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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| When it comes to words, "correct" is a bit ambiguous. Or should that read: "korrect" is a bit ambiguous? In honor of the 182nd anniversary of the first-ever appearance in print of O.K. (in The Boston Morning Post) I am here to start an internet copyediting war. Said anniversary was apparently last year, as this article dates from March 2021. Also, "an internet copyediting war?" Right, like anything actually gets copyedited on the internet. As you can see, the original “O.K.” was very clearly an acronym, in this case of “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” (we can probably blame this on the teens of the era). Lest anyone think that teens making up expressions to piss off their stodgy elders is a new phenomenon. As with most language that drifts into common usage, the origins of O.K. slowly receded from collective awareness and the word began to assume different shapes and sizes: the slightly more streamlined and dashing OK; the drawling and onomatopoetic okay; the abrupt and minimalist ok. (Who knows, maybe mmmkay will achieve formal status one day.) And yes, the "oll korrect" origin story is disputed,  though that seems to be the leading hypothesis.What's not in dispute is that it was made up at some point. All words were; it's just a matter of how long ago. So what is a copyeditor to do? One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from an old alt-weekly copyeditor at a bar, who didn’t really prescribe to this fixed style or that, but rather believed first and foremost in the “ugly rule.” In truth, I'm pretty sure most style rules are the result of copyeditors going to bars. One thing I think most of them would agree on, though, drunk or sober, is that this author should have either used "...prescribe this fixed style or that..." or "...subscribe to this fixed style or that..." The way it's written makes no linguistic sense. He held (correctly) that language and its rules are slippery and ever-changing, and that convention and usage should always supersede institutional formality. While this may be "korrect," there's still no excuse for mixing up its and it's; there, their, and they're; or prescribe and subscribe. So, within that admittedly wild and wooly ethos he came up with the Ugly Rule, which privileges the reader’s eye above all else, and seeks to minimize typographical distractions (in practical terms, the New Yorker’s truly eccentric insistence on diacritics is a direct and egregious violation of the rule). Which is what I've been saying. Whether it should be "wooly" or "woolly" is also up for debate. He also believed that words, over time, tended to shed their size: compound hyphens disappeared, capitalization faded, and spaces closed up. Hence to-day became today, Band-Aid became band-aid, and (thank god) Web site is becoming website; and if these contractions were inevitable, why not just get in early? They're not inevitable. But it is the way trends go in English. I've done entire blog entries on the phenomenon. Here's one that coincidentally (or is it ironically?) riffs off a New Yorker article: "Dashing" Can you see where I’m going with this? I can, but don't you get paid by the word? This is why, as an editor, I prefer ok to OK or okay. Why fight it? Why waste the extra ink? What ink? The problem with ok is that it looks like it should be pronounced with one syllable, similar to oak or ach. The problem with O.K. is that it's absolutely archaic; hardly anyone puts periods into acronyms or abbreviations these days. OK is a decent compromise, but okay is closest to how the "word" is actually pronounced. Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure I use them all interchangeably, but I think I lean more towards "okay." I also had to go and look up some "texting rules" post I made several years ago, because I had a vague memory of being told not to use "k" for "okay." Here it is: "Unwritten, Expanded" The important excerpt: "So... wait... we're supposed to, on the one hand, condense our texts into emojis and "u" for "you" and acronyms such as IDK or LOL or whatevs, but you're going to get pissed because someone typed "K" for "OK?" Good gods." So, in conclusion, this author doesn't actually answer the headline question. My personal opinion? Look at how The New Yorker handles it, and do whatever they don't. That'll be okay. |
| With no comments or feedback of any kind on yesterday's entry, I can only assume that no one actually wants me to be positive. Which is fine, because I don't want to be positive anyway. Heisenberg's Bathtub Copenhagen University Copenhagen, Denmark Did he come up with a theory of cosmic-ray showers while sitting in this bath? There's an old tourism cliché: "George Washington Slept Here." The idea was that historic places would put the sign up as a way to draw in tourists, whether or not the father of our country (or the worst traitor ever if you're British) actually lodged there or not. It's the American secular equivalent of a church having a "piece of the True Cross." This especially amused me as a kid because we lived in the area where Washington grew up, and visiting a place where we know (to a high degree of certainty) that he slept was pretty commonplace for me. Werner Heisenberg may not be as famous as Washington; after all, he doesn't have a city, a state, several schools, and a giant phallic symbol named after him. But his position in quantum theory is similar to that of old George in the US: a prominent founder. Heisenberg didn't even own slaves, so he has that going for him. Perhaps his most famous contribution, from a layman's perspective, is the Uncertainty Principle: the mathematical formulation of the idea that you can know a particle's velocity, or its location, but never both (it's somewhat more complicated than that, but whatever). So there's a joke floating around in nerd circles: theoretical signs in historical places that read "Heisenberg may have slept here." It's a good joke, a fine joke, albeit one that requires a certain amount of knowledge of the history of science. But sometimes in-jokes are extra amusing because you know that out-groups won't get it. What's truly maddening to me, though, is that apparently there was a character on a popular TV show who was also named Heisenberg, and, just like one cannot mention the Big Bang Theory without someone making a Sheldon comment, the Heisenberg joke is now ruined for all time. It's a real shame. In any case, here we have a place where Heisenberg probably didn't sleep, but close enough. On the top floor of the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University, tucked away in a room that now serves as a kitchenette, is a famous bathtub. The simple porcelain tub has become a well-known object in certain circles because it was used by at least one famous physicist: Werner Heisenberg. Bohr was, of course, another founder of quantum physics. He apparently got stuff named after him, though. Though it has likely been years since anyone bathed in this tub, it has been kept around for about a century. Most physicists that work there will not really have an answer for it. Most will say that the institute did not get around to removing it yet, or that it’s kept for potential future use. Or maybe it hasn't been hit with a high-enough energy photon. Amongst students the story is slightly different, most of them know of its existence and connection to Heisenberg and other famous physicists who may have bathed in it at some point. See? "may have bathed in it." Uncertainty Principle. Look, I can't overstate just how damn funny that is to science nerds. Much like Albert Einstein’s Sink at Leiden University, this item can be called an “academic relic,” or a mundane item that gained value from its connection to a prominent scientist. Einstein's Sink sounds like it should be something related to black holes, but alas, this is apparently an ordinary plumbing fixture. Similar relics connected to saints or Christ himself are very common in religious circles, but many scientists would not be too happy with the comparison. Like I said way up there. Despite that, they might be reluctant to throw the item away due to sentimentality and perhaps because it offers a connection to great minds of the past. Everyone’s reason may be different but still, these items somehow persevere. Nothing wrong with preserving a connection to the past. It gets people thinking and talking about it. Who knows what is being kept in your local university? Considering that my local university is the one Jefferson founded, there's a lot. And probably a lot that's been kept secret, too. But we'll never know the full story. You know. Uncertainty Principle. |
| "Hey, Waltz, you should do another article on something that's positive." Here you go. You should get a charge out of this: Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’ The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. We’ve attempted to connect the proton’s many faces to form the most complete picture yet. I don't know; the most complicated thing I can imagine is a romantic relationship. A proton ain't got nothin' on that. More than a century after Ernest Rutherford discovered the positively charged particle at the heart of every atom, physicists are still struggling to fully understand the proton. Maybe their attitude is too negative? High school physics teachers describe them as featureless balls with one unit each of positive electric charge — the perfect foils for the negatively charged electrons that buzz around them. You know, I kind of understand why the protons in a nucleus, all positively charged, don't fly away from each other: it's because on small scales there's another force stronger than electromagnetism that binds them together. What I never did get is why, since positive and negative charges attract, the electrons stay in a probability cloud around the atomic nuclei instead of just slamming into the protons. It's not really analogous to planets orbiting the sun, though that's the model they teach you in elementary school. The reason is some really damn complicated quantum shit that I don't understand. Apparently it takes a hell of a lot of energy to get them to actually collide (this is alluded to later in the article). Getting back to the subject, though: College students learn that the ball is actually a bundle of three elementary particles called quarks. Which I really don't understand. But it's still fun to say. But decades of research have revealed a deeper truth, one that’s too bizarre to fully capture with words or images. Because of course. As the pursuit continues, the proton’s secrets keep tumbling out. Most recently, a monumental data analysis published in August found that the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself. And that, dear readers, is deeply, deeply weird. I mean, quantum anything is pretty weird, but that goes way beyond weird. There's not even a word for how profoundly, utterly, mind-blowingly strange that really is. Proof that the proton contains multitudes came from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 1967. In earlier experiments, researchers had pelted it with electrons and watched them ricochet off like billiard balls. But SLAC could hurl electrons more forcefully, and researchers saw that they bounced back differently. The electrons were hitting the proton hard enough to shatter it — a process called deep inelastic scattering — and were rebounding from point-like shards of the proton called quarks. “That was the first evidence that quarks actually exist,” said Xiaochao Zheng, a physicist at the University of Virginia. Always nice to hear from my university. (Except of course when they beg me for money.) Incidentally, you might want to go to the link to look at the helpful pictures. But the quark model is an oversimplification that has serious shortcomings. Because of course. The rest of the article describes the experiments and what they're finding, and I certainly think it's fascinating in addition to being really quite incredibly weird. I won't transcribe more, because it's Friday night and I have other things to do. But it's absolutely worth a look, even if you don't fully understand it. I sure as hell didn't. |
| No, the universe isn't a simulation (to a high degree of probability). But that doesn't stop us from simulating stuff. With So Few Farmers, Why Are Video Games About Farming So Popular? An archaeologist considers what farming simulators reveal about humanity’s ancient and evolving relationship with agriculture. There's a town near me with the actual name of Farmville. No, seriously. Look on a map of Virginia and you'll see it. Nice place, actually. Not poorly animated. “I hate when I have to harvest at night,” my husband complained the other day. Lately, he’s been trying to maximize his harvests so he can upgrade his combine. But he’s not a farmer. He’s a practicing lawyer. He said this from his computer as he toggled between a video game and a YouTube video of someone talking about playing the same video game. I will admit that I go to YouTube and other places sometimes when I get stuck on a game. Sometimes you miss stuff, you know? But what I don't get is people who barely play the game and just watch others play it. Computer gaming to me is active entertainment, and watching other people play is the definition of passive. I mean, I can understand people watching sportsball; we can't all be star athletes. But anyone with enough money to buy a computer or console can play a game themselves. Not dissing anyone who does this. It's just not something I grok. As for the lawyer thing, I bet some farmers would love to play Lawyer Simulator. That game is Farming Simulator. At peak times, up to 90,000 players are active at once. Never heard of it. I have, obviously, heard of Farmville. Again, not for me (after having spent my childhood on a farm, I'd rather not). But I do understand the draw of that kind of game. It's a resource management game, and I've played a few of those myself—just not with the "farming" theme. FarmVille, Sim Farm, and many other games simulate farming and rural life with various levels of realism. If the game doesn't include giant Trump signs, pro-forced-birth posters, a bunch of coal-rolling pickup trucks, Confederate flags, and enormous anti-Democrat billboards, the level of realism is low. Most players who speculate on grain prices, buy fancy tractors, and rush to harvest fields before they spoil are not farmers in real life. Well, duh. I've played Civilization, another resource management game, and I'm not a god in real life. Across the globe, the proportion of people who make their living as farmers is lower than at any time since agriculture became widespread. That's because it's primarily corporate now. What do people like my husband, who lives in a city and works every day in an office, find so entertaining about tilling faux fields and tending to pixels representing wheat or sheep? For the challenge? And what does this game’s popularity reveal about the deep history of farming and the role of agriculture in people’s lives today? I'd say "nothing much," but the author has her own opinion. Much of the next section is devoted to the history of agriculture and civilization, which, perhaps counterintuitively, is the same history. That is, to summarize, it was farming that allowed some people to not be farmers but pursue other specialties, trading their goods to farmers for sustenance. Until recently, most people lived in a society deeply tied to the rhythms and sensibilities of farming. So, is Farming Simulator a high-tech form of nostalgia for this kind of connection to the land and food? Yeah, I'm still going with my "people like the challenge of resource management games." Well, maybe not the challenge so much as the endorphin rush when something goes your way, which is a key element to any game. For some Farming Simulator players, farming itself may be beside the point. Some are most excited about the machinery and equipment; the newest version of the game features digital re-creations of more than 400 real machines and tools that players can buy with profits from their farms. That's actually pretty cool. Farming Simulator players might thus be seeking to escape the constraints of their everyday lives and experiment with new identities. Gosh. No other game ever does that. Remind me to tell you about the white dragon my 13th-level half-orc cleric slew, by the way. He even got its hide made into plate mail. Some real farmers who play the game say it lets them experiment with equipment or strategies that are out of their financial reach, given the current economic realities for family farms. Gotta say, I think that's actually pretty cool, too. Farming has been fundamental to who we are as humans. And in a world where war, climate change, and pandemics can so easily disrupt global food supply chains, it still is fundamental—but in ways that are less and less within the reach of the average person. That's a feature, not a bug. Not all of us are cut out to be farmers; that's why other specializations exist. As I've noted numerous times, it's entirely too much like actual work. Wait, no, it is actual work. So I want no part of it. But again, not dissing anyone. You like to play farming games? Great. Sports games? You do you. Neither of those appeal to me. Lots of games out there for lots of different tastes. I just think we shouldn't read too much into people's preferences for different types of games. Maybe they're not trying to reconnect with a glorious past (that never really existed anyway), but are just playing out a different kind of fantasy than the ones I prefer, which usually involve dragons, post-apocalyptic wastelands, spaceships, or all of the above—none of which worlds I would want to actually live in. |
| I think it's been a while since I talked about this sort of thing. Oh, an economist. Well, there's an exact science for you. Managing your money is obviously an important part of being a responsible adult. Huh. I wonder what the other parts are? It turns out that there's a large gulf between the advice given by the authors of popular finance books and academic economists. Why that might be, I leave as an exercise for the reader. In a new study titled "Popular Personal Financial Advice versus the Professors," the Yale financial economist James Choi rummages through 50 of the most popular books on personal finance to see how their tips square with traditional economic thinking. There are more than 50 of them? It's like a cage match: Finance thinkfluencers vs economists dueling over what you should do with your money. Never. Ever. EVER. Use that word again. Traditional economic models portray humans as hyper-rational, disciplined creatures, who always make optimal financial choices for themselves. Ha! Hahahahaha. Ha. Behavioral economics, which has pretty much taken over the field, emphasizes that people are quirky, often irrational, and prone to errors. Great! All the best parts of psychology and economics, all rolled up into one tight package! But, Choi says, the advice of popular finance thinkfluencers, who tend to concentrate on helping us overcome our flaws and foibles, might actually be more effective in some cases. I'mma smack someone. When it comes to saving money, many economists offer somewhat counterintuitive — and, dare I say, potentially irresponsible — advice: if you're young and on a solid career track, you might consider spending more and saving less right now. Sure. You're going to do that in any case. Might as well help boost end-stage capitalism while you're at it. We don't have a future, anyway. The idea, Choi says, is "you don't want to be starving in one period and overindulged in the next. You want to smooth that over time." Except if you don't want to work. Then you work your ass off, eat noodles, live in a box, and save every penny you can to hasten the day that you can tell your boss(es) to sod off. "I tell my MBA students, 'You of all people should feel the least amount of guilt of having credit card debt, because your income is fairly low right now but it will be, predictably, fairly high in the very near future,'" Choi says. Once they start making money, he says, they should probably pay down that debt quickly since credit card companies charge high interest rates. Again, that's what people do without the wonderful advice of professors. Where thinkfluencers and old-school economics really depart from each other, Choi says, is "the usefulness of establishing saving consistently as a discipline," Choi says. Why am I still reading? In old-school economics, money is money. It's fungible. There is no reason to put labels on it. Absent some financially advantageous reason to do so (like the ability to get subsidies or a lower tax rate), it doesn't make sense to set aside savings for specific purposes, like a new car or a future vacation or a down payment on a house. A dollar is a dollar. Then why even bother with a fucking budget? A budget is all about assigning categories to lumps of money. Choi finds that 17 of the 50 books he read through advocate for some sort of mental accounting exercise. And, he says, this advice might actually make sense. It should be 50 out of 50. Many Americans live in enormous houses and are stretched thin paying for them. While their house is a valuable asset, and they're technically pretty rich, they're just squeaking by, living paycheck to paycheck. People generally refer to this as "house rich, cash poor." Somehow, we've bought into the idea that your house is an investment. It is not. I've spent more money upgrading, fixing, and renovating my house than I spent on the goddamned house, including the interest on the various mortgages I've had on it. And then what am I going to do, sell it? Then where do I live? A rental, which is even more of a money suck? Also, it seems that some people think that the only alternative to an enormous suburban house is a trailer (or they call them "tiny houses" or something these days.) People don't consider the middle ground very often. Generally speaking, popular financial advisers say that, while stocks are risky in the short run, you should invest mostly in them when you're young because they earn higher returns than bonds over the long run. "The popular belief is that the stock market is kind of guaranteed to go up if you just hold onto it for long enough," Choi says. Stocks and bonds, however, are investments. But no, there are no guarantees. But while popular authors may discount this risk over the long term, their advice recognizes that holding stocks is risky in the short term. I'd even go so far as to say that it's gambling in the short term. Nothing wrong with gambling, in my view; just know that you're doing it. "For almost all working people, the major economic asset they have is their future wage income," Choi says. In other words, think of your work skills (your "human capital") as part of your financial portfolio. It's like the biggest form of wealth you own, and it's generally safer than stocks or even bonds. Yeah, no. You still have significant risk if you look at it like that. If you're injured or ill, for example, your earning potential decreases. The rest of the categories here have to do with tweaking stock and bond investments. Worth a read even if you don't do that. But I'm not going to quote any more from the categories. So who wins? The thinkfluencers or the economists? GAAAAH. Where's my tequila? Who wins? Why, whoever can sell the most books, of course. "I think of it in terms of diet," Choi says. "The best diet is the one that you can stick to. Economic theory might be saying you need to be eating skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables for the rest of your life and nothing else. That's going to be the best for your health. And, really, very few people will actually do that." I think I've noted before the similarities between budgeting and dieting. Or, as I prefer to think about it, having a money plan and an eating plan (those don't have the same implications of self-denial). Oddly enough, I'm pretty good with the money plan. Eating? Not so much. Now, where did I leave that pizza? Oh, yeah. Right next to the tequila. How convenient. |
| This one's from Slate, so I'm going to have to wash my hands after posting. They are NOT THEORIES. At best, they are hypotheses. At worst, they're misinterpretations. With that out of the way... At first glance, the video seems like an ordinary news recap. “So today the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to scientists,” says TikTok creator Sami Moog. Well... duh. It's not like the Nobel Prize in Physics was going to get awarded to a line cooks. I'm not disparaging line cooks here; I like to eat at restaurants and I appreciate them. But unless the line cook is also a physicist (hey, the economy's tough, and it can happen), she's not going to get the Nobel. Then things get really trippy. “Your imagination literally makes up your own personal quantum field and it constructs every single thing around you,” he says. No. By the end, he’s discussed vibrationally matching your desires and manifesting changes to reality. Ugh. I need some Advil. Where's the Advil? Or an anvil would do. Look, I'm not going to get into the long explanation of why that's complete horseshit. But it's complete horseshit. Moog’s video is a classic example of quantum mysticism, which is the association of a set of metaphysical beliefs and spiritual worldviews with the science of quantum mechanics. This has been going on for a long, long time, since well before DikDok. As an attempt to reconcile science with spirituality and/or religion, I understand the need for some people to delve into it. But the mysticism makes claims not supported by science. One could, of course, argue that science doesn't know everything. That's fair. It's true. But you don't get to fill in the blanks with wishful thinking, as with the "God of the Gaps." Over the years, professional physicists have decried what they view as the misapplication of quantum physics principles to unrelated self-help topics—what Caltech Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann famously described as “quantum flapdoodle.” Quantum physics is weird (meaning counterintuitive) enough without making up extra shit. Gell-Mann, incidentally, is the guy who coined the term "quark" for those subatomic particles. He didn't do physics any favors by a) naming them after a line from Joyce and b) calling his early attempt at codifying what's now the Standard Model "the Eightfold Way," which just begs Buddhists to jump right on it. Hundreds of these “quantum” science videos claim that quantum cosmology allows humans to literally teleport between different realities or communicate telepathically with their past and future selves. We're not even sure "different realities" exist. Sure, the concept of the multiverse squeezes itself out of at least one interpretation of quantum physics, but it's not testable, not verifiable, and, most importantly, not falsifiable. And there are other interpretations that don't require the universe to split every time a quantum event occurs. More to the point, even granting for the moment the multiverse hypothesis, there's no way, even theoretically, to communicate between those universes ("Not yet." "Sure, but you still don't get to assert that it happens without evidence.") As a TikTok user, it isn’t easy to avoid this mystical element. It's easy for me to avoid it: I stay the hell away from TokTik. If you watch a video of a trained scientist explaining quantum mechanics, fringe quantum takes are likely to start appearing in your content stream. That’s because TikTok’s algorithm groups the videos within the same “quantum” umbrella. And the recent announcement of the Nobel Prize for Physics has only made this worse. On the other hand, this happens with YouTube also. I'm always seeing recommendations for videos that are obviously pseudoscientific bullshit. I can usually tell the difference. Your average line cook probably cannot. Again, this doesn't mean the line cook is any less an individual worthy of respect. On Oct. 4, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger had won for “groundbreaking experiments using quantum states, where two particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated.” The academy noted that these experiments, which built upon the 1960s research of John Stewart Bell, cleared the way for new technology such as quantum computers. Yes. That's what it did. That's huge. It's exactly the sort of thing the science Nobel Prizes are for. It has nothing to do with creating your own reality, though. By this point, TikTok creators had begun publishing their bite-sized recaps. Hank Green, the popular vlogger and bestselling author, released his own video on the topic. “I’m going to try to explain it [quantum entanglement] to you, without lying to you.” "Lying" implies that you know one thing but state another. It's more like he's propagating a misunderstanding. In just under three minutes, Green described how scientists entangled two electrons, each of which has a property called spin. When one such particle is measured, it begins to spin in one direction. The other instantly spins in the opposite direction, even if the two particles are light years apart. As Green says in the video, these experiments proved that Einstein was wrong and that information can pass between quantum particles faster than the speed of light. No. There is no known way to transfer information faster than the speed of light (which should properly be called the limit to the speed of information transfer). Basically, yes, entanglement appears to be real. But there's no way to use it to, say, create an FTL communications device. To be clear, I haven't seen the particular video in question (for that, I'd have to use KitKot), so that particular summary might be an artifact of the Slate author not communicating well. A seven-second video released Oct. 7 that features a young woman reacting with the words “The 2022 Nobel prize in physics just got announced and it literally proves that we are all connected” First of all, no. That's a stretch. Second of all, stop fucking using the word "literally." It's lost its meaning. And third, yes, I do believe we're all connected, but that has more to do with well-known interactions. Another video claims that quantum physics proves that an ordinary human voice can affect a star molecule on the edge of the universe. Um … what? That's a far more mild response than I would make. However. So, which is it: pseudoscience or philosophy? When I discussed with O’Keefe—the Australian science communicator and Ph.D. student—she seemed uncomfortable with a strict binary approach. “I think it’s dangerous to lean too far into scientism, which is when you see the world exclusively through the lens of whether something is backed by science,” O’Keefe said. “Science started as a branch of philosophy, and the scientific method wouldn’t be as formidable as it is today if we didn’t put theories to the test by asking the right questions.” O’Keefe told me that quantum mystics definitely take their unfounded claims too far, but that does not mean that scientists should be discourteous toward people who are more spiritually minded. Science, at its core, is about observation, hypothesis, and testing. It is not about proving something right; in fact, most of science is about trying to do the exact opposite: prove it wrong. All ideas have to start somewhere. A lot of science, especially quantum theory, is so completely counterintuitive that one has to wonder what made them think of these things to begin with (hint: it's usually math). Maybe some of these woo-meisters will be supported by a future discovery. If so, however, it would be coincidental. What matters is that users apply the tools of information literacy to gauge authority—and that means remembering what TikTok is for. Destroying Western civilization? Obviously, TikTok is no Wikipedia; it’s not the place to find a reliable summary of quantum mechanics the way scientists understand it. Neither is Wikipedia. Apart from the possibility of error, which is real (but far less than the possibility of error on a social media platform), every time I try to get answers to the cutting-edge questions of science, Wiki articles are just too damn advanced. And even YouTube videos have their limitations. People try to explain quantum physics using analogy, but there are no macro-scale analogies to quantum physics. In everyday life, for example, you can know your car's position and velocity (relative to the road) to a very high degree of certainty. But on the subatomic scale, you can know one, or the other, but never both. Analogies are useful; the danger, however, is taking the analogy to be an exact model of the reality, and drawing conclusions based on that. The mind is strange enough without us using it to make shit up. Quantum physics is also weird from the perspective of everyday life. And it's entirely possible that at least some of our consciousness can only be explained by quantum effects. But I'd need to see the science on that. Until then, they're just indulging in wish-fulfilling speculation. I'm not going to embed the video, but if you're interested, here's someone on YouTube trying to explain it using analogies. |
| My introduction to archaeology wasn't Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was a teen when that came out. No, it was a book about one of the first archaeological endeavors, the excavation of Troy. Obviously, it was a long time ago that I read that, so I don't remember much about it. I think the techniques involved in that excavation were what started modern archaeology, if I recall correctly. And I do recall that, until it happened, a lot of scholars considered the Greek stories about the Trojan War to lie entirely within the realm of mythology (this doesn't mean that there weren't mythological aspects to it). I also read a (really quite incredibly long) book by James Michener concerning the excavation of a fictional city in Israel. Fiction though it was, the description of archaeology was consistent with Schliemann's work at Troy. (It's called The Source, if you're interested; it's the only Michener book I've ever been able to complete.) The point is, by the time I saw Raiders, I had a pretty good idea what archaeology was, and that Indiana Jones was not it. This, of course, didn't stop me from enjoying the movie or at least one of its sequels. The Enduring Myths of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Forty years later, archaeologists look back at what the first Indiana Jones movie got wrong about their profession Forty years after Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered to the public on June 12, 1981, the outsized shadow of Indy still looms large over the field he ostensibly represented. Let's be honest, here: movies rarely reflect the realities of any profession. Doctors and cops, for example, do way more paperwork than has ever been depicted on either the large or small screen (or so I've heard). Such activities don't lend themselves very well to a compelling narrative. Even in the 21st century, several outdated myths about archaeological practice have endured thanks to the “Indiana Jones effect.” And contemporary archaeologists, many of whom harbor a love/hate relationship with the films, would like to set the record straight. Which makes articles like these even more important. I'd like to think that Smithsonian Magazine here is making an honest effort to explore the truth, and not just cut down on their time answering questions like "Where are you storing the Ark of the Covenant?" Come on, you know they get asked that a lot. Myth 1: Rugged, swashbuckling, fedora-wearing Indiana Jones is what most archaeologists are like. I thought everyone knew that. Archaeologists are absolute nerds, not Han Solo in leather. This section is mostly about how, historically, arcs (look, I get tired of typing the full name) were mostly honkies, though recently there's been more diversity. Which is probably much-needed as most historical sites aren't in Europe. Ironically, the guy they interviewed here has the surname White. Okay, that's not irony, but it's still funny. Gender diversity within archaeology has evolved much more quickly, however. “Archaeology is dominated by women—white women have taken over archaeology,” says Alexandra Jones, founder of Archaeology in the Community, a D.C.-area nonprofit that seeks to increase community awareness of archaeology through enrichment programs and public events. And if your name is Alexandra Jones, you were absolutely destined to go into archaeology. Myth 2: Archaeologists work primarily in universities and museums. At the risk of sounding smug, I knew this, too. My conception of an arc is someone who works out of a tent at some location that is currently remote, but wasn't always. But it turns out that even my impression wasn't entirely correct. So much for being smug. ...today, up to 90 percent of American archaeologists work in a broad field known as cultural resource management (CRM). Also known as heritage management, CRM deals with the relationship between archaeology and everyday life. On its most bureaucratic level, CRM covers the broad and the specific regulations that govern historical, architectural, and archaeological interests and preservation in the U.S. So. Also a lot of paperwork. As noted in the article: CRM work is important and rewarding, but also involves the much-less cinematic act of filling out paperwork. Kassie Rippee, archaeologist and tribal historic preservation officer for the Coquille Indian Tribe, mentions that “archaeology-based work is only a portion of my job. I review and coordinate on laws and regulations. I monitor quite a bit of construction activity and make determinations as to how construction projects will affect tribal resources.” Myth 3: Archaeology is largely done in exotic places. Yeah, right. Exotic places like the land I grew up on. Yes, I've had arcs come by and do their thing. Terry P. Brock, an archaeologist with the Montpelier Foundation, uses his research to shake up the historical record of life at President James Madison’s plantation in Virginia. Working in the local community “immediately brings relevance and importance to the work,” he says, “because the objects we are excavating together belonged to the community’s ancestors and are a direct link for the community to the people who came before them.” I'm just including this bit because it's close to home, too. The other notable historic local, Jefferson, is also the subject of archaeology. Myth 4: That belongs in a museum! Yeah, see John Oliver's take on museums if you still believe this one.I know I've talked about this in here before, but all the artifacts we found on my land went not to a museum but to the descendants of the people who lived there. By far, the most enduring and problematic myth to come from the Indiana Jones movies is the idea that all ancient and historic objects belong in a museum. While he’s correct that private collectors contribute to looting and other heritage crimes, “there isn’t a single object that belongs in a museum,” says Heppner. “Objects belong with their communities.” This is, of course, not always possible. Who should the artifacts dredged up from Doggerland go to, for example? The last shot of Raiders, where the Ark of the Covenant is placed indiscriminately in a large government warehouse, is still a very real possibility today. That's rich, coming from the Smithsonian. The article wraps up with what I alluded to way back at the top: none of this means we can't enjoy the movie as a movie. White admits that the Indiana Jones movies made him want to become an archaeologist as a child. “These movies are an escape for many of us, including archaeologists,” he says. “I want non-archaeologists to know that’s not really how archaeology is, but I don’t want them to lose the value of these movies as fantasy, action, and adventure.” I do object to the description of such movies as an "escape," though that's part of a larger discussion about the value of popular movies vs. artsy intellectual films and beyond the scope of this entry. But do they really have to make another Indiana Jones movie? Crystal Skull kind of sucked. Oh well. As long as Shia LaBeouf isn't in it, I'll probably see it anyway. |
Yesterday, Sumojo  said, "Never mind the language lesson, I’m more excited about your new car! Can we see a picture of said vehicle? Model, year etc. Oh, don’t forget the colour."Here you go.  I couldn't think of another introduction to today's article. Pretty sure 5000 years ago, "writer's block" was the literal block of stone they chiseled into. Ann Patchett, who has written eight novels and five books of nonfiction, says that when faced with writer’s block, sometimes it seems that the muse has “gone out back for a smoke.” You know, I get the whole "muse" thing. It's a useful metaphor. But that's all it is: a metaphor. Like that cartoon devil on one shoulder telling you it's okay to eat pizza, and the cartoon angel urging you to have some nice warm kale instead. In reality, that's all you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an award-winning novelist or a high schooler tasked with writing an essay for English class: The fear and frustration of writing doesn’t discriminate. Yeah, it kind of does. Or else some people wouldn't be more susceptible to block than others. My most recent book, “A Writing Studies Primer,” includes a chapter on gods, goddesses and patron saints of writing. Oh, look, another book ad. Well, considering that the only free articles you can find these days are ads, I'll take it. When conducting research, I was struck by how writers have consistently sought divine inspiration and intercession. Still all you. The first writing system, cuneiform, arose in Sumer around 3200 BC to keep track of wheat, transactions, real estate and recipes. Especially recipes for beer. Originally the Sumerian goddess of grain, Nisaba became associated with writing. She was depicted holding a gold stylus and clay tablet. See? Grain is the basis for beer. Writing was all about communicating with the gods, and the Greeks and Romans continued this tradition. They turned to the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, known collectively as the Muses. There is, in my mind, a big leap from using writing to keep track of harvests, and to communicate with the gods. Perhaps the author makes a better connection in the book. Gods and other legendary figures of writing are not limited to Western civilization. Gee. You think? In India, writers still invoke the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha before putting ink to paper. Known as a remover of obstacles, Ganesha can be especially meaningful for those struggling with writer’s block. Even Westerners can use elephants to overcome writing obstacles. In my case, pink ones. In Mesoamerica, Mayan culture looked to Itzamná as the deity who provided the pillars of civilization: writing, calendars, medicine and worship rituals. While I'd heard of Itzamná, some of those associations were new to me. Still learning. In Christianity, patron saints are exemplars or martyrs who serve as role models and heavenly advocates. Various groups – professions, people with a certain illness and even entire nations – will adopt a patron saint. "We're monotheistic." "But what about Mary and the saints?" "Mon. O. The. Ist. Ic." St. Brigid of Ireland, who lived from 451 to 525, is the patron saint of printing presses and poets. Yeah, tell me she didn't inherit associations from her namesake deity Some writers may think supernatural figures seem a bit too far removed from the physical world. Fear not – there are magical objects that they can touch for inspiration and help, such as talismans. Derived from the ancient Greek word telein, which means to “fulfill,” it was an object that – like an amulet – protected the bearer and facilitated good fortune. I have a magical object I can touch for inspiration and help. it's called a computer. Hey, any sufficiently advanced technology, and all that. Today, you can buy talismans drawn on ancient Celtic symbols that purport to help with the writing process. They certainly help the sellers with the eating process. One vendor promises “natural inspiration and assist in all of your writing endeavors.” But not, apparently, their own writing endeavors. Especially those requiring consistent parts of speech. Another supplier, Magickal Needs, advertises a similar product that supposedly helps “one find the right word at the most opportune moment.” I have one of those too. It's called a thesaurus. ...okay, confession: I don't actually own a thesaurus (or if I do, it's buried under a stack of other books). I use online ones like normal people. Others turn to crystals. A writer’s block crystals gift set available through Etsy offers agate, carnelian, tiger eye, citrine, amethyst and clear quartz crystals to help those struggling to formulate sentences. I know I get snarky about these things, and maybe a touch cynical. But when it comes to things like writing, it's often the case that if you think a rock will help, then the rock will help. I mostly just object to people taking advantage of the gullible. To me, it’s no mystery why writers have sought divine intervention for 5,000 years. Because seeking divine intervention is kind of what humans do. Whether it has any basis in reality or not can be argued, but what can't be argued is that religion predated writing. Sure, tallying counts of sheep or bushels of grain might seem like rote work. Yet early in the development of writing systems, the physical act of writing was exceedingly difficult – and one of the reasons schoolchildren prayed for help with their handwriting. Later, the act of creation – coming up with ideas, communicating them clearly and engaging readers – could make writing feel like a herculean task. I see what you did there with "herculean." I imagine that, like any new technology, the whole "writing" thing must have seemed like high magic, same as when wielders of bronze weapons encountered iron-wielders. And there was probably pushback against it from that era's equivalent of conservatives: "By the gods, this newfangled 'writing' thing is going to destroy our ability to memorize things. And probably society." Sure, that society did eventually collapse, though that was probably not because of writing. But I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the last person to leave the dying city of Sumer muttered, "I told you writing would lead to this." The romantic image of the writer in the garret doesn’t do justice to the tedious reality of churning out words, one after another. I want a garret. No matter how accomplished a writer, he or she will inevitably struggle with writer’s block. Pulitzer Prize−winning author John McPhee, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 1963, details his writer’s block in a 2013 article: “Block. It puts some writers down for months. It puts some writers down for life.” To be fair, if I had to write for The New Yorker, I'd have writer's block too. At least until I touched the talisman; that is, the contract promising me money. I’ve even wrestled with this article, writing and rewriting it in my head a dozen times before actually typing the first word. Every writer is different, but that's what I do: mull things over before writing. But at some point (usually about five minutes before the deadline) I start typing, and when I do that, generally the words just happen. Sometimes even in a logical progression. If you've made it this far, congratulations—and yes, I was absolutely joking about the Lamborghini. No, it's another Subaru, not a midlife crisis car. Speaking of writing...   One-Sentence Movie Review: Black Adam Everybody involved in this movie, from the executive producer down to the second assistant to the 3rd unit studio janitor (except for Dwayne Johnson, who is always awesome) can at this point restore honor to their houses only by performing seppuku. Rating: 0.5/5 |
| Finally bought a car yesterday, after 15+ months without one. My ass is still sore from the reaming the dealer gave it, but at least my feet will be less sore and, hey, new car. Actually slightly used car, but whatever. In a great example of the random number generator not giving a shit, today's article (from Cracked) has nothing to do with cars, loans, sodomy, or sales associates. Always happy to learn new words. Or make them up. When I see words in a foreign language, I can never be sure they weren't just made up. I mean, all words are made up, but whatever. Did you know Portuguese is the 6th most widely spoken language on the planet (suck it, French and all but six other languages)? No, because it's not. And if it were, that should be "suck it, French and all but five other languages." Or... well, maybe it is. What a language is can be fuzzy. I've mentioned before that some linguists consider Scots a dialect of English; others call it a separate language. I've heard that some regional dialects of Mandarin (one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world) are mutually unintelligible; I imagine this is kind of like how Cockney is all Greek to Americans. Other languages are considered different even if they're mutually intelligible. And how far along do you have to be in learning a language to be said to "speak" it? I know some French, but I don't consider myself a speaker of the language. I know maybe 30 words in Japanese (if you include tempura, sushi, and hentai), but I certainly don't speak it. For these and other reasons, any listing of language by popularity necessarily requires some amount of guesswork. You could list languages by number of native speakers, in which case Wikipedia puts it at #7. That list puts Mandarin at the top, followed by Spanish, then English. Or by total number of speakers including those for whom it's a second, third, etc. language; that list moves English to #1 (no surprise) and pushes Portuguese down to #10.To be fair, the Wiki page on Portuguese does call it #6, and that's likely where this author got the number.I'm just throwing this information out there; I've emphasized before that Cracked is a humor site, not a source for scholarly research. Neither is Wikipedia, but that's still more reliable than Cracked. I think it's safe to say, though, that Portuguese is most likely in the top 10 no matter how you look at it. That's quite a big feat, especially for a country most people can't find on a map. Look, I'm sorry, but if you can't find Portugal on a map, you haven't looked at a map. And I'm not entirely sure, but I think the majority of Portuguese speakers (which, again according to Wiki, are called Lusophones for some arcane reason I can't be arsed to research) are in Brazil. Which you can also find on a map if you've ever looked at one. I'll grant, however, that Portugal is a remarkably small country to have birthed such a widely-spoken tongue. The other biggies (Chinese, English, Spanish, etc.) come mostly from larger countries, whether measured by population or land area. Anyway. The rest of the article goes into some actual Portuguese words, none of which I was familiar with because they don't describe the most important product of Portugal, to wit, port. I won't list all of them; you can go to the original link for that. But a few comments are warranted. 16. Saudade The most internationally famous of Portuguese words. Nope, this is the first place I've seen or heard this word. It's about missing someone but with an added dash of total doom. But I like it. If I had more time, I'd discover if it's related to the Spanish soledad. But not tonight. 14. Achigã This is the name the Portuguese give to the black bass, a type of fish the Portuguese got from Michigan to try and fight off other predators from the surprisingly widely contested rivers of Portugal. And why the hell are we talking about a fish in a list of Portuguese words Americans should know? Well, the “Achigã” quickly destroyed all presumed rivals and became the dominant freshwater species in the country – that's as American as a fish as it gets. Buuurrrrn. But true. 13. Feitiço This one just translates directly to "sorcery" or "spell," but it has a pretty interesting story. The French were the first to co-opt and rebrand it, turning it into "fetiche," and obviously making it sexual because, duh, France, and that's how Americans got the word Fetish. I didn't spend a lot of time fact-checking this one, but it does indeed seem to follow that etymology. I'm just leaving this here because I can't rag on Americans and not rag on the French too. 12. Otorrinolaringologista This one translates to "otolaryngologist," a doctor specializing in nose health, or whatever. What's great about the Portuguese version is how much more needlessly complicated it is because someone decided to add the word "rino" -- also an abbreviation of "rhinoceros" for the Portuguese -- into the mix. Okay, no, come on, dude. "rino" or "rhino" comes from the Greek for "nose," and an otorhinolaryngologist (English, sort of) is commonly called an ear, nose, and throat doctor. A rhinoceros is so named because "ceros" comes from the greek for "horn," and "nose-horn" perfectly describes a rhinoceros. The animal is understandably shortened to "rhino," but then you have things called rhinoviruses, which have nothing to do with rhinoceroseses, and everything to do with your nose. 7. Pneumoultramicroscopicossilicovulcanoconiótico I'm just emphasizing this one here because a) apart from the suffix, English has the same word for the same thing, and b) come on. It refers to the disease one gets from inhaling fumes out of a volcano. Just to save you the click if you're feeling lazy. 4. Peru We sure hope the stereotypes about Americans aren't correct because we're about to add an extra level of geographical confusion you probably don't need in your life. If you're an English speaker, Peru is the name of a country. For Portuguese speakers, however, Peru is a country, sure, but also an animal. The animal in question is ... turkey (not the country, the animal you eat on Thanksgiving). And I'm including this one because it's amusing in My sight. 2. Actualmente While "actualmente" sounds just like "actually" and is also an adverb (English speakers use the "ly" suffix to make adverbs whereas Portuguese ones use the "mente" suffix), it's a completely different thing -- actually. "Actualmente" actually means "currently" or "current times." French does the exact same thing. "Actuellement" means "currently" in that language. I imagine it's because they're both Romance languages so they share the same Latin root, but I'm running out of time here. 1. Excitado While it originally began its word life sharing the exact same meaning as "Excited," things quickly and inexplicably got off the rails. While that's not its official meaning in Portugal, whenever a Portuguese speaker hears an English speaker say "I'm excited about x," it's inevitably awkward because it reads less as "being hyped for something" and more about "being sexually aroused by x." And again, French is the same way. Never tell a French person "Je suis excité" unless you want to doink them. Or make them run away in terror because they don't want to doink you because you're an ugly American. So, okay, I learned a little today. Well, actually yesterday now. Well, actually some months ago when I first saved this article. And I do mean actually, not actualmente. Any day when I learn something is a good day. Even if my ass still hurts from getting reamed at the car dealership. Je ne suis pas excité. |
| Every art form eventually gets to the point where artists are doing it for fellow practitioners of the art rather than for mass consumption. Writing passed that point ages ago, sometime between Shakespeare and Melville, but fortunately, there's still writing for the masses. 14 Classic Works of Literature Hated By Famous Authors "I got a little bored after a time. I mean, the road seemed to be awfully long." And yet, an argument could be made that no one is more qualified to critique a book than someone who's written a book. But that never stopped me, and it never stopped the millions of people who never made a movie from critiquing a movie. The literary world can be a bit of an echo chamber. That is, if enough people say a book is “great,” it becomes official. It becomes a Great Book, and horrified looks are administered to anyone who would dare disparage it. Yeah, I do it anyway. I'm looking at you, Ulysses. Yes, that book is on this list; just wait for it. But even when everyone seems to agree, it’s a safe bet there are a few—or in some cases more than a few—dissenters out there. They may just be in hiding. I'll have to trot out (again) one of the greatest literary smackdowns, if not the greatest, of all time. At the end of this post. Virginia Woolf on Ulysses I started to rub my hands together in gleeful anticipation until I remembered I'm not a big fan of Woolf, either. An illiterate, underbred book, it seems to me; the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. How I can agree so much with her conclusions while still gaping in disbelief at her elitist snobbery is beyond my comprehension. A first rate writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky; startling; doing stunts. I’m reminded all the time of some callow board school boy, full of wits and powers, but so self-conscious and egotistical that he loses his head, becomes extravagant, mannered, uproarious, ill at ease, makes kindly people feel sorry for him and stern ones merely annoyed; and one hopes he’ll grow out of it; but as Joyce is 40 this scarcely seems likely. . . I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one and spatter one; but one does not get one deadly wound straight int he face—as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely absurd to compare him with Tolstoy. True. Tolstoy could actually write. Dorothy Parker on Winnie-the-Pooh But wait! You might say. How can anyone go all Eeyore on Winnie-the-Pooh? The original, I mean, not the Disney version. “ ‘Well, you’ll see, Piglet, when you listen. Because this is how it begins. The more it snows, tiddely-pom—’ “ ‘Tiddely what?’ said Piglet.” (He took, as you might say, the very words out of your correspondent’s mouth.) “ ‘Pom,’ said Pooh. ‘I put that in to make it more hummy.’ ” And it is that word “hummy,” my darlings, that marks the first place in “The House at Pooh Corner” at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up. And it was at this point that I actually Laughed Out Loud. Charlotte Brontë on Pride and Prejudice Wasn't that the prequel to Dumb and Dumber? Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. Me too, Charlotte. Me too. I mean, really, I can't do this takedown justice here. You just have to go to the link. It's beautifully understated. Mark Twain on Pride and Prejudice Also the author of what I'm calling the greatest literary smackdown of all time... again, later. I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. This. This is why Mark Twain is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Skipping a few here in the interest of time. David Foster Wallace on American Psycho Unlike most of the others, this is still a kind of contemporary book. At least it was published in my lifetime. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what’s always distinguished bad writing—flat characters, a narrative world that’s cliched and not recognizably human, etc.–is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? Burrrn. And the list ends as it begins: with a flamethrower pointed straight at James Joyce. Vladimir Nabokov on Finnegans Wake I detest Punningans Wake in which a cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. But alas—it turns out that Nabokov actually liked Ulysses. Oh well. No one's perfect. And now, as promised, although I'm sure I've linked this here before, it makes me laugh every single time I read it: the greatest literary takedown of all time... Mark Twain on Fenimore Cooper. |
| One of these days, y'all're gonna be mad at me because I'mma do a whole blog entry in French. Today is not that day, but it could have been. ‘They said it was impossible’: how medieval carpenters are rebuilding Notre Dame Project leaders at Guédelon Castle tell how their woodwork savoir faire is proving a godsend for mission to restore Paris cathedral roof Ils ont dit que c'était impossible. And that's as far as I'm going to go today. I do remember when Notre Dame burned. It was in the Before Time, so I still had a gym membership, and almost every single screen that hung from the ceiling showed the iconic spire engulfed in flame and smoke. I'm no fan of organized religion, but that shit was art, regardless of what inspired it (pun intended), and I was just as gut-punched as when I watched the Twin Towers (which may or may not have been art) burning. Anyway. The article. At Guédelon Castle the year is 1253 and the minor nobleman, Gilbert Courtenay, has ridden off to fight in the Crusades, leaving his wife in charge of workers building the family’s new home: a modest chateau that befits his social position as a humble knight in the service of King Louis IX. I don't know how a château can be considered "modest" except maybe in comparison to, I dunno, Versailles. Or compared to a typical present-day American subdivision house. The Guédelon project was dreamed up as an exercise in “experimental archaeology” 25 years ago. Instead of digging down it has been built upward, using only the tools and methods available in the Middle Ages and, wherever possible, locally sourced materials. I'm not convinced that "locally sourced" is historically accurate, especially when it comes to upper-class housing. Hell, even Stonehenge has been shown to have been constructed out of material from many miles away. And even more kilometers. Now, in an unforeseen twist of fate, Guédelon is playing a vital role in restoring the structure and soul of Notre Dame cathedral. I also remember seeing some proposals for what to replace the spire with. To overwork what was once (arguably) a clever pun, none of them were very inspiring. In their defense, it's not like they always used 12th-13th century techniques in its construction; it's been modified before, with then-current materials and methods. Paris’s imposing 13th-century cathedral, a world heritage site, was consumed by fire in April 2019, destroying its complex roof structure, known as La Forêt because of the large number of trees used in its construction. Funny what gets translated and what doesn't. We talk about the Eiffel Tower (translated from la tour Eiffel), but Notre Dame de Paris isn't translated to Our Lady of Paris (though most English speakers don't pronounce it the same way). L'avenue des Champs-Élysées also stays French instead of becoming Elysian Fields Avenue. But le musée du Louvre is just "the Louvre." Point is, why not just call it "the forest?" And don't get me started on La Seine, which, despite what you may have heard, isn't "the boob." After all, there's only one of it. “After the fire, there were a lot of people saying it would take thousands of trees, and we didn’t have enough of the right ones, and the wood would have to be dried for years, and nobody even knew anything about how to produce beams like they did in the Middle Ages. They said it was impossible." If there's one thing I know about architects, it's that if you tell them something's impossible, they'll try to find a way to prove you wrong. They're contrary that way. Sometimes, they even turn out to be right. A number of the companies bidding for the Notre Dame work have already engaged carpenters trained at Guédelon, and more are expected to beat a path to the Burgundy clearing 200km down the autoroute du Soleil from Paris. See, there we go again. Is "Highway of the Sun" too fucking hard to type? Or go full French and say l'autoroute du Soleil. Stéphane Boudy is one of a small team of carpenters at the medieval site, where he has worked since 1999. Boudy, 51, trained as a baker, then an electrician, until discovering his vocation at Guédelon. He explains how hand-hewing each beam – a single piece from a single tree – respects the “heart” of the green wood that gives it its strength and resistance. Sometimes, it pays to find a profession and stick with it. But more often, one can achieve greatness by dabbling, and finding ways to connect materials and techniques from various disciplines (I have another article in the queue that touches on this; one of these days, it'll come up). “We have 25 years’ experience of cutting, squaring and hewing wood by hand,” he says. “It’s what we [have done] every day for 25 years. There are people outside of here who can do it now, but I tell you they all came here to learn how. If this place didn’t exist, perhaps the experts would have said: no it’s not possible to reproduce the roof of Notre Dame. We [have shown that] it is. I mean, to me, that's the very core of ennui: doing the same thing every day, over and over. Especially if it's (ugh) work. After Day 3 I find a way to automate the process. But I can't deny it builds skill. “This isn’t just nostalgia. If Notre Dame’s roof lasted 800 years, it is because of this. There’s no heart in sawmill wood,” he says. Still burns just as bright. *runs away from angry French mob* Florian Renucci, the Guédelon site manager and a philosopher turned master mason, has already been asked to oversee training of artisans expected to work on Notre Dame. And there we go again with the career shift. In monsieur Renucci's (or is it signore Renucci's? *googles* nope, French with a vaguely Italian name, fairly common near that border) defense, master mason almost certainly pays better than philosophy. But then again, cat litter box scraper pays better than philosophy. Épaud is on the scientific committee at Guédelon and the committee overseeing the reconstruction of Notre Dame, as well as a member of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France’s national research body. He says that going back to build the future is not just nostalgia. One of those times when you don't really need a translation, just the knowledge that French usually puts the adjective after the noun. See also: Système Internationale d'Unités. “I have studied the 13th-century technique for many years and, if we respect the internal form of the tree, the beams will last for 800 years. Guédelon is the only place in France, and I believe in Europe, where they build this kind of roof structure in wood. All those who didn’t think it was possible didn’t know about Guédelon.” To be clear, those beams would have lasted way more than 800 years if it weren't for l'incendie. He adds: “But it shouldn’t be rushed. Macron’s insistence that the cathedral be open by 2024 is idiotic. We are talking about a cathedral, we’re not in a hurry and we have the money to do it the right way. If we rush it, there’s a risk it [will] be done badly and something is missed. Sadly, I fear Macron doesn’t understand that.” Politicians gonna politic. One downside of democracy (there are a few) is that politicians tend to think short-term. I think the only time in history that a politician's timeline was actually realized was Kennedy's moonshot promise, and I sometimes wonder if it would have happened if he hadn't been assassinated. Yes, cathedrals have been known to take hundreds of years to complete, way beyond any elected leader's lifespan, let alone time in office. The big question is: when do we replace with new materials, and when do we go back to origins? I think there's an argument to be made either way. But "ce n'est pas possible" isn't an argument. |
| This is just something I thought was interesting. This Nearly Lost Ancient Grain Tradition Could Be the Future of Farming A past global staple you’ve never heard of, maslins are poised for a comeback. And yes, I'd never heard of maslins. And instead of sowing the seeds of a single grain in orderly rows, spread a mix of grains all over the field, “mimicking nature so crops have random distribution patterns, as in natural forests,” he says. Once harvested, these grain mixtures could be turned into many things: nutritious bread, a kind of roasted-grain trail mix called kolo, beer, and the potent clear spirit known as areki. You had me at beer. “We’ll plant the things that go together and are compatible with each other,” Zemede says. “Our farmers are good at mirroring nature.” One might ask, if you're just going to mirror nature, why not just take what's already in nature? Well, there's just not enough of it for our teeming masses. Ethiopia is one of the few places in the world where farmers still grow maslins, the general term for different varieties and species of grain that are sown in the same field, or intercropped. Maslins sustained humans for millennia, possibly predating the rise of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago. Predating or predicting? Or was it a step in that direction? These grain mixtures tend to be more resilient to pests and drought, and to lend more complex flavors to breads, beer, and booze. And now I want to try some. Worldwide, maslins fell out of favor long ago, replaced nearly everywhere by sprawling, single-grain monoculture—but a small and passionate group of scientists, including Zemede, is hoping to change that. There are, of course, advantages to monocultures (the article goes into that a little bit), which is why people plant single crops in the first place. The fact that maslins are grown today only in Ethiopia and pockets of Georgia, Eritrea, and a handful of other countries belies how widespread they once were. One of those countries is not like the others... One time, I was in Vegas and found out a dealer was from Eritrea. "Do you know where that is?" she asked, clearly expecting ignorance. "East Africa, near Ethiopia," I said. She was, indeed, surprised. Look, I don't know everything, but I'm pretty good at looking at maps. Today, Ethiopian farmers are feeling the pressure to grow modern monoculture crops, thanks in part to a national push to become an agricultural powerhouse. “If you export grains, you want them to be uniform,” says McAlvay. “The global market wants a certain type of wheat for their Wonder Bread. A mixture of three varieties of wheat and four varieties of barley with some other things thrown in really doesn’t make the cut.” The obvious problem there is that Wonder Bread is basically shit. The grain mixes also appear to have natural resistance to pests, from insects to fungal diseases. While a pest adapted to attack one species of grain will have a field day, no pun intended, when set loose in a monoculture crop, it won’t be able to jump from plant to plant if the individual it attacks is surrounded by other kinds of grain, McAlvay explains. No. Own it. Own that pun. Revel in it. There's a lot more at the article, which, like I said, is just something I found interesting. I just hope I don't have to go all the way to Ethiopia to try the beer. |
| Some names just have staying power, I suppose. The Trouble With “The Big Bang” A rash of recent articles illustrates a longstanding confusion over the famous term. As Calvin noted, it should have been called the Horrendous Space Kablooie. Some cosmologists do call it the HSK. There aren't too many instances of science referencing comic strips; the only other one I can think of is the thagomizer. (At that link are some others that I hadn't remembered.)By Sabine Hossenfelder I'm including the byline here, because I keep seeing her stuff all over the place. She has a whole YouTube video series, and I just finished a book she wrote. She's a very good science communicator. Unfortunately, knowing she wrote this article means I read it in my mind with a soft German accent. I can’t blame readers for being confused by recent news stories about the Big Bang. The article that kicked them off, “The Big Bang Didn’t Happen,” is bad enough. But some of the rebuttals also don’t get it right. The problem is that writers conflate ideas in astrophysics and use the term “Big Bang” incorrectly. Let me set the record straight. Science writers love to do this shit, and it pisses me off. "Darwin overturned!" "Einstein was WRONG!" "Big Bang didn't happen!" "Schroedinger's cat found ALIVE!" Stop it. It's misleading and only adds fuel to the fires started by the willfully ignorant, anti-intellectual "my opinion is better than your book learnin'" crowd. Let’s call Big Bang #1 the beginning of the universe. It’s what most people think the expression means. This Big Bang is what we find in the mathematics of Einstein’s general relativity if we extrapolate the current expansion of the universe back in time. The equations say that matter and energy in the universe becomes denser and hotter until, eventually, about 13.7 billion years in the past, both density and temperature become infinite. Hossenfelder certainly knows more about this shit than I do, but I also don't think talking about infinite density or temperature is helpful, because no one can really grok the idea of infinity. It's just not possible. Georg Cantor tried, and had some success, but he died insane. Besides, there are different kinds of infinity. This Big Bang is sometimes more specifically called the Big Bang Singularity. This word has somewhat fallen out of favor among physicists, partly because it’s clumsy, but also because I don’t know anyone who thinks this singularity is physically real. Probably because of the whole "infinity" thing. I mean, to me the whole thing sounds like a limit problem. Like, you know you can't divide by zero because that's mathematically undefined, right? You learn that pretty early on. But if you take a series of fractions where the denominator approaches zero, you can approach infinity. Mathematically, not practically. Since physicists don’t believe the singularity is real, the phrase “Big Bang” has come to refer to whatever event might replace the singularity in the to-be-found theory of quantum gravity in this Planck time. Let’s call it just that—the Big Bang Event. This is, as far as I understand it, not what would be called the Horrendous Space Kablooie. The problem has long been that the term Big Bang is used to refer to the expansion of the universe in general, and not to the event of the creation of the universe in particular. These are, however, two separate scientific hypotheses. That's the HSK. Historically, the first evidence for the expansion of the universe was Edwin Hubble’s observation that the light from other galaxies is systematically shifted to the red, indicating that they all recede from us. And I finally got to see the telescope he used for those observations. It's in the mountains near L.A. (Thanks, NaNoNette  )While this may have been the first evidence, the decisive evidence for the expansion of the universe was the discovery of the cosmic microwave background that ruled out the competing hypothesis, the “steady state” universe. I'm sure you've seen an image of that, but if not, here. One of the most mind-blowing things about this, at least in my opinion, is that the (observable) universe can be thought of as being inside-out. That is, the further you look, the more back in time you go, until you can't see any further back; that's the CMB. It's roughly the same in all directions. So, in a sense, I really am the center of the universe. Unfortunately for my ego, so are you. So is Alpha Centauri. So is everything else in the universe. This confusion between the expansion of the universe and the Big Bang Event becomes apparent, for example, just by looking at the Wikipedia entry for Big Bang. It starts out in the first paragraph referring to something called the “Big Bang theory,” and explains that this is the theory for the expansion of the universe. In the second paragraph, the Big Bang theory is distinguished from its extrapolation to the Big Bang singularity. But by the fourth paragraph the distinction has gotten lost, and we are informed, “A wide range of empirical evidence strongly favors the Big Bang, which is now essentially universally accepted.” The reader is misled to think that evidence for the expansion of the universe is evidence that the universe began with the Big Bang Event, which is incorrect. I'm aware that Wikipedia has its shortcomings, but if you're a physicist who's also an effective science communicator, like Sabine here, you could, you know... edit that. I have not seen or heard the term “Big Bang Theory” being used by a physicist in a seminar or paper for the expansion of the universe. I'm sure that's at least partly because the show of that name has ruined the expression for all time. Anyway, after a long discourse about these problems in definition, she finally gets to the point made back at the beginning: In the attention-grabbing article, “The Big Bang Never Happened,” Eric Lerner questions that the universe expands in the first place. His article was published in August by the Institute of Art and Ideas, a British organization that, by my own experience, prioritizes debate over scientific rigor. Buuuuurrrrrrrnnnnn. Lerner argues against the “cosmological establishment [that] has circled the wagons to protect this failed [Big Bang] theory with censorship,” presumably because Lerner has faced some difficulties in getting his alternative theory published. This is directly equivalent to "spherical establishment that has circled the wagons to protect this failed Round Earth theory with censorship." It becomes clear, later in Lerner’s essay, that he is not attacking the Big Bang Event (which can reasonably be questioned) but the expansion of the universe. And because it is true that the Webb telescope has delivered data in tension with the concordance model, the reader (or editor) who does not know the difference, may get away finding Lerner’s piece reasonable. And this is why we need more effective science communication. It is, as Hossenfelder notes, sometimes very difficult to replace precise scientific or mathematical terminology with imprecise words. She goes on about it in the book I just read, too (which contains very nearly no math and lots of words). This problem is both pernicious and persistent, though: even some of the most basic words, like "theory," have a different meaning to scientists and the general public, thus leading to such utterly ignorant dismissals as "evolution is 'only' a theory." And as much as I'd like to fix it, I'm not actually a scientist. It's like: you're not a football player, right? But you probably watch football on TV. And you probably have some knowledge of players and strategies, at least enough to occasionally shout "OH COME ON!" at the screen. Well, that's like me with science. So I'm not in a position to fix it. I'll just watch people like Hossenfelder do that. |
| In today's "we were wrong all along" news... Goodbye to the Vikings The term ‘Viking’ as it is commonly used is misleading, warping our perception of the Middle Ages. It should be retired. That yipping noise you just heard was the collective barking of Minnesota sportsball fans. There was no such thing as a ‘Viking’ in the medieval period. Use of the term emerged in the 19th century. The word wicing occurred in Old English and víkingr in Old Icelandic, but were used very differently, to mean something like ‘pirate’. Which explains much about a certain cruise line and its pricing structure. In Old Icelandic víkingr could be applied to any pirate regardless of where they came from or when, or what language they spoke; they might be Estonians or Saracens, for example. It is also noteworthy that it is almost never used to describe the people who we today call ‘Vikings’. Many of the men labelled ‘Vikings’ in textbooks and popular histories were warriors led by kings on military expeditions with clear political objectives, such as the Great Heathen Army that fought Alfred the Great or the Norwegian force that accompanied Harald Hardrada to his death at Stamford Bridge in 1066. Calling such people ‘Vikings’ would be like calling 18th century British, French or Dutch naval officers ‘pirates’ simply because they wore vaguely similar hats and sailed vaguely similar ships to Blackbeard. Have you seen what 18th century British, French, and Dutch naval officers got up to? That's not far off the mark. The final development, the ‘ethnicisation’ of the word that allows the use of terms such as ‘Viking farms’, ‘Viking towns’ and ‘Viking women and children’, is much more recent and has gradually crept up since the Second World War. This is insidious; by linking military prowess and savagery to an entire ethnic group, it encourages its appropriation by racial supremacists. Right, because when I think of military prowess and savagery, I think of Scandinavians and not a certain Mongolian. On the other hand, my ex-wife is of Norwegian descent, so I get the savagery part. The issue with the term is not merely semantic. This conception of ‘the Vikings’ seriously distorts our understanding of European history. We have tended to group almost all Scandinavian activity between the 790s and the mid-11th century together under the ‘Viking’ label, creating a distinct ‘Viking Age’ and an imagined ‘Viking’ culture and identity. The evidence, however, does not support this analysis. The article goes on, of course, to explain said evidence, not all of which I'm going to repeat here. Irish, English and Frankish chronicles generally refer to Scandinavian aggressors as ‘heathens’ and this, rather than any ethnic identity, seems to have been what struck the victims of these attacks as significant. The 793 raid on Lindisfarne, often said to herald the ‘Viking Age’, is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle thus: ‘The ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne with plunder and slaughter.’ Hey, Lindisfarne again (from a couple of entries ago). The construct of the ‘Vikings’ conflates and blurs the distinction between eighth- and 12th-century pirates. Tenth-century kings based in Dublin and Christian rulers such as Cnut, all of whom lived in very different societies, had different belief systems and political and economic objectives. Each of these contexts needs to be dealt with on its own terms and not within a 19th-century construct that has more than a hint of racist essentialism to it. It's also, insofar as I can infer from this article, religious exceptionalism. |
| What the hell is hard work, anyway? The law of reversed effort: The harder you try, the harder you fall There are many things in life that cannot be improved with greater effort. Sometimes, life requires that you step back. Is it meant to mean great physical exertion, as in the hard work of keeping a farm going? Or something mentally difficult, like proving something in mathematics? Neither is any guarantee of success. You’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to cars go by. You have no idea how long you have been like this, but it must be a few hours, at least. Go to sleep, you tell yourself. Just close your eyes and: Go. To. Sleep. You shut your eyes tight, force your body to relax, and wait for the blissful slumber to come. But, nothing happens. More minutes pass and… nothing happens. It’s 3 a.m., and you’re still staring at the ceiling. I learned how to deal with that years ago. No, drinking isn't involved. We have all been in this situation. Try as we might, it is nearly impossible to consciously will yourself to sleep. Sleep comes to those who let their mind wander and focus on anything other than sleep itself. Count sheep, control your breathing, listen to an audiobook, or whatever — so long as it turns your mind from wanting to sleep. Or I'd get up and do something else, which would make me tired, so I'd go back to bed, which would keep me awake, so I'd get up and do something, which would make me tired, etc. Then I'd fall asleep at my desk all day. That's my body telling me I'm a night owl. This is a common and familiar example of the “law of reversed effort.” Yet, whenever I make an effort, I get tired. The Law of Reversed Effort was first coined by the author Aldous Huxley, who wrote: “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. “Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold.” I guess it worked for him. He sold a few books, as I recall. But, there’s a spiritual or holistic way of viewing the “law of reversed effort” as well. It’s something that has a much longer history than Aldous Huxley — it’s the Daoist idea of “Wu Wei.” I was going to say that makes sense and I understand it, but it doesn't and I don't. I'm pretty sure that's what Taoism is all about though, so I guess I'm doing it right. Which means I'm not. To surrender to a greater power — or a nobler, righteous one — is not an act of cowardice. It is an act of profound wisdom. There is nothing praiseworthy about swimming in a storm or punching a bear in the face. There is wisdom in knowing our limits, in embracing humility, and even in being pushed around. This is the meaning of Wu Wei. It is not some lazy torpor, or an excuse for a duvet day and Netflix binge. Sure it is. That’s nice, you might think, but how does that actually translate to real life? The problem with a lot of philosophy of this kind is that it rather leaves us no better off than before. And usually worse off. Anyway, here's why I decided to share this: Writing: For an author, there is nothing so terrifying as the blank page. If you have been told you have to write something, especially on a deadline, the mind often can go into meltdown grasping for something — anything — to write. It’s much better to let ideas come and write them in a notebook so they don’t get lost. I'm sure that works for some people. Me, I do freewrites. And since I started doing these entries on a daily basis, I think maybe one in 400 entries gave me writer's block. It's even more trite than Tao, but sometimes you "just do it." Stress and anxiety: We all get stressed about things. All jobs involve bottlenecks and crunch points. Life has good days and bad days. But when we obsessively run things over in our heads, we actually make anxiety worse. There is a reason why “mindfulness” is such a breakaway phenomenon, and why Headspace is a $250-million business. Yeah. That reason is marketing. Conversations: When it comes to how we talk to people, less really is more. A bad conversation involves you talking too much and your “listening” consisting of simply waiting to talk again. Yet research shows that active listening gives more “conversational satisfaction” and leaves the partner feeling more understood. Oh, sorry, were you saying something? Perhaps it is time to step away from what you are doing and enjoy Wu Wei or inaction. After all, if I tell you not to think of pink elephants, there’s only one way to do it. Drink until they go away. |
| I don't really have a lot to say about today's article. It was just interesting to me, and something I'd never heard about before. I'd heard of one-armed bandits, but not one-legged superspies. To plow forward through 50 miles of dangerous hiking on foot would be arduous in the extreme. But if she remained, she’d almost certainly be captured by the Nazis, who now considered her their most feared Allied spy. As much as I hate doing outdoors stuff, if the alternative is to be captured by Nazis, I'd take the hike. Cuthbert was what Hall had named her wooden leg. It was going to be a long journey. I was curious why an American would name her wooden leg "Cuthbert." The only Cuthbert I knew of was a monk at Lindisfarne (which, incidentally, if you're ever in England, is absolutely worth the trip—do it before sea level rise cuts off the only land access). So I looked up St. Cuthbert, and what's the first thing I see on his Wiki page? An image with the caption "Cuthbert discovers a piece of timber, from a 12th-century manuscript of Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert." Like, seriously, someone in the 1100s found this event so transcendentally important that they painted it.Why it matters that Cuthbert discovered a piece of timber, so thrilling that Bede illustrated it, shall remain a mystery. was England deforested in his era? Was it a Norse timber and they were about to be invaded (again)? I can't be arsed to research it any further than Wikipedia. But I found it amusing that Hall named her wooden leg after someone apparently famous for discovering a hunk of wood. Though it would be decades before the world knew the full extent of Hall’s efforts during the war, it was clear from a young age that she seemed destined for an exceptional life. Born on April 6, 1906, in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents Edwin and Barbara Hall, Virginia enjoyed a comfortable upbringing and could have easily settled into a sedentary existence. I also found it amusing that a couple of Baltimorons would name their daughter after a neighboring and rival state. In school, she picked up several languages and appeared disinterested in conforming to the societal expectations of the time. She happily accepted parts in plays intended for boys and enjoyed being slightly provocative, once shocking classmates by showing up at school with a “bracelet” made of live snakes around her wrist. I think I would have liked her. During a bird hunting expedition in 1933, she discharged her firearm into her foot while climbing over a fence. The blast from the 12-gauge shotgun caused severe injury, and the resulting gangrene forced doctors to amputate half of her left leg below the knee. I think for most people, literally shooting yourself in the foot would end an adventuring career. Hall’s greatest disguise, though, was achieved by taking advantage of chauvinism. Few men believed women could be effective spies—particularly one with a wooden leg. Nowadays, of course, everyone expects the spy to be female. Due to some unfortunate choices by Hollywood, we also expect them to exclusively run honey traps. Still, I imagine that spycraft involves doing stuff that the enemy wouldn't expect. She connected with a brothel in the city of Lyon, France, where she was able to gather intelligence from prostitutes that had met with German troops. So you don't have to run the honey trap yourself. Her contributions grew so significant that the Gestapo began searching France for la dame qui boite, or "the lady with a limp." Seems like they finally figured it out, though. The Nazis were a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. When Hall arrived in Spain, she was promptly arrested for not having a passport. It was better than facing a horde of angry Nazis. Also better than hiking one-legged through the Pyrénées. Despite her reputation in Nazi-occupied France, she insisted on returning, adding grey to her hair, drawing wrinkles on her face, and even having her teeth ground down to alter her appearance, according to author Sonia Purnell, who wrote a book on Hall titled A Woman of No Importance. "We found a woman with a fake leg, but she has grey hair. Can't be the same spy." Okay, maybe some Nazis were stupid. Or maybe Hall was just that good. Anyway, like I said, not a lot of snark here; just something I thought I'd share. At least her name wasn't Eileen; then I would make some more puns like the horrible one in the title.. |
| Wrapping up October's "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] with a blind quote. "It is important to start socializing the idea of reforms now—sometimes they are upon us quicker than we think." I have no idea what this is in reference to, and I don't want to look it up to do this entry. It's called a blind quote for a reason. I'm going to go ahead and assume it's referring to something in the US, though. Consequently, no matter to what it refers, half the country stopped reading at "socializing" and immediately dismissed anything else. "Sounds like soshulizm to me." I considered listing some issues that might need reform here, but there are so many things in that category in the US that it might be easier to list the things that are not in need of reform. And if I had given myself more time, I might even be able to think of one. Thing is, when something is going right, we tend not to worry about it too much. This was the case with (yes, I'm going here) abortion laws, until suddenly it wasn't going right and it became something in need of reform. The other problem with listing the things I think do need reform is that, inevitably, listing them creates the implication of some sort of order. Like, even if I say "in no particular order," whatever I list first will stick in a reader's mind as my top priority. If I say "police" first, you'll think that's at the top of my mind, for example. And now you probably already think it's police. It is not. And it's not like fixing one thing would make everything else fall into place. Well, with one possible exception: elections. But that's still not the foremost problem on my mind. Nor is education, nor space exploration, nor even the imminent threat of nuclear war. Not health care delivery (actual health care, now that I think of it, is one thing we do right—for those who can afford it). Not animal cruelty, not the environment, not climate change, not energy, not terrorism (domestic or otherwise), not gun violence. Even the problem of homelessness isn't the top issue for me; neither is inflation. Or the looming recession. Or living wages, or the existence of tipping, or lack of religious freedom. Racism (both systemic and personal), a general lack of affordable housing, Twitter, regressive drug laws (especially the continuing illegality of cannabis at the federal level), private prisons, infrastructure rot, drought, political corruption, and far more issues are certainly important, but again, I wouldn't put any of them at #1. No, the biggest issue needing reform right now is the severe lack of beer in my refrigerator. Fortunately, that one's easily solved, unlike these others, and I will do so later today. What? With enough beer, I can pretend that these other problems don't exist. Okay, now that I'm done, I'm going to Google the blind quote. Huh. Supreme Court term limits and related reforms. Just goes to show that, even when sober, I can't think of everything. |
| Lies. Everyone Likes Red and Pink Candies Best Sweets manufacturers are finally catching on and selling packages without the lesser colors. It only takes one data point to falsify the headline. Here it is: Me. I don't like red and pink candies the best. Article is from 2015, but I doubt time has blurred the edges on the point. To mix a metaphor. There’s an Internet meme floating around...that implores, “Don’t ever let someone treat you like a yellow Starburst. You are a pink Starburst.” One of the reasons I live a solitary lifestye: cherry-pickers. If there's a mixed bag of treats, I take what I get (though I generally prefer the orange ones, or, in the case of chocolate, the dark ones). Kind of like how I enjoy choosing these articles at random. But everyone I know roots through the bag looking for choice morsels, which skews the balance and thus offends my sense of what's right and pure in the world. In a perfect world, my tastes and theirs would be different. But even though my taste isn't aligned with that of the majority, they still narf the ones I like best. Some of that, I suspect, is trolling. More likely, though, is that friends have similar tastes. Except for the guy I know who mixes Skittles with M&Ms in a bowl. That guy's going to Hell for sure. The message acknowledges and plays on a widely held belief: that pink and red candies are the best and all the other flavors are also-rans. Okay, I can accept it's "widely-held." Don't generalize that into "everyone." This isn’t to say there aren’t outliers, but more often than not, people prefer their fruity candy in shades of red. So why the extremist, clickbait headline? Oh, right. Because it's clickbait. It’s reminiscent of the frequency with which people claim seven as their lucky number. I don't play craps, either. Last year Popsicle came out with Red Classics, a line of its ice pops that nixes grape and orange from the usual lineup and only contains strawberry, cherry, and raspberry, an assortment of reds. Starburst has its FaveReds, a version of the fruit chews that includes strawberry (aka pink), cherry, and in place of orange and lemon, two rosy flavors: fruit punch and watermelon. I don't eat sweets all that much, so I wasn't aware of any of these things. I suspect this article came to my attention because it's Halloween candy season. It might be fruitful (pun intended) to see if any of these things are still being marketed, eight years later, but I can't be arsed. In any event, while I don't dislike strawberry or cherry Starburst, I'm not a fan of fruit punch and I actively despise watermelon. I'd rather have yellow Starburst than watermelon. Hell, if there were a shit-flavored Starburst and a watermelon-flavored Starburst, and I had to pick one, I'd have to think about it. Mogelonsky speculated that red was nonthreatening and lacked the acidic quality that can turn people off lemons and other citruses. But it’s not only that. The importance of the color red, sometimes over or in place of specific flavors, is notable. What is fruit punch, when you think about it, but a generic, noncommittal red flavor that doesn’t even bother to associate itself with a specific fruit? What is fruit punch? Ass. It's ass. Watermelon is moldy ass. According to Charles Spence, a University of Oxford psychologist who studies how people perceive flavor and consults for major food and beverage companies, color has a bigger influence on flavor than most people are aware. “There are probably a couple of hundred studies now since the first ones in the 1930s showing that if you change the color of a food or drink it will very often change the taste of the person rating it,” Spence said. “You sort of think intuitively, well … the color isn’t part of the taste. And yet this growing body of research over the decades does show it can influence the taste in quite dramatic ways that can’t necessarily be overwritten.” That's because taste isn't everything. It's the whole experience that matters. Nowhere was this more evident than during the Great Coke Crisis of 1985, a truly dark time in our history. Blind taste tests apparently indicated that people preferred the disgusting taste of New Coke to the tried-and-true formula. What the marketing gurus didn't seem to understand was that we were used to the taste of actual Coke, and had grown to like it. They learned. Eventually. Speaking of Coke and red, a couple years ago Coke changed the packaging of their "Zero" product (which is what I drink now when I'm not drinking the harder stuff) from black cans to red. A slightly different shade than Coke/Santa red, but still red. I wonder if that increased sales, given the apparent preference for red, but again, I can't be arsed to research it. I didn't care, because it still tasted the same. This "whole experience" thing is why you don't do blind taste tests of beer or scotch. I'll be the first to admit that I drink expensive scotch because it's expensive and I can. Are there cheaper whiskeys that are just as good? Probably. I don't care. Regarding red, Spence said that studies have shown that “it seems like red is a particularly effective cue for sweetness, maybe because there’s a cue in nature, which is fruits going from green and sour and unripe through redder and sweeter and riper.” A moment's thought should be enough to falsify that hypothesis. First, lots of sweet fruits aren't red. Oranges, e.g., or blueberries (it's right there in the names). Second, lots of red things aren't sweet. Like tomatoes. Marcia Pelchat, a psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center who studies food preferences, disagreed with Spence’s theory. “I don’t think you can make an evolutionary argument that goes back to our primate ancestors. I think it’s shared cultural experience,” Pelchat said. Another strike against evo-psych. Confection and dessert companies are certainly aware of the power of red. “For our brand, red is a magical color,” said Nick Soukas, who oversees ice cream products at Unilever, the owner of Popsicle. Maybe it's because meat is red, and meat is delicious. As for me, I associate red with holidays I hate. Spence agreed that anything novel can grab attention and sales. And in an era where you can custom-order any color of M&M’s online, in colors that used to be strictly unavailable, maybe other candy companies feel they need to flood the market. Like I said, I don't eat much candy these days. But when I do, color is the least of my concerns. As long as they're not watermelon flavored. |
| Another entry for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+], this one about a trope. The Random Number Generator (peace be unto it) is messing with me again. I just did a "woman in a non-traditional role" entry yesterday. Fortunately, this one's about a trope in fiction. Unfortunately, it's sometimes difficult to talk about the fictional trope without referencing those works of fiction that purport to be biographical. Let's start with the TVTropes page. Fair warning: the page suffers from grammar issues. But I think it gets the point across. For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. We could start by not calling humanity "mankind." After all, a leader — especially the supreme ruler of a nation — are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), all of which are often considered masculine qualities. And yet, some of the greatest rulers in history have been women, and some of the worst have been men. To be fair, there are far more examples of the latter. Perhaps the male ones didn't have to do quite as much to prove themselves capable leaders, due to expectations. Again, though, we're talking about fiction here, and we can write our queens however we like. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea — a volatile, emotionally-driven, Hysterical Woman in charge of other? You know who lets emotions get in the way of ruling? Men. Well, anyone, really. We're all human. Society expects us to demonstrate our emotions differently, but in all cases they sneak through sometimes. While it is possible for this trope to apply to male rulers (if the man in question lacks the traditional masculine qualities, or if the work is set in a Lady Land and the man is forced to be more "feminine" to be accepted), what makes this an Always Female trope is the still commonly held view that leadership is an inherently masculine role, and the point of the trope is that the character suffers emotionally because they are forced to divest themselves of their society's gender norms just to be taken seriously as a monarch. An ardent feminist once asserted to me that the world would be a better place if all its leaders were women. While I don't really have an argument against that, just to be a troll, I said, "Margaret Thatcher." She responded with, "She doesn't count!" And now I have an even better counterargument. The UK Prime Minister isn't, however, a royal; women who are elected (even indirectly, in that case) aren't really part of this trope. Still, I suspect that any hereditary ruler who isn't a sociopath to begin with has to wear a mask of some sort, regardless of sex or gender identity. Even in an absolute monarchy, rulers are expected to abide by certain... well, rules. And if they don't, if they let sentimentality or passing emotions guide them, well, they tend to get stabbed in the back. Sometimes literally. I don't think that's any easier for men than it is for women, but I have no way of knowing. One of the purposes of fiction is aspirational; it doesn't always reflect reality, but rather display how the writer thinks reality should be. And we get used to whatever it is they're portraying. The more shows depict a competent female President, for example, the more likely we are to have one. Not only do we get used to it, but maybe it becomes a bit of an ideal to strive toward for the real person who eventually gets that position. |
| It goes without saying that science requires scientists. Today's article features one I hadn't heard of before. Tenacity, the Art of Integration, and the Key to a Flexible Mind: Wisdom from the Life of Mary Somerville, for Whom the Word “Scientist” Was Coined Inside the hallmark of a great scientist and a great human being — the ability to hold one’s opinions with firm but unfisted fingers. A middle-aged Scottish mathematician rises ahead of the sun to spend a couple of hours with Newton before the day punctuates her thinking with the constant interruptions of mothering four children and managing a bustling household. Meanwhile, I have trouble finding the time to read any science texts, and I don't have any such distractions (cats don't count). “A man can always command his time under the plea of business,” Mary Somerville (December 26, 1780–November 28, 1872) would later write in her memoir; “a woman is not allowed any such excuse.” Well, at least that's improved since then. When her parents realized that the household candle supply had thinned because Mary had been staying up at night to read Euclid, they promptly confiscated her candles. But not, apparently, Euclid. Mary was undeterred. Having already committed the first six books of Euclid to memory, she spent her nights adventuring in mathematics in the bright private chamber of her mind. "But girls can't do math." Pfft. When Somerville was forty-six, she published her first scientific paper — a study of the magnetic properties of violet rays — which earned her praise from the inventor of the kaleidoscope, Sir David Brewster, as “the most extraordinary woman in Europe — a mathematician of the very first rank with all the gentleness of a woman.” Well, at least he included the important part, that she was feminine. As for the paper about violet rays, that's also something I'd never heard of. Learning two new things in one day nearly broke my brain. If you're in the same situation I was, here. Lord Brougham, the influential founder of the newly established Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge — with which Thoreau would take issue thirty-some years later by making a case for “the diffusion of useful ignorance,” comprising “knowledge useful in a higher sense” — was so impressed that he asked Somerville to translate a mathematical treatise by Pierre-Simon Laplace, “the Newton of France.” Thoreau was a willfully ignorant ass. As the months unspooled into years, Somerville supported herself as a mathematics tutor to the children of the wealthy. One of her students was a little girl named Ada, daughter of the mathematically inclined baroness Annabella Milbanke and the only legitimate child of the sybarite poet Lord Byron — a little girl would would grow to be, thanks to Somerville’s introduction to Charles Babbage, the world’s first computer programmer. Now Lovelace, I'd heard of. In The Mechanism of the Heavens, published in 1831 after years of work, Somerville hadn’t merely translated the math, but had expanded upon it and made it comprehensible to lay readers, popularizing Laplace’s esoteric ideas. For a scientist, it is often enough to just do science. Being able to make it comprehensible to people almost as ignorant as Thoreau, though, that takes real skill. Years later, Edgeworth would write admiringly of Somerville that “while her head is up among the stars, her feet are firm upon the earth.” One of Springsteen's first lyrics went, "My feet they finally took root in the earth / but I got me a nice little place in the stars." I wonder now if that echo was intentional. Don't laugh; he's much better-read than you think. In 1834, Somerville published her next major treatise, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences — an elegant and erudite weaving together of the previously fragmented fields of astronomy, mathematics, physics, geology, and chemistry. It quickly became one of the scientific best sellers of the century and earned Somerville pathbreaking admission into the Royal Astronomical Society the following year, alongside the astronomer Caroline Herschel — the first women admitted as members of the venerable institution. Before you go looking it up, yes, Caroline Herschel was related to famous astronomer William Herschel; she was his sister. For some reason (I wonder why) you never hear about her discoveries. To be fair, William discovered an actual planet. I won't name it here because you'll make a pun out of it. But she did make significant astronomical discoveries, mostly nebulae and the like (this was before astronomers figured out that galaxies were galaxies and not nebulae). But I digress. When Maria Mitchell — America’s first professional female astronomer and the first woman employed by the U.S. government for a professional task — traveled to Europe to meet the Old World’s greatest scientific luminaries, her Quaker shyness could barely contain the thrill of meeting her great hero. She spent three afternoons with Somerville in Scotland and left feeling that “no one can make the acquaintance of this remarkable woman without increased admiration for her.” In her journal, Mitchell described Somerville as “small, very,” with bright blue eyes and strong features, looking twenty years younger than her seventy-seven years, her diminished hearing the only giveaway of her age. “Mrs. Somerville talks with all the readiness and clearness of a man, but with no other masculine characteristic,” Mitchell wrote. “She is very gentle and womanly… chatty and sociable, without the least pretence, or the least coldness.” Even other women couldn't help commenting on woman stuff. Now, here's the bit about how the term "scientist" came to be: Months after the publication of Somerville’s Connexion, the English polymath William Whewell — then master of Trinity College, where Newton had once been a fellow, and previously pivotal in making Somerville’s Laplace book a requirement of the university’s higher mathematics curriculum — wrote a laudatory review of her work, in which he coined the word scientist to refer to her. The commonly used term up to that point — “man of science” — clearly couldn’t apply to a woman, nor to what Whewell considered “the peculiar illumination” of the female mind: the ability to synthesize ideas and connect seemingly disparate disciplines into a clear lens on reality. Because he couldn’t call her a physicist, a geologist, or a chemist — she had written with deep knowledge of all these disciplines and more — Whewell unified them all into scientist. Thus presaging the feminist nomenclature of the late 20th century, such as appending "-person" to occupations that previously ended in "-man." It could have been worse. It could have been "woman of science." I think if that had happened, progress in equality might have been stunted. That bit about "the peculiar illumination of the female mind" might give you pause, but "peculiar" didn't have the negative connotations then that it does today. We use it to mean strange or weird, but then it was more like "special." But "special" itself was ruined when people stopped using other words to describe the mentally deficient. Whewell saw the full dimension of Somerville’s singular genius as a connector and cross-pollinator of ideas across disciplines. “Everything is naturally related and interconnected,” Ada Lovelace would write a decade later. Maria Mitchell celebrated Somerville’s book as a masterwork containing “vast collections of facts in all branches of Physical Science, connected together by the delicate web of Mrs. Somerville’s own thought, showing an amount and variety of learning to be compared only to that of Humboldt.” Our view of science, as our view of many things, tends to be compartmentalized. Biology is distinct from chemistry. Cosmology is a different study from astronomy. That sort of thing. In reality, things aren't so clear-cut. Biology is the result of chemistry, which itself relies on quantum physics; cosmology and astronomy are likewise intertwined. Our neat little packages turn out to have frayed, fractal edges. If it took a woman to see that, to tear down the boundaries between disciplines, well, that in itself would be an argument for inclusivity, regardless of ideas about equality and gender roles. Above all, Somerville possessed the defining mark of the great scientist and the great human being — the ability to hold one’s opinions with firm but unfisted fingers, remaining receptive to novel theories and willing to change one’s mind in light of new evidence. And you don't have to be a scientist to live your life with that philosophy. It's the only reason I hold out any hope that things will improve: that people might change their opinions when presented with new evidence. Some don't, preferring to get stuck in their ruts. As Wilde noted, "We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." |
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