a2z

F is for Frappr

2006-12-06T11:56:00.000Z

Frapper maps look like and do this:

H is for Haruspices

2006-10-02T22:58:00.000Z

Haruspices - you know, the ancient form of divination trusted by the Etruscans and refined by the Romans. The Babylonians were also into it. In its essence we are looking at the duck's guts - or a chicken's, or whatever animal conveniently comes to hand. It's messier than tarot cards and you can fall fowl (hehe) of the animal protection authorities. It was however a much respected practice and worth a read.

J is for Jet

2006-11-21T23:10:00.000Z

Not sure how long I can continue this little conceit of mine, but J is indeed for Jet, the Aussie band with a hint of the Beatles. Would you say a crunchier, louder Beatles derivative sound?

I is for me

2006-10-19T13:13:00.000Z

There is no I in TEAM. I am here for myself. I am me. You can tell I have nothing to say, can't you?

F is for....

2006-09-18T23:53:00.000Z

F is for... JFK International Airport... John Fitzgerald Kennedy....F. Scott Fitzgerald... the element Fluorine.... and the letter F itself.

G is for Geekcode

2006-09-07T22:51:00.000Z

Robert Hayden's valuable Geekcode is here, waiting for you.

E is for edit later

2006-09-07T22:43:00.000Z

Because I can, I will edit this later. It seems like cheating but it is simply modern life. For example my 7 year old daughter talks of "saving" stuff whether in a computer or a non-computer context. As in 'I'll save this now and retrieve it later'. It doesn't matter what it is, it can be "saved" for later editing. She also memorises long URLs that matter to her, but that's another story.

D is for Digital

2006-09-06T22:26:00.000Z

Digital, as opposed to analog. Discontinuous, versus continuous. Digital, as in a series of 1s and 0s, either on or off, black or white. It's not how we usually think about life, with our shades of grey, but by streaming these 1s and 0s we can build immensely detailed information streams - and information is what we and the world are all made of...

Of course an analog waveform can describe the same information. It's a little like quantum physics vs classical: you can view the same information in different ways. So why not stay with analog? The primary advantage to digital information storage and transfer is ease of manipulation. It can also be more readily checked for accuracy. A simple count and compare of the 1s and 0s against a known value can be performed at intervals, ensuring a degree of veracity that is hard to reproduce - certainly on the same scale - using analog data. In fact, digital data is simply easier to work with. Error correction, loss reduction - you name it, digital's got the advantage. Digital streams can also be converted to analog and vice versa, so the appropriate mix can be found to do the task at hand.

There's discussion here on digital data, here on analog vs digital music, and here is a crash course on digital from PBS for further reading.

C is for Comparative Religions

2006-09-05T23:37:00.000Z

It's nice to compare and contrast. It's popular amongst university lecturers to request papers that compare and contrast (just so that you get the idea that comparison differs from contrasting, if nothing else) and it's very popular amongst those of religious faith. Sometimes it's simply an enquiring mind at work, othertimes it's someone seeking to 'prove' something. Well nothing outside of mathematics can be proven at this point, so it's just interesting, isn't it?

Check these sites out: Comparativereligion.com, a really good, detailed site; Islam 101, for a fascinating perspective; and Virtualreligion.net, another deep pool of reading.

From my own perspective, stumbling over the Greek myths and legends as a kid loose in a library was a great way to get perspective on the world. I wandered from Babylon to the Bible, looking for clues as to the reality of much of this fascinating, otherworldly mythology. The stories get spoken, written and re-written, and then translated. They get coloured by priests and prophets, flavoured by the times and put to use to 'prove' a new case. Knowing that this is the process, that 'the word of God' is often a multi-generational rethink of much older stories gives me perspective. It doesn't undermine the quest for understanding, rather it fosters it.

C is for Cycling

2006-09-05T00:32:00.000Z

OK, OK, I know. It's really BI-cycling. The pros to this activity include physical fitness, or at least fitness sufficient to ride a bike. How far you go depends on you. Tour de France fitness requires pro-level bike handling skill (like jumping your bike over a gutter at 50kmh, or simply riding in the middle of a 200-rider strong peletonwithout freaking) plus fitness specificity. To get that requires about 10-15 years of consistent high-level effort and commitment, great pain management, enormous motivation and a love of pasta. Plus about 700km a week, week in, week out.

To ride around and enjoy yourself is a lot easier.

B is for business

2006-09-02T13:03:00.000Z

Shameless plug I know but I blog on business management resources here and critique business and sustainablity a bit more here. Why? Because we seem to have fallen for capitalism, let's make it honest. There's no point in pricing goods in a "free" market if the price is distorted by hidden subsidies. Yes, some products should be available at minimal cost to everyone - hey, that's hardly capitalism, is it? - but if we are pretending it's a free market we should recognise the lie. Protect the innocent - the poor, the incapacitated - but let the rich pay a fair price and let them know where their money goes, so they can opt out or make a racket about abuse. I'm talking at everything from energy to food.

Car makers are probably the worst - subsidised either directly (and massively!) to keep them employing loads of people, or indirectly via cheap fuel, free roads, no contribution to the health system and a no-cost emissions "get out of jail" card. Yes, it's in the community's interest to build roads and hospitals anyway, but let's price these assets properly instead of hiding it and put the cost where it belongs - against the cars that expect to use these roads and the hospitals that put accident victims back together again.

Think about it - how many industries get a free ride like this? Why is it so?

C is for Contradictions

2006-08-28T23:58:00.000Z

Here's a few. In the Koran. In the Bible. In Webster's.
Some Christian contradictions from atheists in the US. The deafening silence that is an oxymoron. 19th century historical contradictions. Poetic contradictions. A band called Contradictions. The Great Gatsby and contradictions. I'm sure we can find more.

B is for Bicycles - and Biiible?

2006-08-28T23:58:00.000Z

I'll get to this is a moment. Oh yeah. Bikes. And Biiible? Freaky!

A is for Alfa

2006-08-26T12:20:00.000Z

As in Alfa Romeo. I've owned 3. Still have 1. Hard to shake this particular Italian illness.

A is for 'a' list of books

2006-08-26T00:26:00.000Z

OK, it's a stretch. But it's here now anyway.

I will cover in this blog subjects beyond literal truth. And I use truth advisedly as mathematics is the only provable truth, IMHO. Everything else is either awaiting a mathematical proof or is a belief, a theory or an assumption.

Just to explain my thinking: you may believe in what you can see, hear and/or touch, and that's cool; but it's not necessarily a literal truth. Even if a thousand people see, hear and/or touch that thing it doesn't make it true. It may be real enough to the people concerned but it's not an incontrovertible truth. It may be an illusion. It may be a shared thought. It may be a shared assumption. It's something, but it's not a literal truth. To be a literal truth requires proof. To my mind we can only be certain of mathematical proofs, as I haven't seen any other proof that convincingly lives outside the mind or perception of man.

And I could be wrong about maths. Perhaps there is no independent proof? Ahhh, but that's an undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns....

So to the first installment of my 'way out but worth it' booklist, in no particular order:

Bill Shakespeare's works in full. An essential lesson in the use of the English language, up there with Fowler's.

The Elegant Universe (by Brian Greene. Post-Einstein string theory to get you thinking.)

Anything by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. As I said, there are mathematical proofs and there are theories. Some theories are more compelling than others.

The Torah (the Pentateuch, the Book of Moses: a lively read, basis for Judaism and the Old Testment and a fascinating read on any level)

The Bible (Greek for 'Books'; The Old and New Testaments: basis for the Christian cults and a brilliant read)

The Koran (Arabic for 'Recital': another excellent piece of writing and the basis for Islam. I have the Dawood translation)

The History of Magic (by Eliphas Levi: a great, compelling read. Spot the a ha! 'Harry Potter' moments and see the footprints of Rowling's research)

The Theory of Celestial influence (by Rodney Collin: immensely detailed, it wallows around trying to 'prove' a case scientifically but falls magnificently short. Can be heavy, clumsy and painful to read... but still worth it for the determined!).

Anything by Joseph Campbell, but Occidental Mythology is a great start. I'll get to Joe in a moment.

That's just for starters. Let me know what you think.

This entry was originally posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 9:51 am on my OODB site and is filed under No idea where this one goes, Writing, Religion and Essential Truths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the usual RSS feeds here or there. You can leave a response by commenting here , or trackback from your own site.

Welcome to A

2006-08-25T23:53:00.000Z

I think I've gone alphabetical now. A is for alpha, alfa, aleph and archive. Amongst many other things, of course. We'll see where this takes us (or me, more than likely)