How to Write a Good (Basic) Essay

by Eric P. Metze

1. Write a five-sentence summary about the whole paper, and try to make it mimic what your paper will look like when you’re done. The first sentence, like the first paragraph, is your introduction. The next three (or two, or four, or thirty, or whatever) sentences should be your “body” sentences, like the body paragraphs in a standard essay. The last sentence should be a conclusion sentence, like the conclusion paragraph, but don’t be too descriptive. Save that for later.

2. Copy your whole introduction and paste it below where it is now. Delete the first and last sentences and put paragraph breaks in between each sentence. Leave that sentence up while you type that particular paragraph. It is your thesis sentence for that particular paragraph. Leaving it up there will help keep you on topic, since paragraphs are only supposed to have breaks when the subject changes, not when there’s a “break in the conversation.”

3. Copy your introductory paragraph again and paste it below the rest of it all. Now, plagiarize! Well, plagiarize yourself. Take the words you wrote in the introduction and pretend like you’re trying to hide that you plagiarized it from the first paragraph. As long as you don’t mind that your work is being passed off as someone else’s, your other personality won’t mind borrowing your ideas.

4. Now, go back and revise the whole paper. Make sure you smooth out sudden changes in direction, such as hopping to a topic that has little or no relevance to the one you were just discussing. You are free to mess with the format you created using the first three steps because it is just a framework.

5. Wait a while, maybe have a sandwich or something. Then come back and revise the whole paper again. Trust me.

6. Wait a while, don’t have another sammich, then come back and revise the whole paper again.

7. Repeat step #6.

8. Repeat step #7.

9. Repeat step #8.

10. Get the idea?

Stop using www. right now!

by Eric P. Metze

I grew up in a town of about 12,000. Everyone I knew had the same area code and the same prefix to their phone number. For anyone calling from, say, Kansas, my home phone number was (806) 894-4879. For anyone calling from my hometown, all I had to tell them was 4879.

Well, I have a small but annoying complaint with Internet users right now. Did you know that almost every website, you don’t have to type www. before the domain name? Seriously, it’s a complete waste of time. If it doesn’t work, it just means that the person who set the site up didn’t do it correctly. But I digress.

When you see someone typing www. before the domain, it’s like they’re calling their next door neighbor and entering the area code (and the parentheses) before they dial the actual number that matters. If I was telling my neighbor my phone number, I used to tell them 4879. But typing www. is like me telling them my phone number is, “Open parentheses, eight zero six, close parentheses, eight nine four, four eight seven nine.” They would just roll their eyes while I told them the area code and the prefix.

All I’ve gotta say is, don’t be that person online…

We are mostly nothing!

by Eric P. Metze

Do you realize that we are mostly empty space? And when I say “mostly” I mean, almost entirely. Not just 75% or 90% or even 99%…we’re something like 99.99999999999999999% completely empty space! Want to see what I mean?

I created a graphic that represents an electron as one pixel, which means that the proton graphic I created had to be one thousand pixels wide and tall. It also meant that the electron, which orbits around the proton, had to be at a distance of 50,000,000 pixels!

The electron is represented by a small red dot just below and the proton is represented by a large blue sphere near the bottom of the page. You can try to scroll down the hard way, but you might end up dying of hunger before you get there. I’d suggest grabbing the slider bar and dragging it down to the bottom. Then again, you might start out the slow way since the point of this is to show you just how vast the distances are between them.

Now, remember the distance from the electron at the top of the page and the proton just above is only half of the size of the entire atom. This is just the radius, not the diameter.

Selling Virtual Things

by Eric P. Metze

My cousin, Steve Metze, asked me how one could make money selling virtual things. Well, the entire Second Life economy is a lot like the US economy, only it’s based on the Linden (L$), which is their version of the dollar. Now, if it was just play money I wouldn’t be excited about it in the least. But it’s immediately transferable into US dollars, which gives it real world value. Second Life has a dynamic market that dictates the value of the L$ based on how much money is in the system and being exchanged at any given time. Honestly, it’s very complex and there are economists who would have a lot of fun mulling the whole thing over. It’s really a little beyond me, but I’m just learning. The important thing to note is that you can sell your L$ for US$ at any time.

To answer my cousin’s question, there are an almost infinite number of ways to earn money in Second Life. Some people create and sell things, some people perform duties and earn it, and some people just simply ask for it or give it away. From a designer/artist/creative perspective, it’s really cool because you can create just about anything and people will buy it in L$. Then you take your money and do whatever you want with it, including selling them for US$.

For example, a couple days ago I created several virtual framed prints out of pictures that I either made in Photoshop or snapped with my camera. I put them on display and yesterday a guy came through and bought two of them. He can now take them and put them in his virtual home, or a virtual art museum, or take them out and just look at them, or just throw it on the virtual ground…whatever he wants. They’re his prints, so I don’t care what he does with them. For me, the money I made paid for my rent and then some.

You could, for example, create a theater for people to watch a film you created. Charge an entrance fee (just like a real theater), and the user can sit in your theater and watch the movie. Charge L$20 for each person who wants to watch it, and they can watch it at their leisure, and you don’t have to do anything but set it up. The money is earned whether or not you’re there to receive it, and it starts to build up. And eventually, you just sell your L$ for US$. (It’s also important to note that they can’t download your films because they’re streaming through Second Life, not streaming to their hard drive like watching it in a web browser.)

Get a (Second) Life!

by Eric P. Metze

I recently got in a discussion about Second Life (a virtual world in which you can live, work, and play) because I just got into it a couple weeks ago. For the longest time I–a born and bred video game enthusiast–completely ignored it because the concept just didn’t seem that interesting to me.

Boy, was I wrong.

As far as gameplay is concerned, it’s very simple and straightforward, which makes it accessible to just about anyone. You don’t need to be a video game player to enjoy this because it’s NOT a video game. Sure, there are places you can go where people are shooting each other and playing all kinds of games, but those places are the exception, not the rule. It’s really more of a 3D chat room than a game. And it’s really more of a game than a 3D chat room. It’s almost undefinable because it’s such a new concept.

If you ever enjoyed playing the Sims, chatting in chat room, walking through an art gallery, building your own home, designing anything in 3D space, watched a live concert, or wished you could fly, you’re going to love Second Life.

Everyone Wants to Be Johnny Carson

by Eric P. Metze

All late night talk shows (aside from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report) are lame and practically worthless. They’re formulaic, unoriginal, and pander to the widest audience possible. Half of the population has a below-average IQ, so their content has pretty much the same level of complexity. At least the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are topical, intelligent, and genuinely funny almost every night (except for the interviews, which I rarely watch). When one of the other shows makes fun of politicians, it’s watered down because they have a much larger audience to consider.

And I suppose that’s really what I don’t like about the late night shows. They’re all so watered down that they’re uninteresting and almost completely lacking in entertainment value to me. For example, I used to love watching Carson Daly when he first got his late show. He and a guest would sit down and have a chat for half an hour. But, I accidentally tuned in the other day to find a completely different dressed in his skin. Now I absolutely cannot watch Carson Daly for more than ten seconds. He wants to be Johnny Carson so bad, the poor sap.

Why is that? Who knows. But, it’s probably because this is a different generation than Johnny Carson’s. There are different…um…standards that the newer audiences are used to. We like our jokes dirtier (i.e., more genuine) than our parent’s and grandparent’s generations (thank God). Seriously, it’s increasingly strange to think that “dirty” jokes are actually dirty. It’s just a generational thing, that’s all. And so the hosts feel the need to be on the cutting edge, as it were. The content of the jokes changes with each generation, but really, everyone wants to be Johnny Carson.

Also, our generation just LOVES bands. Wee hoo! Boy, do we love bands! Bands and music and American Idol and other mind-numbing stuff to keep us from worrying about reality. We love bands whether they’re good or not, and most of the bands on television these days are completely worthless shit. Every Creed and Nickelback wannabe band (including Creed and Nickelback) just plays into the lame ass standards set forth by producers, not listeners. I mean, a Christian band that has ZERO Christian relevance? What the hell!? But, I digress…

Johnny’s Tonight Show formula has influenced every late show that’s on television right now, as if there’s only one way to do it. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, it goes something like this:

They introduce the host as though they are the center of the universe, the host comes out to a band and a cheering audience, the crowd cheers for a little while longer, then the host tells a bunch of “topical” jokes, then they mention the band leader, the cameras cut to the band leader who plays a short piece that people might recognize, then they cut back to the host who has magically teleported to their desk, then they have a humorous bit before they go to commercial, they come back from commercial and have another humorous bit, then they introduce their first guest, second guest, musical guest, who could’ve guessed, rinse, repeat. Feh.

I wonder when they’re going to break the mold and try something different…I mean, besides dirtier jokes and better music. If only Johnny was here to help.

Goodbye Television Stations, Hello Social Networks

by Eric P. Metze

I grew up watching television, just like everyone else. I’ve always thought of each channel in terms of its own personality or spirit, so to speak. When a station that was once young and vibrant gets strung out on pop rock candy, for example, I see it has an entity that has lost its way, not just a channel that has.

Social networking is about to start replacing television stations. Not all of them, of course, but many stations will lose regular viewers to people who are spending more and more time fiddling about on social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, etc. After all, most of the programming is becoming harder to watch, the commercials are forever getting longer and longer, and the majority of television just doesn’t entertain certain people anymore.

As these sites get bigger and as their interfaces get better, their popularity increases dramatically. Just look at what Second Life is doing right now. When the site is user-friendly enough that you don’t have to be a geek to use and enjoy it, the masses will start flocking to the site. And when the masses flock to a site, that means they’re spending less time watching television.

Even if this isn’t the case, which is entirely possible, it’s undeniable that social networks are quickly becoming the preferred form of entertainment for millions of people.

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A “Cool Heads” Global Warming Discussion

by Eric P. Metze

It’s a simple question: What causes global warming?

Here’s a relatively simple answer: Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect and the increase of anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations.

Look at Mars. It has lost most of its greenhouse gases, and now it’s oceans are gone and its surface is freezing. Now, look at Venus. It has a runaway greenhouse effect, and now it’s atmosphere is so dense that it rains diamonds and it is hot enough to melt metal. All three planets (ours included) formed in the same way at the same time, and their present atmospheres are the result of their pasts.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we’ll end up like either of those planets. For one thing, Venus is closer to the sun, so it’s bound to have higher temperatures. But Venus is so hot because of the greenhouse effect, not because it’s closer. As for Mars, it’s farther away and colder, but there is strong evidence that it had complete oceans that once covered its surface. Where did the oceans go? Do you think the atmosphere had anything to do with it? Both of these planets are strong warning signs (from the heavens, I might add) about what our planet’s atmosphere is capable of becoming.

And, something is happening. Take a peek at this: http://eric.metze.us/wordpress/?p=124

I understand taking statistics out of context can be a bad idea (because that graph only goes back a few decades rather than millions of years), but look at the years on the graph and then think about when the Industrial Revolution happened. Is it a coincidence or a correlation?

Or, lets say that we are NOT the cause of global warming. Then that frees us of the burden of having to correct it, right? Wrong. Even if we’re not the cause of it, it’s happening anyway. So, doesn’t it seem like a good idea to plan for the future? You know, get those millions (billions?) of people away from the coming tide changes, or strengthening our homes and buildings so they can survive the increasingly powerful storms, or learning how to deal with all the political unrest (like Darfur) caused by millions of migrating people who are in search of green fields, or, or, or…

The reason this whole discussion bothers me, and the reason I felt the need to talk about it, is because of the politically-motivated distractions caused by the leadership of the Democrats and the Republicans and the inexorably-corrupt media. So when someone wins an award that is supposed to raise global awareness for a cause everyone supports (i.e., a healthy environment to live in), it’s just terribly frustrating that we have to stagnate in a sea of emotion-driven, counter-productive, intentionally-divisive conversations.

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You can’t waste a worthless vote.

by Eric P. Metze

I know how this is going to make me look to some people, but I just stop reading certain emails when I realize it’s their attempt to convince me that voting for Stephen Colbert is a waste of my vote. Is it because I’m intellectually lazy or obstinate? No. I just know from their opening statements that they are working from a premise I do not hold: the elections for president of the United States are legitimate.

I voted for the winner of the past three presidential elections, and Bill Clinton was the only one who actually got into office. And even then, I didn’t know what I was voting for, really. I just knew I didn’t like that weasel whose last name was code for a wimp, and I wanted a saxophone player in the office over him. Yes, that’s how deeply I thought about politics the first time I voted. Sadly, since I’ve become aware of politics and my world, I’ve participated in two of the biggest frauds in American history. Popular vote? That don’t matter none! We done had arselves a elekshun! Two-thirds of the nation doesn’t approve of the incumbent, and yet he gets re-elected? That don’t matter none! We already had arselves a elekshun! An’ besides, them terrists maht git us!

But, I digress…

Until I see proof that our elections have been overhauled, I can’t feel any regret for wasting an already worthless vote. I mean, our elections should (at least superficially) reflect the desires of the people, right? People will go on and on about the same things I used to say. Things like, “this election is too important to throw away.” Well, I’ve got news for anyone who thinks this election is too important: every election is too important to throw away. This is supposed to be a democracy, right? To me, the fact that the elections are rigged is the main issue, not which puppets or parties might be better suited to “run” this nation.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate their concern, and in the past I would otherwise be on their side. But I’ve seen and read things that have convinced me that the presidential election is a farce. And, therefore, all assumptions based on the premise that they are legitimate is just plain illogical. So, trying to convince me of the merits of a pseudo-democracy and an archaic electoral system is a complete waste of my time and theirs. I definitely see their point, but it’s just not relevant to me anymore.

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