Profound

I just realized something.

Goodbyes are intrinsically designed to be an exponential (or maybe logarithmic?). It starts from a sentence length fitting to the warmth of the relationship, and then each statement is cut shorter and shorter until you reach the a-tom, the uncuttable unit, and then it the goodbye collapses to zero.

Allow me to demonstrate with a short scene:

Warm friend A: "Oh, gosh, look at the time? I really ought to be heading in the direction of work -- I've been late lately, so I should get going."

Warm friend B: "Oh yeah, it is late, isn't it. I hope you make it to work on time."

Warm friend A: "I hope so too. Good luck with your presentation tomorrow!"

Warm friend B: "Thanks! I'll see you soon!"

Warm friend A: "Okay, then -- bye!"

Warm friend B: "Bye!"

Conversation is now concluded.

If you don't observe this decay, it feels a little abrupt. Observe:

Warm friend A: "Oh, gosh, look at the time? I really ought to be heading in the direction of work -- I've been late lately, so I should get going."

Warm friend B: "Bye."

Conversation is now concluded.

I know some people who exploit this to make it impossible to get off the phone with them -- because if at any moment you reverse the decay, you are basically starting the goodbye over again.

My God I've cracked the code!

Pithy Thought of the Day

A thought experiment: suppose you showed up to a club to dance on a Friday night, and you had a DJ who had absolutely no idea about what music is popular at dance clubs these days -- for instance, if I was DJing. This DJ might decide that the safest way to keep his audience happy is to open up the Billboard Top #40 and just play them in reverse order, from lowest to highest. This way, he figures, by the time the playlist finishes, he's basically pleased everybody, because he's playing the most popular music, so statistically speaking, he's safe.

Will the people at the club be happy?

Hip-Hop and Appropriation

Copyright and its many forms have always interested me. Today I started my hip-hop class for this quarter in my theater training, and our teacher (one of the Electric Boogaloos) had this to say about appropriation:

"Listen, I don't mind if you get inspired by something cool you seen somewhere else, but if you take it, you gotta make it yours."

That's what you should think in your head when someone uses the phrase "transformative use."

Thin Thoughts: Kerfufle

Things you learn when you research: I just turned on Google Webmaster tools, so I can see how many people are following me (16 RSS feed subscribers and 4 Google followers, and I love each and every one of you).

Fun fact: If you Google the word "Kerfufle" (the mispelling of the word "Kerfuffle"), my opinions on the "Health-Care Kerfufle" come up at position #2. I was thinking of fixing that typo, and then I realized I'd lose all that valuable traffic...

Also, the easiest way to find my blog is to google Kalpen Modi. I guess that's why the Big Hollywood crowd found this blog.

Which reminds me: today I've committed to myself to write that blog post I hinted about earlier, about the origin of the grassroots and whether governments/campaigns can interact with them without rendering them as astro-turf.