Is Internet Outrage Useless?

Recently, the Internet experienced an all-too-common event: mass hysteria. Interestingly, it was entirely apolitical; the dress didn't ask of you moral outrage or help to those in need. The dress was also not really a meme- it wasn't remixed and shared as different versions, and there were remarkably few images of the dress. The dress simply asked a question- what color do you see?
The explosion of discussion reminded me of how unpredictable the trends of the Internet are. Political firestorms, memes, and "challenges" spread incredibly fast, and die as quickly as they came. This leads to a general denouncement of "slacktivism" (slacking-activism), where its detractors accuse others of not truly making a difference on the issues they rail against. To get to the bottom of this issue, one only needs to see if any recent explosions had any effect.
The more recent campaigns that come to mind are #Ferguson and the Ice Bucket Challenge. We can't measure how #Ferguson affected racial and socio-political tensions across the nation, but the Ice Bucket Challenge should have a measurable impact. Sure enough, it had a huge actual impact. Even if one downplays the social effects of the campaign, there is now downplaying the $100 million dollars raised. 
The difference between the Ice Bucket Challenge and many other failed campaigns is action-ability. The Ice Bucket Challenge was simple- Apply ice water to head and give money to this charity. You can't contribute to fighting systematic racism and oppression in a quick ten minute package. So slacktivism is much like the inhabitants of the internet; it may excel at small, short-term goals but it isn't much good at long-term endeavors. 

How Important is Pedantic Grammar?

NOTE: English majors may want to skip this post.

I was talking to someone, and they were like "Isn't the point of language to helpfully communicate ideas?"

Quick, how many mistakes are in that last sentence?

• Singular "They"
• Quotative "Like" (And I was like...)
• Splitting infinitives (to <adverb> <verb>)
• (I probably made some more mistakes too; grammar's not my strong point.)

A better question is "Was what I said clear?" I'd say, yes, it is clear. The sentence would have the same meaning without the "mistakes" (I was talking to someone, and he or she said "Isn't the point of language to communicate ideas helpfully?"), but is it worth the trouble? When are grammar rules important for defining the structure of a language and when are they meaningless pedantry?
For example, English lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun. Rather than invent words to fill the gap, why not use what we already have? Embracing singular "they" just makes sense.
The same could be said for splitting infinitives. Should Star Trek's opening be changed to read "to go boldly where no man has gone before?" That would be ridiculous. "To boldly go" is just as clear, if not clearer.
There's less of a case to make for quotative like, other than the momentum behind it is much greater than those who want to stop its usage. It's simpler and easier to update the language to reflect those who use it rather than to attempt to force arbitrary rules on English speakers.
Honestly, this can all be summed up with a single question. What is the point of grammar? Is it to help organize coherent thoughts or provide strict rules for language? That's a question for you to decide.

See you next Wednesday at 15:30! 

Not Enough Hours In a Day: The Story of the Modern Teenager

The modern teen is under far too much stress. I know that's common knowledge, but I mean stress to the point of damage to either physical, mental, or social health. 

The most important two facts here are this: teens need 8-10 hours of sleep and teenagers' bodies aren't set to fall asleep until 11. Following these two relatively simple ideas, we can reach a relatively simple conclusion: teens need to sleep from 11:00 pm to around 7:00 am - 9:00 am. After waking up, we can estimate getting dressed, eating breakfast, etc. to take around half an hour. Then comes waiting for the bus, which we can estimate to about five minutes. Finally, we go on a half an hour long bus ride to school.

At this point, with the minimum eight hours of sleep, it is around 8:05 am. Now we have our first problem; we have already passed the national average start time of school, 7:59 am. This is not arrival time. That is the time school begins, where each student should be ready to start the day. 

But wait! There's more! Even if we ignore the paradox we just stumbled into, it gets even worse. The average school day lasts around six and a half hours, so our average school ends a little after 2:30 pm. This hasn't factored in extracurricular activities, which are often pushed upon each student. This activity will last about an hour on average, and, with the half-an-hour bus ride, our student arrives home at 4:00 pm. 

Being a diligent student, they start their homework immediately. Each student has an average of 17.5 hours of homework assigned in a school week, and we end up with three and a half hours of homework a night. Now we are at 7:30 pm, and it's time for dinner. After compressing breakfast and lunch into improbably tiny times (just 24 minutes are spent in the cafeteria on average.) And remember, the entire morning routine was compressed into half an hour. At this point, giving less than an hour for dinner would be ridiculous. 

Our hypothetical average American student has finished their homework and eaten dinner, and it's 8:30 pm. What's left to do? Well, there's exercise. In New Jersey (my home state), schools are only required to have two and a half hours of physical education per week. Even assuming that all of that time is spent on intensive exercise (it's not), there still needs to be half an hour more per week. 

We're at 9:00 pm now, and we still have quite a lot of things to do. For example, it's unlikely that we could fit a shower into our half-an-hour preparation time. So we should allocate another 30 minutes for various hygienic reasons. 

It's 9:30 pm, and to hit our 11:00 pm window, we need to go to sleep at around 10:45 pm. Our example teen has about an hour left of their day. That much free time doesn't sound all that bad, honestly, until you consider this. The school start time, school length, and homework length were all averages. Around half of the nation is above the average for each category, meaning that this buffer time varies. Texas's average school day length is 7.17 hours, giving students in Texas only half an hour of free time.

On top of all the aforementioned stresses, we are talking about teenagers. Teenagers don't need any extra stress, that's for sure. What's the solution to all of this compression? Ease up. Relax. The constant pressure on America's youth to be excellent is absurd.

Thank you for reading my semi-coherent rant; look out for another rant next Wednesday at 15:30 (or 3:30 pm for the 12-hour heathens.) Or it might be late, like this one.

I Lied (And I Broke Everything)

This is not your regularly scheduled rant; I have some housekeeping to take care of.

First and foremost, I lied. I said I would be posting Sundays and Wednesdays, but I'll only be posting Wednesdays. Real life can get in the way, y'know?

Second and secondmost, I changed the blog URL. It was irritating me that it read assortednerdrant.blogspot.com rather than assortednerdrants.blogspot.com. That broke all the old URLs. Whoops.

Hello World!

So this is the inaugural post for the blog! Hooray?

This is less of a blog and more of a collection of rants (hence the name).
"Ryan," you might be saying, "What content will actually be here?"
Well, knowing me, nothing after this post. Ever again. 
(The planned posting schedule is 3:30 every Sunday and Wednesday.)

"That didn't answer my question," you might be saying, a little annoyed.
That's true, that's just quantity. You asked what would be here.
All I can definitively say is that it will err on the side of nerd.

So, stick around?
Thanks.
Much appreciated.