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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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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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| Full moon tonight. Also a lunar eclipse, but one that's too late to stay up for and definitely too early to wake up for. So instead, we get to read about the Incredible Shrinking Brain. Given the state of the world right now, I would think "thirty years ago" rather than "three thousand years ago." Did the 12th century B.C.E.—a time when humans were forging great empires and developing new forms of written text—coincide with an evolutionary reduction in brain size? Well, it's not in the headline; it's the lede. The answer is still "no." Think again, says a UNLV-led team of researchers who refute a hypothesis that's growing increasingly popular among the science community. One thing I should note: brain size isn't strongly correlated with intelligence. If it were, elephants would be ruling the planet. While I'm convinced they're intelligent, it's not like they've invented the internet, sliced bread, or beer. Last year, a group of scientists made headlines when they concluded that the human brain shrank during the transition to modern urban societies about 3,000 years ago because, they said, our ancestors' ability to store information externally in social groups decreased our need to maintain large brains. That's... not really how evolution works, anyway. Their hypothesis, which explored decades-old ideas on the evolutionary reduction of modern human brain size, was based on a comparison to evolutionary patterns seen in ant colonies. "What is this, a study for ants?" That by itself would raise a bunch of red flags for me. "We re-examined the dataset from DeSilva et al. and found that human brain size has not changed in 30,000 years, and probably not in 300,000 years," Villmoare said. "In fact, based on this dataset, we can identify no reduction in brain size in modern humans over any time-period since the origins of our species." The date for the appearance of what's called "anatomically modern" humans, from what I've read, is about 100,000 years ago. The UNLV team says the rise of agriculture and complex societies occurred at different times around the globe—meaning there should be variation in timing of skull changes seen in different populations. However, DeSilva's dataset sampled only 23 crania from the timeframe critical to the brain shrinkage hypothesis and lumped together specimens from locations including England, China, Mali, and Algeria. The only information we have on human brains from that long ago is cranial capacity, which puts an upper limit on brain size. But, again, the relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't absolute. I'm linking this article because, while I didn't see reports on the original study (the one that claimed brain size reduction 3,000 years ago), apparently, lots of people did. And when a study like that comes out, it's natural for people to want to share it, especially if it fits in with their worldview. In this case, it would be the (demonstrably false) worldview that we're stupid and never should have invented agriculture or civilization. Or possibly that we shouldn't be relying on what I like to call "auxiliary memory" (my smartphone) or we'll become even stupider. (Incidentally, there's a picture making the rounds purporting to show a misshapen human with a cell-phone-holding claw and a crooked neck and calling it "the future evolution of humankind;" that's also utter bullshit.) It's like when a nutrition scientist says "dark chocolate is good for you," and people crow about it while stuffing their faces with Godiva, and then never hear that the study was suspect because it was funded by Willy Wonka. So I'm here setting the record straight to the best of my ability. Now you can be That Person at the party who, upon hearing someone confidently proclaim that our ancestors' brains shrank 3,000 years ago, can go, "Well, ackshually..." |
| When faced with the unexplained, obviously, the explanation is aliens. How did life on Earth start? No one knows. But we have some pretty compelling hypotheses. We know all about evolution and DNA replication... No, we do not. ...much more than our ancestors did, but we still have nothing but theories when it comes to explaining how nonliving matter ever started living. Cracked here is using "theories" in its layperson sense, not scientifically. One theory says this process, abiogenesis, never happened on Earth at all. Life came to Earth fully formed as simple microbes from some other planet, then it spread and evolved. Earth has never had the conditions for abiogenesis as far as we can tell (whatever those conditions might be), but an alien planet could have those conditions. Except that we're pretty sure Earth did have such conditions at one point. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but going to "aliens did it" just kicks the can down the road. What we know beyond any reasonable amount of doubt is that life, somehow, started; as evidence for that, well, look in a mirror: life on Earth exists. I'm not saying it definitely, absolutely, got its start from non-life here on Earth, but I think we'd need to rule that out before jumping to any extraterrestrial origin hypotheses. Which doesn't mean that I think life doesn't exist elsewhere also. I'm just saying it's within the realm of possibility that nonliving matter began to do its organizational thing right here in our own oceans, leading eventually to the development of DNA, cells, mitochondria, and, eventually, Instagram influenzas, without aliens being involved in the process. Though I'm still not sure about the influenzas not being aliens. Francis Crick—Nobel prize winner and part of the team who first observed the structure of DNA—weighed in on the subject in 1973. Crick, of course, didn't work alone (James Watson got co-credited for the discovery, which happened almost exactly 70 years ago), and there's good reason to believe that it was Rosalind Franklin who actually discovered DNA as such, though for some reason—I can't quite put my finger on it—he got a Nobel Prize but she did not. None of this, however, diminishes Crick's contribution to the field. Going on about aliens might, though. The idea that spores from a different planet just happened to make their way to Earth ("panspermia") is too unlikely, said Crick. But you know what he said is a lot more likely, and which we have to consider? A theory dubbed "directed panspermia": Aliens seeded life on Earth on purpose. Again, sure, maybe. We don't know. But we shouldn't jump to that conclusion. (Also, it's entirely within the realm of possibility that spores can survive interstellar travel.) And it still doesn't answer the actual question, which is: how does nonlife become life? That is, whether it happened here or elsewhere. Crick also had some more specific arguments beyond this speculation (at one point in his paper, he says, "the psychology of extraterrestrial societies is no better understood than terrestrial society," realizing his reasoning is getting kinda "out there"). Life evolved to require such rare elements as molybdenum, which would make more sense if it started somewhere in which that element was more common. Also, Crick discovered that all life shares a universal genetic code, which is odd but would make sense if we all evolved from one kind of germ that infected our planet. That germ's home planet, however, probably had numerous separate very different genetic codes. That's a whole wheelbarrow of speculation right there. I'm certainly not an expert in biology, but there are multiple ways that rarer elements can get concentrated here on Earth through natural, pre-biotic processes. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't find deposits of said elements. All it would take would be one well-placed deposit. One straightforward way is a meteor hitting Earth, which I suppose actually qualifies as an extraterrestrial origin, though not "directed panspermia." Around the time that life started here on Earth, there were a lot more meteors flying around. As for the "life shares a universal genetic code" thing, that can be explained by DNA out-competing any other potential blueprint for life, analogous to how sapiens eventually out-competed neanderthals. We're all comforted to learn that aliens might have sent life to Earth, like in Prometheus. No, I'm not comforted by that at all; I'd still want to know how life began in the first place, here or elsewhere. Not that comfort has anything to do with science. Besides, I didn't like that movie. At least this article correctly labels this as "speculation." Speculation is an important part of science. But just because someone's a Nobel Prize winner doesn't mean they're always going to be right. Occam's Razor indicates that we shouldn't needlessly multiply entities, and throwing sentient aliens into the mix absolutely multiplies entities unnecessarily. It's equivalent to saying "we don't know, so God did it." Sure, it could turn out that he was right all along. I'll be sure to ask the aliens when they finally show up here. |
| Before I get back to posting commentary on articles—I still have a large selection to choose from—I thought I'd try something different today. This blog is now nearly 16 years old and contains 2142 entries (this one will be #2143). Sure, most of them are from the past few years, and I took a long hiatus in the middle there. But recently I've had occasion to go back to revisit old entries. Some of them made me laugh, because I didn't remember typing them. Others made me cringe because, newsflash, I change over time. I wanted to revisit some old entries to see how my views might have shifted. True to form, I picked one at random for this purpose. If I do this again, I'll pick a different one at random. I'm excluding anything from the past 12 months. So here's one from March 19, 2019: "Good and Gooder"  It's based on this article, which, fortunately, is still available. I'll link it here again in my currently favored format: While I don't have anything to change about that entry, I wanted to do what I didn't back then, and actually list the "seven moral rules" as presented in the article: 1. Help your family 2. Help your group 3. Return favors 4. Be brave 5. Defer to superiors 6. Divide resources fairly 7. Respect others’ property What strikes me now (and might have struck me at the time, but I didn't mention it) is what's excluded from this list, moral/ethical rules that, if they're not universal, I think should be. First and probably most obvious, "Don't murder people." Most societies that I'm aware of draw a distinction between the illegal killing of people, and the legal killing thereof. There are also gray areas in between, as with self-defense. Some examples of legal killing would be warfare or capital punishment. I'm not saying these things are right, mind you; just that they're legal. But walking up to someone on the street and putting a bullet in their head is generally frowned upon in most societies I'm aware of, though it happens more often than we'd like. I guess I assumed it was the same everywhere, though with its exclusion from this list, I have to wonder if "don't murder people" just isn't a major no-no in other societies. Sometimes, it's okay to kill someone from the out-group (North Sentinel Island comes to mind) but not the in-group; more on this later. There might be different lines drawn elsewhere, but I've heard of very few cultures that say it's okay to murder someone—though the definition of "murder" can vary. Second glaring omission: refraining from child abuse. Again, what's considered abuse can vary. For example, there was a big deal made a few years of the practice of female circumcision in some societies, though I haven't seen anyone railing against it recently. This is usually done to children, so from our Western perspective it's child abuse. And then some people noted "what's the difference between that and male child circumcision," a practice strongly rooted in the West, so I think that's one reason the moral panic died out. It's a false equivalence, and most people recognize that. That's just one example, though. When I was a kid, it was expected that corporeal punishment (not to be confused with corporal punishment) was acceptable to keep kids in line. My elementary school principal even had a paddle with "School Board" on one side (the other side was engraved with my name). In a nod to changing morality, though, the school needed parental permission to use it. My dad gave them blanket permission, because he knew me. My mom, on the other hand, was more on the side of alternative punishments. Nowadays, even thinking about spanking your kid gets you labeled as a child abuser. Point being that what we define as child abuse changes over time, just as it changes between cultures. Yet I feel like some version of it should be on that list (as a negative), and it is not. Third omission: don't rape. I don't have much more to say about that except that, again, it should be right there. I suppose it is possible that the list was constructed to include "positive" morality; that is, "do these things" rather than the "negative" morality of "don't do these things." But in that case, one could turn all three of these things around to "respect the autonomy of others," and the fact that this is not on the list is still worrisome, in that it implies that there are cultures where that's not a moral rule. The list, however, purports to be about what is, and not what one random blogger thinks should be. If I were writing codes of morality, I'd make some changes. For example: 1 and 2 would be combined into "help humanity." If you just help your family and your group (which I read as tribe, or political affiliation, or extended family, or religion, or whatever sets you apart from the rest of the population), you're part of the problem. Thinking in such small terms appears to be baked into the tribal psychology of humanity, and it's not easy to change. But hell, some people take it even one step further to "help the biosphere." I don't have a problem with 3, "return favors." This seems like basic reciprocity, which helps smooth social interactions and ties into 1 and 2. 4, "be brave," can be problematic. There's a blurry line between bravery and stupidity. It's fine to respect someone for being brave, but being brave by itself doesn't cut it, in my view. As an example, it would be brave of me to take off all my clothes and walk up the street. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. 5- I don't have superiors. Nor do I have inferiors. In certain circumstances, a person does have these things; a job, for example, or military service, in which case, well, okay. But the idea that one person is inherently superior to another (rather than being in a manager / employee situation) is, again, part of the problem. 6- "Divide resources fairly." By that measure, the US is a highly immoral society. I'm not going to argue against that. But "divide resources fairly" is not what we practice. Why, that would be soshulism!!! Also, who gets to define what's "fair?" 7 seems to contradict 6, anyway. We tend to idolize the Robin Hood types, but they don't respect others' property. One can make the argument that Robin Hood was just correcting economic injustice, and I won't argue there, but stealing is wrong, whether a rich person or a poor person is doing it (I can make moral, if not legal, exceptions for those who steal to alleviate hunger, but our legal system isn't set up for such nuance). And I'd add the bits about respecting others' autonomy that I discussed above, with "slavery is wrong" added to that mix just to be clear about it. That's enough for today. Back to regularly scheduled random programming tomorrow, unless something major happens. |
| Ever notice that there are very few, if any, tolls to go into New Jersey, but a lot of tolls to get out of New Jersey? My cousin, who has a beach house in NJ, says it's that way because if you charged people to go into the state, no one would visit. Funny, but a little unfair. A lot of New Jersey is actually quite nice, including his beach house, which is just south of Asbury Park. No, he's never met Springsteen. Most of the drive was rather pleasant, absent the perpetual traffic jam in the DC area. My one gripe apart from that is that I was forced to listen to commercial radio. By which I mean, I have to listen to something, and commercial radio was really the only option. See, on long-distance trips, I was used to plugging in my iPod Touch, setting my vast music collection on shuffle, and just letting it play. I had enough songs to drive all the way across the country and back without ever hearing a repeat. And now they've discontinued the iPod, or so I've heard, so if mine breaks, I'm fucked. Besides, I don't see a plug for it. Maybe there is one and it's just hard to find. So I did this trip without the iPod to see what options I had, and I am not pleased. But maybe there's an option I'm missing, so here's what I understand about the current sad state of listening to music while driving. 1. Commercial radio. Emphasis on "commercial." Ads piss me off at the best of times, but the week before an American election? Oh boy. Road rage. According to every single ad, the ad purchaser's opponent punches pregnant women, kicks puppies, eats babies, was once caught jaywalking, is unbearably stupid, and will destroy America. The only thing I can glean from this is that no matter who we vote for, they will destroy America. The only choice, therefore, is to pick the one you think will give us the best bread and circuses during our slide into oblivion. (At least I haven't heard any holiday ads yet; those will definitely take over the airwaves after Tuesday). 1a. Apart from goddamned ads, which I can always switch stations for, again, I like to travel cross-country. There are entire swaths of America where the only options are Christian music stations, Christian talk radio stations, broadcast church services, evangelical emissions, country music, or static. I don't mind country music so much, but too much at one time gets real old real fast, so static it would have to be. Which would put me to sleep, not a good idea while driving. 2. Satellite radio. Advantage: lots of formats to choose from, only drops out in tunnels and maybe some mountainous areas (in which driving is perilous enough that I wouldn't get lulled to sleep). Disadvantage: another monthly subscription to pay for, one that I'd only use like 2-3 times a year, max. Bigger disadvantage: also ads (unless they've changed that, which I doubt), and if there's one thing I hate more than ads, it's paying and still having to put up with ads (this is why I never got cable TV). 3. One of those online music services, like Amazon Music or Pandora or whatever the hell is out there right now (I won't get Spotify under any circumstances) on my mobile, which I think (but I'm not sure) I can use while also using the phone's GPS. Advantage: no ads. Disadvantage: there are entire swaths of America without mobile coverage, during which the streaming stops working. Result: asleep at the wheel again. 4. Downloading some tunes on my smartphone (I will take this opportunity to note that my new car has a feature where if you plug in your phone, it'll transfer the GPS (I use Google Maps) to the car's screen for a totally hands-free experience, which is nice). Advantage: doesn't cut out, ever. Disadvantage: I have limited space on the Android, and that space is even more limited if I download offline Google Maps because, again, entire swaths of the country have no cell coverage; consequently, I could fit maybe two albums' worth of music on there. Repetitive. 5. Bring a big stack of CDs and use the car's CD player. Advantages: no ads, never cuts out. Disadvantage: can't shuffle between CDs. Bigger disadvantage: Come on, it's nearly 2023. Now, I managed to make it to NJ and back without becoming too enraged by the lack of options. This is because that involves driving through areas with good stations: DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia. Basically anywhere in the Northeast Corridor is fine for radio if I can put up with the occasional ads and lame DJ chatter. But eventually, I'm going to want to drive through the Midwest again, perhaps even next month (we'll see). So, what do people do for driving music these days? And don't suggest listening to recorded books. I don't have anything inherently against them, but they also take up limited smartphone space. Same goes for podcasts, except I don't like them in general anyway. I want to hear music; I want to hear it in random order (radio station programming counts as random as far as I'm concerned); I want no-to-very few ads; and I want the music to not repeat every few hours. My iPod met all those criteria and also had the advantage that I didn't have to fiddle with it while driving. Without a good setup, I don't know if I can handle a cross-country trip. So... help? |
| I ever tell you why I don't like gambling in Atlantic City? Yeah, yeah, I know, I do it anyway. But I get to bitch about it if I want. When I play blackjack, I generally prefer the second chair. Picture a casino table, right? Dealer on one side, six player positions on the other. Chairs are numbered from the dealer's left, not the players' left. Sometimes it's called second base, which is weird when you think about it because there's almost always six chairs at a table. Anyway, I'm not that picky about it, but if I have a choice I'll take second so I don't have to deal with the idiot decisions of too many people to my right. More about that later. The dealer proceeds from their right to left, so if all the seats are filled, the deal goes: one card to 1, 2,... 6, dealer up card, second card to 1, 2,... 6, dealer down card. Then the players make their hit/stand/double/whatever decisions also in order 1, 2,... 6. Like any pastime, blackjack has its own insider lingo. Probably everyone knows the basics: hit, stand, double down, split. One particularly annoying piece of lingo that I think is of more recent origin is "monkey" for any card worth 10 points (ten, J, Q, K). This apparently originated in Asia, where presumably the word was in a different language and maybe it has an association with the number 10 in one of those languages. Or maybe a monkey symbolizes luck. I don't know. But Americans picked that shit up and overused it. So you're sitting there at a table, getting into the groove, when some lily-white trust fund brat chips up. He gets dealt an ace. Slap the table, "MONKEY!" Then, next hand, he gets a four-seven. Double down and slap the table. "MONKEY!" Next hand, dealer's showing a six, flips another six. Slap the table. "MONKEY!" On that last one, it's almost worth watching the dealer draw a nine for a total of 21 just to listen to the kid moan about it. Point is, for fuck's sake, mix it up a little, okay? To be fair, this isn't an AC problem; it happens everywhere I've played blackjack. Then you get the ten-splitters. Which I do see more of in AC than in Vegas. There's nothing inherently wrong with splitting tens, but the odds aren't in your favor if you do that. Let me see if I can explain without too much math. So you get dealt two monkeys (ugh). That's a 20. In something like 9 out of 10 hands, that's at the very least a push, if not a win. There are no sure hands in blackjack (even the namesake hand could be a push), but a 20 is pretty good odds, no matter what the dealer's showing (if they have 21, they show before you get a chance to split, and you lose anyway unless you have 21 also). And yet you get greedy people who split tens. They're then basically playing two hands. You can split again. In AC, you can have as many as 4 hands from splits. it's rare. Now, on each 10, you've got a 4/13 chance (roughly) of getting another 10, and a 1/13 chance of each other card. It could even be an ace. But that ace doesn't give you blackjack; that's only a thing on your first two cards. It's still 21, guaranteed to at least push (tie with the dealer). But again... low odds of pulling an ace. Some players think it messes up the odds for the other players for someone to split tens. I disagree. Decks are thoroughly shuffled, and that next card could be anything (I'm talking about multiple-deck blackjack here). But it's maddening as hell if you've got, say, an 11, and you want to double down, and you watch the ten-splitter to your right keep getting monkey after monkey when the card you want is a monkey, and when they're finally done you end up with a five (that gives you 16, which sucks ass, especially after doubling). I mean, sure, it can also go the other way, but it's still annoying, and that's why I like to sit at 2; it minimizes the risk of people to your right making questionable choices. Also, some people like to play two spots. That's fine; it's allowed, with dealer permission, when things aren't too busy. I've done it myself on occasion. So yesterday, I'm sitting there at second, and there's a couple at 4 and 5, leaving open only 1, 3, and 6. Some dude comes up and sits next to me at 1. "Hey man, can you scoot over? I wanna play two hands." Now, look, changing seats at a blackjack table is a Big Damn Deal (no pun intended for once). The dealer probably doesn't care; they just slap cards down at whatever spots have chips in 'em, but the pit bosses are all keeping track of your betting patterns and whatnot. This isn't as intrusive as it sounds; come on, you're in a casino and there are cameras everywhere already. They do this to keep track of your points for comps and tier credits or whatever the casino uses to determine if you're spending enough money to earn Free Parking (that is a pun; Monopoly was based on Atlantic City). Being a relatively nice guy, I'm fine with switching seats so the one dude can play two spots. So I go through the hassle of moving my beer, my chips, my cigar, and my secret card counter (just kidding about the last bit) one seat to my left. Game pauses while the pit bosses mess around with the touchscreen to sort everything out. Guy finally settles in and throws a chip at 1 and 2, and also plays the sucker bet on both. He loses. He gets up and walks off. Look, blackjack is a grind, not an instant jackpot. More often than not, you're going to lose the first hand. Sometimes, over time, you can amass some winnings, but your chip stack is going to go up and down like the Apple stock ticker in the meantime. That is, if you're not me and you're not playing in Atlantic City. I have better luck playing the game in Vegas, for whatever reason (the rules aren't significantly different, so that's probably just chance, or possibly confirmation bias). On the other hand, for some reason, I do better at slots in AC. Go figure. Slot machines are heavily house-weighted (blackjack is only slightly house-weighted), so I don't play them often, but for some reason, yesterday, I won back most of my blackjack losses by hitting a (very minor) jackpot on a slot. That's when I quit gambling for the week. I'm leaving today anyway, so no big deal. With all that, why do I keep going back here? Well, I had a vague memory of talking about AC in an earlier blog entry, so, being done with gambling for this trip, I had time to look it up, from way back in 2018: "Atlantic City" Excerpt: "But they still have bars, and blackjack, and usually you can avoid the scam artists wandering in off the streets for long enough to let casino security kick them out. And, unlike Vegas or Reno, if you look out the window you can sometimes see the ocean, and forget for a moment that those waves will one day drown the city in a flood of sharks and used needles. Sometimes the only purpose of a place is to remind you of how good you actually have it." |
| Still a couple more days out in the wild here. My system for visiting breweries to sample their nectar of the gods is to use rideshare. Yesterday, I visited four different breweries in this general area, paying a whole hell of a lot to Uber for the privilege. I need self-driving cars to happen, like, right now. This is because two of the trips, between breweries, were done by the same driver. A driver who, it was clear from several clues, is an adherent of a religion that forbids drinking. Which doesn't mean they forbid it for others, I know, but I could just feel the disapproval oozing from the driver's seat, and it's not like I could talk about my experiences in a way that he could relate. At the same time, though, if you're an Uber driver; you have to know that your primary purpose in life is to get drunk people from one place to another. With autonomous vehicles, sure, these drivers would be out of a job, and that's unfortunate, but let's stick to what's really important here: my ability to be shuttled semi-anonymously from one brewery to another. I say semi-anonymously because, obviously, I'd still be tracked. But at least I wouldn't have to deal with awkward conversation. Fortunately, the weather is unseasonably warm here, which meant I could at least comment on that. At least for a little while, until I felt the conversation start to drift to climate change, which becomes a political issue, and you don't want to discuss politics or religion with an Uber driver, lest they give you something less than five stars. As for the beer, it was mostly very good. There are always outliers, but they serve as a point of contrast; it helps to drink stuff I don't like now and then to help me appreciate the stuff I do like even more. I've rarely had a bad brewery experience in New Jersey. Rideshare, sure. Not beer. |
| I was halfway to Atlantic City yesterday when I got a phone call from my insurance company. I called them back (after pulling into a gas station of course), using my neat new phone-car link feature for the first time. "So we couldn't add your new car to the policy last week because we got the VIN wrong." Why are you telling me this now, when I'm 150 miles away from home? We got that straightened out, but if I'd known the car wasn't insured, I'd have driven a lot more carefully up to that point. On the way, I stopped by Balić Winery which, as I noted earlier, was the primary reason for my trip. It's one of the places with non-grape wines, featured on Gastro Obscura, that I wanted to try. The owner himself was running the tasting counter, and I was the only one there, so we got to talking."How did you hear about us?" he asked. Oh, I saw an article on Gastro Obscura. "Who?" Part of Atlas Obscura? "Never heard of it." Well, whatever. They had some standard grape wines too, and everything I tried was exceptionally good. So I bought a case of mixed bottles. Don't look at me like that. Their pricing is very reasonable for such excellent product. Having fulfilled the entire purpose of my journey, I had absolutely nothing else to do. Just kidding. I found something to do in Atlantic City. And today I'll be visiting local breweries. |
| I don't know why I keep finding Outside articles. But this one, at least, isn't directly about the (shudder) outside. Speaking of which, I'll be venturing (ugh) outside (sort of) for the next few days. It's been a while since I did a road trip, and now that I have a car I can do one. Remember a couple of months ago, when I linked an Gastro Obscura article about non-grape wines? No? Well, here it is: "Keep Wining" . There, I noted that one of the featured wineries is in New Jersey, which isn't that far away from me, considering that I have, several times, driven all the way across the country and back.I described it as "might be a good overnight trip," but then I found out that it's actually half an hour away from Atlantic City (hookers and blackjack), and that there are other wineries in the area, as well as breweries. So I'm going until Friday. Blog posts may happen at hours unusual for me, but they will happen (barring catastrophe, of course). That's got nothing to do with today's article. I Got a Vasectomy Because of Climate Change Getting one was, by far, the most powerful personal action I could take for our planet I'd like to say that my decision to remain childfree was primarily motivated by concern for the ecosystem. I'd like to, but I can't. Oh, sure, it factored into it—I almost never make decisions based on just one thing, and absolutely never with something of that magnitude. But mostly, it was the other way around: I couldn't ethically justify bringing a child into a declining civilization. The article itself is from the Before Time, almost three years ago. I’ve always struggled to combine the idea of personal responsibility with the overwhelming need for human society to address the threat posed by climate change. That's because it's our problem, but it's not our individual responsibility. Since at least the 1970s, the massive energy corporations responsible for the vast majority of our carbon emissions have known about, and done nothing to mitigate, the harm they cause. Because they own politicians worldwide, there doesn’t appear to be any will to take government-level action. But I’m supposed to turn off a light? What possible impact could that ever have? And why is all this on my shoulders and not theirs? Which is what I've been saying. Bad example, though. Turning off a light has a direct impact on you: you pay a lower power bill. A better example might be, oh, I don't know, not taking road trips that waste gas just so you can try exotic New Jersey wines. Incidentally, several years ago, I replaced all the lightbulbs in my house (except for oven and refrigerator) with low-consumption LEDs. Again, I'd like to say this is because I'm concerned with the environment, and that was certainly a part of it. Another part was spending less on electricity. But mostly it's because I'm too lazy to replace lightbulbs, and these LEDs are supposed to last 20 years. When I got engaged, my fiancée, Virginia, and I started planning for the future. It wasn’t just my dog Wiley and me against the world anymore. All of a sudden, I started thinking ten to 20 or more years ahead. Huh. I didn't need to get engaged to plan for the future. Children are an obvious thing to plan. With a sudden focus on responsible decision-making, it no longer made sense to leave hypothetical future offspring up to chance. When should we have them? What did our careers look like on that timeline? Who’d be responsible for staying home and raising them? Couldn’t we just have one of the dogs do that? To be fair, they'd do a better job than a lot of humans. Is this a world we want to bring kids into? Is this a world it’s responsible to bring kids into? No. Of course, that's my opinion. Others have different opinions. That's okay. I would no more want everyone to decide to have all the offspring they can than I would want everyone to suddenly decide to stop breeding. It looks like the pace of climate change is speeding ahead of science’s ability to understand or forecast it. Lately I've been seeing more hopeful articles about climate change forecasts. By "more hopeful," I mean "we're still boned, but not as much as our worst fears." I suppose that's something, but it's still going to suck. I can't help but think that the impetus behind such articles is to keep people from spiraling into despair. Despair isn't good for the economy. Gotta keep the economy going. The future might be worse than any of us currently fear. Again, older article. But even the "optimistic" predictions are pretty bad. Then Virginia and I started talking about something we could do—for ourselves and to make a meaningful impact on the bigger problem. We could just forego the whole kid thing altogether. Such a decision would certainly do more than, say, using only reusable bags, or foregoing plastic straws. The image of personal climate change action doesn’t really match the reality. If I gave up my 15 mpg pickup truck—basically the mascot for climate inaction—and rode my bicycle everywhere, I’d save the planet 2.4 tons of carbon emissions a year. That’d be a massive sacrifice, but it’s nowhere near the carbon emissions I’ll save by skipping becoming a daddy, which comes in at around 58 tons annually, per kid. Any other action we could take, even all the actions we could ever possibly add up together, pale in comparison. One can quibble about the math, but a) do you really need that pickup truck and b) the basic idea is sound: if your carbon footprint ends with you, you've done a lot. That’s because there are simply too many humans on this planet. Arguable. I mean, I happen to agree, but every time I say so, someone chimes in with "so why don't you kill yourself?" as if that's equivalent to not reproducing. There's some basic disconnect there in peoples' brains that I just don't understand and it may be that I never will. Urging someone to kill themselves is otherwise frowned upon, unless it's in that context. Makes no sense to me. So, we’re not having kids. I found a colleague’s brother here in Bozeman who performs vasectomies and made an appointment. I was afraid of getting my scrotum operated on, but the procedure ended up being quicker and less invasive than most dental appointments. It is true that, like most men, I can count the number of people I want holding a scalpel near... there... on the fingers of one foot. But, as with my eye surgery last year, sometimes you just gotta overcome your fears. Once the anesthetic wore off, it felt like someone had kicked me in the balls pretty good, a feeling that dissipated over the next seven days. I took a Valium before the surgery and a few handfuls of ibuprofen afterward but otherwise didn’t need painkillers or even an ice pack. Dude. Frozen peas. Come on. Also, it's not nearly as bad as getting kicked in the nuggets, unless you get it done by your sister's friend's cousin's coworker's uncle in some back alley. The worst part was taking a week off from the gym; I’d been making good progress. Where's my tiny violin? I left it around here somewhere. Anyway, it's certain that a lot of people had, or will have, a visceral hatred of this article. The suicide comment above makes me sure of it. I want to emphasize again that I'm not judging people who do have kids. It's a choice that should be neither mandatory nor forbidden. Nor should we cave to social pressure either way. There are, as I said, other reasons to get the procedure done. It could be argued that, well, why would someone without kids even care about the environment at all? Oh, I don't know, maybe we have a broader view of humanity than just our own immediate family? |
| 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. |
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