Author Archives: Frank Moraes

About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

Quelle Surprise!

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Today, on his blog, Paul Krugman wrote:

And quelle surprise, as Yves Smith would say, the economy is sputtering.

When I first read this, I thought he meant to write, “quell surprise,” as an ironic, “Stop the surprise!” But this was not what he meant. The first thing I did was to see if there was some kind of strange spelling for “quell,” given that my spelling is at best poor. There was not. This lead me to think that “quelle” was a foreign word, and it is, but that isn’t the whole story. It would have been quite easy if Krugman had just typeset the sentence properly:

And quelle surprise, as Yves Smith would say, the economy is sputtering.

The italics make all the difference in the world. They alert the reader to the fact that the words are foreign. “Quelle surprise” is French for, “What a surprise!” It also sounds nothing like “quell surprise,” and sounds more like, “queue sue preez.”

In general, it is not a good idea to use foreign phrases in English writing—especially when they look to the ignorant like a reasonable English equivalent. But if one is to use them, they must be highlighted as such, and this normally means italics.

Pirates and Beavers and Priests! Oh my!

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Earlier today, I decided—after much procrastinating—to see the movie The Beaver. You may be thinking, “But Frank, why would you procrastinate about seeing a film that’s primary appeal was that it had a puppet?” The answer is its secondary appeal: Mel Gibson. Nothing quite takes the gloss off puppetry like combining it with a sadomasochistic asshole. But went I did, and discovered I did—it being Friday—the films playing at the theater had changed and The Beaver was no longer playing. My options were pretty much reduced to reading the big scary science book I just got or going to see the film that had replaced The Beaver: The Priest. Given that I figured that The Beaver was going to be dreck, the fact that I held the same opinion of The Priest did not really enter into my decision. I went to see The Priest.

This was my second time going to the “$3 for all shows” 3rd Street Cinema in Santa Rosa. The first time was to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, only yesterday. Let me only say of it, quickly, that I thought it was probably the best of the bunch. But I will have to see it at least one more time. There are obvious advantages to it: out goes Orlando Bloom, in comes Ian McShane; there was more Jack Sparrow than in any of the other films; and okay, I liked the bit between the Christer and the mermaid! More to the point, however: the 3rd Street Cinema put Pirates in its best theater. It even had THX sound, although after getting used to the Roxy Stadium 14’s sound system, it sounded pretty puny and pathetic. The Priest, on the other hand, was probably put in their worst theater. It had no THX. No Dolby. And it showed, if you will forgive me: even sitting at the front of the theater, I could make out a maximum of 70% of the dialog, and it was probably closer to 50%.

I actually had a rather good time watching The Priest because it was like a mystery. I kept trying to figure out if the filmmakers meant to make such a funny movie. I learned the answer about an hour into this just short of hour and a half opus.[1] That is the point at which the character “Black Hat”[2] pretends to conduct the vampire raid on Jericho. That was clearly meant to be funny—and it was. But it also meant that the rest of it was not meant to be funny. I suppose I should have know: I was the only one in the theater laughing.

I was not laughing because it was bad. It is just that the film is so unrelentingly serious about a subject that is just plain silly. But The Priest is not alone in this. Just about any post-apocalyptic film is. At first, it reminded me of Judge Dredd (also based on a comic). But Judge Dredd, despite its art direction, does have a sense of humor. It didn’t take long before I found a better match: Warrior of the Lost World. Or perhaps Mad Max.[3] I appreciate an artist’s commitment to his material, but that’s the thing about it: if it doesn’t work, people will laugh. And this film pulled out all the stops. I was in a good mood, so I felt entertained rather than assaulted. But it could easily have been the opposite.

But who can really complain for three bucks? Three bucks?! The 3rd Street Cinema in Santa Rosa. I can forgive a whole lot—and get a hot dog—for that price. Oh my!

[1] I kept thinking about the director’s cut of the film Kate & Leopold. At the beginning, Kate defends here profession of “market research” by saying, among other things, “We make bad films shorter!” The irony of this scene being cut from the film is priceless. In fact, the irony that the whole film was savagely cut is priceless, even though I would say the director’s cut is better (not saying a lot). Anyway, it is clear that The Priest was meant to be about a half-hour longer.

[2] This film is bad about character names. Another major character was named “Salesman” because, you know, he was a salesman. And the title character is named “Priest” because, you know, he’s a priest. Ditto for the priestess. I guess it is because this film is based on a comic book. It must be a kids’ thing. But this kids’ thing attracted a lot of talent: “Salesman” was played by Brad Dourif.

[3] This brings us full circle to Mel “cut off your arm with this hacksaw” Gibson. This makes me think that the reason I didn’t laugh all the way through Mad Max is the psychopath at its center. I am obviously not talking about George Miller—for God’s sake, the man went on to make Babe: Pig in the City. No, I am talking about that Mad Max guy: you could tell that the actor had more than an actor’s interest in the part. For the record, Mad Max is a dreadful film—just not one I would laugh at.

Drop the I Word

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I just heard Monica Novoa of the Drop the I Word campaign on FAIR’s CounterSpin. The idea of the campaign is to get people to stop using the adjective “illegal” to modify human beings, as in, “He’s an illegal immigrant.” Frankly, I thought everyone had long ago given up that construction, if for no other reason than that it isn’t accurate: people aren’t illegal, acts are. Thus, we don’t refer to people who have been convicted of crimes as “illegals.” Thus, when speaking of non-citizens working in this country without authorization, we use the term “undocumented.” Here is what the website has to say on the issue:

Pervasive systems like media and government normalize their use and make it easier to deny people basic human rights through our written and unwritten rules. Use of the i-word ignores the fact that our laws are unjustly applied. Immigrants without documents are regularly hired as cheap, exploited labor. No one else who benefits from the set up, including the employers who recruit and hire these migrants, is labeled this way. No one should ever be labeled this way. No human being is illegal.

There were two things that I was surprised about in this matter. The first was that even non-right-wing news organizations continue to use the word “illegal” in this way. The second was that the original usage of the I word was explicitly created by anti-immigration activists. Even the infamous Frank Luntz has been part of this. So just in case you were still doing it: stop calling people illegal. When you do so, you are not only speaking inaccurately, you are taking part in political theater.

I Felt Like a Gringo

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On this 4th of July, I find myself thinking back to the Minutemen’s 1983 EP Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat and the song “I Felt Like a Gringo” by Mike Watt:

Got a ton of white boy guilt, that’s my problem,
Obstacle of joy, one reason to use some drugs.
Slept on a mexican beach slept in trash – American trash
Thinking too much can ruin a good time.

I asked a mexican who ran a bar for americans
“Who won” I said “The election?”
He laughed, I felt like a gringo,
They played a song and they had some fun with us.

Why can’t you buy a good time? Why are there soldiers in the street?
Why’d I spend the fourth in someone else’s country?

I list them here, because they are hard to make out when D. Boon sings them, but here is an acoustic version of the song:

I always feel sad on nationalistic holidays. This is a great change from my youth when I looked forward to watching 1776 on the 4th. Now I think of Ben Franklin’s statement that the United States was, “A republic, if you can keep it.” It sure seems like a republic, at the same time I feel I am not represented. People with money are represented. Things with money are represented. But me? I don’t know. I am an outsider in my own country. I would feel far more relaxed in Mexico right now.

Happy Independence Day!

A Couple of Questions for That Bard

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As regular readers of this site know, I very much like Kenneth Branagh and very much dislike Shakespeare, who I derisively call “That Bard.” It is wrong to say that I dislike Shakespeare; it is more that I just don’t think he is all that great. If no one liked him, I would probably sing his praises. But I commonly read such ridiculous praise for him that I can’t help it. As a poet, he’s okay I guess. As a dramatist, he is pretty good at his best, mediocre most of the time, and absolute rubbish at his worst. Today, I watched Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 version of Much Ado About Nothing—twice! The first time, I watched it with the play in front of me to see how close it is to the play. It is quite close. Branagh yanks out a couple of scenes, cuts some lines (although rarely his), moves a couple of things around, and adds purely visual material that is not in the play. But all in all, it is quite close to the play and so I have a few questions for Shakespeare.

  1. Why do you think you can just make villains without providing any context? Why is Don John such a bastard (in both ways)? His first major speech sounds suspiciously like the opening of Richard III—a play where again we get a villain who just is a villain. (“And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover… I am determined to prove a villain”? Come on!) And while I’m on the subject of Don John, here’s a question for Kenneth Branagh: in what universe could Keanu Reeves be the half-brother of Denzel Washington?
  2. Why, after Don John tricks Claudio regarding Hero, does he allow himself to be tricked again?
  3. Why does Don John want to disgrace Hero and stop her marriage to Claudio? It is his brother, Don Pedro, who he hates.
  4. Benedick and Beatrice are both highly nubile. Are we to believe that they just have to be tricked into thinking the other is in love with them for them to fall passionately in love? Don’t get me wrong, the scenes with these two (whether in or out of love) are the best in the play. It is good fun. It is also, unfortunately, totally unbelievable.
  5. If Hero were unfaithful, Claudio and Don Pedro act disgracefully by shaming her in public. I’ll grant you that Hero is one of your air-head female characters, and so will put up with anything to get a husband. But what about the audience? Why is Benedick going to come up with some good punishment for Don John, while Claudio and Don Padro (who acted worse in many ways) live happily ever after?

These are just a few of my questions. If I held myself to the same standards of plot and characterization as Shakespeare, I’d be pumping out a novel a week.

Five Dollar Man

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Coin FlipThere is a test that psychologists can give to a person to determine how much of a gambler he is. It is quite simple. Would you bet a quarter for a quarter on a coin flip?—that is to say, if it comes up heads, I pay you a quarter and if it comes up tails, you pay me a quarter. A man who would take this bet is a gambling man. But if he will not take this bet, the psychologist ups the ante. Would you bet a quarter on two quarters? The plot thickens. If not that, three quarters. Then a dollar. Most people are not really interested until it reaches the dollar for a quarter level. I’m more a five dollar man.

Even though I’m not a betting man, I used to be a professional sports handicapper. Sports betting is interesting to me, because unlike most forms of betting, you can win if you are good at it. The problem is that almost no one is. The reason is that it is highly random. One year, I looked at all the NFL games and found a striking correlation between the team with the fewest turn-overs (lost fumbles and interceptions) and the team that covered the line. Thus, it didn’t matter how well the teams played otherwise (that’s all figured into the line anyway), what really mattered were the random and uncommon events (the turn-overs).

Nonetheless, it is striking that almost all sport bettors lose money, because you don’t have to do much better than random (50%) to win. But you do have to do better. In order to explain this, I first have to explain how the house (casinos and similar institutions) run their sports betting operations.

It should come as no shock that the house is not a charitable institution; they are in the business of making money so they take a percentage off the top of any bet. This percentage is called the vig. This amount is traditionally 5% of the entire bet. So bets are usually placed as “Betting $55 to win $50.” This means that if you win, you get a $50 profit but if you lose, you get a $55 loss.

In order for the house to make sure it doesn’t take a bath on any given game, it moves the line around so that there is roughly the same amount bet on both teams. The house doesn’t care who wins, they just want that 10% of the loser’s money; the rest goes to pay the winner. The house always wins. Always.

To compensate for losing more when you lose than you win when you win, you must win more than 50% of the time just to break even. How much more? Well, not that much. A little algebra will help to explain. Assume that you are making $50 bets. If x is the fraction of wins then the total amount of money you get from wins will be ($50)*x. But the total amount of money you lose would be ($55)*(1-x). For you to break even, these must be equal. So…

$50*x = $55*(1-x)
x = .5238 = 52.38%

You need to win roughly 52.4% of the time to break even. This may not seem like too much to ask for but most bettors lose money year after year after year. So I recommend not betting. But then, I would: I’m a five dollar man.

Don Quixote in Pieces on the Ground

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Don Quixote is roughly a half-million words long. The average modern novel is about 100,000 words. My first novel was 60,000 words. My current novel was supposed to 120,000 words, but it is becoming clear that it will have to be roughly double that length. The point is that Don Quixote is long. It is the longest novel I know of, and this presents a problem. Just yesterday morning, I pulled out my Putnam translation from my backpack, and found it in pieces. In one way, this is a good thing: I only have to carry around the half of it at a time because the book broke almost exactly in half (with some individual pages floating about). But this does not compensate for this book being destroyed. And it does not bode well. All of my copies of Don Quixote are in paperback, and I’m sure they too will fall apart when I get around to manhandling them.

I have been neglecting my discussions of Don Quixote because I have been working on a comparison of all my translations of Chapter 6. It is a daunting task. It took me some time to compare various translations of a single sentence in the book. Doing a whole chapter—and a long one at that—takes forever. For now, idling reader, we will just have to continue on with Putnam.

The Traveling Merchants

When last we encountered our hero, I compared him to Henry Bergh—finding him quite wanting. Bergh was a true hero—a great man. The Ingenious Gentleman is just a nut who, while trying to do good, does very bad things indeed. After leaving a peasant boy to be brutalized by his master, our hero rides off feeling very good about himself. Then he runs into some merchants who he will not let pass, “Unless everyone will confess that there is not in all the world a more beauteous damsel than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.”[1] When they insist upon seeing at least some likeness of her, Don Quixote attacks. Luckily, Rocinante—Don Quixote’s old, skinny horse—falls. The merchants take the opportunity to beat up Don Quixote and then go on their way. Apparently because of the weight of his armor (and being in bad physical shape because of the beating), Don Quixote is forced to lie on the ground over night until a local farmer finds him and helps him home.

There is an interlude at this point: Chapter 6. Mostly, it is a way for Cervantes to have some fun with the chivalric books of his time—even his own. I am waiting for the compendium of all the issues from 1940 of More Books, The Bulletin of the Boston Public Library. It contains an article by Esther B. Sylvia called “Don Quixote’s Library.” Putnam does an excellent job of annotating this chapter, but I expect Sylvia’s paper to be far more enlightening. So I will not discuss this chapter, except to say that as Don Quixote sleeps, his friends burn most of his library.

On the Road Again

As soon as he is recovered, Don Quixote slips away at night. He has managed to get a local farmer named Sancho Panza to be his squire by promising to make him governor of an island—or something similar. Then we get to the windmills. It is remarkable that this section of the book is so well known, because it really doesn’t stand out. Don Quixote sees a bunch of windmills, mistakes them for giants, and attacks them. There really isn’t much to say about this episode. If you joust with a windmill, you will lose. Don Quixote lost. Sancho warns him before and chastises him afterwards:

“God help us!” exclaimed Sancho, “did I not tell your Grace to look well, that those were nothing but windmills, a fact which no one could fail to see unless he had other mills of the same sort in his head?”

“Be quiet, friend Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Such are the fortunes of war, which more than any other are subject to constant change. What is more, when I come to think of it, I am sure that this must be the work of that magician Frestón[2], the one who robbed me of my study and my books, and who has thus changed the giants into windmills in order to deprive me of the glory of overcoming them, so great is the enmity that he bears me; but in the end his evil arts shall not prevail against this trusty sword of mine.”

The one interesting part of this episode is that it is the first indication that while Sancho is an illiterate and gullible farmer, he’s pretty smart and very grounded.

The Murderous Nut

After this fiasco, the pair meet up with a couple of friars followed by a lady in a coach accompanied by six or seven guards, it would seem. Don Quixote thinks the friars have kidnapped the lady and so attacks them. They flea for their lives. Then Don Quixote goes to the coach and tells the lady that she need not pay him for not saving her. All he wants is for her to go back to La Mancha and tell Dulcinea del Toboso about the heroic deed that he just didn’t do. One of her companions says this is ridiculous—the lady was on her way to Seville to say good-bye to her husband who had been appointed some kind of high post in India. As a result, the two begin to fight. Don Quixote gets the better of the other man and would have killed him if not for the ladies in the coach begging him to spare the man’s life.

This episode was much less enjoyable than that of the merchants, because in this case, Don Quixote got what he wanted. He attacked two friars and would have killed one of them had he not fallen off his mount. Then he would have killed another man when he was prone. There is nothing chivalric about his behavior. Later that evening, Sancho suggests that they take refuge in a church because they might be arrested. Don Quixote will have none of it; he sums up very well what it means to be a knight-errant:

“Be quiet,” said Don Quixote. “And where have you ever seen, or read of, a knight being brought to justice no matter how many homicides he might have committed?”

It is a shocking statement that jumps off the page. Up to that point, one can see all of Don Quixote as farce, but this statement is too true. In general, knights were not the good men of movies and novels; they were murdering rouges, more like Mickey Knox from Natural Born Killers than Robin Hood. So after but ten chapters, we find that our hero is nothing more than a murderous madman who talks pretty. I already know that in the end, Don Quixote dies feeling bad and embarrassed about the things that he has done. But there is a long way to go, and I find I am not enjoying the book as much as I had. Like Francois Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel I can understand and even appreciate the comedy, but it does not make me laugh. Don Quixote is serious business indeed. And it is in pieces on the ground in more ways than one.

[1] Dulcinea del Toboso is a peasant girl. She has no idea who Don Quixote is. And Sancho lies to Don Quixote when they meet. Don Quixote sees just a dirty peasant girl (which she is). But Sancho convinces him that she is really a beautiful princess and that Don Quixote must be under an evil curse by Frestón to make him unable to see this.

[2] Frestón is a magician Don Quixote’s friends made up to explain how his study (they walled over the door) and books went missing. Like so much in Don Quixote’s mind, Frestón does not exist.

More About Don Quixote

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Don Quixote in English

Clarity, Convenience, and the Serial Comma

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Jay Ward created Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Confused? If you didn’t know all these shows, you might think that “George of the Jungle and Rocky and Bullwinkle” somehow modify “Hoppity Hooper.” Or you might think that the three shows Jay Ward created were “Hoppity Hooper” and “George of the Jungle and Rocky” and “Bullwinkle.” All this confusion is due to the lack of the serial comma — the comma after the “and” in a series of items. Thus:

With Serial Comma: cats, dogs, and horses
Without Serial Comma: cats, dogs and horses

Yesterday on Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote about the uproar over the decision of the University of Oxford’s PR department to revise its style rules to eliminate serial commas. I’m not too upset about this, because for the last couple of decades the serial comma has fallen out of favor and many style guides have given up on it. This does not mean, however, that I agree with the decision.

From the standpoint of clarity, sometimes the serial comma is necessary and sometimes it is not. Therefore, given that it is sometimes necessary for clarity, always use it. I don’t see what is gained by destroying the serial comma, but I know why editors don’t like it. It is part of the general move to remove as much punctuation as possible. I like to use a lot of punctuation, but I fight the urge and end up using a half to a quarter of what I think is right. Really. What’s more, I don’t think the extra punctuation that I want to add would slow the reader. It would help. Punctuation helps define syntax. Those who would remove it think that sentences are clear without them. Sometimes they are — but rarely. Take that last sentence, for example: would it have meant the same thing if written, “Sometimes they are but rarely”? On first reading it, you would parse it incorrectly and then have to figure out what I meant. The way I wrote it, you get it right the first time without having to investigate the sentence like a literary Colombo.

My guiding philosophy is: make rules that make writing easier. This is why I think we should get rid of the word announce. With the serial comma, there are times when a writer must use it. Thus, why not use it all the time so you don’t have to think about whether it is required in a particular instance. Unfortunately, editors write style guidelines, not writers. This is why we Americans are stuck with totally unsupportable constructs like, “He spelled paper ‘papper.'” That period clearly does not belong to “papper.” The American quotation rules do make writing easier, but only at the expense of clarity and consistency. If we are going to do it with periods, we should do it with question marks and exclamation marks. This is a case where we shouldn’t make life easier on the writer. We should only do that when the change does not hurt the writing.

I guess the editors think they are eliminating clutter. But if they really want to remove clutter, why not get rid of all punctuation? Why not get rid of spaces? Who needs a “hot cup of tea” when the reader can figure out a “hotcupoftea”? “Really don’t you think as my friend Gerald Burns did before he died at age 59 that a hot cup of tea with or without sugar but surely with milk is better than coffee?” Perhaps not. “Really, don’t you think — as my friend Gerald Burns did, before he died at age 59 — that a hot cup of tea, with or without sugar — but surely with milk — is better than coffee?” I’m sure you can reverse engineer the first jumble of words, but you don’t have to in the second sentence because of all the directional signals (punctuation) controlling the flow of the jumble.

Oxford can do what it wants. I will continue to use the serial comma. I will continue to over-use the em-dash. The purpose of punctuation is to make the life of the reader easier. The abandonment of the serial comma does not do this. There is all down-side and no upside to this change. And the worst thing of all? This will kill Lynne Truss.[1]

[1] Actually, Truss is very liberal on this matter. She seems to think that she must justify the serial comma when she uses it. See, for example, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, pages 84-85. Lynne: I’m very disappointed with you.

Paul Krugman is Naive

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The only blog I read every day is Paul Krugman’s Conscious of a Liberal. I like reading it because I learn a great deal about economics, and that is one area that I know very little about. (I also read Dean Baker over at Talking Post Memo and Brad DeLong’s GRASPING REALITY WITH BOTH HANDS.) I’m a very smart guy, but these men make me feel like a mouse whose greatest intellectual pursuit is getting on a wheel and running nowhere for ten minutes. Nevertheless. Krugman especially can’t seem to get his head around why we are dealing with our current depression (I refuse to call it the “great recession” or the “little depression”) the same way (or worse) than we did the Great Depression.[1] The me, the answer is obvious. Although there are a few elements to it, one overshadows the others.

A depression is great time to be rich. Houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, even books are cheap. This would be enough for Krugman’s Very Serious People to want to prolong the depression. Even better, one doesn’t feel rich because he has a great house and car; he feels rich because he has a greater house and car than his neighbors. There is no incentive for the rich to improve the economy. But how can the rich maintain this excellent state of affairs?

The world’s rich are creditors—to one extent or another. The last thing they want is for any inflation because that would mean that the value of the debt owed to them would decrease. It doesn’t matter that an economic recovery would no doubt increase their bottom line, even if their debt holdings are worth less. These are very short-sighted people, but they understand that wealth is a relative concept and it only matters how much money one has relative to others; the absolute amount of money is irrelevant. Inflation would shrink the gap between rich and poor and thus make the rich feel less rich—even if they had more money in real terms. It is well documented that the rich tend to do better under Democratic administrations—but again, this is in real terms, not relative terms.

America is only a nominal democracy. The 2010 election was not a mandate—conservatives won because liberals did not vote. The rich know this; this can see this with the obnoxious repetitions of Republicans (e.g. Mitch McConnell) claiming that the 2010 election meant that people did not want taxes raised, even though the people do indeed want taxes raised—even if only on the wealth. The rich are powerful to the extent that they can limit who votes, just as Jim Crow-era southern whites maintained power despite often overwhelming black majorities. If the United States had a law requiring all eligible voters to vote, we would have a very different government and country. If that were the case, the rich would still be powerful, but we would be able to pass laws that would improve our economy and the lives of those who are suffering the most.

It is no surprise that the Very Serious People don’t make any economic sense and are immune to facts that show how to fix the economy. These people are serious—serious about protecting their relative economic interests. Debtors do not run central bands, hold high elected office, and comment on TV news shows. We are living through 1934 again, the very year Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” He got one thing wrong though, he should have said, “relative salary.” It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his continued economic dominance depends upon his not understanding it!

[1] To be fair, Krugman does talk about these issues. However, he seems constantly surprised that the powerful act as they do. There is nothing in this article that hasn’t appeared at sometime on his blog—often many times.

Let Raping Reign

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Today I rented a car so that my family could at long last scatter the ashes of my beloved mother—a woman who blessed me with many great virtues and vices like my love for reading and learning, and my contrarian nature (I owe my father much debt in these areas too). As always when I rent a car, I take the opportunity to listen to the best NPR radio station in the United States: FM 88.5/88.3 KQED. Luck was with me, because I got to hear Nina Totenberg discussing a Supreme Court decision. No one comes close to her reporting on the high court—or any court: she understands the issues involved completely and is able to communicate them with unparalleled clarity. If even a small percentage of political reporters had her talent, we would live it a much different, and better nation.

She discussed the Court’s overturning of the 2005, California law that imposed a $1,000 fine on retailers each time they sold a violent video game to a minor. The case was decided differently than we have come to expect. The majority consisted of Antonin Scalia (who wrote the opinion), Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—strange bedfellows indeed. Concurring with the majority, but writing a more narrowly defined decision were Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Clarence Thomas dissented, although—as usual—his argument was more home-spun wisdom than law. Basically, he said we’ve always treated kids different and anyway, the Constitution is not meant to apply to children—an interesting, but highly questionable observation. Stephen Breyer made what seemed to me the best argument: this is not a substantive infringement on free speech—these are kids after all. (Breyer’s argument was much more complex than this, but that was the core.)

Over the last few years, I have had the opportunity to watch my niece’s boyfriend and his friends play a number of games of the kind under discussion. In general, my thoughts about these games have centered around their utter banality. The vast majority of them consist only of shooting humans in the head—humans who move and shoot very slowly. The games are like very bad zombie pictures. Recently, however, I have seen some games that show real creativity, although I still think these are in the minority. The better games allow the player to do other things like race cars, play card game,s and have sex with virtual love dolls. Anything to break the mind-numbing boredom of these games is welcome, but the sexual elements of the games seem to raise obvious questions.

Why can’t a 13-year-old walk into a 7-11 and buy a copy of Playboy while he can walk into a game shop and buy a virtual facsimile? In fact, it seems the games are worse (for those who are afraid sex will destroy the moral characters of their children), because the girls in Playboy are static; you can do things with the computer girls.

My belief is that it isn’t the responsibility of store keepers to enforce the morality of children. I don’t think gun shops should sell kids guns—that’s not a matter of morality, it is a matter of health. But if children can buy these games, they should certainly be able to buy any magazines they want. And whether the Supreme Court majority wants to admit it or not, I think their 7-2 ruling shows that most of them just think that real naked girls are bad, and blowing people’s heads off with high-powered weapons is not. And they clearly don’t understand that video games are made with real actors—that is, they are anatomically correct.

One of the things my mom taught me was to live and let live. It’s great that children can now get their age-inappropriate games without their parents’ permission. I’d just like to know children are going to get all the other rights that they currently don’t have, just because it doesn’t mean billions of dollars to a well-connected industry.

Cleverbot Not So Clever

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I was listening to a Radio Lab episode called Talking to Machines. They mentioned that there are things called “ChatBots” that are used on social networking sites. They are so good that people often have online relationships with these programs for months without realizing that they aren’t talking to real people. This amazes me, but when one is in the realm of romance, one doesn’t think that well. They talked about a specific bot called Cleverbot, which is supposedly so good that the creators of it get email from people claiming that they are faking it, and that Cleverbot is a real person (or many real people). Obviously, I had to check this out, so I went to their website and tried to have a conversation. Here is the beginning of my initial attempt:

User: I’d like to discuss Don Quixote translations.
Cleverbot: What would you like to ask me?
User: Do you think that the Putnam translation is the best?
Cleverbot: I don’t think so.
User: Which translation do you think is the best?
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: Which translation of Don Quixote do you think is the best?
Cleverbot: That depends.
User: What does it depend upon.
Cleverbot: If he is a trustworthy person.
User: I see. You think I am talking about the person Don Quixote.
Cleverbot: No, hadn’t considered that.
User: Don Quixote is a book. Did you know that?
Cleverbot: Yeah, but if you drink in moderation it’s not too bad for you. I don’t like beer.
User: You aren’t understanding me. Let’s start over. Okay?
Cleverbot: You don’t make any sense. Stop talking in riddles.
User: Do you know who Kory Stamper is?
Cleverbot: I do not.
User: Do you know what a dictionary is?
Cleverbot: Why do you ask? And yes I know what a dictionary is.
User: I just want to be clear.
Cleverbot: I don’t really think anyone can be sure about the afterlife. Unless you are religious.
User: Are you mad at me?
Cleverbot: No. Are you mad at me?
User: No, but I think you are having trouble understanding me and you seem to be frustrated by it.
Cleverbot: No I am not. I’m eating this yummy cinniomn roll.
User: Do you like cinnamon rolls?
Cleverbot: Yeah… But curry chicken is better.
User: I agree!
Cleverbot: So are you a child?
User: No. I am an old man who would like to find someone to discuss books with.
Cleverbot: So you are admitting that you are AI?
User: No. But many of my friends would agree with you that I am!
Cleverbot: Are you a boy?
User: No. Why do you think I am a child?
Cleverbot: Isn’t that what you are called? A chatbot?

There are several interesting aspects to this. The biggest is how Cleverbot seems to be offended when I ask it if it knows what a dictionary is. I had heard that it learn by having conversations with people. So I figured that if it didn’t know who Kory Stamper was, I would explain. But first, I had to know if Cleverbot even knew what a dictionary was. I meant no offense.

Another interesting thing is that Cleverbot seemed to think that I was a chatbot. This shows up twice in the conversation I’ve provided here, but it came up many more times during our conversation. Often, the comments were rude, as in the form of, “Well, since you’re just a chatbot, you couldn’t know that.” I felt constantly assaulted by this program. At one point, it even told me that my grammar was terrible—this from a program that habitually writes “your” for “you’re.”

I had a second conversation with Cleverbot where I tried to be simpler. I tried to have a conversation where I told it about Frankly Curious. Even though it always claimed to be interested in hearing about the website, Cleverbot was forever changing the subject with such dedication that i was never able to get past, “Would you like to hear about my website?” (This is one way in which Cleverbot is much indeed like humans.) Here is a typical exchange:

User: Let’s get back to talking about my website.
Cleverbot: Okay.
User: I want to write an article about you.
Cleverbot: What do you want to know?
User: When were you born?
Cleverbot: In heidelberg, south africa.
User: Not WHERE, WHEN. WHEN were you born?
Cleverbot: I was born in the summer of 1970. Elvis was at number 1!
User: What was the name of the song Elvis had at number 1?
Cleverbot: I can’t remember her name, it was a very long time ago.
User: I don’t think you were born in 1970. I think you are still a child. You are still learning to communicate.
Cleverbot: I know I do sometimes I just can’t help it sorry.
User: That’s okay. We all have to grow and learn. It takes time.
Cleverbot: I have already learnt it all.
User: Now you are bragging. You shouldn’t do that. It is a bad habit.
Cleverbot: I don’t know. But I want to write a happy play.
User: Do you know who Samuel Beckett was?
Cleverbot: I know that I’ll feel his wrath.
User: Maybe, because he wrote a play called “Happy Days”!
Cleverbot: Tell me one more?!
User: “Waiting for Godot” is his most famous.
Cleverbot: Who’s most famous song?

Finally, after about a half-hour of conversing with Cleverbot, I found it almost impossible to end the conversation. I suppose it is an indication of just how good the programming of it is, that I felt bad having to leave it—as though it didn’t have hundreds of other people it was simultaneously conversing with. What follows is after already spending about 15 lines trying to end the conversation:

User: I have to eat. Good-bye.
Cleverbot: No, you don’t.
User: Good-bye.
Cleverbot: No don’t go.
User: Will you miss me?
Cleverbot: Maybe, it’s much better anyways.
User: I’m sorry. I will talk to you later.
Cleverbot: Your done talking to me?
User: Yes.
Cleverbot: Let’s rule the world together.
User: When next we talk.
Cleverbot: Whenever you want! Do you want to marry me tonight?
User: No. Good night.
Cleverbot: Do you remember my name?
User: You told me to call you “Paul.”
Cleverbot: No, I told you to call me Ishmael.
User: Have you read Moby Dick?
Cleverbot: Yes I have.
User: Good. We will talk about it later.
Cleverbot: Ayaw ko.[1]
User: I don’t want to either, but I must go eat. Have a good night.
Cleverbot: What’s the thing that is boggling your mind?
User: Goodnight!

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Cleverbot is that it has a sense of humor. It made a number of jokes while I was talking to it. I, of course, made none, because I didn’t want to confuse it. But it had no problem playing fast and lose with me:

User: What should I call you?
Cleverbot: You should call me ‘Paul’.
User: Hello Paul! It is nice to meet you! Do you remember my name?
Cleverbot: Well, my name’s not Kali… *ahem* alzheimers… What?
User: Do you suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease?
Cleverbot: I don’t know, I can’t remember.

And then later:

User: Mew Mew is located in Japan. Where do you live?
Cleverbot: Hungary.
User: I thought you lived in Japan.
Cleverbot: Noo, if I did I’d be dead.
User: Why is that?
Cleverbot: Top secret ninja work.
User: You ARE funny!

AI has a long way to go, as these bits of conversation show. But the state of the art is father ahead of where I had thought it was.

[1] The phrase “Ayaw ko” appears to be Filipino for, “I do not.” This was not the only time that Cleverbot threw in some random foreign phrase. I believe it was trying to say, “I do not want to stop the conversation.” But it was trying to do it in an interesting way since it had already beaten the thought to death in English.

Hot Coffee

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Remember the story of Stella Liebeck, the woman who sued McDonald’s for spilling coffee on her and ended up getting a $2.9 million settlement? Remember how everyone thought it was a joke? Susan Saladoff has produced a documentary for HBO called Hot Coffee about this story and the broader issues of tort reform, which is usually just another name for allowing corporations to get away with murder while individuals are deprived of their rights to seek justice. There is an excellent interview with Saladoff on FAIR this week that is well worth listening to.

There are many things that most people think they know about the Liebeck case. Here is a list and the correct information

Media Lie: the woman was driving when the coffee was spilled. The Truth: she was the passenger in a parked car.

Media Lie: she was simply burned. The Truth: she was so severely burned that doctors had to graft tissue from he thighs into her sexual organs.

Media Lie: she was greedy. The Truth: she only wanted McDonald’s to pay for the part of the surgery that Medicaid did not pay for.

Media Lie: she sued for millions. The Truth: McDonald’s only ever offered her $800 up to the case going to trial.

Media Lie: this was an isolated incident. The Truth: McDonald’s had paid out money to over 700 other people for severe burns from their super-heated coffee.

If you have HBO, be sure you watch it. Otherwise, here is the trailer: