Bull fights: Death in the Afternoon

Death in the Afternoon
by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway loved Spain, and he loved bullfighting as well. In fact, he has dedicated an entire book to bullfighting, which ranges between an interesting narrative and anthropological field work. He is fascinated with many aspects of the bullfights, who of which I have here:

I am afraid however due to the danger of death it involves it would never have much success among the amateur sportsmen of America and England who play games. We, in games, are not fascinated by death, its nearness and its avoidance. We are fascinated by victory and we replace the avoidance of death by the avoidance of defeat. It is a very nice symbolism but it takes more cojones to be a sportsman when death is a closer party to the game. The bull in the capeas is rarely killed. This should appeal to sportsmen who are lovers of animals.

...but most often as amateurs, purely for sport, for the immediate excitement, and it is very great excitement; and for the retrospective pleasure, of having shown their contempt for death on a hot day in their own town square. Many go in from pride, hoping that they will be brave. Many find they are not brave at all; but at least they went in. There is absolutely nothing for them to gain except the inner satisfaction of having been in the ring with a bull; itself a thing that any one who has done it will always remember. It is a strange feeling to have an animal come toward you consciously seeking to kill you, his eyes open looking at you, and see the oncoming of the lowered horn that he intends to kill you with. It gives enough of a sensation so that there are always men willing to go into the capeas for the pride of having experienced it and the pleasure of having tried some bullfighting manoeuvre with a real bull although the actual pleasure at the time may not be great.

Unique language of Basque: A Short History of Spain

A Short History of Spain
by Mary Platt Parmele

The world is rich with unique languages, though the relatively recent increase in cultures mixing has led to plenty of languages with shared histories. One place where this has been well documented is in Europea and one of the more unique languages is Basque.

The language of the Basques bears no resemblance to any of the Indo-European, nor indeed to any known tongue. It is so difficult, so intricate in construction, that only those who learn it in infancy can ever master it.

It should be mentioned that some words in Spanish like "izquierdo" (left) are seemingly out of place in Spanish but are indeed, borrowed from Basque. 

Dog Watching TV?: Critical flicker-fusion frequency

The Economist

Article: How animals perceive time: Slow-mo mojo

In a curious article about how other animals perceive time, the Economist had an interesting passage regarding some of the deeper science of our vision in comparison to our canine friends. 

It is called the critical flicker-fusion frequency, or CFF, and it is the lowest frequency at which a flickering light appears to be a constant source of illumination. It measures, in other words, how fast an animal’s eyes can refresh an image and thus process information. For people, the average CFF is 60 hertz (ie, 60 times a second). This is why the refresh-rate on a television screen is usually set at that value. Dogs have a CFF of 80Hz, which is probably why they do not seem to like watching television. To a dog a TV programme looks like a series of rapidly changing stills.

I have recently been told there is an entire channel dedicated to dogs (can someone confirm or deny this?) and I personally know a pet owner that leaves the TV on for his dog. Unless the CFF rate is adjusted, their dog is unfortunately likely sitting their with a goldfish brain look, mesmerized by the moving stills.  

Teachers and Bosses: Banker to the Poor

Banker to the Poor

by Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus creation of the Grameen Bank has been a success and classic case study in poverty alleviation strategies. Although he is an economist and a large component of his success is due to economic principles, he rightly recognizes the human aspect of his organization.

I am happy that they consider me more as a teacher than as a boss. With a boss, one has to be formal, but with a teacher the relationship is more informal, even spiritual. One can discuss one's problems and weaknesses more freely. One can admit personal mistakes without fear of triggering an official sanction. Traditional bank officials need their office, their papers, their desk, and their telephone for support. They feel lost without these props. But you can strip everything away from a Grameen employee, and still at heart he or she remains a teacher.

Hearing Language: The Language Instinct

The Language Instinct

by Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker's classic book, The Language Instinct, helped decipher some complex theories of modern day linguists. He presents his case for an inherent ability to learn and communicate language, as the book title indicates. He provides much evidence, including the passage below:

When engineers first tried to develop reading machines for the blind in the 1940s, they devised a set of noises that corresponded to the letters of the alphabet. Even with heroic training, people could not recognize the sounds at a rate faster than good Morse code operators, about three units a second. Real speech, somehow, is perceived an order of magnitude faster; ten to fifteen phonemes per second for casual speech, twenty to thirty per second for the man in the late-night Veg-O-Matic, and as many as forty to fifty per second for artificially sped-up speech. Given how the human auditory system works, this is almost unbelievable. When a sound like a click is repeated at the rate of twenty times a second or faster, we no longer hear it as a sequence of separate sounds but as a low buzz. If we can hear forty-five phonemes per second, the phonemes can not possibly be consecutive bits of sound; each moment of sound must have several phonemes packed into it that our brains somehow unpack. As a result, speech is by far the fastest way of getting information into the head through the ear. 

Patent Awards in America and Europe: Lords of the Harvest

Lord of the Harvest 

by Dan Charles

Lords of the Harvest takes an in depth and non-partisan look into the rise of biotechnology. A key part in the development of this industry regarded patents in both the EU and America.

The European patent office, because it grants patents strictly based on who files an application first, awarded inventorship rights to Schell's group. In the United States, which awards patents based on who has first invented something....

Although this fact is somewhat well known as a result of Einstein (some accuse him of taking advantage of his position as a clerk in a Swiss patent office) but is still a very interesting fact. I am curious as how other countries around the world go about issuing patents...anyone with any experience?

Hobos: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

When You Are Engulfed In Flames

by David Sedaris

David Sedaris has not only a knack for storytelling, but his behavior is so unique that the pairing is always entertaining. He explains that when he was a child, he often used to dress as a hobo for Halloween. He explains:

...from then on I was always a hobo. It's a word you don't often hear anymore. Along with “tramp,” it's been replaced by “homeless person,” which isn't the same thing. Unlike someone who was evicted or lost his house in a fire, the hobo roughed it by choice. Being at liberty, unencumbered by bills and mortgages better suited his drinking schedule, and so he found shelter wherever he could, never a bum, bu something much less threatening, a figure of merriment almost.

I enjoyed this passage for it's colorful and somewhat accurate depiction of a hobo but I really enjoyed it after I read this article in the Economist some weeks later.