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During an interval of a show, there are about seven different commercials airing, ranging from ten to thirty seconds long. There are about three commercial intervals per thirty minutes of viewing, and thats about twenty commercials being aired.

Now, if the average person watches three hours of television every day for seventy years, he would have seen 3 million advertisements. That's not including the innumerous posters, newspaper ads and other billboards that are scattered around the city.

But television ads are unique in the sense that if you're seeing a television ad, it is somehow remotely interesting to you. Obviously this is because television watchers are self-selecting. Desperate Housewives viewers would be inundated with household product ads and pool boy services ads. Manly men shows like sports shows would be intermittent with beer and truck commercials. Cartoons will be filled with advertisements on toys and McDonalds.

I guess such psychological, mind-altering, behaviour-modding, persuasive clips are unethical but on the other hand it is interesting to find what kind of people share your tastes. If you watch football, you'd probably be into huge trucks and Miller Lite. So would the people around you. Which is also why you don't get shoe sales promotion during that time. Or shampoo ads. Or ads that don't cater to your segment. Although Victoria's Secret ads would indeed generate a lot of viewership but not sales.

Which brings me to the point that if an ad shows up on tv which you are uncomfortable with, maybe you shouldn't be watching that show. Like if you were getting your Saturday morning cartoon fix and a Barbie commercial goes on, maybe it would mean that your manhood is under attack by cruel, feminist, lawyer Barbie who sued Ken for his house, car, bank accout and left nut in a bitter divorce settlement, then you'd better flip channels.

But it is indeed amusing to guess what sort of people respond to these commercials. I find American football commercials most interesting and annoying at the same time, because a football game lasts exactly one hour, but effectively takes up to three hours of show time. Translation: you watch twice as many advertisements than the game. If any sport is a sellout, it would be American football, with over five million dollars for a 30-second commercial during the Superbowl Halftime Show.

There is always some truck, pickup ad during any football game. It feels like everyone who watches football owns a truck, or wants to own a truck. It is an interesting demographic that ever advertisers take note. There was this truck ad where they showed a viewer fast-forwarding through a football game and then stopping to watch a truck commercial. Then he starts moaning, "Oh... yeah... I could watch this all day." I swear man, some of these people love trucks so much that they jack off to these commercials.

However there was this one commercial during a football game that a friend pointed out that made me laugh. It was about Wrangler jeans. First cue: country music. Buttshot of man wearing Wrangler jeans. Clip of men going camping together. Buttshot. Clip of two men doing outdoor stuff. Buttshot. Clip of more men together. Buttshot. Buttshot. Buttshot. Then comes the kicker: two men grabbing a slippery fish together with a huge smile on their faces. Then Wrangler logo. Fade music.

Yeah. Football, trucks, beer and Brokeback Mountain, anyone?

Global Warming and Tabloids

Just yesterday, I listened to a very interesting argument that global warming does not exist. It is simply a myth by the liberal left to stymie the great American economy by stopping the rampant acquisition of wealth by the greedy monopolists.

Sometimes I just wish bigotry like that did not exist. I was at a loss in trying to refute such arguments, but my friend was also expounding on his opinion that if the government were to stay out of most businesses, everyone would be better of. People would be richer, there would be less cost of maintaining the government system because there would be less of a system, business will grow and the world would flourish and rainbows and ponies would dance in the green meadows and everyone would hug and kiss and laugh in joy as there would be world peace.

No, that's not what he said, but I think there was that gleam in my friend's eyes as he spoke of a truly free-market economy. He believed if the rich got richer, the poor would get richer too.

But there was some ambiguity in his words. On the other hand, he didn't really care about the poor. Whatever he earned, he deserves. He deserves to keep it, and the government should keep its corrupt hands off. Screw social security, screw taxes. He wants an itemized tax bill, if he wants to support the war on Iraq, he'll pay taxes for that. If he wants to support abortion, he'll pay tax on that. If he doesn't support giving aid to third world countries, he won't pay tax on that.

The ambuigity that I speak of, arises that on one hand, he claims that the rich will inadvertantly benefit the poor. On the other hand, he doesn't want to help the poor at all in the form of charity; the only way he wants the poor to get his money is through sub-par minimum wage. Yes, he also stated why the minimum wage should be abolished. So I see a walking contradiction of why the current system sucks and should be abolished.

"We should take all the poor and put them together in this area or something," he says.

"And what? Gas them?" I ventured.

"And poke them."

Okay, maybe he said that in jest, but I feel his disdain for the poor. He feels that the poor are just poor because they are lazy. I feel that he is rich because of the color of his skin.

He may have a point to that, that the poor are poor because they are lazy. I take the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan every morning, and always I see the same newspaper being read by similar strap-hangers (coloq: subway riders). Everyone reads the New York Post. The New York Post is equivalent to the toilet paper I use to wipe my ass. No, wait, it's not even good enough to wipe my ass with. It is a piece of garbage that is filled with the most purile, nonsensical bs, with headlines written in the most childish IRC manner. The cover page always has something that makes me feel that the copy-editor was some ten-year-old kid in elementary school, with similar notions to insult the subject of the article as well as the mind of the reader. It is the only newspaper that ever put the divorce of Britney Spears and the verdict of Saddam Hussien side by side on the front page. It is a paper that caters to the insensitivities and ignorance of the readers, with headlines like "Muslim Thugs Prove Pope Right" with regards to Pope Benedict's comments, and other similar offensive headlines.

It's so different being on a subway that just traverses mainly Manhattan. People there carry New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. "Newspapers of the left" they call it. Whatever, they at least report decent relevant news rather than some hot topic entertainment gossip. Sure, Jayson Blair might have made up stories for the New York Times, but New York Post does it on a regular basis, with their own spin on truth.

Clearly, even within the urban scene, there is such a stark distinction between the rich and the poor, just by the paper they read. There are other things I've noticed, the language they speak, the clothes they wear, the color of their skin, all these things demarcate the rich from the poor. But I don't believe that the amount of money in their wallet is solely their own fault.

My conception of things is that the wealth gap cannot widen too much, else it will tear the fabric of society apart and we'll have anarchy in the streets. Because when you push a man into a corner and he has nowhere to go and nothing to lose, that is when you should be most fearful. Wealth, is something that denotes how much a person has. But wealth only means something if there is a market for exchanging wealth. And this market only exists if society exists. And society exists only if the laws of society are obeyed.

So a person's wealth is only wealth if it is recognized by society.

Crime, on the other hand, is just a fracturing of society, because crime is whatever that disobeys the law. And arresting of criminals and putting them in prison is analogous to putting a bandaid on the fracturing of society and say it's okay now. What I'm trying to say is that if the poor are pushed way beyond the poverty line, they will resort to crime, and crime will take away your wealth. And maybe more.

I guess it is inherently in the rich's vested interests that the status quo remains, that the poor don't get poorer, and continue to be assisted by the rich. Because to the rich, law and order are more important to them, than to the poor. That is why the rich pays more taxes, contributes more to social security and pays for a lot of social welfare benefits.

At the end of the day, the only law that still governs universally is the law of numbers. While 10% of the people may hold 90% of the wealth, they are still outnumbered 9 to 1.

Stockholm Syndrome

The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. - Wikipedia

I was sort of thinking about Stockholm Syndrome while walking around town today, and I think what I'm about to say is heresy, especially to me. I thought that, there is no way in hell anyone could like numbers that much. How could someone enjoy counting, and all the innumerable theorems that build up the vast knowledge of mathematics. It is easy to relate to the frustration of struggling with the math problems and wishing all the numbers would just go away.

Which is why I think I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I profess my love for mathematics, but only as a psychological defense to the torment of being pounded with numbers and equations. Think about it, my feeble mind could not grasp the complexity of the equations, so it did the next best thing, it professed love for mathematics, so that it could at least con itself into thinking that since it enjoys mathematics, it might as well do more mathematics.

And how do I realise that I may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? After my exam today, I sort of felt a withdrawal from mathematics, realising that I didn't need to study any more. I felt this sort of awkward dependence on mathematics, realising that my life lacked direction and meaning with this completion of my actuarial exam. Well, not that I passed, I have no idea of the results just yet, but the idea that I was done with this for now left me with a gap in my life. Then I realised that maybe I was held hostage by this concept of mathematics, that my life was defined by it, and I am a slave to mathematics. That without mathematics, I am suffering from a withdrawal, and I want to go back to solving math problems.

See? It all makes sense now. It all makes sense. I think.