Procrastination man - Part 2

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Monday 26 January 2009

There goes my work...

After spending a lot on zavvi's clearout sale, I ventured into Game, and stumbled upon a 3 for £10 offer which featured the awesome game Lemmings Revolutions. Which is basically Lemmings in 3D. Now, Lemmings is not the kind of game that would work asa First Person Game, and the designers have been clever enough to avoid that. Instead, the map is in fact a cylinder along which lemmings have to walk, bash, dig, climb, build, explode etc., so as to reach a hot-air balloon (a TARDIS?), which replaces the cute little gates from the original. The following video is from a medium level and may spoil the solution to you.

As you could see, they have kept the nice little sounds that made the original successful.
The novelty does not stop with the 3D effects. There is a second race of lemmings, white lemmings, which can walk on water (when the others can't). It allows for more intricate gameplay, just like the cylinder idea did. Lemmings Revolutions is one worthy sequel to the franchise, much better than any of the Christmas editions, and probably better in its evolution than Lemmings 2 was (though I must admit the worlds idea wasn't too bad).
It is most certainly very addictive!

Friday 16 January 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle's latest film, Slumdog Millionaire, is a masterpiece on all fronts. It tells the story of Jalal, a working-class kid from the slums who's had to fend for himself, getting all the answers right on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The film opens with the question: has he cheated, is he lucky, is he a genius, or is it written?

The truth is, he knew all the answers because he had lived them. The famous quiz show becomes, for most of the film, little more than a pretext to tell a story. The story is an unconventional love story between Jalal and Latika (Freida Pinto, described by Empire as "easily the most beautiful thing you will see on a screen in 2009"). A third character, Jalal's brother, adds to the dynamic of the duo, and to the depth of the film by adding another big theme.
As Jalal grows through the tragedies of his life, he may well become older and more mature, but he never loses his joie de vivre. This is probably why the film has been dubbed "a feel-good" film by bus advertising. And, quite thankfully, the (awesome) score follows this. Yet it encompasses much more than that, and is ultimately a Ken Loach film without gravitas.
It is tempting to say that the strength of the film resides in the acting, given just how perfectly pitched it is, especially by the young versions of the main three characters and by the old Jalal (Skins' Dev Patel); however, there is nothing wrong with the film - everything, from the story, to the acting, directing, photography and music is just perfect. Even the last scene, which could feel simply tacked on to make ''Slumdog Millionaire" into a Bollywood film, feels surprisingly good, and is perfect to finish the film.
So, as soon as you get the chance, go and watch this. It is purely awesome! No wonder Empire gives it 5 stars and considers it to be "Danny Boyle's finest since Trainspotting".

Sunday 11 January 2009

Thought before language?

Recently, I came across this quote, which brought back the famous debate of whether thought appears before language, or the latter is prerequisite for the former. Education implications are immense, and the question is at the centre of the Vygotsky-Piaget debate. Here is the quote:

Natural logic says that talking is merely an incidental process concerned strictly with communication, not with formulation of ideas. Talking... is supposed only to 'express' what is essentially already formulated... Formulation is an independent process, called thought or thinking and is supposed to be largely indifferent to the nature of particular languages. Languages have grammars which are assumed to be merely norms of conventional and social correctness, but the use of language is supposed to be guided... by correct, rational or intelligent thinking.

Cole and Scribner, quoted as 1940a, 207-208 (reference not found) in Hasan, Ways of saying: ways of meaning, Cassell (London), 1996, p. 19

The arguments are there - language requires thought, be it only because of its grammatical-rational conventions. Logic is natural and shared by everyone, language may inform the way to express logical thought.
However, I ask the reader: how many times have you found that you understood something more clearly after trying to explain it to someone else, or putting it down to paper? Language not only informs the way we express our thinking, it informs our very thinking. As a consequence, Cole and Scribner's first argument is a fallacy. Secondly, though I am no expert on language development, I believe it does not come entirely formed with grammatical structure. Piaget's development stages give a very strong case for a pre-language thought; however, I hold the child's perception of objects and shapes as a language, even though it is not an oral language: there are syntagms and, slowly, a grammar builds up with adjectives (such as colour, or other similarities between syntagms). Verbs come when action comes into play, and only then can any logic develop. An article in Brunner's Making Sense explains how children can start reasoning from the moment they realise their own influence on their environments, and thus a causal system.
That language was entirely embodied before words were formed does not make it less of a language. And it does come before thought.