slashback

I know you all are waiting to hear what I've been thinking about, so here are some musings I've had.

I heard a girl on the radio today reading websites and incorrectly using the word backslash when she meant forwardslash, or just slash. Normally I don't care about this, mostly because I'm as confused about the whole back/forward slash identity, but I knew this was incorrect because you just never hear the word backslash in a sentence describing a website. Looking up the definition, a backslash is "\", which is never used for a website, but this satisfies me little. Why is it that \ moves backwards when / also clearly moves backwards? Certainly, written by pen the / is a forwardslash and the \ is... well another forwardslash, just started from the top. Maybe the forward/back slash connotation is due to starting the cipher at the writing floor, since all written characters start and come back to the bottom of the line on the page. In that case \ would be a proper backslash. Then again, English starts several characters from the top and never moves backwards (or right-to-left) when written.

So then, what to make of all this? Let's just call them upslash and downslash since clearly one goes up (/) and one goes down (\)... but only when thought of from left to right. Hmmm, is there no clear end to this dilemma?

On the radio earlier I heard an advert for XM Radio 24-hour coverage of the forthcoming 2008 Presidential election. I'm definitely a fan of XM, but I am hardly a fan of 24 hour news. In fact I think 24-hour news is hideous (or terrible beyond words, as Tony Kornheiser would say) for its effect in American society. Twenty-four hour news has aided the demise of newspapers and, ultimately, intellectual thought in modern American culture. The internet gets much of the blame for the downfall of print media but the fall began much earlier. Who wants to read a story and be forced to form an opinion about culture and society on your own when the only choice you really have to make is which news product you would like to consume for your daily dose of prefabricated opinion?

Obviously we don't watch much tele in our household. But 24-hour coverage of the upcoming election got me thinking about past presidents and elections in my voting lifetime. I've made three choices and two in hindsight can be seen as the absolutely wrong choice. While Kerry v Bush still seems to be a losing battle either way, it is now obvious that my choice of Bush over Gore and Clinton over Dole were absolutely bad. Not that I care about making bad choices, but what scares me is the lack of useful information in making such an important selection. Voter misinformation is what the game is all about and I don't see how 24-hour dedicated news helps at all. Hearing the XM advert made me wonder if anyone besides Obama and McCain are trustworthy for running this country, running a business, or kissing my baby. I don't know, and I don't know that I'll get the necessary information to make this decision until spring 2010.

Misinformation--really market ignorance--is a remarkable phenomenon. I often think I'd like to go back to school soon and maybe I'd be interested in writing a very long article on the topic of market ignorance in public education.