The Blitz (2*)

I had always wondered why, at the end of the street where I live, the Edwardian semi-detached houses suddenly gave way to a row of newly built properties. What happened to the houses that stood there originally? I'm far too anti-social to spend time chatting with my neighbours, but I did mention this to the bloke across the road as we discussed the weather. The answer was simple, he said: the original houses were obliterated by a German bomb in the Second World War.

Wow, I thought, making a note to look into this further. I wondered why German bombs might have been dropped on Chiswick, which is neither central or a hive of vital industry. I've been doing some research on bombing raids recently, and the explanation was probably simple: the crew of the Luftwaffe bomber was probably too scared to fly over central London where the flak was heaviest and searchlight glares formed a web in the sky, so they dropped them as near as they dared and then hightailed it out of there.

I've been able to find out more because of this astonishing interactive map that shows every single bomb that dropped on London. Sure enough, near my house, there is a red dot that indicates several bombs were dropped, probaly the entire load on single German bomber. The map is so detailed and compulsaive, that I lost the next looking at where else the bombs had landed. It turned out two had fallen on the grounds of my cricket club and the park where I take my kids to play. Chiswick was not badly bombed, but it's landscape was changed by those bombs. Elsewhere in London whole districts were razed to the ground. As you can tell from the graphic above, in central London it's easier to see where the bombs didn't fall. It's amazing that London survived as intact as it did.


Cheers

Dan - Friday




*I've written about the Blitz and the effect its bombs had on London before

Smart?

We keep hearing that computers are smart.  We hear about smart tablets, smart phones, i-pads, laptops.  Certainly, these devices are truly amazing.  Not so much because they are clever – which I want to argue they are not – but because the people who designed and built them are brilliant geniuses, and yet they sell them to us for amazingly little money.  Computers are able to do calculations very quickly.  It’s getting to be the case that the speed of light is the limiting factor.  But that’s what they do.  Compute, period.  This fact tends to get hidden behind a flood of Gigabytes, Cycles, Megabits per second, Megapixels and the like.

In the early days of so-called artificial intelligence, there were high hopes that programs such as neural networks would not only be able to duplicate the functions of the brain, but would also provide models of how our brains worked.  In other words, we could better understand ourselves through the behavior of our artificial creations.  We’re about twenty years older and a lot wiser now.

There’s no area where the difference between intelligence and computational speed is as dramatic as in the area of images. It's people who are smart.  We look at pictures and, without giving it a thought, we discover shapes, motion, assess our environment, obtain information.  We have a pretty good idea about how our eyes take the reflected light from what they see and code that for the brain.  We have much less idea about how that coded data ends up as information – in color and 3D no less – in our minds. This is a massively difficult problem and the best computer codes are not impressive at doing it.  Yet we do it at a casual glance.

Computers can’t even do this stuff with letters – by far the easiest situation since what we see is already a conveniently set up code.  That’s what the Captchas are all about.  Sure the letters are a bit misaligned, maybe fancied up, different scale, different backgrounds, but so what?  We see what they are immediately.  Computers battle and usually fail.  The whole point of a Captcha is to separate computers from humans!

Most of practical image processing is about making pictures more attractive or useful to humans.  Fortunately this is a much simpler problem than computer vision.  We do know quite a bit about what makes things easier for us.  We pick out shapes and objects in pictures and classify them, and we do this by identifying edges in the picture.  When we complain that an image is blurred or “soft”, we're actually uncomfortable because the edges are less distinct. 

Raw Saturn

Saturn edge enhanced

Here is an example.  The picture on the left is a raw image of Saturn from a space probe.  The one on the right has been focused.  Right?  Wrong.  We’ve just marked in the edges more clearly - something a program can do easily – and nothing else has changed.

We are much more tolerant of color variation; obviously it's much less important to us in doing that classification stuff.  Of course we want our pictures and movies and TVs in color, but some of us are old enough to remember when they were in black and white (well TV anyway!)  We never had any trouble identifying what was going on in the picture.  Color is a nice-to-have.

So I see my corgi, Megan, wondering around the garden, looking and sniffing, and I really wonder what she's seeing (in black and white) and smelling and how she interprets it all in her mind.  How could one ever tell?  All I know for sure is that what she’s doing is one hell of a lot smarter than any computer.

Michael – Thursday.

Icelandic Santas - the Yule Lads

The Icelandic Santa Clauses are not really Santas in the jolly, Ho-ho-ho, chubby, white beard understanding of the name. These guys are decendants of trolls and have a wardrobe to match. No red velvet with white fur trimming for them. Not at all.

Although the Icelandic name for these figures is the same as what we use for the American/European Santa or „jólasveinn“ the translation really means Christmas guys or Yuletide lads.  There are 13 of them although the exact figure depends on the source, one mentioning them to be „one and eight“. The adding was required in order to fit with the rhyme of the verse. Fever words of any use rhyme with nine than eight in Icelandic.

To quote wikipedia the Icelandic Yuletide Lads: originate from Icelandic folklore. Early on their number and depictions varied greatly depending on location, with each individual Lad ranging from mere pranksters to homicidal monsters who eat children.

We have come a long way since. Well, perhaps not super long but a bit. The Yule lads are no longer homicidal although they can still be considered hooligans. Rather tame hooligans actually. Each is still named after his individual way of teasing the farmers of yore but the modern version has evolved to also include what has endeared them to the nation – they now brings gifts. I do not know how this development occurred but it was a smart move. No one really likes a hooligan. Even a tame hooligan.

The names of the Yule lads are not easily translated. They are clunky and old. Hallbergur Hallmundsson has translated a local favorite Christmas verse collection in which they each make an appearance and his translation of the names are shown below. I have only made small adjustments and added a bit of clarity to the descriptions of each. Note that aside from two they specialize in food-crime which is a testiment of how poor Iceland was at the time of their creation. No one had any gold. The rich had food.

Sheep-Cote Clod (Stekkjastaur): Harasses ewes and tries to drink milk from their teats, but due to a pair of peg-legs he is not very successful.

Gully Gawk (Giljagaur): Hides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk. In the old times there were lots of gullies everywhere (I am assuming).

Stubby (Stúfur): Abnormally short, dwarfish. Note that at the time there was nothing known as being politically correct. If you were abnormally short you would be called Stubby. His thing is to steals pans to eat the crust left on them.

Ladel-Licker (Þvörusleikir): Malnourished and extremely skinny, although today he is considered fashionably thin. Steals ladels and licks them.

Pot-Scraper (Pottaskefill): Steals leftovers from pots. Today he would steal cold pizza slices from boxes.

Bowl-Licker (Askasleikir): Has an ugly head. Hides under beds waiting for someone to put down a bowl of food scraps for the cat or dog of the house, which he then steals. Today pets eat pet food and this guy would have gotten himself another food crime to focus on.

Door-Slammer (Hurðaskellir): Slams doors, especially during the night. Go figure.

Skyr-Gobbler (Skyrgámur): A Yule Lad with an affinity for skyr. This guy I get.

Sausage-Swiper (Bjúgnakrækir): Hides in the rafters and snatches sausages that are being smoked. He is hard up today as no one has any rafters anymore, much less do we smoke sausages. He now pinches pepperoni off pizzas.

Window-Peeper (Gluggagægir): A voyeur of the peeping Tom variety who looks through windows in search of things to steal. This guy is the happiest of the bunch with the advances of the modern age. Window panes are now much more see-through than before.

Doorway-Sniffer (Gáttaþefur): Has an abnormally large nose and an acute sense of smell which he uses to sniff out food – from the doorway. This guy would be institutionalized today for sure. It is not proper anymore to stand sniffing in doorways.

Meat-Hook (Ketkrókur): Uses a hook to steal meat. His English name is worthy of a serial killer while the Icelandic version sounds more like a crummy pirate‘s name.

Candle-Stealer (Kertasníkir): Sneaks behind children and follows them around in order to steal their candles and eat them (i.e. the candles). They don’t make candles like they used to (from fat). He is not all too happy these days.

So thirteen days before Christmas Eve these Yule lads begin their decent from the mountains where they live with their mother Grýla and their unemployed father Leppalúði. They tread the snow into the urban areas, one arriving per night. Each stays for two weeks before trodding back, the last one leaving on what is called „the Thirteenth“ or „Þrettándinn“ which takes place on January 6th and is celebrated with bonfires and what remains of the fireworks from New Year's.

Icelandic children put one of their shoes in the window of their bedroom before going to bed on the evening of the 11th of December. If they have been good they wake up in the morning of the 12th with a small present in the shoe from the first Yule Lad. This is repeated until they last such morning of the 24th which is the main day of Christmas celebration here. If they are bad they get a potato. Here we have no coal. Well we did not use to – they arrived with the barbeque.

 

We have no Santa specialized in stealing off barbeques.

 

Yrsa - Wednesday 

 

Yrsa - Wednesday

Bunkers and Cheese

In France a land known for it's cheese of which de Gaulle once remarked 'how can anyone govern a country with 432 cheeses'? 

 Many other pungent things lie beneath it's streets besides the sewers and Metro.

 Below the Gare de L'Est, the train station with railines leading to Eastern Europe lay the untouched remains of a German Bunker from the Occupation. A former command center for train operations and routing used by French railway, the German forces took it over in 1940.
Not only did they use it to monitor the trains they used it as a shelter.

This warren of tunnels, rooms dripping with moisture and rusted pipes and leftover equipement has been preserved.

Bunker tour to be continued next week..........
Cara - Tuesday

Libraries

We’re all united in this, aren’t we?

Our love of libraries?

What’s your favorite?

I hope it’s your local.

And that is as it should be.

But, when it comes to sheer beauty, there are two that stand out for me.

The tiny Biblioteca Joanina at Coimbra, in Portugal, is one. Construction began on this little jewel in 1717.

It’s 250,000 books date from the 12th to the 19th centuries, and deal mainly with civil and canon law, theology and philosophy.

Brazil’s most beautiful library is in Rio de Janeiro. And, although it’s not as venerable, and the exterior doesn't promise much, the interior is a knockout..

The seeds of its collection, like Coimbra’s, go back to the Iberian Peninsula.

On the first of November, 1755, a great earthquake, followed by a fire, shattered Portugal’s capital at Lisbon – and destroyed the royal library, the largest in the country at that time.

After the cleanup, the king asked this man, Diogo Barbosa Machado, the learned abbot of monastery of Saint Adrian of Sever to assemble a new one.

A mark of his success was that, in 1808, when the Portuguese Court fled to Rio de Janeiro to escape the invading armies of Napoleon, they were able to bring with them a collection that extended to some sixty thousand books and manuscripts. It was incorporated as the Royal Library of Rio de Janeiro and opened to the public in 1814.

When the French threat passed, and Dom João VI embarked, once again, for Portugal, he took the manuscripts with him.

But he left most of the books.

Rio’s National Library is, today, the largest library in Latin America.

 And either the seventh or the tenth in the world, depending upon which index you consult.

If you happen to be in Rio, a visit is well-worth it for the physical beauty alone.

The library’s collection runs to more than nine million volumes.

Leighton - Monday

News from the Land of the Rising Sun

Just as the very rich, to paraphrase Fitzgerald, are different from the rest of us, so is Japan.

Let's look, for example, at the ways some Japanese cope with insecurity about their appearance.  As attractive as the Japanese are, many of them seem to dislike their looks.  So they turn, naturally, to technology, since  Japan is, of course, the global home of technology used oddly (Tamagotchi, anyone?).  And when technology is applied to insecurity, you get things like this.

This is the Hana Twin Nose.  No, I don't know why it's called that, although I suppose sisters (or just good friends) could each buy one and, over time, produce twin noses.  Its manufacturers call it  "a much cheaper alternative to plastic surgery and it doesn't hurt either!"  And it's obviously convenient, attractive, and comfortable to wear.  This appears to be the version designed for mouth-breathers.

And then we have . . .

The Meijikara Anti-Wrinkle Glasses.  Imagine combating the pernicious effects of aging with these cheery yellow specs.  What could be easier?  And, just in case you're skeptical, the company that makes them hits that nail square on the head, saying, "It might seem like another wacky Japanese invention but in fact the Mejikara has been a sleeper hit here."

I actually find it reassuring that insecurity is so universal.  When I was growing up, I thought I had the market cornered.  Everyone else seemed so comfortable.   But look at these products.  Presumably, each was the subject of a business plan, and the most essential component of a business plan is identifying and quantifying the customer base.  If money actually talks, what it's saying here is that there are lots of us who are unhappy about the way we look!

But here's an entirely new level, at least as far as I'm concerned.  They're Japanese (of course) and young (because who else's self-esteem is so disastrous?) and maybe a little geeky--members, in short of the otaku subculture, obsessed with manga and video games.  For them, the easiest way to--well, ask for a date, for example--seems to be to do it while their faces are completely covered with a manga mask.  Here are two photos of a dating club that people attend wearing masks of their favorite characters in order to have the nerve to ask each other out.

And once they've made their choices, filled in the forms or whatever those pieces of paper are, off they go for an unforgettable night on the town.

Next-to-last, we've got something for people whose problems are more deep-seated than mere lack of confidence, issues rooted deep in the past, or perhaps in prior incarnations, all the way into L. Ron Hubbard territory.

This is a Shinjuku coffee house called Tokyo Hypnosis Cafe "Colors" where, in addition to a cup of joe, you can order up a mesmeric treatment for, according to the menu,

Basic Hypnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¥1,000
Diet Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¥2,000
Traumas Erasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¥5,000
Stop Smoking Suggestion . . . . . . . . . . .¥2,000
Former Life Regression. . . . . . . . . . . . .¥15,000

If this were an American chain operation and you planned to rattle up more than one former life, you'd probably have to sit in a booth and order something for each of them.

And last of all, here's something (other than former life regression) I could actually use.  More to the point, it's something my wife, who reclines for hours watching movies with her laptop balanced on her chest, could use.  Imagine: a whole day, flat on your back, online, using this simple, if somewhat precarious-looking, stand.

By the way, 100% of these photos came from my new favorite site on Japan, www.japantrends.com.  But don't log on if you haven't got browsing time, and be careful drinking fluids over your keyboard because odds are pretty good you're going to laugh.  And the site is inspiring, too; the Japanese are so endlessly ingenious and so practical, in ways that occasionally amaze me.

Tim -- Sunday

Guest Blogger, Irma Havlicek: Moseying Around Mykonos

This guest blog reminds me of one of those nests of Russian dolls.  You know the kind, where each doll contains yet another, leaving you to choose whether to play with one that piques your interest or delve deeper.  Google Alerts steered me to a blog written by Australian web producer Irma Havlicek, who’d taken a weekend off from her work at an archaeological dig on the Aegean Cycladic island of Andros to visit neighboring Mykonos with two colleagues.

I loved her take and photographs of my island and asked permission to post it all here.  Irma’s only request was that I provide a link to her archeological project’s website, ZAGORA Archaeological Project.  And am I ever happy that she did.  What a site.  And the brief film clip there is not to be missed by archaeology buffs.  

The Zagora Project is a partnership between the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney, the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, the University of Sydney, and the Archeological Society of Athens, and made possible by a grant from the Australian Research Council.  The project picked up this past October where excavations conducted during the late 1960s and early 1970s by another Australian team led by Sydney University Archaeology Professor Alexander Cambitoglou (under the auspices of the Archaeology Society at Athens) left off.  Planning is underway for the project to continue in 2013 and 2014.

Excavations center on the 3000 year-old settlement of Zagora (900-700 BCE) on an island that today is home to some of Greece’s wealthiest ship-owning families and but a quarter mile from the holy island of Tinos (of “Target: Tinos” fame:)).  Zagora is virtually intact, having not suffered from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or war, nor was it disturbed by subsequent settlements.  In other words, everything is where it was back then.  What is yet to be answered is why in 700 BCE (just as Greece was coming out of its dark ages) its population simply vanished? 

Hmm, a mystery.  And if we toss in the enticing tidbit that those earlier Australian excavations corresponded with the period of Greece’s Junta dictatorship (1967-1974)… But wait, this is not about my idea for a new book, it’s about Irma’s moseying about Mykonos. 

All photographs are by Irma Havlicek and © PHM. 

I was in two minds about writing a post on Mykonos…. I’ve heard from several sources that it seemed from this blog as if we are all holidaying and partying and having the time of our lives on the Zagora Archaeological Project.

Well, we are having the time of our lives, that is true. But most of the time, we are working very, very hard. Sometimes we feel so exhausted, it is difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Last weekend we had the only full weekend we will have off during the six weeks of this field season. All the other weeks, we work all day Monday to Friday and a half-day on Saturday.

So, as I mentioned in the previous post here, two colleagues, Rudy Alagich and Paul Donnelly, and I decided to visit the archaeological site of Delos.  It is not possible to stay overnight there, so we went to Mykonos in order to visit Delos from there by ferry.

So, to Mykonos we went from Andros on Friday night, 16 November 2012, and made a trip to Delos on Saturday. There was only one ferry to Delos from Mykonos on Saturday at 10am, and it returned at 1pm. So the rest of the time, we moseyed around Mykonos.

I’d heard Mykonos was a busy, bustling, thriving tourist destination with a raging night-life – which is very attractive to others but not so to me.

However, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the island. The architecture of the whitewashed houses with their brightly coloured doors and stair rails, and festooned with vivid bougainvillea, was charming and lovely. We enjoyed meandering around the narrow curving paved streets (even if we kept curving back on ourselves, not knowing quite where we were….) We found Mykonos remarkably unspoiled, with little discernible development to mar the charming village nature of the place.

There were very few tourists about now that the weather is getting cooler. Much of the time we felt we had the island to ourselves. But maybe that was because we went out early each morning and it seems most of the rest of the people didn’t venture out till 10 or 11am.

Also, being off-season, we were able to book excellent, reasonably priced rooms at the Leto Hotel from the ferry, while on our way to Mykonos.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures to give you a taste of the island. Well, more than a few. For someone who wasn’t too keen originally to visit Mykonos, I sure went overboard with the number of photos I took.

Thank you Irma Havlicek and the Zagora Archaeological Project.  And yes, Mykonos does have a tendency to send its visitors overboard.:)

Jeff—Saturday