overturned

head full
of light and
white water

eyesgleaming stones

I have become

a river running
to you

and time
the canoe

overturned

george swede [from "I want to lasso time"]

recently noted thoughts

imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but continuous flattery, however sincere, is extremely irritating. -- me

"People are very protective about the "things they know" especially if they've had to fight hard to get that information. The greater the effort, the harder it is to let it go." -- Kim Taylor

"If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.” ― Bertrand Russell, ["The Conquest of Happiness"]

‪"There is a vast gulf between impossible, and impossible to imagine" -- sherlock ["elementary"]

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." -- bertrand russell

"Each closure is an awakening, and every awakening settles something. This state of affairs defines organization of energy." -- John Dewey ["art as experience"]

"To come to a place with preconceived notions and expectations of what you will get from it, is a very dangerous thing. Because you might actually succeed in accomplishing exactly what you came there to find." -- guy tal

"Form follows function doesn't mean all objects have to look the same." -- Tonfisk [Finnish design company web page]

"There are at least six or seven individual apps all buried inside the guts of iTunes whimpering to get out. It is a perfect example of how not to write an application, and if someone were to release an app like this today, we’d laugh at it and it’d die of shame." -- chuq von rospach

"You live a life, Sherlock. if you're not a fool, it changes you." -- morland holmes ["elementary"]

scalzi's tweets on Hugo puppy mess

[from @scalzi on twitter]

Going to do a series of tweets relating to the Hugos, but I'll be quick and there will be a kitten pic at the end. Okay? Okay.

1. Reading commentary on my reaction to the Puppy bullshit this year and some folks are upset I'm not reacting the way they think I should.

2. Specifically, they seem to be upset that I'm suggesting the Pup slating stuff that would be nominated anyway isn't a genius strategy...

3. ... and that essentially in cases like that the attempted puppy co-op should be entirely ignored. This is apparently AGAINST THE RULES.

4. So, basically, it's "Waaaaaah! You're not playing this game like you're supposed too! Why can't you see this is the end of days!"

5. My response to this is, a) who made you the boss of me, b) who cares what you think, c) I'm not obliged to follow anyone's playbook.

6. It's doesn't take genius to stuff a ballot box. Nor does co-opting people for your scheme mean people have to respond the way you want.

7. And this really isn't a crisis or a clash of worldviews. It's, simply, having to deal with opportunistic assholes. Again.

8. How do you deal with opportunistic assholes? In this case, by shrugging about their MASTER PLAN and do what you, not they, want.

9. The most exasperating thing of all this Hugo shit is people pretending this is about anything other than jerks and trolls being jerks...

10. ... or opportunists being opportunistic. I'm not inclined to give them any more importance than that. And that bugs them. Good!

11. So, yeah. If you're upset because I'm NOT DOING HUGO OUTRAGE RIGHT, or whatever, well, just suck on that. It's not your call.

12. Rant done. Compensatory kitten picture coming up in just a second.

As promised: Kittens!

[photo by john scalzi]

recently noted thoughts

"Originalism is philosophically incoherent (the old texts bear the same multivalent marks of dispute and argument that persist now) and in practice ridiculous."-- adam gopnik

"When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." ~Edward Weston

"donald trump views the truth like this lemur views the supreme court vacancy. i don't care about that in any way, please f***off, i have a banana." -- john oliver

"Democracy embodies justice, free discussion embodies rationality, and it is only through justice and rationality that an issue can be found from the dangers with which modern war is threatening the human race" -- bertrand russell ["a scientist's plea for democracy", 1947]

"trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, vulgarity on an epic scale. the fact that so many Republicans are comfortable with the thought of this monumentally unqualified man in the Oval Office shows how warped the party has become." -- paul thomas [the new zealand herald]

"One cannot express something compelling, interesting or inspiring without first having something compelling, interesting or inspiring to express. And so, in pursuit of expressive work, one also becomes motivated to seek those things that are worth expressing: meaningful experiences, complex thoughts, powerful emotions, and useful or interesting knowledge." -- guy tal

"In a world with boundless opportunities for amusement, it's detestable that anyone would choose to get thrills from killing others who ask for nothing from life but the chance to remain alive." -- sir roger moore

"Let’s be honest; blazing skies at sunrise and sunset, wide-angle near-far compositions, etc., while often spectacularly beautiful, have become the photographic equivalent of fast food: momentarily satisfying, requiring little creative effort, and lacking any characteristics to distinguish the sensibilities and expressive powers of their creator from those of a million others." -- guy tal

"there is a very big difference between styling and design. design is about being perceptive of the contemporary culture and creating the future. styling is about borrowing from history." -- karim rashid

“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.”
[Lois McMaster Bujold, "Shards of Honour"]

"we owe nearly everything to others. generations are also generators. the point of the fruit is the tree, and the point of the tree is the fruit." -- kevin ashton ["how to fly a horse"]

"METAPHOR STEW: Trump is a karma tsunami, the long-imagined chickens of decades of race-baiting and rich-worshiping coming home to roost." -- lolgop [twitter]

after exhausting both
principle and reason
the ancient "not one thing"
that knows not
the bright moonlight.
-- musashi [at nagoya]

lovecraft!? h.p. lovecraft?
lovely lyrical name, isn't it, for such a troubled mind.
-- the librarians

"As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator." -- piers j sellers

haskell: Primarily a CV decoration language. Code is typically written to be admired rather than compiled; this is technically known as the "lazy execution model." -- verity stob

the ordinary reader -- the ordinary audience -- is a barren conceit.
it guarantees a shared mediocrity.
don't preconceive the reader's limitations.
they'll become your own. -- verlyn klinkenborg ["several short sentences about writing"]

"has there ever been a critic of sam harris who is not been accused of misrepresenting him? this is a literal question!"-- cenk uygur

"I happen to be, at this very moment, purposefully misunderstanding Richard Dawkins as a way to generate clicks on some bloggers’ page[s], and so are all of the other mindless hivemind sockpuppets controlled by the aforementioned nameless bloggers." -- consciousness razor

three cranes tsuba (sketch)

following is a partial illustrator/inkscape  rendering of a sukashi tsuba design, based on existing japanese designs. [i happen to own edo-era examples of this design, with three and four cranes] if you are interested in piercing your own tsuba, or would like three cranes in a circular formation for some other purpose, here it is. Unlike some of the tsubas I have seen, the cranes here are perfectly organized. [triangles and lines are there to let me understand the placement of the components] I left it incomplete but with sufficient detail. you still need to organize the lines as they merge into each other, compete the design of kozuka hitsu-ana, nakago hitsu-ana and kogai hitsu-ana and so on. exercise for the serious designer.
copyright, cc attribution, share-alike.

three cranes tsuba 

recently noted thoughts

"selling out is usually more a matter of buying in." -- bill watterson

“the main function of the human brain, the primary instinct, is storytelling. Memory is storyelling. If we all remembered everything, we would be Rain Man, and would not be socially active at all. We learn to forget and to distort, but we [also] learn to tell a story about ourselves.” -- joss whedon

"It's fairly clear that one of the defining characteristics of the 21st century so far has been the creeping installation of a system optimized to exclude public opinion from the levers of power despite continuing to pay lip service to principles of democratic accountability: is this another (and big) step in ensuring that democracy can't actually threaten the interests of the global financial sector?" -- charlie stross [on  TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership]

"the ability to change anything was the change that changed everything." -- kevin ashton ["how to fly a horse"]

"while you cannot force ideas into existence, you can coax them into view. When you first notice some exciting fragment, your impulse may be to brush it aside. It looks so ... so small, so slight. Don't be deceived. What matters is not the idea's size but its resonance." -- stephen koch ["modern library writer's workshop: a guide to craft of fiction"]

"The 'draw a line' philosophy offers a substantial political advantage to people with hidden agendas. The method for getting what you want is first to draw the line somewhere that nobody would object to, and then gradually move it to where you really want it, arguing continuity all the way." -- terry pratchett, ian stewart & jack cohen ["the science of discworld"]

"To merely act as a conduit of inspiration from naturally-occurring phenomena to an audience is a great and important task, but it is the task of the journalist, not of the artist. The artist’s role is not in being a passive messenger, but in creating new configurations, symbols and metaphors – aesthetic experiences – that one would not be able to experience on their own, even if afforded the same access to the same subject." -- guy tal

"Hold on, an author can wait 55 years between books and people will still be interested? Man, this changes everything..." -- patrick rothfuss 

"I know self-care is important. As Morpheus said, there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. But here comes Red Riding Hood to remind you that walking the path is all well and good, but it’s even harder to stay on that path once you’ve started." -- jim hines

"Practicing isn’t always hard. At times, practice is joyous. When you are working at the edge of your abilities, acquiring mastery of something difficult that you value, practice is the best feeling. But if you only practice when it brings you joy, you won’t practice much. Logging the requisite hours inevitably involves some slogging." -- cory doctorow

"The Confederate flag is directly tied to the Confederate cause, and the Confederate cause was white supremacy. This claim is not the result of revisionism. It does not require reading between the lines. It is the plain meaning of the words of those who bore the Confederate flag across history." -- ta-nehisi coates 

"Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory." -- scott d. weitzenhoffer

extracting my notes from drafts app database

well now. while digging into the content stored in my iphone, i found out the drafts app which I'm slowly abandoning by removing my content uses a sqlite3 database. previously I had no way to bulk-extract my notes.

# sqlite3 Drafts.sqlite
SQLite version 3.8.2 2013-12-06 14:53:30
...
sqlite> .tables

ZSPMANAGEDOBJECT  Z_METADATA        Z_PRIMARYKEY 

sqlite> .schema zspmanagedobject
...
CREATE TABLE ZSPMANAGEDOBJECT (
Z_PK INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, 
Z_ENT INTEGER, 
Z_OPT INTEGER, 
ZARCHIVED INTEGER, 
ZHIDDEN INTEGER, 
ZPINNED INTEGER, 
ZCREATED_AT TIMESTAMP, 
ZLAST_ACTION_AT TIMESTAMP, 
ZMODIFIED_AT TIMESTAMP, 
ZUPDATED_AT TIMESTAMP, 
ZGHOSTDATA VARCHAR, 
ZSIMPERIUMKEY VARCHAR, 
ZCOMPLETED_ACTIONS VARCHAR, 
ZCONTENT VARCHAR, 
ZLAST_ACTION VARCHAR, 
ZTAGS VARCHAR, 
ZUUID VARCHAR );
...

select z_created_at, z_content from zspmanagedobject;

produces the time-stamped draft notes, including notes that were deleted.

451329756.316168|supermarket notes, 2015: I find the selection of shaped,
filled, fried, baked, toasted, flavored, seasoned corn products entirely 
inadequate for a healthy diet.
451357888.003267|"what about the duck?"
"extra crispy!!"
-- looney tunes back in action

ira glass's actual quote

never mind the abstract reader's digest quote poster that is going around. this is my transcription of what Ira Glass actually said in [ the first part of] his video. it is wonderful advice, especially about the discipline of producing work on a deadline. [ira glass on storytelling, part 3]:

"Nobody tells people who are beginners. I really wish someone had told this to me. Is that [if you are watching this video, you are somebody who wants o make videos right?] all of us who do creative work, we get into it. we get into it because we have good taste. you know what I mean? like you want to make TV, because you love TV. there is stuff you just like, love. ok so you got really good taste. you get into this thing … that i don’t even know how to describe it, but there is a gap. for the first couple of years you are making stuff, what you are making isn’t so good... ok, its not that great. it's really not that great. its trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but not quite that good. but your taste, the thing get you into the game, your taste is still killer. your taste is good enough that you can tell what you are making is a kind of disappointment to you, you know what i mean? you can tell it is still sort of crappy. a lot of people never get past that phase. a lot of people at that point, they quit. the thing i would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know, who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. they knew it felt short. [some of us can admit that to ourselves, some of us less able to admit that to ourselves] we knew like, it didn’t have that special thing that we wanted it to have. [...] everybody goes through that. for you to go through it, if you are going through right now, just getting out of that phase, if you are just starting out and entering into that phase, you gotta know it is totally normal and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. do a huge volume of work. put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re gonna finish one story. you know what i mean? whatever its gonna be. you create the deadline. it is best if have somebody who is waiting work from you, expecting work from you. even if not somebody who pays you, but that you are in a situation where you have to turn out the work. because it is only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap and the work you are making will be as good as your ambitions."

for a recent birthday

a period of time

a few minutes long
fifty eight years wide.
 
-- Tomas Transtromer ["the sad gondola"]

recently found pieces of wisdom

"The clock is ticking. Life is fleeting. If you don’t feel alive now, when will you?" -- guy tal

"forget the big picture. look at everything close-up." -- jethro gibbs [ncis]

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- leonard nimoy

"escapism isn't good or bad in itself. what is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to." -- terry pratchett 

"History tends to change people who think they're changing it." -- terry pratchett

“The first time, I usually skim off the outer layer and end up with photographs that are fairly obvious. The second time, I have to look a little deeper. The images get more interesting. The third time it is even more challenging and on each subsequent occasion, the images should get stronger, but it takes more effort to get them.” – Michael Kenna

Q: How many Sad Puppies does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 100, one to change the bulb and 99 to say, “Gosh, I hope this makes Scalzi’s head explode!” -- john scalzi

"above all, never lose your enthusiasm." -- ernst haas

"if history reveals any categorical truth, it is that an unsufficient taste for evidence regularly brings out the worst in us." -- sam harris ["the end of faith"]

"you know you have made a theoretical advance when you can no longer reconstruct why you failed for so long to see the obvious." -- daniel kahneman

"I'm not dangerous; I just understand the basics of value." -- eren yigit [quipped during a munchkin game]

"frozen margaritas cut through space and time." -- the katering show

"dad, what part of you said "i must watch "pitch perfect""?" -- eren yigit [critiquing my desperate netflix choices - tomatometer says 81% which is twice the netflix average]

"a picture may be worth a thousand words, but the order of the words matters when constructing meaning." -- dean kessman ["ninety nine pictures"]

"Visualization - the ability to see in the "mind's eye" a finished image before making an exposure (or other technical choices) is very different from vision. Vision is the passive seeing of light reflected off objects; visualization is projecting, consciously and deliberately, the light of our thoughts and feelings onto objects. Vision is about what there is; visualization is about what could be. Vision happens; visualization makes happen. Vision is about what things are; visualization is about what things mean." -- guy tal

"Your sensei didn't hold anything back, you just couldn't hear it. So it's no wonder when you go back to visit you hear brand new stuff." --kim taylor [mjer iaido, renshi, 7th dan]

"The one and only sole purpose of today's confederacy is to bring the plantation lords... I mean oligarchs... back to their rightful place atop the 6000 year feudal hierarchy." -- david brin

The whole vaccine mess, in the United States and abroad, is a story of allowing anecdotes to trump statistical reasoning."  -- chris mooney

"Everyone likes to pretend that he or she is more rational, more responsible, and more immune to the risks that gun ownership poses relative to the average American. Yet, we know from gun violence statistics that many are simply misjudging their own competency. Everyone thinks he or she is above average, but half are mistaken." -- evan defilippis and devin hughes [slate]

"It’s hard enough for gondolas to negotiate the inner canals of Venice, let alone a sub the size of an ocean liner, but no problem; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen either knows absolutely nothing about Venice, or (more likely) trusts that its audience does not." -- roger ebert [review of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"] 

"It is not always necessary to take a scissor to a country’s social fabric — as the Front National so consistently does in France — to rip it. Pulling at it one loose thread at a time can achieve the same result." -- Chantal Hébert 

recently found quotes

"be yourself and style will follow" -- guy tal
‪
"we are who we are - eventually." -- constantine

"no-on has truely 'lived by the sword'for at least 300 years. everything since the 17th century is mostly fanciful imagining. This was already mocked in the early 18th century as ka-do, flower arranging." -- ford hallam

"artists try to say things that can't be said. in a fragile net of words, gestures, or colors, we hope to capture a feeling; a taste; a painful longing. but the net is always too porous, and we are left with the sweet frustration of almost knowing, which is teasingly pleasurable." -- alan alda

"creativity, no matter which of its many definitions you favor, requires something new, a different interpretation, a break from the twin opiates of habit and cliche." -- denise shekerjian

"steer clear of ideology. like jargon, it can be a substitute for thought. the lure of the simple solution can lead to handing over your life to people who make the trains run on time --  but who take away your freedom to go where you want on those trains." -- alan alda [kenyon college commencement address]

"it is the mark of the dull mind to mistake a conversation opener for its last word." -- julian baggini ["should you judge this book by its cover?"]

"westerners like to conquer mountains, while easterners like to contemplate them. as for me, i cannot see a mountain as a thing to be analyzed; it is a work of art. i like to taste the mountains." -- santoka teneda [journals, sep 20, 1930]

"you're a bloody psychopath!"
"high-functioning sociopath. with your number." [sherlock s3#2]

"after this year, the only history I want to come in contact with is the one drawn by larry gonnick" -- the kid

"if knowledge is power,
and if books are knowledge,
books are power -
an unread book is untapped power." -- eren yigit

"my memory of you is better than you" -- lao tzu [according to chuck lorre vanity card #303]

"the Go way is not to simulate inheritance, but to avoid it altogether." -- mark summerfield ["programming in go"]

"My primary interest in trolls is their elimination. Trolls are not profitable; trolls drive everyone else away. Trolls are anti-profitable." -- Yonatan Zunger

"irony is a way of having one's cake while appearing to eat it." -- john updike

"It wasn’t just a matter of making an inferior or sloppy product; anybody could have done that. But to create one that reliably failed after an agreed-upon 1,000 hours took some doing over a number of years." -- Markus Krajewski ["the great lightbulb conspiracy"]

 "all literature could be said to originate from sales receipts." -- daniel j. levitin ["the organized mind"]

"but one of the things that really irritates me in products is when I'm aware of designers wagging their tails in my face." -- jonathan ive

deniers are not sceptics [csi open letter]

Deniers are not Skeptics

December 5, 2014

Public discussion of scientific topics such as global warming is confused by misuse of the term “skeptic.” The Nov 10, 2014, New York Times article “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline” referred to Sen. James Inhofe as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.” Two days later Scott Horsley of NPR’s Morning Edition called him “one of the leading climate change deniers in Congress.” These are not equivalent statements.

As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, we are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priorirejection of ideas without objective consideration.

Real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed. He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title “skeptic.”

As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong. The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is “denial.” Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.

We are skeptics who have devoted much of our careers to practicing and promoting scientific skepticism. We ask that journalists use more care when reporting on those who reject climate science, and hold to the principles of truth in labeling. Please stop using the word “skeptic” to describe deniers.

Mark Boslough, Physicist

David Morrison, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, at the SETI Institute

Bill Nye, CEO the Planetary Society

Ann Druyan, Writer/producer; CEO, Cosmos Studios

Ken Frazier, Editor, Skeptical Inquirer

Barry Karr, Exec Director, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Amardeo Sarma, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Executive Council, Chairman GWUP (Germany)

Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ronald A. Lindsay, President & CEO Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Center for Inquiry

Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University

Christopher C. French, Dept of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London

Daniel C. Dennett, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University

Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College

Douglas Hofstadter, Director, The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University

Stephen Barrett, Co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University

Terence Hines, Dept of Psychology, Pace University

James Randi, President James Randi Educational Foundation

Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETIResearch

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Henri Broch, Physicist, Emeritus, University Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

Eugenie C. Scott, Chair, Advisory Council, National Center for Science Education

Edzard Ernst, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, University of Exeter, UK

Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist, Host Inquiring Minds Podcast

David J. Helfand, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University

Mario Mendez-Acosta, Journalist, Science Writer, Mexico City

Cornelis de Jager, Astrophysicist, Past President, International Council for Science

Sanal Edamaruku, President, Rationalist International

Loren Pankratz, Psychologist, Portland VA Medical Center, Retired

Sandra Blakeslee, Science Writer

Benjamin Radford, Deputy Editor of the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine

David Thomas, Physicist and Mathematician

Stuart D. Jordan, NASA Astrophysicist, Emeritus

David H. Gorski, Cancer Surgeon, Wayne State University School of Medicine

Anthony R. Pratkanis, Professor of Psychology, UC @Santa Cruz

Jan Willem Nienhuys, Mathematician, Waalre, The Netherlands

Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth

Ken Feder, Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University

Jill Tarter, Bernard M. Oliver Chair, SETI Institute

Richard Saunders, JREF Million Dollar Challenge Committee, Producer - The Skeptic Zone Podcast

Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, Williams College

Lawrence M. Krauss, Director, The ASU Origins Project, Arizona State University

Barbara Forrest, Philosophy, Southeastern Louisiana University

Kimball Atwood, Physician, Newton, MA

James Alcock, Psychologist, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada

Massimo Polidoro, Science writer, author, Executive Director CICAP, Italy

E.C. Krupp, Director, Griffith Observatory

Dick Smith, Film Producer, Publisher, Australia


CSI Consultants

Luis Alfonso Gámez, journalist, the Magonia blog, Spain
Felix Ares de Blas, Professor of Computer Science, Univ. of Basque, Spain

back deck [tanka]

reading at the back deck with the kid - Keith's red, spring breeze, Magritte clouds, peace.

[oz/14]

recently noted quotes

"be nice. it's the smart play." -- capt. gregson ["elementary"]

"sometimes the only real difference between crazy people and artists is that artists write down what they imagine seeing." -- scott adams

"To be sure, not all moments are equally fleeting. Some moments last longer than others. And certain events do reoccur more than once and even recur repeatedly. Sometimes you do get more than one chance. Sometimes you don’t. It helps to know how long a window of opportunity you have and if you’ll get another chance." -- john paul caponigro

"trying to prove formally what is seen intuitively and to see intuitively what is proved formally is an invigorating mental exercise." -- g. polya 

"strike while the iron is vulnerable" -- the crazy ones 

there are some rivers you don't 
ever want to step into 
more than once, 
even if it was possible.

"the inhabitants refer to themselves optimistically as Homo sapiens , meaning 'wise man' in an appropriately dead language. Their activities seldom fit that description, but there are occasional glorious exceptions. They should really be called Pan narrans , the storytelling ape, because nothing appeals to them more than a rollicking good yarn." -- terry pratchett, ian stewart & jack cohen ["the science of discworld iv: judgement day"]

"Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies." -- roger ebert

"we share our lives with the people we have failed to be." -- adam phillips

"I believe in patterns and sequences, and this sequence does not end well unless something disrupts the pattern." -- bones

"there is no such thing as philosophy-free science." -- dan dennett

"religion is to misogyny as disease is to misery - not the sole cause, but a significant contributor" -- pz myers

"I can't unclench when there is turbulence. you know I'm an atheist." -- jerry [woody allen, "to Rome with love"]

"It's easy to mistake familiarity and the feeling of having something at your fingertips with true comprehension." -- tania lombrozo

general: "what do you think this star means?" hawkeye: "you are tinkerbell?" [mash pilot episode] 

"indeed, the sign that something does matter to us is that we lose our steadiness." -- adam phillips

one unspoken thing about a surveillance state is that it's compelled by its nature to bite off the hand that feeds it.

trust is no longer an issue. it is a lost attribute.

"some of the most powerful patterns in life are subtle." -- scott adams

"I'm confused as to why a poorly designed web site means affordable health care is a bad idea." -- chuck Lorre [431] 

much reflection

autumn days pull 
much reflection - 
a flight of swallows. 

[Oct 21, 2013 - shortly after this haiku was written, i received a call to inform me that my good friend, teacher and mentor, peter roosen-runge had died. so much more to reflect on now]

in canada day...

as I watch
flag and the leaf
in the July wind
dances a little
jig

[1/07/13 - oz]

unlock and keep or lock and lose

today, rogers decided to decline my request to unlock an iphone I have in my account. Their reason: their "policy" states that IMEI number should be associated with an account for 90 days. But that is a laughable comic book policy that has nothing whatsoever to do with the service you are already paying for that phone. When you bought your used phone, did you remember to register its IMEI number with your carrier? Wait, your carrier already knows all about that phone, doesn't it. So what does this "policy" really mean?

Here are the relevant passages from the recent CRTC decision.

"164. The Commission therefore considers that WSPs should make an unlocking service available to customers who have been subscribed to their services for 90 days, at a rate specified in the contract and Critical Information Summary.

165. The Commission also considers that unsubsidized devices, which are fully paid for, should be unlocked immediately upon request, given that the risk of subscription fraud is not relevant in these circumstances." 

What part of these passages rogers failed to comprehend?

I told the apologetic customer retention specialist that this will cost rogers. I know he understood. I doubt rogers does.

[update: after I escalated the issue to the management, with the intention to write letter to the office of the president, and CRTC, unlock request was granted. the damage is done: the phone flew overseas without unlock.]

on practice

practice can make
the wrong thing
you practiced
perfectly
wrong.

[oz/2013]

important books of twenty-twelve

Here are some of the most interesting and important books from this year. they may or may not be the "best" of the year, but by my lights, they are better "pickings" for your brain than found elsewhere. i can do quote-mining and tell you how singularly brilliant and seminal these are, but never mind. in all seriousness: quality varies from good to excellent to brilliant. some books, like harlan ellison's bugf#ck seem to have too little in them. [how anyone can come up with a tiny volume of ellison quotes is a puzzle] some, like neal stephenson's some remarks seem to have too much. [he stumbles through leibniz's monadology with literacy and grace. really.]

so here is the first batch. ben goldacre's bad pharma is not officially out in canada until the new year, but came out in england months ago. what causes the delay in publication? not sure, maybe editing required. fitzpatrick & collins-sussman's team geek and coleman's coding freedom are two exceptional books on software development. martin's there are two errors in the title of this book is now the third edition of a rich and entertaining book on philosophical puzzles and paradoxes. plotnik's elements of expression is in its second edition of expressiveness.

second batch is more essential non-fiction and fiction. i did not have enough room to pile all the good books in various genres i read. nate silver's the signal and the noise is getting some mixed reviews from specialists, and i feel it is deserved: it delivers some noise with its signal. mooney's republican brain is a disturbing read. that book in the middle? katz's information design - possibly the smartest book i have seen on the topic since tufte's four volumes, which it displaces quite neatly. [surely "brainpickings" could have had enough clue to pick this for one of its top ten "best" lists] two other books in this group really stand out: macintyre's double cross and taleb's antifragile - deep and rewarding books by two exceptional authors.

this last batch is an art batch, but more about photography. i have other good to exceptional books in this category but i thought they deserve a separate blog entry some other time. rocky nook has been publishing some important books on photography, and no surprise that four books on that table are theirs. tone poems are astonishing, as expected. last but not least, stillman's looking at ansel adams is an essential read for a photographer. 

enjoy.

seven principles of explanatory coherence

paul thagard have been working on a set of principles and computational models of explanatory coherence since late eighties. recently he applied these principles to belief revision about global warming. It helps explain the increasing adoption of the hypothesis that global warming is caused by human activities.

• Principle 1. Symmetry. Explanatory coherence is a symmetric relation, unlike, say, conditional probability. That is, two propositions p and q cohere with each other equally.
• Principle 2. Explanation. (a) A hypothesis coheres with what it explains, which can either be evidence or another hypothesis; (b) hypotheses that together explain some other proposition cohere with each other; and (c) the more hypotheses it takes to explain something, the lower the degree of coherence.
• Principle 3. Analogy. Similar hypotheses that explain similar pieces of evidence cohere.
• Principle 4. Data priority. Propositions that describe the results of observations have a degree of acceptability on their own.
• Principle 5. Contradiction. Contradictory propositions are incoherent with each other.
• Principle 6. Competition. If P and Q both explain a proposition, and if P and Q are not explanatorily connected, then P and Q are incoherent with each other. (P and Q are explanatorily connected if one explains the other or if together they explain something.)
• Principle 7. Acceptance. The acceptability of a proposition in a system of propositions depends on its coherence with them.

Reading: Paul Thagard and Scott Findlay, "Changing Minds About Climate Change: Belief Revision, Coherence, and Emotion"
2011.