Maxim Monday: Ακουσας νοει

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Ealasaid

Today’s maxim (Ακουσας νοει) is translated in the source I’m using as “Perceive what you have heard.” Let’s see how that translation holds up.  (As usual, definitions are from my trusty Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, with occasional support from the Joint Association of Classical Teachers Greek Course, Reading Greek.)

This short little phrase gave my very rusty Greek skills a serious workout.

  • Ακουσας: This looks like it’s the active aorist of ακουω: to hear, give ear, to listen or give ear to, more rarely c. dat., hence to obey.
  • νοει: Here, I’m even less certain. Is this the imperative aorist of νοεω? Since my dictionary informs me that almost all of its conjugations wind up being something almost unrecognizable (for example, the passive aorist is ενοηθην). However, its definition goes along with the translation: I. to see so as to remark or discern, distinguished from merely seeing, as, “when he saw him he perceived who he was“… II. to think, to be minded, hence, to purpose, intend… of words or expressions, to mean, imply, have a certain sense. III. to think out, devise, contrive. IV. to think or deem that a thing is so and so.

So, if I assume that some combination of the era in which the maxim was composed and the era which my dictionary is aiming at means that I’m right in both cases above, I think the translation works. νοει has connotations of discernment beyond mere observation, of cognition and understanding fully.

But, what’s the context of this maxim? are we supposed to “perceive what (we) have heard” in conversation? Lectures in school? Legal announcements? I suspect it’s meant to imply in all cases. We’re being exhorted to really listen and think about what we hear, not just hear it. That means listening rather than waiting for the other person to finish talking so you can talk. It’s an encouragement toward being thoughtful and perceptive, and that’s pretty hard to argue with.

Posted in Geekery | Tagged , | Comments Off on Maxim Monday: Ακουσας νοει

Mystical Pregnancy

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Ealasaid

So, I’m going back through the old FeministFrequency videos, and I saw this one: The Mystical Pregnancy. It led me to this awesome (and terrifying) fanvid, Stay Awake.

The pair of videos make me wonder how much of my own personal pregnancy squick comes from watching a lot of the movies and shows (and other media) featuring this kind of thing. I bet if I could check, my childhood and teenagerhood included waaaaay more horrifying representations of pregnancy (especially if you include things like “Alien” where guys get “impregnated” too) than happy, healthy ones. I didn’t see representations of or even personally know very many pregnant women who carried to term and had happy babies.

Kind of explains why the thought of pregnancy makes me feel kind of ill rather than warm and fuzzy, why I think childbirth is gross and terrifying rather than miraculous and wonderful.

Posted in Srs Bznss | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Holy cow, it’s Maxim Monday! This week: Γνωθι μαθων

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Ealasaid

Man, I thought I was back on track, but nope. Too much going on and I have zero backlog. Anyway, onward:

Today’s maxim, as translated in the source I’m using, is “Know what you have learned”(Γνωθι μαθων). That seems like a weird phrase, nu? Let’s see if the translation works. (once again, definitions in italics are from my trusty Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, with occasional support from the Joint Association of Classical Teachers Greek Course, Reading Greek.)

  • Γνωθι – aorist imperative of Γιγνωσκω: to perceive, gain knowledge of, mark, and so to know, of persons and things: to be aware of, understand.
  • μαθων – aorist 2nd of μανθανω, which in the aorist means: to have learnt, to understand, be acquainted with.

So we have an imperative: perceive! and an object: [stuff] you have learned/understand.

I think the translation as it stands isn’t bad, but “know” has so many connotations. Does it mean “hey, that stuff you learned, you better remember it!” or maybe “learn thoroughly the things you learn.”

I like perceive or mark as translations of Γνωθι, because they’re more specific. To me, they imply that you should be aware of what you’ve learned — and thus, by implication, what you haven’t. So, if you’re a life-sciences major, be aware that what you know about is life sciences, plus whatever you’ve learned from elective courses and life experience/previous schooling.

“Perceive what you’ve learned” also suggests to me that you should notice when you have learned something and then forgotten it. I’m reading it almost in a “take stock of what you’ve learned” way, which I rather like.

It’s easy to forget what we know. Not the info itself, just the fact that we know it. I have a lot of self-care and self-help (and help-others!) tools, but I frequently don’t remember to use them — I don’t remember that I have learned them. Learning you don’t remember you have is useless.

I’ve joked before about making a list of all the various metaphysical things I’ve learned to do over the years, if only to have it for consultation when things aren’t going well. It’d be interesting to try to list all the things I’ve learned, period — for one thing, it’d help me remember that yes, I do in fact know a lot of stuff. As is often the case, the more we know the more we realize we don’t know — and focusing on the negative is a very human trait. It’s important to remember what we do know — and I think that’s the kind of thing this maxim is encouraging.

So, I’m not 100% happy with their translation (it’s literally accurate but doesn’t have the appropriate connotations, to my mind), but the maxim itself is solid advice.

Posted in Geekery | Tagged | Comments Off on Holy cow, it’s Maxim Monday! This week: Γνωθι μαθων

#sickcat update

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Ealasaid

Zephyr's current medical regimenWell, lucky us, it turns out that small-cell lymphoma (if it doesn’t turn into one of its nastier forms, like large-cell lymphoma or leukemia) can mostly be treated like a chronic illness! Admittedly, one which slowly progresses and must be treated with stronger and stronger meds until quality of life cannot be maintained, but still. For right now, it’s adding three new meds (a pain killer, an antacid, and a chemical used to treat neoplastic diseases) to Zephyr’s existing regimen of three meds. Not too bad. One of them is a low-dose chemotherapy drug, though, and so I have to handle it with gloves and clean his litterbox constantly to make sure any drug he excretes doesn’t get spread to any of the other cats. Creepy.

Our oncologist, who is kind and very experienced, says her patients live an average of 18 months, with good quality of life — about what they have with controlled IBD. Once we get this flareup under control, he should be basically back to normal, just with more meds to keep him that way.

At least I have experience dealing with sick cats already, so nursing him through this isn’t that big a change or requiring me to learn a ton of new stuff. I’m relieved that we get more time with him, that he’ll go back to “normal” for at least a little while. I’ve never expected he’d live past 15 or so, and hearing that he won’t isn’t a surprise. Just kind of sad.

Posted in Life In General | Tagged , | Comments Off on #sickcat update

Cancer, Death, and Other Depressing Shit

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Ealasaid

Welp, the biopsy I mentioned last time came back with 95% certainty: low-grade lymphoma. I think that means “small cell lymphoma” but will find out more when I meet with the veterinary oncologist today.

It’s strange. I’ve known for years that Zephyr was probably going to get cancer eventually, that lymphoma was high on the likelihood list, but it was a real shock to my system. I am walking around doing stuff, working on work projects, trying to meet my personal deadlines (like the Monday Maxim, which is so not happening today) but I feel raw, like all my nerves are exposed. I’m dazed.

Also strange: Zephyr seems, if anything, to be doing better since the diagnosis. His appetite is up, his mood is up, he’s more interested in hanging out with me than in sleeping on his cat-bed by the window. So you’d think I’d be cheered up.

But the thing is, there’s this little growth on his small intestine, only a centimeter and a half long, and it hurts him (we give him pain mediation twice a day) and messes with his digestion, and will probably kill him. He has no idea what’s going on, he just knows I keep dragging him to the vet, and making him take meds, and that he feels kind of crap. I feel bad I can’t explain to him what’s going on, that I can’t ask him what his wishes are.

I hate not knowing how long he has.

He’s twelve. It’s not young, for a cat, but not old by my standards. Still, Mauser was eleven when I had to put him down, so you’d think I’d be used to it. Nope. I grew up with cats who lived into their late teens and even early twenties, so that’s what I expect. Anything else is unfair, not right, tragic.

I finally realized that I’m grieving. I expected to have at least a couple more years with him, with this needy, clingy cat with inflammatory bowel disease who loves to eat things that make him sick (like pepperoni), who cries at night when things change too much for his liking, who likes to sleep between my ankles or in the crook of my knee, who purrs like a motorboat when he’s happy. But I don’t. I don’t even know how little time I do have.

Some cats with lymphoma live as long as a year, even more, with decent quality of life. Others react badly to the chemo medications and fade fast. I have no idea which camp he’s going to be in, and probably won’t know for weeks.

At least today I’ll get more information, start the process of deciding among my options.

Anyway. If I seem uneven and out of it online, that’s why. He’s been with me since he was just a couple months old, and now I have to nurse him through this. It’s taking up a lot of my mental bandwidth. I’m trying to stay normal, and sometimes succeed, but not always. I apologize in advance if I come across as flaky. I just have a lot going on right now.

Time for a post-noms nap
Posted in Life In General | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Whoof

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Ealasaid

Well, there’s no shortage of things to blog about here, just a shortage of time/energy. So here’s a list of what’s up with me!

  • The kittens are doing great and growing like weeds. They are also full of energy and love tearing around the house at top speed while apparently trying to kill each other. Most of the time this appears to be play, but when it’s not, we split them up.
  • Zephyr is very ill, almost certainly with cancer. I’m waiting to find out the results from an ultrasound-guided needle biopsy done yesterday. His inflammatory bowel disease puts him at heightened risk for cancers, but he’s only 12 and I hoped we wouldn’t have to worry about his for at least a few more years. He’s currently very picky about what he eats and very displeased about having a shaved belly-and-sides (the diagnostic ultrasound that found the mass they biopsied was very thorough).
  • We are in that state of unpacking where we keep being almost-done. It’s really annoying. Not much progress is being made due to Zephyr (who requires a lot of care and trips to various medical professionals) and due to a huge upcoming deadline with my dayjob.
  • As part of said unpacking, I’m recataloging my books. I have nine boxes to go, and am up to 1,625 books. Not bad.
  • I’ve started bookbinding again, diving right in with a repair project on a family Bible. I’m looking forward to sharing the pix with you all when it’s done, over on The Book Roadie‘s blog.
  • I’ve been doing Pilates for just over a month, and it’s something like dressage-minus-the-horse crossed with physical therapy. The hope is to get me to a point where I’m in good enough shape to get back to Aikido.
  • I’ve been playing Deadpool (the game) and mostly loving it (except when it’s really, really hard and I want to launch my controller, XBox, and TV through a window). There’s a fair bit of assumption that the gamer is a dude (annoying), but whoever sculpted and rendered Deadpool’s ass must have secretly had folks like me in mind. *eyebrow waggle*

So… yeah. Busy. But most of it’s good stuff, I think. I’m hanging in there.

Posted in Life In General | Tagged | Comments Off on Whoof

Maxim Monday Returns! Ηττω υπο δικαιου

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Ealasaid

Today’s maxim, as translated in the source I’m using, is “Be overcome by justice” (Ηττω υπο δικαιου). That seems like a weird phrase, nu? Let’s see if the translation works. (once again, definitions in italics are from my trusty Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, with occasional support from the Joint Association of Classical Teachers Greek Course, Reading Greek.)

  • Ηττω – well, ηττα is the Attic form of ησσ-, and ησσ- is a defeat, discomfiture: c. gen. defeat by, yielding to. From ησσαομαι, Passive: to be less, weaker, inferior to another: to be beaten, worsted, discomfited: to give way, submit… as law-term, to lose one’s cause.
  • υπο – this is a preposition, roughly meaning “under” but its exact connotations depend on the case of the following word. Since δικαιου appears to be genitive, that gives us: of that under which a thing is, under, beneath.
  • δικαιου – I’m having trouble untangling all the variations on the root (δικα-) to figure out exactly which one is intended here. Argh. However, it’s got a genitive ending. All the variations have to do with legal stuff, power, trials, justice, etc. The definitions for δικη, which is the root word, include: custom, usage, manner; order, law, right…the satisfaction or penalty awarded by the judge.

You can really tell how rusty I am! But that said: I’d translate this as “yield to the rule of law” — which is pretty different! “Justice” and “rule of law” are often not the same, as we all well know by this point, I think. I prefer the meaning of the translation in my source, but I don’t think it’s true to the original. There’s too much about legal stuff and tradition, and not enough about justice and what’s right.

I’m enough of an idealist to think that we should act according to justice rather than according to the law. Most of the time the law is A-OK by me (traffic laws save lives!), but when the law is wrong (as it sometimes is, being a creation of human beings and thus imperfect), we have a duty not to submit ourselves to it, not to yield in the face of the rules.

This one is sort of the flip side of the second one I did — if you put your trust in the laws, then you should yield to their rulings, nu? So that makes sense. I’m not totally on board with either one, though.

So let’s see, what’s the count now?

  • Maxims covered: 5
  • Maxims where I disagreed with the translation: 2ish
  • Maxims where I disagreed with the content: 1ish
Posted in Srs Bznss | Tagged | Comments Off on Maxim Monday Returns! Ηττω υπο δικαιου

Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: I am an inconsiderate Cow

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Ealasaid

With a tip of the hat the great John Scalzi (whose hate-mail sporkings I shall never equal), I offer you the following, left on a recent post but clearly in response to this rant about Borderlands 2 (and without having read my other post on the same game):

Doomsteel
davesilverman774@gmail.com
[ip address redacted]

First of all i think you are an inconsiderate asshole, you don’t know what people do or try all in the effort to learn. A thousand bucks says you have run over people that thought they were doing real fine…up until they realized you were ignoring them, way to go Cow! If there,s a next life for us i hope you get it really bad! not everyone gets to be PERFECT like you in our present situation. And i no ive made gramma errors and don’t give a shit………As far as your commentary on BL2, i thought it was right on the money, but then noticed the Gestapo-ish rules and regs at the bottom and It pretty well ruined a good artical

This is a fairly representative sample of the overwhelming response I’ve gotten to that post (and the reason I posted those just-like-people-who-rounded-folks-up-and-murdered-them rules. It’s also part of why I automatically close comments on posts older than two weeks — not that this deterred this charming fellow!). How dare I tell people what I expect from commenters on my blog! For shame.

For whatever reason, it piqued my interest enough to do two things: find and update my commenting policy and start linking it at the bottom of every post, and post a public response.

Hi, David! How is Williams Lake, BC this time of year? Also, you know blogs record your IP address, right?

First of all i think you are an inconsiderate asshole, you don’t know what people do or try all in the effort to learn.

I’m a little confused to hear you feel all creators should be free from criticism — doesn’t that mean you’re an inconsiderate asshole for writing this post about me? You don’t know what I’ve done or tried “all in the effort to learn” either! Ohhh but your post makes you a creator — you’ll be crushed to see my criticism of your post here, I’m sure! Hopefully you’ll buck up under the strain and come through okay.

A thousand bucks says you have run over people that thought they were doing real fine…up until they realized you were ignoring them,

Wow! I’m flattered you think my attention is so valuable. Hopefully me paying attention to you so publicly will help dull the sting of my displeasure. Further, I’m not sure how writing two very long blog posts and playing a game through a good (counting in my head) half-dozen times, plus buying all the DLC counts as “ignoring”…

way to go Cow!

Oh, come on. I’m sure the life of a truck driver in British Columbia (oh yes, the risks of using your real email when leaving nasty comments are real, folks!) gives you enough time to think of far more creative misogynistic comments than “Cow”. I’m very disappointed in you, David.

If there,s a next life for us i hope you get it really bad! not everyone gets to be PERFECT like you in our present situation.

Why, thank you! You’re so kind. I’m far from perfect, but it’s sweet of you to think I am… if a bit inconsistent given the rest of your post.

And i no ive made gramma errors and don’t give a shit………

Oh, you’re far beyond “gramma” errors, my friend. My grandmother never made errors like this, at least not until she started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s. We’ve got bad grammar, misspellings, mispunctuation, and all sorts of shenanigans in your post. I’m very disappointed in you, David.

As far as your commentary on BL2, i thought it was right on the money,

Why, thank you! How kind.

but then noticed the Gestapo-ish rules and regs at the bottom and It pretty well ruined a good artical

Wait, so my rules pointing out that that, basically, people leaving hastily and angrily written screeds in my comment section (my comment section, mind you, where I have zero obligation to publish anything at all, let alone things that insult me) would not be published are why you found my most recent post and left this pile of drivel in its comment section?

Son, if your skin is really this thin, you better stay off the internet. You can get your own blog for free in any one of a kajillion locations, you don’t need my personal blog’s comment section as a soapbox.

In short: your comment is bad and you should feel bad. Not only is it rude and insulting, it’s not even creatively rude and insulting. Tsk.

Grade: D- (I’d go lower, but it’s actually more comprehensible and less threatening than some others I’ve received over the years.)

Posted in Silliness | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: I am an inconsiderate Cow

KITTENS

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Ealasaid

So, as those of you who follow Nate or moi on Twitter/Facebook/Vine/Flickr already know, we got kittens! They are adorable, and we adopted them from the fabulous folks at The Pixie Project.

I figured it’d be a good idea to have a central place to gather links to all the photos and whatnot for y’all to enjoy the kitteny goodness!

Photos

Videos

(Not really complete – y’all should get on Vine and follow us! :) )

From Me:

From Nate:

Edited to add: the kittens are named after the two Hawkeyes: the one from The Avengers and the one from the Young Avengers — more specifically, the way Matt Fraction writes them in the “Hawkeye” comics. Here’s a great post about why the book (particularly Kate Bishop) is awesome.

 

Posted in Life In General | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Maxim Monday: Γονεις αιδου

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Ealasaid

This week’s maxim is: Γονεις αιδου, translated in my source as “Respect your parents.” Let’s take a look at this one, shall we? (Both definitions from Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, as usual.)

  • Γονεις – This is the accusative plural case (presumably; in -υς nouns the nominative plural and accusative plural are the same) of Γονευς: a father, ancestor: in pl. the parents. 
  • αιδου – This is the present imperative of αιδεομαι: Deponent verb (ie a verb of middle or passive forms with active sense) to feel shame, be ashamed or fear also to respect, reverence a person: with the infinitive mood, to be ashamed or afraid to do a thing. 2. In Attic Greek, law-term, to feel pity for, hence to pardon, especially in aorist I αιδεσομαι.

Whoof! αιδεομαι is a complicated word, especially if you take the Attic interpretation into account. I think “Respect (your) parents” works all right as a translation, but it’s important to include the connotations of fear and reverence.

This is one that I think really shows its age. Back in Classical Greece, there was a far more structured social hierarchy than what we have today, and it placed parents firmly above their children. If Dad says “jump,” you say “how high?”  We give children a lot more agency nowadays — child abuse/neglect is a recognized thing, for example. That you popped out a kid doesn’t automagically make you someone they have to obey. Plenty of parents lose their right to claim the respect of their children by doing harmful or neglectful things to them. I would never tell the child of, say, a physically abusive parent to “respect your parents.”

However, speaking in general of parents-who-do-not-suck, I think respecting your parents is important. For one thing, being a parent is fucking hard, and good parents put a lot of thought into it. Most parents have way more experience than their children do, and experience is to be respected.

But I think that respect is a two-way street. Parents need to respect their children, as well — to see them as the individual (if often inexperienced and naive) people they are. If that respect isn’t there, neither should the respect described in this maxim.

Posted in Srs Bznss | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Maxim Monday: Γονεις αιδου