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Overview
We are all over the board today. Even more than usual.
The Webb telescope has allowed us to see back in time.
Target shooting is fun, even if you don’t want to hunt.
Missing the Mensa AG and Colloquium isn’t fun.
String theory is cool and complicated.
George Carlin is still relevant today.
Elton John – ’nuff said.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Alan: Really.
[00:00:02] Stephen: Okay. And it’s interesting you put dinosaurs because I was going mention the pictures from the web telescope, which is essentially seen back in time. Yeah. It’s I have just on the surface of what’s available, I browse through the first 10 or something like that, but they keep releasing things that are just magnificent and such clarity and such things we’ve never seen before.
[00:00:26] Alan: And that’s what a wonderful chance for the public to get educated about how big the universe is and how that’s, how space works time works. That seeing things that are like they don’t exist anymore. We’re seeing things from millions billions of years ago, I’ve lost track of what it’s real
[00:00:42] Stephen: range is.
Yeah. It’s well it saw the. Or it saw a star that is now we see the star in the sky with telescopes or whatever the light’s there, but the telescope saw it gone, burnt out done. So to think about that’s time travel. That really is time travel. Yeah.
[00:01:01] Alan: Yeah. I, there, I we’ve talked about little lists before I, is there something very cool about how mankind keeps expanding its senses?
You know what I mean? That at first it was I, some people had better eyesight than others and then there was actually monoculars and binoculars that using lenses will be able to do that and microphones that can capture from far away. Yeah. And just pirates. that’s very cool that we have that desire.
You know what I mean to influence not only listen to and have our senses expand, but then influence the world around us. So how can I throw something far away? Whether it’s the I don’t know a highlight I, what call CSTA? I think the CSTA go anyway. I lose track of my my sports firms, you and I are such sport heads know sports ball, but then just shooting.
I, I think I mentioned know, I’ve only been shooting a couple times in my life, but there really is a cool feeling for being able to be 20, 30, 50 yards away and go blink and touch that thing. Yeah. And with accuracy I’m actually a pretty good shop. A 22 rifle. I couldn’t believe how good I was.
I was getting like 28 outta 30 and stuff like that. So nice. Whatever that the steadiness, the squeeze, the however, my eyes work that really isn’t off or something like that. And as things got heavier, I wasn’t so good about big guns. They got away from me, that they had so much recoil.
Yeah. And But where it felt like I could still be in control and you can do that little out breath and all that stuff. I really was, this is cool blink. you know what I mean? Especially when you’re here and you get that first taste, there’s that little bit of time in between shooting and then hearing the metal target go.
I don’t know. I’m sure I’m not explaining it beautifully, but that is interesting. And I understand shooting more, having done it now than I ever did before. It never occurs to me. And we, maybe we talked about a little bit before I was happy with shooting milk container or a metal target.
It never occurs to me to shoot it a living thing. Some people that’s an important thing. It goes back to hunting days and stuff. And if I depended on that to feed my family, I’d become pretty good with a bow and arrow and with a rifle and all that kind of stuff really quick but. I don’t get that nowadays. That’s not sport and pleasant. To me. It’s really hard for me to say, Hey, sorry that you wandered into my field division bunny, but glam,
[00:03:31] Stephen: I’ve played the video games with the guns and the hunting and all that. I’ve shot the Terminator robots I’ve shot the dinosaurs.
I’ve done all those, but I’ve done the Cabella ones where you’re hunting moose or elk or something. But I have absolutely no desire to go do it in real life. I like do shooting. I find it interesting. So with the telescope now that we can see these galaxies, and that’s the coolest thing about that telescope is you’re not seeing a star.
You’re seeing a galaxy and what that exactly. Yeah. And it’s so cool, but so are we go get like space numbers are so
[00:04:03] Alan: big, yeah. Stuff has millions of stars. There’s millions of galaxies and that’s, just like the multipliers go real big, real quick to say jet how big the universe is.
right.
[00:04:15] Stephen: I’m sure we got somebody out there going, yeah, that’s fake. That’s just a made up Photoshop picture that doesn’t really exist. We only have our flat earth and nothing else.
[00:04:26] Alan: I whatever that level of limitation or cowardice or whatever it is to make it that I don’t believe that we can, that the universe is really that big and like, how does it ever matter that you even use the word believe in that sentence? Here’s the instrument, here’s the data, here’s the everything. And you just, it seems mentally ill to say, no, not my reality. it just, sorry, I just, that’s just so weird to me.
Like what, whatever occurs to you that’s threatening to you, that’s something that’s a, you have to reject it because it doesn’t fit your worldview. I just, I’m so happy to get. Bigger more to know about and in, in the randomness of it, all these things are just amazing cosmic forces random, but then we of course see things in them because that’s how we’re programmed.
And so here’s the, what is it? The pillars of Hercules, here’s the crab Nebula and, and I’m not naming any of the new ones they’re already come up with cool new names for cool new features. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I love that. I love that we put our own art into it, our own sense of, wow.
That’s similar to a an Enemity or something like that. That’s cool that we almost feel compelled to do that, to name it, to describe it as similar so there,
[00:05:42] Stephen: there was a movie, maybe it was inner stellar. I don’t remember where they showed. The galaxy and they showed multiple galaxies and it was like each little point was a galaxy and they just showed these expansive galaxies.
It looked like stars, but it was just, and they were like moving. They’re talking about the giant black hole. I think it might have been inner stellar. And it was just amazing. It’s okay. They made it up for the movie, but that was what it looks like when they’re discovering all this, we can’t even fathom how big it is.
You go to the beach and they always talk about the sand’s on the beach. There’s more galaxies and each galaxy is more stars than the sand on this beach how can you even comprehend that in our little old brain?
[00:06:24] Alan: Yeah. Yeah. I love the fact that we see similar patterns that’s that there’s spirals versus, and I’m trying to think there’s four types of galaxies.
There’s discs effort and that kinda stuff. And of course it’s 2d to us if you will, but it’s not, it’s really 3d, but how we interpret it. And then it’s If you will the argument about intelligent design, it’s like somebody must have been involved and said, I don’t if it isn’t meant to be a God to make the same, cosmic forces have shaped those kinds of things and not to be weird but God plays favorites.
I like spirals. I’m a little kid with a sand, a bucket of sand, and I’m gonna make the same pattern because I like. Mazes. I like spirals. I like whatever else it is. It’s just, that seems a little weird, bigger jump that I would make over. I could just appreciate that’s forces are either radiative or they’re.
If they’re moving a little bit and there’s gravity involved, you could see that’s how they would shape up, or
[00:07:18] Stephen: it’s just the basic building blocks of the computer simulation that has been built that were in. You could use that argument for various I have seen of course, funny memes along those lines of the problem with the web telescope is that now we’re overburdening the universe having to provide us with more, to make it seamless.
[00:07:35] Alan: If it’s still real, even though it’s really a simulation, now there’s more processing power and data
[00:07:39] Stephen: that we have to look at, right? No, I. Once, and I forget where I read this, but it was, they found a galaxy that was a ring of stars and the center was nothing. It was just a ring, but then so much further away they found another one.
So what they hypothesized was that eons ago, another galaxy like went through the center of that galaxy and left it as a ring. And I’m like, that’s just, how do you even fathom that? So these millions of stars went through these other millions of stars and cut a whole, like a donut that’s right, man.
How do you even think about that? And it has to be so far away to even see it that we’re never gonna get there. It just blows your mind. yeah.
[00:08:23] Alan: A little bit of a jump here we just had to miss a a colloquium by, cause we didn’t go to the annual gathering. We meant annual gathering and this year’s topic was very interesting on gifted this through the lifeline, through the timeline that.
There, there really is. We spent a lot of time in society about, Hey, are there gifted children as actually a common term and measuring IQ? And what do you do with it in your career and stuff like that. But it pretty much talks about here’s all the very different issues that confront you when you’re a tiny Todd until you’re an 80 year old.
You know what I mean? If you’re still around and still brighter than the average bear what have you done now that you’ve done a lot in your life? What do you still find interesting or how do you still keep your mind supple and stuff like that? And reason for mentioning all that was the men, colloquia are really a cool thing.
The the public perception perhaps, or the stereotype of men is that we sit around solving quadratic equations and demonstrating off vocabulary and stuff like that. But once in a while, we really do smart stuff. That’s really impressive. We, there was a cosmology colloquium 15, maybe going on 20 years ago.
That really had the heavy weights in the field there, it was Ryan Green who invented super string theory and it was Lee small and I wish remember her last name, Vera, who is the lady. And I should just say scientist, but she’s distinguished because she’s a lady and most people like don’t give lady scientists enough credit who had either invented the idea of dark matter or was the first one to like, say here’s how it all works.
That 99% of what’s out there, you really can’t see, but in order to balance out Einstein’s equations so that the universe really is expanding and it all works together. Like we currently have as best theory, there has to be dark matter and dark energy that are operating on things that we don’t have the instruments to pick up on.
And so just how cool to be in a room full of people that’s their life is right. Thinking of the universe really exists in 10 dimens. Or the reason that’s not a repeat, that’s not good theory is because it’s not science. Lee Mullin’s big thing was science is experimentation. Hypothesis experimentation, come to conclusions, refining your results.
You can hypothesize all you want, but we got the one universe you can’t set up a second universe to say, oh, what if it was only nine dimensions? And then how would that work? And so it was great to have a very alerted critic, a very alerted show me guy that was saying that’s really a nice not even hypothesis, don’t use an overload, a scientific term in a way that it shouldn’t be, you’ve got, I guess a theory might be a workable word there, but how are you ever gonna test that?
It matches enough of existing observation, but you can’t perturb the system in a way you would say, now does it explain it now? Does it predict it? The various different things about sciences explanation and then prediction. And but it was very cool to have everybody there also I’m Jesus, I’m not a, an astrophysicist, but people with enough brain power that they could.
Up with people who were trying to explain those things and not just have their eyes glaze over that you had the questions asked during the Q and a were really interesting and intelligent and there’s nobody. That’s as smart as an entire room full of medicines, they might be specifically very bright, but the collective brain power of people that dabble at study that are interested in this, it was just such a cool tour to force of the joy of smart at tune.
[00:11:46] Stephen: That is fun to get into. We get into as much of the nonsense puns and riles as we do real stuff like that. And it’s true you get a room full of S you’ll never get a group much smarter than that.
NASA probably gets groups together and stuff like that, but you will also never get a more autistic collective person than a room full of
[00:12:11] Alan: that might be too, but that wasn’t a limiting factor at all. The fact that we’re talking about these wonderful big theories, it doesn’t matter that you don’t get social cues or that you might not care about how you dress.
It matters that your brain
[00:12:23] Stephen: can handle everybody’s there for the one thing. You know exactly. Yeah. And I’m not saying that in a negative way at all, I’ve been paying attention that I think that some of the. Ways we’re changing and evolving. This is they’ve talked about autism is kinda a next level.
It’s not a problem. It, people view it as there’s a problem. They view it as there’s something wrong. It’s not necessarily it’s another side. Step of evolution, not our complete line of humanity, but another we got, we’ve had people that had to be strong to fight the saber tooth tigers to build the houses and that, and, but we’re getting beyond that.
So we got this next thing and I did just hear an NPR thing on a Ted talk where they’ve re started thinking about redefining their view of evolution. That evolution doesn’t always take millions of years. They said they have. Species of insects evolve in 20 generations that from start to finish thing.
Exactly. Yeah, totally. So evolution is not necessarily what we’ve thought about up to this point.
[00:13:32] Alan: It’s kinda funny, that’s a big, interesting discussion. I would suggest that maybe we’ve always had non normative people and that, because even back when we were fighting Saru tigers, we had to have the people that were.
How do the seasons work? How should I prepare for what I know is coming and that they were able to see those patterns more, fully, quicker, more deeply, whatever else it might be, and a way of explaining that to others. So you already, you had brain work people as well as physical work people from the start.
And it might be that they’ve gotten famous now is the Galileos the first people Orus with like maybe the earth is the, not the center of the universe. Maybe we orbit the sun’s that’s part of the that’s. Doesn’t what I,
so I, the what you just said about like I have I’ve almost had that weird pattern, finding ability, maybe that’s part of solving puzzles, maybe that’s part of, but a real difficulty nowadays is what you what you just talked about. It’s very weird to be Cassandra all the time. To be like, wow, 20 years ago, I said, this isn’t gonna end well.
And that even if you worked to try to not have it be that we’re just not gonna believe in client science. We’re just not gonna believe in it. The number of times that happens in small term and long term, like if you’re just driving in traffic and you see something forming up and it’s that looks like it could be bad.
And if this particular thing happens, you’re gonna get real bad. I’ll just get over here to the left. But you notice that most like you and maybe two others that are doing something to get out of that situation, everybody else is not thinking about it, or they haven’t judged it in the same way you have or whatever.
So I, long ago I did it talk about just all the ways in which like intelligence is actually a very handy thing because instead of it being a single use skill, it’s kinda like a computer and computer isn’t about the Silicon in it. It’s about all the different apps that you can load down to and how it can take on all these various different guyses and purposes.
There’s never a time when I’m not using my smarts. If I’m shopping, I’m doing mass calculations. If I’m in traffic, I’m doing physics and calculations of how fast and how many and for a hundred different objects moving around me. If I’m looking out at the weather and you’re like going into your bank of how many different skies have I seen?
And the weather forecast says 55% chance of rain. What do I think? And I, it’s funny. I maybe even trivialize it a little bit, but there’s never a time when I’m not thinking of how much I should I put in my drink. So it’s just the amount that I want. And I’m continually learning from experience and I’m continually experimenting to see if I don’t know, don’t decide one way and then do it forever.
Keep trying various different things and see what works best. And then you find out, wow, things fizz differently in Denver at a mile high than they do down here at sea level, if you in Cleveland. And I love maybe that’s another reason I know I’m going on a little bit, but don’t you get a charge out of being surprised.
because if you’re always doing that kind of extrapolation and prediction, and then it really fools you, it’s how cool all my not boredom, but all my I’ve gotten used to being able to be most of the time ahead of the world. And then once in a while the world like pulled the rug out from under me, it’s like how wonderfully humbling, how wonderfully there’s like a charge, a nice little serotonin verse in your brain of I was wrong and it’s not ego death.
It’s actually, it’s cool that just pantomiming your way through the world that there’s still surprises to be found good plot in a movie or in a book that really like surprises you. I love that.
[00:17:06] Stephen: Yeah. I was just talking to someone last night about how I there’s lots of things. I don’t know. And I like to learn, I can make some guesses at times.
I enjoy. Oh I guess I was wrong. That’s great. I learned something new and it’s areas that I don’t deal with a lot. Like for this particular thing, it was cars. I was looking up. Cap for an under the hood fuse relay. And it was on top of the battery. It was like, and I’m like, I have never seen that in my life, and it was just interesting and there was a hose running through it and I’m like, so I started saying does the cap have a little spot? So the hose can run through or did the hose slip over there? Do we need and they’re like, yeah, I don’t know. And I’m like I’m just thinking of these things.
But and then they were like the mechanic said, I need to get the cap on it. Or when it rains, it’s going to get water. And they’re like how big a puddles are you driving through? Because water has to like, come up and jump bounce off the right
[00:18:11] Alan: reflected back down. Exactly.
[00:18:13] Stephen: That’s wild. Yeah.
And they’re like it’s just what we the mechanic wants you to pay him to do stuff. Exactly.
[00:18:20] Alan: Yeah.
Maybe a segue, cuz I remember we as usual we have a list of all things. We, so I just we watched car documentary called American dreams and it’s funny as often happens someone recently poses something along the lines of that there really is sometimes to me, a big difference between people that are at the top of their game in and the, and other accomplished artists, but they’re just not the best ones.
So when I think of authors and I guess everybody has their criteria for makes a great author. I love where they have a good vocabulary and really good word choice. And they do, and they say new things. It’s not just embrace the tropes and the stereotypes, but that they just write a craft, a sentence so beautifully that Colleen and I will be like, listen to this.
This is just so perfect. And it’s, I’m thinking of it because, and he’s got a bunch of fun books for Colleen for her birthday, and it’s gonna be like Christopher Moore, who does that regularly. He writes beautiful sentences. And one of her favorite authors was Kurt VK. And I just, when I was talking about I there’s Kurt V did it, Neil Gaon does it certain lyricists, that’s just they there’s substantially better and different. Alan Moore does it. And George Carlin and a number of standup comes comedians were like there’s of people that can tell jokes or they can make Ry observations, but like Stephen Wright and emos, just hone it down into that perfect economic.
Surprising parapros do left turn garden path type
[00:19:56] Stephen: thing. Yeah. Looking at everything from the, yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:00] Alan: Or just listen to George Carlin or Dennis Miller, go on a rant and all the references that they bring in and how they use just the right connotative and denotative words and emotional words and the pacing of it.
It’s just, it’s beautiful. And so watching this documentary about Carlin, hearing him talk about that a little bit, it was affirming to be like I see what you did you really were. But, and it wasn’t always things appeared to him whole born in his head. They showed him almost taking notes and always that his, our specials were very honed that he wrote a whole bunch of stuff down and then you put it together and then you write, you tune it and you write it and you try it and you try the order different and all that kind of stuff.
And so to see that there’s real work going into it, but the skill of being able to say. This isn’t quite right. I’m not gonna leave it alone. I’m gonna keep playing with it until I get it so that it sings. So that it’s just perfect and beautiful. I hope that I I try to do that in my writing.
Sometimes I just throw up into the keyboard and whatever comes out, but sometimes I’ll go back and I that’s, I could say that better, especially if I’m not doing social media, which is meant to be as if you were there talking. But when I do my presentations, I really try to, and it’s funny.
I don’t write my presentations out. I speak off, off the cuff from an outline what I’m thinking of particular phrases that I want to use. And then luckily I have enough ability to draw on this whole roster of possibilities that they eventually do come out in the course of the talk and the kids I get to the end and say, oh, that was a good line that I didn’t use.
I’ll use that next
[00:21:33] Stephen: time, right? Yeah. Oh, all the time. Yeah. So getting to George Carlin and what a, like the word genius is off and overused, but man, they had all the other comedians, so many of whom I respect saying. Just looked at what he did. Like there, there have been other great comedians for a while, Lenny, Bruce was a breakthrough guy and Alan King ruled the Bruce, all that kind of stuff, but we’re still quoting from and learning from and reverent of George Carlin.
[00:22:01] Alan: And he had a 50 year career. And we’re still talking about some of the stuff he did in the seventies 50 years ago. Yeah. That’s really amazing because comedy is by almost definition, an femoral thing, a thing of the times, and you can’t joke about their food anymore. Like a king did because it, the context is gone, the whatever Carlin, he just said a lot of good, important, and not just big, important stuff, but all those cool little things that he made you can be really high flow and then also talk about farts and they’re equally hilarious and equally insightful.
You know what
[00:22:36] Stephen: He’s so he’s a definite professional. Like you said, because he working every day yep. He wasn’t necessarily slapstick funny at home all the time. This was his job. He treated it like a job and he did it well. And the insights he had, like you said, were bigger things that are having impact.
Now he was maybe ahead of his time, I hear so many things he talks about with the government, with politicians, with racism, with the abortion
[00:23:05] Alan: today. Yeah. And it was 25
[00:23:07] Stephen: years ago. That’s yeah. So he’s, it was funny the way he tells it, but it’s relevant to today. And I’ve seen a lot lately coming out with him and the younger kids discovering him, never heard him before and they’re like, oh my God, this is so wonderful.
And it’s brand new to them, but so relevant still to today,
[00:23:28] Alan: especially it’s hardening. Rare. He wasn’t like one of the things they point out very well in a documentary is that it wasn’t just George Carlin, like all the time, he started off as very much like clean shaven, as and partnered with Jack Burns for a while and was very much a up and coming Johnny Carson kind of guy.
And then he just had that revelation of this isn’t all of me. I need to be able to express all of me and grew the beard out and sent all the signals. And now he was of the counterculture. And then it, it three other transformations over the course of I’m getting too angry. I need to find the funny, not just the indignation and the horror of all these things.
I’m predicting that are coming true, that are not good things. And and like the fact that he was performing until he was in his seventies. And as you said, the young people discovering them. It must be a wonderful thing for the generationality that we have going on in the United States now. And not now, all of history has always been that the next generation is get out of the way grants.
You know what I mean? You have nothing left to offer. It’s the new thing. Now here’s our new slang. Here’s our new interests and all that kind of stuff. But as there can be that connection to this guy looks like your grandfather, and yet man, does he have something to say? It’s so wonderful that can be a beacon.
You know what I mean? That we don’t need to get discarded. There might be some of us that are still topical, witty, interested, and interesting. You know what I mean? So it’s he really, what an amazing sustained career for a guy that was always timely and topical and yet kept moving forward that he even talked about that I don’t wanna be doing.
Every time that he did his special, he pretty much just closed the door on that old material. He never repeated things. He was always prolifically writing the next thing. And I liked that because one of the things that we’ve seen unfortunately, is comedians. That tour was the same material as they did have 20, 30, 40 years ago.
And it’s maybe it might need for surprise, but also my need for you still have something to contribute. You just have to dedicate yourself to it. I. Coming out here and going on autopilot. You know what I
[00:25:37] Stephen: mean? So it’s we just went and saw the big stadium tour with leopard poison Motley crew and Joan jet.
Okay. And Paul and I were talking how Def Lepard did great. The others, eh, not quite as bad though. Motley crew sounded better this final tour than their last final tour. I will say that but we were making the observation that Motley crew has not put out an album in 20 years and they’re still playing the same songs, but when they played the songs, it was the record cut and that was it.
And nothing different or whatever. Whereas leopard had a show and it was a little different than the last time. And they had new material because they keep releasing and just, yeah. But unfortunately they put Motley crew last. When Molly crew was playing, we left early and the amount of people streaming,
[00:26:27] Alan: Molly crew had top billing.
Have they sold more
[00:26:29] Stephen: records? They are no that’s I don’t know. Okay. But when we were leaving, it was like, people were just streaming out. There was so many people following us. Let’s get outta here before the crowd goes. We’re not as interested in Motley crew. We’ve seen,
[00:26:43] Alan: we’ve seen Jeff Leppard who is kinda who we came to see.
OK.
[00:26:46] Stephen: Wow. We stayed for about half of their set and heard a couple of the big hits and okay. Let’s go before the crowd. Yeah. But
[00:26:54] Alan: harmony doing that, I almost stayed to the end, but I can also see four bands is a lot. And depending on how much stage time they each had a four hour show, can.
It’s own exhausting. You know what I mean? A lot of your own energy. Oh, this was
[00:27:06] Stephen: six hours and right. Wow. Wow. We were in traffic for a while before that, and we knew there was gonna be traffic. It was already 11 o’clock. And I’m like, if we leave a half hour early, we’ll get home like 1230. If we leave in a half hour, we’re go get home at two 30.
The difference is all that time. Yeah. So
[00:27:26] Alan: just a throwaway thing, but it’s important. Colleen and I see shows at Playhouse square. We have the series tickets and virtual things we pick up. And one really good habit that we’ve acquired now is that shows end. We don’t go to the car and sit in the parking lot, waiting for everybody else to get out.
We take a walk downtown. We refamiliarize ourself with how be. Downtown Cleveland is go to public square and just TLE around. And when we come back then, wow. There’s only three cars left in the parking lot. There’s not that I don’t wanna breathe in exhaust. I don’t wanna get home. Then I don’t, and we just go home. So it might be that we spend we want to 30, 45 an hour walking, which is something we wanna do anyway. And then it makes the entire experience for the night, not end with that frustration of
[00:28:06] Stephen: absolutely and it, there was a lot of people in that stadium. And but it’s a
[00:28:13] Alan: stadium compared to Playhouse square stadium is like 60,000 people or whatever it is.
I dunno how big
[00:28:18] Stephen: yeah, whatever the football stadium is. It’s a lot, it was pretty packed.
[00:28:23] Alan: Lots of people we’ll be seeing the Elton John show at the end of this month. That’s so his farewell tour stop in and I’m anticipating it’s gonna be like two hours a show and six hours overall, because it’s gonna be the hassle of getting in and out.
[00:28:36] Stephen: You know what I. You’d probably be just as well walking to
[00:28:41] Alan: get there. we could walk, we could take a train. There’s all kinds of commute that we can do. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that I really need to start thinking in terms of Uber and Lyft in my life. know, When I go to California and I know that my father’s car is waiting in the garage, I take a Lyft from the airport to my parents house, and then I have the use of the car, but that mentality should be everywhere.
I, if I don’t need a car who, where I go, I could just lift everywhere. And then there’s a certain amount of money going out, but it’s not the I, for $15, I gain four hours back in my life. That doesn’t seem like a bad trade off at all. Know what I mean? So well that I’ve talked with that about to Colin a lot, because with his tracking issue, he can’t drive not safely at least.
[00:29:22] Stephen: Ah, and so he’s I can’t stay living in the country urban areas because you don’t have to
[00:29:29] Alan: drive to
[00:29:30] Stephen: get around. Yeah. Yeah. He’s if I live to the city, I could walk, I could bus, I could get a bike. He said, I might try a bike, but he’s still nervous about that. And when you look at it if you look at your gas, look at your maintenance, look at the monthly cost of the car look at parking if you’re in the city,
[00:29:49] Alan: whatever.
Exactly.
[00:29:50] Stephen: Yeah. What is that? Six, seven, $800 a month. That’s a lot of, it’s
[00:29:55] Alan: an expense. It’s not a small thing. That’s
[00:29:56] Stephen: right, yeah. And if you do a bus it’s $50 a month and you can get around most everywhere and take Uber for the times. You can’t use the bus, you’re actually saving some money.
[00:30:06] Alan: I’ll tell you we have made much good use when we’ve been to Toronto for the JFL festival. We drove up there and then parked our car and made use of when you’re in a city that has good public transportation. It’s just amazing how convenient it is. It runs frequent enough and the places are like, they go everywhere and the places are safe.
And it’s just like, all you need is not even a big old map that you hold out. It’s have an app and it’ll tell you, Hey, the next train is coming in and be on that side of the track. And we’ve gotten we were really comfortable doing the Toronto festival because we know the city and it’s ways of transporting so well now it really is amazingly.
How it emboldens you like in any city that has that. So we were gonna go to Montreal. That’s now we’re pulling back from that, but, and also when we were looking for where we’re gonna stay, we’re like, okay, how close are we to probably lines, train lines, bus lines, that kind of stuff. And use that as our way of getting around instead of having to be the overhead of moving and parking a car in a busy big city.
Oh, again and again, I would just be crazy making yeah. Yeah. I definitely, when we went to the New York comic con, we took the. And that’s where I found out that my daughter freaked out taking trains. So you know, that was an experience. Let me tell you wow.
What’s behind that.
Like the
[00:31:25] Stephen: movement of it, the sound of it. I dunno, there she had several things she got very anxious about and she was fine getting on the train, excited and that, but the minute the doors started closing she just started freaking out a little.
[00:31:39] Alan: Claustrophobia. Cause I’m trying to think, is there a train phobia?
know, A Metro I’m trying to think of
[00:31:45] Stephen: what, yeah, I don’t know. She used to take course lessons and she almost fell off once and then she was too afraid to do it again. I kept trying get back on, you gotta do it. You gotta do it. Yeah. She tried and then she just was done. So something anxiety with that.
So yeah,
[00:32:05] Alan: I guess always got through things that like, I obviously, when you just mentioned in passing, I didn’t know that Colin had a tracking thing that he doesn’t. Handle things appearing in his vision, moving
[00:32:16] Stephen: and stuff, or, yes. Let’s jump on that for a little sake, cuz it’s probably of interest to a lot of people
[00:32:21] Alan: because things we’re gonna talk about brain things today.
[00:32:24] Stephen: yeah. Yeah. We found out when he was playing softball or not softball hard, yo hot stove, league baseball that he wasn’t catching, he wasn’t hitting. And we kept working with him. He just wasn’t and started noticing that he’s standing there and you throw the ball and it lands over here and he doesn’t even move that.
It’s like he’s standing there and it hits. So we took him, got him checked. And the thing is most optometrists do not know how to check for this. They can check your vision so you could see you’re not distance
[00:32:55] Alan: and close a distance, a stable thing. Like the eye chart. Yeah. Not movement,
[00:33:00] Stephen: but this, we went, we found a doctor.
Understood these things and could test for various afflictions that most people don’t know about. And we found out he has a tracking issue and after talking with him and working with him, confirmed that. So essentially he could see something here and then when it moves, it disappears from his site of like the opposite of a T-Rex and then he,
[00:33:24] Alan: right.
We own these
[00:33:25] Stephen: movements but then he can see it again when it stops and it’s not always completely gone, sometimes there’ll be flickers. But it’s a brain thing connected to the eye. It, everyone says how often it samples, how often it’s cause I know a little bit about this having studied display devices you don’t have continuous vision, you have snap snap, snap, snap, and your brain really puts that together with persistence of vision.
[00:33:51] Alan: But if. Doesn’t take a sample often enough. I could see how it would be like here and then go on. And then here. Yes. And
[00:33:58] Stephen: wow. And even driving into cars, I’ll say, oh, look at that sign. He goes, what did it say? I couldn’t see it. Cause we’re moving. Interesting. And we try and explain that to people.
They’re like just get ’em better glasses. It won’t do anything, yeah. It doesn’t fix the issue. Never do that. That’s
[00:34:16] Alan: an interesting because really that, if that’s, UHY in terms of yes. Crossing a street, does he see a car and. And how does he judge how quickly it’s coming so that he knows
[00:34:29] Stephen: whether he can go or not, for the longest time he was afraid to cross streets for that reason.
And in the last couple years, as he’s older, he’ll go get the mail, but he does, he, he stands there and he checks evaluates and he goes quick. He’s I’m go run just in case. Cause you can’t
[00:34:47] Alan: trust yourself necessarily you’re taking information, but okay. Wow.
[00:34:51] Stephen: Yeah. Interesting. And it got me thinking too, that you take anything, we do little things to big things with smelling, tasting, seeing how you move your fingers and there’s somebody that has an anomaly of that or something that’s a little different of that.
It works differently of that. Exactly. And thinking of that is just crazy. The amount of variety that you can have Here’s the guy, Oliver, sax, I think was that his name that he did? He had a whole bunch of great books about learning about the brain by studying when the brain isn’t working correctly.
[00:35:29] Alan: I think he’s the guy that had the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Remember that’s a relatively famous title and I’m I’m fascinated by that kind of stuff because my mind works in odd ways compared to lots of other people, what do I have that sees the pattern more quickly, or that sees whoever sees more colors instead of less, do you have more rods and cones that differentiate and right.
You know what I mean? But not it COVID raising the respect of, wow. What if you lose a couple senses? It’s just amazing. If I didn’t have, like how many times a day do I smell? And it’s okay, that trash needs to get taken out or Did I spill something. It isn’t only the visual, it’s all those senses.
And if I really started to have like only three outta five or something like that, they would rock my world in ways that I don’t wanna learn how to do that. Different. I don’t wanna be Daredevil where the other sand senses are enhanced. I kinda like my set. Or,
[00:36:24] Stephen: and even that you, we different people see colors in slightly different shades.
And that’s not uncommon and not even colorblindness. I actually, my two eyes see blue differently. So if I look at blue with my right eye and then look at it with my left, I can tell shades are different. Yeah. Oh my God, that one and Brad pit just came out saying that he can’t recognize faces, that he knows people by other factors that like living with Angelina Jolie or Jennifer ley, whoever that he knows them, because he knows they’re gonna be in the house.
They walk a certain way. They move a certain way. And his brain picks up on these cues and he may know you because he sees you at the bank and you’re the bank teller. But if you run into him at the shopping mall, he may have no clue who you are. Exactly.
[00:37:13] Alan: And that’s, hopefully it’s also own a voice like Colleen and I contrast between I have a really good visual sense and can.
If I’ve ever seen a movie, if I see a snippet of that movie, I can say, oh, that’s from Jurassic too, or whatever. Colleen is really great about voices. He can tell you that this snippet of voice is the same thing from what movie, from what person. And like, whenever anybody on the phone picks up, she like, doesn’t need to have them say, hi, this is Alan.
He really, from a few words, tracks really well on people’s voices. And I don’t think I have that. I appreciate different parts of voices, but I don’t have confidence in the accuracy of right. Exactly who and then I substituted for visuals. So the two of us, we’re a whole person.
[00:37:57] Stephen: You look at like artists that can draw that.
They can look at something and the way it’s in their brain, they can duplicate it in certain way on paper. I can’t, they’re like, oh, it’s easy. Just visualize it. And I’m. It doesn’t click. It doesn’t work for me now. I’m sure with some training with some practice and I could improve, but I doubt if my artistic skills will ever reach a level that people are being like, wow, that’s a pretty amazing drawing.
It might be, wow. That’s better than the kindergarten stuff you were doing last year but again, that’s another part of how your brain works. Different people. See it different. Yeah. So
[00:38:36] Alan: It’s of funny. I really love symmetry and I wonder if that’s part of not only do I notice patterns, but I really want there to be like a completeness to them and stuff like that.
And there’s something is asymmetric off balance. There’s just some little weird thing of that’s not quite right. And I when, especially when someone has a choice as to how they’re gonna do it and they choose to make it off balance, it’s what’s wrong with you? Not what’s wrong with me.
right.
[00:39:01] Stephen: You know what I mean? So I remember reading about a study once that they took the most. Beautiful people in the world the celebrities that everyone said are gorgeous the ones on the magazines, the best looking of the year, whatever it took all these sure. And they evaluated their face, like measured everything distance.
So they found that the more symmetry that your face is mirrored on each side, the same, the more beautiful everyone can thinks you are. If you have one eye, that’s just a little to the left than the other one, we may not even realize it, but our brains know that, or a nostril, your nose slightly, it makes less beautiful in the animalistic sense.
Yes.
[00:39:44] Alan: That absolutely works for me by that meaning I’m pretty sure that faces are a big part of attractiveness there’s a, there’s an overall thing of I’m a guy, so what’s, fakely looks like, oh, she could bear me strong children. You know what I mean? There’s that thing, but faces wise.
I really, not only do I like that and find symmetry more beautiful, but I might Al almost be hypersensitive to when it’s not that it makes me think in my mind, not readable, there’s something wrong with them. And people will give you a photo and you’ll notice that one eye is a little bit more open than the other.
And somehow that I noticed that regularly and it really throws me off and really makes me not as attracted to them. And please, all my friends don’t think that I now you’re a CAG or something. You’re not, it’s just that I, for a while I thought, is that just how they do photos, that if you give like a semi profile, that there’s more light here than this.
And so this eye is a little bit like less open because you’re sheltering it from too much light, but I don’t think that’s it. I think that, and maybe mine is, I really. I don’t know that I evaluate my own base. I think that I’m okay because when they’ve done the test where you look in a mirror and then you look at your mirror itself, and it doesn’t oddly different so I guess I have some reasonable symmetry, but I don’t know people that have a beauty mark and it’s only on one side. I notice that in an odd way, like that isn’t as happy for me to my problem, please, ladies, you know what I
[00:41:17] Stephen: mean’s, my problem here’s that, that Collins’s eyes, you can’t necessarily control all of that.
How it works, but we were talking about intelligence, brains and autism and all that, this ties right into it, because I’ve found for me that when I. Know, somebody, their personality or certain traits about them that affects my viewing of how good they look and how attractive they are very much.
So there are some celebrities that I think I, I wouldn’t it’s that, Hey, if you could get the five top women in bed with you, who, what would they be? It just like that chat thing and right. And people will name stuff. I’m like really hurt what I’m not even attracted to that person because I’ve heard them in interviews.
I’ve heard their, the way they talk or their viewpoints on life. My big example. And I’m, I hope she doesn’t listen to this because I’m probably gonna get sued from her. But Kelly Pickler is a good looking woman. And a lot of people think she’s really good looking. She sings and all that, but she was on Foxworthy.
Are you smarter than a fifth grader show? And I’ve, there’s the clip on YouTube. And they ask for a question and okay. If you don’t get it right. I that’s great. Not, you don’t have to know everything about everything. Not everybody can be on jeopardy Allen. But
[00:42:44] Alan: it’s the anniversary, by the way, it’s like a nine anniversary of what I was on someone just, I didn’t notice that someone pointed it out, that they arrived in their memory feed is oh,
[00:42:53] Stephen: we just talked about it last week.
But you win . She was do well, today is the anniversary. You’re the winner. Tomorrow’s the anniversary when you’re not the winner. And I exactly
[00:43:04] Alan: that. So I know I only won once.
[00:43:07] Stephen: That’s more, most of us, but when she was talking they asked the question and they always encourage them to do their thoughts out loud and talk about.
And what she was saying, I’m sitting there going, you’re an idiot. You’re such a moron. You’re not even rationalizing this to, I can understand the wrong answer. If you have a good rationalization leading up to it, that’s fine. But she, and since then she’s on or something. And I’m like, Ugh and I’ve had people say don’t you think she’s good looking?
I’m like, no, not really. Because the personality, the intelligence, the interests or whatever. Yeah. Turned me off so much that it overrides any plain physical thinking, you know what I’m saying? So that’s my thing. Which is, I’m trying to have that for
[00:43:53] Alan: certain ones too. Where I found someone to be.
Just that either less intelligent or less empathetic, less, less compassionate, those things really matter to me. And so when I see, I don’t know Sarah Palin, other people, many people have mentioned that she’s pretty, but if you’ve heard her talk about how she’s a lizard human being instead of a full human being, she doesn’t have the compassion, etcetera.
I colors everything every time I see her. Yeah. And as if I will never have to interact with 99% of the celebrities that are out there, but just in my regular life, it really matters to me that someone has a good smile that their face is mobile, that they’re not guarded that they have appetites and they take on life enthusiastically instead of being shut down.
I like that. I like when people give you a good hearty laugh instead of just a smaller chuckle, that they’re living. And I try to be like that I don’t think I’m. Always controlling myself person. I tend to be pretty much you see on my face when I’m thinking and feeling and the interesting thing, I was just listening to NPR, Ted talks and stuff the other day, and they were talking about the birds and the bees, and they were talking about sex between animals. And it was weird cause like three programs in a row all talked about bug sex and then it was like, what is this today?
[00:45:07] Stephen: Valentine’s day, but they were talking how the, some of the birds in this particular guy was talking about birds that that. When they’re trying to mate, that the women are looking for certain things peacocks, they have the feathers and right. Power birds build the nest. And it’s a flashy nest and all this.
Exactly. But what they’re also
[00:45:29] Alan: ways of saying I’m a good provider. I have good genetic stock or whatever else it might be.
[00:45:33] Stephen: And so they, the female birds go for that, but they find some species where some penguins, they, they heat the stones and trying to attract the women. And they were saying how quite often in these big, large clusters of mating, that there’s plenty of male, male sex going on.
And it just I’m not getting the woman and they’re all good with that. But what they’re seeing now is that some of the female birds will watch this. And when they see two guys, the one that they feel is more giving. They will actually be attracted to that because they’re like he’ll be giving to our children, our mate our progeny.
And they use that as an indicator, as much as anything else. And I’m like, wow, that’s just so weird to think about. But yeah that’s more evolved than
[00:46:21] Alan: us.
[00:46:22] Stephen: So it was very weird thing. Okay. Like this. So this one bug that they, the women are more aggressive in one sex than the guys, because as part of the whole mating thing, the guys create this ball of protein that the woman the female eats while they’re having sex. So if you’re create a good enough ball of protein, that’s what she’s attracted to.
But it’s one third of the insects, total weight. They’re like, so for a guy that’d be 50 to 70 pounds of protein, they have to make to have sex. No wonder they don’t wanna have sex except
[00:47:01] Alan: that’s what their purpose in life is. If you’re a may fly, you got only two days to get to it. Yeah. I’m pretty sure that what’s on your may fly mind is be the attractive may fly, be the attractive may fly.
You know what I mean? Find a, may find a may
[00:47:13] Stephen: and death watch beetles. They spend 10 to 15 years in the little larva state eating the wood, and then they become the male insect. But they can’t eat anything when they’re like that. So they have to mate, before they die within weeks. And there’s so few of them that they may not even get the opportunity.
They’re like, so think about this female coming up and says, yeah, I’m not interested in you after waiting a week. This is my one shot. Exactly
[00:47:41] Alan: Holly in the, and I love watching nature, documentaries, and that that this we’re full of segues, that I, one of the good boys is finding out boy, the world is an amazing place with how many different varieties of creatures and mating habits and habitats and whatever else it might be.
And that every time that we, as human beings tried to say this is like how you date the rules for how you attract a mate or whatever else it might be. It’s like, all you gotta do is look at nature and. They try everything. Yes. And multiple things work. And so I, I haven’t had ever since getting humbled by nature, I’m like doesn’t, it seem like just a matter of luck I try to put myself out there as being a reasonable guy and I am strong.
I am swift. I am smart, but it’s just a matter of did you catch her eye at the right time? Was your tone of voice such that she would like it? Were you a good bread earner? Did you make her laugh and vice versa? The ladies are all looking to be those various different things to the various different guys.
And I go by for every ke there’s a lid. There’s just such a nice thing about how, I guess that is very natural. There’s not like perfect birds finding other perfect birds, the Brad pit and the Angelina Jolie of the year. It’s like the forest is full of birds. That said, I think we should mate now.
And yes, I would like to, and then they make a little nest and they successfully raise the next generation. And it wasn’t this big. If anything, the people that talk about that about gotta find someone worthy of me, my bloodline is pure. My like what, how full of shit are you just, first of all, anything that has to do with that, but weird Nazi, weird.
The Eugen weirdness. It’s I’ve read about that in Doune where the Benet Jad are trying to breed better, better human beings reach the perfect human being. And I’m, there really is something for have a better chance of being a Smartie. If both your parents happen to have been smart. But that, there’s such an amazing combination of our 23 in me, chromosomes that you get all in the various different variations.
It is not only about being a Smartie. What hell, what hair color did you get? Did you get the right? Did you have a good sense of balance name? All the human characteristics, and then to see how many people pick one thing they have to come from good area in stock. Come on. That’s just like you, you couldn’t have picked this thing to make me think you’re more ridiculous.
Like I just and I don’t know if anything, there’s a lot of proof that says when you do that kind of like finer bloodline, like in dogs, you end up what a beautiful, perfect looking colleague, but they have hip dysplasia 70% of the time. Cause they’re in bread. And that all those other breeds of dogs that have all their problems and maybe human beings as well, that Berg’s had hemophilia because they kept finding a second cousin to marry.
And I’m simplifying this as usual. When I say these things, I embrace the stereotype. It’s not all true, but it’s true enough. But there are examples of you, you did it wrong. You didn’t have enough variation in the gene pool, and now you’re getting like endemic problems to your children.
And what’s the healthiest dog out there. A nice mutt that took breed characteristics for multiple things and that wonderful. Nature’s wonder of how it mixes those things together, make it, you are more resistance to disease. You are a better proportion that instead OFI towards, I’m gonna have that weird, like slim nose of a bozo or something like that.
I, it seems that human beings, as we now also are having more and more, and this is mixed race children. They’re beautiful. They’re exotic, but they’re not exotic. They’re like how humanity should always have been. If we didn’t start to say that it mattered that we are different colors and somehow that’s a different breed of humanity.
No, we are all homo SAPN SAP. Yeah, absolutely the same. Have you of our genetic
[00:51:30] Stephen: potential have you ever listened to a Radiolab? No, there’s our recommendation of the week. Alan, you really need to look up Radiolab out of everything. You’ll love this more than anything. Okay. It is an NPR thing.
But they have a podcast. You can find it Radiolab online and listen to all the episodes, but they, each it’s not a documentary, not a sciencey thing, but they take all these topics and they explore them and they discuss them and they interview people and they whatever. That’s where I first learned about CRISPR and how CRISPR worked and they explored the ramifications of it and all sorts of stuff with it, but they had this one show and you can find it if you look up Radiolab on race and do, does race exist in humans?
And they talk to scientists, they talk to doctors, they talk to biologists, they talk to anthropologists and studying the past, like you’re dinosaurs. Here we go. Again. Segue. They talked to animals, people and people, and just covered the board. And essentially what they came up with at the end was it’s made up race does not exist in humans.
There is no different races. We’re all the same with slight variations, but that does not make us a different race. Like it does in the animal kingdom when you have real different races. And I heard
[00:52:57] Alan: that show species, there’s not multiple species of human whatever it is, that kingdom PHY gen, you get down to this level and we’re all the same. There’s no different DNA based on Mon Mongolo OID, Negro. And what do you mean? Whatever they anyway. Okay. And the fact that I can name them is how much that’s in our society. Yes. But it’s just because they’re slight different flights because they’re slight different.
We respond to our environment. So you have. Different eyelids or different hair or whatever else, it might be different skin color, but it was not because they’re inherently different. It’s because the response to the environment and then you in that environment for a couple hundred generations and there is differentiation, but there’s not genetic
[00:53:40] Stephen: difference.
Exactly. And that, I love that. So yeah, I’ll put a link and you should look Radiolab up. Cause thank you. I will. Yeah. I listen to those shows. It’s a, it’s kinda a Ted talk every week when they do a show. So I actually, I
[00:53:54] Alan: remember I did an actual Ted talk about Ted talks for men said that it was like, I was finding such great valuable stuff, and if you got 18 minutes to compress down this, what you wanna most contribute to the. It’s really cool. How people have bright accomplished. People have shared that with the world. Yeah. You know what I mean? All the different there’s so many of them now that you really have to have a curation to be able to go find good ones.
You
[00:54:18] Stephen: know what I mean? That’s what I was gonna say. Don’t lie. It’s not, if you have 18 minutes, because you start finding those on YouTube or you get the app and start and you just keep going. And suddenly it’s a brand new month.
[00:54:32] Alan: right. When they had those on there was like a channel for the Samsung or something like that.
Cuz that’s smart TV. We have, we used to always use that as a, like a pallet cleanser between other things. You know what I mean? We’d watch a little Ted talk at the start of the day or between other things and we’re working our way through. They had a I guess curated, they had a group into various different things.
So let’s learn all about humanity. Let’s learn all about engineering and that kind of stuff. And we, of course, while you’re watching, they’re adding to the end of the queue when you’re taking from the start of the queue. So there are those new sets coming out. Then they took it away and it became unavailable and I actually had to seek it out online.
And somehow that was just enough that I didn’t watch it for a couple years. And as you might imagine, now, the tide has come in even further. Yes. When I seek them out, I’m pleased that I’m doing it. And, but I’m even more discriminating in terms of, let’s see what Dean Cayman had to say lately. I’ll look for specific people or certain topics or whatever, and I’m not sure that I’m serving myself because what I really should do is keep hitting that random button.
Somebody bright enough to have been able, allowed to present at Ted. One of the things I’ve never done a little bit too expensive, a little bit wrong time of year and stuff, but the they’ve been really candy about the invitees and how many great people have been there. You wanna hear bill gates talk about the biggest, most bill Gatesy type stuff.
Watch his 10 talk. You know what I mean? And whoever else, books.
[00:55:53] Stephen: His books are amazing that he’s written since he’s been with Microsoft. Very
[00:55:58] Alan: bright guy. Exactly. So it how you want, oh, are we already on time? Pretty close. We got you mentioned Randy lab. Let me throw this out. I got a whole bunch of books for Colleen for her birthday, and I’ve done that multiple years.
And a lot of times what I’ll do is, Hey, when you’re done with that, can I read that too? Because I didn’t just get it for her. I wanted
[00:56:14] Stephen: to read too. That’s the best Homer gift, right? Love. I think you want this, I wanna read it.
[00:56:22] Alan: I got a new lawnmower bastard
book called word slut three years ago. And Amanda Martel, I think is the author. And of course, what I wanna say is she’s the authors, because of course, what this book is all about is the vast changes that are happening in our are semantics are linguistics are how people talk and especially how much Patriarchy, et cetera, is embedded in language in many different ways and in our language styles.
So for instance, how you and I talk taking turns, and I try not to talk over you and you over me, that’s very much a guy saying, whereas she talks about how gender speak can be different. Ladies will continually have little affirmations while it’s going on and not interrupt, but just there’s a coming to a shared idea more than each person presenting their take on things.
And of course, again, stereotypes not everybody’s like that. Not every guy is a guy, not every lady is a stereotypical gal, but it really has interesting and enlightening things about what we’re seeing in like the last 20 years, the last 40 years has feminism and awareness of ladies role in society.
And I hope you don’t mind my using ladies. It could be female, it could be woman, whatever you’d like to do. I am. Trapped in some ways I’m 62. So I learn a certain way of speaking and writing and I’m really, I think playful and I do continually take in new and modern, but I don’t know that I’m woke in terms of, I really embrace certain things and have abandoned certain things.
I work on it because I don’t want to be exclusive or an ass in terms of the things that really will make people angry over. I’m still saying Oriental instead of Asian, or still saying gal, if that’s a now thought to be bad connotation, instead of that
[00:58:13] Stephen: list grows
[00:58:14] Alan: And sex and all those kinda things. And. The book has an agenda. And I’m seeing that sometimes some of the examples that she uses, they’re not complete, cuz I can think of counter examples, but she doesn’t, but I’m not trying to be contentious. I’m really trying to be how are we using different pronouns and I want be able to let people name what they want to be called and I’ll make use of that.
There is a little bit of a weirdness and a distraction for please don’t keep changing it because then it’s I didn’t mean to offend you, but two years ago you told me this and now you want this. Yeah. And I didn’t put the memo about how the changes happen. And so sometimes those things are not only put up as a way of integrating society, but as a way of jargon, that, that builds individual segments of society.
And that by my clumsily using old fashioned and old fashioned being two years old, that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. But it’s absolutely so far, I’m like two thirds of the way through worth reading about. The scholarship that went into here’s wow. There’s maybe a hundred different ways in which women being sexually active are a negative pejorative type things, the flu word slut, the slut, the hussy, the whatever else it might be.
Whereas for guys, they’re not usually pejoratives, they’re actually like, oh, you play a you hound dog, you know that. And so I it’s nice to see the burden of proof that she puts forward to be like, wow, I don’t know that I started off agreeing with your premise, but the numbers speak, the dictionary speaks the semantics speak.
And so I recommend it in terms of, if you want to get an idea of what’s going on in the earthquake of language, while it’s rumbling this and various other books about language and semantics, and especially from that feminist, or at least E equalist point of view, They’re really good. They’re, it’s very good to know these kinds of things.
You know what I mean? It’s funny. I don’t mean to offend usually, but it’s also, when I am corrected in a way that’s that’s not what I meant. You’re using me as a foil as if I’m the pig. I’m not the pig, so I don’t want it to be that it’s ever disproportionate. I’m happy to change, but I’ll change it.
My pace, or I’ll change that if I slip up, it’s not that I’ve suddenly gone over to the bad side or that. And if anything, because I’m funny, I use the entire vocabulary because once in a while, it’s amusing to call somebody a exaggerated stereotype word. Because that starts the discussion going, or it points to the radical behavior should have a radical word that goes with it.
Yeah. Yeah. Probably one of the big things I do is I call guys gal things all the time because you know what I mean? It’s and not in a, oh, what a posty way. It’s more like that’s guys should not be able to get away with that. So many female connotation things mean weakness that there’s a certain amount of, because I’m playful.
And because I want to, words can be used as weapons. And once in a while, guys really need that guys are full of flu and full of interruption and full. I have the stage and you’re not taking it away from me. And it’s wow, there’s nobody that needs interrupting more than you, if that’s how you’re thinking and acting.
[01:01:30] Stephen: I’ll have to look that book up or another cuz I’ve got a friend who absolutely drives her nuts. Everybody using the word conversate, she’s I hate that. It just drives drive for nuts. I’m like, you understand though that if people are using it and it gets in the common speech that it’s going to get added to the dictionary and then it’s going to validate that, yes, this is part of our speech and you’ll be in the wrong.
That dries were nuts. Yeah. There’s this, that’s how things change. That’s how words change. That’s how the vocabulary and speech changes exactly all the
[01:02:05] Alan: time. She has a very good chapter and this was a particular thing of mine that there’s all kinds of filler words and and that I have often thought, and I, not only I thought I read and they were portrayed as well.
That’s lazy. That’s you’re not getting to the point. You’re not speaking efficiently. And really what it seems to be in a lot of cases is there’s a style of speaking that is about building consensus and maybe that’s more feminine than a masculine thing, and that they’re not meant to waste your time or delay you they’re useful in ways.
If you’re speaking like that, another person has that chance to participate in the shared speech with you. It’s an invitation instead of, I don’t know what I’m going to say. I’m not a good speaker. And I have to kinda still get my mind around that because I still notice that when someone uses too many likes, if you will, it sounds hesitant and pausey, and did you not think about what you were gonna say before you started talking that you couldn’t make it five words in before you had to get to a pause word?
And yet there’s a certain amount of checking in about that and other things that they talk about up speak where you asking as a question and I tend to not, I tend to speak more declaratively and more, and it’s not the opposite. I’m not pompous in how I speak. I think I’m relatively playful, but I need to get my mind around that.
My initial reaction is not the only thing that’s going on there that I, as you said, if language is changing to include that, and I like, wow, I just sort a really bright lady speak using those things. So it can’t be because she’s doesn’t know what she’s talking about, that she doesn’t know what she’s gonna say before she says it, but it’s a style that right there now and is a very interesting, the stereotype of what used to be sadly aggressively called Ionics that there’s actually a African American vernacular experience.
There’s a language that goes with a Ave. And I hope I got the correct abbreviation there that there really are language differences between saying he is. And he be, and in my mind, I was like, oh, that’s such a not right thing. And that there really are differences. There’s a reason to use that.
And I’m learning. I’m learning that my, I don’t know. White male radio announcer way of speaking is not correct. It’s not the only way to speak you. Don’t all aspire to be the CEO of a company. And then you have to be able to speak in a way that you’re ready to take the Lecter and not the podium and grasp it firmly.
And then orate that, there’s all different kinds of hats you can wear and different gues that you can have. And then if you want to communicate, then think of who your audience is and think who you are that you wanna be with them and adjust as appropriate. It’s not a sellout. It. Being a good communicator.
You know what I mean? So
[01:05:06] Stephen: the way we speak right now is an amalgamation of the last 200, 300 years of people coming to the country from all over and how it’s evolved. Anyway, it’s just, this is what’s bubbled up and why it is this way now that’s
[01:05:20] Alan: right. It’s not just the last 20, it’s the last 50 and hundred and 300 and a thousand years of how English became English in the first place.
You know what I mean? That it was an anyway that I love books like this, about semantics and language and where we got what we have. And I don’t know, the word hussy comes from housewife. It’s like, how did that shift to be such a bad connotation from such a normal, if you will, of a starter word and all that kind of stuff sometimes it’s nice has a whole different meaning nowadays than it did for five different previous incarnations.
And just that I love reading about these kinds of things and hearing the. Either the explanations or at least the best explanation that they have, because it varies based on English is not the only language in the world when you read about, here’s not even Western languages, but all over the world, that there’s different connotations for male, female speak, or for how many how you treat your elders, how you treat, how, what terms of respect there are, or I just, I love that kind of stuff.
Being aware of it and then being able to be, do I make choices or am I always on my default setting? And it, it’s funny as much as I wanna be. Hey I’m the hip old guy that can talk to the youth like Carlin. There’s a certain amount of if I started talking really young people give you the look it’s like, no you don’t need.
Think that you’re a punk nowadays, you really can be an adult if you want, I’m aware that my playfulness has to be like 10 or 20%. I can’t entirely switch over to look ridiculous. You know what I mean?
[01:06:53] Stephen: And you mentioned those those filler words and and stuff.
And the thing is like the podcast, there’s a program. I can run the podcast through and it flags those and will automatically take ’em out. So when someone’s listening to our podcast, we don’t say like this it when I say, and it takes those out to make us sound much more intelligent sometimes
But I also, for my writing to have a program that will flag all of those things like, and that, and was, and things that they tell you to take out and it can do it and help you identify.
[01:07:27] Alan: Out for, and there’s a difference between business writing, if you will, and casual writing and that kind of stuff.
So I could see how I might wanna up my game. And I don’t know, my big vocabulary is pretty good and I have my own self taught. Like I try not to use the, if I’m writing a three paragraph thing, you won’t find the same word repeated. I really try to tap into my internet of so and all that kind of stuff.
And I vary my sentence length and I, I do things that will keep it interesting perky that it’ll be make for good reading. And I think most of the time I succeed, I think I’m a pretty good writer. But if I was to try to if a program told me that’s at about the sixth grade level and you could go to the ninth grade level with this, it’d be like that’s unexpected because I’m already using a pretty extensive vocabulary and I’m already doing my clauses are good, my sense of time and making things match and plurality is good and not perfect,
[01:08:20] Stephen: but you may run into that.
Opposite effect hit. And the other side of that bell curve, because most people reading it is at a certain level and understandings a certain level. So if you go higher than that. So if most people are reading at a seventh grade level and you’re writing at a 10th, they may actually perceive your writing as less than it is because it jump, it it’s jarring.
It jumbles in their brain. They don’t, some of the words don’t mean quite what they think, or they don’t get how the whole sentence makes se and it, then they actually view the writing as less than it really is. That’s something I’ve learned. You gotta write for your target. I hear you, but, and you know what, so that’s what a sad thing that like, Hey, I didn’t get it.
[01:09:04] Alan: And so there must be something wrong with it, not wrong with me. You know what I mean? I didn’t get all the vocabulary. Who’s this guy putting on errors, as opposed to maybe I should pop into the dictionary and learn what the word alleviate.
[01:09:14] Stephen: That’s what we always do. Alright. Hey, before we go. Yes.
I just, literally, before you came on, saw a news thing that toys are us is coming back for Christmas, not the big full-fledged stores, like they had, they’re going to be small. Substores in, Macy’s so
[01:09:32] Alan: interesting. So like a popup shop that, yeah. Okay. That’s cool. Okay. Yeah. Just like the spirit of Halloween stores that all of a sudden exist for the months of October and then go
[01:09:41] Stephen: away.
You know what I mean? Yeah. But it’s gonna be toys us the official brand, which I’m I loved toys us when I had the kids. There’s nothing more fun than going, walking around, toys us with the kids. Hey,
[01:09:53] Alan: everybody pick out what you want. Just like job. Yeah. Paradise. OK. Mr.
[01:09:58] Stephen: MCGs. Wonder Emporium.
There we go.
[01:10:00] Alan: all right, man. Okay. Take care of Steven. See you in a week. Talk to you
[01:10:04] Stephen: later.
