tekHedd – the blog

Mom recently sent me this poem, and asked for a reaction… hmm…

EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE by William Herbert Carruth (1859-1924)

A fire-mist and a planet,
   A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
   And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
   And a face turned from the clod--
Some call it Evolution,
   And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,
   The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe rich tint of the cornfields,
   And the wild geese sailing high--
And all over upland and lowland
   The charm of the golden rod--
Some of us call it Autumn
   And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
   When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
   Come welling and surging in--
Come from the mystic ocean,
    Whose rim no foot has trod--
Some of us call it Longing,
   And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,
   A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
   And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
   The straight, hard pathway plod--
Some call it Consecration,
   And others call it God.

Well, it’s quite beautiful poetry of course.

It also beautifully illustrates how casually and easily (or sometimes intentionally and with great difficulty) we oversimplify and dismiss the complex, beautiful, difficult, or incomprehensible by “calling it God.” You practice every day for a lifetime, hear every sound in your world in the context of music, hear music in your head when there is no sound. By stretching to the very limits of your ability, you give a performance that you think might actually be reasonably adequate, and you are told how wonderful it is that God gave you the talent to do that. Some call it working their butts off, others call it failing to give credit where credit is due.

But what is the author really saying here? The great variety of the animal kingdom, the incomprehensible majesty of autumn and the unstoppable nature of the tides, and humans struggling with determination to survive in difficult circumstances. The problem of evil, the mysteries of nature, anything we don’t understand is “God.”

People seem unable to accept that many things are wonderful and awesome and beyond their comprehension. So much more comfortable to know that “I understand…that God (my personal friend!) is responsible for this wonderful thing!” This makes it accessible, and no wonder; if an all powerful being made these things, then they are no longer particularly wonderful or indeed surprising. He’s all-powerful, right? Surely an all powerful being could have done *anything*, no problem. To the contrary, this knowledge raises the question “is this really the best you can do?” Surely, if a B was the best you could do, than a B would be an excellent grade, but…

This logic applies just as well to the negative. If you’re going hungry, belief that there is a good reason for this makes it easier to bear. But that does not make the belief into truth, and of course calls into question the benevolence of God.

Bathing in an infinity of information, we are all infinitely ignorant. When life makes you aware of this fact, it is overwhelming and, honestly, embarrassing. We’re not supposed to be ignorant, we’re the humans. We’re the smart ones, masters of creation! Tempting, then, to hide from our ignorance. Know that “God is responsible” and you know everything. But you don’t, really, do you?

In the end, what really bothers me about this poem is that it equates “God” with “what really happened that you don’t comprehend.” It says that the question of where credit is due is just world view.

Of course, I disagree. If I take something that belongs to you and claim that it is now mine, this is not a change in world view: I am stealing. If I say that precipitation is caused by water vapor condensing in the upper atmosphere but you say that “the gods are spitting on us”, this is not a difference of world view. You are not describing how rain occurs “in your own words.” You are saying “God did it” because that is easier than understanding what is real.

Religious fundamentalists understand this, but from the other side. They want God to get the credit for everything: evolution, the work I did today, the very fact that I exist. This is not “another way of saying” that they agree with me. They do not. And I do not agree with them.

God is now what God has always been: the unknown. If we don’t understand it, God is always the answer. The current conflict over evolution stems from one simple problem: evolution is not easy to understand without a background in statistics and some fairly heavy reading.

I just bought a replacement Nintendo DS (used) to replace the one I lost, which I bought to replace the one that stopped charging batteries. There are two reasons that DS are invaluable: battery life, and Sim City.

Nintendo is making a bit step backwards with the 3DS, in that the battery life is now really short by DS standards: 3-5 hours. The old DS Lite DSi derivatives can do well over 10 hours–enough to game continuously during an international plane flight and have battery left over for the next day. Unless a must-have 3DS game appears (which seems very unlikely) I don’t see why anybody would have one.

And Sim City isn’t 3D, so who cares? This game is the reason I “need” a DS. When nothing else is going on, this game lives in my DS. Sim City isn’t a game, it’s a hobby.

Just like the ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, this project ends with an anticlimax. Because nothing went terribly wrong, it is not that exciting to watch. For example, here is the front of the bass after. You can barely tell that there is a stacked treble/bass control. Otherwise, no visible change.

OLP -- after surgery

I didn’t have to remove any wood from the front, just install the TBC control and do some light soldering. The output jack was a tight fit.

The change to the back is just about as exciting:

OLP Back

Yes, it is a bit blurry, but there is so little to see here that I can’t justify breaking out the camera to update it!

It sounds good though. I wired the second volume knob as a cut for the south pole piece on the pickup, or in other words as a simple coil tap control. The pickup sounds great single coil, but does pick up hum. I think it needs a Nordstrand pickup, so I can run single coil without buzz, and some conductive paint. But, it is quite playable as it is right now.

One minor complaint is that I wish EMG’s TBC control had even more boost in the bass and cut in the treble, but it’s just about enough, so I can live with it. A less minor complaint is that the knobs barely clear the nut underneath, so it is very difficult to get them to stay on without rubbing. I eventually gave up, and am currently putting up with a bit of scraping. I don’t know what replacement knobs will fit, so this could be interesting.

Tune in next week, when I convert a vintage Les Paul into a lovely set of bookends!