Potala Palace (Tibetan: ཕོ་བྲང་པོ་ཏ་ལ་, Wylie: pho brang po ta la; simplified Chinese: 布达拉宫; traditional Chinese: 布達拉宮; pinyin: Bùdálā Gōng) Anyone who's seen pictures of Lhasa in Tibet is familiar with the Potala Palace, even if they don't know its name. It's the large palace complex on top of Marpo Ri (Red Hill). It was the traditional winter residence of the Dalai Lamas from the 17th century until the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959. There are two main architectural blo

I went over on my bike this morning. Been a while since I did that. Last time, I cranked too hard on a sharp turn at the top of what was, for me, a steep hill. You rarely choose these moments, but it was a good place for going over. It was a smooth patch of dirt with no rocks or sharp stumps. I was lucky. It just knocked the wind out of me. This time, I was coming up an unremarkable hill on my normal route at 5:30 am, and during the night a large branch the size of a medium-s

Wagner wanted myth to transform modern culture. Within a generation, modern consumer culture returned the favor. It put Wagner on trading cards and used him to sell concentrated beef extract. It’s a thick, concentrated meaty pasty glop you could dissolve in hot water to make broth. Think beef bouillon. That’s close enough. Meet Liebig Company’s Fleisch-Extract, or Liebig’s Extract of Meat. It was manufactured in Fray Bentos in Uruguay. The picture is not a poster, but a Liebi

At the end of Wagner's Die Walküre, Wotan punishes his favorite daughter for disobeying him. Brünnhilde disobeyed because she showed compassion, and although he is furious, he also knows that she acted on the deepest part of what he himself wanted. Wotan's punishment is terrible. He takes away her immortality, puts her into a supernatural sleep on a mountaintop, and leaves her there to be claimed by the first man who finds and awakens her. But Brünnhilde begs him for one last

I am about halfway through Die Walküre. This was a very busy week, and I am only now coming up for air. For me, the two most powerful scenes so far in the Ring cycle are when Wotan takes the ring from Alberich in Scene 4 of Das Rheingold, and the argument between Wotan and Fricka in Act II, Scene 1 of Die Walküre. I should note a discovery I made while writing that sentence is that Das Rheingold is not divided into acts. I hadn't noticed that before. Wagner wrote it as a cont

For those familiar with Norse mythology, but unfamiliar with the work of Richard Wagner, there will probably be an eyebrow-arching moment while watching the Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 Robert Lepage production of Das Rheingold when Richard Croft as Loge the god of fire strides onto the stage. Loki wasn’t a god of fire. The effect is pretty cool. The fiery aura or “dancing nimbus” around Richard Croft is principally an interactive projection effect, not ordinary stage lighting.

Keep in mind that this is an evolving story involving behaviors we have not seen before at this scale, so the analysis will probably change as we learn more. One of the most interesting parts of the incident involves what is called persistent state. An AI agent can write information somewhere that survives after that particular agent session ends. A later agent can retrieve that information and continue the work. Think of it as an analyst leaving good notes for the next shift

I'm taking a break from watching the 2010 production of Das Rhinegold at the Met, and I had to say this. First off, I'm deeply enjoying this opera. So I don't want to detract from that. But every time Wotan turned towards the camera, I couldn't help but notice his golden Batman ab armor stretched across a stomach which has definitely not seen ab lines in many years. In noticing this, I accidentally stumbled across a HILARIOUS element of the critical response to this productio

Loving literature and old books can draw someone toward scholarship, but it does not by itself produce the habits which scholarship demands. You must learn linguistic discipline, methodological patience, command of secondary literature, archival competence, a willingness to spend months on a very narrow problem, and the ability to turn your enthusiasm into an argument that survives expert scrutiny. I saw this during a seminar I took in Fordham University’s Medieval Studies De

I was never able to bring this paper together. It didn't help that I was on-call the last week before the final day of class. One-line summary: Memory as recollection of knowledge acquired before birth (Meno and Phaedo), memory as impressions on a wax tablet (Theaetetus), and the effect of writing on memory (Phaedrus). Plato on memory: Meno 81a–86b: Plato's famous doctrine of anamnesis, or recollection. Socrates argues that what we call learning is really recollecting knowled

"The Snow Is Dancing" is the fourth movement of Debussy’s Children’s Corner. In Paul Barton’s recording, he notes that he alternates between the sustain pedal and a special harmonic pedal, which helps create the blurred and suspended sound of the piece. What struck me first was the constant light motion. The notes seem to flicker back and forth instead of moving in a strong melodic line. The effect really does suggest snow falling and being moved around by the wind. There doe

I've had my head down in books or in work, and I just realized I never posted the rest of my outlines for the Timaeus. I wish I'd tracked my questions more carefully, like I did the first week. It was such a rich and amazing reading. I may go back through my class notes and try to reconstruct those. 27c–29d The Opening Distinction: Being and Becoming Timaeus begins by distinguishing between what always is and never becomes, and what becomes but never truly is. What always is