Entries in "Misc"
Musings on the Informal and Formal
Listening to Mannheim Steamroller just taught me something fascinating. Having learned German, I was familiar with the concept of formal and informal pronouns, and I knew that English once used you and thou for those purposes. Rather than continue using thou as the informal in English, however, speakers of the language began using you, which had, until that time, been a formal pronoun, exclusively. Presumably this was some kind of act of egalitarianism--in any case, the result is that modern English speakers tend to think of thou as stilted and formal when it is, in fact, the opposite.
Tonight I was playing around on Amazon in an attempt to make some kind of Christmas wishlist when I realized that a Mannheim Steamroller song entitled Herbei, O Ihr Gläubigen (O Come All Ye Faithful) was playing on my computer. Curious to see the German lyrics since I couldn't understand the choir on its own, I googled for the title and found some lyrics. As I read the side-by-side comparison of the lyrics in German and English, it occurred to me that the familiar English version's fourth verse uses the informal when referring to Jesus Christ:
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, Born this happy morning, Jesus, to Thee be all glory giv'n! Word of the Father, Now in the flesh appearing!
Although I knew that thee was informal, I'd never thought about its use in hymns and Biblical texts. The bells really went off in my head when I realized that the German version of the song (which is quite likely where the English text comes from, knowing hymns scrap that, Wikipedia says that the Latin version is the original) also uses the informal. Given my limited knowledge of Catholicism, it would probably have been considered a major no-no to refer to God or Jesus in the informal during the time period when most of these sorts of hymns were written, so I wondered if using informal pronouns for God was a Protestant innovation, perhaps intended to make individuals feel closer to God. Once again, Wikipedia comes to the rescue:
As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 1500s, he sought to preserve the singular and plural distinctions he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. Therefore, he consistently used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. By doing so, he probably saved thou from utter obscurity, and gave it an air of solemnity that sharply distinguished it from its French counterpart. Tyndale's usage was imitated in the King James Bible, and remained familiar because of that translation. #
In other words, because ye/you was originally plural and thou was originally singular, God and Jesus have been translated into English in the informal since they are also singular. That explains the English, I suppose, but is German the same way for the same reason? It seems to me that, since German retains rules for informal and formal pronouns, that they might be a bit pickier about shoving Du onto God. Or maybe my professors have made a bigger deal about that distinction than anyone does in real life...
A Reason to Head to the Movies
So. Serenity. I think anyone who knows a fan of the original Firefly show has pretty much been ordered to go see the movie. As someone who knew nothing about the show going into the theater, I want to give my side of the story, and hopefully convince a non-fan or two to give the movie a try.
I saw the movie at a special preview during the first weeks of class, having been offered several passes by Film Society members. I was skeptical, to say the least, because I am in no way, shape, or form a fan of Joss Whedon's other works. If anything I am anti-Whedon; that's how greatly I dislike Buffy and Angel. To make matters worse, the trailer didn't look all that great. My friends and I couldn't even figure out what the plot was supposed to be. But none of us cared to pass up a free movie.
So Mark, Eric, and I headed over to Shaker Square one Wednesday night to join a theater full of excited Firefly fans. We laughed at their antics; the lights went out; and the movie started.
It didn't take long to get sucked in. Did it matter that we hadn't seen a second of the TV show? Not one iota. Within the first twenty minutes, we were fully engrossed in the plot, and, more importantly, we cared about the characters. Because, in the end, this movie is not about action--it has plenty of it and it's great stuff--but the movie is really about the characters, and it's been done in such a way that old fans and casual moviegoers both get a lot out of it.
I believe Mark's first words upon exiting were: "That's what the Star Wars prequels were supposed to be." No one could argue with that.
Since then, we've gone and gotten the DVDs of the original show and had a blast watching those, but that's another story altogether. My point here is to urge people who know nothing about Firefly to go give Serenity a chance. Check out a matinee this weekend. It's well worth the ticket.
And, if my recommendation doesn't do it for you, try this: Universal has put up the first nine minutes of the movie as free streaming video. Consider it a test drive.
Inspiring Flight
I watched Discovery's launch from my lab today via AOL's live webcast. It may well be the first and only time I've been impressed with AOL. Between simultaneously broadcasted views and brilliant footage from the camera mounted on the external fuel tank, my co-worker and I spent a good half hour glued to the webcast. At first we excitedly discussed the launch; then came the moment when AOL switched to the fuel tank camera and we watched the edge of the earth appear, the black of space in the background. Even with the image pixilated and over-exposed, it was astounding. How thrilling was it to catch a glimpse of a shock wave coming off the shuttle's wing, vindicating in a single instant an entire third of one of last semester's classes? Watching quite simply brought back every ounce of enthusiasm and excitement I have ever had for space flight.
I was in third grade when I received an issue of Weekly Reader, a "newspaper" geared toward elementary age kids, whose cover was graced with an artist's conception of the International Space Station. I took one look at it and declared to my classmates that I would be living there one day. From that moment onward, the manned space program inhabited a special place in my imagination and dreams. I have no doubts that I would not be an aerospace engineering major--perhaps not even an engineering major--were it not for my fascination with space flight. To judge from other students, my experience is not unusual.
Of course, time and maturity wear down the romantic view of space flight that children have. But beneath all of that, there remains a level of fascination and a sense of adventure that cynicism can't touch. It's that spirit that quickens at the sight of a shuttle launch. Remote images and vehicles will probably tell us everything we want to know about the universe beyond our doorstep, but there's something about going there ourselves that excites us far more. Yes, there is danger. There will always be danger. But that rush--that sense of pure wonder--that comes from manned space flight provides motivation and enthusiasm far beyond that of imagery.
NASA's website, I know from experience, is a treasure trove of useful information for educators. With all the hype around Discovery's latest mission as our "Return to Flight", I suspected that there would be a special amount of coverage, and, in this, I was not let down. Pictures, crew profiles, video, status reports (supposedly available via RSS, but the feed hasn't been updated since the 12th)--a wealth of information. But, I asked myself, what would be most likely to excite school-age kids? You've guessed it. A blog. Imagine sitting in your classroom hearing daily updates from crew members on how the mission was going, what it was like to live in space, and how the dehydrated ice cream tasted from low-earth orbit. If I'd had something like available to me when I was younger, I would have been in low-earth orbit myself. Maybe I've been encouraged a bit too much by Weblogg-ed's blogvangelism, but NASA is really missing out here! Grab the next generation's attention with a launch and then hold it there with something longer term. That's the way to inspire kids to pursue science and engineering. Having been thusly inspired, I should know.
Difficult Decisions
Life is full of tough decisions, and I've never relished the difficulty of weighing alternatives, gathering thoughts from others, and, in the end, trying to justify to myself what decision I'll make. Some of my decisions have turned out well in the past. Although I agonized over whether to attend the University of Michigan or Case, I've never once regretted my decision to come here. Last night I made another decision that was very difficult for me, one that may lead to me dropping my second degree.
Continue reading "Difficult Decisions"
Textbook Quotations
Every once in awhile textbooks manage to be amusing, but this is the first time I've seen a topic as dry as numeric methods manage to be amusing... or perhaps this is an indication of the sort of day I've had...
"There is a long story about why the denominator of [the varience equation] is N ? 1 instead of N. If you have never heard that story, you may consult any good statistics text. Here we will be content to note that the N ? 1 should be changed to N if you are ever in the situation of measuring the variance of a distribution whose mean is known a priori rather than being estimated from the data. (We might also comment that if the difference between N and N ? 1 ever matters to you, then you are probably up to no good anyway — e.g., trying to substantiate a questionable hypothesis with marginal data.) (emphasis in original)
MIT Weblog Survey 2005
"MIT" has been my number one keyword search result all month. I thought I'd add to that through the spirit of scientific inquiry.
Keyword Search Results
I'm going to take a page out of Mark's book and post some of the most amusing keyword searches that turned up my blog last month. I like to do this every month or so for my domain, too, and it's always amusing to see what turns up.
- summer employment form -- Really, what does anything I've written have to do with that full phrase? I don't know. Let's hope I wasn't high on the search results.
- counter-strike nicole -- So... I know why this turned up, but really... what was this person looking for? A person who plays "counter-strike" and has my first name?
- how can i know what i think until i see what i say -- Well, we hope that you're thinking before you say it, to be honest.
- mano singham photo -- I had to laugh. Mano, I think that's a request from someone for you to have a photo on your blog.
- insanity reigns supreme tabs -- ....... Allow me to take this moment to plug tabbed browsing in Mozilla Firefox....
- blog of a mit student -- Imagine how disappointed they were to find the blog of a Case student instead.
- location code -- No, I don't know.
- a little to the left -- And here I thought I was avoiding politics!
And the top search keywords: mit, employment, blog, nicole, and discover. I somehow get the impression that my MIT nerds post got a fair crawling.
Dangerous Books
A panel of conservative scholars and public policy leaders has put together a list of the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries (link from Tom Trelvik). If I've read parts of 4 of the 10 books--specifically, the first four--does that make me 40% dangerous?
And is anyone else surprised that Freud didn't score higher? And why didn't Stalin's books get in there? Maybe his books weren't bestsellers in their time (outside of the U.S.S.R., that is), but Mein Kampf only got bestseller status after the Nazis started giving them out as "gifts".
"MIT Nerds" Are Nothing Special
This month's Discover magazine--most people who know me know that I am a complete Discover addict--ran a major story on MIT nerds (no subscription currently required). Now, as a student at the lesser-known but equally rigorous Case Western Reserve University, I found parts of this article somewhat offensive. It seems to me that the author sets up these students as being unique to MIT before describing activities--among them doing calculus, instant messaging with friends (a primary form of communication at Case), and playing Boggle (one of my suitemate Jessica's favorite pastimes)--as some of the common expenditures of time. The motto she records--"Work, friends, sleep. Pick two."--sounds perfectly applicable to Case life, though it seems like many Case students manage all three.
One of my favorite parts is where the writer identifies the students on the East side of campus--traditionally those who pursue "hard tech, math, and engineering"--as those who drink Mountain Dew over the Starbucks Frappuccino of the soft tech students. I have lived the past two years with several computer science majors and wondered repeatedly if they don't survive some periods of the semester on Mountain Dew Code Red.
"Here there are lots of different levels of nerddom," one MIT student tells the writer. "There are nerd jocks here, the übernerds who study, nerds who actually have lives." I fail to see how such a statement is any more applicable to MIT than to other rigorous universities. Case students seem to me just as likely to give an outsider such a breakdown of student groups as this MIT student is.
Throughout the article, the only definite differences in student populations that I can pick out seem to be the result of the administration of the university. MIT has, for example, a traditional Mystery Hunt in which students decipher "some 150 complex puzzles" to find instructions to the location of a hidden object. The residency system at MIT is different than Case, resulting in certain dorms being traditionally homes of different types of students. And, of course, there is MIT's independent activities period in January, but those don't seem like characteristics that would recruit or alter a student body significantly from students at other universities.
From the "grueling and unremitting" work load to the commonly used, though overly emphasized acronym EECS or the student body's enjoyment of Trogdor the Burninator, MIT's nerds are not all that different from Case's and presumably from those at any other high-quality institution. Why give MIT's nerds special attention then?
Drained
It's a terrible thing when all desire to study for finals is gone. I've been sick since Friday, and, in that time, I wrote a 14 page biorobotics project report, a 15 page aerostructures design report, and a 10 page research essay in German. This, of course, made it pretty much impossible to convince myself to put much effort into studying for tomorrow morning's aerostructures final.
On the bright side, everything is over at 11:30 tomorrow morning. At that point, I will have time, I hope, to recount and reflect on some of the things that have happened in the last few weeks.
Ruining That Engineering Stereotype
I have a dirty little secret.
If I tell you that I’m an engineer, can you guess what it might be?
No, it has nothing to do with bridges or circuits or engines or bottles of Mountain Dew Code Red in the early morning hours. It’s far more fundamental. Some would even say that it interferes with my ability to call myself an engineer.
I am referring, of course, to my love of writing.