Tinker, Tailor

Have you ever thought of something interesting to blog about, but you suddenly realise that you’re too lazy to blog about it?

I’m guilty of this all the time.

*sigh*

Omniglot - a guide to written language.

A great site if you’re into written language, alphabets, scripts, etc.

From the site’s about page:

This site contains details of most alphabets and other writing systems currently in use, as well as quite a few ancient and invented ones. It also includes information about some of the languages written with those writing systems, multilingual texts, tips on learning languages, a book store, some useful phrases in many different languages, and a ever-growing collection of links to language-related resources.

I hate the feeling when I finish a few good books at the same time then realise that I don’t have anything worth reading on standby.

Life is hard.

Ever noticed that the person you’re overtaking on the pavement slows down for you if you’re overtaking slowly?

Until they feel there’s a comfortable distance, then they speed up again.

Okay, maybe it only applies to me.

From Forbes.com - Fighting Back:

SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.

(Note: “Sue the blogger” isn’t referring to a female blogger named Sue.)

I feel tainted just posting this, but it’s good to know some of the strategies evil corporations use against bloggers. Know thy enemy.

P.S. The only points in the article that aren’t evil in my opinion are the first two.

So WordPress.com is now open and I’m terribly tempted to jump the blogsome ship. I’ve been quite happy with blogsome so far (although I’m a little peeved by the recent addition of the anti-spam comment feature), but my guess is wordpress.com would last a little longer than blogsome. Besides, Scoble’s blog is at wordpress.com, which to me is a major advantage because his complaints, if any, will get heard.

If I move, I might change the way I blog (not something completely new to me). Who knows, I might even decide to change names (if I can come up with a better one, which shouldn’t be difficult).

Decisions, decisions.

“You call this art???”

Looking at art these days, especially of the modern variety, it’s sometimes easy to ask this question.

We often assume that art should be beautiful, having ‘purposiveness without a purpose’, as Kant puts it. But how about those art pieces which are frankly ugly, even gruesome or disgusting, like Fransisco Goya’s Saturn?

But is it art? explores different (and often competing) art theories to see how and why different art works could be considered art.

Like Andres Serrano’s offensive Piss Christ, which was made with the artist’s own urine.

Or Andy Warhol’s completely mundane Brillo Boxes, which is nothing but a replica of soap-pad boxes which could be purchased at a supermarket.

Or how culture and race and gender and even museums and money affect our perception of art.

I particularly like the 1989 ad How Women Get Maximum exposure by the Guerilla Girls which says

Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?
Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.

While this book is primarily on art theory, Cynthia Freeland managed to make it immensely readible. If you’re interested in the subject, I think this would be a joy to read, unlike the typical academic read.

And it’s by Oxford University Press. I’m one of the few people I know who sometimes bases my book choices on the publisher, and OUP is definitely a good one.

Every now and then I have this urge to do a silly post.

Created using Warning Label Generator.

There was a small crowd gathered at a booth outside Liat Towers. I tracked down a cute girl holding a tray giving out cans of Coke Light and I kindly helped to lighten her load a little. It helped that I was a little thirsty as well. A female DJ was extolling the refreshing sugar-free calorie-free drink chilled to 4 degrees celcius et cetera et cetera.

As I took the first sip, I noticed a guy from the booth counter weaving through the crowd coming quickly towards me. He was short but beefy, and was holding a clipboard.

“Hi, how old are you?”

This certainly wasn’t the typical kid on the street begging for a donation or information for a marketing survey - he almost made it sound like I was the one asking to be interviewed.

“What’s this about?” I’m not in the habit of releasing personal information to perfect strangers, or imperfect ones for that matter.

So MediaCorp was doing a new reality TV show called a Light Affair, and it’s the last day of the auditions, and they’re doing the filming next month, and if I’m single and above 18 I’m eligible for the audition…

“I’m not interested.”

He looked shocked. Almost horrified. As if no one in his right mind would refuse such an incredible offer.

“What?” he managed to stammer.

Reality TV has little to do with reality. And having auditions for reality TV is a little ironic, no? Besides, I don’t watch TV anyway. But I wasn’t in the mood to explain or argue.

“I said I’m not interested. But thanks anyway.”

By the way, Coke Light tastes bad.

* * * * *

I related the incident to a friend later at Borders, and she told me that she had already gone for an audition some time back, and they were calling her for another audition. She’s extremely talented, so I wasn’t surprised.

But this time, she rejected their offer, citing “unforseen circumstances.”

She’s no more single.

* * * * *

On hindsight, maybe I should have gone for the audition just for kicks. Ah well, too late now. Maybe next time.

So the Evolution vs Intelligent Design (ID) debate is receiving much more attention here in Singapore. (See Man’s evolution from monkey a proven scientific fact? - Tomorrow.sg.)

I’ve been following the debate on and off for years now, trying my best to keep an open mind. But throughout, even though both sides have their share of good arguments, I’ve always felt a sense of dissatisfaction which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps I didn’t think hard and deep enough.

But the “aha!” moment came when I read what Scott Adams (creator of the Dilbert comic of all people) had to say here at Intelligent Design, Part 1:

First of all, you’d be hard pressed to find a useful debate about Darwinism and Intelligent Design, of the sort that you could use to form your own opinion. I can’t find one, and I’ve looked. What you have instead is each side misrepresenting the other’s position and then making a good argument for why the misrepresentation is wrong. (If you don’t believe me, just watch the comments I get to this post.)

Read his whole post, as well as his other follow-up posts (too many for me to link to). Heck - read his whole blog. I hate the guy - I wish I were twice as funny as he is. Fine - I don’t mind being as funny as he is either.

I shall go to the library now to read some comics. Yeah, Dilbert comics.

I’ll keep this short.

Those of us who’ve lived in the blogosphere for a while would have seen some blog wars, many of them simply pointless. A recent one reminded of Clay Shirky’s Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software:

It is a deep curiosity of the human condition that people often find negative attention more satisfying than inattention…

What an elegant explanation.

P.S. If you’re interested in studying social software, Clay Shirky is a must-read. He’s a smart guy.

Got this in the mail.

Misunderstanding is the basis of much comedy, and much tragedy. Incommunicado will bring together super-short (250/500 word) stories, anecdotes and reflections from across the Commonwealth about people trying – and often failing – to communicate. Lost tourists unable to ask for directions; parents who can’t understand their children’s slang; workers forced to sign contracts they don’t understand … We want to hear about communication breakdowns that break hearts, make fortunes, even start wars – and everything in between. These stories will be as factual or fantastic, as epic or microscopic as you make them.

Details here.

I’m really tempted to take part. Selected works get published and a payment of A$50; deadline 30 November 2005. Do I have the time?

P.S. mr brown and miyagi can’t take part cos they don’t meet a certain requirement (30 years old or younger). Too bad.

I’m not kidding - I actually felt like throwing up my dinner when I looked at the design on this website:

Horseback riding in MASSACHUSETTS Horses & Equine

Among other symptoms, my pulse increased, I felt dizzy and nauseated, my breathing became shallow - I had to close the page within seconds.

Via OK/Cancel in The scariest interface part II.

This is somewhat related to what I said in my last post:

Facts don’t change people’s behavior.

Emotion changes people’s behavior.

Stories and irrational impulses are what change behavior. Not facts or bullet points.

From Seth Godin’s How to Run a Useless Conference. Seth is one of the smarter marketing thinkers around.

The recent furore in the blogosphere about Dawn Yeo’s plastic surgery (or her denial of it) reminds me of TT Durai and the NKF saga not too many months ago.

Looking at both cases with emotional detachment, one might think that those aren’t really big deals. Sure, Durai got paid a lot, but he achieved much for NKF. And Dawn, she’s just this young girl who made a white lie here and a white lie there. I mean, how many of us haven’t lied? And what’s the issue with plastic surgery? We put on makeup, we straighten our teeth, hey, we even wear clothes!

But we are human, and we have emotions. We feel. And we feel cheated.

Thus, the backlash becomes an emotional one more than a rational one.

And we can expect to see more of such emotional backlashes. Don’t be surprised.

* * * * *

For myself, I felt practically nothing for both the situations. Maybe because I’m not a NKF donor (and I didn’t watch those celebs doing silly stunts), nor do I know Dawn and have no pressing desire to zhng my face.

From Finding Said to Boost Proof of Goliath:

Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine’s name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible’s tale of David’s battle with the giant.

Sounds like a pretty important find.

But then again, hasn’t Goliath been around all this while? I mean, that angry sweaty hairy angmoh guy I have to babysit every week, simply because I’m the next-biggest guy on court?

Urgh. I’m still recovering from the last encounter.

I should add some thoughts to my recent post, Dogs, Teddy Bears, and Airconditioners, the part about talking to babies who are too young to understand language.

I was observing a lady cradling a baby in her arms, looking into his eyes, and talking to him. Just talking and talking to him.

Of course she knew that the baby couldn’t understand a word, but that didn’t deter her from acting like he did.

And that isn’t an uncommon scene - I’ve often witnessed women carry on conversations with babies. Some men do that too, but that seems more uncommon.

Admittedly, I’ve tried to do that myself. I enjoy carrying babies (provided they don’t puke or pee on me), and there was a time when I tried to talk to that adorable little thing, but, I found it really awkward, and it was only marginally easier than talking to, say, a dog or teddy bear or maybe an airconditioner.

I didn’t explain why I tried to talk to babies.

No, I wasn’t trying to be like a woman.

The only reason was that I believed that speaking to babies is important for their language development, that babies learn the sounds of language very early. I owe these ideas to Steve Pinker in The Language Instinct, a very important book on language. I read it quite a while ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details, but go read it if you’re into language/linguistics - some parts are quite technical, but at least two-thirds of it is quite readable.

When you find something you can’t say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don’t say it. Or at least, pick your battles.

I’m lucky to have older and more experienced people tell me the same. Pick your battles.

The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. […] Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed.

Something I still need to learn. Shuddup when it’s time to shuddup.

Every era has its heresies, and if you don’t get imprisoned for them, you will at least get in enough trouble that it becomes a complete distraction.

Tell someone who has gotten into a lot of trouble about this. Like me.

The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to. This is not just a way to develop ideas; it’s also a good rule of thumb for choosing friends. The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know.

Again, I’m lucky to have friends who are crazy enough not to shun me for my ideas. A few of them even share my ideas. How cool is that?

Perhaps the best policy is to make it plain that you don’t agree with whatever zealotry is current in your time, but not ot be too specific about what you disagree with. […] If [Zealots] try to force you to treat a question on their terms by asking “are you with us or against us?” you can always just answer “neither.”
Better still, answer “I haven’t decided.”

I’m so gonna try this the next time. If I remember.

Paul Graham has ideas on how to engage the zealots:

One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. […] You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion.

Another way to counterattack is with metaphor. […]

Best of all, probably, is humor. Zealots, whatever their cause, invariably lack a sense of humor. They can’t reply in kind to jokes.

Great advice not just for me, but for many here who have things to say about certain policies here.

This is my last post on chapter 3 (“What You Can’t Say”) of Hackers & Painters. (I’ve reviewed other parts of this book earlier here: Hackers & Painters, Why Nerds Are Unpopular, What You Can’t Say (part 1, Nervous Groups, Why?).

I was observing a lady cradling a baby in her arms, looking into his eyes, and talking to him. Just talking and talking to him.

Of course she knew that the baby couldn’t understand a word, but that didn’t deter her from acting like he did.

And that isn’t an uncommon scene - I’ve often witnessed women carry on conversations with babies. Some men do that too, but that seems more uncommon.

Admittedly, I’ve tried to do that myself. I enjoy carrying babies (provided they don’t puke or pee on me), and there was a time when I tried to talk to that adorable little thing, but, I found it really awkward, and it was only marginally easier than talking to, say, a dog or teddy bear or maybe an airconditioner.

But wait, my girl friends talk to dogs too. Fine, I talk to dogs as well. Maybe command would be a better word, since what I say is restricted to come! here! there! and the dog’s name. In other words, words that I think the dog might understand.

But when some girls talk to the dog, it’s no less than a conversation, which may sound something like “hi darling, how are you? Were you lonely today? You miss me har? Aww you’re so sweet. I’m glad to see you too. Come, let mommy give you a treat…”

Then one day this friend of mine showed me a little teddy bear she had in her bag. She didn’t just show it to me, she introduced him to me.

“Say hi to Paul*!”
(* Name changed to protect the innocent teddy bear.)

“Ermmm… how do you know it’s a male?” I had trouble saying hi, nor could I quite tell the gender from the area between the legs.

“He is lah,” she was unperturbed by my question, and proceeded on to talk to the both of us, probably hoping that Paul would get along with me, especially after I insulted his manhood.

Airconditioners aren’t spared either.

I remember reading a post by this blogger relating how her airconditioner malfunctioned, and she started talking to it, eventually shouting at it.

Which reminded me of a collegue, who, when her computer monitor blacked out, started patting it and saying “Oey! Don’t like that leh! Wake up! Wake up!”

To the male reader, all these may sound rather silly, but my purpose in writing this is not to offend my female friends (I wouldn’t dare!), but more to explore how the tendency to anthropomorphize* (fine, talking to babies isn’t technically athropomorhism) could be linked to other human traits.
(* To anthropomorphize an object is to give the object some human characteristics, such as the ability to understand speech.)

Other human traits like empathy. I am certain that an anthropomorphic tendency is positively correlated to the ability to empathize with others. I think the link is quite obvious - if I can talk to a teddy bear, giving him a name along with imagined feelings and the imagined ability to understand my speech, it shouldn’t be difficult for me to put myself in the proverbial shoes of another in empathy.

Let me step out further on the limb.

I suspect that the anthropomorphic tendency is also correlated to the belief in the supernatural or the existence of deity. Of course, this does not affect the question of whether the supernatural or deity actually exists - I’m just saying that it seems easier for a person with a stronger tendency to anthropomorphize to believe in the supernatural or the existence of deity.

Maybe I’ll ask Nicole my pillow her opinion on this later tonight.

There were some questions on tenses in Chinese in my Chinese Grammar post, so I thought it was interesting enough to talk about it briefly here.

Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar (pg 29) has an excellent summary on Chinese tenses, if you understand the grammar terms:

One feature common to all verbs in Chinese is that they do not conjugate for tense. The time of the action specified by the verb is normally indicated by placing a time expression before the verb or at the beginning of the sentence. Chinese verbs do have to be related to aspect, however, in that there needs to be some indication of whether the action has been completed, is on-going, or is part of past experience. This is achieved by introducing an aspect marker le, guo, or zhe as a suffix to the verb, or zài directly before the verb. Action verbs without aspect markers usually express habitual action or intention.

I was thinking of explaining the above in detail, but it’s too tedious because quite a bit of background knowledge is required. Maybe another post, if I’m up to it. Anyway, I hope this is helpful in some way.