Christmas 2017.

Occasionally Youtube has some pretty interesting videos that are not just about cats falling or going into things, although those are still just great.

Here are some silver screen training movies that run the gamut of suspiciously pure propaganda,  to cartoons that are surprisingly technical and some of them answer questions I never knew I had, such as how would people cope with being in a sinking submarine and what did Dr Seuss do doing during World War 2?

• Signal Corps Instruction Movie "Crack that Tank" on antitank tactics, with a classic Hollywood Officer drinking beer.  Shoulder patches suggest Staff Sergeant, not that I would know.

• Resisting Enemy Interrogation, 1944. Insidious and bleak.

• Land and Live in the Desert 1945, I became invested in the fates of Bob and Skipper. For soldiers under stress they are quite polite. There are a whole series of these, Sea, Jungle & Arctic. Nothing about how to survive in an urban environment like Karangahape Road, Auckland though, (essential advice, do not make eye contact).

• Submarine Escape. "Experts at grabbing sack time." vs chlorine leak. Actually quite sophisticated procedure with variation of practices according to urgency. The SEA's are multipurpose. Described hazards, oxygen poisoning, anoxia, decompression sickness and excitement, you know, assuming there are no obstructions and everything goes to plan.

• Mel Brooks on B-17 Gun Sight Theory Surprisingly Technical.

• Private SNAFU on "Booby Traps" , with the obvious pun.

• Private SNAFU on "Going Home", that sounds like Dr Seuss's writing. Actually pretty good advice.

• Private SNAFU on "GAS" with Bugs Bunny. "Do you think that man could do with some more training?"

• Private SNAFU on "Spies", again sounds like Dr Seuss's writing. Also, to contemporary standards not particularly politically correct.

• Private SNAFU on "Gripes", yet again sounds like Dr Seuss's writing. "Technical Fairy First Class".

There are a whole series of SNAFU movies, apparently all voiced by Mel Brooks, which is why it sounds like Bugs Bunny, they are sort of definitely made for adult males and probably in the circumstances of their intended audience, they would sort of, definitely grab my attention.

This is pretty much the only way to make that animal stay still.

6/12/17

XKCD : Interferometry.

Ghosts of Gondwana (2016) by George Gibbs.

Really I acquired Ghosts of Gondwana (2016)  because it has a number of good pictures and included as its subject matter a number of species I was interested in at the time. Its subject matter goes beyond my initial objectives and in this time of a predominant human centered world view with increasing urban population density, accelerating cultural change and overwhelming housing property prices this book represented a respite, looking into the natural world of which we are part of.

Ghosts of Gondwana (2016) can be understood as a book about the biodiversity of New Zealand. Its author introduces his subject by a reference to the landfall by Captain James Cook in 1769 at Poverty Bay, New Zealand, with Joseph Banks and David Solander noting the uniqueness of New Zealand flora and fauna. This is a book about the natural history of endemic life in New Zealand, detailing from evidence the various evolutionary origins of iconic and somewhat esoteric animals and plants in New Zealand, present before European colonization. The evidence is described in terms of historical biogeography, the processes of vicariance, dispersal and extinctions and relies on phylogenetic analysis, fossil evidence, tectonic geology and as Gibbs puts it "the clock hypothesis with all its faults" (Gibbs 315 : 2016).

One point that Gibbs makes early on is that the idea of New Zealand flora and fauna as being survivals from a supercontinent of Gondwana, is simplistic. He recognizes that each endemic organism in New Zealand has a unique explanation, with the joke being that all life has historical explanations that reach into the Cretaceous. His point is that the separation of the New Zealand Pacific plate from a shared Australian, Antartic and South American plate around 80 million years ago allows this distinction of endemic New Zealand life having Cretaceous origins.  Endemic organisms that do conform to a vicariance explanation with Cretaceous origins include flowing freshwater species, fresh water mussels Echyridela menziesii, Family Hyriidae (Kakahi), Scorpion flys (Family Nannochorista) and mayfly (Ameletopsis persescitus) (Gibbs 295 : 2016) due to restrictions on dispersal. Fresh water mussels (Kakahi) have an interesting relationship to Glaxiid fish (White Bait), as their parasitic larval stage relies on White Bait for nutrients and transport, introduced species do not transport mussel larvae (Gibbs 299 : 2015). Gibbs suggests a vicariance of the Hyrridae family prior to the disintegration of Gondwana, during the Jurassic.

The actual extent of endemism, can be illustrated by comparing at what taxanomic level (Linnean classification scheme) endemism occurs. In New Zealand this is described as

                 Vascular plants    Vertebrates     Invertebrates
Order         -                          3                    -

Family       -                          9                    6 

Species      2000+                 200+              20,000+     

So the most common taxanomic level of endemism occurs at species level, when I can make comparisons, I will.

The most probable dispersal sources of endemic New Zealand flora and fauna lay in Australia, due to proximity, yet aside from fossils, there are no snakes, turtles or crocodiles, no scorpions, no monotreme marsupials and no placental mammals. With the absence of placental mammals the niches that would be otherwise occupied are shown in endemic species such as the Ratites like the Moa and the emblemic Kiwi. The Kiwi is a carnivorous, nocturnal, burrow digging flightless bird that uses smell and has degenerated optic lobes associated with poor eyesight, which is unusual for a bird  (Gibbs 242 : 2016). In the northern hemisphere this niche would probably be occupied by a mole or vole. I think this suggests that the Kiwi is a rather humble icon.

The slow breeding rates of particular endemic species is noticeable, which is appropriate in cold environments where nutrition is a significant challenge and these include the Kakapo (parrot), Tuatara (Family Splendantia), endemic frogs (Family Leiopelmatidae) and endemic carnivorous land snails (Genus Powelliphantia) (Gibbs 284 : 2016).

The discussion of vicariance and dispersal involves a discussion about plate tectonics and the submergence of a land mass  described as Zealandia, (composition includes the Challenger Plataeu, Chatam Rise and Lord Howe Rise), during the late Oligocene around 23 million years ago of which unsubmerged Holocene New Zealand is part of. The degree of submergence has been debated, the presence of limestone indicates submergence (Gibbs 122 : 2016), Dr Hamish Campbell proposing that the geological evidence suggested a total or near total submergence with extinction events. George Gibbs mentions this theory but is critical of it. He discusses it in terms of the flora and fauna of New Zealand and a March 2013 Otago Daily Times article, "A Theory Flounders" appears to summarize this theories demise, or at least the movement towards a dialectical compromise.

This is a large book, at 416 pages, but it would need to be. Its chapters individually are easily read at an undergraduate level and it presents a natural history explanation, or hypothesis for the species it covers which may make it a good reference book, as part of a starting point for further investigations. At the very least it provides a reasonable scope for understanding the biodiversity of New Zealand and currently, may be unique in its subject matter.

Reference

George Gibbs. (2016). Ghosts of Gondwana. Published by Potton & Burton Publishing. Printed in Nelson. Pages 416.

Dave Kellets August the 28th comic "Anatomy of a Duck" from Sheldon Comic strip.

A picture, observers correctly identified the pukeko in the picture, which is nice.

The Girl with all the Gifts, (2014), by M R Carey.

So I picked up (bought, bought not picked up, that doesn't sound right) Mr MR Careys "The Girl with all the Gifts" from Whitcoulls, published by Orbit. One of its reviewers, Jenny Colgan is quoted as "Kazuo Ishiguro meets The Walking Dead". Which to me is an interesting quote, I have questions as to why she would say that. Joss Whedon is quoted as saying "as fresh as it is terrifying", which could be sarcasm, but probably isn't, but I get why he would be a person to quote with a book such as this.

According to a transcripted interview, at the back of the book, it's based on a short story that was collected in Paula Gurans Years Best Dark Fantasy & Horror Anthology (2013), Iphigenia in Aulis that had Melanie (one of the protagonists obsessed with the Illiad. There are book group questions at the back, including one which goes , "compared to Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro how far does each book characterize children as grotesque and to be feared?". So that goes some way towards my question about that particular quote. Suspiciously so. Or not.

I have to say how slick the marketing and packaging of the book is. From the short story, Mr MR Carey wrote a screen play and a novel at the same time. The cover of the book and the posters to the movie echo each other and the transcripted interview, book group questions both address that process and serve to frame the book in an intellectual manner. I am sure my thought processes are going in the direction the marketers of the book intended.

The book reads like a movie, written in a passive third person  perspective and until page 29 the voice is all about Melanie, the protagonist. I've seen the movies version of Melanie, from shorts played by Sennia Nanua. The books version is a "very fair" girl with blond hair and "a good girl smarminess" (page 80 : 2014) that probably channels real life cynicism. I challenge you to see the movie short and then hold onto the books version of Melanie as you read it. I gave up, but I acknowledge there could be difference. The books ending is interesting, there is enough science in the book, in the same way that there is enough science in Brahm Stokers Dracula, to legitimize the fictional narrative and it echos real life concerns. Which to be clear, was good. In my opinion, which is just another voice in the wind, a lot of progress is kind of muddling along particular paradigms and if Hegel came up with dialectical materialism it's because societies tend to oscillate from one issue to another through the generations as circumstances alter. I'm not convinced that the books ending is a happy one but it is an ending and I guess that's the point.

The book was easy to read, it took me less that two days to complete but then again I'm not watching TV and I found it entertaining and liked what it did.

Sextant : A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men who Mapped the Worlds Oceans. By David Barrie

In this book, published by William Collins (2015), David Barrie describes a compelling history of the development and use of navigational techniques in what he describes as the "heroic age of scientific hydrography" tied around a narrative of his transatlantic crossing from Halifax, Novia Scotia to Falmouth, England during 1973 in a 35 foot sloop called the Saecwen. This voyage included three other crew members, including the ensign Colin McMullen, during which the author learned navigational techniques using a sextant and chronometer.

His take on the history of the sextant, its invention by John Harrison (1731), is quite fascinating and he devotes a chapter to its development from Seaman's Quadrants, Cross Staffs and Back Staffs and explains its theory in a post Copernican world view. His narrative history is focused on the voyages of select navigators, going to some effort to describe their personalities and journal anecdotes of his subject, perhaps somewhat romantically. He covers William Bligh (1789), the explorer James Cook (1768), the amusing Bouganville (1766), the unfortunate La Perouse (1785), the under appreciated George Vancouver (1790), Flinders and his cat "Trim" (1796) and the voyages of the Beagle  under Stokes (1826) and under Fitzroy (1827). Fitzroy who had quite a practical scientific inclination invited the services of a young naturalist called Charles Darwin (page 225) and achieved a number of social and hydrological accomplishments, including Governorship of New Zealand in 1844.

Barrie ends with two chapters on the experience of Frank Worsely (1916), a merchant seaman from New Zealand, under Sir Ernest Shackleton in an attempt to cross the Antartic continent and their subsequent ordeal of survival. Barrie begins (chapter 4) and ends ( Chapters 15 & 16) his historical narrative with feats of endurance where survivors are faced with navigating though rough open seas in long boats with the threat of eminent danger, that of William Bligh (1789) and Sir Ernest Shackelton (1916). I believe that these narratives serve to illustrate the points he makes on the last pages of his book, that celestial navigation is becoming a necessary lost art. Certainly the average modern human doesn't look up at the night sky with the same comprehension as their ancestors, despite our post Copernican world view.

Inside the book are good illustrations of select navigators, the technologies they used and quite a number of maps, including the Straits of Magellan (Page 250), which Barrie goes to some length to illustrate why they are navigational hazards. It inspires me with a tendency towards looking at the night sky, and to stay away from large bodies of water.

Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott (2017)

"Rotherwierd" is published by Jo Fletcher books (2017), from Great Britain. I picked it up primarily due to the artwork and lettering on the cover, which evoked "Bad Jelly the Witch" to me, a childhood book by Spike Milligan that scared me as a child. Childhood me was quite the wimp apparently. The cover and the artwork inside were enough for me to decide to read it, which suggests I am susceptible to advertising of this nature. The cover artwork is quaint and the  artwork inside the book, by Sasha Laika is abstract to figurative.

Anywho, the title of the book is the name of the town that is the setting of the book, ostensibly a town that during the Elizabethean period achieved its independence from external government on the condition that its citizenry do not examine or record their history, again for reasons. These reasons are a source of mystery throughout the story and contribute to the quaint English absurdity of the town and its citizens. It's the kind of absurdity that the English like to package and sell to tourists and tell stories to and about themselves about how charming they are, the mad dogs and Englishmen bit. Spike Milligan did this well, but the writing style is certainly not Spike Milligan and though the book is full of the dialogue of its citizens the absurdity is perhaps more part of an overall web, which is one of the points of the book. But it is sweet as books go.

The town and its citizenry are introduced by the journey of two groups of strangers to the town, a family of malevolent intent and a rather gormless history teacher down on his luck. Through them the reader transitions from a recognizable modern setting to the isolated, hard to find mysterious town of Rotherwierd with its absurd laws outlawing the study of history and its unusually gifted citizens and institutions who tend towards an empirical positivist outlook.

It is in many ways a detective novel, as most of the major characters are all doing kinds of detecting of the history, mysteries and prominent sites and artifacts of the town and it features puzzels and just enough latin for you to grab that dictionary you never use. I mean, its not Suduko, thank god, but it does feature moments or set pieces where you recognize the intent of the author and convergence of the various stories. It is sweet and whimsical.

Apparently there is a second book in the works, "WYNTETIDE" (2018) as advertised on page 453 and the author does go to some trouble to explain his experience of writing this book.

The Boy on the Bridge. By M R Carey.

An often ascribed phrase from Sartre's No Exit is "Hell is other people", in context its meaning is rather complex, but the general interpretation is that sometimes people can occasionally suck, especially when confined to a single room, over a long period of time and also, it smells, damn it. This seems to be a consistent theme in M Carey's book "The Boy on the Bridge" (2017), of course the room in this book is a large multi-tracked vehicle named the "Rosalind Franklin" (think Amtrak Wars, but smaller), on a scientific mission, driving through a  cordyceps zombie apocalypse wasteland (think the setting of The Last of Us, but in Britain) collecting specimens in the hopes of finding a sample without fungal hyphae. The setting of the book is a continuation of the world presented in the "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2013), a book which I haven't read and is now a movie (2016).

Apparently some reviewers who have read "The Girl with all the Gifts" don't consider this sequel to be as good, such as Tasha Robinson (June 2017), but given that I haven't read the first book, or seen the movie I didn't have any preconceptions and enjoyed the book as a tight drama centred around the microcosm of the vehicle Rosalind Franklin (Rosie in the vernacular of the characters of the story), perhaps comparable to "The Hunt for the Red October" in setting. I am now going to ramble on about the setting while not discussing the plot in any real way. M Carey sets the scene in a passive third person tense that reads like documentation which was nice, succinct and also darkly comical.

 The Rosalind Franklin is from an outpost community called Beacon which is governed by a joint council of citizens called the "Main Table" and the remnants of the military called the "Military Muster". The mission of the Rosalind Franklin is this communities version of the Apollo moon landing, all their hopes and dreams go with the twelve individuals who crew this mission, it is a heavy responsibility.

The command structure of the Rosalind Franklin reflects the power structures in Beacon, the twelve crew of this vehicle are organized into a science division and a military escort, with overall command  by Dr Alan Fournier. The military escort is lead by Colonel Issac Carlisle who has by far the greatest experience leading a military expedition but the objectives of the mission are scientific and his appointment serves the objectives of the Military Muster. As M Carey writes on page 13, the crew of the Rosalind Franklin,despite the rhetoric, are not the best and brightest, but were chosen by the ruling bodies of Beacon in an attempt to achieve a balance that would give the community the most plausible shot at survival. The characters tend to be well written and the sense of the crew being a tight knit group of specialists, who all have essential skills and work well as a team (with the exception of one person, sigh) is conveyed. They are listed (on page 12) as

 Dr Alan Fournier  - Chief Scientist                Colonel Issac Carlisle - Military Escort Leader
Samrina Khan      - Epidemiologist                Lt Daniel McQueen     - Sniper/ 2nd Com    
Lucien Akimwe   - Chemist                            Lance Bombardier      - Sniper
John Scaley          - Biologist                          Private Brendan Lutes - Enginneer
Elain Penny          - Biologist                          Private Paula Sixsmith - Driver
Steven Graves      - Nobody is sure.                Private Gary Philips     - Quarter Master

The page I am practically quoting from can be found here. I found the motivations of the characters to be coherent and interesting, sometimes vaguely amusing because the author dwells on how the characters learn and how it influences their actions.

The setting would make a great RPG, possibly the author has used a comparable reflective process that a GM would use, a narrative centered around a journey in a vehicle. An entertaining science fiction thriller and when I get the opportunity to read "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2014), I will.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Currently reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011) published by Arrow Books, United Kingdom. It makes me want to go play Skyrim. I may be some time.

6/8/17
Ok, I finished it. It had some interesting points in the type of society it portrayed and the narrator of the first person perspective is relatable, as a male who could do more exercise. Apparently it's now going to be a movie, which is neat.

Walkaway A Novel by Cory Doctorow.

Man. To me the title evokes an aborgine walkabout, "Walkaway" published by Head of Zeus Ltd (2017). The book starts with a scene that introduces a near post scarcity world and some of the main protagonists. The first chapter is titled "communist party", and the setting is a party where the theme is the gift furniture manufactured from 3D printers using surplus manufacturing material, so it gets called a communist party. The chapter title is a play on words, a joke. I disliked the scene intensely, because of its "ist & ism" terminology and its Bret Eston Ellis "Less than Zero" feel. I've met and lived with people who talk using "ist & ism" words and so far they have been mostly bullshit. Strong negative reaction. So I put the book down and did something else.

Later I picked it up again, and got through the first chapter to the second chapter "You all meet in a tavern" and I like "Order of the Stick" and I think I am a funny guy, despite the opinion of others, obviously. So OK, I get what the chapter title is doing and persevere, and it starts to get good.

Its about future hippies (those damn kids, get of my land lords lawn!) an anti establishment movement in a near post scarcity society that relies on uploadable schematics for 3D printers as their source of technology, from building materials and electronics to antibiotics (silver) and clothing. It discusses ideas of ownership and sharing, the language used is a mix of contemporary slang with a futuristic language based around data sharing, using acronyms to describe human relationships. There are action sequences with power suits and militarized drones and plucky outgunned rebels. It dwells on biology and why people do things, page 60 describes drinking a cup of future coffee as "The first cup of coffium danced hot in her mouth and its early-onset ingredients percolated into her blood stream through the mucus membranes under her tongue" (Doctorow page 60 : 2017), so obviously I am going to now google if there are mucous membranes under our tongues.

And apparently there are, they are called the frenulum. Also, perhaps not completely unrelated to the passage described on page 60, there are sex scenes, I mean, you're not going to read the book for the sex scenes but they are there. So, you know, that's, that is nice.

Oh. oh right. Those scenes are not about sex but love, Man, what is wrong with me that it took me so long for me to get that. Ah well, we live and learn.

The book concludes with an epilogue that  presents a particular kind of utopia, that I think is brave, in the sense that it does go against quite strong and rational contemporary values and ideas of what constitutes life.

The Shadow of What Was Lost. By James Islington.

Currently (18.6) reading a fantasy written by an Australian Author, James Islington's "The Shadow of What Was Lost", all in capital letters according to the book cover, the first book of a trilogy. I picked it up because of the marketing features, the evocative title, the art work on the cover, a party of adventurers silhouetted by an orange sun and its description as an "action packed fantasy" by something called BookBag. And I ask you, when has something called BookBag ever been wrong?  It is pleasant escapist fantasy, with enough detail to be light reading and not ponderous. I am over three quarters through and it has some fantasy tropes that are reminiscent of Game of Thrones and The Witcher, which I am not complaining about because those tropes are pleasantly synthesized and gradually developed, or introduced. It is a low magic setting, post an antimage war, where the mages lost and you probably already know where the story is heading by now.

The characters are likable, their descriptions are sufficient to the point you could draw them in "Order of the Stick" lego men detail, and the protagonists who start off as young people leaving a school, more or less act to explore and demonstrate the geology, politics and underlying science of the setting. It's not going to change your world view or anything, but if you're tired of reading about Pug in Raymond E Feist's Riftworld Saga, well the first book of this trilogy is a pleasant, contemporary read.

CiXin Liu's "Deaths End" 死神永生

I have been reading CiXin Liu's "Deaths End", the third book in a science fiction trilogy "The Three Body Problem" translated by Ken Liu from Mandarin. It was originally published by Chongqing Publishing Group in Chongqing, China as  死神永生 in 2010 and according to the blurb on the cover and first page, the author has won numerous awards and the translators short story "The Paper Menagerie" has won a Hugo award, among other awards.

The major setting of the story is that an alien invasion (the Trisolarians) have been fought off and a detente has been reached, with descriptions of cultural change as the story progresses. I have to say, I initially found the protagonists difficult to visualize but overtime derived a sense of the main characters, some more amusing than others. It is a science fiction setting big in scope and ideas that are more shown  than described in theory, he has scenes where people in meetings record alternatives to problems, listing the pro's and con's and it is interesting the type of choices the various groups make. Because this is the third book in the novel, there is a history to the setting and some of the more peripheral characters were major characters in the presceding novels.

The technology of the setting, because this is science fiction, describes gravity wave antenna weapons, hibernation chambers, sub light speed drives and has early on an example of a primitive technology that through sacrifice inspired by romantic ideals is able to achieve objectives beyond the technical capabilities of the milieu. For the human characters deep space vessels are few and far between, the product of massive investment and as the novel progresses there is a sense of economies of scale in the different societies shown.

The universe of the “The Three Body Problem” trilogy is a hostile place where civilizations that achieve an advanced technological capability without the caution of hiding their galactic footprint are quickly exterminated, “cleansed” by more technologically advanced predatory civilizations. Thus aware advanced civilizations tend to hide themselves, creating many “dark zones”, the political theory of the book describes this setting as a “dark forest” scenario.

The differences in the humans and aliens described are tied to major plot points of the novel, the differences are shown instead of described, although that phrase does become problematic in the medium of a novel. It dwells on the necessity of taking a real politic approach to arising situation despite changing values associated with cultural change. There is a kind of literary analysis shown in the book that has interesting ideas. It would be interesting to subject the scenarios and ideas in the novel to a kind of cross cultural comparison, in the same way that 1950’s and 1960’s science fiction and horror movies tend to be seen as reflecting the fears of the public to cold war political events.

Perhaps this is an easy and inconsiderate approach to take, but as one of the points the novel makes, we are products of our time. 

Justin Cronin : The City of Mirrors.

The "City of Mirrors" (2016) is the conclusion to Justin Cronin's "Passage" trilogy and as chapter 14 begins, "behind every great hatred is a love story" it introduces the main antagonist, Timothy Flanning, named Subject Zero using a first perspective flow of consciousness narrative. In this narrative Cronin presents Timothy Flanning's experiences of  University, which feature an outsiders view of lives of privilege and in my opinion he gets the character of Lucessi down just right, right down to the toothpaste. My reading tends to be limited but I try to describe parallels to the small amount of classic literature I have read, Justin Cronin spends paragraphs dwelling on individual consciousness and the constitution of crowds and what constitutes life in a comparable way to Victor Hugo when dwelling on the consciousness of individuals and crowds in "Les Miserables" (1862).

There are scenes of the vast scope of consciousness and creeping scenes of horror that to me evoke Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897), except they are placed in the sunny daylight of a Texas "western" country town. It has the Bram Stoker's obsession with technology, the source of the protagonists strength and weaknesses, agency through technology and the pragmatic solutions that their technology enables. This is significant because the technology and infrastructure are evidence of the social progress and stagnation of the protagonists communities and how the communities solve their issues, which becomes of strategic importance. The protagonists are the main objects of attention and are shown in the setting of immediately after the conclusion of the second book, "The Twelve" (2012) and two decades later as the protagonists societies evolve, adapt and decay. By this way Chronin seems to dwell on the question, what makes communities function?

His description of a crowd in chapter 72 is particularly vivid and echoes with the experience of the modern world, as it is meant to probably.

"As a body they were a statisticians dream, a perfect representative  sampling of the inhabitants of the Great North American Empire. They came from farms and small towns, faceless suburbs and sprawling metropolises, they were every colour and creed, they lived in trailers, houses, apartments, mansions with views of the sea. In their human states, each had occupied a discrete and private self.
They had hoped, hated, loved, suffered, sung and wept. They had known loss. They had surrounded and comforted theselves with objects. They had driven automobiles. They had walked dogs and pushed children on swings and waited in line at the grocery store.
They had said stupid things. They had kept secrets, nurtured grudges, blown upon the embers of regret. They had worshipped a variety of gods or no god at all.
They had awaked in the night to the sound of rain. They had apologized. They had attended various ceremonies. They had explained the history of themselves to psychologists, priests, lovers and strangers in bars. They had, at unexpected moments, experienced bolts of joy so unalloyed, so untethered to events, that they seemed to come from above, they had longed to be known and sometimes were.".

The cadence and alliteration is just great.

The epilogue is satisfying, although I would have preferred hand drawn instead of  modified photoshop images, as a kind of archaeology, I guess. They give it a sense of ecological cycle and the biblical references and structures are pretty obvious and a nice touch.

In all likelihood, I probably picked up "The Twelve" (2012), the first book I read of the trilogy, the second book in the trilogy, before going back to the first book, "The Passage" (2010), looking for a survival story in an apocalyptic setting, but I've stayed with the trilogy because of the scope, mysticism and psychology. I like it when novels I read surprise me, ah, in pleasant ways? I guess.

Found Lars Bronworth's web page "Finding History". It has a lot of interestings digressions including the source for the European term for the Eastern Roman Empire, "Byzantine". Apparently in  1557 Hieronymus Wolf, situated in then the "Holy Roman Empire" published a history of the medieval Greek world that described the then defunct Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine". 

24/11/2017

Apparently Michael Duncan was inspired by listening to Lars Bronsworth's "12 Byzantine Emperors : The History of the Byzantine Empire" series (prior March 2007) to do a "History of Rome" series (2007 - 2012) of podcasts. This has grown to become something called Revolutions, which in itself is quite interesting to listen to. I suspect there will be a meta study or critique of all of this at some point, by someone else. Of course. 

Anthropology Lectures from Robert Sapolski (2011).

14 On the Limbic System
Presented by Robert Sapolski, April 30th 2010. Published February 2011.

Projections dependant on primary sensory apparatus of species, Rhinencephalon of mice, Antonio Damasio "Decarte's Error", James Papez & medial limbic circuit. Ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex, anteror cingulate part of cortex classified as part of limbic system, impulse control, myelinated in the 20's. Fimbria fornix, medial forebrain bundle.

Example of evolution, Pyramidal system vs extrapyramidal system for independant finger bending.
Tools associated with understanding the limbic system. Issues  of discovery of nuclei vs pathway.
Dopamine stimulating the pursuit of pleasure. Ventral medial hypothalamus, medial preoptic area and gender differences in size. Lateral hypothamus associated with hunger, historically was confused with aggression due to species specific behaviour. Adrenaline Shackhtar experiment on epinephrine role in emotion, epinephrine modulates (increases) the intensity of emotion. Role of autonomic nervous system, biofeedback to limbic system, meditation.

12 On the Endocrine System.
Presented by William Peterson and Tom McFadden, April 2010. Published February 2011.

Sapolski in his lectures keeps talking about Vasopressin in terms of priarie vole neurological signalling, which suggests it may have a role in pair bonding. Wikipedia suggests it has a role in pair bonding, sexual behaviour and maternal responses to stress (as an analgesic). Vasopressin has important functions in homeostasis, regulating blood pressure through artereole contraction and water reabsorbtion by the kidneys, ultimately increasing blood pressure. Focus on hypothalamic, anterior pituary  and adrenal gland axis. Role of corticotropin releasing hormone, cortisol, positive and negative feedback.

13 Advanced Neurology and Endocrinology.
Presented by Sapolski Robert (2010). Published February 2011.

The follow up lecture to 12 on the Endocrine System. Disproving Dales laws, subtle functioning of neurons, wave of excitation from different andretic spins can be blocked and flow shunted, suggests all sorts of regulation of branch points, not simple action potential and release of synaptic. neurotransmitters. Discusses anterior pituitary hormones, presence of neighborhoods within cells in anterior pituitary, multiple hormone release on the basis of cells, "neighborhoods".  Produces different activity profiles for groups of hormones.. Autosynaptic receptors have a book keeping function.

On Language
Presented by Robert Sapolski, May 21st 2010. Published February 2011.

Notes : Language use is lateralized. Broca's area is associated with language creation,  Wernickes area, language comprehension, with impairment get word salad. Arcuate fasciculus, a bundle, set of projections, axons that connects Broca's area with Wernicke's area. Sign language uses the same areas, same cognitive structures as spoken language. Right hemisphere, body posture, tone, facial expression, comprehension. Hand gestures, without visual communication are tied to motoric output through basal ganglia.

Look at ethnology. Attempts at peer influence chimpanzee language acquisition, Donald & Gua, flawed because chimpanzees don't have human vocal anatomy. Afterwards teach sign language, Chimpanzee Washoe acquired 150 signs. Washoe would sign her cognition. First sentence said between two chimpanzees "Tickle me".  Koko the gorilla, reported dreams, gossip, lie. Example of lie, Koko eats an indoor pot plant, is asked "where is the plant?" says "Bill ate the plant", told  "Humans don't eat plants", replies "Some other gorilla".

Herb Terrace (1980), wanted to disprove Noam Chompsy, named chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky. Terrace starts to argue chimpanzee not learning language, asks what are they producing? Nim not using word order, not inventing words, more words in string more meaning associated with it. Utterances not spontaneous. 1983 Terrace vs Penny Patterson. Issue absence of concrete data. Enabling Koko. No word order, not spontaneous. Messy conflict. Takes down field.

Bonobo chimp named Kanzi, doing data analysis, using embedded clauses, if then, logical progression, analogy, spontaneous, mistakes are within semantic categories. Remains only real hope for that field.

The Uniqueness of Humans Class Day Lecture 2009.
Presented by Robert Sapolski, (2009).  Published April 11, 2014

Theories : Aggession, Theory of Mind, The Golden Rule, Empathy, Culture.

Describes dopamine as focusing goal directed behaviour, an anticipation of a reward.

Why should I be nice? Game Theory- Sapolsky's abridged Stanford Behavioural Biology 2.
Presented by Robert Sapolski.  Published December 24th, 2013.
 (Someone's Christmas  Eve was used productively).

Game theory, tit for tat, signal error, trust strategies and Pavlov exploitation. Daniel Ellsberg.
Ethnological examples, vampire bats have a reciprocal altruist system. Ethnology, behaviour of Stickle Back fish and Naked Moles, closest amongst mammals to insect hives, cooperative colonies.

A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic , 22nd of March 2017, on Frederick Nietzche.

Found it after watching a documentary on Friedrich Nietzsche, by Bettany Hughes, published October 2016. The documentary suggests that one of the reasons Nietzche did not publish a follow up to his books was that he was aware that his books led to conclusions that were problematic, to quote "recognized the flaw in his reasoning" (Hughes 2016). Also details the ways his work was used to legitimate ideological and political objectives of the German National Socialist Party during the 1930's & 1940's.

Documentary & Lectures watched on Youtube.

When does entertainment become education? Well, anyway..

Buster Keaton movies covered by "Every frame a picture".

Buster Keaton is held to be one of the seminal sources of visual comedy, often referenced. His deadpan character, wears early twentieth century clothing that still looks quite modern. The subjects he covers are probably eternal with human nature.

Buster Keaton

Short-Term politics versus Long-Term Returns - Lessons From History.

The speaker Mark Blyth, Published on the 6th September 2016, chaired by Michael Strachan.

A charismatic speaker, Mark Blyth gets asked his opinion on the outcome for the 2016 American Presidential Election. He gives Donald Trump a 60% chance on the basis of the types of narratives and experiences the two major nominees are appealing to.

Notes : Contemporary issue in a Democracy with sustained deflation, there is creditor loss, value of debt goes up, collection goes down, wages go down. Comments about narratives (power of self understanding & narrative, motivation), definitions of a bubble (income streams cannot support asset values, but income streams can be hidden) and the importance of rule of law and asset security. Comments at end with a query about the stability of an authoritarian government (re China) and its reaction to economic issues.

David Harvey Lecture 6: Bad Infinity and the Madness of Economic Reason.

From David Harvey Lecture 6, Published on the 9th of December 2016, part of a series of lectures presented by the Heyman Centre for the Humanities.

David Harvey provides a narrative to interprete contemporary economic crisis (lack of growth), discussing the way debt finance is used to create value, he provides historical analogies. Of course metanarratives should be typically regarded with suspicion but I find his points interesting.

Notes : Discusses the role of China in the 2007- 2008 recession and the question of debt finance creating increased value. He makes transparent analogies of current economic projects with the public works projects of Louis Bonapart and the financial crisis of 1867 -1868. He then makes another analogy to American Post WWII suburbanisation and the integration of different economic areas through highways to illustrate issues associated with absorbing surpluses of labour and capital.

Issue of consumption vs productive consumption. Compound growth in use value has limits. Only money can increase in compound, capital taking money form, expanding at compound rate, producing an excessive degree of inflation. Discusses a need to transform wants, needs and desires that match real lifestyles. Debt needs to be redeemed to avoid financial crisis, thus the creation of a lifestyle that allows the redeeming of debt,  associated with social control. Social control very tightly bound to redemption of debt. Future already foreclosed upon. This is the world in which we must adapt.

House of Many Doors (2017) was written by Harry Tuffs, with art by Catherine Ung and music by Zach Beever and had received funding from a Kickstarter campaign. By now the initial media attention has died down and moved on to other objects of hype and typically months later I finally got around to playing it after the alpha, various updates and patches. It is heavy in style and involves reading a lot of text, with an experience mechanic that involves writing poetry, which means it is relatively dense in ideas, which is just great. But not necessarily everyone's cup of tea.

Its premise is that The House is a parasite dimension that takes or has other worlds breaking through, to me the name evokes claustrophobia. The setting is able to approach various genre, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, through the lens of the culture of a mystical Victorian England, think deliberately or unconsciously evoking Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland with postmodern cynicism about the contemporary and historical assumptions of the setting. Thus you have scenes where a shell shocked soldier, from a world being invaded by "things from the skies", has had his platoon hit by a missile, somehow wound up in The House and is convinced that he is dead and in hell, is talking to a Victorian era captain of a giant mechanical centipede, and the writing conveys the conventional impressions of the limits of the Victorian mindset.

It took me several attempts to learn the basic mechanics, a kind of centipede game that ratchets up tension and uses a separate tactical combat game for fight sequences, it is easy to die, even on the "Enjoyable" setting (post hoc: by now I've built up the centipede and mastered most of the mechanics). Fortunately the game automatically saves when you reach a city, there were some bugs initially, but the automatic save managed to alleviate my irritation. The map is organized in a grid like pattern with recurring setting appropriate objects with interspersed cities occupying a grid, each city evokes a particular theme, such as City of Knives, City of Masks, Eld Abrahat etc. I am unsure of its relationship to Sunless Seas by Failbetter, which apparently supplied funding, offices and advice, but I suspect the heavy text, foreboding and mystical setting for both may be traced in a lineage to the literary nonsense genre, heavy on symbolism. There is a lot of dark humour in the writing, the music conveys mood, changing the deeper you go into The House and there are auditory sound effects when the characters sanity decreases. I quite like how there is a sense of depth and distance the further from the City of Keys you go, when I was reading Emily Short's blog there were references to  "Fine" and "Smiling" statuses for the sanity indicator, I haven't seen that yet, perhaps that was changed for ease of comprehension.

Because this is a role playing game there is an experience and stat mechanic, each upper deck crew member (a character with a picture) represents a particular skill, you acquire "apprehensions" that you spend to increase the stat represented by each particular upper deck crew member (to the right of the picture). In terms of the narrative, this represents a captain walking around his vessel reminding or assisting his officers to do their job, I have associations with this in my little world. When I initially started playing I kept on trying to find the captain's stat sheet, it is a little different conceptually from the normal character avatar in most RPGs but it kind of gels with a perceived crew narrative. By now there is a wiki which is useful for answering basic questions and finding locations to trade resources.

Yes the Record Keeper is an accountant shark wearing a suit.

The crew of the vessel you have in the combat game occupy particular roles including engineer, medic and gunner, and so far having the medic heal the crew during combat seems to be the best way to heal injury acquired through the narrative as well as combat damage. Both upper deck and lower deck crew members (think red shirts) have their own name in the combat screen, which is a nice touch, and the upper deck crew can be romanced in a limited way, mostly to some comic effect which produces classes of experience, which are represented as objects (there is a joke in the game about how experience can be commodified) which can be used to write poetry or spent to achieve narrative concerns.

Romance as a comedy

I think in a way the writing of poetry in the game may be tied to the gradual processing of experience, which is possibly one of the cognitive benefits of poetry, why people did (or do) it as a form of self expression. But, um, don't worry, I'm not going to start dashing out poetry and inflicting it on people. I was told my attempts were quite dreadful.

Hm, where did I put it? and what rhymes with thesaurus? ...

The Plague by Albert Camus (1947).

It can ostensibly be interpreted as a narrative of an epidemic slowly overtaking the French city of Oran, set in the middle of the twentieth century, the characters describe microscopes and the patients being treated by the lancing of buboes, injections of camphor and a serum, that to me sounds like a vaccine, but the details are sparse. No mention is made of antibiotics, the city enacts a cordon sanitaire and the bacillus causing the plague in my mind is Yersinia pestis.

Much has been written about this novel, the author Albert Camus wrote about the absence of inherent value and meaning and was part of the cultural milieu of Jean-Paul Satre and apparently follows the work of Soren Kierkegaard.

I have read English translations of Jean-Paul Satre but not Soren Kierkegaard, but at the time of reading "The Plague", I was approaching it more from the descriptions of the characters and the social situation, although the indifference of the plaque to human morality is a theme of the novel and the way Albert Camus describes and treats his characters, is consistent with his Absurdist philosophy and I was aware of the interpretive approach that the novel was built on experiences and perceived issues close to the general French experience of the German occupation of France during World War II (Vulliamy, 2015). I would need to read articles on the subject to check the validity of this opinion really.

One issue that gets mentioned is the role of women in the novel, woman characters in the novel tend to be mothers, carers, shopkeepers or as part of a "couple" but are not described as occupying official roles in the society described in the novel. I am not someone who should really have opinions about contemporary French society let alone French society during the twentieth century, but prior to reading this novel I had seen a lot of silver screen movies from the 1930's to 1960's and thus as I was reading this novel I was picturing it in a kind of film noir setting and there wasn't that much dissonance. I suspect that this was because the author wasn't concerned about this issue that we observe from our contemporary perspective and was probably writing in a way consistent for its time and place.

References,

• Vulliamy, Ed. (2015). Albert Camus' The Plague: a story for our, and all, times. From the 5th of January, The Guardian. @ https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jan/05/albert-camus-the-plague-fascist-death-ed-vulliamy.

Scrawling while computer blue screens.

Crash Course (on Youtube) has begun a series on Mythology, including the basic definition of a Myth. High School me would have loved this. Easier than reading Claude Levi-Strauss. "If you are ever in the underworld, don't eat anything." (Rugnetta, Mike : (2017), Crash Course : Mythology Episode 1).

Finished Reading "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman (2016).

This book  is composed of  a series of self enclosed stories (Myths)  from Norse mythology, presented in a sequence that resembles the sequence of books in the Catholic Bible, from creation, in Genesis to end, Revelations. 

From previous readings of compendiums of Germanic Mythology, including the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, Gaiman has told select stories from the Norse Mythology, developing the Norse gods and mythical creatures personalities and presenting what could be understood as a fundamental interpretation in ways that evoke metaphors representing modern experience, such as aspects of Ragnoroc that evoke modern visions of environmental catastrophe or Nuclear Winter.

Each Myth is a story that can be interpreted independently but Neil Gaiman has presented them in a chronological sequence, which makes reference to earlier stories featuring the characters and thus representing a kind of sequential development.

When I started reading, the first chapter was a description of the creation myth, which hits like reading Tolkiens Simarilion, a bit dry, which I skipped after flipping through. The next chapter was a story describing the creation of treasures of the gods, things that modern readers would easily recognise and featured Odin, Thor and Loki, which was engaging and amusing. Things were easier to read after that. After reading to the end, I then reread the creation mythology and because the places and characters had meaning, the creation myth was more easier to read. And I was struck by its potential to be read as metaphor, although again its possible Gaiman may have presented it in a way that would purposely evoke modern interpretations. 

Something I didn't know, or perhaps, remember was that in Norse Mythology, Man was carved from an Ash tree and Woman was carved from Elm. Gender interpretations were given to the different trees.

Ultimately I found the book easy to read and at times quite amusing.

More grainy cellphone camera images of notepad sketches.

Dragoon uniforms for comic idea

Female figures, various.

Figures various

Faces various

Self portrait, person at work wanted a picture of me,
this is the result of that "discussion".

A conversation, working on comic idea.

Uniform composed of geometric shapes.

Sometimes the sketches represent the raw intent better than the end product.

A cool comic "Bite Me" by Dylan Meconis. Imagine Twilight as a comedy set during the French Revolution of 1792  (?1794).

New Year. Simplifying acquired detris, throwing away sketch pads, but took cellphone photos of some incomplete sketches because I am a packrat of sorts.

 Faces, influenced by flatmates and possibly something I was watching on TV.














Horse & figures in profile for comic idea, notice hook on right hand and unnatural legs of horse trotting.

Scene featuring dragoons for comic idea.

More faces

Obsessed with teeth, I'm not sure but I bet this was scrawled around the time of David Ayers (2016) "Suicide Squad".

 Was working on an idea for ending scenes of a comic.