an entry in which I imply that Obama is Voldemort
Let me dwell briefly on my perception of the passage of time. I think that the last ten years have seemed to pass quickly, even if intervals during that period seem to pass more slowly. Life can feel like a game of Civilization II, where, if I do not have a good start, development can proceed slowly, and before I realise it, 3000 years have passed and I haven't even learned democracy yet.
I think that the death/assassination of Osama bin Laden was probably the correct outcome, but killing is dirty business (as I've been reminded by the concept of the "horcrux" in the last two Harry Potter movies, which I got around to watching this weekend), and we shouldn't be cheering. I'm displeased by Obama's treatment of the matter, which seems little more than jingoistic hatemongering stirred to obscure criticism of his uninspired tenure at home in America. Where is Hillary, anyway? The burial at sea business might also be the most sensible outcome, but the way the public relations was handled seemed sloppy. In any event, Obama's got a handy horcrux for the next election.
It was another four-day weekend in England (the second in a row), which has meant work has been somewhat chill, which I have appreciated. Friday I went to a couple of local independent bookshops to look for books on London to send home in a box for my parents (the highlight of this hunt was a book on the natural history of London published in 1947, which has pictures of post-Blitz London and a description of the effects of the bombing on London wildlife--the pictures sort of remind me of Saginaw). The one bookshop (Skoob) is very good and is my local source for linguistics books--it is good to go every few months to see what new (old) titles they've gotten since my last visit. I picked up some very early Chomsky, a book on narrative comprehension and some George Steiner, which was recommended by Meg's husband Jason on their last visit to London (strictly speaking not linguistics but felicitous that it showed up in that section, else I never would have seen it).
The other shop is further up Marchmont Street, in the part where it is no longer called Marchmont Street, and I'd never been in it before. I judge the quality of a bookshop by the quality of its linguistics section, and in that respect this store is not as good as Skoob, but very interestingly they did have a book written in the 80s by Victor Yngve, who is an emeritus professor of psychology and linguistics at Chicago.
I had understood that Professor Yngve (who had been retired for so long by the time I was a student at Chicago that he was no longer ever around the department) was sort of out there from my discussions with Fulop, and his book confirms his status as something of a renegade linguist. Its conclusion is effectively that linguistics as we know it cannot be a science, because its premise consists of bogus and unprovable assumptions (namely, that there is this thing out there called language, which he asserts is unobservable in the physical world and so not of the realm of science), and that if we want to study linguistics as a science, we need to can the notion of language and replace it with a study of people. If we want to continue with the study of the "linguistics of language", we shouldn't really do that either, because at the end of the day we'd just end up with competing models whose validity can never be proved, because language doesn't exist: only people exist, and people communicate, and people are observable and so can be the subject of scientific analysis.
This linguistics as a science seems to involve a number of logical functions which map observable phenomena or changes in state to binary truth values. I didn't really get the implementation, which is fine, because so far as I can tell it wasn't applied to any actual observable phenomena in the book. In the twenty-five years since the book was published, I don't know that the discipline has developed much beyond some further work he's done, and it didn't really pique my interest or convince me it was a worthwhile endeavour to throw language out the window just yet.
Otherwise, in addition to the book on narrative comprehension (which contains perhaps 75% more words than it needs to), I've been reading some more 80s/90s Justice League, and I'm disappointed that I've run out of it now. I could switch back to X-Men, but it just isn't as well written or enjoyable. I am very much not in a novel mode, but when I am again (it could be a couple years, as I definitely go through phases of being able to tolerate novels) I need to finish Little Dorrit and read the Woodlanders. I haven't read any Hardy since I tried to read Tess of the D'Urbervilles back in 2007/2008 when I first moved over here, and I hated it and it really soured me on Hardy for a long time. I will not try to finish it.
I picked up a bunch of prints over the last few months from Tiny Showcase, none of which I am terribly excited about now (they are too tiny), as well as a larger piece by an artist who lives in Devon, which I am excited about, and I am on my way to commissioning some bathroom art from an artist who I think will be able to pull it off, which will be quite exceptional if it happens, but I don't want to get my hopes up. My new favourite artist is a guy called Norman Stevens, who passed away in the 80s and did really neat aquatint prints, and I hope to pick up a couple in the next year or so. Eventually I will run out of wall space (at which point I return to Saginaw?).
At the moment, I am debt free. I plan to stay that way for the near future. I have not felt any sort of elation or relief at being debt free. It probably just needs to sink in a little, but at the same time it just means preparing new budgets and projections. Eventually (assuming I don't quit my job) I'll be at a point where I need to start "diversifying" and shoving more money into my fake UK pension or US-tax sensible investment vehicles, which will just highlight the inevitability of death. To keep things fun I'll open a US brokerage account so I can invest in Iron Man equities (palladium mines and robotics start-ups, obviously). Meantime I have to go back to work in the morning. I hope you're all doing well, and we'll be in touch-- /B/
I think that the death/assassination of Osama bin Laden was probably the correct outcome, but killing is dirty business (as I've been reminded by the concept of the "horcrux" in the last two Harry Potter movies, which I got around to watching this weekend), and we shouldn't be cheering. I'm displeased by Obama's treatment of the matter, which seems little more than jingoistic hatemongering stirred to obscure criticism of his uninspired tenure at home in America. Where is Hillary, anyway? The burial at sea business might also be the most sensible outcome, but the way the public relations was handled seemed sloppy. In any event, Obama's got a handy horcrux for the next election.
It was another four-day weekend in England (the second in a row), which has meant work has been somewhat chill, which I have appreciated. Friday I went to a couple of local independent bookshops to look for books on London to send home in a box for my parents (the highlight of this hunt was a book on the natural history of London published in 1947, which has pictures of post-Blitz London and a description of the effects of the bombing on London wildlife--the pictures sort of remind me of Saginaw). The one bookshop (Skoob) is very good and is my local source for linguistics books--it is good to go every few months to see what new (old) titles they've gotten since my last visit. I picked up some very early Chomsky, a book on narrative comprehension and some George Steiner, which was recommended by Meg's husband Jason on their last visit to London (strictly speaking not linguistics but felicitous that it showed up in that section, else I never would have seen it).
The other shop is further up Marchmont Street, in the part where it is no longer called Marchmont Street, and I'd never been in it before. I judge the quality of a bookshop by the quality of its linguistics section, and in that respect this store is not as good as Skoob, but very interestingly they did have a book written in the 80s by Victor Yngve, who is an emeritus professor of psychology and linguistics at Chicago.
I had understood that Professor Yngve (who had been retired for so long by the time I was a student at Chicago that he was no longer ever around the department) was sort of out there from my discussions with Fulop, and his book confirms his status as something of a renegade linguist. Its conclusion is effectively that linguistics as we know it cannot be a science, because its premise consists of bogus and unprovable assumptions (namely, that there is this thing out there called language, which he asserts is unobservable in the physical world and so not of the realm of science), and that if we want to study linguistics as a science, we need to can the notion of language and replace it with a study of people. If we want to continue with the study of the "linguistics of language", we shouldn't really do that either, because at the end of the day we'd just end up with competing models whose validity can never be proved, because language doesn't exist: only people exist, and people communicate, and people are observable and so can be the subject of scientific analysis.
This linguistics as a science seems to involve a number of logical functions which map observable phenomena or changes in state to binary truth values. I didn't really get the implementation, which is fine, because so far as I can tell it wasn't applied to any actual observable phenomena in the book. In the twenty-five years since the book was published, I don't know that the discipline has developed much beyond some further work he's done, and it didn't really pique my interest or convince me it was a worthwhile endeavour to throw language out the window just yet.
Otherwise, in addition to the book on narrative comprehension (which contains perhaps 75% more words than it needs to), I've been reading some more 80s/90s Justice League, and I'm disappointed that I've run out of it now. I could switch back to X-Men, but it just isn't as well written or enjoyable. I am very much not in a novel mode, but when I am again (it could be a couple years, as I definitely go through phases of being able to tolerate novels) I need to finish Little Dorrit and read the Woodlanders. I haven't read any Hardy since I tried to read Tess of the D'Urbervilles back in 2007/2008 when I first moved over here, and I hated it and it really soured me on Hardy for a long time. I will not try to finish it.
I picked up a bunch of prints over the last few months from Tiny Showcase, none of which I am terribly excited about now (they are too tiny), as well as a larger piece by an artist who lives in Devon, which I am excited about, and I am on my way to commissioning some bathroom art from an artist who I think will be able to pull it off, which will be quite exceptional if it happens, but I don't want to get my hopes up. My new favourite artist is a guy called Norman Stevens, who passed away in the 80s and did really neat aquatint prints, and I hope to pick up a couple in the next year or so. Eventually I will run out of wall space (at which point I return to Saginaw?).
At the moment, I am debt free. I plan to stay that way for the near future. I have not felt any sort of elation or relief at being debt free. It probably just needs to sink in a little, but at the same time it just means preparing new budgets and projections. Eventually (assuming I don't quit my job) I'll be at a point where I need to start "diversifying" and shoving more money into my fake UK pension or US-tax sensible investment vehicles, which will just highlight the inevitability of death. To keep things fun I'll open a US brokerage account so I can invest in Iron Man equities (palladium mines and robotics start-ups, obviously). Meantime I have to go back to work in the morning. I hope you're all doing well, and we'll be in touch-- /B/