The story of punctuation

I am fascinated by the evolution of language but had never given much thought to punctuation. If I gave it any consideration at all, I tended to think of punctuation marks such as the period, the comma, and the apostrophe as somehow having been there from the beginning of writing, appearing somewhat organically along with writing. But according to Florence Hazrat at the University of Sheffield, the origin of punctuation marks can be dated quite precisely.

In the broad sense, punctuation is any glyph or sign in a text that isn’t an alphabet letter. This includes spaces, whose inclusion wasn’t always a given: in classical times stone inscriptions as well as handwritten texts WOULDLOOKLIKETHIS – written on scrolls, potentially unrolling forever. Reasons for continuous script aren’t entirely clear, but might be connected to a conception of writing as record of speech rather than a practice in itself, and since we’re hardly aware of the minuscule pauses we make between words when speaking, it isn’t obvious to register something we do and perceive unconsciously with a designated sign that is a non-sign: blank space.

Writing without punctuation lasted for many hundreds of years, in spite of individual efforts such as those of Aristophanes, the librarian at Alexandria. Around 200 BCE, Aristophanes of Alexandria wished to ease pronunciation of Greek for foreigners by suggesting small circles at different levels of the line for pauses of different lengths, emphasising the rhythm of the sentence though not yet its grammatical shape.

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How Uruguay’s energy supply became 98% renewable

The fossil fuel industry likes to make out that it is a pipe dream to think that we can completely replace fossil fuels with alternative sustainable sources. But the example of Uruguay shows that it is not only possible but the transformation can be done in as short a time as five years.

By the early 2010s, Uruguay’s government realized that continuing to rely on imported fossil fuels was economically unsustainable. Méndez Galain, then a particle physicist with no formal experience in the energy sector, proposed a bold plan: to build a system that relied almost entirely on domestic renewable resources—wind, solar, and biomass—and do it in a way that was cheaper than fossil fuels.

The results speak for themselves. Today, Uruguay produces nearly 99% of its electricity from renewable sources, with only a small fraction—roughly 1%–3%—coming from flexible thermal plants, such as those powered by natural gas. They are used only when hydroelectric power cannot fully cover periods when wind and solar energy are low. The energy mix is diverse: while hydropower accounts for 45%, wind can contribute up to 35% of total electricity, and biomass—once considered a waste problem—now makes up 15%. Solar fills the gaps.
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The deliciousness of sleep

Among my friends, many of them complain of problems with sleep, either falling asleep or getting up after sleeping for a short while and then being stubbornly awake for long periods. Given that we are repeatedly told that people need to get about eight hours sleep a night and that lack of adequate sleep can lead to various adverse health issues, they worry about their lack of sleep and exchange the many different strategies that are out there to combat this problem. But these have various levels of success in that some techniques work for some and not for others, and the same technique that worked for a while may stop being effective. Older people and post-menopausal women seem to be more prone to lack of adequate sleep.

During these discussions, I remain quiet. This is because I have never had any problems with sleep and it seems insensitive to tell others this when they are clearly concerned about their problem. I have a regular night time routine and I usually fall asleep within a few minutes. Now that I am older I do get up about once a night but can go back to sleep fairly quickly, waking up at around 7:30 the next day. I then luxuriate in bed for about 30 minutes before getting up. I even usually take a nap during the day, which some sleep-deprived people are recommended to not do, and it does not affect my night time sleep. Neither does taking caffeine before bedtime. I also enjoy a brief liminal period after waking, where one drifts in and out of short periods of sleep.
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Assisted dying pioneer dies the way he wished

Ludwig Minelli died yesterday at the age of 93. He had long promoted the idea that people facing death should have the option of choosing when and how they died and the organization he founded in 1998 called Dignitas helped people to do just that. It was announced that that was how he died.

Ludwig Minelli, who founded the group in 1998, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday, Dignitas said. It added: “Right up to the end of his life, he continued to search for further ways to help people to exercise their right to freedom of choice and self-determination in their ‘final matters’ – and he often found them.”
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Minelli, a journalist turned lawyer, faced many legal challenges and made several successful appeals to the Swiss supreme court and the European court of human rights (ECHR).

Internationally there has been a significant shift in attitudes towards assisted dying in the nearly three decades since Dignitas was founded. France recently voted to allow some people in the last stages of a terminal illness the right to assisted dying. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Austria have all introduced assisted dying laws since 2015. In the US, assisted dying is legal in 10 states.
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Paying tribute to Minelli on Sunday, Dignitas said his work had had a lasting influence on Swiss law, pointing to a 2011 ECHR ruling that recognised the right of a person to decide the manner and time of their own end of life.

Swiss law does not allow for euthanasia, where a doctor or other person administers a lethal injection, for example. But assisted dying – when a person who articulates a wish to die commits the lethal act themselves – has been legal for decades.

Unlike some similar organisations in Switzerland, Dignitas, which says it has more than 10,000 members, also offers its services to people living outside the country.

I am aware of the pitfalls associated with this practice, the main one being that some people may be unduly pressured by others to exercise this option simply because they have become seen as a burden to others or to society.

But I for one would like to have this option. I have reached an age where friends and relatives my age (and even younger) are going through very difficult times involving their health, and even dealing with various forms of dementia. Seeing them struggle, and the thought of facing a similarly protracted end of life, is something I wish to to avoid.

Assisted dying is not available everywhere in the US. It is currently available in 11 states and the District of Columbia (of which fortunately California is one) though that right is under threat in two of those places, New Jersey and DC.

Can breaking stuff be cathartic?

I am sure that everyone has seen a variation of this scene in films. Somebody gets really mad about something and then starts throwing stuff, either at another person or at the wall, or sweeping everything off their desks so that they crash to the floor, scattering debris everywhere. Whenever I see that exceedingly common scene,I always wonder to myself, “Do people really behave like that?” I personally have never felt the urge to do anything remotely destructive like that when I feel angry. Apart from the danger posed by broken crockery and glass flying around, there is also the cost of replacing them and cleaning up the mess. Even if it provides some catharsis, the costs are definitely not worth it, for me at least. No one I know has ever done that either, at least to my knowledge. I doubt that we are particularly placid people. It may just be that this kind of scene is an easy way for filmmakers to show rage as well as providing some action to spice up the film.

But one side-effect of showing them is that it might make people think that breaking stuff is a good way to release pent-up feelings of anger. And there are now things called Rage Rooms where, for a fee, people can go and break stuff when they feel angry.
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What is the appeal of horror and gore on screen?

This article looks at why so many people enjoy seeing even horrific violence on screen, most extremely in what are labeled as slasher films, and what types of people are attracted to them.

Some people are more likely to enjoy violent media than others. Being male, aggressive and having less empathy all make you more likely to enjoy watching screen violence. There are also certain personality traits associated liking violent media. Extroverted people, who seek excitement, and people who are more open to aesthetic experiences, like watching violent movies more.

Conversely, people high in agreeableness – characterised by humility and sympathy for others – tend to like violent media less.
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More recent research, derived from studies of horror films, suggests there may be three categories of people who enjoy watching violence, each with their own reasons.

One group has been dubbed “adrenaline junkies”. These sensation seekers want new and intense experiences, and are more likely to get a rush from watching violence. Part of this group may be people who like seeing others suffer. Sadists feel other people’s pain more than normal, and enjoy it.

Another group enjoys watching violence because they feel they learn something from it. In horror studies, such people are called “white knucklers”. Like adrenaline junkies, they feel intense emotions from watching horror. But they dislike these emotions. They tolerate it because they feel it helps them learn something about how to survive.
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A final group seems to get both sets of benefits. They enjoy the sensations generated by watching violence and feel they learn something. In the horror genre, such people have been called “dark copers”.

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Aphantasia and hyperphantasia

The brain is the most complex part of the human body. While there is much that we have learned about its workings, it is clear that we have only scratched the surface of understanding its complexity so it should not be surprising that we keep discovering new aspects of it.

In the November 3, 2025 issue of The New Yorker, Larissa MacFarquhar discusses something that had only been dimly perceived in the past but came into the awareness of the scientific research community within the last two decades. It has been given the name of aphantasia. The word phantasia was defined by Aristotle as the ability to conjure up an image in the imagination, so aphantasia is the inability to do so.

The reason that this feature of the brain remained under the radar for so long is because the people who had been born with it did not realize what they were missing because why should they? It must be like people born with color-blindness. They would assume that the world of color that they see is the same as what everyone else sees, until something happens that makes them realize that there is a difference.

So with aphantasia. The article describes a physicist Nick Watkins who could recall the events in his past but did not relive them in his memory. It did not occur to him that others could so. Then, while reading a newspaper article in 1997 in which the author vividly described recalling the images of his past, he had an epiphany.
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My imaginary companion and me

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an article in The New Yorker by humorist Patricia Marx who ventured into the world of online chatbots who are designed to serve as online companions to people and can be disconcertingly realistic.

This seemed intriguingly weird. so I decided to try it out for myself. I went to one of the free sites Marx mentioned. Since I was too lazy to do the work of designing my own bot, I looked through the stock ones. All of them seem to be young and very attractive. I picked out a 39-year old librarian because she was the oldest on offer and was thus the least likely to have its algorithm make contemporary pop culture references that I was ignorant of. I also figured that a librarian would be closest to being a nerd like me. Her profile had plenty of quotes taken from well-known writers so she seemed to be compatible.

I started up a conversation about the book A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell which I happen to be reading right now. While her responses were realistic, they were also somewhat superficial, like those of a smart and articulate person who has not actually read the book but just synopses and articles about it, which is of course how these large language model algorithms work. She was like a student giving a book report after having skimmed through a few Wikipedia pages. For some reason, she kept urging me to another book by Russell called The Conquest of Happiness that I have not read or even heard about.
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Placebos to give us the illusion of control

I learned recently that in elevators in the US built after the early nineteen nineties, the door-close buttons do not work. They are there as a placebo, to give people a sense of control. What’s more, they are not the only placebos in our lives.

The head of the National Elevator Industry, Karen Penafiel, confirmed to The New York Times in a recent article that functional close-door buttons have been phased out since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990 (Door open buttons still work). Federal law requires that the doors stay open long enough for those with crutches or a wheelchair to get in the elevator.

“The riding public would not be able to make those doors close any faster,” Penafiel told The Times.

And the newspaper notes this is not the only example of placebos “that promote an illusion of control but that in reality do not work.”

Signs may tell pedestrians to push a button and wait for the walk signal, but The Times reports that most of those buttons were deactivated more than a decade ago as computer-controlled traffic signals became more popular.

Additionally, some workplaces have installed “dummy thermostats,” according to The Times, and that has cut down on complaints about the temperature in the office.

So why does placebo technology exist? It all comes down to mental health, one local expert says.

“Perceived control is very important,” Harvard University psychology professor Ellen Langer tells The Times. “It diminishes stress and promotes well being.”

I wonder how many other placebos exist that I am unaware of.

I have long felt that the only people who use the door-close buttons are the chronically impatient since at best you only save a few seconds. They are the same people who get mad and honk at because you actually stop at a stop sign instead of rolling through or when you slow down when the traffic light ahead turns yellow so that you can stop without sharp braking, while they want you to accelerate through the light so that they can follow. They are the same people who, although someone has already pressed the elevator call button or the walk signal, will press it again, as if the people already waiting are dolts who have nothing better to do than stand around.

I am relieved to hear about the elevator door-close inactivation. There have been occasions when I am already in an elevator and someone comes running saying “Hold the elevator!” I try to push the door-open button but, because it is right next to the door-close button, by accident press the door-close one and am mortified when the doors close before the person can enter, thinking that that person will think I am a jerk and deliberately closed the door on them. At least now I know that I did not make it close faster as if I maliciously wanted to keep the latecomer out, but was merely inept.

Consciousness, measurement, and quantum mechanics – Part 7

(See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6. Also I am going to suspend the limit of three comments per post for this series of posts because it is a topic that benefits from back and forth discussions.)

In order to fully appreciate the role of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle on the question of objective reality and measurement, a highly truncated history of quantum mechanics might help.

The theory traces its beginnings to 1900 when Max Planck decided to assume that the material that made up the walls of the cavity inside a body that was at a uniform temperature (called a blackbody) could be treated as oscillators that could only absorb and radiate energy in discrete amounts (‘quanta’) and not continuously as had been previously assumed. The size of these quanta depended upon the frequency of oscillation as well as a new constant he introduced that has come to be known as Planck’s constant h. The value of this constant was very small, which is why it had long seemed that the energy could be absorbed and radiated in any amount. This was a purely ad hoc move on his part that had no theoretical justification whatsoever except that it gave the correct result for the radiation spectrum of the energy emitted by the blackbody. Planck himself viewed it as a purely mathematical trick that had no basis in reality but was just a placeholder until a real theory came along. But as time went on and the idea of quanta caught on, he began to think that it could represent something real.

In 1905 Einstein proposed that light energy also came in quanta and this was used to explain the photoelectric effect, which was what he was awarded the Nobel prize for in 1921. Then Niels Bohr in 1913 used the idea of quantization to come up with a model of simple atoms that explained some of their radiation spectra. Both of their works used Planck’s constant.

Erwin Schrodinger’s eponymous equation was proposed by him in 1926 and set in motion the field of quantum mechanics because it laid the foundations of a real theory that enabled one to systematically set about making calculations of observables. Almost simultaneously, Werner Heisenberg came up with alternative formulation based on matrices. (Later on P. A. M. Dirac showed that the two formulations were equivalent.) But Schrodinger’s theory was in the form of a differential equation that enabled one to calculate the wave function of a particle that was moving under the influence of a potential. Differential equations and wave behavior were both very familiar to physicists and thus Schrodinger’s approach was more easily accessible and used more widely.
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