The Four Ages Of Sand

Mu

I love questions that have no answer.  Many years ago a child asked me the name of a flower he'd picked, and I said "It's a Bluebell." and he looked at me wide-eyed and said "But why doesn't it ring?"

In Eastern philosophy, especially Zen Bhuddism, the answer to a question like this will be Mu - Wu in Chinese - and it means something like "the question must be unasked." It's a simple but surprisingly effective word; how many times do we formulate questions which we assume will have a Yes/No answer when in fact Mu might be much more revealing? Perhaps Mu is the answer to many of the big questions we ask:

"What was there before there was anything?"

"What is consciousness?"

"What is the purpose of life?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)

Interesting sideline: I just put Mu + "the question must be unasked" into Google and it came up with 2 websites. I clicked on the top one and it took me to... The Four Ages of Sand!

http://iainpetrie.typepad.com/the_four_ages_of_sand/2009/05/could-ghost-picture-at-museum-be-edward-jenner.html

Anyway, I was reminded of unasking questions during a discussion with my Somali and Turkish students on the political parties. They are at a L1 level of speaking which means they can discuss abstract ideas but are still impeded by vocabulary and grammar. They were struggling with the names of the parties  - Labour, Lib Dem etc - so to make things simpler I started refering  to The Red Party, The Blue Party and The Yellow Party.  Later I asked them if they knew any other parties. They didn't, so I told them about The Green Party. One of my students said "But Sir, what is The Green Party called?" 

Mu!
 

The Pope, Paedophiles, Peter Hullermann and the possible excommunication of 4AoS

I try to avoid the issue of religion on 4AoS, really I do. I'm an atheist, UniM is a Catholic (sort of): live and let live I say.

I wasn't intending to cover the story of child abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland, and I certainly wasn't intending to mention the alleged involvement of the Pope in a cover up regarding the notorious paedophile Peter Hullermann.

But then I read this article in The Week magazine:

It's this bit that had me choking on my Rice Krispies this morning:

Yes, that's right, the now Pope hasn't excommunicated -  or threatened to  excommunicate  - any of the many thousands of paedophile priests, some of whom abused hundreds of boys, but thinks excommunication is a suitable punishment for revealing that abuse to the press. I know it's April fool's day but that's just ridiculous.

I tried my cereal again, this time reading the Yahoo news. This turned out to be a mistake:

Catholic students attack media over abuse charges:

Conservative Catholic university students rushed to Pope Benedict's defence on Wednesday, attacking journalists who have written about the sexual abuse of children by priests as "sowers of mistrust."

 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100331/tts-uk-pope-abuse-ca02f96.html 

Oriental 4AoSpammer

Right, it's clear that David's fat balls are attracting the wrong kind of 4AoSer.

If you look under the latest fat balls post you'll see a comment posted by  オテモヤン (gosh it took me ages to learn to write that)

Who is he? Well, he's an idiot of course, and also our first 4AoSpammer. The comment was a set of links to porn. I've deleted them and forwarded a copy to a 4AoSer expert on the subject for further investigation (Don't worry Alan, I won't give out your name)

I've also blocked him, so hopefully that's the end of that. Although I did click on a couple of the links (by mistake, you understand) so it's possible I've alerted a whole raft of oriental porn merchants to the existence of 4AoS.

Actually, what led a porn site in the orient to David's problems with rats on his fat balls would be a very interesting story in itself.

4AoSer talent

Excellent shot from Alan:

 

Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, NZ

The Life Abacus update

Well it's time for me to update you on the sales of my invention, The Life Abacus (See the website here: http://www.thelifeabacus.co.uk/)

 

 

 Thank you to the several kind 4AoSers who bought one, but the life-changing money was always going to come from Internet sales. I put them out on Ebay, and set up a PalPal account through the website.

How much have I made so far? This is just a preliminary back-of-an-envelope figure, you understand, before deductions for development costs, fees, materials etc:

Nothing!!!!! Not one penny!!!

I'm re-examining the product in terms of marketing, design, build and outlets, so watch this space...

The Giant Killer...

Nick and I finally got our game of chess, and to both our surprise, I won!

 I know I said I wouldn't keep posting chess games on 4AoS, but with the Chess blog getting 3 visits a day, and 4AoS getting 140 a day, I felt it was my duty to post where there is the widest possible audience to share in my triumph learn from a particularly instructive game.  

I haven't actually checked with Nick, but I'm sure that's what he would want as well.

Here's the final result.  Click on << to replay the game.

Play chess online

Actually in truth,  as you will have realised if you've gone through the moves, Nick was ahead in both material and development for most of the game, but just made a mistake in move 19.  What would have happened if he had made a different move? Here's what my computer predicts. A rather different picture for Black...

To see the best move for Black at move 19, click on the notation on the right of the board then follow through with >

Play online chess

My most enjoyable chess victory...

....until I beat Nick of course.

I promise I won't be burdening 4AoSers with all my chess games (after all, that's what 4AoS Chess is for)but I just got Mate in 12 moves using the wonderful Danish Gambit opening,and even if you only have a passing interest in the game, you might want to play these moves out (click on > under the board) to see what a great opening The Danish is.

I know I shouldn't be publishing this stuff in advance of my game with Nick, but I'm growing in confidence every day...

Play chess online

Wot, more blogs??

For the last couple of weeks I've been focusing on my latest obsession; Chess.

I've kept it secret because I've been training in order to beat Nick, and I'm hoping we can get a game in at our next 4AoS get-together. I've dabbled before, even going so far as to read a couple of books on the subject, but whenever we've played, he's always beaten me, by employing the underhand trick of being more intelligent than me (which if you think about it, is just another kind of cheating really)

I got back into the game because Uni M got a chess set from Aaron for Christmas, and we've been having a few games. Then I uploaded a super chess programme to my IPod  - tChess Pro - and that's really set me off.

There's more: I've got a new blog so I can develop the interest and hopefully make some real progress.

Behold 4AoS Chess! You can  get there from the Navigation Bar at the top of 4AoS or click here:

http://iainpetrie.typepad.com/4aos_chess/ 

To my amazement, I've found out how to embed HTML in my sidebar, which means there will be a daily Chess puzzle for those that would like to pop in, and, I've found out how to embed my own annotated games on the blog, which you can play though. There will be lots more over the coming weeks.

Nick: you'll want to be a regular on 4AoS Chess, so you can adapt your game to give you the best chance against me. Believe me; your cheap tricks won't be enough any more.

Any other 4AoSers fancy a game? (online or face-to-face)    

BFP Update: Assignment 2 and 3

I've been so obsessed with the birds recently that I was in danger of letting my BPF studies fall behind, but I've caught up now. For Assignment 2, I submitted these 4 photos:

 

 

At the time I seem to remember Alan saying something like "stick with the insects." and that's kind of the advice I got from the tutor too:

"...you’ve got a couple of excellent pictures here, which are much better technically than I normally see with this type of subject."

Also:

"What we really have here...are two good wildlife pictures...very much the sort of things that could work in a library.  
So would these pictures sell as stock shots maybe to a wildlife magazine? I guess there’s a possibility here with a publication like BBC Wildlife, for example, or even if you felt sufficiently qualified, you might use them as illustrations to an article about these insects. But another market that comes to my mind is the photographic press, because this is a market which is always on the lookout for pictures which are good shots in their own right but which also demonstrate technique in some way, and I can see a picture like this certainly being used in any of the photographic magazines to illustrate articles on insect photography in general or something more technical such as the use of close-up gear, special lenses, etc."

Re the 3rd shot - Brugge by night:

"...although I like this as a night shot, the vast majority of travel pictures are taken in sunshine with plenty of blue skies, the exception being if you are in an area which is known for its nightlife – I’m thinking of a street scene in Tokyo, for example."

And with the 4th shot:

I think what would stand in the way of success with the last picture in the general market place is the quality, because of the way you have had to process it to make it work. On the other hand, I would also say that what we have here is quite an interesting photographic effect, and maybe for that reason once again we might be looking at digital photo magazines, where you could described the way you took this picture and how you applied digital manipulation to it. But outside of that area, I think the main problem here is that although it’s quite a nice picture in its own right it wouldn’t necessarily bring any new or fresh information as it stands to the readers of a particular publication, particularly since we can’t see the face of the person involved.

I've just sent of the 6 pics for Assignment 3: images suitable for calendars, postcards, and greetings cards:

 

 

 
  

 

 

Powerful Chile Quake 'Shifted Earth's Axis'

Nick alerted me to this yesterday, and it's now on Yahoo news. The tragic earthquake in Chile was so powerful that it has actually made days slightly shorter.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100303/twl-powerful-chile-quake-shifted-earth-s-3fd0ae9.html