Category: about writing

schadenfreude

It took them an entire study to realize that schadenfreude (glee at the misfortune of others) happens when people resent those who have privileges without working for or deserving them, and those privileged people suddenly fall from grace. I would have thought that was self-evident.

I have to take issue with one paragraph that’s totally wrong: “You will envy more a colleague of yours who makes a thousand dollars more a year than you will a C.E.O. who makes a million dollars more than you,” he said. “We also care about famous people. They are symbols to us.”

Ahem. That’s total bull-crap. I’d be happy for the person I know and annoyed at the C.E.O, not be envious of him. Unless of course the colleague of mine turned out to have made the $1,000 in a totally unethical or undeserved way. And the C.E.O I would probably assume made the million in a undeserved way, unless they had some really creative idea that the built their own company on. Then I’d probably admire them.

And I frankly don’t give a rat’s hiney-end about famous people. Screw ’em. They do, in the article, point out that we tend to think of celebrities as people who are a part of our lives, and I think that’s true, in some ways, with some celebrities. I think the only famous person I ever truly wanted to meet was Princess Diana, just because I think we would have gotten along well.

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Popular Baby Names – Social Security Administration

I saw this link (Popular Baby Names) once, a few years ago, and have been trying to remember where it was located ever since. Turns out it was the Social Security Administration, not the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s come up in discussions a number of times, and I kept saying “there’s this link…” Well, here it is: An analysis of popular baby names based on Social Security applications, going back each year to the late 1800’s. Ah, the good old days, when Mildred was the #9 most popular girl’s name in the country, and Gertrude made it at #22. Guys, don’t laugh, Walter was #11, Clarence #18.

It’s also scary to look at the stats for the 1990’s…. with 8 different variations on the name Brittney. I hate last names as first names, especially for girls. Courtney, Brittany, Shelby, Taylor, Madison—-yuck, yuck, yuck. I’m going to name my daughter Mabel. That’ll show them.

Okay, that’s a little extreme. How about Eleanor?

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Maneki Neko and the Legend of “Goutokuji” Temple

Maneki NekoAt the beginning of Edo period (17th century), there was a rundown temple in Setagaya, the western part of Tokyo. The priest of the temple kept a pet cat, named Tama, and he though he was very poor, he always was sure to feed Tama first.
One day, Naotaka Ii who was the lord of Hikone district (western part of Japan near Kyoto) was caught in a shower near the temple on his way home from hunting. While avoiding the rain under a big tree in front of the temple, Naotaka noticed that a cat was inviting him into the temple gate. And as soon as he left the tree tempted by the cat’s gesture, the tree was struck by lighting. Naotaka’s life was saved by the cat which was proved to be Tama.
By the incident, Naotaka became closer to the priest of the temple. The rundown temple was appointed to be the Ii’s family temple, and changed it’s name to Goutokuji. Goutokuji became prosperous. Tama saved Naotaka from lighting, and saved the temple from it’s poverty at the same time.
After it’s death, Tama was buried at Goutokuji’s cat cemetery with all due respect, and Maneki Neko was invented to honor Tama.
There are different kinds of Maneki Neko. One raises its left paw; the legend specifies that the one with its left paw up invited customers or people. The other raises its right paw; the legend specifies that the one with its right paw up invited money or good fortune.

Posted on by Hawthorn Fire 3

In a Snob-Free Zone

In a Snob-Free Zone, By Joseph Epstein

My cousin Sherwin’s way into the snob-free zone was simple enough: Care only about one’s work, judge people only by their skill at their own work, and permit nothing else outside one’s work to signify in any serious way. View the rest of the world as a more or less amusing carnival at which one happens to have earned–through, of course, one’s work–a good seat. Judge all things by their intrinsic quality, and consider status a waste of time. One of the reasons I liked him so much is that he brought all this off without any contortion of his essentially kind character.

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Banned Books Links

Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week is the national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. Banned Books Week is held annually on the second to last week of September.

American Library Association on Banned Books Week

University of Pennsylvania Banned Books Page
And older page on banned books, but with lots of good info on the history of banning books.

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Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. Via Wikipedia:

Occam’s razor (also written as Ockham’s razor and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a problem-solving principle devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian. The principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

The application of the principle can be used to shift the burden of proof in a discussion. However, Alan Baker, who suggests this in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is careful to point out that his suggestion should not be taken generally, but only as it applies in a particular context, that is: philosophers who argue in opposition to metaphysical theories that involve allegedly “superfluous ontological apparatus”. Baker then notices that principles, including Occam’s Razor, are often expressed in a way that is not clear regarding which facet of “simplicity” — parsimony or elegance — is being referred to, and that in a hypothetical formulation the facets of simplicity may work in different directions: a simpler description may refer to a more complex hypothesis, and a more complex description may refer to a simpler hypothesis.

Solomonoff’s theory of inductive inference is a mathematically formalized Occam’s Razor: Shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.

In science, Occam’s Razor is used as a heuristic (discovery tool) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models. In the scientific method, Occam’s Razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result; the preference for simplicity in the scientific method is based on the falsifiability criterion. For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there is always an infinite number of possible and more complex alternatives, because one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypothesis to prevent them from being falsified; therefore, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are better testable and falsifiable.

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Wabi Sabi

Japanese Aesthetic principle: Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional. Material characteristics of wabi-sabi: suggestion of natural process, irregular, intimate, unpretentious, earthy,simple.

From UTNE Reader:

According to Japanese legend, in the sixteenth century Sen no Rikyu sought to learn the Way of Tea. He went to tea-master Takeeno Joo, who tested the younger man by asking him to tend to his garden. Rikyu cleaned up debris and raked the ground until it was perfect, then scrutinized the immaculate garden. Before presenting his work to the master, he shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to spill randomly onto the ground.

Later, when he had become one of Japan’s most revered tea-masters, Rikyu served under Toyotomi Hikeyoshi, a warrior known for his ostentatious taste. One day the ruler went to visit Rikyu’s famed morning glory garden and was shocked to find it in shambles, all the flowers uprooted. He entered Rikyu’s humble teahouse to find the master sitting in front of an alcove, where he had placed one perfect morning glory in a clay pot.

To this day, the Japanese revere Rikyu as one who understood to his very core an elusive cultural thread known as wabi-sabi. Emerging in the fifteenth-century as a reaction to the prevailing aesthetic of lavishness, ornamentation, and rich materials, wabi-sabi is the art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in earthiness, of revering authenticity above all. In Japan, the concept is now so deeply ingrained that it’s difficult to explain to Westerners; no direct translation exists.

Broadly, wabi-sabi is everything that today’s sleek, mass-produced, technology saturated culture isn’t. It’s flea markets, not department stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass; one single morning glory, not a dozen red roses. Wabi-sabi understands the tender, raw beauty of a Decembral landscape devoid of color and life, the aching elegance of an abandoned hut on a wintry shore. It celebrates cracks and crevices and rot and all the other marks that time and weather and use leave behind. To discover wabi-sabi is to spend time finding the singular beauty in something that may present itself as decrepit and ugly.

Wabi-sabi reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet–that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Nature’s cycles of growth, decay, and erosion are embodied in liver spots, rust, frayed edges. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace both the glory and the impersonal sadness of these blemishes, and the march of time they represent.

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Garrison Kellior: A true friend

Garrison Kellior: A true friend is someone you could call up and say, “I’m a wreck and I’m coming over and staying with you for a couple days.” Or you could say, “I’m sorry to call you at 3 a.m. but I’m sitting in a truck stop confused and missing my pants and need you to come get me.”

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‘Cambrian Explosion’

Remember when you were a kid, and all of the sudden, for no apparent reason, you shot up several inches one summer? Like growth wasn’t a slow, glacial process but an abrupt one? Sort of like some of the theories on evolution that suggest mutations aren’t as gradual as we think. (A Cambrian Explosion, per Jim C.)

Although, when you look closely at the theories, the idea of a real ‘explosion’ is probably a misnomer:

The Cambrian explosion, or Cambrian radiation, was the relatively rapid appearance, around 542 million years ago, of most major animal phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record.[1][2] This was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms.[note 1] Before about 580 million years ago,[note 2] most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude[note 3] and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today.[5] All present phyla appeared within the first 20 million years of the period,[6] with the exception of Bryozoa who made its earliest known appearance in the upper Cambrian.[7]

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Great Oxymorons

p class=”author”>Author Unknown

Act naturally

Advanced BASIC

Airline Food

Almost exactly

Alone together

American history

British fashion

Business ethics

Butt head

Childproof

Christian scientists

Clearly misunderstood

Computer jock

Computer security

Definite maybe

Diet ice cream

Exact estimate

Extinct Life

Found missing

French bravery

Genuine imitation

Good grief

Government organization

Legally drunk

Living dead

Microsoft Works

Military intelligence

New classic

New York culture

Now, then …"

Passive aggression

Peace force

Plastic glasses

Political science

Pretty ugly

Rap music

Religious tolerance

Resident alien

Same difference

Sanitary landfill

Silent scream

Small crowd

Soft rock

Software documentation

Sweet sorrow

Synthetic natural gas

Taped live

Temporary tax increase

Terribly pleased

Tight slacks

Twelve-ounce pound cake

Working vacation

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