The World's End Discussion, Part 3

On September 8, Dave, Jeff, and Megan got together to talk about the latest Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost venture, The World's End, based on some notes from Cat. (So far she hasn't given permission to publish those notes, so for now you'll have to reconstruct them for yourself based on our references to them and deductive reasoning.) This is the third part of that discussion. Keep your eyes peeled for Scott's cameo appearance.

Beware, though: absolutely no effort was made to avoid spoilers.


MR
Well let's jump over to the setting

JK
Sure!

MR
Creepy small town? A+

JK
Totally. I wonder if they are any places in Saskatchewan like that.
I thought it was interesting that the town was called Newton Haven. It sounded a lot like "New Haven," an idealized conformist utopia (that turns out to be a dystopia).

MR
I wanted to say it was called "Sleepy Hollow" cuz I couldn't remember the name of it but it certainly implied peacefulness.

MR
I love how this and Hot Fuzz completely lampoon the stereotype of the small town being somewhere where things are perfect.

JK
I liked how Newton Haven had "UK's First Traffic Circle." I wonder if this was intended to be one of the 'improvements' that the blanks had introduced (I wonder if there actually are any traffic circles in England). In the end, Sam actually makes a remark that the traffic circle confused her, an indication again that the 'improvements' introduced by the blanks aren't so great, aren't so 'human.'

MR
Hahaha I forgot that traffic circle joke.

Dave
Good observation Jeff.
I did like that line!

JK
Oh yeah, and Gary tells her to go right through it! Down with conformity!

MR
I have so much trouble figuring out the actual size of towns and stuff in movies.
Because here in SK, when I think small town, I think pop. 2000 people or less.
But the rest of the world is usually talking about somewhere with like 50 000 people in it or something.

SSB
I remember learning in elementary school that the population requirement to be a city was 5000, but in Ontario and stuff it's 75 000.

Dave
Serious!?

JK
Holy crap!
That’s huge!
There were definitely some small towns when I was in the UK, but Newton Haven did seem quite large, though not 'developed.'

MR
But the area that they're navigating to go to the different pubs looks fairly small.

JK
Yes, it does. The pub map does illustrate a rather small area.

Dave
Downtown core, with cottages all around.

JK
Actually, most UK towns/cities have a very small, olden-times feel in the downtown. Often called the 'old town ' e.g. Old Canterbury.

MR
Yeah, you're totally right about that, Jeff.
Actually it just occurred to me that this is sort of similar to the way that The X-Files treats rural America i.e. weird shit happens out there.
There aren't as many people around to see it.

JK
Totally true Megan!

MR
Let’s jump into the plot, though.

JK
Cool

MR
Cat thought the plot didn't go anywhere, but I think it just sort of got a little mired in fighting blanks.
I really liked the fight choreography, by the way.

JK
Even throughout all of the fighting, Gary still tried to satisfy his unfinished dream of all 12 pints.

MR
I know, I loved that.

Dave
I think it progressed and was important to telling Gary's story. Even in the face of the invasion, losing friends, and being in mortal danger of being "mulched" he still had to complete the Golden Mile.

JK
I loved how he got pissed off when that blank made him drop his beer!

MR
I think the thing that really encapsulated his character for me was when they get kicked out of the one place without being able to have a drink (because he’s banned for life) and he drinks the ones that people left outside on the patio.

Dave
It really shows how that challenge was all he had. And helped illustrate how his friends fit into his life.

MR
Yes!

JK
I loved that scene Megan!

JK
Is the Golden Mile the course of our lives? Our dreams and ambitions?

MR
The plot definitely wasn't, like, extremely complicated or anything, but I think it's better that it wasn't.

Dave
Yeah, I think it had its story to tell, and it did that effectively.

JK
True, a heavy plot probably would have obfuscated the theme of the movie.

MR
I'm going to reveal my criticism nerdiness right now, but Film Critic Hulk just wrote an excellent article not too long ago about how many blockbusters are way too complicated these days, which I generally agree with so much.

JK
I agree! Any of the latter instalments of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a prime example.

Dave
Yeah, it’s an alien invasion, in the end how much do all the motives and methods of the bad guys really matter to the everyman? They would have been mired down trying to tell that story too.

MR
In this case there could've stood to be more development of the characters besides Gary King, but his character arc (or lack thereof) alone makes the movie worth watching.

Dave
I think that some characters could have been developed more, but didn't really need to be.

MR
I think they might've been able to combine Oliver and Peter or something.
But then they couldn't've had Oliver turned into a blank and Peter get his revenge on his bully.
So maybe not

JK
I am glad that you wrote your article on Apocalypse and Armageddon Dave! Newton Haven was Armageddon and the Apocalypse was the revelation about what makes us human.
Sorry, getting ahead of myself again.

Dave
Haha thanks Jeff.

MR
I'm not good at finding plot holes, but did you see any?

JK
None were obvious to me.

Dave
I think the plot was pretty water tight.

JK
And it probably helped that they didn't have a convoluted plot either!

MR
The only thing I can think of is: do their families still live in the town? What’s going on with them?

JK
Do you mean their parents and siblings, Megan?

MR
Yes.
You'd just think that if they do still have family there, they would have visited them before now.

Dave
I think Oliver might have had parents in town, but since he was the first convert it makes sense that he wasn't worried about them.
And maybe they did, but you generally don't bring your five old friends along to visit your parents.

MR
No, I mean like haven't they been there in previous years to visit? This has been going on for a while.

Dave
Oh right...

MR
I actually don't think it's a big deal or anything, and you can probably explain it away... like they might have only been back for short visits and not noticed anything.

Dave
Yeah, they never really noticed anything until Gary pulled that first kid’s head off.

MR
Yeah, exactly.

JK
You’re right

Dave
So moot point, haha.


Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion!

How to talk to your first stranger

At the request of Cat, I will be writing about talking to strangers. She figures that I might know a thing or two based on my thousands of kilometers of hitchhiking. She may figure right, who knows-- after you try out the tips in the post, let me know!

I haven't thought much about this topic in the past, although it is an interesting topic. My post won't be that theoretical; it will be rooted in practical experience. I'll leave it up to you to bring the theories.

I think it's important to realize that when going into a conversation that you and the stranger share a common interest and that you can shape the conversation to find and discuss that interest. Here's an example relating to a potential conversation I might have about sports, a topic that I don't think much about:

Stranger: Hey man, what's up?

Scott: Not a lot, how about you?

Stranger: Good.

*potential for end of conversation or awkward pause or recovery*

Scott: How's your day going today?

Stranger: Oh, it was alright, except the Pats [blah blah sports things].

Scott: Oh that sucks. I'm not a huge sports fan myself, except I:

 - saw that movie Moneyball and it was pretty interesting. I use statistics like that in my job and I think it's really cool how different industries are using technology and statistics to radically redefine themselves

 - went to my first Jays game a month or two ago. I'd never been to one before, and was surprised at the franchise's use of social media / how cheap and accessible to the public a game was / how expensive booze at the game was / how it was funny how hotdog prices went up linearly with how close to the stadium they were / etc

- was getting hcore into biking while I was in New Zealand. Upped my trips from ~20km to up to 50-60km. It's crazy that the limiting factor is your gooch / how big of a role that nutrition plays / how one's mind wanders when you're doing something for several hours / etc.

Two things of note here. Firstly, They start talking about sports, and then I take that topic and relate it to something I'm interested in that's tangentially related to the topic that they brought up. We're now talking about something fun and interesting: statistics, how technology is changing society, accessibility to public events, how old institutions have to change themselves to remain current, or an amusing anecdote related to my experiences. Neat! In this way I'm having a good conversation about something I'm interested about, and they might be having a conversation about something they're interested about. Sports might be the subject, but I'm getting something completely different out of the conversation.

TIP 1: Take what they're talking about, find a relation to something you're interested in, and change the conversation to something that you're interested in talking about.

Second item of note from Example 1. Notice my recovery after Stranger's response to "Not a lot, how about you?". "How's your day going today?" This is an extremely useful sentence. I'm going to say it twice more so you remember it. "How's your day going today?" "How's your day going today?" Anyone who you're talking to is coming from somewhere and they're feeling an emotion relating to their experiences that day. After someone answers that small talk question, take what they've said and ask a question about that. Distill until you're finding something interesting about that person. Here are some other power questions that you can use as a launching point to something interesting:

TIP 2: Use "small talk" / power questions to find something authentic the person is feeling or thinking about and then explore that feeling / thought. Here are some power questions:

- How's your day going?

- What are you up to today?

Sometimes, your small talk questions might lead you to something that you know nothing about. If you're interested, great! If not, great! Here are two such possibilities:

Stranger: ... and that's why my favourite show is Big Brother.

Scott: I don't know too much about Big Brother. Have you seen that fake reality show, The Joe Schmo Show? /  I don't know too much about Big Brother. ... What are you up to today?

Stranger: ... so Newfoundland should separate. 

Scott: I don't know too much about the situations leading NFLD to join Canada. Why should they separate?

I've italicized the important feature in these examples. Acknowledging to the other person that you don't know anything about what they're talking about is huge. You can either let them know that you're interested and to tell you more, or tell them that you don't know much and then change the subject. In any case, don't talk about something you don't know anything about.

TIP 3: Tell the person you don't know what they're talking about. Change the subject if it isn't interesting, or encourage them to tell you more.

That's all I got for you. Here are some other quick tips:

TIP 4: If you don't want to talk to someone, don't. Your life is too short to expose yourself to hate speech or boring speech. 

TIP 5: Pauses in conversations are okay, especially when you have a long time with the other person, such as a road trip. It's only awkward if you feel awkward. I love pauses in conversations -- gives me a chance to recollect my thoughts.

TIP 6: Seriously Cat + everyone else, read this book already. Fantastic read about how to communicate positively and effectively with others.

TIP 7: Don't worry if you put your foot in your mouth. There is a finite amount of ways you can do it, and after each you'll get better and won't do it the same way again :)

Hopefully these were helpful! If you only remember one, say "How's your day going?" in an awkward pause and you'll be good!

Cyborgs

I don't have anything to talk about re: professional sports aside from what I said last month. So, I'm going to write about cyborgs instead.

To you readers who woefully did not have a nerdy childhood, teenhood, or adulthood, a cyborg is a conglomerate of a human and a machine. Robocop is a pretty classical treatment of a cyborg.

The classical definition of a cyborg is typically a machine fused to a human. I think a more contemporary definition of a cyborg might allow this human to detach their machine parts. This definition, when treated loosy-goosily, might imply that the use of any tool would cyborgacize oneself.

Perhaps it comes down to the individual's perception of the machine or tool that they're using regarding whether they're a person using a tool or whether they're a cyborg and the tool is a part of them. For the sake of argument, let's assume that if an individual feels closer to their identity when they're using their tool than when they're not that they are exhibiting cyborgly behaviour.

Here are a few tools that I feel more like myself when using:

1) Glasses
My prescription is -6,000,000 ± 5,999,995, which, in layhuman terms, means that I'm more likely to end up at a Robin's Donuts than work if I left the house in the morning without them. The world feels more normal when it's in focus. Thanks glasses.

2) Bike
I was recently biking with someone who I had known fairly well for a very long time. They commented that they were surprised with the grace with which I handled myself while on a bike. I'll be the first (or, second I guess) to say that I'm not the most graceful human alive while walking. I definitely feel more comfortable on a bike while transporting myself as opposed to walking. And, as it turns out, apparently I'm much better and more graceful when transporting myself via bike. Thanks bike!

3) Cell Phone
It feels weird when I'm out and about, think about something I want to ask / tell someone, and not have the ability to send a thought to someone else via text/email. Similarly, I feel disconnected when I know others don't have this link to me. I'm not sure whether the cyborg component in this example is the phone or whether its the connectivity to the internet that causes this sensation.

4) Computer
A majority of my job is on my laptop. I use this same laptop at home. In other words, I interact with this computer a lot. Recently, I decided to use a second monitor for one particular task. When I was interacting with my laptop on the other monitor, I felt really weird. I felt exactly like when you clasp your hands together, then invert them, have someone touch them, and then your fingers feel as if they're on the wrong arm. If you don't know what I'm talking about, too bad, I actually couldn't find any pix or vidz to illustrate what I mean. Anyway, it was totally cray. I felt a different sensation (or rather, a sensation I was accustomed to was absent) when using the second monitor. I've developed a sensation to using a (my?) laptop. Super weird.

It's weird to think that I feel like I'm living closer to my identity when using this machines as compared to when I'm not. I'm not too worried about this -- I think it's pretty an interesting observation about the sensations that I'm accustomed to and makes me who I am.

I'm a cyborg, guys. PS: Sorry sports fans.

Watching Starcraft 2 videos on YouTube made me into a man

It's true, gentle readers. Before I started watching Starcraft 2 videos on YouTube, I was not a man. More appropriately, my experience has allowed me to understand why many men who are not me are interested in things that are conservatively considered manly (and boring). Namely, watching sports and cars. Gross.

To bring you up to speed, Starcraft 2 is an online sci-fi strategy game where players choose one of three races to duke it out. The first was an incredible success and the second has been designed to facilitate the burgeoning genre of "E-Sports". Some of the top gamers make a lot of money. Some companies that you've heard of sponsor the Major League Gaming championship. 

So Starcraft 2 is big, especially in South Korea. I dabbled in the first, but I was never huge into it. When the second came out, I decided I would play it a bit. Single player was fun. I turned next to multiplayer, and got slaughtered. I don't really have the time to get good at Starcraft 2, so that was that, I uninstalled it. I later learned that top SC2 players will have an APM (actions per minute) of upwards of 200. What! I can't do anything 200 times per minute.

I heard that commentated SC2 videos were online and I figured I would check it out. I found one such caster, HuskyStarcraft, who the kids seemed to like. Turns out over 600,000 kids are subscribed to him at the time of writing). He comments on SC2 videos for a living through his YouTube channel and at competitions. Neat! It turns out that I quite enjoy watching games from time to time. The game prioritizes multitasking and organization rather than strength and agility.

I was watching a tournament game and one of the players had a keyboard with all the keys removed except for those that he used to play the game. A lot of the top players are on teams and live in player dorms. People fly from all over the world to compete in tournaments. South Korea is the world's SC2 leader. The best Zerg player in the world right now is Stephano, a young man from France. This is an interesting world. 

It hit me when I realized I was regularly watching SC2 videos and convincing people to watch them. I follow these just like normal mens watch sports. I get it now! I feel towards an e-sport what others feel towards prefixless sports! 

I've been pretty excited since my realization and I've considered other things in my life that parallel typical man interests. I'm really into biking and can totally justifying tons of money on a bike and its components. I know what different oils to put on my bike chain for different weather, how different tires affect winter performance, and what different puncture points on a flat tire mean. Dude, I could totally be talking about a camaro here if I had a mullet. 

There's an interesting book I read recently: it's called We Are All Weird. One of the gists of it is that in this day and age we have the means to be as weird as we want. If there is something to geek out about, someone will geek out about it. I hope that once this attitude becomes more prevalent that there will be more acceptance to fringe interests / less bullying / happier world. I'm not sure whether this has changed throughout my life, or whether it's just a growing up thing, but I feel like people are generally more tolerant towards weirdness these days. 

Watching Starcraft 2 videos on YouTube in your boxers is probably still weird though.

Here's an interesting Husky video to get you started:

The importance of choosing appropriate RPG stats

Second last but not second least!

Aging is an interesting beast. It took me awhile to disconnect my feelings with that of society's, but I  have recently realized that I quite enjoy growing older. Obviously, there are lame things like my body falling apart after exertion that was previously fine (What bro? You want to party two nights in a row? Who does that?), but all in all, I've decided that growing older is great.

One thing that I enjoy is being able to better understand people. I find that as I grow older and talk and listen to more people, I'm better able to read people and understand what they're feeling and thinking. Looking back at myself when I was 5 or 10 years younger, I feel like my understanding of people, emotions, and thoughts were so naive. I'm really excited to extend this thinking for the future -- by the time I'm 50, will my ability to read people have increased in a similar rate as the past five years? Or, will society and people have changed so much so that my reading skills are outdated? Does this skill require considerable upkeep? Judging from how my people skills drop off after working at home without talking to another soul over a blizzardy few days, the answer is yes!

Similarly, I enjoy looking at my experiences over the last five years. I've lived in 5 cities in 3 countries, had a bunch of amazing experiences, and my fair share of negative and traumatic ones too. I feel like through experiencing these events that I'm much able to connect and feel empathy to a wider range of people and experiences. I really enjoy feeling connected to people and I'm excited to experience more things as I grow older that will help make more connections with more people.

I was relating something similar to this blog post to my friend Henry and he responded with "Scott, of course you like growing older. If life was an RPG, you would put all your stats in Wisdom and Charisma [, the skills that you have increased by growing older]." Henry knows me quite well and was indeed correct, as whenever I play an RPG, that is exactly what I do!  Perhaps my enjoyment with aging comes from identifying what attributes of life I enjoy and nourishing those attributes. I don't think I explicitly identified these attributes, I feel like I intuited them and perhaps got lucky. I have really enjoyed my progress over the past five years, and perhaps this enjoyment has made me optimistic about aging!

Dealing with aberrant behaviour

Hi, I'm Scott. This is my first blog post for Socializing Engineers; my posts will be labeled with "SSB" for your searching convenience.

I currently work as a internet nerd building websites for deezine.ca as well as occasionally maintain my hitchhiking-focused blog, I Smell Good. I'm living in Saskatoon for the summer, but I think I'm more migrational than most and I'm not sure where I will find myself in the coming months. Without more talkins, here we go!

---

I have very positive associations with rural Saskatchewan, Canada, and other English-speaking countries. Growing up, my family was scattered throughout the prairies and as such our holidays were always filled with excitement as we moved throughout the countryside. As an adult, these positive associations continue: I always feel extremely welcomed in whatever community I find myself in.

I'm always taken aback when my non-white friends relate their experiences in rural SK or elsewhere in which they experienced rudeness or racism. The cold reception seems completely uncharacteristic to me based on my rosy views of the countryside. Lately, I've found myself in rural settings while hitchhiking. Prior to using my now-de facto "I Smell Good" sign, I would often be picked up by grumpy dudes who perceive that they're doing me a favour by picking me up. They would often say that they were picking me up because I was white and that they wouldn't have picked up someone of [insert local minority here]. Unbeknownst to them, no favour to me includes hate speech.

Whenever I could tell the other person respected me to some degree, I would always call them out on their racism. "Actually, my best friend who I live with is Chinese and he's one of the most hard-working people I know -- far more so than myself!" I feel like this was well generally well received -- their own car/truck is often a safe space and they're receptive to my polite, respectful disagreement.

In recounting one such encounter like this to a friend, she brought up the point that perhaps this might not be the most effective way to effect a change in behaviour. By reacting in the moment, I might not be as rational as I could be, and my words might invoke feelings of shame. We agreed that we didn't t believe that using shame is an acceptable pedagogical tool, so I've really had to think about how I approach aberrant behaviour. While I may not be as quick to denounce aberrance when I see it, I feel like the times that I do are more effective.