Delicious LiveJournal Links for 11-3-2009

[andrewducker]

• Why computers are so complicated
  In nice plain English
  (tags: programming software development engineering c#)
• One Of Those Questions I Wish SF Geeks Would Simply Get Over
  (tags: scifi fandom geekery)
• China's Instant Cities
  Amazing, and somewhat scary.
  (tags: china cities business capitalism)
• Spontaneous panic attack caught on brain imaging scan
  (tags: brain psychology panic mri)
• The Harried Leisure Class
  (tags: society)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

'red-shift yourself just a single step on the neurosis spectrum'

What?
See, THIS is why SF will never be accepted by the mainstream! Terrible science-based metaphors that are complete bosh.

[andrewducker]

The point being that SF _has_ been accepted by the mainstream. It just hasn't been accepted by the literary set, who are basically a different niche.

[andrewducker]

Also, what's wrong with the metaphor? Works fine for me...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes no sense!
Red shift is a change in the apparent frequency of light reaching us from a remote object, caused by it moving away from us.
Given that, how do you red-shift YOURSELF?
What has that got to do with neurosis?
In a word, whaaaa?
It's just chucking in a scientific concept for the hell of it in a place where it might vaguely fit, just to sound like it's scifi. It's teching the tech with the tech!

Oh and lastly, the spectrum is continuous. It has no steps.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Speaking of science chucked about nonsensically, the next Doctor Who special is on 15 Nov.
I'm going to try and organize a mass watching of it, partly for the fun of it but also because I have no telly where I am!
You interested?

[andrewducker]

I'm probably not available, due to that being my anniversary. But thanks!

Which reminds me - what are you doing on Friday? Fancy a cinema trip?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Are you going to Sketchy on Friday?
I'm not sure if I am or not yet, and at any rate I imagine it starts late.
So yes, sounds like a plan!

[andrewducker]

Naah, I'm not really a burlesque person, particularly with Julie out of the city.

But cinema beforehand sounds good. Now, what were we going to see?

[andrewducker]

So, are you saying you didn't understand it? Or that only those metaphors which are completely accurate are ok to use?

Because I understood it, and I frequently use metaphors which lack a 1:1 mapping with reality.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I understood it. Just... it's totally flawed. Scientific metaphors are a curious beast at the best of times, because you're not talking about impressions but concepts. So granted partly this fails because I know what red shift actually is, and so I think of two bodies moving away from each other, and it fails because I don't see what that has to do with what he is actually saying -- which is 'move yourself on a scale'.
I think this is about as piss-poor as second-rate scifi writers who use 'light year' to mean 'a VERY long time'.

[andrewducker]

Except now you're conflating two things. One is an inaccurate use of a scientific term to _literally_ mean something else, and the other is a metaphorical use of a term to evoke something in the reader. One is clearly wrong, the other is perfectly normal.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Point taken. But scientific concepts aren't terribly good raw material for metaphors in the first place. This is just ill-judged. Nah, I'm sticking to my opinion: it's poo.

[andrewducker]

scientific concepts aren't terribly good raw material for metaphors in the first place.
Because?

it's poo
Are you taking lessons in debating from SG?

I mean, you're welcome to your opinion, but you aren't doing a good job of persuading me.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Lol....
I need time not at work to come up with examples!

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of the Social Text hoax, or the book Intellectual Impostures which emerged out of it?

In the book the authors, who are scientists, criticise the (mis)use of scientific concepts made by various French post-structuralist types - i.e. the ones who plague literary theory.

So literary theory types would seem quite happy to use science metaphorically even if they don't them accept SF as literature.

[andrewducker]

I am familliar with the work of Alan Sokal :->

Not read the book though, although I have read a review or two of it.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Mainstream acceptance = English teachers aren't mean to you for reading SF.

[andrewducker]

Pretty much. It's all just insecurity.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Not entirely.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the child who would read voraciously, thus opening a path to Higher Education... if only the teacher hadn't publicly crushed him for wanting to read SF.

Also, the literary establishment tends to act like a cartel, controlling the grants and access to literary festivals, so from a writer's point of view, there's a unfair restrictions on business angle.

Finally, the social discrimination is bugging. Why is it OK to own up to reading detective fiction, but SF is a childish indulgence?