Three and Twenty

“For the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it.” – Jean-Paul Sartré

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What is it, precisely, that changes in the world, when you realize you’re the luckiest man in the world? Does the world revolve ever so slightly slower, to savor the delight of the moment, or instead does the pace of the world abruptly quicken so as to hasten the end of that luck? Is there some diffuse filter that descends upon the scene, softening all features except the ones that matter most.

But existence does not drag along with it curtain drops, and catchy melodies; existence plods, flows by, just existing, without pause. We don’t even recognize our luck in the moment; it is only later,when we recall our fortune, that we realize just how blessed we were.

To be the luckiest man in the world. To get things, inexplicably, amazingly right on the first try. To have the terrible misfortune to realize it only after everything had gone.

We are either the traveler in our turbulent experiences, or the teller of the fabulous stories that result; we can never be both. Do we decide to live the banal existence, or do we recount our fantastic adventures. There’s no good answer. But I do fear that we avoid lving the banal in order to tell a story that was never ours to recount. Perhaps, too, in some ways we avoid telling our story to live in banality.

In either case, it’s never good enough.

I’ve been blessed to have been given the time to relish in that sublime experience. But I was too young to realize just how meaningful that time was.

Existence always slips away, unknowing. And all we are ever left with is the stories we may one day tell.

Solving Email

As anyone who receives more than, say, zero emails a day can tell you, getting, writing, sending, sorting, and searching email sucks. It’s absolute shit. Your grandmother grabs a hold of your work address andsends you every cute cat junk mailer she receives from her bridge buddies. Your associates send you critical, last-minute changes (complete with three exclamation marks) expecting you to check your email in the five minutes between it being sent and the critical deadline. Perhaps your social group even uses an email list to talk about whatever is going on in your respective lives.

Email handles practically all use cases – correspondence, instant message, file-sharing, discount coupons, archive – but it handles them miserably. IT’s slow, horribly formatted, and worst of all, it’s misused constantly.

A major problem is the expectations surrounding email. We expect it to do all these things, and we expect it all to go off without a hitch; we are disappointed when the inevitable happens. Worse, we assumes that each and every user, the people we send to, receive from, knows and will conform to our own expectations. We expect different levels of formality, frequency of use, etc. But no one uses email in the same way, because email is so undefined in its use.

So how would one solve email? It isn’t simply a matter of shutting down your Gmail account, because that expectation is so firmly entrenched in our minds: everyone is available through email, if all else fails. And it isn’t a matter of replacing the service with some other, state-of-the-art system, because it isn’t much use if no one else uses the damn thing. So here are some basic criteria:

1. It has to do everything that email can do.
2. It has to coexist with current email.
3. It has to not suck.

Some basics, certainly, that need to be fleshed out more, which I hope to explore further in later posts. I imagine this to be a solution that takes an iMessage-like approach, where users can use the new method with other people similarly entrenched, and switches, without the knowlesge of the user, to normal, plain-old shitty email.

Because it really does suck.

Sometimes Saying Yes

In the recent weeks, reading Steve Jobs’ biography, and several recent stories about Apple’s [success][Joswiak] in desgining for markets that don’t exist, there’s clear emphasis on one word: No. It’s a mantra in many cases for Apple in how they operate: No, we will not answer your questions; No, we will not make twenty products when one will do; No, we will not ask the customer what’s best for them because even they don’t know what’s best for them.

No, No, No.

I think it’s very easy to get hung up on that lone two letter word and start ascribing special meaning to it. It’s easy to get trapped into thinking that by the mere act of saying “No” you drive yourself toward greater success. It’s easy to say we can’t make this work, let’s try something else. It’s easy to say no let’s not do this because it can’t be done.

In no small part, it is about saying no, but more importantly, it’s about saying no to the things that don’t matter. No isn’t some mystical power; it’s merely a way to avoid compromising on what you believe in.

Sometimes, avoiding compromises means saying yes, too. Because without a yes or too, we don’t create amazing things, we don’t identify what matters most to us, we don’t understand what we can’t do without.

Say no to boring things. Say yes to impossible ones. Never stop asking yourself which is which. Always keep what matters most close to your heart.

The District Sleeps Alone

It’s never obvious, when it’s going to be one of those nights. No shining star across the horizon. No status update. No headlights in the fog.

No warning.

It all seems innocuous enough at first; the feeling that there’s an itch that you just can’t scratch, or maybe the street lamp outside is just a bit too bright. Nothing helps of course, no amount of scratching, no shade pulling makes it go away. Cures don’t cure,treatments for the symptoms just dont work: everything you do just serves to make it obvious.

And so the seconds start counting themselves, one, two hundred, three thousand, four AM and nothing’s changed except the light from the moon, maybe, waning with your hope from the night.

Five, six now and the morning comes, grey, dreary, and without comes the noise of the morning, drowning out any chance of relief.

Twiddle your thumbs. Maybe brew an extra large pot. It’ll be another long day before it gets to night again. Maybe then your mind won’t get the better of you. Maybe then you’ll stay still for a second longer than you need. Maybe then you’ll get some sleep.

Maybe you’ll lay awake again, listening for sounds you know you’ll never hear.

Some Thoughts on 2012

With the spectacle that is the Tea Party Beauty Pageant – errr, or is it the Race for the Republican Presidental Nomination? – in full swing now, it’s become almost unavoidable to see adverts, punditry and all other sorts of ballyhooing about some as of now entirely hypothetical face-off nearly a year away. I say almost of course because it is in fact avoidable if you’re willing to forgo television for two years out of every four, a price I think most of us would prefer not paying.

All this political pontificating about which currently occupies the 24-hour newsperson’s hard-core, wet-dream fantasies has got me thinking about the matter at hand, the matter that I think most people at least have on the back of their mind as election day all too slowly approaches:

Just who the fuck am I going to vote for?

A valid question, if at the very least somewhat premature, considering the Republican candidate is far from set in stone, let alone even a single primary vote been cast on the matter. Yet still, despite the so-called “intense primary race” between Romney and a bunch of idiots1 – not to imply that Romney isn’t an idiot, he just happens to have sold his soul to a far less ignorant set of ideologies – the tactic seems pretty clear to the that used by the Democrats in 2004. It’s the so-called “Anybody But [Current Incumbent]”, and it played out well for the Democrats in their subsequent ouster of Bush and election of, wait, who was that guy again?

…

Crickets. As in only crickets could even bear listening to John Kerry speak.

So let’s just assume for a second that the Rupublican candidate is “Anybody But Obama”, since that’s how every candidate seems to be running2. That leaves the Democratic party – sorry, Independents, but I’d like to think my vote at least might count – which means, unsurprisingly Obama.

So the question is Obama, or no Obama? And I think that question itself is a little harder to answer, because I think the answer really depends on how you ask the question. If you compare him to the standard set by most other modern presidents, and account for the context he’s been placed in – struggling economy, unresponsive congress full of bat-shit insane people – he stacks up pretty well, though that’s not saying much.

The issue, in part, is that he came into office with a lot of help from a little four letter word - Hope. And if anything’s disappeared from the White House, Congress, and the American Political Machine in general, it’s hope. Naturally people are disappointed because he hasn’t changed anything. My disappointment is a bit more pragmatic. I wasn’t expecting change; after all,the President can only do so much when he has to rely on a stable full of America’s pompous unintelligent jack-asses to get things done. What’s truly been disappointing in Obama’s first-term is the uninspired manner in which he composed himself. Perhaps he too, understood that just being elected would do little to get things done. But his actions in his four-year term were downright cowardly, especially since the Republicans have taken back some power.

All that aside, the promise of having a second-term president is extremely appealing, especially in a time like this. Having someone in office who isn’t immediately thinking about re-election presents the genuine possibility of getting some of the issues and trouble spots that Obama initially campaigned on truly resolved. Unfortunately, a large part of the decision has to go down to that. It’s not about choosing between Obama and the “Not-Obama”. It’s about choosing between a leader made ineffectualy because of an upcoming election, or a leader that can no longer be elected.3

Pick your Poison, I guess.

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1. Wait, you mean Ron Paul is running in this primary? Who knew? ↩

2. Seriously though, are you sure Ron Paul is still running? ↩

3. If only Ron Paul were still in the running for the Republican nomination… ↩

Bacon

Or, Heaven Comes in Pairs. As I pick up my set of groceries from the co-operative today, scanning the labels for my name, I delight in seeing the underwritten descriptor – “Bacon”.

I tear open the cool bag, and yes, heaven does indeed await: not one, but two slabs of the full-fat hacked off the hog pieces, two and a half pounds in total.

Why is bacon so great? Hell if I know. Hell if I care.

Hearing From the Corners of our Eyes

I recently submitted this research proposal to the University of Pittsburgh in order to obtain some funding and the opportunity to present my findings at a University symposium and possibly other, larger get-togethers. I include it here as a roundabout way of describing some of the work that I do as a researcher. -SM

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By Sean Moore, Undergraduate Researcher, Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory

When we first learn about the basics of our senses, those five fundamental pathways of assessing our outer world, we learn of their independence from one another. Smell is smell, sight is sight, touch is touch. Each allow us to know and view our world in a fundamentally different way, each gives us a wholly unique experience of interacting with the world, and each pathway distinctive so that our perception can properly influence our decisions. We don’t, as normal, healthy human beings, hear colors, after all; nor do we taste shapes.

However, the cognitive regions of the brain, in all of their expansive and interconnected glory, rarely work as independent systems assessing distinct sensory stimuli. Rather, perception itself is a richly entwined process in which information obtained from one path can be utilized to short-circuit the calculations another route must make. The result is faster, smoother decisions, actions, and updates about the world around us, and we use it all the time: close your eyes for a second and hunt for that beloved mug of coffee on your desk – careful, don’t spill! We are entirely capable of finding the handle, but the action is accomplished in several short jagged burst of motion. But when we open our eyes, and combine our rich visual information, we intercept that steaming vessel with fluidity and pinpoint accuracy.

This integrative ability of the mind is nothing short of astounding. And yet this capacity for cross-talk between sensory centers also gives rise to some fascinating phenomena; cases in which the mind deludes itself, sensing two distinct pieces of information and yet perceiving another that is wholly independent of either. One such phenomenon is known as the McGurk-MacDonald Effect. Discovered accidentally when a videographer in the lab mistakenly produced a clip “in which repeated utterances of the syllable (ba) had been dubbed on to lip movements for (ga), normal adults reported hearing (da).”1 At the time, the implications were enormous: it was entirely unknown that, prior to the film faux pas, that visual processing influenced auditory perception in any way.

While McGurk and MacDonald’s research shed light on a topic that has been explored in-depth about this parallel engagement of sensory processing, little has been elucidated as to precisely what elements of the visual field are altering the speech recognition capabilities of the mind. Is it the disconnect between the micro-expressions of syllable formation and auditory register? Or does the mere sight of the speaker in the corner of your eye, without any conscious ability to read the words on the speaker’s lips induce the effect? It is not clear what fundamental components of the visual stimulus are truly necessary in tricking our mind, and what protions are wholly extraneous.

In analyzing this affect of vision on the perception of sound, subjects will be presented with the visual stimuli in ever increasing ranges of their peripheral vision, and will be asked to relate what they hear. As these tasks arc further into the visual hemisphere, the visual acuity of subjects will be tested by evaluating their ability to discern geometrically similar letters from one another. By comparing one’s relative visual acuity in the periphery to the extent of which the mind is fooled by the trick, it should become clear at what point, if at all, the lack of visual detail extinguishes this audio-visual phenomena.

While the experiment is almost childishly simple, it aims to shed light on some exceedingly intricate neural connections. It may be discovered that this phenomenon is not contained in the higher-level centers of the visual and auditory centers, but may instead be an ingrained connection between vision and speech that arises prior to, and even influences our conscious perception of the illusion. More importantly, this research allows the chance to investigate the underpinnings of one of the many fascinating paradoxes of the mind. It is these things that have in the first place asked to consider “What is it about me that causes this?” Answering these small riddles, in turn, gives great joy in knowing that, in some small way, our understanding of our fundamental existence has been furthered.

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1. McGurk, H & MacDonald, J. “Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices”. Nature, vol. 264, pg. 746-8. 1976. ↩