Robots vs. pirates.

-it’s not as stupid, or unlikely, as it sounds. Piracy has exploded in the waters near Somalia, where this past week United States warships have fired on two pirate skiffs, and are currently in pursuit of a hijacked Japanese-owned vessel. At least four other ships in the region remain under pirate control, and the problem appears to be going global: The International Maritime Bureau is tracking a 14-percent increase in worldwide pirate attacks this year.

...

For years now, law enforcement agencies across the high seas have proposed robotic boats, or unmanned surface vessels (USVs), as a way to help deal with 21st-Century techno Black Beards. The Navy has tested at least two small, armed USV demonstrators designed to patrol harbors and defend vessels. And both the Navy and the Coast Guard have expressed interest in the Protector, a 30-ft.-long USV built by BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Israeli defense firm RAFAEL.

Anurans! The closest I've come to studying these critters was the raniform (i.e. batrachomorphic) mecha I designed for GearHead. I really must find some way to convey skin toxicity into the game.

And another worthwhile read from Arts and Letters.

It is unfashionable to speak of national characteristics. Queasy types think it is akin to racism. But the truth is that nations are definably different. Most importantly, they differ in what they do best. No nation has produced better essayists than France, none has produced better composers that the Germans, better painters than the Italians, nor better novelists than the Russians. America invented jazz and still masters the form and, though some may dissent, her record in film is unsurpassed. And the English? The English do poetry.

Poetry has no serious contenders as the English national art. Ah, it is often said, but Shakespeare wrote plays. And so he did. But consider these plays. Hamlet is a weird drama made magnificent by a torrent of peerless poetry, and I have always thought of it as a long poem whose cosmic structure seems to pivot on the words “We defy augury”. Shakespeare is the greatest playwright on earth, but he is heaven’s poet. And the list of his poet-compatriots – Chaucer, Browning, Dryden, Wordsworth, Clare, Donne, Auden, Tennyson, Keats, Pope, Herbert, etc. etc. – closes the case. We are a nation defined by and consisting of poets. To deny this is to deny England.

I will just add that C. S. Lewis was quite right to contrast poetry with the other English profession: shopkeeping.

Also, Mr. Appleyard does not, to my taste, go back far enough. English poetry may be said, with more truth at least to my untrained and tone-deaf ears, to end with Chaucer rather than begin there. Perhaps he feels that poetry which is no longer more-or-less immediately recognizable is no longer English poetry, an opinion to which I am sympathetic. But I will take the Pearl over Auden's corpus any day.

Also, speaking as someone who has at certain times of his life put a great deal of effort into the writing of sonnets, I can only asperse, scorn, and detest that Italianate invention. Those "jangling stops", which Milton later makes a sign of Babel's curse, are hard.

Come to that, how can one go through an article on English poetry and not mention Milton? For all that Graves didn't like him, he remains one of the greatest English poets ever. We find him a bit distasteful these days, as a reminder of that vulgar time when the English possessed actual religious beliefs, but that is no indictment of his craft. This ignorance seems to be rather widespread. I remember wondering at it when several students asked a tutor what translation of Paradise Lost she favored.

I had in my youth a plan to translate Paradise Lost into Latin hexameters, and illustrate each book with woodcuts à la Doré. The only things stopping me were my utter ignorance of Latin, hexameters, and woodcuts.

Something more on the death of Socrates. Either the reviewer or the author is being too harsh to Xenophon's Socrates, who is not so mundane as he appears at first glance--at least, outside the Oeconomicus, where he is only a stock figure taking advice from someone suspiciously like Xenophon himself.

I will confess that I have always liked Xenophon better than Plato. He seems like a genial, well-bred sort of fellow who would share with you that dish of figs which Plato would gobble sans honte.

A vocabulary game worth the candle. I can't seem to break 50.

Now Glam gathered up his strength and knit Grettir towards him when they came to the outer door; but when Grettir saw that he might not set his feet against that, all of a sudden in one rush he drave his hardest against the thrall's breast, and spurned both feet against the half-sunken stone that stood in the threshold of the door; for this the thrall was not ready, for he had been tugging to draw Grettir to him, therefore he reeled aback and spun out against the door, so that his shoulders caught the upper door-case, and the roof burst asunder, both rafters and frozen thatch, and therewith he fell open-armed aback out of the house, and. Grettir over him.

Bright moonlight was there without, and the drift was broken, now drawn over the moon, now driven from off her; and, even as Glam fell, a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam glared up against her. And Grettir himself says that by that sight only was he dismayed amidst all that he ever saw.

Then his soul sank within him so, from all these things, both from weariness, and because he had seen Glam turn his eyes so horribly, that he might not draw the short-sword, and lay well-nigh 'twixt home and hell.

But herein was there more fiendish craft in Glam than in most other ghosts, that he spake now in this wise--

"Exceeding eagerly hast thou wrought to meet me, Grettir, but no wonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me; and this must I tell thee, that thou now hast got half the strength and manhood, which was thy lot if thou hadst not met me: now I may not take from thee the strength which thou hast got before this; but that may I rule, that thou shalt never be mightier than now thou art; and nathless art thou mighty enow, and that shall many an one learn. Hitherto hast thou earned fame by thy deeds, but henceforth will wrongs and manslayings fall on thee, and the most part of thy doings will turn to thy woe and ill-hap; an outlaw shalt thou be made, and ever shall it be thy lot to dwell alone abroad; therefore this weird I lay on thee, ever in those days to see these eyes with thine eyes, and thou wilt find it hard to be alone--and that shall drag thee unto death."

Now when the thrall had thus said, the astonishment fell from Grettir that had lain on him, and therewith he drew the short-sword and hewed the head from Glam, and laid it at his thigh.

Hence.

From Not To Go on Four Legs:

INTERVIEWER: So what is it like to spend years of your life working on a mathematical problem of this magnitude?

PROF. BARRA: My students have asked me that, and I have a rather elaborate metaphor, if you don't mind. It's like a dream in which you go to climb a rock pinnace. You can't see the top of it, and while you can plan your ascent from the bottom to some degree--I'll put my hand there and my foot there, and then I'll be able to reach there, and so forth--you can't really know how you can climb until you begin. And of course you don't really know what's at the top.

I: But you have an inkling.

B: Yes. You know something of the shape of the rock, and something about how you're going to climb it, and something about what you'll find at the top. But not very much! And as you climb, you can spend as much time examining each hand hold as you like. In fact, since it's a dream you have that peculiar ability to focus on one object to the exclusion of everything else, and you can see every detail perfectly. That object can become your whole world, and it's easy to forget about the rest of the climb.

I: What about the climb?

B: Well, if you can keep a memory of where you're headed, you just keep finding these holds. They can be as tenuous as you want, as long as they'll support you. It's just a question of finding a new hold and moving a little bit further every time. Of course you can get stuck!

I: And then what?

B: Well, you can try to climb down a bit and find a new path. Or you can try to carve out a hand hold. But sometimes you fall. Of course the only thing that happens if you fall is that you wake up. Nobody has ever died of an unproved theorem.* But I'm sure you know how hard it can be get back to a dream after you've awoken....

*Does Archimedes count, do you think? μή μου τούς κύκλους τάραττε and all that.

Japanese dogs speak English. No, really.

Further developments in inimical technology.

Ark Trading Inc, an Osaka-based trading company, has started selling the NANDA Clocky, an innovative alarm clock that runs and hides from its sleepy owners as they attempt to turn it off.

Is this the sort of behavior we really want to encourage in our fledgling AIs?

Knights Templar rehabilitated? First off, now I need a new "K".

Despite his conviction that the Templars were not guilty of heresy, in 1312 Pope Clement ordered the Templars disbanded for what Frale called "the good of the Church" following his repeated clashes with the French king.

Frale depicted the trials against the Templars between 1307 and 1312 as a battle of political wills between Clement and Philip, and said the document means Clement's position has to be reappraised by historians.

I don't care what anyone says, I've seen the severed head of Baphomet myself.

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.

W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

Shake, whimper, writhe and moan,
Claim the Spirit for thine own,
'Gainst Petran authority shake tiny fists,
Revolting heretic and MONTANIST.

A marker for myself, but perhaps you'll find it useful: The World History Bulletin.

When it doesn't work. One of the duties I have at work is the organizing of benefits. I make gift baskets; talk on the phone with desperate folks from local schools and charities; and I organize fund raisers. The latest of these took the form of a barbeque. We were to cook burgers and sell them outside the store to raise money for a worthy cause, I don't remember what.

I usually get to work about two hours before the rest of my crew, so I had an enjoyable morning to myself setting things up. I like the quiet space of prep. No one is asking me what to do, which is pleasant; no one is telling me what to do, which is ecstasy. I wheeled out our large portable grill, prepared patties, got condiments, and generally set things up so that everything was as easy as possible when Myra and Olive (pseudonyms!) arrived.

Now, I generally prefer a "hands-off" style of management. I like to see organization emerge organically from experience, and give as little guidance as possible. I like to think of this as an exercise in a fruitful, Jeffersonian anarchy. The CEO once called it a "total lack of any actual management."

So when Myra and Olive arrived, I showed them the setup. I gave them a rundown on what we were doing, where everything was, and I gave Olive (competent) the grilling to do, and Myra (less so) the job of taking orders and money. They settled in, our volunteers from the charity arrived and I greeted them, and then I vanished to the office to glare at spreadsheets for a time.

After half an hour of computer screen and fluorescent lights, I needed to get outside. What I found there was Myra, chatting about the global warming crisis while Olive...well, Olive was invisible behind an enormous cloud of smoke. Customers were lined up behind Myra's interlocutor, tapping their feet and looking at their watches. Parts of the grill were on fire that ought not to be. Acrid, greasy smoke drifted at eye level throughout the area. The volunteers looked panicked.

I came up behind Olive and tapped her shoulder. She turned around, tears in her eyes from frustration and smoke. "My grill," I said. Then, "Myra!"

Myra is not used to being spoken to this way. Our department is laid-back, relaxed, and generally indolent. It suits her well.

"Myra!" I say. "Take the order. When you take the order, you tell me what it is. You wait until I repeat it back to you, then you take the next order. Got it?"

Myra hasn't got it. She asks the global warming enthusiast what he wants. He wants a burger. She looks at me. "You heard that," she says. I stare. I'm trying for baleful and reptilian. "Hamburger?" she says.

"Hamburger up!" I shout, making one volunteer jump. "One hamburger all day!" Then, sotto, "Olive, would you get me some salt?"

Myra slowly learns how to take an order, and the line begins to shorten. She announces the order, I shout it back and throw meat at the fire. The salt puts out the grease fire, although I know I'm going to smell of it for the rest of the day. My eyes and nose are running, and I don't have time to wipe them--I'd need to stop to wash my hands, after. Olive goes inside to recover from smoke inhalation. I'm angry at Myra for being useless and at Olive for being weak and at the volunteers for being feckless and the customers for being there. And then I get it.

This is all my fault. I have given no guidance to anyone about how to work this sort of event, assuming that they would simply work it out themselves. I'm angry at me. Where I could have had a smooth, efficient, happy event, now I've got a nasty, back-breaking drudge that will fall apart without me. This is not the soulful machine that food service can be. This is food service Hell, and as the only person with an experience in the business, I had a duty to show them how to avoid this. Which duty I promptly disdained. Olive was crying and Myra is angry and the charity has lost money because of my sloth.

Well, it turns out to be Purgatory, since the torment ends. As the lunch rush slows, Olive returns to the grill. Myra has a new appreciation for the methodology of the thing (Myra takes well to rules once they have been established). We make money. I feel confident enough to go back inside.

I still check on them every ten minutes, though.

In Chitral there is another legendary creature, the "glacier frog." It is about the size of a calf, has the shape of a frog, and lives in glacier crevasses. What it lives on, nobody seems to know. Many people who claim to have seen one, usually indistinctly silhouetted against the background of a crevasse, maintain that its head and back were encrusted with gold and diamonds...

[There follows an account of how to obtain treasure from a diamond-hoarding cobra.]

The Islamic Chitralis were more down to earth. They had little use for rites and incantations; to capture a glacier frog, more drastic measures were necessary. A smith, who was a shrewd enough businessman to have earned enough money to buy himself a truck, suggested we should go into partnership: He would make the right kind of fishhook, and if I managed to catch a glacier frog with it, we should go fifty-fifty on the proceeds. To avoid losing face and appearing a complete sucker, I stuck out for a bigger share for myself; after all, it was I who was exposing myself to the perils of frog fishing. But for some reason or other our scheme never came off. Nevertheless, I was very grateful to the glacier frog. In those days the Chitralis were still backwoodsmen, so to speak, and had nothing of the Sherpas' experience of anything so crazy as mountaineering. To the Chitralis I was an inexplicable phenomenon and was consequently viewed with mistrust. But once the news got around that I was aftera glacier frog, they gave me enthusiastic support.

From Himalaya by Herbert Tichy, 1968

A glimpse into my reading habits.

Emily to Sue, April 1864
Dear Sinai do'nt be angry--the Crickets are sorry for their Chirping--Lord what a noise the Wind made too--Vesuvius a'nt nothing to it....

Vinnie to Austin, April? 1864
...[torn] bursts into the house and races to Emilie's room and then I hear "G-d d-mn you Billy Collins get your hands off her" and Carlo barking and down comes C[ollins] clutching his trousers and D[avis] right after waving a horse whip and a [illegible]....

Sue to Austin, April? 1864
...I cannot get a sensible word from E she says that she is a wife without the Sign and wo'nt stop talking in Capitals about bees and gentians and I know not what.... Please bring back two dozen pearl buttons as Emilie's [illegible] has had them all torn off I am sure I do'nt know what to do....

Emily to Sue, April? May? 1864
Dearest North Wind tell Brother not to Scowl so at me from afar--I am not so Quick as he fears--and I know that Honor is its own Pawn--and the World has another Lamp when the Soul is shuttered.

You can see me over at Querencia after a ratting expedition. Someday I will visit that blog without adding to my list of Things to Read.

Brandon over at Siris has (had, for I am slow) a post about a number of things, but the one closest to my heart is the rough treatment Xenophon receives. I think the reasons he gives are accurate, but not complete. I think that one major reason Xenophon is disparaged as Plato is praised is that Xenophon's Socrates is much more human--and that he dies a more human death, for a more human reason.

Preface: I wish I had my books. This is from hazy memory. But Xenophon's Socrates is very far from a Platonist. He goes so far as to claim that nothing is "good", but that things are only good for something. And in his death he remains far from the unyieldingly philosophic, truth-seeking Socrates of the Phaedo.

In the Phaedo, we see an unrepentant Socrates declaring that the philosopher is constantly practising death, and so should not fear it when it comes. He has chosen to die rather than to cease his eternal questioning, and his last words, "Crito, we must sacrifice a cock to Asclepius; see to it, and do not forget," are positively heroic. I will here admit that I get choked up every time I read it, and indeed whenever I think about it.*

This is the philosopher at his best, facing death, unafraid and cheerful and resolute. And I think the myth has especial resonance for lovers of philosophy, since so few philosopher were anything like heroic in this same manner. Who else in the history of philosophy dies this way? To whom shall we look for another such example of living the philosophic life? Whether from lack of need or opportunity (charitably), or courage or conviction (un-), no one else has made so clear a choice between such stark alternatives. When we consider the... less respectable life of a Nietzsche or a Heidegger or even a Kant, it becomes obvious just how far above these lives Socrates' was. And so philosophers, not otherwise noted for living well (however fairly or unfairly), can always point to Socrates.

Xenophon, however, rips this story away. His Socrates chooses death not because of some refusal to compromise his skeptic's integrity (although his innocence is a confort to him), but because he is old. His faculties are failing, and to avoid this he thinks it better to die than to suffer this indignation. The heroic Socrates of the Phaedo is replaced with the merely human Socrates of the Memorabilia, and the only really philosophic death among the great philosophers is replaces with an early form of euthanasia.