Every week (for at least two weeks in a row now), I write up a list of all the things I’ve learned over the past week. This is a special little treat that I like to file under Gobbledygook. But enough of the explanatory note. On with the show.

Here’s what I learned this week…

1. …from moving pictures:
   • That “the sins of the father” works for mothers too. It seems that a girl hood is cursed by her mother as much as a boy is cursed by his father. You always hear the “my father was a drunk” or “my father never approved of me” or “my dad didn’t stick around long enough to teach me how to be a man” thing when you listen to hoods try to explain why they’re in jail. It’s the same thing, but for mothers, when you listen to a girl hood. The difference, however, seems to be that where boys usually want to fight their fathers, girls want to hug their mothers.
2. …from books:
   • That the answer to “What is human nature?” assumes that humans can be accurately conceived in the abstract. While there are all sorts of problems with this assumption — such as the Levinas’ idea that an individual is absolutely separate from any category — it does provoke an interesting response: If there is a human nature, it must be distinguished from other natures, for example, the nature of lions. Interestingly, the most common notion of human nature is that whatever distinguishes us from other natures is what makes us above all of nature.

     Montesquieu writes in his Persian Letters:

     When a man takes stock of himself, how satisfying it is for him to conclude that he has justice in his heart! - it may be an austere pleasure, but it is bound to cause him delight, as he realizes that his state is far above those without justice as he is above tigers and bears. Truly…if I were sure that I could put into practice, constantly and unfailingly, that equity which I can visualize, I should consider myself supreme among men. [Letter 83]

     I take Montesquieu to mean that it is a sense of justice that demarcates the human. This is not to say that all homo sapiens have a sense of justice, i.e., that all those creatures who share the biology of humans are moral, but it is to say that only those with a moral sense belong to that privileged class we call human. That would explain the actions of the animals that we read about in the newspaper.

   • That “with truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing; one must also make them felt. Of such a kind are moral truths.” (Letter 11)
   • That virtue is not a restriction of freedom, but rather, it is the highest exemplification of freedom. Both Montesquieu and Levinas have posited this idea, though both in different ways. Montesquieu shows it through the Parable of the Troglodytes (highly recommend following that link). Levinas writes about it in Totality & Infinity:
     

     [In European thought,] the spontaneity of freedom is not called into question; its limitation alone is held to be tragic and to constitute a scandal…[and]…from [freedom's] failure alone would come the necessity of curbing violence and introducing order into human relations. Political theory derives justice from the undiscussed value of spontaneity….[but] morality begins when freedom, instead of being justified by itself, feels itself to be arbitrary and violent…The essence of reason consists not in securing for man a foundation and powers, but in calling him in question and in inviting him to justice. (pp. 83, 84, & 88)

     The reasoning here privileges justice over freedom, which makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. And in part, it is what scares me about the President’s constant refrain. It’s not freedom the world needs, but justice (and not in the form of retribution).

3. …from the web:
   • That there’s a reason its called zenview - because it’s what enlightenment must look like.
   • That active matrix liquid crystal displays are a neat solution to the problem of screen refreshment. Although, I think “smart pixels” would have been a better name. I mean, I realize that name is already taken, but actual smart pixels sound more like “robot eyes” than pixels. But hey, I’m just an advertising copywriter. What do I know?
   • That someone made a movie entitled, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. I haven’t been this excited about a movie since I heard they were doing Lord of the Rings. For those who don’t know, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. is considered to be the first postmodern novel. It was written between the years of 1759-1767. Sure, at that point, there still hadn’t been a modernism, let alone a postmodernism, but there’s a reason the book is a masterpiece. It was 200 years ahead of its time.
   • That Apple has filed a patent for something called an accelerometer, which has an interesting video-game application. Most people seem to think it’ll go in the iPod. If it does, it effectively would turn your iPod into a kinesthetic controller, ala the Nintendo Revolution controller. Imagine you were playing a racing game on your iPod. Instead of using the scroll wheel to steer or something, you’d simply turn the whole iPod. The image on the screen would stay right-side up, but, obviously, the “car” would turn. Or, you could slide the iPod to the side to turn just a little bit. Check out these two images from the patent application (one and two) for what I mean.
   • That Tennyson’s line, ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw” is not so much a simple aphorism, as a small part of a larger and more complex poem.
   • That there aren’t nearly enough visualizers for iTunes.
   • That Bob Dylan wrote, “Every Grain of Sand,” and not Emmylou Harris. Though Emmylou’s version is about 274 times better than Bob’s.
   • That PostSecret may be one of the most thought-provoking sites on the Internet.
   • That the fact that I don’t have cable doesn’t prevent me from watching C-Span.
   • That there’s at least one Web browser that has put some thought into page transitions (watch this 2.5 MB QT movie of Shiira). Unfortunately, the programmers have decided to use the metaphor of “turning the page” for the transition. While this makes sense due to the fact that these things are called Web pages, I think it fails to link up to that single factor that makes the Web more progressive than books, namely, it ignores the concept of hyperspace. For my take on how Web page transitions can utilize this spatial concept, read my (rambling) post from MuchTooMuch, Think Desire.
   • That single women can cuddle themselves to sleep too, thanks to the Boyfriend Arm Pillow.
   • That the folks at 37Signals are coming out with a new chat application, called Campfire. Apparently, they’re conceiving chat as a collaboration tool. And because there’s no software to install, this may be my chance to get Adam onto some sort of instant messenger.
   • That no one should ever take a photo of their band, ever, ever again - or else you might end up in The Hall of Douchebags.
   • That the U.S. Senate redesigned their home page.
   • That Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who stole the idea of the World Wide Web from Al Gore, thinks you should give yourself a URI (aka “web address”).
   • On a related note, that I don’t understand why FOAF confuses me. I get the basic idea, but the process of creating a FOAF file and putting it on your site just seems more difficult than it needs to be.
   • That the new toolbar for IE7 shows how much Microsoft just doesn’t get it.
   • That Frank Defelice, aka Defa (the infamous gym teacher from my years in middle school) got fired from leading the Swampscott high-school baseball team. I never really liked the guy, but he was in the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Rumor has it that he was only fired because the new school superintendent, who, it seems, no one likes, had it in for him. And that’s just not cool.
   • That someone really doesn’t appreciate UCLA’s Radical Professors.
   • That there are 9 must reads before you launch a startup.
   • That there’s a place I can go when I want to…

4. …from life:
   • That some people will never learn.
   • That Dawn and I can make a damn fine chili, even if it is vegetarian.
   • That feminist philosophy professors look really awkward when they’re trying to open the Playboy centerfold at my kitchen table.
   • That sometimes people feel better when they’re angry.
   • That the snow gods are apparently on strike this year.
   • That I learn 10x more from writing than I do from reading.
   • That Peach is cooler than Fox.
   • That trying to stay on top of your studying game when no is going to ask you about it for another three months can be rather difficult.
   • That I don’t like shopping in hippie food co-ops, mostly because they don’t carry Doritos.
   • On a related, that your whole day can be thrown off by starting at the other end of the grocery store (for example, instead of starting in the produce section, you start in the frozen food section).
   • That I can be really annoying when my girlfriend has PMS.

And that’s it for this week. Thanks for getting your mind all stuck in my Gobbledygook.