carrucates and bovates

It seems a carrucate should be the area that a team of eight oxen can plough in a year. It's about 2000 (English) acres, whereas a bovate is one-eighth of that, about 250 acres. Here, I take it from D. Holloway and T. Colton, The Knights Templar in Yorkshire, a very interesting read. Bovate derived from bos, bovis, as you would expect. But Webster says a carucate (note the single r) is the same as a bovate, same as a (Kent and Domesday Book) hide, equal to 120 acres. Hmmm. A toft, on the other hand, is not at all a precise area, but, like a vill, describes a kind of unit of the landscape. A toft is a dwelling, together with a plot of cultivable land, a house-and-garden. A county could be divided into hundreds, and a hundred into vills. Chain-mail is hammered chain!

Bookshelf

Philippe Aries. Centuries of Childhood. Penguin. 1960.  414pp.
Traces the evolution of the modern concept of childhood. Turns out that the way we think of children is a recent invention.

Gerd Gigerenzer.  Reckoning with Risk. Learning to live with uncertainty. Penguin. 2002. ISBN-13: 978-0-14-029786-7.
Gift from Ian Short.  Disturbing evidence of innumeracy in the general public, and, chillingly, among doctors.  Many people do not understand risks stated in percentage terms, and many medical professionals do not correctly interpret the results of screening tests to their patients.  This makes informed consent unlikely.  He advocates the use of proportions, instead of percentages, and other specific measures.  Specific case areas considered include screening and counselling for cancers and AIDS,  the use of DNA evidence in criminal cases, and even grant proposal evaluation.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg with Tina Klopp. Inside WikiLeaks. My time with Julian Assange at the world's most dangerous website. Jonathan Cape. 2011. 9780224094016.
Quick read.   Lifts the lid on something of a mess.  DD-B fell out with JA, and now runs an alternative, OpenLeaks, together with the key technician from the old site.
Looking at the sites, it would appear that WikiLeaks is still not accepting submissions.  This supports  DD-B's suggestion that their submission software is in a mess.  The submissions page carries no update date. On the other hand, nothing seems to be happening at OpenLeaks, either.  Most of the material is quite old.  On both sites, the recent material is essentially polemical.

Michael Smith. An Unsung Hero. Tom Crean - an antarctic survivor. The Collins Press. 2009. 9781905172863. 
Gift from KK, for Christmas. Interesting and well-researched story, worth reading for the facts, despite the mediocre style.

Novels:
*** John le Carré. A Most Wanted Man. Hodder. 2008. 978-0-340-97708-8.
** John Banville. The Sea. Picador. 2005. 978-0-330-48329-2.
* Anthony Cronin. The Life of Riley. 2010. New Island. fp 1964. 978-1-84840-083-2.
**** Yoko Ogawa. The Housekeeper + The Professor. Vintage. 2010. fp 2003. 978-0099521341.
*** Ian McEwan. Solar. Jonathan Cape. 2010. 9780224090506.

Only Ogawa's made an impression that still lasts, three months later. A beautiful story.

James Banford. Body of Secrets. How America's CIA and Britain's GCHQ eavesdrop on the world. Arrow. 2002. ISBN 0-09-9427745.
He has researched this, in part, by interviewing a number of participants who, late in life, decided to talk. I was amazed by three of the stories in this book: (1) The account of live firefights over Russia involving US bombers in the early fifties, in which over 40 of them (and an unstated number of Russian fighters) were shot down.  The missions  aimed to collect radar data, but would have appeared to the Russians as potential bombing raids. (2) The story of Ike's orders to all his subordinates to lie to a congressional committee (at an in camera hearing), to cover up his knowledge of the Gary Powers U2 mission.  His orders were followed.  (3) The appalling story of the Israeli attack on the US Liberty in 1967, and the coverup ordered by Johnson.

Tom Holland. Persian Fire. The first world empire and the battle for the west. Abacus. 2005. 978-0-349-11717-1. 
Very readable.  Complements the usual Greek accounts with material from Asian sources and excavations, and allows us a better idea of how these wars were viewed from the Persian side.

Tom Holland. Rubicon. The triumph and tragedy of the Roman republic. Abacus. 2003. 978-0-349-11563-4. 
Also very readable.  The classicists of my acquaintance approve of Holland.

R.K. Narayan. The Abduction of Sita. Penguin. 2006.  fp 1972. 978-0-141-02684-8.
An extract from a translation of the Ramayama.  Downfall and enlightenment of Ravana, once "the supreme lord of this and other worlds".  He underestimated Rama, which is a very, very bad idea.

I still haven't dented  The Tale of Genji.

 

The 12th of June, 2011: A Good Day.

 

The guy with the beard is the proprietor of Uri-Buri, in Akko, reputedly the best sea-food restaurant in Israel.

Static pages

Blow me! Static pages allow you to add stuff so that it goes at the end. Now, if I'd known this facility was available in Blogger -- maybe it wasn't until recently -- I would have used it for the Tipperary Tango. I ran a quick test to see if I could put the whole novel into a single static page, and it seems to be ok.

(The blog of TT was taken down by me when I published TT at

Logic Press )

Catechism

Finally finished typing in the old catechism, which didn't seem to be anywhere on the web. Been at it at odd times for over a year. My feelings about the old religion are rather mixed: they combine guilt, relief, anger, nostalgia and affection in roughly equal proportions.
One of the most interesting aspects concerns the stuff they just never mention any more, such as indulgences, the state of grace, mortal sin. Another is the number of iron rules that turned out to be malleable. And then there is the monumental consistency, certainty, and triumphalism of the establishment.
Another curiosity is that it all worked. I remember being very happy for years when I accepted all that. I had lots of questions, but had been trained to question within the system.
I just included, of the prayers, those I learned by heart as a child. I still like these, and am grateful to the people who made me learn them.
Perhaps the saddest Q+A in the whole thing is number 425, in the chapter on Extreme Unction and Holy Orders. Not many catholics have such an uncomplicated view of our priests as
this, nowadays.

B/S Bingo

Here's the source. Copy to bsbingo.c and compile with some command such as
cc -o bsbingo bsbingo.c
Then use the commands given under usage (or package them in a little script and put a handy link on your desktop).
The resulting random 5x5 grid is used to relieve the tedium of an otherwise boring meeting.
/***********************************************************/

/* bsbingo
Generates a random bsbingo card.
AOF 4-ii-2011. Copyleft...
Usage:
bsbingo > temp
lpr -o landscape -P <printername> temp
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>

#define N 5  /* number of rows and columns*/
#define PHRASE_LENGTH 18
#define PHRASES {\
" outside the box  ",\
"end of the day    ",\
"   bottom line    ",\
"   iconic         ",\
"   leverage       ",\
\
"core competencies ",\
"   synergy        ",\
"   strategic fit  ",\
"   benchmark      ",\
"   24/7           ",\
\
"   empower        ",\
"   win-win        ",\
"   game plan      ",\
" above our weight ",\
"   bandwidth      ",\
\
"the good of the X ",\
"apples and oranges",\
" green field      ",\
" hopefully        ",\
" shoot ourselves  ",\
\
"game of two 1/2s  ",\
" rennaisance      ",\
"  transparent     ",\
" SWOT(any 2)      ",\
" meltdown         "\
}

void permutation(int* k, int M){
/* places a random permutation of 0,1,2,...,M-1
in the array k[0],...,k[M-1]
*/

int i,j,temp;
int P[M];

for (i=0;i<M;i++){ P[i]=i; }
/* start with the identity */

for (j=0;j<M;j++){
for(i=0;i<M;i++){
if (rand()%2){
/* randomly apply the transposition (ij) or not */
temp = P[j];
P[j] = P[i];
P[i] = temp;
}
}
}

/* copy P to k: */
for (i=0;i<M;i++){
k[i]=P[i];
}
}

void blanks(void){
/* print some spaces */
int i;
for(i=0;i<PHRASE_LENGTH;i++){
printf(" ");
}
}

void solids(void){
/* print some underscores */
int i;
for(i=0;i<PHRASE_LENGTH;i++){
printf("_");
}
}


int main(void)
{
int i,j;
int k[N*N];
char* phrase[N*N] = PHRASES;

srand( time(NULL) );

permutation(k,N*N);

printf("\n\n");

/* print the table, using k to randomise the entries: */


for(j=0;j<N;j++){
printf("_");
solids();
}
printf("\n");

for (i=0;i<N;i++){

printf("|");
for(j=0;j<N;j++){
blanks();
printf("|");
}
printf("\n");

for (j=0;j<N;j++){
printf("|%s", phrase[k[N*i+j]]);
}
printf("|\n");

printf("|");
for(j=0;j<N;j++){
blanks();
printf("|");
}
printf("\n");

for(j=0;j<N;j++){
printf("|");
solids();
}
printf("|\n");



}
printf("\n\n");
return 0;
}

/****************************************************************/

Speech Recognition Software that came with Vista

Speech recognition in action:


What is the second commandment of god?
The second commandment of the garden is: adult shalt not take the name of the lord thy garden in vain

What is forbidden by the second commandment?
The second commandment forbids us to offer garden and of his saints go to the end last line speak with you reverence and garden or his saints borrow sacred persons and things

What is commanded by the second commandment?
We are commanded by the second commandment two speak with reverence of god and of his saints, and of sacred persons and things, and to keep OUR LAW FOR and valves

How should we use the name of god you love?? Yes
We should always use the name of god we had great respect and reverence.

What is a vial?
I have our is a binding promise made to god to do something that is especially pleasing to him.

What is an awful
An old is the calling of god to witness that what we say is true, or that we would do what we promise.

When the is an awful lot for? Foreign ought to be lawful we must have sufficient reason for taking it and, and we must say only what is true, after all is only what is lawful.

What are the chief send some against a the second commandment?
But you sins against the second commandment, blasphemy, perjury and caressing.

What is blasphemy?
It is blasphemy to express contempt of garden, or of sacred persons or things in so far as they are dedicated to god.

What is your injury?

Hmmm. This software needs work.

Literacy and Numeracy

The draft plan (link from title of this) invites comments. I sent in this:
Dear Sir/Madam,
The quality and training of Primary teachers is critical
for success. We have to stop appointing teachers who
are afraid of Maths.
I favour making it a requirement for entry to ITE that
candidates have grade C in HLC maths, or an equivalent level
in some other jurisdiction. No ifs or buts.
Also, given my experience of incoming students with HLC Maths,
I favour further academic study (at least 15 ECTS credits)
in Maths (apart from study of Maths Education and methodology)
as part of teacher training courses.
This will ensure reasonable competence and
confidence in future teachers, in relation to Maths.

Similar requirements in English would be reasonable.

Your report does not deal with Irish, the state of which just makes
me weep. But there is a point to make. I date the really catastrophic
decline in the teaching and learning of Irish as following the
elimination of the HLC Irish requirement for entry to
the training colleges. After that, I started meeting teachers
at Parent-teacher meetings who could not conduct a simple
discussion with me in Irish about my childrens' progress.
You can't improve or even maintain
standards, if the teachers are incompetent.

We also need another report about science in primary schools.

Best regards,
Tony O'Farrell

The Recorded Music Business

OK, so now I see that perhaps the industry has a future, after all. My first reaction to Youtube was that it should completely kill the business: Why would anyone ever buy a record again? But it turns out that you can listen to a song, but not a whole quartet, sometimes not even a whole movement, without interruption. For instance, I find half of the Beethoven Grosse Fuge, and the thing just stops slap in the middle. It seems the Youtube rules don't let you upload the whole movement. In the sixties, I used to hate turning over LP's in the middle of a piece, although it was better than what our parents had, when they had to play twenty or thirty 78 rpm records to hear a single piece. I thought we were finished with that kind of thing.
Also, I don't care much for the videos that go with the music. Is there a purely aural equivalent of Youtube? Youspeakers?