Saturday, May 15, 2004
"He reigns from heaven above / With wisdom, power and love, / my God is a logically inconsistent and philosophically confused notion"
I've been reading some Nietzsche lately, so what better to play than some philosophy games, found via Memepool?
These kind are not fun--at least not in the sense of some other internet games, but they are terribly interesting. They are based off philosophy, and you can make a "game" out of philosophy because it is so tied to rules and logic. So visit the site and try some of them out. The couple tied to religion are interesting, but are likely to feel a bit insulting to some believers, especially Battleground God. If you've not spent serious time on your conception of God, this will riddle it with holes (not necessarily a bad thing). If you have, and the program does find problems with your belief system, you'll likely find it's because the rationale behind your answers is more complex than the game, with its format of multiple-choice questions, can actually allow. But each game goes a long way to reminding you about how to be logically consistent.
For example, in the Do-It-Yourself-Deity game you have a choice of the characteristics we usually attribute to God, including omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, creator, sustainor, perfectly free, eternally existing, and involved in humans. The only way to get a wholly logically consistent image of God is to select only one of these attributes; any more than that, and your image of God introduces logical inconsistencies into itself, which the program is happy enough to spell out. My God (which the limited language of the program doesn't allow me to explain, is omnibenevolent, omniscient, the Creator, eternally existing, and involved with humans) has a 0.8 plausibility quotient--which means it is relatively free of contradictions. Here "he" is:
More useful than the God games, perhaps (as those can be talked around), are the games which test our own individual thinking. My favorite was the logic game, which is a sort of thing used in psychology tests. Chances are you'll do bad on the test, but that's the whole point. So why would you want to take a test you're likely to be bad at? Well, the reasons behind the study (as explained after you take the test), and its real-time results, are frankly astounding, and cut to the quick of how we as a species process logical data.
"Know thyself," says the Delphic oracle, "even when what you know is that sometimes you just suck at some things."
At least if you sucked, you're not alone. The statistics, actually, are in your favor. And mine, too.
These kind are not fun--at least not in the sense of some other internet games, but they are terribly interesting. They are based off philosophy, and you can make a "game" out of philosophy because it is so tied to rules and logic. So visit the site and try some of them out. The couple tied to religion are interesting, but are likely to feel a bit insulting to some believers, especially Battleground God. If you've not spent serious time on your conception of God, this will riddle it with holes (not necessarily a bad thing). If you have, and the program does find problems with your belief system, you'll likely find it's because the rationale behind your answers is more complex than the game, with its format of multiple-choice questions, can actually allow. But each game goes a long way to reminding you about how to be logically consistent.
For example, in the Do-It-Yourself-Deity game you have a choice of the characteristics we usually attribute to God, including omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, creator, sustainor, perfectly free, eternally existing, and involved in humans. The only way to get a wholly logically consistent image of God is to select only one of these attributes; any more than that, and your image of God introduces logical inconsistencies into itself, which the program is happy enough to spell out. My God (which the limited language of the program doesn't allow me to explain, is omnibenevolent, omniscient, the Creator, eternally existing, and involved with humans) has a 0.8 plausibility quotient--which means it is relatively free of contradictions. Here "he" is:
More useful than the God games, perhaps (as those can be talked around), are the games which test our own individual thinking. My favorite was the logic game, which is a sort of thing used in psychology tests. Chances are you'll do bad on the test, but that's the whole point. So why would you want to take a test you're likely to be bad at? Well, the reasons behind the study (as explained after you take the test), and its real-time results, are frankly astounding, and cut to the quick of how we as a species process logical data.
"Know thyself," says the Delphic oracle, "even when what you know is that sometimes you just suck at some things."
At least if you sucked, you're not alone. The statistics, actually, are in your favor. And mine, too.
Friday, May 14, 2004
Define art
After all that discussion about taming the controllable and uncontrollable, I had my own chance. Today, by chance (the uncontrollable), I found Mr. Picassohead and thus discovered my chance to make some art (the controllable). Mr. Picassohead is, as the name suggests, your opportunity to play Mr. Potatohead, though instead of rubber ears and a funny moustache you get Picasso-inspired body parts to play with.
I created two masterpieces, which were added to the extensive gallery. The first one is called id. The second one is called Susanne, for any great artist must paint the woman who stirs his dreams.
Wait a minute. Did I just say "great artist?" Well, my portraits certainly do not match Picasso's; he was well into his analytical Cubist phase when he painted a work that approximates the feelings of Susanne in its title, Ma Jolie--in fact, the work approximates everything, as by this point Picasso had already broken down our classical represenation of form. Nevermind he had been painting characteristic and famous paintings like The Old Guitarist by the time he was 22, two years younger than I am now.
It's fun to play Picasso--so fun, in fact, that I wanted to paint another little portrait. But, as much as I talked about the elements of creating art yesterday, there's another secret component that one of my teachers, Phil Powell, always expounded: half of art is knowing when to stop.
Thanks go to Memepool for the Mr. Picassohead link.
I created two masterpieces, which were added to the extensive gallery. The first one is called id. The second one is called Susanne, for any great artist must paint the woman who stirs his dreams.
Wait a minute. Did I just say "great artist?" Well, my portraits certainly do not match Picasso's; he was well into his analytical Cubist phase when he painted a work that approximates the feelings of Susanne in its title, Ma Jolie--in fact, the work approximates everything, as by this point Picasso had already broken down our classical represenation of form. Nevermind he had been painting characteristic and famous paintings like The Old Guitarist by the time he was 22, two years younger than I am now.
It's fun to play Picasso--so fun, in fact, that I wanted to paint another little portrait. But, as much as I talked about the elements of creating art yesterday, there's another secret component that one of my teachers, Phil Powell, always expounded: half of art is knowing when to stop.
Thanks go to Memepool for the Mr. Picassohead link.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Construct your image
This morning I went with my parents to a breakfast event at Harrah's Casino in Council Bluffs.
The occasion: a talk given by underwater photographer David Doubilet, sponsored by a Council Bluffs group that brings in leaders and scholars to speak to the business community. This link is for his site at the National Geographic, where he is the photographer in residence, or some such. Amazing photos, and it's really a shame that the National Geographic site only shows 11 images of his. We were...spoiled, I think is the best word, by over 40 minutes of his own slides and commentary. His perspective is such a healthy one for us to develop, we who spend our lives walking around on the few solid surfaces of this water planet.
It was not an environmental discussion--he was not there as an activist, but instead as an artist--but the environment is the topic, and so cannot be ignored. He talked a lot about coral, and why not; he shared that all the world's coral put together is large enough to comprise a whole other continent. He mentioned how the Orange Ruffy, a fish not uncommon to our supermarkets, is harvested when it is 100 years old, and that one large haul of the fish can wipe out an entire population. It seems to me that they are, in that respect, not unlike the old growth trees rain forest harvesters wantonly slice down to make my printer paper. It's nice we have sites like The Rainforest Site (part of that collective of sites where you can make donations by viewing sponsor ads), but we need a Save the Oceans Site, too--they surround us and separate us, yet we somehow make them easy to ignore.
And I was reminded of the matter-of-factness that separates his artistry--indeed, the artistry of any photographer--from the snaps most of us take. He fashions his pictures with movie lighting and careful timing, in addition to healthy luck. Only a part of it is being in the right place at the right time; the rest of it, honestly, is creating the right place at the right time. Sure, he's capturing wild and elusive subjects--for all his skill, David Doubilet cannot make a shark pose any more than I can command the stones to fly--but other factors of composition, like light and timing and framing, are all under his control. The same can be said, of course, for those spectacular portrait photographs of Roark Johnson's I've been on about lately, and indeed for all great photographers. The art of it is in taming both the controlled and uncontrollabe, in making the created moment seem stumbled upon, and the stumbled upon created.
The event itself, aside from the photographs, was just fine. The person who introduced Doubilet called him a "photo-grapher" rather than a "phoTOGrapher". My potatos were a little dry, and the orange juice and chocolate milk on the tables were lukewarm, having been placed out long enough to lose their chill. My parents and I sat alone at a table; most of the dozens of other tables were filled. It was nice to feel as though we were at the presentation as a unit, when so many other tables were shared among business associates.
Turns out Doubilet has been selected for the annual Council Bluffs celebration. Many smaller towns and cities have such community celebrations, though Council Bluffs's feels like an attempt to stir up loyalty to this town, which so often is cast as Omaha pathetic, weeny, hillbilly snotnosed little brother. I think that has a lot to do with why the community celebration is called "Pride Week." I'm new to the area, and perhaps I'm just sensitive to a different set of associations than the rest of Council Bluffs, but every time I hear someone go on excitedly about Pride Week I forget myself and wonder if the whole city's gone suddenly gay.
The occasion: a talk given by underwater photographer David Doubilet, sponsored by a Council Bluffs group that brings in leaders and scholars to speak to the business community. This link is for his site at the National Geographic, where he is the photographer in residence, or some such. Amazing photos, and it's really a shame that the National Geographic site only shows 11 images of his. We were...spoiled, I think is the best word, by over 40 minutes of his own slides and commentary. His perspective is such a healthy one for us to develop, we who spend our lives walking around on the few solid surfaces of this water planet.
It was not an environmental discussion--he was not there as an activist, but instead as an artist--but the environment is the topic, and so cannot be ignored. He talked a lot about coral, and why not; he shared that all the world's coral put together is large enough to comprise a whole other continent. He mentioned how the Orange Ruffy, a fish not uncommon to our supermarkets, is harvested when it is 100 years old, and that one large haul of the fish can wipe out an entire population. It seems to me that they are, in that respect, not unlike the old growth trees rain forest harvesters wantonly slice down to make my printer paper. It's nice we have sites like The Rainforest Site (part of that collective of sites where you can make donations by viewing sponsor ads), but we need a Save the Oceans Site, too--they surround us and separate us, yet we somehow make them easy to ignore.
And I was reminded of the matter-of-factness that separates his artistry--indeed, the artistry of any photographer--from the snaps most of us take. He fashions his pictures with movie lighting and careful timing, in addition to healthy luck. Only a part of it is being in the right place at the right time; the rest of it, honestly, is creating the right place at the right time. Sure, he's capturing wild and elusive subjects--for all his skill, David Doubilet cannot make a shark pose any more than I can command the stones to fly--but other factors of composition, like light and timing and framing, are all under his control. The same can be said, of course, for those spectacular portrait photographs of Roark Johnson's I've been on about lately, and indeed for all great photographers. The art of it is in taming both the controlled and uncontrollabe, in making the created moment seem stumbled upon, and the stumbled upon created.
The event itself, aside from the photographs, was just fine. The person who introduced Doubilet called him a "photo-grapher" rather than a "phoTOGrapher". My potatos were a little dry, and the orange juice and chocolate milk on the tables were lukewarm, having been placed out long enough to lose their chill. My parents and I sat alone at a table; most of the dozens of other tables were filled. It was nice to feel as though we were at the presentation as a unit, when so many other tables were shared among business associates.
Turns out Doubilet has been selected for the annual Council Bluffs celebration. Many smaller towns and cities have such community celebrations, though Council Bluffs's feels like an attempt to stir up loyalty to this town, which so often is cast as Omaha pathetic, weeny, hillbilly snotnosed little brother. I think that has a lot to do with why the community celebration is called "Pride Week." I'm new to the area, and perhaps I'm just sensitive to a different set of associations than the rest of Council Bluffs, but every time I hear someone go on excitedly about Pride Week I forget myself and wonder if the whole city's gone suddenly gay.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Open your big mouth
I wanted a night cap on my internet surfing. Something a little different, not offensive, and a satisfying thing after which to turn off the computer.
So I cruised the archive at The G Spot. I had to reject the link that led me to an image of the world's longest tongue, but was much more happily sated by the archive that led me to a different way to check out the great mouth muscle--Gaping Maws, a site dedicated to the vast world of animal yawns.
That'll do. Dozens of yawning lions are strangely soporific.
So I cruised the archive at The G Spot. I had to reject the link that led me to an image of the world's longest tongue, but was much more happily sated by the archive that led me to a different way to check out the great mouth muscle--Gaping Maws, a site dedicated to the vast world of animal yawns.
That'll do. Dozens of yawning lions are strangely soporific.
New strangers
Roark Johnson, whose blog I mentioned last Tuesday, has now been updated with new strangers from April 26-May 9. More fantastic shots. This is the first update I've seen since I've discovered the site, and it'll be enough to keep me coming back.
Interestingly, seems the template changes I've wrought to the source code of my blog--which make it easier for me to type my posts in without having to separately format the post title and its text, have changed all the titles in posts I'd worked on before the update--that is, before yesterday--into different-colored versions of the body text. I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to design, but the *new* Blogger also informs me of the number of posts I've posted--74, I believe, would be the number of posts I'd have to change. Or I could undo the format changes and see if that would fix it. Forget that. Those 74 posts can just stay the way they are. My future blogging comfort is at stake.
Interestingly, seems the template changes I've wrought to the source code of my blog--which make it easier for me to type my posts in without having to separately format the post title and its text, have changed all the titles in posts I'd worked on before the update--that is, before yesterday--into different-colored versions of the body text. I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to design, but the *new* Blogger also informs me of the number of posts I've posted--74, I believe, would be the number of posts I'd have to change. Or I could undo the format changes and see if that would fix it. Forget that. Those 74 posts can just stay the way they are. My future blogging comfort is at stake.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Before there were pictures
At times I get sad that image hosting is not a part of the free Blogger service. Granted, part of that is because I'm quite cheap; I could pay for it, but I don't.
Then I have a moment when I think of textfiles.com, and I am reminded that the important things here are the words.
Textfiles.com is a fantastic site. It culls and categorizes all those ancient and magnificent threads that were passed around BBSs between the years of 1980-1995. This, of course, encompasses the period of time between when personal computers first came to homeowners and the birth of the internet as we know it today--in other words, this is what the internet was before there was an internet. It's no surprise that many of these textfiles are absolute classics that are still circulated in e-mail forwards today. Textfiles.com is the archive of the proto-internet soul, which was all words (even the pictures are made of letters)--and which finds itself, after some fashion, resurrected in new form in today's weblogs.
For those of you who can remember what life was like in those days, when Adventure was the video game we loved and when we played it on one of three types of monitors--those displaying green, white, or amber text on a black background--textfiles.com is going to feel like a treasure trove. Becaue that's exactly what it is. It would take days to go through all the files--that's why it'd be best to start browsing with the list of the 100 classic textfiles. That's like the Norton Anthology of textfile directories. The other directories all contain classic entries, and you can download whole directories. There's a lot there, too, as each directory may contain dozens of megabytes of text files. Repeat: dozens of megabytes of plain text (ASCII) files.
For anyone else, get used to the site's sparse presentation, and realize that the content's as lovely and timeless as some of those great black-and-white movies. These are the silent films of the digital age.
Then I have a moment when I think of textfiles.com, and I am reminded that the important things here are the words.
Textfiles.com is a fantastic site. It culls and categorizes all those ancient and magnificent threads that were passed around BBSs between the years of 1980-1995. This, of course, encompasses the period of time between when personal computers first came to homeowners and the birth of the internet as we know it today--in other words, this is what the internet was before there was an internet. It's no surprise that many of these textfiles are absolute classics that are still circulated in e-mail forwards today. Textfiles.com is the archive of the proto-internet soul, which was all words (even the pictures are made of letters)--and which finds itself, after some fashion, resurrected in new form in today's weblogs.
For those of you who can remember what life was like in those days, when Adventure was the video game we loved and when we played it on one of three types of monitors--those displaying green, white, or amber text on a black background--textfiles.com is going to feel like a treasure trove. Becaue that's exactly what it is. It would take days to go through all the files--that's why it'd be best to start browsing with the list of the 100 classic textfiles. That's like the Norton Anthology of textfile directories. The other directories all contain classic entries, and you can download whole directories. There's a lot there, too, as each directory may contain dozens of megabytes of text files. Repeat: dozens of megabytes of plain text (ASCII) files.
For anyone else, get used to the site's sparse presentation, and realize that the content's as lovely and timeless as some of those great black-and-white movies. These are the silent films of the digital age.
Suspicions
I thought the folks at Blogger might be up to something the other day, when the formatting and link bars mysteriously appeared above my "Create a Post" box, and then mysteriously disappeared as soon as I had become used to using them--like the end of a dream you're enjoying enough you forget your dreaming.
So there are a few more things you can do with this service now. And a bunch of conditional tags that let you do things that a blog should do, provided you can figure out how to use them. If I can figure out how to implement them, I will.
That's another day's work.
So there are a few more things you can do with this service now. And a bunch of conditional tags that let you do things that a blog should do, provided you can figure out how to use them. If I can figure out how to implement them, I will.
That's another day's work.
