🍵 Cup of Bigelow Earl Gray Tea (hot)
Month: January 2018
👓 My #2018Liberations | Ben Werdmuller – Medium
In lieu of resolutions this year, Cate Huston wrote a set of liberations, starting a movement. My friend Jean Hsu also wrote a liberating, personal list, which is where I discovered it, and Ellen K. Pao has a characteristically thoughtful entry. I like the framing a lot: rather than creating a set of requirements for my new year, which is what a resolution does, I’m freeing myself from a set. So here’s my list of things I’m liberating myself from in 2018:
👓 2018 New Year’s Liberations | Jean Hsu – Medium
Thanks to Cate Huston for starting us off with her New Year’s Liberations. We need to be explicit about what we say no to, to make time and room and mental energy for what it is we want.
👓 The #2018Liberation List | Ellen K. Pao – Medium
Yesterday morning I tweeted about letting go in 2018. Then Cate Huston and Jean Hsu told me about this project on 2018 liberation. And I agreed to join and wrote this post. It’s less well-formulated than I’d like, but it’s really how I’m feeling and thinking about all the things I want to let go of in 2018.
I’ve now read a few of these lists and it’s interesting how seemingly insecure so many people, many of which I look up to, are often in spite of their tremendous influence and success.
👓 The #2018Liberation List | Cate Huston – Medium
I hate New Year’s resolutions. Not because I don’t believe in goals, or working on myself, or the new year as a time to reflect and adjust… but because I’m tired of focusing on the ways that I am inadequate and need to do better. I hate seeing my friends worry about what they need to do better — especially right now, when the world is selling so many of us short. So for 2018 I made a different list, and I asked a bunch of friends to do the same. This is the list of things I’m freeing myself from in 2018. My #2018Liberation list. Join us? I want to read yours, too.
The originating post for this concept.
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar
🎞 Eyewitness (1981)
Directed by Peter Yates. With William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Plummer, James Woods. Eccentric Vietnam War vet turned janitor claims to have witnessed a murder of a man tied to international political underground in order to get the attention of a TV reporter he has a huge crush on. The cops suspect his loser best friend.
I expected way more out of Peter Yates and Steve Tesich, particularly with this cast. Ultimately the lack of a coherent screenplay killed the entire piece.
The relationship between the two leads was awkward and unrealistic beyond words. The first act was modestly engaging and the third act was great, but there was absolutely no logic, sense, or reasonable motivation in the second act to tie any of it together. I would get into plot holes and lack of motivations, but it’s just too painful to contemplate.
It was somewhat entertaining to see the cultural portion of the early 80’s and particularly a portrayal of evening news post Network, but before the rise of A Current Affair and the mantra of “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Watched on Netflix
Rating:
📖 Read pages 38-57 of The Celtic Myths by Miranda Aldhouse-Green
📖 Read pages 38-57, Chapter 2: The Myth Spinners of The Celtic Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends by (Thames & Hudson, , ISBN: 978-0500252093)
Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia
Chapter 2: The Myth Spinners
“It is said that during their training, the Druids learn by heart a great many verses, so many that some people spend 20 years studying the doctrine. The do not think it right to commit their teachings to writing. I suppose this practice began originally for two reasons: they did not want their doctrines to be accessible to the ordinary people, and they did not want their pupils to rely on the written word and so neglect to train their memories.”
–Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico 6.14
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 38
An interesting statement about memory and cultural traditions.
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
There is something about committing mythic–or any other–stories to physical form that changes them, because such an act codifies them, freezes-frames them and renders them less organic.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 38
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
… the San of southern Africa and the Aboriginal peoples of Australia to name just two, chose and still choose to commit their myths to rock-art. Change still occurs, for it is possible to paint over previous art and to add picture-panels.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 39
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
Shape-shifters are common protagonists in Celtic myths.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 39
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
Another striking custom in the Welsh stories in the way that tenses change, in order to enhance dramatic effect.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 39
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
For it usually does happen that if people have the help of written documents, they do not pay as much attention to learning by heart, and so let their memories become less efficient.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > The Druids and Oral Tradition > Page 40
Another snippet on memory
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
Late Iron Age bronze figurine of a man holding an egg-like object, perhaps a Druid’s egg, an opject used in prophecy, from Neuvy-en-Suillias, in France.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 41
Or an early rugby ball?
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
Indeed, it was not until the 17th century, under the relentless onslaught of the English government against the old Irish order and the filidh [teachers, kingly advisers, poets, satirists, and keepers of tradition] disappeared.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > The Triplefold Bardic Model > Page 44
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
The Welsh and Irish stories are very different from each other both in content and in timbre. […] It is highly likely that storytellers travelled freely between the courts of Ireland and Wales, and the sharing of storylines between the two countries is not hard to explain.
Highlight (yellow) – 2. Myth Spinners > Page 57
Added on Monday, January 1, 2018 night
Guide to highlight colors
Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category below
Orange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare word
Green–Reference to read
Blue–Interesting Quote
Gray–Typography Problem
Red–Example to work through
📖 Read pages 29-46 of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
📖 Read pages 29-46, Chapter 2: Show and Tell, of Ramona the Pest by (Scholastic Book Services, , ISBN: 0-590-04493-1)
A doll named Chevrolet is just awesome. Even better that her hair is in horrific shape because “It’s sort of green because I gave her a blue rinse.” Then it was washed with “Lots of things,” […] “Soap, shampoo, detergent, bubble bath. I tried Dutch Cleanser once, but it didn’t work.”
❤️ Just pushed some updates to IndieNews!
Aaron Parecki (aaronparecki.com)Just pushed some updates to IndieNews! Notes like this one, (posts with no name) will now be displayed better, hopefully encouraging people to post more short stuff instead of just blog posts. There is also a calendar view for posts, similar to the calendar on indieweb.org/2017-12-indieweb-challenge Thanks to @sknebel for the idea! I didn't link to the calendar permalinks from the UI yet, but you can browse to them with URLs like this: news.indieweb.org/en/2017/12 I also fixed an issue where the content and name of posts was not being truncated, which caused a minor IRC flood this morning due to a Microformats implied name containing an entire blog post being sent to IRC.
🔖 Nonlinear Dynamics 1 & 2: Geometry of Chaos by Predrag Cvitanovic
Predrag Cvitanovic (Georgia Institute of Technology)The theory developed here (that you will not find in any other course :) has much in common with (and complements) statistical mechanics and field theory courses; partition functions and transfer operators are applied to computation of observables and spectra of chaotic systems. Nonlinear dynamics 1: Geometry of chaos (see syllabus) Topology of flows - how to enumerate orbits, Smale horseshoes Dynamics, quantitative - periodic orbits, local stability Role of symmetries in dynamics Nonlinear dynamics 2: Chaos rules (see syllabus) Transfer operators - statistical distributions in dynamics Spectroscopy of chaotic systems Dynamical zeta functions Dynamical theory of turbulence The course, which covers the same material and the same exercises as the Georgia Tech course PHYS 7224, is in part an advanced seminar in nonlinear dynamics, aimed at PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and advanced undergraduates in physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering.
An interesting looking online course that appears to be on a white-labeled Coursera platform.
I’ve come across Predrag Cvitanovic’s work on Group Theory and Lie Groups before, so this portends some interesting work. I’ll have to see if I can carve out some time to sample some of it.
📖 Read pages 47-59 of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
📖 Read pages 47-59, Chapter 3: Seat Work, of Ramona the Pest by (Scholastic Book Services, , ISBN: 0-590-04493-1)
Ramon scribbles some black on the picture of her house to make it “interesting”. I knew immediately it was a fire and couldn’t help but laughing at the pending discussion… Oh, the creativity of the young!
🎞 Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Directed by Hal Needham. With Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Mike Henry. The Bandit is hired on to run a tractor trailer full of beer over state lines, in hot pursuit by a pesky sheriff.
I can’t help but think of how this fits into the genre of 1930’s screwball cinema. This could easily have been cast with Carey Grant (who probably could never have done this accent) and Katherine Hepburn and naturally with Jimmy Cagney playing Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Portague County. I’m not sure that Jerry Reed could have been replaced here however.
The film holds up reasonably well all these years later. The cinematography isn’t as off-seeming as many late 70’s pictures typically feel.
Jacky Gleason was a great caricature here and never seemed to break. His repeated use of the appelation “boy” was quite grating though he did seem to evenly apply it to almost everyone in the film.
In all, still an interesting romp despite the period cultural deficiencies.
Watched on Showtime (HDR)
Rating:
👓 Crohn’s disease patient in fact had Heinz sauce sachet perforating intestine | The Guardian
After six years of failing to respond to standard treatment, woman underwent surgery which found cause of symptoms
📺 "Fresh Off the Boat" The Day After Thanksgiving (TV Episode 2017)
Directed by Sean Kavanagh. With Randall Park, Constance Wu, Hudson Yang, Forrest Wheeler. The Huangs' idea to skip Thanksgiving this year doesn't last long when Louis plays matchmaker and invites Grandma's ESL teacher, Bernard, to dinner after he notices their flirtation in class. To Jessica's amazement, Grandma Huang offers to cook the entire meal to show her appreciation. Meanwhile, to prove his maturity, Evan lets Eddie and Emery sneak him into his first R-rated movie.
This was awesome if for nothing but George Takei’s over-the-top performance!