Monthly Archives: November 2008

You will do your part, and I mine

The only self-help book I need: The Discourses of Epictetus. Stoicism has been out of favor for a while. It’s seen as emotionless and puritanical, which is true, but avoidable. You’re allowed to pick the parts you like. The Stoics wouldn’t approve, but they’re dead. The parts I like in Stoicism deal with the power of choice, the one thing nobody can take away from you. Place your happiness and self-worth in things that are within your sphere of choice, and you will never be anxious or bitter. Doing your best is up to you, being rewarded for it isn’t. It’s not up to you to avoid illness, but it is up to you how you deal with it. It’s an ideal: Not possible, but something to aim for.

The greatest flaw of the Stoics was fatalism. Changing the world was not an option to them, so they turned inward. They would have mocked the last 200 years of political and social progress. Again you can pick the parts you like.

Epictetus imagines himself before the emperor and says: “Chain me if you like, but my will is free!” This is a posture, but an inspiring one. Epictetus is not for everyone. Some may find him cold, others depressing. For me he’s a safety net. I’m an Epicurean when things go well, a Stoic when things go wrong. The Stoics wouldn’t approve, but again, they’re dead. All that is left of them is a handful of fine ideas that lie forgotten in a ditch.

Tainted matter unfit to eat

Those who have learned precepts as mere theory want to vomit them up immediately, just as people with weak stomachs do with their food. Digest your precepts first, and you will not vomit them up in this way; otherwise they really do turn to vomit, tainted matter unfit to eat. Then show us some change that results from those precepts in your own ruling faculty, just as athletes can show their shoulders as the results of their training and diet, or those who have learned various arts can show the result of their learning.

A builder does not come up and say, “Listen to me lecturing on the builder’s art”, but acquires a contract to build a house and shows by building it that he knows the art. And you should do likewise; eat as a man, drink as a man, adorn yourself, marry, sire children, play your part as a citizen; put up with abuse, bear with an inconsiderate brother, bear with a father, bear with a son, neighbour, fellow-traveller.

Show us these things so we can see that you have in truth learnt something from the philosophers. No; but “Come and listen to me reading out my commentaries.” Away with you! Look for someone else to vomit over.

- Epictetus, The Discourses

Blacker than the blackest black times infinity

Metalocalypse is a cartoon tribute to metal, and should be played at high volume.

Dethklok is the world’s most brutal band. They live the metal dream in Mordhaus, a mountain fortress built like a viking ship:


Dethklok does everything every metal band ever sang about, times infinity. They’re that brutal. Their anti-piracy scheme is to visit your house at night, kill your family, and take you away to Mordhaus to be tortured. Dethklok’s concerts frequently lead to the death or mutilation of their fans, but that’s okay, because the fans don’t mind:

Dethklok gets away with this because they’re immensely rich and powerful. And because a secret society of leaders believe they’ll play a role in a prophecy. Satan is also involved somehow.

Befitting the world’s greatest metal band, Dethklok has two Scandinavian members, Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth. (Yes, Skwisgaar and Toki are common Scandinavian names.) Some of the show’s Scandinavian metal references are mean:


I do not approve. Well actually I do. That’s hilarious. So is Burzum’s, the diner, and Finntroll’s, the supermarket.

Dethklok is good for a fake cartoon band, and have released a real-life album called The Dethalbum. Series creator Brendon Small sings the lead vocals. They actually go on tours. This is This is Spinal Tap for metal fans.

30′s movie marathon – part 1 (“I bid you .. welcome” edition)

My new movie marathon is movies made in the 1930′s. Where on earth do I get them all?! Have I found some kind of buccaneers den of movies? It’s a mystery! But however it happens, I always buy the good ones. I don’t rip off artists, even when they’ve been dead (undead undead undead) for half a century.

Dracula (1931, USA) – Creaky, (meaning bad), but every overacted word out of Bela’s mouth is gold. Mad Renfield’s good too.

The Bat Whispers (1930, USA) – It’s a remake of The Bat! NOOO[dramatic fade-out]ooooo[almost gone now]ooo… Watched: 5 minutes.

The Black Camel (1931, USA) – Bela Lugosi (again?) is a psychic charlatan who gets involved with a murder investigation in Hawaii. This sounds more exciting than it is. Oh, Bela. Watched: 17 minutes.

Platinum Blonde (1931, USA) – Romantic comedy with the quips of a Groucho Marx and the satire of a P. G. Wodehouse, only much less so. Watched: 30 minutes.

Chandu the Magician (1932, USA) – Boy, those mysterious Indians sure are mysterious! Watched: 8 minutes.

Enthusiasm (1931, Soviet Union) – Confused documentary about the Soviet Union’s struggle against religion, coal shortages and good filmmaking. Workers in the Ukraine fulfill their five-year plan in four years, and then they all live happily ever after.

The Golden Age (1930, France) – Scorpions .. sick islanders attacked by battle bishops .. what? Looks good, sounds bad. Making talkies is hard, especially without a narrative. Watched: 20 minutes.

A spectator of himself and of his works

But god has introduced man into the world as a spectator of himself and of his works; and not only as a spectator, but an interpreter of them. It is therefore shameful that man should begin and end where the irrational creatures do. He ought rather to begin there, but to end where nature itself has fixed our end; and that is in contemplation and understanding and a way of life in harmony with nature. Take care, then, not to die without ever being spectators of these things.

- Epictetus, The Discourses

But you are wretched and discontented, and if you are alone, you call it desolation, but if you are with men, you call them cheats and robbers and you find fault with even your parents and children and brothers and neighbours. Whereas you ought, when you live alone, to call that peace and freedom, and compare yourself to the gods; and when you are in company, not to call it a crowd and a tumult and a vexation, but a feast and a festival, and thus accept all things with contentment. What, then, is the punishment of those who do not? To be just as they are. Is a person discontented at being alone? Let him be in desolation. Discontented with his parents? Let him be a bad son, and let him grieve. Discontented with his children? Let him be a bad father. ‘Throw him into prison.’ What kind of prison? Where he already is.

- Epictetus, The Discourses

One giant airport security area

Security after September 11 seems to be modelled on the court of the Red Queen. Absurd rules, and no sense of humor. Bruce Schneier is one of the sane voices, and Schneier on Security collects his essays on terrorism, privacy and identity theft. It is the book to read on your next plane trip.

Schneier says the choice between security and privacy is false: Some anti-terror measures give you both, others neither. Most security is just security theater, intended to make you feel safe, and to help officials cover their own asses. They’re not defending us against the next terrorist attack, but themselves against the next post-attack investigation.

Security is always a trade-off. There’s a cost in money, time, or civil rights, and perfect security is never worth it, (otherwise you’d never leave your house for fear of a car accident). Massive surveillance of streets and internet traffic may make us slightly safer, but not much, and at great cost to personal freedom. All state power is abused, and if we give our state the power of East Germany, it will behave like East Germany.

Schneier on Security is so sensible that it hardly seems an achievement. But on this side of the looking glass, sanity is radical. Fear and blame and stupidity works against us with a devilish logic. Schneier’s message to people who are worried about their online privacy may thus be extended to all security issues: You’re screwed.

DRM-free audiobooks at LibriVox

At LibriVox, volunteers record their own audiobooks out of texts in the public domain, and give them away for free. Isn’t that amazing?

Today I listened to Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly, written in 1887. Bly was a journalist who infiltrated a mental institution in New York to see what it was like. It was pretty bad. The nurses were sadists, and nobody bothered to find out if she really belonged there. The book caused an embarassment, (much like the ‘thud’ experiment a hundred years later.)

The recording is not up to commercial standards, but who cares? I don’t. I’m just glad to find another source of DRM-free audiobooks. It’s easier to use than eMusic, and it doesn’t straitjacket you like Audible.

I picked this book at random. That’s what I love about public domain book projects, like LibriVox and Project Gutenberg: The chance to find a strange old book that few people remember. When people pick an old book to read, it’s usually a Classic, because all book readers feel guilty about not having read enough Classics. But classics are often just old bestsellers. John Grisham, but with more flowery language. No – give me a book that didn’t define literature as we know it, but displays a memorable point of view.

What every book at LibriVox has in common is that somebody loved it enough to take the time to record it for you. What better recommendation is there?

Silent movie marathon – Part 4

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927, Germany) – Oh .. my .. God. People, machines, buildings. Yes!

The Lost World (1925, USA) – Stop motion dinosaurs and a man in a monkey suit. Not bad, but typical. However groundbreaking, special effects really do work better with sound, color and CGI. Watched: 15 minutes, then fast forwarded to the dinosaurs.

The Unknown (1927, USA) – Circus artist Joan Crawford is sick of men groping her, and develops a phobia about hands. She finds comfort with a man who pretends to have no arms, but is secretly a thief and a strangler. Deliciously macabre symbolism. Sometimes a cigar really is a penis.

Anthology of Surreal Cinema, Vol 1: Entr’acte (1924, France), La Coquille et le Clergyman (1928, France), Ballet Mecanique (1924, France), Anemic Cinema (1926, France) – Huh. Funny! Brain massage. Watched all of it, but the nice thing about surrealism is that you can take a bathroom break without missing anything.

La Chute de la Maison Usher (1928, France) – Not bad, but I like Roger Corman’s Poe movies better. Watched: 10 minutes.

The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Soviet Union) – Fine film. Made in that very very short period when Bolshevik doctrine held that the state shouldn’t massacre citizens for no good reason.

That’s all the silent movies for now. I have learned that I hate silent comedies, and that all silent movies should be set to Shostakovich.

Some damned little arrows on a piece of paper

Richard Feynman warns in QED that he cannot help the reader understand the theory of quantum electrodynamics. This is because he doesn’t understand it himself. All he can do is draw arrows on a paper and ask us to accept that this is how nature works.

How is this different from religion and pseudo-science? Religion and pseudo-science makes intuitive sense, but is uncomfirmed by experiments. It makes sense that like should affect like, and that we’re surrounded by spirits and gods, but there’s no evidence for it. Quantum electrodynamics is well supported by evidence, but makes no intuitive sense. And there is no reason why it should.

The point of reading about things you can’t understand is to feel the shape of it. What is the theory like? How do scientists think? How do they argue? Then when you read a theory you actually can understand you may recognize that it has the wrong shape. Knowing quantum electrodynamics is pointless. Knowing the shape of real science is not.

Also, science is fun, and even more so when it is Richard Feynman that explains it.