Monthly Archives: September 2016

Burning Man 2015 in Pictures LIII: (non-)Fiery Disaster Strikes!

(non-)Fiery Disaster Strikes!

When we last saw our heroes, they were overseeing the Mirror Blaze and watching Marc demonstrate FaIRE Hockey to unsuspecting passers-by.

Little did they know that a (non-)Fiery disaster was about to strike!

It was a normal evening in the Charnival, passers-by were being drawn into the Mirror Blaze:

Mirror Blaze, with Charnival and the rest of the Burn in the background.  Jack (O'Lantern) presiding.
Mirror Blaze, with Charnival and the rest of the Burn in the background. Jack (O’Lantern) presiding.

And being correctly awed and surprised by the *FOOM*:

*FOOM*
*FOOM*

A nice quiet night of *FOOM* ski ball:

A nice quiet night of *FOOM* ski ball.
A nice quiet night of *FOOM* ski ball.

Then, an innocuous moving of the battery box[1] caused a disaster!:

The culprit: Me trying to move the box from one side of the chair to the other so I could sit more comfortably.
The culprit: Me trying to move the box from one side of the chair to the other so I could sit more comfortably.

Mirror Blaze was no longer blazing! Even worse, it was, but only very intermittently! With the line mounting, our intrepid hero delved into the box of wire to debug the problem:

Somewhere in here is (probably) an intermittent connection.  Your job: Debug and fix it in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night atop a lifeguard stand in the middle of a fire carnival.
Somewhere in here is (probably) an intermittent connection. Your job: Debug and fix it in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night atop a lifeguard stand in the middle of a fire carnival.

Luckily, he had a (very easy to see) multimeter to debug with:

Your tools at hand: A multimeter, which you can see about this well.
Your tools at hand: A multimeter, which you can see about this well.

After much gnashing of teeth[2] and many false starts, all connections were tested, the wires were reattached, and *FOOM* order was restored!:

Fixed!  *FOOM* Re-established!
Fixed! *FOOM* Re-established!

[1]This is a classic example of making an early temporary design decision, then forgetting about it all the way through the rest of the build process. The solenoids that we procured were 12V solenoids, so we obtained a large red light-up button to act as the dead man switch, and two 6V batteries (hooked up in series with 120V-rated wire). This was then all wired together with spit and baling wire[3]. No wonder when moved it became intermittent!

[2]I think this was probably my most stressful (and fun in retrospect!) debugging. On the top of a lifeguard stand, about 10 feet in the air, low light, with fire erupting around you, with a crowd getting more antsy by the minute. And intermittent connections are the worst!

[3]And alligator clips!

When Your Partner Succeeds, How do You React?

Recently, a friend of mine posted this article, which talks about a study where the experimenters measured how participants felt about themselves after hearing that their partner either did very well or very poorly on a test.

Interestingly, the male participants[1] felt better about themselves when they were told[2] that their partners did poorly, and worse about themselves when they were told that their partners did well[3].

Perhaps more interestingly, this only happened when measuring ‘Implicit self-esteem[4]’, but was absent (or much less pronounced) when measuring ‘Explicit self-esteem[5]’.

So, what does this mean? Many or most of us are feeling something subconsciously. Unfortunately, this can be difficult to detect, as the expression can vary widely from person to person and event to event. In the article, the author described one example thus:

“Not long ago a friend’s first book was published, so when I arrived at her home for a visit I eagerly voiced my enthusiasm and congratulations for her accomplishment. Moments into the interaction, her husband strode across the living room to a bookcase and returned with a copy of a book he authored 15 years ago.”

I remember acting like this once[6], and ascribing it to “trying to take away someone else’s success”, or “trying to take their success for your own[7]”. I compensated for it by explicitly giving praise and support whenever someone told me something they were proud of[8].

More recently, I talk with pride about the accomplishments of my partner[9].

Similar things could also manifest as ‘waiting to talk’ rather than ‘listening’, a calling out I remember vividly from early on in my efforts to learn how to communicate.

So, if this is a subconscious feeling, what exactly is it that you’re feeling? Some kind of threat, but what kind of threat? Some kind of threat to yourself? Some kind of threat to how you see yourself or your place in the world? Why does your subconscious think it’s bad for someone else to succeed[10]?

Why does your subconscious see this as a zero-sum game? What are you afraid of? What is the training that you took in as you were growing up that motivated you to think/act this way?

Knowing that, how can you deal with it? You could start by imagining how your partner being successful would help the both of you. As Belgarion said[11], when you notice yourself reacting to something more strongly than you might expect, you can pause, delve into that emotion, try to understand it, and think about it.

Outwardly, you can try listening and praise. Figure out what the person is proud of, why they’re proud of it, and try to find something along that axis to compliment them on. Usually, when your partner is telling you something, it’s like a bird bringing a present back to the nest for their partner. It’s important to acknowledge them and their gift[12]. There will be more than enough time for you to talk about the things you’re proud of, to talk about how you feel. Let them have this moment.

So, how do you react when your partner succeeds? Do you have coping mechanisms for dealing with subconscious issues like this? Share them in the comments below!

[1]”The mean age of participants was 18.9 years (SD 1.52). The average relationship length was 10 months and did not moderate any study results.” All hetero- couples, presumably of college-going demographics.

[2]Interestingly: “Extensive debriefing revealed that all but two participants
believed the feedback. Data from those two participants were
dropped from analysis.”

[3]The effect was opposite, but not statistically significant for female participants.

[4]”The self-esteem IAT assesses associations among two concept categories (self and other) and two evaluative attributes (good and bad) by requiring that participants categorize stimulus items representing the four categories as quickly as possible using two keys of a computer keyboard.”

[5]”Global explicit self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (RSE). The RSE consists of 10 statements related to overall feelings of self-worth. The items were answered on a 4-point scale ranging from (1) Strongly Disagree to (4) Strongly Agree (Cronbach’s alpha = .77).”

[6]’once’ as ‘in the past’, not ‘one time’. 🙂 It would undoubtedly have taken me multiple occurrences to have noticed the pattern, and likely multiple calling-outs.

[7]’Trying to take their success for your own’ is a separate issue, with its own long and terrible history.

[8]This was actually quite difficult for me at first, as I had to learn it by rote, as my parents found this difficult to do for me as I was growing up.

[9]This may or may not be related. I like telling stories about how cool she is, and cool things she’s done or is doing make for good stories.

[10]There’s a long literature on this topic, probably the most explicit is Wired’s article on how male computer game players who are losing the game are more likely to harass women.

[11]I can’t find the exact quote, but basically, he discovered something about himself that he didn’t like, and he had to take it out, look at it, and think about it for a while. (I think it was him. It was in something by David and Leigh Eddings.)

[12]This is from ‘Blink‘s discussion of successful couples.

Why the Headphone Jack Must Stay

Yesterday, we had a date night, and over dinner, we thought “Wouldn’t it be nice to watch Contact? Neither of us have seen it since it came out, almost 20 years ago.”

First, we opened up Netflix, and searched for ‘Contact’. It wasn’t available there, but Netflix said it could show us movies similar to it. (It also showed us ‘Star Trek: First Contact” as an option, more on that later.)

So, we try iTunes. We’re trying it on my computer, because S’s Mac has mysteriously stopped talking to our USB speakers. Fast-forwarding through the standard iTunes bad user experience[1], we eventually figure out how to rent ‘Contact’, the movie, in HD for $4.99. It starts downloading. We hook up the projector, start the movie, and we see the following screen:

This is what happens when you try to use iTunes with your projector.  (Not shown: Our USB speakers stopped working just then, too.)
This is what happens when you try to use iTunes with your projector. (Not shown: Our USB speakers stopped working just then, too.)

The movie that we just paid money to rent will not play on a display that iTunes was more than happy to play on just a couple of years ago.

Think about what just happened here. We went to the extra effort of purchasing a movie rental, and it is treating us like we’re trying to pirate it.

Doing some quick googling, we determine that we might be able to get the SD version to work with our setup, but iTunes won’t let us change from HD to SD (and keeps trying to download the HD version, despite the fact that this will overfill the hard drive).

So, back to Netflix. We eventually settle on Firefly (a really interesting concept, more on this in a later post). Netflix just works.

Or at least Netflix tries to work. Somewhere during this process, my Mac has silently decided that it should no longer talk to the USB speakers. There being no useful way to debug this in the ‘System Preferences’ menu, we end up lugging my sound system from my computer, which has a headphone jack connector like so:

Headphone jack to RCA adapter.  The best way to get sound from your computer to serious speakers.
Headphone jack to RCA adapter. The best way to get sound from your computer to serious speakers.

The headphone jack connect works. We finally start to relax, I start watching Firefly for the first time, then we watch the masterpiece which is Star Trek: First Contact, and go to sleep happy.

Apple has a lot of power, through its massive market share and avid user base. This power can be used for good, such as when it is used to push for selling DRM-free music, but it can also be used for evil, such as when Apple Music deletes music that you have composed.

With the iPhone 7, Apple is using this power to no longer include a standard headphone jack. Now all music, audio, Stripe payments, what have you, will be streamed digitally. It will probably work, it might even work perfectly and for a long time. But at some point, someone will decide to add DRM to that stream, and all of a sudden your music will stop working.

All because Apple decided to remove your headphone jack.

Cory Doctorow also has some thoughts about this.

[1]iTunes standard bad experience:
– You have to search twice in the search bar for it to actually search
– The search function has a pre-defined list of types of media, and it will always show them to you in that order. Compare with the Google search for ‘Contact’.
– If you start downloading a rented HD movie, you can’t switch to the SD version, even if you realize you don’t have enough hard drive space, or the HD movie won’t play because of the HDCP DRM.
– And don’t get me started on how slow it always is.

The Art and Words of Comics

What do you look for when you’re reading a comic? The words? The art? Both? Does one interfere with the other?

I was talking with S recently, and I was extolling the virtues of Casey and Andy[1], one of my favourite web comics. S mentioned that she had tried to read it multiple times (often at my behest), but had been unable to get into it because of the art[3].

For me, I had briefly noticed the bad art very early on in the run, but the ideas he played with, especially with non-standard comic framing were more than worth it. (And it didn’t really bother me much at all.)

Thinking about it, I realized that the webcomics I like are generally very simple art-wise. I’m not sure if I actively prefer webcomics with worse art, but I may prefer those with simpler art. Some of the ones I read most often:

Questionable Content (mature themes, sometimes nsfw)
Order of the Stick
XKCD

have very simple art, perhaps well done (I think), but very simple lines and drawing.

Some of my other favourites are still simple, but (I think) most would say that they are reasonable artists:

Freefall
Prequel Adventure
SSDD (sometimes nsfw)

I’ve stopped reading:
Dr. McNinja
Goblins (often disturbing cartoon violence)

perhaps because of the more complex/busy art. I know I stopped reading Goblins because I find the art a little too gory/uncanny valley/disquieting.

I also enjoy:

Cyanide & Happiness (Trigger warnings)
asdfmovie (NSFW/warning/etc.)

But they are both incredibly simple art. Cyanide & Happiness is probably the worst art of any on this list, but I enjoy it because of the humour.

Among the graphic novels I’ve enjoyed are:

Transmetropolitan (nsfw, probably triggers in there too)
Watchmen (natch) (movie was rated R)
Ex Machina (some adult themes)

I feel that all of these, their art enhances the story. In Transmet, it really brings the world alive, and it works that you have a really busy future city, where everything is happening all the time. You also get important information about Spider’s personality and how he treats people. Watchmen is just a work of beauty woven on so many levels, and I like the vibrant colours of Ex Machina. I feel that something more realistic would almost detract, bring things closer to the uncanny valley, perhaps.

Interestingly, I have a perhaps similar reaction to music, that when I’m listening to a piece of music, I can really only listen to the music part of it, the words I can almost never hear, except when they are very clearly in the foreground, and/or I’ve heard them many times before. This may be related to being an instrumentalist in my previous life.

tl;dr: I like the words of web comics. I like it when the art is simple, or when the art if more complex and is cast in a supporting role to the story. Art more than that can detract (for me, at least) from the words, which (in comics) are my favourite part.

[1]This comic is perhaps one of his more bizarre comics, but I think a fair example of his artistic style/talent. He mentioned in his AMA[2] that “I realized I hated doing the artwork. I just liked telling jokes to people and the art was a necessity for it. That was the main reason I stopped making the comic.”

[2]Also, you probably know him as Andy Weir, the guy who wrote ‘The Martian‘.

[3]You can see a takedown of his drawing of a different comic called ‘Cheshire Crossing’ here.

Burning Man 2015 in Pictures LII: Charnival Thursday Night!

When we last saw our heroes, they were visiting the Serpent Mother by night, to see the egg hatch that she had been protecting all this time.

Today, we follow them as they return to the Charnival for night five!

First, a very proud (and possibly sleepy) Marc, holding up his flame effect certification for FaIRE Hockey!:

A very proud (and possibly sleepy) Marc, holding up his flame effect certification for FaIRE Hockey!
A very proud (and possibly sleepy) Marc, holding up his flame effect certification for FaIRE Hockey!

M & S oversee the wonders of Mirror Blaze:

M & S oversee the wonders of Mirror Blaze.
M & S oversee the wonders of Mirror Blaze.

A mighty *FOOM* is had. There is much rejoicing.

A mighty *FOOM* is had.  There is much rejoicing.
A mighty *FOOM* is had. There is much rejoicing.

The ‘Boring’ car arrived, and judged us with a little tune.

The 'Boring' car arrived, and judged us with a little tune.
The ‘Boring’ car arrived, and judged us with a little tune.

On a trip back to camp, Another delightful anagram from our neighbours to the South:

Another delightful anagram from our neighbours to the South.
Another delightful anagram from our neighbours to the South.

On the way back, some new visitors to the Charnival! A pirate ship:

Is it a rollercoaster?  No, it's a pirate ship, come to visit the Charnival!
Is it a rollercoaster? No, it’s a pirate ship, come to visit the Charnival!

The dreaded Gazebo!:

The dreaded Gazebo?  (I no longer have any idea.)
The dreaded Gazebo? (I no longer have any idea.)

We return to the Charnival to see Marc inducting two new volunteers into his hall of flame:

Marc inducts two new volunteers into his hall of flame.
Marc inducts two new volunteers into his hall of flame.

Next time, we return to Mirror Blaze, and (non-)fiery disaster strikes! Stay tuned!