… is the refrain of the Complaints Choir of Helsinki. They celebrate those little things in life whose capacity to irritate is in inverse proportion to their size.
(hat tip to Andrew Brown in today’s Guardian)
Year: 2006
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The Unsynthesised Manifold
Hands up those of you who know that the unsynthesised manifold is a concept from Kantian philosophy? According to Professor Germaine Greer, if you read the Guardian, you should have had your hand in the air. Apparently, professor Greer wrote the following in a Guardian article in October:"The first attribute of the art object is that it creates a discontinuity between itself and the unsynthesised manifold."As a result, she has been awarded a Golden Bull award by the Plain English Campaign, who clearly felt that Professor Greer’s pronouncement was, shall we say, less than crystal clear English language.However, Germaine protests:Most reasonably educated Guardian readers would, I faintly hope, have recognised the phrase "unsynthesised manifold" as an English version of a basic concept in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment, first published in English in 1790 and familiarised in Britain by the work of Coleridge and just about anybody else who writes about aesthetic theory. The expression endures because in more than 200 years no one has found a better way of rendering the idea, although its content continues to evolve with changes in our understanding of brain function and the mechanics of perception.Erm, sorry Germaine, I failed the test. I am a Guardian reader, and I consider myself somewhat educated, but "manifold" to me usually carries connotations with exhausts and engines. I did science, not aesthetics, at school and university. I trust that this does not make me a bad person… -
Changing Seasons
Winter is fast approaching. The walk to the woods has changed from what it was in July, to now…
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Corporate Queer
A good article from Fortune on how corporate America is recognising that gay employees want the same things as their straight colleagues. That is, an environment where the full potential of people, regardless of sexual orientation, is realised and one which fosters their personal and professional development. -
Joining The Club
Great news that South Africa has joined the small group of other countries where same-sex marriage is recognised.And in associated news from South Africa, it appears that at long last the idiocy of the Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with her worthless treatments for AIDS, and the denial of Prime Minister Mbeki of the link between HIV and AIDS, are being overcome. Not before time, but too late for the 2 million people in South Africa who have already died of AIDS. -
Women, Know Your Limits
Nina Paley reminds me of the faux-public service announcement film done by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. I find Enfield to be an acquired taste, but I laughed like a drain at this sketch. It rings so horribly true as an insight into the male mentality of not too long ago. And, dare I say it, probably not too far removed from what some men still think now. -
War Photographer
Geoff Manaugh, over at BLDBLOG, has a long and interesting interview with the photographer Simon Norfolk. In a way, Norfolk is a war photopgrapher, but the conflicts that he photographs are etched in landscapes and architecture. Worth reading and looking at (and thinking about) his striking images. -
In A Nutshell
Richard Norman is a humanist philosopher. He is interviewed by Nigel Warburton in the Virtual Philosopher blog. Norman is asked why he rejects the idea that God exists. His reply is a paragon of clarity:I believe that the onus is on those who believe in the existence of a god to provide reasons for that belief. (This is a point which the philosopher Antony Flew has well made.) I can’t prove that there is no god, but in the absence of good reasons for believing that a god exists, I live my life without belief in a god. In particular, the success of scientific explanations of the natural world makes religious explanations redundant. It’s in that sense that there is a tension between science and religion. The two are not logically incompatible, but the more we succeed in discovering well-founded scientific explanations of the origins of the cosmos, the origins of living species, and so on, the more the explanations in terms of a divine creator become redundant. They add nothing.I could not hope to put it better myself. This is exactly my position. -
What The World Eats
David Ng, over at The World’s Fair blog has an entry on an interesting looking book: Hungry Planet. It’s a photo-essay of the authors’ visit to 30 families in 24 countries for a total of 600 meals. The striking thing are the photos that compare what each family eats in a week. The western obsession with packaged and processed food (and the quantities thereof) was never more tellingly conveyed. A book for the "nice-to-have" wishlist, I think.
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The Antikythera Mechanism
Alun, over at his Archaeoastronomy blog, comments on the news that a team of scientists appear to have unravelled the workings and purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism. It’s a remarkable relic, and an interesting story. -
Management Madness
In large organisations, it often seems that more time is spent in trying to manage things than in actually doing productive work. Moishe Lettvin provides a good example when he describes his time working on Microsoft’s Vista operating system. He worked on a team that was responsible, amongst other things, for the design and implementation of Vista’s shutdown menu. As he says, the implementation took a couple of hundred lines of code. But he found himself interacting with 42 other people in the attempt to design and implement the feature. Madness. It’s a miracle that Vista ever made it out of the doors of Microsoft at all. -
In Gods We Trust
While watching the Beyond Belief videos, there were a couple of occasions when Scott Atran took the floor. The first time was when he delivered a strong attack on what, up until that point, had been presented in the conference. I had not heard of Atran before. I came across this interview with him that gives some background. I’ve also ordered a copy of his book: In Gods We Trust. I’m intrigued to learn more about his views. -
Father Neil
I mentioned the other day how impressed I was by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I’ve now watched one of the final sessions from Beyond Belief. I now understand why he was called Father Neil in the conference. He is an absolutely brilliant communicator. Bravo. Watch the session and pick it up from about one hour one minute in. Mind you, he is proceeded by V.S. Ramachandran, who is damn good as well, but Tyson takes the sense of awe to a whole other level. -
Cotard’s Delusion
The White Queen, in Alice Through The Looking Glass, claimed to be able to believe in six impossible things before breakfast. If quality, not quantity, is the measure, then Cotard’s Delusion must score pretty highly on the "impossible things" scale. This is the strong, unshakeable belief held by the sufferer that he or she is, in fact, dead. Mind Hacks draws our attention to a good article in the FT about the condition. -
Getting Worse
A depressing report in today’s Guardian from Natasha Walter about the position of women in today’s Afghanistan. It would seem that the euphoria felt after the fall of the Taliban is turning out to be a false dawn. The Taliban are regrouping and, along with that, the lives of women who dare to seek out education are at risk. -
Getting The Message Across
I’m currently watching the series of videos made of the Beyond Belief conference. Session 3 had a rather nervous and hesitant presentation by Professor Joan Roughgarden, which caused something very interesting to happen. Richard Dawkins was asked to respond off the cuff to what he had just heard. He did so in his usual "take-no-prisoners" approach, and the body language of Roughgarden displayed very clearly her level of discomfort, and I would infer, her feeling of being under personal attack from Dawkins.Later in the session, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson comments on his own reactions to Dawkins’ speech. Tyson was seated at the back of the room, and he was also able to observe the reactions of the audience. Tyson observes that Dawkins’ "commentary has a sharpness of teeth" that he did not expect and "I felt you more than I heard you". I have to say that I had a similar reaction. He makes the very good point that Dawkins is "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, not the Professor for Delivering Truth to the Public." I think Tyson is on to something here, though it pains me to say it. I sometimes think that our American friends go too far towards "respecting sensitivities", and spend endless hours treading on imagined eggshells, but I do agree with Tyson that the manner of saying can help enormously with the reception of the message. I just feel more aligned with Dawkins at the "blunt speaking" end of the spectrum.Tyson’s comments have been extracted from the complete video of session 3, and are shown in a shortened video here. Dawkins, to his credit, accepts the rebuke, but can’t resist an impish anecdote to show that he is not the worst practitioner of the take-no-prisoners approach.This is the first time that I’ve seen Tyson, and I must say I am impressed at his capabilities as a communicator. Another attendee refers to him as "Father Neil", and there is something about his manner of delivery that reminds me of a good old-fashioned preacher, albeit one without the fire and brimstone, but filled with the ability to extol the wonders of a most marvellous universe. -
Loony Zunes
Thus far, I’ve successfully avoided the siren song of the Apple iPod and not bought one. And I fully intend to keep it that way. Now, of course, Microsoft has arrived in the same market space with its Zune device. I was asked by a friend recently, knowing of my love/hate relationship with all things Microsoft, whether I would be buying myself a Zune. My instant gut reaction was to classify it in the "hate" camp. Now I’m pleased to see that I will be able to quote evidence to back up my initial intuition, courtesy of Andy Ihnatko’s review of the Zune in the Chicago Sun-Times. -
The Periodic Table
I’ve placed this under the category of Art, since it goes a step beyond mere Science. -
Big Brother
It transpires that here, in the Netherlands, Big Brother is not only watching you, but listening to you as well.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 