Tommyjournal archive September 2007
The light dove, piercing the air in her free flight and perceiving its resistance, could imagine that flight would be easier still in empty space. - Immanuel Kant
Friday 28 Sep 2007 2 comments
When I started playing marimba, I sometimes found lessons depressing because I'd see how well my teacher played, and know that I'd never be that good. Yeah, I know, not everything has to be competitive, and the point of playing isn't to be as good as someone else. But I had the thoughts.
I bring this up because I came across a blog recently that is so much better a blog than I will probably ever have. I know that the point of blogging isn't to compare your results to someone else's--but sometimes it's hard not to.
The exemplary blog in question is writing as jo(e). It's good because jo(e) writes well, takes good photos, and has a rich life (teaching, having a house full of smart kids, ...) that gives her good subject matter. Her blog is anonymous; she has given her kids nicknames, she refers to her town by a nickname, her photos don't show (most) faces in detail, and so on. I don't know why she settled on that framework of anonymity, but it gives the writing and photos a distinctive character.
If I were in a cynical mood, I'd say that seeing a blog that good makes me want to give up blogging altogether. But I'm not in a cynical mood.
Thursday 27 Sep 2007 2 comments
Earlier this year, I had the urge to get a dog. The shelter in my county had a great lab mix on hand: smart, good-natured, cool looking, past the puppy stage but young enough to bond well with. I didn't adopt him because there was a good chance I would be taking a job that would entail working in an office, and I didn't want to leave a dog at home alone for 8+ hours a day.
The possible job fell through. Someone else got the dog I liked. I put the idea of a dog on hold for a while for various reasons.
Just this month, I got the dog urge again. I checked out the ones currently at the shelter, and realized just how nice (by comparison) the dog I passed up earlier this year really was. I know there are other ways to obtain a dog than from a shelter, but I like the idea of adoption.
Meanwhile, the possible job that had fallen through is again looming on the horizon (details later, if and when it pans out). But, no dog for now.
Saturday 22 Sep 2007 2 comments
I found a scorpion in my shower this morning. I tried to be nice; rather than flush him down the drain I tried to put him in a cup and take him outdoors. He resisted like hell, he kept trying to sting. I found myself saying "don't tase me, bro" to the scorpion, even though I think it's a silly phrase. After a few tries, I had him in custody and relocated him outside.
Equinox tomorrow morning at 2:51 PDT.
Monday 17 Sep 2007 1 comment
Muscles around my shoulders hurt. The left side started first, in the spring. The right one got in the act over the summer. They don't hurt all the time, just when I hold my arms in certain common positions.
Climbing aggravates this, so I haven't been climbing much or hard. Three weeks ago, it got bad enough that I stopped climbing altogether.
I saw a physical therapist. He said nothing is torn, it's just inflamed. He gave me stretches and exercises to do--which just hurt. Do I listen to him, or to what my body is telling me?
My doctor tells me this isn't a side effect of any of the medicines I take. I hope he's right.
I have an appointment to see an orthopedic physician; call me pessimistic, but I bet you a nickel that after seeing him, I'll be in about same position as I'm in now: rest it, take ibuprofen, and accept the fact that bodies deteriorate with age.
If I can't climb any more, I'll manage. If any time soon it gets to where I can't play the marimba, that'll be a disappointment.
I'm reluctant to blog much about this kind of stuff because I know that whining bores people. I mention all this just to say what's going on in my life, and to encourage y'all to enjoy and appreciate the use of your bodies while they're still working well.
Sunday 16 Sep 2007 4 comments
An article in the NY Times a week ago included this dubious comment:
The key of C major, after all, is a stable, cheerful, happy key, the one with no sharps or flats.If C major is more cheerful and happy sounding than B major--which I doubt is true for most listeners, when instruments are tuned in equal temperament--it has nothing to do with C having no sharps and B having five. Long story. I was going to blog about that, but Language Log beat me to it with an article that covers the topic quite well. In discussing the history of temperament, it mentions the discrepancy between 12 fifths and 7 octaves--known as the Pythagorean Comma--and quotes Thomas McEvilley:
It requires a leap of horizon to understand the intensity with which such things mattered to ancient thinkers. ... The issue which made [the Pythagorean comma] so pressingly important was nothing less than the question .. whether reality is mathematical or not.Irrational numbers rub people the wrong way--as evidenced by the figurative meanings for irrational. Furthermore (quoting Jeff Miller):
The Pythagorean Theorem is the threshold to the discovery of irrational numbers and incommensurable lengths -- a discovery which Hellenists attribute to Hippasus of Tarentum, a renegade Pythagorean whom, according to one account, Pythagoras pushed off a boat for revealing to outsiders the tragic secret of the Pythagorean Theorem, which was irrationality or incommensurability. ... The discovery that the side and diagonal of a square will always be incommensurable produced an ideological convulsion in the Pythagorean order comparable to the shock conveyed by the discovery of the Precession or the Pythagorean comma.
The Arabic translators in the ninth century translated the Greek rhetos (rational) by the Arabic muntaq (made to speak) and the Greek alogos (irrational) by the Arabic asamm (deaf, dumb). ...... which is where the use of surd to refer to irrational roots comes from. Similarly, absurd means incongruous.
This was translated as surdus ("deaf" or "mute") in Latin.
Sigh. Irrational numbers get a bad rap. (Imaginary numbers have it even worse.) As nice as rational numbers are, there's only so much you can do with them. There are more things in heaven and earth, Pythagoras, than are dreamt of in rational mathematics.
Sunday 09 Sep 2007 2 comments
Because Potomac is close to the Greek ποταμός ("river"), I had thought that Potomac River was redundant, like Table Mesa or (more egregiously) The La Brea Tar Pits.
But I was mistaken; Potomac is of Algonquian origin, not Greek.
So, dear readers. Had anyone else also had this misconception, or was it just me? Absence of comments will be taken as "no, it was just you, Tom"-- but feel free to rub it in if you like.
Saturday 01 Sep 2007 2 comments
In announcing that he will resign from the Senate, Larry Craig didn't say a word about his sexual preference (maybe he thought he'd said "I'm not gay" enough times in his remarks on Tuesday).
Craig's replacement will be named by Idaho Governor Butch Otter, who won a "Mr. Tight Jeans" contest at a Boise bar in 1992, and whose first wife was named Gay. You can't make this stuff up. (update, 27 Sep 2007: Larry Craig once owned a houseboat named Ida Ho.)
In Craig's interrogation (audio and transcript available on the web), the arresting officer got annoyed when Craig's account of what happened didn't match his:
| officer: | Okay. [pause] I don't want to get into a pissing match here. |
| Craig: | We're not going to. |
| officer: | Good. Um, |
| Craig: | I don't, ah, I am not gay. I don't do these kinds of things and... |
| officer: | It doesn't matter, I don't care about sexual preference or anything like that. Here's your stuff back, sir. Um, I don't care about sexual preference. |
| Craig: | I know you don't. You're out to enforce the law. |
| officer: | Right. |
| Craig: | But you shouldn't be out to entrap people either. |
| officer: | This isn't entrapment. |
Some people sympathetic to Craig feel he was entrapped. Without commenting on the details of this case, nor on these kinds of sting operations in general, I only note that an entrapment defense must show that the police induced an otherwise unwilling person to commit a crime.
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