adventures with vodka

(6:37:57 PM) tallbladeofgrass: i'm hardly even drunk!
(6:38:06 PM) tallbladeofgrass: i'm typing correctly and everythin g
(6:38:09 PM) tallbladeofgrass: god dammit

...later...

(6:47:29 PM) tallbladeofgrass: at my current contribution rate assuming that my salary grows at 4% per year, my account will be worth 470k when i retire
(6:47:46 PM) tallbladeofgrass: and i assume to continue getting like 8 raises per year so, you know
(6:47:58 PM) tallbladeofgrass: assume to continue? what the hell?
(6:48:01 PM) tallbladeofgrass: INTEND to continue

An open letter to everyone I know

Over the past few months, a number of you have taken to giving me shit about my personal life. It ends now.

To begin with, nothing in my personal life is any of your business unless it involves you directly or I make it your business in some way. Unless I ask for your advice, assume I do not want it. Please regard me as though I have a brain and know how to use it--I have and I do.

This situation is difficult enough without all of you reminding me how impossible my goals are at every chance you get. You may claim (and even believe) that you are simply concerned about me and want to keep me from hurting myself. That is bullshit. Friends who are concerned about me do not show it by making snide comments--to me or anyone else involved. Some of you even seem to delight in my certain failure. I need support, not sarcasm.

To those of you who have voiced concerns in a non-malicious way out of a true interest in my well-being, I appreciate your concerns, but please keep them to yourself from now on. You are not helping.

Every day I decide again that the rewards are worth the cost. All you are doing is making that cost greater. Not only am I in a difficult situation, but I have no one to confide in because you all have made it abundantly clear that you think what I am doing is wrong, idiotic, and even humorous. Few things are worse than being mocked for taking a chance. I can't even turn to you for advice on typical problems that arise out of these types of situations because you won't treat them as typical--you will take them as just more evidence that I will never get what I want.

This is MY decision. I guarantee that I have more information than you, and nothing you can tell me will be worse than what I already know. I guarantee that any concern you have, any reason you can think of as to why this will not work, I have already thought of and have factored into my cost-benefit analysis. When and if the cost becomes too great, I will end this, but not until that day. It is all I can do to enjoy what I have when none of you are happy for me at all. All I want is to enjoy this while I can, for as long as it lasts, however long that is. Please stop trying to prevent even that.

As to those of you who have said nothing, thank you. If any of you support what I am doing and want to see me succeed, please tell me. That is the kind of people I need in my life right now.

Finally, there is one person who has been unfailingly supportive as long as I have known her. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being there for me. I hope you know who you are.

Mission accomplished

ilyeria: so any plans this weekend?
ilyeria: other than slutting yourself out at parties
tallbladeofgrass: no, that was about it
tallbladeofgrass: mission accomplished

Men want women with ten fingers, study confirms.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for women with ten fingers.

In the dating game, men know what they want.

And guys won't be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.

"Just because people say they're looking for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like themselves, doesn't mean that is what they'll end up choosing," Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.

Researchers led by Todd report that in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."

Their study involved 26 men and 20 women in Munich, Germany.

Participants ranged in age from 26 to their early 40s and took part in "speed dating," short meetings of three to seven minutes in which people chat, then move on to meet another dater. Afterward, participants check off the people they'd like to meet again, and dates can be arranged between pairs who select one another.

Speed dating let researchers look at a lot of mate choices in a short time, Todd said.

In the study, participants were asked before the session to fill out a questionnaire about what they were looking for in a mate, listing such categories as wealth and status, family commitment, physical appearance, healthiness and number of fingers.

After the session, the researchers compared what the participants said they were looking for with the people they actually chose to ask for another date.

Men's choices did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on the women's number of fingers.

The men also appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum finger threshold, Todd said.

Women's actual choices, like men's, did not reflect their stated preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the researchers found.

The scientists said women were aware of the importance of their own fingers to men, and adjusted their expectations to select the more desirable guys.

"Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women's self-rated number of fingers. They didn't greatly overshoot their number of fingers," Todd said, "because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them."

But, he added, "they didn't go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level."

So, it turns out, the women's number of fingers influenced the choices of the men and the women.

for great justice

(6:22:15 PM) ilyeria: I'm gonna turn your cats into attack cats while you're away
(6:22:32 PM) ilyeria: they'll be my soldiers of justice

I can't make this stuff up.

me: It's a two-man sailboat.
Arthur: Like my penis!

ewww

Heh, I found this quote on someone's facebook profile:

"I was outside myself, and you within...deeper in me than I am in me" -St. Augustine

Who knew religion was so kinky?

(10:42:12 PM) MalikFalasteeni: see, i was searching for porn - for a respectable college research paper, of course - and it wouldn't show any good ones. stupid safesearch.
(10:42:35 PM) MalikFalasteeni: i'll probably flunk whatever class this research paper is probably for.

I continue to love Nader

(04:15:06 PM) MalikFalasteeni: that's how much your cereal just rocked my face off

Girlfriends

I have no idea how to make friends with girls. I've always had more guy friends than girl friends, and I've always been closer with the guys than the girls. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to interact with girls, or how to develop close relationships with them. I had a female best friend in high school which happened, I think, purely by accident. We both had enormous crushes on the same boy our junior year. We were in the same group of friends, but were not particularly close and hadn't talked much. Then we went on our junior retreat together and there was a whole lot of hugging and crying over the boy, and voila, best friends. After that we discovered all sorts of things we had in common, and were pretty much attached at the hip until college, when for reasons unknown to me we stopped being more than acquaintances. I had another good female friend in high school, but I'm certain that it was only due to her gregariousness and nothing to do with any effort on my part - not for lack of interest on my part, but because I'm completely inept. We, too, bonded over boys as we had huge crushes on two guys that were good friends.

Aside from these two, I have had no close female friends in my adult life. I just don't know what to do with girls. I don't know how to meet them, I don't know how to talk to them, and I don't know how to get to know them. I don't know why it should be any different with guys, but I find myself without any female friends with whom I can share intimate details of my life or to whom I am comfortable going for advice. How do people do it? How do you other women do it?

There are three girls in my department at work who are my age. They are all lovely, interesting people whom I would be delighted to get to know, but I have no idea how to do it! Do I invite them all over for dinner? Out for drinks? Some kind of woman date? Is that weird? This was so much easier in grade school when my mom planned sleepovers.

Am I just retarded or do other girls have this problem?

i bet you have

(17:11:26) MalikFalasteeni: i'll just get a catnap on the bus
(17:11:42) MalikFalasteeni: and then luxuriate at the dead sea spa
(17:12:05) MalikFalasteeni: while virgin maidens rub my muscles and pour oil on my skin
(17:12:13) MalikFalasteeni: i've imagined the day many times

bicurious?

(22:49:57) tallbladeofgrass: but the point is, if i had to choose between a hot guy who is a communist and an objectivist girl, i'd obviously choose the girl
(22:50:11) tallbladeofgrass: no contest
(22:50:12) MalikFalasteeni: oh man, this conversation is turning awesome

The standard deviation of the average

I get really angry when people misuse statistics. I get even more angry when people who don't understand statistics accuse other people of misusing them. Take this letter to the editor from the Daily Bruin. It contains this gem of wisdom:

"Without knowing the standard deviation of any of the presented averages, it's impossible to say with any confidence the averages are different."

The "presented averages" he refers to the average GPAs and SAT scores of students admitted to UCLA. This article notes that the average GPAs and SAT scores of white and asian students admitted to UCLA are higher than those of black and latino students. The author of the letter to the editor takes issue with the fact that some people conclude from this that white and asian students are held to higher academic standards.

As I said, I hate when people misuse statistics, so I sympathize with Menke's desire not to let people get away with that sort of thing. The trouble is that he has no idea what he is talking about. The above quote bears no relation to reality whatsoever. First of all, there is no such thing as the standard deviation OF an average. The average and standard deviation are two statistics that can be calculated on an underlying data set. You could talk about the standard deviation of a distribution of sample averages, but even that isn't a standard deviation OF an average - it's a standard deviation of a data set, the members of which happen to be averages of other data sets. Secondly, whether two averages are different has nothing to do with the standard deviations of the data sets they describe. Standard deviation describes the spread of a distribution. When you calculate the average height of everyone in your LS1 class, the number you get is IN FACT the real average, regardless of the standard deviation. The relationship between standard deviations, averages, and confidence only comes into play when attempting to estimate population parameters from statistics on a random sample. When given two different sample averages, the confidence with which you can conclude that there is also a difference between the averages of the populations from which these samples were taken depends on the sample standard deviations. Even in these cases, the averages of the samples ARE different - it is only the averages of the underlying population that have an unclear relationship. The data set described in this article, however, was the population - no parameter estimation was occurring.

I think I should start a Nader fan club.

(12:12:41) MalikFalasteeni: girls can't help but stare at me, because i dress so manly that they can't keep their panties dry. they're just not used to it. it's a little dangerous, but i know how to control it.

Riiiiiiight

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/218318/4/

"He entered a search term that he couldn't recall Wednesday, although he said it 'wasn't a real expressive sexual kind of word.' And then, he said, he got caught up in a pornado -- sexually explicit pop-up windows took over his computer."

Uh huh. Suuuuuure that's what happened.

I love Nader

(16:36:41) tallbladeofgrass: see, how come i didn't see anything like this in japan? http://www.wayodd.com/japanese-invent-sexier-jeans/v/7024/
(16:37:02) MalikFalasteeni: HOLY SHIT
(16:37:21) MalikFalasteeni: those aren't jeans. those are long-sleeved panties.

In defense of the Libertarian Party

I don't recall exactly when or how I discovered the Libertarian Party. I only know that whenever it was, I was absolutely thrilled to discover a political party whose platform agreed perfectly with the political conclusions of my guiding philosophy, Objectivism. Imagine my surprise when other Objectivists began to tell me that Libertarians are actually the lowest of the low, deviant hijackers of philosophy who stole all of Ayn Rand's ideas and are now ruining everything for Objectivism. Confused? I know I am.

I have met almost no one who has identified him/herself to me as a Libertarian. So, all I have to go on to judge the party is the official party platform (and Wikipedia, whose article on Libertarianism I only just browsed today). Not a single thing in either of these documents conflicts with Objectivism. Not one. Nor is the platform missing any major issues. Some of the language even echoes Rand's (which is not surprising since it was her philosophy the Libertarians "stole" back in the day). I don't know the history of the party, and I really don't care. What matters to me is that the current party espouses everything that I believe in with regard to political conclusions.

The shortcomings of the Libertarian Party lie in its lack of clarity. For instance, the platform advocates a foreign policy of "non-interventionism." It also advocates the defense, against attacks from abroad, of the lives, liberty, and property of the American people. For those of us who can add two and two, "non-interventionism" in this context does not mean pacifism. Whatever particular members of the party pontificate, the official party is not anti-war. Obviously a government cannot defend its citizens against attacks from abroad without fighting. But, because this is not made 100% clear, people can get away with being anti-war and calling themselves Libertarians without anyone calling them on it (except me, apparently). Other examples of insufficient clarity are present as well.

So, what is it that Objectivists hate so much about Libertarians? Supposedly, it is that Libertarians do not have the correct philosophical bases for their conclusions. This is all fine and well, except how does anyone know? The official website does not list philosophical bases, except for the principle of self-ownership.

From the LP platform:

"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose." (Those evil Libertarians, not explaining the metaphysical and epistemological line of reasoning leading to this conclusion! Which is also funny, since Objectivists are so afraid of deduction (as against induction).)

While this is not an Objectivist axiom (it is a derivative conclusion), it can certainly be taken as axiomatic in the realm of politics, because it derives from conclusions which do not belong to the political branch of philosophy. That aside, I ask again, how does anyone know what philosophical bases "Libertarians" have for their conclusions? Did ARI take a survey of Libertarians? Is there a Libertarian Pope? No! Therefore, I think it is complete nonsense to throw about claims about why Libertarians believe what they do.

Yes yes, now you will give me examples of this and that Libertarian you met who believed in abstaining from murder for all the wrong reasons. This is all fine and well, but anecdotal evidence is not convincing to me. As any statistician will tell you, n < 30 is not large enough to be a statistically significant sample size, and I doubt many of these naysayers have even met 10 Libertarians. The LP has 200,000 members. My calculator can't handle calculations of this size, but I would bet a significant amount of money that even if 75% of the party were actually objectivists, the probability of encountering even 100 crazies by chance is not trivial. If I'm going to draw conclusions about the LP, it will be based on their official stance and not on what people I encounter claiming to be Libertarians say about their own opinions. (Funny how the two major schools of Objectivism can denounce one another without denouncing Objectivism itself, yet denounce Libertarianism in general because some Libertarians are wrong.)

The only objection to capital-L-Libertarianism (which no one has ever brought up to me) that I could accept is that the official party lets its members get away with this stuff. Although it calls itself the "party of principle", it is decidedly unprincipled in its approach to membership. This relates to the earlier issue of clarity. Making it more clear that pacifists, for instance, aren't really Libertarians, would improve the party's standing in my mind. (I would hope that it would also make Objectivists more accepting of it, but I have my doubts - they are maintaining Rand's grudge quite well.) What probably happened, I think, is that the LP avoids doing this because it wants to keep more members. Whether this is a good strategy in the long term is a subject for another discussion.

In short, I think Objectivists need to give the LP a break. Very few people care about epistemology. Including this at the beginning of the platform would put people to sleep. A political party's job is to advocate political conlcusions, not entire philosophical systems. Focus on the real problems, people.

if only it were so

(18:24:36) MalikFalasteeni: i always imagine girl hair cuts taking hours in luxurious turkish baths.

(17:46:50) tallbladeofgrass: why can't america make cute robots to do things like this?
(17:46:53) tallbladeofgrass: LA could use a trash robot
(17:47:03) tallbladeofgrass: or a robot to scoop up bums and deposit them outside of westwood
(17:47:10) Indi Mint: it could shit compressed hobos
(17:47:23) tallbladeofgrass: so they can be used later for alternate sources of cooling and refrigeration

How to woo a woman: Part V

5. Some things to keep in mind

Do not get discouraged if these tactics do not work on the first try. Every woman is different, and you will need to learn how to accommodate those differences into your wooing tactics. What I outlined here was a general guide.

You may prefer to be more direct than this guide allows for. Sometimes directness works, and sometimes it doesn't. This guide contains safeguards to prevent the potential embarassment/awkwardness that can arise from being direct or hasty.

It may feed your ego to wait for women to be throwing themselves at you to put any effort into pursuing them. However, I assume that if you need a guide like this, it is because women are not throwing themselves at you, at least not the woman you are trying to woo. She's not going to become interested in you unless you take steps to encourage this to happen; you wouldn't wait until people are already buying your product in droves before you run advertising for it. It doesn't work in business, and it doesn't work in love. This is particularly true when you have heavy competition.

Sometimes, it just doesn't work out. You may be a fantastic guy with great virtues, but she just isn't interested. There is nothing wrong with this. You do not want to date every woman in the universe, but it doesn't make the ones you don't want to date undesirable or bad. Keep this in mind, and don't get discouraged. Certain people are more compatible than others for a variety of reasons. You will not always be the best choice for the woman you are trying to woo.

Good luck, and happy wooing!

p.s. Check out this link for a list of things men think women like. Not quite SFW - the ads are borderline pornographic.

How to woo a woman: Part IV

4. The competition

By this point you can be pretty sure that she has a crush on you, but you are not the only one that has caught her fancy, nor the only one interested in her. After all, she must be a pretty great gal if you are going to all this effort to woo her. Now is the time to make her have eyes only for you.

You should continue doing all the things you did in step 3, but now you must do more. You have to be better than all these other guys.

Start by finding out what she likes about them and what other people like about them. If any of their qualities are ones you share, make sure she is aware that you have them as well. In addition, now is the time to play up the values that are unique to you among her possible choices as well as the values that you exhibit more strongly. She will ultimately make her choice based upon the differences between her options, so you want to make sure that you outweigh the others in this respect.

Keep in mind that by this time, she should already know that you have feelings for her. You also should not begin this step until you are sure she is the one you really want to date (after all, just as she probably has multiple suitors, you probably have multiple women that have caught your eye). If she knows that you are trying to win her, and you act like you like other girls in front of her, you will lose. She won't want you to be the "only one" for her when she so clearly is not the only one for you.

Basically, just keep doing what you're doing. Eventually, if she doesn't do it first, you're going to have to ask her to be yours.

Joneseses's

As probably anyone who reads my blog knows, I am something of a stickler when it comes to grammar. I try to be careful about my own grammar, lest I find myself in the embarassing situation of being corrected by someone who frequently writes "your" instead of "you're." That said, the bane of my existence in this respect is last names that end in 's'. What do you do with them? They aren't normal words, so they don't have a plural form that everyone knows. You can't just use the name as if it is already plural, i.e. "The Jones are coming over tonight" because that sounds ridiculous. But if you say "The Joneses are coming over later" it sounds weird too! If you need to use it in the posessive, then it just gets worse. Following the applicable rules for normal nouns, it should be "The Joneses' book" but how is that even pronounced? The "es" already makes the "pluralizing" sound; you can't say "Jones-uz-uz." And then to get around this stuff you find yourself beginning thank you notes with "Dear Jones family" and referring to stuff belonging to them as "the book belonging to the Jones family" or "the Jones family's book." I guess that last one isn't so bad...

And I don't think knowing the actual rule would be any better, because any choice sounds silly. What is a girl to do?

How to woo a woman: Part III

3. The Crush

So you've found a woman you'd like to woo, and you're a pretty desirable guy if you do say so yourself. What now?

The first thing you have to do is get her interested in you romantically. Steps 1 and 2 made sure that it's at least possible for her to develop this interest. Now it's time to make that happen. A critical part of this step is that you are not yet trying to "win her heart" so to speak. Before you can win it, you have to be in the race.

Of the utmost importance is how you treat her during this time. The two most common mistakes made are to act out of character because you think she wants you to act a certain way, or to act the way you would with a friend instead of with a girlfriend (if these are different). Showering her with gifts and attention now when you have no intention of doing so in the long run will only ruin things in the future. Similarly, giving too little attention now because you only put that kind of effort into someone you're actually dating will ruin your chances entirely because she will think your behavior now is a proxy for your behavior while dating.

The first mistake is pretty obvious and well-known, but I will give an example of the second. Suppose that you don't often call your friends or make plans with them; you usually wait for them to call. If you were dating someone, however, you would make plans with them all the time and call them frequently. It is essential in this case that you treat the woman you are wooing like a girlfriend instead of a friend. You got yourself into the pool of potential candidates in step two, but this pool will be narrowed even further by the relationship skills you appear to have. If she wants to date a guy who calls his girlfriend a lot, and you never call her during the wooing process, she will turn her attention to guys who do call her a lot.

Of course, you needn't put 100% of the effort into her that you would into a girlfriend. You just need to make sure that she understands how you would treat her if you were dating. Give her a taste of it.

In addition to this general rule of how to treat her, there are more specific actions you can take during this time. It is important that you show your interest in her as well. Don't throw yourself at her, but make it clear that you believe she has values to offer you and that you enjoy your time with her. One of the best ways to do this is ti tell her. I can't stress this enough. Relationships do not have to be cloak-and-dagger. Compliment her as often as is warranted by the situation. If she makes cookies for you, tell her how good they are. If she has a new haircut/dress/etc, tell her you like it. If she writes a particularly winning article for the school newspaper, tell her how much you admired it. People are always more interested in people who are interested in them. Of course, these complements should be genuine--don't lie. Also let her know when you had a good time with her, i.e. "I really had a good time! Let's do it again!" Finally, tell her what values you admire in her! If you like her wit, tell her. You should really do this with friends too, but it's especially important when wooing someone.

These compliments are not feeding some kind of need for validation on her part; they are genuinely expressing the gratitude you have for the values she posesses, and letting her know that you actually understand and appreciate what is of value. No one wants to date a guy that couldn't see a value if it hit him in the face.

Next, make sure she is aware of the values you have to offer. Show off your talents, particularly the ones she admires or is interested in. If you are a karate master, invite her to a competition or show her some moves. If you play the cello, find an excuse to play for her. However, do not be a braggart. This is a huge turn-off. Be proud of your talents and achievements, but do not take every opportunity to brag about them. If someone else's 3.9 GPA is being discussed and admired, do not interject with "I got a 4.0!" It just makes you look like an insecure jerk. If you must bring something up, sound excited about it, not like you are bragging. i.e. say "OMG I was at blah blah restaurant one night and I totally saw Cameron Diaz! It was so cool!!" rather than "Oh yeah, I've met Cameron Diaz." The second way sounds like a) you are bragging and b) you are lying.

Finally, it's all about flirting! Flirting is like a relationship test run. It can be completely platonic, but it allows you to act cuddly with someone without the strings. Tease her. Tickle her. If you are sitting on a couch together, lay down with your legs over her lap or your head on it, whichever is more comfortable. Use every excuse to touch her (not in a creepy way). If there is chemistry between you, this is where it will show.

(As a side note, be careful about the teasing. Some guys are completely without tact and have no idea which things are good to tease about and which are not. For instance, you can tease a girl about having tiny hands but not about having tiny breasts. If you're not sure whether it's okay to tease about something, don't do it.)

If all goes well, after a while this woman will develop a crush on you. However, there are some actions you can take during this step and the next one that will basically prevent this from happening. The most crucial is sending mixed signals. Do NOT do this. Do not act sweet one moment and like a jerk the next moment. Do not act interested sometimes and disinterested in others. Do not say one thing and do another. "Actions speak louder than words" may be a cliche, but it is absolutely true. Telling her you dig her and then not taking any actions that are consistent with this claim is going to make her believe your actions and not your words. Absolutely nothing good can come of sending mixed signals. In the worst case, she will just think you are a jerk who likes to toy with women. In this case she'll never want to date you at all. In less severe cases, mixed signals make it look like you don't know what you want. The woman you are trying to woo will lose interest and turn her attention to a guy who does know what he wants (namely, her).

Another no-no is trying to make her jealous to make her like you. This is dumb and does not work. It has the same result as mixed signals; she will either think you are a jerk or that you don't know what you want. Either way, it will have the opposite of its intended effect.

How to woo a woman: Part II

2. You want to woo her...now what?

In order to woo a woman, you want to make yourself desirable to her. Some of these are good rules to follow even when you're not looking to woo women, but will particularly come in handy in this situation. Parts of this step are interchangeable with step 1, but I put it here because step 1 creates extra motivation to fulfill step 2.

First, make yourself presentable. Bathe, brush your teeth, dress well. For one thing, no one wants to date a guy who smells terrible and has bad breath or no teeth. More importantly, taking good care of oneself demonstrates confidence and self esteem. A good fashion sense is also a proxy for attention to detail, which is a desirable quality. Try to get to the gym. Strength is a desirable quality in men, and you will be able to show it off by lifting heavy things (if you can).

Find out her preferences for guys and try to emulate them. If she likes musicians and you play the cello, play it for her whenever you can. If she likes collared shirts on guys and you usually wear tees, get a couple collared shirts and wear them around her. This does not mean you are changing who you are or that you are wooing someone who only cares about superficial things. These superficial traits are what every person uses to narrow the field of potential candidates. Every person encounters dozens of members of the sex of his/her choice every day. No one can spend the time to woo each one, so you need some way to narrow the field. It doesn't mean you won't date a brunette if you prefer blondes; it means that if you are at a party with women of various hair colors, you will talk to the blondes first. Anyway, these actions on your part will get her attention and make yourself a part of her "narrowed" candidate pool, meaning you will have less work ahead of you to pique her interest.

How to woo a woman: Part I

I had a friend in high school who was basically hopeless when it came to women. I spoke to him recently and offered to help him have more success with women. Nothing ever came of that, but I think that the things I was going to tell him would make a good guide for anyone who has had such troubles. So, I present it here for your reading pleasure. I anticipate that it will be quite long, so I might make it a multi-part series.

1. Finding a woman to woo

This step usually happens automatically. One does not think of wooing a woman until one already wants to date her. However, it is a step which makes the following steps much more successful if a little thought is devoted to it. First of all, if you have not had success in the past wooing women, do not attempt to woo a woman with a boyfriend. This is much harder to do than wooing unattached women, so you would be better off avoiding it at first. Even if you do have experience, it's generally a good idea to avoid this as it can create additional complications. If you decide to go for it anyway (i.e. current boyfriend is a jerk, she's thinking about leaving him, etc) then the following steps will apply there too.

Get to know a woman before you start to woo her. If you get along with her in a friendship situation and share similar interests, it will make the wooing process much easier. It is much more difficult to woo a woman who shares no interests with you, and will not work out in the long run anyway. Try to find out a little about her friendships and/or past relationships. How does she treat people she cares about? What sort of people is she friends with or has she dated? Are they anything like you? You will have more luck wooing a woman whose current/previous relationships indicate that she enjoys the company of people like yourself. Finally, make sure that this woman has time for you. If she lives too far away or is quite busy with work or school, you should look for someone else first. It will be both difficult and ultimately unsatisfying to woo a woman who can't spend time with you.

These guidelines will help you narrow down the pool of potential candidates, but should not necessarily prevent you from pursuing a woman who in all other respects is far superior to more convenient candidates.

Threats

So I had an extremely stupid non-argument today about the difference (or lack thereof) between a threat and a statement of cause and effect. It started something like this:

A: If you do x, I won't do y.
B: That's not fair.
A: It's not a threat, it's just cause and effect.
B: That's the definition of a threat!

(A's second statement here was actually a joke, because the first statement was obviously a threat in this case, but that is not material to the discussion that follows)

B then proceeds to provide a dictionary definition of a threat. As at least my fellow objectivists know, questions of the meanings of concepts are about essentials. Dictionary definitions are not helpful in this regard. For instance, Capitalism may be defined as "an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned" but its essential characteristic is that it bans the initiation of force. Dictionaries are useful in determining whether "chair" refers to a thing you sit on or a type of perfume, but not in pointing out essential characteristics that cause things to be chairs and not something else (this could lead to an interesting discussion about the difference between concepts and the words that represent them).

Back to the subject at hand. A threat is defined in the dictionary as "a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course." But, is this its essential characteristic? Certainly, these features are necessary for a statement to be a threat, but are they sufficient?

We can look at some statements to see why they are not sufficient.

"If you stand in oncoming traffic, you will die."
"If you don't give me your purse, you will die."

One of those is clearly not a threat, and the other is.

"If you persist in treating me like dirt, I won't be your friend anymore."
"If you don't come to this concert with me, I won't be your friend anymore."

One of these is a threat, and the other is not.

I maintain that at least one additional requirement for a statment to be a threat is that it does not express a relationship that is necessarily causal. Obviously, standing in oncoming traffic will cause you to die (propably). Refusing to give me your purse will not. This second statement is a threat because it describes an action I intend to take which is not the necessary (to a rational person) effect of the premise. In the second case, refusing to be friends with someone who treats you like dirt is the necessary effect. A rational person does not keep friends who treat him poorly, and has no desire to maintain a relationship that is not to his benefit. On the other hand, making the friendship conditional on a particular situation or event rather than a pattern of behavior/thought is silly.

So, it is clearly possible to make a statement that sounds like a threat but actually is not. Merely informing someone of the (necessary) consequences of his actions is not a threat.

I'd appreciate any fine-tunings or other feedback about this issue from people who understand it.

75% of people die from waking up

An article in the Daily Bruin contained this nugget of joy: "One statistic read that 18,000 people between the ages of 25 to 64 die annually from a lack of health insurance, making it the seventh leading cause of death."

I actually laughed out loud for a good 20 seconds. Cause of death: no health insurance. That should be on an episode of CSI.

Analogies

I am not quite sure why, but this list really annoys me. I've run across it many many times over the last 6ish years, and I've never liked it. Part of the reason is probably that a lot of them are made up, and I really hate it when people invent stories about people doing stupid things. Real people do enough actual stupid things; you don't have to invent more of them. The main reason, though, is that one of them is plagiarized.

"The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)"

That analogy is taken directly from Douglas Adams's Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. (Yes, I know there are more than three books in it. Adams calls it a trilogy, and it's funny.) So it's really annoying that a) some kid stole it and used it in an essay and b) it would end up on a list of "worst analogies" when it's actually an intended-to-be-funny analogy from a humorous book, not some dumb kid's invention for an essay.

Anyway, that shouldn't be enough to make me as annoyed as I am with that list, but there it is.