Skyline

Well, I just got back from watching the movie "Skyline," all in all it was not a bad movie. However, I'm sure many other people will have a different opinion, It's hard to make a good action movie these days.

The ending seemed really sloppy, first of all. It tried to answer too many questions and ultimately just broke down the logical order in which everything was happening.

Spoiler Alert.

The whole premise of the movie is aliens coming to invade our planet in order to harvest our brains.

This seems like a great springboard for an action movie, however, it would have been nice if the writer had any skill, or at least less of a heart.

The aliens come in and start abducting everybody, all that has to happen is the abductee has to look at one of their spacecraft and they are immediately entranced and simply float up to the spacecraft, where their brain is torn out of their bodies.

The first hour or so of the movie is the people try not to get abducted. There are a few points at which the military attempts, in vane, to interfere. Nuclear weaponry is for some reason their first choice, afterwards they try to simply fill the sky with airplanes.

Yes, it was all very intense, ultimately humanity is crushed. The two last main characters are beamed up to the space craft and the screen fills with white.

This would have been a perfect ending, a simple little greek tragedy, everyone dies. But no. For some reason they are kept alive in the ship while a machine comes around and systematically kills off each one of the people inside, harvesting each individual brain, and transplanting it into another alien.

This is where the movie lost me.

The aliens are only there so that they can kill one of us, and for each one of us they kill, they get one extra alien.

Alright, I suppose I can understand that, it would have made more sense that they were using each brain as food, or even that they were simply killing us all off to steal the Earth's resources. the only reason it occurs this way is to carry on the story to a point it should not have been carried to.

For some strange reason, when the main character's brain is transplanted in to the alien, the brain is able to take over it. He then proceeds to try and save his wife, who has not yet been killed. This seems like a feeble attempt to try and lead the movie in to a sequel, or perhaps provide some hope for the human race. The writer, who ever it was, shouldn't have done this. It would have made more sense had they simply died.

So, if anybody feels like calling it a bad movie, simply because it had a bad ending, don't. As an action drama, the movie was good up to that point. Bad endings do not imply that the movie as a whole was bad, only movies that are bad as a whole are bad as a whole.

My advice to anyone watching is to just walk out of the theater as soon as they float up, don't bother with the last five minutes.

My advise to the director is to embrace greek tragedies, please.

Mondays

(Written for my english class as the first chapter of an imaginary book)

Tyler had decided he didn’t like Mondays. Today was a Monday, and he knew he did not like today. It was absolutely frigid, he had not seen the sun all day, and it looked like it was about to rain.

Along with all the problems he was having with the weather, Tyler had to attend school today, and he was definitely not one of the strange people who woke up every weekday morning excited about going to school. He quite detested the idea of public education. The idea that someone bigger than him was forcing him to go to school with the threat of fines and even incarceration, horrible.

The school day had not treated him so badly, though. There had only been one quiz, and he was fairly sure he had done well on it, regardless of how challenging Geometry had seemed that September. His other classes were fairly uninteresting, the ninth grade, he had decided, would not be fun. At least the days would all be Monday he thought to himself, with a sense of irony.

He was on his way home, shivering a little because he had forgotten his jacket, debating whether or not taking the bus would have been a better choice. At least on the bus there would have been someone to talk with, here he was alone with his iPod. Of course, the iPod was okay he thought as he turned up the volume a bit for his favorite song. Some people were just aggravating. Sadly, many of those people rode his bus; many of those people also lived at his house. Perhaps it would have been better if he had taken the bus, it would take a little longer for him to get home that way. The question here was how much of his time was he willing to give up to satisfy someone else’s desire to talk to him. Walking home got him away from all the idiots he met everyday, got him the privacy that nowhere else could bring him.

Neil was a bit taken aback by how strange this job was. He enjoyed the challenge of it, but at the same time had to question Father’s sanity for wanting such a thing. He would carry it out either way, not that he had much control over the situation as it was; along with him was Keith and Jarred, his “muscle” in case anything didn’t go according to plan. Keith alone was large enough to take down the boy, bringing Jarred along was just overkill, they only needed me to drive the car. The plan itself was quite simple, in, bang, and out, nothing to it; the guy wouldn’t know what hit him. The question was, why would Father want him? Probably just another ransom, but the kid didn’t seem like he had that much money, not based on the file he had read.

Oh well, he would get paid either way. The mission could turn in to a complete disaster and he would still get 50% of what he was entitled to should the mission succeed. Father was very understanding in that respect. Failure did sometimes happen, especially in this line of work, and a small punishment would be enough to convince someone they had been in the wrong.

They had began at the target’s school, where they ultimately determined which plan they would go off of. Luckily the target had not taken the bus, which made it much easier on them. The streets running from the school to the target’s house were mostly residential, very empty at this time of day.

Their target was a small Hispanic child, about 15 years old, who would now be walking home, unsupervised, for the next 10 minutes. Neil’s job was to drive, Keith and Jarred’s job was simply to get the target into the trunk, by any means necessary. Easiest thing in the world.

The white car swerved around the corner near the limit the street conditions would allow, leaving a noticeable screeching noise, along with the distinct odor of burnt rubber, and quickly approached its victim. Had Tyler heard anything at all, he still would not have had enough time to react, as the car passed by Jarred harshly opened his door into the boy, knocking him out and leaving him on the ground. Dang, Neil thought, as he worried briefly about the implications this might have for his door.

Keith and Jarred exited the vehicle and quickly bound Tyler’s hands with duct tape, being sure to put a carefully placed strip around his mouth, and tossed him in the trunk. “Hold on,” Tyler said, “let’s not give him too much hope,” and then removed the glow in the dark handle which opened the trunk from the inside. They shut the trunk got back in the car and were gone as quickly as they had arrived. In, bang, and out, just the way Neil liked it.

Tyler awoke with a start was almost immediately aware of two different facts. The first was that he may not have done so well on his math quiz. The second was that his Monday had somehow managed to get a lot worse. He looked around, only to discover that that was pointless, wherever he was, it was pitch black. So, he instead listened around him. Behind him there was somebody playing Queen obnoxiously loudly, and underneath him was some strange, almost distant roaring noise.

Tyler’s head hurt quite a bit, and the tune of “Bohemian Rhapsody” only made things worse for him. He tried to think back to the last thing he remembered. Something about idiots on the bus. Was that what this was? Some cruel prank by those arrogant bastards on the bus who couldn’t leave him alone when he clearly didn’t want to talk to them. He felt that this wasn’t quite right, but at that particular moment didn’t care too much about reasoning, his whole body ached severely and he just wanted to take a nap. The fatigue in his muscles eating away at what little bit of his energy was left after a day of school was leaving him quite exhausted.

Something inside him, however, knew that something was horribly wrong, and it nagged away at him until he listened to it. It’s not that Tyler disagreed with it, he just didn’t care too much. At least, not yet he didn’t. He felt that it must be late and he reached for his pocket, where he kept his phone. He then discovered that his hands were somehow tethered together, and he could not move them. This greatly surprised him and he immediately tried to stand up, simultaneously striking his head on some hard piece of metal and discovering that his feet no longer worked, no doubt tied together as his hands were.

Now, to add to everything else, He had a headache from multiple bangs to the head, there was some idiot playing loud music, he could barely move, and he may have failed his math quiz. Why did this all have to be on a Monday?

Randall Munroe

Recently, a great nerd figure, along with his family, has fallen ill due to some unknown ailment. In response to these misfortunes me and one of my good friends has decided to send Randall Munroe, the aforementioned victim, a get well card. Our current idea is to have a comic attached to it that has been drawn in his own style (for those of you who don't know, Randall Munroe writes the web-comic xkcd).

If you can't quite read what it says, here is the script:

A: I'm having some trouble, I just don't understand why more bonds in a covalent bond corresponds to a shorter bond length.

B: Well, you see, bonds can be thought of as rubber bands. The more you have the closer whatever they're holding together becomes.

A: Ok, but that doesn't explain why they actually get closer, there aren't quantum rubber bands holding all this stuff together.

B: Clearly you've never heard of string theory.

Statistics and Religion

Earlier this week I came upon a rather interesting entry in a mathematics book at the library; it discussed statistical concepts that had to do with religion.

Now, as I'm sure many people are aware of, logic and religion don't often meet, which is why this particular article stuck out to me. As many of you, my loyal readers, are aware, I am an atheist and firmly believe that mathematics is one of the most important subjects we cover in our lives. So, reading someone mathematically prove that we should all be devout christians was quite surprising to me.

the proof went like this:

Let's suppose we flip a perfect coin, with a perfectly random result. If it lands on heads, we will win $50, but if it lands on tails we win nothing. Our expected winnings, if we play the game a large number of times, according to the law of large numbers, is $25, because:

.5 (the proportion of results that yield us money) times $50 = $25 and:

.5 (the proportion of results that yield us no money) times $0 = $0

Add the two of these together and we get $25, our expected winnings.

Now, let's apply this to the christian faith. Suppose we lead devout christian lives and God rewards us for this by admitting us in to heaven where we live in paradise for eternity, since it is forever, the reward is (infinity, sorry it didn't come out as well as I would have liked). Suppose, now, that there is no God, and we live our lives accordingly and die at the end of it, here our reward is Zero. Now let's assume that, after our life is spent ignoring the presence of God, we are sent to Hell for our sin, for we have broken the first commandment, and done so most of our lives, our gain here is eternal suffering, hence we win - (negative infinity). So, if we write everything up, we get:

X (the chance there is a God) times (the reward for believing in him) =

(1-X) (which is the chance there is not a God) times 0 (the reward for believing in him) = 0

Expected reward:

Sounds pretty good, now if we don't believe in God:

X (the chance there is a God) times - (the reward for not believing in him) = -

(1-X) (the chance there is not a God) times 0 (the reward for not believing in him) = 0

Expected reward: -

Hold on, this can't be good. Assuming we don't believe in God, our expected reward is -, the worst possible loss imaginable. This means that, for anybody familiar with gambling, it makes more sense to worship God than to not worship him, as it has the greatest likelihood of yielding an appealing reward.

So, christians, statistically speaking, y'all aren't as crazy as I originally took you to be, I apologize.

Fear

There is something i feel that many people, throughout their lives, lose sight of: the fact that one day we are all going to be dead, we will simply reach the end of our lifetime and pass on. Now, I'm not saying we don't all know this, most people know it. It's because we know this that we created religion, which we use merely as a way to avoid the subject of real, permanent death, of actually not existing. No, people have not forgotten it, they've just distracted themselves from the real thing, real death. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you do in your meager little life, you will die, quite soon in the grand scheme of things, and be forgotten.

Now, there are a lot of things people worry about from day to day, but, unless you follow some form of obscene deity who promises you immortality, many of them are quite frivolous. Actually, they're frivolous especially if you believe in some kind of obscene deity. In your life there are very few things that matter, because, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you're always just fighting your way towards a better death.

Really, there's nothing that you have to do in life. Do nothing and you'll only die a little faster than the rest of us; put in a little effort by eating every once in a while and you'll survive for at least a few years, but, for many of us, those few years are not enough; that meager existence would simply not be enough for us, which is why we choose to overload ourselves with work and conflict which, complication our lives in a fashion which we claim to hate. We validate our own existences by making others' seem less than our own, meager in comparison to what we have accomplished. We fight our ways up some infinite ladder, one which the bottom cannot be seen, only felt, and the top is strived for, but never reached.

So, you might have a hard time one day, you might slip up, and what you do might cause irrevocable damage to you life, but really, what's the worst that can happen? You'll only die. Now, let's suppose you live you life perfectly, not a single flaw, everything goes exactly as you want it to and you never face a single bit of conflict, hatred, or pain. You'll still only die.

So, really there's not much to worry about in life, because the end result will always be the same. We should make the best of the time we have and not dwell on the few mishaps that we encounter. Everyone has problems, everybody's broken, but what matters is what we make of it.

Sorry To Bother You

(note: not an actual suicide note)

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while now so I don’t want you to think that I just walked off and simply got the idea from something I saw or something I met in those few moments on my way to the water fountain that touched me deeply enough to make me do something like this. This act was the result of many hours of heavy contemplation, and I believe that, while it may not be the only path I can take, it is the best.

There are a few things I suppose I will regret. Sadly though, none of them are things I might be able to change. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to do anything to help Max. I wish the odor that had filled my head hadn’t been enough to make me lose Kiowa. I wish I would have told Sally how I felt about her before it was already too late. However, all of that is in the past now; there’s nothing I can do about it. Max and Kiowa are dead and Sally is married. I suppose I should be contented by the fact that she’s happy. Wishing that she’d be happier with me is selfish, but I still wish it were true. Many nights I consider what it would be like if she was right there along side me in my truck, cruising along, just the two of us, not a care in the world. She would be a much better conversationalist than the six cans of beer that occupy the passenger seat on most evenings.

I’m sorry for troubling you with this; I really don’t mean to. I just had to get a few of my thoughts out before it was too late. I don’t want you to think I’m just bellyaching about my life, it’s been a good one. I’ve gone out; I’ve seen the world, seen war, death, friendship. I’ve experienced a multitude of feelings, some of which other people will never get the chance to feel. I’ve felt the sting of loss, more than once in fact. Max, Kiowa, they’re gone, both drowned. Perhaps I should drown myself, have the lives of the three of us meet our own respective fates through the same medium. It would almost suggest some kind of universal causation, wouldn’t it? But, no, that style of irony is beyond me, I’ll keep my death simple, hopefully something that can be carried out, then quickly cleaned up and forgotten.

Now, I’d like for nobody to think that they caused me to do this; there has not been a single person who has led me to believe that this is the path for me to take. I’d like to thank my mother and father, you helped me a lot during these last few months since I got back from the war. Everyone here has been very supportive of me, I just don’t seem to be able to assimilate back in to modern society. War has just inhibited me from easing my fit back in to the mold that normal life presents to us.

I’ve tried to find a way around what I’m about to do, there just isn’t one. I’ve tried to support my parents, or at least get to a point where I can support myself, and worry about repaying my parents for all they’ve done, but I haven’t been able to hold down a job for more than ten weeks since I returned. School is just so pointless and irrelevant to anything that I’ve experienced in my life that I can’t bring myself to accept it as a legitimate means of improving the state of my life.

I don’t imagine my death will be too difficult, human life is so fragile. There are those of us who like to think we’re tough. We’re not though. Death is just such a simple thing, much simpler than life. I imagine I’ll be able to go without too much trouble, Kiowa didn’t seem to have much trouble with it. He just slowly drifted away, sank slowly into the field, drowning in the remnants of humanity. I could have saved him, I know I could’ve. It would have gotten me the Silver Star if I had, But then, where would I be now? The same place, probably. Lingering along my elliptical pathway, constantly moving but not really going anywhere.

I am worried about where I’ll end up when I die. That is, assuming I end up anywhere at all. I was raised to believe that up above me is a loving God that will take me in and shelter me in Heaven. Of course I may also be damned to Hell, in which, considering the nature of my sins, I’ll be placed, standing, in a large field of men and women who have committed similar sins and will, while paralyzed and unable to move, have my arms and other bones broken and mangled. Of course, who’s to say that there even is a God, or that there even is a Hell? Perhaps I’ll die and death will be the simple end of life, nothing further. My being will simply cease to exist and the world will carry on without me, unchanged, not caring about the fact that a single living entity has met its end.

I’ve thought about the issue a lot. Is there a God? Did some higher being place us here to carry out our duties to him like bees to their queen? Even though we know full well that our master will be living long after we’ve fallen. Perhaps the whole idea of religion was created to comfort us, leading us to believe that something does happen to us after we die. Perhaps the human brain isn’t able to handle the feeling of not existing, and so creates scenarios in which we all carry on our meager existences in some way shape or form, even after our bodies begin to decay. Catholicism, Judaism, and the Muslim faith all teach us that we will receive immortality in heaven. The Buddhist faith teaches us that we go through reincarnation until we achieve enlightenment. Hinduism simply teaches us that we are reborn over and over, the universe recycles our souls, transplanting them in to other beings at birth based on how ethically we have lived our previous life. How can we possibly say that one of these is better than the other? With all these arguments, how can we possibly conclude that any one of them is right? Maybe they’re all wrong. Perhaps, after we die, we do simply stop living, and our consciousness ceases to exist.

This meager life I’ve taken up since I returned just seems to me to be the same day lived over and over, with each day being only a slight variation on the last. There’s no one out there who seems to have any form of remote interest in my story, my failure. I sit in my Chevy, drifting along, letting my life drift away with the time. Why prolong the process? The conclusion will be the same, regardless of any feeble amount of effort I put in on my part to change the course of my life, which has become so based on routine that I’ve become trapped in my own loop with no way out. I may as well end it here.

A Corner of the Cloak essay

Both “A Corner of the Cloak” by Brian Doyle and “The Word” by Pablo Neruda use generally grim imagery and similes, along with several abstract metaphors, to describe how amazing and unique human life can be, and that nobody can fully understand its majestic hypnotic nature.

In “The Word” the author discusses the creation of the spoken word and how the first language, which would have allowed a species to be far more organized than any other, would have sent ripples out into the environment. It uses metaphors such as “words give ... blood to the blood and give life to life” to explain that human life, complemented by language, is a strange yet beautiful occurrence. Because of the accompaniment of language the human race has been able to evolve at a much faster rate than any other species ever has before on this planet.

In “A Corner Of The Cloak” Brian Doyle uses a very unique writing style to describe many of the random events that he has experienced in his life. The author starts off very broad, with a tone that suggests that he is in awe of his subject. However, the subject of his work isn’t quite evident until he starts with “for example,” and begins to tell his story. While he does hint at an ultimate coherence relating to life in the beginning his true intentions are made evident towards the end, after he has told his, incredibly detailed and nearly scientifically analyzed, story. Through his euphemistic phrases, such as “completes the life cycle of,” and gruesome similes, like “peels the squirrel like a banana,” he conveys a very interesting series of events that show that life truly is a “magical machine,” and that, no matter how much time one spends examining it, they can never truly understand this “endless thicket” of life.

The Wall

I'm woven in a fantasy,
I can't believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now
Has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost
It rises now before me,
A dark and silent barrier between,
All I am, and all that I would ever want be
It's just a travesty,
Towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit
Would erase
To pass beyond is what I seek
I fear that I may be too weak
And those are few who've seen it
Through to glimpse the other side,
The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride
The moment is a masterpiece,
The weight of indecision's in the air
It's standing there, the symbol and the sum of all that's me
It's just a travesty,
Towering, blocking out the light and blinding me
I want to see
Gold and diamonds cast a spell,
It's not for me I know it well
The riches that I seek
Are waiting on the other side
There's more that I can measure in the treasure of the love that I can find
And though it's always been with me,
I must tear down the Wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss

~Kansas~

The COUP

In the year 1998, the UN, in its universal quest for unlimited knowledge, began an undercover technical program to string together all the information in every computer on Earth. In theory, one would be able to ask the computer any question he or she pleases, and the computer, with its infinite knowledge of everything everywhere would be able to spit out an accurate answer.

The project was code-named "the COUP"- the Computer Of Unlimited Power. Many of the nation's best scientists and computer programmers were put to work to assemble this massive networking device, and after many years the machine was built up. It looked much like a large worm, with wires curling out of it at odd places and curling back in. At one end it formed a small sphere with a large computer screen sticking out of the front.

One of the UN officials sat down at the machine pulled down the large lever to the left to activate it. There was a buzz from behind the machine and a flashing green box appeared in the top left corner of an otherwise blank screen.

After much debate over what to ask, it was finally decided that the first question would be "is there a God?" The scientists and UN officials all agreed this would be an acceptable and thought provoking question, with a hopefully significant response.

The question was slowly typed into the machine, and the operator punched the "enter" key. The COUP buzzed and whirred for several seconds, gathering and analyzing all the data it could. the machine stopped. and slowly it began to type back to the operator.

When the message was complete the scientists and other UN officials gathered closely around to read the machine's response: "There is now!"

The entire project was considered a failure and all records of its existence were stricken from all known informational databases. The machine was then dismantled and, to this date, no one but the men involved are aware that it existed.

The Utilization of Statistics in Deceptive Advertising

"Marketing is the art of making something seem better than it really is" (Suso Banderas, Randomizing sample sig quotes (2000)). Through advertisements, in their many forms, Businesses are using flashy lights and sounds to deceive us, convincingly. There are many forms of deceptive advertising, and every one seems to use a different method, one of the most common means of this, however, seems to be the inclusion of some kind of disproportional or inaccurate mathematical quantity that supports the lie or deception that the advertiser is attempting to use as a point. "There are three kinds of lies," according to Disraeli, "lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Quite often the inclusion of any statistic in a marketing scheme gives it more of an edge than others. For instance, most car insurance commercials try to convince you that their company will cost you less money than any of the others. Recently, Domino's pizza ran a campaign claiming that, through a national taste test average, their pizza had been chosen as the best. But, as one man astutely observed, “If you do some research into other taste tests, you’d be hard-pressed to find one in which Domino’s won” (Bret Thorn, May 2010). Many of these statistics seem true at first, especially after hearing people basing all further arguments off them, but they proceed in this manner to the point which the invalidation of a single fact decimates the conclusiveness of the argument.

In reality, most statistics, though based on true and unbiased samples, can be stretched and skewed by an observer to mean just about anything he may want it to. An executive of an airliner assured a man, afraid to board his plane, that "the odds are a million to one that your plane will have a bomb on it." The man, given this sound statistic, was still worried, and was reassured, "If you want better odds, carry a bomb on board yourself. The odds are at least a billion to one that your plane will have two bombs on it."

Even simply not telling the whole truth allows researches to be able to convince many of us that their product, or their position, is the better choice. Some doomsayers criticize the growing number of teenagers in the United States, citing the fact that forty percent of the population of Americans are under the age of twenty, failing to mention that more than fifty percent of the population was under the age of eighteen during the year 1776. One man, supporting improved educational qualities in the nation, stated that 220 new libraries had been built within the last fifteen years. In the same time, however, fifteen-thousand frozen yogurt distributors, ten-thousand pizza parlors, and over nine-thousand bowling alleys had been erected. Ultimately, "statistics are like a bikini. What the reveal is suggestive. What they conceal is vital" (Aaron Levenstein)

Many companies will say on their advertisements that their product was proved faster, safer, more effective, stronger, longer lasting, or in some way better than a leading competitor. These methods bypass any and all negatives of the product, Such as the possibility that the product was superior in only one aspect, such as strength, but had been out done in another field, such as safety. One could think battery acid as a fingernail polish remover, incredibly effective, but liable to take of the fingernail as well. Another possibility is that the product was superior to its competitor in every aspect, but inferior to another five competitive companies. The advertiser accents the one hazy positive, bypassing completely the significant negatives.

Many of the causes of faulty facts and inaccurate depictions can be found in the fine print below an advertisement. Two rival television stations, NBC and CBS, both bragged in the same edition of the New York Times, one on page 94 the other on page 96, that they had "The biggest average nighttime audience." Many people would ask how this could be true; many people should have read the fine print. Underneath the NBC advertisement the source of their data was cited as the National Nielson reports for the season to date. The CBS statistic, on the other hand, was extracted from the latest Nation Nielson report. The same concept can be used in just about any advertisement. Changing the units on a measurement is a sure fire way of producing bias. For instance, measuring the amount of oil lost in the gulf in "gallons" of oil, instead of the more correct "barrels" of oil, simply to show the public a higher number. Or, In the case of Good Housekeeping and McCall's magazines, having statistics based on these measurements. These two competitors each stated that their magazine contained the most information, Good Housekeeping claiming that it had more editorial "pages," and McCall's claiming that it had more editorial "lineage." these conflicting measurements at first would create a confusion, but, as lineage changes based on page size, it is possible for both to be true. McCall's magazine would be the winner of the competition, with much more information crammed onto smaller, more economical, sheets of paper.

Many people consider good research to be the key to good marketing. This belief leads to changing advertisements with more creative and eye catching themes. David Ogilvy emphasized in one statement that it was factual information that persuaded consumers to purchase a product. To this claim, the Purina Dog Food Company created a campaign based largely on facts, stating that feeding reluctant dogs its dog food would transform them into "eager eaters." Months later, when Jack B. Haskins made the claim that it was emotional reactions within consumers that inspired them to purchase a product, Purina changed their motto to "All you need is love, and Purina."

Many companies even work hard to skew the results of research, by finding areas in which studies are being conducted, and concentrating much of its advertising strength on that area. Often times these attempts to invalidate another companies results are invalid, as many believe it is not even the hard data that determines the verdict of weather or not a particular marketing campaign is successful or not, but what the advertisers do with the data. The inescapable fact is that the research and the statistics don't make the difference. A new creative concept does, because it appeals to you, the individual, the person, not you, the statistic.

Some sensible research, however, produces dependable, helpful results. One of the valuable techniques it the "split-run" technique, in which to trials are run in the exact same way with very little variation or bias within the sampling method. Research is a valuable, valid, and often indispensible aid to business. One businessman once commented on the recent sales decrease, saying that "of course sales are down. My men are too busy writing research reports to sell anything." The danger, however, is the over dependence on those facts.

Regardless of research reports, people act according to their personal desires and interests. Research data can't keep up with you because you keep changing. You're not sure today how you're doing to feel, what you're going to do, or how you will act tomorrow. Therefore the research experts can't possibly know. Conditions, feelings, stimuli, all change, and you change accordingly. One researcher admitted that people are "as intricate and ever-changing as the weather." The danger in much of advertising "is not the science fiction fear that machines will begin thinking like men, but that men will begin to think like machines."

One realist, A. Edward Miller, told a story in which "the UN managed to wire together all of the existing computers in the world to make the most powerful computer setup ever. The first question that was asked was "Is there a God." The machine whirred for a few seconds and spit out the response "Now there is!" A similar computer was asked to translate the ancient Russian proverb, "time flies like an arrow," into English. the machines translation was "Time flies enjoy eating arrows." Based on this, the computer, comprised of raw facts and data, can never replace human judgment.

"It is sometimes argued that advertising really does little harm because no one believes it any more anyway. We consider this view to be erroneous. The greatest damage done by advertising is precisely that it incessantly demonstrates the prostitution of men and women who lend their intellects, their voices, their artistic skills to purposes in which they themselves do not believe, and that it teaches ‘the essential meaninglessness of all creations of the mind: words, images, and ideas.’ The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material possessions: the confidence in the existence of meaningful purposes of human activity and respect for the integrity of man" (Paul Baran, 1964). That being said, why is it that so many men and women try so hard to convince us of something using "facts" that have been so skewed that no accurate conjecture could possibly be made from them? To what extent must we pursue the defamation of the idea that humanity takes part in the practice of some meaningful endeavor? The focus of thousands of hours of research should not be the deception of one's fellow man, "life's too short to sell things you don't believe in."

The Cat

schrödinger opened the box that held the cat.