Author: curtis.wiggins

Seth Meyer has ruined Venn Diagram Humor (Not that it matters)

So, for my first foray into the post-Craig-Ferguson late-night tele-pocalypse, I thought I’d try watching Seth Meyer’s version of the Late Night show over on NBC. (Not much choice, CBS apparently gave up on guest hosts for the remaining LLS and went with reruns of “The Talk”. Talk about a late-night hellscape… but I digress.)

Anyhow, I enjoyed Seth’s work on Weekend Update, and the few bits and pieces I’ve glimpsed have seemed promising, so, what the heck, let’s give it a shot. This night he was following the standard Carson formula, in between the monologue and the first guest you do a behind-the-desk bit. His bit this night was Venn diagrams…

Okay, an easy enough premise, reveal circle one and circle two, each containing seemingly unrelated things, then reveal the intersection containing the punchline that relates the two. Okay, fine. Nevermind that this shtick is all over the Internet already, that’s okay, it’s everywhere because it works. It can be funny with the right writing.

Here’s the problem with Seth’s Venn diagrams. With almost every single one, the intersection containing the punchline wasn’t a proper intersection at all. Out of maybe a dozen or more, there were two, only two, that could be considered intersections. The rest were all supersets. Now, the bit could have been just as funny if the punchlines were presented as supersets. Funny and mathematically correct. As it was, the punchlines were funny, but their inaccuracy in the diagram was absolutely grating.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I don’t care that Seth Meyers doesn’t understand Venn diagrams. I could care less. What bothers me is that he would attempt using Venn diagrams in bit without understanding them. If you make jokes about things you don’t understand you’re likely to get the details wrong, and that detracts from whatever humor was in the joke. Rookie mistake. I can’t believe in a whole room of writers there’s not one nerd who would catch that.

Even that shouldn’t matter, but I know me, it will. From now on, if I happen to flip over to Late Night, I’ll be like, there’s the idiot who does Venn diagrams when he knows fuck all about how they actually work, and I just can’t respect that. Sorry Seth.

So the search continues. I’m telling you guys, Netflix is looking better and better….

Vaccinate. Your. Children.

It’s not a matter of choice, or of preference, or of belief…

The simple truth is this — if you do not vaccinate your children, you are putting other people’s children at risk. Period. Other children MAY DIE, as a direct result of your action. If you have a legitimate reason to not vaccinate (immune deficiency, allergy, etc), then it is just unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. We will not hold it against you.

On the other hand, if you do not have a legitimate reason, if you are acting only out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, or worse, out of “belief”, then you are, quite simply, a despicable human being. You can “believe” anything you like, but when your “belief” causes harm to others, it becomes a problem. The word we usually use to describe such a problem is “evil”. If you unnecessarily risk the lives of others, you are evil. That’s it, evil. It really is that simple. There is no way around that truth.

Don’t be evil.

Easy-Bake Oven

A recent discussion on kids and gender identity reminded me of an incident from my childhood.

When I was a little kid, I wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. Now, my parents were generally pretty tolerant of whatever weirdness I threw at them, but apparently this is where they drew the line. I can picture my dad saying “No son of mine is going to play with an Easy-Bake Oven.”

But…. I don’t think they “got” why I wanted it. It’s not that I wanted to play housewife, pretending I was cooking and baking in the kitchen all day. (Not that there would be anything wrong with it if I did, but that wasn’t it.) Here’s the thing: These things made REAL cakes.

Now, mom might bake a cake once in a blue moon, and I understood they were a lot of trouble to make, but they were delicious. But now, thanks to modern toy science, here was this machine, made just for kids, that could bake a little tiny cake. I could make it myself. All by myself. At any time. Think about it… I could have cake ANY TIME I WANTED. I love cake. This. Changed. Everything.

Seriously, this was a game-changer. No more waiting, no more begging mom, I could have cake whenever I wanted, thanks to this little miracle of a machine. I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but if kids could do it, how hard could it be? I was excited, downright giddy over the possibilities.

But alas, it was never to be. I never got my Easy-Bake Oven. And all because they just didn’t understand. I didn’t want to play at being a mom. I just wanted cake.

An IT Story

True story… My very first job in IT. My very first day at work. I met my team leader, a lovely woman named Mavis, my manager, whom I don’t remember, and everyone in the office, including our lead technical guy, a “Senior Engineer” named John Popp. I mention his name only because I will never forget it, because of this story.

He was an older guy (well to me then anyway), and was presented as THE go-to guy for all things technical. I don’t remember if they used the word “guru”, but you get the idea. We talked for a while in his office, but then it was time for me to actually log in to the system and start doing some real work. But, being my first day, they didn’t have an account set up for me yet. John Popp kindly volunteered to let me use his account until mine was ready. Fantastic, I was all set. Username? “johnpopp”. Great. Password? “johnpopp”. … …. ….. I was stunned for a moment. The only thought that came to mind was “Really?” but I at least had the sense not to say that out loud.

And THAT was my very first experience with the realities of the IT world. (For what it’s worth, not much has changed since then.)

Choke Holds (Eric Garner)

The NYPD banned the use of choke holds in any situation in 1993. It was banned exactly because it can easily cause the death of the suspect.

The right to a trial by jury is constitutionally guaranteed. It is the responsibility of the police to arrest suspects so that they may be brought to trial. Killing a suspect, when there is no threat, is not just wrong, it is a violation of the suspect’s constitutional rights.

Killing a suspect, even accidentally, using a technique that is known to cause death, to the extent that the technique is specifically banned, is not just wrong, at best it is criminally negligent.

By the way, it doesn’t matter what color the suspect is, or whether or not he committed a crime. Rights are rights. Some of the MOST important rights are the rights we have when we are accused of committing a crime. Let me say that again, some of our most important rights, rights which literally millions have fought and died for, are the rights that protect us when we are accused of a crime. If we lose that, we will find ourselves living in a police state, where government has absolute authority, and the people have no redress.

DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR RIGHTS JUST BECAUSE THEY ALSO PROTECT PEOPLE YOU DON’T LIKE. Unless they protect all of us, they protect none of us.

Ferguson, History, Repeating…

I’ve been around long enough to see a lot of “Ferguson”s, including some in our own back yard. It has happened before, and it will happen again. And every time we fail to understand it. It will continue to happen, over and over again, precisely because we do not understand it. Yet it happens with such predictability and certainty, that surely it is capable of being understood.

The problem is, we ask the questions, but we don’t like the answers. We dismiss the answers as fallacy, and because we cannot make sense of it, we tell ourselves it was a fluke, an isolated event, a random act of senseless violence, and we move on with our lives, and nothing has changed, and nothing has been fixed, and we have all but guaranteed that it will happen again. Until we learn from our history, we are condemned to repeat it.

If you would truly like to understand, read the short paragraph from Tim Wise below. Many of you will not like the answer, but I assure you, the answer doesn’t care. Truth doesn’t care whether you like it or not, and it certainly does not become any less true.

Only when we accept the truth will we be able to learn from it, and fix it, and move forward, and only then will we have any hope of stopping this from happening again. Ignore it if you like, but you don’t get to act surprised the next time this happens.

 

If your concerns about violence are limited to property damage and looting, and you have never shed two tears for the history of institutional violence, murder,colonialism, segregation, lynching, genocide and police brutality against peoples of color, your words mean nothing; they mean less than nothing. Your outrage, in such a case is grotesque, an inversion of morality so putrescent as to call into question your capacity for real feeling at all. So long as violence from below is condemned while violence from above is ignored, you can bet that the former will continue–and however unfortunate that may be, it is surely predictable. If you’d like the former to cease, put an end to the latter, and then I promise you, it will.

— Tim Wise

Happy Holidays 2014

It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, and already people have started that beloved annual Christmas tradition — belittling people and especially businesses who say “Happy Holidays”.

So I thought maybe I should get my “Happy Holidays” rant out of the way early this year, so here goes…

It’s not about fear of offending someone, it’s about being inclusive. It’s about a business valuing all of their customers, not just the Christian ones. It’s saying to everyone, “I don’t know what holiday you celebrate, but whatever it is I wish you happiness as you celebrate it.”

Only in America would people get upset about trying to wish happiness to everyone. Shame on you Christians, trying to keep all the holiday happiness for yourselves. Learn to share. Maybe be welcoming and friendly to others who aren’t like you. I think maybe Jesus would like that.

(Just guessing on that last part, based on what I’ve read about him — I’m not like hearing voices in my head or anything.)

Anywho…. Happy Holidays Everyone!

Hey NBC…

Hey NBC, let me just rant here a little bit. I can’t help but notice you’re promoting the hell out of the second season of “The Blacklist”. Good for you (they probably could have used it the first season, but hey, water under the bridge, right?). Anywho, It looks like an interesting show, something I might enjoy, and I think James Spader is just swell. So I’m thinking, let me go back and binge the first season, and if I like it, I’ll be all set for the season two premier.

I wonder if you’re sensing the problem yet… So off I go to NBC on demand, and what do I find? Last season? No, just the last five episodes. That’s no good, I don’t want to jump in at the end of the season – I want to start from the beginning. (Call me OCD, but I hate starting in the middle.) Okay, let’s try NBC.com.  Same thing. Wait, what a bout Hulu, that’s where put all this stuff now, right? Nope, just those same five episodes.

Alright, fine, lets widen the search…. There it is! On Amazon. I’ve got Prime, perfect! Wait? What? It’s not Prime, you have to buy the whole season? For $35?? Are you freaking kidding me? You honestly think I’m going to spend $35 on a show I’ve never heard of, just to see if I like it or not?

Screw you, NBC. If it’s half as good as you say it is, it’ll turn up eventually on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Guess what, I can wait. That’s where I spend 80% of my viewing time anyway. If you don’t care enough to make previous seasons available now, why should I care about jumping on board, and watching it “live”.

Maybe one day you pinheads will learn how to use streaming to actually build an audience. Maybe, clearly you’re too afraid of it now to use it effectively. That’s too bad — missed opportunity. By the way, if you don’t figure it out soon, there’s a good chance your competitors will. Or not, they’re pretty dumb too. Either way, good luck staying relevant.

Sex, Birth Control, and Public Policy (A Pragmatic Approach)

Okay, first of all I get the idea of personal responsibility. I do. If you’re going to have sex, you should be responsible enough to provide for your own birth control. I get that, but…

As a matter of public policy, for the greater good of everyone involved (i.e. all of us), and beyond that, as a practical matter, as to what actually costs the taxpayers less money…

You are opposed to abortion. You are opposed to unwed mothers and single parent families. You are opposed to “welfare mothers” having babies just to receive more handouts. Your are opposed to illegal immigrants having “anchor babies”. All valid positions, but explain to me then why on earth you are also opposed to providing free birth control.

It seems to me that providing free birth control (and education to go with it) is not only the best way to address each of those issues, it is also the most cost effective way to address each of those issues.

To me it seems simple. If you want poor people to stop having babies, if you want poor people to stop having abortions. Give them birth control, and show them how to use it.

(And please don’t give me the abstinence nonsense either. Asking people to stop having sex is both absurd and naïve. It is contrary to human nature, and any time you try to fight human nature I guarantee you will lose. It’s a fact of life. Literally.)

That you are also opposed to birth control tells me you are not interested in actually solving the problem. It tells me that either you are caught up in some religious or ideological argument that has no basis in reality. Or that you hate women. Or that you hate poor people. Or both. Or all three.

Whatever your reason or reasons, I say this to you. Get over it. Seriously, get the fuck over it. Get over it, stop arguing just for the sake of arguing, and set about actually trying to fix the problem. And for God’s sake, if you can’t do that, at least stop making it worse.

</rant>