A Refreshing Twist: Exploiting Chaos Review

You could also read it for free right here. The great part is that the online book includes videos.

Buy it. It’s a great relic to keep.

Interest: 3

Entertainment value: 4

In a world where people obsess over innovation more than ever, this book is a definite must have.

First of all, Exploiting Chaos feels more of how to innovate while in a company, but the chapters on trend hunting and infectious messaging are good for individuals. Second, while Exploiting Chaos isn’t the first book I will recommend if you want to be creative(The Creative Habit is better) or if you want your messages to stick(Made To Stick goes a lot deeper into the topic), it does cover a lot of ground on those topics.

The trend hunting part is probably the mostly valuable for me. Why? This is from the guy who found TrendHunter, so I highly recommend you heed his advice.

The advice you get from this book isn’t as in-depth as some books, but it’s an easy read. It goes through a lot of topics quickly, but it does cover the essentials. For a 272 page book, it covers a lot more than I’m used to. Hell, it was a lot more entertaining than Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir.

_____

Confused?

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Dear Jeremy Gutsche,

Thank you for giving away the book for free with a few videos included. It felt like one of the best deals I had in my life.

I can’t thank you enough for putting it free online. I’ve heard great things about it, but I could not find a copy. Now, I still want to get a copy, because it’s that good. I also cannot find any point to disagree with(Definitely a bad thing.)

Chaos, as you said, creates opportunity and I highly agree with that. I noticed that some of the works I made that blew my friends away was when there was some big constraint.

The concept of culture has been one of the most important concepts and has been repeated a lot, but it definitely is legit and it is the reason why your friends are the basis for your attitude.

The part about spreading a message felt too short compared to Made to Stick, but then your advice is definitely enough for some. Simple is definitely the foundation and maybe that’s what most people actually need to know first.

Most of the book was a refresher for me, sadly, but your version was definitely the most entertaining one. I usually see hire people from diverse backgrounds. You say it better. Hiring freaks. Now that is the cooler version we should be hearing. If everyone else who wrote business books wrote like you, then business books might outsell romance novels.

The part that was definitely of use to me was spotting trends. Getting that part was okay for me. Clusters seemed sort of like common sense, yet that’s what most books offer like Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

Sincerely,

Henshinger

Reality Books

Reading a blog or news site is almost as bad as watching a reality show. No matter what happens, these things are narrated by humans and humans generally suck at being unbiased.

Let’s start from the beginning. We all know how bad reality shows are. It’s anything, but reality. There’s too many things that stop it from being totally real, but what if reality shows have book adaptations.

Before we make a theoretical reality book, let’s deconstruct reality shows in general. The people there know they will be on national television and that will change everyone’s perception of their own actions, especially if they’re going to pee on the sidewalk. Also, reality shows can’t show 24 hour footage, so they edit the events that we see.

Look at (insert country) Got Talent. They can’t go through all the footage. They usually go for performances with contestants that swat flies on national television or anything in the lines of showing your ass in public and everyone laughs at your non-existent brain. Other than that, they show real talent.

When you watch something as dumb as Jersey Shore, they edit to make you want to blow up bars, because hate always makes the idiots curious for crack that can’t get you high. Sadly, those idiots increase exponentially and Jersey Shore stays on TV.

Now, any kid who had his head stuck in a toilet bowl in school knows that when you lose your cool, you want to shout, “It’s clobbering time.” and get your head stuck in a toilet bowl, this time with a whirlpool of fecal matter crashing on your face. That’s what basically happens when you’re on reality shows. You could only bear faking it for a while.

Reality shows merely wait for you to act like…yourself. Reality shows were targeted at 20-somethings, but that doesn’t mean they actually have to teach you anything. All they have to do is use any minor controversy in real life and edit to make it look like a big problem in national television, because a fight over the (insert douche)’s My Little Pony stickers that lasted two minutes needs to be expanded upon by getting unrelated events look like it was all thanks to stickers. This is why they used a trustworthy voice to narrate(read “connect) the events.

Now, let’s try to look at any book that does not present all the facts and uses a biased view…every book? Glenn Beck books are the obvious choice here, but yeah, every book in the history of the world, more specifically nonfiction.

Don’t believe me? Grab any nonfiction book. Okay, you’re stuck on Reddit these days, so click a random news link.

Notice that it was written by a human. Not a robot, but a human. Let me ask you, have you ever met any human that does not love, hate or feel anything…that you actually met in this dimension. Thought so. We are still susceptible to making conclusions immediately, because humans were made to make conclusions.

What about the neutrality of the news? Well, remember the essays you wrote in school. You get graded based on conforming to an idea, so the best way to achieve neutrality is to pretend a teacher is going to give you an F if you don’t describe things like you do in school.

Since anyone who reads books probably met people on the way that is set into “accepted neutrality” mode or he was actually was forced to be “neutral”, they will see that the news as unbiased.

If you look closely, by that I don’t mean pixelating the PDF file you downloaded, the news, books and blogs are pointing to a sign. They don’t give all the details, just pointing to a sign like “The government is stupid” or “We’re doomed.” Coincidentally, they are the messages that make you want to read the news, the same way the “big picture” of the problem you see in reality shows.

The news is bent towards a direction to keep you hooked. My blog is included, but I’m not saying it’s wrong to filter things. Someone has to curate the relevance of the details. Just make sure that you trust the curator.

Why Your Webapp Needs To Be Fat free

When you go to the grocery store, the fat free product is more expensive, yet a lot of people buy it.

Why?

Because it has less of what we don’t want. Everyone has their needs and we don’t need fats. Some people need it, but most people don’t.

When you build a webapp, don’t add unnecessary features. Fats are unnecessary things that do nothing but worsen your product.

We want the good stuff. If you still add fats, let logic guide you with the three reasons below.

1. Less Memory

If your webapp doesn’t have fats, it consumes less memory. That’s a great thing. Less code, faster loading time and less load on your servers.

Sure, you may have lost some people who wanted that almost unused feature, but at least most of your users benefit.

The biggest reason I hate fatty webapps is crappy internet. Not every country has decent internet. Sometimes, we’re downloading a big file. Either ways, the fatty webapp will take too long to load. By that time, I would’ve closed the tab.

The lean webapp wins, because I get to try it out without showing the computer the middle finger and cursing my internet provider.

2. Cleaner UI

With all those fats covering the meat, how are we supposed to see beauty?

Fat free webapps are sexy. There’s barely any clutter. We could easily use the webapp.

The UI let’s us see what we need. There’s no fat to distract us from the beautiful creature you have made.

The UI is very important, because a bad one makes the mouse think your webapp is a maze. A good UI is one where the mouse clicks around in peace. Giving us more time to concentrate on what we were doing instead of figuring out how to use the webapp.

3. Better Features

Time is limited. We all know that. That’s why deadlines exist.

Adding good features takes a lot of time. Adding fats takes equally as long. When you add fats, the good features may literally get half-assed.

Since you have less time to improve the good features, your features start to suck and we hate products that sucks.

The lean webapp wins, because the good features become great thanks to the time spent to improve it.

#1 Tip to removing fats

Ask yourself, “Why did I want to make my product?”

That’s it. Fats are unnecessary things added due to different reasons. Before you add a feature, forget about it. A good feature will still be in your mind a week later.

The Literary Proof

Let’s face it. Continuity gets the middle finger. There comes a time when the writer decides to screw up everything even if he should have just made a reboot.

Highlander comes to mind. How do aliens get involved when the title is Highlander? I could rant about Zeist all day, but the video below probably does it a lot better.

via spoonyexperiment.com

I propose a solution to fix all those continuity problems. It has already been proven to work on math. Yes, math.

That’s right writing a proof. Anyone who doesn’t want a huge pile of hate mail thrown at him by the mail man needs to use this. That’s basically anyone who needs to make something good.

Tommy Wiseau, you are exempted. Your nonsensical script in that flower shop scene made my day. For the rest of you, unless you plan to make a movie, so bad that it’s good, use the mathematical proof.

How does it work?

Well, if you never had geometry back in high school, you’re lucky. I will explain how these proofs work…without mentioning the word ‘triangle’.

In the mathematical proof above, we see that the left column shows what is happening. The right column tells us why.

Let’s use a basic story.

1. John walked to the park.  | given

Given is used any time you don’t need to explain anything. You can make your given as long as you want, but make sure to limit it to just one. We don’t to see John suddenly fighting aliens unless we see aliens attacking first.

Everything else needs a reason to be there. Seriously.You can’t just say, “Bob killed Joe” without giving us a reason. You can’t just say, “Unicorns have taken over the world” without giving us a legitimate reason.

Other than given, all your reasons should come from the right column. Yes, all of it. If you are really paranoid of that single plothole, you have to give a reason. Every. Single. Time.

Example:

1. Jack is a rich asshole drug dealer. Mary is really poor, | given
2. Mary married Jack                                                    | statement 1
3. The police wants Jack in jail.                                      | statement 1

You get the idea.

Is this a time waster or a revelation? Sound off in the comments.

The Strange Need For Dramatization

Life isn’t exactly boring. After all, it isn’t worth living if it isn’t as good as your favorite movie.

I want you to remember a movie that tries to make something boring overly dramatic. Think of watching a movie where the main character just sleeps. That’s it. Just sleeping.

Now imagine adding CGI thought bubbles. Extreme slow motion. Epic music. Sleep doesn’t seem boring. It just looks retarded. That’s what some people are doing. I call them the Dramatizers.

A message to dramatizers:

You don’t have to make your problems look bigger. Seriously, we know it’s bad, but we know that it’s not THAT bad.

Your girlfriend maybe bitchy, but do you really need to panic if she doesn’t clean up your mess? Having someone else clean your mess is not a problem. Making it look bigger is.

Leaving for another country? That’s sad. Everyone here is going to miss you, until you start screaming like your mother died when someone didn’t know.

There’s no need to announce that mess. Just clean it up. Some things are great for your biography, but make it great by showing us that you really are awesome, not talking about how hard it was to order someone to pick up a glass of water.

Reality shows look interesting, right? This is real footage. Real drama. No wait, it’s just an editor who took out most of the happy moments away. False alarm. Not to mention, how long it takes to edit all those eating scene. Mustard all over the CCTV. Damn, if I was that editor, I would wish that his life was as interesting as the show he was editing right now. Sadly, it’s not real.

Don’t try to make your life look interesting by adding artificial problems. It’s cute at first, until we realize how pathetic you were when you talked about the horror of losing a strand of hair. Besides, we have our own problems.

Wait, you demand a speech. What’s that? You deserve recognition for being more special than the rest of us, mere mortals. Suck it up! Your part of the human race. Only the minority doesn’t think they’re special.You may be good in singing, dancing, academics and impressing those cubicle dudes, but the hacker right beside you is more deserving of my praise. 

The Correct Opinion

My brother showed me the notes given to them for their class. There was one statement that got my attention.

“Chinese is the most beautiful language in the world.”*

What?!

Okay, let’s add some considerations. We talked about the beauty of the concise language called math equations which has the advantage of being understood by all. Now, let’s talk about the beauty of Chinese.

English and Japanese(or at least what I heard) have some really strict rules. English may have a lot of words, but Chinese has the advantage of just writing it.

Here’s an example.

I ate some hotdog.

English requires you to stick to rules like the Subject-Transitive Verb-Direct Object. This comes with advantages and disadvantages, but the biggest disadvantage is how confusing some rules get.

Chinese is simply “Anything works as long as it makes sense.” I don’t usually see a lot of rules. We weren’t really taught any rule in making sentences. It was just putting random words to make sense. No rule that I know of.

This highlights the advantage of Chinese for creative writing. It is flexible enough that abusing it isn’t that hard to abuse it. The rules in some other language stop you from abusing the language easily, but people always find a loophole, it’s just a lot harder.

I can say that it is a beautiful language, but some people prefer limits and constraints while others hate it. It’s simply an opinion. The problem is when they use opinions as the correct answer in a test.

I’m not kidding. The test they had asked, “What’s the most beautiful language?”
The test demanded you to write Chinese as the answer. If you wrote something else like Latin, you’re wrong.

I could see you getting mad, ready to go to forums and condemn the Chinese educational system. Let me ask you this, What about the social studies topics that say Chinese are smart efficent machines programmed to be good at math and science, but suck at creativity?

I may not have access to any current social studies textbook, but the ones I encounter talk about how conservative this country was or how Westerners basically don’t care about their family members. Yes, that is actually written in some textbooks. Deal with it.

Some standardized tests DEMAND that you classify a certain race as industrious or stupid. They could talk about demographics, statistics or even countries where the most terrorists came from, but everyone is an individual with their own personality.

So now we should ban social studies, right? Wasn’t that the point?

NO.

I want you to look at how some things are taught to children. Don’t be surprised if some people who aced standardized tests join the Klan.

No, Texan conservatives. You are not getting away. I have a horde of LARPers waiting at your backyard. If you want to fight, let’s settle this one on one at the back of McDonald’s. Yes, THAT McDonald’s.

I simply want to change your educational system, even if I barely know your history. I may not know what your significance was, but kicking out Thomas Jefferson, your FOUNDING FATHER, out of the curriculum for a more opinionated and conservative history lesson is NOT smart.

I know my economics and he happens to have made some smart moves. Unlike the moves the that lead to the recession you just suffered through.

All I could say is that I’m scared. I’m scared that schools from east to west are teaching opinions. Demanding that some opinions are be correct. An opinion is something personal. If we are forced to conform to a set of opinions, then I’d rather be a hacktivist than listen to your crap.

Also, if you are some guy from the CIA assessing threats,I have never been able to successfully kill a fly in my entire life. The oldest guy I have beaten up was 2 years old. That is all I could say about my potential as a terrorist.

 

*It was written in Chinese, obviously. I translated it.

Math Equations Are Better Writers Than Me

Math equations always look like evil characters banded together by these strange crosses and lines. They are ruthless in making your mind explode. They do nothing, but show you a cryptic sign that tells you that you are probably going to fail the test. Of course, if you could understand their hieroglyphic gibberish, then you probably will pass the test.

That just sums up math equations, it is a language that most people probably hate. Okay, not everyone hates it. It is certainly the language everyone understand(even if the nouns and verbs are limited)

Math equations are probably the one thing everyone understands. It is also one of the few things we were forced to understand. That simply highlights the problem. They drilled it into our heads without our permission.

That seems like a good thing. A common language everyone understands. The problem is similar to learning Chinese here in the Philippines. They keep testing you, forcing you to memorize without enjoying the beautiful syntax it offers.

Beautiful Syntax for Storytelling

Math equations offer really fast paced mysteries ,thrillers and romance stroies. Trust me.

Look at a random mediocre(or bad) story. There are times when you shout out “Get to the point!” Math equations limit you from having that problem. Watch.

3 + 2*

5 – 4  

If we were to turn that into a small romance story, it would be, Bob loves Kate, but their parents want to kill each other. Plus is love, Minus is hate. The underline represents a time bomb waiting to burst when their parents find out.

Of course, we’ll probably solve 3+2 first. Bob loves Kate which results in them having a date. Simple, short and gets to the point.

Bob’s father is a crime boss while Kate’s dad is a CIA agent. This results in a fight scene that results in them hating each other.

Now, that these two ‘solvable’ problems have been taken cared of, let’s continue with 5/1(this is math in elementary, you probably would have figure out the resulting fraction.)

5/1 is when their parents have a shootout that involves their kids getting caught in the middle.

It ends with a 5 which probably means something. Use your imagination. We got to the point. That short math equation ended with a very simple love story that has a bit of complexity. That’s just four numbers, three operations/events.

You could clearly see the power and beauty of this short and concise language. It is limited to an infinite number of possible characters. Complex events are easily made. For example, (3×4+7/8 -2[1+5]). Three events happening simultaneously. which results in three events that result into one event(the finale).

Math equations work perfectly well as thrillers, You know these two stories divided by a line will collide into a big event. There are great subplots to keep you wanting more. It’s just beautiful. In fact, you should try writing your story in math equation form. You thought it was complicated, but it was just divided by three lines only.

Try this:

Inception in a math equation(or at least what I remember):

(Leo works for Sato) (Leo recruits Ariadne)_

(Leo is using a powerful sedative entering deeper levels.) (Son’s brain is fighting)

(Leo has some serious wife problems)

Done. Okay I can’t recall all the details, but that’s all I could remember. I could google it(I probably should), but this is close enough for me.

It already shows the conflict and it shows how the film progressed. Okay, I could refine it to mirror the plot, but this is good enough. I didn’t use + and – to make it easier to understand, but it still has a similar impact.

Don’t believe me, here.

(Leo + Sato) (Leo + Ariadne)

(Dream level x Sedative threat) (Brain – Leo’s team)

(Leo – wife)

Now you can see how a math equation can tell an extremely interesting and complex story, while making it look simple, short and easy to understand.

Math equations tell it in a short and exiting order that does not drone for too long while giving interesting subplots. You have to see that this concise language can be used to tell very interesting stories.

Now it seems dumb to say a language is better than the writer. It’s like saying a hammer is stronger than a human, but it just sums up how a tool can create better stories than a regular person who is a lot smarter including me.

Not everyone may like math equations, but it is a good language for storytelling. It’s a shame that people see it as a sign of sleepless nights and painfully low grades.

*I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to properly write equations in a blog.

Compromising All For A Bean: Johnny English Reborn Review

Rent/Borrow It

Interest:1

Entertainment Value: 3

Rowan Atkinson’s humorous antics make the movie really fun, but sadly, the movie is equally intelligent as Johnny English.

Johnny English Reborn will definitely insult your intelligence. You can recall at least ten instances of every character doing something completely stupid. The plot is pointless. Nearly every character that is supposed to be smart is dumber than a ten year old. Despite all that, I got what I wanted. Rowan Atkinson being Rowan Atkinson.

I know that having a plot and interesting characters is important, but Rowan Atkinson is enough for their target audience. Everyone who wanted to see this movie came for Rowan Atkinson. The guys behind the movie knew that, so they made everything else horrible to put the spotlight on Rowan Atkinson.

I got what I came for, but having a plot, interesting characters and some common sense would’ve been a very nice bonus.

How to Screw Up Standardized Testing

Instead of ranting about standardized tests, I wrote this screenplay. This is merely speculating on how they make the tests. Also, this is my first screenplay.

Dramatis personae:

Nick-member of the Ministry of Education

Joe-member of the Ministry of Education

Fe- head of the Minstry of Education

Bo- member of the Ministry of Education

Dan- A janitor who works at the Ministry if Education

Red- A beggar

Alvin- The youngest boy to earn the National Artist Award. Mute.

Trisha -math teacher of Alvin

 

Thunder could be heard. A small office with one Windows 95 computer is shown. Joe is talking to Fe. Nick is reading a celebrity gossip magazine. All of them look like teachers. The camera zooms to the door. The door opens. Bo’s hair and clothing is really wet. He slammed the door omce he got in.

Fe: Finally, let’s start making the BCGQ. 

Bo: Yeah. Also, the weather man gave the wrong prediction for the fifth time this week. Well, let’s get this over with.

Nick: Yeah, let’s make it as easy as possible. The less people fail, the smarter we look.

It will show a montage of them making the test on paper. Nothing extraordinary. They don’t touch the computer.

Joe: OK, we’re done with math and science. What should we do next?

Nick: I don’t know. We just need to reach ten subtests. 

Fe: Let’s be more productive shall we? BCGQ stands for Bobine Career Guessing Quiz. What careers do we need?

Bo: Well, there are always entrepreneurs.

Fe: Great. Let’s add that. Now, who will make the test?

Nick: I know. Wait here. I’ll be back.

Nick rushes to the door. He slams it with excitement.

Bo: Let’s review the math portion while waiting. 

Bo looks several items then scratches his head. He grabs a pencil and starts scribbling math equations. After a while, he starts biting the pencil. 

Bo: Let’s just get some high school kids and ask them if they got the answer. 

Joe: Great idea.

Fe: Now, what jobs are popular these days?

Joe: Call center agents.

Bo: Yeah, right. They talk a lot. How are we supposed to test them if it’s basically a written multiple choice test?

Fe: I know, we basically make a grammar test and call it Verbal Ability.

Joe: Alright! Let’s start making questions. What big words do you know?

Fe: Undoubtedly, we need a dictionary for this.

Bo: That seems big enough. Let’s use that.

Fe raises her eyebrows.

Fe: Dictionary?

Joe: We could include that, but I was thinking more of undottedly.

Fe: Undoubtedly.

Joe: Yeah, that’s what I said.

Fe starts massaging her forehead.

Fe: Fine, let’s use it.

Joe rushes to grab a piece of paper. He starts scribbling four words with the letters A, B, C, D at the right.

Joe shows them the paper. The camera keeps looking at the paper. The camera doesn’t move in this dialogue. The paper say the following:

A. Undoutedly

B. Undowtedly

C. Undoutedley

D. Undoubtedly 

Bo: Wow, these are good variations. 

Joe: Pick the right answer. Hint. It’s not D.

Camera then looks at Fe. She slams her palm into her face.

Fe: D is the right answer. How about sentence construction?

Joe: Let’s make a sentence about the weather forecast. It’s about time people trusted the weather man.

Bo: Yeah. Let’s do that everyone has been whining about how bad our country is at predicting the weather. Let’s show them.

Fe slams her palm to her forehead.

Joe: Also, we should use a sentence from the magazine I just read. Really juicy material. Bruce Willis has a new scandal.

Fe sighs.

Fe: Well, it is grammatically correct. Why else would it be published? 

Nick suddenly returns with Red next to him. Red is wearing torn clothes. His face has a bit of dirt.

Nick: This guy is going to write the entrepreneur test. Beggars know what is happening in the street, so they probably know how to run a marketing agency. 

Fe: Are you stupid? They are beggars.

Nick: True, but they know how to survive with their own income. It’s about time we get someone capable to make the test.

Fe: Shouldn’t we get an actual entrepreneur to make this test.

Joe: Since when did an entrepreneur make a test like this? Besides, this guy dropped out if school. Bill Gates was kicked out of school.

Nick: Why don’t we just vote?

Fe: Finally, some sensibility.

Joe: Who wants to use this kid to write the entrepreneur test?

All the boys raise their hands. 

Joe: We win.

Fe: Ugh. FINE. Get someone to write down what he’s saying.

Nick: I think I know who…

Fe: Bo will get someone else this time.

Bo: I’ll get him to come right now.

Bo yodels.

Dan suddenly appears in a cartoonish way. Plunger in one hand. Mop in the other.

Dan: Reporting for duty sir. 

Fe: Just…just type down what the boy is saying. As for the rest of you, we need to harness the creativity of the nation. Find the creative types. I’m going to leave you guys for an hour. I’ve got a meeting with the president.

Fe slowly walks to the door. She slams it on her way out.

Bo: What’s her problem?

Everyone else on the room shrugs. Red talks like a bum. Dan tried to find the proper letters to press.

Bo: Dan, if you see a red underline just right-click and choose the first word that come out. Okay?

Dan: Yes sir. 

Red: …buys once a week.

The camera zooms to the computer. The letters show ‘vice ones a weak.’ 

Bo: Oh yeah! Dan, open a new document.

Bo hands him a piece of paper. It says ‘hello’

Bo: Type that down and print it in a long bond paper.

Dan: Font?

Bo: Arial. Eight.

Red shouts repeatedly “Paper killer!”

Joe: What’s with him?

Bo: Dunno. Just tell him to finish the test.

The printer prints out a piece of paper. It says ‘help’

Bo: I thought I told you to type what’s written in the paper.

Dan: I did sir, but it had a red underline, so I had to right-click and pick the first word.

Bo: Computers. Always think they’re smarter than us. 

Joe: Yeah, we rock at creativity let’s show what we got.

Nick: Guys, how are we going to test creativity in a multiple choice test? Don’t most businessmen steal ideas.

All of them walk around I’m circles. The camera zooms to the clock. It starts at 10:15, then the hands fast forward to 10:45. Random chatter could be heard while the hands were moving.

Nick: I know. Let’s get a random object and let them choose random uses for it.

Joe: Oh yeah! 

Nick: First object?

Bo: Copper wires.

The three of them scratch their heads. 

Joe: Just Google it.

Bo: Let us praise Google for saving us. To Google!

The three of them: To Google!

Dan stands up and leaves the computer. The three of them rush to the computer bumping each other’s heads in the process. Nick types ‘uses for copper wire’ and hits enter.

Bo: Let’s just copy the answers. Then we just look at the most creative looking one. Like using copper wires as a robot toy. That looks creative. Make that the correct answer.

Nick: We need paper!

He looks at the paper printed by Bo.

Nick: Eureka!

Joe: That is so ancient.

Nick: We need more people to write stuff down for us. We lack clerks, right? Why else would we be suffering from having to force Dan to type stuff down. We need more personal assistant. Let’s name the test ‘Clerical test.’

Joe: Nick, you’re a genius. Hitting two birds with one stone.

Bo: You’re right. The test will be copying stuff correctly unlike this piece of paper I printed. I even though of a question. ‘Which is correct? 

A. Hello, Hello

B. Bye, Bi

C. Hi, Hb

D. Pie, Lie’

Nick: A, obviously.

Bo: That’s the gist of the test. 

At this point, I realized that I suck at writing satire, so we will end their part of the story here.

Two months later,

A school for disabled people in front and center. A big tarpaulin saying ‘Alvin, youngest national artist of the Bobine islands. We are proud to say he studied here, even if he won for best silent film and we don’t even teach PR enourage it here at all.’ His picture is seen. 

A teacher is distributing the BCGQ results to the students. Alvin received and read the results. He crumpled the paper containing the results and threw it. Trisha approaches him.

Trisha: Is something wrong?

Alvin made a bunch of hand signals. He then pointed at the crumpled paper with angst. Trisha approaches it. She suddenly covers her mouth when she read the result.

She throws the paper away. It flies to the camera. This was what was written:

You are among the one million children who took the BCGQ. You are fortunate for we will tell you your strengths and weaknesses. 

You are horrible at creativity. You have the lowest possible score for creativity. You are better of with the not so artistic careers. Luckily, you have a very high score for Verbal Skills. You should be a receptionist, a call center agent or a secretary. We recommend you to take as many speaking courses as possible.

The Literary Proof

Let’s face it. Continuity gets the middle finger. There comes a time when the writer decides to screw up everything even if he should have just made a reboot.

Highlander comes to mind. How do aliens get involved when the title is Highlander? I could rant about Zeist all day, but the video below probably does it a lot better.

via spoonyexperiment.com

I propose a solution to fix all those continuity problems. It has already been proven to work on math. Yes, math.

That’s right writing a proof. Anyone who doesn’t want a huge pile of hate mail thrown at him by the mail man needs to use this. That’s basically anyone who needs to make something good.

Tommy Wiseau, you are exempted. Your nonsensical script in that flower shop scene made my day. For the rest of you, unless you plan to make a movie, so bad that it’s good, use the mathematical proof.

How does it work?

Well, if you never had geometry back in high school, you’re lucky. I will explain how these proofs work…without mentioning the word ‘triangle’.

In the mathematical proof above, we see that the left column shows what is happening. The right column tells us why.

Let’s use a basic story.

1. John walked to the park.  | given

Given is used any time you don’t need to explain anything. You can make your given as long as you want, but make sure to limit it to just one. We don’t to see John suddenly fighting aliens unless we see aliens attacking first.

Everything else needs a reason to be there. Seriously.You can’t just say, “Bob killed Joe” without giving us a reason. You can’t just say, “Unicorns have taken over the world” without giving us a legitimate reason.

Other than given, all your reasons should come from the right column. Yes, all of it. If you are really paranoid of that single plothole, you have to give a reason. Every. Single. Time.

Example:

1. Jack is a rich asshole drug dealer. Mary is really poor, | given
2. Mary married Jack                                                    | statement 1
3. The police wants Jack in jail.                                      | statement 1

You get the idea.

Is this a time waster or a revelation? Sound off in the comments.

The Role Of Manifestos In Stories

Manifestos. Those annoying little things that read like a parable from the Bible.

They expect you to read it, because they think their beliefs are so cool. Sadly, I write manifestos.

 

 

Just make sure that a Twihard manifesto doesn’t exist.

Manifestos, in case you didn’t know, are basically opinions that the writer thought were so awesome that he wanted it to spread. 

Yes, a Friday level of viral. That’s the point of writing a manifesto. You want everyone to see the world in a new way. 

Now you might be thinking “Aarghh! Corporate blog!!! The power of Spongebob compells you. Begone foul entity! We don’t want to learn about brocial media and equity equality stuff.”

Guess what? 

I think they suck too. Thank God nobody reads ‘em. Damn, nobody reads my blog. 

Manifestos don’t usually appear in corporate blogs. 

What’s that? You want me to prove it. Okay. Look at it this way. Most corporate blogs are lifeless zombies. They don’t really say much. They’re mostly just babbling in gibberish to promote their lame-ass product. 

Yes, there are some possible good ones. And I have to admit I do read business blogs, but they’re two different things. Then again, most of them bore people to death.

Manifestos are written by people who have barriers against other  people’s opinions…

Okay…

Manifestos are written by people who are passionate about an idea.

But then most of these manifestos are real stuff. Not imaginary.

That joke isn’t even funny!

Stories always have themes like The Room. It isn’t impossible that the ideas people shout out in the streets appear in their works. 

When you write a manifesto about how China is taking over the world, I wouldn’t surprised if your novel was about how China sucks out the soul out of everyone.

Manifestos even do a good job of guiding you on what to write after you lost all your memories.

Writing a manifesto makes you sound like a prophet, but then why would you write a novel about how Facebook is actually giving God all the data about your sins?