Saturday, August 21. 2010
A re-post from our archives -
I was amused to see Megan McArdle having problems positioning her stereo speakers because I once spent a frustrating year fiddling with that issue in our parlor with my ridiculously high quality but handsome 5 1/2', 175 lb. Legacy Focus speakers, which would be better suited for an auditorium, a barn - or outdoors. You cannot crank them up or it could remove my house from its foundation.
Good stereo speakers need to be at least 3' from the wall, away from direct sunlight, and 6-10' apart, depending on room size. Even so, there will only be one relatively small area in the room where the sound will converge properly. What if you want to sit somewhere else? You cannot sit in front of one speaker. (And don't even talk to me about that stupid "surround sound" fad of the 1980s.)
I finally gave up on doing it right, because it wouldn't work in the room, given the windows, fireplace, piano, and other necessary furniture. I even called Legacy and sent them a floor plan, and they were kind and helpful, but it just didn't work for the space. That marked the end of my pursuit of maximum recorded sound. It's a fool's errand unless you have a dedicated "listening room" like fanatic audiophiles do. Now, I'd just rather spend my money on hearing live music, and I mostly listen to music via my crummy old computer speakers.
My big Focus speakers ended up 24' apart, in corners, about 18" from the wall. Totally wrong, unless you are listening from the adjacent room. Makes me want to return to good old monaural and to heck with this stereo nonsense. I remember when my Dad bought our first mono cabinet "record player." Man, did that sound good. I even remember my kid sister playing "Meet the Beatles" on the thing, when the record came out. (I thought it was dumb music...at first.)
Here's a good how-to on speaker placement.
Photo is a Legacy Focus speaker with the cover off to show the components. Mine are with the gleaming Rosewood.
Weighing in at a bruising 11 minutes, this is the longest movie clip in my online collection, but also one of my favorites. It's from the movie The Pentagon Wars, a great story of bureaucratic corruption, ineptitude and inertia.
It's based on a true story.
One cringes to think how much.
Grab a munchie, pop this puppy open to full-screen size, kick back and enjoy.
I was curious about when English surnames became fixed in time by inheritance rather than being individual descriptors of convenience which were only used for one's lifetime.
First, we have to go back to the pre-surname era. In pre-medieval England, the population was so small, and most villages so tiny, that, if your name was Merthin, everybody around knew who you were. Then the Norman Conquest Frenchified England. Many or most of the colorful old Anglo-Saxon given names (like Aldwyn and Odelia and Theomund) disappeared and were replaced with names of French origin like these four:
It has been estimated that almost 50% of the male babies born by 1200 A.D. were using just four common first names: William (15%), Robert (12%), Richard (11%) and Henry (10%). Such percentages show the need, even by the Middle Ages, for a second name of identification. As a result, patronymic naming conventions came into play whereby sons were named after their fathers, and sometimes even after their mothers.
As with traditional Scandinavian names, patronymic surnames are not fixed but are labels of convenience: they change with each generation. "Which John do you mean?" "Oh, John Robert's son.") Robert Richardson's son John becomes John Robertson. (Shifting surnames, of course, persists with women still generally taking on their husband's surname.)
The Medieval Warm Period saw a rapid growth in the English population, with the growth of market towns and cathedral towns, often with thousands in population. Descriptors became necessary: John (who lives on the) Hill, William (the) Carpenter, Jack (who came here from) Aisnley, Roger (the) Knight. By late Medieval times, descriptive (but not fixed) surnames were fairly universal except in small farming villages. These were, generally speaking,
Place names
Occupation names
Patronyms
Descriptive or nicknames
Thus we had Christian (given) names, and descriptive, non-hereditary surnames. As best I can tell, literacy and record-keeping led the way towards fixed surnames around or slightly before 1500 (although they were probably implied before that among the land-owning aristocracy: eg William, Lord of Westmoreland's sons were probably forever Westmoreland in some way unless the King punished you by taking your land away, or cutting your head off.) As Wiki says:
In Britain, hereditary surnames were adopted in the 13th and 14th centuries, initially by the aristocracy but eventually by everyone. By 1400, most English and Scottish people had acquired surnames, but many Scottish and Welsh people did not adopt surnames until the 17th century, or even later. Henry VIII (1509 - 1547) ordered that marital births be recorded under the surname of the father.
Ah yes, there's the answer: government edict, no doubt for control and taxation purposes.
Because of this, it is difficult or impossible to trace non-aristocratic English geneologies much further back than 1500, when John Miller's son Jack the carpenter was named Jack Miller instead of Jack the Carpenter. Before that, there were minimal church records and either no surnames, or no consistency in them if there were any. Furthermore, it did not take long for every town to be filled with unrelated Smiths, Carpenters, Millers, Weavers, Masons, Brewers, Bakers, Hills, Fields, and Rivers. And Bankers (lived near a riverbank - there were no "banks") and Farmers (farm tax-collectors, not tillers of the soil). It's funny, but although they made up the bulk of the population at one time, Serf never became popular as a surname while Freeman did...
Perhaps serfdom isn't all it's cracked up to be, despite its European and maybe North American comeback these days.
More tomorrow, including why, if you are of English or French ancestry, you are almost certainly related to Charlemagne -
A re-post from last summer -
The old town of Lucca, still circled by the medieval defensive walls, is like a Disney Medieval Italy. Like San Gimignano but with many fewer tourists (they all go to Pisa instead, to see that dumb church tower, or to Siena or Firenze for the 10th time). Plenty of towers - if not as many as San G. but who cares? A tower is a tower.
The modern city surrounds the old town which is now preserved in amber (heavily regulated re historical preservation - and rightly so, I think).
This lovely Italian gal ducked, as if I had not wanted her in my photo. She was wrong. Her gladiator sandals are perfect for the location: this is an entry to the Roman arena in Lucca. Its walls are integrated with the walls of medieval houses built into and against the Roman ruins. (Lucca is full of charming northern Italian women. All of them know how to dress, and many of them are blondes.)
More doors and entries below -
Continue reading "My last summer vacation: Doors and entryways of old Lucca"
Abrash is a good thing in a hand-knotted rug.
Friday, August 20. 2010
This was my assignment to the class:
"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca - last name deleted, and Gary - last name deleted.
Continue reading "From the BBS archives: The English Assignment"
I'm going to place these two videos below the fold because they contain language, violence and themes which might be upsetting to innocent young girls, liberals, and small children.
Continue reading ""That extra mile""
From Terry Pratchett's Making Money:
"How did you find out they were down there?"
"The usual way. One of our golems heard one singing. Imagine that. It's been underground for sixty thousand years..."
In the night under the world, in the pressure of the depth, in the crushing of the dark...a golem sang. There were no words. The song was older than words; it was older than tongues. It was the call of the common clay, and it carried for miles. It traveled along fault lines, made crystals sing in harmony in dark, unmeasured caverns, followed rivers that never saw the sun...
...and out of the ground and up the legs of a golem from the Golem Trust, who was pulling a wagon loaded with coal along the region's one road. When he arrived in Ankh-Morpork, he told the Trust. That was what the Trust did: it found golems.
Rock climbers and boulderers refer to those rocky hills/cliffs/mountains as "the Gunks." Famous challenges for climbers, but, since we are on the topic of family places with the de Medicis and the von Trapp family, we should not omit the Mohonk Mountain House. I have a good photo somewhere of my Grandpa fly-fishing on the lake.
It was a favorite of my grandfather, and remains a family favorite. Nowadays, they even serve alcohol which the Quaker Smiley family never used to permit (you had to sneak in your own, and secretly imbibe in the privacy of your room before dinner).
There was an intriguing ad on MSNBC's web site the other day. You hear about those "visual graphics tricks" that advertising people pull, and you have to figure this is just another example of it. I think it's one of those 'subliminal' things they talk about.
Which gender is this person?
Now, before you say 'guy', take a closer look. Guys don't usually wear frilly blouses with cute bows on the front and rounded collars, do they? And that hair looks kind of coifed for a guy, doesn't it? And do you see any chest hairs? Couldn't this just be a nice healthy German or Russian girl?
Or perhaps the ad agency is going for that 'artistic musician look', where it's okay for guys to wear sissy clothes as long as they're being musical about it?
But the fact that we're discussing it at all says something, doesn't it? It's still possible the question could go either way — if not both ways. Which gender IS this person??
Well, back to that "subliminal" stuff I was talking about:
Thursday, August 19. 2010
Still looking for good, tasty, 15-minute ceegars for under $7-10 per smoke.
I am trying these, this week.
What do our readers enjoy?
 A young man wished to purchase a gift for his new sweetheart's birthday, and, as they had not been dating very long, after careful consideration he decided that a pair of gloves would strike the right note. Romantic, but not too personal.
Accompanied by his sweetheart's younger sister, he went to the store and bought a pair of white gloves. The younger sister purchased a pair of panties for herself.
During the wrapping, the clerk mixed up the items and the sister got the gloves and the sweetheart got the panties. Without checking the contents, he sealed the package and mailed it to his sweetheart along with this note:
My Dearest,
I choose these because I noticed that you are not in the habit of wearing any when we go out in the evening. If it had not been for your sister, I would have chosen the long ones with buttons, but she wears short ones that are easy to remove.
These are a delicate shade but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she had been wearing for the last three weeks and they were hardly soiled. I had her try yours on for me and she looked really sharp.
I wish I was there to put them on you for the first time, as no doubt other hands will come in contact with them before I have a chance to see you again.
When you take them off, remember to blow in them before putting them away as they will naturally be a little damp from wearing.
Just think of how many times I will kiss them during the coming year. I hope you will wear them for me on Friday night.
All My Love, John
P.S. The latest style is to wear them folded down with just a little fur showing.
A useful term - a noun - for "a problem that severely tests the ability of an inexperienced person." More generally, a problem or challenge which will separate the bright and the perceptive from the not-so-bright and the not-so-perceptive.
"Bridge of asses." Donkeys do not like to cross bridges.
In mathematics, the term is applied to the problem from the first book of Euclid that if two sides of a triangle are equal then the angles opposite those sides are also equal.
Traditionally, the bridge of asses referred to Euclid's Fifth Theorem of planar geometry, the comprehension of which and the implications of which were and are a sticking point for less-bright students.
By the way, this is a good if somewhat challenging book: Experiencing Geometry. A bit of a pons asinorum itself.
 H/T: IOwnTheWorld.com
At Maggie’s Farm we’ve been debating how much nudity is safe for the protection of our readers’ sensitivities. The Raelians, who believe that alien scientists created humans and we should be prouder of our bodies, sponsor annual Go Topless Day “dedicated to the belief that in order for America to be a truly equal society, women should be able to bare their breasts without fear of being arrested.”
A video of their breast “outing” and beliefs is presented below the fold, in keeping with the Maggie’s Farm interest in philosophy.
Continue reading "Free Your Breasts, Free Your Minds?"
 I have a friend who is a bit of a watch collecter and amateur expert. He showed me the Vacheron Constantin watch he was wearing the other day.
It's the oldest surviving watch company in the world. Est. 1755. They make unostentatious fine watches, or "timepieces" as watch snobs term them. You have to wind them every morning which, if I understand it right, all very fine watches require.
I am a Timex guy - a watch I wear routinely needs to take plenty of abuse and needs to be disposable - but I have a couple of somewhat fancier watches which I rarely use. Consumption is not one of my hobbies (I don't own a lot, but I have enough of everything), but I can appreciate fine hand-made things.
My friend tells me that Obama wears a flashy and expensive IWC, assembled from innards made by other companies. "Typical Obama," said he.
Photo is a Vacheron Constantin Jubilee.
Wednesday, August 18. 2010
 What's the origin of "the real McCoy"?
There are many theories - "folk etymologies," but this seems most likely:
It is a corruption of the Scots "The real MacKay", first recorded in 1856 as: "A drappie o’ the real MacKay," and this is widely accepted as the origin.
MacKay (and the Irish McCoy and Magee) are all basically the same name.
My urbanologist friend tells me that we can thank the gays of NYC for being frequent pioneers of gentrification. He says they have plenty of spare cash and like to spend it, they like interesting restaurants, and they like to make things look pleasant.
A generation ago, the gays moved into the West Village. Recently, moving into Chelsea, which was once a neighborhood which many conflated with Hell's Kitchen. Today, it is known as a semi-gay neighborhood (nothing in your face, though), but with plenty of young families with kids (strollers and moms everywhere), and lots of young straight professionals too (including a BD pupette, which is why I have become so familiar with the area. She is in a new Chelsea high-rise, with doorman, a business center, a gym and a cool roof-top garden overlooking the Hudson for parties - all you have to do is sign up for the roof-top).
Chelsea is full of old brownstones, and peppered with new high-rises. It's a short walk to Chelsea Piers, the Intrepid Museum, and the 12-mile Westside Greenway (for biking, running, and hiking) which runs along the Hudson River from the Staten Island Ferry to the George Washington Bridge. Now there is the High Line "park" too, which will run all the way to the Meat Packing District.
(The Upper West Side, where I dwelled for a while, has come a long way too in the baby stroller department, but it never quite needed gentrification. It was always a mixed area with all of its grand pre-war buildings and brownstones. Its SROs are gone now, though, along with the street crime.)
One could spend a lifetime studying the changing neighborhoods of NYC. Curtis Sliwa knows it all.
Brownstones like these in Chelsea now go for 2-4 million:
From a review of Roger Scruton's new book, The Uses of Pessimism, And the Danger of False Hope:
Scruton identifies seven fallacies that he sees as underwriting false hope. Put briefly, these translate into a tendency to always look on the bright side, a belief that freedom is hampered by law, an unwillingness to countenance refutation, a belief that failure in one human quarter is directly connected to success in another, an inclination to impose solutions rather than letting them evolve over time, the idea that human history has an endpoint, and the tendency to assume agreeable concepts such as liberty and equality are mutually reinforcing.
In the final chapters, Scruton suggests these inclinations may be ineradicable, having evolved in response to particular dangers in hunter-gatherer societies.
 This one is obviously for the gals only, since guys quit carrying handbags when pockets were invented.
Only parts of the female body are more private to them than their bags and pocketbooks.
What do you gals have in yours?
Please tell us in the comments...and, if a handgun, make and model please.
Since we have our signs up, we do not forgive your trespasses. Plus we have the fully operational services of the He Marks The Sparrow's Fall Security System in place at the farm.
Tuesday, August 17. 2010
The old saw about Eskimos having 40 words for different kinds of snow is an urban myth, but it is true that English is impoverished in its language for attachments.
In Psychoanalysis, we talk about "attachments" to try to keep it simple and clear. Then we add an adjective to specify.
I recently got on this topic in a consultation with a fellow who was torn up and confused about his love for his wife of 38 years and his exciting relationship with a woman at work.
"Cupid is mischievous," said I, "and he never rests. He especially loves to target guys, but making trouble, creating restlessness, and making even grown people go crazy is his game." I said "Love and desire are not zero-sum games, and, besides there are many kinds of love which coexist all the time."
I explained to him the various forms of love for which the ancient Greeks had useful names, but wiki does a better job with it:
Greek distinguishes several different senses in which the word "love" is used. For example, Ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, storge, and xenia. However, with Greek (as with many other languages), it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words totally. At the same time, the Ancient Greek text of the Bible has examples of the verb agapo having the same meaning as phileo.
Agape (????? agáp?) means love in modern-day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek. The word agapo is the verb I love. It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."
Eros (???? ér?s) (from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erota means in love. Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body."
Philia (????? philía), a dispassionate virtuous love, was a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean "love of the mind."
Storge (?????? storg?) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.
Xenia (????? xenía), hospitality, was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology—in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
(There was also this thing called Platonic Love, a notion which entailed the idea of a sublimation of ordinary Eros to a love of the divine and the sublime.)
The fellow concluded that he could keep some of his philia and storge for his wife, but that he needed more eros before he got older. He thanked me profusely for the conversation, overpaid his bill (doubled it), and I never saw him again.
My work is mostly never so quick and easy.
Image is Caravaggio's Cupid.
Toddlers commonly swing their sippy cups in a motion resembling swinging a beer stein. So, I thought, it would be a fun and lucrative invention to market a baby beer stein sippy cup.
The mothers I talked to didn't think it near as much fun as did the fathers, and we all know who rules the high chair. The closest photo I could find of my idea was this one, for seniors. The one I had in mind would have been fancier.
As usual, mothers had it correct, if only because the joke might have been taken more seriously. This mother in Florida learned that lesson, the hard way, due to posting a photo on her facebook of her baby with a bong. The mother was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, not for child abuse.
In any event, if you want my invention, you're welcome to it.
In the final analysis, people's ignorance about electrical usage is one of the great tragedies of our time.
That is, if you consider broken homes a 'tragedy'.
Mom and Dad and the two kids go out for hamburgers. They have a great time; as fun a time as any family could wish to have.
They wheel into the driveway, Dad sees that Jimmy left his bedroom light on and explodes. "I've told you a thousand times! That's it! I've had it!"
A horrible fight ensues, with the mother caught in the middle, trying to protect her son from the father's wrath, yet agreeing that the son's extravagant waste of the family's money demands severe punishment.
The rest of the evening is spent with the son sulking, the father in an angry mood, and the mother on the edge of tears. Last night it was her turn because she left the dining room light on when they went across the street to visit with the neighbors for an hour.
After the one thousandth time, the father has had enough and decides to leave these money-wasting losers. Or, tiring of his rage, she does. Or little Jimmy runs away when he's 16 and is found dead from a heroin overdose two months later in New York City.
Just another American family tragedy.
Happens all the time.
The light little Jimmy left on is a 60-watt desk lamp.
Watts means "per hour", so that means Jimmy's light consumes 60 watts of energy in one hour. The family was gone for two hours, so little Jimmy's despicable thoughtlessness wasted 120 watts.
A "kilowatt" is how electricity is measured and paid for. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. Therefore, to get kilowatts, you divide the watts by 1,000. So, the 120 watts that little Jimmy so blatantly wasted is .12 kilowatt.
One kilowatt generally costs about ten cents.
At ten cents per kilowatt, that's $.012 that little Jimmy wasted that dark and fateful night. The last night, it turned out, that the family was to ever eat a happy meal together.
$.012 is just over one penny.
Continue reading "Electrical Usage: A tragedy of ignorance"
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