Fugato

I was going to put a picture of a spiral galaxy or something here, but I decided I’d rather have a picture of a cup of cappuccino, the drink I hope to be sipping when I meet Baal soon and he takes me to task over this discussion. This particular cappuccino was very, very tasty, as they tend to be at Te & Kaffi on Laugavegur. I recommend them highly.

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.”

— St. Augustine (354-430), De Genesi ad Litteram (”On the Literal Meaning of Genesis”), Book II, xviii, 37 [Note: in that time, mathematician = astrologer]

I decided I needed a whole new posting to respond to Baal’s comment on my last posting. He said:

I find your snooty science-elitist loathing for astrology intriguing. Partly because I once was a snooty science-elitist, but mostly because I am now a snooty anti-science-elitist (i.e. snooty anti-(science-elitist), not snooty (anti-science)-elitist).

Just as a sidenote … is it fair to say, then, that you are a snooty (anti-elitism)-elitist? :)

I therefore have a question for you (mind you, this is a trap):
Do you detest astrology in all forms, or only when people truly believe in it, letting it influence their lives?

Evidently my cunning plan of avoiding further discussion of this opinion by pre-emptively calling it snooty science-elitism has failed. Damn. But I can blame myself. I have written about it before; clearly I can’t quite leave this alone.

It is a valid question. Thank you for warning me that it is also a trap, but I’m going to ignore that; I’m okay with humoring you by walking right into your traps. (Phew, what a cheesy disclaimer.)

First, my choice of words, “detest with every fiber of my besserwisser being,” is obviously tongue-in-cheek. The spirit is right, but the degree is exaggerated. Plenty of fibers of my besserwisser being are allocated to things completely unrelated to astrology. In fact, I’d like to claim that the majority of these fibers are dedicated to things I like, rather than things I dislike. I hope so, anyway. So my feelings about astrology are more lukewarm than flaming.

As for my feelings about people earnestly believing in astrology: that I do not detest. I will not particularly respect them for that belief — but in no way does it prevent me from respecting them for all kinds of other things, or from respecting them on the whole.

Now, for astrology itself.

Obviously I do not detest the artifacts of astrology, i.e. the symbols of the zodiac, or the personality descriptions, or the terminology for Mars being in this house and Venus in the other, etc. These are by themselves neutral, inert, in the sense that they do not attempt to lead (and thus do not attempt to mis-lead) anyone in their thinking or their actions.

My nephew Baldur Fróði is just getting started with this life thing. Multiple times in his life (I can see it in his stars), people will try to trick him, either for money or for other nefarious purposes. And the thought of that makes me angry.

And I am not even particularly irked by the association between date-of-birth and personality type, in itself. Although I find it silly and invalid (see next paragraph below), it does provide a framework and a trigger for people to contemplate their personalities, who otherwise might do far less of it. And one can go “oh, I’m a Sagittarian to the bone” or “I’m quite atypical for a Sagittarian, probably because I have a rising Jupiter in the third house and was born in a period of heightened auroral activity at the exact minute when Halley’s comet passed behind the third ring of Saturn,” etc. … so even given my belief (yes, with all the conviction of a religious zealot, if that makes you happy :) ) in the complete invalidity of that association, I need not conclude that it will generally cause believers to completely mischaracterize and misunderstand themselves. And contemplating one’s personality in a sketchy but mostly harmless reference frame is bound to be better than not contemplating it at all.

Why do I find this association silly and invalid? Because of the Principle of Least Improbability, as I like to call it. One might propose all kinds of explanations for the existence of astrology, including the idea that it is real — that there exists a correlation between date-of-birth and personality, and that astrology arose simply as a characterization of that correlation, once people identified it. Fair enough, but I find another explanation far less improbable: that humans are (a) rather good at imagining things, (b) very good at finding patterns in what they experience — even when the patterns aren’t really there, and (c) exceedingly good at finding ways of making money off each other. There is probably more to both of these explanations, but I feel relatively secure in concluding that the believer’s explanation is not the least improbable one.

I begin to be bothered, though, when people start to say things like “oh, I like her a lot, but I’m a Sagittarian and she’s a Piscean and that will never work so we’d better cut this short right away” … i.e. when they short-circuit past all the valuable personality pondering and make a direct connection from star sign to life-determining decision. Obviously my example is contrived, but you get the idea; when you go taking things too literally, you are treading on thin ice.

I get even more bothered when people start bringing fate and prophesy into the picture, claiming that a person’s date-of-birth has some kind of prophetic value about the events of that person’s life. That can mislead people in making real, important decisions. Beliefs in fate and prophesy are (in my world-view) dangerous: they lead to shoddy decision-making, and make you vulnerable to … charlatans.

And that’s where I really start to fume out the nostrils: when I see “professional” prophesies and personality analyses being paid for and accepted as gospel. My sense of smell is generally weak, but the stench of charlatanism burns my nose, and while a mere enthusiast may easily be acting on good faith, a professional astrologer, shovelling out large quantities of detailed nonsense, must be intentionally dishonest. Taking advantage of people’s uncertainties, their weak moments in life, and their gullibility … sorry, you may say my judgment of the astrologer as evil (and his customer as gullible) is propped up against my own reference frame and my beliefs are not necessarily the whole truth and the only truth, and yada yada, but relativism must know its bounds; at some point I must stand by my conviction and call “bullshit!”

That is what I dislike about astrology, and about séances, and about snake-oil peddling in general: intentional, blatant deceit of vulnerable people for one’s own gain.

Of all the fibers of my being that aren’t being used for something positive, rather a large portion is involved in detesting that.

… live together in perfect harmony …

Right, well, on my good days, when I am not busy finding new ways of deluding myself, I like to call myself a “realist.” In my snooty science-elitist way, I intend this to mean (among other things) that I do not believe in hocus pocus nonsense like — oh, say, off the top of my head — astrology.

Here, “do not believe in” really means “detest with every fiber of my besserwisser being” but I am trying to say it nicely.

On that note, care to guess what is the most common way for people to stumble onto this blog?

According to my blog statistics, it is a Google image search for “sagittarius”.

That is just not fair.

The photo with this post is another example of irony in real life. According to the photographer, that is an actual brand of cigarettes, made in Japan.

And if you are still feeling peppy and light-hearted, never fear: there is plenty of apparently sincere human heartbreak to be had at PostSecret. Still, with all the negativity there, it feels oddly good to read. In a melancholy sort of way.

This is the view from Arnarhóll in central Reykjavík, shortly before sunset (about 10:45pm) on the summer solstice a few days ago. Click for a larger version.

[For the uninitiated: yes, that thing on the left edge really is a 20-foot-tall wall mural depicting a sheep. No, I do not know why it is there.]

The sky looked nice. The mountains looked nice. Most of the city center looked nice.

But that big beige-and-turquoise industrial facility in the middle doesn’t look too nice.

Good thing Faxaskáli is being replaced by a stonking big music hall and conference building, supposedly ready three-and-a-half years from now (I’ll bet you a six-pack of Staropramen that it’ll be five years and a budget overrun of, say, 60%). It is government-sponsored, of course, and the inaugural concert will probably feature the wails and moans and tut-tuts of Iceland’s fiscal conservatives as accompaniment.

Assuming the architects know their stuff, the view from Arnarhóll will certainly be nicer afterwards. But the new building will presumably be taller than Faxaskáli, so I’ll have to walk another three minutes and look at the sunset from the other side of the music hall. Life keeps getting harder on me.

Then again, I can always enjoy the sky from my bedroom balcony. Below is that view, captured at approximate geographical midnight (1:35am) on the summer solstice. Click for a larger version. And excuse the overexposure. :)

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity.

— Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)

Here are a few random incomplete thoughts on expectations.

[Not in the mathematical sense, this time.]

A compliment is most appreciated when it is least expected.

[Unfortunately, when the compliment is most expected, the failure to deliver it never goes unnoticed.]

A surprise gift is more welcome and more effective than the exact same thing given as a birthday gift.

[So why not skip birthday gifts and Christmas//etc. gifts, and give all those gifts over the course of the year instead? Sensible, but most of us tend to need the annual reminders.]

We measure the events of our days and the course of our lives not by any absolute yardstick but by our own expectations.

[Disappointment calls for expectation tuning.]

Premature expectations raise hackles and jeopardize relationships.

[Getting started with someone? Don't hold back, but do hold your horses.]

Healthy relationships (friendships, courtships, partnerships, whatever) are those in which the involved parties are aware of, and agree on, the expectations held.

[Someone let you down? Maybe you should take better care of your expectations next time.]

When you roll a die, do you expect it to turn up three-and-a-half?

Hell no. But that still is the expected value of a die roll, I’m afraid.

What does that mean?

Here’s what it means. If you roll that die often enough, you’ll get 1 one sixth of the time, and 2 one sixth of the time, etc. Add those up and you get (1+2+3+4+5+6) / 6 = 3.5 and that’s what mathematics calls the expected value, or expectation (Icelandic: “væntigildið,” or “vænta gildið”) of something random.

That makes no sense, until the mathematician explains that he really means the expected average value. If you keep rolling that die until the sound of it drives you bonkers, writing down each result you get, then you should expect your average to be pretty close to three-and-a-half.

So on any one roll of a die, whatever you expect, you shouldn’t expect to get the expected value. That would be pretty unexpected.

[Incidentally, when you roll a pair of dice, you should expect to get the expected value, which is 7. That's because for a pair of dice, the expected value is both (a) actually possible, and (b) the most probable one. 6 and 8 are a little less likely, 5 and 9 still less likely, and so forth. 2 and 12 are really unlikely. If you get to gamble on a pair of dice with even odds, bet on 7 every time. Trust me on this.]

The Tower of Babel, by a 16th-century Flemish painter named Pieter Brueghel the Elder

My point? Ok, this posting is not really about mathematics. It is about language.

The term “expected value” means a slightly different thing in mathematical English than it might mean in other dialects of English.

More generally, a mathematical background changes a person’s use of language ever-so-slightly.

Still more generally, language differs with background. Culture. Upbringing. Education. Individual temperament. The way you woke up that morning. Language differs with a lot of factors. In some sense, no two people speak quite the same language.

If you do not keep this in mind when talking to someone, you will misunderstand them. Even if you do keep it in mind, you will still misunderstand them a bit. It’s a basic human function; we breathe, eat, urinate, copulate, and misunderstand.

We do have this jolly nice invention, language, for transferring ideas and concepts and feelings from one mind to another by way of speech (and writing), and that’s pretty cool, but it’s far from perfect. We do a fair job of it for simple things (“pass me the raita please”), but for anything more complex or more important (“I like you”), the message often does not get across in quite the way it was intended.

In a restaurant today, my father called for the attention of the waitress with a chipper “Fröken!” (Miss!) and I gently explained that nowadays a lot of Icelanders in service jobs find that appellation offensive. How was he supposed to know? It was the polite way to call for attention when he was growing up. Even my brother-in-law, hardly even older than me, didn’t know. But I’ve heard several people in service jobs make it pretty clear that in their language, it is plain rude.

Ask two people to define exactly what they mean by a word, and their definitions will differ. Find several people coming out of a meeting and ask them what went on, and their responses will vary, sometimes wildly, even though they all heard the exact same words spoken in there.

When someone’s attitude or opinions or reactions completely fail to meet your, hm, expectations, you may find it useful to consider the difference between their frame of reference and yours.

You might not be speaking quite the same language.

My muscles ache agreeably. I’ve just started going to the gym again, after a break of almost a year.

I like my gym — certainly more than I like their website — but it irks me that it is a twelve-minute drive away. I’m pampered: I used to have both my gym and my favorite café right on the five-minute walk to my work. The café is still there (I’d knock on wood if I didn’t find that philosophically objectionable), but there is no gym in downtown Reykjavík anymore.

Isn’t that odd? The inhabitants of downtown Reykjavík are probably on average the youngest and the most socially active of any region in the capital area. Young and socially active people tend to want to go to the gym. And those who live downtown tend to want to walk wherever they go. You’d think there were a market for a gym here.

And you wouldn’t be the first to think so. There were two gyms downtown last year, both of them pretty nice. One of them, the really swanky one, went bankrupt, and the other was part of World Class and they closed it last August. They explained that the downtown rent was so high that the place wasn’t worth running. Still the membership fee for the downtown location was higher than the other locations (double, if I recall correctly), and it was fairly well attended.

Is downtown housing really that much pricier? Is it really not possible to run even one gym profitably in central Reykjavík?

Taken aimlessly from a car in New York City last month just after driving by the World Trade Center site. It was serendipitous: I only noticed the airplane later when triaging photos. And no, I do not find this amusing.

I’ve been trying to use Picasa2 for organizing my fledgling photo collection. It is marvellous in concept and very usable in practice, except for a nasty bug.

Here’s the bug: I create and assign labels to a bunch of pictures, then exit Picasa, then open it again, and the new label assignments are gone.

When I close Picasa I can see .PAL files being created in C:\Documents and Settings\Gulli\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2Albums\blahblah. Each .PAL file contains XML describing a label and referencing the photos having that label. Right until they are all deleted when I open Picasa again.

Here’s the workaround: point Picasa to my picture folder with “Scan Once” instead of “Watch for Changes.” Of course I lose the watch-for-changes feature. But my labels stick.

Here’s my guess: apparently when I start Picasa, “Watch for Changes” does not recognize my picture files as being the same ones it indexed previously … so it regards the previously-indexed files as “lost” (and thus throws away the label information associated with them) and indexes them again as if they were new. So labels are lost each time.

I don’t know why it would do that. I am running Windows XP for 64-bit systems, but I got this bug in my normal 32-bit XP installation too. I store my pictures on an internal drive, not a network share.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

So for now I won’t use “Watch for Changes.” Instead, I’ll import manually when I have new or changed pictures. And wait for Google to fix this in the next release. [In which I hope they will also add support for .CR2 files, the raw photo format from newer Canon EOS models. Won't they? Please?]

I listened to something pretty cool tonight: the recording of Kristín’s concert in Salurinn in April.

• Edvard Grieg: Sonata in E minor Op. 7
• Alexander Scriabin: Sonata No. 2 in G sharp minor Op. 19
• Claude Debussy: L’isle joyeuse
• Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson: Der Wohltemperierte Pianist
• Samuel Barber: Sonata Op. 26

And as encores, Liszt’s Concert Étude “Un sospiro”, and a Capriccio by Páll Ísólfsson.

I have a special soft spot for the last movement of the Barber Sonata, a four-part fugue written at the request of Barber’s friend, one Vladimir Horowitz, who was the first to play this Sonata. It is, pianistically speaking, completely and utterly unreasonable.

If you have any interest in 20th-century (and 19th, for the Grieg) classical piano music, you’ll like this performance rather a lot. But you need not take my word for it: Jónas Sen liked it rather a lot too. Jónas is one of Iceland’s very few professional music critics; he is by far a tougher audience than I am, and his commentary is seldom as unreservedly positive as this. And no wonder. It’s a heck of a performance. Enjoy.

Never mind the brief fragment of a weather report at the beginning. That’s just a little something to keep you confused.

Að öðru leyti er það að frétta af skákmeistaranum að hann nýtur góða veðursins í Reykjavík og ræðir við fólk um málefni líðandi stundar.

Thus ends the 538th news story of Bobby Fischer in Icelandic media this year, in Fréttablaðið on June 3rd on page 16. A loose translation:

Other than that, the latest news of the chess master are that he is enjoying the nice weather in Reykjavík and discussing current affairs with people.

The main content of the story was that Fischer is looking for an apartment to buy in Reykjavík, and prefers a quiet neighborhood. Also that he wants to select carefully, and therefore is now looking for a furnished apartment to rent while he looks for the one to buy.

It’s a good thing I follow the news; if I didn’t, I might have missed this completely.

I’m glad I’m not the guy assigned by the paper to “go call everybody who hangs out with Fischer and try to eke out some inkling of news, anything, no matter how small.”

I’m also glad I’m not Fischer. But that’s beside the point.

Fischer’s genius was news. Fischer’s victory over Spassky was news. And yes, Fischer’s release from prison and grant of asylum in Iceland was news. But this? C’mon. Leave the guy alone already.

Til hvers taka fjölmiðlar fram að hinir og þessir misyndismenn séu af erlendum uppruna? Dæmi: manndrápsfrétt fyrir nokkru á mbl.is þar sem stendur „Að sögn lögreglunnar í Kópavogi eru mennirnir af erlendu bergi brotnir en búsettir hér á landi.“

Gleymdist ekki að taka fram húðlit og trúfélag?

„Já, það var svosem auðvitað, ekki spyr ég nú að hvernig þessir innflytjendur vaða uppi.“

Auðvitað er það ekki meðvitað meiningin hjá blaðamanni. En þjónar svona athugasemd í frétt einhverjum tilgangi öðrum en þeim að ala á þjóðrembu og nýbúafordómum? Á hún sér einhverja réttlætingu?

Hvernig ætli þetta gerist? Nefnir lögreglan þjóðaruppruna grunaðra sisvona í óspurðum fréttum? Eða spyr blaðamaður „voru þetta nokkuð Íslendingar?“ Og ef svarið er „já, reyndar,“ ætli það þyki þá ómaksins vert að hafa það með í fréttinni?

Sjálfur er ég annars meinlaus; ólíklegur til ofbeldis og annarra ódæða. Ég er nefnilega af innlendu bergi brotinn.