Eleanor rigby
Posted by martialviews on Oct 27, 2008
Top 28 Horror Movie Villains
with halloween just all the corner we trifle we would get into the spirit. well, turn up up with the worst villains in horror movie history at least. if aversion movies experience taught us anything, it is that we are all far-out bastards. sorry, we mean it tells that all get a kick out of to be scared evasion of our wits. that’s it. we work absolutely no sick pleasure from teenagers being eaten vivacious, cut to pieces or burnt alive ? it’s all down the thrill of being frightened. but, of course, the best horror villains don’t attend to to be the ones we are afraid of. they are the ones we actually very much partiality. unstoppable serial killers, frazzled up kiddie-fiddlers and maniacal dolls are just some of the anti-heroes idolised by upset fans the creation over. we barely can’t realize reasonably of them, it seems. now if you wanted to really get scared, we suggest you make movies about extensive warming, nuclear holocaust or john mccain. anyway, use.
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James
Posted by martialviews on Oct 26, 2008
Information vs. Knowledge vs. Expertise
There is an interesting post (and comment thread) on Kevin Kelly’s blog about the exponential growth of available information. It is quite thought-provoking, but there are a couple of issues I have with it.
First issue is that Kevin took the old adage that “every answer leads to at least two new questions”, perhaps tongue-in-cheek (I hope), as if it was true:
yet the paradox of science is that every answer breeds at least two supplemental questions. more answers, more questions. telescopes and microscopes expanded not only what we knew, but what we didn’t know. they allowed us to glimpse into our ignorance. late-model and better tools permit us new and better questions. all our knowledge about subatomic particles derived from the new questions generated after we invented an atom smasher.
This was probably necessary for the point he was trying to make, but it is of course not true - just a quip that scientists like to say to each other every now and then. Most scientific papers, for instance, do not attempt to answer questions, just like many scientific questions do not test hypotheses. Some are making observations, some are tabulating surveys, some are sequencing genomes, some are following hunches. There is much more to the scientific method than just question-answering or hypothesis-testing. This does not stop people from, in their grant proposals, shoehorning everything into the hypothesis-testing mode, e.g., silly stuff like “we will shoot all our heavy artillery into this dark void of the Unknown and we hypothesize that we will discover something useful” - which is not hypothesis-testing, but a brute force approach that comes before hypothesis-testing, a method to provide enormous amounts of information that can then be looked at in order to formulate hypotheses or, yes, ask questions.
And even when a scientific paper answers a question, sometimes it just closes the book on it without generating any new questions. Sometimes it generates one or two or more. But there is no mathematical or empirical proof of the saying as it stands.
My second issue with Kevin’s essay is the blurring between the concepts of information, knowledge and expertise despite his effort to differentiate them:
the fastest growing object today is information. data is expanding ten times faster than the growth of any other manufactured or natural produce on this planet.
———————
We see the expansion of information everywhere. Less visible, harder to track, but exploding the same is the expansion of knowledge. The number of scientific articles published each year has been increasing in a steady rise for more than 50 years. Over the last 150 years the number of patent applications has increased. By this rough metric, knowledge is growing exponentially.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but for me information is something that just sits there, in computers or on the Web or in scientific papers, pretty useless on its own. It is when humans take a look at that information, filter it in an organized manner, and make sense out of it, that the information becomes organized and useful - which I think of as knowledge.
Furthermore, even this definition of knowledge is fuzzy, as it describes our collective knowledge. Collective - as in ‘collection of individual knowledges’. But some knowledge resided in individuals who make that knowledge widely available, while others do not. Thus some knowledge is more strongly integrated into the fuzzy global knowledge, and some is more or less hidden from most of us. Not to mention that not all knowledge is correct, either, or useful for anything for that matter (e.g., theological treateses come under both of those headings).
But, is individual knowledge the same as ‘expertise’? What does expertise mean?
Is it possessing knowledge or having the abilities and skills to apply it? Knowing where in the brain the pineal gland resides, or being able to surgically remove it?
Is it having a PhD (or equivalent) in the subject, or is it being recognized by others as an expert?
Is it knowing everything there is to know about a subject? Or is it knowing more than most other people about it?
Are we all experts on breathing, eating and sleeping? What is so expert about that kind of expertise if it is shared by everyone?
If it is knowing something that most other people don’t where is the cutoff point - what percentile are we talking about? I can say that I am an expert on circadian rhythms in quail - something I share with about a dozen other people in the world - as I have read the entire literature on the subject, did my own experiments and published papers on the topic. I guess I am still an expert when it comes to my field as a whole - a couple of thousand chronobiologists - although I could not possibly read all the papers or pay attention to all the sub- …
Charlie haden
Posted by martialviews on Sep 24, 2008
What’s up with Marilyn reading Ulysses?
a few months ago i started keeping a tumblr log where i post pictures and texts that i find interesting - no particular agenda, no in particular unreserved aesthetics. it is a strangely addictive venture - much more so than periodic blogging, in fact… i am lengthy since past 600 posts on the tumblr.among the many pictures i have posted is one taken by eve arnold, a highly respected magnum photographer, showing marilyn monroe reading a fastened edition of james joyce’s ulysses. the photo is more than 50 years previous and there is a respectable amount of scholarship on the reification, both from within joyce-studies (the best is doubtlessly richard brown’s essay in joyce and popular culture, “marilyn reading ulysses: goddess or fill someone in on-cultural cyborg?” ) and from the wider field of cultural studies (see thomas rasmussen’s design studies essay, or kim q. hall’s disability studies essay from 2002 in nwsa journal, which comments on an art-work inspired by the photo, barbara bloom’s piece womanizer in braille). my own pursuit stems from my work on monroe as an american icon, and let’s face it, it is inviting to mull over an icon present a canonical being planned of data! not least when an (over)eroticized icon reads a notoriously ‘dirty’ book… all this, however, has been good-naturedly covered by scholarship as well as more popular accounts (such as the recent book women seeing women: a pictorial report of women’s photography from julia margaret cameron to annie leibovitz - reviewed here; or the latest issue of poets & writers magazine - blogged about here) over the last 15 years.the connection that made me post the image was that in 2006 the english newspaper, the protector, had asked authors to determine their favourite image of a woman reading, and jeanette winterson had picked the arnold photo. winterson writes:this is so sexy, precisely because it’s marilyn reading james joyce’s ulysses. she doesn’t have to ostentation, we don’t unruffled call to see her face, what comes off the photo is absolute concentration, and nothing is sexier than arbitrary concentration. there she is, the goddess, not needing to please her audience or her man, just living inside the book. the vulnerability is there, but also something we don’t often assist in the blonde bombshell; a sense of belonging to herself. it’s not some playboy combination of brains and boobs that is so perfect about this picture; it is that reading is every a hidden act, is intimate, is lover’s talk, is a place of whispers and sighs, unregulated and usually unobserved. we are the voyeurs, it’s true, but what we’re spying on is not a flash of body, but a moment of mind. for instantly, we’re not being asked to look at marilyn, we’re being given a chance to look up the river her.arnold in fact was quite friendly with marilyn and took many pictures of her over a number of years, including several rather retiring images from the expert in on long island monroe shared with her then husband, playwright arthur miller. arnold also tells all sorts of candid anecdotes about marilyn and her balancing a vulnerable personality with a larger than sentience public character (see this lovely post-mortem of arnold’s book film newsletter in unexplored statesman, and another in the guardian).
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National punctuation day
Posted by martialviews on Sep 24, 2008
Five Days in the Valley of the Kings
image by cg
What can I tell you about Cairo, Egypt? To start with, there’s nothing average about it. Cairo is a city of highs and lows high hassle, high history. High temperatures (98° every day I was there), high culture.
The hassle factor, unfortunately, can’t be easily diminished. Visiting there on a typical itinerary, you can expect to get annoyed (or even angry) several times a day with all of the people looking for business. The percentage of professional hustlers is especially high in Cairo, and they are amazingly multilingual willing to extract your money in Arabic, English, French, German, and Spanish. There’s no way around this, and it can easily get on the nerves of any traveler.
Before I went out for my first long walk the morning after arrival, for example, one of the staff at the hostel I was in asked if I wanted help with any Arabic words. Always eager to expand my 5-words-in-every-language vocabulary, I said yes.
“Okay,” Hassan said. “First, you need to say please leave me alone.’”
That’s the first thing I need to know?
“Yes,” he told me. “Next, you need to know how to say go away now.’”
Thus the lesson continued with phrases like tourist police, and now in addition to greeting people and being polite, I can proficiently tell people to get lost in Arabic. Unfortunately, it’s an appropriate skill to have in a place like Cairo.
When Does Everyone Sleep?
On the other hand (there always is one), Cairo offers a lot of good reasons to visit. It’s an easy city to travel in, there are lots of nearby places to visit, and the people who are not trying to take your money all the time are genuinely nice.
For the first few days, I stayed at a place called Wake Up! Cairo Hostel. I was initially put off by the name I think I would have preferred a Good Night! hostel but it turned out to be one of the better places I’ve stayed at recently. Since I was there for several nights, they sent a driver to meet me at the airport — a kindness I appreciated, since there was no shortage of taxi drivers and “helpers” ready to descend on visitors arriving without an escort.
I checked in close to midnight after 17 hours of flying (MIA-PTY-MAD-CAI), but everyone was wide awake watching a soccer match. Three hours later, I finally went to bed but everyone else was still awake. When I got up at 9:00, however, they were all awake. I wasn’t sure if this was the Ramadan effect or the Wake Up! hostel effect.
If you don’t know, Ramadan is the month-long religious holiday for Muslims where everyone fasts during the day. From approximately 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Muslims all over the world don’t eat or drink anything, including water.
This leads to a fairly sleepy city during the day, a manic traffic situation in the late afternoon, and every restaurant in the city being packed at exactly 6:00 p.m. for the iftarmeal that breaks the fast.
I’ve been in the Middle East several times, but never during Ramadan, so naturally I was curious to be a part of it. Non-Muslims are not required or expected to fast during the day, and I didn’t, but it still felt weird to be the only person in a restaurant while five servers stood around doing nothing.
The Latest Commentary on the U.S. Election
I always enjoy talking to taxi drivers, who often speak some English and can be informative and entertaining at the same time. The first part of the conversation usually involves finding out where I am from and then discussing politics in the U.S. (as perceived from afar) and whatever country I’m in.
Lately, most taxi drivers have been talking about the U.S. election. In Pakistan, my driver told me that the Taxi Drivers’ Association of Karachi had endorsed Barack Obama, which of course I found highly entertaining.
Here’s how it went down this time:
“Oh, you are from America? New president coming soon, we are happy.”
“Yes, early next year. You know about the election?”
“Yes, of course. Obama is very interesting man! But also small.”
“Small?”
“Yes, very small man.”
I’m not sure what that means, so we move to another topic: I ask about John McCain.
“McCain, he is old man. Not beautiful.”
“Is he small?” I want to ask, but the driver is not done yet.
“Yes, very old,” he continues, but then smiles. “However, McCain is smart man. He choose beautiful woman to be president with him! Zara Pullom.”
“Sarah Palin?” I ask after making sure I’ve heard him right. Word spreads quickly here, it seems.
“Yes, Zara Pullom. …
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(AP)
Presidency
Posted by martialviews on Sep 23, 2008
Pooch out: Grosse Pointe Park man says ‘pit bull’ ban barks up wrong tree
by news hits staff. august was a disconsolate month for pit bulls. first, republican vice-presidential nominee sarah palin quipped that she and other hockey moms were quarry bulls with lipstick, painting the pooches — at least in the case of their similarity to the veep candidate — in an extremely bad make known be revealed. then the create was…
George Will: McCain “not suited to the presidency”
after saying sunday that john mccain “made some of us fearful,” george choose subtly unleashed with both barrels on mccain in his tuesday column in the washington post. the last three paragraphs are most instructive: on “60 minutes” sunday evening, mccain, saying “this may sound a little unusual,” said that he would sort to change cox with …
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Phil mickelson s wife
Posted by martialviews on Sep 19, 2008
James Lawton: Poulter repays Faldo’s gamble
There were moments yesterday when the captaincy of Europe was not the final glory of Nick Faldo’s brilliant career but a late and deadly ambush of both his dreams and his reputation as a serious man of golf.
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(AP)
, Paraguay javelin, Palin book banning
Maureen dowd june 29, 2008
Posted by martialviews on Sep 18, 2008
Slate V:
PHILIPPINES: Suspend US Military Deployments to Mindanao
a broad coalition of ngos, popular movements, and political parties from mindanao and the rest of the mother country today called suited for all us military deployments in mindanao suspended pending the conclusion of a fair and detailed probe by lawmakers. the citizens’ peace watch, a group formed to monitor what it fears as the growing and long-lasting us military presence in the south, reiterated its recommendations from a fait accompli-finding line of work it conducted in zamboanga borough and sulu last february. members of the mission claim to have in the offing seen with their own eyes and to have pictures of the us’ military structures confidential camp navarro in zamboanga city.
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Mercury facts
Posted by martialviews on Sep 18, 2008
Fitch Rtes Norfolk (VA) Econ Dev Auth (Bon Secours Health System) $40.375MM Series 2008D-1 ‘AA/F1+’
fitch ratings has assigned ‘aa/f1+’ ratings to the $40,375,000 economic advancement authority of the city of norfolk, revenue refunding bonds (bon secours health system, inc.), series 2008d-1. the ratings are based on the direct-pay erudition of credit (the loc) supporting the bonds and the application of fitch’s joint likeliness methodology. the want-term rating assigned to the bonds is based jointly on the underlying rating assigned to the bonds (currently rated ‘a’ by fitch), and the stick up for provided by the loc issued by landesbank baden-wurttemberg, acting in the course its new york branch (the bank; rated ‘a+/f1+’) securing the bonds. the short-term ‘f1+’ rating is based solely on the loc. for more information on the underlying trust, entertain see the fitch press release published on sept. 16, 2008, available on the fitch network site at www.fitchratings.com.
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Big brother 10 wrap party
Posted by martialviews on Sep 17, 2008
Morning Coffee: FDIC Fund Dwindling
Guest post by Pamela Leavey
Grab a good strong cup of coffee this morning and ask yourself if you really feel confident with the current state of the economy or for that matter, the current leadership in America? Take a couple of swigs and ask yourself, who you think will bring change to Washington, D.C. and America. You know the answer and it isn’t John McCain.
The latest news on the economy and Wall Street is bleak, and looking bleaker by the minute.
The Fed has bailed out A.I.G. to the tune of $85 billion, “fearing a financial crisis worldwide,” while “effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with.”
Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank (D), who serves as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said “Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke had not requested any new legislative authority for the bailout at Tuesday night-??s meeting.”
What a freakin’ mess. The corporate ho’s have all but robbed America blind and now America is paying for it. The F.D.I.C.’s “insurance fund has slipped below the minimum target level set by Congress, could be forced to tap tax dollars through a Treasury Department loan if Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s largest thrift, or another struggling rival fails.”
AP News reports that “Eleven federally insured banks and thrifts have failed this year.” Eleven. And “additional failures of large banks or savings and loans companies seem likely.”
Christopher Whalen, the senior VP and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics said, “We’ve got a … retail bank run forming in this country.”
Do you know where your money is?
Politico reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has “ordered a broad, swift investigation of Wall Street and will demand testimony from Bush administration officials and captains of finance.” Wonderful, but in the meantime we can all sit around and watch our financial system crumble deeper into the muck and mire.
The only bright spot in the financial picture in recent days is the price of oil, which has dropped below $93 a barrel thanks to falling demand. Of course the demand is falling — Who the heck can afford to fill up their gas tanks in the midst of this mess.
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Color career counselor
Posted by martialviews on Sep 16, 2008
Sarah (Palin) and Donny (Baarns) chat at a baseball game BF (Before Fame)
Long before we knew anything about pit bulls and lipstick and Wasilla and all the kids with T in their names, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stopped by the broadcast booth of a minor league summer ba
seball game up in Alaska.
This was a year ago and Occidental College grad Donny Baarns happened to be broadcasting the game between the Goldpanners and the Miners when suddenly into the radio booth walks this yet-to-be-famous politician with her father, who used to coach her.
So in between pitches and a sharp line drive to left center, a very professional Donny and a very casual sports enthusiast named Sarah have this five-minute conversation about Alaska and political ethics and being governor and sports.
Neither had an inkling that a year or so later The Ticket would be publishing their chat (thanks to loyal Ticket reader Bob) as a revealing eavesdrop regarding the 44-year-old mother of five who’s aroused such curiosity after becoming the next possible vice president of the United States — and the first woman to do so.
One thing the former high school runner and basketball star reveals, well, actually, two: She likes sports a lot (the governor even asks if she can hang around the radio booth a while longer) and also she doesn’t go for all that “gender stuff.”
–Andrew Malcolm
See, you can never predict exactly what you’re gonna find on The Ticket. Don’t miss a single item: Sign up here now to have Ticket alerts flashed straight to your cell automatically — free.
Photo credit: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin crosses the finish line in a charity race before her nomination as Republican vice presidential candidate with Sen. John McCain. Getty Images.
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