December 21, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
It gets harder and harder to separate reality from fiction – like those stories panelists on “Wait Wait” make up for the “Bluff the Listener” segment. Or the facts and fictional products or happenings that Kurt Andersen mixed together in Turn of the Century, and readers often didn’t know which was factual and which made up. That was twelve years ago. By now, reality has caught up, and some of those fictions are now fact. But maybe we’re at a point where sci-fi sometimes has to catch up with reality.
Thirty years ago, Douglas Adams imagined the Babel fish – instant translation available to all. Now there’s this, and you don’t have to stick it in your ear.
It’s like a magic trick,* or something out of Harry Potter – if Gryffindor had ever vacationed on the Costa del Sol. But it’s real – an app for your iPhone. Five bucks. (I’m not sure how many knuts that is.)
UPDATE, Dec. 30. Even David Pogue – David F***ing Pogue! – puts Word Lens on his ten-best-ideas list and says it is “software magic.”
-----------------------------
*I know it isn’t really all that amazing. Translation programs have been around for a while (and how sophisticated does it have to be to read simple signs?), so has character recognition. But, at least in this ad, it still looks like magic to me.
Death Panels
December 20, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
She was crying – a student in my ten o’clock class, sitting on a couch in the broad stairwell near the classroom. Her face was red, her body shook slightly. Another girl in the class was sitting next to her trying to comfort her. I stopped and sat down across from them.
The girl’s father was dying. He had been diagnosed many months ago, and the doctor had recommended a treatment available at only one hospital. But the hospital was not “in network,” and the insurance company had refused to cover the costs. The family was not at all wealthy – the girl was paying tuition with what she could scrape together from her job and loans – so that was that. Now the cancer had spread. It was inoperable, and his in-network hospital had sent him home with some liquid morphine and Dilaudid.
I told her not to worry about taking the final exam. We’d make some arrangement.
* * * *
I see Sara Palin is still using the “death panel” line (see her recent WSJ piece). Back when she introduced it, Politifact gave it their most flagrant false rating (“Pants on Fire”) on their Truthometer. But when you’ve come up with a catchy phrase that your base responds to, why not keep using it?
At the time, I wondered why Obamacare proponents didn’t point out that we already had death panels – not the fantasy ones in the imagination of Palin and her peeps, but real ones staffed by the insurance companies. “Recission,” the insurers called it – rescinding a policy on whatever pretext they could come up with when the patient’s bills threatened to run to real money. “Recission” sounds so much nicer than “death panels”; it has a precise, almost surgical ring to it.
The Democrats, even when they exposed the policy, continued to use the industry’s term. Insurance executives testifying to Congressional committees all said that recission is a minor matter, a distraction, since it affects only half of one percent of policy holders. Several bloggers later pointed out what was wrong with this math (my earlier post with links is here). But even at face value, it’s daunting. Half of one percent is five per thousand. If one-third of the population has health insurance, that’s 100 million. Five per 1000 is 5,000 per million, times 100 is half a million people.
I assume that this recission rate is lifetime, not annual. It’s not a huge number, especially if you translate it into that small-sounding percentage. So you really don’t have to think about it – not until you’re on your way to class, and you see a girl weeping for her dying father, and you still can’t get that image out of your head.
Posted by Jay Livingston
She was crying – a student in my ten o’clock class, sitting on a couch in the broad stairwell near the classroom. Her face was red, her body shook slightly. Another girl in the class was sitting next to her trying to comfort her. I stopped and sat down across from them.
The girl’s father was dying. He had been diagnosed many months ago, and the doctor had recommended a treatment available at only one hospital. But the hospital was not “in network,” and the insurance company had refused to cover the costs. The family was not at all wealthy – the girl was paying tuition with what she could scrape together from her job and loans – so that was that. Now the cancer had spread. It was inoperable, and his in-network hospital had sent him home with some liquid morphine and Dilaudid.
I told her not to worry about taking the final exam. We’d make some arrangement.
* * * *
I see Sara Palin is still using the “death panel” line (see her recent WSJ piece). Back when she introduced it, Politifact gave it their most flagrant false rating (“Pants on Fire”) on their Truthometer. But when you’ve come up with a catchy phrase that your base responds to, why not keep using it?
At the time, I wondered why Obamacare proponents didn’t point out that we already had death panels – not the fantasy ones in the imagination of Palin and her peeps, but real ones staffed by the insurance companies. “Recission,” the insurers called it – rescinding a policy on whatever pretext they could come up with when the patient’s bills threatened to run to real money. “Recission” sounds so much nicer than “death panels”; it has a precise, almost surgical ring to it.
The Democrats, even when they exposed the policy, continued to use the industry’s term. Insurance executives testifying to Congressional committees all said that recission is a minor matter, a distraction, since it affects only half of one percent of policy holders. Several bloggers later pointed out what was wrong with this math (my earlier post with links is here). But even at face value, it’s daunting. Half of one percent is five per thousand. If one-third of the population has health insurance, that’s 100 million. Five per 1000 is 5,000 per million, times 100 is half a million people.
I assume that this recission rate is lifetime, not annual. It’s not a huge number, especially if you translate it into that small-sounding percentage. So you really don’t have to think about it – not until you’re on your way to class, and you see a girl weeping for her dying father, and you still can’t get that image out of your head.
Word Count
December 17, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
Google’s new tool is too cool. It tracks the word count of any word or phrase in “lots of books” going back as far as 1800 if you like. And it’s fast. An instant reading of the Zeitgeist.
The rise and fall of sociology tracks with the discourse of social class.
(Click on an image for a larger view.)
Want to confirm your impression about the rise of soccer?
In some cases, it’s hard to figure out the relation between what’s in “lots of books” and what’s happening in the real world. The decline in “robbery” in books starts 15 years ahead of the decrease in robbery in the real world. And as robbery in the streets starts to decline, its representation on the page starts to rise. Go figure.
Warning: this is a real time-suck, at least it was for me today when I first discovered it.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Google’s new tool is too cool. It tracks the word count of any word or phrase in “lots of books” going back as far as 1800 if you like. And it’s fast. An instant reading of the Zeitgeist.
The rise and fall of sociology tracks with the discourse of social class.
(Click on an image for a larger view.)Want to confirm your impression about the rise of soccer?
In some cases, it’s hard to figure out the relation between what’s in “lots of books” and what’s happening in the real world. The decline in “robbery” in books starts 15 years ahead of the decrease in robbery in the real world. And as robbery in the streets starts to decline, its representation on the page starts to rise. Go figure.
Warning: this is a real time-suck, at least it was for me today when I first discovered it.
The Sneakiest Sneak
December 16, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston
You’ve probably seen this variant of the quarterback sneak – it’s gotten millions of hits on YouTube, and it’s been reported on broadcast TV. If not, take 30 seconds and watch it.
It isn’t really sneaky. In fact, it’s brazen. And it brings us tonight’s word: Definition of the Situation.
It’s Intro Sociology, W. I. Thomas. When you are in a situation, you need to know what’s going on.
You need to know what that situation is - a date or just coffee between friends, a formal class or a relaxed discussion, etc. The definition tells you who you are; it tells you who the others in that situation are (lover, student, friend, etc.). It tells you what you should do. The definition of the situation is all about roles and rules.
Faced with an unfamiliar situation, you look around for a definition, and the usual strategy is to take your cues from others, especially those who seem to know what’s going on – people with competence or authority in that situation. That dependence on the definitions of strangers has been the basis of many Candid Camera stunts and social psychology experiments, where the strangers are acting not with kindness but with deception and manipulation.
In this middle-school football play, the quarterback and center do something unusual for someone in those roles. They don’t violate the official rulebook, but their behavior is outside the norms of the game everyone knows. What’s going on? Has the play begun? The defense looks around to the others for their cue as to what to do. They see the offensive line motionless in their stances, seemingly waiting for the play to start. They see their own teammates too looking uncertain rather than trying to make a tackle. So nobody defines the play as having started. But it has. Only when the quarterback, having walked past eight definitionless* players, starts running do they arrive at an accurate definition, and by then, it’s too late. Touchdown.
UPDATE: Although W.I. Thomas coined the term definition of the situation, what the video dramatizes is really closer to Goffman’s use of the term
* Someone does offer a definition – the coach of the team on offense This play immediately followed a 5-yard offsides penalty on the defense. Now the coach of the team in white yells at his quarterback that it should have been a 10-yard penalty and he should walk off another five yards. The quarterback starts to do so, and none of the defense remembers at first that only referees, not quarterbacks, can respot the ball for a penalty.
Posted by Jay Livingston
You’ve probably seen this variant of the quarterback sneak – it’s gotten millions of hits on YouTube, and it’s been reported on broadcast TV. If not, take 30 seconds and watch it.
It isn’t really sneaky. In fact, it’s brazen. And it brings us tonight’s word: Definition of the Situation.
It’s Intro Sociology, W. I. Thomas. When you are in a situation, you need to know what’s going on.
You need to know what that situation is - a date or just coffee between friends, a formal class or a relaxed discussion, etc. The definition tells you who you are; it tells you who the others in that situation are (lover, student, friend, etc.). It tells you what you should do. The definition of the situation is all about roles and rules.
Faced with an unfamiliar situation, you look around for a definition, and the usual strategy is to take your cues from others, especially those who seem to know what’s going on – people with competence or authority in that situation. That dependence on the definitions of strangers has been the basis of many Candid Camera stunts and social psychology experiments, where the strangers are acting not with kindness but with deception and manipulation.
In this middle-school football play, the quarterback and center do something unusual for someone in those roles. They don’t violate the official rulebook, but their behavior is outside the norms of the game everyone knows. What’s going on? Has the play begun? The defense looks around to the others for their cue as to what to do. They see the offensive line motionless in their stances, seemingly waiting for the play to start. They see their own teammates too looking uncertain rather than trying to make a tackle. So nobody defines the play as having started. But it has. Only when the quarterback, having walked past eight definitionless* players, starts running do they arrive at an accurate definition, and by then, it’s too late. Touchdown.
UPDATE: Although W.I. Thomas coined the term definition of the situation, what the video dramatizes is really closer to Goffman’s use of the term
it will be in his interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him. This control is achieved largely by influencing the definition of the situation which the others come to formulate, and he can influence this definition by expressing himself in such a way as to give them the kind of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan.-----------------------------
— from the opening section of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
* Someone does offer a definition – the coach of the team on offense This play immediately followed a 5-yard offsides penalty on the defense. Now the coach of the team in white yells at his quarterback that it should have been a 10-yard penalty and he should walk off another five yards. The quarterback starts to do so, and none of the defense remembers at first that only referees, not quarterbacks, can respot the ball for a penalty.
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