montecarlo's New Writeups

September 18, 2012 (log)

2012-09-17T22:04:56Z

Rotten? Yes. we all have some rotten-(n)ess in us. Mine isÂ confined (but not exclusively) to E2 reading: I frequently (though not always) skip the fiction pieces. That's certainly rotten. But, on the other hand,Â it's not evil. Because I'm not disrespectful, disinterested orÂ even dismissive of fiction, far from it. ButÂ reading tl;dr pieces on the LED/LCD screen is quite uncomfortable. If I had an ipad or a Kindle, that may be different, but I don't.Â Anyway, I think that this problem is of some importance. Or maybe not.

Because, as I see it, E2 futures beckon brightly to fiction. E2 isÂ the place where you can try out your compositional experiments and GET A FEEDBACK. The feedback part of E2 has not been given quite the due it deserves - it's actually the single most particular characteristic of the site. So on E2 you can feedbackwise hone your fictional skills (and test various approaches) until you sell 44 million paper copies of the stuff. This should attract a whole lot of aspiring…

Hairriot (thing)

2012-03-20T14:45:25Z

Hairriot? A dyslectic spelling of Harriet? Not really. Rather, itâs a contraction of âhair riotâ. So it has a lot to do with hair, but mostly in Sweden and not with all kinds of hair.

It all started on March 10, at the 2012 Swedish Eurovision Song Festival finals, which were won by a generously-haired singer, Loreen. Aside from having a nice voice, Loreen also has a highly elastic figure, which she displays in a wild dance, while softly singing. But her most visible asset is a thick mane of straight but voluminous, fluffy hair. Her hair is visible to such a degree that her facial features are mainly left in the dark. For the most part only a pretty nose protrudes from the tangle of dark tresses.Â …

Pandeism from First Principles (thing)

2011-10-22T22:23:21Z

I certainly do like the principles in the above essay, or to be more precise, its well-put statements of fact (as we know them today). But I do differ, sometimes rather strongly, about some of the conclusions. Nevertheless, Iâm most sympathetic to the authorâs truly benevolent aims.

The problem, to my mind, is that many of the syllogisms in this essay are somewhat anthropocentric. The main point - which our learned friend puts forward in his essay â seems to be a Spinoza-like idea of the world: the Universe and God are identical, God and the world are just different names for the same thing. This is a rather reasonable statement, semantically speaking. But why does it need to be bolstered by trying to conjure up a Creator? Thatâs an enigma, to me at least. But then, Iâm a European, so I donât know these things in depth.

Anyway, the argument concerning the existence of a Creator seems, in the above essay, to hang on the fact that, without any reasonable…

Waffles Day (event)

2011-03-25T18:04:36Z

The closest Sunday to March 25 is Our Lady Annunciation Day. It happens to occur approximately nine months before Christmas (birthdate of Jesus), making it a virtuous theological date for pinning down the time of the conception of Jesus (supposedly by the Holy Spirit), in the womb of Our Lady Maria.

May this be as it may â I mean the spooky conception business â but what is particularly interesting in Sweden about the period around Our Lady Annunciation Day is that

everybody eats waffles.

Eating waffles in itself is hardly surprising â in most countries waffles are eaten in springtime, due to increased egg-production around that time of the year. But what is a bit curious is that the day in question is mainly called âWaffles Dayâ in Sweden, not often âOur Lady Dayâ. Such a theologically un-orthodox name for an important date in the Christian Ecclesiastic Calendar demands an explanation, and here it is:

âOur Lady Dayâ in Swedish…

Tau (idea)

2011-01-17T00:05:19Z

The circumference of a circle is 2π times its radius. This is a bit confusing, having to stare at a factor TWO in an expression that is supposed to produce the circumference of ONE whole circle. Also, if you rotate the circle radius ONE full turn (360 degrees), your radian expression will contain an irrelevant factor TWO. Inelegant, clumsy, unnerving.

But these (and plenty more) annoyances can be resolved, if you care to define a different circle constant, τ (Greek letter tau):

τ= circumference/radius

Now, using this new circle constant τ , one full rotation (360 degrees) of a unit radius becomes simply 1 x τ = τ…

A tale of two wars (essay)

2010-04-12T20:22:43Z

Two celebrations, two wars

On May 9th Russia celebrates the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War (GPW). In the West these impressive Moscow festivities are seen as the Russian version of celebrating the end of the Second World War (WWII). But Western nations commemorate the end of WWII in Europe on May 8th. Are they celebrating the same event? Perhaps not. These two springtime celebrations differ by much more than just one day. They actually concern two different wars. On closer inspection the Great Patriotic War (GPW) is poles apart from the Second World War (WWII).

The Second World War (WWII), act I

The Second World War started with the attack on Poland in September 1939, by two totalitarian allies, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The Nazis attacked from the West. Shortly after, the Soviets invaded from the east, exactly as Hitler and Stalin had previously agreed (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).

…