Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

Keepin’ It Real

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Recent advances in medicine have allowed us to do some pretty amazing things. For example, progress in drug development has allowed millions of people to lead healthy, normal lives interrupted only by the constant ads for Prozac via email, television, radio and magazines.

Scanning technology in particular has revealed some very interesting things about the human brain. For instance, Dutch scientists have discovered that when realize you have made a mistake on a task, your brain makes a very distinctive electrical signal. Even more interesting is the fact that when other people watching you realize you’ve made a mistake, their brains make the same signal.

Researchers are excited about the finding because it reveals a number of important things:

1) Apparently the “Oh @#$%^!” response is universal in humans.

2) People may indeed be laughing with you, not at you.

3) It provides a valid, scientific explanation as to why guys, when they see other guys get kicked in the, erm, male region, wince as though they’ve been kicked there as well.

It also may help to explain the appeal of certain experiences. When women watch lots of romantic movies, it may be because they aren’t getting enough romance from their partners and want to experience love through the movie. The men in their lives would do well to notice this and perhaps make some improvements in that department.

When women watch lots of revenge movies, it may because they feel severely wronged by their partners and want to experience vengeance through the movie. The men in their lives would do well to notice this and perhaps take the next flight out of the country.

What it doesn’t explain very well is why people like to seek out negative experiences. There was a game show on television in North America which, among other things, has required its contestants to drink a concoction of [Warning! If you are eating lunch, stop reading this now!] blended maggots and live house flies.

Now, I can almost (almost!) understand why the contestants are willing to do this, because they at least have a chance at winning money for their trouble. But if the Dutch research about experiencing similar brain signals can be extrapolated, this means there are thousands of people out there who deliberately sit down in front of the TV so they can feel like they just chugged a mug of maggots too.

But without being paid.

Consider what this implies for some of our other television programs:

COPS – Viewers either want to feel like A) they’ve been bashed about the head with a baton, been subjected to all sorts of verbal abuse and been thrown in the back of a police car with their hands cuffed behind their back or B) they have to face down yet another half-naked, fully drunk idiot who wants to barf on their shoes in a three a.m. domestic squabble.

FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS – Viewers want to feel like they have fallen off the stage at the school play, broken their backyard swimming pool and surfed the flood wave out on their head, or been bitten by their at/dog/gerbil/rabbit.

ER/CHICAGO HOPE/DIAGNOSIS MURDER – Viewers would like to feel like they’ve just been shot, knifed, in an accident or have acquired a horrible disease and are under the care of staff who are clearly far, far too involved with each other to pay attention to actual, well, medical care.

THE APPRENTICE – Viewers want to feel part of an environment where backstabbing, gossiping, name calling and bad business decisions result in all but one person getting fired.

Why people deliberately seek out bad experiences, I don’t know. It could be that their own lives seem pretty bad, so they look for worse experiences for contrast and to feel better. Frankly, I think a far better way to feel good would be to eat some chocolate cake. Or a chocolate bar.

Or at the very least, watch a TV show about chocolate. Now that’s my kind of reality programming.

 

Odd Man Out

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Today I discovered the real reason behind the invention of beer.

For years, I thought beer was created because A) Ancient people needed some way to make use of grain that had gone off; B) Beer was sometimes safer to drink than the local water, which could make you feel ill and vomit. C) People really like getting drunk, which often results in feeling ill and vomiting. I had yet to reconcile reasons B and C, but I felt I was getting close.

Silly me. Apparently beer was invented so that men could socialize with each other without anyone questioning their manhood. Well okay, questions about manhood do arise, but usually only after Bob has had a few too many, and Mike accidentally steps on Bob’s foot. Then it all goes downhill from there, but that’s another story.

Anyway, according to a recent article, even in the modern, liberated 21st century, men still feel uncomfortable socializing with other men if they don’t have business, sports, or beer as an excuse. Or to put it another way: men feel less manly if seen in the company of other men.

I don’t pretend to understand why this is so, and I concede this is a bigger issue for guys than it is for women. Women hang out together all the time, and no one suggest that doing so makes them less, er, womanly. We do still get strange looks when we do manly things however, like … drink beer.

Since what’s socially acceptable seems to be in flux, and since very few of us have the courage to shed our cultural inhibitions (unless beer is involved, in which case altogether too many things are shed), we need a solution. I propose we all get together and negotiate a list of things that are now, or should be, socially acceptable — and then we can all pledge not to point and gossip when people do these things. The list can be updated regularly and posted online on something like itsokayreally.com. Here’s a starter list:

Funny Coloured Drinks with Umbrellas: These should be banned for both men and women unless they’re on vacation in some tropical location. Is this because they’re too cute? No. It’s because they’re too dangerous – try carrying one of these through a crowded nightclub without having the ‘brolly knocked into your eye.

Movies, Reel One: It should be okay for guys to go to movies that don’t involve car chases or explosions. Actually, guys sighted going into movies that have actual plots should be applauded — maybe Hollywood will get the hint and start hiring screenwriters again.

Movies, Reel Two: Women should be able to feel okay about going to an action film or a sci-fi film without a guy in tow. C’mon, Princess Leia knew how to fire a blaster and drive a speeder bike — she had to learn that from somewhere.

Dinner, Not Diner: Guys should be able to go out to dinner together at a decent restaurant. Women aren’t relegated to grotty sports bars or fast food joints, why should men be?

What’s In Store, Part One: A woman should be able to walk into a hardware store without having to deal with a smirking clerk who talks to her slowly, ignores her question about power drills, and points her to the pink paintbrushes. See also car dealerships and snide comments about mirrors and coffee cup holders.

What’s In Store, Part Two: A man should be able to walk into an interior decorating store without having to deal with a smirking clerk who points him to the pink paint brushes.

Chores and Snores: It should be okay for a woman to mow the lawn and paint the garage while a man vacuums the house and dusts the wood work. These chores involve the same physical movements and will bore the socks off the person doing them regardless of gender.

If It Ain’t Broke, It Might Be Badly Designed

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A recent study has shown that nearly half of all “malfunctioning” products returned to the store for a refund aren’t really broken. Buyers just can’t figure out how to use them.

Are we getting dumber? Is technology outpacing us?

No, mostly it’s the fault of bad design, and overly complicated products.

As frequent readers of this space know, I’m no technophobe. I love gadgets and I become what they call an “early adopter” of the latest and greatest as soon as I can afford it.

Consider my washing machine. It has separate settings for cottons, knits, delicates, ruggeds, 20% polyester blends, favourite t-shirts, white cotton knits with glitter, 60% polyester blends with dark cuffs, colour cotton knits with buttons, and muddy sneakers.

Of course, there’s a completely different set of buttons and knobs on my dryer, even though both appliances are made by the same manufacturer and were offered for sale as a pair. I figure the designers are the same people who, in 50 some odd years, haven’t managed to match up the number of wieners per package to the number of hot dog buns per package.

I also don’t understand my old digital camera. You actually have to hunt for, and then turn on, the feature called “red eye reduction.” Why is this a “feature” and not something the camera just does automatically? I mean, is there anyone who actually *wants* their blue-eyed relatives to look like they’re possessed by demons? (Okay, maybe there are a few of you, but please don’t write to me to tell me why.)

Even supposedly low-tech things like pick-up trucks are ridiculously overdone. We rented a pick-up truck this past weekend, so we could move some furniture, and take a large amount of rubbish to the recycling and composting depot. What we expected was something like our car, only with a cargo bed where our back seats would have been.

What we got was a vehicle I couldn’t even see over while standing on my tip toes. The truck bed sides came up to my nose; it took a running jump and a crash course in pole vaulting just to get into the cab. The gas station owner rubbed his hands together in glee when he saw us coming. Somewhere there’s a draft horse laughing its bridle and collar off.

Not even your toiletries are safe from being overdesigned. I saw an advertisement tonight for a disposable razor that has five blades on one side of the head, and one blade for “tricky spots” on the other side. Further, I can buy this razor in a “manual” version or a “power” version; the latter will emit “gentle micropulses.” Since these micropulses aren’t touted as being good for reducing nicks, cuts and razor burn, I can only assume they’re to save the user the bother of making “Vroom! Vroom!” noises himself.

So the next time you’re faced with a DVD player that’s still flashing 12:00 at you, don’t despair. You’re smarter than you think, and technology isn’t as scary as people would have you believe. You just have to remember that what makes it to market has effectively been designed by… a committee.

And we all know how complicated and badly designed *those* usually are.

Know What?

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Know What?
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This just in! A Kansas State researcher once discovered that if you compliment a woman about her appearance, she feels better about herself.

Ooh! And in other news, another researcher (also at Kansas State) determined that familiar songs act as memory prompts; amazingly, hearing a song from days gone by reminds you of a specific time or place.

This must mean that:

1) Academics really are nerdy types that don’t go out on dates very often.
2) Researchers really need to read more marketing how-to books, because advertising wonks discovered the benefits of music for memory association, oh, about 75 years ago.
3) The whole creationism vs. evolution debate in Kansas is already having an effect on the quality of research done there.

Okay, to be fair, Kansas universities aren’t the only places producing … interesting studies. The University of Durham recently made the headlines because researchers there announced that they’d discovered that sports teams that dressed in red have a slight advantage over those that don’t. I’d be willing to bet money that their next study will be: The Effect of Scientific Research on Sports Wagering: Red Teams Get Shorter Odds.

Personally, I’d like to see a study entitled: How the Heck is This Sort of Research Getting Funding Anyway? Or how about: Why on Earth is This Stuff Being Published?

Published research is supposed to be filtered by what’s know as the ‘peer review’ process. If you’re an academic, you’re supposed to do your work, write it up in a paper and submit it to a journal. There, a panel of your peers examines it, and either rejects it, suggests ways to improve it, or gives it the green light for publication.

This little system works well except in the following situations:

1) If you’re doing pioneering research, and there aren’t enough other people in the field for you to actually have peers yet.
2) If your paper argues against a currently accepted theory, in which case you’re liable to get your paper stamped “crackpot” as well as “rejected.”
3) If you have recently insulted, criticized, argued against, or accidentally cut off in traffic, any of the people who end up on your review committee. In this case you’re liable to get your paper stamped “mother dresses funny,” “crackpot,” “should have credentials revoked” as well as “rejected.”

With this kind of process in place, how are some of these studies being published? It may be that there are just too many people submitting too many papers.

I once dated a mathematician who admitted that he wrote (and had published) the same paper several times over: he’d run a math experiment with one set of numbers, and published the results. Then he’d change the input numbers slightly, run the experiment again and published the results. Which just goes to show: academics do go out on dates from time to time.

No, wait, what it really points out is that perhaps journal reviewers are overwhelmed, and aren’t reading papers as closely as they could be.

We know this to be the case on at least two occasions: Alan Sokal submitted a rubbish piece to “Social Text” a few years ago, had it accepted, and then revealed his hoax in another journal. More recently, some computer science jokers wrote a program that generates complete papers for you (http://www.pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/). The authors of the program submitted a generated paper to a conference — and had it accepted.

(There’s also the issue of crappy reporting on studies by the media, but that’s a whole other post!)

All of which leads me to ask three more questions:

1) How many other nonsense papers are getting published that really shouldn’t be?
2) Is knowledge really doubling every five years, like the pundits say? (Not really, if the studies above are any indicator of what’s being touted as “knowledge.”)
3) How cool is it that I ‘wrote,’ in less than five seconds, with my eyes closed, a 1500 word paper called “A Synthesis of Forward-Error Correction Using Mir” ?
3b) Where can I get one of these autogenerator thingies for humour posts?