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Upgraded Joomsayer and Hyphenation for Movable Type

2008-06-26T10:14:19Z

Joomsayer and Hyphenation for Movable Type are now both released in version 1.0. Sociotags and Curvaceous are both released in version 1.01.

The previous version of Joomsayer contained a bug that appears to break functionality of either Joomsayer or (worse) other plug-ins in MT 4.2 RC2. There is no formal bug fix; however, the bug is believed to be caused by a dependency that has been completely removed in version 1.0, and the defect is currently not reproducible.

Perhaps the most important new feature in Joomsayer is that you no longer need to rely on a hardcoded HTML block; it is now completely configurable in your plug-in preferences.

Also, the screendump showing the customized Joomsayer quotation box with white background, dropshadow, rounded corners, and blue quotation characters is available as a download.

To upgrade Joomsayer from version 0.2, unfortunately you may have to revisit the plug-in preferences for each of your blogs and set the quote box alignment and the quote source positions anew. The reason for this inconvenience is that the automatic upgrader is not able to migrate your settings due to an obscure bug in Movable Type that has survived for quite some time.

The release 1.0 version of Hyphenation adds the option to explicitly remove all hyphenation tags from output regardless of whether the Hyphenation plug-in is enabled or not; this is useful for your blog feeds.

Two other Movable Type plug-ins have received minor updates: Sociotags and Curvaceous are both available in version 1.01. Both of the releases include a minor bug fix that could potentially cause problems in future upgrades. Neither of the updates are critical, but they could save you some trouble in the future. In addition, Sociotags includes the Danish service Anyhed.dk.

First major release of Sociotags

2008-06-15T13:51:23Z

The Sociotags plug-in for Movable Type has been updated with some new social networks, some of them more significant than others. The plug-in is now considered mature enough to warrant a version bump to version 1.0. Get Sociotags for Movable Type here.

Hyphenation for MT4 Updated

2008-06-14T18:34:10Z

Hyphenation for Movable Type was barely released before all but one of the planned features had been added to the alpha code.

The new beta, which is out today, now features a dictionary installer that enables you to simply upload your OpenOffice dictonaries without doing anything to them, and you have the option to specify different dictionaries throughout your entries.

Movable Type Plugin: Hyphenation

2008-06-12T16:50:10Z

Hyphenation for Movable Type is a plug-in for Movable Type 4 that provides automatic hyphenation of your text based on OpenOffice hyphenation dictionaries.

Automatic hyphenation is very useful if you often use left-aligned or right-aligned images with text flowing along the side of the image in a narrow column. With Firefox 3, hyphenation is now displayed on all major browsers.

The screenshot below is an actual example of Hyphenation for Movable Type in action:

Once installed and properly configured, the plug-in provides automatic hyphenation of your entry text.

Requirements

Movable Type 4
Downloaded OpenOffice hyphenation dictionary files.

Installation

Download Hyphenation for Movable Type, and extract the archive file.
Upload the contents of the archive to the "plugins" folder in your Movable Type installation. (There should now be a directory called "Hyphenation" in the plugins directory.)
Download your preferred OpenOffice hyphenation dictionary from the OpenOffice localization web site.
Go to the system administration and select the plug-ins settings. Use the Hyphenation's "Install New Dictionary" button to install the downloaded hyphenation dictionaries (you don't need to unzip them).
Go to Preferences -> Plugins for each of the blogs where you want to enable Hyphenation for Movable Type.
Check the "Enable" box.
Select your preferred default hyphenation dictionary from the drop-down box. The list should contain the dictionaries that you installed earlier.
Save your changes.
Edit the templates that display entries (in the MT4 default templates, these would be the "Entry Detail" and the "Entry Summary" template modules), adding the tag modifier (i.e., global filter) hyphenate="1" to the <$MTEntryBody$>, <$MTEntryMore$>, and <$MTEntryExcerpt$> tags; for example:

<$MTEntryBody hyphenate="1"$>
As of version 1.0 (out soon!) you should also add the tag modifier hyphenate="0" in your feed templates (the RSS and the Atom feeds) to explicitly disable hyphenation in your feeds.

Usage

Hyphenation for Movable Type has two modes of operation: it either hyphenates all text in your entries, or only the text you've marked for hyphenation. Since automatic hyphenation of all text will significantly increase the size of your HTML pages, you should consider manual selection of the text that should be automatically hyphenated.

To indicate that a text section should be automatically hyphenated, enclose the text between the tags [hyphenate] and [/hyphenate] in your entry.

You may specify an alternative dictionary for a particular text section by adding the attribute dict="xx_YY" in the [hyphenate] tag, where xx_YY is the name of the alternative directory. For example, if your default hyphenation dictionary is en_US, you might specify a German dictonary by enclosing the German text within the tags [hyphenate dict="de_DE"] and [/hyphenate].

The tags will be stripped from your entries if Hyphenation for Movable Type is disabled, or if hyphenation for your template has been explicitly turned off with the tag modifier hyphenate="0".

(Please note that if you installed version 0.1 of Hyphenation for Movable Type, you'll have to install your dictionaries and select your default dictionary.)

To report bugs or request features, please use the comments.

Movable Type Plugin Curvaceous 1.0 Released

2008-06-09T14:33:45Z

The Movable Type 4 plug-in, Curvaceous, is now released in version 1.0. Have fun!

Movable Type Plugin: Sociotags Updated to v. 0.3

2008-06-05T17:21:44Z

The Sociotags plug-in for Movable Type has been updated to remove old social networks and update the links to the current social networks. Get it here.

Movable Type Plugin: Curvaceous

2008-06-05T05:30:40Z

Curvaceous is a plug-in for Movable Type 4 that causes text to flow smoothly around the edges of irregularly shaped images, as shown in the actual screenshot below:

Once installed, the plug-in works in the background, converting any images that are either left-aligned or right-aligned.

Requirements

Movable Type 4
Image::Magick (you probably have it, but please consult your web hosting service)

Installation

Download Curvaceous for Movable Type, and extract the archive file.
Upload the contents of the archive to the "plugins" folder in your Movable Type installation. (There should now be a directory called "Curvaceous" in the plugins directory.)
Go to Preferences -> Plugins for each of the blogs where you want to enable Curvaceous.
Check the "Enable" box, and click "Save Changes." (You should seriously consider not selecting "all" as the build method.)
For each template for which you plan to use Curvaceous, add the following line between the and tags (if you are using the MT4 default templates, go to the Template Modules and edit the "Header" template):

<$MTCurvaceous$>

Edit the templates that display entries (in the MT4 default templates, those would be the "Entry Detail" and the "Entry Summary" template modules), adding the tag modifier curvaceous="1" to the <$MTEntryBody$> and <$MTEntryMore$> tags; for example:

<$MTEntryBody curvaceous="1"$>

Add a link to the Curvaceous for Movable Type page on your own blog on all pages where Curvaceous converts your images. The software is free of charge, but you must add a link.

Usage

Enable Curvaceous in the plug-in settings, and then simply insert the images using the "insert image" button in your entry editor the way you're used to.

If you prefer to code in raw HTML, insert the images manually using the tag and specify whether it should be left-aligned or right-aligned by entering "float: left;" or "float: right;" in the style attribute.

Please note that this plug-in may significantly increase build time for your blog. To minimize your build time, there are three options available for the build method: firstly, you may choose to convert all images via the Curvaceous plug-in. This will be the most time-consuming method. Secondly, you may choose to convert either just the images you specify, or all images but the ones you specify.

To specify an image for inclusion or exclusion (depending on your choice of build method), simply include the class type, "curvaceous" in the image's "class" attribute in the raw HTML. For example, if you insert an image and click the button, add the word "curvaceous" as follows:

Known Issues

PNG images must be in RGB mode; Image::Magick does not seem to recognize the transparency information in grayscale images.
Animated images are not supported.

Note: to use Curvaceous for Movable Type, you must place a link to the Curvaceous for Movable Type page on your own blog on all pages where Curvaceous is used to modify the images. (For commercial use: you can avoid linking to the Curvaceous page by paying a registration fee--please contact me at wolf@blazingangles.com.)

To report bugs or request features, please use the comments.

Movable Type Plugin: Joomsayer Updated for MT 4.1

2008-06-02T07:12:57Z

The Joomsayer Movable Type plug-in has (finally!) been updated to version 0.2, which should work with Movable Type v. 4.1. The new version no longer relies on modifying the entry while editing, and instead makes the necessary modifications at the time the entries are published.

The style sheets and Javascript are unchanged, but you'll need to add a tag modifier. Please refer to the installation and upgrade instructions.

OPML Template for Movable Type 4.1

2008-03-08T13:22:33Z

I'll confess that I haven't found much use for an OPML feed yet for a blog, but some geeks might insist that if it can be done, then it should be done.

The following template is an example of how to create an OPML feed for your Movable Type 4.1 blog that traverses through the categories and subcategories, listing the entries within each:

"?>


  <$MTBlogName remove_html="1" encode_xml="1"$>

  <$MTEntryAuthorDisplayName encode_xml="1"$>
  
    <$MTEntryAuthorEmail encode_xml="1"$>
  
  <$MTEntryModifiedDate format_name="rfc822"$>




  "
    type="link" url="<$MTCategoryArchiveLink encode_xml="1"$>"
    created="<$MTDate format_name="rfc822"$>">
    
      "
        type="link" url="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>"
        created="<$MTEntryDate format_name="rfc822"$>" />

Name the feed file something sensible, say, "index.opml" and select to have it published automatically.

To also enable autodiscovery of the feed, add the following line to the Header template, between the and tags:

"
 ref="<$MTBlogURL$>index.opml" />

I have no idea how it will render in any OPML reader, because I haven't been able to locate one. However, the feed appears to validate correctly.

A Tribute to the Devil

2008-02-26T17:26:14Z

Science has a reasonable understanding of matter and how the strong, the weak, and the electromagnetic forces and (at least for practical purposes) gravity affect it. We also have a firm grasp on an large array of other natural laws and principles.

But none of the forces or laws indicate that, from a human point of view, there is a constant evolution and change in our universe. They only describe change within so limited scopes that one cannot express connections between cause on the microscopic level and effect on the macroscopic level, or vice versa.

The laws of nature do not state anything about the development of life; although we do understand how DNA replicates, how organisms reproduce and mutate, how organisms adapt and survive according to changing environments, and how they in turn change their environments, we cannot explain which direction life will take. Neither do the laws of nature explain our emotions or reactions in spite of a good understanding of biochemistry, some neurological insight, etc.
]]> Perhaps if in theory one could take a snapshot of the current state of my body and all things in its environment that have a non-negligible effect and, this snapshot now frozen in time and space, describe me as a defined system using mathematical equations and models of chemistry and physics. If our world could be modeled this way, and no random effects can occur, perhaps one could predict the direction of life.

But no man can handle this reductionist view, and must instead resort to mystical symbolism both to understand and to communicate any state of existence.

We possess an immense understanding of the world around and within us, yet our sense of development and life—our desire to act and live, to be and to become—is not covered by this understanding. We can still describe such feelings only in symbolic terms.

Natural forces and laws combined have an immense effect that seems much larger than their sum total, and there is no well-described natural law that can express this combined effect. We can only state that the natural laws explain that things happen, and how physical and chemical processes are followed, but they cannot describe how life or our perception of life unfolds. It is this "superset of natural laws" that has no scientific law or description.

In principle, I could do with the above explanation, but few people can relate well enough to the knowledge that science has gathered today to understand the combined force of the laws of the universe. A symbol is required instead that effectively communicates this greater whole, enabling people to intuitively grasp the immensity and general mechanisms.

I prefer to use Satan as this symbol. It describes change with no guidance, a perpetual motivation that follows its own, inner dark light. It communicates both unordered dissolution and solidification into a balance that is found as chaos and order throughout Nature. It communicates a power of divine nature, but unlike that attributed to the usual gods it is a power that requires "evil" and destruction, and a power that is unconcerned with the well-being or the state of Cosmos.

Perhaps there might be a better word, but I cannot think of one that adequately communicates the gestalt of all natural laws acting simultaneously—the only way they can function—powerfully enough to do it justice. We owe it to life to use the most powerful and inclusive expression we can find.

How to Easily Configure a Microsoft Product

2008-02-25T09:46:18Z

I think now understand how to configure Microsoft's products in such a way that they appeal to me intuitively.

Now, in the world of user interfaces, "intuitively" simply means that applications do what you're used to. In that sense, I suppose the only intuitively correct behavior among Microsoft applications would be frequent crashes, mangling of your documents, incorrect calculations in your spreadsheets, file conversion problems after service upgrades, intelligent help systems provided your IQ matches your room temperature, and so on. I suppose that in that sense I don't have to change anything.

However, I'm a Linux user at home, and while Linux applications often have their shortcomings that can often be traced to a nerdish lack of attention to the fact that non-programmers might use the applications as well, at least they rarely do something that appeals only to complete idiots. Except when they take a well throught through Linux distribution such as Ubuntu and decide to create a "Christian edition" of it, of course, but the Linux community has its share of dolts, too.

I want applications to not do my thinking for me based on others' heuristics. If my applications must do something anticipatory, at least they should seed their heuristic algorithms with my particular behavior, which I find just a little more intelligent than that of the broad market average Microsoft customer: I want my applications to do what I want, not what Mr. Average wants. Microsoft, on the other hand, wants its applications to do what Mr. Average wants, knowing that Mr. Average doesn't really know to begin with.

So there you have it. I basically want the opposite of what John Doe wants, and consequently what Microsoft wants him to want. This provides me with a perfect recipe for configuring my Microsoft products at work where unfortunately I have little choice in terms of my applications use.

The key is to invert all preselected options.

For example, when MSN Messenger recently proposed that I "learn more," that is, that I upgrade to the next, less insecure version, if presents me with installation options enabling MSN as a start page in Internet Explorer, and offers to harvest use data to use at Microsoft's discretion (not that I doubt it does anyway, but at least it gives you some artificial sense of the existence of company ethics). So I inverted these selections.

Next, MSN Messenger offered to install a blog writer, a mail access feature, one more toolbar, or an image gallery, which had all been selected for me. I might want some security features to be installed, but keeping its coding tradition, Microsoft had deselected that option. I inverted the selections once again.

Similarly, I've learned that any installation of a Microsoft product should involve a visit to the tab in the options window that was once named "Advanced" to practically invert all of the selections. The tabs have been ordered differently within recent years, distributing the options contributing to automated intelligence among multiple pages, making the task a little more cumbersome. It is still somewhat straight-forward to make the Microsoft products behave somewhat less stupidly than at their default configuration.

In Microsoft Word, look for anything that seems automated in the Options window. So for example, "Mail as attachment" may be safely left checked, because it does not seem like an unexpected, pseudo-intelligent move from Word. In contrast, correcting your typos as you type will lead to highly unexpected results, many of which will be undesired with the default dictionary, in particular if you are writing in another language than English. The letter 'i' means "in" or "inside" in my language, and I really don't want those words capitalized in mid-sentence. Oh, now I mention it, perhaps I should tell you that these options are no longer found in the "Options" window, but in the "Autocorrect Options" window. You may need to entertain yourself with a little explaration of the menus which may be found in the strangest of places.

Covering the entire options system of the various Microsoft products is far beyond the scope of any blog, and probably even beyond the scope of any but the most detailed users manual. There is instead a simple rule, which says:

"Invert any option that indicates automated behavior".

Following this rule will increase the chances that your Microsoft product will treat you as a reasonably intelligent being.

The Art of Lying (Part Three)

2008-02-17T14:40:45Z

"Chirp, chirp," says the little turkey chicken, and its mother reacts by feeding the chicken. And the mother turkey is in fact ready to feed anything—even its sworn enemy, a stuffed polecat, is carefully nurtured if equipped with a tape recorder that plays back the "chirp, chirp" sound. It looks like a mechanism where an innocent sound triggers the playback of a complex series of actions, much like a tape recorder that is turned on and fitted with a tape that plays back a standard behavior.

Robert B. Cialdini, professor in psychology at Arizona State University, has studied when similar "tapes" are played back in humans, and what triggers the playback of these tapes. And in that sense we are no smarter than the mother turkey, who is easily manipulated into caring for its worst enemy.

Figure 1. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini.

One Foot in the Door

It has been a significant advantage throughout human evolution to return a service for another service, or to offer a gift after receiving one. When someone gives us something, it is an almost irresistible urge that we must give something in return. The eagerness to pay back usually overcomes any negative feelings against the gift-giver, and it does not matter if one even declined the gift. The size of the gift is also largely irrelevant, and people are willing to offer considerable gifts in return for insignificant gifts.

This reciprocal principle, as it has been termed, can of course be used to coerce people into doing something. Free samples in super markets are thus not intended to convince us that a particular food tastes good, because few of us are capable of determining that. Instead, these free samples make us wish to buy something now that we received these gifts. The flowers handed out by the Hare Krishna monks are certainly not an expression of universal love either, but gifts that almost force the recipients to provide monetary donations. Free merchandise from various companies is of course also not motivated by altruism.

The reciprocal principle also works on a somewhat more hidden level that is widely used. If one begins by demanding a disproportionally high price for a service or a product, one may "reluctantly" offer to lower the price to a value that is still far too high. However, by offering a "gift" in the form of a reduced price, the customer is more willing to "pay back" by accepting the new offer than if one had made this offer to begin with.
]]> Once a Thief

Psychologists are familiar with the "commitment and consistency" phenomenon. It means that once one has taken a particular stance, one is very reluctant to changing that view no matter the odds. It means that is suffices to say "okay" to a person that asks for a favor, because then you are caught in a trap where you are willing to work hard to avoid admitting to yourself that you are not going to keep your promise. One will happily wall off reason and build barricades against knowledge to avoid denying one's original "yes."

This method can be applied to keep people at their convictions. The Church of Scientology is often attacked by the media for luring its followers into the organization where they are "trapped" and systematically relieved of their money, but in practice this is probably true for most convictions.

Figure 2. The current Bush administration became popular on promises of a war on terror. But this very support enabled the government to initiate other initiatives, and the original support is no longer needed because the voters feel obliged to support the offshot initiatives.

Marketing people know this method, too, of course. This article was originally written on a 24th of December, and in the leading month I had noticed how the most popular presents would be out of stock when parents had decided to buy them. You may have experienced this situation too, because it is a conscious strategy of the vendors. Not able to buy the gifts they had promised their children, the parents must buy something else. Then in January, the shelves are restocked, and a new campaign is initiated by the vendors. Having said "yes" to the toys that were sold out in December, one is committed to purchase them now that they are available, in addition to the presents one had bought in December. That is, unless one is willing to face the children that are let down.

This "commitment and consistency" trap can even be used to make people run recruitment campaigns one they have said "yes" to a trivial matter. One can also make people adopt a specific attitude once they have accepted a simple appetizer—see Figure 2.

An extreme version is found in certain initiation rites where the new member of the group is exposed to grotesque humiliation or torture. Because the member has accepted this brutal treatment, the member is much more willing to support the group; after all, the member will want to believe that he did not accept this cruelty for nothing. The same happens if the membership of the group has demanded a "yes" in the shape of a significant financial expense; then you are much more willing to support the group in the future. The harsh treatment or the tall expense underscores your "yes."

Canned Laughter in Jonestown

Everyone hates canned laughter on the TV shows, and when producers nonetheless use it widely, it is not because the majority of the viewers appreciate it. However, research shows that although people dislike canned laughter, the audience will nonetheless consider a humorous TV show funnier when canned laughter is applied. The phenomenon is known as "social proof." It means that we gauge the validity of a situation depending on the number of people acting alike. (In general, this is an advantageous behavior; not only was it a good idea for the prehistoric man to run when everyone else was running even if he did not see the saber-toothed tiger himself, it generally means that we do not have to always evaluate each situation in depth to make an informed decision.) In short, when many people do the same thing, one will believe it is the right thing to do. Just like the turkey chick's "chirp chirp" makes the mother turkey instinctively tend to its offspring, canned laughter makes us believe the situation is funny even if logic tells us otherwise.

Social proof extends beyond canned laughter; for example, religious "proof" is largely founded on social evidence. (That is, if many people believe in a particular god, then obviously this god must exist, the argument goes.) But Cialdini also identified effects that should scare anyone, religious or not: when a suicide or an accident has hit the front pages of the newspapers, suicide rates increase significantly for a while after the accident, and the type of suicide that has increased is the one that was originally published on the front pages. If it was a solo accident, the number of solo accident increase, and if it was a group disaster—an airplane crash or a bus traffic accident—this particular kind of accident increases. It is only logical to conclude that the succeeding accidents seem to be triggered, consciously by the victims or not, by the widely published accidents. When social proof is that powerful, who would want to travel by plane a week after a spectacular plane crash?

Figure 3. Deadly canned laughter in "Jonestown" where 900 people committed mass suicide in 1978.

Social proof is also the reason why people walk past an injured person without helping, because this is what everyone else does. Who would want to be struck by a heart attack when everyone just walks past?

Jonestown, where 900 people committed collective suicide, may be one of the most macabre examples of social proof. In this isolated area of South America, the members of "The People's Temple" saw only what the other members did, and this must have made it easy—if not desirable—to prepare for, and ultimately commit, suicide when everyone else did it.

Love Your Deceitful Neighbor

People will be more prone to buying a product or agreeing on a topic if they are introduced to the product or the topic by a person that they like.

In that sense, looks matter. Experiments have shown that attractive people are more likely to receive help, and that they are more skilled at changing other people's opinions. Second, familiarity has a great effect. We are far more prone to being persuaded by a person that seems familiar than a complete stranger. Using similar clothing and body language as the victim has a great persuasive effect, and used car dealers have an uncanny tendency to have been raised in the same town as their customers.

As a manipulator one will obviously always pretend to like one's victim, who (recall the reciprocity principle) will return by also liking the manipulator—and hence be a more willing victim.

Recalling Pavlov's study of conditioning, it is important to remember that manipulation works best if the persons feel a connection to something pleasant or valued whether that connection is logical or not. This explains why movie and sports stars are used in commercials, and why there is cake on the table during prayer and election meetings.

By Right of Authority

Milgram's experiment is said to be one of psychology's most alarming and controversial experiments. As an ominous echo of the Christian Bible's Abraham, who was ordered to sacrifice his son, Milgram's experiment showed that anyone is willing to expose his fellow man to torture just because some authority says so, even if the torturer feels very bad about it.

The consequence is clear: if you want to manipulate people, appeal to authority. And hence business suits, police uniforms, medical uniforms, lab coats, and other regalia is liberally used to convince the masses.

The dangerous side effect is not to be ignored. When a high-ranking doctor makes an obvious mistake, it is the same belief in authority that prevent lower-ranking medical staff from even noticing. A frightening experiment in the US revealed that 95% of the nurses involved in the experiment would unquestioningly administer an overdose(!) of potentially lethal(!) medice to a patient, because an unknown(!) person called(!) them and gave the order, simply because this unknown person had identified himself as a doctor.

It does not matter whether the person is really an authority in the field. If a person played a doctor in a TV show, this suffices to use him as a doctor in a TV commercial. It is not surprising that many con artists use titles such as "professor", "doctor," or "father," which to some people sounds impressive or authoritarian.

A Rare Treat

One needs not look far in commercials before the terms "limited time offer" and "while supplies last" pop up. Scarcity has a significant attraction, and for good reason. Things that are difficult to obtain are often better than those things that are easily found. When options become limited, we lose freedom. The rationale that the item will be back on the shelf within a few months is always ignored by your emotions, and this makes it easy to exploit this effect.

If scarcity attracts people, any item can be made more interesting just by limiting its quantity or to outright ban it. The greatest effect is achieved when a formerly common item is suddenly reduced in number. It is no coincidence that a woman who enjoys life has historically been considered "cheap" while a woman that had remained untouched was considered attractive.

Hence, when you are looking somewhat undecidedly at an item, the sales person will happily tell you that this item is sold out, except that with a little luck he may find one forgotten item in the back of the store in case you are interested—which you will be by admitting that "yes," you are.

Neither is it any news that political fringe groups can boost their exposure and are better received when they complain that one of their speeches was censored than if they had simply given the speech. This may also be the explanation why religious groups that offer salvation for an elect few only are not as undesirable as perhaps they should be. Logic might state that the chance of salvation is low, but this is exactly why it becomes interesting. It may also be this prospect of a rare treat that makes lotteries appealing.

It is especially people at the bottom of society that are susceptible to this kind of manipulation, as these people are used to find their options being reduced.

Morale

Human evolution is a result of cooperation, and all of the manipulative tricks that are described in this article take advantage of those very mechanisms that made the human animal what it is today.

It is parasitic business, often motivated by profit, religion, or power just for the sake of it. Few individuals prosper by such manipulation. It is time to learn to say "no!" to these psychic vampires, and to say "no!" when we are confronted with methods that leech on our natural survival instincts without yielding anything in return. It takes personal strengh to say no, and it requires that you accept yourself as an individual that knows the difference between parasites and real humans.

My apology that this article was not published in November as originally promised.

Part I, Part II, Part III

Why I Won't Buy another iPod

2007-12-06T19:35:17Z

My iPod has one redeeming factor: its storage capacity. At 80 GBytes, I can actually have all of my music on it. But I won't buy another iPod if this one breaks. The reasons are:

I don't like iTunes. It doesn't run on Linux, and even if it did, I'd probably want to use something else because of its poor user interface and slowness. (I use Amarok instead, but it won't install firmware updates.)
My iPod crashes regularly. I can't just reset it according to Apple's instructions; I actually have to let it sit for a while and try several times until finally I'm lucky enough to reset it.
When I turn it on and start playing a song, the controls are rendered useless for about half a minute while the song plays. The song will occasionally pause, too.
Apparently even minor MP3 stream corruptions will cause the iPod to skip the song rather than fast-forward to the next usable MP3 frame.
Apple's proprietary formats might offer a reasonable quality, but I'm strongly opposed to proprietary formats.

I don't know which music player I will be purchasing next, but I'm convinced it won't be made by Apple.

Comparing Scriptures

2007-11-07T08:03:14Z

You can't use a religous text to make predictions about a religious group's behavior, yet atheists often refer to the Christian Bible or the Muslem Quran when they describe how "real" Christians or "real" Muslems are.

A Danish scholar, Tina Maagard, who focuses on text analysis and interpretation nonetheless extends her interpretation of the texts to make predictions about existing groups of Muslems. A few years ago she concluded that because the Quran contains more hostile phrases against other people than the Bible, Muslems can therefore be considered more war-like.

For obvious reasons this conclusion was welcome among right-wing politicians who now had "proof" that Muslems have higher potential for being terrorists than anyone else.

There are just a few devils in the details. Most importantly, it is not possible to compare the "raw" scripture in the Quran with the "raw" scripture in the Bible if one wants to draw an objective conclusion. The aforementioned politicians and "Islam critics" have such a literal belief in the influence of the Quran that it beats several Muslem fundamentalists, and one must suspect that they have forgotten that religion is man-made and therefore must be studied by looking at mankind rather than its books.

Q: But the two religions view the Quran and the Bible as their respective foundations, don't they?

It is true that the religions consider these religious scriptures central for the religions. Unfortunately, this will not make you any wiser, because the Christian Bible has prompted interpretations ranging from fire-and-brimstone preachings from paranoid, Christian fundamentalists to abstract, "godless" traditions where "god" is merely seen as a symbol. You cannot determine which interpretation is the "correct" one, because that would require you to know what the Christian god meant—and in that case you believe in the Christian god, and are making a theological interpretation that is neither scientific nor objective.

You can conclude that the Christian Bible has a prominent place in the Christian religion but the interpretation of the book is so open that in practice its place in the religion is only symbolic. This is of course also true about the Quran of Islam. When Christians and Muslems refer to their books, they are interpreting their scriptures. They may be citing literal scripture when they quote their scriptures, but when and what they quote are not arbitrary. Their choices of when and what to quote are also interpretations of the scriptures.

The two books thus have a place in the religions via the interpretations of the books made by the religions. Few Christians and Muslems would admit this, however, because that would require them to accept that their interpretation is just one among many possible and equally valid, and therefore not necessarily the "truth."

Q: So what is it that creates the religion if not the religious scripture?

Sociologists currently tend towards an explanation of religion as society's worship of its ideal selfimage. Society's values, morals, attitudes, etc. are measured according to an ideal image which, like society itself, changes over time. The ideal is seen as the final goal of the society, and is expressed in a more or less symbolic form. The ideal image typically involves the absence of all non-ideal things in society such as violence, oppression, frustration, etc. The thought of this ideal leads to religions that incorporate this ideal image into their visions. Religion is this an expression of what society thinks about itself at any given time, and how society would prefer to be.

Q: So you're saying that if Muslems included more hostility in the Quran than the Christians included in the Bible, then this actually means that the Muslem cultures are more war-prone than the Christian cultures (hah, gotcha!)?

No, this only reflects the circumstances in the times when the two books were written. It is fair to conclude based on the Bible and the Quran that the first Muslems were probably more hostile than the first Christians. However, it is 1,900 years since the first authors began to write the Bible, and it is about 1,500 years since the Quran was written. Christianity as of today cannot be compared with Christianity as of back then (how many Christians today believe that they are the "true Jews," for example, and that Messiah came back as a traditional, human king while the first Christians were still alive?); Islam as of today cannot be compared with Islam as of back then; and Islam as of back then cannot be compared with Christianity as of back then, more than 400 years later.

Today, both Islam and Christianity are so different from the Islam and Christianity that were found 1,500 and 2,000 years ago that it does not make any sense to use ancient, culturally inspired scriptures as references for those cultures today.

No-one would be stupid enough to claim that Europe is still stuck in the Germanic iron age culture 1,500 years ago, and it would be equally stupid to claim that the Muslem culture had not developed during the same 1,500 years unless one would argue that the culture was exceptionally strong and one was rather ignorant on History.

Conclusion: one cannot use the contents of the Quran and the Bible to determine which one of the two religions today is, say, the most war-prone. Firstly, the relevance of the two is restricted to the interpretations of the books that the religions make (not vice versa); secondly, the "raw" content of the books must be viewed in the context of the time when the books were written.

Seven-Eights of Living

2007-11-01T06:27:03Z

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
well they'd be singing so
happily, joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be
sensible, logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so
dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical.
(The Logical Song, Supertramp, 1979)

The grandmaster of a martial arts branch once remarked that the head only takes up one eighth of the entire body proper. Anyone that uses only his head to think with is seven-eights paralyzed.

Yet often I hear atheists cry: "rationality!," "logic!," "reason!", etc. when they argue that religious people are separating themselves from the real world. They cling to the intellectual and the abstract. Apparently their real world is restricted to the upper one-eighth of the body.

The last seven-eights of the body does not think in the intellectual sense of the word. However, the body feels and senses. Dr. Antonio Damasio explains in his book, Descartes' Error, that it is not the human brain that controls a human being's rationality. It is instead the body that creates what Damasio named "somatic markers," or bodily points of reference, that direct the brain. Body and brain join in a reciprocal, closed-loop action where the brain is just one of many organs that together spark reason.

Damasio experimented with patients suffering from a brain damage that prevented them from applying their somatic markers. To his surprise, Damasio discovered that these people were just as intelligent as other people, only were these people controlled exclusively by their intelligence, that is, by their brain's reasoning alone. Yet it was as if their goal had changed. Deprived of the use of their somatic markers the actions of the patients showed that the patients unconsciously—but apparently very deliberately—attempted to create problems for themselves, financially as well as socially. Denying their bodily feelings and relying on their reasoning alone the patients had become self-destructive.
]]> We consider logic the foundation of our rationality in our part of the world. However, some people forget that logic is a means, not an ends. And just like tools such as a hammer can strike pointless blows in the air instead of driving nails into wood, logic can be used without applying it to anything tangible, or it can be used outside its proper scope. You may conclude that there is a god or that there is none, both by means of logic. The use of logic can easily lead to surreal conclusions.

Maybe it is because of our ability to consider meaningless issues and draw logical but wrong conclusions that many Western philosophers have become so impressed by their ability to think that they consider it spectacular. These philosophers include Descartes, Berkeley, and, widely used among atheists, Ayn Rand.

Human beings can draw on many more resources than rationality and logic. The figure below illustrates which psychological and physiological functions we have at our disposal. Beyond the familiar intelligence, which leads to reason and rationality, we also have feeling (bodily sensing), emotion, and intuition. Usually a person is only consciously aware of two of the functions, leaving the other two functions in the person's subconsciousness.

In our part of the world, thinking and intellectualism is well-known, because they serve as basis of scientific method. Thoughts order our impressions whether they are caused by intuition or feeling. Feeling is for the most part socially accepted as valid means of perceiving the world. However, emotion and intuition are considered "chaotic," "inferior," or even "demonic" because they do not fit well into a culture where the body is considered inferior and something to be controlled. Hence it is only intellect and feeling that is considered "normal" in our part of the world. Emotion and intuition are confined to a place in the subconsciousness, where they are usually blamed for deviant behavior.

Atheists may be attracted to rationality and reason, but when they react emotionally to something, often they expose a highly unreasonable identity beneath the surface.

The ability to think clearly, to be rational and logical, can be an incredible strength. But when the ability is out of tune with the other psychological functions, problems arise. To an overly intellectual atheist, rationality becomes a confession of faith where even our very existence is "only an abstraction."

It is quite natural to employ one's dominant functions such as intellectuality and feeling. But as Jung remarked, it is necessary to listen to all of the functions, in particular those functions that are the least developed. It is only then that we realize that there are many situations in life that we cannot effectively appreciate with just the dominant function. One might say that if one faces life with just one function, life is made lesser than life—one kills life.

What we term intelligence today has not always been considered an isolated skill. The term "logic" can be derived from the Greek "logos," which seems to have referred to much more than sheer intellectualism. In some esoteric schools it refers to an inner, divine light that is felt as a warmth rising up through the body, a corporeal feeling that has no direct relation to intelligence. Intelligent logic is often seen as a result of the carnal logic/logos. A person only thinks logically when the logic is shaped by somatic sensation. Logic cannot exist alone, without bodily origin. This is an important point: thoughts will contain no logic unless the logic has first been "felt" by the body; this ancient mysticism is eerily echoed in Damasio's much more recent research.

It is also important to realize that the body cannot learn from intellectual experiences. The use of pressure points in martial arts are a striking example (pun intended). Although it is reasonably easy to explain where pressure points are located by means of diagrams and logic as, for example, Erle Montaigue does it in several of his books, learning to use pressure points in combat is a different matter altogether. No matter how precisely one mentally memorizes the location of a particular pressure point, this knowledge will be useless when an opponent attacks.

However, if you have been shown the location by someone that made you scream from pain, your own knuckles, elbows, fingers, knees or feet will find it without the help of a thinking brain. This "body memory" can only learn from bodily experience.

This kind of learning pervades the esoteric schools, which are sometimes called "oral" schools, because it does not help to read about it. Even if the knowledge was written down, the knowledge would be incomprehensible, because words on paper do not provide carnal experience. One may be able to understand it in an abstract sense, but cannot put it to practical use. Hence, one can write down all of the secrets and pass them on, but in the hands of an uninitiated person the material will be useless. In that sense it is still "secret," because no matter how clearly it is communicated in writing or speech, the "hidden" knowledge is not passed on.

Some things cannot be learned. Either you know them, or you don't. Without having been told, authors such as Tom Kristensen spoke of magic in the shape of a "octopus-like image" in his book, "Havoc," Michael Ende felt the magical influence of people that "distort time" in his book, "Momo," and H. P. Lovecraft used a long array of beings that are well-known in magical visions in other cultures.

Some understanding of the world can only be expressed via the symbolism of intuition, and some understanding requires the empathy of emotion. These "languages" cannot be learned intellectually; if you do not already know on these levels, you will not understand what you are being told. At best you can repeat it to others. In Pythagoras' cult, the mathematikoi were the people that understood his teaching while akousmatikoi referred to those people that would stand on the outside, who could only listen and perhaps repeat what they had heard.

A person that only uses his head and focuses overly on rationality and logic is a partially disabled person. It is a speaking head with no body. It is a person that rejects his body, just as the Christian culture we live in mandates. It is perhaps not surprising that it was Antonio Damasio who in a 1994 essay in Scientific American remarked that perhaps we have culturally "brain damaged" ourselves in much the same sense as had happened to his patients by physical accident or disease.

In the darkest depths of the esoteric schools, you find that if you fight or deny the forces of darkness, they will defend themselves and attack you. In a more practical sense, if you deny your subconsciousness, you will instead become directed by it, usually in a rather unfortunate direction. Perhaps this is what happens to Damasio's patients or our civilization as a whole.

There is much else to life than cold logic. There is an entire world in the subconsciousness the size of the consciously known world. I appreciate this world, which is confined to the darkness of our minds. If one wishes to understand human motivation in a world focused on thinking and sensing, it is in the forbidden realm of emotion and intuition that one must feel at home.

The members of the former rock group Rockbitch had founded a group that focused strongly on the physical aspect of life. However, while Rockbitch represents feeling and is correct in stating that the left-hand path is largely concerned with physical living, obviously it does not imply that other people should live their life as if part of Rockbitch's stage show (neither do the members of Rockbitch as far as I know). To people that have another perception of eros than a strictly literal interpretation, such a life would be an over-focus on sex. And functionally, if you exaggerate sex, you might as well abstain from it, because both directions are unbalanced--they are a abstinence from enjoying life. Such people would achieve the opposite of what they wanted.

Similarly, if you focus too much on rationality, you let yourself become its prisoner instead of its user.

So if you find yourself in a position where you argue or even just speculate whether there might be some gods or metaphysical beings, whether a mental image makes sense, whether reality really exists, or if you consider atheism an "attitude towards life," then they are all signs that seven-eights of your life is ignored: there is still an entire body to use and an entire world to play in.

Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a
radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal.
(The Logical Song, Supertramp, 1979)