The TED talks are almost all subtitled on the TED website (this one is). I wish they'd transfer those files to the youtube versions. /whine
I noticed this one wasn't, and thought about describing the move, because I wasn't sure if it was self-explanatory on its own, but figured I could do so in the comments. Glad the CC version exists.
And, yeah, why wouldn't you transfer the CC one?
I use a different tie, which I've heard referred to as the runner's or marathon knot. Very reliable. Only anoyance is that you have to untie it by pulling on both of the ends at once; if you just pull one you'll get a bigger knot that you have to untangle.
I started tying my shoes this way a few years ago, and it is better. I'm not sure if it's TED-conference worthy. (Note the lame "this is a metaphor for your whole TED experience!" bit at the end.) But then again, I don't really know what TED is anymore.
I found the first sentence of this post hilarious.
Shoes with untied laces are topologically equivalent to shoes that are tied, so what's the point, really? What you want is shoes that require a discontinuous transformation. Like the ones with velcro straps.
Couldn't you just do a double bow?
I stitch my socks into my shoes each morning.
2/3: Can you embed the TED one here? http://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes.html
(you don't need to for this post, I'm just curious about the setup). I vaguely assumed that the caption files used by the TED player are different than the ones used by the youtube player, but I don't actually know if that's true and it doesn't really look like it would be, now- they both look like the standard universal thing. I dunno.
It embeds just fine, but I don't see the CC option on it?
11: It says, "Subtitles available" and has a menu.
Right, I can get the subtitles on at the link, but whenever I use their embed code, I lose the subtitles in the Unfogged post.
More than you ever wanted to know about how to tie your shoes.
Given that the TED version won't embed with subtitles, I'm going to switch back to the YouTube version, because it shows the length of the video. I'd barely ever click on a TED talk because they're too damn long, but this one is nice and short.
After you hit play, you'll see a little drop down menu and you can choose subtitles. Its working fine for me.
It also shows the length after it starts playing.
Turns out I already tied my shoes correctly, 'cuz I'm a lefty.
18: The embedded version gives you that option? Like, when I had it on the front page just now?
20: It's not left vs. right, it's a matter of reversing the helicity of the intertwinglyness of the stringies. Or something. There is a word for the wrap-aroundiness but I have totes spaced it.
I didn't learn how to tie my shoes until 6th grade. The school didn't allow people to wear velcro shoes for PE.
I don't remember exactly, but I think you had to have laces.
21: yes. I played it on unfogged and got subtitles. In 5 languages!
Okie-dokie, artichokie. I aim to please.
The 5 language choices are not what I would have guessed.
It's because Bulgarians are new to shoes with laces.
reversing the helicity of the intertwinglyness of the stringies
You got that from Doctor Who, didn't you?
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I'm babysitting my friend's 4-year-old. She was playing with chess pieces on the floor and found a bunch of ants where someone* had dropped a peanut. While I was cleaning them up, she said "I broked one."
Me: you broke what? you broke a chess piece?
her: (becoming agitated) no, I broked a ant. I deaded it.
me: what? (remember that I'm lipreading here)
her: a ant! I deaded a ant! it was a accident! I stepped my hand on it and it broked!
little kids and their funny-talkin ways.
*her, I think, any number of days ago. I'm not really into the whole "housekeeping" thing.
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30: Unfortunately I haven't watched it since I was a kid, but if they have intertwingly stringies I might have to get a TV and cable.
Chirality or helicity, maybe. Helicity is contravariant, could be defined for the motion of tying the shoelace but not I think for the resulting lacing.
22: it's not that it's reversed left to right. It's that I'm a lateral-thinking sinister genius.
The shoelace thing is whether you are essentially tying a square (strong one) or granny (weaker) knot. There are "right-handed" and "left-handed" versions of each of these--depends on how the initial crossing is done (left or right side lace crossing on top).
35: as discussed in the link in 16.
36: Yes, among many, many other things. Popularizers and simplifiers always suffer the scorn of the complexifiers.
Popularizers and simplifiers always suffer the scorn of the complexifiers and obscurantists.
I will be happy if this keeps my shoes tied more of the time (and strangers from telling me my shoes are untied less of the time, especially when they are weirdly insistent when I try to walk on.) On the other hand, I'm having some kind of unpleasant resonance with my ex of many years ago, a self-styled dandy I think it is fair to say, who shuddered at the windsor knot or four in hand or whatever it is (WHO CARES) that most people tie their tie in.
You dip your neck in tool dip, tie stays on pretty good.
I'd agree with Smearcase, except a quick attempt to do this led to tangle fingers and laces. It took me several years longer than my peers to learn how to tie my shoes, so I'm not optimistic.
I still can't tie my shoes if I think about it too hard. I was terrible at it as a kid. Weirdly, I find neckties simple to tie.
my ex of many years ago, a self-styled dandy
If you had been out and gotten stopped for speeding, you could have had a fine and a dandy.
35-37: The Square/Granny knot thing resonates with me since it was drummed into us* as scouts (requirement #6 for joining the Scouts is apparently still: "Demonstrate tying the square knot."
*If you're inattentive, some day you'll use the wrong knot and people will *die*.
Despite the fact that I now wear a tie to work nearly every day, I seem to have gotten worse at it. I also can never get that little dent under the knot to come out right. I'm sure all the guys in the office are laughing at me behind my back.
45 Sounds like climbing camp, except there it was true in a more tangible, imminent way.
Get someone good to tie them once and just slide them over your head rather than tying and untying.
47: Oh, there are certainly a lot of reasons to use the right knot, but BSA seemed fixate don the square knot thing above all else.
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A very minor but maybe interesting one for those with finely-tuned ethical judgment meters (i.e., not me):
Someone takes advantage of Megabus $1.00 fares* to stay flexible by buying tickets for two different days, and in the event actually ends up buying a third $1.00 fare to extend their stay a couple of extra days. Total cost $4.50 (I think $0.50 booking fee per ticket) for a several hundred mile trip. Good deal! But it does seem borderline unethical (not worried about Megabus here, but other potential passengers), let's say:
A. I do it.
B One of my kids does it.
C. I do it for one of my kids.
D. Donald Trump does it (or he buys all the cheap seats).
*There are generally one or two one dollar seats and then they escalate, albeit relatively slowly.
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51: Yes, I put the space between "fixated" and "on" in the wrong place. Thank you for noticing.
48->45
I remember cub scouts stressing square/granny distinction, while boy scouts was all about the bowline and sheetbend.
54: We weren't so advanced back in the day. (I never was a Cub Scout, so I probably just got the remedial knot stuff.) Actually those two, clove hitch, half hitches and timber hitch are what I recall as what we learned.
I still don't get the left vs. right square knot. If I ever run out of beer and the internet is down and the cable goes out all at the same time, I'll do some tests.
54.55: Also sheepshank.
56: Unconstrained in space there is only one square knot (I'm pretty sure). Constrained as a shoelace is on a shoe there is a directionality.
I remember bowline, square, granny, sheetbend, various hitches (the above, plus the taut line and the trucker's hitches, but some knots may have more than one name).
There was a time I could tie a bowline in eight seconds.
Not so useful a skill for an eleven-year-old, turns out. I should have tried cup stacking.
I was a scout so long ago, she wasn't even another, let alone a granny. She was known to be friendly and hlwilling to provide quick manual release. Everyone called her "overhand."
61: tie, tie, masturbate, tie
who shuddered at the windsor knot or four in hand or whatever it is (WHO CARES) that most people tie their tie in.
Four in hand, and he was right to do so.
Per usual, Wikipedia can expand your horizons--lots of knots. For simple variants on the square/granny, try the thief and "grief"* knots.
*A portmanteau.
65: O Nebuchednezzar of knotdom, we are not worthy; please teach us that we may find favor in your eyes.
Ooh, the blood knot! I think some of use learned that one just for fun.
Fisherman's bend looks familiar too.
On the other hand, I would have been well-served to know way more (that is, all) of the hitch knots.
I always use a double windsor for neck ties. It seems to be what most people use.
16: Holy shit! 8 different ways to MacGyver an aglet!
I invented a matter of tying things that no one can remember. It is known as the forget-me knot.
I named a knot in honor of Stanley. It is the oh-no-you-did knot.
Er, matter s/b manner. I couldn't remember English either. THAT'S HOW GOOD IT WAS.
One of the lesser-known contributions of The Jetsons to modern pet care was a new way to leash up their dog, known as the Astro knot.
Fucked up as it was for Celine Dion to appear in a Dario Argento flick, one has to admire the imaginative tie-in (ohoho!), printed directions for replicating the Gore-Dion knot.
Shotguns were historically used to tie the ready-or knot.
The key thing is just to have the two overhand knots have opposite handedness. Instead of reversing the second more complicated step (as shown in the video), it's easier to reverse the handedness of the *first* step.
I taught this in a class once, and I had one student who tied his left shoe different from his right shoe!
80: This is what I do. I find the first step much easier to reverse in practice.
The earliest pioneers of the Soviet space program were taught, in moments of panic, to tie everything down. This training explains why, even today, Russian space travelers are known as Cause Mo' Knots.
John Calvin only knew how to tie his shoes one way: the Hugue Knot.
82 is basically the same crap joke as 77 because I'm just knot funny.
North Dakota has a tradition where high school students compete to demonstrate civic pride by tying pieces of rope and string together in a way that represents their area. Ward County's competition, held in the county seat, is called "My Knot".
Every year the town of Knots Landing holds a festival where residents show off their rope-tying skills. It's called Knot In My Backyard.
The most ardent fans of The Incredible Mr. Limpet can always be identified by their tendency to don knots.
Honey farmers and beekeepers have long noticed that when the bees are happy, they use their bee skills to make honeycombs and honey in neat geometric units. But when the bees are angry or upset with the beekeeper, they will form long, ropy strings of waxy honey, in intricate, twisted shapes. Soon after creating such a structure the bees are likely to attack the beekeeper, causing grave injury or even death. From this comes the old apiarists' saying: Bee knot afraid.
65, 72: I usually use the Full Windsor as well. I don't even remember how to tie a four-in-hand.
On occasion I will use a Small Knot, if I feel like a big Windsor knot is too much. The Small Knot is underrated and quite easy to do.
A new nonprofit group is trying to raise awareness for people who have many knobs on their bodies, who have particurly complicated psyches, or who are masses of snarled threads. The group performs hip-hop music at high schools and church groups They are called "Knotty by Nature".
Maybe I should re-learn the half windsor.
I usually do half-windsor. The full Windsor is a bit big for a girl with a small neck.
The earliest versions of the legend of Robin Hood contained a minor, but quite generous, butcher character, who was wonted to open his shoppe, even when he was off preparing packages of pork with pieces of string, which occasions were marked by a humble shingle outside his door reading "Share if off knotting ham".
Needless to say, this character was transformed quite significantly in later versions.
A friend of mine does a lot of birding. She likes to give nicknames to some of the birds with really recognizable markings or unusual habits. For example, there's this one fellow who likes to perch right on the spot where my friend's clothesline is tied to the fence. She calls that one Knot Tern Al.
And of course, who can forget the annual fly-tying competition, where the winner is the first person to finish. The contest is called "Knot So Fast."
A shoemaker did a favor for a local witch, who, as payment, did an enchantment: some of his ropes would come to life and help in his workshop. Since they needed no food or sleep, simple work could be done very quickly. When townsfolk would bring shoes or belts to be re-holed, the shoemaker would promise extremely fast turnarounds. "It's no hurry" the townsfolk would say, "whenever's clever." But the shoemaker would insist. "No, no, done in an hour" he'd say. "No trouble to me. Knot at awl."
THAT WINDSOR STUFF ISN'T HALF AS GOOD AS THE HANOVERIAN KNOT!
When I was a kid growing up in the 'burbs, my neighbors across the street used to enter their pets, of which they had many, in various contests, cat shows and whatnot. Actually, mostly cat shows, now that I think of it; it must have seemed at first as if more kinds of animal were involved because of the great variety—far more than one would ever have suspected, were one innocent of such matters—of breeds they had and the corresponding variety of contests and whatnot in which they entered their pets.
Even though I couldn't really keep track of the names and natures of the many cats they kept, I tagged along to the shows whenever I could, because I had a certain fascination with one of the daughters of the house, to whom I tried thereby to endear myself. I suppose I needn't tell you that I never met with any success with her, as a result of which my memories of the cat shows I attended are somewhat sour, but I do recall one event that took place at one of the shows that is not irrelevant to the present discussion.
In brief, what happened was that during one of the events, many of the cats (who are, after all, famously less biddable than dogs) involved slipped free of their owners' attention and, each exciting the others until they were all in a frenzy, scattered about the auditorium. Since they were all participants in the same event, and all the same breed, they all looked more or less the same—at least, they did to me, and I assume they did to many other attendees, dragged there at the behest of the sole actual cat enthusiast in their respective parties, as well. So, in the first place, everything had to be put on hold while the cats were recovered and restored, and, in the second place, there were for each missing cat really only one or two people really capable of recognizing that cat as their own.
Nevertheless, I thought this might be my chance to shine, and, armed with a vague description of the cat that belonged to my heart's object, set off to find it and return it to her .
Now, I had no real interest in the progress of the show itself; I was only concerned to get the one cat. So it didn't bother me if other people were unable to get their cats, and I acted, therefore, strategically. I rounded up all the cats that seemed like plausible candidates—despite my not caring about them all that much, I've always had a way with them—and kept them in a little enclosure I'd located earlier, away, or so I thought, from where the other searchers might seek them out. Since I didn't want to have to present a succession of cats as candidates, but rather have the first cat returned to my neighbors be the correct one, I didn't, at this point, bring them over to my little coterie, nor did I select one to bring to them.
Instead, I took note of several characteristics by which the group I'd assembled could be subdivided and wandered back to where the girl I was keen on was looking for her cat. I asked her, as nonchalantly as possible, about, for instance, the color of her cat's eyes, trying as best I could to make it seem as if of course I knew what color they were, only it had slipped my mind in all the madness. I then returned to my little group and released all those cats that didn't match the description thereby attained.
The group was, unfortunately, rather heterogeneous, so it wasn't possible to cut its size down by large numbers quickly. Consequently I had to repeat the procedure rather often. And it became more and more of a hassle to find the one person I had any desire of interacting with, as she began to roam more widely in her own quest to find her cat—for it's not as if she was just standing idly by all this time. After asking about eye color, my next question concerned tail length; I was surprised at the specificity of her answer, but when I returned, it seemed as if the variation I'd formerly observed in the cats I'd arrogated to myself had somehow diminished while I was gone, and I was only able to reduce the stock by a measly three.
After that, I was able, thankfully, to cut the number down rather substantially by coaxing meows out of each cat in turn, then asking my inamorata about the peculiar qualities of her own cat's voice. A fortunate development: for she seemed to be getting quite exasperated at my questions, which is hardly surprising, as I can't have seemed to have been very industrious in finding her cat, as I randomly disappeared then appeared again to ask questions that, from her perspective, couldn't have been of much use in the prosecution of the task at hand.
After a few more iterations of this process, whose details I'll spare you, I got down to just two cats, the qualities of whose fur, I was only now able to really appreciate, were quite different. So one last time I besought my fair neighbor, and asked her, reënergized by the thought that soon I'd be able to present her with precisely what she wanted, whether her cat's fur tended to twist in on itself, getting tangled, self-intertwined, and the like.
When I heard her response, delivered after a thoughtful moment and with a certain glint in her eyes, I knew my affection would never be reciprocated:
"It does not".
100: But what will I do if the veal is exonerated?
Someday the capacity to make up and tell stories such as the one in 99 will get me some action, I'm sure of it .
Ben really is like a hero to me. And maybe one day, like a father.
105: Neb relying on the think knot.
The full Windsor is a bit big for a girl with a small neck.
I was certain there must be an Anne Boleyn joke to be made of this but I couldn't find it.
99: I got hung up on the double what knot in the first paragraph.
From 73's link:Failing all else, the shoelace end can simply be knotted tightly to at least stop it unravelling. This doesn't aid lacing, and in fact prevents re-lacing.
"If I can't tie my shoes, nobody can!"
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I will put this over here on the moribund pun-derailed thread rather than inflicting it upon those solving the big issues of gender and education.
Nice guest post at Washington Monthly on puns and politics from John Pollack, "a former Presidential Speechwriter for Bill Clinton, is the author of Cork Boat and the forthcoming The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History and Made Wordplay More than Some Antics. Highlight for me was this section of a 1787 letter from Thomas Jefferson to his wife:
"The most remarkeable [sic] effect of this convention as yet is the number of puns and bon mots it has generated," Jefferson wrote. "I think were they all collected it would make a more voluminous work than the Encyclopedie. This occasion, more than any thing I have seen, convinces me that this nation is incapable of any serious effort but under the word of command. The people at large view every object only as it may furnish puns and bon mots; and I pronounce that a good punster would disarm the whole nation were they ever so seriously disposed to revolt."|>
111: About a zillion people sent me links to stories about that book. This must mean I'm revolting!
112: Ha! I also just sent you it via e-mail just now, as well. I wouldn't take it personally, it's not like Jefferson even knew you.