a lot of sounds that inherently twist away from the music

The Big Read Meme

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:25:53 GMT

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
3.5) Strike through the books that you HATE
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them and then ask what better books they have read instead.

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Jane Eyre
4. Harry Potter Series
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The Bible - various authors
7. Wuthering Heights
8. Ninteen Eighty-Four
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullmen
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles -Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

16. The Hobbit
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows– Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
~~36. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis~~
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
~~49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding~~
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heavan - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:05:33 GMT

God-fucking-damn, why is this house so cold? I know I weigh like, thirty pounds less than anyone else here, but seriously, it's still summer, and it's fucking cold!

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:56:54 GMT

I so totally stood right over a dead mouse in the kitchen for five minutes before noticing it.
EEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And why the fuck did it have to curl up and die in the middle of my kitchen floor? Seriously. It's like ten feet to the door to outside. What the fuck? Aren't animals supposed to go find quiet places to die in? Or is that only cats?
Second dead fucking mouse that I've found in my apartment in the past three years. Not nice!!! And the first one was when I was living alone! (Rob dealt with this one.)

Plus I've been really sick to my stomach one and a half times in the past two days. Although the first time really counted for three. The half time was half because Rob and I were on a picnic and when I'd gone over to the bushes feeling sick I noticed a security guard talking to him so I came back because I was worried. I felt better pretty quickly, but seriously, kind of unnerving. I'm never sick.

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:40:09 GMT

YAH ROB GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN!!!!!!!!! SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

Book meme

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:55:06 GMT

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE, or strikeout the books you read but didn't like.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
~~12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë~~
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (once the new translation comes out)
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce (currently reading)
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
~~87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley~~
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:50:33 GMT

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read,
Underline the ones you read for school,
Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. (Italicize and underline the ones you mean to finish)
add * beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read them for school in the first place.

The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods *
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina ***
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales *
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon **********************************************************
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune *
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
The God of Small Things *
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 8
The Historian: a novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad ******
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno *
Jane Eyre ***
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi: a novel
Lolita *
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
1984
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey *
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Oryx and Crake
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice *
The Prince *
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse *
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace (waiting for the new translation to come out in paperback)
Watership Down *
White Teeth
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

fuck i want a cigarette.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:33:18 GMT

I'm tipsy right now, so this wouldn't be so polemical otherwise. Take all the superlatives and make them comparatives and it's probably more like it.

It really pisses me off that Rob is so against smoking. What the fuck is one or two cigarettes every five months? Seriously. This is the end of my undergrad. I'm currently writing my last paper as an undergrad ever. I would like to have a cigarette while writing it. Is that really such a big deal? No. But of course he has empirical evidence that it's bad for you, never mind the medical evidence that two or less cigarettes a day and the doctors don't consider you a smoker.
He has no idea what I've been through in the past five years, and I'm not about to bring that up as a reason for me having a cigarette that he just can't understand. If that doesn't make sense, I'm not going to bring up that he can't understand my reasons for wanting one so he isn't allowed to judge them. I'm really pissed off right now. I didn't want that second glass of red wine, it just got handed to me.

books I've read, books to read

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:08:57 GMT

Gakked from nonacetone7.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (currently reading)
Anna Karenina*
Crime and Punishment (started but too busy)
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses (started, too busy)
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad*
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods*
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales*
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World* (also in french)
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno*
The Satanic Verses*
~~Sense and Sensibility~~
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles*
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune*
The Prince*
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things*
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon***************** BESTEST BOOK EVER EVER EVER EVER (have read it at least five-ish times)
Neverwhere*
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse 5
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:41:28 GMT

Your Score: A White Bishop

You scored 1 Power-Finesse, 3 Leader-Follower, 3 Unique-Ordinary, and 3 Offense-Defense!

Despite your unusual talents, you are often overlooked by your opponent. You are content to stay off to one side, allowing the bloodbath to ensue. Occasionally however, you end up in the scrum yourself, slaughtering the unbelievers. After all, what are the sheep for if not to be shorn? You don't last long when you do that, though. One unfortunate fact: No matter how hard you try, you can only reach half the squares on the board.

Link: The What Chess Piece Are You Test written by Gundark27 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

The awesomeness

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 23:45:51 GMT

http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/

Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings. D.T. Suzuki. Doubleday. Challenged at the Plymouth-Canton school system in Canton, Mich. (1987) because "this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion." The last thing we need are a bunch of peaceful Buddhists running around. The horror. (Purchase)

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:35:11 GMT

It is ninety-four degrees in Halifax, Canada. I came home today overheated and dehydrated. It is still ninety-four degrees in my house, even though it's now eighty degrees outside. It is ninety-four degrees today in Halifax, Canada, and I'm so worn out I don't even want to sleep.

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:26:19 GMT

I'm really thinking of stopping to use Livejournal. I just don't like the way the internet is going, in terms of affecting how I live my life. I'm losing my vocabulary, and emoticons are part of my mental dictionary now. That's not acceptable. So, I'll keep the account, so that I can read all of your posts, but other than that I will be subsuming this journal.

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 02:00:56 GMT

So I totally just won 300$. American. Which is like, almost 400 Canadian.

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:59:14 GMT

I think I just died. Or at least laughed my heart out.

me: [my roommate] was showing us the matching bra and panties she bought for [roommate's boyfriend]
me: *to wear for [roommate's boyfriend[
rob: i was going to ask
me: now you ask, where are the matching bra and panties you bought for me?
rob: :P
rob: apart from the fact that we tend to move past them pretty quickly
me: you ruined my joke!
rob: aw
me: when i say, 'now you ask', then you ask when i just told you to ask
me: ie ask
rob: where are they?
me: *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
rob: i'm confused! (})
me: lol
me: roflmao
me: ({)
me: ok. so i said, [roommate] showed us the matching bra and panties she bought to wear for [roommate's boyfriend].
me: then, i told you that the appropriate response was 'so where are the matching bra and panties you bought for me?'
me: so you then say, 'so where are the matching bra and panties you bought for me?'
me: so i say, you never leave them on long enough to see them
rob: :)
me: and now you say it.
me: type in 'so where are the matching bra and panties you bought for me?'
rob: so where are the matching bra and panties you bought for me
rob: ?
me: haha i had just decided not to call you on the question mark
me: you never let me keep them on long enough to show you!
me: ok?
rob: i love you
me: are we clear now?
me: roflmao
rob: yes
me: i love you too

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:50:53 GMT

Personality Inventory

Emotional (78%)	[....\|\|\|\|\|\|..........]	Logical (22%)
Concerned about self (57%)	[.........\|..........]	Concerned about others (43%)
Atheist (87%)	[...\|\|\|\|\|\|\|..........]	Religious (13%)
Loner (53%)	[.........\|..........]	Dependent (47%)
Laid-back (8%)	[..........\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|..]	Driven (92%)
Traditional (83%)	[...\|\|\|\|\|\|\|..........]	Rebel (17%)
Impetuous (100%)	[\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|..........]	Organized (0%)
Engineering mind (33%)	[..........\|\|\|.......]	Artistic mind (67%)
Cynical (20%)	[..........\|\|\|\|\|\|....]	Idealist (80%)
Follower (57%)	[.........\|..........]	Leader (43%)
Introverted (37%)	[..........\|\|\|.......]	Extroverted (63%)
Conservative (26%)	[..........\|\|\|\|\|.....]	Liberal (74%)
Logical (43%)	[..........\|.........]	Romantic (57%)
Uninterested (21%)	[..........\|\|\|\|\|\|....]	Sexual (79%)
Insecure (32%)	[..........\|\|\|\|......]	Confident (68%)

Take the test! brought to you by thatsurveysite

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:43:02 GMT

I just broke the

Rob gave me for Valentine's Day.

Also,

is Rob and I at YAS Ball. (Please excuse his 'picture-face'.)

My favourite mug broke a couple months ago. It was funny, because everybody in my house knows 'no touching' -- except apparently our new roommate (on exchange last semestre; old roommate's on exchange this one), and a friend visiting her had picked it up to use it and was walking to my roommates room and I was like 'don't use that mug!' And then, the next night, when I poured tea into it from the teapot, tea came pouring out the side. There was a crack in a straight line from the centre of the bottom all up the side.

Then, when roommate two was emptying the dishrack, the bowl someone gave me when I was born fell out and broke. No one in our entire house had used it until new roommate moved in.

(Not blaming new roommate.)

Then, I had the beautiful, gorgeous mug Rob gave me, that had perfect balance, and placed absolutely no strain on the fingers when it was full it was so well balanced, on the counter, and we have our cutting boards upright behind the canola and olive oils. I picked up the canola oil, and the olive oil (though 80% full), apparently was not sufficiently placed to hold the cutting boards up, and they fell. And -- flying mug.

It really hurts. I'm not like, depressed about it or anything, just really cut and upset.

I'm gonna go to the Clay Cafe a couple blocks away and see what they say. Rob's maybe gonna go to the store again.

is this thing psychic or something?

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:51:29 GMT

Haiku² for ikhnaie
face of their precepts and arguments but as of yet there has been the
@

Created by Grahame

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:10:52 GMT

I emailed my sister over a week ago, sent her a picture of me and Rob at the YAS Ball. I know that we're always bad at communication; I mean, we didn't even know I was gonna have a nephew until I already had one (half-sister; same father). I know it doesn't work like this, but I mean, if you're gonna be in contact, be in fucking contact. If you're going to let it drop, drop it all the way. Don't leave me wandering around outside without knowing if the door's booby-trapped or not.

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:57:58 GMT

I am:

Gregory Benford

A master literary stylist who is also a working scientist.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:28:04 GMT

Put an X in the ones you do then add it up and that's your age!

[x] I know how to make a pot of coffee
[x] I do my own laundry
[x] I can cook for myself
[x] I actually enjoy intellectual conversations.
[ ] I think politics are exciting.
[ ] My parents and grandparents have better things to say than my friends
Total: 4

[x/ ] I show up for school and or work every day unless I'm sick. (work, yes. school, no.)
[x] I always carry a pen in my pocket/purse.
[x] I've never gotten a detention
[ ] I've watched talk shows to point out the credibility of it all
[x] I know what credibility means without looking it up
[x] I drink coffee at least once a week.
Total: 3

[x] I know how to run the dish washer and or do the dishes
[x] I can count to 10 in Spanish
[x] When I say I'm going to do something I do it
[x] My parents trust me
[x] I can mow the lawn
[x] I can make adults laugh without being stupid
[x] I remember to water my plants
[ ] I study when I have to
[x] I pay attention at school
[x] I remember to feed my pets
Total: 9

[x] I can spell experience without looking it up
[ ] I clean up my own mess
[ ] The first thing I do when I wake up is get Diet Coke.
[x] I can go to the store without getting something I don't need.
[x] I understand jokes the first time they are said
[x] I can type fast.
Total: 4

[x] I have realized that the weather forecast changes every hour.
[x] I can look at someone hot without thinking of sex.
[ ] I realize that no one will take you seriously unless you are over the age of 25 and have a job.
[x] I can read a book and actually finish it
Total: 3

Looks like I'm twenty four and a half. Iiiiiiiinteresting.

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:48:42 GMT

Comment, and I probably won't give you a letter, as I never usually participate in these things. But like Cory said, I really don't want to do this essay. Ten things that I love that begin with the letter E.

1. Eldritch, Andrew
2. E Nomine
3. Evgeny Onegin
4. epistemology
5. Enuma Elish
6. Elizabeth Edwards
7. Earl Grey tea
8. epic poems
9. England
10. essays

EDIT: Okay, okay, yeah, I think I'm probably as scared as the rest of you, let's not even think about how incredibly academic every single thing on that list is.

Go on. Argue against England and Earl Grey tea being academic. Come on. I dare you.

... You see?

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 05:40:57 GMT

I want to write this paper about as much as I want to get a bikini wax.

And the kicker of it is? It'll only take me three hours, if I can only get started.

CSP 3000 paper.

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:21:19 GMT

go read,

In his introduction to Margins of Philosophy, Jacques Derrida explicates how the structure of his work of deconstruction is aimed at finding a stable, infallible basis for philosophy, and details how previous discourses have found themselves invalidated by their own presuppositional bases. Michael Polanyi, in his article 'Rights and Duties of Science', argues for a separation of pure science from its potential practical applications, as such teleologically aimed research cannot be free to encounter the discoveries that have proven to be the true leaps forward of scientific knowledge. Many philosophers have argued that Derrida's thought and deconstruction itself are useless to what they might call the 'real' world, as it is tied up in intricate language that essentially requires one to relearn the meaning of the words it uses in order to be understood, and because the concepts played out in deconstructive thought stand at a remove from the immediacy of every day life, and are themselves accessible only in retrospection upon their intersections. Derrida has refuted this, a subject which he touches upon in 'Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides', where he separates the application and the evaluation of philosophy, stating that it would be a ' “philosopher” (actually I would prefer to say a “philosopher-deconstructor”)... who analyses and then draws the practical and effective consequences of the relationship between our philosophical heritage and the structure of the still dominant juridico-political system ... one who seeks a new criteriology to distinguish between “comprehending” and “justifying” ' (106), between the removed, objective view of philosophical understanding and the applied and mutable nature of such questions of ethics.

On the surface, from a position uninvolved in the actuality of practicing such an art, this argument holds. The “philosopher-deconstructor” will use his skills in philosophy to look at the current problems, analyse the tracks of their progression, and construct sets of criteria by which the governing institutions can guide their actions, so as to prevent the recurrence of such problems again. But in practice, the pristine flow of this seemingly well-oiled machine must break down. It is easy enough to use Derrida's own thought to follow through to this conclusion; for though the presuppositional bases of the discourses of such as Saussure and Heidegger are much more complex and philosophically relevant, they are no more important than the presupposition here, and perhaps are even less of a danger, because of their inherent philosophical structure.

The unstable base that we find here is not of an error of philosophy, nor of analysis. It is not something that can be argued within the structure of the dominant discourses, but that which is consequent of the unstable borders of philosophy itself. Here, in this description of a “philosopher-deconstructor”, Derrida brings the philosopher out of his native land, and applies his mind to that which he has no calling. This is quite exactly the same problem that Polanyi addresses, not only in 'Rights and Duties of Science' but also in his books The Tacit Dimension and Personal Knowledge, of the separation – and practical lack thereof – between pure and applied science. Much of his thought is a reaction to the doctrine of Bernalism, which declares science as to be such as is only aimed at the progress and betterment of society (2-3, 'Rights and Duties'). Polanyi believes that any scientific research aimed at a specific end, can amount to nothing truly monumental in scientific discoveries. Applied science is nought but 'ingenuity ... employed in the process of handling knowledge' (5, 'Rights and Duties'). It removes knowledge from the sanitary environs of fact and gives it over to the multitudinous ethics of human life. He goes on to say that 'so long as knowledge is merely viewed in its practical context, it can gain no scientific interest'. Polanyi here deals with the physical world, while Derrida handles that of the metaphysical. But because of his scientific, and hence more regimented and practiced, background, Polanyi has an easier time making out the separation of the theoretical and the practical. For centuries, philosophers have applied their mental powers to whatever dogmas they saw fit. They have created entire universes of philosophy, from Kant's ethics with his summum bonum and the categorical imperative to the absurdist realms of such as Camus, but unlike their scientific counterparts, there are no mathematical formulas and rules by which to test the boundaries of these theories. A science founded on presupposition – such as the long believed notion of the geocentric universe which drew its standing from its connection to the church – is eminently disprovable, and with all objective measurements surrounding it taken, it is impossible to logically argue for. There are no such universal rules that are applicable to philosophy in order to test the validity and stability of certain discourses. Yet still philosophers try to proscribe ideals and theories as universal laws. No matter how careful this process may be, it can never be completely objective, and therefore can never be fit to govern the universe as a whole.

This is the same problem that Polanyi identifies existing in science. He seeks to 'show that complete objectivity as usually attributed to the exact sciences is a delusion and is in fact a false ideal. But [he will] not try to repudiate strict objectivity as an ideal without offering a substitute' (18, Personal Knowledge). This substitute he calls 'personal knowledge', a rather ineffable type of thought that exists only as a certainty within one's mind, and that cannot be logically or demonstrably proven to another scientist, but can only be passed on by that other scientist having gone through the same experience.

The act of moving into such an ineffable knowing is not one that can be taken with full consciousness of one's actions, and occurs almost as an uncontrolled descent that is guided by forces we cannot distinguish, much as we are never aware of the movements made by the muscles of our eyes as we direct them to different locations in order to interpret the different objects we see there. This is an indwelling, a tacit inhabitance of our mental powers, much as we subsidiarily use our senses to process information about the physical world. While the objects may exist on their own without our observations, they have no meaning and cannot be proven without interacting with our senses. And it is only through our senses that we can understand what these objects are; our ideas of them are coloured by the structural variations of our sense organs. The same applies to any object that lies outside of us, including scientific knowledge and philosophical speculation. Tacitly knowing, the act of ineffable understanding, is established as 'a meaningful relation between two terms [such as sense organ and external object] ... [is identified] with the understanding of the comprehensive entity which these two terms jointly constitute' (13, Tacit Dimension). The knowledge is not separate from the act of knowing, and nor can it be. The closest one can get to completely objective knowledge is the practice of mathematics, but Polanyi is not concerned here with complete objectivity, but rather with how our subjectivity informs our objective knowledge.

When looking at the texts of Polanyi and Derrida in conjunction, there is a kind of ineffability experienced. Both thinkers seem to have a similar idea of what should constitute 'knowledge' – Polanyi his ineffable experiences and Derrida his perpetual derailing of any philosophy that claims to stem from a certain base. Derrida looks at philosophy, and sees how every discourse that has ever taken hold of the mind has been born out of a presupposition, whether preöriginary or conscious, and that these presuppositions themselves legislate the course that that discourse follows. From Plato, thinking the 'good', to Kant, believing in the summum bonum and thus finding the proof for it within his own arguments, no philosopher starts with a clean slate. Even Derrida, in his quest to destabilise the foundations of the entire discourse of philosophy, is bounded in by such a presupposition – that of the existence of philosophy itself. By his very treatment of the philosophical texts, he allows their presuppositions. He touches upon this, asking 'can one, strictly speaking, determine a nonphilosophical place, a place of exteriority or alterity from which one might still treat of philosophy? Is there any ruse not belonging to reason to prevent philosophy from still speaking of itself' (xii, Margins). He can never treat of philosophy from outside its own borders; instead he speaks of an arrivant par excellence (34, Aporias) that would come from a place unknown, and hence, having no base, could take on philosophy and not be in danger of being subsumed into the dominant discourse itself.

But these are all subordinate presuppositions; in order for there to even be a 'philosophy' as such, there must be an originary presupposition. This comes to be found in the very existence of philosophy itself. It is; it talks to itself, among itself; it give credence to itself. It is 'ample to the point of believing itself interminable, a discourse that has called itself philosophy—doubtless the only discourse that has ever intended to receive its name only from itself' (x, Margins). Philosophy presumes itself. Science likewise presumes itself, but here it is more of an assumption. Science seeks to declare that which is scientific and that which is not. It seeks to control what ideas gain acceptance and what theories are allowed as valid. But this aspect of science is coëxtensive with another but required aspect of science; that of the principle of mutual control (72, Tacit Dimension). Scientists in related fields will critique each other and thus keep out invalid knowledge, but at the same time as this protects science from becoming nothing but a loose amalgamation of irrelevant facts, it also creates a social barrier through which such knowledge must gain admittance before being accepted as fact. Knowledge must prove itself, but it must also fit within the accepted standards and facts of the contemporary scientific fields.

The presuppositions of science can be found out by advances in knowledge, by testing of the hypotheses put forth. The discourses internal to philosophy have been shown to be invalidatable by a careful deconstruction of their precepts and arguments. But as of yet, there has been no way found to surprise philosophy so as to test the stability of its own foundation. Polanyi details the equivalent problem in science thus:

I suggest now that the supposed pre-suppositions of science are so futile because the actual foundations of our scientific beliefs cannot be asserted at all. When we accept a set of pre-suppositions and use them as our interpretative framework, we may be said to dwell in them as we do in our own body. Their uncritical acceptance for the time being consists in a process of assimilation by which we identify ourselves with them. They are not asserted and cannot be asserted, for assertion can be made only within a framework with which we have identified ourselves for the time being; as they are themselves our ultimate framework, they are essentially inarticulable (60, Personal Knowledge).

But at the same time, Polanyi also depends upon this inarticulate framework. His idea of science is of it as a tradition, a continual building-upon of knowledge, and it is only out of growing up in this tradition that we are able to understand complex scientific knowledge without having to go back to its very initial propositions in order to come to an understanding of the whole.

This 'traditional' take on science, while perhaps seeming to box science in, actually clears the way for science to be freed from stricture and the danger of a teleological search for 'truth'. The practice of science depends on the subsidiary awareness mentioned above, where one comes to dwell inside the ineffable knowledge that one has, and to be guided by the subconscious awareness of what such knowledge means. But were we to give ourselves a view of science based solely on its facts and proofs, we would have to be so focussed on so many different aspects that we could not but help bring presuppositions into our research, and most definitely into our interpretations of the results. This is like to the process that Polanyi describes of a pianist switching between subsidiary and focal awareness. If he 'shifts his attention from the piece he is playing to the observation of what he is doing with his fingers while playing it, he gets confused and may have to stop. This happens if we switch our focal attention to particulars of which we had previously been aware only in their subsidiary role' (56, Personal Knowledge). In science, it is easy to identify these particulars, should we wish it. They are the theories and tools that have found themselves verified and accepted into the mainstream facts of contemporary science, and it is easy to identify invalid particulars by putting them to a methodological test. In testing a hypothesis, one works with all of these, identifies there connections and seeks to ensure that they are valid. Conversely, when a scientist is chasing down a hunch, he cannot be too aware of these particulars, for otherwise they will overshadow his ineffable knowledge and colour the results he gets.

Polanyi accounts for the ability to reach such unintentional results by tacit knowing. Tacit knowing accounts for the awareness of a scientist that there is a gap, a problem for which he can solve. His possessing of tacitly known particulars and the ineffable connections between them gives him the ability to pare down his ideas, and to have an inkling of what form his results will take (24, Tacit Dimension). In philosophical searchings, a too great awareness of the particulars will create a discourse completely ruled by them, and giving too much heed to these strictures will only inform the very basis of the discourse into a teleological presupposition, leaving the discourse wide open to invalidation as it both proves itself and is proved by itself, a thought begun with a path in mind that moved forward and only recognised the signposts it needed to continue along that predetermined path.

Within this type of philosophy, tacit knowledge is useless as an informative tool, and serves only as an indicator of a problem beyond logic and pure reason. It is its form as ineffable knowledge that comes into play here, a conjoining of all information stored tacitly that fails to connect completely, and shows inarticulably that the discourse is invalid. It is only here that Derrida seems to truly appreciate such occurrences of tacit knowledge – he discusses these moments in his book Aporias, which is primarily a consideration of the Heideggerian theory of death as the ultimate experience of one's own living being. Within this theory exists an inherent contradiction, as Heidegger argues both that death is both the possibility of an impossibility of Dasein and the only proper possibility of Dasein. He recognises the clash of logic here, it is Derrida's argument that Heidegger does not follow his thought to its ultimate conclusion, for a true understanding of this concept, a true inhabitation of its thought, requires an ineffable indwelling in the contradiction that it posits. Derrida calls this the aporia.

Heidegger has subconsciously managed to evade confronting this aporia, because to experience an inarticulable knowledge would be to invalidate language – and without language, Dasein loses its superiority of being. Aporias such as these 'risk paralysing the ontological, hierarchical, and territorial apparatus to which Heidegger lends credit. These aporias risk interrupting the very possibility of its functioning and leading it to ruin’ (27-28, Aporias). They interrupt the monopoly on knowledge that philosophy has, by their being removed from the very body of philosophy – its language and words, its logic, which is a practice whose name itself is derived from the Greek for 'word'. Philosophy could no more accept that than the practical scientists of today would permit the argument that an ineffable knowledge of a problem and its possible solution could be a valid constituent of the discourse of the sciences, being unverifiable.

While science is not governed by language, there are different languages it is necessary to learn in order to understand the different realms of science. Words may take on different meanings, and symbols with no outside significance become the centre of meaning. These groupings of related meanings are languages in their own right, and one cannot critique science without understanding them – just as Derrida cannot comment on philosophy without resorting to philosophy himself, yet here it does not carry the same threat to understanding as it does there. Polanyi says that most of the pre-suppositions of science are assimilated 'by learning to speak of things in a certain language, in which there are names for various kinds of objects, names by which objects can be classified' (59, Personal Knowledge) and understood. These objects are named, and once named, the scientist can stop thinking about them, stop worrying about figuring them out, and can let go of the questions concerning them, once he has discovered enough about them to be satisfied. It is by such declarative namings as these that the tradition of science is constituted, and the set of facts referred to by such names works its way into the tacit knowledge of the scientists who study it. If this knowledge is sufficient for the applications necessary in the current society, without free research no further grand discoveries will come into being, for these facts will be approached with the knowledge that they are complete, and that their borders have no questionably blurred areas.

Conversely, it is not its own content that philosophy most vigourously seeks to name and thus to control, but that which it has declaratively made its 'other'. 'Philosophy has always insisted upon this: thinking its other. Its other: that which limits it, and from which it derives its essence, its definition, its production' (x, Margins of Philosophy). Science has mathematical formulas and incontrovertible physical facts by which to define itself. Philosophy, that which claims to be the way to the knowledge of everything, could never define itself so baldly, for even if no fact was ever found that existed outside of its delimitations, the very delimiting allows for those facts to have potentiality, thus displacing philosophy from the sole right to 'truth'. The only delimitations set upon philosophy are its tools – logic and reason. It can only keep striving to encompass more and more, all the time risking the subsuming of something that will invalidate one of its most dominant discourses. The only solidly irrefutable 'truths' in philosophy are those that invalidate others. These truths have no preöriginal basis; their foundation is found solely in the discourses they critique, and they themselves are the contradictions and aporias of those discourses coming out to play.

Thus the truth of philosophy is built upon its invalidation of itself; the truth of science is constructed of its own delimitations. Given any connection to either a presupposition or a teleological intent, and these truths can no longer argue themselves. In science, Polanyi's solution for this is the acceptance of tacit knowledge, of the verity of the ineffable awareness of a problematic and its solution. If one does not know to what end one is headed, even what path one is on, how can the voyage be tainted by any presuppositional teleology? The scientist's 'vision of the problem, his obsession with it, and his final leap to discovery are all filled from beginning to end with an obligation to an external objective. In these intensely personal acts, therefore, there is no self-will' (77, Tacit Dimension). Once at that discovery, the currently known scientific facts can be brought to bear upon it, to test it, and to be tested themselves. Philosophy has engendered itself with the claim to everything, and given that the metaphysical is not governed by the mathematical laws of physics, there are no tests that can be given to philosophy not of its own making. Thus philosophy begins everywhere, with everything, and being so untestable, can never be called into question. But neither can philosophy be built up, in stages, for then there must be a starting point, and in order for there to be a starting point, one must already be somewhere. It is thus necessary that philosophy be preöriginary, whereas science can be built up from a very simple mathematical beginning. The only philosophical knowledge that can claim to have no presupposition is that which one can only experience – such as that of the aporia. The aporia cannot be articulated, and since it is upon logic and words that philosophy is based, there can be no invalidation of it. But most such experiences come from the unsolvable, the unverifiable, such as Heidegger's theory of death and Dasein, which one can only come to understand; it cannot be taught. Unlike the tacit knowledge of science, the tacit knowledge of philosophy ends still tacit. The eventual expression of scientific discovery is not articulable either, for it is described by maths, or heuristics. But it is describable. One must only already dwell within the ineffability of that particular science.

Philosophy seeks a truth that is unverifiable – so broad that it encompasses everything, explains everything, is completely transcendental. Unverifiability does not exist within the realms of logic and reason, but philosophy will allow for no other tools. Tacit knowledge, while perhaps questionable while underway, can be accepted by science, for at the end it is verifiable. It can be questioned and tested. Tacit knowledge, in philosophy, must never be acceptable, for it cannot be so tested, so long as we insist upon understanding philosophy in the way that has been the wont of the Western Metaphysical tradition. But it is also the only uninvalidatable form of knowledge. Philosophy can obviously never be given over to ineffable knowledge; that would defeat its point, however self-serving its point may be. But it is from a tacit drive that a philosopher must begin; at least with that starting point we are not confronted concomitantly with a presuppositional doctrine, and though the tradition from which a philosopher comes may provide a slight teleological bent to his thought, it is not intentional, and such an informing of his thought by his tradition is unavoidable; there are no new starting points, and every step forward is informed by the force and direction of every other step before. Polanyi describes scientific discovery as an 'existential choice', and it must be the same with philosophy. 'We start the pursuit of discovery by pouring ourselves into the subsidiary elements of a problem and we continue to spill ourselves into further clues as we advance further, so that we arrive at discovery fully committed to it as an aspect of reality' (80, Tacit Dimension). The closest philosophy has come to such an informed yet unintentional pursuit is the practice of deconstruction, which does not create doctrines of its own, but exists in the connections and conjunctions between the other discourses. But here again there is no path; deconstruction does not seek truth, but to delimit what is not truth, and given our utter inability to see the complete scope of the philosophical basis, perhaps that is the closest we can yet come to discovering 'truth'.

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques. Aporias. Trans. T. Dutoit. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993.

------ ‘Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides’. Derrida Course Reader. Halifax: University of King’s College, 2005-2006.

------ Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982.

Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966.

------ Personal Knowledge. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962.

------ 'Rights and Duties of Science'. CSP 3000: Science and Culture Course Reader. Halifax: University of King's College, 2006-2007.

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:06:10 GMT

Uh, let's hear it for raping Ancient Greek upside down, backwards, and sideways. 'Cause yeah. I'm just that good.

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:30:10 GMT

Let's hear it for being raped upside down, backwards, and sideways by Ancient Greek. And I don't even know how you get raped sideways. But it happened. And I think I'm the only person who actually finished the exam.