Men of Yore: Archimedes

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.^[1] Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors.^[2]

Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time.^[3][4] He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi.^[5] He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of solids of revolution, and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.

Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere has two thirds of the volume and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements.

Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until c. 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance,^[6] while the discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results.^[7]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

Here is a man who used both the world of mind and the world of matter to do his Will.  He was a man with a hand in both worlds rather than being either a theoretical, ivory-towered mathematician, or a clueless rough 'n' ready technician.  If a man has a hand present in both worlds then he will be able to function more fully, and express his own Will more fully, which will lead to him enjoying his life more and being more fruitfull.  Modern men who are divided into two opposing camps of Geeks and Jocks are living divided lives (living in one world at the expense of the other; the Geek in the Mindful world, the Jock in the Material world), and thus impoverished lives.  To make the most of ones life, one should have a hand in both worlds and use them.


[End.]

Havamal Snippets 105: Gunnloths Mead

Gunnlod was/is/will be a Giantess.  She was the keeper of mead (ie alcohol) that Odin used for inspiration.  Alcohol is often associated with poetic and Bohemian artistic types and this has some truth to it because alcohol causes the mind to become less ordered which allows new ideas to come into it.  Though of course just because a man might consume alcohol doesn't mean that he is going to become a prize winning poet.  To conjure up or write innovative or new ideas, poetry or whatever requires that the person has creativeness in their heart to begin with, alcohol in this respect is just a tool that allows the creativity to come forward in different ways.  To be really creative a man must make use of his disciplined mind also (ie the one that likes Excel spreadsheets, ordered food larders, daily routines etc).  Then the creative ideas can be systematised and developed to their fullest potential.  This can be seen in many innovators and inventors are neat and tidy rather than chaotic and dishevelled.  James Dyson for instance.

For more on Gunnlod, go to http://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/giants.html#Gunnlod

 

 

105

Gunnlöð mér um gaf
gullnum stóli á
drykk ins dýra mjaðar
ill iðgjöld
lét ek hana eptir hafa
síns ins heila hugar
síns ins svára sefa              

Gunnloth gave to me

[3] a drink of the precious mead
[2] on her golden throne;
A bad reward
I gave her afterwards
for her whole heart,
for her sorrowful spirit.


[End.]

Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 13 - The Wild Frontier

[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.  Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.  A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]

The Song: The Wild Frontier (based on 'Hundred Mile High City' by Ocean Colour Scene)

This is song about a farm on the frontier of 19th century America which is attacked by Indians.  It's from the perspective of a young teenage boy who's working on his family farm.

A typical sod home of 19th century homesteaders on the Great Plains.  (Source: http://savagesandscoundrels.org/events-landmarks/1841-western-emigration-society-formed/)

It's the kind of event that you won't see in any modern PC Westerns like Dances with Wolves, which portrays Indians in the typical Noble Savage myth, and Europeans as the brutes.  Nevertheless it's an event that may have been typical for families which bordered Indian Territory.  Events which included: Scalpings, kidnappings (of white women into slavery), and killings of innocent civilians.  Remember that tribal wars don't discriminate between 'soldiers' and 'civilians', like civilised warfare does (rather, used to, prior to Winston ‘The Adventurer’ Churchill scrapping 'Cruiser Rules' during WW1 thus allowing British warships to destroy unarmed and innocent merchant ships).  In tribal conflicts everyone is a viable target.  If the world moves more into the world of tribalism (the more violent, inhuman kind where Vikings performed the 'Odin’s Eagle' (haven't found a weblink for it, but it's in a book by historian Michael Wood), Cumans drank from human skulls, Timorians beheaded people etc) then this kind of event will start to happen again: tribes raiding each other for resources and women.

Play the song in the music video above and sing along in your head with the alternative lyrics below.

# The Wild Frontier #

On a farm in the mid-west America.

A sunny day ploughin' the fields.

When pa suddenly came a screamin'

"Look out it's the Indians!"

You're the frontier and they're comin' to scalp you.

On your own and there's no where to run to.

Here on Your farm you will stand and defy them.

Then saddle up and go get some payback.

Pa runs to the back of the barn store.

And grabs the muskets and ammo.

We don't know how we will fair now.

But we know we must kill them.

You're the frontier and they're comin' to scalp you.

On your own and there's no where to run to.

Here on Your farm you will stand and defy them.

Then saddle up and go get some payback.

They charge us and scream with their war cry.

And it scares the hell outta me.

'till I see the resolution in Pa's eyes,

as he fires off his musket.

You're the frontier and they're comin' to scalp you.

On your own and there's no where to run to.

Here on Your farm you will stand and defy them.

Then saddle up and go get some payback.

You're the frontier and they're comin' to scalp you.

On your own and there's no where to run to.

Here on Your farm you will stand and defy them.

Then saddle up and go get some payback.

[End of the Lyrics.]

Havamal Snippets 104: Seeking Suttungr

Suttungr was/is/will be a Frost Giant.  A Frost Giant is a being that does not change, relative to a Fire Giant, which is a chaotic and unpredictable being.  Think of Frost Giants and Fire Giants in abstract terms that are present in every day situations.  For instance a Frost Giant would be a pile of block of ice, unchanging and stable; whereas a tumultuous torrent of a sea would a Fire Giant, because it is chaotic and upredictable.  These elements can be applied to everything, be it inorganic (eg chaotic tempestuous seas versus unchanging granite rocks), living beings,  or ideas (eg anarchism vs conservatism).

For more on Suttungr go to http://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/giants.html#Suttung

104

Inn aldna jötum ek sótta

nú em ek aptr um kominn

fátt gat ek þegjandi þar

mörgum orðum

mælta ek í minn frama

í Suttungs sölum           

I sought the old giant,

now I have come back again.

I got little from being silent there.

With many words

I spoke to my own advantage

in Suttungr's hall.

[End.]

Men of Yore: Meister Eckhart

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form.  Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards.  We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Meister Eckhart

He expressed himself both in learned Latin for the clergy in his tractates, and more famously in the German vernacular in his sermons. His thoughts reach heights and depths that seem uniquely his. His manner of expression is at once simple yet abstract and bold enough to prompt him to be tried for heresy in his last years. He died before a verdict was reached, but considered himself a submissive child of the Church till the end. Contemporary Eckhart's status is uncertain: Dominican order has pressed in the last decade of the 20th century for his full rehabilitation and confirmation of his theologoical orthodoxy; pope John Paul II has voiced favorable opinion on this initiative, but the affair is still confined to the corridors of the Vatican bureaucracy.

Eckhart's central doctrines
Meister Eckhart is the most influential Christian Neoplatonist, (other notable Christian speculative mystics influenced by Neoplatonism include Blessed John of Ruysbroeck, Heinrich Suso, Johann Tauler and Angelus Silesius). Although technically a faithful Thomist (as a prominent member of the Dominican order), Eckhart had developed metaphysics and spiritual psychology of amazing boldness of expression, surprising richness of insight and enduring power of mythic imagery. Not surprisingly, major German philosophers, from Hegel to Heidegger have drunk from the wellspring of Eckhart's wisdom. Novel concepts Eckhart had introduced into Christian metaphysics clearly deviate from pedestrian scholastic canon: in Eckhart's vision, God is primarily fertile. Out of overabundance of love the fertile God gives birth to the Son, Logos Christ. Clearly (aside from a rather striking metaphor of "fertility"), this is rooted in Neoplatonic notion of "overflow" of the One that cannot hold back its abundance of Being. Just, as a Christian, Eckhart had imagined the creation not as a sort of almost "compulsory" overflowing (a metaphor based on a common hydrodynamic picture), but as the free act of will of Trinitary God. Another bold assertion is Eckhart's distinction between God and Godhead (Gottheit in German). True, these notions had been present in the Pseudo-Dionysius's writings and John Erigena's "De divisione naturae", but it was Eckhart who, with characteristic vigor and audacity, had reshaped the germinal metaphors into profound and disturbing images of polarity between the Unmanisfest and Manifest Absolute. Eckhart's psychology and pneumatology are even more original and seminal: he distinguished (as did early Gnostics like Valentinus) between psyche and spiritual element in human being. Valentinian "spiritual seed" is equivalent to Eckhart's "fuenklein", "scintilla animae" , ground of the soul or "soul-spark", which he identifies with "Imago Dei" from the Scripture. This indestructible and divine element in human being is for Eckhart (and for the major Christian mystical theology, including Eastern Othodox concept of "synteresis") only a potentiality, a latent function that needs to be nourished by vituous living and spiritual vigilance in order to grow and expand- unlike perfect Buddha nature from Mahayana Buddhism or Atman from Hindu Vedanta. The "Imago Dei" is sometimes compared to fallen Adam, exiled from Paradise, and the New Adam, or Christ Logos, is potentially the final destination of soul-spark if it, through classic Christian spiritual stages of purificative, contemplative and illuminative life comes to the unitive life where soul-spark is self-transformed into Christ Logos. Hence the great Eckhart's saying:" God gives every Good man everything He has given to His Son".

Eckhart is also spelled Eckard, Eccard. Meister means "the Master"

Source: http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Eckhart_Meister.html

Accused of heresy (because of his Neo-Platonic views) by the Catholic Church (that supposedly has Christ, who in my humble opinion is a Jewish Buddha, cf Cristian Lindtners research), Eckharts thoughts were kept under lock and key for several centuries.  This is unfortunate because it meant that the Catholic Church was neglecting a very important perspective that would have allowed it's parishoners to gain a greater understanding of God and their place in relation to him.  The Church decided to maintain its focus on more earthly and negative concerns (such as indulgences, focussing on Hellfire to keep the church goers in-line, etc). 

Here are Arthur Schopenhauers thoughts on Eckhart:

If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.^[68]

Buddha, Eckhart and I all teach the same.^[69]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart#Schopenhauer

[End.]

Havamal Snippets 103: Be cheerful with guests

It's best to hospitable to guests.  To neet their needs, the host needs to know a little about them: their likes and dislikes: be it the kind of food or drink, the music or entertainment, the conversation or whatever.  Hosting means having a well rounded set of knowledge, not specialised, but well rounded.

103

Heima glaðr gumi

ok við gesti reifr

sviðr skal um sik vera

minnigr ok málugr

ef hann vill margfróðr vera

opt skal góðs geta

fimbulfambi heitir

sá er fátt kann segja

þat er ósnotrs aðal              

At home a man [3] must be [1] glad

and cheerful with guests,

knowing about himself,

mindful and fluent,

if he wants to be well-informed;

he should often speak of good things.

He is called a monstrous fool,

the one who knows how to say almost nothing:

it is the character of the unwise.

[End.]

Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 12 - Born Joyful

[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.  Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.  A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]


The Song: Born Joyful (based on 'Born Slippy' by Underworld)
Life was intended to be a joyous thing, but somewhere along the line, we might occasionaly forget this.  We might be tempted by someone who offers us a fantasy, a pipe-dream, a 'pleasure filled life', the proverbial 'streets paved with gold'.  This is what drug pushers do.  It's what advertisers do.  It's what low grade philosophers and 'life coaches' do.  It's what the perverters of 'The American Dream' do.  All of them promise you over-whelming joy, but unlike Gods unconditional love, they promise it to you 'on a condition': so long as you go over to 'the other side of the valley'.  But this promise of greener pastures is just a nefarious ploy, a plan hatched by an evil schemer to suck you in and turn you into an unwitting slave to your own pleasures.  Once you've realised that the promise of 'a better life' was a lie, you're neck deep in the shit.  You've been sucked into a quagmire, you need to get out of it, and one way of doing that is with brute force: sheer bloody mindedness.  You need to smash the schemer, the drug-pusher, and force your way to freedom; back to the joyous world that your once knew.  Then you can live the life that you wanted: the joy-filled one.

Play the song, and if you can make sense of the lyrics (by the way, the original lyrics aren't coherent eitherLINK) then sing along in your head (or out loud if so inclined):

# Born Joyful #
Good day great day..

Top of the morning day.

It was a sunny day.

It was a fantastic day.

It was a beautiful day.

And smiles day.

And all going fabulous day.

You had,

Great son day.

Daughter day.

You had family day

And a great place to live.

And laughed all the day.

It was joy all over, all over.

All smiled at you day.

Good day great day.

Top of the morning day.

It was a sunny day.

It was a fantastic day.

It was a beautiful day.

And smiles day.

And all going fabulous day.

You had,

Great son day.

Daughter day.

You had family day

And a great place to live.

And laughed all the day.

It was joy all over, all over.

All smiled at you day.

You got tempted by a ploy.

By an evil scheme ploy.

Total nefarious wicked drug schemer.

Schemer wants your soul and all your laughter.

Trap you in his ploy.

His evil ploy,

His drug addict ploy dog.

Dirty sick addict ploy.

Make you sick ploy.

Big big time ploy.

Generation ploy.

To get your babes and babes and babes.

Make you 'member nothing ploy.

Make you his bitch ploy and get.

Dead like an slave.

Enslaved.

You get so sick of it.

You want to rebel right against it.

Hateful and angry.

Wrathful and hot inside.

On your mind-phone line.

And Wod and everything.

On your mind-phone.

And in walk an angel.

And you get up your Wod.

Fighting fists in a shit

hole at Tottenham Court Road

I just come out of the shit

Fighting with the most

Blood I ever had

Shouting.

Beserker, 'serker. 'serker, 'serker.

Shouting,

Beserker, 'serker. 'serker, 'serker.

Shouting

'serker. 'serker, 'serker.

Shouting,

'serker. 'serker, 'serker.

Shouting,

I'm a mega white thing.

Mega mega white thing.

Mega mega white thing.

Mega mega.

Shouting, beserker, 'serker. 'serker, 'serker.

I'm a mega white thing.

Mega mega white thing.

Nefarious schemer is now dead.

He in shit hole now.

Blood going back to Odin.

Mega mega mega going back to freedom.

Hi day are you having fun.

And now I can go on my way.

To a new freedom.

Freedom..

[End of Lyrics]

Havamal Snippets 102: Many a good maid is fickle-minded towards men

Women being fickled-minded towards men at least 1000 years ago?  Well you know what they say: some things never change!

102

Mörg er góð mær

ef görva kannar

hugbrigð við hali

þá ek þat reynda

er it ráðspaka

teygða ek á flærðir fljóð

háðungar hverrar

leitaði mér it horska man

ok hafða ek þess vættki vífs              

Many a good maid,

if you look closely,

is fickle-minded towards men;

I learned that

when [6] I tried to seduce

the [5] wise [6] woman to wantonness,

[8] the clever maid heaped *

[7] her scorn [8] on me,

and I got nothing from this woman.

[End.]

Men of Yore: John Cowperthwaite

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form.  Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards.  We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

John Cowperthwaite

John James Cowperthwaite was born on April 25 1915 and educated at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh. He went on to study Economics at St Andrews University and Christ's College, Cambridge, before joining the Colonial Administrative service in Hong Kong in 1941. During the Japanese occupation he was seconded to Sierra Leone.

Returning to Hong Kong in 1945, he was asked to find ways in which the government could boost post-war economic revival; but he found the economy recovering swiftly without intervention, and took the lesson to heart.

[..]

Cowperthwaite was a classical free-trader in the tradition which stretched from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill and Gladstone, rather than a modern monetarist. He was also a seasoned colonial administrator, with a strong streak of common sense. But his achievement in Hong Kong was hailed by Milton Friedman and other free-market economists as a shining example of the potency of laissez-faire when carried through to its logical conclusions in almost every aspect of government. The Right-wing American commentator PJ O'Rourke called Cowperthwaite "a master of simplicities".

Cowperthwaite himself called his approach "positive non-intervention". Personal taxes were kept at a maximum of 15 per cent; government borrowing was wholly unacceptable; there were no tariffs or subsidies. Red tape was so reduced that a new company could be registered with a one-page form.

Cowperthwaite believed that government should concern itself with only minimal intervention on behalf of the most needy, and should not interfere in business. In his first budget speech he said: "In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralised decisions of a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster."

[..]

Cowperthwaite summed up his part in the colony's success over the decade with some modesty: "I did very little. All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it."
The measure of that success was a 50 per cent rise in real wages, and a two-thirds fall in the number of households in acute poverty. Exports rose by 14 per cent a year, as Hong Kong evolved from a trading post to a major regional hub and manufacturing base.

[..]

Cowperthwaite himself had a Gladstonian sense of obligation towards the least fortunate: he rejected the notion of tax relief on mortgage interest because it would have benefited the better-off and might have prejudiced "our maximum housing effort at the lower end of the scale".

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1508696/Sir-John-Cowperthwaite.html

This is one man who had a significant role in the growth of Hong Kong from a small trading post to a prosperous manufacturing city.  He gave the population freedom from excessive government interference and allowed them to get on with their lives, meaning that the government was really in a subsidiary role, a supporting role rather than the leader of the city-state.


[End.]

Havamal Snippets 101: Odin gets into a maiden sleeping quarters

This stanza is the last part of a short mini-series in which Odins tells of his struggle to, ahem, 'get his end away' with the daughter of Billingr: in verse 97 Odin first sees the maiden; in 98 he converses with her; in 99 he's well and truelly smitten with desire; in 100 he tries to break in to her house, but is met by the men of the house who were waiting for him; and in this verse he finally gets into the maidens sleeping quarters and only has the dog to get past.

I suppose that if nothing else we can humans can take comfort that even Gods (whether one considers Gods as spirit beings or as archetypes) with all of their wisdom and power suffer from base human desires/temptations.

101

Ok nær morni

er ek var enn um kominn

þá var saldrótt um sofin

grey eitt ek þá fann

innar góðu konu

bundit beðjum á  

And towards morning,

when I came back again,

the hall retainers were asleep.

Then I found only

the good woman's [4] bitch

bound to the bed.

[End.]

Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 11 - SWPL Life

[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.  Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.  A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]

The Song: SWPL Life (based on Park Life by Blur)

We all know SWPL's, we all roll our eyes at SWPLs 'cause they're so predictable: love of foreign cuisine, quaint cinema, clique jargon, one-up-man-ship, et cetera ad nauseum. 

SWPLs are not a new phenomena, they are just a 21st century model of the 'social climber' who've existed since at least Medieval times.  Even Leo Tolstoy in 'War and Peace' written in the mid-1800s records the SWPL mentality in the character of the (minor nobility) Berg's who loved throwing evening soirees, 'just like everybody else in St Petersburg' (emphasis added):

After Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it, especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere else.

(Source: http://www.americanliterature.com/author/leo-tolstoy/book/war-and-peace/book-six-1808-10-chapter-xx)

SWPLs are predictable, smug, fake, and engage in prolific cultural-recycling.  Cultural recyclers are people who go round and round and round doing the same thing, time after time, eg wearing the same clothes fashions as 20 years ago, singing the same songs as 50 years ago, doing the same activities as 100 years ago.  Alas SWPLs will intellectualise this process by calling themselves post-modern, thus avoiding any negative thoughts that would arise from considering the fact that they are wholly uncreative.  This song is full of those themes, and is thus dedicated to them!

Follow the link to the song by the well-known Brit-Pop era song, sing along in your head or out loud if so inclined

# SWPL Life #

Oi!

Pretense is a preference for the social-climbers of what is known as..

{SWPL Life}

One up-man-ship cannot be avoided if you want to live a life of what is known as..

{SWPL Life}

Zac's an Anti-Fascist member, he gets intimidated by the White Nationalists, they love a bit of it.

{SWPL Life}

Who's that herb-ette marching?  You should cut down on your fem-life mate, be more masculine!

All the SWPLs.

So many SWPLs.

And they all go round and round.

Round and round.

Through their SWPL life.

{Know what I mean}.

They get up when they're told, except on Bank Holidays when they are truely grateful for the lay-in.

They put their scarves on, have their latte's and dream about 'life in Tuscany'.

They feed the niggers, they sometimes feed the yellows too, it gives them a sense of enormous superiority.

And then they're smug for the rest of the day; safe in the knowledge that there will never be a bit of their heart devoted to anything.

All the SWPLs.

So many SWPLs.

And they all go round and round.

Round and round.

Through their SWPL life.

SWPL Life, {SWPL Life}

SWPL Life, {SWPL Life}

It's got nothing to do with your creative-forward-moving life you know,

It's all about your cultural-recyclers who go round and round and round.

SWPL Life {SWPL Life}

All the SWPLs.

So many SWPLs.

And they all go round and round.

Round and round.

Through their SWPL life.

All the SWPLs.

So many SWPLs.

And they all go round and round.

Round and round.

Through their SWPL life.

[End of Lyrics]

Havamal Snippets 100: Odin's attempt to woo a maiden go awry

This is a continuation of the last few verses telling of Odins unsuccessful attempts to woo Billingr's daughter.  In this verse it seems like Odin has been rumbled and the men of Billingrs household have been ready and waiting for Odin to turn up, so that they can give him a good talking too, or a good beating.

This verse reminds me of a cliched movie scene about a teenage boy who climbs up into the bedroom of a teenage girl he's courting/dating for a couple of nights, only to be rumbled on the third night by the father and mother who are waiting in the girls bedroom to give him a good telling off.  If anything it's a reminder of what can happen if a man let's his carnal desires get the better of him, especially if the woman he covets is married: he ends up recieving a beating.


100
Svá kom ek næst
at in nýta var
vígdrótt öll um vakin
með brennandum ljósum
ok bornum viði
svá var mér vílstígr of vitaðr

When I came next,
the able [3] warriors
[2] were [3] all awake;
with burning lights
and brands raised high,
so was my wretched path marked out.


[End.]

Men of Yore: Joseph Whitworth

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form.  Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards.  We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Joseph Whitworth

Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887):
 
Joseph Whitworth was born in Stockport, then a small manufacturing satellite of Manchester. His father’s work as a frame-maker for the cotton industry must have given the young Whitworth early experience of industrial machinery. He was apprenticed to Manchester companies building mill pumps and textile machinery. At the age of 21, Joseph Whitworth had decided to seek employment in London. He travelled by barge, and along the way fell in love with and married Fanny Ankers, a bargemaster’s daughter.
 
Once arrived in London, in May 1825, Whitworth joined the works of Henry Maudslay. Maudslay was the father of the modern machine tool and his engine-building factory was a hotbed of engineering talent. Bryan Donkin, Joseph Clement, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and James Nasmyth all served time there. Whitworth worked in the relatively humble position of bench fitter because ‘he wanted to attain perfection’. Maudslay’s tools were then as close to that state as an aspiring engineer could hope to get.
 
Whitworth added to his experience with Holtzapffel and Company in 1828 and Joseph Clement in 1830. In five years, Whitworth had managed to serve the best machine makers that London could offer. Clement especially was far in advance of his commercial rivals and hi work on constructing Charles Babbage’s ‘Difference Engine’, or mechanical calculator, was the most intricate and difficult commission then given by the Government. Whitworth worked on components for this farsighted, but ultimately doomed project. For the aspiring engineer, it must have given profound insights into the levels of precision that might be attained.
 
Joseph Whitworth returned to Manchester to set up business on his own in 1832. He took premises in Port Street, then created a workshop at 44 Chorlton Street. The works began well, with Whitworth’s first independent patent lodged in 1834 – a machine for turning and screw cutting studs and hexagonal bolts. Before this, nuts and bolts were threaded by hand, an inaccurate and relatively expensive procedure. This patent set the pattern for a series of inventions and improvements to machinery and tools which would revolutionize manufacture.

Whitworth’s work built on that of Maudslay and others, but introduced far more fundamental thinking into the problem of producing accurate machinery. A good example was his work in making a true surface by scraping and comparing three matching planes. From these apparently simple ideas came the accuracy and method for which Whitworth became so famous.

In succeeding years, Whitworth built his business on accuracy and measurement, the gathering of engineering data and the standardisation of Whitworth Company output. It had been stated in 1830 that a fitter who could work to one sixteenth of an inch was a good workman. Whitworth’s measuring machines were capable of accurately measuring up to one two-millionth of an inch. These machines allowed him to produce standard measures and gauges. Uniformity was extended to the still famous Whitworth system of thread screw threads, commenced in 1841 and universally accepted in Britain by the 1860s. His machines for drilling, planing, slotting and shaping metal eventually formed part of the 1851 Great Exhibition displays, where over 20 of his machine were judged to be ‘of first rate excellence’.
 
As a result of this recognition at the Great Exhibition, the British Government consulted him on means of improving army weaponry. During the Crimean War, British army guns had proved hopelessly outdated. From 1854 Whitworth experimented to determine the best form of weapons and ammunition. Using a shooting range in his garden at Fallowfield, near Manchester, he eventually settled on the use of .45 inch elongated ammunition of rapid twist fired from a hexagonal rifle barrel. The War Office rejected the weapon, but many of its features became a standard for accurate small arms.
 
He was no more fortunate in the production of heavier weapons. By 1862 he had developed artillery with a range of over six miles. Again, the War Office rejected the improvements. Whitworth had much more success with his manufacture of guns for private use – even Queen Victoria was induced to fire a Whitworth rifle. The work let to Whitworth perfecting the process of hydraulic forging of gun steel.
 
In 1856, Joseph Whitworth became the fourth President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was by now widely respected and influential, and he lost no time in promoting engineering standards within the Institution. Membership rose rapidly under his guidance and he was elected for a second term of office in 1866, the first individual to have served two separate terms as President. His great gift to the nation, £100,000 to found the Whitworth Scholarships for engineering, was announced at an Institution meeting in 1868 where it was acclaimed as ‘meeting the wants of the present age’. More than a century after his death, Whitworth’s legacy continues to meet the education needs of succeeding generations.
Source: http://heritage.imeche.org/mecheng/JosephWhitworth

Before Joseph Whitworth invented standardised screw threads, all screws were threaded by hand which meant that no two screws were the same.  Imagine what this would be like for engineers or manufacturers who wanted to make something: they would have to go to a blacksmith to get a number of screws and then wait as they were made.  And if they wanted to get a replacement nut for a bolt then they would have to wait a long time for it to be produced.  Standardising screw threads thus allows manufacturing to become a lot simpler, cheaper and faster.  So despite our occasional grumblings about uniformity (albeit cultural uniformity) in the Androsphere, there is much to be said that is good about uniformity and standardisation: it allows processes (be they manufacturing or communication) to flow a lot quicker than they otherwise would.

[End.]

Hamal Snippets 99: Even the Gods struggle with thoughts of carnal pleasures

The power of carnal desires and carnal pleasures amongst mammals are well known (just look at the proliferation of male and female pornography in the world, and the well known experiment of the lab rat that chose sexual pleasure over food [LINK]), but it seems that carnal pleasures are so strong that they can even drive some Gods to their wits end.  I suppose this could provide some comfort to anyone struggling with the proverbial ‘pleasures of the flesh’ to know that even Gods can suffer from the same problems.  (BTW, if think I’m a little loony for thinking that Gods are real then consider them as a sort of cross between Abstract Jungian archetypes and Emotional experiences, as that’s the way that I tend to think of them.)

99

Aptr ek hvarf

ok unna þóttumk

vísum vilja frá

hitt ek hugða

at ek hafa mynda

geð hennar alt ok gaman          

Back I turned

and seemed [3] out of my head

[2] with love;

I thought

that I would have

it all, her heart and pleasure.

[End.]

Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 10 - Still hasn't Accomplished All he Set Out For

[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.  Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.  A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]

Introduction:

When writing any works of fiction, like songs or stories, I often find that the words seem to write themselves and I simply act as a conduit for them.  It's only after the bulk of the text is written that I set about refining & rewording the text.  This is probably because Intention (a sub-conscious desire to do a thing) preceeds Awareness (conscious awareness of the desire to do a thing).  The structure of the human brain could be used as an analogy for the development of thought processes because they both start of as sub-conscious events and then slowly develop to become fully conscious events which we can then shape according to our own Will.  If you've forgotten about the structure of the brain, then here's a quick reminder:

1. The brain stem: The brain stem contains vital structures including the medulla oblongata which controls breathing, heart rate, and digestion and the cerebellum which coordinates sensory input and maintains muscle movement and balance.

2. The mid-brain: It consists of a number of interrelated structures that regulate temperature control, hormones, and emotions.

3. The fore-brain: The forebrain is involved in thought and problem solving.
(Source: http://www.news-medical.net/health/Human-Brain-Structure.aspx)

Anyway, that's how I believe that creative acts often occur: firstly as sub-conscious intentions and then as thoughts that we are consciously aware of (and can consequently shape).

The Song: Still hasn't Accomplished All he Set Out For (based on 'Looking For' by U2)

The song is about about man, generally speaking, and his endeavours on planet Earth, about how he has struggled, about what he has accomplished, about what he has become and about what he has yet to accomplish.

Some of the terms in the song you might be unfamiliar with so will need some explanation:

- 'en-grippened' refers to a mental state much like possession, which is when someone is possessed by a spirit being.

- 'Void' is the Void that some people who have had Near Death Experiences have reported.  It's a place devoid of any warmth, light or anything.  You are not even permitted to own your own body; it's a terrible experience, going there.

- 'Kingdom to Come' refers to the future.

Play the music video in the link above and sing along with the alternative lyrics given below.


# Still hasn't Accomplished All he Set Out For #

Man was born.

Into the darkness

He has risen.

to the greatest heights, to the greatest heights,

to the greatest heights.

He has engrippened.

He has cried.

He has affirmed

the steepest mores.

The steepest mores.

Only to ascend with you.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

He is king.

He is priest.

He is scientist.

He is beast.

Heart burns like fire.

With his burning desire.

He loves.

Like the eternal Gods.

He has fought.

The damnable devils.

Who was cold as the void.

As cold as the void.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

He believes in the Kingdom to Come.

When all the Gods will accede as one.

Accede as one.

With he leading unto them.

He broke bonds.

Unloosened Wills.

Precipitated the heralding,

of the New Age.

Of the New Age.

You know I believe in him.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.

[End of lyrics.]