My You-Plural

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Incidentally, I'm starting to come around on the various plurals of "you." Incorrect though they may be, they do add efficiency. I actually prefer "yous" to "y'all," but for some reason it sounds a little awkward to end a sentence with it (though even if one were wishing a singular person a happy holiday, one wouldn't put "you" after a direct address comma to conclude the benediction).

So here's what I propose (and I know it's complicated, but so is the rest of our language):

1) When ending a sentence addressed to a group, a folksy Southern "y'all" is correct.
e.g.) "Happy Thanksgiving, y'all"
2) In the middle of the sentence, a hearty Northeastern "yous" is correct.
e.g.) "What do yous want?"
3) When beginning a sentence, "y'all" is correct, unless addressing a named group of people, in which case "yous" becomes the modifier.
e.g.) "Y'all come back now!" and "Y'all want some lemonade?" as opposed to "Yous guys are good people" or "Yous congressional leaders need to stop acting like children."

So...what do yous readers think?

Geek Movie Plot Holes

So Wired magazine published a list of the Top 10 Unanswered Questions in Geeky Movies. (HT: Neat-O-Rama)

I thought it was a good read that merited sharing, but not without comment. A few of these plot holes aren't really plot holes at all. Specifically, the Star Wars ones. Maybe some of the others have explanations too, but I don't know enough to offer a rebuttal.

Quoting from the article:
"4. Star Wars: The Death Star’s slow attack - So the Death Star follows the tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to the rebel base. They jump out of light speed, and, for no clear reason, emerge on the far side of the planet Yavin from the moon where the base is. This light-speed jump takes a split-second, but now they have to wait minutes so they can clear the planet. Not only that, but the Death Star is capable of blowing up entire planets, not just moons, so why don’t they just blow up the entire planet of Yavin? Surely that would effectively destroy anything on its moons as well."

Resolution: The Death Star is a giant space station that travels very slowly. Hyperdrives (the faster-than-light) technology operate on completely different principles than the sublight drives. The Death Star followed the Millennium Falcon to the Yavin system, and once it got there, had to use its slow engines to get around the planet (the long lag time makes sense). Why not hyper-jump around the planet? Hyperdrive jumps take a while to calculate, and gravity is a big obstacle that limits where you can go safely. Intra-system jumps were never part of the story--hyperdrives only get you from system to system.

Why not blow up the planet Yavin itself? This one bothered me too, and several answers come to mind. One, it's a gas giant, so blowing up the relatively tiny core might not be a guaranteed kill against the moon, especially if most of the planets mass is actually in the gas or there are other strange principles at work (magnetic ones come to mind, but I won't expand on that here). Why not blow up the planet, THEN blow up the moon if you miss? I'm guessing a giant superlaser like that takes long enough to recharge that it made sense to go for a guaranteed kill after a 20 minute trip than to risk having to wait around for hours (maybe more) for your second shot, giving the Rebels plenty of time to evacuate.

A bigger unanswered question in my mind would be: why didn't the Rebels start evacuating the moon of Yavin IV immediately, just in case 24 one-man fighters didn't manage to destroy a space station that was 235 miles in circumference?

"2. The Empire Strikes Back: Time dilation - Luke and R2D2 leave Hoth to go to Dagobah at the same time Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C3PO leave to go… well, they never really say what their initial destination is. Anyway, on Dagobah, Luke embarks on an intensive Jedi training course with Yoda — it’s never stated, but it’s heavily implied that this takes a long time; and besides, you would think a full course of Jedi training would take at least months, right? (We know it’s a full course, because when Luke comes back in Jedi, Yoda tells him he doesn’t need more training.) So, at the same time that Luke finishes this months-long training and runs off to Cloud City, his friends have clearly just gotten there a short time before. Yet all they did on the way was flee from a Star Destroyer and fly down the gullet of a giant space worm. That must have taken hours, not months. So was the Millennium Falcon flying at close to the speed of light (but not at light speed) for a while and thus experiencing time dilation? Yeah, that’s the ticket."

Resolution: This one's pretty easy: the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive was out. They had to make the trip from Hoth to Bespin at sublight speeds. I think it's more amazing that didn't take YEARS, as planets are typically pretty far apart (and Hoth was in a supposedly remote region). What's amazing here isn't that Luke's training was so short--it's that the OTHER storyline was so chronologically compact (or, conversely, that the training was so long and the Falcon had enough emergency rations so no one died of starvation or dehydration along the way).

My Question

My favorite blog on the internet published an interview today with Tim Harford, the "Undercover Economist." The way Freakonomics interviews work is that readers submit questions, and the interviewee picks a few of his or her favorites to answer. Well, I got a question in this time (the 5th of 8 in the interview). I was excited to see it there, and appreciated the response. I have my own comments, but I thought I'd share it with my readers and see what you guys think first.

Consumer Marketing Question

The more choices a person is faced with, the less likely they are to make a choice at all. People are almost 10 times more likely to buy jam if they have to choose from 6 jams than if they have to choose from 24. For every 10 extra funds in a 401k program, participation goes down 2%. People don't like having too many choices, unless the choices is fun to make and variety adds real value (like choosing sundae toppings, or in nerdy cases, configuring a new computer).

OK, keep that in mind. Now consider marketing tactics: multiple brand names is often a dominant strategy. If there are 6 laundry detergents on the shelf, and people randomly select, Company A has a 17% market share. But by coming out with 4 new brands, all pretty much the same thing, they now have 5/10 instead of 1/6. 50% market share. And that strategy also works with just about everything else in the grocery store.

Now combine these, and you have a real prisoner's dilemma in consumer goods marketing. More brands and choices means a bigger slice of the pie for a company. But more brands and choices also means a smaller overall pie for non-essential products.

How do companies balance out these interests? There's clearly a rational limit on the number of choices you can offer in a grocery store, but that number--and the number of choices many consumers are given--is almost certainly larger than the number that would maximize the size of the pie. And there's another cost--as producer sales and producer surplus rise, consumer surplus also rises, because individuals won't feel incentivized to skip a first choice product for a substitute that's easier to navigate. At the very least, it lowers transaction costs (choosing costs, including effort and time), which is a gain for consumers.

How does this tug of war dynamic play out in marketplaces? Would it even be legal for companies to agree to limit branding diversity, even if it's for everyone's benefit? Is there a simple strategy, like in a prisoner's dilemma problem, that's clearly dominant? Or even a simple strategy that's clearly good?

Star Wars Food

I know a lot of dorky readers who will appreciate these rarely seen Star Wars photos. (Hat Tip: Lilly)

Sadly, I know a lot of people who would probably enjoy this handbag...

I would play this game.

Most Badass TV Character

Calling all Firefly fans! River Tam, a 10-seed in Awesomeopolis's Most Badass TV Character bracket poll, has made it all the way to the finals! After a huge upset by this spunky little badass over a strong 2nd-seeded Jack Bauer, she now faces off in the battle of the brains against Dr. Gregory House. Her opponent uses his brain to fight diseases, and River, well, she can kill you with her brain.

I'm not sure how many Firefly fans I have left reading this blog (I know I used to have a lot more...say hi if you're still out there), but I'd like to endorse River Tam over Dr. House in this match. She has a special place in my heart for a number of reasons (such as this one, this one, a memory or two, and the fact that I nominated her for this contest).

For those of you wondering how these two made it to the finals, Dr. House was supported by a huge community of Hungarian fans of House, MD, and River was catapulted past Jack by a collection of Sci-Fi nerds, Joss Whedon devotees, and lonely guys who think she's cute--all of whom spend way too much time surfing the internet.

My New Blog's Shoutout

So this new blogging project with which I may or may not be involved is running a bracket competition to determine the most badass TV character. This competition, primarily conceived and executed by the most badass roommate I've ever had the pleasure of living with, just got a shoutout in a blog on USA Today (7th from the bottom in the post called "Early buzz: Shins, Krasinski, Wanderlust and more").

I'd also like to endorse the Doctor from Dr. Who as the most badass TV character. As a fourth seed, this Time Lord wiped out two whole species, including his own, to save the entire universe. If that's not stone-cold badass, I don't know what is. Further examples of the Doctor's badassery as the competition continues.

While I'm on my Death Star kick, this awesome jack-o-lantern comes courtesy of Lilly.

Death Star Manual: The Missing Page. Explains a lot. Also, funny.

Just posted on my new blogging project. Though it might appeal to readers here as well. It has graphs!

A new song to learn your state capitals. Any views expressed about Harrisburg Pennsylvania in this video that appear to correspond with my own are purely coincidental.

Happy Pi Day: Part II

Happy Pi Day again, readers! I just had to add one more link to this year's Pi Day Link Library:

CNN.com: American Pi, by Elizabeth Landau (not to be confused with the essay of the same title)

Some of you familiar with boring epic saga that is my life may know the author better as "Pi Girl," who has earned her nickname once again with this pi-inspired version of Don McLean's classic hit.

Thanks, Pi Girl, for brightening our Pi Day and proving that while the news never takes a day off, sometimes the people who write about it can still have fun.

Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day, readers! This year I've assembled an assortment of Pi related links for your viewing pleasure.

An old favorite put on a t-shirt.

I have absolutely no idea what to make of this penguin.

Another t-shirt, this one with a pi joke in a pie chart...lots of bonus points for this one.

Courtesy of Chuck, an item that will help you liven up your next Pi Day Party.

Here's a link to the official Pi Day website (though I really don't know how "official" it can possibly be).

Also...awwww. (The little pi gets a 4-W "aw" for those of you keeping score at home.)

And just to prove I'm not the only one excited, see the woot blog describe the 9 ways in which they'll celebrate Pi Day.

(If it were warmer out, I'd totally wear this shirt that Lilly got for me.)

My February 2009

You know what I really liked about this month? It was a 28-day February that started on a Sunday. That meant all my calendars had lots of space on them, be it my Outlook calendars at work, or the Google calendars I use in my personal life. Four rows of days taking up the same amount of space usually allocated to five and sometimes even six rows. It's going to be quite a few years before this happens again, so I'm trying to appreciate it. A spacious screen-filling calendar where each day stands full one-quarter-height (relative to the whole calendar). No 20% or 1/6th for February 2009 days!

OK, I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but it's still mildly cool, not to mention helpful when it comes to calendar reading.

My Workout

It's rare for my mother to get a shout-out on this blog, but this link comes straight from her @aol.com e-mail address: The Jedi Training Workout. It turns out you can lose weight and get in shape by practicing your lightsaber skills. Apparently I exercised regularly all through high school, and I didn't even know it!

For dorks who like Star Trek and flow charts: the original Star Trek plot-generating flow chart. (I assume this covers most of my readers.)

When I first started this blog, at the request of my friends (who probably still make up a decent portion of the readership), I promised lots of random Futurama references. Since discovering I actually have some things to say and can start an interesting conversation, I've strayed from that. Tonight, as I sit in the Harrisburg Hilton, I'm going back to my roots. This comes by way of Barkeep:

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