Categories
philosophy

Happy 2008

When thinking about the year to come I started musing on my favorite poem. This is not the lateral leap it may seem as I’m afraid due to my increasing banality 🙂 it’s The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. In particular the last few lines of the 3rd verse


Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

So I guess my message for 2008 is to take it as it comes, a cascade of new possibilities. Don’t get mired in trying to achieve the targets of 2007. Many will forensically analyse the past year, considering minutae like targets for physical fitness, weight, finances, love etc. A pot-pourri of concerns. Don’t be afraid to dump all these and just get on with life.

Categories
education

Timely but flawed

The Sunday TImes ran an interesting feature today on the performance of secondary schools in Ireland. However, I must admit I found the ranking system wanting. They ordered schools based on the percentage of their pupils who went to “university” and then to “third level”. This produces the absolutely shocking result that the schools in the richest areas where parents are more likely to be able to afford to send their kids to college are ranked best. Let’s ignore the governmental myth of free education. It’s extremely expensive to put any child through college regardless of the means tested grant. I’m not sure where they got their figures but movetoireland’s estimate of living expenses exceeding 7k per year in Dublin seems quite modest.
According to the survey the top secondary school in the country is the private and Jesuit-run Gonzaga, which has a fine reputation. I’m sure it’s deserved based on a long and proud tradition of learning but … children who are sent to Gonzaga are being sent there with the expectation of going to university. This is emphasised in an application process which I find a little idiosyncratic. Like many of the top 10 schools in the survey a student who is disinclined to continue to third level appears the exception rather than the rule. This is not intended as criticism of the top ranked schools nor am I suggesting this is a bad thing. I’m merely reflecting on the nature of a survey which, in my opinion, doesn’t effectively recognise schools which handle a broader demographic while still getting excellent results.

Categories
books

Autobiographically speaking

I’m currently reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles – volume 1. I’ve been an avid consumer of all things Dylan for many years now, since my early teens. I guess I’ve always empathised with his astute awkwardness, if that isn’t too obtuse. Chronicles has that rare quality in an modern autobiography, authenticity. He’s frank and effusive about the moments he wants to discuss and consigns others to god knows where, possible vols 2 and 3? Following on, the style is stacatto but pleasingly earnest. It’s free of the modern 15 minute celebrity peccadillo, the embellishment and forgery of past trauma in order to justify the sins of the present. Dylan doesn’t seem compelled, perhaps he’s at peace, whatever that means. Either way there are some hilarious passages as he descibes his many attempts to cast off the “voice of generation” moniker that burdened him for so long.
As the respected English literature critic and humanities professor Christopher Ricks points out “I don’t think there’s anybody that uses words better than he does…”. So perhaps it’s time after many years of nominations that Dylan is finally given the Nobel Prize for literature in recognition of the profound effects his words have had on several generations. While he’s uncertain about blurrring the boundaries of the award by recognising the dual media of the song writer, Rick’s own Dylan’s Vision’s of Sin makes a cogent argument for Dylan’s celebration as one of the great figures in literature. Does “Sad eyed Lady of the Lowlands” transcend the format of popular song? And then some…

Categories
technology

tethereal and diameter

Here’s a useful tethereal filter that’s helped me out while debugging the Sh diameter interface of Fokus’ OpenIMSCore.

# tethereal -i lo -f "port 3868" -V -R "diameter"

I appreciate it’s a bit random but tethereal is one of my favourite tools and in Verbose mode it nicely format’s all diameter AVP information.