Picture This

Remember the school photograph? That invariably embarrassing remnant of your awkward years, always within easy reach of your mother, so she could whip it out for your girlfriend whom you've brought over for dinner despite your overwhelming dread that your mother would do just this very thing and show this woman, this goddess, this girl of your dreams that horrible picture of you in that mysteriously stained Snoopy sweatshirt with the braces and the bowl haircut and the. . . .

Sorry. Painful memories. Where were we? Oh, yeah. The school photograph.

So, anyway, the horribly awkward school photograph may soon become just another quaint relic of 20th-century life like rotary phones and America's high standing in the world. Now even this most hallowed symbol of childhood innocence has become the preserve of the retouchers. Photographers shamelessly offer parents the chance to alter their children's class photos, eliminating unsightly cowlicks, scabs, and signs of parental abuse.

Sure, when Stalin did it, he was "horrible"; when parents do it. . . .

Honestly, though, we say it's about time! Consider the possibilities! Let's say little Gertrude forgets to smile in her school picture. And maybe she had a bad hair day. And her new glasses broke, so she had to wear her horrible old Coke-bottle lenses. Well, just slip the photographer a few bucks, let him do his digital magic, and, Voila!, Little Gertrude becomes the belle of Mrs. Rosenberg's first-grade class:

Actually, the Solipsist has been meaning to post a picture of himself. Hold on. . . .We're just going to snap a picture of ourselves. . . .There! Now, let's lose the glasses. . . . Hmmm. . . . Maybe we should make the eyebrows a bit darker. . . . The salt-and-pepper hair is fine, but let's thicken it a bit. . . .Oh, and let's fill in the five-o'clock shadow, too. The chin could be a little "squarer.". . .Oh, what the hell, let's make the whole jawline a bit more angular. There! Perfect:

(WOS: Seriously, you need to do something about this Clooney fixation.)

(Image of dorky kid from the New York Times; image of "Little Gertrude" from Askmen.com; new picture of Solipsist from The Telegraph.)

Found Perfection (A Brief Post)

As longtime followers know--

(DIGRESSION: And at this point, you're all longtime followers--we haven't gotten a new recruit in ages. The Solipsist needs fresh blood! Get on this, People! EOD)

(ADDITIONAL DIGRESSION: We sounded a little vampiric, just then. The Solipsist is not a vampire! Although he would like to be one. Get on this, too, People! EOAD)

--we have a semi-regular feature wherein we attempt to find "perfect sentences." It occured to us the other day, though, that we should not restrict our perfection-quest to matters linguistic. The world is full of perfection if one only allows oneself to spot it.

The human eye, for example, is so gosh-darn perfect that creationists hold it out as proof of God's existence, as nothing so thoroughly spot-on could conceivably have come about through something as messy as natural selection. (Why this should be the case is unclear to us, but willfully ignorant pseudo-scientists work in mysterious ways.) The egg, too, is a model of structural perfection--and it tastes great with cheese. And let us not overlook microwave popcorn; seriously, whoever came up with that one just, y'know, couldn't have done better.

So keep your perfect eyes out for more perfection, Solipsist Nation. And fry yourself up an omelet: You might get hungry during the search.

(Perfect image of a perfect egg from UNC's Health Care Weblog. And a perfect website it is, too!)

Being Sam Keller

A few years back, a fantasy baseball league sued Major League Baseball. Fantasy leagues allow average joes to play general manager by assembling teams of professional athletes. The fantasy-leaguers earn points (or something--we don't play ourselves, so this is purely uninformed speculation) based on how well the various players on their virtual teams perform in the real world. Back in 2005, MLB wanted, in effect to corner the market in fantasy baseball for itself and restrict competing leagues from using the statistics of major-league players--essentially putting these competitors out of business. The courts correctly ruled against Major League Baseball, finding that statistics are public information and that no corporation could claim ownership of those facts.

MLB overreached, but they based their argument on a more accepted principle: the right of people to control the use of their image, particularly in commercial ventures. While fantasy leagues have the right to use public information like player stats, they presumably would not have the right to use pictures of actual players in promoting their product--at least without compensating the players. A question, though: What happens when the statistics ARE the image?

Last year, a former college football quarterback, Sam Keller, sued the video game publisher Electronic Arts, claiming that they misappropriated his image for an NCAA Football video game. The catch is that, technically, EA can claim that they didn't. NCAA rules, you see, prohibit the game developers from using players' names, so strictly speaking the "athlete" portrayed in NCAA Football was not "Sam Keller"--it was just an avatar wearing his jersey number, with his height, weight, stats, and playing style. In effect, EA could claim that all they did was utilize the public information, statistics, to program a player for use in its game.

Where that argument would fail, we think, is in the fact that so much "incidental" information went into the avatar's programming: things like Keller's jersey number and hometown, for example. We wonder, though, what would happen if the game's developers had created a virtual player that looked nothing like Keller, but that was programmed with Keller's stats? Theoretically, there would be no lawsuit. At the same time, there would be less interest in the game.

Part of the appeal of these hyper-realistic sports video games lies in the fact that you get to "play" as your favorite player. A video game that incorporated all the actual statistics but displayed generic-looking athletes would presumably not find as much popularity as one that utilized player likenesses--even if you could play as a really cool avatar like. . . well, like those avatars from "Avatar." And you know James Cameron would take a piece of that action.

Let's not keep pretending that college sports is anything other than big business and that college athletes--particularly in the big-money sports like football and basketball--are in any meaningful way different from the professional athletes they hope one day to be. If a game company's business model derives profit from the use of these folks' images, they should be compensated just like anyone else.

(Image from Fansided.com)

Why Can't We Not Be Friends?

As Lady Macbeth did not say, "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts! Unfriend me here." If she had, though, today the spirits would have had the opportunity.

Today was National Unfriend Day. Talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel proclaimed today a day for people across the Facebook universe to declutter their lives by removing from their friends lists all but one's actual friends. In other words, if you don't know someone in real life, you have no reason to keep them around your virtual life.

A new holiday that celebrates misanthropy! We love it!

We think this needs to cross into meatspace. Think about it! No more messy breakups, no more awkward partings. Every November 17 from now on should provide people the opportunity to make a clean, no-muss no-fuss break with. . .whomever!

"Sweetheart, it's neither you nor me: It's just an unfriending."

"Listen, Phil. You're not being fired--just unfriended."

"Mom, it's been a great 37 years, but it's just not working for me anymore."

We'll see you tomorrow, folks: National Refriending Day.

(Image from Enterakt)

Idea for a Superhero (A Brief Post)

The Defeatist!

With great power comes great self-doubt!

His abilities are surpassed only by his pessimism!

Evildoers beware! The Defeatist is here! (Oh, but you'll probably win anyway. . . .)

Money for Nothing

Americans love to litigate. Americans also love to make money. And if money can be made off of people's misfortune, so much the better. Thus, the newest financial-services growth industry: Lawsuit lending.

See, when the little guy takes on the big bad company, he can hire a lawyer on contingency--if the lawsuit succeeds, the client wins, and the lawyer collects a fee. If the lawsuit fails, the lawyer gets nothing. (We don't believe that for a second, but that's the theory anyway.) In order to improve the odds of successful litigation, though, lawyers often must conduct extensive research, hire expert witnesses, bribe jurors--all of which costs money. Now, a client who hires a lawyer on contingency probably lacks sufficient funds to pay for al the extras. The lawyer can lay out the money himself, but then he risks a large financial loss if the lawsuit fails. If only there were another option. . . .

Enter the legal financing industry. If you've ever dreamed of making big bucks by suing people, but never had the great good fortune to slip and fall at a Trump-owned building, you can litigate vicariously by investing in lawsuits. Large hedge funds and smaller lending companies will front a plaintiff's lawyer money to prepare a case. In a sense, this represents a leveling of the playing field: Large corporate defendants can easily overwhelm an underfunded plaintiff and her attorney. Financial support from well-heeled investors can make a big difference.

The catch, though, is that, while lawyers work on contingency, their financiers do not: They must be repaid whether the lawsuit succeeds or not. And--brace yourself--the plaintiffs' lawyers, rather than graciously picking up the tab themselves, pass the debt along to their clients. Shocking, we know! To make matters worse, lawyers are under no obligation even to inform their clients that they have borrowed money--which can come as a rude surprise, especially if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.

Personally, the Solipsist is all in favor of this practice. Indeed, it has given us an idea. Funeral-day lending, anyone?

A modest proposal: Let plaintiffs' lawyers borrow money if it's necessary to argue a case. But let the people they supposedly represent in on the decision.

The Solipsist Solves the Budget Crisis!

Cool interactive feature on the Times website today: You get to implement various pieces of the deficit-reduction plan proposed earlier this week. Frankly, we don't see what's so tricky. We plugged the $1.4 trillion gap with a fairly balanced combination of tax increases (53%) and spending cuts (47%). Admittedly, we probably cut more than some would like from the military, and we realize that anything that puts the words 'raise' and 'taxes' together in the same sentence is a political non-starter, but still this could work.


We find it hard to believe that people still argue over such common-sense measures as raising the social-security age and/or increasing the amount of income subject to social-security taxes. We also have never understood the logic behind the whole mortgage-interest deduction. Sure, we don't own our own home, so we have no real stake in that one, but it's always struck us as a ludicrous loophole. Even if you accept the argument that home-ownership promotes strong communities, and therefore has "positive externalities" that a government should support, does anyone think people choose to buy a house because they get a mortgage interest deduction? That is, isn't the federal government simply rewarding people for behavior they would likely engage in anyway? It's like paying a 10-year-old to eat ice cream.


(DIGRESSION: And, while we're on the subject, if the government believes the best way to stimulate the economy is for citizens to spend spend spend--see President Beavis' exhortation after 9/11 that the most patriotic thing Americans could do would be to go shopping--why isn't credit-card interest afforded similar preferential tax consideration? EOD)


We had an idea for reducing the deficit that the Times doesn't even allow you to plug in: The federal government should conduct a national survey to find out how many people identify themselves as members of a "Tea Party." Let's say 10% of the country claims membership. Well, then, simply cut federal spending by that amount and make sure that not one dime of "evil" federal largesse goes to those folks. In fairness, we would allow them to stop paying federal income taxes. But since "Tea-Party" states tend to receive federal services far in excess of what they pay in taxes, overall this should result in a tidy net sum to the Feds. In 2005, for example, Alaska received $1.84 in federal spending for every dollar paid in taxes; Kentucky, home of Tea Party Senator Rand Paul, got $1.51; and militia favorite Idaho raked in $1.21. On the other hand, "big-spending," liberal bastions like Massachusetts ($0.82), New York ($0.79), and California ($0.78) receive significantly less federal aid proportionally.


Anyway, try the Times's budget-balancing app. Let Solipsist Nation know how you would solve the country's financial woes.