The mysteries of meat

Lots of articles about pain-free in vitro meat lately. This, we are told, will solve the ethical dilemmas of some fraction of vegetarians and vegans, and fence-sitting guilty carnivores like myself — I cannot answer the moral arguments of Bernard Shaw and Brigid Brophy but enjoy meat too much to give it up.

We are also told that this a solution to an impending food crisis, where enough humans are demanding more protein than the planet can sustain if it were grown on the hoof.

One of my daughters is vegetarian by choice, and I’ve discovered Quorn, a vat-grown moon fungus which comes in a bewildering variety of meat-like textures. All of these are delicious: the nuggets, in particular, are a hit with all three of my kids.

This, for me, blows the “feed the hungry” argument for artificial meat out of the water. We already have plenty of ways to grow protein and make it just as delicious as meat, all of which will certainly be more economical than tube-steaks.

It seems that our consumption of animals answers a different urge than a simple hunger for protein. We want even synthetic flesh  to have its origin in living cells, no matter how token a variety of “living” these strange blobs will have.

Meat is not murder: it is sacrifice, and perhaps the real reason why vegetarians cop so much flack is that they have opted out of a communal ritual with very ancient origins.

Computus 2011

Rough Maths 5

Last year I posted a rough versification of the computus, the algorithm used to calculate the date of Easter Sunday for a given year. Possibly influenced by the date of the post, or an underestimation of how far I’ll take a daft idea, at least one person thought I’d made it all up, when in fact I’d used Augustus De Morgan’s Easter chapter in his Budget of Paradoxes.

The computus is one of the earliest examples in European culture of an algorithm: a step-by-step set of instructions for performing a calculation. It’s a massive hack, by which I mean that it’s an inelegant and hairy solution to a fairly ridiculous problem posed by the untidy arrangements of the Earth, the Sun and the Moon.

Here is the table, with workings in the third column: this spoils the layout, which is clearer in the 2010 version.

In calculating the values for 2011, I found two errors in my first version. Programming is an exercise in humility.

I	Add one to the year you are given.	2011 + 1	= 2012
II	Divide the year by four, rounded down.	2011 / 4	= 502
III	From the centuries, take sixteen (if you can)	20 – 16	= 4
IV	And divide that by four, rounded down.	4 / 4	= 1
V	Add I, II and IV, then take away III,	2011 + 502 + 1 – 4	= 2511
VI	Then take that value modulo seven	2551 mod 7	= 5
	(Divide by seven and keep the remainder)
	Subtracting from seven again:	7 – 5	= 2
VII	The year’s dominical letter.	2	= B
	(We’ll use it as if it’s a number.)
VIII	Take I mod nineteen (if it’s zero, nineteen)	2012 mod 19	= 17
	This is the year’s golden number.
	Now take seventeen from the centuries,	20 – 17	= 3
IX	Over twenty-five (chuck the remainder)	3 / 5	= 0
	Take IX and 15 from the centuries	20 – 0 – 15	= 5
X	Over three (and chuck the remainder)	5 / 3	= 1
	To VIII, add ten times (VIII minus one)	17 + 10 * 16	= 177
XI	Take that sum modulo thirty	177 mod 30	= 27
	Add XI, X and IV and then take away III,	(27 + 1 + 1 – 4)	= 25
	(If it’s large enough, modulo thirty)	25 mod 30	= 25
	If it be twenty-four, make it twenty-five;
	If twenty-five, and if VIII is more than eleven	(17 > 11)
	Make it twenty-six instead;	25	= 26
	If it’s zero, set it to thirty.
XII	The result is the epact; a good Scrabble word,		26
	The age of the moon on New Years’ Day.
	If the epact is less than twenty-four,	(no)
XIII(b)	Subtract it from forty-five (write that down)
	Then subtract the epact from twenty-seven
	Divide that by seven and keep the remainder:
XIV(b)	If it’s zero, change it to seven.
	If the epact is higher than twenty-three,	(26 > 23)
XIII(b)	Subtract it from seventy-five instead	75 – 26	= 49
	Then subtract the epact from fifty-seven,	57 – 26	= 31
	Divide that by seven and keep the remainder:	31 mod 7	= 3
XIV(b)	If it’s zero, change it to seven.		= 3
	Then add XIII to VII (the dominical number).	49 + 2	= 51
	If XIV’s more than VII, add seven more.	(3 > 2) 51 + 7	= 58
XV	And then take away what you got for XIV.	58 – 3	= 55
	If the result is below thirty-two,	(no)
	Easter Sunday’s in March, and that’s the date,
	Otherwise, it’s in April – subtract thirty-one.	55 – 31	= 24 April

PS This one got in the way of the promised next post about division. It’s coming.

Computus

Adapted from Augustus De Morgan’s “Rule for determining Easter Day of the Gregorian Calendar in any year of the new style,” A Budget of Paradoxes I pp366-7. I reckon that the best thing we got out of Easter, culturally speaking, was the ability to use algorithms. For instance, Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Short to his mates) was one of the first Western scholars to use something like the concept of zero in his Easter tables.

I	Add one to the year you are given.	2011
II	Divide the year by four, rounded down.	502
III	From the centuries, take sixteen (if you can)	4
IV	And divide that by four, rounded down.	1
V	Add I, II and IV, then take away III,	2510
VI	Then take that value modulo seven	4
	(Divide by seven and keep the remainder)
VII	Subtract that from seven again:	3
	This is the dominical number.
VIII	Take I mod nineteen (if it’s zero, nineteen)	16
	This is the year’s golden number.
	Now take seventeen from the centuries,	3
IX	Over twenty-five (chuck the remainder)	0
	Take IX and 15 from the centuries	5
X	Over three (and chuck the remainder)	1
	To VIII, add ten times (VIII minus one)	166
XI	Take that sum modulo thirty	16
	Add XI, X and IV and then take away III,	14
	(If it’s large enough, modulo thirty)	14
	If it be twenty-four, make it twenty-five;
	If twenty-five, and if VIII is more than eleven
	Make it twenty-six instead;
	If it’s zero, set it to thirty.
XII	The result is the epact; a good Scrabble word,	14
	The age of the moon on New Years’ Day.
	If the epact is less than twenty-four,
XIII(b)	Subtract it from forty-five (write that down)	31
	Then subtract the epact from twenty-seven
	Divide that by seven and keep the remainder:
XIV(b)	If it’s zero, change it to seven.	6
	If the epact is higher than twenty-three,
XIII(b)	Subtract it from seventy-five instead
	Then subtract the epact from fifty-seven,
	Divide that by seven and keep the remainder:
XIV(b)	If it’s zero, change it to seven.
	Then add XIII to VII (the dominical number).	34
	If XIV’s more than VII, add seven more.	41
XV	And then take away what you got for XIV.	35
	If the result is below thirty-two,
	Easter Sunday’s in March, and that’s the date,
	Otherwise, it’s in April – subtract thirty-one.	4

The Mysteries: Genesis

Sydney Theatre Company, written by Lally Katz and Hilary Bell, directed by Matthew Lutton, Andrew Upton and Tom Wright, starring the Residents (not the guys with the eyeballs, the Residents)

The idea of a three-hour production of Biblical stories staged in “promenade” style – not much seating, the performance mingling with the performers for one section – brought back memories of happy-clappy 70s churchgoing, but this was a really good piece of theatre, which had me thinking of Russell Hoban and William Blake. Lally Katz’ Apocalypse Bear Trilogy was the original reason for our trip to Melbourne, but this was better. And I don’t think anyone is writing characters in fursuits the way Lally Katz is right now.

A couple of seconds after I took this photo, these guys met another bunch of furries in Federation Square. It would seem that furry culture is indeed going mainstream.

Other things to note: Andrew Upton is kind of tall, or at any rate too tall for me to see around him to find out what Cain and Abel are up to. The “begat”s part of Genesis can be interesting, by having it recited by attractive young people in their undies standing in amongst the audience. Which may be cheating. And actors with tattoos who take on nude roles are a bit like actors who insist on wearing the exact same hat for every role.

Pop philosophy

“Oh what a pearl, what a well-made world.”

“If you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”

“Nothing is lost, everything’s free / I don’t care how impossible it seems.”

“Don’t go to the volcano!”

Market fundamentals

There was this American on Radio National yesterday morning who was basically screaming about how bad the bailout would have been. He sounded like he was going to pop a blood vessel and poor Fran Kelly didn’t quite know what to make of it: you can tell she doesn’t read many economics blogs. And good for her, because I’ve realised that with roughly 90% of them you can perform the following substitutions and it just turns into a standard-issue hellfire sermon:

Divine Providence	Invisible Hand
Grace	Wealth
Sin	State intervention
Paradise	19th Century
Satan	FDR
The Fall	Great Depression and New Deal
Moses	Von Mises

WYDney Bingo

Special WYD wannabee-Catholic edition part 4

Irish priest	Tiny nuns	Grumbling Sydneysider
Dags with flags	Happy-clappy singing	Ponchos
Discalced monk	Egregious Pellism	Bad beard

James Blish

Special WYD wannabee-Catholic edition: science fiction writers who should be in the canon ahead of Philip K Dick, part 5

Either Thomas M Disch or R A Lafferty could also have been in this week’s science fiction post with equal justification; maybe even John Sladek, too, thinking of the ludicrous Oulipian treatment he gives the Nicene Creed in The Müller-Fokker Effect. But I’ve already done them.

Blish is more sober about his incorporation of Catholicism into science fiction than the other three writers. Where Disch and Sladek are anti-clerical satirists, and Lafferty is a sincere believer, expressing himself using the Chestertonian techniques of fable, allegory and paradox, Blish is a more neutral observer who is fascinated by the ways in which science and religion interact. In A Case of Conscience, he sends a Jesuit biologist on a first-contact mission to an alien planet, and treats his characters’ beliefs with a kind of politely distanced respect.

The linked novels Black Easter, or Faust Aleph-Null and The Day After Judgement are not quite as calm: brief exercises in midnight-black comedy which mix medieval demonology, Cold War nuclear paranoia and Menippean satire, and manage to get in some pretty good philosophy-of-science jokes along the way. A good illustration of the novels’ tone: a group of Dr Strangelove-style Strategic Air Command scientists argue about the implications of the spectrographic readings they are getting of the red-hot iron walls of the city of Dis, which has broken through the Earth’s crust in Death Valley, California.

Together with the historical novel Doctor Mirabilis, a biography the 13th-century Franciscan philosopher Roger Bacon, all these books form the After Such Knowledge trilogy.

Blish is probably more well-known for his Cities In Flight books, which I haven’t read.

Hey! Luciani

Special WYD wannabee-Catholic edition, part II

Found floating in the Googlewake stirred up when I was trying to search for the best papal pop song ever on YouTube, a transcript of Mark E Smith’s 1986 play:

Hey! Luciani

WYD Reading List

Special WYD wannabee-Catholic edition, part I

Patrick White claimed that all Protestant Australians wish that they’d been raised Catholic; in this, the attentive scholar will recognise the great man’s characteristic blend of overstatement and getting one back at his aunts. In honour of World Youth Day, here’s a list of recommended reading for those of us who – for whatever reason, whether it be tribal politics, family history, a taste for intellectual rigour, or simply the conviction that nothing could have been more dull than Methodist Sunday School – maintain a sentimental fondness for Catholicism, as well as the sneaking suspicion that it’s all very well for us: we didn’t have to grow up with it.

James Blish, the After Such Knowledge trilogy

G K Chesterton, The Man who Was Thursday and the Father Brown stories

Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

J-K Huysmans, The Cathedral

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

R. A. Lafferty, Arrive at Easterwine

John O’Brien, ‘Said Hanrahan’

Flannery O’Connor, Everything that Rises Must Converge

John Kennedy O’Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

Ruth Park, The Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange

François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

D. B. Wyndham-Lewis, François Villon – A Documented Survey