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A journal of sorts to record Jonathan Sturm's (and others') thoughts and observations on things worth thinking about. Feedback welcome, but be aware that unless you prominently say you want your communication kept private, I may publish it. |
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Today saw the completion of the first of The Git's examinations. The last exam The Git faced was a Microsoft Certification several years ago, but on this occasion there was no carafe of water provided, nor instant results provided at the end. Being a history exam, it was essay writing and some poor sucker has to read and evaluate what The Git wrote. His handwriting, appalling before he became computer literate, has deteriorated further. Mysteriously, The Git's tutor had told us that we would answer three of six questions; there were in fact twelve -- one for each of the topics we covered. The Git had prepared thoroughly for five of the topics, so it was easy to choose: Peter the Great, Frederick the Great and the English civil war.
It is not just The Git's handwriting that has been affected by the computer. Word processing has completely changed the way he constructs written work. At the computer, usually he quickly writes an introductory sentence for each paragraph of the piece, then goes back and expands the sentence, often obliterating the sentence itself with better words. On the third pass through, the words are edited to clarify what he is writing about and a final pass eliminates typos and grammatical errors. With only a pen and forty minutes in which to write, the work is dramatically different. More like stream-of-consciousness writing and The Git is no James Joyce!
Afterwards, The Git accompanied Mrs Git and The Boy Wonder to the cinema to watch Matrix Reloaded. Whatever anyone else thinks, we all thoroughly enjoyed it. For The Boy Wonder it was the third time and he pointed out that the scene cut when the film broke at his first viewing has not been replaced. Fortunately, it's not critical, but it does produce a comical effect with Trinity reacting to something that we did not see happen.
There have been many different reactions to The Matrix and this continuation of the story. The films are full of allusion and on the surface, the story is as old as. Let's face it, there are no new stories. The Git was quite amused that The Merovingian is married to Persephone. Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (king and queen of the gods) was married to Hades, god of the underworld. The Merovingian kings claimed descent from Jesus, making for an interesting set of relationships! Then incest among the Greek gods was nothing out of the ordinary. The Git finds himself very much looking forward to the sequel. In the meantime, The Boy Wonder had downloaded a copy of the script so we can analyse some of the words and relationships. Like me, he spent much time watching the screen closely. This is after all film -- not a novel. We both noticed that George W Bush appeared on the screens in the scene where The Architect was telling Neo about the destruction of Zion. Amusing when you consider that GWB appears to be no more than a puppet of Zion.
Mostly, of course, a film is intended to entertain and The Matrix Reloaded certainly does that. Judging from the trailers for other films shown beforehand, other cinema-goers might be jaded by the special effects. Since we see very few films of this nature, we remain unjaded and thoroughly enjoyed such scenes as the highway. More often, we watch films like Gosford Park, a completely different kettle of fish. Here's a review by someone who saw that excellent Altman movie and saw it (and Nashville, etc, through completely different eyes). Never forget that film is an entirely different medium to the written word. The Git and The Boy Wonder are very much looking forward to seeing the new edit of Metropolis.
-oOo-
From regular reader, David Magda:
Hello,
Three years before "1984", Orwell wrote a paper on how language can effect how we think and understand things:
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. [...] It becomes ugly and inaccurate because out [sic] thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. [...] If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
A precursor to his idea of 'Newspeak'?
As some who reads a lot, I thought you'd be interested in this analysis(?) of language.
-- David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/ Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI
My favourite sentence from the piece, and it's not one of his examples of bad writing, but one of his own:
Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump.
In an essay on clarity of writing, that's a hoot! :-)
And before you write to tell The Git "let he who is without sin cast the first stone..."
Thought for the day:
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Oscar Wilde
Current Listening:
Christine Perfect -- Self Titled
Mrs Git is distraught! Not to mention agitated and dismayed! Not because The Git had to have a particle of cottage removed from his eye by the doctor yesterday, either. Mrs Git cannot find any Russell Lupin seeds anywhere. Our regular seedsmen, New Gippsland, believe that they will be able to supply us with some either next year, or the year after. The Russell Lupin crisis has apparently been caused by a major crop failure recently and all the usual producers are building up stocks again.
Of course The Git shares his spouse's distress. After all, any self-respecting cottage garden without Russell Lupins is to all intents and purposes undressed.
-oOo-
From the Inbox:
Genetically modified crops? Not in my backfield
The Observer Observer Food Monthly Sunday June 8, 2003
The GM debate: Americans are already free to sit down to a complete GM dinner, but should we have the same choice in Britain? As the Government prepares to publish the results of its crop trials, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall comes out fighting for nature
Of course we should be opposed to GM. It is about some of the biggest, richest, most powerful companies on the planet seeking to own and control global agriculture, and who would want to support that? It represents the final theft of the means of food production, away from local, regional and even national communities, into the hands of a few international corporate giants, based in America, who will quickly come to dictate, without opposition or discussion, what kind of seeds and what kind of chemicals will be spread over every cultivatable inch of the world's land surface. And if I overstate fractionally the reach of their capability I fear I exaggerate not one iota the extent of their ambition.
It is utterly, inescapably obvious that we don't need GM in the UK and in Europe. Our agriculture is already over industrialised and over productive. We have millions of acres 'set aside' for non-production. What possible benefits could accrue from another step down the road of 'efficiency'? The good news is that most of us are already persuaded by this argument - and by fear of GM safety, of which more in a moment. In Europe at least, democracy has said no to GM.
The only conceivably acceptable pro-GM argument, that it might help us feed the starving in the poorer parts of the world, turns out to be the most cynical and reckless of all. Far from offering hope and independence to Third World farmers and growers, GM represents the new economic enslavement of the Third World - neo-colonialism by proxy. Everybody who works at the hard end of the aid business will tell you that it is politics, war, poverty and drought, and most often pernicious combinations of these factors, that conspire to create famine. Which of them precisely can be cured by a genetically modified seed? I believe they don't yet have one that grows without water, or produces fruits that pacify dictators.
The fact is that if you want to feed the starving, you must dodge bullets, negotiate with warlords, and rebuild infrastructure. If you want to help the starving feed themselves, you must give them ploughshares and irrigation. If you want to help them compete effectively in the global food marketplace, then give them access to markets and a fair price for the products of their labour.
If, on the other hand, you want to own them and control them and make them mere pawns in your industrial empire, then sell them a strain of genetically modified seed and a patented production system that means the seed cannot germinate without your additives, cannot grow without your fertilisers, cannot prosper without your weedkillers, and cannot even produce a viable seed for the following year's harvest. You will effectively then own these farmers, and their crops, even to the extent that you will be able to tell them who to sell to and how much for.
Not that GM companies wouldn't go to extreme lengths to convince us of their benign intentions. In one of the most cynical public relations exercises of all time, Monsanto are currently flying around the world a group of cotton growers from Africa, who have for several seasons now been participating in a pilot project growing cotton using Monsanto's GM seed. They are giving interviews to the world's media, telling them that GM cotton has increased their productivity, their wealth, and boosted the prosperity and facilities of their community. Yet all this on a pilot project whose success was guaranteed from the outset. Of course Monsanto has the power and wealth to transform a small agricultural community and ensure its short term prosperity, just as it has the power to give them a fabulous all- expenses paid trip to charm the world's press. It tells us nothing about their ability to improve the lot of the subsistence farmer and everything about their lack of corporate integrity and cynical opportunism.
So, GM to feed the world? Pull the other one. In fact, the exact reverse is far more likely. A GM dominant agribusiness in the third world will create the classic preconditions for hunger and famine: firstly ownership of resources will be concentrated in too few hands (this is inherent in farming based on patented products), and secondly the emerging food supply will be based on too few varieties of crops too widely planted. These are the worst possible options for Third World food security. No wonder there is not a single aid agency or famine relief charity that thinks GM holds significant answers to Third World hunger problems.
But of course, given an almost inexhaustible supply of Western apathy about the plight of the Third World, the above arguments are perhaps less likely to engage the man in the street than the other Big Question about GM. Its safety. So it's worth knowing that here too, large lies are being told by men with remarkably straight faces.
Perhaps the biggest lie is that 'science' has 'proved' GM to be safe. In fact science has done no such thing. The astonishing truth is that science has shown a marked reluctance to undertake any worthwhile investigation of GM safety at all. And as Craig Sams, the chairman of the Soil Association says, the few studies involving safety testing - by feeding GM foods to animals - has produced disturbing results.
Here are a few examples:
Tests on GM Flavr Savr tomatoes resulted in lesions in rats. Scientists at the US Food and Drug Authority even asked for it not to be approved.
Dr Arpad Pusztai's notorious experiments with GM potatoes and rats showed severe gut problems in the test animals compared to those fed non-GM potatoes. Despite the largely successful attempt to discredit him publicly, Pusztai's paper had been peer reviewed six times prior to publication. Compared to most GM research sponsored by GM companies it remains a model of experimental propriety and credibility.
In GM chicken-feed experiments, twice as many chickens fed GM maize died as those fed the conventional crop. Despite this, the GM maize was approved by the Government but later withdrawn following public pressure.
All of the above should make us worry. But the bottom line, of course, is that not nearly enough time has elapsed for us to be in the least confident of GM safety. Meanwhile, what's the best comparable example that the kind of transgenic tampering that is the essence of GM might eventually lead to some pretty grizzly consequences? Well, for about 30 years there was 'hard scientific evidence' that feeding high levels of animal proteins to grazing ruminants (ie dead sheep to live cows) was 'safe', in that no significant health problems seemed to have arisen. Then suddenly, Bingo! We had BSE.
The production of GM foods is in many ways comparable. It involves combining strands of DNA, often animal derived, that could never naturally come together, then introducing these mutant strains to both the animal and human food chain. Such unprecedented and unnatural steps are producing entirely new materials for both the biosphere to contend with on the macro scale, and the human gut to deal with on the micro scale. Why should we be in the least surprised if at some point, something very nasty happens?
You can comment on this article on www.rivercottage.net
Observer Food Monthly
Thought for the day:
If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But, they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity
Robert Fulgham
Current Listening:
Cream -- Wheels of Fire
Geologists have discovered a new coral reef in Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria. It's not supposed to be there; the water is too warm. Funnily enough, Global Warming is supposedly killing The Great Barrier Reef even though the water is cooler there.
-oOo-
From Peter Thomas
I recently decided to try out a spam detection solution; not for my own needs, I receive little spam through my normal ISP account (tons through Hotmail though) but just to get an idea as to what was out there.
I saw some very good write ups on an implementation of the Bayesian approach called K9 (http://keir.net/k9.html). It does have to be trained, so to help me get a suitable body of Spam, I also installed Hotmail Popper (http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/) that allowed me to get Outlook XP to retrieve mail from Hotmail.
So far, so good.
I have processed on the order of 4700 emails through it, with roughly 1000 being SPAM (and yes, it has now learned a fair amount and is able to categorize some eMails from some Yahoo Groups I subscribe to as SPAM. So far, it has not marked anything as SPAM that I wanted, and during it's learning curve has marked 128 messages as GOOD which should have been SPAM.
There is a fair amount of discussion about SPAM filtering techniques, and people who havc available TONS of SPAM to quickly train a filter at news://news.grc.com in the news group grc.spam.
Peter
Many thanks Peter.
-oOo-
From Tim Gadd:
Re the proposition [on Monday]: the basic assumption here seems to be that language influences the way we think, rather than that our thinking influences our use of language. In fact both propositions are probably true.
Certainly if you accept Lacan's concept of The Symbolic Order, our use of symbols, inherent largely in our acquisition of language, forms an impenetrable barrier between ourselves and the world as it actually is (when you think about it, a concept so horrific that it would put the average paranoid Philip K Dick novel to shame.) However, if you accept Noam Chomsky's theory of 'Universal Grammar', our brains are hardwired for language, which presumably means that the neurological structure of our brains affects both the way we think and the way we use language.
Whatever the case, I'm not convinced that a fluent grasp of language ensures logical thinking, or that sloppy grammar corresponds to sloppy thought. For example, my mother certainly has better verbal and literary skills than my father, and I would regard her as in most respects more intelligent. My father is also inclined to come out with words which, after 40 years, I still don't understand. For instance, "Soonsasujev", which I think means "as soon as". However if I were to sit down and watch the 6.30 news with my parents, it would soon become clear that regardless of this grammatical handicap, my father has an instinctual understanding of politics, whereas my mother does not. My father will watch a speech by Peter Costello about monetary policy, and instinctively grasp not only what the guy is saying, but what he actually really means but is trying not to say. My mother, on the other hand, is more likely to conclude that giant goats are tunneling under Albania, and that they must be stopped by any means possible. How an intelligent person is able to arrive at conclusions like this is beyond me, but it obviously doesn't have anything to do with her powers of literary self expression.
You mean giant goats aren't tunnelling under Albania! I'm shocked! Shocked to the very core of my being...
-oOo-
The Git spent much of the day resting with his eyes closed to allow his afflicted left eye to recover. A small particle of paint/plaster/concrete/stone [delete whichever is inapplicable] had taken up residence on the surface of the eye and staunchly refused to decamp, despite being irrigated with copious quantities of water and poked at with the corner of a dampened handkerchief. The Git made an appointment to see the doctor at 4.50pm and became increasingly irritated by the pain as it slowly increased over the ensuing three hours or so. By the time the doctor actually saw The Git, about 6.15pm, he was ready to kill. The bespectacled, meek and mild-mannered Git you have come to know and love had become a homicidal raving maniac. Fortunately, the anaesthetic drops the doctor dripped into the eye worked within seconds to relieve the by now almost intolerable agony. The anger was replaced by a feeling of immense relief and bonhomie.
Five minutes later, a quick swish of the scalpel had removed the small particle of paint/plaster/concrete/stone [delete whichever is inapplicable] and a sliver of skin cells. As I write this, the piratical eye patch is no longer necessary to keep the eye closed. Two days of monocular vision and a complete inability to judge depth was trying. Not as trying as the almost uncontrollable anger that had almost overcome him while waiting for the doctor's attention. The Git successfully detaches from most things that irritate others; why become angry at what cannot be controlled? Perhaps this was akin to what GW Bush and Co feel about things. They have an economy/world that is clearly out of their control. The ensuing anger created the desire to hurt someone -- anyone.
-oOo-
The Git is immensely grateful to all of you who have contributed to the upkeep of this website. Most of the funds have been generated by subscriptions to DOMAI. For those who delightful in tasteful nude photos of beautiful girls but have not yet subscribed, The Git has new pictures posted today.
-oOo-
An interesting variant of the game Twenty Questions...
-oOo-
Out of 265 spam emails, SpamAssassin managed to catch 134, or 51%.
Thought for the day:
Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
Plotinus
Current Listening:
Rickie Lee Jones -- Pirates
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© Jonathan Sturm 2003
