Persona

Ages ago I got to watch Persona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_%28film%29) which describes the relationship between two women. An actress (Elisabet) has stopped talking and a nurse (Alma) who is employed to help her. At the time I don’t think I understood or appreciated the film but I have thought about it a lot afterwards and really should make an effort to see it again. I spent far too much time trying to interpret the film as having a twist or being a clever slight of hand. However thinking about it afterwards the film seems to be a fairly simple plot about the nature of people, who we are and how we want to present ourselves.

I’m an incredibly selfish person, I hate this fact and try to hide it whenever I can. I try to pretend to care about people, try to pretend that other people matter to me but in the end they don’t really. Sometimes I think I’m close to being a psychopath in that I don’t seem to care enough about other people or how they are doing. I don’t feel that my emotions are as strong as they should be. However I get the impression that this is not unusual. I think there is a bad habit, that quite a few people have of putting a lot of effort into a relationship (not necessarily romantic) without revealing how much energy they are putting in and then later growing to resent the other person. This strikes me as at attempt to be something you aren’t. The good person, the flexible person, the person who loves their partner, the person who cares. When I look at Persona I can’t help feeling the film is about this, the attempt to be the good person and how deep down we aren’t. While the behaviour is obvious is Elisabet it is more hidden in Alma however she knows that deep down they are the same. Deep down they are both heartless, selfish individuals. I often wonder how many people feel this way, doubt their own ability to feel the emotions that they should. Sometimes I feel the world is full of genuine people and I’m the only fake and then sometimes I think everyone is trying to be something they aren’t.

Update

It has been almost a year since I have updated and my life seems pretty much the same, this is incredibly depressing. I spent most of the last year knitting and I am still doing that, not enjoying it much anymore though. I split up with my partner around August last year and have been single since then.

I have started seeing a therapist because of depression and general low moods. This is quite interesting but I’m not sure it is going to help me. I tend to worry far too much and at the moment we are dealing with social anxiety, which could be helpful. At the same time I’m not sure the root course of the problem is that specific. I seem to have a habit of turning everything into a duty and seeing life as a list of chores. I am not quite sure how to stop doing this. Another problem I have is that I can’t see how to change my life for the better. I think I have most things I want but I can’t see how to make myself feel more emotionally fulfilled. Back as an undergraduate I used to think I would feel happier if I had a partner but I think past experience has taught me that this isn’t the case. I don’t enjoy my job much, and while I think I would feel better doing a job I enjoyed I can’t think of anything I would enjoy. All of this makes me feel fairly hopeless. The worst symptom is not really enjoying anything, I can’t even be bothered with watching things like Doctor Who anymore.

Often when I feel down I have been in the habit of buying tea, I’m not quite sure why this is. I think I somehow associate tea with happiness. A net result of this is that I often end up with far too much tea which I don’t like and have to give it away. I don’t tend to like black tea that much, but I am so convinced that I should I try to find one I like. I am managing to avoid this now though but have moved on to cuddly toys. I hope I don’t acquire too many, they take up more space than tea and are harder to give away.

I’m intrigued by a new advert for Singapore since it doesn’t feature the Merlion. People who haven’t been to Singapore have in general never heard of the Merlion but if you ask around in Singapore then it is the object people associate with their country. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it since Singapore doesn’t have any lions and while there is a legend of one being seen this has very little to do with water. The impression I got was that it was an attempt to provide Singapore with a unique culture after independence. It does however seem very important to Singaporeans to the point you’d expect them to miss its presence in the advert.

What men need

I was recently reading an article in Scarlet Magazine about why men cheat. The conclusion of the article was that men needed

- Compliments and other positive attention from their girlfriend/wife, she needs to be thoughtful and caring

- Cuddles and other forms on non-sexual physical attention

- It is important that their partner is prepared to laugh at themselves (not him) and you do exciting things he wants to do

The problem with the article is that it implied that women didn’t need these things. In fact it explicitly stated men need more positive attention and cuddles than women. It listed the major problem in relationships for men being the woman was unhappy so didn’t give him the positive attention he needed so he cheated. The moral women should stop thinking about themselves and what they need and start thinking about what the guy needs. The difference between men and women seems to be expectations. I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t want most of the above from her partner however most don’t expect it. If she requires her partner to talk to her, be interested in her and give her attention when she wanted it, she would be selfish and needy. He has had a hard day and needs time to do what he wants. Of course it is important to give your partner attention but the theme of the article seems to be women should forget about what they want and think about his needs. This isn’t actually a bad message but no men’s magazine would run something similar encouraging men to pay attention to women. In fact probably the opposite. I have found it made clear to me that men don’t want to pay attention to women and they are an inconvenience that should be obliging and quiet while he does what he wants.

A similar article is here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8016182.stm

While discussing that boys found painting uninspiring they forget to mention that girls do to but girls put up with it, so that is OK! In fact in general people found the art lessons uninspiring. Of course 60/40 is not that an unequal division so it does seem a lot of fuss about very little. However the point is that if boys find something boring and uninspiring it is dreadful however if girls feel that way they should just put up with it.

It seems that men need things but women want things. Men can’t live without these things but women are just being selfish and should learn to repress their selfish desires and concentrate more on other people.

Dr Who Companions

Yesterday I browsing the Wikipedia entry on Dr Who Companions and it mentioned that the press claimed Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) was the first assistant from an ethnic minority to appear on Dr Who. Now I can’t comment on the older assistants as while I do watch old Dr Who I have only seen a limited number of episodes and haven’t met all 33 assistants listed by Wikipedia. However it is interesting when considering what defines a Dr Who companion because it completely neglects Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). Now I know Mickey was hardly treated well by The Doctor but he did travel with the doctor in the Tardis and could potentially be considered a companion. In episodes he certainly has a role as big as other companions and this character in the series develops as he plays a key role. When watching older episodes of Dr Who there were often male companions so I think it isn’t fair to state explicitly that Martha was the first ethnic minority assistant because it does somewhat ignore Mickey’s role.

Now on the subject of assistants I must confess to prefer those who are either not considered human or are from a different time. This makes them more interesting characters, particularly when they are from a time/planet that gives them an advantage that The Doctor doesn’t have. My favourite companion so far has to be Romana II (Lalla Ward) just because she is an intelligent assistant who can rival The Doctor but she has a good relationship with him. I like the fact that she treats The Doctor like her mentor, enjoying pleasing him but not being afraid to argue or correct him when he is wrong. It would be interesting to see them bring her back. However in general I am hopeful that the next assistant won’t be human. I also hope for a well written male companion (a lot of the early male assistants were quite poor in character and usefulness) not necessarily instead of a female companion but along with them. There has often been more than one assistant in the Tardis.

Adverts

I was watching TV with my partner the other day when an advert for Bravissimo came on. For those who don’t know Bravissimo is a company selling bras for those with a larger bust. All the women featured in the advert obviously had large breasts but they also had very small back sizes ranging from 28” – 32” (the bra sizes were displayed on screen). My partner commented that this surprised them as generally bigger people have bigger breasts and slimmer people have smaller breasts. Given their target market was mainly bigger women (and those few women who do have the perfect figure) why were all the women featured slim? While I can understand the importance of representing women who are thinner with bigger breasts, particularly because they are represented in the media far more often so take more offence at lack of representation, it is disproportionate to not have one large women in the advert.  My partner couldn’t understand why the bigger woman with a bigger bust would buy products from a firm who were targeting them but didn’t feature anyone they could physically relate to in their adverts.

I found his point quite strange because larger people in general are very rarely featured on TV. While I agreed that the advert didn’t feature people who represented a large proportion of its target market I can’t recall an advert that portrays larger people in a positive light in order to sell a product, other than for dieting. Even in the case of diet products people thinner than the average size 16 are generally featured. I can see how the advert could be deemed alienating but I would be surprised if a lot of the audience found it that way because they don’t expect an advert to be inclusive to them. After my partner made their point I could certainly see the problem they had with the advert but I still find it hard to believe it could be any other way. I would imagine the majority of the target audience to feel the same way.

This got me thinking on the idea of expecting to be able to relate to the physical characteristics of those you see on television. Is rejecting products that feature an idealised member of your gender in the advert a privilege? I certainly know men who refuse to buy Gillette products because of the ‘perfect’ men featured in the adverts. It strikes me that is women rejected products because they couldn’t relate to the idealised women before them then they would be unable to buy nearly any brand name cosmetics, shampoos, razors, sanitary products etc. There would even be limits on the cleaning products, confectionery, food, household goods and other non gendered items which women could buy. A lot of supermarket own brands would be OK but even some of these would be off limits. I also feel if this happened the women involved would be accused of being unreasonably insecure and jealous and the explanation of why no average woman featured on TV would be ‘nobody wants to look at an ugly women and stop being so pathetic’. I would be surprised if a similar argument was used to justify the lack of average men on TV.

The question is what does this say? I have never really considered Gillette adverts before nor the effect that they have on the male population in general. While I have been surprised and slightly upset by the recent addition of perfume adverts featuring nearly naked idealised men I have to admit not thinking about how this might make the average guy feel. Maybe using attractive men on TV is an ineffective way of selling products in which case it will soon stop. This does certainly suggest men act in a radically different way to idealised images of members of their own sex. It does however lead to the question of why men are put off a product marketed by ‘perfect’ men but women are keen on products marketed by ‘perfect’ women?

Iintriguingly on this note I have recently noticed on local buses an advert for stair lifts which feature a photo of an elderly man and a young, blond, thin, big busted woman in lingerie with a caption along the lines of ‘If only I could get upstairs’. While I see the humour in the advert it does make me wonder what the point of censoring young children from sex education is when they can see something more explicit on the street. I wonder if a similar advert featuring an elderly woman trying to get towards an idealised young man would provoke similar reactions. Personally I find the adapted concept far more chilling and repulsive than the first but maybe others disagree.

No more heroes any more

The other day I got thinking about my person heroes or possibly more accurately people I admire and in whose footsteps I’d like to follow, so below follows a rather bizarre list.

Adam Hart Davis – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Hart-Davis) 

When I was younger, my parents and I would sit and watch Local Heroes and found it both fascinating and fun. Like many young children I always dreamed of working in TV and went from wanting to be an actor when I was very little,  to wanting to be a camera man to finally wanting to be a TV tech guy or broadcasting researcher. While I have mainly abandoned that dream Adam Hart Davis is someone whose footsteps I’d still like to follow in. Presenting a show that educates people on science in an exciting and fun way while also allowing you to learn about scientists outside your field is something that appeals to me. Also while it is rather shallow having a limited amount of public recognition but not to the level of celebrities who are hassled by the media seems quite appealing. Especially if that recognition is related to being a good, interesting scientist. 

Richard Feynamn -(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman)

It is said that physicists are trying to get over their collective crush on Richard Feynman. To do such good research while keeping outside interests and being a charismatic and fascinating person is amazing. The major fault with Richard Feynman as a hero is his involvement with the Manhattan Project. While I know he has expressed some negative emotions surrounding the bomb and talked about the reason for his actions I still can’t respect this. However heroes are often flawed and I still admire Richard Feynman a lot even if i disagree strongly with some of the things he did. 

Randall Munroe – (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Munroe)

Randall Munroe is kind of a casual hero. xkcd is great and I would love to do something similar. I also admire him because his comic shows a much better understanding of computing, maths and physics than I possess so in that way my admiration is similar to that of a class mate who is more knowledgeable. I also agree with the politics of his comics and admire the way he can make his points with humour. However as I only discovered xkcd when I was relatively old he doesn’t hold the same influence as my other heroes. 

A girl from my school days – (in order to not reveal too much information about her or me, she shall remain anonymous although I do remember her name) 

X was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Despite the fact that she was suffering from cancer (she recovered) during her GCSE years she got some of the best marks in the country without having any compensation for the exams. She also had a good personality and was beautiful. From what I have heard she is still doing really well today.

Infinite

I believe I am right in thinking that we call a function computable if it can be solved by a Turing machine with infinite resources. A hyper-computer is a computer which can compute the un-computable so a problem which can’t be solved by a Turing Machine even given infinite time. The most common example of hyper-computation is the halting problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem).

Now at a recent conference I attended a talk on a computer which was a possible way of giving a Turing Machine an infinite run time while the person running the computer only experienced a short finite time using general relativity. There were obviously a lot of difficulties in implementation but as a theoretical scheme it is an interesting concept in computational power. It was argued this could be used to solve the halting problem because if the computer halted it would send a signal to the programmer who would them know the program had halted, after a finite time if the programmer hadn’t received a signal he would know the program hadn’t halted through out its infinite run time. This would provide a solution to the halting problem. Is this logic correct? The computer in question is nothing more than a Turing Machine which has infinite time. Does the clever tricks with time make a lot of difference? Could it solve other un-computable problems?