Month: September 2004

Read Owen Barfield’s “Poetic Diction” and “History in English Words” a year or so ago, and blogged several items. [here][here][here]. I was doing a search on Barfield today in preparation for reading more of his work and came across two interesting sites.

This review of Barfield’s “Saving the Appearances – A Study in Idolatry” on the somewhat odd doyletics site.

Liked this 1933 Hoffenstein quote, about the reductionist dangers of logical positivism, “cutting one’s own throat with Occam’s razor” as I’ve called it, the ruthlessness of the analytic “knife” to use Pirsig’s metaphor, or “scientific fundamentalism” as James Willis coined it.

Little by little we subtract
Faith and fallacy from fact
The illusory from the true
And starve upon the residue.

(See also Wordsworth’s “we murder to dissect”)

And this comprehensive Barfield site updated recently by David Lavery.

An old friend Denise contacted me via a hit on my music photo gallery pages about 70’s London pub rock band “Scarecrow“. Interesting enough in itself, to reminisce about old London pub stomping grounds, but spookily, now she runs an interesting business in psychological career counselling (what, who, me ?). And she blogs. Echoes of the Russo piece on recognising your life’s work in being good at what you’re really interested in as opposed to the day job. Many a true word.

Joi Ito reporting on being blocked from using Blogger whilst in China.

Strange, I have to say I’ve done so successfully several times in the past year, and blogged about it in the process [example-1][example-2]. Now the Beeb, that’s a different matter.

Suw Charman reviewing Shaun of the Dead.

Having just witnessed the gore in The Passion (post earlier today) and come away preferring Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, I have to say you can’t have too much gore as long as it’s done with wit. Play adds value. Realism adds nothing.

(You’re not bringing that Krikkit bat to BlogWalk are you Suw ?)

Arrangement and Context. [Amy Gahran][via Julian Elve]

Information, facts, statements, ideas etc are social, nothing in themselves, rarely new, but brought to life by interaction and linking. The outcome is “emergent behaviour”, not causally predictable from the “specific pieces”.

At someone’s request – just switched my XML subscription button to Full RSS publishing (rather than just title), using the Blogger feature, no frills.

I was loaned two DVD’s this weekend, so watched them both.

The Name of the Rose – a “palimpsest” of Eco’s book. Actually covers essential aspects of the plot, with all the characters and style replicated in caricature. Great atmospheric production too. The main message is spoken explicitly, lest you miss it – humour conquers all – if authority permits (Aristotle, Poetics 2). Only flaw is the cheesey ending – The rabble turning on the bad-guys and Adso meeting the girl (otherwise presumed burned at the stake) as they depart the scene of the crime for ever.

The Passion – predictable plot, gratuitous violence. No wish to offend, so I’ll say no more.

Matt Whyndham on project management trade-off of time vs scope / budget / quality. How true.

Also from Matt, this one on the trade-off between rational planning and free space for innovation. From David Anderson at Agile Management quoting Peter Drucker’s explantion of why planning conflicts with organisational aims, unless you’re running a production line.

Didn’t I see a bunch of other Drucker quotes from Matt earlier ? A theme here.