Saturday, October 01, 2005
Odds and ends
Our plagues of vermin continue. The good news is that after throwing out all the infested food we could find we seem to have fought the moths and larvae to a standstill. The bad news is more copious, naturally: The leftovers from the possums' all-night buffets drew tiny ants, which to their credit minded their own business; unfortunately, they've been replaced by the standard black ants, which have made it into the kitchen and kept us hopping trying to kill them all... we can't find a chemical way to wipe them out that won't potentially harm the possums, so we're going to try corn starch, which supposedly kills ants when they eat it and then drink water and it swells up and bursts them open (yeah, I know, but we're getting desperate). And then, for the 1st time since we've lived here, I found a cricket in the house yesterday, and another one today, in my BEDROOM; I hope they're an anomaly, but under the circumstances I'm getting nervous. And THEN, a weird bug I couldn't even identify was lurking around my laptop tonight; I'm feeling really persecuted by all this, as if the bugs have decided to get back at me for all their brethren I've done in over the years.
One tiny bit of blog news; I finally gave up and removed my Feedster button, as they never fixed the feed, or the listing in their system, or replied to my emails... 2 thumbs down for Feedster.
In possum news, they've been alternating feeding times so closely that several times I've been watching one of them eat, turned away to type a couple of lines, looked back and it was the other one eating; they do still occasionally eat together, and in the most memorable of these sessions, he carefully circled around behind her and sniffed her back end... not very polite, in human terms, and she took a few steps away from him to stop him, but it does show that he's actively seeing her as a potential mate, so things are looking good for possumettes in the spring.
I've written before about how, thanks in large part to eBay, lots of people are recapturing the pleasure of their childhoods by purchasing toys and collectables that they once had; my version of this is to buy the things I WANTED as a kid but never had, because my parents were dedicated to buying the minimum amount of stuff, and the cheapest versions in existence. Recent acquisitions of things that the cool girls, or at least the lucky girls (sometimes my contemporaries, and sometimes older sister of kids I knew, or babysitters), had from my pre-teen to mid-teen years include a stuffed animal with a radio inside it (mint and still working perfectly), a tooled-leather purse with critters and flowers in the design (near mint), and today's additions, some of the vibrantly-colored, semi-magically themed stationary items still beloved of girls in that age range.
It's a couple of decades late, but I finally get to be the one with all the neat stuff that my peer group admires and covets; I finally get to be "the cool girl."
One tiny bit of blog news; I finally gave up and removed my Feedster button, as they never fixed the feed, or the listing in their system, or replied to my emails... 2 thumbs down for Feedster.
In possum news, they've been alternating feeding times so closely that several times I've been watching one of them eat, turned away to type a couple of lines, looked back and it was the other one eating; they do still occasionally eat together, and in the most memorable of these sessions, he carefully circled around behind her and sniffed her back end... not very polite, in human terms, and she took a few steps away from him to stop him, but it does show that he's actively seeing her as a potential mate, so things are looking good for possumettes in the spring.
I've written before about how, thanks in large part to eBay, lots of people are recapturing the pleasure of their childhoods by purchasing toys and collectables that they once had; my version of this is to buy the things I WANTED as a kid but never had, because my parents were dedicated to buying the minimum amount of stuff, and the cheapest versions in existence. Recent acquisitions of things that the cool girls, or at least the lucky girls (sometimes my contemporaries, and sometimes older sister of kids I knew, or babysitters), had from my pre-teen to mid-teen years include a stuffed animal with a radio inside it (mint and still working perfectly), a tooled-leather purse with critters and flowers in the design (near mint), and today's additions, some of the vibrantly-colored, semi-magically themed stationary items still beloved of girls in that age range.
It's a couple of decades late, but I finally get to be the one with all the neat stuff that my peer group admires and covets; I finally get to be "the cool girl."
Friday, September 30, 2005
Spotting losers online
The most basic rule of sites that people meet each other at online is that people LIE; some do it for the thrill of tricking others, some because they don't grasp that the moment they meet someone in person the truth of their not being model look-alikes will be revealed, and some because they don't really live in the same world the rest of us do and don't know what the truth IS. If you're paying attention, though, you can see plenty of truth in what folks tell you that they're unaware they're revealing; people who are emotionally challenged or manipulators will give themselves away with certain totally consistent types of comments, and if you're on the lookout for them you can save yourself endless time and grief by avoiding them before they suck you in.
A guy from one of these sites was attempting to get to know me; inspired by this quote
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
which I had as my sig line, he sent me a message which contained endless complaints about the site (which in my experience worked just fine), and this astonishing paragraph (don't worry, he doesn't know about my blog, so he'll never know he was quoted):
"I have very unpopular beliefs, if you will. I think that people should look at what they themselves are supporting before they call others 'evil.' They should take a look in the mirror of their beliefs every once in a while. If they analyze their beliefs critically they may find that they are staring into the abyss of 'evil' that they claim to hate so much. So, they consider me 'evil' or 'bad' or what have you... They think they are fighting a monster. But they better take care lest they become monsters themselves."
To explain what was problematic about that, as if it wasn't amply obvious, here's part of my reply to him:
"Here are a few things that I've learned are BIG red flags about a person:
1) They complain on and on about trivial things, even to people who have no problems with whatever they're complaining about, and have SAID so.
2) They have sweeping and harsh criticism about people in general, and feel it necessary to pass it on right away, before they get to know their listener(s); if you think everyone needs to do something they're not doing, or has a problem, or is bad or wrong or lacking in some way, that shows that you're a social misfit, clueless as to why, and bitter about it.
3) They reveal that they're widely disliked, criticized, looked down on, etc; if society as a whole has judged against you, again, that means that you're a social misfit, and TELLING people this means that you don't have any idea about how to handle getting to know someone, or about how people react when given this sort of grim information... and you can't be a friend to anyone if you don't have the slightest grasp of human nature.
4) They use melodramatic negative words to describe themselves or their lives; if you use words like 'evil' or 'monster' when referring in any way to yourself, EVER, but especially with a stranger, you're out of touch with reality, and probably a depressive, as emotionally healthy people don't describe themselves in those terms... and you're also more than likely totally without friends (or without emotionally healthy ones at least, as they avoid depressives like the plague), which is itself a red flag.
5) In general, they spout negative things about themselves, their lives, other people, etc, and fail to balance it out with positive comments (of which there should be several for every negative comment)... especially if there are NO positive comments included.
I'm sure you're not a bad person, but the 'everyone hates me but it's because THEY are all bad' attitude utterly disqualifies you from being in my life in any way whatsoever.
It's time for YOU to look in the mirror."
Does that seem harsh? Do you think that maybe he was a normal person just having a really bad day? My experience is that most people will vacillate in their judgment of losers at 1st, or even outright deny that that's what they are (which is why losers don't correct those behaviors), so maybe you did think that; allow me to reassure you, instead of reacting as a healthy person would if they were ever so far gone as to send a message that mimicked loser patterns and got called on it, by hurriedly explaining the situation and offering assurances that they don't really feel that way, or perhaps by ignoring that the analysis accurately summed up what they did in fact say and becoming angry or offended, this guy responded by trying to convince me that people who know him well go from seeing him as evil to thinking he's the epitome of virtue, and trying to persuade me, a total stranger who already made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with him, to be his friend... need I say more? Yes, I feel bad that he's one of the world's millions of sad, depressed, messed up people, but that doesn't alter the truth, or what the right thing was for me to do based on the truth.
When you're getting to know someone, or contemplating doing so, take an objective look at what they say, and ask yourself honestly, "Is this normal, healthy behavior?" If the answer is "no," resist the urge to try to cheer them up, or be their therapist, or, worst of all, invest emotion in them by being their friend; the only thing you can do for people who are screwed up is let them know that they have a problem, make clear what the problem is (or how else can they see it and fix it?) and then back away from them... they'll NEVER try to sort themselves out if they don't hear the truth, or if they keep getting attention from the well-meaning.
An emotionally healthy person, when getting to know you, will be mostly positive, portray themselves as good types that get along with others, and that others approve of, and will display overall liking for the people in their lives, and for people in general; if you encounter anyone who varies significantly from that, RUN!!
A guy from one of these sites was attempting to get to know me; inspired by this quote
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
which I had as my sig line, he sent me a message which contained endless complaints about the site (which in my experience worked just fine), and this astonishing paragraph (don't worry, he doesn't know about my blog, so he'll never know he was quoted):
"I have very unpopular beliefs, if you will. I think that people should look at what they themselves are supporting before they call others 'evil.' They should take a look in the mirror of their beliefs every once in a while. If they analyze their beliefs critically they may find that they are staring into the abyss of 'evil' that they claim to hate so much. So, they consider me 'evil' or 'bad' or what have you... They think they are fighting a monster. But they better take care lest they become monsters themselves."
To explain what was problematic about that, as if it wasn't amply obvious, here's part of my reply to him:
"Here are a few things that I've learned are BIG red flags about a person:
1) They complain on and on about trivial things, even to people who have no problems with whatever they're complaining about, and have SAID so.
2) They have sweeping and harsh criticism about people in general, and feel it necessary to pass it on right away, before they get to know their listener(s); if you think everyone needs to do something they're not doing, or has a problem, or is bad or wrong or lacking in some way, that shows that you're a social misfit, clueless as to why, and bitter about it.
3) They reveal that they're widely disliked, criticized, looked down on, etc; if society as a whole has judged against you, again, that means that you're a social misfit, and TELLING people this means that you don't have any idea about how to handle getting to know someone, or about how people react when given this sort of grim information... and you can't be a friend to anyone if you don't have the slightest grasp of human nature.
4) They use melodramatic negative words to describe themselves or their lives; if you use words like 'evil' or 'monster' when referring in any way to yourself, EVER, but especially with a stranger, you're out of touch with reality, and probably a depressive, as emotionally healthy people don't describe themselves in those terms... and you're also more than likely totally without friends (or without emotionally healthy ones at least, as they avoid depressives like the plague), which is itself a red flag.
5) In general, they spout negative things about themselves, their lives, other people, etc, and fail to balance it out with positive comments (of which there should be several for every negative comment)... especially if there are NO positive comments included.
I'm sure you're not a bad person, but the 'everyone hates me but it's because THEY are all bad' attitude utterly disqualifies you from being in my life in any way whatsoever.
It's time for YOU to look in the mirror."
Does that seem harsh? Do you think that maybe he was a normal person just having a really bad day? My experience is that most people will vacillate in their judgment of losers at 1st, or even outright deny that that's what they are (which is why losers don't correct those behaviors), so maybe you did think that; allow me to reassure you, instead of reacting as a healthy person would if they were ever so far gone as to send a message that mimicked loser patterns and got called on it, by hurriedly explaining the situation and offering assurances that they don't really feel that way, or perhaps by ignoring that the analysis accurately summed up what they did in fact say and becoming angry or offended, this guy responded by trying to convince me that people who know him well go from seeing him as evil to thinking he's the epitome of virtue, and trying to persuade me, a total stranger who already made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with him, to be his friend... need I say more? Yes, I feel bad that he's one of the world's millions of sad, depressed, messed up people, but that doesn't alter the truth, or what the right thing was for me to do based on the truth.
When you're getting to know someone, or contemplating doing so, take an objective look at what they say, and ask yourself honestly, "Is this normal, healthy behavior?" If the answer is "no," resist the urge to try to cheer them up, or be their therapist, or, worst of all, invest emotion in them by being their friend; the only thing you can do for people who are screwed up is let them know that they have a problem, make clear what the problem is (or how else can they see it and fix it?) and then back away from them... they'll NEVER try to sort themselves out if they don't hear the truth, or if they keep getting attention from the well-meaning.
An emotionally healthy person, when getting to know you, will be mostly positive, portray themselves as good types that get along with others, and that others approve of, and will display overall liking for the people in their lives, and for people in general; if you encounter anyone who varies significantly from that, RUN!!
Thursday, September 29, 2005
OK, one more blog tweak, lol
The LAST thing I should be spending time on right now is adding more stuff to my sidebar, given how much I've already changed there recently, but today's blog surfing revealed something too cool to ignore; a digital time readout with a drop-down menu that allows the user to choose from a variety of other cities, and the display changes to whatever time it is there... you can see and play with it under the Flash clock. It looks like a simple enough thing to install, but I spent hours and hours working on it; it's very different now than when I found it.
First, I had to find where the clock code was on the blog of origin; I looked in vain for a script, but they'd gotten clever and put it elsewhere and then called that html page; once I figured that out, I brought that page up and got the script from the source code. The code was a MESS; the commands had inexplicable line breaks in the middle, and many lines had pieces of several commands on them... so before I could do anything else, I had to tidy up the code so I could make sense of it, and that took a while, as there were many lines involved. Next, although I don't know JavaScript, I read through it to get a basic sense of what each part was doing; this was especially important because I had to figure out if any of the other code on the blog was necessary to make it work, for example if something outside of what I had was being referenced... I lucked out, though, because what I had was all I needed. I was vaguely concerned that the readout as it appeared on the blog was a very light color, as their background was dark, and I knew it wouldn't be easily readable on my white background; I couldn't see any assignment of color within my code, so I assumed that that had come from somewhere else, and that it'd default to black when I used it... luckily, I was right.
What ended up being insanely labor-intensive was the drop-down menu. The one on the blog was too narrow, chopping off the ends of the longer city names; I made a guesstimate of how long it needed to be, and it turned out that I was within a few pixels of being dead-on... I'm kinda proud of that. Next, I re-arranged the cities to be in time zone order, based on the #'s assigned to them, which represent their variance from GMT. On a hunch, since nothing in the code seemed to be adjusting for Daylight Savings Time, I checked the times and found that all the ones for countries that observe DST were an hour off, so I corrected them... and I'll have to switch them back when the time changes, sadly. I tested the code, and saw that, although on the blog of origin the time and menu were on different lines, on my blog they were on the same line; it took embarrassingly long to realize that they had their readout formatted to fit into a narrow box, and that forced the display to split, but that my sidebar was wide enough for both parts to be on one line. I decided that I liked the look of it on just 1 line better, so I kept it that way; I wanted to have the time 1st, though, so I swapped the code around to do that... and discovered that something in the time code generated a line break, making it impossible to get both things on 1 line in that order, so I gave up and put it back the way it was before.
And then came the hours-long task of choosing which cities to add to the menu; the original code only gave a handful of choices, but mine has 20... and I'd never have gotten so ambitious had I known how much work it'd be, but once I got sucked into it I couldn't let it go half-done.
My idea was to go through every time zone as shown on this site
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?sort=2
(or rather those that contain cities of reasonable size, or at all, which isn't quite all of them), and from each one select whatever city I thought would be most recognizable to the average reader and add it to the menu; that worked well for some zones, but for others there were several good choices, and then I went to my geo-locator record of how many visitors I've had from different countries and used that data to pick the city that was most likely to be in the country of a reader. In some cases, there were several cities shown for a country, or the city shown didn't seem to me to be the best choice for that country (for example when they used a small capital city when there are other cities that are larger and/or more familiar); this necessitated bringing up an almanac site and researching several countries to see which cities were biggest.
If you're thinking that this is way too much effort to put into a little doodad that few people will assume I invested any significant effort in customizing, you're right... but being a geek means you've gotta nail down every detail. And there's MORE:
I looked at what I had, and decided that I didn't want to have Anchorage and Honolulu, because that'd give me 4 American cities in the list, and that didn't seem right; I just went with New York and Los Angeles and dropped those other time zones. I saw that Africa, Central America, and the Arab world weren't represented on the list, so I did a bunch of research on countries in those areas, checked how many visits I was getting from each one, and how major of cities were in their time zones, and finally made my choices; this required me to make a couple of alterations to what I'd already chosen, and to double up in a couple of time zones, but I think I did ok.
Then, there was the unfortunate issue of those countries who've chosen their times to be between time zones... unfortunate because the way the code is written, there's no way to get correct times for those places, since it ignores numerical values other than whole #'s; this made me very unhappy, as some of my blog buddies are in countries that this applies to (India and Afghanistan, specifically)... I'm sorry, you guys, I really did try to have Mumbai and Kabul on the list.
Last, but far from least, I realized that I couldn't ignore a country that I amazingly have 5 blog buddies from, even though it's an exotic far-away place that I knew nothing about before I started blogging; Malaysia. Although I already had Singapore, which astoundingly is the 4th biggest referrer to my blog, from that time zone on the list, I added Kuala Lumpur to honor my Malaysian friends.
With that done, I made myself stop and think; my head swam with the other big-name cities I hadn't included, countries that were top referrers who likewise weren't listed, plus a couple more countries that blog buddies live in... and I finally had to call a reluctant halt. I'd been at it from early evening to late at night, breaking only to finally eat my stone-cold dinner, and the code had gotten cumbersome with all the added cities; I wish there was a quick and easy way to make sure that everyone who visits here could find a major city from their country on the menu, or, even better, that someone had a script that links to a site where all those cities are already coded, but there's not, so if your country isn't represented, please don't take it personally... I've given up all my free time today, and several hours of sleep, to this project, and I'm calling it finished.
This addition to my sidebar definitely wins the prize as the most anal-retentive, bordering on psychotic, thing I've ever done for this blog, lol; I still can't believe how all those hours just slipped by as I was doing the research, but sometimes I get so involved in a task that time seems to stand still, and I end up blinking dazedly at the clock (oh the irony) and wondering what happened to my day/night and all the other stuff I should've done.
Blogito ergo sum, indeed...
First, I had to find where the clock code was on the blog of origin; I looked in vain for a script, but they'd gotten clever and put it elsewhere and then called that html page; once I figured that out, I brought that page up and got the script from the source code. The code was a MESS; the commands had inexplicable line breaks in the middle, and many lines had pieces of several commands on them... so before I could do anything else, I had to tidy up the code so I could make sense of it, and that took a while, as there were many lines involved. Next, although I don't know JavaScript, I read through it to get a basic sense of what each part was doing; this was especially important because I had to figure out if any of the other code on the blog was necessary to make it work, for example if something outside of what I had was being referenced... I lucked out, though, because what I had was all I needed. I was vaguely concerned that the readout as it appeared on the blog was a very light color, as their background was dark, and I knew it wouldn't be easily readable on my white background; I couldn't see any assignment of color within my code, so I assumed that that had come from somewhere else, and that it'd default to black when I used it... luckily, I was right.
What ended up being insanely labor-intensive was the drop-down menu. The one on the blog was too narrow, chopping off the ends of the longer city names; I made a guesstimate of how long it needed to be, and it turned out that I was within a few pixels of being dead-on... I'm kinda proud of that. Next, I re-arranged the cities to be in time zone order, based on the #'s assigned to them, which represent their variance from GMT. On a hunch, since nothing in the code seemed to be adjusting for Daylight Savings Time, I checked the times and found that all the ones for countries that observe DST were an hour off, so I corrected them... and I'll have to switch them back when the time changes, sadly. I tested the code, and saw that, although on the blog of origin the time and menu were on different lines, on my blog they were on the same line; it took embarrassingly long to realize that they had their readout formatted to fit into a narrow box, and that forced the display to split, but that my sidebar was wide enough for both parts to be on one line. I decided that I liked the look of it on just 1 line better, so I kept it that way; I wanted to have the time 1st, though, so I swapped the code around to do that... and discovered that something in the time code generated a line break, making it impossible to get both things on 1 line in that order, so I gave up and put it back the way it was before.
And then came the hours-long task of choosing which cities to add to the menu; the original code only gave a handful of choices, but mine has 20... and I'd never have gotten so ambitious had I known how much work it'd be, but once I got sucked into it I couldn't let it go half-done.
My idea was to go through every time zone as shown on this site
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?sort=2
(or rather those that contain cities of reasonable size, or at all, which isn't quite all of them), and from each one select whatever city I thought would be most recognizable to the average reader and add it to the menu; that worked well for some zones, but for others there were several good choices, and then I went to my geo-locator record of how many visitors I've had from different countries and used that data to pick the city that was most likely to be in the country of a reader. In some cases, there were several cities shown for a country, or the city shown didn't seem to me to be the best choice for that country (for example when they used a small capital city when there are other cities that are larger and/or more familiar); this necessitated bringing up an almanac site and researching several countries to see which cities were biggest.
If you're thinking that this is way too much effort to put into a little doodad that few people will assume I invested any significant effort in customizing, you're right... but being a geek means you've gotta nail down every detail. And there's MORE:
I looked at what I had, and decided that I didn't want to have Anchorage and Honolulu, because that'd give me 4 American cities in the list, and that didn't seem right; I just went with New York and Los Angeles and dropped those other time zones. I saw that Africa, Central America, and the Arab world weren't represented on the list, so I did a bunch of research on countries in those areas, checked how many visits I was getting from each one, and how major of cities were in their time zones, and finally made my choices; this required me to make a couple of alterations to what I'd already chosen, and to double up in a couple of time zones, but I think I did ok.
Then, there was the unfortunate issue of those countries who've chosen their times to be between time zones... unfortunate because the way the code is written, there's no way to get correct times for those places, since it ignores numerical values other than whole #'s; this made me very unhappy, as some of my blog buddies are in countries that this applies to (India and Afghanistan, specifically)... I'm sorry, you guys, I really did try to have Mumbai and Kabul on the list.
Last, but far from least, I realized that I couldn't ignore a country that I amazingly have 5 blog buddies from, even though it's an exotic far-away place that I knew nothing about before I started blogging; Malaysia. Although I already had Singapore, which astoundingly is the 4th biggest referrer to my blog, from that time zone on the list, I added Kuala Lumpur to honor my Malaysian friends.
With that done, I made myself stop and think; my head swam with the other big-name cities I hadn't included, countries that were top referrers who likewise weren't listed, plus a couple more countries that blog buddies live in... and I finally had to call a reluctant halt. I'd been at it from early evening to late at night, breaking only to finally eat my stone-cold dinner, and the code had gotten cumbersome with all the added cities; I wish there was a quick and easy way to make sure that everyone who visits here could find a major city from their country on the menu, or, even better, that someone had a script that links to a site where all those cities are already coded, but there's not, so if your country isn't represented, please don't take it personally... I've given up all my free time today, and several hours of sleep, to this project, and I'm calling it finished.
This addition to my sidebar definitely wins the prize as the most anal-retentive, bordering on psychotic, thing I've ever done for this blog, lol; I still can't believe how all those hours just slipped by as I was doing the research, but sometimes I get so involved in a task that time seems to stand still, and I end up blinking dazedly at the clock (oh the irony) and wondering what happened to my day/night and all the other stuff I should've done.
Blogito ergo sum, indeed...
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Spiritual standstill
It's been a while since I've had a significant breakthrough in my spiritual quest, and even though I know you can't schedule epiphanies as if they were restroom breaks, it's still bumming me out.
People who adhere to a religion, or even to a known spiritual path, are fortunate in that the whole truth is given to them; there are books they can read about it, people who know it well that they can talk to, and they can have peaceful minds believing that they've already got the explanations for everything (I'm oversimplifying a little, but you see my point). When one sets out to construct a spiritual path starting from square 1, as I have, though, it's like building a house brick by brick instead of just buying it and moving in; being truly spiritual requires a great deal of time and effort, constant fact gathering and analysis... and a non-trivial amount of frustration.
I've sat here looking at the screen for 20 minutes trying to come up with something profound to say about the situation, but it's just too basic; I need some new input to jump-start my spiritual progress... I was going to say "but all I can do is wait for it," but it occurs to me that there IS something I can do-I can read a little (which is all I have time for, sigh) of a book that's been sitting around un-looked-at since I got it ages ago, "The Tao of Physics," and see what someone else who saw the connection between the quantum world and the concepts of Eastern religion came up with.
Stay tuned.
People who adhere to a religion, or even to a known spiritual path, are fortunate in that the whole truth is given to them; there are books they can read about it, people who know it well that they can talk to, and they can have peaceful minds believing that they've already got the explanations for everything (I'm oversimplifying a little, but you see my point). When one sets out to construct a spiritual path starting from square 1, as I have, though, it's like building a house brick by brick instead of just buying it and moving in; being truly spiritual requires a great deal of time and effort, constant fact gathering and analysis... and a non-trivial amount of frustration.
I've sat here looking at the screen for 20 minutes trying to come up with something profound to say about the situation, but it's just too basic; I need some new input to jump-start my spiritual progress... I was going to say "but all I can do is wait for it," but it occurs to me that there IS something I can do-I can read a little (which is all I have time for, sigh) of a book that's been sitting around un-looked-at since I got it ages ago, "The Tao of Physics," and see what someone else who saw the connection between the quantum world and the concepts of Eastern religion came up with.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Financial advantages to being good-looking
From CNN comes an article called "Do pretty people earn more?"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/07/08/looks/index.html
which starts out with this eye-opener
"Studies show attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts."
I'd heard the 1st one many times, but to think that something as important as medical care hinges even in part on how hot you are is terrifying, and cuter criminals getting shorter sentences is an absolute disgrace.
And now on to looksism in the workplace:
"The ugly truth, according to economics professors Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, is that plain people earn 5 percent to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 percent to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking.
These findings concur with other research that shows the penalty for being homely exceeds the premium for beauty and that across all occupations, the effects are greater for men than women."
So, not only do attractive people get a bonus, but there's a "penalty" for ugliness? How grim is THAT?
"A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts."
As harshly as women's looks are judged, MEN suffer more for being homely? That surprises me.
"In their report 'Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers', Looks and Lucre,' Hamermesh and Biddle found that the probability of a male attorney attaining early partnership directly correlates with how handsome he is."
It's usually other men who are the senior partners making those decisions; you can see them promoting pretty women, but handsomer men, too?
Height is also a factor in earnings:
"A study released last year by two professors at the University of Florida and University of North Carolina found that tall people earn considerably more money throughout their careers than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay.
A survey of male graduates of the University of Pittsburgh found that the tallest students' average starting salary was 12 percent higher than their shorter colleagues'."
I'd be interested to see what the #'s are for women from that 1st study, since the favoring of tall men for everything from mate selection to election winning is well-known, but I've never heard of height in women being of benefit for anything unless they're prospective runway models or showgirls.
Not surprisingly, weight is also a factor... but apparently only for women:
"The London Guildhall study showed that overweight women are more likely to be unemployed and that those who are working earn on average 5 percent less than their trimmer peers."
Just what plus-size women need, another kick in the head; I'd be interested to see if those #'s held up in countries that don't worship thinness.
The favoring of beauty apparently happens because:
"According to Dr. Gordon Patzer, who has spent more than three decades studying and writing about physical attractiveness, human beings are hard-wired to respond more favorably to attractive people. Even studies of babies show they will look more intently and longer at prettier faces."
Sigh.
"'Good-looking men and women are generally judged to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts,' Patzer says."
I've written about this before, and I still don't get why external appearance should be thought to have ANY connection to finer inner qualities... especially when the opposite is so often true, because the beautiful don't need to develop inner virtue, and they get away with murder.
"Controlled studies show people go out of their way to help attractive people -- of the same and opposite sex -- because they want to be liked and accepted by good-looking people."
I can see being extra-nice to hotties of the opposite sex, but why would we have that urge for those of the same sex? Is our overall biological preference for beauty really that strong?
Now here's where CNN gets clueless:
"Despite what the research says, some of the world's most successful people have been ordinary looking at best, and you would never mistake the faces in Fortune for those in Esquire or Entertainment Weekly. Business legends are often of average height (Bill Gates at 5 feet 9 inches) or even diminutive (Jack Welch, 5 feet 8 inches, and Ross Perot, 5 feet 7 inches)."
That's comparing apples to oranges for the most part, because mega-successful people generally aren't getting their paychecks handed to them by other folks who'd be judging them on their looks and height, since people of that sort are usually their own bosses, but the bigger issue is that these men have gigantic talents that make them stand out from others so much that their looks don't enter into it.
And here's a laugh:
"many folks who are lovely to look at complain that they lose out on jobs because people assume they are vacuous or lightweights"
So, endless benefits and 1 little stereotype working against them, poor babies? Or, is it that they assume they're the best qualified because they've always been seen as better than they are, and don't grasp that they're less impressive than they think and didn't get hired because others were more qualified?
"Hiring managers say it is the appearance of confidence they find attractive, not the presence of physical beauty. And they contend that attractiveness has more to do with how you carry yourself and the energy you exude -- rather than having perfect features or a great physique."
So, if Brad Pitt was having a bad day, where he didn't exude confidence or energy, an average-looking guy who WAS feeling confident would win out over him? Not in this universe.
However, tangential attributes DO help out:
"According to Gordon Wainright, author of 'Teach Yourself Body Language,' anyone can increase their attractiveness to others if they maintain good eye contact, act upbeat, dress well (with a dash of color to their wardrobe) and listen well."
We all already knew there were enormous benefits to being good-looking, and, dismaying as it is, we need to realize that those benefits extend into every area of life... and keep that in mind when we want to let ourselves go appearancewise, or be sloppy in how we dress and groom ourselves, especially in the workplace.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/07/08/looks/index.html
which starts out with this eye-opener
"Studies show attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts."
I'd heard the 1st one many times, but to think that something as important as medical care hinges even in part on how hot you are is terrifying, and cuter criminals getting shorter sentences is an absolute disgrace.
And now on to looksism in the workplace:
"The ugly truth, according to economics professors Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, is that plain people earn 5 percent to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 percent to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking.
These findings concur with other research that shows the penalty for being homely exceeds the premium for beauty and that across all occupations, the effects are greater for men than women."
So, not only do attractive people get a bonus, but there's a "penalty" for ugliness? How grim is THAT?
"A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts."
As harshly as women's looks are judged, MEN suffer more for being homely? That surprises me.
"In their report 'Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers', Looks and Lucre,' Hamermesh and Biddle found that the probability of a male attorney attaining early partnership directly correlates with how handsome he is."
It's usually other men who are the senior partners making those decisions; you can see them promoting pretty women, but handsomer men, too?
Height is also a factor in earnings:
"A study released last year by two professors at the University of Florida and University of North Carolina found that tall people earn considerably more money throughout their careers than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay.
A survey of male graduates of the University of Pittsburgh found that the tallest students' average starting salary was 12 percent higher than their shorter colleagues'."
I'd be interested to see what the #'s are for women from that 1st study, since the favoring of tall men for everything from mate selection to election winning is well-known, but I've never heard of height in women being of benefit for anything unless they're prospective runway models or showgirls.
Not surprisingly, weight is also a factor... but apparently only for women:
"The London Guildhall study showed that overweight women are more likely to be unemployed and that those who are working earn on average 5 percent less than their trimmer peers."
Just what plus-size women need, another kick in the head; I'd be interested to see if those #'s held up in countries that don't worship thinness.
The favoring of beauty apparently happens because:
"According to Dr. Gordon Patzer, who has spent more than three decades studying and writing about physical attractiveness, human beings are hard-wired to respond more favorably to attractive people. Even studies of babies show they will look more intently and longer at prettier faces."
Sigh.
"'Good-looking men and women are generally judged to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts,' Patzer says."
I've written about this before, and I still don't get why external appearance should be thought to have ANY connection to finer inner qualities... especially when the opposite is so often true, because the beautiful don't need to develop inner virtue, and they get away with murder.
"Controlled studies show people go out of their way to help attractive people -- of the same and opposite sex -- because they want to be liked and accepted by good-looking people."
I can see being extra-nice to hotties of the opposite sex, but why would we have that urge for those of the same sex? Is our overall biological preference for beauty really that strong?
Now here's where CNN gets clueless:
"Despite what the research says, some of the world's most successful people have been ordinary looking at best, and you would never mistake the faces in Fortune for those in Esquire or Entertainment Weekly. Business legends are often of average height (Bill Gates at 5 feet 9 inches) or even diminutive (Jack Welch, 5 feet 8 inches, and Ross Perot, 5 feet 7 inches)."
That's comparing apples to oranges for the most part, because mega-successful people generally aren't getting their paychecks handed to them by other folks who'd be judging them on their looks and height, since people of that sort are usually their own bosses, but the bigger issue is that these men have gigantic talents that make them stand out from others so much that their looks don't enter into it.
And here's a laugh:
"many folks who are lovely to look at complain that they lose out on jobs because people assume they are vacuous or lightweights"
So, endless benefits and 1 little stereotype working against them, poor babies? Or, is it that they assume they're the best qualified because they've always been seen as better than they are, and don't grasp that they're less impressive than they think and didn't get hired because others were more qualified?
"Hiring managers say it is the appearance of confidence they find attractive, not the presence of physical beauty. And they contend that attractiveness has more to do with how you carry yourself and the energy you exude -- rather than having perfect features or a great physique."
So, if Brad Pitt was having a bad day, where he didn't exude confidence or energy, an average-looking guy who WAS feeling confident would win out over him? Not in this universe.
However, tangential attributes DO help out:
"According to Gordon Wainright, author of 'Teach Yourself Body Language,' anyone can increase their attractiveness to others if they maintain good eye contact, act upbeat, dress well (with a dash of color to their wardrobe) and listen well."
We all already knew there were enormous benefits to being good-looking, and, dismaying as it is, we need to realize that those benefits extend into every area of life... and keep that in mind when we want to let ourselves go appearancewise, or be sloppy in how we dress and groom ourselves, especially in the workplace.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Joel Osteen and a possum report
Before I get into the topics of today's post, I want to point out some exceptionally classy behavior on the part of one of my blog buddies, Guy, whose excellent blog is here
http://www.rooksrant.com/
When he read my post of a couple of days ago, he obviously felt the same pleasure I did in the phrase "blogito ergo sum" (I blog, therefore I am) that I described putting on my blog, because he put it right at the top of HIS blog... and even though he knows I didn't invent the phrase, because he read it here he put a link to my post "under" that phrase-a fine example of the highest standards of blogging, don't you agree?
In tonight's sermon, Joel Osteen said that we should forgive those that hurt us, and give up the victim mentality created by dwelling on past injuries, so that God can give us good things; he explained that it has to be an exchange, that you have to give up shattered dreams and bitterness as your part of the exchange, and then God will do HIS part. Lastly, he said that you have to be grateful for what you have, and then God will reward you with more than you ever imagined... all of which boils down to stopping the generation of negative energy so that positive things can get to you, and focusing on a positive emotion to draw the positive to you, which is both his consistent message and the basic rule of karma.
His most interesting thought tonight was that "the Enemy" wants you to "sit in the ashes" (dwell on past hurts), but God will give you beauty for those ashes if you're willing to make the swap... and that "the Enemy" fights the hardest to keep you down when he knows God has something good waiting for you, so stay positive even when things seem the worst.
And now for the possum report: The little girl possum was eating, and the male showed up; we held our breaths, not knowing what he'd do to her this time around... and to our astonishment and delight, the same possum who'd run her right off the 1st time he saw her slowly edged in on the other side of the food pile and began to eat, without making a single aggressive move!! My husband, who as a point of manhood resists talking to the critters, joined me in crooning, "Good boy!! What a good boy!! Good possum, letting her stay and eat!!"; possums are supposedly smarter than dogs, and dogs understand "good boy/girl," so I bet he knew what we meant. They've eaten together a few more times, and once he even let her snatch the cold cuts right out from under his nose; that he's apparently given her the run of his territory proves, to my mind, that's she IS female (not that I'd ever doubted it, as tiny and pretty as she is), and has got visions of possum babies dancing in my head again... I hope they're still together in the spring!!
http://www.rooksrant.com/
When he read my post of a couple of days ago, he obviously felt the same pleasure I did in the phrase "blogito ergo sum" (I blog, therefore I am) that I described putting on my blog, because he put it right at the top of HIS blog... and even though he knows I didn't invent the phrase, because he read it here he put a link to my post "under" that phrase-a fine example of the highest standards of blogging, don't you agree?
In tonight's sermon, Joel Osteen said that we should forgive those that hurt us, and give up the victim mentality created by dwelling on past injuries, so that God can give us good things; he explained that it has to be an exchange, that you have to give up shattered dreams and bitterness as your part of the exchange, and then God will do HIS part. Lastly, he said that you have to be grateful for what you have, and then God will reward you with more than you ever imagined... all of which boils down to stopping the generation of negative energy so that positive things can get to you, and focusing on a positive emotion to draw the positive to you, which is both his consistent message and the basic rule of karma.
His most interesting thought tonight was that "the Enemy" wants you to "sit in the ashes" (dwell on past hurts), but God will give you beauty for those ashes if you're willing to make the swap... and that "the Enemy" fights the hardest to keep you down when he knows God has something good waiting for you, so stay positive even when things seem the worst.
And now for the possum report: The little girl possum was eating, and the male showed up; we held our breaths, not knowing what he'd do to her this time around... and to our astonishment and delight, the same possum who'd run her right off the 1st time he saw her slowly edged in on the other side of the food pile and began to eat, without making a single aggressive move!! My husband, who as a point of manhood resists talking to the critters, joined me in crooning, "Good boy!! What a good boy!! Good possum, letting her stay and eat!!"; possums are supposedly smarter than dogs, and dogs understand "good boy/girl," so I bet he knew what we meant. They've eaten together a few more times, and once he even let her snatch the cold cuts right out from under his nose; that he's apparently given her the run of his territory proves, to my mind, that's she IS female (not that I'd ever doubted it, as tiny and pretty as she is), and has got visions of possum babies dancing in my head again... I hope they're still together in the spring!!
Sunday, September 25, 2005
A few more blog tweaks
It never rains without pouring, does it? As you might have noticed, there are some significant changes to my sidebar again today; I hit the jackpot in my blog surfing.
The 1st change is the addition of the "Stop Internet Censorship" banner; I don't normally post cause-related graphics, but the site the gif links to has loads of information on this and related topics that I think is valuable to the blogging community... especially since we're hearing more and more about people getting in trouble because their school, workplace, or even country thinks they shouldn't be allowed to blog about whatever they choose.
The next change is one I've thought about since my husband told me that my Flash clock/calendar used up so much of the CPU of whatever computer it was being viewed on that it might make older, slower computers sluggish, or freeze them up entirely (!!!); there were supposedly some ways to ameliorate the problem, but he was dragging his feet (as usual) with helping me with them, so I was contemplating going clockless... until I found the one I've got in the sidebar now on a blog I visited, courtesy of my old friends at ClockLink.com, who provided my original Flash clock from way back. It looks really slick, and has the date on it too, so I had to have it; I swapped the new code for the old, tinkered with the size and positioning, and now my blog loads faster as well as being kinder on older computers.
The 3rd change is the most fun, and technically neat as well; the hairy green guy holding the sign that tells you your IP#, your ISP, the sort of computer you're on and what browser you're using... followed by a random choice from a list of custom messages I came up with, the funniest of which is the one where he says he's my ("Omni's") husband, lol, which my husband thought was hilarious. I had problems registering the darned thing, and in fact I still haven't gotten the email with the secret password that'll allow me to edit it, but it works just fine; it's wide enough that I may move it so that it's not sticking out so noticeably, but I'm going to see how I like it over the next few days before I decide about that.
So, my passion for novelty sidebar doodads continues unabated; I'm sure that says something about my psychological profile, but I'll spare myself the analysis as to what that might be. ;-)
The 1st change is the addition of the "Stop Internet Censorship" banner; I don't normally post cause-related graphics, but the site the gif links to has loads of information on this and related topics that I think is valuable to the blogging community... especially since we're hearing more and more about people getting in trouble because their school, workplace, or even country thinks they shouldn't be allowed to blog about whatever they choose.
The next change is one I've thought about since my husband told me that my Flash clock/calendar used up so much of the CPU of whatever computer it was being viewed on that it might make older, slower computers sluggish, or freeze them up entirely (!!!); there were supposedly some ways to ameliorate the problem, but he was dragging his feet (as usual) with helping me with them, so I was contemplating going clockless... until I found the one I've got in the sidebar now on a blog I visited, courtesy of my old friends at ClockLink.com, who provided my original Flash clock from way back. It looks really slick, and has the date on it too, so I had to have it; I swapped the new code for the old, tinkered with the size and positioning, and now my blog loads faster as well as being kinder on older computers.
The 3rd change is the most fun, and technically neat as well; the hairy green guy holding the sign that tells you your IP#, your ISP, the sort of computer you're on and what browser you're using... followed by a random choice from a list of custom messages I came up with, the funniest of which is the one where he says he's my ("Omni's") husband, lol, which my husband thought was hilarious. I had problems registering the darned thing, and in fact I still haven't gotten the email with the secret password that'll allow me to edit it, but it works just fine; it's wide enough that I may move it so that it's not sticking out so noticeably, but I'm going to see how I like it over the next few days before I decide about that.
So, my passion for novelty sidebar doodads continues unabated; I'm sure that says something about my psychological profile, but I'll spare myself the analysis as to what that might be. ;-)
