Art of memory – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Art of memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the 1966 non-fiction book, see The Art of Memory.
Graphical memory devices from the works of Giordano Bruno
The Art of Memory or Ars Memorativa ("art of memory" in Latin) is a general term used to designate a loosely associated group of mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics.[1] It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human beings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical.
Techniques commonly employed in the art include the association of emotionally striking memory images within visualized locations, the chaining or association of groups of images, the association of images with schematic graphics or notae ("signs, markings, figures" in Latin), and the association of text with images. Any or all of these techniques were often used in combination with the contemplation or study of architecture, books, sculpture and painting, which were seen by practitioners of the art of memory as externalizations of internal memory images and/or organization.
Because of the variety of principles, techniques, and their various applications, some researchers refer to "the arts of memory", rather than to a single art.[2]
Making Ubuntu usable
I've basically given up on Ubuntu on my Eee netbook. Along the way, though, I found out many things that should have worked that I had to fix myself.
To make your Eee usable, dear reader, with the foul and nefarious Ubuntu, learn from my mistakes.
Ubuntu installs from a central source that doesn't work very well
Unlike every other operating system, Ubuntu gets its programs from a central location, the "Ubuntu Software Center". This usually works well, except when it doesn't. To make it work at all, though, you need to allow your computer to download ideologically offensive material.
Of course, the material isn't offensive to you--you just want to play MP3s. The zealots, though, would rather you didn't, so they keep the MP3 math out of sight, in the "restricted" repositories.
Don't listen to the zealots. Go to "System"--> "Administration"-->"Software Sources", and check every box you see. This will allow you to download ideologically impure (but very useful, software).
Install MP3 math and real fonts
If you use your computer like most people do (to play music and movies, and to surf the net), you need some special equations. Because these equations offend the zealots (I'm not exaggerating at all, by the way; they are equations, and zealots), you're not allowed to have them. To get them, go to Ubuntu Software Center and search for "Ubuntu Restricted Extras". Install them. Now things might work, though the open-source gods will curse you.
Fix your wireless
With these equations installed, you could, in theory, see the stuff on the net. Unfortunately, your wireless will be so slow you'll want to die. Fix it by going to Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal. Enter the following, without quotes. You can copy it easily, but to paste it you will need to use Edit-->Paste
sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-karmic
When that's done, enter this:
sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-wireless-karmic-generic
I have no idea what the magic is, but this fixes bad wireless.
Fix the awful fonts
Ubuntu is ugly. There's no way around it. Fix it by installing themes and fixing the fonts. Go to System-->Preferences-->Appearance. Choose a theme from the options there, or download another. If, like me, you hate the brown colour, fix that too. Click on Customize..., and then the Windows colour selector. When you're done, choose a font you like, too from within the Appearances section
And while you're there, go to Visual Effects and put it on "Normal".
Finally, go to Fonts, and choose Subpixel smoothing, then go to Details..., and turn hinting off altogether.
The Trabant had a paper mache body, apparently
At Zwickau, inside the Automobile Werke Zwickau (AWZ) a new model was developed, called the P70 (P for plastic and 70 for the displacement which is about 700 cc).
This car was the first German small car made with plastic body. The name of the material was Duroplast made out of resin, strengthened by wool.
The appeal of Mad Men
One of my friends doesn't like Mad Men. I know why: he's an actor. He doesn't actually work for a living (not that I really do either).
Mad Men is career porn--no man can watch it without fantasizing about how awesome it would be to be that character. Contrast it with The Office and Dilbert, which are career schadenfreude, making us feel better from the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I feeling.
The efficient markets hypothesis
The Efficient Markets Hypothesis says, if I am correct, two things:
1) All available information is priced into the components of the market
2) Outsiders cannot win.
Point 2 follows from 1; insider information is unavailable to the rest of us. It is also illegal to act upon. 2 follows because information travels fast, and people have the incentive to both research and act upon valuable information. Thus, if a company looks likely to double its profits in the coming year, early-movers will bid up the price of the stock until it is no longer a better deal than any other stock on the market. Therefore, unless you are one of the early movers (and you're not), you can't win. If you do win (or lose, for that matter) it is only because you happened to act on unavailable (or unknowable) information--in other words, because you were lucky.
There has been much discussion lately about whether the EMH is correct. The recent stock market crash is said to disprove point 1. Wild swings in the market show, supposedly, that the market is not 'rational' or 'efficient'. Why this is so is not quite clear; the EMH does not say that everyone will win or that prices will be stable. It says that all available information is priced in. Unavailable information (and information about the future is certainly unavailable) can still influence prices.
Behavioural economics is supposed to offer an alternative. By understanding how people work, we are able to better predict their actions. But, this implies two things, either of which makes the EMH, or its corollary, relevant again.
The very premise of Behavioural Economics must be this: If BE works, we can understand the collective actions of irrational actors using reason. We can predict what irrational people will do. Of course, as soon as behavioural economics gets polished up, people will use it to invest in the market. Thus, the market will again be 'rational'--although this time, in a meta way, or a meta-meta way: people will use reason to understand reasoning about the unpredictable actions of individuals. Or something like that.
Of course, there is another possibility: perhaps we will not be able to use BE to understand the market. Perhaps, fundamentally, people are unpredictable. If that's true, though, the market moves randomly, and point 2--that outsiders cannot win--is again true. Nobody can win except by luck in an unpredictable market. Placing money on the outcomes of unpredictable events is the very definition of gambling.
In the past, EMH2 followed by deduction from EMH1, but I think we have something stronger here: If EMH1 is true, then EMH2 is true. If EMH1 is false, then EMH2 remains true. If the market is rational, outsiders cannot win but from luck. If the market is irrational, outsiders cannot win but from gambling.
My Death
When I think of my death, I think two things:
- That it is the end
- That I should avoid it.
Unfortunately, for reasons I’ll explain below, these two ideas are incompatible, and efforts to make them compatible violate my instincts about what makes me who I am.1
Death is the end2
Scientific, sensible people believe that we are made of meat and not much else. When we die, we are done: the self, our consciousness, or our 'me-ness' disintegrates. If the self dissolves, there is no need to fear death. Death cannot be painful (or pleasurable), since sensations need someone to do the sensing.
All this is straightforward. But, if true, it contradicts another and quite fundamental belief: that living for a long time is better than living for a short time, or that living at all is better than being dead. If we are merely meat, there is no reason to believe this for the simple reason that when we are dead, we will not care.
Being happy is better than being sad, and living pleasurably is better than living in pain. But being alive is not better than being dead; comparing life and deadness is, I think, impossible. Life is something, and death is nothing, and something is not better than nothing, for the simple reason that once you are dead, you cannot feel that nothingness. You have no reason to prefer being alive to being dead, because you won't 'be' dead. There will be no 'you', and no 'being'.
In a famous article "Death", Nagel argued that an early death is bad, and bad for the person who dies. I believe his argument is quite simple:
- The self is made of meat.
- Pain and pleasure occur to a self located in time and space
- If pain and pleasure occur to a self in time and space, and if I am made of meat, then I should not fear death
- I should fear death
- It's not true that (the self is made of meat and pain and pleasure occur to a self located in time and space)
- It's not true that the self is made of meat OR it's not true that pain and pleasure occur to a self located in time and space
Stated so plainly, it's pretty clear that this is not a good argument. Neither of the disjunctions is very sensible. He seems to believe the latter one: that pain and pleasure do not occur to a self located in time and place. He is, I understand, a "comparativist", who believes that injury and benefit, good and bad, are relational properties--in other words: good and bad really mean better and worse.
But seriously, is this a sensible argument? The error is clearly in premise 4.
- It's not at all easy to identify the 'me' that makes me 'me'. That said, I believe that I am one consciousness who changes only slowly, located in one finite body, at a particular time and place. There is nothing at all revolutionary or startling about these ideas. Only negating them is bizarre and counter-intuitive. Could I be more than one consciousness? Or not located in a body, but somewhere else? It seems possible, but saying so does not come naturally to me. [↩]
- Most people believe that death is not the end; they seem to think that there is an afterlife, reincarnation, or some other kind of migration of the soul. While these ideas appear quite goofy to me, I don't think the possibility of an afterlife matters very much to the main thrust of my argument. Whatever I am and wherever my soul ends up, I think it's quite straightforward to say that death is the end of me, Adam Norman. If my soul moves, it leaves behind the things that constitute me: my location, my body, my sensory organs, my aches and pains. Whatever is left over (and I do believe it to be nothing at all), it is not the Adam Norman I'm quite fond of. It seems exceedingly unlikely that whatever is left feels anything at all; the things that do the feeling are gone. [↩]
Linux programmers suck
Would it kill Linux programmers to name the folders for what they contain? Where the frak are the programs? And what is in sbin? Or opt? Or var?
Linux is getting easier to use, but it has a ways to go.