Links

[tarigwaemir]

Haste Street on the Feast of St. Benjamin

I think I've taken to posting links instead of content because my brain is too fried to generate any on its own.

1. Two short stories by Ted Chiang that don't appear in his only published anthology (Amazon):

• "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
  
• "What's Expected of Us"

Both stories explore issues about time travel and determinism. Nothing especially new since he explores the same concept from different angles in previous stories but still thought-provoking.

2. Speaking of time travel, these two complementary interviews with Michio Kaku on Paper Cuts: Why Don't We Invent It Tomorrow? and Things We'll Probably Never See on what SF inventions are plausible and which are not.

3. Also on the same blog, Words, Glorious Words. Did you know "crapulence" meant "excessive drinking"?

4. Ibid: Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing.

5. Slate article on Why Won't Phone Books Die?, which includes a link to this awesome Youtube video where they try to pull apart two phone books with intercalated pages.

6. On a much more sobering note, something I meant to link to last week: jaebi_lit talks about harassment and brings up the interesting point that we're told as children to "ignore the bully and s/he will go away". I don't know how gendered this advice is, but I certainly heard it quite often while growing up. Not that I was ever bullied (disliked and excluded, to be sure, but never bullied), but occasionally someone would take it into their head that it would be great fun to bother me, especially since I had a quick temper. My mother always told me that if I showed no reaction, they would go away.*

In a similar vein, most of you will have seen it already, but Tina forwarded me this article about bullying: A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly.

* Fundamentally, I think jaebi_lit is right: passivity means enabling the bully. That being said, I can say from personal experience that losing one's temper does not give you the upper hand. -_- What is the best way to deal with bullying? Thoughts?

7. Quite Possibly the Best Book Review Ever quoting a Borges' review of a real book. Borges is, as usual, awesome.

Hilarious science anecdote of the day: my current rotation advisor is one of the faculty saddled with the unfortunate task of leading a five-week discussion section for the mandatory ethics course, which must be completed by all students on a NIH training grant. The first discussion was scheduled for today, which he only realized this afternoon, of course, and when he announced this fact to the lab, adding that the topic for the first week was on "mentor and trainee relationships", everyone burst into hysterical laughter.

Grad student I work with: He can tell them what your advisor shouldn't do. Don't set people on fire, don't throw pipettors at their heads, don't leave messages on their answering machine at nine A.M. asking why they aren't in lab. On Sunday. That's why he refuses to learn anyone's home phone number now, to avoid the temptation.

Alas, I'm in a different discussion section, where the two faculty are much more sober characters. Anyway, I ran into my rotation advisor afterwards and had the following conversation:

P.I.: So did you learn anything?
Me: I learned that communication is very important.
P.I.: Communication? Huh, I forgot about communication. I don't think I mentioned it at all.
Me: So what did you tell them?
P.I.: I just told them that all they needed to do was work hard.

Yours &c.

Comments

[lacewood]

2. ................. asdkh;3fsd)h that theory for how teleportation would work is VERY CREEPY and sounds like something straight out of classic scary sci-fi omgwtf.

(But if you can transmit information to the atoms to change them - then how similar do the atoms have to be? Could you TRANSMIT one person into another? Does it have to be exact to the atom or no? Could you turn a lump of rock into a person? Unlikely, but!!!)

6. I've been lucky and never had to deal with bullying myself. >_> The closest I ever got was actually from my YOUNGER COUSIN, because when we were kids, he used to hit me and then I'd run to my grandmother/mother. XD;; *WAS WUSS*

I distinctly remember that my mother would tell me to not to fight/tell someone if he hit me/ignore him, until my GRANDMOTHER got tired of it all and told me to hit him back if he hit me. And then, uh, it opened up WHOLE NEW VISTAS and I proceeded to beat fear of God me into him. This, sadly, did not work as well on my younger brother, and we spent most of our tender childhood beating on each other ALL THE TIME.

... I'm not sure there's a lesson to be learned from any of this. (The gender bias as present? Well, she definitely told my brother not to fight either but he NEVER LISTENED) But well. XD;;

[troisroyaumes]

Hm, in the example mentioned, the atoms are of the same element. Perhaps it's like FMA!alchemy? XD;; And yeah, I was wondering about transmitting one person into another...I think you would still want at least similar body mass, maybe even genetic material. Would you need to keep comatose clones at every location you would conceivably want to teleport to? Think of a society where this sort of "travel" is considered as normal as hopping on a plane...

Hah! I bet you trained your cousin well. XD;; Yes, I'm not sure if there's a gender bias to the "ignore them and they'll go away" advice, but it's an interesting point nonetheless.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

That being said, I can say from personal experience that losing one's temper does not give you the upper hand. -_- What is the best way to deal with bullying? Thoughts?

It depends on a lot of factors, mostly coming down to personality and the situation, I think. I found a great deal of satisfaction in screaming my head off and not enduring his crap, but I tend toward a short temper and anger. Quite possibly someone else would have politely said, "Excuse me, do you think such language is appropriate? No? Then why are you saying it?" and that might have led him to some soulsearching and a resolve to never catcall a woman again.

Leaving aside the probability of such a result actually happening, I react by yelling because to me, street harassment and catcalls are about exerting power over groups perceived as weaker/acceptable to harass. As soon as you turn around and call them out, you challenge that power dynamic, and the element of surprise (because they're not expecting it) can even flip it.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, I think you're right that it depends on the context...including who the bully is. In your case, I think yelling in response to street harassment makes sense: you are letting him know that you aren't going to just walk away and take his verbal abuse. But on the playground, for example, yelling can encourage the bully to bother you again because s/he wants to see you upset.

I think fundamentally one should be told that it's all right to fight back, that you don't have to just grit your teeth and bear it. Bullying shouldn't be something that you have to endure. But again, depending on the situation, how you choose to fight back will differ.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

That article you linked to is terrible. I can't believe teachers and administrators condone that level of violence--I always thought that physical violence would get you expelled--and blame the victim.

[troisroyaumes]

I can't fathom that even the teachers would say that he deserved it. How does that work? I'm not sure that the parents are doing the right thing by not moving though.

[klio911.livejournal.com]

borges! amazing.

also i had read the bully article. horrible.
i've never been bullied in terms of physical violence (unless you count kendo, which...), but i dunno what the best way to deal with it would be. i kind of think the ender wiggins method of severelly raining an asskicking down on your bullies might be useful, but dunno how it would work in real life. probably...not so well.

but i was definitely told "just ignore them" re: non-violent bullying (including the year where everyone gave me the nickname 'duck' and threw bread at me during lunch. if i've mentioned it before, it's cause it was...formative). i think passivity is def the wrong reaction in a school setting. i think if i had been meaner verbally, even just once or twice, it might have shut them up. oh well i guess. also, the method of going along with the joke and quacking at them had very limited results. so i dunno. kids are assholes, hehe.
on the street, though? i'm very careful about who i flip off or tell off or whatever. you never know who's a crazy and will follow your or something, and sometimes it's just not worth it.

[troisroyaumes]

Borges = awesome. ^_^

Wow, kids can be so awful. ;_; I haven't in fact heard that story from you before. Hm, perhaps you're right that you do need to fight back in a school setting. I always got upset and angry--though I never quite managed to make witty, cutting retorts, only inarticulate expressions of rage--but then again, I usually had enough grudging respect from my peers that no one really said anything cruel to me.