tidbits.Qrystal.name

Classic Blunders of Western Civilization

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:42:17 -0400

Getting involved in a land war in Asia.

Going against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Holding an important meeting the day after St. Patrick’s Day.

via meetingboy

#Winter #Tanka

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:02:00 -0500

- by Qrystal

This is a diagram of mental states, as developed by Mihaly...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0500

This is a diagram of mental states, as developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, showing how challenge level and skill level contribute to various mental states. I found it when looking up Anxiety, something I am trying to understand in myself.

Twitter's New Retweets: a proposal for change

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:36:46 -0500

Here is the feedback I just sent to twitter about their new retweet feature:

The new retweet feature has a lot of potential, but it’s being overshadowed by the fact that it isn’t the same as the organic retweeting that emerged from how we use twitter. It seems the main problem is that people expect retweets to be more like forwarding, that is, with commentary. What I’ve noticed is that the new RT seems to be more like what favouriting could be, if that was to be enhanced drastically.

Perhaps you should consider moving some of this exciting new functionality to be a part of fav’ing instead, turning *that* into another way of sharing tweets with others. Make it possible for us to opt in to seeing other people’s favourites (perhaps on a sliding scale: none, a few, some, most, or all), and then *those* tweets could appear in our tweetstream with the original author’s avatar and name. After all, this way is more like passing on of the original message—and, I wouldn’t have to see the original more than once, if this were to make use of that intriguing aspect you’ve incorporated into new retweets.

Then, you could change RT to be a little bit more like the way a reply is, especially the part where it links to the original post. You could pre-populate the status field with

RT @whoever: “(insert entirety of the tweet content here)”

and use something like the “in_reply_to_status_id” part of the reply-to link to make a connection back to the original tweet. This would overcome the false attribution issue with oldschool RT: if someone *really* retweets someone, it will be proven with an actual link.

Best of all, this proposed change would allow people the freedom to comment on tweets in a way that is different from replying. It would also be different from “wishing others could see the original tweet” (which is what new retweet seems to want to do, but my proposed change to faves would do instead). The downside of commenting, currently, is that tweets often have to be edited in order to fit. However, if there was a link retained between the retweet (aka the forwarded quote) and the original, people wouldn’t feel like they need to try and retain most of the context, because the context would exist as a link to the original. So, the character limit wouldn’t be as strained, because we could quote just the part we want to emphasize, like so:

RT @ev: “We may add commentary.” Yes! Please do! For some of us, it’s the main reason we retweet!

[in_reply_to_status_id=5845730902&in_reply_to=ev]

Note that I cut out the part of ev’s tweet that didn’t apply to what I wanted to comment on, but I still am passing on the part of the quote from ev that I want to share with my followers, as well as adding my own comment to it.

This change I’m proposing would still allow for tracking the retweets made of the original, as seen on the “Retweets by others” page (which would pretty much be unchanged from what it is now). However, on hovering over the images of the people who retweeted, one could easily review how each person had edited it, and whether there were additional comments added! I’m also proposing that there be a way to review who has faved the things I’ve said, or what other tweets my followees have faved recently, so there could be a set of pages much like the new Retweets pages, but for Faves as well!

So, in summary, I think there are a lot of great ideas incorporated into this new feature, but that they aren’t all appropriate for the way that many of us use the retweeting ability. An extension of favouriting would be able to make use of some of these great ideas, while freeing up retweets to be more attuned to the organic way that they originally emerged.

If you like my idea, please feel free to give feedback to twitter (using the link they give near where they say, “What do you think of the retweet feature?”) and refer to this link to my zendesk post: http://help.twitter.com/requests/710688. Thanks for the support, and for not just merely complaining like most other people are doing!

Oh xkcd, you make me laugh so often, but it’s especially...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:58:48 -0500

Oh xkcd, you make me laugh so often, but it’s especially potent when the content is so timely. Boo iphone, yay androids!

Currently trying to resist, with all my might, going out and getting myself an htc hero. However, I can’t quite pin down why I’m resisting so much. Am I afraid it will distract me from my work? Maybe I need to set it as a reward for accomplishing something awesome, like… catching up in my marking. Yeah. That sounds good!

OK better go get marking, then!

A Limerick Haiku

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:42:00 -0400

A Limerick Haiku:

Oh wow, a #limerick #haiku!
I thought ‘twas too tricky to do!
But then I found this,
and I’d be remiss,
if I didn’t share it with you!

The title links to the limerick in question, but I’ll repeat it here to make life easier for us all:

There was an old man
From Peru, whose lim’ricks all
Look’d like haiku. He

Said with a laugh “I
Cut them in half, the pay is
Much better for two.”

Alas, there is no signature, so I don’t know who to congratulate for this masterpiece. Very funny though! :)

"Please consider the 12h time to be a relic from the dark ages when Roman numerals were used, the..."

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:10:16 -0400

“Please consider the 12h time to be a relic from the dark ages when Roman numerals were used, the number zero had not yet been invented and analog clocks were the only known form of displaying a time. Please avoid using it today, especially in technical applications!”

- I took a moment to research a little deeper into my discomfort about today being “celebrated” because it can be written in such a way that the digits are in numerical order: 12:34:56 on 7/8/09. What bothered me about it is that the date notation just feels so awkward, because it is not in increasing or decreasing order.

I prefer to write 2009-07-08 for today, myself. But why is that? Someone suggested it might be a Canadian thing, but I was under the impression that the difference between the Canadian and American ways was that one was month-day-year and one was day-month-year, neither preferring to put the year first, and the only way for me to free myself of the mess was to find a different way altogether. A more logical way… or we could even say, CHRONOlogical. And alphabetical too.

It seems I wasn’t alone in this. I discovered a page today that outlines a lot of fascinating information about International standard date and time notation. It also said the quote above, which made me giggle out loud — a sure sign that I had to share it!

Anyways… will you join me in celebrating on ‘09-08-07 at 06:05:04 and 321 milliseconds? (I’ll try to dream of pi.)

"It is counter-intuitive … to mutilate literal strings with characters that don’t belong..."

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:44:00 -0400

“It is counter-intuitive … to mutilate literal strings with characters that don’t belong in them.”

- — Some #funwithgrammar from a guide to hackers’ writing style, which describes how some quirks are for the sake of humour but others are for the sake of clarity.

Here, we are exploring an aspect of writing style that is entirely about clarity: should quotation marks include punctuation, or should the punctuation be left outside? Their argument is that a “literal string” is the entirety of what is quoted, and should not include the end-of-sentence (or end-of-clause) punctuation unless the quote actually includes such punctuation. I agree with this, but the population as a whole seems to be divided on what to believe.

Wikipedia’s style guide agrees with me, at least, and even calls it “logical quotation” style. This style is also sometimes attributed to the British, although apparently some British publications use the so-called American style, placing periods and commas inside the quotation marks even when they don’t logically belong there. (I may be biased, but as soon as logic is evident, I can’t help but support it.)

Today, the logical quotation style was used today on twitter by Brent Spiner, sparking controversy among his followers. When he retweeted the fact that someone “corrected” him, he got even more corrections flooding in. (I tried to be one of them, but I was too slow.)

The ~~argument~~ discussion inspired me to look up more info on this dilemma. The Wikipedia page on Quotation Marks provided me with a surprising revelation: the less intuitive way of punctuating around quotation marks was actually reasonable once, back when typesetters used the end-quotation mark to protect the much smaller comma and period characters. (This was back when typesetting involved actually setting physical character pieces into place in the printing press.)

Now, of course, there is no need to do this, but doing so is still considered “correct” because it has become ingrained in various style guides, whose sole purpose is to encourage consistency and clarity in writing. However, if the other way is more clear (more “logical”, if you will), and there is no longer a need to protect the cute-wittle-periods-and-commas, why should anyone continue doing it?

Some people claim that the comma or period placement is purely a matter of style. This does seem to be the case, but I still hold to my opinion that the logical way makes more sense (hence calling it “logical”). (Also note that in the previous sentence, I kept the period outside of the parentheses as well; I believe that this is also logical, and yet it is not logical to do so in this current sentence.) I guess some people simply have their style too ingrained to change to something that is arguably more logical (especially to those of us arguing in favour of this style point — see here for a full-fledged argument showing both sides).

Wikipedia also mentions that scientific and technical publications (even in the U.S., contrary to most American grammar style guides) preferentially place punctuation outside the quotes, unless it was part of the quote itself. Is this enough to convince anyone that this style is more logical? What about the fact that many other languages* use the more logical style, and it is only English (or even its bastard son, “American English”) that has the controversy? (* - I don’t actually know this fact for sure, but it has been used in other arguments.)

There are indications that the internet is leaning towards demanding that the logical way is the better way, but this will take time, especially since the typesetters’ (aka “American”) style seems to be so ingrained in so many people.

As one person astutely pointed out,

The only real rule of grammar is “be consistent”.

Amen. And thank you for using the logical style in expressing this.

"When something is faced head-on, you can often find that it’s nowhere near as big as you..."

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:11:00 -0400

“When something is faced head-on, you can often find that it’s nowhere near as big as you thought it was when it was only in your peripheral vision.”

- — A quote from Catherine Cantieri’s ebook entitled, “How to Harness a Hobgoblin: The #1 Strategy to Unleash Your Creative Productivity” available at http://www.get-sorted.net.

I like this quote, because it rings so true for me. I do keep looking at my thesis in peripheral vision instead of facing it head-on, and it does keep looking humongous except when I’m actually tackling it directly.

If I can keep this quote in mind, maybe I’ll lose some of the intimidation I feel regarding working on my Uber-Big-Super-Duper-Massively-Scary-Thesis, and instead just get the frackin’ thing done!

At risk of giving TMI (ah, but who cares, really?) this xkcd...

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:57:00 -0400

At risk of giving TMI (ah, but who cares, really?) this xkcd comic was particularly appropriate for me this week (yeah, yeah, I know, the comic is almost two weeks old… I’m behind in reading my feeds, but I’m okay with that!). Thankfully, I read it when I was in the mood to be giggling about it, rather than cranky… ;)

Beer can cozies, put to the test!

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:43:25 -0400

Beer can cozies, put to the test!:

#NorOnt09 — Just doing some research for my Northern Ontario trip!

Ten Miles by Boat - #NorOnt09 I kinda wanted to share where...

Sat, 30 May 2009 11:22:00 -0400

Ten Miles by Boat - #NorOnt09

I kinda wanted to share where we’re going camping, but at the same time, I also wanted to keep it secret… so I grabbed the Google Satellite imagery from the area just to give an idea of the terrain.

I will say, though, that it’s deep in Northern Ontario, a little north of halfway between Sudbury and Timmins, but quite aways off the main highway… and the secondary highway for that matter. We take a dirt logging road, part of which can be seen at the bottom left of the image above.

And then we take to the water!! The path marked in blue traces the rivers we take to get to the tiny little lake that contains the tiny little island where we usually camp. The blue path is 10 miles exactly (according to Google), or 16 km to those of us more familiar with metric. And the whole way is absolutely stunningly beautiful…

I’m SO looking forward to it, I’m probably going to be tweeting a lot about it in the coming week! Be warned! :P

P.S. If this image isn’t working, it’s because screencast.com is down for maintenance for part of May 30th. I just didn’t feel like looking for another place to upload images. Check back later, please! It’s too pretty not to!

"…a new [twitter] feature which will give folks far more control over what they see from the..."

Wed, 13 May 2009 16:58:00 -0400

“…a new [twitter] feature which will give folks far more control over what they see from the accounts they follow. This will be a per-user setting and it will take a bit longer to put together but not too long and we’re already working on it.”

- — From the Twitter Blog: “We Learned A Lot”.

Every complaint I had was appended by an exception: if there are going to be more per-user settings in the future, everything’s going to be okay.

I’m glad to know everything’s going to be okay! Crisis averted!

Also, some discussion of scalability at ReadWriteWeb very quickly convinced me that this would be a very real issue. If it helps twitter run better, that’s a great reason to crop it away! Consider me converted.

AND!!! I had already suggested to the nice folks at twitter that it would be great to have an option to set a short text note with each of our followees, so we can remember why we are following them. I got a personal-sounding thank you, saying it sounded like a great idea, so maybe this will be coming soon too! And if there is more flexibility in per-user settings, maybe that’s when GROUPS will come into play! Or maybe that will be the Pro version! (…*gulp!*…)

"The Clock Paradox illustrates how relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it..."

Wed, 13 May 2009 07:27:00 -0400

“The Clock Paradox illustrates how relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it scientifically problematic.”

- So says Dr Peter Hayes, a senior lecturer in politics (yes, politics), as quoted in an article at Science Centric entitled “Has Einstein failed physics?”

I am getting really sick and tired of people trying to bring down Einstein. First it was SCIAM with their cover article, “Was Einstein Wrong?” when in fact the article was showing that Einstein’s doubts about quantum mechanics may actually be right. The original title of the article was just “A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity”, but some editor thought it would be cool to make it seem like Einstein was wrong. Einstein knew quantum mechanics was inconsistent with relativity, which is why he was so adamant that quantum theory was incomplete!

This time, I’m borderline furious that some supposedly “science-centric” website is even POSTING something by someone studying POLITICS and claiming that the theory of relativity is just a mere ideology. Relativity has been verified by experiments, including the aspect of time dilation, which is the mechanism behind the so-called Clock Paradox mentioned in the quote above.

But let me quote how the “science-centric” article describes this Clock Paradox:

“…if one clock travels in a spaceship, while the other stays on earth, when the clock in the spaceship returns it will show that less time has elapsed than the clock on earth. This prediction violates Einstein’s own ‘principle of relativity,’ which states that if you are on the spaceship it should be the clock back on earth that slows down. This is a criticism that science has never been able to satisfactorily resolve.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit! And I don’t swear often, only when the situation demands it. This situation demanded that I swear thrice! Grrr!

What actually happens in this so-called Clock Paradox is that the spaceship has to decelerate and accelerate in order to make the return trip. This breaks the symmetry between the two frames of reference. If this symmetry-breaking didn’t happen, say the spaceship was just zooming past Earth and there was some way to compare clock rates, both parties would see that the other’s clock is slow. Thus, in frames with very high relative velocities, there is a disagreement in clock rates, and that’s it! However, if one frame decelerates to meet the speed of the other, relativity can predict exactly what the resulting difference in time duration will be. This is not only “satisfactorily resolved” in science, it’s completely consistent, at least until you try and analyze it without enough background in the subject!

This is just more proof that I need to get out there and fight for true science to be known, instead of this ideology bullshit…

I just found wrongcards: ecards that are wrong for every...

Mon, 11 May 2009 15:23:13 -0400

I just found wrongcards: ecards that are wrong for every occasion and I really, really think that this particular one is sending me a very powerful message. I’m just not sure what it is…

Many of the cards here actually made me want to send ecards to some friends I have been thinking about lately, and so I’m also making a note to myself to go back and do this someday.

"We have been told that experiments agree with all the predictions of quantum theory, including those..."

Wed, 06 May 2009 08:32:00 -0400

“We have been told that experiments agree with all the predictions of quantum theory, including those that involve the impossible - the Bell test experiments, that are supposed to show totally incomprehensible effects of separated particles on each other.”

- — Caroline Thompson

In working on my thesis, I realized I wanted to be sure that my mathematical model was modelling reality, and so I sought experiments that clearly showed what seemed to be generally assumed: that quantum entanglement is preserved when the individual parts are measured.

Not only have I not found such experiments (yet?) but I’ve found studies that show that nonlocality and entanglement may be the result of misleading interpretations of ignored loopholes! I know I have to be careful of what I read on the internet, but this Caroline Thompson seems to have such well-thought-out observations, I really want to investigate her work more thoroughly.

Or maybe I just need to finish my mathematical model of something that may or may not be a true depiction of any aspect of reality after all. On the other hand, maybe my work will bring out some geometrical interpretation that will result in something so clearly testable, it will undeniably prove or disprove what Caroline dedicated her life to revealing.

Oh. My. Gosh. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham knows what MY...

Tue, 05 May 2009 12:04:18 -0400

Oh. My. Gosh. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham knows what MY Computer Desktop looks like!! I especially liked the section entitled, “Papers you’ve been meaning to read for months.” I have five of those… :)

"/ -.-. …… .-. … / … .- — ..- . .-.. / — —- .-. … ...."

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:24:00 -0400

“/ -.-. …… .-. … / … .- — ..- . .-.. / — —- .-. … . -.-.— /
/ -.— —- ..- .-. / -.-. —- -.. . / —- ..-. / -.. —- - … / .- -. -.. / -.. .- … …. . … /
/ .. — — —- .-. - .- .-.. .. —.. . -.. / -.— —- ..- /”

- In honour of Samuel Morse’s birthday today, Google made a nice logo graphic and I wanted to honour him too, in my own way: with haiku.

My usual outlet for haiku, however, is limited to 140 characters, and that gets difficult when each letter is represented by 1-4 characters in Morse Code. If I could write a haiku using mostly E’s, I’s, T’s, M’s, N’s, and A’s, it might fit… but instead, I decided to just go all out and post as a tumblr tidbit instead of a twitter.

I had the Morse Code translation done automagically, and the same site has a Morse Code DeTranslator as well.

Happy birthday, Samuel Morse!

"So much thought goes into how and the why, the half full or the half empty - that people completely..."

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:30:21 -0400

“So much thought goes into how and the why, the half full or the half empty - that people completely lose interest in one key fact. That the glass isn’t only half full or half empty - the glass is there. Grab hold of it. Drink when you’re thirsty. Refill it when its gone. Smash it against the wall when you feel fucked up and shitty. Whether in pieces or overflowing - its there.”

- — Jim commenting on a post at IttyBiz.com: What Do I Do With My Life?

What an excellent concept, both in context and on its own! Wow!

In support of CJAM, University of Windsor's campus radio station

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:33:27 -0500

CJAM is in trouble, and they have been asking their listeners to write to CRTC to express their support and love for CJAM. I was reminded of this today by @jodilicious, and also reminded that the deadline for expressing my concern is Monday… so I sat down and wrote the following letter immediately.

I love CJAM, and so I am writing to express my support for their application for protected status.

There aren’t enough good radio stations in the Windsor area, especially since (from my experience) CBC Radio 2 comes through so very poorly! But even where CBC Radio 2 is comparable to CJAM, it could never replace it. Student radio hosts tend to have a point of view completely different from all other radio hosts, formed both by the education they are receiving and the fact that they are younger and more aware of trends applicable to the new generations. This knowledge is evident in the music played, as well as the discussion made between songs, and also in talk radio shows.

CJAM showcases a phenomenal assortment of types of music, broadening what I would listen to normally. “Leave it to CJAM,” my friends and I say to each other when we hear something so completely unique, it could only be heard on CJAM. I love hearing music from different cultures, and even love that many of these shows are announced in the language associated with that culture. It helps me feel like a part of this great multicultural city (and world!) to be able to appreciate the cultures that make it up!

But even when the style of music isn’t unique or from another culture, it’s always interesting! Very often, CJAM showcases independent artists that don’t get played on other radio stations. Local bands know to bring their work to CJAM for a great chance at getting played. Sometimes the focus of a show is on a genre that isn’t well-known, or with an emphasis on women in music (I think this one is presented by students in Women’s Studies).

The talk radio shows on CJAM are really fascinating as well! I regularly listen to one where the hosts discuss politics in a very thought-provoking way, arguing intelligently over the ways of analysing a situation. Another show I enjoy discusses vegetarian living, and being conscious of what you eat.

I want to extend my support to other campus radio stations as well. When travelling, I always seek out the campus radio station in the Kitchener area (can’t remember what it is right now, but that’s besides the point). Why do I do this? It’s for all the same reasons I love CJAM. And if something negative happens to CJAM, it will negatively affect the future of all campus radio stations, and I really REALLY don’t want that to happen. If you know what’s good for radio, you won’t let this happen either!

So please, I implore you, on behalf of the hundreds or thousands of people who aren’t taking the time to write about their reasons for loving CJAM (and other campus radio stations), please take these words to heart. Please don’t make it difficult to find this kind of great broadcasting on the radio!

Sincerely,

Crystal McKenzie