Odometer Reading

It was a shocker, the Herald-Leader ran my letter pretty much as is, including the cheap shot at our guvnur. Only one dumbass reply. It might be because they ran it on Sunday, where they have a full page of letters.

Biked the last two weeks. It's a pain to reset the odometer on the bike, so I need to record the start point for the year: 657 miles. I thought I had done more than that last year, I guess not.

I biked with my wife the last two weeks. Our oldest daughter sent her a mountain bike she wasn't using, it really has trouble keeping up with my 13 pound road bike. 1st week, did 16 miles in 1h40m, this week 16.5 miles in 1h35m. Under 10 mph, I normally average 12-13. Need to get her a road bike.

Wednesday night jams at the Good Times Lounge have been going really well. Lindsay Olive didn't play last week (nor did the other unbelievable guitarist, David Ponder). I brought my amp to replace Lindsay's, so had to stay until 11:30 to get my amp back. Didn't get to sleep until 1:30, seriously dragging Thursday.

I got drafted to sing lead when they had a group up with no singer: "Little Red Rooster", "Move It On Over", and "Stormy Monday". I changed the line in "Stormy Monday":

Sunday I’ll go to church, and I fall on my knees and pray

to:

Sunday I don't go to church. There ain't no god, why should I pray?

Doing my part for atheism. I do have trouble singing theistic lyrics tho.

A country guy showed, did an upbeat Merle Haggard and "Folsom Prison Blues", but also did "Good-hearted Woman" and "Can't You See" and I sang the harmony -- both great harmony parts. I still prefer 1st harmony to singing lead -- but, I'm afraid I'm becoming a real blues singer, I can growl with the best of them. George Carlin says, no one white should sing or play the blues, too bad. I decided 6 months ago that I would take the playing as an emotional outlet, so I'm putting a lot of emotion into my singing and playing, I think it's working.

Reading stacks seriously backed up, spending too much time practicing guitar. I think of a song that would work at the jam, google the lyrics, print it out, take it downstairs and work the song out, write the key on the lyrics sheet. Up to about 20 sheets now, I'm smelling a band ;->

Letter to the Editor redux

Well, I swore off letters to the editor (in this very blog) after they butchered the one I sent them, but I'm trying again. Too good an opportunity to try to poke a stick in the eye of our fucking dumbass (and a bad dumbass, not a good one) governor.

Letter to the Editor:

I enjoyed the article "Genetic code isn't perfect, after all" in the April 6 "Frontiers" section. It reminded me of the excellent book "Genome", by Matt Ridley, that I read a couple of years ago. Both touch on the fact that the genome itself is composed of genes and even smaller DNA sequences that reproduce with imperfect replication under environmental pressure, i.e., undergo evolution. The article and the book both show the beauty and, more importantly, the explanatory power of evolutionary biology. All that is required to create the chaotic complexity of the genome, or of all of life on earth, or of the human mind, is imperfect replication under pressure to survive (and billions of years).

This is why it is so saddening and discouraging when our governor proclaims that intelligent design (ID), which has no scientific beauty and absolutely no explanatory power, is a "self-evident truth". No one with any scientific training would ever utter such words. In science, everything is a theory -- but there are good theories and bad theories, and all theories are constantly tested by observation and experiment.

Evolution is one of the best and greatest theories of science -- generally placed in the top four, with relativity, standard particle theory, and quantum mechanics -- while ID is one of the worst, ignored by 99.9% of scientists.

I guess, though, that we can at least be thankful that our governor no longer practices medicine.

It's All Out There

One thing I have been trying to remember to do for the last year or so is the following: anytime I am wondering about anything or don't know the answer to something, google it. It's amazing to me how I still sometimes go days or weeks, thinking "I wonder ..." about something -- then I remember to google it and the answer's there. Only one failure that I can think of: trying to find out the percentage of Indian computer science grad school graduates who return to India vs stay in the US.

Had a great google moment the other night. Somebody told me I should play "Hard Times", by Ray Charles, at the blues jam. So, I was listening to it on my iTunes and was going to play along on the classical guitar and found the guitar was way out of tune. So googled "e note", fifth entry, under "e note guitar", was this site. Sure enough, click the note for each string and it plays. Being the luddite I am, I saved the MP3 files to my desktop. So now I can just click and tune! Ain't technology great!

Blah, blah, blah

What more can I say? Just finished "Code Reading" by Diomidis Spinellis. This book got good reviews, somewhat disappointing. Probably a good review for a young developer. I was reading it as one of my Q1 goals, I'm going to see if I can not get "Read and present a development book" the next quarter. I think about work too much as it is, and reading a development book for the last 3 weeks definitely didn't help.

I got a new position at the start of the year, and it has been working out well. For 5 years I was VP of Software Development. I started with development, QA, information development (tech writers), and IT, had 25 reports at the peak, got down to just having development, which grew to 17 direct and 3 indirect reports. I am now Executive Software Architect -- an official loose cannon, no one reporting to me. I am back in the code 70-80% of the time, doing the systems rationalizer thing, refactoring, modularizing and cleaning up dependencies. But, the code seems to really have an affinity for my brain -- likes to get in there and take over.

Got a new guitar amp -- a Fender Blues Jr. Took 2 tries, 1st one came in with inoperative reverb, 2nd one works great. Very nice sound, and 1/3 the weight of my Super Reverb, have amp will travel.

But, American Legion Monday Blues Jam is defunct, the volume was interfering with the bingo upstairs -- no joke, damn philistines. Lindsey Olive and some other guys put together a Wednesday jam at the former Lynagh's on Woodland, now "The Good Time Lounge" I think. I went to the 1st one last week, a ton of people, only got to play a couple of songs. Skipped this week, my wife works 2nd shift on Thursday, so Wednesday night is a slightly virtual Friday (she works so much you have to take what you can get). I'll go back this week tho, try to make some contacts for people to play with.

I was going to mention re Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" that he trots out the "brights" name for non-religious people. This came out in the secular humanist movement about a year ago, a term for rational, secular thinkers without the negative connotations of atheist. "Brights" totally doesn't work for me. I tell people that I am proud to be a flaming atheist, and I will continue to do so.

Still haven't decided how to move ahead after basically concluding that the human mind, language, and music have all evolved by sexual selection. Not sure where to go now. I have been thinking for retirement I would look for an open source AI project to work on. I should get in touch with the young guy who worked for me who was doing some interesting natural language stuff. I think my point is, I think I may have learned as much as there is to learn about mind at the high levels, may as well just start trying to build one.

My wife and I hadn't seen any movies for a while, so we binged a little. First saw "The Constant Gardener", a little to british; then "Flightplan", what a totally contrived plot; then "Redeye", the other airplane movie, worked better than Flightplan and came in at 75 minutes (movies are less disappointing when they're short). Saw "Syriana", re, US foreign policy sucks, a little dry and slow but well done, then "Lord of War", re, US foreign policy sucks. The movie we liked best was "Four Brothers" -- unpretentious, the guys came across as brothers, and a great sound track.

The Blog and Winding Road

So, no entries in February. Mostly due to wanting to finish the serious book I started on the way home from our most excellent vacation the week of Valentine's Day to Grand Case, St. Martin, FWI. We stayed once again at the Grand Case Beach Club. It is so cool that my wife and I both really like St. Martin. From the beach club it's a 2 block walk to Boulevard of Grand Case, billed as "The Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean" -- 8-9 blocks of restaurants (mostly French), little shops, with a few houses (one complete with chicken coops). You cannot get a bad meal there. If you get tapped out from paying $100-150 for dinner at the French places, you can eat at the LoLo -- six little outdoor restaurants where they are grilling ribs, chicken, fish, lobster and serving sides bought from home: slaw, potato salad, baked squash, red beans & rice, spaghetti, salad, conch chowder. The last one we ate at, a big pile of ribs with all the sides was $7. The same with a chicken leg/thigh was $6. Rum and coke for $2.50.

The last time we were there, I couldn't figure out why most places would take cash dollars for euros. I think I get it now. It's a French island, so the official currency has to be euros, but it looks like the unofficial currency is dollars. About 1/3 of the tourists there are French, I asked if that didn't piss them off -- no, I was told, they change their euros for dollars.

My wife got to water-ski twice -- "Incredible" was the driver's comment. She also found a "professional" ski rope handle, wide enough for her to put her head through -- oh boy, more tricks. We saw Pierre, who drove her two years ago. He had his own business now, the "Leisure Master", renting boats, cruises, diving, etc.

We also took the ferry to Anguilla -- didn't like it much, it had that poor, British island feel about it. Our cab driver gave us a tour of one of the five star hotels there (Cuisinart), pretty posh I guess. But, my wife and I discussed a few times, how many of the people we know wouldn't enjoy Grand Case -- too many rough edges, not enough like Disneyland. But, to us, it's a real place. All the French wastrels hanging around reinforce it, the French invented wastreling.

We also took the big catamaran over to St. Barts, walked around Gustavia a bit, taxi-toured the island. Very chi-chi, I guess, if you want to go the Caribbean to shop at Tiffany's. It's still St. Martin for us. Talking to the captain of the catamaran, who had sailed it over from France (24 days, 3 with storms, his 13th Atlantic crossing), about favoring reality over american hyperreality -- "I don't need to go to Paris, I went there in Las Vegas". He said he thought that sailing across the ocean was about the most freedom you could find now -- nobody else's programs to follow.

Interesting, the boat trip was 2 hours each way over fairly open sea. 3 of the passengers (all French but us and 1 other) were badly seasick the whole way there. That evening I was getting some landsickness -- uh-oh. But, I would close my eyes, picture the boat on rough seas and then sailing into perfectly calm seas -- and the landsickness would go away. Oooh, mind over matter! Maybe I can try another cruise after all, test my new superpower when we get back.

We also went to Ile Pinel, swimming distance from Cul-de-Sac in the northeast corner of St. Martin. 40 yards off the beach, water waist deep. Nice trails, you can pretty much hike the whole island.

Reading on the trip:

• "The Cobweb", by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederic George. Originally published under the pseudonym Stephen Bury in 1996. Weird read, given current events, about Iraqi grad students implementing the Iraqi biological weapons in the US midwest around the gulf war. Stephenson's dialogue is as snappy as ever, very enjoyable, 4 stars. Next out from them: "Interface" -- I have "Interface", by Stephen Bury, on my to-read shelf, woo-ha! My friend David gave it to me 7-8 years ago, I guess it's time to read it.
• "Polaris", by Jack McDevitt. A good mystery, not his normal astro-archeology, a nice read, but I figured out the ending 2/3 of the way through. 3 stars.
• "Blind Waves", by Steven Gould. I missed this somehow, had to buy used. A good vacation read, not quite as charming as "Jumper" and his others, 3 stars.
• "The Translator", by John Crowley. Very nice, about an expatriate Russian poet and the female college student who translates some of his poetry, set in the early '60s. Crowley's hidden worlds, worlds within worlds, are there nicely. Very interesting, per the book you can never translate a poem. Too many idioms, double meanings, puns get lost. What you are doing is creating a new poem based on the original -- if you are lucky. My wife ran out of books to read, she has been reading it and enjoying it as well. 4 stars.
• Finally, my serious book (so I wouldn't run out of reading on the trip home): "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon", Daniel Dennett's latest. Dennett used to be annoying by putting on his Professional Philosopher's hat and spending lots of words explaining why he is right and all his philosopher colleagues are wrong. In this one, he is annoying by addressing an imaginary religous reader and challenging them to question the assumptions of their faith -- yeah, right. It takes a very memetic approach to the subject, traces the development of the modern religious packages from early folk religions, and talks about various aspects of the religion memeplex, such as belief in belief, and the "you can't discuss this stuff, particularly if you're not religious" meme. All in all, somewhat disappointing. He comments positively on "Religion Explained" by Boyer that I have on my to-read shelf, I'll have to get around to that one. 3 stars.

Went to the wedding of a young coworker yesterday. Scripture reading talked about a braid of three strands being stronger than a braid of 1 or 2. I must have zoned out and missed some stuff, I was thinking "Whoa, what's up, who's the 3rd person, kinky stuff up?", then figured out the 3rd strand was god. Then at the end the minister says, "Jerry McGuire was wrong when he said 'you complete me' -- god completes you both." Seriously annoying shit. I really enjoyed the talk of the minister at my son's wedding (on the Radisson Niagara Falls package -- we were lucky to get to attend). I guess my son and his wife picked the non-religious ceremony. The minister (from Ghana, great James Earl Jones voice) talked for 10 minutes about the problems of maintaining a lifetime relationship, practical things about support, love, sharing hopes and dreams. It was very inspiring and uplifting -- and no trying to figure out how to shoehorn god in there somewhere. "The love of a man and a wife is like the love of jebus for his church" -- what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

I've really been enjoying the Astronomy Picture of the Day site I blogged earlier. There are so many great pictures out there of stuff we only had blurry images of when I was an astrophysicist 30 years. Google images is crazy, I looked for NGC 1275, one of my favorite galaxies, and got 203 hits. Really cool pictures, there's a spiral in the middle of that mess!

Haven't listened to much new music lately. I have a half dozen or so e-mails in my inbox (my todo list) with recommendations, have to start checking some out.

Impulse bought a Fender Blues Junior amp from music123.com (free shipping and a free guitar stand, who could resist) to help further my musical "career" at the Legion -- woo-haa. Really nice sound, but had to send it back, the reverb was totally inoperative. I didn't even know it had reverb, but still, for $400, you want all the features working. Hopefully it won't take too long to get the replacement.

Memory

I was thinking about the folk wisdom that we somewhere remember everything, and that we can recall it all under hypnosis. Seems to me to be definitely an old wive's tale. Short term memory is in the front of the brain, long term memories are formed in the back. It's well known that trauma can prevent the transfer from short to long term memory -- hence accident victims commonly don't remember much about their accidents. It also seems like we can't be remembering repetitive stuff, like the details of getting in the shower every morning, or, even worse, the activity of someone on an assembly line. Seems like the brain would reject the duplicate memory, or overlay or reinforce the preexisting one.

Finished my 5th library book (turned in 2 days overdue), Frederik Pohl's "The Boy Who Would Live Forever". It's a return to his Gateway/HeeChee stories, very meandering (new characters introduced over halfway through). I kind of like the meandering stuff, more realistic and life-like. I remember Bruce Sterling's "Schismatrix" was one of the 1st books that struck me that way.

Frederik Pohl has been producing nice works of sci-fi for decades now. I remember his novel "Jem" as being one of the most cynical novels I ever read.

My wife worked both days last weekend so I caught up on my comic book movies. Watched "Fantastic Four" and "Batman Begins". Both well done, #13 and #8 in box office last year (ain't the web great) so they will probably be back. Still, best comic book movies to date have been X-Men 2 and Spiderman 2 (and maybe Superman 2 -- hmm, maybe a pattern?)

Finally seem to have digested all the music I got late last year, ready for more. Downloaded "More Shine" by Si*Se, who was a iTunes free song. Listenable world beat (actually fairly western), 3 stars.

Cooking a pot of 15 bean soup, time to stir. Have to miss the blues jam tomorrow night for a business dinner. Only got to play around 1/2 hour last week. My chops are definitely getting better, the speed of both my hands is improving.

Pretty Pictures

My baby sister sent me the link to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. The pictures are beautiful, some great Hubble shots. So far I have downloaded 3 and made them my wallpaper. My wife commented on how pretty the shot of M101, the Sombrero Galaxy, was -- this has always been a favorite of mine. When I was a kid, "The Outer Limits" used to show pictures of galaxies behind their credits, I'm sure M101 was one of them.

Looking at M101, you see the beautiful diffuse halo of stars. It's so amazing to see this mist and realize every spec is a star. I was thinking, those would be nice places to live, placid (no supernovas or spiral waves passing through), with a beautiful view of the galactic disk. Then I realized, these are all Population II stars -- formed from the initial primordial hydrogen and helium. So, no metals, no life as we know it. Life-bearing planets are most likely confined to Population I stars in spiral arms. These stars and their planetary disks include the material from supernovae, which is everything heavier than around nitrogen. "We are made of stars" -- the iron in our blood is only formed in supernovae. So, no life if it's too peaceful -- it seems only fitting.

Finished the 4th library book, Nancy Kress "Crucible". This was the sequel to "Crossfire", which I think I somewhat panned. This one, I just wanted it to be over.

Before that, read the 3rd of Walter Jon William's "Dread Empire's Fall" series, "Conventions of War". Hopefully this trilogy is done. Readable, but, why?

I have now been 4 times to play at the Monday Night Blues Jam Session at -- the American Legion. It's really fun -- ""Blueberry Hill" in G -- got it; "Knock on Wood" in D -- got it. The last 2 times, I got to play most of the lead guitar. I have improved greatly, still a long way to go. Still, it really resonates to do this. I remember that I was a professional musician -- I keep it sparse and simple, I will do more as my chops come back. There has normally been 6-10 musicians (drums, bass, keyboard, 3-4 guitarists), and maybe 10 people there. This past Monday, there were a couple dozen specators, and there was a good harp player who I've seen around Lexington before; a great black keyboardist / lead singer; and an outlaw guitarist / Johnny Cash type who was wild. Nobody knew any of the chords to the 2 songs he did (but we figured them out). My wife went and we danced to one when I was sitting out. She enjoyed it OK but it's a smoking place (woo-haa), and her eyes were burning. Still, I got to play the better part of an hour and a half.

Another milestone Monday: there was a guitarist there whom I was better than! Up to that, the other guitarists had seriously more chops than me. Dave Brown Sr (dad of my son's business partner), who got me to come, is an excellent player, and there's a guy Lindsay Olive who is unbelievable -- totally fluid. He has mostly played bass the last 2 weeks.

So, it's been really fun. The songs we play I don't know well, I come home and practice the chords. I'm playing 3-5 times a week, both my hands are getting a lot stronger.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: Jebus Says It's OK To Bite Your Enemy's Face Off

Wanted to see "King Kong" or "Memoirs of a Geisha", but no 7:30-8:30 playtimes. So, we went to see "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". I read the books around 30 years ago, OK but certainly not Tolkien. Anyway, at 2h12m, the movie went by fairly quickly given that it was relatively boring. Lately, I seem to have a problem with fantasy when it is entirely of an arbitrary nature -- like "what are they going to pull out of their ass next?" I think you have to stay very close to the archetypes for a fantasy to work. I think, tho, even worse, is when it is fantasy with a subtext, particularly when the subtext is christianity.

It is well known that C.S.Lewis was a christian apologist, and that Aslan is indeed supposed to be a jebus figure. *** SPOILER ALERT *** But, in a fantasy context, what a load of crap. The movie is full of Greco-roman mythological creatures, all of which christianity seriously suppressed. My favorite was the ending tho, where Aslan (off-camera of course) bites the face off of the White Witch. Which gospel is that in?

It was amazing tho. No show times for King Kong, and this thing was playing on 2 screens, and the theater was full -- of dumbass christians, sent by their preachers to enjoy the christian values of this "wonderful" movie. Fucking shit, these morons will apparently believe anything that anybody tells or even suggests to them. They started out the movie laughing aloud at not particularly funny stuff, and ended it with "Wasn't that just wonderful?", "Oh yes, wonderful.". Grrr. I'd say a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but I think that sometimes, when you raise people to believe instead of think, that not much in the way of a mind ever develops.

My friend David sent me this link to some great atheist t-shirts. I have to pick out a few and start wearing them to the Fayette Mall on Sunday.

Been on a science fiction binge since finishing "Meta-Math!". Read a collection of short stories by John Crowley, "Novelties & Souvenirs". These are nice stories, an extended time travel one "The Great Work of Time" is very nice. Crowley writes very well, i.e., almost serious literature. His early novels "Engine Summer", "Beasts", "The Deep", and "Little, Big" are most excellent. He hits the archetypes hard -- a very nice recursive turn in that they tend to be fairy tales where at some point the characters begin to realize that they're in a fairy tale. His newer novels, "Aegypt" and "Daemonomania" are very well written, but don't have the charm of his earlier stuff.

Then hit my excellent local library where I have not been in months. Interesting, "No Cell Phone" signs up. Picked up 5 sci-fi novels. First read one of Octavia Butler's early short novels that I seem to have missed somehow, "Survivor". Very nice read. I really liked how her first 5 or so novels had 2-4 intertwining themes, but done in a way such that you can read them all standalone. Her 3 Xenogenesis novels were very good, and her newer stuff is also very readable.

Then read Greg Bear's latest, "Dead Lines". So, as previously blogged, after having one character experience god in "Darwin's Children", now we have a life-after-death novel. I was wondering, is he just getting old -- checked, he's 2 months younger than I am -- so he's definitely getting old. Well, he has a new one out, "Quantico", we'll see if it has creeping supernaturalism in it as well.

Just finished yesterday "Reflex", by Steven Gould". This is the sequel to his 1st novel "Jumper", which I loved. It reminded me of a book I would have loved when I was 12-15 and 1st reading escapist literature heavily. Plus, the main character's superpower, teleportation, is reminiscent of Gully Foyle in "The Stars My Destination" (still no apparent progress on Russell Crowe playing Gully Foyle). Anyway, "Reflex" is a totally pleasant read, I was sorry when it was over. Gould's other novels, "Wildside" and "Helm" are also great reads, they do the same thing, somehow make me feel like I'm a teenager again.

Made a fire in the fireplace yesterday, 1st time in probably 15 years. Only 4 seasoned small logs, kept it going around 2.5 hours. Tending a fire is great stuff, I love the smell and the feel of it. When I'm biking and I smell woodsmoke, it really slaps my mind -- million year old circuits kicking in.

It's like walking in the dark. I have gotten to really enjoy that in the summer, it really wakes up your senses and your old, old brain -- you're back to being a primate who knew that there were lots of things in the dark that wouldn't mind eating you, better be alert. Like the time I was hiking in the Saguaro National Monument east of Tucson and Mr. Rattlesnake rattled "hello" from 18 inches away -- I was definitely more awake and alive for the next hour of the hike.

Time for lunch, then see if I can get a load of firewood delivered. High in the 50's today, but we should have some more cold weather before the winter's over, I am looking forward to more of the fire thing.

Theories are Compression Algorithms

Finished reading "Meta Math!" by Gregory Chaitin. A short (151 p plus appendices) and easy read. Basically, it's about the philosophy of math, following Godel and Turing. The main point is: all theories are about compressing information. A theory that has to detail all its results is not much of a theory. Similarly, DNA is a compression of an organism, axioms are a compression of the theorems you can prove from them.

Lots of interesting examples of this, always shown as input, processor, output:

• encoded message -> Decoder -> original message (per Shannon and information theory)
• scientific theory -> Calculations -> experimental data (the scientific method)
• program -> Computer -> output (AIT, Algebraic Information Theory)
• DNA -> Embryogenesis/Development -> organism (molecular biology)
• axioms -> Deductions -> theorems (FAS, Formal Axiomatic System)
• TOE (Theory of Everything) -> Calculations -> universe (physics)
• ideas -> Mind of God -> the world (Liebniz)

A lot of his stuff he ideas he traces back to Leibniz (who we enjoyed so much in Stephenson's Quicksilver novels) in the late 17th century. Also very interesting, a semi-proposal to do away with real numbers??? Basically, real numbers (the continuum) are transcendental (not algebraic, the solution of a polynomial equation), uncomputable, random and unnameable with probability 1. Plus they give physics fits and lead to attempts to get around the difficulties such as string theory.

Also interesting discussion of randomness, per Borel. You cannot formally define maximum randomness! Any definition limits the randomness of what you define, making it not maximally random?!?!?

Numerous references to Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". Interesting that he supports the concept of mathematics as an empirical science. The intractablilty of the real numbers indicates, you just have to get out there and explore?!?!?

The subtitle of the book is "The Quest for Omega". Chaitin's main claim to fame is that he defined the Omega number: the probability that a program of n bits will halt.

For xmas, got a 10 million candle power spotlight from my father-in-law, the king of over-the-top gifts. 91 years old and still with 95%+ of his wits about him. Also got from my oldest daughter "Ratatat", eponymous, kind of ambient trancy stuff, 2 stars, and Bloc Party, "Silent Alarm", nice peppy alterna-rock, 3 stars.

I am moving ahead in moving more 3 star songs to 2 stars. When I first got iTunes, I was thinking about how many better query front-ends I had written than its smart playlists. The star classification system is chafing me too. Maybe hack iTunes, or write my own music librarian?

Movie-wise, watched "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", fun; "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", more enjoyable than I expected; and "The Island", also more fun than I expected. In "The Island", tho, as with lots of pop culture, bad science is a little troubling. *** Spoiler Alert *** That clones could start to recall their original's memory has precedent in sci-fi, and what the heck, it's just entertainment, right? But, that they could not grow clones for organs and have the organs be healthy without allowing the clones to develop consciousness -- it's one of those things that could lead people to subconsciously oppose cloning -- for no good reason (not that there may not be good reasons).

The Greg Egan short story collections (last blog) had a few stories expressing his fear and mistrust of wishful, spiritualist thinking. Entertainment is good, but, for how many people is this what actually forms their opinions? Back to, need to make everybody smarter. Well, I have read, I don't remember where, that IQs are going up -- although I have seen far more stories on the ignorance of current high school graduates and college students. Still, the metacortex (ala Stross) seems to be growing individually and collectively, I think we may get there.

Short Stories

After Charles Stross's "Toast", read two short story collections by Greg Egan, "Axiomatic" and "Lumiinous". The short story is a great format for sci fi, an author can explore an odd idea without wasting too much of his or the reader's time. Egan has some great stories. His physics and computer science are top notch. He seems to have gone dark tho. Per his website, he hasn't written a story since 2002. He has become active in Australian immigration rights and apparently hard physics. Maybe he's moved on past sci fi -- too bad for us readers, but, best wishes?

Re short stories, listening to "Alien Lanes" by Guided By Voices. I got this from a coworker who is I believe the world's expert on garage bands. GBV is from Dayton, OH and recently broke up. The album has 28 tracks, timings from 0:18 to 2:56. 7 of the tracks are under a minute, another 15 are under 2 minutes. Short attention span music?

Other CDs I got from this guy are:

• "Decoration Day", Drive By Truckers. Southern Rock (now a genre in my iTunes), decent, lead singer's voice not the strongest.
• "1965", Afghan Whigs. Decent tunes.
• "Emergency & I", The Dismemberment Plan. ditto.
• "Mack Avenue Skullgame", Big Chief. A movie soundtrack without a movie. Nice funky grooves. I don't have a Funky genre, I need to think about adding one.

Also got "Apologies To Queen Mary", Wolf Parade, from a young coworker. Nicely odd.

All of these are 3 stars. I am getting too much 3 star music. I may delete my 1 star, move the little in 2 star down to 1 star, and start splitting the 3 stars into 3 and 2. Apparently I have missed my true calling -- to be a librarian. I offered to organize the vast quantities of pharmacy materials my wife has. I recently reorged my browser bookmarks, came up with a new system I like. I do the same on an ongoing basis with my iTunes. So much information, how to keep track of it all. Google model, just search for it, doesn't work so well for music?

Hello, Hello

is the title of an album by Poe, 3 stars. In the chick pop category, I recently downloaded Frou Frou "Details", after hearing a track in "Garden State" (OK movie by the way). I thought it was Dido. Very nice tunes, very nice textures in the electronic backgrounds, 3 stars.

My 95 tracks of Fats Waller came in, most enjoyable. The 4 disk set came from Proper Records, and came with a very nice booklet, on the history of Fats and the sessions that the tracks came from.

Also got from a young coworker Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, eponymous. Very interesting, Radiohead plus David Byrne plus Velvet Underground? Makes me wish I had a 3.5 star rating in iTunes.

Read a short story collection by Charles Stross, "Toast". Very tasty, cute short stories. I remember reading the first one, "Antibodies" before. It contains that essential short story device, the last line kicker. It reminded me of when in college I wrote a literature paper on "Chun the Unavoidable" from Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth". Great last line kicker, I remember the professor hated it big time.

Following up on the theme that "Love makes the world go round", I also completed my Jared Diamond collection with "Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality". A lot of this is covered in "The Third Chimpanzee", but still a fun (and short, 146 pages) read. The explanatory power of evolution screams at you when you read something like this. I particularly liked the analysis of hidden ovulation in humans. There are two contradictory explanations:

1. Confuse fatherhood to prevent infanticide; a new dominant male or mate won't necessarily kill a female's children if he is not sure they not his.
2. Keep the father around to provide.

By looking at the evolutionary tree of the 68 primate species (11 monogamous, 23 harems, 34 promiscuous), Diamond is able to deduce that the common ancestor (9 million years ago) of humans (serially monogamous, with some harems), gorillas (harems) and chimps (promiscuous) used the harem model; that concealed ovulation evolved from this as part of the "confuse fatherhood to prevent infanticide" strategy, from which monogamy evolved to implement the "keep the father around" strategy.

Also an interesting chapter on male nursing. Seems that the hardware is pretty much there, and care of children by both human parents is shared enough that he thinks it may be an idea whose time is coming! Diamond's books are always a pleasure to read, very easy to understand, and always with a nice touch of humor.

I think, tho, that my evolutionary biology / cognitive science reading seems to have hit a wall. I guess it's time for "and now for something completely different" ...

Evolution

Finished "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" by Charles Darwin, 1872. Most of the middle of the book is fairly dull, going through the emotions by group and talking about which facial muscles are involved. One of Darwin's big points was the universality of facial expressions in showing emotions -- innate, not acquired behavior. But, Darwin's methodology was to write letters to people in the various parts of the British Empire and other countries and ask them, "Do the locals express surprise by opening their eyes wide, lifting their eyebrows, and opening their mouth?" -- anecdotal natural science, not much up to today's standards. Apparently Margaret Mead and the cultural relativists had a 20-30 year period where they had everyone convinced of the opposite. The pendulum is now swinging back to Darwin.

Sometime I will have to compare Darwin's list of emotions with those in "The Cognitive Structure of Emotion" by Ortony, Clore and Collins. Interesting too, not all expressions correspond to emotions, but rather to mental/emotional state -- say for instance, an expression of slyness, or rapt attention. Darwin also discussed:

• Nodding your head yes and shaking your head no -- not particularly universal.
• Shrugging -- fairly universal.
• Shyness and modesty -- traits, not expressions.
• Blushing -- universal, and unique to humans, always a function of other people.

Pauk Ekman, who is a "universality" guy and the maker of the 3rd edition of "Expression", also talked about "display rules" -- which do vary by culture and thus are acquired. These define to what extent it is acceptable in a culture to let your emotions show. In an interesting study, Japanese by themselves display the same emotions as others, put an observer in with them and they supress the display. Also interesting, some cultures clearly show one or more of the standard emotions, but don't have a concept or word for them -- Tahitians have no word for sadness, when they display the symptoms they describe it as sickness.

I have realized that I think that my generally very good catholic high school education included little if anything on evolution, and I took no biology in college. I did not know that Darwin in "Origin of the Species" defined two types of natural selection:

1. Species selection (now also called ecological selection), the selection force that the ecosystem puts on a species to find an ecological niche;
2. Sexual selection, the somewhat arbitrary selection criteria that males/females of a given species decide imply breeding fitness in the opposite sex.

So, from "Expression" re music, and "The Symbolic Species" re language and our big brains, traits that were sexually selected may have been the more important of the two in making the human race what it is today. Of course, the other advantages that came with big brains, tool-making, etc, definitely had lots of other survivability value.

Still, it's like "All You Need is Love", "Love is Like Oxygen", ... The dance between men and women may be the primary factor that drove the development of the human race and its culture and civilization. I feel like, if I were (much) younger, this might have been a major epiphany, a real moment of satori. Now, it's just like, "No, no, say it ain't so."

Oh well, maybe the women won't decide to do away with us after all, in honor of our mutual development of the race.

Retro

What a retro weekend! 100 pages into Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". Way retro, 1st edition was 1872, lots of "the distinguished gentleman" type verbage, and, what a shocker: Darwin was a Lamarkian. He believed in inheritance of acquired traits. The father of evolution knew nothing about genetics -- he had Mendel's book on his shelf but never read it!

But, Darwin rocks. I have blogged before about books on music and the mind and how clueless they are, and that music doesn't seem evolutionary to me, and, how can it have such deep hooks in us. Then, on p 92 of "Expression":

"whether we believe, as I maintain, that the habit of uttering musical sounds was first developed as a means of courtship, in the early progenitors of man, and thus became associated with the strongest emotions of which they were capable -- namely, ardent love, rivalry, and triumph."

So, there you have it. Music is another peacock's tail like language, developed, probably by males, to woo females (only male birds sing -- altho I have had female cardinals in my yard doing something that sounded suspiciously like singing).

More fun facts from "Expression" when I finish it.

On to the retro music. 1st weekend acquisition, Os Mutantes, "Everything is Possible! The Greatest Hits of Os Mutantes". The song "Baby(1971)" was on the Luaka Bop "10th Anniversary: Zero Accidents on the Job" that my oldest daughter gave me a few years ago, and I really liked it, 4 stars. I had looked for more of their stuff and hadn't found it, but iTunes had this one now. Downloaded without listening -- then found, with Gilberto Gil (current Brazilian Minister of Culture and Open Culture prophet), they were mainstays of the Brazilian Tropicalia movement from '68-72 (my college years) -- so it's like mambo, samba and other Brazilian forms with fuzz tones and Sgt. Pepper, way bizarre. The lead singer, Rita Lee, has been recording for 30 years, she was apparently on MTV a couple of years ago.

Listened also to some Gilberto Gil, downloaded only one track, "Pai e mãe", which sounded like Jobim. Antonio Carlos Jobim, the father of bossa nova, has been a favorite of mine since high school (Jobim was probably part of the Brazilian music establishment that Os Mutantes were rebelling against). I have on vinyl a Jobim album whose first song is "Águas De Março (Waters Of March)" in Portuguese and whose last song is the same song in English. I played it for my daughters years ago and they were fascinated by it. The lyrics are a list of nouns: "A rock, a stick, a stone, ..." -- they decided they liked the Portuguese better. On CD I have a Verve Jazz Masters CD by Jobim which has Waters of March.

Early 70's apparently weren't retro enough. A few weeks ago while waiting in a rental car in Newark airport for a colleague's later flight to get in, on an NPR type station, I heard a song from my childhood, "Would You Like to Take a Walk" -- I remember it from a Warner Bros Merry Melody cartoon, sung by a Big Bad Wolf type. So, decided to find it on the web -- and of course suceeded, everything is there. Actually found the same recording I heard, by Annette Hanshaw, born 1901, record and radio vocalist from 1926 to 1936, when she decided to retire. So, have a CD with 25 of her recordings coming from Amazon. Interesting, read 2-3 online bios, all pretty much agree with the above dates except for vh1.com, which had her starting recording at age 15 and retiring at age 24 -- they had her age wrong by 10 years. Could not find anyway on their site to let them know of their error.

Looked her up on wikipedia. What a great reference:

Annette Hanshaw (October 18, 1901 - March 13, 1985) was one of the first great female jazz singers. In the late 1920's she ranked among Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and the Boswell Sisters. In 1936, she retired from singing and never attempted a comeback. The singer Helen Kane is said to have based her look on Hanshaw. Noteable is her influence in the Hyperreality theory of Jean Baudrillard. Since Kane based her look on Hanshaw, she purported to be the reality of the hyperreality character of Betty Boop.

Just what we need, another post-modern french philosopher, vying with the others to see how far they can get their head up their ass!

And while I was at Amazon, put a 4 CD boxed set of Fats Waller, 95 tracks, in my shopping cart. I was introduced to Fats by the keyboard player of the 1st band I played in in Cambridge. Possibly the greatest stride piano player ever, and made some unbelievably happy music -- maybe I just think so because it reminds me of those Merry Melody cartoons of my childhood.

Then, following the reference from the movie "Ray", downloaded "The Complete Capitol Recordings of Art Tatum" -- 29 tracks for $22, surely a bargain.

I was starting to feel bad about being too lazy to put links to all the above in here. But, google will find you many references to all of the above, sure beats a single link. If everyone gets as lazy as me, tho, will it hose google's search relevance algorighm?

Almost Real-Time

No Amazing Insights to share, but, I did finish a sci-fi novel, so here we go.

Read Robert Reed's "The Well of Stars", sequel to "Marrow". OK space opera, not really much in the way of edge. It clearly has another one coming. Again, I think they need to let you know when you're getting into an extended read. Of course, I sympathize, these guys have families to support. I had high hopes for Reed, based on his Year's Best stories, nothing of his has been great tho.

Music-wise, after complaining about the latest Fiona Apple being too carabet-ish, I have upgraded the last track, "Waltz (Better Than Fine)", to 4 stars -- and it's like cabaret central. Still, a highly memetic (catchy) tune.

The week after I downloaded the Fiona and the new Franz Ferdinand, the top two downloads from iTunes were ... the new Franz Ferdinand and the Fiona Apple. I am such a loser.

Downloaded "Z", by My Morning Jacket, a Louisville band, on the recommendation of a coworker. The tunes were over the acceptable catchiness threshold, 3 stars.

Weblog

In keeping with the original use of blogs, here are some sites I have enjoyed lately. Most are bookmarked in my Wackos folder:

• The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- WWFSMD?
• Landover Baptist Church -- these guys clearly have way too much time on their hands. I particularly like Hellhouse.
• Overheard in New York -- from my graphic designer daughter who's lived there 3 years. As she said, it's hard to stop reading it once you start.
• Ruthless Reviews -- also from my oldest daughter. Joe Bob Briggs lives (except he's gay)!

Biodiversity

Species of birds I have observed in/from my yard, in descending frequency:

1. Robin
2. Blackbird
3. Mourning Dove
4. Starling
5. Cardinal
6. House Sparrow
7. Swift
8. Mockingbird
9. Bluejay
10. Pigeon (Rock Dove)
11. House Finch
12. Goldfinch
13. Crow
14. Hummingbird
15. Chickadee
16. Red-winged Blackbird
17. Cowbird
18. Turkey Buzzard
19. Canadian Goose
20. Red-tailed Hawk
21. Mallard Duck
22. House Wren
23. Downy Woodpecker
24. Flicker
25. Great Horned Owl

Wild species of mammal I have observed in my yard in the last 5 years:

1. Squirrel
2. Rabbit
3. Chipmunk
4. Bat

Other wild birds I have seen in Lexington:

1. Meadowlark
2. Killdeer
3. Thrush
4. Bluebird
5. Nighthawk
6. Dark-eyed Junco
7. Peregrine Falcon
8. Screech Owl
9. Barn Swallow
10. Red-headed Woodpecker
11. Blue Heron
12. Northern Oriole
13. Kingbird

Other wild mammals I have seen in Lexington:

1. Groundhog
2. Opossum
3. Muskrat

I thought I would leave this list and check it in 20 years. But, last month's Scientific American said, most US bird species not endangered. Interesting tho, the birds seem to be awfully successful. And, at my current house where we have lived 15 years, I don't remember seeing a single reptile or amphibian (and no fish). Surprising I have not seen more mammals. I've seen coyotes from the interstate in Ohio, and a fox in Louisville around Beargrass Creek a couple of years ago. I guess the domestic mammals, the cats and dogs, are just too damn successful.

A few years ago I started to make an effort to recognize bird songs. I found it surprisingly hard, given that I'm musical. I did finally get to where I can recognize most of the birds listed above. Mockingbirds are the best.

Didn't bike Sunday, high 40's, overcast, breezy, I loafed. Prior week did 38 miles, Waizenberger Mill and Midway.

Read Richard K Morgan's 4th novel, "Woken Furies". Back to the edgy anti-hero for the 3rd time. Very good read, but for the 1st time he ended with a standard sci-fi deus-ex-machina scientific-relevation-that-will-change-everything. I don't think it destabilizes his world tho.

Also read, after I ran out of reading material (cleared my home magazine stack!) flying home from Minneapolis (pretty skyline), the 3rd novel in the Ender's Shadow series, "Shadow Puppets". Orson Scott Card writes very well, but, I am increasingly convinced that prequels and parallel offerings like this are not a worthwhile use of the paper, or my CPU cycles. I finally went and saw Star Wars Episode III in the theater (yes, it was still playing). 4 stars, my ass -- basically on the 10 point suck scale, Episode I was a 15, Episode II was a 10, this one was a 5 -- a great improvement I guess. With prequels, it's like, OK, check, got that over with. The Dune prequels (I shudder to admit I have read 5 and have only 1 to go) are even worse.

Got some good new music lately. New Franz Ferdinand "You Could Have It So Much Better" has tunes about as catchy as their 1st -- 3 stars. The new Fiona Apple "Extraordinary Machine" is very listenable, but a little to cabaret-ish -- 3 stars. Also got 1st D'Nell album, "1st Magic". Track 3 was the iTunes free download a few weeks ago, very catchy, I went for the whole thing. Reminds me of The Mighty Bop. Very nice dance tracks, London husband/wife sampler/vocalist duo, 3 stars.

Oh, it's official. The transmission on my wife's '96 Exploder with 230K miles is starting to go out. She drives 28 miles to work, I drive 1.5, so we switched cars 3 weeks ago. She was seriously obsessing on the magic car, getting >~= 53 mpg on her commute, not slowing down for curves (acceleration is the enemy of mpg), etc. I still get to drive the magic car on weekends (sigh). I can't believe I'm driving a fucking SUV, I hate the things.

The Human Brain is a Peacock's Tail

Finally finished "The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain" by Terrance W. Deacon. Kind of odd, after slogging through the soporific middle 40%, you emerge into discussions of sexual selection, kinds of minds, minds in silicon, much easier reading. So, let's net it out -- I like these, I think I did one for "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

Meat-eating => Pregnant females need men for meat & men are gone hunting => difficulties in ascertaining fatherhood of offspring => symbolic representation of social relationships (marriage) => language & big brains => "I do".

So the big brains that have helped create all of human culture evolved in a sexual selection arms race, with the men coming up with better ways to say "Baby, you so fine, you da only one for me." and women coming up with better ways to say "You so full o' shit. I bet you say that to all the girls."

Lots of really interesting stuff in the book. Three levels of mental representation:

1. Iconic -- the mental representation is a picture of the physical object.
2. Indexical -- the mental representation is a sign (word, name) for the physical object.
3. Symbolic -- signs, words, names cross reference each other, recursively.

These levels are heirarchical, with humans being the only animal that has the third level, symbolic thinking. Other animals have the first two only.

Other interesting points:

• Language needs big brains to help it think big thoughts, i.e., parse long sentences with recursive grammatical structure. Imaging and damage brain studies show simple word recognition in a small localized area around the raw sound handling area, word association in a ripple around that, complex sentence parsing in a ripple around that covering 2/3 of the left side of the brain.
• Language and socialization go together. People with Williams syndrome (2 bad genes) have a normal prefrontal cortex but are underdeveloped in the middle cortex. They have IQs of 70 but are hyperverbal, with huge vocabularies, and hypersocial. Interesting, Williams syndrome people have broad grins and an elfish look (think Puck).
• The left brain is the language word processor, the right brain is the language prosody (tone of voice, emotional content) processor.
• The symbolic facilities that led to language began with an increase in meat eating around 2 million years ago and have probably evolved steadily since. No magic "language event".
• Initial language was of course crude. Ritual was the medium by which language was practiced and disseminated.
• Brains grow through Darwinian selection. Neurons send out far more axons than eventually survive to become nerve channels. When enough axons survive to interconnect two parts of the brain, a permanent nerve channel is left. The prefrontal cortex (forward of the ears) sends lots of neurons into the midbrain to steal the function of the larynx and tongue for speech.
• Minds grow the same way, as in memetic selection.
• Discussion of human larynx lowering for vowel production, and the totally different mechanism by which birds sing: no larynx, instead a syrinx in the chest cavity, part of the evolutionary changes to support breathing while flapping wings to fly.
• There was a seal named Hoover in the New England Aquarium who could talk.

Kind of interesting, we are symbolic beings. We want to see ourselves and everything around us as symbols -- the origin of pantheism and the urge to religion? And, through manipulating symbols, we can do "what-if" thinking and projections of future events, including the event that no other animal has any knowledge of -- our death.

Music-wise, The New Pornographers "Twin Cinemas" winds up at 3 stars. Ditto for the latest Death Cab for Cutie "Plans". Both lacking any really catchy tunes. Got "Now Here is Nowhere" by The Secret Machines from a coworker, fairly listenable, 3 stars. Also Van Morrison "What is Wrong with this Picture?" -- Van the Man lives, the only thing in my iTunes classified as Blues.

Was in NYC on business last week, got in early enough Sunday to go on a techno boat cruise on the Hudson with my oldest daughter. We had a nice time. The boat cruised from 41th st to the Statue of Liberty and back. I have never been that close to Lady Liberty before, I really liked that. It is such a striking statue, and it's hard to imagine how it must have affected the 1890's immigrants (my great-great grandparents) after 2 months on a boat.

The music was really enjoyable, highly conceptual (i.e., almost music), here's the acts we saw:

• THE DUB TRIO -- Guitar, bass, drums, no vocals, the guitar player never met an effects pedal he didn't like.
• NISENNENMONDAI Guitar, bass, drums, Japanese chick pop ala Buffalo Daughter, guitar and bass playing very abstract repetitive stuff while the 4'8" drummer totaly wailed.
• TYONDAI BRAXTON (of BATTLES) Guy who sat cross-legged on the floor, played a little guitar and sang weirdly, sampled it, replayed the sample and sang and played over it, recursively.
• PREFUSE 73 -- my daughter gave me their CD for my birthday. Main instrument was a powerbook, main DJ played a rhythm box, plus a bass and 2 drummers with full kits. Very enjoyable, the 2 drummers really created a wall of sound.

I made it to the very end before one of the young guys who was kind of hitting on my daughter called me "sir" (the bastard). The crowd was mostly younger than my 26 year old daughter. I wore dark clothes, I looked like one of the security guards (my daughter demoted me from sugar daddy to bodyguard when I made a couple of business calls while we were waiting in line to board).

No biking today, radar shows Rita on its way, but it seems to be keeping to the west of us. Biked last week with my friend Patrick, he pooped out after 5 miles, we wound up doing 15. It was pleasant to have someone to talk to. Two weeks before, went through Clifton on the Ky river, 46 miles, hills nastier than I remembered, had to stand up twice.

Yesterday morning had a flicker (woodpecker, slightly larger than a bluejay, black collar under neck, speckled breast, orange-red bar on the back of the head) in the locust tree in our front yard. Saw a downy woodpecker across the street, and the hummingbird and chickadees are still in the back yard. This morning walking, saw another downy woodpecker and a red-tailed hawk swooped by just overhead and in front of me. Right after that, heard a bunch of bluejays converging nearby, probably going for the hawk. Whenever there's a hawk, the crows, bluejays or blackbirds always stake it out and keep an eye on it.

Work in Progress

Figured I'd better blog before I finished the current book I'm reading, it may be a while. "The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain" is very interesting but taking a while. Good points so far:

1. In general a repudiation of Chomsky's Universal Grammar. The idea is that languages, being memetic software, could evolve must faster than the brain. Their target: children's brains.
2. Interesting discussion of why no animals have even simple languages -- not a complexity issue, rather an issue of lack of symbolic processing capabilities.
3. Animal signing systems, including humans, are a parallel system, not an early version of language. Think about human non-language signing: laughter, sobs, snorts, shrugs, growls, and of course, my favorite, the (female) scream -- an on switch for the adrenaline of every male in hearing distance. I have meaning for years to read Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". OK, it's on order now.

Biked to High Bridge today, 40.6 miles, 3h10m. Collapsed and slept for 2 hours afterwards. I really need to start biking during the week.

Pouring rain here. Katerina hitting New Orleans. 4th strongest hurricane on record, wasn't even a tropical storm as it approached Florida. A couple of weeks ago an MIT researcher published an article on global warmings' increasing the intensity of tropical storms. I've been preaching this for years -- of course, I got it from John Barnes' "Mother of Storms", published in 1995.

Music-wise, had all my daughters point me at Kings of Convenience "Riot on an Empty Street". Norwegian pop, woo-hoo. The folky stuff reminds me of Belle & Sebastian, but not quite as sappy. The jazzier stuff is pretty good, track 5 "Know-How" is very catchy, my middle daughter's favorite.

Downloaded lastest New Pornographers, "Twin Cinemas", listening to it now.

Movie-wise, was pointed at "Kung-Fu Hustle" by an old friend, I've watched 3 times. The movie is hilarious.

I was loaned a copy of "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", about the Funk Brothers, the studio musicians behind the songs of the Motown golden age. Very enjoyable, great music of course.

Another Day ...

, another green, blue and electric yellow dollar (Firesign Theater, "Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him", 1968). No biking last weekend, my wife and I went to a wedding of a traitor (employee quiting to go to law school for IP law) in Louisville, then to The Jazz Factory, then spent the night at The Galt House, where we spent our wedding night before getting out of town for the honeymoon. Nice jazz trio, young black guy on tenor sax, old white guys on drums and Hammond B3 organ. The organist, Mo somebody, 4 pages of google and I can't find him, was great. You can do practically anything with a Hammond. Sunday morning, walked up 4th St to the library at York, amazing how downtown Louisville has changed. When I was in high school at St X 64-68, I came through downtown Louisville a lot. Weird ghosts of the past.
Like the 1st time we did a college tour, maybe in 92, and came out of MIT at 77 Mass Ave and crossed to the student center. The 100s of times I did that as a student, I never saw the future and pictured doing it with my wife and 4 kids. And, I remember thinking, urge to clone -- the college years are a time in life when you seriously collapse your possibility space. There I was with my 4 very bright children, and I was thinking, "This one could be the astrophysicist. This one could be the musician. This one could be -- no, no, evil, evil." The evil thoughts passed, my children have of course made their own futures.
Just finished "Accelerando", by Charles Stross. Finally, the novel I have been waiting for from him. His fantastic short stories are merged together and make a consistent narrative. A compelling, funny and scary posthuman future, with great logical twists. I laughed out loud numerous times. And great neologisms -- I particularly like a suicide who "autodarwinated" himself.
Music-wise, downloaded a couple of albums by Citizen Cope, eponymous and "The Clarence Greenwood Recordings", 3 stars. His "Sun Gonna Rise" was an iTunes free song, way catchy, went for the albums. Funny, a couple of days later, I hear "Sun Gonna Rise" in a car commercial -- maybe a little too catchy. Also got the latest Jack Johnson, "In Between Dreams", very listenable, 3 stars.
Last night, downloaded the latest Bjork, "The Music from Drawing Restraint 9". It appears to be the sound track to an indy movie set in post-WW2 Japan. It is a work of genius, 4 stars, 5 for the haunting 1st track, a letter to General MacArthur. Kudos to Ms. Gutmunsdottir, this is a hell of a creative work.
Charles Stross has really cheered me up this week. I needed it, last week started out with our fearless leader Dumbass Bush endorsing the teaching of Intelligent Design -- "people should be exposed to both theories" -- except one is science and the other is fairy tales. Grrr. Richard Dawkins had a good article in Free Inquiry on the nature of science: it is "mining the unknown". A theory without holes would get no research dollars, scientists love the holes, their life's work is filling in the holes. Non-scientists say "your theory has holes, it must be wrong, so ours must be right" -- even tho theirs is a fairy tale. Who the fuck designed the intelligent designers? It's a god-damned infinite regress -- not that they would know what that was.
Dawkins' article mentioned how once he said how unbelievable the Cambian Explosion was -- to his eternal regret, as now he is quoted as a proponent of Intelligent Design based on his teasing statement. I have wondered about the Cambian Explosion, all currently known phylum, and others now gone, emerging 550 million years ago. Recent article, some simple bilaterally symmetric species dating to 580 million years ago now found. Knowledge advances.
Last week I also woke up one night at 4:00a, from a dream where I was in airport security, got into a hassle, and started shouting: "It's all a lie! It's another bush administration lie! You're no safer than you were before all this crap! The FAA says so! It's just another lie!". I woke up as I was being shipped to Gitmo.
I loved Bush's statement, to the effect "In my business, I have to keep repeating things, ... to catapult the propaganda." The Republicans have astutely learned to exploit the well-known unfortunate human cognitive defect, that hearing anything often enough causes us to give that thing credence -- "I heard that somewhere ...". But, some polls are saying that the public is starting to give the current admistration lower and lower ratings on trust. Maybe the sheep are waking up. Interesting to see if Rove will skate on outing the CIA agent.
Lying and playing the fear card. When did Americans become such cowards, that playing to their fears allows you to lead them around by the nose? Conservatism is basically a ideology of fear of the future -- or rather, of the present. Yearning for the good old days that never existed. I've already ranted on this, 11/3/2004.
I like the Ben Franklin quote: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security". There is no security, the supernova shockwave that blows away the atmosphere could strike with pretty much no warning. Wake up, Amurica!
Interesting Prius moment: next to one of my young coworkers at a red light, rolled down the window, put the car in neutral, pushed the gas pedal up and down to rev the engine -- nothing, the gas motor was off. A rite of the teenage years gone.
Time to go watch the rest of "The Daily Show".

Cut and Paste Culture

Biked only from 9 to 11 yesterday morning, 28 miles, a little faster than usual -- which I would say indicates that I am normally dragging the 3rd hour when I bike 3 hrs. Got back before the heat got too brutal. High tomorrow is supposed to be 98. No biking last weekend, rain from here to Owensboro.

Finished Dan Simmons' "Olympos" yesterday. He writes so well. I think I read in the preface to Lattimer's translation of "The Iliad" (or in TOOCITBOTBM) that the stock descriptions of the characters in Homer were normally used to fill out the line of iambic pentameter. Hence, "the fleet-footed mankiller Achilles" or "Hera of the white arms". Simmons is all over that.

Re our title, "Ilium/Olympos" does wind up being, "consciousness is a quantum standing wave" (glad that the cyborgs in the story raspberry that), so all fictional creation creates alternative universes. So, feel free to reuse other characters! Wired had an article on cut and paste culture, sampling, etc. But, if it's all just memes breeding in our heads, I find it much more appealing when a new life form is created, rather than a chimera of other pieces. Like in Simmons "Hyperion", the Shrike, who Simmons created earlier in a short story, became a new thing -- yes, I'm sure derived from many other things, but still representing a new synthesis.

Maybe it's the volume of culture currently being emitted that forces and encourages cut & paste. Seems like that puts us in a positive feedback loop -- sampling the samplers.

I guess it's like the "build vs. buy" decision in developing software. It's been supplemented by a 3rd option, google for the code you need -- more a flavor of "build" than "buy"? Still, commercial software isn't culture. It is creativity targeted to meet a business need / use cases.

So, maybe the cut & paste stuff is culture, but I think that it ain't art, except in the cases where someone comes up with a whole new way to do it. I think that's what my oldest daughter the artist would say anyway.

This makes me think of a short story by Bruce Sterling where AI does everything and all humans are artists. Cut & paste certainly makes that future easier. I remember my kids taking great pains to make up playlists of songs for various occasions, making sure they had just the right songs in just the right order for the desired mood. Same thing for photo albums or collages. Definitely a lot of creativity going on there, but not something I would ever think of doing -- I set my iTunes smart playlists on Shuffle so I can play "name that tune". And, it totally escapes me why anyone would agonize over making sure they have exactly the right ring tones on their cell phone. Definitely a generational thing, the dumbass (me) is definitely an old man, Dorian Gray musical interests aside ;->