June 2009
24 posts
Games Continued
E continues:
Chicken-egg problem. Do cubicle workers play minesweeper because it is a continuation of their regular pattern of life — or is it a product of intelligent design — children play minesweeper in order to facilitate their transition to contented cubicle workers? Moreover, can an unconscious ‘stream of being’ be articulated which sets the orientation of the young and ultimately leads...
Ecstasy
In the wake of the Thomas-Hill catastrophe in Washington, the New York Times Sunday Magazine contained a skin lotion advertisement that displayed a photograph of the naked torso of a woman. From a feminist point of iew, this headless and footless body represents the male chauvinist’s sexual ideal: a woman who cannot think and cannot escape. From a point of view somewhat more...
In denying the holiness of the body and of the so-called physical reality of the world—and in denying support to the good economy, the good work, by which alone the Creation can receive due honor—modern Christianity generally has cut itself off from both nature and culture. It has no serious or competent interest in biology or ecology. And it is equally uninterested in the arts by...
Disraeli
“England is governed by an aristocratic principle. The aristocracy of England absorbs all aristocracies, and receives every man in every order and every class who defers to the principle of our society, which is to aspire and to excel.” “What a pity, Miss Manvers, the fashion has gone out of selling oneself to the devil.” from Vivian Grey Yet Alroy also offers another vision of...
An evening spent with Japanese textbook and Yehuda Amichai. Headed to the Catskills tomorrow. Hoping to finally make it through the Justification literature there but interests at the moment lean more towards coding: Python and Google Wave. Few books this week but nothing of special interest. A bit lethurgic and continually absent-minded.
“Heidnisch halb und halb auch kirchlich
Klingen diese Melodeien,
Steigen mutig...”
– Heinrich Heine
Nebelung | Graue Nacht
From Thursday, another short piece at First Things. I also contemplate a longer piece in response to this book (link includes a link to a review and comments of my own).
I am back from Virginia, by necessity and not by choice, most likely again headed to Manhattan later this week. For now residing in the midst of that vast suburbia that fills the gap between hollow metropolises. Houses, husbands and wives are lived in and with for awhile, and then swapped for more of the same, or at least, something not all that different.
My mother occasionally asks me to...
“I need to fight whole armies alone”
– The man without a face.
Techcrunch | Interview with Google Wave Founders →
Economist | Underworked American (child) →
Geography of Job Losses/Gains →
Google Wave Widgets Implementation
→
Long conversation with my brother. Giving up on Japanese lessons for lack of time. First piece at First Things. Reading all I can on Google Wave. Not sure which books I will attempt to tackle this week. Not sure how much time I will have to do so.
Speeding
The appropriate speed one should travel on the highway is a matter of some debate. Few travel by the posted speed limit. Some attempt to travel the maximum allowable. Some go with the flow. I have attempted various strategies at different points in my life: (1) Absolute adherence to posted speed limits (2) Set internal rules regulating how fast I will travel (7 over the speed limit on country...
Reading
How often do we think about our reading and derive strategies for? Which media sources do I parse and what are my parsing methods? Which parsing methods do I have to chose from? Do I need to work harder at developing more? Should I chose a method before I chose a piece or project?
I confess I skim more often in non-native languages and derive less benefit from. But skimming in many circumstances...
The reader has probably already perceived from this and the previous book that much attention is paid to linguistics. Since my view is that unclear language is a sign of unclear thinking, I have tried first to define a few words with precision and then use only these words throughout the analysis. As Heer (1966) has pointed out, “all intellectual discussions of our time are struggles for...
Guardian | Calvinism Flourishes in China →