SIPS and gulps

Statistically Improbable Phrases and gulps of air

A gilded lily, the jeweled fragility of Harvard minds, the crystalline delicacy of the modern soul, a glass cathedral: talkin' shit.

They lived in an ethereal limbo, a détante mediated by the pandas and ping-pong matches of consummation. A dangerous, whirling dervish of sex, punctuated [only] to remoisten dry mouths and turn off aging lights. A peaceful crumbling, or a smouldering wasteland; that seems to be the cost those were the wages of their love.

P.S. I don't like that last sentence. I still don't like that last sentence.

He followed a desperate longing, long after it was unnecessary and impossible to fulfill. An obdurate shyness followed him, phantoms and demons of memories past, calcified and ossified into the dark, ghostly crevasses of his mind and body.

She still didn't know what to say after all this time. He had only known and not yet felt.

This is something I started writing a long while ago (27/11/08, if teh Blogger is to believed), and i'm not entirely sure where it started or where it's going or what I want to do with it. I have conjectures and rumours, but that doesn't help anybody in a concrete way, unless passing time is a concrete thing. Which is really left up to debate to the metaphysicians, and not to the sensible people like us.

I would kindly ask you to stop

asking for those things of me

Relations are rarely, if ever, truly reciprocal. Exchanges are not made same for same; the baker does not exchange his bread for more bread, nor the cooper for more barrels, nor do friends and lovers exchange the same secrets, thoughts, or feelings. Exchanges, mercantile or otherwise, do not operate on bland sameness; while an (a sense of, a feeling of) equality may be achieved through exchanges, this is certainly not the same as sameness.

This is a good thing. For it is in the specialisation and (unequal) distribution of goods that diversity is created; from diversity; from diversity, interest; from interest, motivation; from motivation, action.

I had a post about my Sydney Festival adventures, but my god it was drivel. There were maybe 3 good lines in there. So much for non-inspired writing. Never doing pedestrian work again...

It's a matter of time

Though you'd best be careful; in the long-run, we are all dead.

Twelve and counting. This has been a productive Festival, and a great month. Freakouts were far fewer in frequency than forecasted.

Except for that.

Re: The 'dota' thing: Suffice to say, I have replies to all your misgivings and objections, but be satisfied with this for now:

"Don't hate the playa, hate the game."

I think that more than satisfies many of the comments on the previous post, in many more ways than one.

Also, this is terrifyingly bad:

Complex multivariate analysis

...using Dota

No, wait, don't go away i'm being serious.

Lately, i've been freaking out (and listening to that Jaydiohead mashup thing, which is really quite good) about evaluative procedures and judgments. The DoTA aspect of this is just another notch in the wall, so to speak, though it relates more specifically to issues of measurability and baseline testing.

First: A little (humourous) context. The spark that lit the tender was the one and only, the incomparable DFW. And more specifically, the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address, which you should read, if you haven't already. Really, he says it better than I can:

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

(if you're confused, there's are a cute parable involved, which he sets out in the beginning.) See, was it wrong of me to take the interpretation of this as, 'Yes of course, that's right. Consider all the variables, double-check your evidence, engage in some hardcore Bayesian inference and examination...right? That's what he meant when he said those things right?'*

Maybe. I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it past him. Either way, it inspired what it did, and I started to thinking about more general methods of evaluation. More grist for the mill: The article in the NYT that got press from one of the more populated areas of the sane interwebs, including a writeup by the Situationist.

What I was thinking with the NYT article was this: it's true, we do self-handicap all the time! But that was obvious. What I'm thinking of is how to obtain an honest (loaded I know) or atleast, empirically valid method of determining intelligence, aptitude or whatever else. If self-handicapping pushes your scores down, and self-affirmation drives scores up, is it possible to design an evaluative procedure that will give you an honest indication of your scores, one that isn't 'tainted' by self-handicapping or self-affirmation?

I don't know. It could well be that it doesn't matter.

Anyway, back to the point(ish). As i've said before many times, one of the reasons I find DoTA to be such a compelling game to play is that it's such a complex edifice. Even within the relatively narrow goals of winning a game, there's so many factors to consider! Hero choice, item choice, item builds, the skills of the various players, hero synergy, game modes and on and on and on. And lest you think that that seems like a short list, when there are 93 heroes (all of which possess a minimum of 4 unique abilities), with literally over a thousand items, with (usually) 5 players a side, 15+ game modes...you can see where i'm going here. This thing has an absolutely MASSIVE number of variables.

Let's try to answer that example question which I hinted at; What are the factors most responsible for winning the game? You can quickly intuit some responses, but the more interesting, more worthwhile, more correct thing to do would be to measure what factors are crucial in determining who wins, because this is how science works.

But, as i've mentioned, how the fuck do you measure such nebulous factors such as player ability? What is your control? What are your baseline measurements? Simply put, how the fuck do you maintain ceteris paribus?

This issue gets even murkier if you consider questions of game balance. Say you decide to increase one specific heroes damage dealing spell by 100. How do you find out how this affects the overall gameplay? How do you figure out the the untold number of synergistic and antagonistic effects with items and other heroes and game modes and so on?

Obviously, this matter is not entirely new. There exist a whole field of problems like these within the social sciences, known as "wicked problems". To quote teh wiki:

"Wicked problem" is a phrase used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

See the similarities? Continuing:

Rittel and Webber's (1973) formulation of wicked problems^[2] specifies ten characteristics, perhaps best considered in the context of social policy planning. According to Ritchey (2007)^[3], the ten characteristics are:

1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
10. The planner has no right to be wrong (planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).

Look me in the eye and say DoTA doesn't satisfy that.

Classically, a whole range of societal issues are traditionally considered wicked problems. Crime, poverty, healthcare, taxes, (un)employment**, climate change, abortion***, you name a societal hot-button issue, it's probably a wicked problem.

Why this is interesting in the realm of gaming is that wicked problems are often contrasted with 'tame', or 'simple problems'. Simple problems are those often found in mathematices and puzzle solving; a classic example would be a sudoku puzzle. It's a closed, definitionally-complete system; it has clear, explicit rules, which can be applied in an algorithmic manner to complete the problem. Simple problems are such that you can increase the scale of the system without necessarily increasing the complexity of the system; fundamentally, a 81 x 81 sudoku is no different in solution methods than a 9 x 9 one. You can have even simple problems that have enormous algorithmic complexity that are still closed; for all its complexity, chess is still a 'simple' problem.

The parallels with contemporary gaming should be obvious. Gaming, for all its lush, multi-faceted verisimilitude, is supposed to be a closed system. Despite the complexity of the algorithms used today, they're still (supposedly) algorithms, and those things have to end somewhere...right? One of the reasons I love gaming so much is that effectively, in the end they're 'just' complex puzzles, albeit with nicer graphics and more interesting gameplay. In the end, every game can be gamed; that is to say, you can obtain and follow a series of rules and steps that will allow you to achieve a win condition.

DoTA seems to defy that categorisation. To try to figure out why you won or lost, or even how to win or lose, seems to be, at best, intractable; at worst, impossible. In summary: DoTA is the game that defies being gamed. DoTA is the wicked problem, borne out of simple dynamics.

I don't actually know whether I adequately elucidated the questions I was having with evaluative procedures.**** I hope one of the major points got across: that a traditionally solvable, procedurally-evaluative field has now been transformed. It starts making me question a whole lotta other issues, I guess.

There. That was my rambly, multi-disciplinary answer to why I play DoTA. Now leave me alone, I gotta go do more...'research' DoTA.

*And you people wonder why I am no longer romantic.

**Tangential sidenote: Employment is an interesting subject to study within the context of psychology of schools of economic thought. It seems to be that to idealogues and bad economists, employment is basically seen a simple problem, solvable within (idealised) market conditions. The application of the supply-and-demand formula is apparently all that is needed; lower wages, and employers hire more. Raise wages, and employment falls. The Austrian School is probably the one most susceptible to this idea; I was wondering if the Chicago School would do it, but they seem to have too much sense to make such a mistake. It'd be interesting to see if there are other traditional economic problems that suffer from this perception issue.

***In fact, it was my research into the issue of abortion that I first ran into the idea of wicked problems.

****Actually, I think this is standard procedure for me. Whenever I don't know the answer or find it difficult to answer the question, I just ramble off into all these interesting tangents and sideshows and hope you get lost in the damn house of mirrors. And if you're a marker, hopefully the house that gives me high marks.

I have no idea why I just did this post. I think part of the motivation comes from some kind of latent guilt i'm feeling, now that people are going into honours or going overseas to learn or going to Melbourne for a friggin intensive Chemistry Olympiad training session. This is my one productive thing over the summer.

Actually, that's probably another post I should do sometime: How is it that nowadays, I have no idea what motivates me to do anything anymore. I used to know, or atleast I used to think I knew; and I even used to think I knew quite well what my motivations were. But now, these days, I barely have any idea why I do what I do. Crazy. But that'll be for another post, for another day...

I couldn't pass this up

It's just too funny!

See, back in the day (and still true to some extent in the presentish sense), Mr. Edelstein was my favourite movie reviewer. He possesses a keenness of wit and vigour; that indie movie sense that saw through the semi-shallowness of "I-don't-drink-fucking-Merlot" Sideways and gave Eternal Sunshine best movie of the year. Most importantly, he maintains this idiosyncratic emotionality that is repeatedly endearing. Witness his reaction to the watching of the first Funny Games:

I watched to the end, removed the DVD from the player, and snapped it over my knee. Then, with a pair of scissors, I cut the halves into quarters, walked the pieces to the kitchen garbage can, and shoved them under the debris of the previous night’s dinner.

Anyway. The point of all this is merely to point out that the remake of Funny Games has been garnering some attention as one of the worse movies of the (last) year. The critical reviews are eminently amusing, thought I should probably warn you that Hoberman is being a supercilious prick. Again.

One other thing I have found: Jaydiohead?! (Interrobang go!?)

Dirt Off Your Android - Jaydiohead

Sexual or otherwise

Union forever motherfuckers

Bad, dreamy juju. I went fishing, and the cold and the beer didn't keep me there. I like the sitting around drinking beer thing than the casting out and catching, stabbing, scaling, gutting a fish thing. I gots me a fish. Too small though. The other fish we caught though was delicious. Really, really good, soft and tender with that sweet saltwater tang. The crabs were...unusual, to say the least.

This isn't how I want to be writing, and strictly speaking, not what I want to be writing about. But this heavy fuckin juju is weirdin' shit up. Skip the forbearance and skip the forboding, and fucking definitely skip this short choppy descriptive sentence bullsheet. It's certainly an unusual way to try and cut out a path of neutrality through this thicket. Which is really a strange way of looking at things in the first place.

I've been reading Don Delillo! I'll write a solid review when I finish his shiznit, which suffice to say, seems to be pranksterish to the extreme. There's just so many ways to analyse his shit, it just becomes static, white noise. He's smart, somewhere.

A sobering reminder

When you wake up on Christmas Day, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, looking forward to all the wonderful scooters and knitwear and shiny gadgetry Santa the home invader has deposited under whatever kind of arboreal arrangement you've got going, remember this:


Somewhat unrelated, that sentence above is quite likely by far the longest sentence I have ever done.
Mix and match:
1) Happy/Merry/Sad
2) Multiple/singular/Dawkinsian
3) Denominational/dimensional
4) Celebratory/suicidal/awkwardly familial
5) Christmas/Holidays/'thang'.

Technocratic linguistics

We should all learn Esperanto dammit!

From here, as always:

I'm a native German and English speaker myself. Sitting in both boats as I do, I can understand the sensitivities involved with favoring one language over another. But I find that English is really easily the best language for international communications.

English has several features that I think make it a better language. It's semantically open, unlike French. Adding new words to English is very simple. We can even create new verbs and nouns from the last names of people (ie. bork). It adapts existing foreign words easily. I'm often able to use "uber" and "verboten" in English without getting at looks.

English doesn't require special accent marks in order define meanings. English has simplified definite and indefinite articles. Compared to German, "a", "an", and "the" are much simpler. English features no real gender. No worries about matching verbs, nouns, and articles; or even changing the meaning of a word. For possession, the Saxon genitive is efficient and simple. It accomplishes more in less space to say "John's car" rather than "the car of John". English also features simplified demonstratives, and very simplified declension of nouns. None of the der, den, dem, des conflicts that plague German and make it difficult for non-German speakers to learn. In English the placement of adjectives doesn't affect its meaning. In French you have scenarios like "un homme grand" (a great man) and "un grand homme" (a tall man). In English, you rely on the context of the adjective. Finally, English has a more direct simplified sentence structure.

of course, English has its downside, thinking contextually in English to find meaning vs thinking literally in French can create some confusions, I'm sure.

Sure, some people advocate English everywhere just because they're linguistically lazy and somewhat arrogant, but truly, there legitimate reasons for stressing English as an international language of commerce vs say, Irish where it can take an "aoi" to stress a "long i" sound, or Chinese were choosing a written form is as much a decision about your politics as it is about efficiency (simplified used in China vs traditional used in Taiwan).

Obviously, there are points worth debating here. I'm willing to let certain features go; the differentiation of 'a' and 'an' isn't strictly necessary in my books. It can be retained for aesthetic purposes if you wish, as could a whole host of other linguistic features.

One day, we will all speak in binary or hex, and it will be good.

Matter of time I suppose

Begun has, the Photoshopping

A distinguished pantheon

OKAY

Nickels in front of fucking bulldozers

You've all seen this by now, I sincerely hope.

BUT HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT. Selling crack-laced baby formula will make you less money than this scheme, and is (probably) illegal in many many countries.

But who the hell invented picking up nickels in front of a bulldozer...from consumers?!?

Too much awesome?

Perhaps.

This is seriously good. Fans of Crooked Timber should have already seen it, but for the rest of you, this is quite funky. What is that music?

I think we have a winner!

Another snarky statesman!

The Coolidge effect:

The term comes from an old joke, according to which President Calvin Coolidge and his wife allegedly visited a poultry farm. During the tour, Mrs. Coolidge inquired of the farmer how his farm managed to produce so many fertile eggs with such a small number of roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his roosters performed their duty dozens of times each day.

"Perhaps you could point that out to Mr. Coolidge," pointedly replied the First Lady.

The President, overhearing the remark, asked the farmer, "Does each rooster service the same hen each time?"

"No," replied the farmer, "there are many hens for each rooster."

"Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs. Coolidge," replied the President.

Goddamn it

How many times does this need to be said

This. is. Bullshit. I sincerely hope that this is appealed, and smarter heads prevail.

What is wrong with people? Can we stop legislating against thoughtcrimes already? I don't care how many impure thoughts you have, and I don't care how they're represented. Until you come back to me with some goddamn actual evidence of harm committed, I don't give a shit how perverted you are. And don't even try the enabling argument.

First the filter, now this. So much for judicial review...

A question we all need the answer to

So, umm....yes?



I especially admire their incredible jaw muscles. Originally from this.

Cute little placeholders

Dotting coffee tables of idleness

This has to stop. Today. Forever.

Neat

Trying to put it all together

Jonathan Haidt - 5 Moral Values Behind Political Choice

It's a nifty video. Watch it.

A couple of things I gathered: 'The for or against disease' How to interpret/apply this in political (social, intellectual) life? I think it's the idea of compromise. Though even that feels like i've compromised on the meaning of the phrase.

See, I agree that we should try and understand our opponents and examine our biases and all that jazz, but it seems to me that conservative 'traits' are such that they are inherently against that sort of thinking. Libruls, atleast to me, are at the very least not entirely against listening to their opponents and questioning their biases and so on; they have 'traits' that actually encourage those things. The very 'traits' that mark conservatism (order, stability, deference, respect) seem to work against conservatives in questioning their biases, listening to their opponents and so on.

This is kinda sorta what I meant when I tried to figure out a method of distinguishing between geuninely trying to reach mutual understanding ('communicative action' or some variant, in the Habermasian jargon) versus communication in order to push a view or obtain some goal ('strategic action' in the Habermas, or 'dogmatic thinking' to borrow a term from Sam).

It seems that, within this no doubt simplified structure, liberals are much more likely than conservatives in aiming for and obtaining communicative action.

The way dialogue should be

The way my entire goddamn life should be

This really happened.

On trying to get rid of a dusty pile of Richard Dean Anderson (that's "MacGyver" to you) figures from SG-1:

ASSISTANT: I wonder if I am adequately explaining the freeness of him.
CHRIS: I really think I’ve got it.
ASSISTANT: He could go home with you right now.
CHRIS: Uh huh.
ASSISTANT: I could just, you know, pop him in your bag.
CHRIS: Or you could not.
ASSISTANT: He’s poppable.
CHRIS: Palpable, even.
ASSISTANT: Oh, touche!
CHRIS: Thanks.
ASSISTANT: So you’ll take one!
CHRIS: I didn’t say that.
ASSISTANT: Oh, come on.
CHRIS: What guarantee do I have that it won’t come to life and try to murder me in my sleep?
ASSISTANT: What?
CHRIS: I would like some sort of guarantee that this is not a killer doll. Like Chucky.
ASSISTANT: It’s not Chucky.
CHRIS: No, it doesn’t look like Chucky. But it could, you know, sympathize. With the killing.
ASSISTANT: But MacGyver is a good guy!
OTHER ASSISTANT: It’s Captain -
ASSISTANT: Nobody cares.
CHRIS: So was MacBeth. Then he murdered the King of Scotland.
ASSISTANT: Good point.
CHRIS: I thought so.
ASSISTANT: But this figure wasn’t made in Scotland! HA!
CHRIS: Where was it made?

It gets better. And there's more.

Slooooooow

as anti-gravity snails

I like this story. Jonathan Lethem is a pretty cool guy, and I am wayyyyy behind the times. What to do.

It's official

And I believe I can call this:

Boston Legal has jumped the shark. Or nuked the fridge, if you prefer it that way.

What makes me say this: the teaser sequence for the eight episode of season five. When you resort to slo-mo action sequences, badly choreographed "fight" scenes with funny noises, you have lost.

The show was increasingly looking this way anyway; it's a formulaic show, and this was bound to happen. It's a heady mix of legal procedural utopianism with high-quality, high-caliber actors, even if I can't stand some of them; James Spader, shithead with that hypnotically powerful voice; Shatner, oh Shatner, with your despicably fantastic acting; and that royal vixen and diva that is Candice Bergen, who is still so damn hot at her age. It so happens that this formula David E. Kelley concocted was one with remarkable staying power.

Oh christ, an addendum: This episode continues ascend the hill of mediocrity; hot-button issues and excessive self-reflexivity does not bode well for your future.

Seriously

Is there anything Bruce Lee can't do? In this, he sells me a phone:



Purchase his product! Otherwise, he will turn those nunchucks on you.

Long overdue accounts

Amidst all these recounts, I felt I should I add my own.

I realise that I haven't been entirely honest recently. This is not an admission of wrongdoing. I have mainly been omitting, possibly embellishing, rather than fabricating. Very few things survive in thin air.

Most of this has come from oversight, tiredness, impulse, laziness and acquiescence: this is not an admission of blame. I'm wondering, however, whether it be worth my time to fully figure out all my reasons and dealings, and in fact deliver a more fleshed out account of the 'facts', so to speak. Interestingly, figuring out what to correct is in itself a somewhat opaque enterprise.

I need an excuse to write and think anyway. I can admit I haven't done much of that recently.

And as the 1790 race heats up

The first attack ads begin to arise:

Is THIS the kind of man you can trust with YOUR perception of reality?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Yes, I realise that Nietzsche was born 40 years after Kant. but treat this as a cute anachronism. For all we know, all these people were time travelers.

Psychic time travelers *dun dun DUNNN!!*

It's really not what you're thinking

I really don't like kids, but I don't think even I would go so far...maybe.

WARNING (especially to you members of the fairer sex who like whiny poop machines): A kid gets hurt in this. The Internet finds this funny.

Especially the parts of the internet the fairer sex is distinctly non-prevalent, except in jpeg form.



Yes, yes parenting fail, zomg lols and all that. It is amusing, in that way bottoms of barrels are.

The main reason i'm actually posting this is for some hoped-for commonality and information: am I the only person who thinks the break-dancing in this video is, frankly, awesome? It's one of the more impressive displays of athleticism and gymnastics i've seen. Which leads to me to my second point, which is, does anyone know where the fuck this took place? I've skimmed the comments on both Youtube and Failblog, and predictably, most of them center around the 'LOL' or 'ROFLMAO' or 'LOLROFLMAO' variety. Seriously, I want more footage of that particular event, and especially if that dude did more breaking. I swear, the move he used to take out the kid with was most definitely from Tekken...

That's just unfair

Ouch. ASIDE: I should start agglomerating these into a best of slashdot or something. There exists something like that already (Seen on Slash) but that better for teh funnyz. And lots of comments require more context, though they do a pretty good job of that since i've last seen them. On with the show!

Someone makes a (slightly) ignorant comment:

Actually, "philosophy" means "love of wisdon", not "love of knowledge". While not claiming philosophical rigour about the definitions, "knowledge" is basically "acquired information", whereas "wisdom" is "applicable knowledge".

To which this guy decides to slam back...and thinks the only way to do it is to nuke it from orbit. Christ, never fuck with a guy who has intimate knowledge of Ancient Greek, and knows the Unicode for it:

That's simply incorrect. The literal translation of the Greek Sophos (Slashdot doesn't allow greek, but put & #931;& #959;& #966;& #959;& #962; [note: remove spaces if you want to actually see the greek, you weirdo] in your browser) is able, skilled or clever, and was applied as a title to those with the training to read the future from objects, as opposed to the innate ability. The word is in specific opposition to the modern term "wisdom." There isn't a word in ancient Greek for Wisdom, as they seperate between scholarly-attained internal wisdom and naturally-attained internal wisdom as two distinct topics. In Greek, scholarly wisdom is called skholastikos, and innate wisdom is referred to with the now largely forgotten word bleptor (which has largely been replaced by the Latin "vidensi" whence we retain "evident.")

A philosopher is a lover of knowlege, skill, ability, and cleverness, not a lover of wisdom, experience, or history. The word you're looking for is the extinct term "philobleptorist," which you can see in several contemporary references to Greek great minds, particularly Herotodeus, Aristotle, Anaximander, Democritus, Protagoras and so on; it's also occasionally used in the proto-Renaissance during the "omg Latin = smart" phase, and so you see it bandied about for people like Bacon, Newton and Galileo often.

By example, consider Mike Michaelmiker from WZZZ TV, John Brown from the Brown Family Farm and The Great Mage Darkcloud from Avalon. All three people are able to read the weather. Mike uses doppler radar. John uses what farmers have figured out over the last few thousand years. Darkcloud summons a demon and binds it to just go look at the future.

Mike Michaelmiker is a philosopher of weather. He understands how weather works. He understands why a tornado happens, and can evaluate data to estimate the likely upcoming weather patterns. With sufficient tools, his predictions are highly accurate in the near future. Mike doesn't need significant historical data for the local terrain; a map, some hardware and a few hours are sufficient for him to get up and going. However, without tools he cannot function.

John Brown is a philoblapterer of weather. He is aware of the historic trends for weather in the area. He knows dozens of signals from the natural world - if the air smells like metal, then an electrical storm is likely; if the air feels wet and drops rapidly in temperature, then rain is likely; if the wind seems faster at the ground than ten feet up, then local weather is about to turn from cloudy to clear. He doesn't know that the metallic smell is loose ozone from electrical interactions in the clouds, or so on; he just knows that that smell is an indicator of a well known process. With a few weeks to get a sense of the pattern and provided that his knowledge is locationally appropriate, his predictions are also highly accurate, but for completely different reasons. John is only effective in terrain he knows the history of, because even similar terrain can have radically different weather contexts, but needs no real tools other than some time.

Darkcloud is meteonephelamancia, and lord only knows how he works. The point was to distinguish between academics and learned innate knowledge. The Greeks believed that there was a block of knowledge waiting to be unlocked piecemeal inside each of us, and went as far as to distinguish that from scholastic information right in the language. Sophos is clearly knowledge of skill, not innate wisdom, by the very nature of the Greek lexicon.

The counterpart by scholarly skill is an academician; it was common but not required for a philosopher to be an academician. Counterexamples, however, include Pythagoras, who never attended a day of school in his life and proudly attested to that (people who call the Akousmatos a school are mistaken; it was a think-tank and a borderline cult. People went there to work, not to learn.) Pythagoras is remembered among other things as a great Philosopher, but it would be a mistake to call him an academic. Granted in the modern sense academic has begun to blur with researcher, but remember at that time it had not. The Chaerephon notwithstanding, Socrates is probably another philosopher which was not an academic; though what we know about him is second hand, several of his students including Plato indicate that he frequently denied accepting money for his "public conversations" which others viewed as teaching, and there is the supposition that he relied on wealthy friends, presumably Crito, Euclides and eventually Stilpo.

The counterpart by innate knowledge doesn't have a title, because you don't really get people who choose to have innate knowledge. However, when that knowledge was believed to be derived of gods or powerful beings, these people were called Oracles from the Greek "orare" to pray or plead. Otherwise, it would be typically referred to as a magician with respect to some specific topic, rather than as a group, such as sciomantia - someone who speaks with shadows and shades (the idea of referring to them as dead is modern, since referring to a dead creature as dead back then was taboo and believed to be a good way to get haunted, so you never would have heard necromantia.) By the way, -mantia has turned into the modern "-mancy," whence we get rhabdomancer, pyromancer, osteomancer and so on.

They believed in all sorts of weird divinations, and as such referred to them almost like professions; they had, say, leatherworkers and ironworkers, but no word for tradesmen, by metaphor. (That is, there were arithmantia and alectryomantia and oneiromantia, but no generic "mantia.") My favorite is gyromantia. It's funnier than it sounds; look it up.

By the by, the myth that sophia comes from wisdom comes from the mistranslation applied in the 1600s by someone in reference to Hippocrates' identification of what we now call Wisdom Teeth as "sophronisteres," or teeth which come in once the person is characterized of self-control (adult teeth, in the modern vernacular; the ancients would call us intensely age-discriminatory.)

At any rate, don't argue with people because someone told you something. That someone is frequently wrong, and the person you're arguing with frequently isn't. Argue with other people only when you know the specifics, which in the case of etymology means the particular path the word has taken to get to where it is today. It is especially important to not argue the meanings of words in a language you apparently don't speak.

The best thing about arguing the definitions of words in ancient Greek is that you can't pull the "well that's what it means today because there are a lot of people making the same mistake" routine.

I agree, llamas are out of control

Seriously, this is entirely worth it just for the end bit.

That is so true

Steven Seagal really does do that.

DILEMMA(esque): I want to support this by purchasing said product. But said product is only available overseas (Amazon), and were I to purchase said product, I would be paying (relatively) exorbitant fees in terms of exchange rates and shipping costs and so on, probably more than the actual cost of the product itself. It deeply lessens my feeling of supportage for this. I might just give in and download the damn thing *soupir*

I gotta turn this into a slogan, a motto, a creed

a proverb, an adage, a precept, but best of all: the reductionist rhyming chant.

"In my experience, experience is about as useful in learning about the world as every single other method of learning about the world; that is to say, absolutely useless. (and perfectly valid)"

Wrangling out essays and thoughts. My vocab, my expressiveness (my perspicacity, to be ever so droll) isn't there...right now? It's a discomfiture I can do without. You shouldn't ever take a cane from a blind man, or the ________ from a ________. I feel like poeting, which isn't a valid instinct for me. I also have a hunnerd or so articles on my Reader (goddamn Economist), so I should get through that, maybe. Here's one I like, with accompanying enticing morsel of illustratum:

McCain FTW

Fails to win?

Amusing. It's all over, and yet I feel exactly like this.

IT NEVER ENDS

I got out of the house. It's a good feeling! But back to non-essaying! Yay.

Redundancy

How much caffeine is in this?
NEVER ENOUGH

Q: What does Karl Marx put on his pasta
A: Communist Manipesto!



Stephen hopes you liked his Karl Marx joke, because once Obama redistributes punch lines, it's the only one you'll have.

Woah

Last eight years my friends

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Looooong overdue site design yes. Blogging has come a fair way.

EDIT: In case the embedding doesn't work, the link.

This is starting to become something of a regular occurence

Late nights and young loves

I wish these sorts of things were more available.

E-mail from Afghanistan:

I arrived in Bagram Air Force Base (BAF), Afghanistan on Sept. 27th, 2008, and over the course of two days, turned in my ammunition and sat through briefings about vehicle safety, family discord, suicide awareness, and mental health. Collectively, soldiers call them the “don’t-beat-your-wife classes.”

...

My cynicism did not prevent me from accomplishing the assigned mission. For my efforts, I was awarded a Bronze Star, the usual award given to non-staff officers who get through a deployment without doing anything catastrophically stupid.

Shock and Awe(some)

Take this Condorcet!

Skipping the electoral college this year, we've moved on to the real deciding contest:



Really, only one thing to say: Badonkadonk.

November looks to be a busy year.

A mite creepy

I suspect she keeps them in the basement:

ICYMI - 7 Yr. Old Break Dancer On Ellen @ Yahoo! Video

Also amusing:

In which I write of paint continuing to dry

October 22nd, 2008, 10:32pm by Sam Wang

There’s just so many posts like this a guy can write. Today, Obama is still crushing McCain. Still. Crushing. McCain. The Popular Meta-margin is approximately Obama +7.5%. It would take that much shift in state polls to make the Median EV Estimator a 269-269 dead heat. The national margin is Obama +7.0+/-1.1% (n=10, surveys spanning 10/17-21). These measures are consistent.

Via the Princeton Election Consortium.

A little more to the east

I'm seeing a theme

Is there anything Hitler can't do? Oh Hitler.

By the way, this is the one true Kitler.

He must be a busy man

Just one thing today:


Is this real? If it is, awesome, and if it's shopped, still awesome. That Hitler fellow looks like a dapper young chap...I'd let him take my daugh^H^H^H^HBelgium any day of the year.

Age is a terrible thing

And always behind you

Before I nap:

Cool. Oddly enough, this has a last.fm entry as well.

Err. W. T. F. Something for the whole family!

Cute. Recognise any? Favourites? Why does it seem like the Mitsubishi one seems to be covered in flecks of blood...

And because Halloween is around the corner, halfway around the world:

Ding Ding Ding

According to the meter, this is my 500th post! So sayeth Blogger. And what better way to mark this momentous occasion, then to engage in that practice I do so well, 'originality'.

Wait. Is that how you spell plagiarism?

Speaking of spelling, here are an excellent selection of videos doing something that I have an inordinate love affair with: Kinetic Typography.

It (re)started with this:


Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

Though strictly not kinetic typography, it employs a lot of elements from the medium (genre?) and has that lovely poppy stencil/graffiti typeface that I like so much. Plus, you know, it's about Osama Obama, The One (who you should all vote for).

It actually all started from this, which I've shown to many of you:



I still think this is the best typography video i've seen. Maybe i'm being unduly influenced by the sheer awesomeness of Samuel L. Jackson's voice, maybe it's the association with a damn fine movie, but this rulez. If I had to pin down any one factor that makes this awesome(r), it's the way the gunshot (and resulting blood spatter) was represented.

To continue with our silly narrative, it turns out that there were many more of these kinetic typography things. Many, many more. Not particularly wanting to go through so many (potentially mediocre) videos, I did what any sane person would so: use the wikipedia links, thus stumbling onto this page. Here are some of the better ones from that list:

Qurantino's films lend themselves very well to this moving text business:



Duck and Cover!



A little something different; a music video, with some really slick effects:



If you enjoy reading really fast, and wondering Who's on first:



Another music video of sorts, featuring Nostrand, from Ratatat (!). Done by Frenchies. Environmental Frenchies.



And finally, what typography is all about:



There's many, many more if you care to rummage around in the great pile of visual wonderfulness that is Youtube.

The Original Maverick™

Now with more zany!

Being the zany guy that I am (and reading about McCains's ads on 538), i've decided to go watch all the political ads that both the parties have thrown out on Youtube, starting with McCrazy. I understand that a) i'm way too much a political junkie at this point, b) I have way too much free time and c) I'm engaging in a activity that many people in the United States actively seek to avoid.

I like the scolding, questioning woman voice (I assume she would be fantastic in the boudoir) McCain-Palin use, like in this ad:




And the ad with the Original Maverick™



Back to me watching! (I'm about halfway through McCains at this point. Hold your adulations please.)

EDIT: I spoke prematurely! I found the real The Original Maverick™ ad. I have replaced it duly. If you wanted to see the old one, too bad. Though who is up at 7.22am reading my blog is a good question indeed, especially in regards to my safety...

It is a little weird, I agree

but i'm willing to let reciprocity work

Just for the record, my internet has spontaneously fix itself, and hopefully will stay fixed and continue giving me great download speeds (seriously, why can't more technology do this???). In celebration, i've decided to download the first season of Mad Men. Anyone wanty?? Say, in exchange of THE WIRE, or Studio 60...or anything else great.

Putting this in a separate post, as previous one was already too long. SO THERE

Hint: THE WIRE. Am I being too subtle here?

And coming to you not-so-live

CUT TO VTR

In honour of my really not doing my assignment(s), I present to you a video special!

Because Sesame Street set to hip-hop really is sublime (and quite amusing). Via this.





Donna Brazile isn't moving to the back of the bus. Full video is the bottom one, which is also something I haven't seen, but you can just watch the top one for all its racially goodness.

For something a little more weighty (read: LONG), this. Princeton bitches, so you know, not too shabby.



Princeton economists review recent events on Wall Street and assess the implications for the economy and public policy.

Panelists: Hyun Shin, Professor of Economics and associate chair of the Department of Economics; Markus Brunnermeier, Professor of Economics;
Harrison Hong, Professor in Finance;
Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs; Alan Blinder, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and co‐director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies.

For the record, haven't actually seen it yet. Have downloaded it though, so will get there to seeing.

And finally, 14 ways to piss off those goddamn vegetarians/passive-aggressivists (kind of a long-winded way of saying lesbians, methinks):

7. Have you ever noticed how sun-dried tomatoes and top-grade peyote look exactly the same? Not a suggestion, really. Just saying.

14. Hepatitis! (Note: This is not technically an appetizer.)

Yes, I understand the somewhat heavy-handed and ham-fisted promotion of the New Yorker here. But what can I say, they publish some good shit.

Back to non-essaying! (Also far too early in the morning.)

It may just be me

I don't want it to ever change

SO, while I sit here, still with an uncompleted essay on hand, due in a few hours, I get distracted. So I decided to download Big Rigs. I'm not actually sure what particular course of events/hyperlinks lead me to that particular wiki page, but it's by far one of the most entertaining and funny wiki pages ever written. Though this could be crazy fucked up sleep talking, the entire game itself seems completely surreal. To quote the first paragraph of the wiki:

The box of Big Rigs states that the player may "race trucks across the country, with cops chasing [them]." GameSpot's Alex Navarro wrote that this description of the game is nothing more than "horrible, horrible lies", since there are no police in the game. Additionally, they pointed out, the computer-controlled opponent vehicles have no AI and never move from the starting position, making even the description of the gameplay as a "race" questionable.

I mean, who actually goes to the trouble of coding all that, and releasing and distribution? Is it even a game as such? I mean, a game involves challenges and obstacles and some process of achievement, and it's arguable that this game achieves even the bare minimum of that. It seems more like some self-reflexive, postmodern exercise in minimalism/lying. The Gamefaqs review page and board on the game is also highly amusing as well.

After a little research, i've learnt that the game that was in fact shipped out was a pre-alpha release, so it's understandable that it lacks, you know, features. But still. You're Winner indeed.

Disturbing parallels

it may just be me (you)

In these Annals of Culture, Gladwell points out economists are clever. However, if you're into lyric poetry, you'd better hurry the fuck up and publish something good. In poetry terms, late twenties means you're waaaayyy over the hill*.

Do you who else thinks that? NAMBLA, that's right. Think about it.

Poetry = paedophilia

More economist lovin': Article on Nathan Silver, the awesome awesome guy who runs 538. Back to not doing essay!

*NOT TRUE. READ THE ARTICLE. I was just using it as a set up for NAMBLA.

You talk too much

is that even possible?

While being generally frustrated by various (technological-related) imbroglios' (getting my damn wireless working, annoyed by the lack of unified feeds for both the New Yorker and NY Mag, and being unable to decide to whether I should just subscribe to all the feeds they have; but that seems like a grave and grievous decision, with much rash consequences), I came across this interesting article in the New Yorker. While the article itself is of some interest and import, it's raised an issue that i've thought about before, an issue that's always vexed and perplexed me.

This issue is the issue of the working poor. The first time I heard this phrase, I was confused. I thought to myself, 'How can that be? How can you work and yet be poor?' And yet, here we are. Stories of people working 60 hour weeks in Walmart, and yet have to live in a car; people who work two, three jobs, twelve, fifteen hour days, six, seven days a week just to make ends meet (whatever that means; I think that nebulous and loaded phrase further illustrates the difficulty of talking about this). It doesn't make sense: isn't the precise point of work to reduce your poverty? I admit, it's possible, and most likely probable, that some of these stories have been exaggerated, for political or social posturing. It's also possible that some of these people brought it on to themselves, being lured into a mirage of luxury through usurious financiers and a lack of self-control. (I'll do my best to tread lightly; I'm trying not to be callous, even if it seems like I am).

But is it true? Is it true that there are people who suffer such hardships, even in the pursuit of modest goals? It saddens and distresses me that the economic and social fabric of human society can be stitched together in such a manner as to allow something like this.

I don't really know. It doesn't seem right, however. We didn't become civilised for this, not to become slaves to new masters. The project of civilisation has always struck me as something that strives towards the abolition of subsistence; and yet, here we are. What to do, what to do...

Heads up

Or should that be brains up...

The World Mind Sports Games (unwieldy much) is up and running for the first year. So, finally, all that time playing draughts plays off into fame and recognition. Rejoice.

It's been obvious for a while

But i'm more or less completely (yes! split those infinitives!) out of original ideas. And so I present:

Interview with a Search Engine: If you enjoy strange, surrealist, stream-of-consciousness sagas, much in the style of that fantastic skit that the (s)Arts revue did this year.

Que Será, Cera? An Open Letter to Michael Cera: The folks over at CMG are, as always, kicking butt. And for the record, I would totally go on many, MANY fact-finding 'missions' on my favouritest Bluth (though that Maeby gives him a good run for the moneyz) to find out if indeed, his man-parts tasted like watermelon (or strawberries).

OiNY: Bash, but in RL. And located within a much narrower geographical area. The contents about the same though. Good ones this week:

(a soprano is singing an opera aria in her apartment on the 4th floor)
Random man on street (screaming up to the window): Girl, you're not even gonna sing the high note?! Pussy!
Soprano (screaming out the window): Everyone's a fucking critic!

Middle aged white woman on cell: Okay, mom. Go back to watching Snoop. Yeah, I know you love him. Okay, have fun watching the D-0-double g! Bye.
Random passerby: Best. Conversation. Ever.

Oh Mister Galbraith, you may be right about about the alcohol, but you were wrong about the coffee. But you might be wrong about the alcohol as well. But don't hold or quote me on that, you giant scary man you.

Well you can see what my substitutive effects are

How embarrassing.




The cochon one scares me especially. And just one more propaganda item, for good luck:



Because even Duck Tales understands the velocity theory of money.

When this is all over

Bipolar disorder never looked so good. Strangely, being bipolar also means you enjoy wearing lipstick when ANGRY.

Because Commericalism =! Sellout.

Many many things (including bad music)

I'm in this interweb cafe in the city, owing to my shitty shitty interblag connection currently at home. It's nifty, in that it's self-pay, you create an account (that's disposable if you wish) that you can effectively carry around with you with like-branded internet cafes. Also has reasonable rates: two dollars an hour, which drops to one-fiddy, if you bulk buy. And as the credit carries, it gives a good incentive to bulk buy. Intriguing.

One peeve: I can't play Dota, because of CD-Key conflicts. They need to better manage their permissions. This may be a good thing.

This (distressingly) is a surprisingly accurate account of the economy, and my freakouts over it. And this for an explanation, if a little long. And it's these guys that are entirely responsible for it:



GEDDIT!!? GEDDIT!? HEDGE-FUND?! HA HA HA HA HA. Great.

We (you) are just too good

This is what happens when evolution isn't smart, which is always. Unlike the hand of the one true Lord, FSM. 

I'm more or less convinced that whatever is recorded in human history is more or less long strings of paredolia and apophenia, with some postdiction thrown in there for 'good' measure. Which brings me to my main point:

Michael Drosnin is a douchebag. 

I've just bumped up the pagerank (albeit infinitesimally) for his wiki article for the keyword 'douchebag', though they are many a candidate competing for that position. 

Hmmmm

Cool name. Nice comic.

Free lunch! Wheee!

Don't read too much into this; I may do an expanded post more fully exploring the implications of this. But this is food for thought, so to speak:

If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I would. The fact that I can do so with digital files is not a bug, it's a feature, and a damned fine one. It's embarrassing to see all these writers and musicians and artists bemoaning the fact that art just got this wicked new feature: the ability to be shared without losing access to it in the first place. It's like watching restaurant owners crying down their shirts about the new free lunch machine that's feeding the world's starving people because it'll force them to reconsider their business-models. Yes, that's gonna be tricky, but let's not lose sight of the main attraction: free lunches!

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

I have learned To spell hors d'oeuvres Which still grates on Some people's n'oeuvres

AN INTERESTING HYPOTHESIS ABOUT A WOMAN, THE PRESIDENCY AND LAME DUCKS

There's been a lot of brouhaha about the choice of Palin as VP nominee on the Republican ticket, and atleast some of this comes from concerns surrouding McCains' health. In addition to his somewhat 'statured' age (72), his tortuous and brutal treatment at the Hanoi Hilton (he can't lift his arms above his head; all those victory-cheer shots of him lifting his hands above head are done by his wife holding his hand and raising them for him) McCain has had a history of melanomal skin cancer, and in 2000 underwent an operation for that condition that left a noticeable mark on his face. 

All of this plays into the secret hope that McCain could shuffle off his mortal coil sometime during the next four years; or at the very least, have a recurrence of cancer or something serious enough to warrant the 'abdication' of his presidency. Schadenfreude has broken out.

However, even if mooseburger lady were to come into the top job at the Oval Office, she would have a tough time at the post. Simply put, she'd be a lame duck. She would have absolutely no credibility, and possibly even less power. The Dems will most likely control atleast one, if not both houses of Congress, and won't listen to her; and the Republicans (at the best of times) haven't been a women-friendly party. 

Unless we have some kind of October surprise where Palin bares her teeth and proves that she could use bully pulpit (emphasis 'bully') of the presidency, it's probably safe to say her (theoretical) presidency would likely be a deadlocked one.

Things are heatin' up

McCain picks his VP. Incredibly good political move.

Plus, she's a VPILF to boot.

Also, i'm writing this down and checkin' it twice, as to make a record; if McCain does infact win the election, you have to join Facebook. You know who.

Atlas Shrugged 2: Shrug Harder

That joke may very well make up for the Facebook.

I love student life. Sitting on homely couches at Stucco (this beautiful, gorgeous, amazing place in the middle of Newtown, with lovely doors and bohemian perfection) working out policy points, tuning lecture bashes, screen printing shirts; this is what it's about. Spending time with possibly the largest group of incredibly funny, smart, talented, dedicated people i'm ever going to meet in one place, wearing bear masks and getting paint everywhere. I'm tired. I'm exhausted incredibly, from going from one wonderful party to helping out PULP, hungover and 5 hours of sleeping on the floor.

I want to feel like this forever.

It's not all bad, though I agree on the jetpacks

See? The Internet is more than just a channel for the faster delivery of pornography and gossip! It can also deliver funny cat pictures!! LOLZ

P.S. Never actually do this to a cat. That would be horrifying, and hasn't Gotham got enough supervillains as it is?

Oh Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116: Reasons why people and children do not mix, and should never be allowed to happen. More to the point, parents using pataphysics would be a terrible name for a 'rock band'.