Art and Science

Presentation Zen posts about a TED talk that I look forward to watching, Mae Jemison: the arts and science are not separate.

Who knows, maybe someday people will stop talking about that left-brain / right-brain crap.

Procrastinating

I'm off to Barcelona on Sunday, and I have to have my talks ready by then.

Instead I'm doing actually quite useful things that I've been putting off for ages and will make my life better and work easier.

Sigh

Today I want to

• Write a draft of my "All the World's Code" talk for Allhands.
• Update my "Introduction to Twisted" talk for a Canonical-wide audience, and polish up the slides, probably moving them to OpenOffice format.
• Update my "Your Code Sucks" talk for same audience, polish up the slides etc.
• Read about Lisp compilers for tomorrow's reading group.
• Do something fun and irrational.
  

Meditations on the Garbage Bin

• To throw a thing into the garbage bin is to say that the thing is meaningless to you and that you believe it to be meaningless to others.
• Thus, a garbage bin is a communication device, allow you to signal to others that certain things lack meaning.
• If an item is meaningless and yet not actually in the garbage bin then it is in fact of uncertain meaning, both to yourself and others. You must constantly evaluate it and reaffirm its meaninglessness. Others must also evaluate it, but they cannot come to a definitive conclusion.
• In an ideal household, the garbage bin contains no meaningful things and all meaningless things.
• Long-term deviation from this ideal leads to inner disharmony.
• The cost of throwing a thing away is negligible, almost free. This is both an ideal and a lie.
• The contents of a garbage bin are not only the things that are meaningless to you they are also the things that are valueless. That is to say, the benefit of retaining them is less than the cost of the same.
• This cost can be financial, spatial, psychological: upkeep; room; clutter.
• We are perhaps best defined by the things that we discard.
• A thing that is meaningless and valueless to everyone with access is true waste.
• True waste cannot be destroyed, only created. The waste in the world only increases. Our only escape from it is to relocate it.
• A garbage bin that is full is deficient for two reasons. First, the contents overflow, diminishing the value and beauty of the surrounding area. Second, the cost of throwing garbage away increases.
• Without a functioning garbage bin, the entire household begins to function as a garbage bin. This diminishes its ability to function as a household.
• In a world of infinite, cheap storage and trivial access, the garbage bin will still exist because true waste will still exist.
• Garbage bins are emptied into bigger garbage bins, which in turn are carried out to landfills. Some decomposes, some is recycled, much remains. What happens to it there?
• Those who move our garbage from one place to another are among those who do the most to maintain our quality of life. They are among the least honoured in our societies.
• Concrete objects are discarded by an act of volition. This is not the case for dreams, memories, thoughts, opportunities and time.

(Update: Spelling and slight rephrasing)

Bittersweet

Great post by Mary Gardiner; I'm disappointed that it needed to be said at all.

Quoting here in full with Mary's permission, since puzzling.org is under unusually heavy load.

How to talk about Sally Warhaft and Robert Manne

There's a lot of talk in various places about Sally Warhaft leaving her
position as editor of The Monthly. I don't have a novel substantive opinion on this: I'm a The Monthly subscriber (and I've therefore enjoyed Warhaft's work), but not a writer or a left-wing socialite or a media insider. Wikipedia has a little summary of the actual story. That said, I have a helpful guide to talking about Sally Warhaft and Robert Manne (or Morry Schwartz) in the same text.

• If you refer to Robert Manne as 'Manne', then Sally Warhaft is referred to as 'Warhaft', not 'Sally', because otherwise you come across as treating Sally Warhaft as if she was an intimate of yours and Manne as a professional when you're presumably wanting to comment on her professional editorial work.


• If you refer to Sally Warhaft as 'Ms. Warhaft' then Robert Manne must be 'Mr. Manne', not just 'Manne'. Otherwise it sounds like you're making a big deal out of Warhaft being a woman, which doesn't seem to be a factor in the story, and even if it was, that's not the way to make that point.


• If you refer to Robert Manne with his academic title, 'Professor Manne', you should refer to Sally Warhaft with hers, 'Doctor (or Dr) Warhaft'. I can at least squint and see the argument for this one: Manne has an academic position and Warhaft doesn't, but it's not as though her The Monthly position is totally divorced from her academic background either.


• If you're going to comment on Sally Warhaft's physical presence, say, by coming out with something like she's a whip-smart, willowy beauty, which makes her a great front for a lively mag, then here's your line for Robert Manne: he's a whip-smart, potent steed, which makes him a great front for a lively magazine.