The name of the book

In the comments to my review of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, there was a side discussion about the enigmatic title. Written in 1980, the book was a critical and popular success, selling over 50 million copies worldwide. This strange, long (538 pages), and difficult book set in 1327 formed the basis of a 1986 film starring Sean Connery as the English Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and Christian Slater as his Italian Benedictine novice assistant Adso of Melk. My review of the book was very negative, seeing it as pretentious. The second edition of the book published in 1983 has an unusual feature for a novel, in that it has a postscript by the author where he discusses both the book and the writing of novels in general. He begins with a discussion of the title of this book and the role of novel titles in general.

There is nothing about roses anywhere in the book. The word itself makes its only appearance in the form of an untranslated Latin phrase stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus, which are the words that end the book. (There are many chunks of untranslated Latin throughout the text that contribute to the book’s difficulty.)
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More on card randomization

After writing my post on the randomization of a deck of cards, I became more curious about this topic. In a deck of 52 distinct cards, there are 52x51x50…x3x2x1 possible arrangements. This is written in the mathematical notation 52! and is an enormous number. Perfect randomization of a deck means that starting with any given arrangement, after the shuffling process, all possible arrangements are equally likely and have the probability 1/52!. One can also think of it as saying that after the randomization process, a card that started out in any given position should be equally likely to be found in any of the 52 positions.

I learned that magicians for some of their tricks use the fact that shuffles do not guarantee randomizing of the deck, and so was curious to see how that might work. To illustrate this very simply, I started with a deck of just ten cards numbered 1 through 10 in order. I then cut the deck in two so that one half contained 1through 5 and the other half contained 6 through 10. Then I imagined a perfect riffle shuffle where the cards from each side are dropped one at a time alternately. You then get the order shown under the heading Shuffle 1.

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The Raygun controversy at the Olympics

I do not pay much attention to the Olympic games and never watch any event in real time. I tend to like only those events where the performances are measured using instruments and have little interest in those where people make judgments as to the difficulty, aesthetics, and so on. The events that interest me are the track and field ones and I sometimes watch clips of those events if I read that something interesting happened. The fact that I already know the result does not bother me. It is seeing top athletes pushing themselves to the limit that I find interesting, but not enough to devote more that a few minutes to it.

However, during the Paris Olympics this past summer, various news headlines registered in my consciousness in passing and I became vaguely aware that there had been some controversy involving the new event of breakdancing that was introduced for the first time, part of a trend by the people behind the Olympics of trying to attract younger viewers who do not find the traditional events interesting enough.
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Blog comments policy

At the beginning of every month, I will repost my comments policy for those who started visiting this site the previous month.

As long time readers know, I used to moderate the comments with a very light hand, assuming that mature adults would know how to behave in a public space. It took outright hate speech targeting marginalized groups to cause me to ban people, and that happened very rarely. But I got increasingly irritated by the tedious and hostile exchanges among a few commenters that tended to fill up the comment thread with repeated posts about petty or off-topic issues. An email sent to me privately by a long-time lurker brought home to me how people might be hesitant to join in the conversation here, even if they have something to say, out of fear that something that they write, however well-intentioned, will be seized upon and responded to in a hostile manner by some of the most egregious offenders.

So here is a rule: No one will be able to make more than three comments in response to any blog post. Violation of that rule will result in banning.

But I also want to address a couple of deeper concerns for which a solution cannot be quantified but will require me to exercise my judgment.

It is well known that the comments sections on the internet can be a cesspool. I had hoped that the people who come to this site would be different, leading to more mature exchanges. But I was clearly too sanguine. We sometimes had absurdly repetitive exchanges seemingly based on the childish belief that having the last word means that you have won the argument or with increasingly angry posts sprinkled with puerile justifications like “They started it!”

The other issue is the hostility that is often expressed, often triggered by the most trivial of things. People should remember that this is a blog, not a journal or magazine. There are no copy editors, proof readers, and fact checkers. In such a casual atmosphere, people (and that includes me) will often inadvertently be less than precise or accurate in what they say. If the error is trivial but the meaning is clear, the error should be ignored. If the meaning is not clear, clarification can be politely asked for. If it is a genuine error, a correction can be politely made. If I think people are being rude or condescending or insulting (and I do not mean just abusive language but also the tone), I will ban the person.

For me, and I suspect for the other bloggers on this network, the rewards of blogging lie in creating space for a community of people to exchange ideas and views on a variety of topics. But that is pleasurable only if people post comments that are polite and respectful towards others, even while disagreeing. Some time ago, I wrote a post that a good philosophy of life is “Don’t be a jerk”. That would be a good rule to keep in mind when posting comments as well. There is absolutely no call for anyone to be rude or sneering or condescending towards others.

Almost all the commenters on this blog contribute positively and it is a pleasure to read their contributions and interact with them. It is a very few who think that a sneering, condescending, or abrasively argumentative tone is appropriate. My patience has been worn thin by some of their comments in the past. If I think, for any reason whatsoever, that someone is behaving like a jerk, I will ban them. I am in no mood to argue about this. I will not make any public announcement about who is banned. They will simply find that they can no longer post comments.

So I would suggest that in future commenters think carefully before they post anything, taking into account what they say and how often they say something. They should try to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are arguing with and think about how they might feel if their comment had been directed at them. They should also think about how their comments might look to others. It surprises me that people do not realize how badly this kind of behavior reflects on themselves.

Readers may have noticed that there are no ads on any of the blogs on this network. Nobody is making any money at all. In fact, it is a money sink and PZ Myers pays for the costs of the servers out of his Patreon account that you can contribute to if you would like to support the network. The bloggers here blog because they want to create spaces for conversations on issues that they care about. ‘Clicks’ have no monetary value. That means that I do not care how many people come to the site.

I realize that these guidelines are somewhat vague. So a good rule of thumb would be: If in doubt as to whether to post something because it might violate these boundaries, that is a good sign to not post it. I will be the sole judge of whether the boundary has been crossed.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have zero tolerance for people who try to find ways to skirt the guidelines such as, for example, skirting the three comment limit by continuing it on another thread. I also reserve the right to make exceptions to the rules at any time, if I feel it is warranted. These decisions will be solely mine and will be final. There will be no discussion, debate, or appeal. If anyone objects because they think that I am being arbitrary, they are of course free to leave and never return.

Randomizing a deck of cards

I like the card game bridge and play in local duplicate club tournaments about twice a week. Depending on the game or the preference of the director, the hands that are played are either shuffled and dealt by the players at the beginning of the session or are hands that have been previously generated by a computer and arranged by a dedicated card sorter.

In bridge, each of the four players starts with 13 cards and if the deck of cards has been completely randomized before being dealt, the distribution of the four suits (in any order) can vary from somewhat even distributions such as 4-4-3-2 (21.6% probability) to the next most likely 5-3-3-2 (15.5%), 5-4-3-1- (12.9%). 5-4-2-2- (10.6%), 4-3-3-3 (10.5%) and then starts dropping sharply until it gets to 9-3-1-0 (0.01%). More skewed distributions are even rarer. (The Official Encyclopaedia of Bridge (1984))

A common refrain that I hear from players at the table is that they feel that the hands that are generated by the computer tend to have more skewed distributions than the ones shuffled and dealt at the table. They think that whoever is in charge of the computer that generates the hands tend to program it that way in order to provide greater challenge. I heard this so often that I became curious if this was the case and looked it up to see if there was anything to this bit of bridge folklore.
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Book review: Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

I will start the review by saying I really disliked this book. There were many times when I wanted to give up on it but I persevered, expecting a twist at the end that would explain why it was written the way it was. And there was but the explanation was farcical and left me with an even greater distaste. The rest of this review will discuss the book and my feelings more without giving away any major spoilers.

The best-selling author Anthony Horowitz was commissioned by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to write more Sherlock Holmes novels. The first one was called The House of Silk and I gave it a very good review. This was the second one and is called Moriarty and to be quite frank, I was not looking forward to it despite my enjoyment of the first one.
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Blog comments policy

At the beginning of every month, I will post my comments policy for those who started visiting this site the previous month.

As long time readers know, I used to moderate the comments with a very light hand, assuming that mature adults would know how to behave in a public space. It took outright hate speech targeting marginalized groups to cause me to ban people, and that happened very rarely. But I got increasingly irritated by the tedious and hostile exchanges among a few commenters that tended to fill up the comment thread with repeated posts about petty or off-topic issues. An email sent to me privately by a long-time lurker brought home to me how people might be hesitant to join in the conversation here, even if they have something to say, out of fear that something that they write, however well-intentioned, will be seized upon and responded to in a hostile manner by some of the most egregious offenders.

So here is a rule: No one will be able to make more than three comments in response to any blog post. Violation of that rule will result in banning.

But I also want to address a couple of deeper concerns for which a solution cannot be quantified but will require me to exercise my judgment.

It is well known that the comments sections on the internet can be a cesspool. I had hoped that the people who come to this site would be different, leading to more mature exchanges. But I was clearly too sanguine. We sometimes had absurdly repetitive exchanges seemingly based on the childish belief that having the last word means that you have won the argument or with increasingly angry posts sprinkled with puerile justifications like “They started it!”

The other issue is the hostility that is often expressed, often triggered by the most trivial of things. People should remember that this is a blog, not a journal or magazine. There are no copy editors, proof readers, and fact checkers. In such a casual atmosphere, people (and that includes me) will often inadvertently be less than precise or accurate in what they say. If the error is trivial but the meaning is clear, the error should be ignored. If the meaning is not clear, clarification can be politely asked for. If it is a genuine error, a correction can be politely made. If I think people are being rude or condescending or insulting (and I do not mean just abusive language but also the tone), I will ban the person.

For me, and I suspect for the other bloggers on this network, the rewards of blogging lie in creating space for a community of people to exchange ideas and views on a variety of topics. But that is pleasurable only if people post comments that are polite and respectful towards others, even while disagreeing. Some time ago, I wrote a post that a good philosophy of life is “Don’t be a jerk”. That would be a good rule to keep in mind when posting comments as well. There is absolutely no call for anyone to be rude or sneering or condescending towards others.

Almost all the commenters on this blog contribute positively and it is a pleasure to read their contributions and interact with them. It is a very few who think that a sneering, condescending, or abrasively argumentative tone is appropriate. My patience has been worn thin by some of their comments in the past. If I think, for any reason whatsoever, that someone is behaving like a jerk, I will ban them. I am in no mood to argue about this. I will not make any public announcement about who is banned. They will simply find that they can no longer post comments.

So I would suggest that in future commenters think carefully before they post anything, taking into account what they say and how often they say something. They should try to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are arguing with and think about how they might feel if their comment had been directed at them. They should also think about how their comments might look to others. It surprises me that people do not realize how badly this kind of behavior reflects on themselves.

Readers may have noticed that there are no ads on any of the blogs on this network. Nobody is making any money at all. In fact, it is a money sink and PZ Myers pays for the costs of the servers out of his Patreon account that you can contribute to if you would like to support the network. The bloggers here blog because they want to create spaces for conversations on issues that they care about. ‘Clicks’ have no monetary value. That means that I do not care how many people come to the site.

I realize that these guidelines are somewhat vague. So a good rule of thumb would be: If in doubt as to whether to post something because it might violate these boundaries, that is a good sign to not post it. I will be the sole judge of whether the boundary has been crossed.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have zero tolerance for people who try to find ways to skirt the guidelines such as, for example, skirting the three comment limit by continuing it on another thread. I also reserve the right to make exceptions to the rules at any time, if I feel it is warranted. These decisions will be solely mine and will be final. There will be no discussion, debate, or appeal. If anyone objects because they think that I am being arbitrary, they are of course free to leave and never return.

The second return of Sherlock Holmes

From a very early age, I was enraptured by the mystery genre, devouring novels mostly by British writers whose style, less noir and more cerebral than their US counterparts, appealed to me. I particularly enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes canon by Arthur Conan Doyle, and read all of the stories at least twice, and have watched many adaptations of the stories for films and television.

One experiences a sense of sadness when the author of stories that you like dies and you know that there will be no new ones coming and I am certain many aficionados of Sherlock Holmes wish that there were more stories to enjoy. When Conan Doyle, tiring of being stuck in this series, killed off his much-loved character in one short story The Final Problem, the resulting outcry pressured him to bring him back three years later in another short story The Adventure of the Empty House, using a highly contrived plot device to explain how he hadn’t really died.

The Holmes canon is so well known and the character so iconic that many authors have written stories based on him as well as other characters that appear in the stories and copying the style of writing, a literary form known as pastiches, a high-brow version of fan fiction. I have resisted reading them, thinking that they would never be able to accurately recreate the atmosphere of the stories and thus would be a disappointment. Then I heard that the Conan Doyle estate had authorized Anthony Horowitz, a well known mystery writer in his own right, to write new Holmes novels. I just read the first one The House of Silk (published in 2011) and it was very satisfying. Horowitz not only portrays Holmes in a way that is consistent with my impressions of him, he also captures well the writing style of Holmes’s biographer Dr. John Watson.
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