Pro-sess-es

Next time your professor pronounces it “Pro-suh-seez”, refer him or her to this.

USAGE NOTE In recent years there has been a tendency to pronounce the plural ending –es of processes as (-ēz), perhaps by analogy with words of Greek origin such as analysis and neurosis. But process is not of Greek origin, and there is no etymological justification for this pronunciation of its plural. However, because this pronunciation is not uncommon even in educated speech, it is generally considered an acceptable variant, although it still strikes some listeners as a bungled affectation. In a recent survey 79 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the standard pronunciation (-ĭz) for the plural ending –es and 15 percent preferred the pronunciation (-ēz). • Although the pronunciation for process with a long (o), (prō’sĕs’), is more usual in British English, it is an acceptable variant in American English.

Yes, that’s right, pronouncing it “pro-suh-seez” instead of “pro-sess-es” is LESS educated. If you do that, you don’t know the word is not of Greek origin. So, professors, stop trying to sound so educated by mispronouncing a common word! Nobody’s impressed.

Who is this lady on everyone's coins?

So... I have a little coffee can full of coins from every corner of the Earth (truly a feat because the Earth is indeed spherical), and I've noticed an alarming trend.

Tell me what you think coins from these countries/territories might have in common:

Fiji
Canada
East Caribbean States
Australia
Hong Kong (Pre-China return)

Off-topic

You're doomed.

Having lived with my girlfriend-at-the-time for two and a half years, I came to take some of her possessions for granted. Then, one inappropriately bright and shining summer day, all of that stuff left my home and traveled to her new one, far away. Most of those possessions I was actually happier without, because most of it was stuff for which I had no use and for which we had no space to actually store. One among those things, though, was sorely missed after it was gone: The vacuum cleaner.

It wasn't a particularly good vacuum cleaner, no. It barely picked up visible bits of dirt on the floor, cleaning its supposedly-convenient "bagless" dirt canister was an ordeal akin to smoking seven cigars full of allergens at once, it was an ugly shade of purple, and it once killed Clunkline and every other electronic device in my living room because its obscene power consumption tripped a breaker. Despite all this, though, living for months with unswept carpets is pretty damn disgusting.

But that I did, spending months wading through a sea of dust, leftover cat litter, bits of fuzz, fecal matter, rotten fish carcasses, and the occasional drifter, all festering happily, knowing that they could not be picked up by any carpet-cleaning device so long as I lacked one.

This was remedied, however, on my birthday, when I received the most lethal, fearsome, daunting, shit-your-pants-insane doom engine to ever bear the name "Hoover".

This is the face of the vacuum cleaner that will bring about the end of days.

The Hoover Windtunnel Bagged Upright is about four feet of blue apocalypse. When you remove it from the box, the O Fortuna bit of the Carmina Burana starts playing.

I let the thing sit for a couple of days, because there were either people sleeping in my house or I just didn't have time to use it. However, today I decided to carry it upstairs, plugged it in, and let loose the four horsemen.

I plugged in the beast, walked over to it, and flipped the switch, conveniently located on the handle. The first thing this weapon of mass suction did was attempt to jerk me to the ground by taking off like a drag racer just letting off its trans-brake. I'm pretty sure that purely through the power of its own brush, this machine could pull you along at a good 3-5mph if you wore a pair of rollerblades. And you'd leave a path of cleanliness behind!

The noise it made was more akin to something made by Pratt and Whitney than Hoover... It sounded like the engines of a 747 in the throes of takeoff throttle. This served to further convince me that my vacuum cleaner's power wasn't measured in terms of suction, but in pounds of thrust of its exhaust.

The most exciting feature of this death machine, however, was the "dirt detector" feature. Using it on dirty carpet (which never lasts long), the red light will shine. However, as the carpet becomes clean, it gives way to a little green light. This makes vacuum cleaning endlessly more fun. It's sort of like a game, whereby you have to make sure that little light doesn't turn red anywhere in the room in question. I'd like to try using it on homeless people.

Now, I've run out of time. You can imagine your own conclusion to this article.

Organic as our thumbs

Text messaging has, since its birth as a means of communication not all that long ago, been the center of so much controversy, so much elderly cane-wagging and youthful insolence, that it is a wonder we even have time to text given the amount of time we spend arguing about it. People lament its effects on the capacity of people to communicate emotionally. People lament the terrible degeneration of humanity's capacities to make face-to-face contact. People lament T9's removal of a need to know how to spell something correctly. People lament that folks spend so much time staring at a little 1.5"×2" screen instead of the world around them.

And they have a point, to the extent that the people lamenting every other unproductive distraction's effects on society have a point. It's just a point that's about as likely to be supported by society as a presidential bid by Carrot Top. Because really, as much as the elderly think that texting is the newest means through which society will decay into nothingness, texting is harmless.

Normal people still meet with each other in person. Normal people still experience emotions. Normal people still can appreciate a warm summer breeze or the gentle rumble of a purring cat on the shoulder. So for normal people, texting is just another means of communication.

And why is the text-hater's rallying cry always something to do with just making a phone call like God intended? Alexander Graham Bell is turning over in his grave as you trivialize his invention. Nothing about the phone call is natural. You are talking to a box, and the box talks back to you and you're pretty sure the box is saying what your friend would be saying if your friend were in the room with you having the same conversation. Texting is the same. Sure, we could debate the amount of emotion expressed by vocal tone and so on, but even then there is a vast array of emoticons at the disposal of anyone who might want to express any emotion.

Making these comparisons is missing the point anyway. Texting is held by normal people as a supplemental means of communication, not a means to supplant communication. Why do we embrace these stories of the wacko who would only text his girlfriend? Because they're bizarre to us. If normal people acted that way, we wouldn't think the story so strange, and maybe then we should take a retrospective if it's so harmful.

So leave my texting alone! Much unlike a rude phone call in a crowded room, at least it's not bugging anyone.

Luddite or Technophile?

And is there a reason to draw such a stark distinction between the two? Of course not. But everyone likes a nice succinct title.

I was talking to a Chinese friend today, and she showed me a video about the absolutely incredible amount of change communications technology has made in our world. It presents some boxer-staining statistics about media technology. 2,000,000 of the televisions in the US are in bathrooms? I don't even watch the one in my living room! More video has been uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, NBC, and CBS had been airing new content constantly since 1948. Of course, have you seen most of the stuff on YouTube? I don't know how many self-involved 14-year-olds I can watch talk about copyright law to their webcam before I do something I like better, like sticking myself with used needles. Still, the point is, the media through which we consume entertainment have been altered in ways that we still don't fully understand in the period of only a few short years. Did YouTube even exist when I started college? Yes, but only barely. Its creation beat my entry into academia by six months. Now it happily wastes the time of millions worldwide on a daily basis.

The thing that perplexed me (that is until it was explained) was that she was stressed out by this info. I couldn't understand why! The world is becoming an increasingly complex and increasingly amazing place, and this evidence of that is just even more encouraging. If things continue to develop at these exponentially increasing rates, the future could hold things that we could never even imagine now, but will find novel and then mundane within only the period of a few years. Our simple capacity to get bored with a new and incredible innovation as frequently as we do speaks untold volumes about the standards we've set for ourselves, and we outdo these standards on a regular basis. I couldn't imagine what I've got available to me now from my vantage point six years ago. What will 2015 be like?

My friend, however, isn't so convinced. Which is weird, considering she's from the fastest growing country in the world, where a tiny fishing village across the river from an old town over the process of 18 years turned into this:

The eastern half of Shanghai. Not one of these buildings is more than 18 years old.
And that means extending to the horizon.

She feels that it's too much, too fast. The world is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with. And I can see that, I suppose. There are still plenty of people among us who have no idea how to even use a computer, or a cellphone. What would it be like to become one of those people someday? It's alarming, sure. Why not just give up now, buy a Buick and go to the Meadows every weekday to fart on a stool and burn your government-given income? After all, we're all destined to become that elderly person so hopeless in an ever-changing world that people just excuse her by saying "It's okay, she's old. She doesn't get it." And wouldn't it make sense that as technology advances faster, the age at which technology comprehension stops gets lower?

But I honestly don't think that will happen. The fact of the matter is, anything that is so advanced that nobody will be able to figure it out is also something that will not sell. Nobody's going to put a product on the market that people won't be able to figure out. Except maybe Skymall. So I think we're actually pretty decently protected by our own stupidity in that regard. And if YouTube's any indicator, that protective layer is getting thicker and thicker every day. Hey, anyone who's ever taken Glenn Beck seriously is just another indicator of that. He got you to call yourselves "Teabaggers." Do you know what that means?

That's not what we're here to talk about, though. Tell me, internet, does this progress give you pause or give you excitement?

The Creative Process

Sit down on the edge of the legendary floor-mattress that is my bed.

Cross-legged.

Legs on the mattress or hanging off onto the floor?

Maybe I should lay down.

How does Facebook look since 5 minutes ago? The same.

Did I get any e-mail? Nope.

What did I want to do anyway?

Facebook? Still boring.

My arm is falling asleep and my back hurts. Laying down sucks. Maybe it's better on the other side.

Oh, yeah, it's Tuesday, so I need to churn out an entry or three for that blogging class. I really should be doing that every day.

Ooh! I have comments!

Ooh, none of them are from anyone in my actual group, just from friends!

In fact, out of my group, umm, nobody has posted.

No wonder it's so hard to do this every day.

Ok, to business. What the hell was I going to write about?

No idea. Roommate says write about the local elections. I don't even know anything about them. I guess that makes me part of the problem.

Maybe I need music. What am I in the mood for? Rather, for what am I in the mood?

Who made that preposition rule anyway?

Ugh, why is that still in my library?

Okay, nothing too distracting, don't want to disturb my waves of inspiration.

Right. Inspiration.

...

Maybe I need some tea.

::Kitchen intermission::

Okay. Have tea, have music, I have given myself the perfect environment for writing inspiration.

And still have no idea.

Facebook is still boring. I couldn't possibly care less what my friend's dad is doing in Vampire Wars.

Ooh, did my phone vibrate?

Nope.

Focus. What should I write about?

Maybe I need different music.

No, this is fine... You're not focusing on the matter at hand.

I rarely do, and I like it that way, thank you.

Why don't I just write about this process?

Brilliant.

I think I need more tea first.