off to bed

I always seem to forget how grumpy I can get when I haven't had enough sleep. And even realizing that the lack of sleep is causing the grumpiness doesn't seem to make the grumpiness go away. So yeah. It's time for bed.

the netherlands, part 4: more sports (or: danny's scrappy as all hell)

My last night in Amsterdam, after having Indonesian for dinner and seeing that Ewan McGregor movie whose name I can never remember, I played soccer for the first time in, err, at least three years. Let's just say I had concerns about how much I would suck.

We played in a cage (think a playground basketball court, except for soccer). 3-on-3, games to 2, with the winners staying on (good to see some things are standard everywhere). In addition to my intense fear of sucking, I was also less than thrilled with the prospect of dragging down whichever team I ended up on. Fortunately, I was coupled with the two guys I knew best: Jonathan and Thijs. Both are well over 6' and, well, good at voetball.

The first half-hour or so was pretty straightforward. A team would win a game or two, then get tired and get taken out. I made some mistakes (hi, I can play defense. Right), but I also had a few good moments. Oh, and I was having a ball. Running around at 1:00 in the morning'll do that.

After a while, I was exhausted. I'm out of shape, you see, so I declared myself done for the night. My team took a seat, and I took off my shirt to try to cool off for a bit. The next game took a bit longer than average, so I'd actually started to recuperate a bit. Thijs and Jonathan got up, ready to play, and cast hopeful eyes in my direction.

It didn't take much to convince me to play another. I mean, come on, when would be the next time I could play soccer in Europe? "One more... 'til we lose."

We then proceeded to win at least twelve straight games. It could have been a bunch more. It's easy to lose track after a certain point. Looking back, I don't know how it happened. A bunch of luck along the way (opposing shots hitting the crossbar, fortuitous bounces for us) helped, but you don't win twelve straight on pure luck. My little theory is that the three of us suddenly gelled and played to each other's strengths. Jonathan was steady as all hell. Thijs had the mad athleticism and voetball skills. Me? Not so much athletic ability in this body. Nor knowledge of strategy. So I did what I could do: get scrappy. Get into the corners. Fight for the ball. Challenge your opponent, taking the risk of getting burned, but keeping the pressure up. Somehow it worked.

Now that I think about it, those twelve games might just be the most impressive athletic accomplishment I've ever been a direct part of. Not saying much, admittedly, but still, rather cool.

the netherlands, part 3: when in doubt, bring up sports

I tend to struggle with conversing with new people. Part of it just comes from my shyness, but an even bigger part, I think, arises from a lack of common ground. Good conversation is based around topics that all the participants have some interest in. When you're among your peers, it's normally not too tough to find something to talk around for at least ten minutes or so. It can be more difficult when you're talking with someone with whom you have no obvious connections.

As an example... one of my nights in the Netherlands, Marike and I had dinner at her parents' house outside Rotterdam. Both her mother and father were tremendously generous and friendly. But when Marike, our only link, wasn't present, conversation sometimes lagged. I remember, in particular, a few awkward moments as I sat with her dad at the table after eating.

Pretty soon, though, we hit upon the solution the awkwardness: sports. Apparently, as in the U.S., the typical male in the Netherlands is at least passively interested in sports. And in the Netherlands, like most of Europe, the sport is voetball. I brought up Bergkamp's goal against Argentina back in '98 (about the only play from that World Cup I remember). That led to a comparison of soccer and American football, professional athletes' salaries, the Tour de France, bikes (this was the Netherlands, after all), and so on.

So. Are there guys that don't like or know about sports? Of course. I know plenty of them. But if you're ever struggling for conversation with a Western male, sports is probably about as safe a bet as anything.

yeah

I haven't been blogging much lately. It's not that I haven't had things to say... instead I get ideas only to have them slip away before I write them down. Or sometimes I just can't develop them. My mind's bouncing around.

I may as well finally get some of the thoughts from the Netherlands down now. These'll be brief entries, since most of them are based on cursory observations that just happened to strike me.

god bless sports radio

Last week local sports radio muckraker Angelo Cataldi, after hearing of the food policy at the Eagles' new football stadium, said that he expected the security guards to be wearing swastikas. For his comments Cataldi was suspended by the station for two days.

I'm not really surprised that he said something like that. Cataldi's always been a crass bozo. He tends to talk about women (particularly scantily clad ones) as much as sports. Hyperbole is his schtick.

What's really been bothering me is how every article I've read about this references the fact that both Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and president Joe Banner are Jewish, as if comparing the Holocaust to keeping Eagles fans from their hoagies is something that only offends Jews. Listen. When you make light of an atrocity like the Holocaust, it's offensive to all segments of the population, not just one that was particularly hard hit by it. To suggest otherwise is to set off the Holocaust as an aspect of Jewish history rather than an event that needs to be remembered by all.

the bugaboo of racism

A few possible instances of racism were discussed at work today. It's one thing to theorize about racism (as many have), but to actually confront it, I think you need to look at racism in the real world. In both cases discussed below, co-workers of mine believed that the relevant statements were not racist. After some thought, I have to disagree.

But first, some definitions:

Here's American Heritage's: The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

There's also the notion that racism = prejudice + power.

On a similar and rather lengthy note, this definition by Helan Enoch Page.

What's common in all three definitions is that there are innate characteristics based on race. On a purely physiological level, there are differences between people of different descent (most notably that of skin color). But racism as it manifests itself in contemporary America typically posits social and cultural practices as racially based.

Onto the cases.

1) A caller describes "the Orientals" as always being pushy and rude at the supermarket.
2) C's mom asking a friend of C's brother whether he felt safe in his neighborhood in North Philadelphia with all the Mexicans that lived there.

As I previously said, both these cases strike me as racist. Their commonality is a generalizing a particular characteristic to a larger set of people on a racial basis without making an attempt to understand the origins of the characteristic and whether it might have a non-racial foundation.

Another co-worker, B, came up with an example that, on its surface, appears similar. "Black people can dance." To be sure, this seems to be declaring there is something innate about black people that makes them good dancers. But B's explanation of why such a statement is not necessarily racist is telling. A paraphrase of what B had to say:

It's not that black people have a "dancing gene" but rther than a greater emphasis is placed on dance in typical black communities than typical white communities. In other words, a black kid growing up in a white suburban community could end up being a bad dancer and vice versa.

In other words, characteristics that might seem racial are actually based on cultural differences. What exactly B means when she says "Black people can dance," is colored (sorry, couldn't resist) by her subsequent explanation.

Cases 1) and 2) above are different. In 1), the caller is, presumably, drawing this conclusion based on observations of particular Asians and generalizing their behavior to the entire Asian community (and using the dated and exoticizing Oriental in the process). While it might be that she attributes these characteristics to some aspect of Asian culture, by couching the complaint in racial terms, the caller opens herself up to charges of racism (not that this was a concern of hers, but you know).

Onto C's mom. To assume that Mexicans cause trouble and make places is dangerous is racist. It just is. It might very well be the case that in northern Alabama, where C's mom lives, that a disportionate amount of crime is committed by Mexicans living there. But by projecting that putative predisposition towards crime onto all Mexicans, C's mother ignored the socio-economic circumstances (e.g. unemployment, poverty) that often lead towards crime and instead chose to see race as the determining factor.

Therein lies the crux of racism. To assume characteristics or traits on solely a racial basis is to be racist. This seems to suggest that not all manifestations of racism are equally bad (a position that appears fairly tenable to me). But if you're going to have a principled definition of a term, you need to apply it in a consistent and principled manner.

on turning 21

I've had a few days to reflect on it now, and I've decided that the whole 21st birthday thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

First there's the notion that birthdays are artificial constructs and have no meaning in of themselves. That's true, of course, but that can be said about just about anything. The truth is society has assigned certain meanings to these things and we still should try to figure out where those meanings come from. Or something.

21 is, rightfully, the last birthday associated with new privileges. I guess 25 (rent a car!) and 62 (collect Social Security [ha! As if that'll be around 41 years from now]) count, but not nearly as much. 21's chief association with, well, just about all Americans is being able to buy alcohol.

But it's not as if I haven't had access to booze before Friday? Hi, I go to college. And even if I didn't, I'd have ways to get alcohol without much trouble.* Really, the big stuff comes earlier... you drive at 16 (in PA, at least), you vote and can be drafted at 18.

So why the interest in turning 21? I mean, really. My pet theory is that it extends youth to 21 instead of 18, allowing "adults" to marginalize people in the 18-21 bracket as young 'uns who can't make worthy contributions. Or something.

*Lest I sound like a complete lush, just thought I'd add that in a typical month, I'll have maybe three or four drinks. It just so happens that the past month or so has been, er, atypical.

phils 4, expos 3

You're free to disagree, of course, but I really believe there's nothing more exciting in sports than the bottom half of inning in a game that's gone to extra innings, bases loaded, two outs. Throw in a 2-2 count and I can guarantee the crowd'll be on its feet.

It's true, of course, that if the batter makes an out, the outcome of the game isn't decided at that moment (tied games continue indefinitely, of course), but the imminent chance to win just brings everyone in the stadium to life.

The Phillies beat the Expos tonight on an 11th inning bases loaded single from Tomas Perez that scored Jim Thome. Even after the ball was hit the tension remained... it went into the left-center gap and the leftfielder and centerfielder converged towards it. The leftfielder slid for it, but the ball dropped in and the crowd went, as crowds are wont to do, wild.

I'm pretty convinced that's it's well nigh impossible to write about sports without resorting to tired clichés.

arrrrrrr you feeling pirate-y?

If so, you should have a dark and stormy... a glass of ginger beer topped off with a shot or so of black rum. That was one of several of my drinks last night at my 21st birthday party.

This was the blackest of all black rums... Gosling's 151 proof. Leaves your tongue numb for a good fifteen minutes after a shot, which is a good thing, because before it numbs it burns like hell. Perhaps like the souls of the crew of the Black Pearl.

Okay, enough with the pirate stuff, I know. My party was great fun, with the expected splintering of people based on previous acquaintance. There's totally a book to be written about social interactions at parties (if it hasn't already been written)...

what an awesome present

A friend (whose identity will be concealed) works as a photography intern at an undisclosed major art museum. In recent weeks, she's noticed that a painting by one Pablo Picasso has been lying around the office she works in. No alarm system, no rail, no glass. Pure, unadulterated Picasso at her fingertips.

Sadly, she can't quite it to my birthday party this evening. Instead, she's vowed to touch that Picasso for me.

Rockin'.

from half.com to thoughts on history

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I made my first-ever half.com sale. One might think the decision to list things on half had to do with me turning 21 tomorrow (25 minutes and counting) and wanting to clear up my life and belongings. At the very least, that's the kind of conclusion I'd reach if I were looking back on that evidence and writing about it (please forgive the solipsism). But that really isn't what's going on... at least not on a conscious level. I was up in the attic looking for something and noticed a stack of books that I really have no use or desire for anymore (the reasons, I suppose, could go in another entry, but I don't think they're very interesting).

So any putative link made between my birthday and my cutting loose of the driftwood of my life would actually be entirely coincidental. In doing historical research, something I'm kinda sorta maybe envisioning doing for my career, this seems to be a major obstacle. There is, of course, the position that any structure or meaning given by a(n) historian to an event is necessarily artificial and distorted. Even still, there seem to be gradations of distortion.

What I'm in search of, I suppose, is a clear rule of thumb as to what constitues reasonable and resonsible conclusions drawn from a set of facts. It's not enough to say, "All histories are distortions." Well, you can say it, but it does nothing constructive. I believe that we can learn from the past, imperfect as our understanding of it might be.

pictures from Amsterdam

I've finally got around to putting my pictures from my recent trip to the Netherlands online. Start with this picture of the Rijksmuseum. There's no thumbnail page, as yet, because, frankly, I don't know of a quick way of lowering the size of all the pictures.

Hope you like 'em...

more pirates!

Disney's already decided to make a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean. I, for one, am already excited. You see, the makers of Pirates accomplished what they set out to do, make a campy, absurd, and raucously enjoyabl pirate movie. Seeing it was the most fun I've had at a movie in a long time. There were no pretensions of art here, they simply excelled at what they were going for. We should all be so lucky.

This ties into one of the ideals I think everyone should strive for: self-awareness. No one's (even close to) perfect, after all. Far better to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, play to the strengths, shore up the weaknesses and generally don't take yourself too seriously. If you're a photographer with a penchant for capturing the essence of the human experience, great, go out and do your thing. If you're an plumber who can fix a toilet in no time flat, great. And if you're a talented actor who looks good with gobs of black eyeliner, great, go out and play a pirate.

This isn't to suggest that everyone has some pre-destined, er, destiny that they (he/she for the pedants) should simply go out and fulfill. Nor is this a trite observation that all people are important and their contributions shold be valued. My point is that you figure out who you are so you can better understand how to make your contribution to the world and make yourself happy.

An analogy that, I think, works: suppose you're driving around and want to get to Philadelphia. You might know how to get there. Maybe you even know a few different ways (if you're coming from NY, take I-95 south, from Pittsburgh, the PA turnpike). But without knowing your current location, all you'll be doing is aimlessly driving. You might eventually stumble across a road sign giving you directions. But it's far better to just pause, look at a map, maybe ask a local... just figure out where you are right now.

Okay, trite analogy, I know. And trite thoughts, too. But to keep on this, I recognize that they're trite and wish I could come up with something better. Now I want to come up with a better way of expressing this idea (and refining the idea itself). And that's the point.

So, for once, thank you, Jerry Bruckheimer. Keep up the good work. Just no more Peal Harbor's, okay?

on names, nominals, and whether this matters at all

Work drained the hell out of me today as I tried, mostly in vain, to distill Kamp and Reyle (hereafter K&R)'s From Discourse to Logic: Introduction to Model-Theoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory into a few pages.

After struggling to find a good starting place, I settled upon names. On the surface, names seem fairly straightforward and easy to recognize. We annotators joke that if you'd capitalize it, it's a name. That's hardly a fail-safe test, unfortunately. K&R (hereafter K&R)'s description of names goes something like this: names provide no description of their referents, instead pointing "directly" to them. For example, Danny Loss refers to me without providing any further information about me (except, of course, that my name is Danny Loss)¹. The guy who works at the LDC is not a name since it provides description about the entity that is me (since it's also not a pronoun, it's nominal, at least in the parlance of our current project). It follows rather obviously that names are atomic units.

But this definition is not problem-free. What do we do with The U.S. Supreme Court? No one would deny that that's the name of that body. Yet that string certainly seems to provide information about the court, namely that it serves the United States and that it's the highest court of the land. K&R would, apparently, argue that this information is evident is merely by coincidence. But it's clearly more complicated than that.

Another problem comes up with things like the c/Court when talking about the Supreme Court. At first glance, the lowercase version would not appear to be a name, the uppercase version as a nickname for the Supreme Court. But that distinction is based entirely on orthography and is not reflected in speech.

So. The conclusion to be reached, I think is that noun phrases don't fall into the neat categories we'd like to assign them to. It's unfortunate, but when you're trying to impose an artificial structure on something as complex as natural language, it's almost expected. Sadly, for this project, we are forced to make that distinction. At the moment, I don't think there's a good way to systematically make that decision. Welcome to the world of natural language annotation...

In the scope of ACE, the project for which I'm doing this work, this distinction is crucial. Here's an example: say someone's interested in the actions of George W. Bush in a given range of dates. At first glance, a simple text search would suffice. However, given that this technology is (assuming all goes as planned) meant to process a huge amount of text from varied sources, the computational costs of a string search over the entire corpus increase rather quickly. If the person could limit their search to name mentions (George W. Bushis, after all, a name), the volume of text to be searched would be dramatically smaller. So the distinction matters.²

In the real world, of course, no one gives a damn about names, nominals, and pronouns. Native speakers of English, for example, communicate just fine without knowing whether a given noun phrase they're using is merely pointing to a referent or describing it. And this is why I have such strong reservations about pursuing theoretical linguistics as a career (I've all but decided against it... history is feeling right at the moment); I want to study real people in the real world. As fascinating as language is (and, believe me, it is), studying it in a vacuum is, for me, ultimately unproductive in the Grand Scheme of Things. I really have no clue if academic history is better, but right now it feels as if that'd be more satisfying.

-------------------------------

1) Even this isn't quite accurate. Danny Loss likely indicates that I have some familial relationship with other people whose surname is Loss. But that's splitting some pretty fine hairs.

2) I realize I haven't given a justification for why this project matters. The short version: automatic text processing would be a Good Thing.

me, i'd be on the pavement

I know that cycling isn't the most exciting sport to watch. But every so often it, well, is.

During a mountain descent in today's stage of the Tour de France, Joseba Beloki lost control and crashed. Lance Armstrong, just behind him, was forced to ride off the road and down the mountain itself, only to re-join the other riders a few moments later as the road swept back towards him.

Beyond that, any attempt to describe it would fail. Check out the video clip: Windows Media QuickTime.

a day on the beach

In the past, I've never been much of a beach person. I've whined whenever my family took trips to the Jersey Shore, mouthing off about how boring it was, how I never understood the attraction.

But damn if I didn't have fun down in Avalon yesterday. Between going in the water twice (and managing to avoid the legions of boogie boarders), making a giant out of sand, and people-watching, the time flew by (also, good company never hurts). And there might not be anything more relaxing than sitting on a beach in a comfy chair and digging your toes into the sand.

My favorite bit of people-watching actually kept us there a bit longer than we were initially planning. Our chairs were on the beach in front of where all the surfers did their thing. Just when we were about to leave, a new guy caught our eye. He strutted down the beach and struck quite the pose as he examined the waves. After attaching his ankle bracelet, he oh-so-stylishly ran his fingers through his hair. We had no choice but to decide his name was Pretty Boy.

Sadly, Pretty Boy's surfing ability did not quite match his devotion to looking good. About the most effective thing he did out in the water was flip his hair around. In the half hour we watched him, he got up all of two times and fell no-so-stylishly almost immediately. Moral of the story: if you're going to draw attention to yourself, make sure you can follow through on the expections.

a blogging dilemma

I've still got a bunch to say about my trip to the Netherlands... hopefully I'll get to it in the next couple of days.

But my current blog concern is that when my life's boring, I have nothing worth blogging about, and when my life's busy and exciting, I don't have time to blog. At the moment it's more of the latter which, frankly, is far better than the former. Perhaps a balance will be struck at some point.

To the beach tomorrow!

pictures on the way

I've uploaded the photos from my trip that I'll be putting on the web, but I haven't put all the captions in for each page yet. That'll happen some time in the next few days, but in the mean time, here's a picture looking at the Rijksmuseum from the south.

the netherlands, part 2: on dutch, english, etc.

I knew beforehand, of course, that almost everyone in the Netherlands speaks English. Still, I couldn't help but be astounded at just how good their English is. Case in point: there were at least two people that, had I met them randomly in some non-Netherlands environment, I would have thought they were native speakers of English. You just don't find Americans who reach that level of fluency in a foreign language. It's true, of course, that I was mostly exposed to well-educated people, but still.

But it's not just English! My friend, Marike, for instance, speaks Dutch, French (both natively), English, German, and Italian. And she knows Latin. And she marveled at how many languages one of her friends, Thijs (a prize if you pronounce it right), speaks. You do the math.

Even though all but one person that I talked to while I was there spoke English well(the exception was someone's younger brother whose English was still far better than my Dutch), I couldn't help but feel presumptuous and somehow rude in just speaking English with them. There's likely some unproductive guilt going on with that, something along the lines of "I'm a boorish, uneducated American and hate it." And it's certainly not as if there was an alternative... my Dutch is limited to a vocabulary under ten words. But, coupled with my general reluctance to initiate conversations, my hesitance to start discussions with people skyrocketed. Once we got talking, though, all was well.

Anyway, I really like the idea of knowing the language of a place where I'm visiting; you're missing huge chunks of the culture without it. So now, after the fact, I have a desire to learn Dutch. But hey, I'm going to go back at some point, right? So it makes some sense...

Speaking of my Dutch vocabulary, here it is...
ik - I
denk - think
[these two I got from a poster of Descartes hanging in the bathroom; I forget the rest of it]
ben - am
doei - bye
dank U - thank you
dank U wel - thank you very much
dag - have a good day
hallo - [you can figure this one out]
ja - yes

I'm not even sure if all that's right, or if I've spelled any of it the right way.

While we're at it, some of my favorite Dutch idioms:
met de klompen op het ijs komen - (lit. go on the ice with wooden shoes) butt in
op je klompen aanvoelen - (lit. feel it with your clogs) be obvious
je kunt niet over twee sloten tegelijk springen - (lit. you can't jump over two ditches at once) you can't have your cake and eat it too
water naar de zee dragen - (lit. carry water to the sea) do unnecessary work
ga fietsen stelen op de Dam - (lit. go steal bikes at Dam Square) drop dead

And my favorite Dutch idiom...
op een oude fiets moet je het leren (lit. you have to learn it on an old bike) [refers to a boy having his first sexual encounter with an older woman)

(idioms taken from The UnDutchables by Colin White and Laurie Boucke)

the netherlands, part 1: an introduction

I'm back in the sunny, humid confines of Philadelphia. But oh how much I have to say about Amsterdam. Stories, observations, thoughts, the works. It'll take a while to write about them all, but here's something to whet your apetite. In the past six days I've done the following:

- took a boat tour of the canals of Amsterdam.
- had coffee at a cafe with couches (though we sat outside). In the process, we had an hourlong conversation with some random guy.
- watched the news in Dutch while laughing at the newscaster's hair.
- went to a Dutch fraternity party whose theme was Dictators and Madonnas. I had no costume so I instead wore my Borgia t-shirt.
- browsed in the international film and theatre bookstore of Amsterdam.
- snuck in to a theatre to watch a few minutes of a rehearsal.
- visited the Rijksmuseum.
- visited the van Gogh (say it like you're clearing your throat. A lot) Musuem.
- ate falafel.
- wandered around on foot only to realize I couldn't remember where I'd locked my bike.
- found my bike.
- rode aimlessly around the city.
- smelled marijuana all around the city.
- watched a kid play computer games.
- talked about gun control, education, sexism in film, construction of identity, etc.
- visited the house where Anne Frank and her family (and four others) hid.
- ate patatje speciaal.
- went on a private guided tour of the Queen's Palace.
- rode bumper cars and some other carnival ride called, inexplicably, Beach party.
- ate oliebol.
- tried Dutch licorice. Yuck.
- walked through the red light district.
- rode on the back of someone's bike.
- saw Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle.
- did not fall off my bike.
- drank lots and lots of tea.
- ate poffertjes.
- took a train to Delft.
- saw both the Nieuwe and Oude Kerkes (Kerken?) in Delft.
- bought Delft pottery.
- took a train to Rotterdam.
- rode the Rotterdam metro.
- ate Tunisian food for the first time.
- drove along a dike.
- went to the Hague.
- saw an outdoor sculpture exhibition.
- had coffee at the most glamorous hotel in the Hague.
- visited the Jewish Museum.
- tried to blow a shofar.
- ate French fries with a peanut butter sauce.
- learned a few words of Dutch. My favorite: doei. You'll never guess how to pronounce it...
- bought cheese.
- bought a pickle in an outdoor market and proceeded to eat it as I rode my bike.
- felt short.
- experienced, er, the Heineken Experience.
- ate Indonesian food.
- saw Young Adam.
- rode trams without a ticket.
- played 3-on-3 voetball (i.e. soccer) including one stretch where my team won at least 12 straight games.

Whew. I think that pretty much covers it. More to come, and pictures, too!

i'm in amsterdam

Hi.

a hiatus already

Perhaps an inauspicious start for the new site, but I'm off to Amsterdam for a week or so. Stories once I get back.

hi

So this is the new site for my blog. What do you think of the design? You have a preference between this and the old one? I'm open to suggestions...