Logic Games and Web Comics

I'm currently reading Superfreakonomics, the followup to the popular Freakonomics. I really enjoyed the last chapter I read, titled, "Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism." There's a really interesting part about Economics games/experiments (click for the excerpt, though the book goes even deeper on several of the topics mentioned here). I participated in one such experiment when I was in undergrad, so it was really interesting to hear the theoretical logic behind it. These experiments altered theory and "conventional wisdom" about people's behavior in surprisingly concrete ways. The chapter then goes on to describe real-world and laboratory experiments that changed the new conventional wisdom yet again. I didn't see the later developments in my brief exposure to econ experiments, so it was even more interesting to hear about the changes that have happened since then.

Hearing about these quandaries reminds me of how much fun logic games can be. The book (not the above excerpt) describes "The Prisoners' Dilemma" (note the apostrophe, which I believe to be more correctly placed than the more-common "prisoner's" since there are two people making choices). The Prisoners' Dilemma, and some of its cultural impact, is shown here in comic form. There's also the deceptively tricky puzzle: "There are two doors, one to heaven and one to hell. In front of them are two identical guards, except one always lies and one always tells the truth. You have one question to ask one guard before you make your choice and live with the consequences." It took me a while to remember how to answer this puzzle, and I'll fully admit that I don't think I could have figured it out if I hadn't heard the answer in some long-distant conversation. But in reading about it I came across this even trickier variant. It looks intimidating to read, but I found the email conversation a very thoughtful way of walking a non-logician through the problem. But if you really want to stretch your brain, try this variant.

Speaking of that, I found a new webcomic I like called

Following are some of my favs:

• Today's. What a good day to discover this site! It's like a cautionary tale for me on my laziest of days.


• ...and speaking of cautionary tales, this is a cautionary tale from the past about me on April 14, 2009, at 11:50pm. (Thank God for Tessa, by the way.)


• ...and speaking of the past, try this with your friends from The Future!


• ...and speaking of the future, it's nice to know I'll be appreciated!


• ...and speaking of books I read last year/movies I saw last week, I'm pretty sure this one's straight out of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.


• ...and speaking of the unspeakable!

Buttersafe has been enthusiastically added to my RSS reader. When reading through some of the archives I was literally laughing out loud, which, by the way, I abbrev as "LLOL."

You come across some random things when you're reading.

"There are three things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one's self."
-Benjamin Franklin

nice

And on a totally separate note:

"And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." -Deuteronomy 18:21-22 (King James Version)

in other words

"You may be wondering among yourselves, "How can we tell the difference, whether it was God who spoke or not?" Here's how: If what the prophet spoke in God's name doesn't happen, then obviously God wasn't behind it; the prophet made it up. Forget about him." -Deuteronomy 18:21-22 (The Message Version)

I can think of some people who've said they were doing God's work and made some predictions that didn't pan out. Can you? Looks like God says we should stop listening.

Sunday Morning

Sunday mornings are a special time. My mother is at church, usually gone before I wake up. My father spends the whole morning in the basement doing work or goofing off or doing whatever it is that he does, presumably enjoying the change in routine as much as I do. I sleep as a first order of business. I work Sunday evenings, so Sunday morning is the one time I can sleep without my subconscious buzzing with the thought that maybe I’m late for work. I don’t always sleep late. In fact sometimes I’m up rather early, ready to start my (Sun)day.

I wake up on Sunday mornings and instantly try to fall back asleep. I was never able to fall back asleep until a year or two ago, and I’m still not great at it. If I can’t, I usually smile and mash my face into the pillow, enjoying the warmth and the lack of urgency. There is no “usual” time to wake up on Sundays, sometimes it’s 6:30am, sometimes it’s noon. While I am mashing my face I let a few thoughts drift through my head, and more often than not one of them sticks and I ponder that for a while. I reach my hand over the side of the bed and pad it around until I find one of two things: (1) my cell phone, or (2) the book I’m reading. If I find the cell phone first I check the time (smiling again at my lack of schedule) and see if there were any messages left for me after I fell asleep. Usually I find the book first, it is a bigger object after all, and I completely ignore the phone and its time and its messages. I turn on the light next to the bed and snuggle back into my cocoon with only the tips of my fingers exposed to hold the book. Before I can get through a page my eyes start to water and I have to wipe the tears and sleep dust away, but since no part of me wants to leave the warm womb of my bed, I just mash my face against the pillow again. Having cleared my eyes, I read the book that is balanced on its side in front of my reclining face. I don’t stop myself from dozing off in the middle of a sentence.

I stay in the warm bubble of flannel sheets and printed words for as long as I can. Usually the first thing I do in the morning is head for the bathroom to evacuate, but not on Sundays. Every step on Sunday is a sort of game where the goal is to press back against the usual morning routine. How long can I go without opening my eyes? How long can I stay in bed? How long before I have to go downstairs? To eat? To shower? To put on pants? Eventually, after maybe an hour, the need to eat or wash overtakes me. Usually it’s the need to eat, but that depends on the Saturday night that preceded the Sunday morning– notably if I ate something substantial or hung out with lots of smokers I’ll feel the needs to bathe before I need to eat. (This morning my hands smelled like plastic, which was as distracting as it was inexplicable.) Often, after eating or showering or both, I’ll go back to bed, reclaiming my cocoon, and read or sleep some more. Sometimes I’ll feel compelled to write and I reach for the pad of paper that lives under my bed. Occasionally I’ll find something scrawled on the paper already, the last remnant of Saturday night left behind before I drifted off. I’ll write whatever Sunday thoughts I’ve got going on in the form of a note-to-self journal or a letter to a friend. All the writing invariably gets shoved back under the bed into a pile of late-night and early-morning thoughts. That pile, if anyone was to read through it, tells the story of my life from the periphery of consciousness. I have not read through it. I took the pile from Cleveland back with me in a box and started a new pile here in Buffalo.

Finally Sunday morning (long-since turned in to Sunday afternoon, just not in my mind) will come to a logical close. A friend will call me and invite me to lunch, my mother will return home from post-church brunch and rouse me, or I’ll just have my fill of dozing and reading and writing and thinking. I will put on pants, which is the final step in my acceptance of a new day. The writing goes on the pile, the cell phone goes from charger to pocket, the book lays closed beside the bed. Today I looked out the window and was surprised that it was snowing, because in my Sunday morning world there is no weather, there are no seasons, there exists nothing beyond my immediate surroundings and the comfort of my mind. The snow draws me out the window into a world with weather systems, traffic patterns and even Other People. I see the cars on the street and know that the world doesn’t value Sunday mornings the way I do. I doubt they could understand the value of my lazy Sunday morning life. But Sunday morning has bolstered my constitution for another week, and I am ready to confront this world. I am wearing pants after all.

2 Legit 2 Quit

Today is a day off from work.

Things I did today (so far)

• Woke up around 8:30am
  
• Read 100 Bullets
  
• Ate some breakfast (Wegmans' Frosted Shredded Wheat)
  
• Went on the internet for a while
  
• Took a nap
  
• Read 100 Bullets some more
  
• Ate "lunch" (Triscuts and hummus)
  
• Made plans to make dinner with a friend
  
• Finished 100 Bullets, started A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  
• Got on the internet again, to write this blog
  

That's all so far. No shower, haven't stepped outside, haven't even changed out of pajamas. A lazy day, a day that will dissappear in my memory. (Where did last Tuesday go? What did I even do that day?) But was it unproductive? I didn't advance my chances of getting in to grad school, nor my chances of getting a "real" job. But I have always said we are far more than our occupations. I submit that today was very worthwhile, and that everyone should have a day of lazy pampering to remind them why they work hard, or even leave the house, the rest of the days.

The best part is that if anyone asks me what I did today I can just say "I spent the day reading" and it sounds so worthwhile. Take that television, and I guess television-watchers too.

Epic tales of everyday life

I just finished (and loved) this:

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!
by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

I could call it APFOM, if I liked awkward acronyms. And I do, so that's settled. APFOM was excellent. It's 600 pages long, but it reads like it's 200. It's a fictional memoir, told in the style of a series of stories after dinner. It bounces around a little, tells interesting background stories about all the characters and gently packs in an incredibly thick continuity. It's hilarious, touching, tragic, and ordinary. In short, it's the story of a life.

I've started to think about the books I like, the stories I like. I've realized a theme in stories like APFOM, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Skinny Legs and All. I called them "epic adventures of everyday life." I like the idea that every life is as beautiful and worthwhile as those of the much lauded "heroes" that we love to dote on. Even Siddhartha, which is certainly a story of an extraordinary man (the man who would become known as The Buddha), centers on the revalations gained from an uncommon perspective on a fairly common life. As much as I love The Lord of the Rings or Watchmen (and I do), saving the world is pretty obviously important and interesting. It's fun to get swept up in these stories, to daydream about saving the world and having monuments named after you. But it has always left me feeling very ordinary. What would my story be, without an evil ring to unmake or even an arch nemesis to battle! Call me Dude of the Woeful Countenance. But stories like A Prayer for Owen Meany give me comfort. I cried when my grandfather died, and later when my grandmother died, and they never saved the world... at least, not obviously. But if APFOM has told me anything, it confirmed the feeling I've always felt that if you live a good life then you really are saving the world. Loving life is as miraculous as anything the "great stories" have to offer.

I submit my life to you, the ages, for consideration. Today I got up, read a silly pulp comic book, read a blog my friend published, ate some cereal, text messaged a friend, and wrote a blog entry for myself. It's been beautiful so far, don't you see? And it's still the morning!

Life is a mess, and I love it.

Before I knew about Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman

Sometimes you have to remember what meant to be 13 years old. You've got to respect that, that version of you, and the things you did and experienced. Those were formative times. Those things became you, and many are still with you right now in some way. Maybe by looking back you can figure out where you're going next.

I just finished watching The Punisher (the 2004 version with Tom Jane, not the 1989 version with Dolph Lundgren). I don't care if isn't very good. I liked it. First of all, I'm willing to admit that I LOVE sci-fi/fantasy/action movies of any kind. I loved Van Helsing, enough said. But that's not the whole story with The Punisher. We have a past, he and I. I have a personal history with this fictional character. When I was about 11-14 years old I used to read a LOT of comic books, and the three titles devoted to The Punisher were my favorites. I didn't just read those stories, I absorbed them. Every part of my life was pervaded by what I read and saw in those comics. For example:

• I have a huge poster of the Punisher on the wall of my bedroom. (A color version of this with the logo.) When I moved back in with my folks I changed a lot of things about the room, but not that.


• I have three big boxes of comic books from my old days. One of the boxes is entirely filled with Punisher comics.


• My first email address was PunisherJM@aol.com. Occasionally family members or super-old friends will still ask me if that's my email address.


• The girl I was dating in 8th grade wrote lots of notes to her friends and me. She liked to use little symbols instead of names in case, I suppose, the message was intercepted. I chose the Punisher symbol. I had my girlfriend write me notes where she referred to me as a skull.


• I wrote a comic book, that I found over a decade later, that was dedicated to the Punisher. Though it was not about the Punisher at all, it had Punisher quotes on the back cover.


• I think I learned more about patriotism, respect for the flag, and knife/gun safety, from the Punisher comics than I did from being in Cub Scouts for three years. That thing sucked.

I've recently been going back and re-reading those old comics, Punisher and all the rest. Some of it blows me away with how genuinely funny, emotional, profound, or in any other way mature it is as fiction, as art. Right next to that is the worst pulp I could imagine, way worse than I remembered (and I remembered laughing at it then). The stories don't make sense, the dialogue is shameful, and even the art is pitiful. Where did they find these guys? I mean, any freshman art student can draw a face, any semi-cogent reader should be able to make two consecutive panels depict a sensible punch to the face. Most of it is in the middle: just fun reading, nothing special, nothing bad.

But those good ones, they're worth all the bad/mediocre ones and more. Those special comics are magic. Even today they can connect everything I appreciate about art as an adult with everything I loved about art as a kid. It's not nostalgia, it's real again.

This one is for the sleepovers when we'd stay up until all hours playing Street Fighter II: Turbo, watching the precursors to modern-day sci-fi/fantasy/action movies, and carrying on. This one is for the kid who watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie so many times that he really felt confident if he ever had to get in a fight. This one is for the version of me that wondered if I would/should grow up to be a badass vigilante.

It was more than escapist fiction, it was a stone-cold reality to that 12 year old, and without it I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today.

Peace, Frank.