinions of each other a little and learn something new and have our assumptions shaken a little. And this acts as nice little reminder that
the easiest mistake to make with any relationship is to regard it as a known, settled thing and disregard it or think it doesn't need a little TLC now and then. Now how much TLC is a point of much dispute, and for this there's no easy answer.
Me and the wife have very different approaches to this, so this one we're never going to agree on. But really, it seems like it's sometimes worth paying attention to the real lesson we should have learned at 6 or 7. You can't control the world, learn to go with it. I cannot guarantee reciprocity of emotion which leaves me with two options:
1) I can try to be empathetic, listen and consider things from another point of view to guess at what people really think and then if I'm brutally honest with myself and can see my own failings, then maybe, just maybe I can change that relationship.
or
2) I can believe exactly what I'm told explicitly and be blasé about absolutely everything else. Que sera sera.
I'd love to say it's all about 1) and I'm heading to sainthood, but really, if I'm honest, it's all about the 2) and who gives a crap where I'm heading...
--TechTonic
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
NNT:JE: Divine Felinity: 0001:002
Hey! JC3 back again to clean something up. I've seen on the Internet a profusion of signs carried by protesters saying the God hates kittens. See here, here and here. It's worrying because whilst we're quite used to people (nutcases mostly) trying to tell the world what Dad loves or hates, they're REALLY REALLY wrong about the kitten thing.
Me and Dad both have a thing for cats, as dad puts it: "They're wilful, destructive, violent and mercenary and have a nasty habit of taking themselves too seriously. All of which makes it so much funnier when they come a cropper. Just like humans really."
That's not entirely true of course, he probably should have said "Like some humans", but you see his point. In many ways God's relationship with the modern world of man is much like the modern world of man's relationship with cats on Youtube. He enjoys watching your loveable antics, and as long as no one is too badly harmed, it's even entertaining to watch you fall over now and again.
Prophet! Look into making the God equivalent of LOLCATS will you? A priest looking to the heavens with CAN I HAZ BLESSING? That kind of thing.
Anyway, I digress. Where were we... Cat good. Check! Oh, here we are. Yeah the flipside of this is that God has the Metatron for a reason, and last time I checked The Metatron wasn't a redneck shouting God hates Fags (What's so bad about cigarettes anyway, it's not like you HAVE to smoke them), anymore than he was a smug glasses wearing nerd with a God hates Kittens sign. Now there would be hell to pay, but we realise it's been a while since we updated you all, and that's what I'm here to rectify. Though it'll be a boring list if I just list it all out and I'm trying to avoid that in the NNT:JE, so we'll leave this for now and come back to the wider scope of Dad's loves/hates at later date.
So, in conclusion, I'd like to re-assure you that God does in fact Love kittens. And Humans. And Dogs. He even loves those nutcases holding up the signs that say what he likes and doesn't like. But it should be made clear that whilst he loves
the nutcases, that doesn't mean he likes them right now...
Peace out.
--JC3
Damnnit can we let the kitten thing go? And Human LOLCATs? Seriously?
Your Messiah has spoken.
FINE.
-TechTonic
Me and Dad both have a thing for cats, as dad puts it: "They're wilful, destructive, violent and mercenary and have a nasty habit of taking themselves too seriously. All of which makes it so much funnier when they come a cropper. Just like humans really."
That's not entirely true of course, he probably should have said "Like some humans", but you see his point. In many ways God's relationship with the modern world of man is much like the modern world of man's relationship with cats on Youtube. He enjoys watching your loveable antics, and as long as no one is too badly harmed, it's even entertaining to watch you fall over now and again.
Prophet! Look into making the God equivalent of LOLCATS will you? A priest looking to the heavens with CAN I HAZ BLESSING? That kind of thing.
Anyway, I digress. Where were we... Cat good. Check! Oh, here we are. Yeah the flipside of this is that God has the Metatron for a reason, and last time I checked The Metatron wasn't a redneck shouting God hates Fags (What's so bad about cigarettes anyway, it's not like you HAVE to smoke them), anymore than he was a smug glasses wearing nerd with a God hates Kittens sign. Now there would be hell to pay, but we realise it's been a while since we updated you all, and that's what I'm here to rectify. Though it'll be a boring list if I just list it all out and I'm trying to avoid that in the NNT:JE, so we'll leave this for now and come back to the wider scope of Dad's loves/hates at later date.
So, in conclusion, I'd like to re-assure you that God does in fact Love kittens. And Humans. And Dogs. He even loves those nutcases holding up the signs that say what he likes and doesn't like. But it should be made clear that whilst he loves
the nutcases, that doesn't mean he likes them right now...
Peace out.
--JC3
Damnnit can we let the kitten thing go? And Human LOLCATs? Seriously?
Your Messiah has spoken.
FINE.
-TechTonic
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Low price, high cost music
Much in the news days is the conflict between the "Music Business" and those dirty Pirates - presumably the hope is to sway popular opinion enough so the "War of Filesharing" can begin. That one should be fun. I'm conflicted about the whole thing - I used to download MP3s but that was on a 28.8kbps modem and only a tiny percentage of people even knew what they were. It didn't occur to anyone that it might be illegal. Note I really mean download MP3s. There was no such thing as P2P at this point -it was slow, and actually back then cost more in ISP charges than it costs to get some songs all legal like from Amazon now.
Price wasn't the factor though - that's not why it was done. It was to get hold of music you couldn't get here. Music that was coming out, or remixes, or samples (some from the labels back then, even). It was all a bit wild west and quite exciting.
My taste in music is eclectic and all encompassing, but I wouldn't typify myself as a music-lover. I like it a lot, but I don't love it. If you gave me life without music, or say alcohol - I'd take the alcohol. Hell I'd take computer games over music. I spend maybe £200 a year on music, but that's only maybe two thirds for myself, let's say £10/month or thereabouts. Or in iTunes terms maybe 120 tracks a year. Except if you check the stats that's a huge amount of money on music - that put's me in the top 20% of music spenders apparently. I'm the battlefield on which the "War on Filesharing" is to be fought. And I really don't care. The Music Industry has a hard fight on it's hands it seems. But they've done this to themselves, and here's why:
Low Price, High Cost: Apparently downloading a track costs about a £1 with a bit of variation. Want to refresh your older music? Can't be arsed ripping all your old cds? Well check out some of the online retailers. I decided to pad out the music library with older stuff last year via compilation cds. I tanked £80 on Amazon and got about 1250 tracks from compilations CDs. There was some duplicates, but not as many as you might think and though the stuff wasn't current, there nonetheless was a lot of good material. At a cost of 6-7p a track. It was cheaper to do this than do it myself because it would have taken ages to do it myself. Sweet sweet cheap music. But The Music Industry wants to get me coming, going and sideways. Want to have a radio on in your shop? Licence to perform required. Oh and a Licence to use a composer work. And it depends how many people are listening for the cost of that, and for how long. If I'm listening to a track I own on the radio in an office - The Music Industry has been paid: Once for me to license the track personally, once by the station to play it, once by the office to perform it and once for the composers. And if I download that track again in the office they'd like me to lose my job and pay them $150,000. Unless it's from Spotify, then that's okay, cos I'll be paying my subscription. Hmm. Not so cheap after all. And I'm one of your best customers? Nice service guys. Now obviously, I'm cheating a little here for the sake of hyperbole, the performance rights and composers rights can't be sorted out by the Record Companies - because they're apparently thieving bastards that don't pay the artists. Although, reading around on the internet so are the Rights Societies if you're not huge. So way to fix one problem by introducing two more and causing customer resentment.
In short, The Music Industry wants you to realise you have free access too on the radio, or can pick up for pocket change or get free with your paper - is in fact a high value limited resource. Technically, given a 32GB SD card that's maybe a gram filled with 6500 high quality MP3s nicked off the web at the full wrist-slapping $150,000 value would be "worth" 975 million dollars. That's $975,000,000. Actually, $975,000,100. Better pay for the SD card. That's per gram. A perfect, well-cut blue diamond weighs in at about $2.75 million dollars a gram. Diamond dust is about $60 a gram. So according to The Music Industry that SD card is worth 16.25 Tonnes of Diamond dust. You could buy an island with it! No wonder they have to crack down!
Vicious, Aggressive Competition (That won't play by The Rules): For so long The Music Industry has all the cards, they've been a little slow catching on that whilst they have all the chips on the poker table, everyone else is over on the couch having a grand old time playing Wii Sports. And whilst they've blundered over, spilling their winnings on the floor, they appear to have less grace and co-ordination that the seemingly ever present five year old that is oddly skillful at tennis. In order to "win" they've taken to paying off the other players to not play, unfortunately the 5 year old doesn't want to play anything other than tennis, is prone to screaming, and really doesn't give a crap about poker chips. When The Music Industry looks round they're going to notice everyone else is over on the PS3 playing Singstar. With all his poker chips.
Welcome to the Internet guys! You'll love it here! Well, you won't, but we do.
Okay, maybe I over extended the metaphor, but things are changing fast and competition is suddenly everywhere. When the artist rights guys are telling the artists they're thieves if they choose to make their works more available to the public it's pretty clear someone can't keep up.
The Players in that metaphor? They're everywhere. Use Google. And attempting to buy all the competition when the resources to get started are maybe a thousandth of what it costs to buy them is just wealth re-distribution, Mr Recording Industry - you're not some kind of commie or something are you?
Some people want to give away their music, other are joining Co-operative labels, others want to be world tour megastars. Some just want to play concerts. These are not all the same thing, so please stop trying to make them so.
But Think Of The Childr....Artists!: I have mixed sympathy for the Artists - they absolutely should be paid, but then I don't sympathise with people signing stupid contracts for a house they can't afford and then losing it. So yes it's appaling that people aren't paying Artists when they download music, but then if the Industry gave them a better cut in the first place they wouldn't be starving would they? Why is it just the downloaders fault? The Industry seems to survive just fine.
Death of The Music Industry (has been misreported): People crowing about the death of The Music Industry are, I think, as misguided as the industry itself. I think what we're looking at here is the same thing happened to bricks and mortar bookshops ten years ago. We're not killing the music industry, we're gaining choice. Some people will go on buying CDs, some will never find the other options, some will never buy the commercial stuff again. But the other metaphor guys were playing SingStar, and movies need to license tracks from someone. We may not be getting a musical revolution after all, but then perhaps a musical evolution is better for everyone anyway.
But whatever happens, I won't be spending more than that £200 a year, so yes you'll see declining profits, because it's no longer all on your balance sheets. Having a tirade about it and alienating the people that do spend money with you is perhaps not the wisest course. In fact this year I'll be watching and supporting Be The Source with interest. And I suspect they'll be taking some of your poker chips this year, Mr Music Industry. Maybe not a lot, but some. And it's not because I'm a dirty filesharing pirate. I'm just thinking of the Artists.
-TechTonic
Price wasn't the factor though - that's not why it was done. It was to get hold of music you couldn't get here. Music that was coming out, or remixes, or samples (some from the labels back then, even). It was all a bit wild west and quite exciting.
My taste in music is eclectic and all encompassing, but I wouldn't typify myself as a music-lover. I like it a lot, but I don't love it. If you gave me life without music, or say alcohol - I'd take the alcohol. Hell I'd take computer games over music. I spend maybe £200 a year on music, but that's only maybe two thirds for myself, let's say £10/month or thereabouts. Or in iTunes terms maybe 120 tracks a year. Except if you check the stats that's a huge amount of money on music - that put's me in the top 20% of music spenders apparently. I'm the battlefield on which the "War on Filesharing" is to be fought. And I really don't care. The Music Industry has a hard fight on it's hands it seems. But they've done this to themselves, and here's why:
Low Price, High Cost: Apparently downloading a track costs about a £1 with a bit of variation. Want to refresh your older music? Can't be arsed ripping all your old cds? Well check out some of the online retailers. I decided to pad out the music library with older stuff last year via compilation cds. I tanked £80 on Amazon and got about 1250 tracks from compilations CDs. There was some duplicates, but not as many as you might think and though the stuff wasn't current, there nonetheless was a lot of good material. At a cost of 6-7p a track. It was cheaper to do this than do it myself because it would have taken ages to do it myself. Sweet sweet cheap music. But The Music Industry wants to get me coming, going and sideways. Want to have a radio on in your shop? Licence to perform required. Oh and a Licence to use a composer work. And it depends how many people are listening for the cost of that, and for how long. If I'm listening to a track I own on the radio in an office - The Music Industry has been paid: Once for me to license the track personally, once by the station to play it, once by the office to perform it and once for the composers. And if I download that track again in the office they'd like me to lose my job and pay them $150,000. Unless it's from Spotify, then that's okay, cos I'll be paying my subscription. Hmm. Not so cheap after all. And I'm one of your best customers? Nice service guys. Now obviously, I'm cheating a little here for the sake of hyperbole, the performance rights and composers rights can't be sorted out by the Record Companies - because they're apparently thieving bastards that don't pay the artists. Although, reading around on the internet so are the Rights Societies if you're not huge. So way to fix one problem by introducing two more and causing customer resentment.
In short, The Music Industry wants you to realise you have free access too on the radio, or can pick up for pocket change or get free with your paper - is in fact a high value limited resource. Technically, given a 32GB SD card that's maybe a gram filled with 6500 high quality MP3s nicked off the web at the full wrist-slapping $150,000 value would be "worth" 975 million dollars. That's $975,000,000. Actually, $975,000,100. Better pay for the SD card. That's per gram. A perfect, well-cut blue diamond weighs in at about $2.75 million dollars a gram. Diamond dust is about $60 a gram. So according to The Music Industry that SD card is worth 16.25 Tonnes of Diamond dust. You could buy an island with it! No wonder they have to crack down!
Vicious, Aggressive Competition (That won't play by The Rules): For so long The Music Industry has all the cards, they've been a little slow catching on that whilst they have all the chips on the poker table, everyone else is over on the couch having a grand old time playing Wii Sports. And whilst they've blundered over, spilling their winnings on the floor, they appear to have less grace and co-ordination that the seemingly ever present five year old that is oddly skillful at tennis. In order to "win" they've taken to paying off the other players to not play, unfortunately the 5 year old doesn't want to play anything other than tennis, is prone to screaming, and really doesn't give a crap about poker chips. When The Music Industry looks round they're going to notice everyone else is over on the PS3 playing Singstar. With all his poker chips.
Welcome to the Internet guys! You'll love it here! Well, you won't, but we do.
Okay, maybe I over extended the metaphor, but things are changing fast and competition is suddenly everywhere. When the artist rights guys are telling the artists they're thieves if they choose to make their works more available to the public it's pretty clear someone can't keep up.
The Players in that metaphor? They're everywhere. Use Google. And attempting to buy all the competition when the resources to get started are maybe a thousandth of what it costs to buy them is just wealth re-distribution, Mr Recording Industry - you're not some kind of commie or something are you?
Some people want to give away their music, other are joining Co-operative labels, others want to be world tour megastars. Some just want to play concerts. These are not all the same thing, so please stop trying to make them so.
But Think Of The Childr....Artists!: I have mixed sympathy for the Artists - they absolutely should be paid, but then I don't sympathise with people signing stupid contracts for a house they can't afford and then losing it. So yes it's appaling that people aren't paying Artists when they download music, but then if the Industry gave them a better cut in the first place they wouldn't be starving would they? Why is it just the downloaders fault? The Industry seems to survive just fine.
Death of The Music Industry (has been misreported): People crowing about the death of The Music Industry are, I think, as misguided as the industry itself. I think what we're looking at here is the same thing happened to bricks and mortar bookshops ten years ago. We're not killing the music industry, we're gaining choice. Some people will go on buying CDs, some will never find the other options, some will never buy the commercial stuff again. But the other metaphor guys were playing SingStar, and movies need to license tracks from someone. We may not be getting a musical revolution after all, but then perhaps a musical evolution is better for everyone anyway.
But whatever happens, I won't be spending more than that £200 a year, so yes you'll see declining profits, because it's no longer all on your balance sheets. Having a tirade about it and alienating the people that do spend money with you is perhaps not the wisest course. In fact this year I'll be watching and supporting Be The Source with interest. And I suspect they'll be taking some of your poker chips this year, Mr Music Industry. Maybe not a lot, but some. And it's not because I'm a dirty filesharing pirate. I'm just thinking of the Artists.
-TechTonic
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