Nathan Campbell – Page 206

The author of Tarzan on writing fiction

Are you reading Letters of Note yet? If not you’ll have missed this interchange between a youngster (a boy named Forrest Ackerman who later went on to coin the term “sci fi”) and Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of Tarzan.

Ackerman, at 14, wrote Burroughs after his English teacher spend a lesson decrying the author’s popular schlock fiction. He describes the tirade as follows:

Well with that she burst into a perfect tirade! “If I were to buy the highest priced box of chocolates obtainable,” she said, “and were to offer it to you along with a box of old cheap stuff, which would you take? Why the good candy of course! Yet you’ll go to extremes to pick up this horrid literature out of the garbage cans such as Burroughs writes.” — and she went on for hours and hours and hours. I got in a good word for you every chance I could.

And then signs off with class belying his age:

“I don’t expect you’ll bother to answer this–maybe you haven’t even read it–but anyway will you please autograph the enclosed card and return it to me. Thank you, so much!

And now I’d better sign off. I certainly envy the fellow–if there is such a fellow–that is friendly enough with you to call you Eddie!”

Burroughs did reply. With a lesson on good fiction and bad criticism.

“Tell your teacher that, though she may be right about my stories, there are some fifty million people in the world who will not agree with her, which is fortunate for me, since even writers of garbage-can literature must eat.

My stories will do you no harm. If they have helped to inculcate in you a love of books, they have done you much good. No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.

Last year I followed the English course prescribed for my two sons, who are in college. The required reading seemed to have been selected for the sole purpose of turning the hearts of young people against books. That, however, seems to be a universal pedagogical complex: to make the acquiring of knowledge a punishment, rather than a pleasure.”

Brilliant.

April 13, 2010

Pixar by pixel

Here’s a cool infographic. 100 Pixar characters side by side and to scale.

It’s at Flickr and is available in mega size (it’s worth a look). The main characters from each franchise are in yellow.

April 13, 2010

How to mix stuff through your ice cream

Here you go readers. A free tip. I bought some cookie dough and some ice cream at the grocery store. Intending to combine them for some homemade cookie dough action. But how to do it? How does one take two fairly solid substances and mix them thoroughly to create the desired effect? You use a potato masher, that’s how.

It worked brilliantly. I didn’t have to melt the ice cream. Which is always a no-no – it doesn’t freeze well afterwards.

April 13, 2010

To tweet, or not to tweet*

It had to happen sooner or later. Such Tweet Sorrow is a dramatic rendition of Romeo and Juliette conducted through the construct of Twitter. The actors don’t follow the dialogue so much as commentate on the action, in true Twitter style. It’ll run for five weeks.

“The scriptwriters have played out a story grid with key events in the play being scheduled over the next month. But the actors playing the characters on Twitter will improvise the dialogue throughout the day, including interacting with their Twitter followers.

Every morning the actors receive a three-page mission document which informs them of the key events that need to take place during the day.

The project was jointly funded by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Channel 4’s 4IP fund and Screen West Midlands.

On the Such Tweet Sorrow website, it’s possible to gain an overview of all of the different Twitter accounts, including the ability to view the entire play in a time-line.

Set as it is in the real world, the play will react to news events taking place during the next month. This obviously means the general election, one of the most tweeted subjects on Twitter, but also the London marathon, where one of the characters will be taking part.”

To follow, or not to follow*…

*I am aware that this is actually from Hamlet. If you feel the need to correct or castigate me for misappropriating a line from one of Shakespeare’s plays to head a post about another please do so constructively – with a better reference.

April 13, 2010

McFossil

If you watched the DVD extras of Supersize Me you already probably know what happens if you leave McDonalds on the shelf for a year – but if not, this blogger has put the Happy Meal to the test.

Before

After
Happy Meal

April 13, 2010

A fascinating insight into hoarding

I am a semihoarder. I don’t have rooms and rooms of junk, but I don’t like to throw functional things out (nor have I sold much stuff on eBay).

My house isn’t bursting at the seams with unwanted stuff – but we’ve all seen those houses on the news (or perhaps know people who have collected hundreds or thousands of old magazines in case they want to refer to an article later.

Anyway, there’s an online support group for hoarders, and they’ve got a “bulletin board” type function where such hoarders can share about why they hoard. It makes for kind of depressing reading. Here’s a sample.

“I hoard items and also buy defective items in the supermarket or department stores because I tend to imbue personality and feelings onto inanimate objects. When I see a dented can or a perfectly new shirt missing a button I feel extremely sad for the item because I fear that no one will want it and it will not serve the purpose for which it was created due to a small defect… so I buy it. The mentality is similar, I suppose, to people who adopt lots of homeless pets or children (by the way, I also have 6 cats). If I cannot buy the item or if I make a point of consciously passing the item up, I am guilt ridden for days. Sometimes I think I buy these things just to avoid the guilt of feeling I have “abandoned” an item or “rejected” it by failing to provide an opportunity for it to “fulfill the purpose for which it was created.” In the last few years I have developed rules for what I allow in my house and tend to buy things online where only new and perfect things are sent though the mail… thus avoiding the defective items sometimes seen and found in stores. I suspect my manifestation of hoarding is due to being an only child raised by an ambivalent single parent who abandoned me in many ways and on many different occasions. I suspect I’m attempting to “rescue” the child I once was by projecting unresolved feeling and issues onto items that would be deemed by others as “imperfect” and thus “unwanted.””

“This is weird, but for me about half of the hoarding problem stems from problems with how other people will view me. I can’t stand for others in my apartment to see me bringing groceries or supplies in, nor can I stand to be caught taking garbage to the tip. It seems to be predicated on the idea that if people see what I bring in, consume, and discard, they will assume that I’m spendthrift, selfish, wasteful. I know that one bag of trash a week isn’t all that much, but I’m still petrified of being seen with it. As though I hadn’t made full use of the things I purchased. Anyway, I believe that I have to sneak the trash out of the building after all my neighbors are asleep… if I don’t manage to stay up until three AM, the trash bag just sits there. At times, this has resulted in as many as ten trash bags awaiting disposal at an “inconspicuous” time. Nor can I stand to have identifying information (addresses from junk mail, e.g.) in my garbage. What if the bag were to break? I’d be associated with it. Which results in large amounts of paper standing around until I can go through and remove anything that might implicate me. It’s not so bad if I can get the trash out in reasonably short order, but once it builds up, it becomes a horrible problem. I can’t just take six bags to the tip. Have to sneak them out one at a time, two or three days apart, so no one will know that it’s me who suddenly deposited all this junk. Sometimes I try to disguise the problem by using different colored trash bags, on the theory that they won’t be associated with the same household. I know this is nutty behavior, but I really can’t seem to get a grip on it.”

Umm. Wow.

April 13, 2010

Some world records are longstanding for a reason

Did you ever play the game Asteroids? Did you ever score more than 41 million points? If you answered yes to both of those questions you may have just lost your claim on a world record.

On Saturday, John McAllister sat down at a friend’s house near Portland, Oregon to play a game of Asteroids. By Monday, he was still playing.

At 10:18 p.m. Pacific, he scored 41,338,740 points, a new all-time high score. In doing so, he beat a record that has stood for over 27 years.

The official Asteroids high score of 41,336,440 is the longest-standing record in gaming history, having been set on November 14, 1982 by 15-year-old Scott Safran. He stayed awake for three days to accomplish this feat.

Oh well. Nobody is going to beat my score at “Roller Skater Evader” – a vaguely similar game I once coded in QBasic. For fun. Mostly because I changed the scoring system to give me hundreds of thousands more points than the magazine I copied it from said to. Basically you had to steer a little dot through a screen of other little dots. And it made annoying beeping sounds because I realised that you could program musical scores by typing “play AA#BB#” etc… or something like that. I don’t remember how you made it play flats. Does anybody? I made the theme song “Mary Had A Little Lamb”…

April 13, 2010

Make zombies, not war

Want more zombie movies? Just inspire mass panic by creating a war and Hollywood will acquiesce to your desires.

This graph charts the link.

This article explains the graph.

April 13, 2010

Cool stuff, everyday

Just to prove my point about art last week – this guy produced something cool almost every day of 2009. The M&Ms and shattered photography below are examples. Here are some more that I like.

1/12/09: Scrapped / Crushed Matchbox Car - matchbox car + sledge hammer + clay

1/12/09: Scrapped / Crushed Matchbox Car – matchbox car + sledge hammer + clay

1/03/09: Rules – blank paper + thread + tape + exacto

7/16/09: fencing

4/4/09: fatal paper airplane crash

April 13, 2010

Shattering photography

These “shattered” everyday objects are tops.

1/24/09: Shattered coffee cup

1/25/09: Shattered banana peel

1/26/09: Shattered rubber ducky

1/27/09: Shattered cap

1/28/09: Shattered pacifier

1/29/09: Shattered queen of diamonds

Via here.

April 13, 2010

Pop culture M&Malism

These are cool. I’ll be posting more from where they come from shortly.

2/28/09: the simpsons

3/2/09: the blue man group carving a pumpkin

3/3/09: kermit the frog about to walk across hot coals

3/4/09: papa smurf gets angry, turns into the hulk

Via here.

April 13, 2010

Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online and why I (mostly) can’t be bothered anymore

I’ve spent a fair portion of my time in the last two years entering arguments with atheists online. These are different to arguments with atheists in real life. Steve Kryger at Communicate Jesus has posted a couple of thoughts on this matter lately – and even been roundly panned by an atheist blog for his trouble. Steve’s posts:

My motivation for doing so has been twofold – on the one hand, I don’t like seeing people bagging out Jesus without anybody mounting a defense, and on the other, I realise that people google for all sorts of things and read blogs and their sycophantic comments to help make up their minds. I want to present Jesus as an alternative worldview to militant atheism.

But I’m on the verge of giving up. Here are eight lessons I’ve learned (at times the hard way) from arguing with atheists that have left me close to pulling the pin on this particular avenue of evangelism.

If you argue with atheists online, especially on their turf, you will almost always be outnumbered. There’s something about the nature of community that stops Christians using the Internet the same way atheists do. I suspect it’s because atheists are a minority with no real world equivalent to church. They meet virtually. They encourage one another through forums and blogs. The Internet, in my opinion, is their nexus of community.
Being outnumbered makes actually engaging with arguments hard. If one hundred commenters on a forum each ask the token Christian a question and that Christian only picks three to answer (which is a 3:1 comment ratio ie those hundred post one comment each, the Christian posts three) then the forum often jumps on the one person, suggesting that they are being duplicitous or purposefully evasive. It’s a trial by numbers and “victories” are awarded to the masses.
If you’re going to talk about science, logic or morality you need to be careful to frame your terminology accurately. If you want to engage and give a good account for yourself you need to be familiar with strawmanning, Godwin’s Law, ad hominem, Pascal’s Wager, and the “no true Scotsman fallacy” – Christians are often guilty of transgressions of the first two, the chances of an atheist resorting to an ad hominem attack in response to a Christian rapidly approaches one the longer the conversation continues. Atheists think they’ve debunked Pascal’s Wager, while the “no true Scotsman fallacy” is a favourite “trump card” they play in order to lump all theological beliefs together so that they can strawman us.
Atheists have no interest in nuance. They don’t pay any regard to context. They interpret everything literally – be it text from the Bible, sarcasm in discussion (or irony), or anybody’s claim to be a “Christian.” They love quote mining – especially from the Bible. I’ve seen atheists take bits from Jesus’ parables to suggest that God wants his followers to put people to the sword. They aren’t interested in theology, they aren’t interested in why Christians can justify believing things they find abhorrent, they won’t ever really put themselves in “Christian” shoes when understanding things Christians say – they prefer to maintain distance because it’s easier to ridicule the “other”.
“Christians” are your own worst enemies in these contexts. A week’s worth of reasoned and fruitful discussion can be very easily undone by one comment made without being mindful of presenting the “truth with love.” Stupid “Christian” statements, along the lines of the Answers in Genesis billboard advertisements form last year spend any credit lovingly Christ centred arguments develop.
Most “atheists” are antitheists, most hold atheism at the core of their identity – but this is not true for all of them. You can’t generalise when describing atheists – some are like Dawkins who are atheists through a philosophy of scientific naturalism and evolutionary biology through “natural selection” – this view leaves no case for a creator, others are ex-Christians who had rejected all other gods already, and have since rejected God, some, like Christopher Hitchens, seem to be atheists philosophically first, and scientifically second. Each atheist is an individual. This is part of their problem when dealing with the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. They think self definition is all that matters for assessing claims – there are, in fact, external issues to take into account when deciding if a Christian is a Christian.
You’ll almost never change anybody’s mind online. Particularly if you’re outnumbered. They who shout loudest win. Ten idiots in a room yelling loudly will always feel like they’ve beaten one genius speaking quietly.
Your best bet in these situations is just to bring everything back to a question of the historicity of Jesus and his resurrection, this, after all, is the lynchpin of our belief. If they can disprove the resurrection then our faith is in vain. And it’s this argument that needs to be convincing. Questions of science and methodology are secondary.

Some bonus reflections – if you’re familiar with online bookmarking services like Digg and Reddit you’ll know that they are full of atheists who like to post, share, and comment on articles relating to atheism. There is almost no Christian presence (that I’ve found here). Christians need to come to terms with discourse on the Internet – because it’s, like it or not, a form of community. And a nexus for people looking to discuss new ideas. Sending people in to these forums “solo” doesn’t work. Constructive conversations in this format need more than a lone voice. I don’t know how you arrange a “team” approach – but that might be worthwhile.

If you’re an atheist who arrives here and thinks “these claims are all generalisations with no substantiation” – I can, if requested, point you to different threads (mostly on my blog, on the Friendly Atheist and on Pharyngula) where situations have arisen. Here’s one example, with a follow up, here’s a post I wrote that created quite a lot of atheistic consternation, and the response on Pharyngula. Or check out guest poster Dave’s three fantastic posts on why he’s not an atheist…

I’m not giving up arguing online – though I won’t spend as much time and I’ll try to establish my commitment to arguments early in the discussion, but I’d much rather chat over a beer in a pub where there’s not the ability to hide behind a computer screen and thousands of kilometres. Non verbal communication is important. And it’s much harder to be nasty to a person if they’re right in front of you (incidentally this is why you should always do radio interviews in studio rather than over the phone).

UPDATE: Hermant from the Friendly Atheist has kindly responded to my list. I’ve posted a response to his response in the comments on his blog.

I’d also like to make a small amendment to point 4 – atheists (as a general rule – not all atheists) also pay no regards to “medium” a blog entry is to be deconstructed, analysed and critiqued the same way a scientific hypothesis or peer reviewed journal is. They disagree with a sentence without paying any regard to the paragraph it builds. They interpret things they disagree with at extremes – for example – I put quotation marks around the word “Christian” above as a shorthand way of describing those who take the Christian label (making no actual judgment on whether they are Christian or not – I think you can be a Christian and be very wrong about things). And it is interpreted in the following manner:

“Oh, and putting Christian in smarmy little “scare quotes” whenever you’re using it to describe a person whose actions you disapprove of? That’s what we call a “cop out.” The claim that YOUR interpretation of the Bible is flawlessly correct and that ANY judgment you make about whether a person is or is not a Christian places YOU in a position of purported omniscience. Talk about hubris!”

That might be one way to interpret such punctuation – the traditional usage is to indicate direct speech.

April 13, 2010

A further contribution to the UFC debate

I’m on of those bandwagon jumping fanboys who thinks that my Bible College principal knows everything. I’ve also been wondering what the early church’s position on ancient wrestling was – a sport that was essentially the same as UFC – it barred eye gouges and groin shots. Paul seems to allude to fighting in his analogy in 1 Corinthians 9:26… but while googling for an answer to an unrelated question I found this statement from B.W. Winter…

The early Christians faced this question just as we do. Entertainment in their day involved the Roman spectacles, chariot races, gladiatorial fights and those sorts of things. Some of these activities encouraged a perverse interest in violence and sex, so in that sense, they were unhelpful to a Christian’s growth. Should a Christian be aware of what is going on in the wider culture in terms of entertainment? I don’t think we can be ignorant of it. However, what most people are unaware of is that many of these forms of entertainment have a subliminal effect on our thinking. This means that we need to be very selective about what we choose to entertain us. It’s easy to stumble if you simply want to be amused and suspend your critical faculties. I may sound like a bit of a killjoy, but I think it’s important to be evaluating films as we watch them. Too many Christians fail to do this, and stumble. If you suspend your critical faculties, it’s possible to assimilate all sorts of ungodly ideas and behaviour.

Seems relevant – though I think the “perverse interest” is the key. I think it’s possible to watch UFC without being perversely interested in violence. But I think there’s a real danger that this isn’t the case.

April 13, 2010

More on sin and righteousness

One of the key passages in building my theology of sin is Romans 14 – the idea that different actions will be sinful in different contexts depending on the people around you (ie if you cause your brother to stumble by exercising your freedom).

Here’s a little prooftext that fits in nicely with my “everything is sin” framework. Romans 14:23b in particular.

²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. ²³But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Here’s one that doesn’t fit so nicely…

⁴Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. ⁵But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. ⁶No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

⁷Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. ⁸He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. ⁹No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. ¹⁰This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

And another passage that helps frame my approach to righteousness…

²⁶If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Then a couple more passages from Romans. Chapter 2…

“¹²All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. ¹⁴(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, ¹⁵since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) ¹⁶This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.”

And Chapter 7… which again is pretty important to my model…

¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. ForI do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree withthe law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³but I see in my membersanother law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

April 12, 2010

The number crunching of the beast

Here’s one for the “bankcard is the devil” conspiracy theorists out there – the ones who think that the interlocking “b”s on your card are a 666…

“Visa, the world’s largest credit card network, can predict how likely you are to get a divorce. There’s no consumer-protection legislation for that.”

Spooky. How do they do this, and why do they care? Good questions. Basically they want to make sure you’re going to pay your debts. They’re mining your data people (but hands up those of you who didn’t know this already). The real conspiracy theorists grow their own vegetables, pay cash only, or barter, and they walk around in dark sunglasses and beanies because of all the secret cameras that are watching their every move… and they don’t join “frequent fliers” clubs, or have loyalty cards, or location tracking mobile phones… and they never use Google.

Companies are building profiles on you – and they no doubt make for really interesting reading. I bought a pair of socks, some deodorant and a razor two nights ago. What does that say about me?

“Cardholders who purchased carbon-monoxide detectors, premium birdseed, and felt pads for the bottoms of their chair legs rarely missed a payment. On the other hand, those who bought cheap motor oil and visited a Montreal pool bar called “Sharx” were a higher risk. “If you show us what you buy, we can tell you who you are, maybe even better than you know yourself,” a former Canadian Tire exec said. “

You better start buying felt pads for your furniture even if you don’t need them. Your credit rating depends on it…

But don’t worry. You too can play this game – finding out things about yourself that you didn’t know before.

The New York-based startup Hunch offers personalized recommendations after users answer a series of questions that give the site a sense of their tastes. Do you live in the suburbs? Do you like bumper cars? Are you more likely to spoon or be spooned? Out of this examination, Hunch generates a “taste profile” for each of its users.

Hunch then looks for statistical correlations between the information that all of its users provide, revealing fascinating links between people’s seemingly unrelated preferences. For instance, Hunch has revealed that people who enjoy dancing are more apt to want to buy a Mac, that people who like The Count on Sesame Street tend to support legalizing marijuana, that pug owners are often fans of The Shawshank Redemption, and that users who prefer aisle seats on planes “spend more money on other people than themselves.”

That’s some useful data right there. But you can game the system, if you’re game. You can take advantage of the “generosity” of Casinos by playing like a poor person if you’re rich… and you’ll score a free dinner.

“With its “Total Rewards” card, Harrah’s casinos track everything that players win and lose, in real time, and then analyze their demographic information to calculate their “pain point”—the maximum amount of money they’re likely to be willing to lose and still come back to the casino in the future. Players who get too close to their pain point are likely to be offered a free dinner that gets them off the casino floor.”

This is all from a review of a book called “Super Crunchers” here at an eerily titled blog – “The Daily Beast”… Spooky.

Databases are the future, friends. The future. So be afraid… as Revelation 13 so clearly says (regarding the beast):

“¹⁶He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, ¹⁷so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

¹⁸This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.“

You know what’s even freakier. This post has 666 words.

April 12, 2010