Category Archives: History

History, Security

Gravestone Scanning

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Here is a fun use of pattern matching technology:

Illegible words on church headstones could be read once more thanks to a scan technology developed in the US.

[…]

A computer matches the patterns to a database of signature carvings which reveals the words.

What they don’t realize is that this could be used to scan people’s homes for tombstones turned into fireplaces and floors. It always annoyed me to find gravestones stolen from cemetaries around the midwest.

The article makes some other suggestions:

The researchers believe the technology will also have practical applications in other industry sectors, such as the security and medical fields.

Dr Cai said: “We may use the technology for the future UAVs (Unmanned Aviation vehicles) to detect ground signatures of ancient ruins and help medical doctors to diagnose patients’ well-being through tongue inspection.”

The technology could also be used to predict a possible tsunami by examining the patterns on the surface of the world’s oceans.

Could be? Hard to see how static scans of tombstone carvings could evolve to global wave monitoring, but I guess that is the exciting aspect of detection engines.

History, Poetry, Security

Espana En El Corazon

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from Espana En El Corazon (Spain in Our Hearts)
by Pablo Neruda
translated by Donald Walsh

Nothing, not even victory
will erase the terrible hollow of the blood:
nothing, neither the sea, nor the passage
of sand and time, nor the geranium flaming
upon the grave.

The Spanish Civil War generated a wealth of literature and art. In contrast, even in this age of information there seems to be very little escaping places like Darfur, Iraq or Afghanistan and making it to the mainstream media. Thank goodness for the individuals who took time to get their blogs flowing, like A Glimpse of Iraq:

Poetry is so central in Iraqi people’s sentiment and disposition that any glimpse of Iraq would be incomplete without some mention of it.

For centuries, poetry was the first religion for many people. People’s collective wisdom, their history and heritage, their values and ideals, their pride and achievements are all preserved in poetry lines.

You won’t find that recognition on CNN, or even most poetry sites in America.

History, Poetry, Security

Happy Birthday Rumi

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On the occaison of the famous poet’s birthday, I found some nice reflections online. This one, for example, points out the connection to peaceful themes within Islam:

Whenever people say that Islam is hostile to opposing views and violent in its nature, I always wonder whether those people actually ever took the time to read the Koran, to talk about it, to read other Islamic literature, to take a long and hard look at the history of this second largest religion of the world, and whether they’ve ever heard of someone we in the West have come to know as Rumi.

The BBC adds some classic British dry humor for perspective:

For many years now, the most popular poet in America has been a 13th-century mystical Muslim scholar.

I guess they were really trying to say Madonna is the most popular, and since she cites Rumi…but the effect is the same. Poetry today is more alive, more integrated, and more important than ever before. The BBC continues:

“When a religious scholar reads the Mathnawi, he interprets it religiously. And when sociologists study it, they say how powerful a sociologist Rumi was. When people in the West study it, they see that it’s full of emotions of humanity.”

Ironically, the biggest threat to poetry is from those who argue that it is in such a weak state that it needs to be popularized through force — they want to see their idea of poetry become more dominant and that usually means the stuff most like themselves rather than from a global perspective. But let’s face it, there’s plenty of Rumi in this world for everyone, and so we do not have to measure poetry’s success solely by what makes old rich white men in America happy.

History, Security

“…America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”

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Talk to Action has a lengthy review of a treaty that is meant to help debunk Christian revisionists who claim the US was founded on a single faith:

One of the most often used arguments that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation is Article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary. This is a pretty good argument, considering that the first sentence of that article begins with the words, “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…” Because the authors of the religious right version of American history can’t deny that these words are there, they attempt to dismiss them, usually using one, or a combination of, several popular arguments.

The first argument is really just a diversion, created by pointing out a mistake sometimes made by those who bring up this treaty.

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The second is an out of context sentence from a letter written by John Adams. Religious right authors who claim that there are many such secularist misquotes need to use both of these because they just can’t find any other examples, although David Barton implies that he has found a third.

The really sad part, of course, is that by ignoring the truth of history the revisionists are far more likely to repeat the nasty and obvious mistakes again and again.

I occasionally run into something similar when executives or even mangers tell me that they have no security incidents in their company. The funny thing is that if they had no incidents, they actually would say “although we have had some incidents, none turned out to be security related”. A simple review or sample of their incident notes would confirm this. However, if they say they have had no incidents at all, then it is very likely they have in fact had many and are completely unaware of how many are security related. Easy to repeat mistakes if you have no idea when they are being made. Even easier to repeat mistakes when written proof, or evidence, is dismissed with diversions and false context.