Ordinary Nothing

Yes, we all know that the British are civilized, cultured, composed, and all that. The epitome of dignity.

So it would take something really serious (sports not included. For
some reason nearly everybody tends to act like bloody morons when it
comes to sports) to get a large bunch of them so rallied up that
they’ll mindlessly run around acting like savages in a complete mass
hysteria. Right?

Something as serious as cheap furniture, at least. I mean, a whole new IKEA store was opened. If that’s not worth getting seriously hurt over, I don’t know what is…

I noticed this lovely Guardian article talking about how according to WHO statistics "Europe is world’s suicide hotspot".

The article of course doesn’t mention Israel, so it wasn’t clear if we’re considered Europe or Asia for this purpose.
So off I went to the WHO website (They have a special, and large, suicide related area. How sad is that?), and looked at the statistics myself.

In the global comparison table, suicide rates here are higher than
some countries, but are indeed lower than the scary levels of most
west-European countries.

But it’s very hard to make anything from the data. What’s available
on the site is PDF files. The data is collected over different years,
and the PDF means it’s not easy to run any cross sections, sort the
data, or whatever… I certainly don’t care enough, or am bored enough, to
do hard manual work and check this for myself.

Personally, I’m not about the commit suicide in the foreseeable future, so there’s no urgency…

I am curious as to why suicide rates here are lower, though.
Sociological theories related to suicide (well, the few ones that I
actually came across. Really not my field, or area of interest) would
suggest this indicate people here are happier, or that the population
here is more cohesive. And I must say, they’re not, and it isn’t.
On the other hand, this is one mystery that I don’t feel any crucial imperative to explore…

Ah, the joy of seeing gender biases reflect through the eye of the American media…

As you can clearly see, the presented view is according to the age old stereotype. TV is presenting women as the more stupid and incompetent sex.

Eh, no, wait! That’s not it at all. There is a new stereotype. Since presenting women as stupid is not really allowed (huh?) TV is presenting men as the more stupid and incompetent sex.

There. Clear enough, isn’t it? Those swine that run TV shows show a clear gender bias. They’re picking up on men… women… men… women… Everyone! The feminist male-chauvinist hypocrites!

So rightfully enough, instead of lauding the TV industry for it’s overall fairness and equal representation, everybody complain.

Enough to give me a headache, but that can be expected considering I’m a member of one of the two stupid sexes.

It has been quite a few years ago since I’ve seen this, but I was
reminded of it again right now, and think I didn’t post about it
previously (searches agree, but I recall wanting to post it in the
past, so sorry if I did and am just repeating myself).

An acquaintance of mine that spent a few years in the US came back
and had with him some nice brochures from leading universities.

One these includes pictures of students, and a sentence explaining why they wanted to go to this specific university.

There were many that detailed the high academic level, how prestigious the university is, and so on and so forth.

And then there was this nice girl that said (University name may not
be correct, I don’t remember which one it was, so am picking one at
random)

I wanted to go to Harvard because I wanted to be mentally challenged

This was during the time when PC
speech issue was hot. Everybody was running around complaining that
they are metabolically challenged, visually challenged, emotionally
challenged, and the like (instead of fat, blind, and sociopathic. Well,
maybe the sociopaths didn’t exactly came out in an outcry, but you get
the point, I trust)….

So all in all, I’d say she succeeded admirably. But that she came
like that from home, and the university probably didn’t deserve much of
the credit.

I didn’t like these exaggeration of PC speech to begin with, but I think this incident really cinched it for me.

The fact that too many things are censored around here, I’m already
used to. We have a large percentage of the population who are religious
Jews, and they carry a lot of political clout. Even when things are not
officially forbidden or illegal, they get censored in order to cater to
a larger audience.
Not something I’m happy with, but it’s a part of life.

The US, however, generally presents a different façade. Land of the free
and all that, you know. Not convincing for quite some time, but the
recent stories of TV/Movie censorship there is still unexpected.

Especially when they are as ridiculous as this educational cartoon that was prevented from being broadcasted, because it happens to present a same-sex female couple.

There weren’t any sex scenes or anything of the sort. And it wasn’t
even the main point of the show, just some of the characters that live
in a manner that may be different than that of some Americans (but no
some other, I’d expect…)

  Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the "Sugartime!" episode
does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By
law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to
"research-based educational objectives, content and materials."

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the
lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent
Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

Shocking, right? Exposing little kids to… lifestyles. Oh, the horror. Think of the children.

This isn’t the best part yet… You can still claim that maybe it isn’t
the duty of an educational cartoon to show any lifestyle that isn’t the
official mainstream. So what is this specific cartoon series about, and
what are it’s educational purposes? Well…

In the show, Buster carries a digital video camera and explores
regions, activities and people of different backgrounds and religions.

Ha! Take that! The show focuses on presenting people of different
backgrounds and religions, from various regions… It’s the declared
purpose. That’s why they’re broadcasting it, and that’s why the
education department funds it.
Just as long as the different backgrounds are not different enough to include a lesbian couple…

A few weeks ago we were supposed to go to see a performance of the Cinderella opera in our local community center, and it didn’t quite happen.
They ran it a second time today, so to make up for last time we got free invitations.

The show itself was an amalgam of opera and ballet parts. While it was nicely done, the drive behind it was not so much artistic, but social. They have a lot of talented immigrants who are practically starving, and this is one way in which the municipalities deal with it. By arranging shows, they can pay the artists salaries, and subsidize it out of culture funds.

Since most of the people on the stage were actually good, I don’t have a problem with this. I got to see a decent show at a good price (Well, a very good price since it was a totally free invitation, but the price of paid tickets was also rather low). And the artists got a salary for doing their job.

I’m not sure where the libretto was taken from, exactly. The music came from all over the place, where the ballet parts mostly were taken from a wide range of composers and eras. The printed program page for the show was sadly lacking in all details beyond simple listing of names of the people on stage. The overture and accompanying music for the operatic parts was played live by real musicians near the stage, while much of the ballet music was pre-recorded. The combination was somewhat odd, with a clear discrepancy in sound quality (The real musicians were good).

The plot itself was highly abridged and edited, so that what happens on stage will fit the available cast. So there was a bit more dancing and ballet than singing. The ballet troupe was decent, some dancers were quite good. There was also a rubber girl who is (I think, but no clear details were ever supplied) a part of the troupe.

The obvious star of the evening, and the one person that I believe to not be a starving artist, was the singer Marina Zolotov. In the lead role of Cinderella. She has a wonderful voice. She also has excellent pronunciation and her Italian actually sounded like clear Italian. Not too surprisingly, she’s a real singer with the Israeli Opera. Hearing her sing was basically worth the all evening by itself. She could have done better, as was obvious in some parts, but I can’t really fault her for not going all out in this setting. And what’s more important about her as a singer is the clear impression that she could have if she wanted to.

The prince had a weak voice, and according to rumor (from one in the know) was chosen due to his looks… The two sisters, Lilliana Krizner and Sophia Yakobov (spelling is a guess, the printed page was only in Hebrew), both had a good voice, and done very nice acting, but still need to work on their pronunciation a bit. One of them I recall seeing before on some occasion.

And that’s it for the singing parts. I can’t possibly connect the names on the page with the myriad dancers on the stage, so I won’t even try.

The only bad parts were on the culture of Israelis as a crowed. There were no less than three different people that turned off their cellphones only after the show started, resulting in those highly annoying musical chimes overriding the show’s music. People also clapped their hands all over the place whenever someone finished an aria or a dance, which is very nice but is just not the thing to do. You’re supposed to clap after the show when everyone is finished, not during the show when the next bit is already starting (Except of course in one part near the end where the ballet troupe actually had their people do solo dances and then bow for the applause, with the opera people looking nonplussed from the side).

Overall it was a good show, and for a good cause. Those people do deserve to work, they’re quite good the most of them. And once again, just to make sure it’s covered, Marina Zolotov is amazing.

In many movies, after two people had sex, on the scene where they get our of bed, or talk to each other, or whatever, they are always shown to be fully clothed.

This isn’t a case or art imitating life, since people don’t have sex fully clothed. It’s extremely uncomfortable (This is not based on personal experiments, or personal reports, but on mere speculation. So the scientifically minded of you may want to hold to the possibility that I’m wrong here. But I’m not). It was done because studios felt that showing half-naked people on screen would not be moral.

These days the problem is going away. Most film studios not only do not have a problem with showing half-naked people, but prefer to show more naked people than the plot actually calls for.

And as is likely to happen, just once the problem is irrelevant, there comes a solution. Finally there exists a real and compelling reason for people to have sex in their cloths. And to take a bath or a shower in their cloths. And to replace their clothes from the workday garb to night cloths in several stages.

The reason it took so long is that of course, as everybody knows, Mexicans are terribly lazy and it took them until now to finally move their legislative butts and do something about it.
The fair city of Villahermosa had passed a law against nudity.
"So what?" you ask? After all, many places have anti nudity laws. That’s true. But what many places have are anti public nudity laws. This gem is a law against indoor nudity.

Yes, that’s right. In Villahermosa it is no longer legal to be naked even while in the privacy of your own home.

What I didn’t see in the article is the public corruption angle. This is Mexico, it can’t just be stupidity, there has to be public corruption. So here goes: Where are the references to air conditioning cartels operation in the area?! If people go naked at home a lot due to the very high heat, and now they have to stay dressed always, that’s a lot of AC units that will be bought!
Just my little bit of investigative journalism. I leave the followup to someone that actually wants to go to Mexico, and waive in advance all rights for the resulting Pulitzer. Just be careful not to get iced while looking for evidence.

Hat tip to Foreign Dispatches.

The diner of the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) has become choke-full of cigarette smoke. Knesset members, and visitor, complained that the condition is so bad that it’s very hard to breathe, and to see, in there. That’s quite a lot of smoke. Or very lousy air conditioning. Maybe both.

Normal procedure for these cases is separate areas, one for those who want to stink and to poison themselves and the people around them smoke, and one for those who don’t. Many public restaurants does this (and some even realize they have to physically separate the areas, because smoke rudely refuses to stay on one side of an imaginary line).

But this is where our elected political leaders eat, so the normal solutions won’t do. Instead they decided to ban smoking in the diner. But not to ban it completely (a pity), but rather to ban smoking there for everyone except members of the Knesset.

Knesset members can smoke freely in the area. Any other officials, visitor, and guests cannot. If during a business discussion two smokers will get into the diner, the non-member will be asked to put out his  cigarette or get out, and the Knesset member will be allowed to continue smoking…

Nobody seems to happy about it. The diner remains a smoker’s area, but there’s a blatant discrimination between Knesset members and the other people there. Even smoking Knesset members don’t seem to like the idea.

I think in the spirit of equality they should ban smoking there completely. But nobody asked me. Probably they’ll just return to the free smoking regime. Easier to do shady political dealing when no-one can see you for the smoke…

Just a short rant. Better to get it off my chest here than to let it build up until it becomes full road-rage, right?

The official and proper order is this:

1. Signal that you want to switch lane using your blinker lights
2. Observe that you can switch the lane safely
3. Switch the lane

Easy to remember with the SOS acronym… ;-)
Well, sometimes the order of 1 & 2 is reversed, this is also acceptable.

It what most people do.

Except for those that start with step 3, ignore step 2, and then do step 1. It becomes a more and more common behaviour lately. So idiot pushes his (Sorry for the gender bias ladies, I do apologize, but I’m speaking of personal observations now, and am just trying to be accurate) car in front of mine, forcing me to quickly press the brakes, settles into the lane, then turns on the blinkers for a second to signal he wants wanted to switch into this lane.

The pushing into a lane without signaling bit I can understand. It’s stupid and dangerous, but that’s just the way some people drive around here (Amazing what one can get used to, eh?). The signaling afterwards really annoys me. It means the SOB is not just oblivious to the fact that he needs to signal. He knows he should signal, and chooses not to regardless. And afterwards he signals for a bit, since it’s the law or something. If he’d have just done this before turning, everyone would have been happier and safer, but that’s not cool and nonchalant enough for him.

Of course, there’s a good reason not to signal before switching lanes. There’s another type of people (No, scrap that, it’s the exact same type of people) that make it very difficult to get into a lane in front of them. They’ll quietly drive in a constant speed, but once you signal your desire to turn they’ll immediately speed up to prevent you, while pressing the horn – reproaching you for wanting to switch into a lane with a car in it.

There are so many people that need to be taken off the road… Please, anyone ?

Almost every weeks there’s a new study claiming people here are afraid of terror attacks,

and are staying home more instead of going out.

The same reports also keep claiming that this causes lack of clients for restaurants, making them close.

And they don’t recycle the same old news. These are newer studies showing people that

recently change their habits and stopped going out. And new names of places closing down

since they don’t have enough customers to keep themselves in business.

Overall, one can easily expect that a visit to the once teeming night-life centers of

several years ago will now reveal desolate ghost towns.
This would make sense. It would fit the theories. It would fit the studies. It would fit

common knowledge.

But it doesn’t work if you let minor things like facts confuse you:

• The amount of areas hosting coffee shops, pubs and restaurants is growing.

• The amount of coffee shops, pubs and restaurants overall in those areas is growing.

• The amount of people wandering at night in those areas is growing.

• The amount of cars trying to park at these places at night is growing, as evidenced by the

  fact that the amount of time it takes to find a parking place is… you guessed it.. growing.

It is true that restaurants keep closing down, but that’s due to the same reasons it has

happened for hundreds of years: Competition and the market. With more and more places opening, staying in

business requires something in the ways of quality, price, uniqueness, and plain luck.

All of which, while inexact and not very scientific, clearly indicates that people are not

staying more and more at home for fear of terror acts.
Sorry.

This bit was started by a radio show I heard on my drive back home from work today. The show was one playing mostly contemporary music by caller’s request, with an overly chirpy host.

This kid called in, and introduced himself.

host: "And how old are you?"
kid: "I’m sixteen"
host: "Oh. And tell me, what do you do when you’re not at school?"
kid: "Study"
host: "What, are you trying to tell me that you actually study even while you’re not at school ?!?!?!"

Good to know how well appreciated education is nowadays. Imagine that, a schoolkid is studying while at home, without a teacher hovering over him! The youth of today… tsk! tsk! Just shocking….

At least the kid had the decency to be embarrassed about it. He immediately started to reply in a highly apologetic tone, explaining that soon there are the end-of-year tests, so he really have to study and doesn’t have a choice.
The radio host seemed somewhat mollified by this, and accepted it as a possibly legitimate excuse. Though I could still hear the lingering doubts in the voice.

On the bright side, a few sentences later I got a new insight. There’s a relatively new figure of speech that became popular in the recent years, despite being totally stupid. Basically, the phrase A Waste of Time (Free translation from the Hebrew "haval al hazman") is being used as a compliment. I didn’t bother to ever check the etymology but I suppose it may have come as a short from saying that something is so good that it’s a waste of time to try and find something better. In any case I really don’t like this phrase in this context, have never used it, and have broken contact with the only friend of mine that started to use it regularly (That’s not the reason, of course. Just seemed like an appropriate place to mention it).

So I pretty much enjoyed it when the kid was offered the opportunity to dedicate the song he asked for. He dedicated it to various classmates, and then told the host that he also wants to dedicate it to this radio show, because it’s really a waste of time.

I think I’m going to use this phrase a lot more now. It has some genuine possibilities. Much better than my school days when I occasionally "complimented" some idiots that they’re so smart they must have a brain as huge as a dinosaur’s.

[Update: While the bit at the end wasn't more than fun on one of my friends' expense, I've been asked to at least try and pretend to do it right. Overall I think it allows me to make even more fun on the friend's expense, so why not?]

If being rude, pushy and uncivil is the norm, does being civil constitute a social offense? Does the civil person really act wrongly by deviating from accepted behaviour?

I was driving along a highway, on my way to work this morning, when a large bus on the nearby slower lane signaled (well, the driver of the bus signaled, not the bus.) that it wanted to switch into my lane. Probably it wanted to overtake a slower car driving before it.

Since I was faster, I could have sped up, pass the lot of them, and let the bus do whatever it wanted once I was long gone. I could have also kept going at my current speed, since this was my lane, forcing the bus to wait at its lane until I’m done.

Instead I did the polite thing and hit the breaks (well, gently started to press the break pedal and slowly increased the pressure on it. Hit the breaks sounds more fun, though). Just enough to match speeds with the bus while staying behind it.

What the bus should have done at this point it switch lanes, and speed up. Instead it waited, and waited, and waited. All the time keeping the blinking signal lights on. This took long enough for the car that was far behind me to come closer and start flashing its headlights at me, urging me to move on.

Only then did the bus switch lanes.
Why did it take it so long? It wasn’t because it didn’t intend to switch originally and started signaling by mistake. It was because it expected me to ignore the fact it was signaling, and keep driving on at the same pace. It didn’t signal in order to signal, but because there’s a law someplace claiming you must.

See, the common driver here would have indeed ignored the signals. So the bus wants to switch lanes? So What? It can wait. And so, while it did signal, the driver waited until I passed it. And initially didn’t understand what’s taking me so long. It only switched lanes once the incredulous shock (I might be exaggerating here a bit, but maybe I’m not) wore out.

Result of me being civil, and respecting the signals of the bus: The bus was delayed, I was delayed and the car behind me was delayed.

Had I just kept driving on, which was rude but expected, only the bus would have been delayed. And probably by less than it eventually did.

What would have happened if everyone was polite?
Me being civil: Only I would have been delayed, and less than I actually was. The bus would have switched over instantly, since it knew once it signaled I would slow. And I could have gone forward immediately once it did.
Me being uncivil and driving on: Car crash between me and the bus. I’d drive on, and it would swerve into me. Likely it would have greatly delayed me, the bus, the car behind me, and lots of other cars. On the bright side it would have brought some economic benefits to our garages.

The best thing for me to do then is to drive as rudely as the rest of them. Would help me and not hurt anyone else.
Good to know.

Anyway, here would be a good place to stop reading this post.

OK, I’ve warned you.
Just for kicks, let’s model it using basic game theory.
Payoffs are 200 for no delays, 100 for small delays, 0 for large delays, -1000 for losing the car. The numbers are of course meaningless, only the relations matter.
Payoff pairs are (me, bus). The bus strategy is based on whether the society of driving is civil or not, since that determines the expectations of the bus driver regarding my behaviour when he signals. This in effect means that what’s modeled here is a game between a single driver (represented by yours truly) and a generic driver in the local culture (represented by our hapless bus driver).

From my side:

1. If the society is civil, it’s better for me to be civil. I’m slowed down a bit, but retain a working car.
2. If the society is uncivil, it’s better for me to be uncivil. Otherwise (as actually happened) I suffer a delay.

From the bus driver’s side:

1. If I’m civil, it’s better for the bus to be in a civil society. Otherwise (as happened) he suffers a long delay.
2. If I’m uncivil, it’s better for the bus to be in an uncivil society. Otherwise the culture-shock (sorry, couldn’t help it) would have wrecked it.

A nice coordination game. Two Nash equilibria where me and the society act in tandem.
The fun begins when you consider that:

1. Society is in fact composed of various individuals like me, so likely the society strategy will evolve due to the strategies that individual chooses.
2. When society does already have strong preferences, it’s better to stick
   with them. So I must sadly assume drivers will not try to be civil in
   the forseeable future.
3. Worst case scenario for me as an individual is when I’m uncivil. Worse case scenario for a general society member is when society is civil (I always knew I don’t represent the society here in general, but it’s nice to have a mathematical confirmation). This means that on a generally undecided society (where culture has not already developed strong preferences, and so everyone plays mixed strategies based on probabilities) repeated games, and sticking in some evolutionary model, will not converge into a single strategy. So people will crash into each other all over the place.

Of course, this is all so much hogwash, since drivers here are rude, pushy and uncivil for reasons which have nothing to do with their chances of getting into a car accident. It’s just a wonderful country in a wonderful world. Fresh smog and all that.

I did warn you to stop reading earlier. You can’t complain.