SecureCon, SciPy, Gaming/Blade Runner

[tcpip]

Gave my presentation at SecureCon yesterday. PDF of the slides available, notes coming soon. The medieval castle metaphor does work particularly well for network security; also caught up with catsidhe who was present. Unfortuntely have not been able to attend today, but have successfully fixed an install of NumPy and SciPy, which required some annoying modifications to the code.

This Sunday I start the アイヌ語のラットの伝説 game. Tonight playing Polaris, last night D&D 'Ralia where my wide-eyed Hobbit continues to play the idiot savant. Tomorrow expecting some more gaming goodness with imajica_lj, kremmen, hathhalla, ser_pounce all making appearances before we head to the Astor to see Blade Runner, the Final Cut.

Ahem: I'm a goose; that's next Saturday which of course I'm booked with severina_242 and _zombiemonkey. Better fix that..

Yesterday slotted in another three scenes to my online HeroQuest Glorantha game. Have also completed a review of a classic RuneQuest/Judges Guild module, Broken Tree Inn on rpg.net

I've been saying this for years: Without Words there are no concepts (from hasimir via flemco). 8 limbed girl has operation. A blunt and pithy assessment of the economic claims in the Australian election. Howard on being sorry, and keeping wages down. News just in: Howard heckled with 'scumbag' taunts.

Comments

words both free and trap us

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the article itself provide any justification to you of the concept?

Ah, well, i take a more scientific approach:
i conceive a theory,
& do not believe my observations show anything conclusively,
except, perhaps, that my theory's been disproven.

a people without terms for numbers doesn't develop the ability to determine exact numbers

In th article, i find nothing to refute this theory, agreed.
However, th same data also fails to disprove my own theory, to wit:
a ppl who have no need to determine exact numbers
don't bother inventing words to describe them,
& may not even bother conditioning into their neurons th ability to recognise them.
A Pirahã mother doesn't ask her child to gather ten nuts,
just some nuts, or mebbe a heapa nuts, a few nuts, or a nut.
Aside from differentiatin unity and various scales of plurality,
th culture has no need of number.
If a specific number is needed, it's for a specific reason,
and can be communicated in reference to that reason,
eg: "get a nut for each person coming to dinner",
th child repeats their names while collectin nuts,
& voila, returns with th exact number of nuts.
Just as we'r amazed by their inability to even conceive of exact numbers,
they'd be equally exasperated by our inability to recognise tiny diffrences in plants,
or follow animal tracks etc. Aniwaze...

the ancient western Celts, who had a concept for a colour

Hmm, does this example refute my theory?
I imagine their word for this concept derived from a phrase that meant "sea-colourd".
What with words being th wonderful abstracters that they are,
after many generations it'd be reduced to sumpt like "secol",
so ppl might even forget th specific origin of th more general concept
and be heard to remark that, "th sea is secol colourd."
Th important point here is that th word grew upon th concept, not vice versa.
Let's consider th even more general concept of colour.
Mammals (among other organisms) were observing, reacting to, makin use of colours
long before humans were able to conceive of it as a general pattern.
And i'm sure there was a gap between this awareness
and th invention of a word to label it.
What drove this invention was th need to communicate th concept to others,
which is why i referrd to language as a mind to mind transmission codec.

Consciousness, as the etymology of the word indicates

Hmm, yes, well "fantasy" and "fancy" were once th same word,
and meant something more like a vision or hallucination.
What do ppl mean by consciousness these days?
Despite th existence of th word,
th concept still seems rather muddy.