When English Fails

Sometimes, even as clearly as many rules of language are defined, the intent of the writer is still ambiguous.  I don’t know if I think about it too much, but sometimes it bugs me that I don’t really know what is supposed to be being communicated.  As I was shopping yesterday, I bought a snack package that describes itself as:

Chocolate and yogurt-covered peanuts and raisins

Unfortunately, this could mean any of the following:

Chocolate, plus yogurt-covered peanuts and plain raisins

Chocolate, plus yogurt-covered peanuts and yogurt-covered raisins

Chocolate-covered peanuts, plus yogurt-covered peanuts, and plain raisins

Chocolate-covered peanuts, plus yogurt-covered peanuts, and yogurt-covered raisins

Chocolate-covered peanuts, yogurt-covered peanuts, chocolate-covered raisins, and yogurt-covered raisins

Chocolate, plus yogurt-covered peanuts, and yogurt-covered raisins

Chocolate and yogurt-covered peanuts, and plain raisins

Chocolate and yogurt-covered peanuts, and chocolate and yogurt-covered raisins

…and there are other potential interpretations as well.

Before I reveal what was actually in the package, I have a potential solution to this problem.  As a software developer, I’ve had to learn to be absolutely clear about my intent when writing logic statements so the computer can follow my instructions explicitly.  This is done by grouping related portions of an expression using parentheses.  So, the above statement should be written:

(Chocolate or Yogurt) covered (Peanuts and Raisins)

This is much more clear, but even that doesn’t describe what was actually in the package.  To be fully accurate in the description of the contents of the package, the statement would have to be:

(Plain or chocolate-covered or yogurt-covered) (peanuts and raisins).

This is a lot easier than:

Peanuts, raisins, chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate-covered raisins,
yogurt-covered peanuts, and yogurt-covered raisins.

See how much easier it is when you include the parenthetical markings? Now we just need to figure out how to communicate this statement verbally.

I don’t get it when…

People who design things don’t actually use them… and expect that others will want to use them.  Web sites are the worst.

Like today, I was on a comic web site… the comics are great… they have this really cool “Random Comic” link at the top of the page, and many of the comics are much longer than one page.  You read the comic and have to scroll back to the top of the page to hit the Random Comic (or any) link.  If you want me to read the comic and stay on the site, put the link at the bottom of the page so I don’t have to scroll back to the top to view another.  If the web designer had actually used the site, they would have realized that putting those links at the bottom of the page would have improved site usability 257%.

Deserving

One of my absolute least favorite words is “deserve.” I know, it’s not a word that people frequently think of as being negative, but to me it is, and very much so. With very few exceptions, I usually cringe when I hear people say they “deserve” something.

Let me back up a bit. I believe that everything we are given in this life is a gift, either from God or from our fellow human beings. We can’t really earn anything because we aren’t guaranteed anything. If someone gives us something it is because they want to, not because they are required to do so. When someone says that they deserve something, they are ignoring that whatever they are being given is a gift, and is something to cherish.

Imagine two scenarios… If someone believes that they deserve something and they do receive it, it often results in them not being grateful for it. They believe that they have been given something of their own merit, ignoring the fact that someone has been gracious with them. We don’t look at things as gifts, but as an exchange for something we have done.

On the other hand, if someone believes that they deserve something and they don’t receive it, it leads to resentment and hate. They feel slighted that they haven’t received something they believe they should have. This not only shows a lack of gratitude, but in fact the opposite, creating negative feelings towards another.

In either case, we lose. We’re either ungrateful, or resentful. There are no good outcomes here.

To say that we deserve something also shows a lack of humility. If I were to say that I deserve more money for my job, what I am really saying is that my needs and wants are more important than those of my employer, or its other employees. I am in effect saying that I am better than everyone else there because my needs are more important than theirs. A truly humble person is grateful for everything they are given, and they don't have expectations of anything.

Feelings of deserving create a never ending cycle. If we believe we deserve something and we continue to receive it, it either escalates to belief in deserving more, or a stronger expectation the next time, and thus stronger disappointment and resentment if we don’t get what we believe is due.

The cycle can be broken, though. Once we stop believing that we deserve something we start to become grateful for anything that we do receive. We recognize and appreciate anything done for us, or anything given to us. On the flip side of the coin, if we don’t receive something, our feelings aren’t hurt, and we don’t have resentment because we aren’t expecting it. It’s a win-win situation.

If we learn to change our attitude so that we begin to look at everything we receive as a gift our lives are happier, and we treat others better. Others can see that we are grateful and are more willing to share with us. We are also then more gracious with others as well. Everybody wins.

Home again… and other mental meanderings

I actually got back from my Vegas trip last night, but I’m glad to be back home.  Not just because home is comfortable, or because the trip wasn’t fun, but because I finally have a chance to slow down a little bit and not have quite so many heavy demands on my time.  And it means that I can get back to 7-8 hours of sleep per night, and can actually go to bed before 5am.  The last 6 weeks of 4-6 hours of sleep was getting brutal.  Zzzzz.

Pizza Expo was fun… we had more people interested in our Point-of-Sale software than we thought we might.  And those that gave us the time to give a demo were pretty impressed by what we’ve done.  I’m not sure how many sales we’ll end up with, but it was certainly worth our time and effort to go and exhibit at the show, enough that we already signed up for next year.  And you can’t argue with the free pizza, bread, cheese, chicken, and drink samples the different food vendors give out liberally.  Yum.

Driving that far by myself always scares me a little bit.  When I’m the only one in a car I get pretty bored, which makes it hard for me to remain alert.  So generally I avoid driving more than about 2 hours by myself if I have a choice.  But thanks to the magic of long podcasts, Wake Up Juice (known to the rest of the world as Coke or Dr. Pepper, which I don’t normally drink otherwise) and a lengthy phone call in each direction, I was able to stay very awake and alert without any hint of drowsiness at all.  Sigh.  Maybe I’m getting over my tendency to get tired behind the wheel?  I guess we’ll find out when I head back to Vegas next month for NAB.  Exciting!

This Vegas trip was generally not good for my technological devices.  My Zune has developed some screen problems (I believe from being crushed by the weight of two laptops), and my USB hard drive really started acting up… it decided to corrupt about half of my music collection, and all of the video files I carry with me.  Not that I don’t have other copies (I do write backup software after all), but it was a little inconvenient.  But I think I can fix the Zune, and the dying hard drive is still under warranty.  Note to self: stop buying Western Digital hard drives; they always fail on you.  D’oh.

One good thing that happened to me technologically was that my GPS saved me a ton of time on the way home.  There was an accident on I-15 as I was leaving Vegas, so my GPS popped up a message telling me so, and it automatically routed me around it.  It had me exit from the freeway just before traffic came to a dead stop, and put me back on just after the lanes opened back up.  Very smart.  It probably saved me 30 minutes.  Woohoo!

I’m getting so ready for the cold weather to be over.  I’m not a fan of the cold… Summer is by far my favorite season, even though for several years running now I have felt like I wasted them by staying inside the whole time.  Hopefully this year I’ll actually leave my dungeon and see the sun.  Natural light!

Lately I have really become a fan of the TV show Chuck on NBC.  The ads that NBC has been using to promote the series since its inception 18 months ago had always scared me away; they play up the sexiness of the Sarah Walker character too much and focused too little on the premise of the show, which is about a kind but geeky guy (Chuck Bartowski) who “accidentally” has his head filled with top secret intelligence by a former roommate.  He then has to be protected and hidden from the bad guys by CIA (Walker) and NSA (Casey) agents, all while attempting to continue his otherwise mundane life.  While it does have a few moments here and there, fortunately the show is much milder in the exploitation department than I would have guessed from the previews.  I enjoy the humor that comes from the Chuck character (Zachary Levi) – his ineptitude makes him hilarious, but his innocence makes you love him.  Sarah “Jennifer Rebecca Katie Lisa O’Connell Franco Burton” Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) is both absolutely gorgeous and is intriguing on many deeper levels (why does someone who cares for someone and secretly craves a normal life so deeply still want to be a spy?).  Both Zach and Yvonne are pretty good actors too; their characters are easy to connect with, and you can tell what they are thinking and feeling at just a glance.  The whole Chuck/Sarah thing (known to fans as Charah) is the most intriguing part of the show and it keeps me invested as long as the relationship is growing.  I actually teared up a little bit in this last episode where Sarah openly admitted to a fellow agent that she had feelings for Chuck, and also a few minutes later when Chuck told Sarah (in a round about way) that he loved her.  Maybe its the geek in me that hopes that someday a beautiful woman will see past my nerdy exterior and see my inner self that makes me connect with these characters, I don’t know, or maybe its just that its a fun show.  But I very much enjoy it and its Charah plot line.  Tender.

Tonight for movie night we watched Signs.  I love that movie.  But then again I love any movie that addresses spirituality in a positive light.  We see way too much anti-religiosity in every form of media these days, so it’s very nice to see it portrayed in an uplifting way.  Yay!

Okay, it’s 2:30am, which is about where I want to be for my new bedtime.  So I’ll stop my textual vomit and head off to bed now.  Thanks for staying with me in this lengthy random post.