Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity

A song for the day: http://tinyurl.com/2gvxl8

60% of Twitter users ‘quit after a month’: http://tinyurl.com/dzmgpt. Ha, another way for the nerd to pretend to be a winner by not quit …

I just finished reading about Joan of Arc. An extraordinary story of an impressive person. The only person I know that was ahead of her time by roughly 500 years.

In the case of Joan of Arc, particularly, there has too often been a singular confusion between the expounding of the fact and explaining them. We are confronted by facts whose extraordinary character is self-evident. The desire to explain them is all the keener and everyone proceeds to do so, each putting forward his own explanation. Nothing, one might think, could be fairer than that. Joan herself had her own explanation of the event in which she was the protagonist: “All that I have done I have done at the Lord’s commandment… I had come from God… But for the grace of God I could do nothing… I have told you ofter enough that I have done nothing but by God’s commandment… etc.” But it must be obvious that from the point of view of historical criticism, an affirmation which emanates from a single witness and cannot be checked by reference to any other source, is not tantamount to a certainty. The believer can no doubt be satisfied with Joan’s explanation; the unbeliever cannot.
-–Joan of Arc (By herself and her witnesses), Regine Pernoud.

I am currently reading about Joan of Arc. One of the theories is that she was a bastard of some high king/duke/whatever and not a girl from a poor family. The following shed some light on these theories:

As for the hypothesis of bastardy, it is proved that this is without foundation; moreover, one cannot help wondering how it is supposed to “explain” her career; for, after all, the fact of being a bastard does not necessarily enable one to win battles.
–Joan of Arc (By herself and her witnesses), Regine Pernoud.

On the importance of heavy boots: Via digg.

As a first step, we need to resolve this guy religious department in Columbia ASAP since clearly it has no benefit to society whatsoever. And we must model Computer Science teaching and research on some random text that Kant wrote in 1798.

Capitalism desperately need a viable competition. Otherwise, the modern rubber barons are just going to party on. Obama or no Obama…

I am currently reading about Joan of Arc and trynig to figure if she was waterboarded, and if so how many times.

Just finished “A distant mirror” on the 14th century (mostly England/France) by Barbara Tuchman. A well written history book. You realize after reading it, that knights and their behavior code (chivalry), led them to behave in what can only be described a stupid and childish way, that was in complete reverse to their own interests (for example, in situations where a siege would work, they would prefer a frontal attack that would lead to losing a battle). Once the guns had risen, this stupidity also vanished. In any case, if you think certain politicians were bad in some recent time, a short glance in the 14th century would reveal that things could be much much worse.

The second interesting thing is how vibrant the society was in the 14th century. Definitely not the frozen society one associates with the 14th century.

A very nice read for a random pick in the book store…