Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 183
June 9, 2011
Non-Fiction Fail
I've been listening to audio books a lot lately, especially non-fiction. I look at it as a way to expand my horizon, learn new things, and keep myself entertained at work. Recently, I listened to a book that was highly rated, both at Audible and the other online bookstores. The topic sounded interesting, the narrator did a great job in the sample I listened to, so I bought the book.
I made it about halfway through, but barely. I sent out a lot of tweets while I listened to the first half, complaining about this book.
My problem with it was pretty big. Non-fiction should, you know, have facts to support the authors' theory. They didn't. Their idea of "support" was shooting holes in other academics' theories. Maybe they thought by disproving pieces of these other ideas, it proved their own position, but that's not correct. The logic class I had taught that just because A does not equal B, does not automatically mean it equals C. If that makes sense.
Let's say someone claims Susie went to the store with John. Now I say, no, Susie went to the store with Mary. John was playing baseball with Joe at that time. Just because John was playing baseball with Joe and couldn't have gone to the store with Susie does not prove that Susie went to the store with Mary!
Yet this was the type of argument these authors made repeatedly to support their own controversial theory. Sorry, but no. It doesn't work that way.
Their other proof was completely anecdotal, also unacceptable for science. It didn't help that their anecdotes were either removed from the time period they were looking at by thousands of years, but frequently it revolved around species that are related to humans, like the benobo and chimpanzee, but they're not human! It's like comparing apples and oranges! Just because one species of animal does it, doesn't prove that a related species exhibits that same behavior. Yet these authors were willing to discount every similarity to chimps because it didn't fit their theory and yet accept everything about the bonobo because those facts did.
Excuse me?
I was totally open to this theory going in. I thought it would be fascinating to hear the supporting evidence for their idea, but through half the book, absolutely nothing that would stand up to academic rigor was used.
What floored me most, though, were the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds!) of five-star reviews with very few low ratings. Did no one who read or listened to this book notice there was a huge dearth of substantive information presented? Did the authors' editor not notice the complete lack of facts?
I found it very discouraging that a non-fiction book was so lax.
I made it about halfway through, but barely. I sent out a lot of tweets while I listened to the first half, complaining about this book.
My problem with it was pretty big. Non-fiction should, you know, have facts to support the authors' theory. They didn't. Their idea of "support" was shooting holes in other academics' theories. Maybe they thought by disproving pieces of these other ideas, it proved their own position, but that's not correct. The logic class I had taught that just because A does not equal B, does not automatically mean it equals C. If that makes sense.
Let's say someone claims Susie went to the store with John. Now I say, no, Susie went to the store with Mary. John was playing baseball with Joe at that time. Just because John was playing baseball with Joe and couldn't have gone to the store with Susie does not prove that Susie went to the store with Mary!
Yet this was the type of argument these authors made repeatedly to support their own controversial theory. Sorry, but no. It doesn't work that way.
Their other proof was completely anecdotal, also unacceptable for science. It didn't help that their anecdotes were either removed from the time period they were looking at by thousands of years, but frequently it revolved around species that are related to humans, like the benobo and chimpanzee, but they're not human! It's like comparing apples and oranges! Just because one species of animal does it, doesn't prove that a related species exhibits that same behavior. Yet these authors were willing to discount every similarity to chimps because it didn't fit their theory and yet accept everything about the bonobo because those facts did.
Excuse me?
I was totally open to this theory going in. I thought it would be fascinating to hear the supporting evidence for their idea, but through half the book, absolutely nothing that would stand up to academic rigor was used.
What floored me most, though, were the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds!) of five-star reviews with very few low ratings. Did no one who read or listened to this book notice there was a huge dearth of substantive information presented? Did the authors' editor not notice the complete lack of facts?
I found it very discouraging that a non-fiction book was so lax.
June 7, 2011
Sometimes the Weird Is In My Head
Sometimes the weird stuff just happens. This one came from a conversation at work. Sort of. :-)
I was talking to one of the guys last week about how I'd only had one hour of sleep and complaining about how I always start the week sleep deprived because I can't sleep on Sunday nights. He suggested melatonin. Hmm, I thought. It might be worth a try.
So Sunday night, I took a melatonin, went to bed, and fell right to sleep. I was only a little groggy on Monday morning. Here's the weirdness part of the whole thing.
I get up and as I'm walking out of my bedroom, I think, I know Google Images will have pictures of the inside of a NASCAR race car. I'll have the information in no time. And then I had a few sips of coffee (still groggy from the melatonin) and thought, What story am I writing that I need a picture of the inside of a race car?
The answer was I'm not writing that story. I have no idea what I was dreaming last night, but apparently it involved me working on a NASCAR story. This isn't going to happen.
Not to offend any racing fans, but I find auto racing to be almost as boring as golf. Driving around in an oval? Um, okay. If I ever wrote a sports story, it would involve baseball, something I enjoy and know a lot about. But I would like to know what my dream was.
I was talking to one of the guys last week about how I'd only had one hour of sleep and complaining about how I always start the week sleep deprived because I can't sleep on Sunday nights. He suggested melatonin. Hmm, I thought. It might be worth a try.
So Sunday night, I took a melatonin, went to bed, and fell right to sleep. I was only a little groggy on Monday morning. Here's the weirdness part of the whole thing.
I get up and as I'm walking out of my bedroom, I think, I know Google Images will have pictures of the inside of a NASCAR race car. I'll have the information in no time. And then I had a few sips of coffee (still groggy from the melatonin) and thought, What story am I writing that I need a picture of the inside of a race car?
The answer was I'm not writing that story. I have no idea what I was dreaming last night, but apparently it involved me working on a NASCAR story. This isn't going to happen.
Not to offend any racing fans, but I find auto racing to be almost as boring as golf. Driving around in an oval? Um, okay. If I ever wrote a sports story, it would involve baseball, something I enjoy and know a lot about. But I would like to know what my dream was.
June 6, 2011
June 5, 2011
Birdbrained 2: TSTL
My trials with the robin who keeps attacking his reflection on my patio doors continues. To summarize, about 3 weeks ago or so, a robin who claims my yard as his territory, saw his reflection and attacked my windows, thinking he was defending against an interloper.
I did some research online to find out what was going on because I had no idea what this bird was doing. I've been in my house 5 years, and while it happened last year, after one incident that bird stopped. This year's robin is apparently not as smart as last year's. He doesn't give up and won't stop.
Online sources said if you can keep the bird away for a few days, he'll get busy with other stuff and forget the supposed territory invasion.
This sounded good. My drapes have a white backing and when they're closed, he doesn't see his reflection. After four days, I reopened my drapes--and he was back. :-/ I tried again. He just wouldn't stay away.
My mom has a reflective owl and I put it out on a shepherd's hook on my deck. This attracted attention from other, smarter birds like a blue jay and a crow. They both cruised by to check it out. :-) It seemed to work with idiot robin, too. At least I had no strikes, but it stormed overnight and it blew away. I found it, but haven't put it back up because it's been so windy and next time I might lose it for good. My mom wouldn't like that.
And the robin started attacking the window again.
Another suggestion I read online said that hawk decals will deter the strikes. At this point, it was worth a shot, so I spent $15 for the decal, put it up, and opened my drapes.
No strikes that evening. I began to feel cautiously optimistic.
The next morning, as I was putting my shoes on to go to work, I heard the bird attack the window again. He will not give up. He will not smarten up and realize it's his own reflection. Really, does this idiot robin attack his reflection when he sees it in a puddle? It's not as if the concept should be foreign to him.
The hawk decal might not have stopped the attacks, but it did do one thing--it changed the robin's strategy. Instead of striking the glass repeatedly, he now attacks twice (looking like a total spaz while he does it) and then takes off. Then I'll have some peace before he comes back to do another two strikes.
For weeks I've been worrying about this robin hurting itself, but I'm done with that. Not to sound heartless, but I've done everything suggested by the experts short of taping cardboard over my window to discourage him. If he kills himself hitting the window, well, survival of the fittest. This way we get some stupid out of the robin gene pool.
I did some research online to find out what was going on because I had no idea what this bird was doing. I've been in my house 5 years, and while it happened last year, after one incident that bird stopped. This year's robin is apparently not as smart as last year's. He doesn't give up and won't stop.
Online sources said if you can keep the bird away for a few days, he'll get busy with other stuff and forget the supposed territory invasion.
This sounded good. My drapes have a white backing and when they're closed, he doesn't see his reflection. After four days, I reopened my drapes--and he was back. :-/ I tried again. He just wouldn't stay away.
My mom has a reflective owl and I put it out on a shepherd's hook on my deck. This attracted attention from other, smarter birds like a blue jay and a crow. They both cruised by to check it out. :-) It seemed to work with idiot robin, too. At least I had no strikes, but it stormed overnight and it blew away. I found it, but haven't put it back up because it's been so windy and next time I might lose it for good. My mom wouldn't like that.
And the robin started attacking the window again.
Another suggestion I read online said that hawk decals will deter the strikes. At this point, it was worth a shot, so I spent $15 for the decal, put it up, and opened my drapes.
No strikes that evening. I began to feel cautiously optimistic.
The next morning, as I was putting my shoes on to go to work, I heard the bird attack the window again. He will not give up. He will not smarten up and realize it's his own reflection. Really, does this idiot robin attack his reflection when he sees it in a puddle? It's not as if the concept should be foreign to him.
The hawk decal might not have stopped the attacks, but it did do one thing--it changed the robin's strategy. Instead of striking the glass repeatedly, he now attacks twice (looking like a total spaz while he does it) and then takes off. Then I'll have some peace before he comes back to do another two strikes.
For weeks I've been worrying about this robin hurting itself, but I'm done with that. Not to sound heartless, but I've done everything suggested by the experts short of taping cardboard over my window to discourage him. If he kills himself hitting the window, well, survival of the fittest. This way we get some stupid out of the robin gene pool.
June 4, 2011
June 2, 2011
The Post Where I Ask For Opinions
In the Darkest Night is a finalist for Best Paranormal the Daphne du Maurier Award! I received the call Tuesday evening and it made an otherwise long day suddenly turn awesome. :-) If you haven't read this book yet, you can check it out on my website. There's an excerpt and links to buy.
I'm not sure I ever blogged about this, but I upgraded my phone about a year ago. Since I don't use it often, the old, out of date one was fine for me for a very long time. This new phone takes pictures, but all my attempts to email them failed miserably and this is the only way to get the images off. But then a couple of weeks ago, when I renewed my activation, the email function suddenly began to work.
This was very exciting for me! Even better, I could email them to Twitpic and post to Twitter.
But alas, almost as soon as I got this new functionality, Twitpic changed their terms of service. Not only did they take the right to sell users pictures without their permission and without any financial compensation, they also made a deal with some company who wanted to buy the images!
Now the odds of this company wanting my pictures were slim, but who knows what would happen in the future and I found the rights grab offensive in the extreme. I deleted all my pictures and deleted my account.
I moved to yfrog. I set everything up and tried to email a picture through their service. I got a white box where the image should be. I tried a second time on a different day from a different location. More fail. Someone suggested Moby Picture to me and I signed up over there next. This time my test picture worked!
Then I discovered Moby Picture will post to more than Twitter.
This is my long way of saying that I now have it set so that images I email off my phone will post on the blog. Which means you'll be subjected to random pictures at various times. My question to you is do you want me to post images here?
If you feel strongly one way or another, please post a comment or email me through my contact form and let me know your opinion. If enough people don't like this, I'll delete the blog and only post to Twitter and Facebook.
I'm not sure I ever blogged about this, but I upgraded my phone about a year ago. Since I don't use it often, the old, out of date one was fine for me for a very long time. This new phone takes pictures, but all my attempts to email them failed miserably and this is the only way to get the images off. But then a couple of weeks ago, when I renewed my activation, the email function suddenly began to work.
This was very exciting for me! Even better, I could email them to Twitpic and post to Twitter.
But alas, almost as soon as I got this new functionality, Twitpic changed their terms of service. Not only did they take the right to sell users pictures without their permission and without any financial compensation, they also made a deal with some company who wanted to buy the images!
Now the odds of this company wanting my pictures were slim, but who knows what would happen in the future and I found the rights grab offensive in the extreme. I deleted all my pictures and deleted my account.
I moved to yfrog. I set everything up and tried to email a picture through their service. I got a white box where the image should be. I tried a second time on a different day from a different location. More fail. Someone suggested Moby Picture to me and I signed up over there next. This time my test picture worked!
Then I discovered Moby Picture will post to more than Twitter.
This is my long way of saying that I now have it set so that images I email off my phone will post on the blog. Which means you'll be subjected to random pictures at various times. My question to you is do you want me to post images here?
If you feel strongly one way or another, please post a comment or email me through my contact form and let me know your opinion. If enough people don't like this, I'll delete the blog and only post to Twitter and Facebook.
June 1, 2011
May 31, 2011
Influence
I've talked before about how I've acquired words that my characters like to use. It's not that I didn't sometimes use these words myself, but they weren't my first choice. Now they often are. It's still odd at times to realize I say dude because of Cass or crap because of Cai, but I've largely learned to accept this.
Weirder still is that I pick up my characters' tastes in music. At least when they make a preference known to me.
This one I'm not quite used to yet. I only started paying attention recently, so it's possible that this has happened before without my realizing it. There were times I just had to have music playing when I was writing, but I didn't think about what I was listening to or why.
But then the Tchaikovsky day happened and it was a whoa! moment for me.
I own some classical music, but it's not a genre I listen to all that often, and while I can recognize the more famous songs that were used in movies or TV commercials, I'm not all that well versed in it. Then I started writing Blood Feud and Isobel had Tchaikovsky playing in her car.
It was the following weekend while I was working on another story that I felt compelled to listen to Tchaikovsky myself. I checked iTunes, but I didn't own any. I tried other classical music, thinking it was just a yen for that genre, but no. I wanted Tchaikovsky. It had to be Tchaikovsky. Finally, I surrendered and bought three different albums filled with his music.
I played them over and over. On Sunday, I did some more writing on Blood Feud and saw the Tchaikovsky reference. And the light bulb lit up. Isobel. I was listening to this composer because of Isobel.
Months after she left, I tried Tchaikovsky again when the urge to listen to classical re-emerged. And I had no interest. I ended up switching to a different composer instead.
The other character that I'm aware of influencing my music is Kel from In the Darkest Night. He liked Seether. Now I like Seether. I still play Seether. I've had their music stuck in my head the last couple of weeks. Kel's not around anymore, and hasn't been for a while, so I'm thinking this music is going to stick.
And I'm wondering if this is going to happen again with some other character and what music I'll be playing then.
Weirder still is that I pick up my characters' tastes in music. At least when they make a preference known to me.
This one I'm not quite used to yet. I only started paying attention recently, so it's possible that this has happened before without my realizing it. There were times I just had to have music playing when I was writing, but I didn't think about what I was listening to or why.
But then the Tchaikovsky day happened and it was a whoa! moment for me.
I own some classical music, but it's not a genre I listen to all that often, and while I can recognize the more famous songs that were used in movies or TV commercials, I'm not all that well versed in it. Then I started writing Blood Feud and Isobel had Tchaikovsky playing in her car.
It was the following weekend while I was working on another story that I felt compelled to listen to Tchaikovsky myself. I checked iTunes, but I didn't own any. I tried other classical music, thinking it was just a yen for that genre, but no. I wanted Tchaikovsky. It had to be Tchaikovsky. Finally, I surrendered and bought three different albums filled with his music.
I played them over and over. On Sunday, I did some more writing on Blood Feud and saw the Tchaikovsky reference. And the light bulb lit up. Isobel. I was listening to this composer because of Isobel.
Months after she left, I tried Tchaikovsky again when the urge to listen to classical re-emerged. And I had no interest. I ended up switching to a different composer instead.
The other character that I'm aware of influencing my music is Kel from In the Darkest Night. He liked Seether. Now I like Seether. I still play Seether. I've had their music stuck in my head the last couple of weeks. Kel's not around anymore, and hasn't been for a while, so I'm thinking this music is going to stick.
And I'm wondering if this is going to happen again with some other character and what music I'll be playing then.
