Harder better faster stronger
Happy New Year! My brother just sent me this: I don’t usually watch videos, but this one is great:
[wp_youtube]bl6RJyZdBSU[/wp_youtube]
New design for Corycia…
I got annoyed with the old design for my blog: it looked nice and clean, but was actually quite hard to read. I think this one is nicer. Please let me know if there is anything that can be done to make things easier to navigate.
Motorola phones are still rubbish
I should have known better.
All I wanted was a decent, small phone that could store my work diary and contacts from Outlook - the problem between me and most phones is that I have over a thousand contacts. No, I’m not that important, I just have to be able to contact individuals and companies on mailing lists, and it’s handy to have them in my own Outlook diary in case I need to call when I’m not at a computer. Until a couple of months ago I was using a T-Mobile Smartphone (with free Co-Pilot SatNav, which was kind of handy) - but the Windows Mobile 5 software started to complain about the volume of contacts, so I gave it away when I sold the SatNav bit. I tried resurrecting my old C500, but that seems permanently SIM-wedded to its old nefarious Orange masters despite various hacks, so I gave up there.
On to my wife’s old Sony Ericsson K750i - broken sliding lens cover, so the camera doesn’t work any more, but the phone itself seemed ok. The downside is it only takes 400-odd contacts (why??? it has a 2 GB M2 card in it!), a ‘feature’ of the software. Obviously people who take pictures don’t have many friends…. on the upside, it does sync nicely with Bluetooth to OSX/iCal. So with this I have about half my contacts, and of course that means none of the ones I use every day…
So I looked around for another cheap, newish phone with Bluetooth, and settled on the Motorola SLVR L6. GBP40 from Ebay, and it arrived in great nick. A big plus on this phone is its selling point: it is very thin, and doesn’t poke into your leg from your trouser pocket when you sit down. However, I should have remembered my previous experience with Motorola handsets: older models had terrible GUIs and were awful to use, and the L6 is no exception. It’s hard to describe exactly what is so maddening about it, but it just is. For example, when entering text, spaces, capitals, T9 etc. are in different places to virtually all other phones; it’s as if you’ve got into a new car to find the brake and accelerator pedals have been swapped over. You can’t do things like press-and-hold a key to get a contact to call or text, and when you choose a recipient for a message you can’t easily see which number (landline or mobile) you are using. Maddening. Oh, and the Bluetooth sync doesn’t work properly either. Finally, the screen design is poor. I don’t know whether it’s the resolution or the choice of font, but you can only get about 2 appointments displaying per page - hardly useful.
Motorola, your phones are still rubbish. Though it hurts to say it, I’m going back to Smartphones….
I’m calling my teddy bear Jesus
During the English Civil War iconoclastic Puritans travelled Britain, and between bouts of doing away with Cavaliers, spent their leisure time destroying images, stained glass windows, altar rails and other church paraphernalia, and by this left the churches of England today very different from their more colourful Catholic neighbours over the channel. The difference is so great, and our great English churches so austere, that they have coloured our views on aesthetics, and what churches and domestic buildings look like today - anyone for Dulux white with a hint of pink?
But why did the Puritans wish to destroy the items so venerated by their Roman (or quasi-Roman) opponents? At one level, they wished to return to the supposed simplicity of the early Church, and therefore to eliminate the superstition and idolatry they held that churchgoers were apt to. By destroying images in the manner of Moses destroying those of Aaron, they sought to enforce this view by denying others a focus for their idolatry. But why bother? If such idols have no power, why pay them any attention? But, like Moses who ground up the golden calf and forced the Israelites to drink it, the Puritans were more superstitious than they cared to think of themselves. By wishing to destroy icons, they admitted that icons had power, not only over their enemies, but also over themselves. Paradoxically, an iconoclast is also an idolater.
What does this have to do with teddy bears? If you’ve been reading the news in the last two weeks, you will know that Gillian Gibbons was jailed in Sudan last week for ‘insulting Islam’, and has today been released under special presidential pardon: in actuality, Gibbons’ ‘crime’ was to allow her children to name a toy after the Prophet (PBUH), so it’s still a bit unclear to me how she is culpable for the actions of some under-tens. But in any case, why on earth does the average Muslim care what name a teddy bear has? It seems the average Muslim doesn’t, but there is a vocal minority that appears to think that Gibbons’ actions (whatever they may be) deserve death, a fairly extreme view. Ostensibly, one reason stems from the concept of ‘excessive veneration’, where the excess is calling a toy after the Prophet. However, it seems that Gibbons’ class chose ‘Mohammed’ as many boys the children knew had that name; I’m unconvinced that calling a teddy bear Mohammed is any worse than calling so many children by the same name. From my reading of the Qu’ran, one of the key features is the idea of not raising man up to the same level as God - isn’t this risked in when naming so many children after the Prophet, no matter how illustrious the man?By the way, I’m curious how the BBC comes up with the fact that Mohammed (and its variants) is the second-most popular name for UK babies now. It’s hard to make that out from the National Statistics data (I shall check properly at some point).
Without the excessive veneration issue, what remains is that you have an object named ‘Mohammed’. So, why should anyone care about that? There is the obvious idea that it just an insult, a sort of Golliwog: offensive, especially in our sensitive times, but hardly a death sentence? And anyway, Gibbons looks like a revival of the sort of Victorian gentlewoman adventurer that travelled to Eastern shores in times past, and therefore almost certainly (like myself) an Islamophile of sorts. It seems harsh to ask for the death of a bumbling close friend. All that is left then is that some people really seem to fear an inanimate object with a particular name, as if it could steal some of the power from the object of their veneration. Like the iconoclastic Puritans, this view is virtually animistic, and therefore by its nature opposite to the basic tenets of Islam. In some ways, it has parallels to the nutters who opposed ‘Jerry Springer, the Opera’. I can call these people nutters because they’re Christians, by the way…
But what do I know? Like Gillian Gibbons, I am just a bumbling Brit; I would appreciate some explaining to me what the fuss is all about.
Of course, it could be plain old conspiracy: the whole thing was set up by the school secretary, and then capitalised on by some pressure group. As Shami Chakrabarti has pointed out, there’s no such thing as a spontaneous demonstration.
So, in summary, I’m calling by teddy bear Jesus. I’m taking him to church on Sunday; I hope no-one minds.
(note: the author has strong views on religion. How much does your interpretation of the above opinions depend on whether you think I am atheist, Christian, Muslim, or even Buddhist?)
Mafia ‘dumped nuclear waste’ into Mediterranean
Interesting article in Nature today. It is alleged that a manager at ENEA Trisaia conspired with the mafia to dispose of at least a hundred drums of nuclear and toxic waste into, amongst other places, the Med.
The Queen likes DIAMONDs
The Queen will visit DIAMOND tomorrow. Although the facility was commissioned some time ago and has been operational for users for a few months, the official opening ceremony is today (even though it’s not listed on the website).
Brings a tear to my eye (sniff)…
Decoding Donnie Darko
I watched Donnie Darko again last night - it’s a very interesting movie, which uses a teen-movie basis to explore many interesting themes, including those of destiny and death. However, it has been somewhat of a victim of its own cult success, and many people have written pieces interpreting the story in various ways. More than a few of these interpretations have tried to reconcile the theme of time travel with real scientific theory, whilst others try to explain the surface plot elements themselves - in other words, ‘who does what’ in the movie. I thought it would be interesting in this post to describe some of the symbolic references that abound in the film, and show how their use link the movie to general symbolic themes in Western culture; it is these links that capture the imagination of many viewers, sometimes unconsciously, and are part of what makes the film so compelling for many people.
Links to cultural themes in our society is a well-trodden path in literature and film. One of the most well-known examples is J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, which makes use of numerous folk culture themes such as dwarves, elves, wizards and more, and whose narrative is based on medieval and pre-medieval tales from Europe. Tolkein was of course a Professor of Old English, and had at his disposal a large corpus of work from which to derive his stories. More simply, he used what the really rather simple formula tale of good versus evil, whereby a young acolyte is guided by a wise elder, and uses his knowledge to battle and conquer evil. Any student of literature or film will immediately recognise the parallels between this story and any number of modern derivatives. Obvious examples are The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Whilst the individual characters may take on one or more Jungian archetypes, the same archetypes are present in all these stories. These parallels have been pointed out in countless pieces, so I will just summarise the two obvious ones - the apprentice and the teacher:
- Frodo = Harry Potter = Luke Skywalker = Dorothy
- Gandalf = Dumbledore = Obi-Wan Kenobi = Witch of the East
The point here is not to point out that such parallels exist, or even that one story may be simply derived from another. What’s important to note is that they all call on pre-existing archetypes that are evocative in our culture, and which therefore produce a lure which catches the reader or viewer’s attention.
It is not only characters and archetypes which are used in these stories, which are basically sorts of folk tales. Many elements are also inserted into these stories which have symbolic meaning. Donnie Darko uses many such symbols. First and foremost is the obvious motif of the Rabbit - the ‘Frank’ character - that guides Donnie through his story. The rabbit is a nocturnal creature, and of course in the film Donnie only meets the rabbit at night. In mythology the rabbit is very often associated with the moon, and is why the shapes on the moon’s surface have often been interpreted as a rabbit. The association with the moon links the symbol of the rabbit with the phases of the moon, and the rabbit’s reputation for fertility (like the hare’s) adds to this so that the rabbit comes to symbolise death and rebirth. Easter is based around the ‘death’ during the new moon, and its subsequent rebirth after three days (hence the Christian idea of raising the temple in 3 days) is basically why we have an Easter bunny. Also, the moon dies each morning to be born again in the evening, like the rabbit was once thought to. The rabbit motif clearly then links to the idea in Donnie Darko of death (and hence rebirth?). It is curious that the time that Donnie has to live - or really to learn - during the film is about the length of a lunar cycle, 28 days. It is also worth noting that at the end of the film, Donnie’s youngest sister sits on the aeroplane holding a toy rabbit - this is the same aeroplane that is the operative cause for Donnie’s death.
A secondary rabbit motif is the ‘path to knowledge’, a theme that occurs across many folk stories. Animals are often helpers in folk tales, and in more modern stories the rabbit is often a guide to knowledge. One need only think of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, who guides Alice down the hole and thence into a wider world; in Donnie Darko the rabbit also leads Donnie to a golf course with its own holes. The Alice in Wonderland rabbit motif is basically copied wholesale in the recent film The Matrix, and we can therefore strongly suspect that the same is true in Donnie Darko (whether it is also true in ‘Harvey’ is more tenuous!).
The journey into knowledge parallels the theme of death and rebirth, and the links to Christian practice is clear: physical death and rebirth are linked with spiritual rebirth (this is why converted Christians are often called ‘twice-born’). The first thing that the rabbit says to Donnie is ‘wake up’, linking it to spiritual awakening. By the way, the rabbit also appears in the form of a car (a Volkswagen Rabbit) to guide Gretchen.
Another symbol in the film is that of water. Water, or being underwater, is a symbol of the unconscious, and rising out of the water is related to coming into consciousness in some way. The first act in Genesis (the book, not the band!) is moving over the face of the waters, and the first act that Donnie makes is the releasing of water in the school, symbolising a release from the unconscious. Water is also the sustainer of life, so the release of water may also symbolise the giving of life (physical or spiritual). And of course, water symbolises cleansing and regeneration, hence baptism being both cleansing and a symbolic rising from the unconscious. The rabbit is also often seen next to water in the film, by the way.
At the same time as Donnie releases the water, he embeds an axe into the head of a bronze dog in the school grounds. The dog has an ambiguous role in symbology, often referring to fidelity, but also to ignorance in the sense that the dog follows blindly. The symbolic defeating of the dog can therefore refer to the overcoming of ignorance in the journey into knowledge. This is a symbol that has been used in medieval illustrations, where a knight defeats the dog.
With regard to guidance and knowledge, Donnie Darko makes use of the almost universal motif of the bird spirit guide. Where, you may ask? Roberta Sparrow, of course! Birds are often symbols of higher guidance: we only have to think of the Spirit descending onto Christ in the form of a dove, or the animistic shaman associated with his eagle guide. Roberta Sparrow acts as Donnie’s spirit guide, through her first words (’all living things die alone’) and through her book.
There are plenty of other references in the film, and they are described in many other websites. I will finish with a few of them.
- Cherita is a guardian angel. In all her scenes she is near to Donnie (often behind), except when she explicitly plays an angel in the school play.
- Donnie wears a skeleton T-shirt at his party, referring to his own (imminent) mortality. This is a very obvious one.
- Seth = Satan.
- The school in the film is a religious one (Robert Sparrow, a former teacher, was also a former nun), so there is a link to religious and spiritual belief in several ways.
- There is a recurrent use of the number 8 throughout the movie (you will find where if you look!), which is a reference to ‘on the Eighth day’ - a Christian motif - and to Freemasonry. Also take a look at Wisdom 8:8.
- The are lots of little clever references to other films: ET, Back to the Future, Lolita, Dark City, Blade Runner, Bonanza, Stephen King’s It.
- Cellar Door is an anagram of Celar Dolor, Spanish for ‘watch for suffering’.
- Only the characters watching the Evil Dead eventually die.
- The opening song is by Echo and the Bunnymen (ha ha!).
- Donnie is of course the Apprentice, and Jesus. He does of course watch ‘Last Temptation of Christ’.
- Animus and anima figures abound in the film.
- 28, 06, 42, 12 are used in many contexts.
- The film is not actually about time travel.
Just one more thought: 24 hours in a day, 24 cans in a crate of beer. Coincidence? You decide…
International Linear Collider - not anytime soon
The DOE and Ray Orbach today released their updated interim report on future facility funding. This is important as US funding policy has a big influence on whether big accelerator projects get funded, wherever in the world they are sited. Unfortunately, ILC has not made it onto the ‘Near-Term’ list, but is at the top of the ‘Mid-Term’ list, or 13th overall. This means ‘not building it any time soon, but keep going on the design work’. Actually, this is not too unusual, especially for a project of this size. When we worked on DIAMOND, we started out in 1993 with the Woolfson Review and the machine was only commissioned in 2006.
You can just imagine a call centre at DOE: ‘You are thirteenth in the list. Please continue to hold. Your project is very important to us. We are sorry for the continued delay in funding your project.’
You can read the updated interim report here. It’s interesting to see the order of priority they’ve put the accelerator projects in:
- LCLS - under construction, so not surprising it’s at the top.
- Rare Isotope Accelerator - not yet being built
- CEBAF upgrade - been on the cards for a while, and to be built by our good friends at JLab.
- ILC
- SNS power upgrade (What an amazing machine that is - the target chamber is something else).
- SNS second target station
- RHIC II
- NSLS upgrade
- Super Neutrinos
- ALS upgrade
- APS upgrade
- eRHIC/eLIC
The perceptive among you will notice that ‘multi-user’ facilities feature highly (i.e. those facilities where multiple experiments may happen simultaneously); well over half are facilities of this sort.
Floating-point round-off errors - MS Excel example
I was looking for an Excel spreadsheet the other day that showed how easy it is to come unstuck doing floating-point arithmetic, due to rounding errors. I couldn’t find one easily, so I ended up writing my own. Basically, it shows the cumulative round-off error when iteratively calculating:
s(i+1) = [s(i)-0.9]/0.1
It also shows what happens for 0.99, 0.999 etc. You get the idea. s(1) is 1, obviously. There are plenty of other ways of showing this problem.
Here’s also a nice comic strip on rounding errors.
Country music makes you want to kill yourself
This is the abstract from an article published in 1992 in Social Forces, for a study showing that listening to Country music increases your chances of suicide. But then you knew that….
The Effect of Country Music on Suicide
STEVEN STACK, Wayne State University JIM GUNDLACH, Auburn University
Abstract
This article assesses the link between country music and metropolitan suicide rates. Country music is hypothesized to nurture a suicidal mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and alienation from work. The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability. The existence of a country music subculture is thought to reinforce the link between country music and suicide. Our model explains 51% of the variance in urban white suicide rates.
Sociological work on the relationship between art and society has been largely restricted to speculative, sociohistorical theories that are often mutually opposed. Some theorists see art as creating social structure ( Adorno 1973), while Sorokin ( 1937 ) suggests that society and art are manifested in cyclical autonomous spheres; and still others contend that art is a reflection of social structure ( Albrecht 1954). Little empirical work has been done on the impact of music on social problems. While some research has linked music to criminal behavior ( Singer, Levine & Jou 1990), the relationship between music and suicide remains largely unexplored. Music is not mentioned in reviews of the literature on suicide ( Lester 1983; Stack 1982, 1990b); instead, the impact of art on suicide has been largely restricted to analyses of television movies and soap operas (for a review, see Stack 1990b).
In this article, we explore the link between a particular form of popular music (country music) and metropolitan suicide rates. We contend that the themes found in country music foster a suicidal mood among people already at risk of suicide and that it is thereby associated with a high suicide rate. The effect is buttressed by the country subculture and a link between this subculture and a racial status related to an increased suicide risk.