Sushi Writes About Things

One of the interesting thing about the English language is its evolution. I don’t talk like my grandmother, and she probably doesn’t talk like her grandmother did. My accent isn’t as noticeable as hers, at any rate. The same can be said when comparing any two people from different generations.

What about the accents of the first Americans? They definitely didn’t speak in the same way we do today; one look at the Constitution tells us that. But what about their spoken language? At this point American and British accents hadn’t diverged into what we know as American and British accents. This isn’t surprising. What we know as the American accent today is closer to what early Americans spoke than today’s British accent is.

So if you really want to sound like an early American or a 16th century English citizen, don’t bother polishing your British accent.

I’m a big coffee shop fan. There was a great shop down the street from where I went to college that I frequented, usually for writing purposes. The tables and chairs were arranged in small groups, the drinks were great, and I could grab a meal there if I missed the dining hall hours. The shop had a great mozzarella and tomato sandwich. During NaNo I’d bring my laptop and work on my novel, but most of the time I’d be alone in my paper writing while everyone else tapped away at their laptops.

Now imagine a shop that didn’t allow laptops. This is actually becoming more common thanks to coffee shop owners who are growing frustrated at patrons turning a shop into an office. But some owners want their place of business to be a place of community. Take Snakes and Lattes in Toronto. It just opened, and bringing your laptop is missing the point. Instead, why not play a game–yes, like Chutes and Ladders? Most games weren’t designed for two players (though I too would love to see more board game dates), so players are encouraged to play together when they have an eye on the same game, whether they know each other or not. This is something I can get behind. If I were the owner, my concern would be about the inevitable loss of game pieces. I had a hard time keeping track of pieces for my small game collection. Imagine what the staff will go through for their 1500-game collection.

I have a hard time explaining my interest in the startup and tech world to others who don’t know or don’t care about those areas. Take my parents. To my eternal facepalming despair, my mother and grandmother (yes, grandmother) have Facebook accounts. Thankfully neither has attempted to friend me, though I had to show my mother how to change her photo from a family shot at my graduation to a rare picture of snow. My family life’s transformation to the Facebook episode of South Park aside, most of my family members besides my brother still don’t understand a Web outside of Facebook. Trying to explain the tech world usually has to be explained in very small words. Sites like Flickr and Twitter and Wikipedia are straightforward enough to explain. Reddit’s a little harder, especially the community aspect behind the link sharing. Hunch? Now the explaining’s getting a little trickier, and I’m finding it exciting.

Startup founders have the same problem from what I’ve gathered. “So what does your startup do, anyway?” is a question they probably get when getting funding and promoting their startup. For lack of a straightforward explanation like “You can share your photos online” or “It lets you bookmark your links so you have them at a moment’s notice”. Some sites are already similar to an existing site, so the really short explanation is “It’s like X for Y”. See the parody HighStranger (Chatroulette for high people) or Foodspotting (like Foursquare for food).

These comparisons should make it easy for anyone to find a startup idea, and you’d be right. The world is ripe with ideas. It’s also ripe for parody, as It’s This For That shows. What does your startup do, anyway? Here’s what a few of my best (or worst) fake startups do.

* So basically it’s like a LinkedIn for social outcasts! (One of my Twitter followers suggested that Twitter was the place for outcasts. Given that most of my Twitter circle is via online circles, I have to agree.)
* So basically it’s like Microsoft Kin for middle schoolers! (The Kin was for middle schoolers, actually. I’m just amused this came up.)
* So basically it’s like an Amazon for the homeless! (Instead of spending money, they’d barter food and clothing and other needs.)
* So basically it’s like a Match.com for ex-girlfriends! (This would not end well.)
* So basically it’s like an iPhone app for your cat’s litter box! (Ping! Your cat has just left three pieces of poo in the litter box.)
* So basically it’s like an Android app for cracked iPhone apps! (Actually, this one would probably do well.)
* So basically it’s like a new social platform for pets! (Believe it or not, these already exist.)
* So basically it’s like real-time data for social outcasts! (This would be handy, actually.)

There are actually a few good ones in that mix. Cat owners everywhere are waiting on the iPhone app. The scary part is that it may already exist.

Photography isn’t my forte, but I’m still amazed at what a camera can do. Check out this picture of an airplane’s propeller. No, that’s not Photoshopped. It was taken with an iPhone, whose camera has no shutter, and the pixels in that picture don’t get read all at once. The camera reads them in rows instead, creating a mad effect.

It turns out that this isn’t an isolated occurrence. One traveler took some photos during a flight and noticed the same thing. He also made a video that showed off how very strange this effect was in real time.

Trippy indeed.

Today must have been Throw Rage-Inducing Links at Sushi Day. From the political lies that Americans believe to the middle school that segregated class elections, today was definitely a day to find a link of rage.

Then there was this article on CNN about teenagers and fake Christianity. When I was a teenage Christian, fake Christianity was exactly as it was described in the article: people who just believed in some sort of god, or those who didn’t practice their so-called faith, or those who fell out of their faith. This article decides to label God as the god of Christianity, assuming that teenagers these days are weak Christians because they’re not practicing their faith strongly.

Here’s a thought. Maybe some of them practice their religion differently. Did the author ask if people believed in God and choose to interview them on that basis alone? The subjects were so-called Christians of all kinds. Maybe some of them did what many Americans do: call themselves Christian just because they believe in the god. No, folks, that’s deism, another valid belief system. Maybe they just believe in a higher power but don’t believe every idea in the Bible. Maybe Christians and others shouldn’t start associating God with the Christian god, causing everyone to associate a deity with that of a certain religion.

A key quote from the article:

Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good — what the study’s researchers called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”

No, God wants you to feel miserable while doing good. You’re doing it wrong if it feels good, obviously. Nothing’s wrong with doing good, even if you’re leaning on a deity to do so. Unless, of course, you’re not doing enough for your faith. So sayeth the article. These teenagers need to learn to live their faith, and their parents need to “get radical”. I can’t make this up. Maybe they don’t want to live their faith. Maybe it’s not a huge priority. Maybe, just maybe, they’re happy with what they have.

And if they’re growing up into good adults, there’s no problem.

In a world where women are still getting paid less than men for comparable jobs and are fed double standard after double standard, we ladies should be stepping up and asking for more money when we feel we’ve worked to deserve it. Naturally the first step is to look over our accomplishments and figure out the way to make the most convincing case to the supervisor. Right?

Or you can wash your vagina.

That’s a real ad from a Woman’s Day magazine–a recent one, in fact. I checked my mother’s copy (which contains an article on things I already know about that she wants me to read) and found it.

Gotcha. Clean your vagina, then go over what’s really important. Because you can’t talk about important matters before making sure you’re fresh and clean. Who knows what men have to do beforehand. Wash their bits? Of course not. You’d never see an ad that says, “Hey guys, you’re going for that raise, aren’t you? Make sure to wash down there! (It’s important.)”