This week another from the archives — actually taken many years ago.
Along with the the font, this wall painting (in the SE chapel) is one of the treasures of St Augustine, Brookland. The painting has been dated to the 13th century and depicts the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170.
Another round of recently encountered quotes to amuse and enlighten.
I do not believe anything. Most people, even the educated, think that everybody must “believe” something or other, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X, or the reverse of X. My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence.
[Robert Anton Wilson]
If a problem is fixable, there is no need to worry … If it’s not fixable, then there is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.
[Dalai Lama]
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.
[Nanea Hoffman at Sweatpants and Coffee]
Human ingenuity is unceasing. The first mechanical clock was introduced to England in the reign of Edward III. It marks the demise of the feudal and seasonal world no less plainly than the advent of the longbow and the decline of the serf. The first reference to a crane, working in a harbour, comes from 1347.
[Peter Ackroyd; The History of England, Volume I: Foundation]
A twelfth-century philosopher, Alexander Neckam, stated that wine should be as clear as the tears of a penitent. He also declared that a good wine should be as sweet-tasting as an almond, as surreptitious as a squirrel, as high-spirited as a roebuck, as strong as a Cistercian monastery, as glittering as a spark of fire, as subtle as the logic of the schools of Paris, as delicate as fine silk, and as cold as crystal. The language of the wine connoisseur has not notably diminished in fancifulness over the centuries.
[Peter Ackroyd; The History of England, Volume I: Foundation]
When we look over the course of human affairs we are more likely than not to find only error and confusion. I have already explained, in the course of this narrative, that the writing of history is often another way of defining chaos. There is in fact a case for saying that human history, as it is generally described and understood, is the sum total of accident and unintended consequence.
[Peter Ackroyd; The History of England, Volume I: Foundation]
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
[Terry Pratchett]
A guy walks up to a Zen master and asks, “Is there life after death?”
The Zen Master says, “How should I know?”
The guy replies indignantly, “Because you’re a Zen master!”
“Yes,” says the Zen master, “but not a dead one.”
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen]
Devoe Pant by Steven Alan.
High rise, pull on pants in fluid virgin wool crepe. The Devoe Pants offer a relaxed fit inspired by handmade ceramics and abstract art objects. Featuring a single rear open patch pocket, gathered waist and cropped leg.
[Only 209ukp from Couverture & the Garbstore]
When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
[W Somerset Maugham]
When people walk away, let them. Your future is not about people who walk away. It’s about the people who stay in it for the ride.
France embodies everything religious zealots everywhere hate: enjoyment of life here on earth in a myriad little ways: a fragrant cup of coffee and buttery croissant in the morning, beautiful women in short dresses smiling freely on the street, the smell of warm bread, a bottle of wine shared with friends, a dab of perfume, children playing in the Luxembourg Gardens, the right not to believe in any god, not to worry about calories, to flirt and smoke and enjoy sex outside of marriage, to take vacations, to read any book you want, to go to school for free, to play, to laugh, to argue, to make fun of prelates and politicians alike, to leave worrying about the afterlife to the dead. No country does life on earth better than the French.
[New York Times; 14 November 2015]
It is important to remember, nothing about what these assholes [the ones bombing Paris] are trying to do is going to work. France is going to endure and I’ll tell you why. If you are in a war of culture and lifestyle with France, good fucking luck. Go ahead, bring your bankrupt ideology. They’ll bring Jean-Paul Sartre, Edith Piaf, fine wine, Gauloise cigarettes, Camus, Camembert, madeleines, macarons, and the fucking croquembouche. You just brought a philosophy of rigorous self-abnegation to a pastry fight, my friend. You are fucked.
[John Oliver, quoted by Brad Warner at Hardcore Zen]
At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words “fuck off” much more frequently.
-Helen Mirren
During his eight years as editor of lad’s mag Loaded Martin Daubney was often accused of being a pornographer.
When he stopped editing Loaded he decided to try to put his experience to good use and he now spends time visiting British schools to give talks to teenagers, teachers and parents.
Daubney explains a little about what he’s doing in this short article from the Guardian earlier this week. It is well worth a read as a refreshing approach to what is still very much a taboo subject.
Yesterday I came across an article on the Farnham Street blog which talks about, and reproduces, Richard Feynman’s 1974 commencement address at Caltech entitled “Cargo Cult Science”.
As always with Feynman it contains good stuff, explained simply. Let me pick out a couple of quotes:
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist … I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen …
One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out.
This is about how to do good science — indeed any good investigation. What Feynman is saying in the article is that in doing an investigation one has to publish the full scenarios. Whatever the outcome, why could it be wrong. If the experiment didn’t work, why might this be. And importantly, show that you understand, have accounted for, and can reproduce any prior work and assumptions on which your work depends.
Being Feynman this is all explained quite simply with lots of examples, often drawn from his own experience.
But it is wider than this. It is something Feynman touches on but doesn’t highlight. It is essentially about being open and honest; being ethical. Feynman is applying it to scientific enquiry but, as you can see from the quotes above, it should apply equally to any enquiry, aka. life.
Feynman’s address is an interesting 10 minute read even for non-scientists.
There is a surprising diversity of size, shape and number of sperm produced by different species.
So here we are then with another round of links to items you may have missed the first time round.
Science & Medicine
It seems that humans are not the only animals who have personal names, but we are probably the only ones who gossip.
Its well known that dogs will eat anything, but why are cats such fussy eaters?
One from the archives this week. I spotted this some while back. This is the woodland burial park where my father (at the time) and subsequently also my mother are buried. My father would have been turning in his grave — which is only about 50m from this notice.
This week on Thinking Thursday I asked you to come up with the answer to Lewis Carroll’s famous riddle:
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Yes, it is a bit of a trick question because Carroll never intended there to be an answer; it was all part of Alice asking a serious question about the, to a child, mindless pursuits of adults.
However eventually Carroll did provide an answer:
Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!
The spelling of “nevar” is Carroll’s original, being “raven” backwards, but was lost in the printed version due to an over-zealous proofreader.
Of course this hasn’t stopped many other people providing clever answers, including “because Poe wrote on both” and “because they both come with inky quills”. You can find a longer explanation at, inter alia, wiseGEEK.
But I think the answer I like best is “because neither one is made of cheese“. Nor is either a helium balloon.
