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PHP 7 is released but for those of us who don't usually compile our own PHP, it can be a long wait for our preferred distro to release the packages we want. For Ubuntu, I'm using a PPA which allows both PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.0 to be installed, including things like extensions, at the same time. It was very easy to set up (I'm running Ubuntu 15.10 but this process should also work on older versions back to at least 14.04 which is the previous LTS) so here's a quick walkthrough of what I did. Continue reading
Tag Archives: ubuntu
My ffmpeg Cookbook
I have been doing more screencasting lately, so I thought I'd share some recipes here, for my own future use and in case anyone else wants to use them. I capture my videos using Kazam on Ubuntu, usually by resizing my second monitor to 800x600 and then capturing that. Kinda eye-bleeding to record but looks good in playback and also works well either in tiny web view or on a big screen. I also screencapture my android device and for that I use Screen Recorder.
Ubuntu and the X220T Touch Screen
I have a thinkpad laptop with a touchscreen and a swivel so it can fold up and pretend to be an oversized tablet. I like it a lot, but the touch screen interface hasn't been all that useful since I normally use this machine docked and then it maps the whole of one screen as a touch interface across my multiple monitors as a desktop space!
I recently sorted this out, so I thought I'd share the scripts that worked for me on Saucy Salamander Ubuntu 13.10 with Unity.
First, work out which device you actually want:
$ xsetwacom --list
Wacom Bamboo stylus id: 11 type: STYLUS
Wacom ISDv4 E6 Pen stylus id: 13 type: STYLUS
Wacom ISDv4 E6 Finger touch id: 14 type: TOUCH
Wacom Bamboo eraser id: 19 type: ERASER
Wacom Bamboo cursor id: 20 type: CURSOR
Wacom Bamboo pad id: 21 type: PAD
Wacom ISDv4 E6 Pen eraser id: 22 type: ERASER
Then, use
xsetwacom to get the right touch input relating to the correct screen, even with multiple monitors:
$ xsetwacom set "Wacom ISDv4 E6 Finger touch" MapToOutput LVDS1
At this point I should point out that my touch screen is incorrectly configured and therefore needs the script above running every time I plug or unplug an external display. Since I dock my machine, move it almost daily, and regularly present ... that's kinda irritating. Any solutions on improving that are welcome.
Simple Video Editing on Ubuntu
In this series of posts about my screencasting toolchain, I've already written about using wmctrl to resize windows accurately and about using Kazam to capture snippets of video from various applications. This post describes my adventures in trying to glue the video snippets together.
Graphical Video Editing
For most people, it probably makes sense to use a graphical video editor, such as KDEnlive, OpenShot or Pitivi. I tried the latter two and found them sufficiently crashy that I was unable to get a video out of them that I could play back. This might be a result of my total lack of knowledge of, and respect for, containers, codecs, and ... really whatever else I needed to know and didn't. I presume the crashiness was me doing something wrong as I know that others do use these tools successfully.
I'm also a commandline sort of person. I have difficulty in using a pointing device for any length of time, and I found that I was able to capture the videos tightly enough that I just needed to glue them together rather than actually edit.
Ffmpeg is a commandline linux tool that is the biggest swiss army knife of video tools you have ever seen. There's just one problem: on ubuntu, the program called ffmpeg is actually an alias for avconv, which is a fork of ffmpeg that is missing some key elements, such as the ability to concatenate videos. The upshot of which is that I downloaded and compiled my own copy of ffmpeg for this project. Once I had that, things got easier :)
I used this guide to get my ffmpeg tool and all the dependencies set up: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/UbuntuCompilationGuide
Ffprobe is a tool that looks at a video file and gives information about it. One thing that I found about combining videos is that matching resolutions and encodings are really important - sometimes you can create what looks like a valid output file, only to have it unable to play in some players. To use it:
ffprobe video.mp4
I found this very useful, so I thought I'd add a note about it here. I tested my videos in VLC, it seems a bit less tolerant than the standard gnome player, so it was a good way to check if the videos would play. There's also a simpler version of VLC that shows fewer controls:
cvlc (I found it handy).
Combining Videos with Ffmpeg
Once I had the genuine version of ffmpeg compiled, I used that to combine my videos. First of all, I created an input file which contained a list of videos. Here's an example of my
file 'wireshark1.mp4' file 'wireshark2.mp4' file 'wireshark3.mp4' file 'wireshark4.mp4' file 'wireshark5.mp4' file 'wireshark6.mp4' file 'wireshark7.mp4'
(can you guess what this was a video of?)
Then I used the following command to use this input file and create a resulting video of these videos played one after another:
./ffmpeg -f concat -i input.txt -c copy wireshark-demo.mp4
This can look successful and still produce a bit of a strange video if all your video files aren't precisely the same resolution and format, but I was able to get results pretty quickly once I knew I had to get those things right in recording. The time spent planning the videos paid back several times over, as it was easy to just recapture one piece of the sequence if the need arose.
Ffmpeg is a beast, powerful but superbly complex, and it was tough going to find the commands I needed even without the "wrong" fork of the project being the default with ubuntu! Hopefully this post will remind me next time what to do, and if it helps you too, then awesome :) Feel free to leave additional tips and tricks in the comments.
Screencasting in Ubuntu: Kazam
If you've ever seen a live demo, you will know that these things are fraught with danger. Even if the wifi works, the presenter knows what they are doing, and nothing crashes, you'll often end up watching someone explaining something to their laptop in detail, or clearly demonstrating their inability to type. Either way, it doesn't make good, informative content, which is why I never ever demo in a conference talk - I'm there to entertain and time is always of the essence. At this point, you can probably guess why I'm writing a blog post about my screencasting toolchain - I simply pre-record whatever it is that I want to show in the talk.
On an ubuntu platform, I've had a few false starts with video over the years, and mostly avoided it. But now my "Debugging HTTP" talk really does make more sense if you can see the process of something broken, what the tools show, and how to understand that information and fix the problem.
Accurate Ubuntu Window Sizing with Wmctrl
I'm working on a bunch of screencasts at the moment (more posts to come) and one of the things that tripped me up the most was getting all the windows the same size, so that the resulting videos are the same size and can easily be put back together. Enter
wmctrl, a very nice linux tool that can do all of this for me.
I'm aiming to have a series of windows all sized at 800x600, and the first step is to look at a list of windows in wmctrl:
wmctrl -lG
-l switch provides a list, and the
-G switch shows the geometry of the windows. This is especially useful if you want to place something on a second monitor, you can look where a correctly-placed window would go and then use those co-ordinates! Also beware that windows positioned at the origin of a desktop space rarely end up where you expect them to go.
To set a new geometry for a window, we use the
-e switch to specify what that should be. The format is:
"gravity, X, Y, width, height"
For gravity, try zero. X and Y are the co-ordinates of the top left hand corner of the window, and width and height hopefully you can guess. It's also acceptable to pass -1 for any of these values for the window to retain its current setting.
To specify a window, we use the
-r switch to indicate to
wmctrl which window wants the resize. You can give the title of the window, or the identifier shown in the list output, but I found it most useful to use the special value
":SELECT:" and then just click on the window I wanted to affect. Therefore the command I used the most became:
wmctrl -r ":SELECT:" -e "0, -1, -1, 800, 600"
As a final tip, make sure (by resizing the window to something definitely smaller than the desktop it is on) that the window is not maximised - if it is, it will stay that way and you will wonder what you are doing wrong.
PHP 5.4 Timezone Error Message on Ubuntu
Quick post because this tripped me up the other day: When you use a vanilla ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" installation, it will come with PHP 5.4, which is excellent news. However the default php.ini doesn't set the timezone, so you will see an error like:
It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier.
These have been warnings in earlier versions of PHP, but as of PHP 5.4, the
date.timezone ini setting must be set correctly, using the continent and place - for me that's "Europe/London", like this:
date.timezone = "Europe/London"
If you see these errors, don't panic, just add the line above to your php.ini.
Ubuntu Icons Directory Routing
I had the weirdest problem the other day so I thought I'd write it down! I uploaded a toy script for someone, but it had images in it and they wouldn't load. The image files existed, and I could request everything around them, files in other subdirectories were okay; the same files in other subdirectories also served correctly. Yet in my error logs I just had lots of:
File does not exist: /usr/share/apache2/icons/ ...
Which was really odd, because my webroot is somewhere else completely!
Eventually I spotted a
/icons entry in the configuration for
mod_alias in apache, which intercepts all requests to /icons on any virtual host, and rewrites it. Err, thanks? Renaming the directory to "images" solved the problem in this instance, and I hope if you googled for an error message, you will find this page and be able to fix it equally quickly :)
Managing PHP 5.4 Extensions on Ubuntu
My shiny new VPS* runs Ubuntu 12.10 (official subtitle: Quantal Queztal. Local nickname: Quirky Kestrel) and therefore has PHP 5.4 installed. It's very new so every command I type is missing, and today I realised that included a PECL module (pecl_http, of course). So I
aptitude install php5-pear and then get tangled in dev packages (clue: look which libcurl you have already installed to figure out which of a long list of
-dev packages to choose), managing finally to emerge with a
pecl install http that completes successfully with the words:
configuration option "php_ini" is not set to php.ini location
You should add "extension=http.so" to php.ini
I've been using Ubuntu for some time however, and we don't put settings straight into
php.ini, there's a directory called
/etc/php5/conf.d/ where all the various module configurations live, or you can enable things just for when PHP is called by apache or from the CLI. However today I hopped into
/etc/php5/ and saw this:
├── apache2
├── cli
├── conf.d
└── mods-available
Hmmm ...
mods-available ? Continue reading
Downloading Files from Faspex
This week, someone sent me a very large file using something called faspex. To begin with, it sent me a link to click on to download my file, but then started telling me "for best results, install a plugin". And apparently "for best results" means "to download this file in any way".
Continue reading


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You are here
Cedric Dias
Cedric is currently Head of Digital Marketing and Social Media for the Group Consumer Financial Services at OCBC Bank, tasked with growing the digital footprint, creating meaningful engagements with consumers and meeting online marketing KPI's. The role includes owning/managing the online/social assets as well as building the marketing stack for the bank. Prior to OCBC, Cedric was at Havas Media leading the Digital Business in SG and headed the Socialyse brand in APAC for 4 years.
Cedric has honed his Marketing Skills across South Asia and SEA with 10 years of Marketing and P&L experience at Western Union, backed by 4 years of Sales and Marketing with an FMCG in India. One key area that Cedric is passionate about is spreading digital literacy – as part of this, he has been an adjunct lecturer at NUS-ISS and currently is tasked with building digital literacy across OCBC Bank.

subset: commoncrawl


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Pictures, Video: Simsbury Farmers' Market
The Simsbury Farmers' Market is open until October. The Farmers' Market is in the Simsmore Square lot on Hopmeadow Street. Over 10 vendors, from pies, local meats, jewelry, hand-made clothing, produce, and information booths ongoing green, are set up every Thursday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Here is a peak inside the market. For more information about the Simsbury Farmers' Market visit: http://www.simsburyfarmersmarket.com Find other farmers' markets in Connecticut
Copyright © 2018, Courant Community


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In addition to our great blog friend OtherEric, we have another great blog friend, DJ David B. who 'spins comic-tunes' over at I.T.C.H. (International Team of Comics Historians). DJ David B. has generously opened his archive of very early Walt Kelly material, and most notably early Pogo Sunday strips starting as far back as 1950 (can't really go further back than that for those particular items).
Starting this Sunday I will be posting some of those treasures intermittently with the remainder of my stash, and still sharing OtherEric's treasures as well. What a win-win-win for Kelly fans, or at least the Kelly fans that has the knowledge to 'toon in here.
We'll chat some more on Sunday, but until then here is a little something that DJ David B sent over — a jpeg of original art for the very first Pogo daily. This is dated 1949 for the New York Post, but is slightly recycled from the 1948 New York Star that ceased to exist in 1949, where Kelly had been art director, drawing everything that needed to be drawn.
Note the torturous method of laying in the word balloons, with it's speedball lettering. Quoting Kelly himself, regarding this strip:
"These first Pogo drawings have him formed practically as he is now (1959), but without the dynamic torsion, the fins or the fog lights. The turtle in the strip here is not the notorious Churchy La Femme. He comes in later. This turtle and this worm are probably bit players. I have always felt that the 150 irregulars in the strip have work elsewhere, in other comic strips, on their days off, and probably fare better than we know."
See y'all on Sunday!


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Veteran center Marcus Camby returning to Houston RocketsPosted by Inside Hoops
Jul 28
Even in July, in a match up against Eastern Conference contenders, homecourt advantage served the Rockets well. But it took more than that for the Rockets to bring back veteran center Marcus Camby.
In a measure of how much the Rockets have changed, becoming a potential contender themselves, a year after the Rockets let Camby head out of town in part of their transformation to the NBA's youngest team, he will return to his adopted hometown to rejoin a team so radically transformed that he once again should fit in with a team's win-now approach.
Camby chose to sign with the Rockets as a free agent, a person with knowledge of the decision said, to play for team far more prepared to compete than the team he left as a free agent last summer. A longtime resident of Pearland, Camby also considered the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat.
Camby will sign a veteran's minimum, worth $1.4 million next season.
Reported by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Blog)


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The choice really is ours. Knowing how easily I could be bitter about the past is a great thing: it absolutely sends me back running to my Lord for another scoop. Scoop of what, you ask?
A scoop of grace, a heaping scoop of forgiveness, a pitcher of love...and gratitude-about a gallon, daily- for reminders of what I will become if I'm not DILLIGENTLY on guard against the flood of negativity we all face every day.
I need all those things and more, in practicing love and acceptance with the people in my life.
Thank the Lord for a BETTER perspective today. And for making my little porch garden grow. :)
Behavioral/Mental Health, Recovery from Addiction, Life in General; these are a few of my favorite things.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
We grow... better, or bitter?
The choice really is ours. Knowing how easily I could be bitter about the past is a great thing: it absolutely sends me back running to my Lord for another scoop. Scoop of what, you ask?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Looking to a brighter day...
I've got company for a few days, but I was thinking of you. :) You are loved & God's ear is inclined to your calling.
Monday, May 20, 2013
As I sat listening to the man talking about it this weekend, it occurred to me that I had some forgiveness I needed to take care of.
It's been rather heavy on my mind, for a while, now: my sins as a Mother. I know that for whatever reasons, most of the time since becoming a parent, I haven't felt like one. I've had times, of course, where I've felt overwhelmingly that I was a Mother. Good times & scary times.
So it dawned on me this weekend, as I sat listening to this man, that what I long for, deeply within, is forgiveness from my children. The next thought was that I had to forgive my own Mom.
As much as she's done for me -for us- I couldn't deny that there was still bitterness in my heart. I guess it's been there for so long that it'd become invisible to me.
The fact is, the feelings of love I have for her are so clouded with hurt and resentment that it colors all of my interactions with her.
I know that way back when I last did a 4th step, I'd addressed those things. However, I'd allowed those things to subtly creep back into my mind, my heart, and my relationship with not only Mom, but others in my life, as well.
I apologized to my husband and my boy as soon as I could. The resentments were poison that I was unintentionally spewing out onto them.
Admitting there was a problem was just the beginning. Now it's going to be my job to show the change in my heart...through loving. Loving Mom and respecting her with ny words and my actions.
How much closer can I really hope to get to God, until this sin has been dealt with? Yes, I said it. It's sin. It makes me crazy. Two really great reasons to get rid of it.
So, this is what I'll be working on, inside.
Have a blessed week, ok? :)


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Anointing is a covenantal rite.[i] There has to be a partnership between us and God for true healing to take place. God always offers restoration.
We see it each time Jesus heals. He send the healed person back to community in some way, restoring both their health and their life as part of the larger body of God's people.
When pastors and deacons come to pray, they represent the covenant community of Christ's church. We participate in the covenant by turning to God in prayer. It is here that James' words really help us. He not only tells us when to pray, he reminds us that the praying community engages in all these types of prayers, not just one type. And for James, who is concerned about what we say and the trouble the tongue can get a body into, these words on prayer are an example of the proper use of God's gift of a voice.
Our prayers are of praise and thanksgiving,
Our prayers are of confession
Our prayers are for ourselves and
Our prayers are for each other.
What stronger way to bind a community together than to know each other so intimately that we are comfortable calling on friends to come, and then to pray together.
[i] Deacon Manual for Caring Ministries (Elgin, IL: ABC, 1998) p.192-210


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President Bush is continuing to press the international community to take a tough stand at the United Nations to disarm Saddam Hussein. During a visit to the Atlanta, Georgia, area, Mr. Bush said the world cannot trust the Iraqi leader to comply with disarmament demands.
A senior White House official says a new resolution will be put before the Security Council next week. He says it is expected to declare Iraq in "material breach" of the disarmament resolution passed last November.
The exact timing and wording of the new measure is likely to be linked to efforts to win over reluctant allies. France, which is a permanent member of the council, has already indicated it might veto a resolution that sets the stage for war. China and Russia are also calling for more time for weapons inspectors and less emphasis on the use of force.
In his speech in Georgia, the president addressed their concerns, while increasing the pressure on Saddam Hussein. Mr. Bush said once again that military action remains his last option. But he made clear that doing nothing in the face of an Iraqi threat is even worse.
"Let me tell you what is not an option. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not an option," he said.
His face was somber as he talked about his determination to protect the American people. President Bush said Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is not complying with demands to destroy them. He said denial and delay cannot be tolerated.
"America and our allies are called once again to defend the peace against an aggressive tyrant. And we accept this responsibility," the president said.
The president went on to say, "the day of freedom is drawing near" for the Iraqi people. He painted a positive picture of a liberated Iraq, saying it can be a source of hope for all the Middle East.
"Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both," he said.
President Bush stopped in Georgia on his way to his Texas ranch, where he will hold weekend talks with the prime minister of Spain, one of the European countries that is backing his call for tough action to disarm Iraq.


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Friday, November 18, 2005
Thoughts on Torture and Slavery
This is, of course, a situation in which an "activist" like Noam Chomsky is totally useless. Nearly every statement that the far left makes concerning "'Uhmurika" is an insult. Klauswitz said that the man who defends everything defends nothing. Similarly, the man who finds everyone guilty legitimizes the truly guilty.
This is a situation in which the right needs to recognize a moral absolute, and the left needs to become more comfortable with defending a moral absolute. Torture is morally indefensible- in every case, and every situation. If it is "waterboarding" or ripping out fingernails, or even "stress positions", it is a morally wrong act. As a liberal, it feels good to be interdictory for once- this is something that can never be done.
Torture is worthless as a means for gaining evidence, it is morally indefensible, and it represents the end of moral authority, which the US had hoped to preserve, and its replacement with arbitrary power. As leaders from Nero to Stalin have shown, the two cannot co-exist.
Torture is also, ultimately, wedded to slavery in a marriage of necessity. In the first place, torture is the foundation of slavery; it is the last resort of the slave-owner, and key to the social alienation of the slave. A slave is literally a person who can be tortured. So, even a slave-owner who has never tortured is still a torturer because the key to their authority remains torture.
Secondly, the last resort of the torturer is ultimately either slavery or murder. The tortured can never be untortured, and by being tortured have been removed from society in an irreparable way. Ultimately, most societies that torture have had to resort to murder, in the case of Argentina or the Soviet Union for example, or slavery, in the case of Rome or even Hellenic Greece. This is why the tortured often become the disappeared, and we might suggest that the 83,000 prisoners of the war on terror, by having never been tried, can be considered slaves.
But, every torturer becomes a slave-owner, even if only briefly, by torturing. Torture is definitionally violence inflicted with the victim having no agency to defend themselves. The key aspect of torture is this removal of agency. This is why the torturer will tell the victim that there is no escape and that no one can save them- the individual is alienated from society and their lack of freedom or human agency is what allows them to be tortured.
And so, by sanctioning torture, or even "light torture" we have re-sanctioned slavery, even if we do not have slaves. But, I believe we do.
(Please forward.)
40 comments:
Excellent points. (Got referred here from Andrew Sullivan's blog).
Violence is only worthwhile as a last resort (I don't mean the ticking bomb scenario-- I mean defense or others or defense of self) & when it doesn't keep itself in check with specific goals & limitations it will naturally go as far as it can-- the stripping away of human dignity.
No ends is so great that all means should be available-- there is a point at which it contradicts itself & for those who think torture has some practical uses (which it doesn't-- bad interrogation techniques render bad intel) they are negating the very principles that are worth defending.
The worst form of slavery is not just physical slavery, where someone must do what is required. It is mental slavery. The effort to take control of someone's miind. That is what torture is for. And in the end, not only to control someone's mind but to leave them with the sense of guilt for having capitulated.
All torture is wrong. Agreed. And it is also wrong to defind torture, to explain it. The action is wrong. And the mental description which tries to erase the wrongness of the deed - that is a sin.
Honestly, I think we need to return the word sin to this debate. Not only is it immoral. It is sinful - both to do torture and to defend it.
Yes, return virtue to its rightful place. And name torture as sin.
Also got here via Andrew Sullivan - not my political leaning, but nevertheless a worthy blogger.
I do not feel that there needs to be any logical or moral argument for or against torture. I think, simply, that we should recognize torture for what it is, psychopathology. Isn't a psychopath someone who lacks a normal or sufficient capacity for human empathy, and even takes pleasure in the suffering of others? If we are going to have this discussion at all, then I think it should be clear that anyone who even entertains the prospect of torture may have these tendencies, to some degree or another, and maybe instead of engaging them in serious discussion, we might suggest psycological treatment.
- Rufus said...
Anonymous 2
I absolutely agree that we should return the word sin to the debate. I don't even think we need to quibble about whether or not evil is a metaphysical quality to understand certain actions as innately evil- that is, as wantonly cruel and destructive.
- elendil said...
This is a situation in which the right needs to recognize a moral absolute, and the left needs to become more comfortable with defending a moral absolute.
Would the right-winger ever believe anything a left-winger tried to say about moral absolutes? Unfortunately the most common source of 'moral absolutes' for the American right-winger doesn't say much in the left-winger's argument's favour. I've had very little luck appealing to the anyone's sense of right and wrong. Personally find it much more reliable to appeal to the right-winger's self-interest and sense of self-preservation. That is, after all, what I suspect motivates all this interest in 'moral absolutes'.
- Rufus said...
Anonymous 1,
Thank you!
I agree that violence is justified when kept in check by certain limitations. Two soldiers on a battlefield shooting each other is acceptable because both has the ability to defend himself. One obvious check would be that inflicting physical or mental violence upon people who cannot do anything to protect themselves from that violence is not acceptable. But, I would agree that self-defense is a reasonable grounds for resorting to violence.
You're exactly right about the ends and means. Aristotle argued that corrupt means will corrupt the noblest ends. I fear that he was right.
- Rufus said...
Anonymous 3,
You may be right. In this case, I would suggest that Rumsfeld, Cheney and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal need to meet with a good therapist as soon as possible.
- Rufus said...
I have endless faith in the possibility of finding goodness and decency in other people that only runs out in the case of radio talk show hosts.
more from anonymous 3:
When I am arguing with someone about torture, it is difficult for me to come up with logical arguments against it, and besides, logical arguments do not seem to have any effect. Likewise, my opponents struggle to come up with logical arguments in support of torture, but their arguments have no effect on me.
After thinking about this problme, I began to realize that some of us feel great empathy for others; some of us feel nothing; most are somewhere in between. Whether a person thinks torture is a good idea or a bad idea really depends more on this inner feeling of empathy, than it does on any kind of rational logic. The logic is merely invented to support the feeling that torture is ok, or that is not ok.
I would like to say that my feelings on torture are based on my Christian upbringing, or my university exposure to the European Enlightenment. But, it is really more, just my inner feeling.
In arguing about torture, the only thing that seems to really get an opponent's attention is my reference to the psychopathology that this kind of thinking seems to indicate. More specifically, reference to the word "psychopath" seems to get a more thoughtful reaction, because, I suppose, people don't want to be thought of as "psychopathic." I think this is a worthwhile train of thought.
And, yes, I would apply this word to Bush, Cheny, and Rumsfeld, at least to some degree. Since this is a complex personality disorder, it can be manifested in many gradiations. And oh, yes, part of the psycopathic syndrome is that the person with this disorder does not otherwise suffer from any kind of obvious psychosis.
- Rufus said...
I hope it came across that I agree with you- I think it does indicate a lack of affect to be able to argue for torture- and lack of affect is, of course, a major indication of psychopathy. What worries me is how psychopathology becomes mainstreamed. At what point does the culture become pathological?
- elendil said...
... that only runs out in the case of radio talk show hosts.
Hehehe :-) Good one.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to dissuade you of your assurance of things hoped for. If nothing else, those who have this faith in humanity do good work and motivate others, and I'd never stand in the way of that. Simply that I don't find it very effective to appeal to morality without a threat to one's self-interest. But hey, combining both works well. Then you can hide the self-interest under some self-righteousness to help it gone down smoother.
Anyway, you started off saying that the left needs to become comfortable defending a moral absolute, while the right just needed to recognise one ... being that they would automagically defend it once identified? Can't say that's been my experience. They just deny that its wrong.
Well, I just wanted to let you know why one "leftist" won't be bothering with the moral absolutes. I've had bad experiences with them and they haven't been effective. I wouldn't use them even if I did believe that they were anything more than a way to skip rational argument and bully someone into conforming to your worldview.
more from anonymous 3
I have also concluded that on this subject, rational argument is pointless, and so I would skip that too. It is pointless, because from both points of view, it is insincere. Rational arguments are created to support an inner feeling. The inner feeling pre-exists the rational argument and has nothing to do with it. If someone supports a policy of torture, rational argument does not seem to effect them, any more than it would effect a tree stump or a brick wall. But if you suggest, imply, or even accuse them of being psychopathic, it is almost like slapping them in the face. It gets a reaction. And even if a person will not admit that their mind has been changed, I think it may get them to think a little bit more than they have been. It may help thoughtless people think. And it also casts a taint over any defensive reply.
- Rufus said...
Anyway, you started off saying that the left needs to become comfortable defending a moral absolute, while the right just needed to recognise one ... being that they would automagically defend it once identified?
Oh, I was just trying to suggest that there's some world class self-delusion going on there. I was more shocked at the inability to recognize an unethical act that is staring them in the face at this point.
- Tony said...
If you are engaged in a war, by definition violence against the other party is its essence. Otherwise it's not war, it's diplomacy (as Clausewitz didn't say).
Whether the other party can defend himself is irrelevant. Indeed, it is far smarter to attack your enemy when he is defenceless than armed to the teeth. Why take unnecessary risks?
As for torture, there are two arguments.
One is that it produces unreliable evidence because the screaming victim will tell you whatever you want to hear.
This may sometimes be true but not always. 400 years ago, Guy Fawkes - the Catholic-extremist would-be 9/11-style blower-up of England's Houses of Parliament - was brutally tortured on the rack till he revealed the names of his co-conspirators. Which he did. So torture can certainly work. For good measure, he and they were then tortured to death (hung, drawn and quartered).
The other anti-torture argument is that it is morally wrong, demeans the perpetrator and renders him no better than the Al-Qaeda thugs he is fighting.
This is the only argument that holds any water. But, like some of your other commenters have remarked, I believe torture is simply a mortal sin in the eyes of God.
Therefore, for the salvation your own soul in the hereafter, you shouldn't do it. End of story.
Definition of torture is another difficult area. Consider -
+ Waterboarding - certainly.
+ Sleep deprivation - maybe.
+ But playing Eminem non stop? I don't think so.
Very good original post, by the way. Thought provoking. Think I'll write something myself.
- Lorenzo said...
Just a technical point: the Soviet Union also engaged in slavery -- the labour camp system was clearly a form of state slavery.
more from anonymous 3
Last night on "HardBall with Chris Mathews," they were discussing torture in terms of psychopathy, which suprised me a little, since I have never heard this public take on it before. But they were just validating my thinking.
more from anonymous 3 (Dan)
Last night on "Hard Ball with Chris Matthews," they were discussing torture in terms of psychopathy. I was a little suprised, since I thought I was the only one who has made the connection.
These nine Senators voted against the Torture Amendment. Interesting in light of the connections.
Allard (R-CO) - territory open to slavery
Bond (R-MO) - slave state
Coburn (R-OK) - slave state
Cochran (R-MS) - slave state
Cornyn (R-TX) - slave state
Inhofe (R-OK) - slave state
Roberts (R-KS) -territory open to slavery
Sessions (R-AL) - slave stateNA
Stevens (R-AK) - NA
- Rufus said...
I still have faith in the people of those states though, if definitely not the leadership. In fact, I would be overjoyed if those nine Senators found themselves, after election time, working at McDonalds.
- Rufus said...
You're exactly right. The Soviet model was perhaps the largest forced labor system in the 20th Century. I highly recommend Anne Applebaum's study "Gulag: A History". Thanks for the note!
- Rufus said...
I'm glad they picked up on that too- it's an interesting point.
Hopefully, someone will raise the question about what happens when a government condones psychopathy.
- Rufus said...
I agree that it's a mortal sin. But, I think it's horrible enough that not doing it is what Kant called a categorical imperative. In other words, I think that ethical people will not torture. Period. This would be similar to rape- something that ethical people in all societies simply know not to do.
So, I think it goes beyond being a mortal sin to being a universal moral imperative.
Thanks for the insightful comments!
- elendil said...
Oh, I was just trying to suggest ...
It's okay. My original message had in it something along the lines "but I am probably reading too much into it" but for some reason I deleted it.
Tony, I want to steal a quote in response to you. It goes:
The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.
Your argument that torture is simply a mortal sin in the eyes of God does not work for those of us who do not believe in God.
Here is another reason to add to your list -- one that I find particularly compelling. It is often said that we need the option of torture to gain information to protect us from terrorism. However, it is also acknowledged that torture gives the group a bad reputation, and motivates terror against it. I see the deepening sectarian divide in Iraq as evidence of this. The system has gone into a terrible positive feedback, terror motivating torture, torture motivating terror. Someone must abstract themselves from the system, see the big picture, try to stop the cycle.
Note here that I am not justifying terrorism as a response to torture, simply stating it as a fact, in much the same way that I would observe the action and reaction of billiard balls on a table. Like the billiard balls, terror and torture care little for any high falootin concepts of morality.
So, if the objective is to fight terrorism, we must simply ask ourselves: do the pros of information gain outweigh the cons of motivating extremism, and ultimately terrorist actions? You could probably add some other cons, like the brutalisation of this species, if the welfare of those outside your ethnic group concerns you. It seems to me that America has asked itself this question, and made it's decision. Now the entire world will take the consequences.
- elendil said...
Kant called a categorical imperative
Full disclosure: I read too much Nietzsche, and we all know what he thought of Kant :-)
I realise what I'm doing here is pointless, surrounded by people with fundamentally different views who at best are right now viewing me with deep suspicion, but I just can't seem to help myself when I see something like this:
This would be similar to rape- something that ethical people in all societies simply know not to do.
Really? So we would expect, then, that that great and venerated handbook of morality and wisdom, the Holy Bible, would never condone the rape of women captured in war, and certainly not formalise the process.
There is a dark place in the human soul, and the sooner we swallow our pride and admit that it is there, the sooner we will be able to put an end to all of this unecessary suffering.
- Rufus said...
Don't worry- I'm not viewing you with deep suspicion. Also, for the record, I'm not actually a Christian, although I'm quite familiar with the writings. While I respect the teachings of Christ, I place them in an ethical tradition that includes Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Siddhartha Guatma, Mohammad, Confucius, Augustine, Kierkegaard, and yes, even Mr. Kant. Moreover, I don't take every word of the Bible as necessarily correct or as the word of God.
While I agree that there is a certain amount of cruelty (or perhaps psychopathology to continue that theme) in all people, what worries me is the idea of a state encouraging wanton cruelty to occur as long as it's in their interests.
Most of the classical texts are notoriously accepting of torture and rape. Actually, I think the great historical opponent of torture was Voltaire, who was, of course, an ethical thinker, but far from religious. Honestly, we could really use Voltaire right about now.
Thanks for the comments! And relax- your opinions are more than welcome!
- Tony said...
Elendil writes "Really? So we would expect, then, that that great and venerated handbook of morality and wisdom, the Holy Bible, would never condone the rape of women captured in war, and certainly not formalise the process.". He provides a couple of links to shameful verses from the Old Testament - Numbers (31:17-18) and Deutoronomy (21:10-13) - whith authorise you to more or less help yourself to your enemy's women.
Though I am a Catholic, I abhor the Old Testament. It is riddled with immoral exhortations such as these.
The one thing I regret about Jesus Christ is that he didn't dissociate himself from it.
However, go through the four gospels and you won't find anything that a moral person - Christian or otherwise - cannot agree with. Not only did Christ teach that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, but he personally never stole, raped nor killed.
What a difference from Mohammed and his Koran.
Christ would not have condoned torture.
- Rufus said...
Well, Mohammad led an army from Medina to reclaim Mecca. But, I think the same could be said for the Koran as for the Bible- that it shouldn't be judged solely by its handful of "shameful passages". It's one of the most complex books I've ever read. But, there's a lot more to it than rape or torture.
- elendil said...
I abhor the Old Testament...However, go through the four gospels and you won't find anything that a moral person - Christian or otherwise - cannot agree with.
It is true that the New Testament is a lot more moral than the old, and though I've been atheist for some time, I still value some of the teachings like the tithe.
If we restrict it even further to the four gospels (thus carefully avoiding all kinds of dubious things that Paul said) the only things that remain are the invention of eternal torment (all OT refs to "hell" in the translations are actually "sheol" in the Hebrew) and what may or may not be a bit of racism from Jesus. Even if the latter is true, it's not a big deal. He was a product of his culture, and, well, nobody's perfect ;-)
Most of my issue is with the NT is not crimes against morality, but crimes against logic. But that's a story for another time.
[Jesus] never stole, raped nor killed. What a difference from Mohammed and his Koran.
Yes, it's true that Jesus was a lot less violent and immoral (by our standards) than Mohammed ... It's also true that I'm prettier than John Howard. I don't think anyone would see the latter as a very compelling argument for the power of my feminine charms, so I'll leave you to do the extrapolation on the former.
Tony, I think you've proved my original point. You've obviously used your intrinsic niceness and your intellect to reach the conclusion that raping women is wrong. Although Deut is presented as the word of God, a 'moral absolute' if you will, you have made what I would consider the right decision. You have overruled the 'moral absolute' with intellect and your empathy.
If we can go one step further, and consider your empathy a form of self-interest (e.g. "it would pain me to have anything to do with a woman being raped"; or "I would be ashamed to do this"), then my original point stands.
- elendil said...
what worries me is the idea of a state encouraging wanton cruelty to occur as long as it's in their interests.
As I understand it, theoretically, the democratic state is meant to be a representative of the interests and desires of its constituents. I'll concede that it doesn't work perfectly in reality, but it seems to me that in this case, with the exclusion of a minority like you, that is exactly what the state is doing. Perhaps it stands to reason that the state would be less moral than its constituents, because the people are imbued with empathy directly, but the state must receive its empathy from its constituent parts, diluted as it is by the other forces that direct its actions.
I've been very cynical here (thank you for putting up with me), but I wonder if I betray my philosophy with my actions. I have taken a position of moral skepticism, but my motive for doing that is to get to the heart of the issue, so that I can make the world a more pleasant place. If appealing to one's sense of morality is an illusion, it is a persistent one, and one that I can't seem to abstract myself from. I don't think I really want to. I'm much happier when I know that others are happy too.
Ah, Voltair. Voltaire said something like "all you need is a library and a garden". Add a bottle of red to that, and I'll agree that he was truly a wise man :-)
- Rufus said...
You saw the post on Voltaire's attack on torture, no?
- jakejacobsen said...
I understand where you guys are coming from but this feels like a closed loop conversation.
You throw the word torture around very easily, yet, what is torture. To me it's most music produced today but that's another day.
Allow me to introduce another word into our shared lexicon. Interrogation. How would you extract information from a hardened terrorist? No really? You guys are full of condemnation and high falutin' quotes, how about some practical advice for our man and women actually in the field, right now.
Cops interrogate criminals, soldiers interrogate terrorists or enemy combatants. Can interrogation turn into torture? Of course. Look, I live in Chicago if you think I haven't seen horror stories of interrogation going to far, well, you don't know this city very well.
But is it always wrong? I don't think so. I also find the comparison to slavery a bit bizarre. Dehumanizing, yes, slavery? I just don't see it.
Anyway, you guys are having a good chew on the subject here, but, are you possibly overreacting?
- Rufus said...
I understand where you guys are coming from but this feels like a closed loop conversation.
Well, the idea of a moral imperative is that it is a closed loop. "X is wrong. So don't do X."
You throw the word torture around very easily, yet, what is torture. To me it's most music produced today but that's another day.
Torture is the use of physical violence on a defenseless individual in order to extract information or inflict punishment.
Allow me to introduce another word into our shared lexicon. Interrogation.
But, you're just changing the subject. Nobody has said that we should stop interrogating people.
How would you extract information from a hardened terrorist? No really? You guys are full of condemnation and high falutin' quotes, how about some practical advice for our man and women actually in the field, right now.
I really shouldn't have to explain to you how military and police officers interrogate subjects without the use of torture. This is the norm and it has been the norm for centuries now. Torture has traditionally been forbidden. Which is a norm that I'm saying should continue. My advice for the soldiers would be to interrogate without the use of torture, which is what they've always done. And I'd venture to bet is what the vast, overwhelming majority of them will do anyway.
Cops interrogate criminals, soldiers interrogate terrorists or enemy combatants. Can interrogation turn into torture? Of course. Look, I live in Chicago if you think I haven't seen horror stories of interrogation going to far, well, you don't know this city very well.
Yes, people do torture, and they probably will again. We're simply saying that the government should not condone the use of torture by its representatives. Period. We should not legalize torture.
But is it always wrong? I don't think so. I also find the comparison to slavery a bit bizarre. Dehumanizing, yes, slavery? I just don't see it.
I phrased it in a provocative way to get a discussion going about the ethical implications of torture. It's an old teaching trick. And I think it's worked.
What I was saying is that torture and slavery exist on a continuum and that it's hard to have one without eventually resorting to the other. But, yes, I believe that it is always wrong. Maybe we just disagree on that.
Anyway, you guys are having a good chew on the subject here, but, are you possibly overreacting?
Perhaps. Could you be failing to react fully?
- Peter Porcupine said...
Carleton - How interesting that your objections to torture do not exend to radio talk show hosts. Except for Al Franken? Mine do not extend to liberal bloggers...
BTW - If you want to reintroduce the word 'sin' into your discourse, be careful - it's likely to go other places you may not want it turning up.
- Rufus said...
Carleton - How interesting that your objections to torture do not exend to radio talk show hosts.
It's not interesting- I said absolutely nothing of the sort. I object to anyone being tortured and never said otherwise.
I said, jokingly, that I have little hope of finding decency in talk show hosts. But, that's not the same thing at all as saying that I don't object to their being tortured, and your inability to read closely is not my problem.
Please, stop embarassing yourself. I can't stand Al Franken, I was raised Catholic, so I'm quite familiar with the concept of sin, and you just have no idea what you're talking about. You should have more self-respect than to go onto a public forum and spout off like an alcoholic illiterate teenager. But, you don't. And that's sad.
Good day!
- Rufus said...
Mine do not extend to liberal bloggers...
And Wow! How completely morally bankrupt do you have to be to say you're alright with someone being tortured if they have different political opinions than yours?! How totally lost do you have to be?
Why should we forget the ticking bomb scenario?
And as for it never working, that isn't what Sen. McCain (who opposes it) said, is it?
- Rufus said...
- Rufus said...
At some point, I will post about the ticking time bomb scenario, and why it has nothing to do with the question of whether or not torture is an immoral act. I've already posted on McCain and why, no, torture didn't "work" in his case either.
Otherwise, I just don't feel like feeding the trolls.
- answer-man said...
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text:
But I'll get to try out lots of new gadgets soon:
- The focal reducer already arrived at work
- The DSUBS cable should arrive tomorrow
- The GPS unit for the Nexstar remote should arrive tomorrow
Can't wait to try them out (especially DSLR Shutter with the DSUBS cable). Unfortunately, the focal reducer will probably reduce the range of the telescope even more with the camera attached.
I took flats and flat darks tonight - but it's cloudy again. So, I won't be able to shoot more pictures my last night here :-( Only back in San Jose with all the other lights and such, too bad!
In the absence of taking new pictures, I played more with the ones from a few nights ago.
First, I wanted to compare DSS stacking with Nebulosity stacking:
DSS stacked:
Nebulosity average stacked:
Nebulosity std dev (1.5) stacked:
Ignoring the diagonal lines of Nebulosity (I need to buy a license for it - I'll probably end up using it anyway), the images are quite different. The Nebulosity pictures have some greenish hue towards the upper left corner - the DSS stack doesn't. There shouldn't be any hue at all (Lyra is next to the milky way). But somehow the Nebulosity pictures look much richer.
Zoomed into the main stars of Lyra:
2. Nebulosity (average stacked)
3. Nebulosity (std dev stacked)
The resulting colors are quite different. Vega itself is blue with DSS ad red'ish with Nebulosity - the DSS color seems to be much more realistic. On the other side, delta2 lyr is red with DSS and blue with Nebulosity - and in reality it's red.
Somehow, Nebulosity seems to have mixed up the color palette (in the originals, the colors are correct) and introduced this strange hue.
But I still haven't made much progress with post-processing of the pictures themselves...


text:
So, the self imposed blogging hiatus is over, and I am back, ready to go! There's a cake (chocolate fudge) in the oven, and I have to confess, there have been more than a few disasters recently. I don't think I'm the only one that feels the pressure of the work bake-off. There are some seriously good cooks at my work and recently, it was finally my turn on the "cake roster". So I thought I would bake my tried and true bee-sting cake. I've made it a hundred times. It has never failed me. I would never try something new and difficult for this sort of thing -too many variables and I really dislike having to go back to the supermarket, or turn up with a bought cake (that stuff is far too expensive).
I was sooo prepared as well. I was being slightly over cautious, and bought new flour, new baking soda, new custard powder, half a dozen eggs etc etc. The best case scenario was that I would make 2 cakes, one for home, the other for morning tea at work. The worst case scenario (or so I thought at the time...) was that I had enough ingredients to make a second cake if the first one failed for any unforeseen (and unexpected) reason. I hadn't made it yet in this oven so I thought I was playing it safe.
Anyhow, cake #1 is mixed perfectly and goes into the oven. Looks great and comes out looking great. I turn around for just a second, and the damn thing has sunk! Never mind - I am prepared and can easily make a second one. I think to myself that perhaps the oven was a bit cold when I put the cake in. So I try again, of course my oven is well and truly at temperature this time....
So cake #2 comes out of the oven, looks even better. Of course, I turn around, and yet again, it sinks. Not as much as the first one, but enough to be pretty damn obvious what happened. I start negotiating with myself - maybe I can take the base from one and the base from the other.....? The night is wearing on. I pour myself a drink and resolve to buy a cake in the morning. The cake I buy sets me back $35. Seriously? It was yummy, but that was ridiculous.
The worst part? The next morning I see that one of my colleagues is interviewed for the "person of the week" feature on our internal website and my cake making skills are feted. I want to cry all over my bakery bought, overly expensive mud cake.
As an interesting side note, I mentioned this story to several colleagues, and one said that their wife had also bought the same brand of flour from the same supermarket that day, and also had a cake failure on the same night, and then on the next night, also with a tried and true recipe. So I'll blame the flour! It has been banished to pastry duty.
When your confidence is shot, the best thing to do is to get back into the kitchen and keep baking. I will make that cake again, and it won't fail.


text:
The 2011 NFL bye weeks
When drafting your fantasy team you always want the NFL bye week schedule next to you. The 2011 NFL bye schedule can be a very helpful tool if used correctly. You never want to put yourself in a postion where your back up's have the same bye week as your starters. So print your self a copy of the 2011 NFL bye weeks and have it handy during your drafts. It is a very frustrating position to be in, if at the end of your draft your 2 big players have the same bye week, or if you starting and there back up does.
Now with that said there are people who go out of there way to draft a team where to big time players have the same bye week. This could be tricky because there is a good change you wouldn't be taking best available at times. I try to make sure I get a back up QB RB and TE with different bye's then my starter. The waiver line can normally get you a receiver to get you through a week if need be.
Another tip, playoff contenders. I've always been a firm believer that playoffs should end by week 14. This is were a little preparation goes a long way. You have to be smart especially with QB's and RB's since they are more likely to sit when a playoff spot is clinched. We Will touch more on this soon but something for everyone to keep on mind.
Week 5: Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, Miami, St. Louis, Washington
Week 6: Arizona, Denver, Kansas City, San Diego, Seattle, Tennessee
Week 7: Buffalo, Cincinnati, New England, NY Giants, Philadelphia, San Fransisco
Week 8: Atlanta, Chicago, Green Bay, NY Jets, Oakland, Tampa Bay
Week 9: Carolina, Detroit, Jacksonville, Minnesota,
Week 10 No bye weeks scheduled
Week 11 Houston, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Pittsburgh


text:
1829: DECATHLON UPDATE - American Trey Hardee looks good for gold as he leads with 7,306 points after winning the pole vault. The javelin is just about to start and the 1500m race follows later at 2015. Oleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine, who had led after the first day, is second.
1825: Next 5,000m heat. Ireland's Alistair Cragg in this one up against Bernard Legat and Ethiopian Eliud Kipchoge. "They are going really slowly. Six laps remaining. The pace steady and slow. Sometimes when you run slower than in training then nerves can set in," Brendan Foster says.
1817: You know I mentioned earlier it's all about providing a service. A few are asking when the 200m final is. I feel I may have to repeat this every 5 minutes. Exciting times though. It's 1935. Don't be late. Follow it live on the video, on TV or why not follow the live text. Talk about choice. We spoil you. And can Bolt break the record?
1814: I'll give you some decathlon updates in a minute. Been busy on the track. A happy Farah says: "I couldn't wait to get out there. I'm in there. The team are doing well and there's more to come. It depends how the race is run. I've got to get some food on board and have an ice bath. I'm confident. You have to mix it up with the best."Who's up for an ice bath?
1809: Abdosh's efforts look like they'll be unrewarded. He'll be wishing he was wearing those strap-on shoes. Mo moves up with Bekele. Farah looking strong. He's got his sunnies on and looks good. Farah comes in third with a late burst. He's in the final. The crowd go mad as Abdosh crosses the line but it's not enough. Farah grabs a bottle water, rips it open with his teeth like a wild cat and takes a well-earned swig. Bekele first, Tegenkamp second. Farah third.
"Go Abdosh!"After running 63 second laps Abdosh is catching up looking like a 12-year-old running for the school bus. Absolutely cream-crackered and his neck wobbling. C'mon son. If this was a friendly event the runners would all stop for a couple of minutes and let him get his breath back. Farah makes his move on the right. C'mon Mo. Two laps to go.
1802: Long jump update. Chris Tomlinson still has some work to do. His second jump is 8.02m. Perhaps Rutherford's 8.30m half an hour ago has muddled his brain a bit.
From Chris in Bristol via text on 81111: "Why don't the top sprinters compete in the long jump anymore, as did carl lewis did? Surely Usain Bolt would be excellent at it, with his long legs and raw speed."
1758: Ethiopian Ali Abdosh is one of the favourites to progress to the 5,000m final and after being spiked his shoe comes off and he has to stop to do his laces up. That's a shocker for the lad. He's 120 metres down already and has to step on it to get back on it. He's straining to get back and the Berlin crowd are going bonkers and willing him on.
1754: It's the 5,000m heats. Mo Farah - one of the happiest athletes around - gets going in the first one. Bekele's in this one as well - if he was any more relaxed he'd be snoring. Top five and five fastest losers go through.
1751: Michael Johnson, who won 200m and 400m gold at Atlanta in 1996, doubts Bolt will break the 200m record tonight. The final is at 1935. Johnson said: "Bolt's exertions this week have taken a lot out of him. He's also been very busy and he looks tired. It is certainly less possible than it was a few nights ago. Also he has said that his training this year hasn't been as good as last year."Do you agree with Mr Johnson?
1745: Another incredible GB performance. And it's William Sharman fresh from winning his 110m hurdles semi. Sounds like a man who's just won an Oscar. Here's a taster: "I'm really sorry for Robles - he's a friend of mine. He's my idol. Things happen in sport. I told you there was more to come. My mum always says I'm lazy. Before I got to the warm-up area I felt horrible. I think I ate too late this afternoon. Once I heard the roar for the German, I was next to Robles and I gave it everything."
1742: The athlete of the moment. Big big applause for women's 800m champion Caster Semenya who's had quite a 24 hours. Gold medal win and the controversy over her gender test. But now she stands on the podium wearing her medal. Nice moment.
1736: Drama oh drama in the 110m hurdles. Britain's William Sharman wins his semi in 13.38s. He's in the final. A PB. Unbelievable. Sixth fastest British hurdles run ever. Cuba's Olympic champion and world record holder Dayron Robles is OUT. He clatters into three hurdles and he pulls up. OUCH. Gutted for the big man. But Sharman - oh my lordy. Who'd have predicted that? Anybody?
From BBC Sport's Tom Fordyce in Berlin: "Big, big crowd in tonight for the latest episode of The Incredible Adventures Of Bolt. #1 rule of watching Usain: there are no rules. Anything can happen."
Greg Rutherford after qualifying for Saturday's long jump final: "I half expected to jump well but 8.30m first round - I wasn't expecting it. I've been aiming for that since 2005. I knew it was there and I now need to keep my game head on. I let things emotionally get to me in Beijing. I'm hoping to keep it up for the final." Jonathan Edwards calls his 8.30m jump "pretty much perfect".
1726: No Andy Turner in these 110m hurdles semis. Hamstring yesterday made sure of that. Second semi. Another false start. Chris Tomlinson - who was the GB record holder 10 minutes ago now has his jump. With blonde locks flapping he leaps 8.06m. Fourth best so far. Right hurdlers - get your act together. Barbados star Ryan Braithwaite storms through in 13.18. American David Payne is second ahead of Jamaican Dwight Thomas.
1720: First men's 110m hurdles semi. American Terrence Trammell is first in 13.24s ahead of Petr Svoboda.
1717: NEW NATIONAL RECORD FOR LONG JUMPER GREG RUTHERFORD. Sensational. 8.30m.
"19.67 for Usain Bolt. He told me last night on the phone."Funny that. Usain texted me last night to say he was going to run in 26.03 seconds, retire and then take up cricket.
Steve Cram on 800m champion Caster Semenya: "There have been other athletes that people in the sport have made suggestions about. It's a much bigger issue, a more worldwide issue. Maybe the IAAF will have to find new ways of how we determine who's eligible to race. Otherwise we will continue to have confusion."
"Fond memories of watching Beijing whilst on holiday in Whitby last year. Everyone willing Bolt to try and beat the 200m World Record."
1700: Jamaican veteran Brigitte Foster-Hylton picks up her 100m hurdles gold medal won last night and she looks a little stunned. Not for the first time and not for the last, the Jamaican flags go a little crazy in Berlin.
1655: As well as Bolt gunning for more gold, there's plenty to get our teeth stuck into - on and off the track. Paula Radcliffe announced her withdrawal from the marathon today declaring she was not 100% race fit. Can she come back for 2012? UKA Chief Charles van Commenee said he wanted five GB medals. Three down, two to go. Where are the others coming from? And then there's new 800m champion Caster Semenya who has to undergo a gender test. Has she been treated fairly by the IAAF? Denise Lewis and Michael Johnson don't think so. Thoughts now please on 606 or text 81111.
1650: The BBC is a service and I intend to honour that to the best of my ability. I will give you my all tonight. As well as telling you what's going on, it seems fair to reveal what's coming up. Men's decathlon (1705) up first, then Greg Rutherford and Chris Tomlinson in long jump qualifying (1710), Mo Farah in the 5,000m heats (1755) along with Kenenisa Bekele, Blanka Vlasic gets leaping (1810), before Bolt and Co. rip it up (1935). BBC coverage 1645-2000 on BBC Two/Online/BBC HD/Radio 5 live. Then red button and online 1945-2100.
1640: What were you doing one year ago today? Usain Bolt was in the 200m Olympic final and after saying he's too tired for a world record he blew Beijing away with 19.30 sec. At 1935 tonight he's back eyeing 200m world gold, four days after stunning the world with 100m gold in 9.58 sec. Watch last Sunday's 100m final. More records tonight? All thoughts and predictions on 606 or text 81111. More on the schedule and other hot topics of debate in just a minute.


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Happy New Year!
1. Quit Smoking.
2. More Sex.
3. More Drinking.
4. Get Published.
5. Post More / Develop More Traffic to The JEP Report.
Once again, I would like to wish all of you a Happy New Year and thank you for your support, encouragement and your incredibly bad taste in internet literature. I hope you all keep coming back in 2006.


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Here is what Marcus Borg has to say on the pre-Easter Jesus versus the post-Easter Jesus. This comes from a December 12 posting in the Newsweek/Washington Post online column "On Faith":
I see the pre-Easter Jesus as a Jewish mystic who knew God, and who as a result became a healer, wisdom teacher, and prophet of the kingdom of God. The latter led to his being killed by the authorities who ruled his world. But I do not think he proclaimed or taught an extraordinary status for himself. The message of the pre-Easter Jesus was about God and the kingdom of God, and not about himself.
Rather, I see the grand statements about Jesus – that he is the Son of God, the Light of the World, and so forth - as the testimony of the early Christian movement. These are neither objectively true statements about Jesus nor, for example in this season, about his conception and birth. To speak of him as the Son of God does not mean that he was conceived by God and had no biological human father. Rather, this is the post-Easter conviction of his followers.


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Dinosaurs are alive, on Wall Street - MarketWatch:
"Private equity companies are ...buying into every industry, including those where they have little or no experience in managing. TA Associates began a technology focused firm, ...now has investments in financial services, healthcare and consumer companies like Americhoice and Eastern Mountain Sports. 'Blackstone Group which will offer a stake to the public next week, owns or has investments in more than 100 companies, including such diverse businesses as Cadbury Schweppes, Celanese, Deutsche Telekom, Extended Stay America, Freedom Communications, Freescale Semiconductor and Universal Orlando."So what has changed? One thing is management. Rather than have a single person in charge across multiple industries, the private equity firms are overseeing the firms much like a super-active investor (which is what they are trying to be). This also reduces the importance of transparency (a reason often cited as a cause of the diversification discount). Another difference is that many of these investments are seemingly more temporary in nature: fix things up and then sell them in an IPO.
But in spite of their differences, there are enough similarities to make the claim that todays private equity firms are the evolution of yesterday's conglomerate (which is exactly what Weidner does).
BTW We talked about this in class this spring, but it was not as nearly as interesting as this piece that talks about the return of the dinosaurs!
Thanks Mark!


text: Films by Erik C. Andersen COMING 2008 STAR WARS MADE ME THIS WAY "Not to long ago in a galaxy not that far away. One fan asked a stupid question and pissed off the universe!" HOME OF The Fright Gallery Presents - The Documentary Every October, 25 friends take more than a month to create an original Halloween spectacle unlike anything you have ever seen or heard. With 10 years of footage, the director explores what influences them to do it and why 3000 people descend upon one house's front lawn to watch a show so unique, they return year after year. Check out some of the clips!


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The 15 Hottest TV Moms Of All Time
While not all the moms on this list will win a Mother of the Year award, there's no disputing that there are plenty of hot mamas among them. Check out TV Crunch's list of 15 Hottest TV Moms of All Time. Hot… or not?
15. Carol Brady (The Brady Bunch)
Hang with me on this one – it was the 70s, ya know, so maybe Carol Brady isn't smokin' by today's standards, but she was pretty friggin hot back in the day. Plus, she looked like she was a major tiger in bed, always cozying up to Mike Brady. Speaking of Tiger – what the hell ever happened to that mutt?
14. Rita Bennett (Dexter)
As Dexter's girlfriend (now wife), Rita seems a little clueless – how can she not know about Dex's secret side? Despite being a beauty, being oblivious to Dexter's side hobby may be a big flaw. Give her credit though – she was a single mom with a messed up past that included all matter of abuse, and she's one strong woman.
13. Tami Taylor (Friday Night Lights)
Sure, it's all about the football – but hot coach's wife and guidance counselor Tami Taylor is one sexy mom that injects her sensibility into the crazy mix. A gorgeous redhead who's into football – sounds like a football fan's dreamgirl.
12. Gabrielle Solis (Desperate Housewives)
To be fair, that jump ahead 5 years on Desperate Housewives wasn't kind to Gabrielle, but she's still sexy underneath her frazzled mom frump. Let us not forget her pre-kid sexy days when she was getting it on with her gardener. Her inner hotness will no doubt shine again as the season wears on.
11. Joy Turner (My Name Is Earl)
She's crass talkin' white trash who rocks her hair extensions and cheesy clothes – damn if Joy isn't the hottest trailer trash on the planet. Her self-confidence and tell-it-like-it-is attitude only wins our hearts over more.
10. Elyse Keaton (Family Ties)
Sha-la-la-la… ooh, that Elyse Keaton, she epitomized the 80s hot mom – as post-hippie mama to republican uptight Alex P. Keaton, Elyse and hubby Steven clearly had some smokin' chemistry. Mama Keaton was equal parts sexy wife and fab mother.
9. Peg Bundy (Married … With Children)
A little cheesy, sure, but Peg Bundy's cleavage baring tops, tight pants and high heels made her the anti-soccer mom – and we love her for it. Her unorthodox child raising be damned, Peg brought over-the-top hot to TV. Yeah, she's trashy and unconventional… but we wouldn't have her any other way.
8. Claire Littleton (Lost)
The hottest mom ever to give birth while stranded on a mysteriously whack island, Claire Littleton is a blonde Australian beauty who shows she's fragile and strong all at the same time – and all while looking out for the best interest of her baby. Too bad she's a ghost mom now.
7. Niki Sanders (Heroes)
Niki Sanders is maybe a little too complicated for some guys, but that doesn't detract from her sexiness. An internet stripper with issues that include split personality Jessica and a red-hot deadly temper, Niki may be a little safer to check out from a distance.
6. Rachel Green (Friends)
We watched Rachel go from sexy single woman playing the dating game, to pregnant… to mom to baby Emma in the final two seasons. And while her on-again/off-again relationship with baby daddy Ross was a rollercoaster run, new mommyhood matured Rachel and she never lost her sex appeal.
5. Margene Heffman (Big Love)
Bill Henrickson's third – and hottest – wife on Big Love, Margene started out as the Henrickson's babysitter but her sweet, young ways quickly found her in the wifey lineup. She's finding her order among the wives, but her fresh-faced adorable mom definitely gets top billing among the top 5 of our list.
4. Betty Draper (Mad Men)
Betty takes the stuffy 50s/60s housewife and, despite being a picture perfect former model, gives us a glimpse at her internal suffering as a repressed (and depressed) woman. Betty is a fox, no doubt, but she wants to be the perfect wife, mother and hostess – clearly, there's a lot she needs to sort out.
3. Kate Austen (Lost)
Kate's a mom by default, picking up mom duties where dead mama Claire left off, but she truly cares about Aaron too. We've seen Kate barely clothed and making out with both Jack and Sawyer, so we know she's got good taste in guys. Plus she's a former fugitive – that's kinda hot, right?
2. Becky Donaldson (Full House)
Just try and deny the hotness of Becky Donaldson on Full House. Becky and Uncle Jesse were like a fantastic force of beauty to be reckoned with – Becky's the ultimate smiley-smiley sweet aunt, wife, friend and mother and perhaps one of the only good reasons to still watch reruns of Full House.
1. Nancy Botwin (Weeds)
Sometimes a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do – and Mary-Louise Parker's Nancy Botwin does just that, becoming suburban pot dealer to keep her family on track. Are her methods less-than-desirable? Sure. Is she smart, funny and sexy in the process? You bet.


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September 15, 2016
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Honey I Shrunk the Apartments: Average New Unit Size Declines 7% Since 2009
By: Erin Talkington, Vice President, and Clare Healy, Senior Associate
Average New Apartment Size Drops by 70 Square Feet
From micro-units to co-living, the biggest—or at least, most talked about—trends in rental apartments today are all about living smaller, trading personal space for community amenities or hip urban locations. But how much has the needle actually moved toward smaller units?
Analyzing the top 20 U.S. metro areas reveals that meaningful change is in fact afoot. The size of the average new apartment unit built from 2010 to the present is down 70 square feet—7%—compared with those built during the 2000-2009 period.
Change in Average New Apartment Unit Size
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
Unit Size Down Across Geographic Regions
The decline in unit size is not isolated to the coasts; rather, unit size is declining across the country. In fact, aggregating the markets surveyed by region, the Midwest has experienced the largest percentage decrease. Furthermore, of the 20 markets analyzed, only two saw average new unit size increase this period—San Diego and Riverside, California. The rest saw average unit size diminish by as much as 25%.[1]
Average New Apartment Unit Size by Region
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
High- and Moderate-Cost Markets See Largest Size Reductions
Aggregating the markets by relative housing cost shows how pricing economics have influenced the change.[2] Average unit size shrunk the most in moderate- and high-cost markets, where there has been an attractive combination of strong demand fundamentals for new product in general and larger base unit sizes relative to the very high cost markets. As a result, new supply in high- and moderate-cost markets today is sized much more comparably to that in very high-cost markets—the gap in size between the average new unit in New York and Washington, D.C., for example, has closed quite a bit.
By comparison, average new unit sizes only declined 4% in the very high-cost markets overall. Average new unit sizes in these markets were already at least 100 square feet smaller than in the other markets, making it more difficult to trim additional square footage at an equivalent rate.
Perhaps not unsurprisingly, low-cost markets have seen the smallest reduction in new unit size (3%) this period. Without the price pressure seen in higher-cost markets, there has been less impetus to push sizes down.
Average New Apartment Unit Size by Market Cost
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
Except in Very High-Cost Markets, Change Driven by Shifting Unit Mix
Overall, approximately 80% of the reduction in average new unit size is attributable to changes in unit mix—in other words, increasing the share of studio and one-bedroom units at the expense of larger unit types—rather than shrinking floorplan sizes for units of a particular type. In fact, unit sizes in low-cost markets actually increased slightly in the latest generation of new rental community development. As market cost increases, however, the influence of unit mix decreases, from causing 140% of the change in average unit size in low-cost markets to only 27% in very high-cost markets. This is due to the fact that unit mix in higher-cost markets is already more heavily weighted toward smaller unit types.
Attribution Analysis: Is the Decrease in Average Unit Size Attributable to Changing Unit Mix or Shrinking Units?
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
At the heart of the change in unit mix is the reduction in new two-bedroom units as they are squeezed out by more studios and one-bedroom units, particularly in high- and moderate-cost markets where average unit size has decreased the most.
Distribution of New Units by Unit Type
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
Two-bedroom units accounted for over 40% of new supply in high- and moderate-cost markets in the 2000-2009 period. From 2010-2016, however, they have comprised 35% of new units. In these markets, studio and one-bedroom units previously accounted for approximately one-half of the combined unit mix in these markets; they now account for closer to two-thirds. Studios alone have doubled their share of the unit mix in these markets. In effect, the average unit mix in high- and moderate-cost markets has been moving closer to the distribution in very high-cost markets.
In very high-cost markets, the mix of unit types delivered since 2009 is not much different than in the 2000-2009 period. Most of the reduction in average unit size in very high-cost markets, therefore, is attributable to smaller floorplans, rather than shifting unit mix.
Floorplans Getting Smaller, Too
In addition to a higher mix of smaller unit types, floorplans for given unit types have also generally gotten smaller this period, particularly among studio and one-bedroom units, which have both shrunk by approximately 4% overall, or 25 to 35 square feet, respectively. Only the very high-cost markets have seen a marked decrease in two-bedroom size, however. Interestingly, three-bedroom size has actually increased in three of the four market categories, indicating that those units are becoming larger at the same time that they are becoming a smaller share of the overall unit mix.
Change in Average New Unit Size This Period (2010-2016) Compared with Last (2000-2009)
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
Share of Units Under 600 Square Feet Doubles
Taking a closer look at the unit types where floorplans are shrinking the most—studio and one-bedroom units—reveals that the mix is shifting away from units 800 square feet or larger at all markets, regardless of cost levels, and the most dramatic change is occurring at the smallest end of the size spectrum. The share of units under 600 square feet doubled to 15% of new studio and one-bedroom supply during the 2010-2016 period compared with 2000-2009. Furthermore, units under 700 square feet increased from 25% to 37%.
Distribution of New Studio and One-Bedroom Units by Size
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO. Includes data from the top U.S. 20 metro areas by population.
In very high- and high-cost markets, the largest growth has occurred in the share of units under 600 square feet. Most striking is the change in high-cost markets, where units smaller than 600 square feet only comprised 10% of new studios and one-bedrooms between 2000 and 2009 but represent 24% of those unit types built this period.
In moderate-cost and low-cost markets, the shift is occurring away from one-bedroom units 800 square feet or larger in favor of ones in the 600- to 800-square-foot range. Where one-bedrooms 800 square feet or larger comprised 45% of new studio and one-bedroom supply in these markets from 2000-2009, they have accounted for only one-third of those unit types from 2010-2016. Even today, however, units smaller than 600 square feet remain rare in these markets. The shift in unit sizes suggests a rightsizing of the one-bedroom supply more than adoption of the studio and micro floorplans that have gained a stronger foothold in markets with higher housing costs.
Appendix: Change in Average New Unit Size by Market
SOURCE: Axiometrics; RCLCO
[1] Refer to report Appendix for market-by-market size data.
[2] The definition of relative market cost is based on the approximate rent per square foot for new product in urban areas of each MSA. Rent for the typical new rental apartment in very high-cost markets tends to be in the $4.00+/square foot (SF) range, high-cost markets between $3.00 and $4.00/SF, moderate-cost markets between $2.00 and $3.00/SF, and low-cost markets sub-$2.00/SF.
Article and research prepared by Erin Talkington, Vice President, and Clare Healy, Senior Associate.
RCLCO provides real estate economics and market analysis, strategic planning, management consulting, litigation support, fiscal and economic impact analysis, investment analysis, portfolio structuring, and monitoring services to real estate investors, developers, home builders, financial institutions, and public agencies. Our real estate consultants help clients make the best decisions about real estate investment, repositioning, planning, and development.
RCLCO's advisory groups provide market-driven, analytically based, and financially sound solutions. Interested in learning more about RCLCO's services? Please visit us at www.rclco.com/expertise.


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Sunday, October 06, 2013
The Bullpen Betty Show #11 - A-Rod v. Selig, The Battle on Park Avenue
The Bullpen Betty Show: S1E11 - A-Rod v. Selig, The Battle on Park Avenue
Hit the streets with Betty & Gigo as they cover the last week of the Yankees season. Gigo lives Jason Finn's Dream, while Betty and Howie Abrams give you the lowdown on the playoffs and the Mets postseason plans. Plus you'll get Betty & Gigo's take on the battle between Bud Selig and Alex Rodriguez!
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Last week, the player behind a beloved kinmate, Shinarra, passed away suddenly. The Kin and, indeed, many on Landroval were stunned and affected by this tragedy and I've been thinking about it ever since. In particular, why should the passing of someone who you have never met affect people so?
There are many people who say that on-line friendships somehow don't count. That it's not real unless you see each other face to face. They are wrong. It may be a different form of friendship but it's still valid. Many of the people I have met on-line and, in particular, within LoTRO have enriched my life in various ways. In fact, I have also met some in real life too. You can spend a great deal of time each day talking (either via text or voice) to other players and you get to know them and they you. There are many players who I actively look forward to speaking with to the extent that it is less about playing a game but being within a social environment.
I think my kinmate Byrdie summed it up best: "I didn't need to know her eye colour to know that I wanted to be her friend".
Shinarra was one of those people who lit up everyone's lives. The extent of this has been shown by the hundreds of tributes that have flowed in to the Kin. At an informal concert for her last Sunday, enough people attended to force additional layers to be created. It was quite remarkable. To our joy, we discovered that members of Shinarra's family were also in attendance and I believe they were touched by the outpouring of support. I should mention that Shinarra's (real life) boyfriend is in the Kin and the characters recently married in game.
I'm rambling a bit because I don't know quite what I want to say, only that I need to say it. Like many others, I have been affected emotionally by this and it surprised me. I'm not going to say any more but I would like (with permission) to reproduce a sampling of the tributes for Shinarra.
One of the brightest stars in Middle-earth has dimmed as our dearly loved Shinarra has departed into the West. She was a joy to all who knew her. We admired her elegant dancing with Estellost, the light of her life, and the beautiful music they shared with us when not dancing. Shinarra extended warm, gracious welcomes to all who passed her way and she was a firm friend and comrade-in-arms. The Undying Lands must seem yet more alive today, having welcomed her among them. Farewell, Shinarra, requiescas in pace!
I always remember Shinarra dancing at an Andune concert to our song Walking On Sunshine. And that is exactly how I remember her, walking on sunshine and bringing light to everyone around her. Shinarra, may your beautiful soul find a peaceful place to dance and watch over us.
The dancing, that's what I'll remember. The joy she showed when she and Estellost would dance together. It inspired my imagination to not just dance in a line.
When we recorded the LMB anthem and ran out of voices and needed more, Shinarra was amongst those who followed the call. We had that hilarious singalong-event on ventrilo and we had such a good time there and she was a big part of it. Her laughter was infectious and when it came to the singing she did it with a lot of zeal, joy and pride. She was always kind and good-humored and many a bander loved her dearly for that, me included. And to see her dancing with Estellost -which almost always was with close body contact- was ever so enjoyable and brought a big smile on our faces. All this will be missed very much.
Whenever there was music, she was always there, laughing and dancing. She was such a loving soul, brightening and cheering those around her. May she rest in peace beyond the Western Seas.
Thank you, Shinarra. You made our hearts dance with joy. Rest in peace.
I suppose Shinarra had flaws, she was human after all, but if she did I never saw them. What I did see was kindness, generosity, intelligence, wit, a sense of humour and something I can't quite put words to which made her a much-loved, well-liked all around good friend and pleasant person.
It surprises me: having feelings for someone I've never seen. Thinking of Shinarra, I mourn. Kind, generous, funny as can be – I didn't need to know her eye color to know that I wanted to be her friend. I realize now I did see her, not her face, but her heart. My heart has been enriched for knowing her. My heart will miss her.
Shinarra, you will be missed very much by many people. Our sorrow is only evidence of your worth.
I have only just heard the news and I am truly shocked and speechless. What a terrible loss. I didn't know Shinarra well but I always loved seeing her at concerts with her fantastic dancing and wonderful friendship to all. The world has lost a special person and I send thoughts and prayers to all who knew her.
Shinarra was always a delight.. like a gentle summer breeze carrying the scent of the flowers and the sweet tinkling music of a brook. I always enjoyed watching her and Estellost as they danced. In fact it gave me the incentive to level enough to get the man 3 dance. The music of middle earth is dimmed without her.
I was so very sad to hear of her passing, but I'm also glad I got a chance to know her just a bit. Every time we spoke she was kind to me, and from what others here have said, I know that kindness must have run deep indeed.
The first time I ran into Shinarra while playing my hobbit Eustoma we started chatting. I mentioned how big her eagle pet was. She put away the big scary eagle that was big enough to fly off with a hobbit lass, and pulled out Supper. She then told me the story of why Supper was so named. She said every time a hobbit saw her rabbit they would yell "Supper" and now Supper wouldn't come to any other name.


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When archaeologist William Saturno went to Guatemala six years ago, nothing worked out the way he planned. None of the local guides could take him to see the carved monuments he wanted to research, leaving him with nothing to do.
"Not being particularly good at sitting around and twiddling my thumbs," Saturno says, he decided to investigate a rumor that three hieroglyphic Maya monuments had been uncovered by looters in the jungle nearby.
According to the map, Saturno and his guides could reach the monument site by driving forty kilometers and then trekking on foot through the jungle. At the beginning of the road that would take them to the site, however, Saturno's team encountered a sign that read "Camino en mal estado." The sign itself was falling apart, Saturno says. "That should have been an indication of what we were in for."
After an arduous, twenty-two-hour journey, the group finally arrived at the San Bartolo site, which wasn't the one they were looking for. Exhausted and dehydrated, Saturno ducked into a looter's trench to escape the oppressive heat. "I shone my flashlight up on the wall," he says, "and there was the mural."
Saturno made his discovery in March 2001 but kept the discovery under wraps until he could register the site with the Guatemalan authorities and secure funding to work on it. His supporters include the National Geographic Society and NEH, which provided a three-year grant.
The image that Saturno's flashlight had illuminated turned out to be only a fraction of a complex narrative unfolding across the walls of a large stone chamber. Dated about 100 B.C.E., the murals are the earliest known examples of Maya painting. The discovery suggests a level of sophistication in pre-Classic Maya culture previously unsuspected by archaeologists. "Things are a lot more complicated than we thought," Saturno says.
The murals, which depict the Maya creation myth, run along two walls of the nine-by-four-meter chamber. "One of the things that's neat about these murals is that they imply a sort of narrative tradition," Saturno says. "It looks like a Maya screenfold book just unfolded and painted on the wall. You see the page breaks; you can tell where the gutter is." Because the murals depict a cyclical, epic tradition, Saturno says, you can start at any corner and read from left to right.
According to Karl Taube, iconographer for the San Bartolo project, the murals represent an early version of a myth that dominated Maya culture for fifteen hundred years. In the first scene, a man stands in water, sacrificing a fish to the principle bird deity, who perches in the first "world tree." In the second scene, a man stands on land, offering a deer to a second bird in the second world tree; in the third, he floats in the air, presenting a turkey; in the fourth, he hovers in a field of flowers, offering incense. The four trees represent the four cardinal directions or levels of the cosmos: the underworld, the earth, the sky, and the afterlife.
In the final scene, the Maya maize god stands in front of a fifth world tree, establishing the center of the universe. The bird deity lies slain at the bottom of the tree, dispatched for his arrogance and vanity. The maize god crowns himself king, wearing a headdress made from the body of the bird. The wooden scaffold upon which he sits is the same throne depicted in the coronation of Maya kings for centuries, Taube says.
Another series of murals depicts the life cycle of the maize god-his birth in water, his emergence from the earth bearing the harvest, his death represented by diving back into the water, and his resurrection and second coronation. "The whole narrative leads to the coronation of a named individual," Saturno says, establishing the maize god as the foundation of Maya kingship.
The depiction of the maize god in the San Bartolo murals is surprising because of its similarity to later, geographically disparate examples of Maya iconography, Saturno says. "We have this depiction of the bird deity at 100 B.C.E. and see an almost identical carved version of the same bird a thousand miles away in the Pacific highlands of Mexico," he says. The similarity suggests regular circulation of artwork and ideas among Maya cities in the pre-Classic period.
"Archaeologists used to believe that the pivotal aspects of Maya civilization began first in the highlands and moved to the lowlands," Saturno says. "Because of San Bartolo, talking about a singular point of origin and migration doesn't work anymore."
The San Bartolo murals also suggest a staggering longevity of ideas in Mesoamerican culture. According to William Fash, director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at Harvard University, "the depiction of the maize god is very Olmec, indicating that Olmec imagery continued to circulate even after the cities were ruined." The Olmec, considered the mother culture of Mesoamerica, flourished circa 1200 to 400 B.C.E.
Similar imagery of the maize god appears in the only four extant Maya books, dated in the late post-Classic period around the sixteenth century C.E. Various incarnations of the Maya creation myth may therefore have existed in Mesoamerica for more than two thousand years, Taube says.
Considering their age, the San Bartolo representations of the maize god are remarkably well-preserved. While contemporary murals were destroyed by fluctuations in the jungle climate, which caused their stone canvases to expand and crack apart, the San Bartolo murals were more fortunate, Saturno explains. In antiquity, the Maya destroyed two of the four walls of the chamber to make way for further building. It was this demolition, ironically, that secured the preservation of the remaining paintings. Sealed underground, the chamber maintained a relatively stable temperature and humidity for two thousand years.
Before Saturno began excavation, he and his team spent two years monitoring the environment to determine whether their presence, and the damage done by looters, had destabilized the chamber. Remarkably, however, the environment remained constant. "It's just lucky," Saturno says.
Although the chamber can accommodate scientific visitation, "touristic visitation would guarantee its destruction," Saturno cautions. "We're documenting it meticulously so that people can experience a replica rather than disturbing the real thing."
A large part of the documentation consists of scale reproductions of the murals by Heather Hurst, an archaeological illustrator. "The reproductions are the most scientific representations we have because they remove the distraction of surface degradation," Hurst says. Due to the narrowness of the tunnels, it is impossible for the excavation team to view the whole mural at once. The reproductions allow for comprehensive examinations of the paintings, she says.
Hurst works from photographs, scans, and tracings made by suspending a piece of clear acetate in front of the murals. However, she says, it's much easier to work with the murals in person because she can see details that fail to appear in the photographs. "It's like looking at an old dollar bill," Hurst says. "Even if it was obscured, you would know where the lines are supposed to be. When I'm looking at a photograph of the murals, I can't tell what's paint and what's dirt."
Although Hurst paints with watercolors rather than the mineral pigments used by the Maya, she is careful to match the colors exactly. The application of color is very flat and simplified, but the murals are "difficult to reproduce because they're so pure," Hurst says. "It's almost like trying to copy Japanese calligraphy. The character of the strokes means a lot." She spends much of her time with the murals measuring the width of lines and the spaces between the lines. "The details are what capture the real thing," she says.
The competence with which the paintings were executed suggests that the artist, or artists, were well trained before beginning work on the murals, suggests Mary Miller, Maya art historian at Yale University. "It's striking how confident the paintings are, how beautiful they are, their quality of line," she says. "We respond to them. They are a bridge to the past which is unusually moving."
For Saturno and his team, the next step is reassembling thousands of mural fragments from the two chamber walls destroyed by the Maya more than a millennium ago. "There's a whole other half of the narrative to piece together," he says.
"One of the most exciting things about San Bartolo is that it suggests that there are a lot more of these things out there," Saturno says. His team has already discovered another room close to the original chamber containing more than ten thousand fragments of a mural with finer lines and a color palette more complex than that of the original painting. "People are going to be working on San Bartolo long after my lifetime," Saturno predicts.
According to Fash, the sophistication of the San Bartolo paintings suggests that the term "pre-Classic" might be a misnomer. "These murals are actually some of the most beautiful in all of Mesoamerica. It's silly to call them pre-anything. They've astounded everyone."