In Uncategorized on
15 May 2008 with 3 comments
All Your B(i)ase(s) Are Belong to Us
I’ve recently been beset by “grassroots” do-gooders, and my brain climate is becoming one conducive to giving them some slice of my brainday. Each includes, as the whole or a part of their cause, something about the state of healthcare. It’s hot, and they’re riding the thermals.
I don’t know why—I’m not quite that naive—but I expected more than a mash of propagandist tripe. I suppose, and this isn’t close to an original observation, that people are people, and people who need to proselytize share certain characteristics: they need to gain attention; they need to focus attention on their topic; and they need to persuade. I get it, especially as prolific as “branding,” etc. is in the popular culture; my grandma probably cares about her brand equity.
Yet, I carry with me a prejudice (one of many; more on that later) about how do-gooder types go about communicating persuasively. I expect these groups to pay as much care to the legitimacy and clarity of their claims as to the power of their appeal. But, sadly—sadly because either citizens as a group can’t be trusted to buy into a cause unless it looks like an advert for Activism ‘R’ Us, or because these folks believe that’s the case—this evidence says otherwise.
More soon.
In Muse on
14 May 2008 with no comments
Upon the Sea, Here Be Monsters
I am finally entering the phase of study in which, while optional thus far, I will need to apply my education outside the bounds of assignments and tests. Thus we have the capstone.
I’ve been looking forward to this for some time, but I’m still quite green, and so the whole of the field lies before me waiting for my prescient decision. Decisions mock me, as readers might summize. So, there you have it.
I enjoy analysis, and look forward to differential equations, and enjoyed linear algebra, and have browsed abstract algebra, and have read about topology. I aim to pick up Python over the summer, and would like to start using SAGE, which not coincidentally casts heavy strokes with Python, integrating and extending a varied selection of the best (and other) computer mathematics software. The fact that I find elegant Python’s requirement of indentation as a delimiter only makes me want to play with it more.
If anyone happens upon this post, and has thoughts on past, present, future, or othertemporal projects, please drop a note.
In Uncategorized on
14 May 2008 with no comments
A Too Short Aside
I walked into history class last night, finally comfortable to walk in without trepidation. No due assignment, no exam. Only the promise of pedagogy. Upon an otherwise unused blackboard some anonymous author had written, “Life Is Bullshit,” with lovely attention to craftsmanship.
I won’t pretend to take it seriously, but it’s not a bad pretense for discussion. Just as the cynics among us may find solace in the depravity of life, in the contrast of our expectations and idealizations to our experiences, we are merely dramatic if we don’t acknowledge that it is not, in fact, bullshit, anymore than it is positively sublime. Not any of our attributions will but color our mapping of sensation to cognition. We might as well be complete about it, no?