Thursday, March 16, 2006

Socrates was a hairy dwarf

Ah I have finished my Prehistory of the Mind book. Lots of good ideas, after summing up he did an Epilogue implicating his cognitively fluid mind in the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago. For reasons certainly other than that of the global food shortage proposed by some. His reasons have more to do with social gains for the few, the overall effect of switching from a hunter gathering to farming method of subsistence was to lower general health and fitness standards due to limited the variability of food sources (relying on hybridised crop varieties) and increased proximity of larger groups of people leading to disease. However the possibilities for prestige afforded by possession by the individual of a majority of resources as well as the ability to construct tools related to specific plants, a consequence of a merging of technical and natural history intelligence, was too good an opportunity to miss. Eager to read more on the same line, or at least more anthropology or psychology stuff I ended up picking up the Alain de Botton book "The Consolations of Philosophy" that I got for Christmas, thanks mum, and started reading.


Each chapter is devoted to a different philosopher and their concerns and the idea of the book as a whole is to try and use philosophy as a tool to better understand and cope with life. A sterling plan I feel and should be a good read to get me up to speed on basic ideas before I wade waist deep into the Classics of Western Philosphy on my shelf. The post title refers to Socrates apparent appearance, but actually sounds like a lovely chap on an even keel, don't think I could have taken a sentence of death by draught of hemlock with such aplomb.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Tachyons and Magic Wands

Hello there, the other day it snowed. On my way back from the pub Saturday evening I felt the touch of tiny snowflakes. Pah! I thought nothing of it but when I awoke next morn, twas covered. Actually it didn't take long to melt but I took the advantage of taking some photos before it did.



Snowy TreesSnowy Trees


Snowy BerriesSnowy Berries


Snowy LogSnowy Log


Phew that was quite an effort! All that resizing, and writing even basic html code at this time of night strains my brain. So anyway the snow was a pleasant surprise. Also last week I went to see "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" the new film by Chan-wook Park, oh he of "Oldboy" fame. Normally I would link all this up but as I said earlier...if you curious go check IMDB. Was good but seemed somewhat disappointing, think maybe because my expectations were risen by loving Oldboy so much and Sympathy for Mr.Venegeance. It was still enjoyable and had some nice visual fades as we expect of him, such as Geum-ja's face into tv static and a long pan up from her in the street inside a building. Not as dramatic as Oldboy though, more slow moving. Packed with detail and I want to see it again. Also last night I saw "March of the Penguins" at Chepstow Film Society. Treasurers eyes must have been glinting as there was a BIIIG turnout, over 80 people. Even a couple with a baby from Bristol...and a little girl who asked to sit at the front so she could see. When it started I felt a bit like the camerawork was workmanlike and not exciting but as it wore on I became gripped by the simple story and ended up enjoying it. Though I did find the over anthropomorphising annoying, attributing specific extreme emotions to them unscientifically and saying things like the return of the female penguins to the sea was "unfortunately" awaited by the seals. Also when a bird swooped to attack the chicks the commentary didn't deign to tell us what bird it was (some sort of gull). But aside from these quibbles there were some nice shots of the aurora and once scene I particularly liked was a time lapse of a "dead" egg cracking as it filled with ice.



Meanwhile my book draws to a close as he analyses all the elements of our culture created by the cognitive fluidity of the modern mind and now puts its evolution in context of a fluctuation between specialized and generalized ways of thinking. A quick comment on an interesting programme on BBC 2 this eve from BBC FOUR. Twas about climate change and though the ultimate conclusions (that man made global warming is a fact) were well known to me it had good footage of melting Greenland ice sheets, Viking ships and supercomputers. Oh and the presenter, Paul Rose, used the word massive every other sentence. Now I am tired, my eyes are blurry and I must sleep.



Oh and quickly here is a link to my LOMOhome where you can see pictures taken with LOMOcams or at least a LOMO aesthetic.



My LOMOhome