Is Blue a New Color?

One fascinating study that was revealed earlier this year, but gained little attention from the mainstream media, is the possibility that humans didn't have the ability to see the color blue until recently. Well, recently in comparison with how long humans have been around at least. The study combined aspects of literature and science to come up with the hypothesis.

One example the study cites is Homer's Odyssey. While Homer uses black and white as descriptions of colors in his work quite a lot and then red and green less so, he never once uses the color blue. Instead of describing the sea as being blue in color, Homer describes the sea as a 'wine-dark sea'. In other ancient Greek works, the sky is often described as yellow or red in color.

According to a philologist named Lazarus Geiger, even ancient China, Iceland, Hindu, Arabic, and Hebrew texts make no mention of the color. Egyptians were the first of the ancient cultures to use the word and that could possibly be because they were theorized to be the first culture to be able to produce blue dyes.

Presently, it was discovered that not all humans could detect the color blue. A tribe of people called Himba, located in Namibia, a country located in the southwest portion of the African continent was part of this study. The Himba tribe didn't have a word for the color blue and when their eye sight was tested, couldn't tell the color green apart from the color blue. Scientists showed tribal members eleven green squares and one blue square, but couldn't pick out the blue square.

Could it be possible that our ancestors really couldn't see blue? If so, it can be speculated that humans in the last few thousand years have undergone evolution when it comes to colors that humans can see. If this is true, are there any other colors humans will be able to see thousands of years from now that we as a species can't see today?

2015 Millhouse MLB Midseason Awards

2015 Millhouse MLB Midseason Awards

American League:
MVP: Mike Trout- It's hard to deny how good he is. He hits for power, he steals bases, he's a strong defender, and he won back-to-back MVP awards for the All-Star game.

Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel- He's finally developed into the pitcher the Astros thought he could be. He is the AL leader in ERA, one of the leaders in wins, and has led the Astros into a surprising first half performance that has impressed the rest of the MLB.

Rookie of the Year: Billy Burns- (although if Carlos Correa keeps producing at the rate he has, I believe he'll take it for the year). Burns doesn't have the power, but he can steal, he hits over .300, and has been a sparkplug for the A's.

Silver Sluggers: Catcher-Stephen Vogt, 1B- Miguel Cabrera, 2B- Jason Kipnis, 3B- Manny Machado, SS- Jose Iglesias, OF- Mike Trout, OF- Lorenzo Cain, OF- J.D. Martinez, DH- Nelson Cruz

Comeback Player of the Year: Prince Fielder- After neck surgery and a lot of doubts about his returning to full strength, Fielder came back and would be the best first baseman in the American League if it weren't for Miggy.

National League:
MVP: Paul Goldschmidt- In an very close vote, Goldschmidt just edges out Bryce Harper for this spot because of his stolen bases.

Cy Young: Zack Greinke- In the midst of the fourth longest scoreless innings streak since 1961, Greinke currently holds this spot, but could possibly lose it to Max Scherzer if Greinke doesn't produce as well in the second half.

Rookie of the Year: Tied- Joc Pederson and Kris Bryant- In many circumstances, Pederson would be the clear winner, but a batting average that hovers around .230 makes it hard to say he has a clear win over the much anticipated rookie season of Kris Bryant.

Silver Sluggers: Catcher- Buster Posey, 1B- Paul Goldschmidt, 2B- Dee Gordon, 3B- Todd Frazier, SS- Troy Tulowitzki, OF- Bryce Harper, OF- Charlie Blackmon, OF- AJ Pollock, Pitcher- Madison Bumgarner

Comeback Player of the Year: Joey Votto- after hitting only 6 homers and having a severe decline in his average, Votto has nearly tripled his homer total from last season and is once again hitting with a good batting average.

Grande Doubles Down on Stupid; Still No Apology

On the night of July 4 in Lake Elsinore, California, a 22 year old woman licked two donuts and spit on two more at an independent shop. Normally something like this would merit some sort of arrest, even if it is only on misdemeanor charges. In this occasion, the culprit in question is pop star Ariana Grande. Compounding the problem is the fact that video captured her saying, "What the f*** is that? I hate Americans. I hate America."

While a large portion of America did go after the singer for her actions and words, a large segment also defended her actions or claimed that they were taken out of context despite the video appearing on the news and online in its entirety without edits. Her fans claimed she was being victimized by an overzealous media. The real victim, at least initially in all of this is that Wolfee Donuts took a hit from the Riverside County Health Department, a hit on their shrink (lost dollars for those unsure of that term), and for many others siding with Grande, a hit on their business reputation.

The incident occurred late at night (the donut shop is open 24 hours) while the staff was in the process of making more donuts for the next business day. An employee, excited that the platinum selling artist was in her shop, showed Grande the freshly made donuts at the star's request. While Grande asked to see more donuts, the employee left the trays she originally brought out on top of the glass display case. This is not what they normally do, but a star struck employee made the mistake. There was no way for the employee to know that someone who has performed all over the world, was about to commit a crime that would cost the shop four dollars...initially.

Video leaked out and shop owner Joe Marin tried to press charges initially. Instead of charges ever being placed against Grande, the health department showed up at the shop and downgraded their health rating to a B. It may not sound bad right off hand as many students would gladly take a B as a grade in a class, but for a restaurant, it's extremely bad.

In a move to save her reputation, Grande released two different apologies, neither of which apologized to the owner of Wolfee Donuts. Instead, she addressed the issue of the hating America comments. She tried to say it's because of her issues with Americans and their eating habits, but no apology to the shop owner. Instead, her move was to save face with the rest of America, essentially playing damage control for her career.

At one point, her publicity team even tried to say that in the video, she is misquoted because they claimed she said, "I hate bear claws." Watch the video and judge for yourself. It's easy to hear what she really said.

Many in the local community rallied behind the donut shop thought. The Lake Elsinore Storm even held a promotional night on July 15, giving away a 1,000 donuts to those in attendance. Grande supporters complained that Wolfee Donuts gained sales because of the incident, but it's probably not the way Marin would have liked to do this, especially while it damaged his shop's health rating.

In the second apology video that Grande posted online, people expected for her to finally apologize to the shop for her actions, but she never did. She doubled-down on stupid and continued to talk about her personal issues with American eating habits.

Another side issue that arose was that it started to be reported by almost every news source that covered the incident, that Marin dropped the charges. This too is wrong. In an interview on Toronto's KISS 92.5, Marin stated that he never dropped the charges, but instead the authorities had decided that they would not charge her with a crime. They asked Marin what the cost of each donut was and he responded that they cost a dollar a piece, causing a total of four dollars in physical damage. Indecisive on what to charge her with, the authorities dropped the charges and Marin won't get his justice from Grande.

While it may only be four dollars in damage, this still has to be an arrestable offense. If a regular Joe Schmo caused four dollars of damage in any restaurant or retail shop, they can be charged with a misdemeanor. So why not Grande? It may carry only a minor slap on the wrist, but the process of the whole legal situation should hopefully be enough to detour Grande from pulling more childish pranks like that. She's 22 years old. Despite looking like a 12 year old, she should have enough of a brain to know what she did is wrong and that there are repercussions to what she did. Letting her go free only emboldens her to possibly do other childish pranks in the future, much like how Justin Bieber has continually acted like a kid.

But most of all, Marin is owed a direct apology from Grande. She has yet to do this and until she does, she will have proven to the public that she has not learned anything from her stunts that hurt a small business owner.

Photo of Wolfee Donuts by author Daniel Millhouse
Photo of Ariana Grande is a screencap from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

RPGs Killed the Choose Your Own Adventure Star

Before electronics made its way into the everyday lives of American kids, imagination was the best tool in a kid's playtime experience. The only games that existed were the occasional pinball machine that might be at a movie theater or pizza joint, but even these machines didn't offer much to a the creative development of a child. Even as the 1970s came around, video game systems were not the norm in the average American household.

Then Edward Packard created a concept that would spark kids to read even more. In 1979, through Bantam Books, the first national run of Choose Your Own Adventure books would be released. The idea not only led to kids reading the books, but becoming more personally involved in the story because they felt they controlled the direction of the story. No longer were stories just linear to them. They could branch out into multiple directions and could be reread over and over, providing the child with a different ending each time. No longer was the child assured a "happy ending". There were actual consequences to their choices.

Between 1979 to 1998, Bantam Books released 185 different books that grossed over 250 million dollars. The concept ended up creating a genre of books called "gaming books" and other publishers began to copy the concept using their own in-house writers.

With the popularity of video games growing and a new genre of gaming gaining traction, the choose your own adventure style books eventually died off. Role playing video games and sandbox style games attracted kids who would have most likely enjoyed the gaming style books if the RPG genre of video games didn't exist.

While there were some games that offered you to make your own choices such as Oregon Trail, RPG style games such as the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest, Lineage, and Diablo started pulling more kids into playing video games. Games didn't have to be linear such as Super Mario Bros. or shooter-style. RPG style games essentially replaced the choose your own adventures books.

Turn based strategy games such as Civilization and Age of Empires eventually drew in adults and The Sims, a strategic life-simulation brought teens deeper into the video game market.

With the RPG genre taking off, choose your own adventure books were doomed. No longer did you have to imagine the story in your head. You saw it on the screen. You could hear the voices of the characters. You could physically see the action take place on your TV screen or computer monitor. Everything came to life right before you, especially as game developers continually enhanced the graphics of their games and the virtual worlds deepened.

Hints of RPG style playing bled into other genres of games. As Batman, your choices in actions and even conversation could lead to a different ending in the Arkham series. Even sports games such as the 2K series games added RPG elements to the create-your-player feature.

So with the death of the choose your adventure genre in books otherwise known as gaming books, is it possible that RPG games could see a form of entertainment that could kill that genre? On one of Kevin Smith's Podcasts, he revealed that he had conversations with other movie executives over the idea. An idea that at the theater would require audience participation in some form, whether it be through touchpads, smartphone apps, or just verbally out loud. A movie project like this would be massive and probably cost an extraordinary amount of money, but the technology to make this a reality already exists. Could choose your own adventure movies be around the corner? If so, could they kill the RPG video game genre? Probably not. The best bet would be a virtual world simulator, especially if it could be priced where the majority of Americans could buy it.

Picture is a screencap from Batman: Arkham City game