The Mother of all Blogs

Discovered that some good souls have digitized and transcribed Martha Ballard's entire dairy and placed it on the web. Being from the late 18th century (1785 to 1812) makes this online diary the oldest and the mother of all web-logs (complete with poor spelling, stunted vocabulary and entries that are incredibly boring when considered individually ;)).

A sample collection of entries from the diary from the period January 1 - 10, 1801:

• Clear. I was at home till 8h Evn when I was Calld to Son Jonas to See John Davis who is Scholt and brot from Asa Pierces, there he had fitts. I tarried all night.
  
  
• Clear and Cold. I was Twice at my Sons, tarried all night. Son & Dagt Lambd and their Childn Came here. they left allin and went to mr Pittss. at my sons.
  
  
• Clear. mr Ballard to meeting. Esq Davis brot his miss and Son here, we gave up our North room to them. Doct Colman Sleeps here, Esq Davis, Son Lambd and famely allso. my husband and I lay by the kitchen fire.
  
  
• A Severe Snow Storm. son Lambd & famely went to Son Jonas. Esq Davis and son Ephm Sleep here. John Seems Cleverly.
  
  
• Snowd. John was very ill, Cony & Colman were Calld Early ys morn. drest the burns with poulleses of 3d pt rhum, oinions and indien meal. Colman and mrs Duttun with him this night. I laid down a little while in my Cloaths.
  

As Laurel Ulrich (see below) points out, the diary's diligent record of the mudane turns out to provide a deeper perspective of the daily life of women from those days when compared to the sophisticated intellectual observations filling the verbose journals of Martha Ballard's male contemporaries in the same region.

:-) Along similar lines, the collections of our credit card receipts, bills, records of daily expenses, ticket stubs, etc, may by far be among the most important reflections/traces of our lives as proud members of the average, undistinguished masses.

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Some background: So, Martha Ballard was a midwife in the Augusta-area in Maine and this diary was the result of her diligently keeping a record of the babies delivered and the gifts received as payment, which she peppered with little personal remarks in the process.

Under the eye of historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, this humble, diligently maintained diary however turned out to be a rare treasure trove of information about the life of women in Frontier America as detailed in this absolutely rivetting and very cool book "A Midwife's Tale:The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary 1785-1812". The same website also has large extracts from this book. The raw entries in the diary are actually great fun to read when placed within a larger context.

A new word

I learnt a new word today:

Thanatology (orig. U.S): The scientific study of death, its causes and phenomena. Also (orig. U.S.), the study of the effects of approaching death and of the needs of the terminally ill and their families;

(see the Oxford English Dictionary entry for more details)

Why Everything You Know About Murphy’s Law is Wrong

The Fastest Man on Earth: Why Everything You Know About Murphy’s Law is Wrong by Nick T. Spark -- a very intriguing account of the author's investigation into the "he said...she said...he said" origins of Murphy's law, from the Annals of Improbable Research

Hypocrisy

News item:Despite Darfur, Indian investments balloon in Sudan

Snippets:
"...Even as the "humanitarian crisis" in Sudan's Darfur region hogs global attention, India is making huge investments in the oil-rich North African country that is set to become a major source for New Delhi's energy requirements...

...India has refrained from joining the chorus of international condemnation of Sudan over Darfur developments. The external affairs ministry said the two countries have "traditionally enjoyed close and friendly relations...The humanitarian situation in the region has naturally been a matter of concern."

....Asked if India side had expressed concern about the developments in Darfur and its impact on Indian investments, the Sudanese envoy said New Delhi had not raised the issue. Anyway, Darfur is far from the oil-producing central, southern and southeastern regions of the country, he noted... "

The hypocritical shifting sands that developing countries stand on -- it remains to be seen where the Indian govt will shift if the situation remains unchanged and if the UN sanctions kick in.

Water corruption and Chinatown (1974)

Saw Chinatown again for the nth time last night. I can never seem to get enough of it.

The conspiratorial theme of water-related corruption in the movie resonated with the news article I saw recently about the increasingly grave global shortages of water and the risk of water wars. This press release was from the World Water Week conference in Stockholm, which has an interesting report titled More Nutrition Per Drop: Towards Sustainable Food Production and Consumption Patterns in a Rapidly Changing World.

Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics

Check out this amazing compendium on the Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics.

An interesting extract from this page that clarifies an important ambiguity about the word function -- as to whether it's mathematical usage preceded it's common vernacular usage with regard to utility and design:

"The word FUNCTION first appears in a Latin manuscript "Methodus tangentium inversa, seu de fuctionibus" written by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in 1673. Leibniz used the word in the non-analytical sense, as a magnitude which performs a special duty. He considered a function in terms of "mathematical job"--the "employee" being just a curve. He apparently conceived of a line doing "something" in a given figura ["aliis linearum in figura data functiones facientium generibus assumtis"]. From the beginning of his manuscript, however, Leibniz demonstrated that he already possessed the idea of function, a term he denominates relatio.

A paper "De linea ex lineis numero infinitis ordinatim..." in the Acta Eruditorum of April 1692, pp. 169-170, signed "O. V. E." but probably written by Leibniz, uses functiones in a sense to denote the various 'offices' which a straight line may fulfil in relation to a curve, viz. its tangent, normal, etc..."

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Among other things, this page also has a collection on the Images of Mathematicians on Postage Stamps.

Agre takes on conservatism

After a long silence, the incomparable Phil Agre takes on conservatism in his latest post to the Red Rock Eater mailing list titled "What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?".

Interestingly, his attack on conservatism strongly follows the lines of his fundamental issue with Good Old Fashioned AI (GOFAI) -- hierarchy.By treating 'conservatism' as being equivalent to aristocracy and hence to a worldview biased towards a hierarchical conception of society, his GOFAI-related arguments carry over quite smoothly. However, he presents the correspondence between conservatism and aristocracy as an obvious given rather than presenting an argument as to why this is the case. This does not seem to be self-evident.

Open Water (2003)

Directed by Chris Kentis
US, 2003, color, 79 min
With Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis

(see the IMDB entry for details)

It has a simple premise which is conveyed with endless bobbing around in the open ocean under an open sky yet...

BE WARNED: If you go to see it seeking a horror film similar to Jaws, then you will feel somewhat cheated not due to a shortage of scary moments but because there isnt a horror movie payoff at the end. Also, despite developing a great sense of it, it is not a Robinson-Crusoe-type castaway study. Strangely, for all that happens over the 79 minutes, it is simply a film about two people -- Susan and Daniel -- with the sense of an impending trainwreck right from the first five minutes of the movie.

Theatre viewing highly recommended

Spiderman 2 (2004)

Directed by Sam Raimi
US, 2004, color, 127 min
With Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst
(see IMDB entry for more)

:) Completely entertaining popcorn movie!

The Front Page (1931)

Directed by Lewis Milestone
US, 1931, b/w, 101 min.
With Adolphe Menjou, Pat O’Brien, Mary Brian

Blurb from the HFA website: "This fast-paced, raucous comedy was remade numerous times by the likes of Howard Hawks (as His Girl Friday) and Billy Wilder. An adaptation of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1928 Broadway play, The Front Page follows Hildy Johnson, a reporter on the verge of retirement, as he investigates the escape of death-row murderer Earl Williams. Hildy finds Williams and, hoping to get the scoop on the story, hides him in a roll-top desk in the paper’s press room. With Williams hidden safely in the desk, Hildy is free to investigate what turns out to be the real story: the political corruption of 1920s Chicago. Adolphe Menjou makes a memorable appearance as Hildy’s hard-nosed editor, Walter Burns."

Note: As the movie plodded on, I realized that I had it seen it before in it's Billy Wilder avatar starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Despite the poor audio quality the movie had some interesting moments and the subversive elements of the movie had a different flavor to it when compared to the remake.

Mean Creek (2004)

Directed by Jacob Aaron Estes
US, 2004, color, 87 min,
With Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck, Carly Schroeder

(See IMDB entry for details)

The deliberate pace and the gradual way in which the characters get unveiled in the leadup to the central event of the movie is very intense and also the high point of the movie. Somehow after that point the rest of the movie seemed limp in comparison and (I thought) was quite unable to deliver a closing as powerful as the buildup. To be fair though, this was definitely a different kind of movie.

Theatre viewing highly recommended

The Hit (1984)

Directed by Stephen Frears
UK, 1984, color, 100 min.
With John Hurt, Terence Stamp, Tim Roth

Blurb from the HFA website: "Terence Stamp portrays an informer hiding out in Spain after turning on his fellow criminals. Ten years, later two hitmen (Tim Roth, John Hurt) arrive and take him to Paris to be executed, but nothing goes as planned. Stamp is cool as ice as a snitch waiting for his comeuppance, and Roth makes an impressive film debut. A funny yet unconventional work, it provided the avenue for director Stephen Frears to move from his acclaimed television work to the top tier of contemporary British directors."

Note: The setting for the entire story is a road-trip through Spain -- from vast arid expanses (with windmills and metal-clad gentlemen on starved horses), to bustling Madrid, and then to the forests of the Pyrenees. This was the highlight of the movie for me.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Directed by Jonathan Demme
US,2004,color,130 minutes
With Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber

(see IMDB entry for more details)

Extremely disappointing compared to the original 1962 version. The plot revolves so much around Denzel Washington that the poignancy of the Manchurian candidate in the original is completely destroyed. Rather than being a plot that twists and turns but is still on a road, this new movie is a bizarre noisy mess.