Reference This! (or, Darmok Revisited)

(FOS will no doubt correct any misspellings in this post.)

Although our relationship has ended, we can forever take comfort in the good times we enjoyed.  Or, "We'll always have [Paris, but feel free to insert an appropriate place name for your specific situation]."

Your destination may be reached by sticking to an easily marked path.  Or, "Follow the yellow brick road."

The situation has become intolerable, and I would very much like to leave.  Or, "Beam me up, Scotty!"

(Digression: The Solipsist has it on good authority that, despite its near universal recognizability, the above phrase was never actually spoken on "Star Trek."  It was always some variation, generally along the lines of "Three to beam up."  Nevertheless, like "Play it again, Sam," another misremembered classic, the phrase has entered the pop-culture lexicon, unlikely to be expunged or revised.  End of digression.)

One of the Solipsist's favorite episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (that's TNG to aficionados) is entitled "Darmok."  In this episode, the Enterprise is sent on a diplomatic mission to establish an alliance with the Dathon.  The Dathon are amenable.  The problem is that, despite the miraculous technology of the universal translator (the device that answers the eternal question: "Why does every alien race on Star Trek speak English"), the Dathon are completely unintelligible.  When Captain Picard attempts to begin a dialogue in true ambassadorial mode (and when Patrick Stewart is being ambassadorial with you, you've damn well been ambassadored!), the Dathon respond in what seems to be non-sequitur gobbledygook, saying things like, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."  It SEEMS like English, but it doesn't MEAN anything.

But of course it means something.  Over the course of the episode, Picard comes to understand that the entire Dathon language is based on reference and metaphor.  "Darmok" is a sort of founding myth of the Dathon--all members of their society are brought up on the story of Darmok, and all spoken communication is composed of references to the myth.  Picard manages to piece together the gist of the story and so is able to bridge the gaps in understanding.

The Solipsist was thinking about this episode, and he wondered, if English were patterned on the Dathon tongue, what would our founding text be?  The Bible obviously springs to mind, but its religious overtones would alienate some language learners.  Shakespeare?  Too dead, too white, too male.

No, our universal text would have to be composed from that most universal of texts, popular entertainment.  A case could be made (and hardly disproved) that any emotional state and almost any tidbit worth communicating could be conveyed through reference to famous movies and TV shows (and now, possibly, video games, too).

The film "You've Got Mail" alludes to this phenomenon, when Tom Hanks' character explains that, to men, the answer to every question can be found in "The Godfather":

"The Godfather answers all of life's questions.  What should I pack for my summer vacation?  'Leave the gun, take the cannoli.'"

What other films could provide fodder?  Herewith, the Solipsist presents the first entry in his "Guide to Dathonian English":

Not surprisingly, "Casablanca" is a treasure trove.  In addition to the aforementioned "We'll always have Paris," you've got:

"Play it [again], Sam"--I'm feeling blue.  Cheer me up.

"Of all the gin joints in all the world. . . ."--Oh, crap!  Him/Her!

"Gambling in Casablanca!  I am shocked, shocked!"--Expressing mock outrage at a mildly unsavory situation that everyone has known about forever and is disinclined to do anything about.

"Round up the usual suspects"--To make a show of doing something about a situation that, again, no one really wants anything done about.

"This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship"--I've gained a newfound respect for you.

"Wizard of Oz," of course, is useful, too:

"We're off to see the wizard"--Our project has begun.

"If I only had a brain/heart"--Expressing (mock?) remorse at one's intellectual/emotional shortcomings.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"--Suspend your disbelief.

How about "Jerry Maguire"?

"You had me at [hello, but feel free to insert your own favorite word/phrase]"--indicates the moment at which a beloved object becomes beloved, i.e., the moment of swoon.  May also be used ironically: "You had me at waterboarding!"

"Show me the money!"--Fairly self-explanatory.

Individual quotes scattered throughout the film world will prove useful, too:

"I see dead people"--I have a problem/something is happening to me that I don't really understand, and I don't think anyone can help me with.

To which a nice reply might be, "Help me to help you" (Jerry Maguire, again--a surprising number of familiar and semi-familiar quotes from such a recent film.)

The Solipsist will continue filling up the handbook, but he needs your help.  Please send along your favorite quotes from pop culture, along with their practical translations.  It may take time, and it may be difficult, but the Solipsist is calling on you to sacrifice for the greater good.  After all, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  Or the one."

Futureburger

Teleporters and tricorders were cool, but the thing he Solipsist really envied the crew of the original Starship Enterprise and all its subsequent iterations was the replicator.  You want a New York Strip?  A corn dog?  Peanut-butter and jelly flavored panda cutlets?  Just speak into the callbox, wait a moment while some lights flash, and, Blammo! there you have it.

The world is getting closer to the day of the replicator.

(Digression: You thought the Solipsist was kidding about the cereal and Star Trek thing?  Ha!)

Scientists are working tirelessly to make meatless meat.  No, this is not about soyburgers or tofurkey, bastardized versions of perfectly good food: If vegetarianism is so good, how come vegetarians are always trying to entice recruits by assuring them that veggies can be made to taste "just like meat"?  You know what tastes just like meat?  Meat!

Anyway, no, this is about the attempt on the part of bioengineers to create meat from stem cells--meat without the cow, if you will.  It seems reasonable, if you think about it.  If stem cells can be tailor-made to produce spare kidneys and pancreaseseses (?)--

(Digression: "Mmmmm. . . spare kidneys and pancreaseseses. . . .")

--then why not use them to create tasty treats for the starving masses?  After all, meat is just cellular matter, too, right?  This could work.

What's the catch?  Well, there is the "ick" factor: For one thing, when the stem-cell mixture is cultivated, it basically has a semi-liquid consistency: Think warm, meat-flavored jello.  So in order to get the meat to an acceptable physical consistency, the "medium" has to be "exercised," much the way that real meat acquires its texture through the physical exertion of the animals from which it comes.  Since you can't really put jello on a treadmill, what the lab workers do is "stretch" the "muscle" by subjecting it to shaking and electrical shocks.  So instead of warm, meat-flavored jello, you're talking about warm, meat-flavored jello that has been battered and electrified.

Tasty.

More important, though, the Solipsist is concerned about genetic diversity or the lack thereof.  How do we know we're getting cells from the tastiest of cows?  Are people going around licking cattle to see which ones would make the best donors for our future food chain?  And if not, why not?  The food of the future is coming at us fast, people.  So, the next time you're at a petting zoo, sprinkle some salt on the attractions, and give 'em a little nibble.  When you find one you like, surreptitiously draw some blood and smuggle it out to your nearest DNA sequencing facility.

Your taste buds will thank the Solipsist.

Puffins

Well, for what it's worth, it seems that the Solipsist has stymied the advertising algorithm. Today's ad is simply an ad for Google Adsense. That's right, folks: An ad for ads. Tres postmodern.

But that's not the topic for today's post. The topic for today's post is. . . . Well, ain't that a kick in the teeth? The Solipsist really doesn't have much to talk about today. And while Seinfeld generated nine years worth of television out of nothing, YNSHC is not so talented. Sigh!

Hmmm. . . . You were promised posts about Star Trek and cereal. Recently, the Solipsist was at Trader Joe's, where he purchased a box of "Peanut Butter Puffins." Basically, this is "Cap'n Crunch" with a social conscience. Sadly, the puffins, while tasty, are not actually shaped like puffins. You can, however, help save the puffins (who knew they were in danger?) by sending in box tops. More importantly, though, the Solipsist's newly discovered love for this breakfast treat goes just one step further in supporting the ongoing thesis expounded in this blog: Americans are five.

That's all for today.

Cracking the Code

THE SOLIPSIST HAS CRACKED THE ALGORITHM!!!

You're welcome!

Loyal readers will recall that, a few days ago, the Solipsist commented on the irony that, despite his snarkiness towards private jets and the billionaires who love them, Google Ads had seen fit, for several days last week, to place an ad for a private-jet charter service.  The Solipsist speculated that there was some sort of algorithm in operation at Google headquarters that sifted through the various blogs, keying in on words and phrases and placing ads "accordingly."

Apparently, algorithms don't know from context.

As proof of this theory, you need only look at the ad currently (as of this writing) residing on "The Solipsist": custom-printed coffee cups!  This, of course, is a direct result of YNSHC's panegyric to comfort mugs.

Do you know what this means?!?

Well, of course you do.  The Solipsist has just told you what it means.  The more important question is: How can the Solipsist make money off of this?

Now, the Google ad guidelines are rather explicit about bloggers exhorting their readers to click on the site's ads.  This is a no-no.  So note: The Solipsist is NOT--he repeats, NOT--exhorting you to click on the ad for custom-made coffee cups.  He could care less whether you click it or not!  In fact, he'd just as soon you DON'T click the ad, just to make sure that all feathers remain unruffled.

But wait.  The Solipsist only makes money off the ad if people click it.  Hmmm. . . .So, let's get this straight: One earns money from the readers clicking the ad, but one is not allowed to ASK people to click the ad.

What sort of "don't-ask-don't-tell"-esque inanity is this?

All right, so, the idea must be that the algorithm reads your blog, keys in on, well, keywords, and then, assuming that the blog's readers are interested in the things about which the blogger is blogging, places ads relevant to the blog's content.  The readers, being interested in the blog's content, will then click on the ads out of sheer consumerist lust.  Capitalism rules!  The virtuous circle is complete.  This, of course, assumes that the blog's readership consists of more than just the blogger's wife, childhood friend, his college buddy, his mother and mother-in-law, and perhaps someone who accidentally stumbled on the blog while looking for porn.  (Boy, THAT person must have been disappointed!)

So, the Solipsist, to make money--the stated or unstated goal of all human endeavour--must either attract new readers (questionable) or only blog about things that his readers are interested in, thereby attracting ads that they will find clickworthy (more do-able).

So, from here on out, you will be reading a lot about "Star Trek" and cereal.

Address your complaints to the Google algorithm.

Welcome to the Future! (A Brief Post)

This sounded more interesting than it really was:

Some Canadian researchers have developed a device that uses "near-infrared" light (would that be "infrapink"?) to "detect" people's thoughts.  Or so the headline on Yahoo! would lead you to believe.

(Digression I: When the Solipsist was a lad, he thought the word "infrared"--which actually shows up in comic books more often than you would think--was a two-syllable word that rhymed, roughly, with "compared."  He could never quite figure out what Superman's in-FRARED vision was all about, but it didn't sound good.)

(Digression II: "Infrapink" would be a really cool band name.)

(Digression III: How conditioned by marketing is the Solipsist that he feels weird about spelling Yahoo! without the exclamation point?  End of digressions.)

Turns out what this Canadian Telepathy device does is predict which drink people will choose.  When shown pictures of two drinks.  With eighty per cent accuracy.

Flying cars and teleporters this ain't.

In Praise of Ceramic Bliss

There's something about the Jetsons that brings out the best in coffee.  For you, maybe it's something different: starfish, Harvard, "I heart NY," "World's Greatest Stepmom."  For the Solipsist, though, it comes down to the Jetsons or DC superheroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.).

We are talking, of course, about favorite mugs.  Everyone has one.  And yes, of course, there is nothing qualitatively--LOGICALLY qualitatively--different about the coffee that goes into these mugs as opposed to the other mugs in the cabinet: the boring, matte black cups, the flower cups, the cup with a sad face on it (the one with a happy face broke).

And yet.

Come Sunday morning, when the Times has been unwrapped from its blue plastic, when the Travel section has been tossed aside (seriously, who reads the Travel section?  Does anyone CARE what's going on in Grenada these days), when (ideally) a baseball game has been flipped on--at these times, there is nothing quite like sipping one's first cup of coffee from one's comfort mug.  And one shudders to think what one's day would be like if/when this mug breaks.  On that day, we shall mourn.

This goes back to a point made in an earlier post (1/24/09): Americans are all 5-year-olds.  We need our special mug, or we get cranky.  We also have our favorite blankets, t-shirts, socks, chairs.  Maybe this is not a sign of 5-year-oldness: Maybe it's just part of human nature to find comfort in objects.  There's something rather pathetic in this (in the true sense of pathos).

The Solipsist is reminded of a comic book he read ages ago--nothing special, just a regular issue of Detective Comics (that's a Batman title for the uninitiated among you).  In this episode, a large, friendless outcast, is dragooned by some badguy and, thanks to some kind of secret formula, endowed with superhuman strength.  The big galoot goes on a destructive spree, and Batman has to stop him.  Anyway, what the Solipsist remembers from this particular episode is that, before his transformation, our slightly oafish but essentially harmless protagonist is surrounded by bullies.  They tease him and grab from him his prized possession: a calculator.  Despite his desperate pleas, the bullies callously smash the toy.  The big oaf cries helplessly.  And, call the Solipsist a sentimental fool, but he felt like crying, too.

The Solipsist is no psychoanalyst.  He will not venture a Freudian explanation.  But maybe it all has to do with control--or lack of it.  There are so few things in the world we can control, or even count on.  People are, sadly, unreliable.  So we cling to those things that bring us comfort, that make up our own little world, be they calculators or coffee mugs.

There's a little solipsist in all of us, after all.

ADDENDUM: In response to yesterday's tirade about drugs in sports, one of the Solipsist's faithful readers commented that "The whole [Michael] Phelps brouhaha would never have happened in Canada."  Right.  Canadians are such paragons of drug-free sports.  Just ask Olympic "Medalist" Ben Johnson.

Shock and Outrage! (Yawn!)

The ongoing revelations of drugs in sports long ago lost their power to shock.  Still, the Solipsist was somewhat taken aback to find out that even Alex Rodriguez has dabbled in the juice.  Now, anything that embarrasses the New York Yankees can't be all bad, but this does raise the question of whether ANYONE is clean.

And you know what?  It really doesn't matter.

That's right.  It doesn't matter.  Not just in the sense that sports, inherently, don't matter--they don't, and this is coming from a sports fan.  But the use of steroids just doesn't matter because when you think about it, what's wrong with it?  Are steroids bad for you?  Well, yes, of course they are.  But by now, everyone knows this.  People who choose to use steroids or other performance enhancing drugs with potentially unpleasant side effects are, in fact, making a choice.  And, frankly, a rational one: If the potential payoff for people who can throw a ball a little bit farther, or run a little bit faster, is disproportionate, than why would any reasonable human being not take chances in order to increase his or her productivity?  Plenty of people smoke cigarettes and/or drink and/or partake of  other harmful substances without even the upside of a lucrative sports career.

Are performance enhancing drugs risky?  Well, so is sports itself.  You don't believe me? How many of you would willingly stand 60 feet away from a man throwing a ball at you with lethal force?  How many people have been paralyzed playing football?

But, you say, it's cheating.  In what sense?  If you claim that it gives some people an unfair advantage over others, you only need to point out that it is not merely hitters who use enhancements (see Roger Clemens).  In other words, if a certain percentage of hitters are doping, it is reasonable to assume that a similar percentage of pitchers is doing the same.  If you cheat in order to negate the effects of another person's cheating, are you not merely maintaining the status quo?

It ruins the integrity of sports?  Maybe.  But if you think of the olympic ideal--"Stronger, Higher, Faster"--aren't performance enhancers really just helping athletes attain it?  The Solipsist is no great fan of Barry Bonds, but it must be noted that steroids--while possibly making it easier to reach the home-run record--did not CAUSE him to break the record. Steroids do not enable people to hit home runs.  The Solipsist could treat himself with the cream or the clear or anabolic steroids or plutonium, and he still would not be able to hit a baseball out of the infield: It's a skill that is more or less unrelated to physical strength.

The saddest thing about Barry Bonds (and yes, the assumption here is that he DID use performance enhancers) and Alex Rodriguez is that these are first-ballot hall of famers without the use of any drugs.  No, Bonds may not have broken the record; he would have hit a "mere" 500 or so home runs.  The reports on Alex Rodriguez indicate that he used anabolic steroids in 2003 (before there were any penalties for using them), but one would assume that he has not used them since, even though he continues to put up garish numbers.

The Solipsist feels that people should be allowed to use whatever they want to use to gain an edge, as long as it is done freely and openly.  If people feel the need to use steroids, let them.  And let everyone else know they are using them (that should take care of the integrity issue). 

The truly scandalous drug revelation revolves around Michael Phelps.  Not that he smoked pot: He's 23, why wouldn't he?  The scandal, of course, is in everybody's "Shocked!  Shocked" reaction.

Wouldn't it have been refreshing if, instead of prostrating himself before the gods of sport and commerce, Phelps had just said something like, "I apologize to my fans who may be a bit disillusioned, but I'm a human being, I smoked marijuana, I didn't hurt anybody, and we all need to get over it and mind our own business"?  Maybe it could even have started a long-overdue conversation on legalization.  Probably too much to hope for.

So to recap: Athletes can neither use steroids (which make you perform better) or marijuana (which makes you perform worse).  One wonders if Phelps' competitors would really have complained much if Michael had taken a hit before some of those races.