Log24

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Uploading

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 4:01 pm

(Continued)

"Design is how it works." — Steve Jobs

From a commercial test-prep firm in New York City—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111231-TeachingBlockDesign.jpg

From the date of the above uploading—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11B/110708-ClarkeSm.jpg

After 759

m759 @ 8:48 AM
 

Childhood's End

From a New Year's Day, 2012, weblog post in New Zealand

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111231-Pyramid-759.jpg

From Arthur C. Clarke, an early version of his 2001  monolith

"So they left a sentinel, one of millions they have scattered
throughout the Universe, watching over all worlds with the
promise of life. It was a beacon that down the ages has been
patiently signaling the fact that no one had discovered it.
Perhaps you understand now why that crystal pyramid was set…."

The numerical  (not crystal) pyramid above is related to a sort of
mathematical  block design known as a Steiner system.

For its relationship to the graphic  block design shown above,
see the webpages Block Designs and The Diamond Theorem
as well as The Galois Tesseract and R. T. Curtis's classic paper
"A New Combinatorial Approach to M24," which contains the following
version of the above numerical pyramid—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111231-LeechTable.jpg

For graphic  block designs, I prefer the blocks (and the parents)
of Grand Rapids to those of New York City.

For the barbed tail  of Clarke's "Angel" story, see the New Zealand post
of New Year's Day mentioned above.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Quaternions on a Cube

The following picture provides a new visual approach to
the order-8 quaternion  group's automorphisms.

IMAGE- Quaternion group acting on an eightfold cube

Click the above image for some context.

Here the cube is called "eightfold" because the eight vertices,
like the eight subcubes of a 2×2×2 cube,* are thought of as
independently movable. See The Eightfold Cube.

See also…

Related material: Robin Chapman and Karen E. Smith
on the quaternion group's automorphisms.

* See Margaret Wertheim's Christmas Eve remarks on mathematics
and the following eightfold cube from an institute she co-founded—

Froebel's third gift, the eightfold cube
© 2005 The Institute for Figuring

Photo by Norman Brosterman
fom the Inventing Kindergarten
exhibit at The Institute for Figuring
(co-founded by Margaret Wertheim)

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Crank Science

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 9:29 am

From Margaret Wertheim's "Outsider Physicists and the Oh-My-God Particle," New Scientist , Dec. 24, 2011—

For the past 18 years I have been collecting the works of what I have come to call "outsider physicists". I now have more than 100 such theories on my shelves. Most of them are single papers, but a number are fully fledged books, often filled with equations and technical diagrams (though I do have one that is couched as a series of poems and another that is written as a fairy tale)….

The mainstream science world has a way of dealing with people like this— dismiss them as cranks and dump their letters in the bin. While I do not believe any outsider I have encountered has done any work that challenges mainstream physics, I have come to believe that they should not be so summarily ignored.

Consider the sheer numbers. Outsider physicists have their own organisation, the Natural Philosophy Alliance, whose database lists more than 2100 theorists, 5800 papers and over 1300 books worldwide. They have annual conferences, with this year's proceedings running to 735 pages. In the time I have been observing the organisation, the NPA has grown from a tiny seed whose founder photocopied his newsletter onto pastel-coloured paper to a thriving international association with video-streamed events.

The NPA's website tells us that the group is devoted "to broad-ranging, fully open-minded criticism, at the most fundamental levels, of the often irrational and unrealistic doctrines of modern physics and cosmology; and to the ultimate replacement of these doctrines by much sounder ideas".

Very little unites this disparate group of amateurs— there are as many theories as members— except for a common belief that "something is drastically wrong in contemporary physics and cosmology, and that a new spirit of open-mindedness is desperately needed". They are unanimous in the view that mainstream physics has been hijacked by a kind of priestly caste who speak a secret language— in other words, mathematics— that is incomprehensible to most human beings. They claim that the natural world speaks a language which all of us can, or should be able to, understand.

"…a secret language— in other words, mathematics— that is incomprehensible…."

For instance, the "secret language" of Dr. Garret Sobczyk?

See a brief paper by Sobczyk in the NPA Proceedings  described above.

See also Sobczyk in the February 2012 Notices of the American Mathematical Society

"Conformal Mappings in Geometric Algebra"—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111229-AMS_Notices.jpg

This AMS article, together with Sobczyk's list of previous publications,
indicates that, despite his appearance in the NPA Proceedings , he is definitely not  a crank.

Unfortunately, publication in the Notices  does not by itself guarantee respectability.

For an example, see the Mathematics and Narrative post of Dec. 13, 2011.

The Poetry of Universals

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:26 am

Continued from All Souls Day, 2011

Professor Sir Michael Dummett,
born June 27 1925, died December 27 2011

See also this journal on the day of Dummett's death.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Program

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:30 am
  • Helen Frankenthaler's obituary in yesterday's online New York Times
  • A 1975 review of Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word
  • In memory of the reviewer, a post from the date of her death

See also yesterday morning's Getting with the Program.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Getting with the Program

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 4:28 am

Stanley Fish in The New York Times  yesterday evening—

IMAGE- Stanley Fish, 'The Old Order Changeth,' Boxing Day, 2011

From the MLA program Fish discussed—

IMAGE- MLA session, 'Defining Form,' chaired by Colleen Rosenfeld of Pomona College

Above: An MLA session, “Defining Form,” led
by Colleen Rosenfeld of Pomona College

An example from Pomona College in 1968—

IMAGE- Triangular models of small affine and projective finite geometries

The same underlying geometries (i.e., “form”) may be modeled with
a square figure and a cubical figure rather than with the triangular
figures of 1968 shown above.

See Finite Geometry of the Square and Cube.

Those who prefer a literary approach to form may enjoy the recent post As Is.
(For some context, see Game of Shadows.)

Monday, December 26, 2011

Logos

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 5:09 pm

IMAGE- Logo for math.stackexchange.com

IMAGE- 'Affine Groups on Small Binary Spaces,' illustration

  Click images for context.

It Must Be Said

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:00 am

Bono and Taymor at 'Spider-Man'

Esquire  on Julie Taymor

Taymor, it must be said, is a beautiful woman. Her face at fifty-eight has sharp, expressive features— she actually frowns when she's unhappy, and her eyes seem to light up when she laughs— and she still has the long black hair she had when she was a young actress, "a very pretty eighteen-year-old," as she puts it, who "didn't want to play Cinderella or Snow White. I wanted to be the Wicked Witch of the West."

— Richard Dorment, article dated November 14, 2011

Ay que bonito es volar

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Frage

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:59 pm

"Woher dieser Sprung von Endlichen zum Unendlichen? "

— Wittgenstein, Zettel , § 273

AntwortAccomplished in Steps and For 34th Street.

See also Boundary Method.

Xmas Ornaments

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:01 am

Yesterday's "diamond globe" post linked to a picture by Prof. Mike Zabrocki
of York University in Toronto. Here is the picture itself—
IMAGE- Permutahedron 'diamond globe' by Mike Zabrocki

Some related material from 2004—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111225-ClubInfinity.jpg

2003-2004 Events:

Prof Talk: Thursday, April 1st, from 2:30pm to 3:30pm in North Ross 638.

Speaker:  Prof. Mike Zabrocki
Title:  "Gems of Algebra: The Secret Life of the Symmetric Group"

Prof. Zabrocki's talk was enjoyable and accessible.  One of the notable aspects of the talk was that Prof. Zabrocki presented some open problems related to the topics he was speaking about.  Unfortunately, there were some technical problems that resulted in some images not appearing in Prof. Zabrocki's PowerPoint presentation, but Prof. Zabrocki easily made up for the problem by some work at the chalk board.  Please feel free to take a look at Prof. Zabrocki's PowerPoint presentation, as well as the pictures of the permutahedron for n=4 and the permutahedron for n=5.

Some slides from the talk—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111225-GemsOfAlgebra-Zabrocki.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111225-Zabrocki-S4slide.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111225-Zabrocki-S5slide.jpg

Detail from the slides—

IMAGE- Diamond ornament from slides by Mike Zabrocki

A less academic ornament, from this journal on the date
of the Zabrocki talk—

IMAGE- Rainbow on record label of hymns by Loretta Lynn

Click image for context.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Stevens for Christmas Eve

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:30 am

A search for Wallace Stevens ebooks
today at Alibris yielded 24 results.

I selected one to order—

Wallace Stevens: A World of Transforming Shapes .

From that book—

(Click to enlarge)

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111224-Perlis-500w.jpg

Stevens's phrase "diamond globe" in this context suggests an image search
on permutahedron + stone + log24 .

For the results of that search (2 MB), click here.

Some background for the phrase used in the search—

See a photo by Mike Zabrocki from June 4, 2011.

See also a Log24 image and a generalization of the underlying structure.

Friday, December 23, 2011

About the People

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:02 pm

(Continued from April 5, 2009)

"Thought can as it were fly , it doesn't have to walk."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel , fragment 273

See also a related song.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, 'Why Walk When You Can Fly?'

Take a Pew

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:01 am

From Margaret Soltan, a brief Xmas story.

I, too, like Perkins.

Art Wars

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:24 am

The reference in yesterday morning's post "The Speed of Thought"
to an art critic's webpage on what she calls "psychic art"
suggests an illustration of another sort of psychic art, from
the oeuvre  of the late film director Don Sharp

IMAGE- Heirloom Cross from 'Psychomania'

See also a Log24 post, "Go Ask Alice," from the above video's uploading date.

Star Quality

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:09 am

(Continued)

IMAGE- NYT obits: Jacob Goldman, Doe Avedon, Don Sharp

"The horror! The horror!"

IMAGE- Alyssa Milano in 'Embrace of the Vampire'

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Speed of Thought

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 4:18 am

"As if an apparently meaningless frame of reference,
traveling at the speed of thought, suddenly became relevant…."

— Stephen Rachman, "Lost in Translation"

Unclean Frame

IMAGE- The perception of doors in the film 'Sunshine Cleaning'

Detail from the film "Sunshine Cleaning"

Clean Frame

IMAGE- Part of 'Grids, You Say?' installation by Josefine Lyche

See also Psychic Art and "The Speed of Thought."

For another form of psychic art, see Game of Shadows.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Purloined Diamond

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 9:48 am

Stephen Rachman on "The Purloined Letter"

"Poe’s tale established the modern paradigm (which, as it happens, Dashiell Hammett and John Huston followed) of the hermetically sealed fiction of cross and double-cross in which spirited antagonists pursue a prized artifact of dubious or uncertain value."

For one such artifact, the diamond rhombus formed by two equilateral triangles, see Osserman in this journal.

Some background on the artifact is given by John T. Irwin's essay "Mysteries We Reread…" reprinted in Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism .

Related material—

Mathematics vulgarizer Robert Osserman died on St. Andrew's Day, 2011.

A Rhetorical Question

Osserman in 2004

"The past decade has been an exciting one in the world of mathematics and a fabulous one (in the literal sense) for mathematicians, who saw themselves transformed from the frogs of fairy tales— regarded with a who-would-want-to-kiss-that aversion, when they were noticed at all— into fascinating royalty, portrayed on stage and screen….

Who bestowed the magic kiss on the mathematical frog?"

A Rhetorical Answer

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111130-SunshineCleaning.jpg

Above: Amy Adams in "Sunshine Cleaning"

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

St. Emil’s Day

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:48 am

For Emil Artin

“And we may see
the meadow in December,
icy white and crystalline.”

— Johnny Mercer, “Midnight Sun”

Monday, December 19, 2011

X Marks a Spot

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 11:30 am

(Where Entertainment is God, continued)

IMAGE- LA Times on Korean transition and Galaxy Nexus

Related material— The Nexus (Jan. 8, 2010).

That post contains the following—

"A Nexus is a place equidistant from the five elements as explained in the TV series Charmed . Using this as a point of reference, it is quite possible that there could be several Nexus points of power scattered throughout the world, though rare."

Nexus (Charmed) in Wikipedia

Happy birthday, Alyssa Milano.

Bumped

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 1:22 am

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111219-Bumped-NYTobits1AM.jpg


Related material— Hitchens on Heaven—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111219-HitchensOnHeaven.jpg

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Dateline Seoul

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:00 pm

For those who prefer their news straight

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111218-SeoulNews.jpg

Happy birthday, Steven Spielberg.

Transition

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 7:25 pm

"Vaclav Havel oversaw a bumpy transition…." —New York Times  today

"Is it over— or is it just beginning?" —"All About Eve"

Vets Club

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:13 pm

Continued from August 16

http://www.log24.com/log11/saved/111218-NYTobits102PM-360w.jpg

Closure

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm

Christopher Hitchens on J. K. Rowling—

“We must not let in daylight upon magic,” as Walter Bagehot remarked in another connection, and the wish to have everything clarified is eventually self-defeating in its own terms. In her correct determination to bring down the curtain decisively, Rowling has gone further than she should, and given us not so much a happy ending as an ending which suggests that evil has actually been defeated (you should forgive the expression) for good.

Greater authors— Arthur Conan Doyle most notably— have been in the same dilemma when seeking closure. And, like Conan Doyle, Rowling has won imperishable renown for giving us an identifiable hero and a fine caricature of a villain, and for making a fictional bit of King’s Cross station as luminous as a certain address on nearby Baker Street. It is given to few authors to create a world apart, and to populate it as well as illustrate it in the mind.

"A fictional bit of King's Cross Station"—

Throughout the series, Harry has traveled to King's Cross Station, either to depart for Hogwarts or return to London on the Hogwarts Express. The station has always symbolized the crossroad between the Muggle world and the Wizarding realm and Harry's constant shuffling between, and his conflict with, the two extremes. As Harry now finds himself at a transition point between life and death, it is purely to be expected that he would see it within his own mind as a simulacrum of that station. And though Dumbledore assures Harry that he (Harry) is not actually dead, it seems Harry can choose that option if he so wishes. Harry has literally and figuratively been stripped bare, and must decide either to board a train that will transport him to the "other side", or return to the living world…. — Wikibooks.org

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Lining the Train

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 7:30 pm

IMAGE- Wilfred Owen, 'faces grimly gay' in 'The Send-Off'

See also Thursday morning's "As Is."

Friday, December 16, 2011

Take Your Pick

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 1:31 pm

Two recent quotes in this journal—

December 14

"Hoban once ruefully observed that death would be a good career move:
'People will say, "Yes, Hoban, he seems an interesting writer, let’s look at him again."'"

December 15

"This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level."

— "Paradoxes and Oxymorons" in Shadow Train

Michael Kinsley in The New York Times  on Sunday, May 13, 2007

Kinsley on the career of Christopher Hitchens—

Interesting! …. Interesting!! …. Interesting!!! …. Interesting!!!!

Where was this train heading?

Kinsley on a book in which Hitchens …

… pronounces the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” “engaging but abysmal” (a typical Hitchens aside: cleverly paradoxical? witlessly oxymoronic? take your pick)….

Midnight in LA

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 3:00 am

The Sherlock Holmes film "A Game of Shadows"
is apparently showing around midnight
(12:00 AM PST, 3:00 AM EST) tonight in LA
at the ArcLight Hollywood.

IMAGE- A Jesuit on words and shadows

This passage was quoted here on Sunday, November 27, this year.

For other words related to that date, see tonight's 11:02 post.

The serpent's eyes shine
As he wraps around the vine
In the Garden of Allah

— Don Henley

Friday

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 2:56 am

"Just the facts." — Attributed to Joe Friday

A search in this journal in honor of the late
Christopher Hitchens yields links to two of his reviews—
a review of the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  and
a review of a work by a rather different author—

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows .

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Logic for Jews

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:02 pm

New York Daily News , 2:55 PM EST today—

Joe Simon, who dreamed up the star-spangled super hero Captain America while riding on a Manhattan bus during the early days of World War II, died Thursday [Dec. 15] after an undisclosed illness. He was 98.

New York Times , about 10 PM EST today—

Joe Simon, a writer, editor and illustrator of comic books who was a co-creator of the superhero Captain America, conceived out of a patriotic impulse as war was roiling Europe, died on Wednesday [Dec. 14] at his home in Manhattan. He was 98.

The discrepancy is perhaps due to initial reports that quoted Simon's family as saying he died "Wednesday night."

Simon was a co-creator of Captain America. For some background on Simon and a photo with his fellow comic artist Jerry Robinson, co-creator of The Joker, see a Washington Post article from this afternoon. Robinson died on either Wednesday, Dec. 7, or Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.

Los Angeles Times

Jerry Robinson, a pioneer in the early days of Batman comics and a key force in the creation of Robin the Boy Wonder; the Joker;  Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred; and Two-Face, died Wednesday afternoon [Dec. 7] in New York City. He was 89.

CNN

Cartoonist Jerry Robinson, who worked on the earliest Batman comics and claimed credit for creating the super-villain The Joker, died Thursday [Dec. 8] at the age of 89, his family confirmed.

A picture by Robinson—

IMAGE- The Joker with calendar page for November 27

The Joker in January 1943
with a Nov. 27 calendar page

A non-joke from a more recent November 27—

Simplex Sigillum Veri

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave…"

As Is

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 2:56 am

What "As" Is —

Image- The Three-Point Line: A Finite Projective Geometry

"This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level."

Shadow Train

"You got to ride it like you find it."
Song lyric

Related entertainment —

IMAGE- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

As Was Foretold

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:16 pm

For novelist Russell Hoban, who died yesterday

"Hoban once ruefully observed that death would be a good career move:
'People will say, "Yes, Hoban, he seems an interesting writer, let’s look at him again."'"

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Mathematics and Narrative, continued

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 11:01 pm

Mathematics —

(Some background for the Galois tesseract )

(Click to enlarge)

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111213-Edge-geometry-heptads-500w.jpg

Narrative

An essay on science and philosophy in the January 2012
Notices of the American Mathematical Society .

Note particularly the narrative explanation of the double-slit experiment—

"The assertion that elementary particles have
free will and follow Quality very closely leads to
some startling consequences. For instance, the
wave-particle duality paradox, in particular the baffling
results of the famous double slit experiment,
may now be reconsidered. In that experiment, first
conducted by Thomas Young at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, a point light source
illuminated a thin plate with two adjacent parallel
slits in it. The light passing through the slits
was projected on a screen behind the plate, and a
pattern of bright and dark bands on the screen was
observed. It was precisely the interference pattern
caused by the diffraction patterns of waves passing
through adjacent holes in an obstruction. However,
when the same experiment was carried out much
later, only this time with photons being shot at
the screen one at a time—the same interference
pattern resulted! But the Metaphysics of Quality
can offer an explanation: the photons each follow
Quality in their actions, and so either individually
or en masse (i.e., from a light source) will do the
same thing, that is, create the same interference
pattern on the screen."

This is from "a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at the University of Calgary."
His essay is titled "A Perspective on Wigner’s 'Unreasonable Effectiveness
of Mathematics.'" It might better be titled "Ineffective Metaphysics."

A Leonardo Job

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:29 am

Requiem for a Hollywood market researcher—

IMAGE- R.I.P. Joseph Farrell at Deadline Hollywood

See also a more detailed obituary.

For a tune related to Leonardo in memory of Farrell, see Hudson Hawk.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Techno-Shamanistic Keys

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:01 pm

From a review of the film "Wild Palms" in The New Yorker  by James Wolcott
(issue dated May 17, 1993, pages 104-106)—

"The MacGuffin that will determine the outcome is a piece of
software [sic ] called the Go chip, its name taken from the
strategy board game. (There's a nod in the script to the Japanese
novelist Yasunari Kawabata, author of 'The Master of Go.')
Whoever possesses the Go chip possesses the
'techno-shamanistic key to eternity'…."

"In tomorrow's techno-pop tyranny, reruns are the basis of order."

"As Kreutzer's mistress, Kim Cattrall has excellent posture."

From Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, a portrayal of Kim Cattrall—

IMAGE- Kristen Wiig as Kim Cattrall

See also "Sex and the City" fans in The Crimson Passion.

For other keys (perhaps related to the Wild Palms "image sickness"),
see "Claves Regni Caelorum (Escher)" — Images, 1.9 MB.

Chip on his Shoulder

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:25 pm

From today's Los Angeles Times

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111212-ChipDoodle.jpg

Is this pallbearer's work never done?

IMAGE- Schwarzenegger carries coffin in 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'

X o’ Jesus

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 2:56 pm

Religion for stoners, in memory of Horselover Fat

Amazon.com gives the publication date of a condensed
version* of Philip K. Dick's Exegesis  as Nov. 7, 2011.

The publisher gives the publication date as Nov. 8, 2011.

Here, in memory of the author, Philip K. Dick (who sometimes
called himself, in a two-part pun, "Horselover Fat"), is related
material from the above two dates in this  journal—

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Stoned

m759 @ 12:00 PM 

…. Update of 9:15 PM Nov. 8, 2011—

From a search for the word "Stoned" in this journal—

Sunday, January 2, 2011

 

A Universal Form

m759 @ 6:40 PM

Simon Critchley today in the New York Times  series "The Stone"—

Philosophy, among other things, is that living activity of critical reflection in a specific context, by which human beings strive to analyze the world in which they find themselves, and to question what passes for common sense or public opinion— what Socrates called doxa— in the particular society in which they live. Philosophy cuts a diagonal through doxa. It does this by raising the most questions of a universal form: “What is X?”

Actually, that's two diagonals. See Kulturkampf at the Times  and Geometry of the I Ching .

[Here the "Stoned" found by the search
was the title of Critchley's piece, found in its URL—
"http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/stoned/ ."]

See also Monday's post "The X Box" with its illustration

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111107-XBoxSum.bmp .


Monday, November 7, 2011

The X Box

m759 @ 10:30 AM 

"Design is how it works." — Steve Jobs, quoted in
 The New York Times Magazine  on St. Andrew's Day, 2003

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111107-XBoxSum.bmp .

For some background on this enigmatic equation,
see Geometry of the I Ching.

 

Merry Xmas.

See also last night's post and the last words of Steve Jobs.

* Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher, has, deliberately or not, sown confusion
    about whether this is only the first of two volumes.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Nine is a Vine

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 9:00 pm

"We need a Steve Jobs of religion." — Eric Weiner

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11A/110425-Wiig-CockAndBullStory.jpg

"Design is how it works." — Steve Jobs

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111127-Ong-PresenceOfTheWord.jpg

Flirtations

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:00 pm

From today's New York Times 

"We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones[*] among us. And for all of us."

— Eric Weiner , the author, most recently, of Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine .

[* A term for the religiously unaffiliated. See also the 3 PM hour of prayer.]

For highly interactive flirtations, I prefer Rebecca Larue.  ("Skyrockets in flight…")

Saturday, December 10, 2011

A Word of Greek

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:29 pm

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111210-Logue-NYTobit.jpg

A word of Greek — phainein

and a picture from the date of Logue's death

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-TaylorSwift_Ours_VideoDetail-500w.jpg

(Click to enlarge.)

Sweet Smell of Success

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:29 pm

For Hillary Rodham Clinton

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111210-Wiig-Perfume.jpg

Announcer:    Red Flag Parfum, by Chanel.
                           The only perfume that warns men:

                          [ she turns to leave the party ]

Woman:         I'm fucking crazy!

                          [ she runs from the party ]

Announcer:   Red Flag.

IMAGE- Kristen Wiig for Red Flag Perfume on SNL

Another version of Running from the Party

IMAGE- Red Flag in Moscow

"Words are events." — Walter J. Ong, Society of Jesus

Dawn Pawn

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:00 am

Who is the Red Pawn?

One answer, from the author of a book pictured here yesterday

IMAGE- Cover of 'Breaking Dawn,' with red chess pawn and white queen

"Breaking Dawn 's cover is a metaphor for Bella's progression
throughout the entire saga. She began as the weakest
(at least physically, when compared to vampires and werewolves)
player on the board: the pawn. She ended as the strongest: the queen."

An answer I personally prefer— the Saturday Night Live version.

See also, in this journal, The Eight .

Friday, December 9, 2011

Showtime!

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:09 pm

Today's showtimes at ArcLight Hollywood—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111209-ArcLight-Showtimes.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111209-HollywoodMap.jpg

Meanwhile…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111209-HollywoodShooter.jpg

Related (?) material—

A quote from the 2007 Anthony Hopkins film "Slipstream"—
"We've lost the plot!"—
as it has appeared in this journal

See also the Dec. 7th note on Don Sebastian de Villanueva and…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111209-Breaking_Dawn_cover.jpg

Happy birthday, Kirk Douglas.

Duality

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:45 pm

Some background for last night's post on Diego Rivera—

IMAGE- Google Doodle of an imagined Diego Rivera painting the sun in a mural

See "Octavio Paz" + "Solar Country" in this journal.

"Mexico is a solar country— but it is also a black country, a dark country.
This duality of Mexico has preoccupied me since I was a child."

Octavio Paz

No Joke

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:45 am

Diego Rivera on Google yesterday…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111208-Google-Rivera.jpg

… and in this journal.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

For Saint Les

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:28 pm

Continued from December 7th

And here's to you, Jerry Robinson

En un lugar de la Mancha…

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

For St. Thomas of VillanuevaHis feast day in this journal.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

And for Saint Les Daniels*…

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 8:28 pm

This evening's previous post honored a Jewish saint whose feast day is September 22nd.

Non-Jews may prefer to honor on that date St. Thomas of Villanueva.

* The late author of

"five novels featuring the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva, a cynical, amoral and misanthropic Spanish nobleman whose predatory appetites pale into insignificance compared with the historical catastrophes which he witnesses in his periodic reincarnations." — Wikipedia

Eight is a Gate*

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:59 pm

For Saint Irving

* For one interpretation of this phrase, see
  Sicilian Reflections (from this year's Feast
  of St. Irving Berlin on his dies natalis ).

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Through the Night with…

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:31 pm
 
http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111206-LightFromAbove.jpg
 


… in memory of Broadway photographer Leo Friedman, who died Friday.

Random Access Memory–

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

A Tale for St. Nicholas

Yesterday's midday New York Lottery numbers
were 629 and 2262.

The former suggests St. Peter's Day, 6/29, while
the latter suggests post  2262 in this journal—

On Muriel Spark.

Related material… As a memento mori, the three
Log24 posts from the date of Spark's death—

Thursday April 13, 2006

m759 @ 4:50 PM
 

Thursday April 13, 2006

m759 @ 4:50 AM 
 


Thursday April 13, 2006

m759 @ 4:07 AM 
 
Meanwhile, back at
 Coffin Castle

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06/060412-SkullAndBones2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Click on picture for details.

Monday, December 5, 2011

An Orderly Ending

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:38 pm

From an obituary in this evening's online Wall Street Journal

"Ms. Dunn spent her childhood in Las Vegas, where her father was a casino entertainment director and her mother was a retired showgirl. She earned a journalism degree from University of California at Berkeley….

She eventually advanced to become chief executive of Barclays Global Investors. As head of the large institutional money manager, she succeeded in the orderly world of index funds, which aim to control risk and take the guesswork out of investing."

As does Las Vegas.

Happy birthday to Joan Didion.

The Shining (Norwegian Version)

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 4:01 am

A check tonight of Norwegian artist Josefine Lyche's recent activities
shows she has added a video to her web page that has for some time
contained a wall piece based on the 2×2 case of the diamond theorem

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111205-Lyche-DiamondTheoremPage.jpg

The video (top left in screenshot above) is a tasteless New-Age discourse
that sounds frighteningly like the teachings of the late Heaven's Gate cult.

Investigating the source of the video on vimeo.com, I found the account of one "Jo Lyxe,"
who joined vimeo in September 2011. This is apparently a variant of Josefine Lyche's name.

The account has three videos—

  1. "High on RAM (OverLoad)"– Fluid running through a computer's innards
  2. "Death 2 Everyone"– A mystic vision of the afterlife
  3. "Realization of the Ultimate Reality (Beyond Form)"– The Blue Star video above

Lyche has elsewhere discussed her New-Age interests, so the contents of the videos
were not too surprising… except for one thing. Vimeo.com states that all three videos
were uploaded "2 months ago"— apparently when "Lyxe" first set up an account.*

I do not know, or particularly care, where she got the Blue Star video, but the other
videos interested me considerably when I found them tonight… since they are
drawn from films I discussed in this journal much more recently than "2 months ago."

"High on RAM (OverLoad)" is taken from the 1984 film "Electric Dreams" that I came across
and discussed here yesterday afternoon, well before  re-encountering it again tonight.

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111205-Lyxe-HighOnRam.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111205-ElectricDreamsTrailer.jpg

And "Death 2 Everyone" (whose title** is perhaps a philosophical statement about inevitable mortality
rather than a mad terrorist curse) is taken from the 1983 Natalie Wood film "Brainstorm."

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111205-Lyxe-Death2.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111205-Brainstorm-FreakyPart.jpg

"Brainstorm" was also discussed here recently… on November 18th, in a post suggested by the
reopening of the investigation into Wood's death.

I had no inkling that these "Jo Lyxe" videos existed until tonight.

The overlapping content of Lyche's mental ramblings and my own seems rather surprising.
Perhaps it is a Norwegian mind-meld, perhaps just a coincidence of interests.

* Update: Google searches by the titles  on Dec. 5 show that all three "Lyxe" videos
                 were uploaded on September 20 and 21, 2011.

** Update: A search shows a track with this title on a Glasgow band's 1994 album.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Code Wars

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:00 pm

Steve Buscemi last night on Saturday Night Live
describing Christmas tree ornaments with his mate Sheila—

"This one's a little computer."

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111203-SnakeApple.jpg

"Beep Boop Beep"

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111204-ElectricDreams.jpg

"This one's a little pinecone. … Beep Boop Beep"

Meanwhile…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111204-NewWorldDisorder.jpg

In related news…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111204-RosettaStone-Sheila.jpg

"Her name drives me insane."

— Rosetta Stone, 1978 cover of "Sheila," Tommy Roe's 1962 classic

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111204-SNLcard.jpg

Click image for sketch.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Black Dog Meets Red Hat

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:10 pm

Season's Greetings

from Down Under

(Click image for source. Background here.)

IMAGE- Man with the black dog of depression on his head

IMAGE- Red Santa hat on the letter B   (B is for Bullock)

When Black Dog meets Red Hat,
the result is… Red Dog clip
.

Blockheads

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 7:20 pm

(Continued from earlier posts.)

http://www.log24.com/log11/saved/111203-BigApple_WithWorm-360w.jpg

See the online New York Times  on November 27—

With Blocks, Educators Go Back to Basics

— and related letters, online today—

The Building Blocks of Education

Another back-to-basics illustration—

http://www.log24.com/log11/saved/111203-SnakeApple.jpg

"Design is how it works."
— Steve Jobs

See also the designer of the above Big  apple

“I’m fascinated with how past designers
had to come up with ideas
and solve problems using limited resources.”

Mikey Burton

Unified Theories

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 1:00 pm

From David Weinberger's book

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111203-WeinbergerMonolith.jpg

As Weinbergers go, I prefer Eliot.

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111203-WeinbergerTheory.jpg

Then there is my own theory of "small pieces loosely joined."

Friday, December 2, 2011

Country Strong

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:07 pm

(Continued from Mardi Gras 2011)

"People throw rocks at things that shine." — Taylor Swift, "Ours"

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-Ours-TaylorSwift-500w.jpg

"Timing is everything." — Song lyric in "Country Strong"

Afternoon Delight

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:26 pm

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-NYTmovies.jpg

The Crimson Passion…  Continues!

Des Pudels Kern*–

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm

Heaven or Hell?

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-NatalieWood_with_Poodle.jpg

Morningstar (the weapon, not the girl)

Have You No Shame?

In like Flynn

Oh, and a belated happy birthday to Sarah Silverman.

* See November 25th.

Chess Problem

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:07 am

 See 11/07 in 2009.

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-A_Steve_McQueen_Film.jpg

Proverb–

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:30 am

The Gift Horse

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-GiftHorse-NYT-500w.jpg

See also this  journal on November 25th.

Wolfenstein Revisited*

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:00 am

"When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf,
and takes his dog to see the sport,
he should take care to avoid mistakes.
The dog has certain relationships to the wolf
the shepherd may have forgotten."

Robert M. Pirsig

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111202-NYTobits828AM-360w.jpg

* An embroidered tale. See ParanoiaDog Tale,  and Kristallnacht 2006.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Dog Tale

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 8:20 pm

"I love gazing into things. Can you imagine with me how glorious it is, for example, to see into a dog, in passing— into him… to ease oneself into the dog exactly at his center, the place out of which he exists as a dog, that place in him where God would, so to speak, have sat down for a moment when the dog was complete, in order to watch him at his first predicaments and notions and let him know with a nod that he was good, that he lacked nothing, that no better dog could be made. For a while one can endure being in the middle of the dog, but one has to be sure to jump out in time, before the world closes in around him completely, otherwise one would remain the dog within the dog and be lost to everything else."

— Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted in The New York Times  in 1988

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111201-DogTale.jpg

Omitting unneeded narrative details,
a madman's knight move

A novel search in memory of the late
uncrowned crown prince of Albania—

Nabokov, Pale Fire

Related narratives—

Prose Tale and The Meadow.

Oh, and happy birthday to Woody Allen (76 today)—

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." —Groucho Marx

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:02 pm

Tens of Millions of Smartphones Come With Spyware
Preinstalled, Security Analyst Says

Published December 01, 2011 – FoxNews.com

For details, see comments at YouTube.

Related entertainment—

1. Tara Fitzgerald in "New World Disorder" (1999)—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111201-NewWorldDisorder-TaraFitzgerald.jpg

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more

2. Tara Fitzgerald in "Broken Glass" (2011)—

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111201-TaraFitgerald-BrokenGlass.jpg

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale

Procol Harum song at beginning and end of "The Net" (1995)

“Lord Arglay had a suspicion that the Stone
would be purely logical.  Yes, he thought,
but what, in that sense, were the rules of its pure logic?”

Many Dimensions  (1931), by Charles Williams,
quoted here on Kristallnacht 2011

See also, from "The Net"—

Decompiling Wolfenstein

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111201-DecompilingWolfenstein.jpg

"In Wolfenstein 3D , the player assumes the role of an American soldier
of Polish descent… attempting to escape from the Nazi stronghold of
Castle Wolfenstein." — Wikipedia

A Glass Slipper…

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

For a Daughter of Hollywood

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111130-NYTobits1154PM.jpg

See also New Day Nina and Bridget and Nina.

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