Mindy Newton

Vince Lombardi, in what would seem to be a pep talk, is quoted as saying, "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm." He was using the figure of speech called an "antanaclasis." I imagine we have all heard, and used antanaclases, we just didn't know they had a name other than: clever phrasing. It makes one do a mental double-take, and in that way resembles Yogi Berra-isms, and also puns, but there is a definite difference, as the definition shows: The O.E.D. definition is, "A figure of speech, when the same word is repeated in a different if not a contrary signification; as: "In thy youth learn some craft, that in thy old age thy mayest get thy living without craft." --Johnson. With puns, the words are in fact different, and in Yogi Berra-isms, it seems that it isn't the signification, but the implication that changes. "You can observe a lot just by watching." "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him." Are they tautologies? Only technically. I like Lombardi's antanaclasis a lot more than Johnson's. I thought I'd invite people to list some they have come across. Better yet, invent some to share?

Here's a new Knight's Move puzzle. The quote is from John Galt. X-I-JOH-EM-C- KW-U-K-I--S-G NVCAFE-HB-FYN AC-WO-K--T-J- WNRH-JTVIQA-E DW-LFBO-A-ZLU SEOOB-XERHD-- ZDRV-M-IRY-IO P-NT-AA-M-YR- WFNW-ETFSEK-N L-L-PJO-PQ-SX RS-HA-D-GUHGI T-NQ-M-P--EDA CWC-VERBF-STN As before, the first letter is in the lower, right-hand corner,an "N." By the way, the "square" is made of 14 rows of 13 each. Enjoy!

Very interesting, indeed! Great quip, too. Thanks for putting this up.

There is a type of puzzle called the "knight's move." It embeds a phrase in a matrix of letters. There is a designated start. From that point, one may move as a chess knight does, to find a second letter that will construct a phrase. From each selected letter, the next move is some one of the possible knight's moves away. I made one up with a phrase of Rand's embedded in it. The start is in the bottom right corner, with the letter A. First person to post the phrase wins...heck, I don't know. IFUEWAK LWROSAD SVAMDNM IPGIBSL HEEHAFT CNILOTA Obviously, the text doesn't lay itself out in a geometrical square, so drawing it on paper might be necessary. To refer to the sequence, label the rows 1-7, and the columns A-G. So we began at G7, that is the bottom right corner, and it has an A in that spot, and the letter I occupies A1. Of course, if you quote the quote, no need to record the sequence of steps! Enjoy. Mindy

It might help to consider why we call an opinion an opinion. We describe our beliefs and conclusions, etc. with several different terms. We describe some ideas as beliefs, others as knowledge, opinion, judgment, suspicions, etc. In all such cases, we are recognizing the relationship of that idea to its evidentiary bases. "Opinions" are ideas we are somewhat unsure of. But that uncertainty doesn't have anything at all to do with subjectivity. Second idea here: All ideation is the ideation of some subject, some mind or another. That sense of "subjective" is the ontological one. The epistemological sense of "subjective" simply means that the content of the idea does not derive from the subject-matter it names. A subjective opinion about a restaurant might be based on how long you had to wait to be seated, or the rudeness of the waiter, though it is stated as how good the food was. So, just to be clear, if someone asks Joan how the food is at Mirabella on 2nd Avenue, and she answers it is only so-so, but she actually enjoyed the food a lot, but she was also annoyed at having to wait and at the rudeness of the waiter, but she doesn't sort out her feelings, she has made a subjective judgment. The judgment is not, actually, about how the food was. Her dislike was reasonable, but it was mis-attributed. That subjectivity represents a degree of carelessness, and sometimes it amounts to a lot worse.

Thanks very much for this report! Mindy

Little Sweaters Little sweaters for my feet, Soft and stretchy, fit so neat. Little sweaters for my hands, Ten long fingers, two round bands. Put a sweater on my head, And I'm out the door to sled. The softest for my neck I choose, Wear it to prevent Achoos. When the days are cold as ice, Only sweaters work so nice. Bundled-up, I couldn't play, Papoose-swaddled through the day, I must move, must run and jump, Stumble on a snowy bump, Climb the hill and slide back down, Make that snowball-thrower frown. Sweaters work for me to play, Sweaters night and sweaters day, Sweaters are my winter skin, Without sweaters, I'd stay in! Mindy Newton

It doesn't surprise me. I've never seen that picture before, was very glad to see it.

There's a high-powered language site called Languagehat I read when I can, and a link to a link brought me to a word-play game I thought might be fun. You are given two words. The task is to transform the one into the other (or the other into the one, if iconoclasm is your thing) one letter at a time. There are, obviously, more than a single way to do such a thing. I grabbed the names, "Rand" and "Galt," and tried it out to see how hard it was and how long it took... I did it in 12 steps, that is, there are 12 english words between "Rand" and "Galt." I didn't struggle with it, so there are probably shorter ways to do it. So, if anybody cares to give it a try, 12 is the number to beat. If you come up with fewer steps, speak up in a reply. Tell us how many steps you took, but leave the words out until others have a chance to work on it un-prompted, then we'll look at the winner's "short list." Have fun.

I don't know anything about official rules, but the site I got this from allowed different degrees of freedom, such as changing two letters once in a sequence, and either allowing or not allowing changes in different places in the letter sequence...I wonder if there is a way to score the game so any of these is allowed, but you are penalized for using the easier tactics. Mindy

That's a great line, that the politician is the end, not the beginning! That should be etched somewhere (besides my memory.) Mindy

LOL. That is great, and it is raining cats and dogs as I read it. You've invented a new category, though, it isn't an antanaclasis. The same word or words have to be used with different "meanings." Maybe yours is an antiantanaclasis? It has a "garden path" in it, like so much of humor. The garden path...taking the mind in one direction and then stranding it there, with the logical destination somewhere "over there." One of my favorites is this: the old man the boats I wrote that preceding phrase without punctuation so as to allow the reader to puzzle over it. It is actually a full sentence, right? Someone here just gave me a different interpretation of your phrase, Laure: that if the rain keeps up, there won't be any moisture left to come down. That makes it a double antiantanaclasis, and, I'm sure the first of its kind. Anybody know the phone number for Guiness?

You won, Bob, now dream up one for the next round!

Well done! Jeez, beat me by a mile. Your prize is to write the next pair of words for the rest of us.

Thanks, Zeus. I imagined a young boy, but so what?

I'm doing this wrong, but I don't think it matters... Seuss Sounds Seuss sounds, Seuss sounds, a "Cat-in-the-Hat" a day, Children's eyes and ears get round, when Dr. Seuss has his say! Juice sounds with Seuss sounds, saliva and tongue hunt their way, You'll stutter and mutter, and blush to re-utter, the synched sounds that Seuss sends your way! Soon sound soothed sounds, as sleep steals her slumbering slaves, So, softly! alliterate, litter your litter's late sleep with sweet Seuss-sounds, sooth-sayed(!) Mindy Newton The rhythm of this is a strong, even "forced" beat of seven, emphasized syllables with a silent final beat to each line.

The telescope's "birthday" is particularly special because of the relation between the birth of science/philosophy and man's desire to understand the heavens. When man desires knowledge, even knowledge of the furthest objects and most immense events, he finds ways to get it. In celebrating the telescope, then, we are also celebrating man's mind, even mankind. Mindy

I disagree with your judgment that it is futile. I bought 20 books and sent them with a cover letter I carefully wrote to say just what I'd like to say to these people if I had two minutes of their time. I do realize the letter will probably be read by an aide, and possibly not at all, but I imagine half or more will be read. Sending the book isn't an effort to educate, but to impress our representatives. It is an attention-getting action that places the outlook on government and the present situation which I hold, and which has the best chance of persuading our representatives to act usefully, right in their hands. It is a vote for capitalism. By the way, I ended up wrapping my books in some 6 mil. plastic sheeting I have, that is perfectly clear. I turned the first third of the letter outwards and folded it over the book cover, so it can be read without opening the package. That it is a book, and that it is Atlas Shrugged is "clear" without opening the package, and that also, I thought, might help with the security processing. Also, everybody from the P.O. workers who sort and bag and deliver the books to each person who has a chance to see the package sitting around will know what it is, and, possibly, read the opening of the letter! The books are likely to stay in the offices for a while, at least until the brouhaha over Tea Parties has quieted down, because if it doesn't quiet down, and the press start asking questions about book copies received, publicity-savvy politicians--that is, all of them--will want to be able to say what happened to the books people are saying they sent to them. Myself, I am going to follow up with a letter asking if the book was received, etc. That just adds more wattage to the overall effort to bring attention to the defense of freedom and prosperity a la capitalism. So, the whole point is to impress our politicians that we realize capitalism is not the cause of the problem, and that government interference in the economy is against our wishes and is anathema to both freedom and prosperity. The point is to tell them that we know this, and we require them, with all the force we hold--now we speak out and, when it is time, we vote--to act accordingly. Another reason to send books is that it helps clarify that Tea Party protests are not just tax protests. The liberal press are doing their best to smear, misrepresent, and denigrate this movement. Many participants have their own agenda, which is only partially aligned with a defense of capitalism. The more AS is put forth as the ideology of the protest, the better! By connecting one's protest to AS, you can join with people whose fundamental point of view you wouldn't agree with, but who are also speaking out in the present crisis, and collectively create a spectacle that impresses the powers that be, without implicitly endorsing ideas you don't hold or wish to promote. AS is a whole philosophical statement. It can't be misunderstood. This is a way to give voice to our ideas, and to the fact that people dedicated to those ideas exist, and are watching, and are willing to take action. How can you not be willing to give such a project the benefit of the doubt? Mindy Another thought: When the splash of an event is sufficient to get media attention, every politician must prepare him or herself to answer questions about it, just in case it is brought up! To do that, they have to become informed about the size of the event, and need to know what the protestors are in fact saying. They have to formulate their response so as to prevent seeming to take any position that will back-fire on them as the financial crisis develops--which is an unknown, still, and so as not to alienate voters. That means thinking things through, and isn't that exactly what we want?

Thanks for the feedback and kind words. If anybody is into divisibility, let me know. I have a scheme for "universal" divisibility that returns a factor. Note: it is not a factorization algorithm. It does not use any division itself, and looks, from the pseudocode, (I wrote the algorithm, and had someone write the pseudocode,) faster than division by a good bit, though not exponentially. I know very little about evaluating computability and such, I came across the divisibility algorithm from a number-theoretic point of view. So if anybody knows about these things, let me know. As far as why anybody would be interested in number patterns and such, it just is interestiing. I think you have to come onto a pattern yourself, and it grabs you. Trying to work out what a mathematician is pointing to in a math book is hard and frustrating, but if you get past the "wah?" factor, it is fascinating. I didn't study mathematics myself, but I did have excellent math teachers in high school. The principal happened to be a Ph.D. in math, and saw to it that we had excellent teachers and lots of courses. Two years of algebra, one of geometry and trig, and one of calculus. I exempted the Freshman math courses in college without even trying. A good high school is worth its weight in gold! There are some fun pattern problems in a subject called odd-and-even permutations. If I can find the notes I have from a friend at Illinois State, who set the problems up for me, I'll put them up here. Mindy

OK, try this out: Every other number is odd, and every other other number is even. Both odd and even numbers arise at the same rate in the number series. That rate, however, is, itself, either odd or even. Thus, it fits into one of those series and is alien to the other one. As we know, the rate at which both odd and even numbers arise is two. You get one new odd number for each two you advance, from any starting point, and you get one even number for each two you advance. Two is an even number, and it is the smallest even number. So, for the even number series, the smallest number is also the rate at which new members occur. Every new even number is some number of size-two steps beyond the first even number, and the even number series is--beyond its first member, universally divisible. It enjoys this symmetry because the rate at which even numbers arise is the same as the rate at which they multiply. For the odd numbers, it is a different story. Odd numbers also arise at the rate of one for each two new numbers in the number series, but the smallest non-trivial odd number, 3, is larger than that rate of increase. As a result, odd numbers arise faster than they can multiply.[/i] It is this disjunction that is responsible for the existence and distribution of prime numbers! Looked at from the other side, consider the smallest odd composite number. It is 9. Nine is the smallest odd number that can be expressed as the product of factors. (It might help some readers to recall here that only from multiplying odd numbers can one get an odd composite number.) Since 9 is the smallest composite odd number, any and all smaller odd numbers are not composites, that is, they have to be prime. The odd numbers smaller than 9 (leaving "one" out) are 3, 5, and 7; and 3, 5, and 7 are, in fact, prime numbers. The next odd composite is 15--3 times 3 gives 9, and then 3 times 5 gives 15--which implies that the odd numbers smaller than 15, and larger than 9, are not composites, and must be prime. Those numbers are, of course, 11 and 13, and they are in fact prime. Continuing in this fashion, we note that 21 is the next odd composite number, and we check to see if the odd numbers that arise between 15 and 21 are prime, they are 17 and 19, and they are primes. Twenty-five is the next odd composite, leaving only one prime to add to the list, 23. Twenty-five is the first odd composite that isn't factored by 3. It is, of course, the product of 5 and 5. Beginning with 25, the series of composite numbers becomes more dense. Up to 25, odd composites were simply the sequential products of 3 and the odd series of numbers, yielding 3 + 6n. Within the gap created by adding 6 to each composite, exactly two additional odd numbers arise. Beginning with 25, a series defined by 5 + 10n of odd composite numbers is produced. As you've already begun to suspect, beginning with 7 times 7, 49, a third series of odd composite numbers, defined by 7 + 14n, is produced, and so on. The more general formula for each, prime-based series of odd composites will have occurred to you I'm sure: p + n2p. As the series of odd composites becomes more dense, the complementary series, which is the series of primes, becomes less dense. In principle, however, the distribution of primes is completely predictable. Prime numbers are "created" by the discrepancy between the rate at which odd numbers arise and the rate at which they multiply. That's about it. I haven't discussed this with anyone for years, so I might not have explained it well. You'll let me know if it doesn't seem to "add up?" Mindy Newton

Exactly.

OK, I did go and read it. It makes you feel good, it keeps depression away, is that right? You might consider that that might actually be a trap, and a very dangerous one. Any false basis for feeling good about oneself works like a drug, and, as happens with drugs, one would have to increase his "dose" until he comes to need to act out those thoughts --such as you say you now keep private. You discussed why you didn't act out your contempt, the social problems it would involve, etc. The possibility that keeping those feelings hidden wouldn't be enough to "work" as it does now is a consideration. A similar psychodynamic occurs when somebody "trades in" feeling guilty for feeling injured. It is much more comfortable to feel that I am the injured party. Blaming somebody else for one's pain is emotionally a good deal. But it requires me to maintain the lie about being injured. Maintaining lies means maintaining evasions of the truth, and of all the concrete facts that point at the truth. Evasion grows, and it cripples one's judgment and competence in increasingly large segments of life. (I'm just using guilt and injury as an example. Trading in anxiety for depression is another example of a downward-spiraling strategy of rationalizing one's emotions to oneself.) This is a speculation, of course, but it seems possible that it fits what you have described. From the point of view of psychological growth, being emotionally independent of what other people think of you is important. But what you are describing seems to put how you compare yourself to others at the heart of the matter, and that isn't a position of independence. I know myself that it is tempting to turn the tables on all those people who want to put me down by just putting them down, and in spades. That doesn't last, though, and it is a shaky place to be when things go wrong, when stress gets high, etc. Won't that boomerang back on you when you actually do make mistakes or have set-backs? Also, how would it work if you suddenly found yourself in Galt's Gulch? If I needed to remind myself of how contemptible Reardan and Dagny are in order to feel OK, I'd be in deep cocoa. The better reason is, you don't need it. Mindy

Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc. The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that. Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way. The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty? I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

How does patent language not use standard grammar? Do you not recognize the role of grammar in allowing us to combine concepts so as to create propositional meaning? Mindy

Bob, does your interest in math extend to the theory prime numbers?