Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage - Cicero

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage - Cicero

The Phantom of Youth

The Phantom of Youth

This right and true man

This right and true man
This egregious damage
to one so fine, so good
Matters not, matters not.

It is hard to accommodate the paradox that we can find the world so beautiful, and so much in the world so beautiful, and other people so beautiful, when, in fact, the reality is that the world is inhospitable, terrible and terrifying, utterly contemptuous of humanity and human nature.

It rejects humans.  It rejects finer thought and finer things.  It's viciousness knows no bounds and it is unequivocal in its uncaring impartiality.  It matters not who lives or who dies, who prospers or who declines.  It cares not that one minute it makes one person tall and strikes another down, to then, the very next minute, strike down the tall one and bring forth to glory the downtrodden one - or, if it will, leave the downtrodden to be even further defeated.  Dust to dust whilst still alive.

This is not god.  This is not a vengeful and spiteful god.  There is no justice, there is no right, no fairness, no caring.  There is unknowing and unknowable chance, colliding happenstances that infiltrate and rearrange existence, now in another manner, now in another form.  It matters not, matter is pliable, and it plies its horror on us and through us.  We keep the universe alive by letting it manipulate us, in its dance of destruction and regeneration.  The choice we make is to breathe.  The control we have is to breathe.  Yet, that is no choice, no control, at all.  We exist to breathe, to now become another, to not be the same thing we were prior to our breath.

That is us.  We are now done.

Risibility

Besides, risibility come to man from his fundamental intention: he tortures himself, bloodies himself, and kills himself trying to reach the sublime summit.  And what does he hope to find there?  Being.  Well, supposing the impossible, were he to reach it he would merely discover universal nonbeing and his own nothingness.
 - Jean Paul Sartre, Carol Cosman: "The Family Idiot, Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857", The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1989, page 190

A human is the only computer that can be mass produced with unskilled labor

A human is the only computer that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Werner von Braun, paraphrased

The Logline - The most important 27 words a screenwriter will ever write

Re-blogged from http://www.crackingyarns.com.au/2010/03/25/the-most-important-27-words-a-screenwriter-will-ever-write/ - with kind permission I hope - completely referenced. Read their blog - it is excellent.

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The most important 27 words a screenwriter will ever write

by Allen Palmer on March 25, 2010

in Film analysis,Screenwriting tips

Before you write a single scene of your 120-page screenplay, try to express your film’s logline in 27 words or less. Putting your concept to this simple, early test can help focus your narrative, gauge potential and save years of wasted effort.

Write your logline at the beginning – not the end

Typically, screenwriters sweat for months or years over a screenplay, going through endless drafts, major revisions and minor refinements. Only when the script is “finished”, and even then only at the request of the producer, will they write the logline. This is arse about. Here’s why.

Writing the logline up front could save you years

I was recently asked to produce script notes for a project that has been in development for several years. Yet after reading just 10-15 pages of the screenplay I knew the project was in trouble because the fundamental concept wasn’t sound. Thousands of dollars could have been spared and years could have been saved – if only the writer had first written a logline.

What is a logline?

The logline is a single sentence description of your film’s basic story idea in 27* words or less. You might also hear it referred to as the concept or the premise. It’s the concisely written version of what you say when people ask you the question, “So what’s your film about?”.

Why the logline is a good test of story – simplicity

Film is a demanding medium. You have just an hour and a half – 2 hours if you’re lucky – to tell your story. That’s nothing. The average 300-page novel might take 6 hours to film – which is one reason why book adaptations are so hit-and-miss in the cinema. So good movies tend to have simple story ideas. The plots might be complex, but the concepts are almost always simple. That’s why the logline is such a great test of film stories. One sentence. 27 words. If your story’s too complex to be told in 27 words, then it’s almost certainly too complicated for a 90 min movie.

Why the logline is a good test of story – marketability

Writing films is tough but marketing them is even more difficult. How do you arrest people’s attention in a one-sheet poster? How do you hook them with a tagline? How do you open a window in their diary with a 15 second trailer? Again, it’s going to need to be a simple, easily communicatable idea. But it’s also going to need to be immediately compelling. If you can’t hook me in 27 words you’ll have no chance with the cinema-going public.

What should you include in the logline?

Learning to write loglines is an art in itself. Here are some tips for what you should include in those precious 27 words:
Who is the hero? – You should identify the protagonist (though not necessarily by name), the person whose story this is, the character with whom we are meant to identify. e.g. an ageing baseball player, an alcoholic lawyer, a struggling single mother.
What is the Quest? – What does the hero want? What is the overarching external goal that is going to drive the events of the second act at least and possibly even the third act as well. e.g. has to kill a great white shark, rescue the princess from a dragon, find the groom.
What is the hero’s flaw? – Stories are plots that force the hero to grow. What is your hero’s failing? Does he lack courage or compassion? What sort of opportunity is there here for emotional growth? e.g. selfish, cowardly, greedy, materialistic, immoral, womanising, ruthless, workaholic, obsessive.
Where is the conflict? – Drama is all about conflict so we need to understand why this quest is going to be difficult for the hero.
What’s at stake? – For audiences to care, the hero has to have a very strong motivation. If they don’t achieve this goal, the consequences are massive – in their eyes any way. You will generally try to convey in your logline what’s at stake .
Who is the antagonist? – You won’t always include the antagonist – unless it’s a romantic comedy – but it can be a good way to establish the conflict and the impossibility of the hero’s quest.
What is the tone? – If it’s a comedy, it’s a good idea to try to convey that through either the title or the logline.
What’s the USP – In advertising, they used to talk about Unique Selling Point (USP). The thing that set the product apart from its competitors. What is it about your film that is most likely to appeal to the audience? Your logline should attempt to convey this quality or element to us.
How do you do all that in 27 words? Yeah, it’s not easy but here are some clues.

How to write your logline

If you’ve read any Joseph Campbell or Chris Vogler, or you’ve been to one of my courses on classic film story structure, you’ll know that we meet the hero in their Ordinary World, that they get a Call to Adventure and that this quest presents a challenge to their character. Consequently, it’s often effective for your logline to have a structure something like this:
When < flawed hero at start of story> is forced to <call to adventure>, he has to <opportunity for emotional growth> or risk <what’s at stake>.

What you don’t include in the logline

There’s one thing you shouldn’t include in the logline. The ending. It must tease, tempt and demand that the person reads your script. Give away the ending in the logline and you’ve removed that need.
You also shouldn’t include a goal that isn’t concrete. e.g. “must find true love”. What is that? How will we know when they’ve got it? The goal has to drive the drama so it needs to be specific.

Examples of film loglines:
Here are some examples of loglines for well-known films:


Schindler’s List:
When a materialistic, womanising Aryan industrialist discovers his Jewish workers are being sent to Nazi death camps, he risks his life and fortune to save them.


Groundhog Day:
An egotistical TV personality must relive the same day in small town Punxsutawney and be denied the girl of his dreams unless he can become more selfless.


Raiders of the Lost Ark:
A dashing archaeologist must reunite with the ex he dumped if he is to beat the Nazis to find the all-powerful lost Ark of the Covenant.


Little Miss Sunshine:
When a dysfunctional family reluctantly embarks on a road trip to a Californian junior beauty pageant it’s forced to address its serious underlying tensions or fall apart forever.


When Harry Met Sally:
When a cynical anti-romantic befriends a cheery optimist he’s forced to challenge his belief that men and women can’t have a Platonic relationship.


The Hangover:
After a wild Vegas Buck’s Party, a dysfunctional bunch of guys wakes with no memory of last night, a tiger in the bathroom, and no groom.

Judging your logline – try to be objective

One of the great things about the logline is that it’s almost self-regulating. The 27-word limit will make it impossible to communicate ideas that are too sprawling or ill-focused for a mainstream movie. However, just because you’ve written a logline that complies with the word limit doesn’t mean you’ve got a blockbuster on your hands. Be honest in your assessment of your logline. Better still, give it to someone who isn’t your lover, spouse or mother. Does it intrigue them? Do they want to know what happens? If not, chances are your idea isn’t strong enough for a movie. If you’re disciplined, you’ll rework the idea or ditch it altogether. If you’re a fool, you’ll persist and potentially waste years on a project that has only the slimmest chance of success.

The logline – write it early and write it often

I would encourage you to put your film idea to the logline test very early in the writing process. Trying to express the idea in a single sentence of 27 words can help distil the essence of your idea.

• Whose story is it?
• What do they want?
• What’s stopping them getting it?
• What’s at stake?

Constantly revisit your logline during the writing process. Is your story still true to the logline? Or have you strayed? Sometimes during the writing process you’ll come up with an idea that takes the story in a new direction that you believe has even better potential. If so, rewrite your logline. Move from logline, to story, to screenplay, then back to logline again. In this way, you’ll hopefully avoid the all-too-common mistake – particularly in Australia – of spending years writing a screenplay that either no-one wants to make or no-one wants to see.

Related screenwriting articles:

The 6 most common logline mistakes

10 screenwriting insights I wish I’d had 25 years ago

* Why 27 words? That’s what I asked my lecturer at UCLA Extension, Peter Exline (who, incidentally, was one of the inspirations for the Dude in The Big Lebowski.) He said “Because it works”. He was right. It does.

IBM Watson and Jeopardy

IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY has recently completed a new grand challenge - to program a computer to play the quiz game "Jeopardy".

I have been following this (as have many many other people) - and it has been absolutely fascinating.
This link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bifUJCyMwI) to a youtube of the final session should also give you links to the previous sessions over the 3 days.  The link to details of Watson (http://www-943.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/) will no doubt also give you the relevant video links, and much more.

Basically, IBM have developed a natural language processing and deep analytic question and answer system, using massively parallel processing and huge amounts of memory (as stated here: 2880 processor cores in 90 Power 750 computers and 15 terabytes of RAM) to implement a system which can answer any sort of general knowledge question (which have been asked in a variety of ways, including through association, analogy, puns, etc), and to get so many correct that Watson totally beat the best human players.

The results were fascinating.

At the end of the first day, Ken Jennings was on $4,800, Brad Rutter was on $10,400 but Watson was a massive $35,734 (I also answered the questions as they appeared on the screen and achieved $22,400 - although one can not completely equate the results, since the physical presence of having to press the button first when the light comes on and then answer was not the same for me watching it on a computer screen).

At the end of the second and final day, Brad scored $5,600 before final jeopardy, wagered the lot to obtain $11,200 which totaled him $21,600 over the 2 days.

Ken did much better on the second day, managing a pre-final jeopardy score of $18,200 but only wagered $1,000 to finish with $19,200, to total $24,000 for the 2 days.

But Watson.  Well, he (since we can really be anthropomorphic here) scored $23,440 before final jeopardy, wagered $17,973 to make his daily score $41,413 and a massive total of $77,147 for the 2 days.

(By the way, I managed $14,000 for the second day, wagered the lot and got the final jeopardy answer correct (it was Bram Stoker) to finish with $28,000 on the day and $50,400 over the 2 days).

The prize money of $1,000,000 awarded to Watson was donated by IBM to World Vision and to the World Community Grid, whereas half the second prize of $300,000 (to Ken) and $200,000 (to Brad) was donated to other charities.

Two important take-aways from this brilliant piece of research.

Firstly, this technology from IBM has so so many uses - not just in the medical field (as the first offerings appear to be) but also in the energy and resources fields, the urban planning fields, and certainly in the legal and justice fields.  The ability to ingest natural language materials (such as legislation, case law, briefs, submissions, depositions, statements, judgments and miscellaneous other materials) and then to answer complicated questions concerning that material (and link to associated material not previously related to the matter) will be extremely important in the future.

Secondly, IBM Watson was truly amazing.  Certainly a breakthrough in technology.  But the human beings standing there, that did pretty well against the massive machine, were still, themselves, rather incredible.  Humans, in essence, are still mighty powerful.  The Jeopardy show had to be filmed on a special set built in the IBM Research Facility, because the computer system comprising Watson took up a whole room and was too massive to move.  Whereas Ken and Brad simply walked into where ever they were needed and did their thing.  Mind you, computer systems in the 1960's and 1970's took whole rooms - and their capability would now be eclipsed by an iPad or small notebook computer.  Twenty years from now, Watson will definitely be in the palm of one's hand (in one form or another).

learn live die

disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus

Learn as if always going to live; live as if tomorrow going to die.

Tim Crago Dies

Tim Crago, who worked in Harris & Sutherland and remained a friend from that time on, died on Thursday 27 January 2011.

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Now is done thy long day’s work;
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. In Memoria Nostra Semper
Tony Sutherland and all those from H&S

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(The initial 3 lines are from “A Dirge” by Alfred Tennyson, in “Poems of Tennyson”, Alexander Classic Library, p.28.  The Latin phrase can be translated as” Always In Our Memories”).

Tim Crago Dies

Tim Crago, who worked in Harris & Sutherland and remained a friend from that time on, died on Thursday 27 January 2011.

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Now is done thy long day's work;
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.

In Memoria Nostra Semper

Tony Sutherland and all those from H&S

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(The initial 3 lines are from "A Dirge" by Alfred Tennyson, in "Poems of Tennyson", Alexander Classic Library, p.28.
The Latin phrase can be translated as" Always In Our Memories").

11-1-11

Just had to post for 11-1-11

Purity Is Obscurity

Reflection on a Wicked World
by Ogden Nash

Purity
Is obscurity.

It is Indulgent to Hesitate

“You see, what [Don] Juan wanted to do to [Carlos] Castenada … was to find some way of motivating him to be congruent and expressive in his behavior at all times, as creative as he could be as a human being.  He wanted to mobilize his resources so that each act that Carlos performed would be a full representation of all the potential  that was available to him – all the personal power that he had that was available  to him at any moment in time.

Specifically, what Juan told Carlos was “At any moment that you find yourself hesitating, or if at any moment you find yourself putting off  until tomorrow trying some new piece of behavior that you could do today, or doing something that you’ve done before, then all you need to do is glance over your left shoulder and there will be a fleeting shadow.  That shadow represents your death, and at any moment it might step forward, place its hand on your shoulder and take you.  So that the act that you are presently engaged in might be your very last act and therefore fully representative  of you as your last act on this planet.”

One of the ways that you can use this constructively is to understand that it is indulgent to hesitate.

When you hesitate, you are acting as if you are immortal.  And you, ladies and gentlemen, are not.”

(from Richard Bandler and John Grinder, “frogs into PRINCES” (subtitled “Neuro Linguistic Programming”, Real People Press, Moab, Utah, 1979), pages 192,193).

A Good Judge

But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upward, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls.

Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived.

Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.

Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.

Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke-- he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness--when he is among his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognize an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish.

Most true, he said.

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom--in my opinion.

 -- Plato, The Republic, Book III

(ref: Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997, page 1045, paras 409a-d)

I need people to accept that I am a woman

“I just want to convey that I’m not trying to be a man, I need people to accept that I am a woman and that I’m playing a man,” she said.
“It’s an androgynous thing.”

Corinthian girlfriends

Then you also object to Corinthian girlfriends for men who are to be in good physical condition.

- Plato, "The Republic", 404d, p. 1041 in "Plato Complete Works", eds. John M Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997

(What has Plato got against Corinthians girls?)

Also, see http://reconstruction.eserver.org/042/kozlovic.htm for an analysis of "The Republic" from a human resource management critique perspective, which also mentions Corinthian girlfriends.

The Right Kind of Love

But the right kind of love is by nature the love of order and beauty that has been moderated by education in music and poetry?

- Plato, "The Republic", 403a, p. 1040 in "Plato Complete Works", eds. John M Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997

If you want to view a very summarised version of The Republic, try here: http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/plato.htm (called the Squashed verison of The Republic, and there is also a Very Squashed verison of The Republic on the same page).

The Heavens have been torn open, Passion has been spilt everywhere

The Heavens have been torn open.

Passion has been spilt everywhere.

-- Madame Bovary BBC series

You're a man

You're a man, like any other.

It will be beyond you.

-- Madame Bovary BBC series

7 Social Processes That Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil

7 Social Processes That Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil

1. Mindlessly Taking the First Small Step
2. Dehumanization of Others
3. De-individuation of Self (anonymity)
4. Diffusion of Personal Responsibility
5. Blind Obedience to Authority
6. Uncritical Conformity to Group Norms
7. Passive Tolerance of Evil Through Inaction, or Indifference

- Philip Zimbardo
(http://www.ted.com/talk/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html)