Wolfram and infomercials
After reading the intro to "A New Kind of Science", I feel the way I do after reading the first part of a "get-rich-quick" ad or watching the intro to a multilevel marketing or real-estate infomercial.
"For years, I struggled, barely able to pay my rent or buy food for my dog. Then one day I stumbled on an amazing secret. That secret has changed my life"
Only, Wolfram says his secret will change not just your life but the way men think. It will not make you rich, just more wise than anyone else, and for only $44.95 plus shipping and handling. I can't wait for the secret to be revealed. I love the anticipation. The only problem is that in the dozens of get-rich-quick schemes I have fallen for over the years, after you found out the secret, you didn't get rich, quick or slowly.
The lesson of those scams, of course, was, "you are a greedy idiot". That was a lesson worth learning, but I hope Wolfram has a better lesson to teach.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Abiogenesis
Lots of activity over on Slashdot on the topic of the amount of oil left in the world. There were something like 600 posts to a story that Iceland is going to move its economy away from oil. Typical Icelandic iconoclasticism. Well, soon I'm sure they'll be sued for tapping too much of the earth's geothermal energy. Why, if they don't stop we'll all run out of steam!! No more steamboats or steam trains or hot steamy showers!! Stop the madness!!
Actually, though, most of the posts referred to the "refilling the oil fields" story in Newsday. I remember reading decades ago - probably in the mid '70s - about something called the Siljan Ring Hypothesis. The Siljan Ring is a granitic formation in central Sweden that is perhaps the oldest rock formation on Earth. Indications of hydrocarbons coming from wells drilled in that area cast doubt on the theory that oil came from biotic sources - dead dinosaurs and plants. The Siljan Ring is so old that it dates back to before there were animals or even plants. So oil didn't come from dinosaurs or even from plankton and algae in the ocean, but from methane left over from when the Earth was a ball of gas. That meant oil was essentially inexhaustible. The best thing about the theory was that it drove the typical environmentalist crazy. He would stop smoking his joint for a minute and get all wild-eyed. You could tell he was thinking, "Oh, no, what if that's true? The right-wing bastards will be able to drive their Cadillacs over the working classes forever! It can't be!!" Well, hey, guess what, here it is thirty years on. We've got plenty of petroleum, more being discovered every day. And the Siljan Ring Hypothesis, unlike the predictions of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, is alive and kicking.
Lots of activity over on Slashdot on the topic of the amount of oil left in the world. There were something like 600 posts to a story that Iceland is going to move its economy away from oil. Typical Icelandic iconoclasticism. Well, soon I'm sure they'll be sued for tapping too much of the earth's geothermal energy. Why, if they don't stop we'll all run out of steam!! No more steamboats or steam trains or hot steamy showers!! Stop the madness!!
Actually, though, most of the posts referred to the "refilling the oil fields" story in Newsday. I remember reading decades ago - probably in the mid '70s - about something called the Siljan Ring Hypothesis. The Siljan Ring is a granitic formation in central Sweden that is perhaps the oldest rock formation on Earth. Indications of hydrocarbons coming from wells drilled in that area cast doubt on the theory that oil came from biotic sources - dead dinosaurs and plants. The Siljan Ring is so old that it dates back to before there were animals or even plants. So oil didn't come from dinosaurs or even from plankton and algae in the ocean, but from methane left over from when the Earth was a ball of gas. That meant oil was essentially inexhaustible. The best thing about the theory was that it drove the typical environmentalist crazy. He would stop smoking his joint for a minute and get all wild-eyed. You could tell he was thinking, "Oh, no, what if that's true? The right-wing bastards will be able to drive their Cadillacs over the working classes forever! It can't be!!" Well, hey, guess what, here it is thirty years on. We've got plenty of petroleum, more being discovered every day. And the Siljan Ring Hypothesis, unlike the predictions of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, is alive and kicking.
Behavior is computation
I don't know what it means either, but I got it after reading the first chapter of Wolfram's book. The Principle of Computational Equivalence looks like the key idea I'm going to have to figure out. Wish me luck. Oh, and by the way, I did finish the NYT crostic. As usual, it fell apart after I spotted one longish repeated word. I'm starting to remember why I don't do crostics any more. Can't say I didn't enjoy it a little, though.
I don't know what it means either, but I got it after reading the first chapter of Wolfram's book. The Principle of Computational Equivalence looks like the key idea I'm going to have to figure out. Wish me luck. Oh, and by the way, I did finish the NYT crostic. As usual, it fell apart after I spotted one longish repeated word. I'm starting to remember why I don't do crostics any more. Can't say I didn't enjoy it a little, though.
Wolfram
I received Stephen Wolfram's new book, "A New Kind of Science" yesterday. Despite being warned by another blogger that it may be "all hype", I was intrigued and hopeful. I will report my impressions. The introduction certainly sets up some large goals, nothing less than to revolutionize hard science, social science, even art and philosophy. An odd feature - Wolfram lays out the number of keystrokes he used in the twenty years since he conceived the idea for the book (billions) and the distance he drove his mouse, which came to about a hundred miles. How did he ever figure that last one out? And how does that make his product better? Some bloggers with bloggorhea (new word?!) probably exercised their metatarsals to a similar extent. Maybe the central question for me is: Does this "New Science" create opportunities for composing a new kind of word puzzle? I'll keep you posted.
I received Stephen Wolfram's new book, "A New Kind of Science" yesterday. Despite being warned by another blogger that it may be "all hype", I was intrigued and hopeful. I will report my impressions. The introduction certainly sets up some large goals, nothing less than to revolutionize hard science, social science, even art and philosophy. An odd feature - Wolfram lays out the number of keystrokes he used in the twenty years since he conceived the idea for the book (billions) and the distance he drove his mouse, which came to about a hundred miles. How did he ever figure that last one out? And how does that make his product better? Some bloggers with bloggorhea (new word?!) probably exercised their metatarsals to a similar extent. Maybe the central question for me is: Does this "New Science" create opportunities for composing a new kind of word puzzle? I'll keep you posted.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Vultus est index animi
So, tell me, why is the above unexceptionable yet curiously cautionary sentiment posted on the message board of a gas station in downtown Tallahassee, Florida, yep, right there at the intersection of Tennessee and Monroe? And on the reverse was "Carpe diem", for which you can at least make the argument that it's familiar. Someone educated is reduced to being a cashier at a gas station, I would guess. Is this a cry for help or a manifesto of identification with the laboring masses? Who can say? Perhaps he now and then even pumps gas, joining a long line of penniless intellectuals. In the Paris of Abelard, poor but industrious students might have lowered themselves to feeding horses, one supposes, muttering Latinisms. It was a surprise, possibly as much of a surprise as seeing that Cox and Rathvon are now composing the crostic in the Sunday Times Magazine. They could have been doing it for years, since I haven't looked at crostics for, probably, fifteen years. But this one was hard! I haven't finished it yet, since it isn't in a NYT Magazine I personally possess. I have to sneak around these days to feed my puzzle jones. sic transit, gloria!
So, tell me, why is the above unexceptionable yet curiously cautionary sentiment posted on the message board of a gas station in downtown Tallahassee, Florida, yep, right there at the intersection of Tennessee and Monroe? And on the reverse was "Carpe diem", for which you can at least make the argument that it's familiar. Someone educated is reduced to being a cashier at a gas station, I would guess. Is this a cry for help or a manifesto of identification with the laboring masses? Who can say? Perhaps he now and then even pumps gas, joining a long line of penniless intellectuals. In the Paris of Abelard, poor but industrious students might have lowered themselves to feeding horses, one supposes, muttering Latinisms. It was a surprise, possibly as much of a surprise as seeing that Cox and Rathvon are now composing the crostic in the Sunday Times Magazine. They could have been doing it for years, since I haven't looked at crostics for, probably, fifteen years. But this one was hard! I haven't finished it yet, since it isn't in a NYT Magazine I personally possess. I have to sneak around these days to feed my puzzle jones. sic transit, gloria!
Saturday, May 25, 2002
Here's a copy of a letter I sent to Pejmanpundit and to Jane Galt on Live from the WTC about the Second Amendment:
ear Pejman,
Great article in FoxNews. I thought you might be interested in my powers-based argument below. Why don't people argue from basic principles any more, or have I just not been looking in the right places?
About the wording of the Second Amendment: The possible
dependency of the second clause "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" on the existence or necessity of a "well-regulated militia" seems irrelevant to what, if any, powers the Amendment is reserving to the Federal government. That's of
course
one of the major stumbling blocks for interpretation. The Bill
of
Rights does not create or even define rights. It, like the rest
of
the Constitution, only defines the legitimate powers of the
Federal
government. The Amendment makes it clear that the right to keep
and
bear arms resides with the people, and that no state or Federal
government has the power to infringe that right. The definition
of what "keep and bear arms" means should depend on the original
Constitution, not the Second Amendment. Otherwise, why would this
amendment have been added?
The Second Amendment grants no powers whatever to the Federal
government, especially and particularly not the power to infringe
the
people's right to keep and bear arms. The Ninth and Tenth
Amendments
nail that down. The only reason for the addition of this
amendment
can have been to clarify that the Federal government did not have
this power. The Founding Fathers must have feared that some other
section of the Constitution might have been interpreted to give
this
power to the Federal government.
It is absurd, therefore, to say that the amendment's restriction
of
the Federal government's power to control individual keeping and
bearing of arms was conditional on the need for a militia. The
Federal government had and has no such power, or at least
certainly not from the Second Amendment. The contention that it
does, and that with the withering away of the need for a militia
the
inherent power springs into existence full-grown, reflects the
mistaken view that the Federal government has every conceivable
power
unless the Bill of rights tells us it doesn't have that power.
It's
just the other way around. In order to give the Federal
government
the power to infringe the people's right to keep and bear arms,
the
Second Amendment would have to be repealed by another amendment
which
specifically gives the Federal government that power. That ain't
gonna happen.
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
PS You might be interested to know that in a speech to the
Constitutional Convention on June 8, 1789, James Madison suggested
the Second Amendment, among others, but in this speech the
"militia"
clause came after the "shall not infringe" clause. Here's the
URL:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/jm4/speeches/amend.htm
It's my personal opinion that the "militia" clause was thrown in
as
one possible justification for not meddling with the right of each
individual to keep arms. That makes it at most an explanation,
not
a condition. RS
ear Pejman,
Great article in FoxNews. I thought you might be interested in my powers-based argument below. Why don't people argue from basic principles any more, or have I just not been looking in the right places?
About the wording of the Second Amendment: The possible
dependency of the second clause "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" on the existence or necessity of a "well-regulated militia" seems irrelevant to what, if any, powers the Amendment is reserving to the Federal government. That's of
course
one of the major stumbling blocks for interpretation. The Bill
of
Rights does not create or even define rights. It, like the rest
of
the Constitution, only defines the legitimate powers of the
Federal
government. The Amendment makes it clear that the right to keep
and
bear arms resides with the people, and that no state or Federal
government has the power to infringe that right. The definition
of what "keep and bear arms" means should depend on the original
Constitution, not the Second Amendment. Otherwise, why would this
amendment have been added?
The Second Amendment grants no powers whatever to the Federal
government, especially and particularly not the power to infringe
the
people's right to keep and bear arms. The Ninth and Tenth
Amendments
nail that down. The only reason for the addition of this
amendment
can have been to clarify that the Federal government did not have
this power. The Founding Fathers must have feared that some other
section of the Constitution might have been interpreted to give
this
power to the Federal government.
It is absurd, therefore, to say that the amendment's restriction
of
the Federal government's power to control individual keeping and
bearing of arms was conditional on the need for a militia. The
Federal government had and has no such power, or at least
certainly not from the Second Amendment. The contention that it
does, and that with the withering away of the need for a militia
the
inherent power springs into existence full-grown, reflects the
mistaken view that the Federal government has every conceivable
power
unless the Bill of rights tells us it doesn't have that power.
It's
just the other way around. In order to give the Federal
government
the power to infringe the people's right to keep and bear arms,
the
Second Amendment would have to be repealed by another amendment
which
specifically gives the Federal government that power. That ain't
gonna happen.
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
PS You might be interested to know that in a speech to the
Constitutional Convention on June 8, 1789, James Madison suggested
the Second Amendment, among others, but in this speech the
"militia"
clause came after the "shall not infringe" clause. Here's the
URL:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/jm4/speeches/amend.htm
It's my personal opinion that the "militia" clause was thrown in
as
one possible justification for not meddling with the right of each
individual to keep arms. That makes it at most an explanation,
not
a condition. RS
It is the new millennium and I can't wait for the next big thing
How do I know it's a new era? At Wal-mart this morning I bought "Cheese Spam"! It's my two favorite things in one can! Not only that, but as all we spamophiles know, the opening of the can involves now only the pulling of a ring. That's too bad. It was fun to pry the little tool off the bottom and twirl the metal strip at the top. You could make bets with your friends on whether you'ld really need a transfusion or not. But then they'd just say the doctors were trying to get rich. You should have known better than to try and be friends with collectivists. But capitalism marches on, today cheese spam, tomorrow, what, macadamia beer?
How do I know it's a new era? At Wal-mart this morning I bought "Cheese Spam"! It's my two favorite things in one can! Not only that, but as all we spamophiles know, the opening of the can involves now only the pulling of a ring. That's too bad. It was fun to pry the little tool off the bottom and twirl the metal strip at the top. You could make bets with your friends on whether you'ld really need a transfusion or not. But then they'd just say the doctors were trying to get rich. You should have known better than to try and be friends with collectivists. But capitalism marches on, today cheese spam, tomorrow, what, macadamia beer?
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Arab insecurity
Just finished "Paper Money" by Adam Smith, written in 1981, just after the oil crises of the Seventies had made some of the Arabs filthy rich. Smith (or Goodman or whatever his REAL name is) assumes in 1981 that by 2000 the Arabs will pretty much own the whole world. It struck me that the Arabs probably thought they would, too. That feeling must have produced some heavy-duty letdown when the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union broke up and prosperity, low interest rates and massive new oil discoveries broke the Arab near-monopoly. The Arabs in 1981 were really in the position that the DeBeers diamond monopoly may be in right now, if these stories ( I wish I had saved the link to them) about huge diamond discoveries in Canada are true. I suppose it would have made me go nuts with frustration if I were a twenty-something Saudi princeling named Bin Laden and I saw the power position my country had obtained go by the boards slowly but surely and the hated Americans gradually gather back into their hand all the good cards. Why, it might make me resort to fundamentalist Islam to compensate for my lost dream of bossing around the entire industrialized world. I might blame the Saudi hierarchy, as well as all the other not-sufficiently-fundamentalist regimes in the area. Now if I am alive at all, I'm hiding in a cold dirty cave somewhere in the mountains of southern Afghanistan or northern Pakistan, hunted like the dog I have turned into. Also, after thumbing my nose at the fool Clinton for eight years, bombing and murdering at will, this junior Bush has to come along and have the gall to declare all-out war not only on me but on my ideas and my lust for glory. Why, it's enough to make me fly a plane into a building!
Just finished "Paper Money" by Adam Smith, written in 1981, just after the oil crises of the Seventies had made some of the Arabs filthy rich. Smith (or Goodman or whatever his REAL name is) assumes in 1981 that by 2000 the Arabs will pretty much own the whole world. It struck me that the Arabs probably thought they would, too. That feeling must have produced some heavy-duty letdown when the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union broke up and prosperity, low interest rates and massive new oil discoveries broke the Arab near-monopoly. The Arabs in 1981 were really in the position that the DeBeers diamond monopoly may be in right now, if these stories ( I wish I had saved the link to them) about huge diamond discoveries in Canada are true. I suppose it would have made me go nuts with frustration if I were a twenty-something Saudi princeling named Bin Laden and I saw the power position my country had obtained go by the boards slowly but surely and the hated Americans gradually gather back into their hand all the good cards. Why, it might make me resort to fundamentalist Islam to compensate for my lost dream of bossing around the entire industrialized world. I might blame the Saudi hierarchy, as well as all the other not-sufficiently-fundamentalist regimes in the area. Now if I am alive at all, I'm hiding in a cold dirty cave somewhere in the mountains of southern Afghanistan or northern Pakistan, hunted like the dog I have turned into. Also, after thumbing my nose at the fool Clinton for eight years, bombing and murdering at will, this junior Bush has to come along and have the gall to declare all-out war not only on me but on my ideas and my lust for glory. Why, it's enough to make me fly a plane into a building!
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Wolfram and Kamen
What is it about these guys, Stephen Wolfram and Dean Kamen, that enables them to get so much publicity, for very little? I am tempted to throw in Stephen Hawking, Bobby Fischer and Nietzsche, but no. I just ordered Wolfram's new book about a "New Science" - fifty dollars! Dean Kamen is selling his scooters that don't go any faster than a bicycle for $8,000. What is it? The press must be desperate for heroes. The word "genius" scatters itself liberally when any of these boys appear.
I should say, too, that I am extremely unlikely to buy a Segway, but since I've already plumped for Wolfram's book, I hope it has more substance to it. I've always been intrigued by cellular automata, fractals and all that. Maybe you could put the program that produced the universe on a 3.5" floppy. Making it produce anything would be the hard part, since everything is already deeply involved in becoming something else. As den Beste may have mentioned, at least one would hope that the program was well written. But that brings up another thought. What if it isn't all that good and can be easily improved? Would we be duty-bound to improve it and start the better version off with a little seed matter and step back and see what happens? This could be better than cloning.
What is it about these guys, Stephen Wolfram and Dean Kamen, that enables them to get so much publicity, for very little? I am tempted to throw in Stephen Hawking, Bobby Fischer and Nietzsche, but no. I just ordered Wolfram's new book about a "New Science" - fifty dollars! Dean Kamen is selling his scooters that don't go any faster than a bicycle for $8,000. What is it? The press must be desperate for heroes. The word "genius" scatters itself liberally when any of these boys appear.
I should say, too, that I am extremely unlikely to buy a Segway, but since I've already plumped for Wolfram's book, I hope it has more substance to it. I've always been intrigued by cellular automata, fractals and all that. Maybe you could put the program that produced the universe on a 3.5" floppy. Making it produce anything would be the hard part, since everything is already deeply involved in becoming something else. As den Beste may have mentioned, at least one would hope that the program was well written. But that brings up another thought. What if it isn't all that good and can be easily improved? Would we be duty-bound to improve it and start the better version off with a little seed matter and step back and see what happens? This could be better than cloning.
[5/19/2002 7:13:22 AM | Robert Speirs]
Not us
Just finished listening to Fox News Sunday. Tony Snow got the whole war thing together in ten words: "We have met the enemy, and he is NOT us."! Take that, Pogo! What a great summary of the enlightenment that has - finally - come over this country after decades of self-loathing and guilt tripping. Makes me confident and happy. It also makes a fitting memorial to the thousands who died on Sept. 11.
OK, OK, I know, this blog is supposed to be about puzzles. I did finish the quasi-cryptic by Lewis in the Nation, dated May 20, number 2846. The Nation is a weekly, I guess. I wouldn't subscribe to it on a bet. But the weekly pressure does perhaps explain the sketchy nature of the cryptic puzzle. Lewis doesn't bother with any fancy "distort the solution before you enter it into the diagram" business. All the entries are the same as the clue solutions. Some other differences appear from the usual Cox/Rathvon and Maltby puzzles. Lewis is addicted to multi-word answers, therefore to very long answers, and to spilling entries over from one numbered slot to the next, sometimes to three or more. Every other letter is unchecked. That makes it difficult to guess words. The occasional obscure clue - this puzzle had one extreme obscurity - could remain unfilled-in even when all the cross-checked letters have been entered. Luckily, I knew enough about Ethiopia to figure out this one. Next time, who knows?
I enjoyed this one more than I expected to, but don't seem to be impelled to rush out and acquire each puzzle as it comes out, as I do for the other cryptics. Nevertheless, Lewis does offer a change of pace from the monthlies. Most entertaining clue? 6 down, but then I'm a sucker for - well - conundrums!
[edit]
[5/17/2002 2:59:19 PM | Robert Speirs]
Another good one
Yesterday, I finished the June 2002 Atlantic puzzle, "Layers" by Cox and Rathvon. It was one of the cleverest yet. The words are all entered conventionally into the diagram. The diagram, however, has two separate parts, an outside layer and a core, with one square in the middle. The clues are arranged so that some of the answers from the outside layer, when arranged according to the numbering scheme given, provide the clues for the core layer. Not only that, but the diagram entries from the core layer are entered in numbered squares. Then you enter each letter in a crostic-like row to give you one final clue, which tells you how to complete the final center box. So it is indeed "layered". Quite an achievement. The clues were challenging, although there was a good proportion of three and four-letter entries, which tend to be easier. This I find excusable, given the intricacy of the overall scheme. The cross-clues in the diagram were quite helpful, with the desirable balance pleasingly maintained.
As I went through this puzzle, I felt a keen sense of anticipation, thinking, "I wonder if they're really going to be able to carry it through?" They did not disappoint. This is a definite nine out of ten. That brings up an interesting point. How should puzzles be rated, for difficulty, cleverness, entertainment value? What should the standards be? I'll be pontificating on this in future posts and solicit any comments anyone may have.
Most entertaining clue: 12 Down. Yes, I know it's easy, but I found it fun anyway.
[edit]
[5/15/2002 7:02:58 PM | Robert Speirs]
Not us
Just finished listening to Fox News Sunday. Tony Snow got the whole war thing together in ten words: "We have met the enemy, and he is NOT us."! Take that, Pogo! What a great summary of the enlightenment that has - finally - come over this country after decades of self-loathing and guilt tripping. Makes me confident and happy. It also makes a fitting memorial to the thousands who died on Sept. 11.
OK, OK, I know, this blog is supposed to be about puzzles. I did finish the quasi-cryptic by Lewis in the Nation, dated May 20, number 2846. The Nation is a weekly, I guess. I wouldn't subscribe to it on a bet. But the weekly pressure does perhaps explain the sketchy nature of the cryptic puzzle. Lewis doesn't bother with any fancy "distort the solution before you enter it into the diagram" business. All the entries are the same as the clue solutions. Some other differences appear from the usual Cox/Rathvon and Maltby puzzles. Lewis is addicted to multi-word answers, therefore to very long answers, and to spilling entries over from one numbered slot to the next, sometimes to three or more. Every other letter is unchecked. That makes it difficult to guess words. The occasional obscure clue - this puzzle had one extreme obscurity - could remain unfilled-in even when all the cross-checked letters have been entered. Luckily, I knew enough about Ethiopia to figure out this one. Next time, who knows?
I enjoyed this one more than I expected to, but don't seem to be impelled to rush out and acquire each puzzle as it comes out, as I do for the other cryptics. Nevertheless, Lewis does offer a change of pace from the monthlies. Most entertaining clue? 6 down, but then I'm a sucker for - well - conundrums!
[edit]
[5/17/2002 2:59:19 PM | Robert Speirs]
Another good one
Yesterday, I finished the June 2002 Atlantic puzzle, "Layers" by Cox and Rathvon. It was one of the cleverest yet. The words are all entered conventionally into the diagram. The diagram, however, has two separate parts, an outside layer and a core, with one square in the middle. The clues are arranged so that some of the answers from the outside layer, when arranged according to the numbering scheme given, provide the clues for the core layer. Not only that, but the diagram entries from the core layer are entered in numbered squares. Then you enter each letter in a crostic-like row to give you one final clue, which tells you how to complete the final center box. So it is indeed "layered". Quite an achievement. The clues were challenging, although there was a good proportion of three and four-letter entries, which tend to be easier. This I find excusable, given the intricacy of the overall scheme. The cross-clues in the diagram were quite helpful, with the desirable balance pleasingly maintained.
As I went through this puzzle, I felt a keen sense of anticipation, thinking, "I wonder if they're really going to be able to carry it through?" They did not disappoint. This is a definite nine out of ten. That brings up an interesting point. How should puzzles be rated, for difficulty, cleverness, entertainment value? What should the standards be? I'll be pontificating on this in future posts and solicit any comments anyone may have.
Most entertaining clue: 12 Down. Yes, I know it's easy, but I found it fun anyway.
[edit]
[5/15/2002 7:02:58 PM | Robert Speirs]
Sunday, May 19, 2002
Not us
Just finished listening to Fox News Sunday. Tony Snow got the whole war thing together in ten words: "We have met the enemy, and he is NOT us."! Take that, Pogo! What a great summary of the enlightenment that has - finally - come over this country after decades of self-loathing and guilt tripping. Makes me confident and happy. It also makes a fitting memorial to the thousands who died on Sept. 11.
OK, OK, I know, this blog is supposed to be about puzzles. I did finish the quasi-cryptic by Lewis in the Nation, dated May 20, number 2846. The Nation is a weekly, I guess. I wouldn't subscribe to it on a bet. But the weekly pressure does perhaps explain the sketchy nature of the cryptic puzzle. Lewis doesn't bother with any fancy "distort the solution before you enter it into the diagram" business. All the entries are the same as the clue solutions. Some other differences appear from the usual Cox/Rathvon and Maltby puzzles. Lewis is addicted to multi-word answers, therefore to very long answers, and to spilling entries over from one numbered slot to the next, sometimes to three or more. Every other letter is unchecked. That makes it difficult to guess words. The occasional obscure clue - this puzzle had one extreme obscurity - could remain unfilled-in even when all the cross-checked letters have been entered. Luckily, I knew enough about Ethiopia to figure out this one. Next time, who knows?
I enjoyed this one more than I expected to, but don't seem to be impelled to rush out and acquire each puzzle as it comes out, as I do for the other cryptics. Nevertheless, Lewis does offer a change of pace from the monthlies. Most entertaining clue? 6 down, but then I'm a sucker for - well - conundrums!
Just finished listening to Fox News Sunday. Tony Snow got the whole war thing together in ten words: "We have met the enemy, and he is NOT us."! Take that, Pogo! What a great summary of the enlightenment that has - finally - come over this country after decades of self-loathing and guilt tripping. Makes me confident and happy. It also makes a fitting memorial to the thousands who died on Sept. 11.
OK, OK, I know, this blog is supposed to be about puzzles. I did finish the quasi-cryptic by Lewis in the Nation, dated May 20, number 2846. The Nation is a weekly, I guess. I wouldn't subscribe to it on a bet. But the weekly pressure does perhaps explain the sketchy nature of the cryptic puzzle. Lewis doesn't bother with any fancy "distort the solution before you enter it into the diagram" business. All the entries are the same as the clue solutions. Some other differences appear from the usual Cox/Rathvon and Maltby puzzles. Lewis is addicted to multi-word answers, therefore to very long answers, and to spilling entries over from one numbered slot to the next, sometimes to three or more. Every other letter is unchecked. That makes it difficult to guess words. The occasional obscure clue - this puzzle had one extreme obscurity - could remain unfilled-in even when all the cross-checked letters have been entered. Luckily, I knew enough about Ethiopia to figure out this one. Next time, who knows?
I enjoyed this one more than I expected to, but don't seem to be impelled to rush out and acquire each puzzle as it comes out, as I do for the other cryptics. Nevertheless, Lewis does offer a change of pace from the monthlies. Most entertaining clue? 6 down, but then I'm a sucker for - well - conundrums!
Friday, May 17, 2002
Another good one
Yesterday, I finished the June 2002 Atlantic puzzle, "Layers" by Cox and Rathvon. It was one of the cleverest yet. The words are all entered conventionally into the diagram. The diagram, however, has two separate parts, an outside layer and a core, with one square in the middle. The clues are arranged so that some of the answers from the outside layer, when arranged according to the numbering scheme given, provide the clues for the core layer. Not only that, but the diagram entries from the core layer are entered in numbered squares. Then you enter each letter in a crostic-like row to give you one final clue, which tells you how to complete the final center box. So it is indeed "layered". Quite an achievement. The clues were challenging, although there was a good proportion of three and four-letter entries, which tend to be easier. This I find excusable, given the intricacy of the overall scheme. The cross-clues in the diagram were quite helpful, with the desirable balance pleasingly maintained.
As I went through this puzzle, I felt a keen sense of anticipation, thinking, "I wonder if they're really going to be able to carry it through?" They did not disappoint. This is a definite nine out of ten. That brings up an interesting point. How should puzzles be rated, for difficulty, cleverness, entertainment value? What should the standards be? I'll be pontificating on this in future posts and solicit any comments anyone may have.
Most entertaining clue: 12 Down. Yes, I know it's easy, but I found it fun anyway.
Yesterday, I finished the June 2002 Atlantic puzzle, "Layers" by Cox and Rathvon. It was one of the cleverest yet. The words are all entered conventionally into the diagram. The diagram, however, has two separate parts, an outside layer and a core, with one square in the middle. The clues are arranged so that some of the answers from the outside layer, when arranged according to the numbering scheme given, provide the clues for the core layer. Not only that, but the diagram entries from the core layer are entered in numbered squares. Then you enter each letter in a crostic-like row to give you one final clue, which tells you how to complete the final center box. So it is indeed "layered". Quite an achievement. The clues were challenging, although there was a good proportion of three and four-letter entries, which tend to be easier. This I find excusable, given the intricacy of the overall scheme. The cross-clues in the diagram were quite helpful, with the desirable balance pleasingly maintained.
As I went through this puzzle, I felt a keen sense of anticipation, thinking, "I wonder if they're really going to be able to carry it through?" They did not disappoint. This is a definite nine out of ten. That brings up an interesting point. How should puzzles be rated, for difficulty, cleverness, entertainment value? What should the standards be? I'll be pontificating on this in future posts and solicit any comments anyone may have.
Most entertaining clue: 12 Down. Yes, I know it's easy, but I found it fun anyway.
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Maltby comes through
I've just finished Richard E. Maltby, Jr.'s effort, called "Heads or Tails, Revisited" from the June 2002 Harper's. It was much more enjoyable than I had feared. One entered the Across answers in standard fashion. Each Down column, however, had one 8-letter word and one 6-letter, plus a few threes thrown in as filler. All the fun was in the eights and sixes. The sixes were clued normally, but entering the solution in the diagram required you to find a group of three consecutive letters in the solution that matched a group of three in an eight letter word - any eight-letter Down word, not just the one in the same column. Each of the eight-letter clues gave you a word of the form "X is X", with each X representing a group of three letters. An example, not from the puzzle, would be "theistic". If a six letter word contained either of the same three letter groups (the or tic), for instance "rather", you would replace "the" with "tic" and enter the result - raticr - in the diagram. It sounds clumsy, but in practice works very well. At first glance it looks inelegant that so many of the eight-letter words project beyond the main body of the puzzle, leaving five letters in each apparently unchecked. This is not really so, however, as the matching of groups of three letters that may be unchecked directly to other groups of three in the six-letter words provides a perfectly adequate cross-checking mechanism. Good on yer, Maltby!
Star clue: 46 across, one of those that isn't too hard, but makes you feel clever when you get it. And that's the whole idea, isn't it, preening one's plumage?
I've just finished Richard E. Maltby, Jr.'s effort, called "Heads or Tails, Revisited" from the June 2002 Harper's. It was much more enjoyable than I had feared. One entered the Across answers in standard fashion. Each Down column, however, had one 8-letter word and one 6-letter, plus a few threes thrown in as filler. All the fun was in the eights and sixes. The sixes were clued normally, but entering the solution in the diagram required you to find a group of three consecutive letters in the solution that matched a group of three in an eight letter word - any eight-letter Down word, not just the one in the same column. Each of the eight-letter clues gave you a word of the form "X is X", with each X representing a group of three letters. An example, not from the puzzle, would be "theistic". If a six letter word contained either of the same three letter groups (the or tic), for instance "rather", you would replace "the" with "tic" and enter the result - raticr - in the diagram. It sounds clumsy, but in practice works very well. At first glance it looks inelegant that so many of the eight-letter words project beyond the main body of the puzzle, leaving five letters in each apparently unchecked. This is not really so, however, as the matching of groups of three letters that may be unchecked directly to other groups of three in the six-letter words provides a perfectly adequate cross-checking mechanism. Good on yer, Maltby!
Star clue: 46 across, one of those that isn't too hard, but makes you feel clever when you get it. And that's the whole idea, isn't it, preening one's plumage?
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
5/14/2002 6:42:16 AM | Robert Speirs]
Here's an email I sent to Unilateral.blogspot.com
Dear Mr. Seamans,
You say in your "Unilateral Commission" blog:
There are few indications of where the next counter-cultural movement will pop up, and that's a little frightening. So what's next? Any ideas?
Maybe I'm blinded by my objectivist ideology, but I think there's no "action" on the extreme flanks because we're going through a redefinition of the political
spectrum. Finally! This left and right bit that's been around since the French Revolution (?) is becoming more obviously inadequate every day. Putting Pim
Fortuyn and Jean Marie LePen on the same side of anything is clearly nutso.
My favorite spectrum is from individualist to collectivist, mostly because it puts the bad guys all on the same side! The Stalinists and Al Qaeda deserve each
other. The "Green" totalitarians should be classed with the Neo-Nazis. Let them fight it out. And the objectivists (or Objectivists) need to recognize that most
libertarians are pretty close to them, however "leftist" they may sound sometimes.
The effect of this realignment in thinking, I hope, will be to make it clear that a party that cannot be classed as Right or Left is not necessarily of the Center. The
only effect of cramping all political opinions into that old spectrum is to make big government seem inevitable. A lot of people don't think so.
So when a real party starts up which advocates cutting social - and corporate! - and farm! - welfare to the bone, which backs a strong, but efficient, military and
which opposes the drug war and tariffs with equal ferocity, you should see a real ferment among the hacks. It may be starting now!
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
Here's an email I sent to Unilateral.blogspot.com
Dear Mr. Seamans,
You say in your "Unilateral Commission" blog:
There are few indications of where the next counter-cultural movement will pop up, and that's a little frightening. So what's next? Any ideas?
Maybe I'm blinded by my objectivist ideology, but I think there's no "action" on the extreme flanks because we're going through a redefinition of the political
spectrum. Finally! This left and right bit that's been around since the French Revolution (?) is becoming more obviously inadequate every day. Putting Pim
Fortuyn and Jean Marie LePen on the same side of anything is clearly nutso.
My favorite spectrum is from individualist to collectivist, mostly because it puts the bad guys all on the same side! The Stalinists and Al Qaeda deserve each
other. The "Green" totalitarians should be classed with the Neo-Nazis. Let them fight it out. And the objectivists (or Objectivists) need to recognize that most
libertarians are pretty close to them, however "leftist" they may sound sometimes.
The effect of this realignment in thinking, I hope, will be to make it clear that a party that cannot be classed as Right or Left is not necessarily of the Center. The
only effect of cramping all political opinions into that old spectrum is to make big government seem inevitable. A lot of people don't think so.
So when a real party starts up which advocates cutting social - and corporate! - and farm! - welfare to the bone, which backs a strong, but efficient, military and
which opposes the drug war and tariffs with equal ferocity, you should see a real ferment among the hacks. It may be starting now!
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
Here's an email I sent to Unilateral.blogspot.com
Dear Mr. Seamans,
You say in your "Unilateral Commission" blog:
There are few indications of where the next counter-cultural movement will pop up, and that's a little frightening. So what's next? Any ideas?
Maybe I'm blinded by my objectivist ideology, but I think there's no "action" on the extreme flanks because we're going through a redefinition of the political spectrum. Finally! This left and right bit that's been around since the French Revolution (?) is becoming more obviously inadequate every day. Putting Pim Fortuyn and Jean Marie LePen on the same side of anything is clearly nutso.
My favorite spectrum is from individualist to collectivist, mostly because it puts the bad guys all on the same side! The Stalinists and Al Qaeda deserve each other. The "Green" totalitarians should be classed with the Neo-Nazis. Let them fight it out. And the objectivists (or Objectivists) need to recognize that most libertarians are pretty close to them, however "leftist" they may sound sometimes.
The effect of this realignment in thinking, I hope, will be to make it clear that a party that cannot be classed as Right or Left is not necessarily of the Center. The only effect of cramping all political opinions into that old spectrum is to make big government seem inevitable. A lot of people don't think so.
So when a real party starts up which advocates cutting social - and corporate! - and farm! - welfare to the bone, which backs a strong, but efficient, military and which opposes the drug war and tariffs with equal ferocity, you should see a real ferment among the hacks. It may be starting now!
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
Dear Mr. Seamans,
You say in your "Unilateral Commission" blog:
There are few indications of where the next counter-cultural movement will pop up, and that's a little frightening. So what's next? Any ideas?
Maybe I'm blinded by my objectivist ideology, but I think there's no "action" on the extreme flanks because we're going through a redefinition of the political spectrum. Finally! This left and right bit that's been around since the French Revolution (?) is becoming more obviously inadequate every day. Putting Pim Fortuyn and Jean Marie LePen on the same side of anything is clearly nutso.
My favorite spectrum is from individualist to collectivist, mostly because it puts the bad guys all on the same side! The Stalinists and Al Qaeda deserve each other. The "Green" totalitarians should be classed with the Neo-Nazis. Let them fight it out. And the objectivists (or Objectivists) need to recognize that most libertarians are pretty close to them, however "leftist" they may sound sometimes.
The effect of this realignment in thinking, I hope, will be to make it clear that a party that cannot be classed as Right or Left is not necessarily of the Center. The only effect of cramping all political opinions into that old spectrum is to make big government seem inevitable. A lot of people don't think so.
So when a real party starts up which advocates cutting social - and corporate! - and farm! - welfare to the bone, which backs a strong, but efficient, military and which opposes the drug war and tariffs with equal ferocity, you should see a real ferment among the hacks. It may be starting now!
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
Monday, May 13, 2002
June 2002 puzzles
Just got the June puzzles from the Atlantic and Harper's. Once again, Richard Maltby's effort from Harper's appears dishearteningly difficult, but it is certainly possible it will break down. I am having difficulty even understanding how it works yet, which doesn't give me a lot of hope about my chances of getting it done in a reasonable time. My initial reaction to Cox and Rathvon's latest is about the same, unfortunately. I'll sit down after work tonight with some Bass Ale - on special at Publix - and see if I get a brain wave that allows me to surf right in to the beach of comprehensibility. Since I've had a bit too much gout medicine today, my insights tonight may not be any more comprehensible than that metaphor, or, more likely, I'll fall asleep at seven o'clock. But at least I will be challenginig my word skills. The actual articles in the magazines from which the puzzles come seem to be getting more and more obnoxious. Or am I just getting more and more curmudgeonly anti-collectivist? Yep, that must be it. And a darn good thing, too.
Just got the June puzzles from the Atlantic and Harper's. Once again, Richard Maltby's effort from Harper's appears dishearteningly difficult, but it is certainly possible it will break down. I am having difficulty even understanding how it works yet, which doesn't give me a lot of hope about my chances of getting it done in a reasonable time. My initial reaction to Cox and Rathvon's latest is about the same, unfortunately. I'll sit down after work tonight with some Bass Ale - on special at Publix - and see if I get a brain wave that allows me to surf right in to the beach of comprehensibility. Since I've had a bit too much gout medicine today, my insights tonight may not be any more comprehensible than that metaphor, or, more likely, I'll fall asleep at seven o'clock. But at least I will be challenginig my word skills. The actual articles in the magazines from which the puzzles come seem to be getting more and more obnoxious. Or am I just getting more and more curmudgeonly anti-collectivist? Yep, that must be it. And a darn good thing, too.
Sunday, May 12, 2002
An email I sent to the Jane Galt blogger (live from the WTC) follows. She's at janegalt.blogspot.com. It sums up my analysis of the Second Amendment pretty well. Comments are welcome.
Dear Jane Galt,
About the wording of the Second Amendment: The possible dependency of the second clause "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed" on the existence or necessity of a "well-regulated militia" seems irrelevant to what, if any, powers the Amendment is reserving to
the Federal government. That's of course one of the major stumbling blocks for interpretation. The Bill of Rights does not create or even define
rights. It, like the rest of the Constitution, only defines the legitimate powers of the Federal government. The Amendment makes it clear that the
right to keep and bear arms resides with the people, and that no state or Federal government has the power to infringe that right.
The Second Amendment grants no powers whatever to the Federal government, especially and particularly not the power to infringe the people's
right to keep and bear arms. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments nail that down. The only reason for the addition of this amendment can have been to
clarify that the Federal government did not have this power. The Founding Fathers must have feared that some other section of the Constitution
might have been interpreted to give this power to the Federal government.
It is absurd, therefore, to say that the amendment's restriction of the Federal government's power to control individual keeping and bearing of arms
was conditional on the need for a militia. The Federal government had and has no such power. The contention that it does, and that with the
withering away of the need for a militia the inherent power springs into existence full-grown, reflects the mistaken view that the Federal
government has every conceivable power unless the Bill of rights tells us it doesn't have that power. It's just the other way around. In order to give
the Federal government the power to infringe the people's right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment would have to be repealed by
another amendment which specifically gives the Federal government that power. That ain't gonna happen.
Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida
PS You might be interested to know that in a speech to the Constitutional Convention on June 8, 1789, James Madison suggested the Second
Amendment, among others, but in this speech the "militia" clause came after the "shall not infringe" clause. Here's the URL:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/jm4/speeches/amend.htm
It's my personal opinion that the "militia" clause was thrown in as one possible justification for not meddling with the right of each individual to
keep arms. That makes it at most an explanation, not a condition. RS
Joy
Back to cryptic puzzles. I finished "Compact Disc" from the May 2002 Atlantic Monthly yesterday. What a joy! The clues made sense, yet weren't too easy. The scheme for entering solutions was comprehensible, yet tricky enough to be challenging. The diagram was round, with one set of radial clues and one set of concentric clues. Of course, it wasn't like, just solve the clue and enter the word in the diagram. The radial clues were totally scrambled. The concentric clues were grouped in five rings, with three or four words in each ring. Luckily, the solutions in each ring were entered consecutively and ordered from a set point. Cox and Rathvon played one more trick, though. The disc consisted of twenty sectors. The word lengths in each concentric group, though, added up to twenty-one letters. So one space of each ring had to contain two consecutive letters. Each radial solution also had to contain one square with two letters in it. Interestingly, the two-letter boxes were also consecutive for the radial solutions, even though they were otherwise scrambled. When put together in order, the two-letter boxes from each ring spelled out a cleverly appropriate musical instrument.
This puzzle revealed the balance between tough clues and tricky ways of entering solutions in the diagram that marks the best puzzles. Of course, I did get this one, so I would say that! Perhaps the fact that I could figure out all the letters of at least some of the solutions from cross-checking before I had even solved the clues convinced me that the diagram was an integral part of the puzzle-solving process. That's what I like, maybe because I did a lot of crostics (acrostics, whatever) on my progress to cryptics.
Full marks to Cox and Rathvon for both constructing an intriguing and challenging puzzle and for making the instructions clear and "fair" for those of us who often struggle putting words in diagrams. One of the solutions was indeed - as advertised - uncommon. Once I fully figured it out, though, I had to admit the information needed was contained in the clue. Most entertaining clue? B1(concentric).
Back to cryptic puzzles. I finished "Compact Disc" from the May 2002 Atlantic Monthly yesterday. What a joy! The clues made sense, yet weren't too easy. The scheme for entering solutions was comprehensible, yet tricky enough to be challenging. The diagram was round, with one set of radial clues and one set of concentric clues. Of course, it wasn't like, just solve the clue and enter the word in the diagram. The radial clues were totally scrambled. The concentric clues were grouped in five rings, with three or four words in each ring. Luckily, the solutions in each ring were entered consecutively and ordered from a set point. Cox and Rathvon played one more trick, though. The disc consisted of twenty sectors. The word lengths in each concentric group, though, added up to twenty-one letters. So one space of each ring had to contain two consecutive letters. Each radial solution also had to contain one square with two letters in it. Interestingly, the two-letter boxes were also consecutive for the radial solutions, even though they were otherwise scrambled. When put together in order, the two-letter boxes from each ring spelled out a cleverly appropriate musical instrument.
This puzzle revealed the balance between tough clues and tricky ways of entering solutions in the diagram that marks the best puzzles. Of course, I did get this one, so I would say that! Perhaps the fact that I could figure out all the letters of at least some of the solutions from cross-checking before I had even solved the clues convinced me that the diagram was an integral part of the puzzle-solving process. That's what I like, maybe because I did a lot of crostics (acrostics, whatever) on my progress to cryptics.
Full marks to Cox and Rathvon for both constructing an intriguing and challenging puzzle and for making the instructions clear and "fair" for those of us who often struggle putting words in diagrams. One of the solutions was indeed - as advertised - uncommon. Once I fully figured it out, though, I had to admit the information needed was contained in the clue. Most entertaining clue? B1(concentric).
Monday, May 06, 2002
Pim Fortuyn
Few bloggers seem to be speculating about the assassination of Pim Fortuyn in Holland. He's (was) gay and "right-wing" and increasingly popular. Why is his violent death important? Because it adds one more reason, before the French parliamentary elections, to see Europe as increasingly violent and crime-ridden. The same emotions now attach to walking the streets of Haarlem that used to go with taking a stroll in pre-Giuliani Harlem. It will take a long time for the political culture to change in Europe, but some sort of corner has been turned. People won't put up with that kind of insecurity along with gun control and the punishment of achievement and guilt-tripping about poverty and racism. It could get ugly. I wonder what Andrew Sullivan will have to say. He saw Fortuyn as a leader of some sort in showing that gays didn't always have to be collectivists, and that they could be successful on any part of the political spectrum. Looks like Pim misjudged the ferocity of the resistance. Or maybe he just didn't care. He was my age.
Few bloggers seem to be speculating about the assassination of Pim Fortuyn in Holland. He's (was) gay and "right-wing" and increasingly popular. Why is his violent death important? Because it adds one more reason, before the French parliamentary elections, to see Europe as increasingly violent and crime-ridden. The same emotions now attach to walking the streets of Haarlem that used to go with taking a stroll in pre-Giuliani Harlem. It will take a long time for the political culture to change in Europe, but some sort of corner has been turned. People won't put up with that kind of insecurity along with gun control and the punishment of achievement and guilt-tripping about poverty and racism. It could get ugly. I wonder what Andrew Sullivan will have to say. He saw Fortuyn as a leader of some sort in showing that gays didn't always have to be collectivists, and that they could be successful on any part of the political spectrum. Looks like Pim misjudged the ferocity of the resistance. Or maybe he just didn't care. He was my age.
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