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The Finster Log
Do These Things Come In Threes?
Posted on: 09/11/07, 18:55:45
My brother-in-law's mother died early this morning. My brother-in-law and his father loved her, among others. That's all that matters.
Alex, the Congo African Grey that was the subject of Irene Pepperberg's research on bird intelligence, died on September 6. He was 31. See more at the Alex Foundation, apparently they don't know why he died, though. The New York Times published a fantastic photo of Alex (pops), taken by Mike Lovett of Brandeis University.
Number three, which may not count, is my laptop's hard drive, which "died" the evening of September 8th. The Lead Genius at the Apple store informed me of the bad news yesterday; I spent the next 24 hours deciding I couldn't justify the $700 to $1,500 or more for data recovery, and got the drive replaced this afternoon. I'm nowhere near set up, but enough to get going.
While I was very good about backing up my web sites (onto my laptop), I wasn't so good about backing up the laptop. There are photos I know I've lost, bookmarks, e-mail addresses, the master version of the Tumbly Finsters that serves as the "logo" of this site right now. Nothing crucial, though. At least, I don't think so. And I hope that what I don't remember, won't turn around and bite me in the ass at any point. Fingers crossed.
(And please, if you know an eight-year-old who is great at data recovery and likes getting paid in old Star Trek action figures, don't tell me! It's too late now.)
I know I lost a few recent pictures of Harley, but I also have a few still on the camera, and I can always take more.
I found the big, original photo of this picture of Peanut, one of my favorites, which has me feeling much more comfortable about the loss of unknowns:
Look at that Tiny Tongue! I don't think I ever felt Peanut's tongue, it was so tiny. But Harley's tongue is very soft. I had no idea that parrot's tongues were so soft.
Anyway, I realize a computer hard drive doesn't come close to the loss of a friend, but I'm really hoping it counts in the "rules of three," if such a thing exists for bad news. I'd like to be done with loss for now.
Alex, the Congo African Grey that was the subject of Irene Pepperberg's research on bird intelligence, died on September 6. He was 31. See more at the Alex Foundation, apparently they don't know why he died, though. The New York Times published a fantastic photo of Alex (pops), taken by Mike Lovett of Brandeis University.
Number three, which may not count, is my laptop's hard drive, which "died" the evening of September 8th. The Lead Genius at the Apple store informed me of the bad news yesterday; I spent the next 24 hours deciding I couldn't justify the $700 to $1,500 or more for data recovery, and got the drive replaced this afternoon. I'm nowhere near set up, but enough to get going.
While I was very good about backing up my web sites (onto my laptop), I wasn't so good about backing up the laptop. There are photos I know I've lost, bookmarks, e-mail addresses, the master version of the Tumbly Finsters that serves as the "logo" of this site right now. Nothing crucial, though. At least, I don't think so. And I hope that what I don't remember, won't turn around and bite me in the ass at any point. Fingers crossed.
(And please, if you know an eight-year-old who is great at data recovery and likes getting paid in old Star Trek action figures, don't tell me! It's too late now.)
I know I lost a few recent pictures of Harley, but I also have a few still on the camera, and I can always take more.
I found the big, original photo of this picture of Peanut, one of my favorites, which has me feeling much more comfortable about the loss of unknowns:
Look at that Tiny Tongue! I don't think I ever felt Peanut's tongue, it was so tiny. But Harley's tongue is very soft. I had no idea that parrot's tongues were so soft.
Anyway, I realize a computer hard drive doesn't come close to the loss of a friend, but I'm really hoping it counts in the "rules of three," if such a thing exists for bad news. I'd like to be done with loss for now.
Comments
09/12/07, 08:52:30
Oh that's right! Madeleine L'Engle died. I loved her books. And Luciano Pavarotti also died recently. Didn't you love hearing Pavarotti sing on radio and TV news for a few days there - and wasn't it a shame that they only played the music because he'd died? So that makes more than three, even without my hard drive. I wonder if bad things really come in threes, or if people just can't handle too many bad things at once?
As far as tongues go - they really are fascinating. Here's a great photo of a hummingbird's tongue: http://farm2.static.flickr....
And here's an eagle's tongue: http://www.alaska-in-pictur...
As far as tongues go - they really are fascinating. Here's a great photo of a hummingbird's tongue: http://farm2.static.flickr....
And here's an eagle's tongue: http://www.alaska-in-pictur...
09/14/07, 07:25:28
Wow! I'm surprised by how mammalian the eagle's tongue looks--wide, thin, flat.
And don't get me started on how little vocal/choral music our *classical* radio station plays, let alone any other station....
You did hear about Alex the African Grey, didn't you? the research partner of Irene Pepperberg?
And don't get me started on how little vocal/choral music our *classical* radio station plays, let alone any other station....
You did hear about Alex the African Grey, didn't you? the research partner of Irene Pepperberg?
09/16/07, 11:50:11
Yeah, it's very sad about Alex, isn't it. ABC news produced a nice video of him. Unfortunatlely, you have to put up with a commercial on the Yahoo! site, but it's nice to see him: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.co...
Verlyn Klinkenborg published a very nice editorial about Alex in the New York Times. Stick out your tongue, put on some Pavarotti, and take a read: http://www.nytimes.com/2007...
[Also, because the NYT often places older items in their paid archives, I've cheated and published it below.]
Verlyn Klinkenborg published a very nice editorial about Alex in the New York Times. Stick out your tongue, put on some Pavarotti, and take a read: http://www.nytimes.com/2007...
[Also, because the NYT often places older items in their paid archives, I've cheated and published it below.]
09/16/07, 11:51:01
Alex the Parrot
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
Published: September 12, 2007
Editorial Notebook
New York Times
Thinking about animals - and especially thinking about whether animals can think - is like looking at the world through a two-way mirror. There, for example, on the other side of the mirror, is Alex, the famous African Grey parrot who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 31. But looking at Alex, who mastered a surprising vocabulary of words and concepts, the question is always how much of our own reflection we see. What you make of Dr. Irene Pepperberg's work with Alex depends on whether you think Alex's cognitive presence was real or merely imitative.
A truly dispassionate observer might argue that most Grey parrots could probably learn what Alex had learned, but only a microscopic minority of humans could have learned what Alex had to teach. Most humans are not truly dispassionate observers. We're too invested in the idea of our superiority to understand what an inferior quality it really is. I always wonder how the experiments would go if they were reversed - if, instead of us trying to teach Alex how to use the English language, Alex were to try teaching us to understand the world as it appears to parrots.
These are bottomless questions, of course. For us, language is everything because we know ourselves in it. Alex's final words were: "I love you."
There is no doubt that Alex had a keen awareness of the situations in which that sentence is appropriate - that is, at the end of a message at the end of the day. But to say whether Alex loved the human who taught him, we'd have to know if he had a separate conceptual grasp of what love is, which is different from understanding the context in which the word occurs. By any performative standard - knowing how to use the word properly - Alex loved Dr. Pepperberg.
Beyond that, only our intuitions, our sense of who that bird might really be, are useful. And in some ways this is also a judgment we make about loving each other.
To wonder what Alex recognized when he recognized words is also to wonder what humans recognize when we recognize words. It was indeed surprising to realize how quickly Alex could take in words and concepts.
Scientifically speaking, the value of this research lies in its specific details about patterns of learning and cognition. Ethically speaking, the value lies in our surprise, our renewed awareness of how little we allow ourselves to expect from the animals around us.
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
Published: September 12, 2007
Editorial Notebook
New York Times
Thinking about animals - and especially thinking about whether animals can think - is like looking at the world through a two-way mirror. There, for example, on the other side of the mirror, is Alex, the famous African Grey parrot who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 31. But looking at Alex, who mastered a surprising vocabulary of words and concepts, the question is always how much of our own reflection we see. What you make of Dr. Irene Pepperberg's work with Alex depends on whether you think Alex's cognitive presence was real or merely imitative.
A truly dispassionate observer might argue that most Grey parrots could probably learn what Alex had learned, but only a microscopic minority of humans could have learned what Alex had to teach. Most humans are not truly dispassionate observers. We're too invested in the idea of our superiority to understand what an inferior quality it really is. I always wonder how the experiments would go if they were reversed - if, instead of us trying to teach Alex how to use the English language, Alex were to try teaching us to understand the world as it appears to parrots.
These are bottomless questions, of course. For us, language is everything because we know ourselves in it. Alex's final words were: "I love you."
There is no doubt that Alex had a keen awareness of the situations in which that sentence is appropriate - that is, at the end of a message at the end of the day. But to say whether Alex loved the human who taught him, we'd have to know if he had a separate conceptual grasp of what love is, which is different from understanding the context in which the word occurs. By any performative standard - knowing how to use the word properly - Alex loved Dr. Pepperberg.
Beyond that, only our intuitions, our sense of who that bird might really be, are useful. And in some ways this is also a judgment we make about loving each other.
To wonder what Alex recognized when he recognized words is also to wonder what humans recognize when we recognize words. It was indeed surprising to realize how quickly Alex could take in words and concepts.
Scientifically speaking, the value of this research lies in its specific details about patterns of learning and cognition. Ethically speaking, the value lies in our surprise, our renewed awareness of how little we allow ourselves to expect from the animals around us.
We lost well-known children's author Madeleine L'Engle last week, too. I read many of her books as a child and in my teens.