Later On

Dan Colman at Open Culture:

In 1939, Alfred Hitchcock gave a lecture at Radio City Music Hall organized by The Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University. The talk (read the full transcript here) takes you inside the creative evolution of Hitchcock’s filmmaking. First comes the bare bones plot, then a fuller treatment, complete with the dialogue and a suspenseful story that drives the movie along for two hours. Hitchcock was the master of creating suspense – of giving the audience the “dope,” as he otherwise calls it – that strings viewers along. And, just what was in that “dope”? He describes it below:

That is the one thing that disturbs me a little. You see modern novels, psychological novels, with frank characterizations and very good psychology, but there has been a tendency, with the novel and with a lot of stage plays, to abandon story. They don’t tell enough story or plot. For a motion picture, we do need quite an amount of story.

Now the reason we need a lot of story is this: a film takes an hour and twenty minutes to play, and an audience can stand about an hour. After an hour, it starts to get tired, so it needs the injection of some dope. One might also say there should be a slogan, “Keep them awake at the movies!”

That dope, as one might call it, is action, movement, and excitement; but more than that, keeping the audience occupied mentally. People think, for example, that pace is fast action, quick cutting, people running around, or whatever you will, and it is not really that at all. I think that pace in a film is made entirely by keeping the mind of the spectator occupied. You don’t need to have quick cutting, you don’t need to have quick playing, but you do need a very full story and the changing of one situation to another. You need the changing of one incident to another, so that all the time the audience’s mind is occupied.

Now so long as you can sustain that and not let up, then you have pace. That is why suspense is such a valuable thing, because it keeps the mind of the audience going. Later on I will tell you how I think the audience should participate in those things.

The rest of the lecture continues here. And be sure to find many Hitchcock films in our collection of Free Movies Online.

Via Open Culture

Dan Colman writes of this:

It took Cesar Díaz Meléndez three months, using only a camera, light table and sand, to produce this sand animated film that serves as a video for the song, “No corras tanto,” which loosely translates to “Take it Easy.” And, rather strikingly, Cesar made the film using no added effects or post production. The Making of No corras tanto gives you a good look inside the production process. Other videos by the Madrid-based artist can be viewed here.

A quick PS: The song accompanying the video was written by Cesar’s band, El Combolinga. Visit the band’s MySpace page.

I finally got clarification on the exact meds to discontinue:

Metformin: because it reacts with the dye used in the angiogram, with death as a consequence

Glipizide: it keeps blood sugar low, but a low-blood-sugar reaction is a lot harder to deal with than a high-blood-sugar reaction, which can be tamed immediately with a little insulin.

Other meds are fine.

Certainly it’s been said of writing that it’s better not to tell others the ideas because the recounting drains energy that would otherwise go into writing. Here’s a summary of things we think we know about this:

The Eldest passes along a message she got from the parent list-serv at The Older Grandson’s school:

In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

The email then linked to this article by Benedict Carey in the NY Times:

Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).

And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach? Or the school’s philosophy? Maybe the child isn’t “a good fit” for the school.

Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.

Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?”

But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.

The advantages of this approach to studying can be striking, in some topic areas. In a study recently posted online by the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied.

A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did …

Continue reading.

A vigorous discussion about shave sticks over on ShaveMyFace.com pushed me to use them. Some guys apparently do not like shave sticks—and in fact at the start I was one of them. But once I began using them, I quickly grew to appreciate the convenience and simplicity—and few are as simple and as good as the Valobra shave stick: simply a cylinder of shaving soap with a foil-wrapped base. And yet it does a fine job and makes a superb lather. It looks like I’ll be taking a run through my shave sticks.

The Omega Lucretia Borgia synthetic-bristled brush did its usual fine job creating and holding the lather: this is a very good brush indeed. The Fa Boy, newly plated in rhodium, provided a fine 3-pass shave with a new Swedish Gillette blade. And then, after the final rinse, I used the alum bar:

I usually don’t bother, but the alum bar also came up on SMF. After the final rinse of my face, I simply glide the bar over the freshly shaved area, wait a moment, and then rinse again. (You should rinse after using an alum bar.) Then dry my face, apply a bit of Coral Skin Food, and I’m ready for a busy day.

Parts of the Long Argument.

As I undoubtedly wrote earlier, I gradually realized that the ideas with which I struggled were already the subject of study, under categories such as chaos theory, complexity theory (or “complex systems”), memetics, emergence, and the like. Once that occurred to me, I stopped working so hard to figure out the argument and ordered in. Just arrived:

The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion, edited by Philip Clayton and Paul Davies.

Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science, edited by Mark A. Bedau and Paul Humphreys

I’ve been reading in both, and they are excellent. In general, my explanations and insights, though tending toward the inchoate, seem consistent with mainstream thought. I get the feeling I’ve been climbing directly up the cliff face when a few feet over was a ladder. So it goes.

For example, in the first I’m reading a chapter “On the Nature of Emergent Reality” by George F.R. Ellis, and he includes this table:

Each step upward is from a simpler system to a more complex system whose properties cannot be deduced from the component lower-order parts: the emergent system. And, of course, all the levels of emergent systems are “used” in each higher level.

Particle Physics is emergent because particles and the forces were the first emergences from the Big Bang (which, presumably was itself an emergence). Of course, you can count emergences in various ways: a new “level” is not always obvious. One example: when matter/energy emerged protons and neutrons (for example) seem to be an emergence (systems of quarks and gluons), then atoms are next—but only hydrogen and helium. The other atoms might be construed as a later emergence, because first stars/galaxies had to emerge: the other elements emerge from novae.

In Philip Clayton’s opening chapter in the first book, he writes that “the Yale biophysicist Harold Morowitz, for example, identifies no fewer than twenty-eight distinct levels of emergence in natural history from the big bang to the present” in his book The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex.

It seems evident that the entities at each level of emergence are “real”, even if (in effect) completely unknowable from the point of view of prior levels. That is, if you’re looking at the basic elemental particles (down at the quark level), and you know all the quarks involved and even their timelines in spacetime, you would still not know that you’re looking at a molecule with certain properties, much less a protein, much less a tobacco leaf, much less a cigarette.

I emphasize this because the latest and most interesting emergence is “culture,” taking the word “culture” to mean all that is created by humans (and, in turn, creates humans: neither can exist without the other).

More anon.

Received via email:

Los Angeles Times | Sept. 7, 2010 | 3:18 p.m.

California seeks $10 billion in fines from health insurer

California regulators are seeking fines of up to $10 billion from health insurer PacifiCare over allegations that it repeatedly mismanaged medical claims, lost thousands of patient documents, failed to pay doctors what they were owed and ignored warnings to fix the problems.

In court filings and other documents, the California Department of Insurance says Cypress-based PacifiCare violated state law nearly 1 million times from 2006 to 2008 after it was purchased by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurance company by revenue.

Regulators say the companies broke promises to maintain smooth operations for 130,000 of PacifiCare’s customers in California, resulting in what insurance regulators nationwide believe is the largest fine ever sought against a U.S. health insurer.

More soon at http://lat.ms/95lzmf

I guess that’s one way to balance the state budget.

I just got the info on my Thursday angiogram up at Stanford. The procedure will be at 6:00 a.m., so the driver will pick me up at 4:00 a.m. The office person said I should not take my diabetic meds. Naturally, I asked her the name of the specific meds, since I take a variety and they have different purposes. For example, I take a couple to lower cholesterol, routinely given to diabetics, so is it among “diabetic meds”? She didn’t know. In fact, she didn’t know any of the meds I should not take, just the phrase “diabetic meds.” I consider this completely unsatisfactory.

Second, I must fast after midnight: nothing at all by mouth (though as I recall it’s okay to suck on ice chips). Understood, but diabetics take a keen interest in when and how the morning fast will be broken—when and where will I then eat? Will the doctor provide food? Is there a café in the doctor’s office? Should I take food with me? She didn’t know the answers to any of this, but allowed that taking food with me would be a “good idea.”

Hopeless.

I promised some commenters I would shave with the Edwin Jagger Chatsworth with the newly designed head, as shown above. And I do love QED’s Special 218—should use it more frequently.

Excellent lather, as always, thanks both to Special 218 and the Rooney Style2 Finest. The Chatsworth with a previously used Astra Kermik blade provided three smooth passes. My face really cannot tell the difference between the earlier version of the Jagger razor head (an upscale Merkur Classic head) and the new one (designed by Neil Jagger working with Mühle-Pinsel). In appearance the new design is more flowing and easier to clean when you want to polish it up, but in shaving performance, both heads do a fine job.

A splash of Mr. Taylor’s aftershave, and I’m off for a fasting blood draw: endocrinologist appt next week, and won’t he be surprised to see me 25 lbs lighter.

This morning I cooked another cup of black rice. Then I went shopping and returned to:

• Immediately wash, tear up, spin dry, and put into the bin all the salad greens (Romaine, red leaf lettuce, half a head of radicchio, and cilantro)
• Steam the broccoli
• Steam the Brussels sprouts
• Wash, chop, and cook the red chard and the other half of the head of radicchio, as follows:1/4 onion, chopped
  2 tsp spicy olive oil

  Sauté that until onion caramelizes. Add 3 cloves garlic, minced, and the chopped radicchio and chard. Sauté briefly, add 1/4 c water, cover, and reduce heat.

  Cook 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Perhaps a splash of sherry vinegar just before serving.

So all veg are cooked. Tomorrow I’ll make a vegetable stock (carrot, onion, celery, garlic, cloves, and allspice, simmered for 45 min, veg then discarded) and in it simmer the two chicken breasts I bought today, reserving the stock for later use. And I’ll boil the dozen eggs I bought and put them into the fridge.

All stocked up with good stuff.

I just started watching Prisoner of the Mountains on Watch Instantly, and it immediately seemed quite foreign indeed. Here’s why:

When an oddball pair of Russian soldiers are captured and taken prisoner by a Chechen father who hopes to barter the soldiers for the release of his captive son, the two hostages begin to develop an unexpected — and humorous — bond of friendship. This film, which is directed and co-written by Sergei Bodrov, was inspired by the Leo Tolstoy novella A Prisoner of the Caucasus. Oleg Menchikov stars as Sacha and Sergei Bodrov Jr. as Vanya.

If you watch mostly American film, you do see foreign scenes, but all the films pick from the same limited list: Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sidney, the Greek islands, and so on: places where Americans go to film movies. Indeed, in some cities the same streets are used again and again.

This movie, however, is set in Chechnya and in regular village life. You don’t see that so much in American movies, eh? But it’s a Russian movie, and of course they would film there as opportunity permits (or, who knows, in some part of Russia that can pass for Chechnya to Russian audiences). And it’s immediately apparent that this is not like the foreign scenes we normally see, and that it’s real.

Bonus: So far the movie is intriguing.

I hope the ACLU is on this. PZ Myers:

Gregory Koger is an ex-con and a revolutionary communist…and none of that should matter in the slightest. He’s also a person who was beat up, handcuffed, maced, arrested, and now faces the prospect of a three year jail sentence for the crime of holding up his iPhone to take pictures of police harassment. Koger is the young man who was documenting Sunsara Taylor’s protest of the behavior of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (which, by the way, ought to change their name to drop the first word), and who, oddly, was manhandled and arrested for taking videos of the event, while Taylor herself, who was doing all the talking, got away relatively unhassled.

Koger has now been convicted of trespassing, and will be sentenced on Wednesday. The whole thing has been Kafkaesque — it’s the most hysterical, overblown response to a guy taking a picture of a public event that I’ve ever heard of, and it’s a slap against everyone’s personal freedoms.

Here is the statement from Sunsara Taylor:

There is no justice in the outrageous conviction of Gregory Koger on charges of trespass, resisting arrest, and battery for the "crime" of videotaping a statement I gave at the "Ethical" Humanist Society of Chicago after they dis-invited me from a long scheduled presentation I was to give on November 1st, 2009. Gregory Koger is not only innocent of all charges he has now been convicted of, he is a righteous and beautiful human being who all people seeking to live an ethical life should support as well as learn deeply from.

How is it that Gregory Koger came to be my videographer last November at the "Ethical" Humanist Society of Chicago?

Gregory’s struggle to understand the source of his own long and bitter experiences of injustice and dehumanization as a young man led him to conclusions that were about much more than himself.

How many young men these days put their bodies on the line to defend the doctors who provide the right to abortion women need to even have a chance at a decent and equal life?

Gregory traveled to Kansas to defend Dr. Leroy Carhart when Carhart was declared "Enemy #1" by the same forces who had long-persecuted the recently murdered Dr. George Tiller.

How many Americans these days take responsibility for stopping the torture committed by the U.S. government in our names, not only under Bush, but also under Obama? How many who claim to oppose the wars and occupations by the U.S. government of Iraq and Afghanistan do more than complain under their breath and then change the channel or turn the page?

Gregory donned the orange jumpsuit of Guantanamo detainees in public protests and he marched against these wars, determined to make his opposition felt by people everywhere, including our sisters and brothers across the globe.

How many white people even notice, let alone stand up against, the systematic police terror and brutality that is a fact of life for youth, especially Black and Latino youth, in the inner cities everywhere?

Gregory went to the Southside of Chicago to speak out against a spate of police shootings of young Black men. He has consistently exposed the disproportionate incarceration and violence experienced by Black people in the criminal justice system.

It is through his activity in these realms, as well as his work with the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund to get revolutionary literature into the U.S. prison system that now holds more than 2.3 million human beings, that I came to know Gregory. It was his interest in morality and ethics, in philosophy and revolution, as well as his passion for film that led him to volunteer for me the weekend I was scheduled to give a talk titled, "Morality Without Gods," at the "Ethical" Humanist Society of Chicago.

The themes of my talk, which drew on the theoretical framework developed by Bob Avakian in his book, AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, examined the basis for a morality that is rooted neither in the brutality and ignorance of Biblical times nor the narrow-minded individualism and relativism of modern U.S. capitalism. I posed the need for a morality that both reflects and serves the struggle to bring into being a world free of all forms of exploitation and oppression, a communist world, a world where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings.

The irony is bitter; when it comes to "morality without gods," it is difficult to think of a starker living contrast than that between Gregory Koger and the conduct of the "Ethical" Humanist Society of Chicago.

I recount all this not only to demonstrate how deeply immoral it is that the "Ethical" Humanist Society of Chicago, spearheaded by their president Matt Cole, has viciously and vengefully persecuted Gregory Koger. I recount this to make clear that it is not only Gregory who will suffer due to this outrageous and unjust verdict, but that all those who are victims of the many injustices and oppression that Gregory fought against will also suffer.

It is incumbent upon all who care about the truth, who care about justice and the human spirit, who care about freedom and rights of the most oppressed and exploited in this country and worldwide, to not only join in insisting that Gregory be immediately released on bail and his conviction overturned, but to learn from Gregory’s example and step up their own involvement in the struggle for human emancipation.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Immediately send statements of support for Gregory to the defense committee AdHoc4Reason@gmail.com

• Donate money for the appeal. Go to the defense committee website for more information

• Show your support at the sentencing hearing on September 8.

• More information will be coming; keep in touch with the Ad Hoc Committee at AdHoc4Reason@gmail.com

The conviction was insane to begin with, but imprisoning a social activist for the crime of photography is simply beyond the pale.

Drop the charges and free Gregory Koger.

Via Kafeneio. Take a look.

And when people cannot see what is perfectly obvious, there’s not much point in trying to convince them of anything. Matt Duss at ThinkProgress:

On September 11, 2010, the extremist evangelical Dove World Church — whose pastor, Terry Jones, has written a book called “Islam Is Of The Devil” — plans to host “International Burn a Quran Day,” when it will burn Islam’s sacred text and encourage others across the world to do so as well. Church member Wayne Sapp has even posted an instructional video that explains how and why to burn the Quran.

But today the Wall Street Journal reports that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said the planned burning of Qurans “could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort“:

Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here [in Afghanistan], but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”

UPDATE: Confirming Petraeus’ fears, "hundreds of Afghans railed against the United States and called for President Barack Obama’s death at a rally in the capital Monday to denounce an American church’s plans to burn the Islamic holy book on Sept. 11." The U.S. Embassy in Kabul even issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups." Nevertheless, some Afghans are still placing blame for the Quran burning day on Obama:

"We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States," said Abdul Shakoor, an 18-year-old high school student who said he joined the protest after hearing neighborhood gossip about the Quran burning.

Apologies for the focus problems. It turns out to be hard to focus on a razor without a manual focus.

To be plated in rhodium:

From top: Gillette slim-handle adjustable, Gillette Rocket, Gillette Aristocrat #22.

To be plated in gold:

From top: Merkur 1904 Classic, Pils stainless (but it gets rust spots anyway, thus the gold plating), and a Gillette 1940′s Aristocrat—just to spiff up the gold.

These will go out to Razor Emporium tomorrow.

16 minutes again. It’s actually not so bad anymore.

I have discovered that a good crouton will add 1 lb to my weight, more or less. I love croutons/crostini and occasionally bring into the house just a few. No matter how carefully I partake, my weight inevitably goes up—sometimes 1 lb, sometimes 2. So I have reluctantly decided: no more until I reach my target, 50 lbs from now. And then only VERY carefully.