Culture

Everyone has had a terrible customer support experience at least once in their life. Those who are cursed into having to deal with customer service often would do well to learn The Art of Turboing. Turboing, essentially, refers to the actions of a customer who goes around the normal technical support process by contacting a senior person in the chain of command. The article does a great job describing the process and how to go about it. The idea of Turboing sounds worse than it is, but it is also made clear that you should turbo only when you’ve exhausted all other avenues of support and hit a dead end. So go forth, my service-maligned readers, and Turbo your way to victory. Or something. [via memepool]

Some good stuff being discussed over at DyREnet’s message board. First, it seems that Drifter has revealed the great secrets of Man.com (the mystery that started with a cryptic and utterly annoying Tandem Story entry on this page). Also, check out the discussion on Coke, including my own moronic exploits with cola.

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma by William Lombardy : A 1974 Sports Illustrated article providing a detailed account of Bobby Fischer’s struggle and eventual victory in the 1972 World Chess Championship. I’ve never been much good at Chess, but I have a certain fascination and respect for those who are. Fischer comes off as emotionally unstable in the article, but I have this sneaking sort of suspicion that every little move (or complaint) he made was calculated. Sometimes he won before he even entered the arena. But then, he is definitely an odd person as well, so who really knows?

Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly has all the numbers you could ever possibly need to play Monopoly more efficiently; most probable squares, how long it takes for investments to pay off, which properties are better to mortgage, where to build hotels, which squares get landed on first.

The railroads are excellent investments, particularly when owned together, although in absolute income terms they don’t keep up with heavily built on properties later in the game. The best return on investment to be found is from putting a third house on New York Avenue. In fact, the third house has the fastest payoff of any building on almost all of the properties. The square most landed on other than Jail is Illinois Avenue, and in fact a hotel there will bring the most income other than a hotel on Boardwalk. By far the worst individual investment is to buy Medeterranean Avenue without first owning Baltic. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t buy it, but it’s not going to make you much money without quite a bit of construction. The properties between the Jail square and the Go To Jail square are landed on the most, because of the jump caused by landing on Go To Jail. The Orange ones have the biggest bang for the buck as far as building goes.

All the probabilities were conducted with a long term computer simulation. I suppose this whole thing may seem excessive, but it is quite interesting and nice to know that the orange properties are the best to own and build on. The simulations do not, however, take into account all the shady dealings between players (I’ll trade you St. Charles Place, which will give you a monopoly, for Baltic Ave. and 5 free passes on any of your properties) that can be ever-so-crucial to the outcome of the game. [via Bifurcated Rivets]

Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite? by Thomas Pynchon : Luddite. It sounds like an element doesn’t it? Basically, a Luddite is someone who opposes technology. Pynchon tackles the subject with his usual gusto:

Except maybe for Brainy Smurf, it’s hard to imagine anybody these days wanting to be called a literary intellectual, though it doesn’t sound so bad if you broaden the labeling to, say, “people who read and think.” Being called a Luddite is another matter. It brings up questions such as, Is there something about reading and thinking that would cause or predispose a person to turn Luddite? Is It O.K. to be a Luddite? And come to think of it, what is a Luddite, anyway?

Pynchon goes into the history of Luddites, from the Ned Lud, straight through to Frankenstein and Star Wars references – oh, and lets not forget that all important folk hero, the Badass. Theres something about scholarly discussion of the Badass that I just find compelling. Anyway, if anyone wants to give themselves a headache, check out Pynchon’s acclaimed classic Gravity’s Rainbow (and for people who want to lessen the strength of said headache, you can buy a 345 page book containing the Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel). Actually, from what I’ve read of it (which is, admittedly, not much), its quite good. [via wood s lot]

Where the Buffalo Roam – How Science Ignores the Natural World : An interview with Vine Deloria, one of the most important living Native American writers. Central to Deloria’s critique of Western culture is the understanding that, by subduing nature, we have become slaves to technology and its underlying belief system.

“…Indians experience and relate to a living universe, whereas Western people – especially scientists – reduce all things, living or not, to objects. The implications of this are immense. If you see the world around you as a collection of objects for you to manipulate and exploit, you will inevitably destroy the world while attempting to control it. Not only that, but by perceiving the world as lifeless, you rob yourself of the richness, beauty, and wisdom to be found by participating in its larger design.”

“Science insists, at a great price in understanding, that the observer be as detached as possible from the event he or she is observing. Contrast that with the attitude of indigenous people, who recognize that humans must participate in events, not isolate themselves.”

This is the sort of thing you don’t hear very often and its very interesting. Deloria makes some great points (along with some I don’t particularly agree with, but are interesting nonetheless), especially about science and how it attempts to reduce everything to a paradigm. Doing so certainly has its value, but much like every other version of reality that is forwarded, science is not completely satisfactory.

“…the point is to ask the questions, and keep asking them.”

Right on. [via liquid gnome]

Structured Procrastination : an amazing strategy that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. I like this optomistic approach, turning a weakness into a strength. This website itself is basically another project in a long series of attempts aimed at avoiding responsibility. Its funny how I have always noticed this situation, where I seem to be at my most creative when I’ve got tons of important stuff I should be doing, but never got around to articulating it like this guy did. [via cafedave.net]

Procrastination: “Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.”

Football gets in touch with its feminine side: The Philadelphia Liberty Belles are one of 10 charter members of the National Women’s Football League. The 45-woman team, which plays on high school fields and travels by bus, has romped over its first three opponents in an eight-game schedule that runs from April to June. The players buy their own uniforms, pay their own insurance, and raise money with car washes. And they don’t earn a cent, despite their ass kicking performace. So far the Belles have schlacked three opponents by a combined score of 106-6. I’ve never seen them play, but I imagine it being quite an entertaining experience; not just because its women, but because they’re genuinely in love with the game of football. Some day, when and if they become profitable, the league might lose that quality, so I hope to catch a game soon…

Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club) writes about the Olympic wrestling trials. Amateur wrestling, not WWF or any of its ilk. The article for the most part gets it right. I was a wrestler. I have cauliflower ear. I cut too much wieght. I’ve walked off the mat and puked in a trash can. I broke my thumb once. I had ringworm. I did it all. And I wasn’t even that good. So why did I do it? For the life of me, I really can’t nail down a solid answer to that question, yet I know that if I could do it again, I would. Palahniuk focuses mostly on the physical pains of wrestling, but there’s more to the sport than pain. Pain is a part of it, and its not a bad thing either (and Palahniuk does a good job describing this), but theres a lot of technique, elegance, and beauty in the sport as well. Sometimes it just takes a wrestler to recognize it when its happening. Which, I suppose, is why the sport has such a wierd reputation…

The Collective Unconsciousness Project is an interesting attempt at creating a non-linear experience based on chance and the user’s interactions. Users can contribute to the site by logging their dreams, then they can explore the dreams, which will be an environment that will allow you to travel from dream to dream in a non-linear yet interconnected way – without being made aware of what those connections are, and without being in control of the path you take. The flow will be based on things like the dream you are currently viewing, what you’ve viewed in the past, what dreams you’ve entered into your dream log, what emotions are related to that dream, etc. Unexpected connections will be made, with hopefully interesting results. Its not functional yet (not enough people have entered dreams yet), but once it is, I think it would be worth viewing… Go and enter your dreams now (no registration required).

This Evolution of Alphabets page brings a little known subject to life with sensible, concise animations. You can see the evolution of eight character sets, including our very own Latin character set. Its always nice to see people using web animation for something useful. [via blog.org]