Anthropomorphism

It is human to see human responses around us, and we have the ability for abstraction. So we apply human patterns to animals and objects. “An evil wind blows..”

Computers are “thinking”, when that little spinny beachball or hourglass pops up. I assure you, computers do not think, they compute. And crash. And they do not have malicious thoughts by themselves, try to trip you up or attempts to confuse you originating from any inherited intelligence. It may seem that way at times though; “it is doing it again” is a classic line often heard on computer support. It insinuates that the machinery have a mind of its own, and therefore the user does not have any influence, responsibility or impact. This is what supportpeople call pebkac. Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

Most people would not see human traits in a cockroach, say, a frog or a shark. But we all do it, particularly to big-eyed, furry mammals. Large heads, big eyes and mammarian glands seems to be a prerequisite. Of course, primates tops the list. It seems we have to see our abilities in them to have empathy. It has been argued for many years that for example fish does not feel. A preposterous argument based on no evidence whatsoever. Just a convenient conclusion.

Sometimes the interpretation can be correct, but do not take it for granted. Sometimes it is wishful thinking. Let snoozing lion lie.

People read expressions in animals and get very very surprised when the animal does not react accordingly or do not understand that we are “the good guys”. There have been incidents where seemingly happy and domesticated animals have killed or mauled their owners. To much surprise, “Buster was such a happy, caring tiger”. Right.

This is the – at times – very misguided idea that animals understands us, and we them. The obvious examples would of course be people like TImothy Treadwell that lived with grizzly bears, played with their cubs, and argued that he “communicated” with them and protected them. Until they ate him. A Darwin Award for eco-warrior Mr. Treadwell. And various people who have kept wild animals, believe to have them under control, and then being killed by them. It is not because the cat is malicious. It is because we interpret the behavioural patterns as similar to ours.

Dressing up animals in human clothes we remove their species identity and apply our own. It is fun in myths and stories, and can work as metaphors, but it is not doing us or their species any favours.

Cats and dogs, in particular, of course, as they have been domesticated for many many years are usually victims of this. We “know” each other. And we give them  toys in multiple colours looking like human-baby toys. Many animals have poor colour vision, so this is not for their benefit, but for ours. It is cute. Funnily, animals often are in that respect like human children: often they prefer to play with the box the gift came in, an old sock, a post-it or a twig. Any old rubbish lying around, and the expensive “pet furniture” stands untouched.

I am not opposed to pet toys or brightly coloured things. But I am opposed to humans  applying our wishes and preferences on animals. Such as giving a cat a nightlight. I mean, really. Cats are predators, they hunt at night, their night vision and sense of smell and hearing leaves us in the dust. In fact, studies shows that cats see better at night than in daylight. Which means, that for the cats sake, turn the light off.

cat mummy, national museum of natural history, DC

For thousands of years, we kept cats to get rid of vermin. They had a job, to catch mice. Still there are famous mousers in the distilleries in Scotland that do a very important job. I love whisky, and I do not want any mouse poo in my barley, thankyou. I do not think those cats are cuddled much. I do not think they lie in front of a fire or on a lap (I have met a couple). Yet I do believe they are taken good care of (good mousers being hard to find), and I believe they have fine lives. A cat does not, from some mythical primordial state, natively belong in a human lap.

Now, cats are pets, and the catching of mice is a nuisance. Our expectations of cats have changed. Over time, the cats with less ability to drag headless rodents home and dump them on the carpet might be the ones that win out. Certainly, cats that get along with humans, fulfil our expectations and wishes, will have better lives and better chances of survival and possibly reproduction. There is no such thing as the primeval original, when there is constant adaptation. A good life for a cat does not mean spoonfeeding or a loopy lady calling herself “mammy”, nattering on with babytalk. Just because they have soft fur, does not mean they appreciate or need being petted all day long.

Our expectations of animals determine their quality of life and chances of survival. As these expectations change over time, so the animals will try to adapt as well as they can. Humans should not underestimate species other than our own, nor try to make them more like us. After all. A lot of us are not really all that nice.

So now. Here i am with my little wheely luggage, impractical, probably not water tight in the snow, wheels too small for the rubble and construction. Stacks of paper. Printouts. Staples. Excel sheets. Ballpoint pens with the names of hotels on them. Cool technology.
On the screens around, stock market news, ties.

i see the ones more like myself and smile. This is where i am, that is where i am going.

To hold two thoughts at the same time.

I was summoned to the interview, both by phone and an e-mail through finn.no’s system.

With a spring in my step, I bounced to the given address, and found the company in question. A cup of coffee, some chit-chat, and off we went. ”We are a small company”, the guy says. “so the work is diverse, you’d have to do lots of different things”. All good with me; I prefer variety. “Outsourcing”, he says. “marked analysis”, he says. I followed as well as I could, but attempting to steer a little towards methods, tools and processes; closer to my heart and attention. Trying to figure out what and how exactly my place and job as a 3D assistant would pan out.

“Do you know our four major competitors?” says he. “no” I say. “Well, you should.”
At this point I am a little frustrated. I cannot entirely see that a 3D-assistants first priority should be knowing that. Surely, I’d learn that within the first day. I’d rather hear and talk about software, processes, workflow, cooperation. About quality. He goes on. And on. And on. About marked strategies, quizzing me on what and how I would grab marked shares from competitors, how would I do it? What other markeds could I see for this company? How would I expand it? How would I get the customers? Do I have the drive for this?

A small gnome in my head tries to get my attention; there is something wrong here. A little nagging feeling that something is not right. But an interview is a stressful situation, I answer to the best of my abilities, on Q’s about outsourcing, time zones, marked shares.

I try to talk about files. About the technology behind. I try to say that a lot of these questions I cannot answer properly, without knowing the processes and methods in the company. On and on. Nag, nag, goes the little gnome.

I am getting increasingly frustrated. All of a sudden, the interview is over. I politely bid them goodbye, they say the standard “we will call you next week”.

I am rather frustrated, but have no-one to blame but myself; I realise I have not done a good job. A long discussion in my head on the way home. What happened, how could I do so badly, when it seemed I should easily manage to get myself across as sensible and useful? Nag, nag.

Back at home, the little gnome gets me to double check the mail I got. It is tagged, from the job-marked site, both in subject field and footer: “regarding application for “3d-assistant” code 24732471″. Seems I fucked up :-(

The little gnome goes “paste that code in the url, paste that code in the url, paste that code in the url”.

Right.

Weeeell! Will you look at that…!
That was an entirely different kettle of fish. The ad had been changed, and this time around the title was not 3D-assistant, but “project management and global outsourcing”.
Not really interchangeable.

We had all been sensible and relevant. Same time, same place. Just not the same interview.

So it goes.

Update

I mailed them about the mistake. In fact, all was dead silence. I admit I got pissed off; they could have said “ups, sorry”. I left it for a long time, then mailed them, and said I thought they owed me an apology, as it is stressful enough to be applying for jobs, if not also have to keep track of various companies every idiot move.

He replied. He justified himself, and said “the ad was not (in the original version) there for long. The position has been filled.”

Why is it so fucking hard to say sorry? Because the company wanted to save tiny money, not paying for another ad, he makes it look like I am the idiot.

Fuck you very much.
“Ups, sorry, our mistake” would have been fine with me. The curious thing is that they summoned me to an interview for project management and global outsourcing, on the basis of an application as a 3d assistant.

Professional, they are not.

The film is seen as a homage to Helvetica, but if you watch the extras, the table turns. Seen from there, not much positive is said about it. And Rick Poynor goes a little overboard with his talk about the psychology of enslavement. Sometimes he is away with the faries, sometimes he is dead on. Paula Sher sees Helvetica as the fontface of war, power and corruption.

Matthew Carter, the man behind verdana, tahoma and caslon, seems to be the one of a few genuinely in awe of the fontface, and Vignellis rants over the “flowerchildren” is both hilarious and serious. Such a sweet, sweet man.

Most of the interviews take place in offices, meetingrooms and those bare, pale designers hideouts. One bizarre  exception is Michael C. Place – interviewed in a spare room in his house, it seems, with two or more hairless Sphynx cats crawling over a spare bed, chewing on microphone cords and climbing over cardboardboxes; green trees and the hint of a garden outside. In contrast to the bareness of designers meetingrooms. Not a coincidence, surely.

Hoefler and Frere-Jones are delightful – Hoefler cannot shut up to save his life, and his endless stream confirms Frere-Jones’s quiet assurances that type designers are bonkers, no exceptions.

Müller, a norwegian gone swiss-german-dutch-english, with a bizarre gray lions mane, points at all sorts of signs. He looks increasingly self-conscious, but it gets funnier and funnier, as he stands beside all sorts of signs, popping up behind them, pointing out Helvetica.

Hermann Zapf – I have always admired Zapf for his calligraphy, but this is the first time I have seen him in moving pictures – he seems the incarnation of graphic craftsman and artist, an unassuming elderly gentleman with enough understatement to go around. If you didn’t know, you’d think him a doddering, doodling anybody. And, in the extras, it turns out, when he cannot say anything nice about helvetica, he refuses to say anything at all. When pushed, he mutters “I have never used Helvetica”. To him, it’s too 19th century. I like 20th century design, he says. Frutiger. There are lots and lots of other good faces around, he says, there is no need to always use helvetica.

Bless him.

David Carson – fruitcake par excellence – a brilliant, silly, funny guy, not in the least bit interested in squares and rules, and a doer of – and fan of – those mistakes others might find deadly.

So what do I think of Helvetica?
I hate the a. I really do. It ruins it all for me. This is a simple, clean face, and then you add that bendy little thing on the a. It’s not a serif, maybe it is to soften the font a little, I don’t know. But the a is fiddly enough as it is. It doesn’t show in the bold, thank god. I know a guy who doesn’t like the k, and for that reason refuse to use it.

Designers are lunatics. They are weird and wonderful. I’m happy to be one.

sudo osascript -e ‘say “Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum he he he ho ho ho fa lah lah lah lah lah lah fa lah full hoo hoo hoo” using “Cellos”‘

I know a guy who cannot stop laughing
:-)

I know a guy who believes crop circles are made by creatures from outer space, the «wee folk» or «unidentified streams of energy». That is pretty off, but extraordinary coming from him. He is a great fan of science, in practicality. He is a former seaman, a firm grasp of all things motorized. A guy who always carries a leatherman. He reads science magazines and articles veraciously. He constantly pops up with more or less interesting scientific studies and results.

And he believes – with the certainty of the newly converted – that crop circles are too complicated for man to make. It has to be superior forces.

We can put a man on the moon, we can split the atom, but we cannot make a Mandelbrot set in a flat field. He got angry at me for not believing. He vigorously threw some webaddresses at me, and said -look there! Then you’ll know!!

One website were a lady in UK, if I remember correctly, who had some weird ideas and a shitload of photos of crop circles. I think she also had a cattery, breeding persians. Always a bad sign.The other site, that my co-worker so desperately wanted me to read from url to footer was – surprise – a company that earned money on “crop circle tours” ..ermm… right. That certainly proves the outer-space thingy. Someone earning money on it = truth & honesty, surely. And what convenient business! No guarantee possible of course, but the whole miserable tour starts at Stonehenge. So at least you can enjoy that. And there is always a pub. You’ll need a stiff drink if you’re going on that trip. Or a bucketload.

Fascinating. This guy will probably deny most of christian doctrine and history as rubbish, he writes off islam for mainly mildly racist reasons, Hinduism for having too many weird animals doing odd things (not being a great understander of metaphors, this guy), Judaism for being mixed up in too much hassle, Buddhism as being too ..well. Orange. Whatever.

But crop circles. That is his religion, and he defends it fiercely. He tries to prove it, he uses the argument of science. Argument of math. Oh, dear.

We find the connections we need. There is a brilliant company in Britain called Circlemakers and they do this for a living. And if you see a website with lots of pics and religious fervour – note that they all leave out the hello kitty and commercial circles.

We find the connections we need. Crop circles are beautiful. Some people are creative. Simply: some things are inexplicable. Until they are explained. Live with it.

In europe, the oldest fabrics are all dyed in shades of red. In fact, they say, in Roman times, the latin word for ‘coloured’ and ‘red’ were synonyms. Greeks and romans rarely dyed in blue, but the celts and germanic tribes did – using woad (that yellow plant you see all around temperate europe). Hence, blue was seen as primitive and barbaric.

Blue dye were used by the ancient people of the Middle East. They imported indigo from Asia and Africa. Indigo was used in biblical times, but it was expensive, and used only for the finest cloth, and for the wealthy. In europe, it was not used much, partly because it was expensive, but also because the colour was not … appreciated. It was also assosiated with the rabid celts and germanic people (Don’t say Braveheart – I detest that film. But I suppose the blue is correct).

In the bible, colour is rarely mentioned, but translations have made words that relate to luminosity, density, light and quality into colours. This of course, have ended in a lot of – to an atheist – delightful, snickering misunderstandings in the «life of Brian»-genre («it’s a sign, it’s a sign! he wants us all to remove our left shoe and follow!»)

The best bit is that in the english version (and others), words that describe force, richness, love, beauty, prestige, death, blood, fire etc are simply translated as «red». Excellent ground for misunderstandings… and I shall not even start on the jewish tsitsit shawl, Cleopatra’s sails or the temple of Solomon. Brilliant stories they are – go forth and research!

The high middle ages is a period we can begin to recognise the outlines of our own society and you should think that at least the painters would use blue. The sky is blue. We see the sea as blue (which it is not), but the painters in the high middle ages painted the sky white, red or gold. Emperors and nobles in the 9-10th century fancied Roman customs, and wore red, white and purple (purple is another story – an enormously fascinating one!). So ignored by nobles, blue was worn by pesants. And it would stay like that until the 12th century.. Blue was described by the rich and wealthy as sickening, unnatural, barbaric and ugly.
(is’t this exciting?!)

There are remarkably few references to blue in liturgy, placenames and people. Mr. Brown, Mr. Black, Mr White, Mr. Red. But no Mr. Blue. In latin, there are apparently no name with the root in ‘blue’ (this of course being contagious, the same goes for a lot of european languages).

Christianity: you would think that with all that emphasis on the heavens and all, christianity would expand blue. But no, the church stuck to the social and religious symbolisms already in place for regulating society.

Liturgical colours are discussed in sheaves and reams, and all sorts of colours are mentioned- except blue. Even though it is around in stained glass, enamel, paintings and in clothing. Blue is simply not part of the liturgical colour scheme or symbolism. Blue is not really entering the stage properly until the late 12th century… when blue turns up in stained glass windows, and then only as a backdrop to sacred figures.

Up until the 12th century, the virgin Mary was depicted in dark colours, to represent suffering and grief, and never in blue. Then something happens, and today, blue is associated with the virgins robes. A good example is the Wilton dipthych from 1395.
This combination of the cult of Mary and the idea of divine light, blue becomes wildly popular. (It is of course a long story, what happended – it involves an squillon church meetings, a split on the view on colours – «if colours are light, it is divine, the work of God. If colour is substance, it is the work of the deceiving devil»…. chromophobes versus chromophiles, with axes to grind, a God to justify them, and unproveable points to prove… Besides. Ultramarine pops up in Italy as the most expensive colouring. Money talks).

Colours change importance and associative power. Blue changed from being a non-colour to represent loyalty, truth, courage, and the fact that the king of France chose the well-known coat of arms: azure with golden fleur-de-lis dotted around (and yes, king Arthur pictured with a blue shield with three golden crowns) surely drove the popularity of blue.
And here’s a good piece of ancient gossip: in the thirteenth century, wealthy red dyers asked stained-glass artists to represent the devil as blue, hoping this would discredit the newly fashionable colour that was threatening their precious profits. From hardly any coats of arms having any blue in 1200, at the beginning of the 15th century one in three coats of arms had ‘azure’.

In fact, there was a fight whether the colours of the rainbow should include blue – and the fact that indigo is squeezed in between blue and violet, well, that seems to be more thanks to stubborn Newton than anything else.
…since then, blues popularity have, erm, sky-rocketed. Today, it’s topping the favourite colour scale.

And by the way- blue is not just blue…: Azure, baby blue, cerulean, cobalt, cornflower, dark blue, denim, Egyptian blue, electric blue, indigo, light blue, lapis lazuli, Maya blue, midnight blue, navy blue, periwinkle, Persian blue, powder blue, prussian blue, royal blue, sapphire, sky blue, steel blue, ultramarine…

And no, it’s not my favourite colour.

(Purple is facinating, though. Royal tyrian, slaves, snails and religious blunders.. and yellow – to us, a warning, the colour of hospital bin bags signifying harmful contagious waste; to the chinese, the colour of the emperor. Ah. it never ends.)

(all images either own or from wikipedia)

Beautiful weather, gorgeous peace.

Sitting in the garden reading, taking notes, it begins.
The neighbour fires up the lawnmower. This is, in fact more contagious than ebola in a chicken coop. So the neighbour on the other side thinks «oh, mow the lawn, maybe!» and he fires up his machinery. So then the landlord… and the guy across the road, and the next one up…

So when neighbour number 1 is finished with the mower – thank god!… out comes the bloody trimmer. A high-pitched whine, a teeth-grinding squealing. I brace myself, and see that I could go bonkers, and remember a high quality splatter-film I saw once. It included some deranged character, a blade lawnmower and about 30 000 litres of fake blood. I get pictures in my head. I see why people go apeshit on planes or turn up at work with sub machine guns. Simply one bleeding lawnmower too many.

The whole day was one continuous racket – the peace and bliss of life outside the city. Indeed. So on top of it all: the neighbour on the left have a small tractor. And for good measure, he drove it all over his own and other neighbours lawn..dragging one of those rolling things behind it. The sort of thingy you use to level out your yard. Don’t ask me why. I could see no effect at all.

Deep inside, I suspect there’s an element of keeping up with the Jones’es in all this racket. And that weird relationship between The Man and His Powertools. The importance of the machine that goes bbrrRRRAAAWWWHHH.

I have to get out of here.

So sit near the fire, children, and let me tell you the story of spies, bugs, state secrets, indians, daring travel and cacti in the new world.

Cochineal is a tiny little flea, that lives on certain cacti in South America. They don’t look like much, and are in fact not red at all, except on the inside… there, a deep crimson hue. The Aztec and Maya indians had used them for dying fabrics for centuries. Europeans, always after the riches of others got whiff of it, and the royal red colour was highly priced.
Red, black and white are the three colours found in every single culture, at any point through human existence. Chalk, iron oxide and ash. Add sienna, and you have the traditional palette of Australian aborigines. Never mind the enormous symbolic values of red (hate, love, death, birth, fire, royalty, blood etc ), the problem was not to dye something red, the problem was to make it fix, to ‘set’ in the fabric. Not going to get into details of dyers in the olden times having pots in the street for passerbys to pee in, as it is a fixative, or the alum mordants. Boring. No action.

The conquistadors had it almost all to themselves, in the new world. Gold, silver and red. They weren’t going to tell anyone, and it it was an enormous business, exporting tons of dried insects to Europe. Painters, followers of fashion, cosmetics, fabric dyeing. The spanish had monopoly on red. Fixable, deep red. Big business.

Cochineal means grana fina, and indicated that it was a seed that produced the royal colour. This misunderstanding kept the other europeans in the dark for a long time- they sneaked around the new world looking for a plant, nuts, seeds, ignoring nasty cactuses infected with disgusting insects clad in white wax-like threads.

So, in 1787 a french guy, Nicolas Joseph Thierry de Menonville, sneaked into Mexico, with slightly doctored papers, to wrestle the secret from the indians and Spanish, on behalf of his government. He bribed his way, and played the annoying, homesick and eccentric frenchman, complete with gallic flair and arm-waving.
Having been ordered for deportation, the desperate frenchman climbed the city walls and escaped, so as to discover red. Camouflaged with wide-brimmed hat and a rosary, the idea was to look like he was taking a walk, rather than an ardourous journey. He pretended to be constantly lost, and claimed to be a Catalan, to justify his odd accent. Finally, he found the insects, and ecstatically, terrified, he smuggled out a few boxes of cacti covered in creepy-crawlies.

The journey to Haiti took three months, but some of the bugs survived. How ironic, then, that walking in his own garden there, de Menonville discovered indigenous cochineal.

The brits started farms in India, with no great success. Canary islands is the only place outside South America where farming red worked reasonably well.

And then, in 1856 the combination of an 18 year old English boy, a simple chemistry setup and what was originally a search for a cure for malaria, mauve was discovered, the first synthetic dye. This replaced royal tyrian purple, and other colours followed. Synthetic, fixable, resistant, and brighter colours than seen before.

Still – the coats of the British officers uniforms was dyed with cochineal up until 1952, and the little flea is back again, gaining ground as a food additive. It might be a little distasteful to think of eating fleas. But it’s technically pretty organic. And god knows what else is in your food anyway. I wouldn’t loose any sleep over it. And playing TP might get a little more interesting.

(….and blue? now, there’s a story of the devil, the king, the virgin Mary and Levis.)
all photos shamelessly pinched from wikipedia)