Dracula Dissected

By chris Posted in Uncategorized Leave a reply

I have added a section to this blog I have called Dracula Dissected. There, you will find a website I have designed which breaks down the novel ‘Dracula’ into dozens of tiny pieces, and then strings them together again over a map, connected with the story’s internal timeline.

Dracula was written as a epistolary novel, so I have not had to change a word of the book to do this.    But by taking the book at it’s word, we get to see another perspective on the story. Narratives, by their nature, tend to stick to one viewpoint at a time. But if you introduce a moving map, you can watch Dracula gradually move towards England, just as Mina is wondering what has happened to her husband-to-be. Which is fun.

Even more interesting would be a retelling of history using the same methods. Imagine a similar site which showed a period of art history – the post-impressionists, for example – or one that showed the events of D-Day minute by minute.

An Idea for an History Database

By chris Posted in Computing Leave a reply

Freebase.com is a free resource which has made Wikipedia and other sources into a massive online database, which can be queried using a structured language: MQL.

It is based on the idea that simple assertions build up to complicated and useful facts. So, a book has several attributes, like author, date of publication etc, which will then show up on a list of books published in that year, books by that author, and so on.

In its rawest form, the data is a series of three-word sentences with the word ‘is’ in the centre. This has got me thinking about a historical database which works in a similar way.

As I see it, every person in history has only ever been in one place at a time. So, over time, we can map the movements of individuals and of objects created by them. All we need is a name, and a series of locations mapped to a date and time. Sometimes, individuals could inherit location data from groups they were a member of for a while, like soldiers in an army.

The rawest level of this database would be a line stating that at a certain time, a certain individual was at a certain place.

Being able to query this data would allow us to see the history of the world in a contextual way. At the moment, history is usually explored through narratives, stories with a single focus. This allows us to home in on the area of interest to us, but means that we often miss the wider picture. That can mean that a reader of a biography of Dickens, for example, can have a good idea of his contemporaries in English Literature, but be completely at sea when called upon to identify the British Prime Ministers who governed during his lifetime.

Allowing this historical data to be queried would allow all manner of mash up and maps which update as new data is added. A massive undertaking, to be sure, but Freebase shows that amazing things can be done.

UPDATE: I have had a go at doing something along these lines, here.

iTunes U Plus

By chris Posted in Books Leave a reply

iTunes U frustrates me. It could and should be a revolution in education, but on some level, it does not seem to want to be that revolution.

At the moment, iTunes provides lists of lectures from top educational institutions in audio or video form, for download onto an Apple device or devices. Some courses also have enhanced features, allowing note taking, and providing course materials such as reading lists and lecture notes. If you are enrolled in one of these courses I should imagine all of this is very convenient. If not, you get to listen in for free, which is great, but highlights what might have been.

This is what I think an imaginary iTunes U Plus would provide:

1. At the very beginning, a full list of books you will need to follow the course, with links to sources. Some required reading would be in the public domain, so links to Project Gutenberg and Librivox versions of the texts would be alongside Amazon and Abebooks links to printed copies

2. An online community of people who are taking the course at the same rate as you. Which leads us to…

3. An overarching mock-degree course syllabus, to provide a framework and context for each course listed. Group courses into Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 levels of difficulty, and suggest a progression of subjects and courses, which, when completed, will have provided a broad based education.

Perhaps all of these things could be provided by a community surrounding iTunes. But there seems no sign of one at the moment, as far as I can tell. Perhaps Apple could help by making the course list available in something other than  iTunes.

Novels in Thirty Days

By chris Posted in Books Leave a reply

The Guardian had a story today, offering advice on how to write a novel in thirty days. I immediately thought of the great edict from NaNoWriMo people – start at the beginning and keep going until you hit the end; only edit and revise later. So I was surprised to see that they suggested (relatively) long periods for research and plot development.

I was amused, also, to read this series of tweets concerning this article by the wonderfully talented author Gideon Defoe (@gideondefoe on twitter) who writes the ‘Pirates’ series of novels:

 

 

 
So, in summary, I am thinking about writing a novel in thirty days next month. I promised myself I would last year, but I don’t have the time this year either. But I suppose that’s the point.

Big Bird

By chris Posted in TV Leave a reply

So, it seems Mitt Romney wants to cancel Sesame Street, or something. So I thought I would mention what a massive mistake that would be, from the perspective of a foreigner.

When I was growing up, everyone saw American things as definitive. You know the way people see Italy as the home of pasta? Well, in the eyes of my contemporaries, America was the home of everything. All a marketeer had to do was slap a Statue of Liberty on something, and call it ‘American Style’ to give him or her an edge in the market. American style pizza, ice cream, sandwiches, jackets, sports shoes; anything.

For whatever reason this state of affairs arose, it must have had a massive effect on the US economy. You see, most British people don’t think of American movies as foreign films, they are just movies. If a movie is not American, only then is it identified by it’s country of origin. There is no friction, no cultural resistance, to going to see an American film, or watching American television. This has positive economic consequences, but has other surprising effects as well. For example, showing the first episode of ‘The Cosby Show’ in Apartheid-era South Africa meant that, for the first time, it became obvious to the racists that they would lose, and American-style multiculturalism would win.

Sesame Street is shown all over the world, to many millions of people. Whether it is shown in America or not hardly matters: Sesame Street is introducing teeming masses of people to the idea of America as the home of all good things. To American English as the default method of international communication. To American media as the source of entertainment, education and moral guidance. Whether this is a good thing or not – objectively speaking – hardly matters either: it is good for America.

But America needs to keep doing this, and in developing markets, with new generations of consumers. Africa is going to be the fastest growing continent on the planet in the next 20 years, economically speaking. Mozambique alone has enough currently uncultivated arable land to feed the world, and food security is a growing concern of western nations. The Chinese government knows this very well: they have been building dams and schools all over Africa in the last few years. They are working themselves into a position where China is seen as the natural ally and home of all good things.

So America has a fight on its hands for the hearts and minds of the world. But – thankfully – America has Big Bird, who has probably done as much to raise America’s international profile abroad as anyone since Neil Armstrong. Now might not be a good time to get rid of him to save a piddling amount of money.

Daring Fireball Sponsors

By chris Posted in Computing Tagged Leave a reply

I have been reading Daring Fireball for years, and have often had the frustrating experience of only half-remembering a useful sponsor, and being unable to find the link in all the austere grey of Mr. Gruber’s layout.

So, as a service to myself, Mr. Gruber, and the general public I spent a fun hour this afternoon getting FileMaker Pro to pull out all the links for me, here.

Perhaps I will do The Talk Show sponsors as well. We shall see.

Olympic Legacy

By chris Posted in opinion, Politics Leave a reply

The London Olympics are drawing to a close, and British politicians are falling over themselves trying to capitalise on the popular success of the games. At the moment, everyone seems to be competing to insist that we need more sport in our schools, and perhaps even as much as two hours of compulsory physical education a day.

I think that this is drawing the wrong lesson entirely, as if a countryman or woman winning a Nobel Prize for literature would mean that everyone should start writing a novel for two hours a day. I would suggest the following as a better way of looking at things.

1. Follow your passion, and share it with the world, for we all find it uplifting to watch people trying their best to do something difficult.

2. Society as a whole should support people following their passion, be it Kayak racing, or translating Icelandic poetry.

And that’s it.

Self-doubt

By chris Posted in money 1 Reply

Humanity have ended up with (rightly) doubting its ability to keep itself healthy, with being able to decide what is good for it.

Our instincts seem to tell us to eat foods, which, eaten daily and in the quantities we would like, would damage our health. I, for one, desire cheese in quantities which would delight dairy farmers everywhere.

As humanity is maturing, we find more and more ways that generations of our evolutionary instinct is steering us in the wrong direction. The scientific method is a machine for making discoveries which are reported by the media with the opening sentence ‘It turns out…’. As in, ‘It turns out that our mother’s were wrong: eating red meat every day does not give you chest hair…’

I was wondering if we should start having the same lack of self confidence, and doubt in our ability to make healthy choices, when it comes to happiness and contentment. For example, everyone I know seems to think they would be much happier if they won the lottery.

But research shows lottery winners are roughly  as happy (or unhappy) a year after they won as they were before. So. maybe money is like water – if you have less than you really need, you cannot survive. If you have very little, you spend all your time thinking about it. But if you amass a lake of the stuff, you will discover that you can’t drink all that much of it.

So with money – having enough for basic comfort is great. But more will guarantee only as much happiness as you already have the aptitude to provide for yourself.

Strategery

By chris Posted in Computing Tagged Leave a reply

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Recently, I have discovered an iPad/iPhone game I greatly enjoy, called Strategery. You can get it here.

In a nutshell, it’s a Risk-like strategy game, where each player gets armies based on the number of countries he or she controls. Online play is great fun, and it is possible to have multiple games in progress, with various different preferences, or just play a solo game. All fun. Add your user name as a comment if you want a game.

However, being the sort of curmudgeon who cannot be presented with a baby unicorn without loudly pondering whether it might not have been even nicer with wings, I have a suggestion. The big difference over Risk is that the board is randomly generated each time you play. With Risk, you got to know the board, and eventually developed a hankering after certain key locations, which had proven to be strategically significant in the past. I seem to remember making a bee-line for Indonesia.

In both games, each battle outcome is decided by dice roll. And here is where my suggestion comes in: I would like to be able to choose a ‘non-random’ mode in Strategery, where superior numbers always win, and where equal numbers cancel each other out. You see, I think that the randomly generated map provide enough randomness to make the game interesting. If battle outcomes were predictable players would win or lose depending on how well they read the map at the outset. According to the Art of War, this is how good generals think anyway – avoid any direct contact with the enemy until superior numbers and deployment make any actual conflict a foregone conclusion.

Chess has no randomness, but has the variety of pieces which makes every game very different for the casual player. Strategery’s random map is enough to make for a very interesting game without the dice.

Penguin’s Eggs

By chris Posted in Books, Uncategorized 1 Reply

One of my favourite pieces of comic writing is not by a comic writer at all, but an explorer. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest to Captain Scott’s party, writes here about his delivery of penguin eggs to the Natural History Museum. It should be noted that he and two others, who later died with Scott, spent a hellish month walking across the Antactic at midwinter to procure these eggs. At the time, penguins were very mysterious creatures, and men of science were keen to know as much about their ways as possible.

And now the reader will ask what became of the three penguins’ eggs for which three human lives had been risked three hundred times a day, and three human frames strained to the utmost extremity of human endurance.

Let us leave the Antarctic for a moment and conceive ourselves in the year 1913 in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I had written to say that I would bring the eggs at this time. Present, myself, C.-G., the sole survivor of the three, with First or Doorstep Custodian of the Sacred Eggs. I did not take a verbatim report of his welcome; but the spirit of it may be dramatized as follows:

First Custodian. Who are you? What do you want? This ain’t an egg-shop. What call have you to come meddling with our eggs? Do you want me to put the police on to you? Is it the crocodile’s egg you’re after? I don’t know nothing about ‘no eggs. You’d best speak to Mr. Brown: it’s him that varnishes the eggs.

I resort to Mr. Brown, who ushers me into the presence of the Chief Custodian, a man of scientific aspect, with two manners: one, affably courteous, for a Person of Importance (I guess a Naturalist Rothschild at least) with whom he is conversing, and the other, extraordinarily offensive even for an official man of science, for myself.

I announce myself with becoming modesty as the bearer of the penguins’ eggs, and proffer them. The Chief Custodian takes them into custody without a word of thanks, and turns to the Person of Importance to discuss them. I wait. The temperature of my blood rises. The conversation proceeds for what seems to me a considerable period. Suddenly the Chief Custodian notices my presence and seems to resent it.

Chief Custodian. You needn’t wait.

Heroic Explorer. I should like to have a receipt for the eggs, if you please.

Chief Custodian. It is not necessary: it is all right. You needn’t wait.

Heroic Explorer. I should like to have a receipt.

But by this time the Chief Custodian’s attention is again devoted wholly to the Person of Importance. Feeling that to persist in overhearing their conversation would be an indelicacy, the Heroic Explorer politely leaves the room, and establishes himself on a chair in a gloomy passage outside, where he wiles away the time by rehearsing in his imagination how he will tell off the Chief Custodian when the Person of Importance retires. But this the Person of Importance shows no sign of doing, and the Explorer’s thoughts and intentions become darker and darker. As the day wears on, minor officials, passing to and from the Presence, look at him doubtfully and ask his business. The reply is always the same, “I am waiting for a receipt for some penguins’ eggs.” At last it becomes clear from the Explorer’s expression that what he is really waiting for is not to take a receipt but to commit murder. Presumably this is reported to the destined victim: at all events the receipt finally comes; and the Explorer goes his way with it, feeling that he has behaved like a perfect gentleman, but so very dissatisfied with that vapid consolation that for hours he continues his imaginary rehearsals of what he would have liked to have done to that Custodian (mostly with his boots) by way of teaching him manners.

Some time after this I visited the Natural History Museum with Captain Scott’s sister. After a slight preliminary skirmish in which we convinced a minor custodian that the specimens brought by the expedition from the Antarctic did not include the moths we found preying on some of them, Miss Scott expressed a wish to see the penguins’ eggs. Thereupon the minor custodians flatly denied that any such eggs were in existence or in their possession. Now Miss Scott was her brother’s sister; and she showed so little disposition to take this lying down that I was glad to get her away with no worse consequences than a profanely emphasized threat on my part that if we did not receive ample satisfaction in writing within twenty-four hours as to the safety of the eggs England would reverberate with the tale.

This is from The Worst Journey in the World, his wonderful book on the expedition, which ends like this:

Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion.

And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, “What is the use?” For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.