Some Such Name
12.18.2004
Low Flying Astronaut
What's common to "carthographic sadism, gabber avant-gardism, experimental knowledge, DIY urbanism, autonomous spacetravel, gymnosophistic delight, disco socialism, peripatetic hedonism" and Some Such Name?
You will remember we linked to a brilliant essay by a sharp Netherlander a few days ago. An old biographical note on the author says:
Most known for his years long affiliation with the independent space travel cabal called Jungle Association of Association of Autonomous Astronauts, the activities of Wilfried Hou Je Bek reach the entire spectrum of culture hacking. Micro publications, multi-source poly-style dj-sets, spoken word performances, experimental city walks, web based projects dubbed 'applied literature' like the 'Waren de Friezen Kosmonauten?' last December.
Please welcome Wilfried Hou Je Bek, noted Dutch psychogeographer and .walker.
Now do you hear me, God?! ¶ 4:40:00 AM 3 comments
What's common to "carthographic sadism, gabber avant-gardism, experimental knowledge, DIY urbanism, autonomous spacetravel, gymnosophistic delight, disco socialism, peripatetic hedonism" and Some Such Name?
You will remember we linked to a brilliant essay by a sharp Netherlander a few days ago. An old biographical note on the author says:
Most known for his years long affiliation with the independent space travel cabal called Jungle Association of Association of Autonomous Astronauts, the activities of Wilfried Hou Je Bek reach the entire spectrum of culture hacking. Micro publications, multi-source poly-style dj-sets, spoken word performances, experimental city walks, web based projects dubbed 'applied literature' like the 'Waren de Friezen Kosmonauten?' last December.
Please welcome Wilfried Hou Je Bek, noted Dutch psychogeographer and .walker.
Now do you hear me, God?! ¶ 4:40:00 AM 3 comments
12.15.2004
How Ovaries Count and Balls Add Up
Some such chick called Clio Cresswell has written a book called Mathematics & Sex, and Slashdot nerds are gagging to review it. From reminiscing about about high-school math puns to the bar scene in A Beautiful Mind, it's all happening here. The book discusses 'problems' like choosing a life partner out of the 100 successive people you meet:
You can prove mathematically that the best strategy is to look at (approximately) the first 36.787944117144235 people (rounding it to, say, 37 people) and then you should choose the first person from that point on that is 'better' then the previous 37 people. This increases the odds of your finding the best match from 1% to about 37%- roughly a 37 times improvement. (In the pre-politically correct literature this model was called "The Sultan's Dowry Problem," or "The Secretary Problem"; now, alas, it is usually called simply an example of an "Optimal Stopping Problem." ) ¶ 8:24:00 PM 1 comments
Some such chick called Clio Cresswell has written a book called Mathematics & Sex, and Slashdot nerds are gagging to review it. From reminiscing about about high-school math puns to the bar scene in A Beautiful Mind, it's all happening here. The book discusses 'problems' like choosing a life partner out of the 100 successive people you meet:
You can prove mathematically that the best strategy is to look at (approximately) the first 36.787944117144235 people (rounding it to, say, 37 people) and then you should choose the first person from that point on that is 'better' then the previous 37 people. This increases the odds of your finding the best match from 1% to about 37%- roughly a 37 times improvement. (In the pre-politically correct literature this model was called "The Sultan's Dowry Problem," or "The Secretary Problem"; now, alas, it is usually called simply an example of an "Optimal Stopping Problem." ) ¶ 8:24:00 PM 1 comments
Vox Wagen
Tee-Hee!I've just finished sending an e-mail to the CEO of Volkswagen. No, he's not part of my old boyz network:
Dr. Pischetsrieder,
I am a 28 year-old Bombay-based writer, a literary ruffian, and as my friends are fond of saying, 'the human dynamo'. I was just thinking the other day that since I can't seem to afford a Volkswagen car in the near-near future, you should give it to me free for one year.
In return, I will drive this VW brand around India, Pakistan, and other remote parts of South Asia. I will travel with a film-maker, and distribute free, disposable cameras & mobile phones to farmers. I will carry a laptop and keep a weblog on the internet of my whereabouts and activities. I will work up a storm wherever I go.
I won't need any money, really. I just want to have fun, and at the same time present an iconoclastic account of a unique journey through a re-awakening civilization. We both know that China and India are set on a course to become economic powerhouses in the next ten years.
Well, I've said it. I look forward to you thoughts. Google me for a biography, or have a glimpse at the link below my signature.
warm regards,
XXXX ¶ 2:42:00 AM 2 comments
Tee-Hee!I've just finished sending an e-mail to the CEO of Volkswagen. No, he's not part of my old boyz network:
Dr. Pischetsrieder,
I am a 28 year-old Bombay-based writer, a literary ruffian, and as my friends are fond of saying, 'the human dynamo'. I was just thinking the other day that since I can't seem to afford a Volkswagen car in the near-near future, you should give it to me free for one year.
In return, I will drive this VW brand around India, Pakistan, and other remote parts of South Asia. I will travel with a film-maker, and distribute free, disposable cameras & mobile phones to farmers. I will carry a laptop and keep a weblog on the internet of my whereabouts and activities. I will work up a storm wherever I go.
I won't need any money, really. I just want to have fun, and at the same time present an iconoclastic account of a unique journey through a re-awakening civilization. We both know that China and India are set on a course to become economic powerhouses in the next ten years.
Well, I've said it. I look forward to you thoughts. Google me for a biography, or have a glimpse at the link below my signature.
warm regards,
XXXX ¶ 2:42:00 AM 2 comments
12.13.2004
The Chaos Poem
Here's an amazingly useful poem with a fascinating history of being lost and discovered, annotated and morphed, a poem that underwent the same mutations that it describes:
The chequered career of the first version we received was typical: it consisted of a tattered typescript found in a girls' High School in Germany in 1945 by a British soldier, from whom it passed through various hands eventually to reach Terry De'Ath, who passed it to the SSS; but it did not mention who its author was. A rather sad instance of the mystery that has long surrounded the poem is seen in Hubert A Greven's Elements of English Phonology, published in Paris in 1972: its introduction quoted 48 lines of the poem to demonstrate to French students how impossible English is to pronounce (ie, to read aloud), and by way of acknowledgment said that the author "would like to pay a suitable tribute to Mr G Nolst Trenité for permission to copy his poem The Chaos.
An excerpt from The Chaos -
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
The title of this post links you to The Simplified Spelling Society. ¶ 11:51:00 PM 0 comments
The chequered career of the first version we received was typical: it consisted of a tattered typescript found in a girls' High School in Germany in 1945 by a British soldier, from whom it passed through various hands eventually to reach Terry De'Ath, who passed it to the SSS; but it did not mention who its author was. A rather sad instance of the mystery that has long surrounded the poem is seen in Hubert A Greven's Elements of English Phonology, published in Paris in 1972: its introduction quoted 48 lines of the poem to demonstrate to French students how impossible English is to pronounce (ie, to read aloud), and by way of acknowledgment said that the author "would like to pay a suitable tribute to Mr G Nolst Trenité for permission to copy his poem The Chaos.
An excerpt from The Chaos -
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
The title of this post links you to The Simplified Spelling Society. ¶ 11:51:00 PM 0 comments
