Eurovision

So the Eurovision song contest happened a few days ago on 24 May. The entire show was fantastical and I think most of the countries did extremely well. A lot of people here in the UK believe that other countries mostly vote politically. But they use politically in the sense that the countries are neighbors to each other. Now I think this is partially true, but I don't think it has anything to do with politics. I think its because if you watch a performance and you see 2 really good performances and you have to choose which one you liked better, it is easier to choose the performance that comes from your neighbor or friend. And so I think it's mainly due to the fact that so many of the singers were amazing that it becomes really difficult to choose who you liked the best.

One sad thing that I noticed this year was the way in which Russia won. I do agree that Russia was really good, but I really think they won completely due to votingof neighbors rather than actual talent. The results ended up being:

1. Russia
2. Ukraine
3. Greece
4. Armenia
5. Norway

Now I feel the actual order should have been:

1. Ukraine
2. Armenia
3. Greece
4. Russia
5. Portugal

Now why I think this is actually the fun part. I am basing this off of the semifinals which were designed to lower the number of people voting for their neighbors and so 'politics' would not play into it. I'll show some fun statistics from the top 4 countries in order to prove my point:

Russia: Place: Semi-Final Final 1st 2 7 2nd 2 5 3rd 5 5 4th 3 4 5th 2 6 6th 1 5 7th 2 1 8th 1 1 9th 1 0 10th 0 2 Total Votes 19 36 Total Score 135 272

Ukraine: Semi-Final Final 6 1 1 7 3 4 3 5 3 7 0 3 0 3 2 3 0 1 1 1 19 35 152 230

Greece: Semi-Final Final 4 6 3 1 3 6 3 2 1 3 2 5 2 3 1 6 0 3 0 3 19 37 156 218

Armenia: Semi-Final Final Place: 5 8 1st 3 3 2nd 1 3 3rd 0 2 4th 2 2 5th 3 2 6th 1 1 7th 2 0 8th 2 3 9th 0 3 10th 19 27 Total Votes 139 199 Total Score

So as you can see, Russia got very unheavily biased during the finals. Also, Armenia lost many points due to the fact that many countries did not even vote for them. This is because Armenia is a small country that very many people have not heard of. I think this is what caused Armenia to lose in the end. They had the most number 1 votes in both the semi-final and in the final. They also were a very formidable opponent to everyone else even with getting at least 8 less votes than the rest of the top 4. (In comparison, Norway (who got 5th) had 7 more votes than Armenia!). So as you can see being a small country hurt Armenia greatly. Russia on the other hand, being a well-known superpower took that advantage and greatly boosted its chance of winning to the point of getting votes and also stealing almost all of Ukraine's number 1 votes and pushing Ukraine to second due to it. Greece got the most votes though and due to it did fairly well even if the Eastern bloc was against them.

In the end this shows that the eastern bloc is destined to win almost every Eurovision from here on out, but only the big countries that most people have heard of. Another key point is that non-eastern bloc countries will only get top 10 if they receive over 30 votes. So as it stands prediction of winners is very easy. My prediction for next year is that Ukraine wins. They are a well-known country with good singers, and also part of the Eastern Bloc.

Due to this weird system of voting, I have decided to not look at Eurovision as a song contest anymore. Instead I view it more as a concert of gay people. It a location where tons of gays hang out and watch as the campest singer from each country gets on stage and sings their heart out in as camp of a fashion as possible. So I personally can't wait for next year's Eurovision to see how camp it gets, and also to see the competition to Armenia. (I believe Armenia should have one this year but whatever :-p, that's just my Armenian bias).

So I will leave you with Armenia's performance at Eurovision.

Decidedly yours,
-Aram the Garmo




PS. I really wish I could have been one of those dancers! They are so dancing my style of dance, and I can do almost all of the moves except for 2 of them! I am so signing up to be a Eurovision dancer in a year or two!

The Bigger Picture

It's sort of funny how sometimes we look at something and automatically assume we know everything about it. As an example take the very simple equation of 2+2. Now if I were to ask you what 2+2 is equal to, I am going to assume that more than 80% of the world would turn to me and say 4. My example is coming from a quote, that I am stealing from the BBC Website [found here], by John Hurt in which he said "There's no way of disproving that two plus two equals four, and therefore, take that to the ultimate, much more complicated areas, and you're dealing with something which is truthful."

Now wait one second John, we have a problem here. Again there are quite a few assumptions being made here. The first assumption is that we are even talking about maths. If I were to say tu and tu make a tutu so that it can be worn, now wouldn't that also partially logically make sense? And if you say it outloud it makes more sense. In this case it doesn't equal four, but instead an article of clothing. Just for arguments sake we will assume he was in fact talking about maths and that all those in the conversation knew that. Then I quickly notice another major assumption he is making, that we are talking base 10. If we are talking base 2, such as would be used in computer science, then two plus two is equal to 100. (Or in written out form: 10 + 10 = 100). So again I am playing around with the usage of the words.

Now let us assume instead of saying the words, he actually wrote out that 2+2=4. In this case I can no longer use the previous two arguments, but I can STILL find that he is assuming even more things. He is assuming that we are still talking in base 10! Just for kicks pretend we are in base 3. Again I can write out quickly that 2+2=11, not 4. And if we take away the whole concept of bases, then I can still show another assumption! Assume you are in the field of integers modulo 4. Then we get the equation that 2+2=0.

It is not John's fault that he assumed all of this because we all make assumptions every single day of our lives. Assumptions are what help us get through the day without having to explain every single tiny aspect of our lives. But sometimes assumptions can be very bad. An assumption turns bad when you are arguing with someone and to you it seems like they understand you but are refusing to listen. I have seen this so many times it pains me. I think as humans when we start to argue we need to take a step back from the situation and be able to look at the argument from the other person's perspective. Would we be doing the same thing? Why are we even arguing over this topic? I think you will find that if you try and think about what the other person is thinking, you will find out that you were making a lot of assumptions about them understanding what you are trying to say.

Realise that everyone thinks differently and that we will never be able to understand the way another person thinks. We must try and understand in order to communicate better. I took a clip off of youtube.com that I personally liked that shows another example of this in the sense of a small young boy. Notice how his life was 'ruined' just because he thought in a different way and no one around him took the time to ask, 'how is he thinking?'