Home Page Dog News Biped Report Links
 

Old Rants

New Rants - latest rants.

Better Society Through Enforcement

We were driving into Ontario recently when we saw a roadside sign saying "Safer Driving Through Enforcement". The idea behind the sign was to warn you that speeding would probably result in a ticket. However, this useful philosophy can be extended beyond driving to make the world a better place. For example:

  • Smiling Through Enforcement. There's nothing like seeing a glum face to put a dark cloud over the whole day. The frown would soon vanish if it could lead to a jail term.
  • Social Conformity Through Enforcement. Manufacturing and marketing would be a whole lot easier if people didn't make contrary buying and lifestyle decisions. For example, anyone not buying something heavily advertised should be arrested. People should buy or lease a new car every few years, or be detained indefinitely.
  • Dog Petting Through Enforcement. This was Laser's idea. Anyone resisting (e.g. by typing on a computer) should be climbed on.
  • Political Conformity Through Enforcement. Life would be easier if everyone believed the same things. The term "politically incorrect" is used as a joke nowadays, but that would stop if it meant 5 years to life.

Capital Drift

Columbus hasn't always been the state capital of Ohio. In the early days, it was - well, who knows, but it was somewhere else. Eventually, they chose a central location and named the city after Bob Columbus, inventor of the strip mall.

Similarly, the state capital of Indiana was once a small southern town called Corydon. As the state became settled, again the capital was moved to a central location and named Indianapolis, literally "City in Indiana". They spent several seconds thinking up that.

Now we come to the United States. Obviously, in the early days, most people lived on the east coast and Washington was a sensible choice of capital. However, now the country has filled up, it is obviously time to move the capital to the middle, and give it a lame name. I'm thinking maybe somewhere in the middle of Missouri or Kansas, called something like Capitalsville, Cornopolis, or Clinton.

Boredom, Despair and Bitterness

Special Guest Rant by an Office-Bound Scientist

I've just lost my will to rant. Since my appointment as the ultimate pedantic logician I have lost all motivation, anger and interest. I just sit there day after day, not a whisper being raised by the employees, save to ooze and smarm "Yes" to the boss' latest facile suggestion. Every quip, idea or comment that pops its head above the parapet of files and humming computer terminals is smashed by a pedantic snipe, picked-off at range by a derisive grey suit with nothing else to do. Don't rock the boat, just keep your head down, just do what has always been done. So dangerous to use your imagination or initiative, why do it, you may make a mistake? Why not watch the clock go tick tock tick tock. For twenty, thirty, forty years.

(Licence given to reproduce said rant for purposes of said rantazine.)

Counter-mini-rants

If you keep adding rants like these, you should start distributing Prozac.

This guy needs a vacation.

Return to top

So Called Tight Job Market

It's supposedly very difficult for employers to find the right people. You wouldn't guess from looking through want ads. Obviously, there are minimum necessities for many positions, but usually job ads are loaded with requirements (e.g. "must have experience with McGromit software package") which sound suspiciously like things any reasonably intelligent person could pick up in a day if required. However, employers tend to see people as defined and limited by their experience, and presumably incapable of ever learning anything new.

For example, suppose a job required nuclear reactor maintainance and dog walking. It would be no surprise if a rejection letter went out along the lines of "Your Nobel Prize in nuclear physics is impressive, but we were hoping for medium-size dog walking experience. All the dogs you have experience walking would fall into the small or large categories. Thank you for your interest. We will keep your resume on file in case we need scrap paper to scribble on some time."

Return to top

Dismal Reputation of Science

Why has science got such a bad reputation? Here are some suggestions:

  • It is force-fed to so many disinterested non-science majors as a vast array of boring factoids to be regurgitated in multiple-choice tests.
  • Anything useful is now called engineering or technology
  • It's much easier to teach science badly by droning on through equations rather than in an inspiring manner which draws connections with the real world.
  • Scientists are perceived as arrogant or mad through movies, TV, and in some cases real life.

The real question is what can be done to make science and scientists seem useful.

Return to top

Summer Olympics - Columbus 2048

The time is right to start the big push to bring the 2048 Summer Olympic Games to Columbus.

The raging Olentangy River will be transformed into a white-water canoeing course. Actually, the 10 foot altitude drop across the city may restrict that to a beige-water course.

Boating will obviously take place on Alum Creek reservoir.

Watch this space for more developments.

Return to top

Don't Just Sit There - Buy Something

American broadcast TV has a lot of commercials. The actual programming is only there to get you to sit through them. Obviously, no-one would watch a station which only ran commercials.

Or would they? The number of program breaks can only increase so much, but there is plenty of scope for the supposed program content to drift slowly towards almost complete advertising content. For example, a sit-com where a character enthuses over a fashion designer, a news program about an exciting new product from a drug company, a game show where the questions are about well known advertising slogans, a news magazine hyping up a forthcoming movie. Next time you are sitting through this kind of junk, ask yourself "Am I the kind of person that enjoys paid commercial programming?". Then start thinking about other things that annoy you, turn the TV off and start writing your own rant page.

Counter Rant

But they already have whole channels devoted to adds. If you need boring adds, try the shopping channels; for more exciting adds try MTV! And what about the Disney channel? They'll gladly sell you (or your greedy, whiny offspring) anything you can see there. Return to top

It's gone too FAAA

Here's a suggestion for anyone writing a scientific or technical document. Try using words to communicate your ideas. Yes, actual English language words.

I read a lot of technical documents, and it seems that most authors like to introduce a deluge of FAAAs (Fairly Annoying Acronyms and Abbreviations). It may save time - but it's their time, not mine. It's no longer possible to quickly read the conclusions to find out what a document is about, you have to keep checking back on all the FAAA's.

You may say it's my responsibility to stay up to date with FAAAs. But the rest of the world can make up new FAAAs faster than anyone can learn them.

There may be few FAAAs that everyone should know, like SSFLC (super-sized fries and large cola). But here are two tips:

  • Stick with one or two FAAAs, and define them right at the start

  • If your three letter abbreviation would only score 3 points if you could play it at Scrabble(tm), then it probably sounds confusingly like something else

Counter Rant

So true! And most annoyingly, there is no registry for FAAAs, so that duplicate FAAAs constantly spring up in unrelated fields such as computer science and molecular biology! So annoying if you spend any amount of time trying to understand a spouse or friend in a unrelated field!

Return to top

Columbus Suburbs

Columbus has many suburbs, in fact it is almost entirely suburbs. That makes it an exciting place to live if you like shopping, eating out, and driving in heavy traffic. However there are some things will continue to confuse newcomers until they are changed. For example, Westerville is east of Columbus. It should be renamed Easterville. Grove City and Groveport sound like the same place, one should be renamed something distinctive e.g. Wombat City or Spaceport. There is an Upper Arlington but no Lower Arlington - allegedly because that would sound less impressive. Northwest Boulevard and Northstar Road are easily confused until you notice the colored stars painted on Northstar. This would help a lot, except the same stars are also painted on Northwest Boulevard.

Allegedly Upper Arlington streets were named by someone reading an old British Rail network map. So the area has streets named after picturesque English villages such as Long Eaton and Ardwick. The recent trend is towards housing developments with names like "The Pretentions at Deer Park Reserve Run Crossing Ravine" with streets like "Tinkling Brook Boulevard". I have to exaggerate slightly to avoid accidentally hitting on a real name. The houses sometimes look as if they have been screwed together from individual particle board pieces like self-assembly furniture. I sometimes expect to see workmen struggling with a giant bent Allen key, trying to attach Roof A to Wall F with Screw Z.

Return to top

Naming Rights

I'm sick of roads and airports being named after dead politicians. For example, you're driving around I-205 (Bogusville Beltway) when you see a sign saying "The Horace X. Geezer Parkway". Presumably Mr. Geezer was a one-time mayor of Bogusville, steering the town into today's reality of unplanned urban sprawl, grim featureless strip malls, and schools pushing the envelopes in good, bad, and ugly categories - depending where you can afford to live.

It's not like we have to go round begging these guys to run for office. Instead, politicians go round begging money from sinister lobby groups to afford the barrage of truth-distorting attack ads that pass for today's democracy. Maybe it was better in the old days - but not by much. The office came with a salary and influence. When their term is over, that should be it. If I wanted a building named after me at nearby Enormous State University it would cost me millions of dollars. Why should naming rights to roads and airports be given away like this?

Washington now has the Ronald Reagan National Airport. That's all you need, air traffic controllers further stressed by having to work at an airport named after their nemesis. He's not even dead yet. Why not sell the name to business? It might be sensible to keep the new names similar to the old ones to reduce unnecessary pilot confusion. For example, Port Columbus could become Port Compuserve, Dayton could be Days Inn International (airport code still DAY).

The state gemstone of Ohio is currently flint, (yes FLINT). Why not make it sheetrock and get a construction company to sponsor it? You might not consider sheetrock a gemstone, but then neither is flint.

Another thing that bothers me are roadside signs saying something like "Adopt-A-Highway Litter Control - Next 2 miles: International Sinister Organization for World Domination and Forced Rutabaga Consumption". But that's another rant.

A Counter Rant

This just in ...

While I enjoyed your rant page I have to disagree on the commercial selling of naming rights for airports and highways (consider the horrendous mess commercial naming of sports stadiums has created).

True - I didn't expect to argue for that when I started writing the rant. But surely the essence of a good rant should be To reason and beyond.

Return to top

The Golden People

Coming soon - a special guest rant on the inevitable (but still highly annoying) successes of Golden People.

Go to home page, links page, or new rants page.