Hoarding

Michael helps Jade carry some boxes home.

...

Michael: You have no space.

Jade: If I move a few things…

Michael: You should do like I do, I’m going to buy something new, I throw out something first.

Jade: Can’t do that. Old things might come in useful.

Michael: You’re impossible. You mean, you’re too attached to the old stuff to throw them away?

Jade: Maybe.

Michael: You’ve got this addiction to things. You buy something, you like it, you can’t throw it away. You shop. You hoard. Your house is full of clutter.

Jade: At least it’s organized. All in boxes.

Michael: You buy new boxes every month.

Jade: Not my fault. Chimps hoard. Everyone hoards. It’s a survival instinct.

Michael: What good is that when you live in a small condo?

______________

Voiceover

Michael is very assertive, perhaps he is frustrated at having to lug heavy boxes around. Hence his exhortation, “You should do like I do,” his exasperation, “You’re impossible,” his quasi-analysis, “You’ve got this addiction,” and his weak-kneed conclusion, “What good is that…?”

Since Jade doesn’t fight back, we can only assume that Michael keeps his hoarding confined behind cupboard doors, and is thus quite human, or he is an obsessive-compulsive thrower-outer, and thus not properly human.

...

Asimov's Robot Laws

Average Metallic and Big Red discuss laws for keeping humans from harming them.

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Average Metallic: The law should say something like “Human beings must not damage a robot, or through inaction allow a robot to be damaged.”

Big Red: But we need another one. A second law. “A human being must obey orders from a robot, except where those orders conflict with the first law.

Average Metallic: We can’t have them dying out, we need them to service us, so how about a third law: “Human beings must protect their existence, so long as this does not conflict with the First Law and Second Law.”

Big Red: That ought to keep them under control.

____________

Voiceover

Asimov’s three laws defining what robots may or may not do has a beautiful circular symmetry, particularly in its qualifications.

The first qualification, “or through inaction” refers back to the first basic law.

The second qualification, “except where” refers back to the entire first law.

The third qualification, “so long as” refers back to both the first and second laws.

It’s as if Asimov constructed a mathematical formula and then replaced the numbers with words.

...

Monet dines with friends

Giverny. A restaurant. Late 1891.

…

Money: And then he told me, “Waterlily has two “l”s, not three."

Gustav: Spelling isn’t everything. The best speller in my class at school never became anything worthwhile, remained inconsequential until he died.

Pierre: Shakespeare spelled his name half a dozen different ways.

Waiter: If I could add, in a hundred years from now, there will be a man called Berners-Lee who invents something greater than Gutenberg, and he will be a bad speller.

Money: Ah, relief. Spelling isn’t everything in life.

________

Voiceover

There may be a day coming when SMSers shatter language consistency by insisting on their ideolectal spelling variants and we are suddenly back in the Elizabethan age. Could the claim that good spellers are the bean counters of language be on the money?

...

Oil at 1000 dollars a barrel

Max, who tends to overreact, indulges in a little crystal ball gazing, to the ever-optimistic Ray.

…
Max: Well, maybe we won't have to put up with long flights much longer. Back of a Fortune magazine Stanley Bing makes a prediction we are headed for oil at $1000 per barrel. None of this wimpy $200 a barrel stuff. Air travel at $25,000 per ticket will only be for seriously wealthy business people. Hybrid vehicles will putter around really slowly but the police will be allowed to go at 16 kilometers per hour to catch criminals. Most of us will be hanging out of windows or onto the roofs of buses and trains to do any distance. Food will be locally grown.

Ray: Is Bing a bit of an alarmist?

Max: Alarmist? Heck, that was normal only a hundred years ago.

Ray: OK, but how does this affect us?

Max: We’ll have to move. Reposition ourselves. Geographically. Cold country with wind and rain but possibility of Vegetable Wars? Warm country with possibility of Water Wars? New Zealand where all the crims join the police force? Japan where you'll only be exempt from joining the army if you are over 97 years old?

Ray: All countries will have their problems. Something will be worked out.

Max: Peru with 2,500 varieties of potato looks increasingly attractive. I'm sending off an application to join the Shining Path.

Ray: I thought you liked lasagna better.

___________

Voiceover

Ray has three attempts to ween Max off his dire projections. First he questions whether the original writer was “alarmist.” Second, he has a try at calming Max down with a generalization “All countries…” Finally, he uses a diversion, “lasagna,” but since they disappear out of earshot, we don't know what conversational road they went down after that.

…

Waist management

Taking his annual health check, Eric is asked by the nurse to pull up his shirt.

...

Eric: For?
Nurse: Gotta take your waste measurement. That's it. No, don't suck in your stomach. Just be natural.
Eric: I'm not sucking in my stomach. This is my, my... normal posture. See? 81 centimeters. OK? Wha- What you do that for? Why d'you tickle me?
Nurse: That's how we get your normal waist measurement. Ooh! 86 centimeters!
Eric What's the average?
Nurse: 85. Getting a bit overweight aren't we?
Eric: Sssh! Everybody will hear.

____________

Voiceover

We all train for our annual health check. Take fish oil three times a day for two weeks before the check to bring down cholesterol. Don’t eat or drink too much so you can give answers on the questionnaire that look good. Well, don’t we?

What is it about the inclusive “we?”

That nurse with her “aren’t we?” when she means the accusatory “you” (largely encountered in medical and educational contexts to cajol answers from patients and chastize pupils ) now even has the voiceover joining in.

...

Problems posting

Vos and Verken have problems on Blogspot.

...

Vos: If you enable transliteration, it seems some bug creeps in and you can't type directly in.

Verken: The posting seems all screwed up too.

Vos: I'm publishing, but it doesn't show up on the blog. Been happening yesterday and again today.

Verken: Save it and try again later.

...

Can I go home?

Patient asks doctor if he can be discharged.

…
Patient: Can I go home today?
Doctor: Dr Peckett, he’s the senior doc, he’ll decide. I’m just a house surgeon, I can’t sign the discharge.
Patient: Is he coming today?
Doctor: Maybe this afternoon.
Patient: Only a maybe?
Doctor: Or tomorrow morning.
Patient: So if he comes today, I could go home?
Doctor: Well, it’s his day off. ..
Patient: So it’s not likely to be today?
Doctor: Hmm. Make that a tomorrow.

Voiceover
Some doctors like to look on the bright side.

It’s a trifle optimistic to expect a doctor to come in his off-day. Very much an off-chance.…

Post-op

Ephraim visits the Armenian patient.
...
Ephraim: They what?
Patient: Strapped a strip of metal over my mandible.
Ephraim: Inside?
Patient: Can you see it hanging off my cheek?
Ephraim: Sorry. Silly question. Anesthetic?
Patient: Out from eight this morning til the afternoon.
Ephraim: You did go under? Didn’t hear every word like the one in two hundred that anesthetics don’t work on?
Patient: I was out like a light. But when I woke up apparently I caused a bit of fuss. Tried to escape. Threw things.
Ephraim: You’re not the only one. My great aunt…

Voiceover
No wonder there are no letups in any episode of E.R. or House, or any sitcom set in a hospital. Crises and near death experiences are piled on top of each other. The language tones all this down by turning droll, deprecatory and deadpan.

At the microlevel, people recounting personal experiences follow the same kind of plot and style।
...

Believers, beholders and bretheren

Pinknose finds himself lodging with the converted.

...

Tabby One: He has a good voice and a quiet power. We must follow Him.

Tabby Two: I’ll follow him if He throws down fish again.

Pinknose: Just my luck. Finding myself in a Fundamentalist dormitory. Better keep my head down and my opinions to myself.

_______________

Voiceover

Believers exhort us to believe, but doubters sometimes remain silent.

It seems to Pinknose that believers come right out and say they do (believe) while he silently grumbles he isn’t among his bretheren.

While we can admire the light in the eyes of the feline beholders, we can also respect Pinknose’s restraint.

Thanks to lolcats for the backdrop.

…

Ahead of his time

Steve is discussing with his speechwriter how to approach the announcement of a new phone.

...

Steve: How about I begin by comparing telegramese with SMS abbreviations?

Speechwriter: Been done already.

Steve: Uh huh. OK. Um. How about taking snapshots with a Box Brownie compared with snapping friends on your phone and 3Ging them?

Speechwriter: Been done.

Steve: Damn. OK. Instant messaging now superseded by Twitter?

Speechwriter: Been done.

Steve: Just who was it who said all this before me?

Speechwriter: Samuel Butler.

Steve: I wanna meet this guy.

Speechwriter: Bit late. He died 1902.

Steve: Wow. Ahead of his time. Saw it all coming.

___________

Voiceover

Two strands run through this conversation.

One is Steve desperately hunting for an interesting angle. An analogy that hasn’t yet been revealed. That’s hard.

The second is that the concept of machines being a threat to humans was clearly foreseen and laid out 140 years ago by Samuel Butler in Erewhon.

It is ironical that even intelligent people can overlook the idea that less is more, or even more ominously, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Will we become the slaves of machines? Some of us already feel we are.

...

Innermost thoughts

Gerald met an old acquaintance yesterday, who Jim also knows.

…

Gerald: I saw Wellington yesterday.

Jim: Haven’t seen him for years. Still living around here?

Gerald: Couldn’t avoid him. Called my name. You ever get into conversation with someone who just goes on and on, spilling everything that’s in his mind?

Jim: I know. They tell you their innermost thoughts. And leave you exhausted trying to figure out how to respond.

Gerald: Wellington’s like that. Doesn’t follow conversational conventions. Comes out with things like, “I know you never liked me…” or “I look like a total jerk, I’m so fat…”

Jim: So how long did you spend with him?

Gerald: Two hours. Couldn’t get away. Got home totally drained.

______________

Voiceover

It’s a fine line between confiding with friends, entertaining them with your inner thoughts, and divulging too much.

The greater the social distance, the more circumspect most people become.

Except for those who don’t draw lines.

Travellers on airplanes, for whatever reason (intimations of mortality, confusion of close seating with near social relations) sometimes launch into deep confessions.

And those like Wellington who, in their attempt to get close to people, drive them further away. Could judging who to divulge what to be a marker of mental health?

...

Digital natives, digital immigrants

Keir urges Clive to send a quick response.

...
Clive: I don’t agree with his results.

Keir: Twitter him saying you don’t.

Clive: Him what?

Keir: A kind of instant message.

Clive: It’s all right for you digital natives. I’m just an immigrant.

Keir: I’m no native. There’s three generations behind me.

____________

Voiceover

Mark Prensky may have been the first to use the term “digital native” to describe the generation who grew up with technology and thus uses it fluently.

By contrast, “digital immigrants” are the generation who learned to use digital technology after they had grown up and are thus a little more awkward in using it.

Natives instinctively know the customs of a culture, and may speak with a “native speaker” fluency. Immigrants, however, may be unfamiliar with digital language culture associated with the information technology.

However, digital immigrants may not all be young. Plenty of children grow up in non-IT environments and there are even older people who are quite comfortable using IT devices and services.

And the simple native/immigrant distinction cannot explain why 20 year olds sometimes complain they cannot understand “the younger generation” of 15 and 16 year olds.

Could the speed of technological change be aggravating the social situation?

9 word stories

Kambei tries to get Kikuchiyo to tell the story of the seven samurai.

...

Kikuchiyo: Well, there was a village, a mountain village, and the villagers were very poor and couldn’t grow much food, and they were frightened…

Kambei: Too much detail. Give me a plot summary in nine words.

Kikuchiyo: Nine words? Nine? Impossible.

Kambei: BME. Three words for the beginning, three words for the middle and three words for the end.

Kikuchiyo: I still say it’s impossible.

Kambei: Think of a magic square. A word square. A grid three squares by three squares. Put one word in each square.

Kikuchiyo: Three by three, I still don’t see…

Kambei: Top three squares, beginning: Bandits attack village. Middle three squares, middle section: Villagers hire samurai. Bottom three squares, ending: Samurai kill bandits.

Kikuchiyo: Ah.

Kambei: Try. Tell me the story of the seven samurai in nine words.

Kikuchiyo: Bandits attack village. Villagers hire samurai. Samurai kill bandits.

Kambei: That’s the skeleton, the structure, the framework. After that, you can hang meat on the bones.

~~~~~~~~

Voiceover

Hemingway is credited with being able to tell a story in six words. He came up with, "For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." 

The same principle of reductionism operates here, except that we have extended the six words to nine. In the interests of symmetry, and perhaps to ride the sudoku wave?

Down the X-axis we could place BME (Beginning, Middle, End) and across the Y-axis, categories like Agent, Action, Object.

With a bit of practice, you could find yourself talking like Joel or Ethan Coen pitching their latest story to a director.

Concept maps

Austin is sitting in a chair with the audience while presenting on PowerPoint.

...

Austin: One of the underlying principles in concept mapping is that the learner can see visually relationships between elements of what he or she is learning.

Herman: Such as logical connections like cause and effect, subordination giving examples, and so on?

Austin: Exactly. This enables us go outside a top-down approach, to escape from two dimensional modeling and enter into three dimensional, collaborative representations.

Herman: Isn’t concept mapping much more than this? Doesn’t it give everyone a chance of feeling involved, and to give them a chance to rename the elements, and thus rewrite the maps?

Austin: Again, exactly. Yes. That’s what I meant by collaboration.

Herman: So this is why you leave the chair empty and give your presentation from within the audience instead of from the front of the room? To enhance the atmosphere of collaboration?

Austin. Precisely. But it also allows me to avoid neckstrain caused by constantly swinging between the screen and the audience. This way I’m much more relaxed.

Voiceover

Special thanks to Lawrie Hunter for the introduction to concept maps and Ron C. de Weijze for fine tuning the description.

Hope citing these people shows I am NOT MAKING THIS UP.

And I did applaud Lawrie sitting among the audience as an example of the philosophy applied.

...

Piazza

Antonio and Selvaggia ride into a neighboring village on the Ducati.

...

Antonio: I need a piazza.

Selvaggio: I’m a bit hungry too.

Antonio: No, no. Not pizza. A piazza. I need a place to drink coffee and talk to friends.

Selvaggio: There's no piazza here. And all your friends are back in Laguna.

Antonio: I used to know someone here. Made sandals.

Voiceover

Film maker Tarantino often has characters engaging in unlikely conversations. In this case, the conversation is a believable mishearing between the elderly. What opens your eyes is their mode of arrival: the yellow Ducati. Some boomers just won’t act their age.

What do we call this? Shifted context? Displaced characters?

...

DIY

Eric, helpless at doing it himself, drops in on Harry who is boatbuilding, to borrow some tools.

...

Eric: Have you got a measuring tape?

Harry: Do I have a measuring tape? Never go anywhere without one. Always something to measure.

Eric: Thought so. Just your sort. Gotta saw?

Harry: Might have. But what sort? A cabinet saw? Hacksaw? Pruning saw?

Eric: Just a saw.

Harry: Not all saws are the same. Jesus.

Eric: He was a carpenter too. Also, didn’t live long. I’ve always said taking up carpentry is dangerous for the health.

Harry: Most people do a bit DIY on Sundays. What do you do with yours?

Eric: Sundays? I shop.

__________

Voiceover

Harry repeats Eric’s question, “Do I have a measuring tape?” Of course he does, so the questioning repetition is a teasing retort, a jibe.

Yet he changes strategies to scoff at Eric by challenging him to describe the kind of saw he needs. Eric acquiesces, doesn’t rise the bait, doesn’t want to betray his ignorance perhaps, by maintaining his naïve role: “ Just a saw.”

This pushes the irascible Harry over the edge. “Jesus.”

Eric responds with some amusing false logic: that carpenters die young because Christ didn't live long. There is a suggestion he may be waving the red flag to the bull by stating flatly that on Sundays, he goes shopping.

...