dimland radio 8-24-19 show notes

A Dimland Radio ARGH! Revisited

It's this "Maron Open" thing. After last week's show I decided to write about the Maron Open and Jack Paar for my blog Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone. In doing my research I found that it might just be that the hosts of The Greatest Generation podcast are the only ones who use the phrase. If so, then it's one of the quirks of the show and not some widespread scourge of the internet meant to drive pedants, such as myself, into flustered tizzies.

 

But, I have a friend who thinks he has had the phrase elsewhere on the internets. So I guess we shall see.

 

And I wrote about late night TV talk show pioneer Jack Paar. He's an interesting character who had once walked off his show over the cutting of a joke about a water closet.

 

You can read my blog here.

 

Vet Those Memes Before Sharing

 

Occupy Democrats never lets facts get in the way of their agenda.

On the Facebook recently was a discussion about a certain meme. Which meme it was is not important (since I can't remember it), but it was being used to demonstrated how memes can misinform. A Facebook friend brought up a skeptic sharing a Betty White meme that a quick Google search could show was a lie.

 

It was one of those quotes with a person's, in this case Betty White, picture thing that leads people to think the person said that quote. Remember, it was Abraham Lincoln who warned us not to believe such memes on the internets. Such a wise man.

 

I had seen that particular Betty White meme on my Facebook feed, so I decided to do a vetting Google search. And seconds later I discovered Betty didn't say that.

 

The quote came from a Betty White parody Twitter account.

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: I'm Probably OK PSA

There's a radio PSA (public service announcement) called "The Probablys" meant to inform about and discourage buzzed driver. Buzzed driving is drunk driving, because a little bit of alcohol can still impair your ability to drive.

 

The PSA uses examples of situations in which a person thinks they are probably OK to do some activity. One probably is going swimming without having first waiting 30 minutes after eating. That notion is sort of a myth. It really isn't a big deal. Cramping may be possible, but it's not really a big deal.

 

But that's not the pedantic moment. Nope. What I was pedantic about was a buzzed driver saying they were probably OK to drive. No, no, no. In my experience that is never something someone who is a little on the tipsy side would say when they were asked whether or not they should drive. Never.

Photos Can Look Weird

Where is her face?!

The image is a tasteless joke about waterboarding, which my dark sense of humor can appreciate. But looking at the photo had me thinking someone Photoshopped out the little girl's face. I mentioned as much on the Facebook and that led to a discussion about how photographs can just plain look weird. 

 

The more I look at it I can say the face is there. It's just the way her hair is hanging that makes it look so strange.

 

I also talked about how people really can't say I know what I saw, because our brains fill in so many details into what we are seeing. And our brains make mistakes. Look at this photo:

 

 

Looks like a color photograph of a group of young people posing with a turtle or tortoise. Looks like it's a color photograph, but it's black and white. A grid of colored lines have been superimposed making your brain perceive the image as being in color.

 

No, you don't know what you saw.

Movie Recommendation: Roman Holiday (1953)

 

 

This a charming romantic comedy starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn plays a princess who has run away from her overwhelming royal responsibilities. She is discovered by Peck who plays a struggling American journalist scratching out a living in Rome.

 

At first he thinks shes just drunk, but he takes pity on her. Rather than just let her sleep it off in the streets of Rome, he takes her to his place. He's a gentleman! There's no hanky panky, but he does discover who she is without her knowing.

 

She keeps her identity from him and he keeps his knowing her identity from her. He smells a big story in this and they spend the day together enjoying the pleasures of Rome. They fall in love, but can it last.

 

It's very good.

 

I also mentioned two other Audrey Hepburn films worth checking out Sabrina (1954) with Humphrey Bogart and Charade (1963) with Cary Grant.

 

Check 'em all out!

 

 Oh, and watch for the typo in the trailer. 10 points if you find it.

 

This Is Why...

This past week my Facebook feed kept showing me several ads attempting to get people in on the $2 billion judgement against the makers of Roundup weedkiller. It was the decision of juries that the active ingredient glyphosate causes Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of cancer. The science on this is solid. Glyphosate does NOT cause cancer, but juries are not usually filled with scientists. In the case of Roundup, these jury members didn't have the expertise in the relative areas of science and they were swayed by lawyers' arguments, not science.

 

There is hope the judgements will be overturned on appeal.

 

But there they were ad after ad on my Facebook. Some friends helped me figure out how to stop them for showing up on my feed. I began reporting each ad to Facebook as being offensive. And they truly are offensive.

 

That got me thinking about why skepticism is so important. We are surrounded by so much bullshit that it can get discouraging, but skeptics need to keep working. We need to keep being the voice of reason to at least stem the tide. It's a Sisyphean task to be sure, but, god damn it, we have to.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Natural's Not In It' by Gang Of Four & 'Tabazan' by Killing Joke

Second ad break bumpers: 'Rough Boys' by Pete Townshend & 'Ahead' by Wire

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 4-16-16 show notes

Some Customers Are Just A Bit Too Demanding Too Soon

I told the story of a recent customer for whom we only cleaned once and they were already making demands. They didn't think one cleaning person was enough. They wanted our cleaner to use a back pack vacuum cleaner to do the full vacuuming. That's not what they are made for. It would take forever. They were worried we'd be using the same mop in the restrooms and in their suites. We wouldn't be, but what difference would it make?

 

It became clear we wouldn't be able to meet their expectations, so we dropped them. When I returned the keys, the assistant to the boss making all the demands apologized to us about the whole thing. She seemed weary from having to deal with this issue and told me this problem went back to the building they had been in before.

 

We hate to turn away business, but I think my boss made the right decision.

Another Fallacious Meme

Take a look at this graphic I spotted on Facebook...

 

 

This immediately set off my "Really?!" response. Do the fine folks at Occupy Democrats think there are companies in America that require a college degree and six years experience and only pay $7.25 an hour?

 

Perhaps, as it has been suggested to me, I am too literal-minded on this one. Maybe Occupy Democrats were trying to be extreme to make a point. Maybe, but they commented, "Too true!" in their original posting of the image.

 

I am concerned that other literal-minded but less skeptical folks will think there are fat cat business owners in our country who are doing just what the graphic states. They aren't. They might want to, but they aren't.

Five Years Of Not Finding Bigfoot

An article on io9 asked a couple of the (not) Finding Bigfoot fellows why, after five years (!), have they not produced any good video footage of a bigfoot. They, of course, had their reasons: There are only 10,000 or so. They live in vast areas that are very remote. They are intelligent and avoid cameras.

 

Well, maybe. But maybe they just ain't there. Maybe these guys are just chasing phantoms (and ratings).

 

This led me to wondering about all the wonderful photographs of rare and/or endangered animals in the world. Their numbers are small and they live in remote areas, some vast. Obviously, they aren't smart enough to avoid having their pictures taken:

 

The tiger.

The giant panda.

The mountain gorilla.

The wolverine.

The blue whale.

Nice pictures of these animals. Yet, still no pictures of bigfoot. Well, no good ones. Plenty of fuzzy photographs and shaky videos exist.

Homeopathy Is Still Silly And Still Doesn't Work

And it's still a waste of your money. I found out about two more homeopathic "remedies" that are quite baffling: One relieves symptoms of EMF sensitivity, but what is the active ingredient? The other is a sleep "remedy" derived from owls. I'm not making this up, but someone is and they are making money off of, at best, the placebo effect.

 

Straight up! Homeopathy has no active ingredients in it. It's just water. There is no mechanism by which it could work. Stop wasting your money.

A Couple Wins For Skepticism

Travis of the Minnesota Skeptics group told me about two cases in which skepticism managed to win the day. One involved a 9-11 Truther attending several MN Skeptic meet-ups and having discussions with the skeptics about how the standard model explanation of that day is supported by all of the evidence. They were gentle and respectful in their making the case with this fellow. He looked into it a little deeper and examined the evidence. Eventually, he came around to seeing how the Truthers were seeing conspiracies everywhere and they were wrong. A win! However, he never attended another meet-up after he said he was convinced by the skeptics.

 

And, more personally, Travis told me about how he convinced a friend from high school that Ouija boards are bullshit. They have no abilities to connect with the other side (if there is one). They are not portals through which demons can enter our realm.

 

He wasn't having much luck, until he hit on an argument that worked right into her professional expertise. She was a lawyer working in patent law. Travis asked her if she really thought that Parker Brothers (owners of the Ouija board trademark) would be so willing to open themselves up to lawsuits, if they actually believed their product (a poster adhered to a piece of cardboard) could summon demons.

 

The light turned on and she was convinced.

 

10 points, Travis!

 

Pertussis On The Adam Carolla Podcast?

I'm not a doctor. Really. I'm not. But I heard something on a recent Adam Carolla podcast that made me recoil in horror. No, it wasn't hearing Adam go on (goon?) again about how he thinks the classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are is terrible. (Although that does tick me off. I talked about it at length on show 232 from 6/20/15.)

 

What I heard was in the background of a call into the show. A young father called to take part in a comedy segment, while in the background we could hear a young child hacking up a lung. It was not the typical kid's cough. This sounded to me like the cough people get when they have pertussis (whooping cough).

 

No one, not the father on the phone or anyone on the show, Adam included, took any noticed of that cough. I sure hope that child is getting the proper care, if he in fact has pertussis.

 

That made me wonder if that father was anti-vax. It is possible the child was too young to be vaccinated. That made me wonder about the herd immunity of the community in which that child lives.

 

Vaccinate, people!

 

Here's an open letter from a pair of Australian parents who thought they were doing everything right, but because of the extremely low vaccination rate where they live their new-born daughter contracted pertussis and died.

 

Movie Recommendation (TV Movie Edition): Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004)

A&E Televison/Sony Pictures Television

You'll have to send away for it on Netflix, but it is worth it.

 

This World War II drama doesn't feature any battles other than political ones. It follows General Eisenhower from convincing Winston Churchill that he should be the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe to the day of the invasion of the continent of Europe in June, 1944.

 

It stars Tom Selleck as Ike in a wonderfully understated performance. Ike was not a demonstrable guy. He was calm and cool headed and Selleck plays him brilliantly. This is a fascinating film with fine performances throughout.

 

Put it in your queue.

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Message of Love' By Pretenders & 'Rock'n'Roll High School' by Ramones

Second ad break bumpers:  'Tony's Theme' by Pixies & 'It's Obvious' by Au Pairs

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
 
You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.