Overheard at the Dinner Table

I seem to fall into some pretty odd dialogs on occasion.  This exchange, for example, struck me as being somewhat interesting:

  dinner companion: “Now she’s going off to college to become a lesbian.”
  me: “I don’t believe that actually requires a formal education.”

Valentines cartoonograms

Well, it’s time for yet another Hallmark Holiday and given the awful weather outside, I’m celebrating by staying inside and sending all of my readers some virtual holiday cheer in honor of Valentine’s day. However, I’ve always been ambivalent about the holiday. Thus, I present two views.

I’m a romantic at heart, and appreciate the happy couples who can spend the day celebrating the most powerful attractive force in the universe. This brings me to my first celebration of the holiday, to the left of this paragraph. If there are any non-geeks in the viewing audience who find this a wee bit confusing, you are invited to study up on Newton’s law of universal gravitation. If you still find it a wee bit confusing, you can just assume that I’m not only a geek but have a warped sense of humor.

On the other hand, I also spent an awful lot my life viewing Valentine’s day as an annual ritual which rubbed romance in the noses of those who weren’t romantically involved, and can state with confidence that the holiday doesn’t look much fun from that side. So for everyone who is stuck celebrating a solitary Valentine’s day, I give you the dark (chocolate) side of the force, off to your right. Again, because I delight in excessive obscurity, I invite those who experience confusion to resort to their reference materials and study the wonders of that food of the gods, Theobromine. Ultimately, you may find that it delivers many of the benefits of romance, with fewer lasting side effects.

Ism x 3

Symbolism: 2 of these symbols were created by Roman priests more than 2000 years ago; one was created by an ISO standards board less than 100 years ago; and the accompanying notation was invented by Descarte in the 17th century. Yet the stylistic elements all work together quite nicely.

Egotism: I’m no sort of artist, but I think that the above rendition came out very well. Therefore you may see my trying my hand at simple cartoonograms in the future. Be warned.

Commercialism: In fact, I was pleased enough with how this came out that I went and tossed a couple of the panels onto t-shirts. If they happen to tickle your fancy, you can go pick up your own copy at the Geek Power shop. How’s that for selling out? If you ain’t interested, that’s fine too. I haven’t quit my day job.

(Update: apparently typepad isn’t happy with images above a certain width, so I’ve had to put in a thumbnail pointing to the full-sized image. Do click through to see the real thing.)

Do book publishers care about quality?

Consider the following passage from page 94 of Cusp (Robert A. Metzger, Ace Science Fiction, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441013015):

The room smelled of dirt and sweat and had three doors — one entrance and two exists. Christina knew that one of these exits led back to the Co-Op’s eastern entrance….

I’ve very carefully checked my transcription of the book’s text, and you can even confirm it against Amazon’s “search inside” feature. I think that you’ll agree with me that what is printed here does not reflect the author’s intent. I have no intention of criticizing Mr. Metzger — his book is 517 pages of highly inventive text and will not collapse on the weight of this or even several other mistakes in the printing. However, I do find that my enjoyment of the reading process is diminished by having to pull myself past such errors. It’s even worse when they are not so blatant, since I have to stop and puzzle over whether a clumsy construction is subtly meaningful, or just another annoying cock-up on the part of the publisher.

Now, I read primarily mass-market paperback fiction. I go through a reasonable number of books, and I’d estimate that I trip over stupid errors like these in more than 80% of them. In every case, it seems clear to me that the errors could have been discovered easily by a human proofreader or copy-editor, and that they are almost completely undetectable by a computerized spelling and grammar checker. Alas, it is my suspicion that the latter is all that most publishers bother to use these days. Interestingly enough, a lesser fraction of my intake consists of small-press trade-paper editions, and I almost never find any errors in them.

So let’s look at the economics of the thing. I’m no expert in the field, but I can wield a browser and hope that the snippets I find are accurate. The most interesting overall summary I’ve found is an article by Deanna Carlyle entitled “The Price of One Book: Or, How Come My Advance is So Low?“. She breaks out the various costs, as relayed to her by her publisher, and they seem reasonably in line with what I’ve been able to find from other sources. In this listing, the proofing is listed as roughly $1500. This is 3/4 of the roughly $2000 for typesetting and less than a third of the $5000 for the cover art. The actual printing of an initial 50,000 copy run (which seems to be a minimum for any of the books that you will actually ever see on the shelves of a B. Dalton and the like) is $25000. Now I’ve seen quotes from one company which would put full copy-editing for a typical 100,000 word novel at closer to $1000, but maybe that’s not a typical estimate. Now it looks to me as if, out of all of this cost, the publishers are deciding that their best way of improving their profits is to get an extra roughly $0.10 cents per copy (after correcting for discounts and returns) by completely cutting out the proofing/copy-editing phase (or, perhaps, by placing it in the inadequate hands of a computer).

Note: If anyone with better knowledge with me can give evidence that I’ve got the numbers wrong, or that the companies really aren’t skipping out on essentials, please let me know.

Now frankly, I don’t think they are getting a bargain. I don’t care how spiffy that cover art is — and frankly, much of it isn’t, these days — shouldn’t the companies be taking pride in accurately conveying the words that are the reason for the book’s existence? If they’ve already got us conditioned to shelling out higher and higher prices every year — and it sure seems to me that paperbacks are outstripping inflation — can’t they push some of those price raises towards improving quality? Don’t they care? Don’t the readers care?

Sadly, the answer is probably no. Most of us have gotten used to the status-quo, and we know we don’t have much choice. We can go to the small publishers who do seem to care, but we pay a lot more; we have to special-order since we can’t find them in our local bookstores; and we’re not going to have as big a selection. For most people, this just isn’t going to happen. Should I send a letter to Ace (who, you will recall, published the error that started this rant) and threaten to boycott them in favor of a more diligent company, but they know that they are the sole supplier of a product I want, so they just have to relax and wait for me to come crawling back to them.

I believe, given the conclusions that I’m drawing here, I am going to make an effort to redouble my buying from my favorite small presses. (For example, I would recommend Meisha Merlin to any science fiction readers.) Since they have demonstrated that they care about doing things right, it will be an honor for me to shell out a bit of extra money to support their worthy endeavors.

Fundamental observations, part 3

Learn to accept change, because it almost always beats stagnation.

This is probably easiest to recognize, as I first did, with respect to your favorite bands.  In my case, the most convincing demonstration was a double-bill of two of my favorite 60s folk bands.  The first set was taken by The Limeliters, who had gone through multiple changes of membership; substantially reshaped their musical style; and didn’t hesitate to showcase new material rather than the old.  The second set was taken by The Chad Mitchell Trio, who had not been touring regularly, and who brought back their classic line-up for this one-time concert.  They were playing mostly their classic repertoire, with a few updated songs, and are still consumate musicians, so the music sounded just like the classic albums.  This turned out to be the problem — I could just as easily have listened to the albums, since there didn’t seem to be any spark to it.  The music was solid, polished — and disappointingly stale.  (A note, just in case this post should reach any members of the band — I still love the music, and if the band wants to get back together and keep developing based on their classic style, I’ll gladly stand in line for the tickets.)  As for The Limeliters, I had to spend a few minutes adapting to the fact that it had actually changed over a 30 year period, and wasn’t the band I grew up with, but it didn’t take long to learn to love their new style as well as the old.

Okay, that’s a long-winded anecdote, and not a fundamental observation.  However, since that concert I’ve gone to other concerts (or picked up new CDs) and noticed many favorite bands evolving in surprising and sometimes dissapointing ways.  However, I assume that (music execs notwithstanding) these evolutions occur because the artists themselves are changing, growing, and evolving.  If we were to insist that they keep churning out the exact style that we’re used to, they can’t be true to themselves, and this is going to show.  Ultimately, I’d rather have an artist stay true to his art, whether or not I can appreciate the subtleties, rather than to turn to hack-work because that’s what the audiences demand. 

Now lets get away from music, and think about our own day-to-day lives.  The phrase "You’re not the man I married" is common enough to become a cliché, and for good reason — it’s guaranteed to be true.  Any relationship which lasts long enough to be interesting is going to see both (or, more liberally, all) parties age and evolve as they discover who they are.  This change can be difficult and, in some cases, can rightly lead to separation.  However, if the basis of the relationship is strong enough, then the fact that all parties evolve to (hopefully) more truly reflect their core nature should be something to celebrate, and should be worth adapting to.  More importantly, telling someone that he shouldn’t be true to him/herself is a recipe for a disastrous relationship, and is highly dis-recommended.  (But play fair, guys — leaving socks on the floor and empty beer cans on the table probably isn’t part of your core identity, and you can give those things up for the sake of harmony.)

Mouse, house, grouse, souse….

Ok, now I’m really confused.  I posted recently about the much reported story of the mouse that got revenge by torching the house of the man who set it on fire.  Cheryl of Out of the Box nicely pointed out that Snopes has reported the story as fraud.  However, the primary quotes used to rebut the story come from exactly the same man (i.e. the homeowner) who was quoted as the primary source in the original article.  Finally, just a few minutes ago, we get another article which goes back to the same original source that is quoted in the other two articles, saying that he stands by his original story.  It’s kind of like watching a man play ping-pong against himself — no matter how hard he plays, you kind if figure it’s going to come out as a tie.

Never set the mouse on fire

Okay, this isn’t my normal subject matter, but sometimes it seems that the whole "karma" thing works.  If you are going to be cruel enough to set a live mouse on fire, don’t be surprised when it runs into your house and burns it down.

And as for the post title — Frank Hayes told it to us years ago in song, only his advice was to Never Set the Cat on Fire.

PS: Kudos to bariau at livejournal for posting the link.

Fundamental observations, part 2

When your hobby becomes an obligation, it is no longer a leisure activity.

As with my previous fundamental observation, I’d be tempted to call this obvious, except that it took me several years to figure it out.  Now, maybe I’m just slow, but there’s probably at least one other person out there who has been so busy having a good time that they’ve failed to notice that that they weren’t actually having a good time.  (I suspect it has something to do with this whole "forests vs. trees" thing, but I haven’t managed to find the transcripts for that court case.)

There are several points I’m making here:

1. Your interests can change over time without your noticing.
2. The organizations and formal activities that grow up around a hobby may not reflect the aspects of that hobby that appeal to you.
3. No matter how worthy, it is possible to have too many hobbies and too little leisure time to keep up with them.

If, as has happened to me at several times in my life, you find that you are generally exhausted and that you are not actually looking forward to your nights out, it’s probably time to stop and re-evaluate your interests.  Consider narrowing down to the ones that are most interesting to you, or switch to something entirely new, or keep the same interests but do them on your own time rather than in a formally organized setting.  You may find that it will breathe new life into your leisure time.  It certainly has for me.

Fundamental observations, part 1

There’s a trick to it.

Perhaps this seems obvious.  Most basic truths are, in retrospect, but this one took me a long while to notice.  Perhaps you, too, may have failed to notice how universal this rule really is.  Whether you are talking about making a sandwich or cleaning a blackboard, there is some secret method that will make the result much better or the process much easier.  You can spend weeks studying the problem and discover those hidden secrets, and this is a good thing.  It sharpens the mind and gives you an appreciation for the complexity of the "every day world".  Alternatively, you can go out and find an expert to teach you the arcane secrets.  Again, you’ll be glad you did.  Your day-to-day life will become easier, and your chosen expert will gain the satisfaction of knowing that he has improved the world by passing on his hard-won knowledge.  (Likewise, once you become an expert, don’t be selfish.  Spread the trick around and we all become richer.)

An interesting related example is the process of tying shoes.  A large fraction of the population knows the secret of tying a bow knot that will stay tied, while a substantial fraction has never learned the simple trick.  The strange thing in this case is that the folks who know the secret generally don’t know that they are doing something special — they just got lucky.  It took me 25 years till I found someone to tell me the secret, but you can get it now by visiting Ian’s Shoelace Site.  My thanks to Ian for revealing the trick in such a clear and complete manner.

Update: My first version of this post managed to imply (somewhat condescendingly) that I was the only person ever to have noticed this phenomenon.  That wasn’t my intent — I may well have been the last person in the world to catch on — so I’ve updated the text.

…because I don’t discuss politics

It’s my one rule for this blog:  I’ll discuss absolutely anything except politics.  It’s not that I’m apolitical.  It’s just that if I started discussing politics, I’d never stop, and my blood pressure would go through the roof.  Thus, I try never to post anything overtly political, or even to let my political leanings creep into my posts.

However, I do permit myself approximately one face-to-face political discussion per month.  I enjoy them in small doses, and thanks to Lopressor my blood pressure can usually take that much.  At tonight’s Pittsburgh BlogFest I actually ended up in two.  I’m not going to actually talk about the topics of conversation, because I don’t discuss politics on this blog.  (See above.)  However, the way in which the conversations evolved was itself interesting.

Firstly, let me apologize to anyone at the BlogFest who was annoyed by the first (knock-down drag-out) discussion.  I freely admit that I got carried away.  Also to my esteemed opponent, if he is reading — I’m sorry I didn’t give you a better debate:  my skills are indeed rusty, and you deserved better.

The interesting thing here is that I encountered someone who’s ideas seemed to be diametrically opposed to my own, and fell into a style of interaction that quickly transformed the discussion into a debate.  Rather than gloss over our irreconcilable differences and discuss the common ground from which we might actually learn something, we instead fell into well-worn arguments and, I suspect, each came away with no new insights.  My esteemed opponent was a skilled debater, but I honestly don’t believe that he presented any arguments that I hadn’t encountered and considered before.  (He might, perhaps, claim that I am simply closed-minded, and I must simply hope that he is wrong.)  I, through lack of practice or skill, debated poorly, but believe that I presented a few verifiable facts that he was unaware of.  However, I suspect that I may have presented them so weakly that he will not bother to look them up and consider them.  (Again, perhaps I do not give him sufficient credit, and in this case I hope that I am wrong.)   In any case, my perception was that from the start of the debate we had hardened our positions so that we were setting out to win rather than to learn, to compromise, or even really to educate.  As a result, the whole debate could be construed as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".  (No offense is intended to my worthy opponent.  I am willing to allow the title of "idiot" to rest solely upon my own head.)

The lesson here — you’re never going to convince the other guy to completely change his opinion 180 degrees.  If you can find some area where both parties have some thoughts, but neither is dogmatic, then that is where you’ll find a fruitful discussion (rather than a debate).  One of you might even change your opinion.  Best of all, it might be you (or me).  Wouldn’t that be nice?

PS:  I’ll likely talk about my second political discussion and why it was so much less contentious in a later post.  I’d talk about it here, but I’ve been told my posts are too long.