Anyway. First chapter I was skimming in my textbook is on audio. All the technicalities of audio, because you can't teach aesthetics in a textbook. You really can't teach aesthetics at all, except as relative to other things and as vague generalizations. Nothing will look perfectly appealing to everyone. But I'm not here to rant about that... Okay. Tell me you know that most audio cables have "male" and "female" ends. Well, they do. It doesn't take much imagination to see why. But XLR cables are not at all obvious. See? Which one is female? Is it the one that, when they're connected, is visible around the other? NO! The other one is female. Because we're not just looking at the arrangement visible when they're connected, but at the actual metal where electricity is conducted. Inside the male-that-looks-like-female end are three prongs, and they go into holes in the female-that-looks-like-male end. And no one ever listens to me when I try to explain that XLR cables are androgynous and that it's not as obvious as it should be. I mean, really. I know what to look for, but when they're connected, they look like they should be opposite. Hmph.
Since we're talking about ways to remember things that don't help me, let me discuss "righty tighty, lefty loosey." The major problem I see with it is that when a point on the top of a circle moves left, the point exactly opposite (on the bottom) moves right, and vice versa. But last time I brought that up and said that we should have a rhyme of some sort to tell us whether it was clockwise or counterclockwise, someone snapped at me that "no one knows what clockwise and counterclockwise are!" Forgive me, but analog clocks aren't that ancient and forgotten. Everyone else I've talked to knows exactly what clockwise and counterclockwise are. *sigh*
And the moral of the story is: I cannot study because I only wind up ranting at technicalities and why they should be wrong even though I don't need to study that fact. Am I studying now? No, I'm ranting.
That's all. Technicality-based geek rant. Sorry to bore anyone. :P
~Kara
