tannoy
twenty fourteen

dinosaurs

image: ghent

Today’s annoyance: journalists who write that dinosaurs went extinct.

I’ve just come across that lie in the science section of the BBC website (“the dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago”). I can understand why many people can’t keep themselves informed: there’s this thing called life and that’s fair enough. However, being informed is at the core of journalism, so when a journalist claims that dinosaurs went extinct, that journalist is admitting they’re crap at their job.

If they write one piece of ignorant bollocks, then anything else they say might be ignorant bollocks too. That journalist simply can’t be trusted.

I’m not talking about deliberately lying; that’s a quite different journalistic skill.

PS For anyone who spent the last twenty years hidden in a box, birds are dinosaurs.

19.3.14

grammar

image: ghent

I approach poetry using words as components to be assembled for their music first and foremost, rather than be assembled as components for their grammar first. My work doesn’t (often) use standard grammar (although my early work did). Of course, all poetry requires a semantic interpretation that works, but meaning doesn’t depend on grammar alone: indeed, there are better poets than me who are corrupting the semantics in very interesting ways using perfectly correct grammar. Anyway, because I don’t use standard grammar, I don’t use the tools to aid its interpretation, namely punctuation, capital letters, etc.. The disadvantage is, of course, that it’s not so easy to read.

I believe this approach allows a greater freedom of interpretation for the reader. Since interpretation is what carries you into a poem and allows you to get something out of it, it’s very important. Everyone’s interpretation is based on their own understanding, their own experience, their own perspective. Thus what someone gets out of a poem is not what the poet puts in. That’s why I believe there's no right or wrong interpretation, only what works for the reader. To my mind, those of components of grammar: punctuation, capital letters, etc., all reduce those possible interpretations, they take alternatives away. That’s very important where language has to be precise as possible, such as legal documents, but poetry’s not a legal document. Anyway, English is not a precise language; there are much better languages for minimising alternative interpretations (algebra, C++, etc.). That’s why diplomacy isn’t conducted in algebra! Anyway, all this means I regard the greater freedom of interpretation, the greater opportunity for ambiguity, offered by using alternative grammars as an advantage, even though it can make a poem more difficult to read.

When I write a poem, I say what it wants to be said, as much as I can. I’m often surprised by what appears. However, I wait until the emotion is cold, and preferably long forgotten, before I finish it. A poem has to be technically valid to work, and the emotion can blind me to the technical faults. In effect, so much as possible (given some emotion is never forgotten), my poems are not complete until I inspect them under a cold light. That’s when, in particular, I find punctuation gets in the way of interpretation, when reading to a poem cold. Given that’s always how a reader first comes across a poem, that’s another reason why I dislike punctuation etc..

Of course, there’s absolutely nothing new in not using punctuation. Witness e.e. cummings. What I’m doing (not so well), though, is not what he did (very well).

16.3.14

Prothlesizers

image: ghent

In my experience, strident assertion happens with all beliefs, not just atheism and faith. I associate it with insecure belief, someone who is still trying to convince themself, who can’t defend their position, so they go on the offensive instead. Puppyish enthusiasm is something quite different.

Speaking as an atheist, I do have fun when happy clappies (apologies if anyone finds that term insulting) or god botherers (similarly; it’s not an atheist term, but a british one) try to convert me. I tell them I’m beyond hope, I don’t believe in pixies, but then I wish them immense luck and tell them what they’re doing is essential. It seriously confuses them, and they usually then leave me alone. My point is genuine, too: there are some people who can’t live with doubt, whom religion can help by giving them an anchor & a guide in their life. If the prothlesizers can find such people, they can do them a power of good.

9.3.14

Anti–Immigration

image: ghent

Whenever I’ve discussed immigration with someone who’s capable of discussion (e.g. not so full of anger that they won’t listen to different opinions, or not warped so deep into fantasyland they won’t consider facts: both of which happens with many subjects not just immigration), the concern turns out to be something else, such as unemployment, social integration, social tension, job competition, etc., and never actually immigration.

Usually, though, the person narrows in on immigrants as the primary cause of said problem. In particular, it’s immigrants and rarely people who are moving in to the area from elsewhere in the UK, for example, as though outsiders who are Brits don’t threaten local jobs etc., but outsiders who are not Brits, do.

That’s why I consider anti–immigration a form of bigotry. Given that bigotry against people of a different nationality is part of the legal definition of racial discrimination (IANAL), anti–immigration is therefore a form of racism.

For the penicky, ‘According to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.’

Wikpedia also says, ‘Similarly, in British law the phrase racial group means “any group of people who are defined by reference to their race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin’.

Note, in both cases, bigotry against people because of their nationality is racial discimination. Thus, if someone who is anti–immigration does not express exactly the same concern about outsiders who have the same passport as they do, then that person is a racist.

8.3.14

Outlook

image: ghent

I’ve switched from OS X Mail to Outlook, and have discovered my missing emails. It appears Mail isn’t just inconsistent with its rules, which is why I switched, it’s also deleted emails without telling me. Fortunately, I tell account providers not to automatically empty the bin. One serious Outlook bug is that its search is borked, but since Mail search is borked too, I lose nothing by switching. For that, I’ll stick with grep.

5.3.14

Sampler

image: ghent

Thought I’d listen to a sampler of recent music. Talk about disappointing. It was about as innovative as a cow.

There were a couple of good songs, some intelligent lyrics, a sense of humour, but most of it was showing off an ability to play an uninteresting instrument. Great: high–quality & instantly forgettable. What’s the point?

My opinion’s not because I’m getting old. My generation was punk. The electronic lads came well after. They were innovative. They did get up in the morning. They weren’t dead lazy.

But, now, dead dead dead lazy. Better produced same same same, same again. What’s the point?

I’d guess this must be one of pop’s barren periods.


Come, friendly bombs, fell this cow,
pop’s not fit for humans now.

26.1.14

iTunes 11, iPods …

image: fog

I’ve three problems with iTunes 11, which did not exist on iTunes 10. At least one of them happens on both Windows and Mac.

I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 7. The new podcast application does not see all the podcasts uploaded by iTunes. iTunes may say they’re there, taking up space, but the podcast application denies they exist—so I can’t play them.

So I got my 3rd generation iPod Touch out of the draw. It runs iOS 5. iTunes says it uploads the podcasts. The iPod Touch says it’s tried to do so, but got it wrong—the titles are greyed out and the podcasts can’t be played. Great.

Actually, it turns out I can force things to work with this sledgehammer:

  • Select the podcasts I want on the iPod
  • Sync
  • Turn off podcasts on the iPod from iTunes
  • Sync
  • Exit iTunes
  • Disconnected and reboot the iPod touch
  • Restart iTunes
  • Reconnect the iPod
  • Turn podcasts back on on the iPod
  • Sync

Now, it’s probable not all these stages are necessary. Since all I want is to listen to my podcasts, and now I can do so, I’m not willing to more time working out an exact recipe to avoid a bug that Apple should fix soon.

So I got my 1st generation iPod Touch out. It runs what I would now call iOS 1. One problem: I’d lent it to family, and had to restore it. iTunes 11 will not do so. After it’s erased what was there before, it complains of unknown error (1), leaving the iPod in emergancy restore mode. Online documentation suggests this is a hardware error.

Hardware error? That is total bollocks. I have Snow Leopoard server with iTunes 10 running in a virtual machine. It can restore the iPod. Once the iPod was restored, iTunes 11 seemed to work with it. But I only got this going last night, and have only listened to one podcast, so it’s quite plausible there are problems I’ve not found yet.

I’ve lost faith in Apple’s ability to produce working software. Podcasts are essential for me, and they simply don’t work properly on any of my Apple devices. My next phone is going to be a Nokia.

4.1.14