- Artemisia absinthium – Malta
Category: Reference Page 2 of 4
- Method of Loci / Memory Palace technique (Wikipedia)
Also known as “Journey Method” or “Roman Room technique.”
“In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject ‘walks’ through these loci in their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by ‘walking’ through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items.”
See also: pilgrimage sites.
- Jester (Wikipedia)
“This modern term derives from the older form gestour, or jestour, originally from Anglo-Norman (French) meaning story-teller or minstrel.”
- Chanson de geste (Wikipedia)
“Another theory (largely discredited today[16]), developed by Joseph Bédier, posited that the early chansons were recent creations, not earlier than the year 1000, developed by singers who, emulating the songs of “saints lives” sung in front of churches (and collaborating with the church clerics[16]), created epic stories based on the heroes whose shrines and tombs dotted the great pilgrimage routes, as a way of drawing pilgrims to these churches.”
[…]
“Similarly, scholars differ greatly on the social condition and literacy of the poets themselves; were they cultured clerics or illiterate jongleurs working within an oral tradition?”
[…]
“Several manuscript texts include lines in which the jongleur demands attention, threatens to stop singing, promises to continue the next day, and asks for money or gifts.”
[…]
“It has been calculated that a reciter could sing about a thousand verses an hour[31] and probably limited himself to 1000–1300 verses by performance,[27] making it likely that the performance of works extended over several days.[31]”
- The White Goddess (Wikipedia)
“Graves derived some of his ideas from poetic inspiration and a process of “analeptic thought”, which is a term he used for throwing one’s mind back in time and receiving impressions. ”
[…]
“While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear “natural”, it was not so to the Celts or some other ancient peoples.[14] In response to critics, Graves accused literary scholars of being psychologically incapable of interpreting myth…”
- The Money Is All Gone in Tonga, And the Jester’s Role Was No Joke (NYT, Oct. 2001)
- Jesse Bogdonoff (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia:
“Bogdonoff’s status as official court jester of Tupou’s court made sensational news copy when the financial scandal hit the media in 2001. Tonga was the first royal court to appoint a court jester in modern times, being appointed in 1999.”
Wikipedia: Balatro
Link to talk video and transcript.
Selected excerpts to follow:
the development of Artificial Intelligence, which happened no earlier than 1553 and no later than 1844.
I’m talking about the very old, very slow AIs we call corporations, of course.
Continuing:
In the late 18th century, Stewart Kyd, the author of the first treatise on corporate law in English, defined a corporation as:
a collection of many individuals united into one body, under a special denomination, having perpetual succession under an artificial form, and vested, by policy of the law, with the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly of taking and granting property, of contracting obligations, and of suing and being sued, of enjoying privileges and immunities in common, and of exercising a variety of political rights, more or less extensive, according to the design of its institution, or the powers conferred upon it, either at the time of its creation, or at any subsequent period of its existence.
—A Treatise on the Law of Corporations, Stewart Kyd (1793-1794)
And:
Here’s the thing about corporations: they’re clearly artificial, but legally they’re people. They have goals, and operate in pursuit of these goals. And they have a natural life cycle. In the 1950s, a typical US corporation on the S&P 500 index had a lifespan of 60 years, but today it’s down to less than 20 years. […]
Each human is only retained so long as they can perform their assigned tasks, and can be replaced with another human, much as the cells in our own bodies are functionally interchangeable […]
Fun:
We humans are living in a world shaped by the desires and needs of AIs, forced to live on their terms, and we are taught that we are valuable only insofar as we contribute to the rule of the machines.
This will probably come sooner:
The smart money says that by 2027 you won’t be able to believe anything you see in video unless there are cryptographic signatures on it, linking it back to the device that shot the raw feed …
From a Salon October 2014 article on why so many of the world’s oldest corporations are Japanese:
Even though primogeniture faded with the 20th century, owners still often pass their companies on to a single heir—although keeping business in the family is often aided and abetted by adult adoption, in which the company head legally adopts the right person to run his firm and then passes it on. (These adult adoptions are sometimes facilitated by a marriage between the heir presumptive and the owner’s daughter.) In 2011, more than 90 percent of the 81,000 individuals adopted in Japan were adults. Firms run by adopted heirs, research shows, outperform those run by “blood” heirs—and both adopted and blood heirs outperform nonfamily firms.