Words #1 - Paradigm

Happy New Year to you all. I'm compiling a list of words I hate. Either cause they're nonsense business speak, pretentious or just found in plain old bad English. Here’s the first offering:

Paradigm
In grammar, a paradigm is an organised list of forms all of which contain a particular element. For example the word cat in Spanish (gat-) inflects depends on its form; gato (singular male cat) gata (female) gatos (many cats). A list of these forms is called the inflectional paradigm since the gat- part is being inflected.

Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science, extended paradigm to mean a highly stereotypical set of practices that define a scientific discipline. In his words, "A paradigm is what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share.” (The Essential Tension, 1997). Nowadays, by extension, it has come to mean a set of highly typical, or stereotypical, example of something.

The word does not mean model or pattern. These two words are perfectly sufficient and encompassing in their meaning; and do not need to be usurped by the clever sounding 'paradigm'. Worse still is the term paradigm shift, one which Kuhn coined in philosophy of science. Paradigm shift seems to be applied to any change in thinking, understanding or policy. Much more concise and explicit phrases exist. Even clichés like “change in thinking” are much clearer than “undergoing a paradigm shift”.

If model could be used in its place then do so. If you are thinking about using paradigm shift, my advice is don’t. It’s always better to leave more technical sounding words/phrases to their more technical meanings. Not just to preserve the detail in the meaning; you’ll also risk confusing those who know the real meaning. And risk confusing those who don’t know the word at all. But mostly, using it makes you sound like an uninformed and pretentious twat.


Other notes and queries:
The staff behind www.freesearch.co.uk released a list of the ten most commonly searched words on their dictionary service. Paradigm was fifth.

Paradigm "is a word too often used by those who would like to have a new idea but cannot think of one."— Mervyn Allister King, then–Deputy Governor, Bank of England

tags ( grammar paradigm )

its that time of year

so click this link and be merry

xx

Family Guy Season 6 - Adam West and his Cats

I laughed at this clip so much, I ripped it cut it out and uploaded it to Youtube. The end of the clip contains one of the funniest bits in the current series of Family Guy. ROFL? I more or less did...



tags ( Family Guy | Adam West )

Tom Waits interviewed by Pitchfork

Just a note to say Pitchfork interviewed Tom Waits recently. Click here to read it.

tags ( Tom Waits Interview )

Odds of Dying

Someone once told me that I've more chance being hit by a bus than winning the lottery. I know that's a lie since I've never even done the lottery. In fact* being hit by a bus is a (statistically) very probably event. Since there are, lets say, about 10 million busses in the world. And since there is a finite amount of people, some of them will be hit by buses. And laws of probablity state** that the person hit by a bus is just the sort of person who refuses to take the bus on class grounds; in being hit, the quantum law of irony*** once revert to an equilibrium - the world is in balance.

Oh and being hit by a bus can be fatal. And I bet there is some sort of equation and probablity to that too. But only scientists who can't be bothered answering real questions know that. I do not.

There are twenty-three ways to die. Including death by bus, death by chocolate, evil-eye and some others. As morbid as it seems, stats people at the nsc, along with the yellow bordered people at the National Geographic, produced this lovely diagram to show the odds of dying in one of these 23 ways.

Click the pic!


* not a fact
** no they don't
*** which does not exist

Art Face Off

Artists usually don't fight. Not proper fighting like you get in Scunthorpe bars. Girls squawking like wounded ducks while their bare chested fellas, sweaty and bloodied, duke it out in an uncoordinated flurry of fists and lager-fat. However sometimes artists get beef with each other but, like the scarf wearing Withnails they are, get resolution using a good old fashioned duel. Pistols being swapped for the artists' tools.

If you are and artist, and I've slept with your wife, feel free to issue a challenge across the net.
If you're not, why not check out the artists dueling on Art Face Off. Its great.

tags ( art photography illustration fighting )

Doodle Math

I like sums. Especially ones which start "Lee-Jon has two bottles of whisky...". The problem is I don't like doing them with pens. I much prefer the old fashioned way with a Casio in my palm. I found a dude on the internet who does, and he does it not by thinking, but by doodles. Which is good.

Click here to see the video

tags: ( maths doodles )

Gregory Calender

Calenders are usually pretty standard objects with photos of either manicured and trimmed models somewhere between underdressed and naked, or have pictures of fields. Either way you know what you're getting. Keep track of birthdays, cross off the days before the wife's next period, doctors, dentists, euthanasia clinic, and so on.

The Gregory Calendar by Dadadum is not the standard way to keep track of days, but so much more fun.... just follow the dots!

(this was found in the excellent blog Better Living Through Design way back in October)



tags ( Design Home Calender )

October?

Sorry about october - no posts = busy lee-jon.
Post resume today!

Friday Stuff #3

Oh lordy! Yes yes, here it is! Friday things number #3 packed with a load of nonsense links so you can all waste your lives away. None of you ever seem to thank me for my internet foraging skills, it’s a thankless job I can tell you, thankless. Thinking about it, it’s not even a job – I have to pay to maintain this site. Hot piss, I’m stupid.

First things first. The philosophers S Club 7 tried to convince us that Goodbye is the hardest thing to say, but I now know different. Apparently, according to the clever peoples, the hardest thing to say (in English) is “the sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick” which is why I’ve decided not to hang out with Sheiks near any type of farmland – a sentence especially dangerous during times of ruminant pandemic I suspect.

Sooooo… photographicalism! I really liked Helena Kvarnström's work, all barren and full of pastels. Awkward but each photo has a warming charm to it. Erwin Olaf’s work does the same but with more abstraction and most lurid colouration – check the series entitled hope with its expressions so blank they could be varnished and hung on a hunter's wall. My fav type of photography tho, especially on the web, is photojournalistic stuff and Julian Li’s work from Cambodia is ace.

I forget about webcomics. I considering I like webcomics made by average peeps which can and can’t draw I should remember to read them. Xkcd.com’s stuff stimulates both my comedy and geek centres of the brain, something which was last achieved by the Monkey Island series of games waaaaay back when the internet was all fields. The new Dr McNinja is completely on form: irreverent, stupid and therefore 100% more awesome that most web stuff.

Talking of awesome... The most awesome T-Shirt comes from the merchandise of Dinosaur Comics. Click the picture to see the design. Awesome.

Odd things were found on the CIA’s website by the DefenseTech blog. they write about a truly bizarre personality test which starts “Which activity would you like your mission to include? Rock climbing / Dining on haute cuisine / Surfing the waves” and uses the answer to dispel myths about the organisation. For some reason most Americans must believe the CIA posess superpowers and kick-ass Bond-esque cars with oil slick buttons and the like.

Not as odd as the university professor who stripped in front of his students. This happen in the west but China. A country with some of the worst cases of censorship and abuse of press freedom in the world. Surely this sort of thing is like writing your own obituary.

Next on to alleviating some of your dreary boring lives...

Chapter one: If you’re like me, you’ll hate losing. Losing is for losers. Fortunately I’ve bested most strategic games and am now taking lessons in fighting like a ninja. If you ever want to beat me at anything you’ll have to start at the bottom and learn hard. Why not start with the mother of all strategic games: Rock Paper Scissors by reading this strategy guide.

Chapter two: winners like cartoons. So do popular people. I know geeks do to, but if you don’t think about it too much you’ll be safe from spots and NHS glasses. This blog compiled a list of loads of cartoons uploaded to YouTube. Woo!

Chapter three: Everyone loves lists. Here’s ailing sell out resting-on-laurels magazine Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 albums of all time. I own them all. Except the shit ones.

5 things in 10 words

(or.... music I’ve listened to this week recommended in ten-words)

Feist – Let it die (2004):
BrokenSocialScene member (and Peaches’ old flatmate) makes cool solo record.

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur (2006):
Think gospel and country melodies stripped into stunning white soul.

Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2003):
Thoughtful melodic and adult; autumnally finger-picked, talented, song writing.

Erlend Øye– Unrest (2003):
Nordic ex-kings member stays wistful with added beats and electronics.

The Redneck Manifesto - RMNMN (2006):
Sonically buzzing EP given away free on Dublin instrumentalists website.


tags: music | reviews

The pope says something enlightened

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Emperor Michael Paleologos II

On Thursday night, when reactions to Pope Benedict’s speech were surfacing, I began a blog entry. In this I discussed why he shouldn’t apologise and why we had the right to say what he said. This is somewhat a moot point now, as it seems the whole of the west thinks a similar thing. Rallying behind freedom of speech. Instead I’d like to look at the context of what he said. In hindsight, and having read the original lecture, it seems now the former Professor of Theology’s speech is highly enlightened.

The Pope was giving a lecture about faith and reason and how Western science and philosophy had divorced themselves from faith. Contained in the talk was the now infamous quotation. This has been taken so far out of context one can think that the lecture was demonising Islam - something which was only mentioned in a quotation and occupies around two-three paragraphs. What we fail to read in the newspapers is how the Pope described this opinion of Manuel II as "astoundingly"* and "surprisingly harsh". The Pope said that this historical reference reminds him as why spreading the faith through violence is unreasonable.

So why are Islamic councils and nations issuing a barrage of requests for apology and retraction. If we look at how the Pope continues the Michael II quote...

"Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."

As quoted by Pope Benedict XVI

This couldn’t be more poignant in the wake of reactionary bombings in Turkey. Lets not forget the headline-reasoning of a Turkish lawmaker compared the Pope to Hitler. An interesting hypothesis coming from “the most secular” of Islamic countries; a country which had Mein Kampf as a bestseller last year. A Turkish novelist, in defence of her novel which refers to the deaths of Armenians in 1915 as genocide, puts it succinctly. “If there is a thief in a novel, it doesn’t make the novelist a thief.”

“The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative
criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s closing remarks to his lecture

The pope gave a discourse about faith and reason; the Islamic reaction has ironically authenticated his themes. By looking at the context, comments like "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades." by Salih Kapusuz, illustrate how critics are ignorant of the lecture and have been swayed by simple headline commentary.

The best idiotic criticism came from Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tasnim Aslam who with an unintentional irony announced “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The only thing the Pope could be guilty of is not understanding mass-media; then again, surely the vituperate condemnations come from this same flaw.

* this has been mistranslated into English as "a startling brusqueness"

Read translated excerpt from the speech on the BBC

tags ( Pope Islam benedict islamophobia Tasnim Aslam Emperor Michael Paleologos faith )

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Here's a 40 minute documentary with and about Richard Feynman, physicist and Nobel laureate, by BBC's Horizon program. He talks succinctly and simply about the nature of science and understanding things, and how it relates to everyday life. As useful now as it ever was. Feynman, with Primo Levi, influenced my (scientific) thinking more than any other.

tags: ( Richard Feynman | BBC | science | documentary )

Old (in net terms) Star Wars video

OK OK, so if you know me you've probably been told about this before. And, if you spend more than a few hours a day on the web you'd have been passed this twenty times or more already. There's nothing new about Star Wars remixes. But this is certainly the funniest since the R2D2 "poledancing message" of a few years back. It went viral about two weeks ago. And since I can't stop watching it and weeping like a cider-riddled tramp.



tags: ( Darth Vader | Star Wars | remix | YouTube )