jameswharris

Studying Euclid’s Elements in Retirement

by James Wallace Harris, 8/2/26

Euclid is sometimes called the Father of Geometry because of his book The Elements. A literal translation of the word geometry could be “earth measurement.” Even Aristotle knew that the Egyptians and Babylonians used geometry to survey land and construct buildings. Euclid doesn’t use numbers or make measurements in The Elements, and his geometry does not match what is taught in Geometry classes today.

What Euclid teaches is an abstract construction, yet it drives a pylon into reality. What Euclid really teaches is how to think clearly and precisely, something humans seldom do. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln that claims he didn’t become a good lawyer until he mastered the first six books of The Elements. (If you understand the foundation of what Euclid teaches, you will follow that link. If you don’t follow the link, you will after you have studied Euclid.)

The reason I’m studying Euclid’s Elements in retirement is that it’s exercise for my aging brain. Crossword puzzles, Wordle, and Sudoku are decent stretching exercises for my flabby neurons, but The Elements is Nautilus machines. I’m only as far as Proposition 12 in Book 1, which has left my brain in a puddle on the floor.

It’s not that the problems in The Elements are hard; they mostly require persistence. Numbers and measurements aren’t involved. Just logic, reason, a straightedge, compass, and pencil. Even a tiny amount of exercise can make you feel weak and lightheaded if you’re out of shape.

At 74, the challenge is whether I can learn anything new at all. Especially since I can’t seem to retain new words and concepts. I can still recall old stuff, but keeping new stuff is difficult. Maybe studying Euclid will help with that.

Before I retired in 2013, I thought I’d work on a degree in computer science as a hobby once I retired. I’ve taken many computer courses at the undergraduate level while earning an English degree. Since I spent my working life with computers, I always wanted a computer degree to validate myself. However, when I investigated the requirements for a B.S. or M.S. in computer science, I learned that I needed 24 hours of math as a prerequisite.

I only had College Algebra, Calculus I, and Statistics from the 1970s. When I looked at textbooks in those courses, I realized I had forgotten everything. I’d need to start over from scratch. Not only that, but when I tried Khan Academy as a refresher, I learned I had forgotten the fundamentals of math from elementary school. I had to start over in the 2nd grade. I eventually worked my way up to 5th grade in Khan Academy, but my brain ran out of gas. I dropped the idea of going back to college as a retirement hobby.

Twelve years later, my mind is even more mushy. I do Wordle and the Mini Crossword at The New York Times every day. Even though I often have trouble remembering words, I’m pretty good at those puzzles. I gave up on learning math over a dozen years ago. I regret that. I should have stuck it out.

Recently, I read about the history of Euclid’s Elements. Supposedly, it’s only second to The Bible in the number of editions over the last two thousand years. Its main claim to fame is that it teaches more than basic geometry – it pushes its students to think logically.

The geometry in Elements is very basic, not like the geometry they teach in school today. All 13 books of the Elements use the same 5 Postulates and 5 Common Notions. From that foundation, 48 propositions (problems) are set up in Book 1. Each proposition is proved step by step with diagrams based on the 23 definitions. 131 total definitions cover 465 propositions in all 13 books. Most students only do the first 6 books.

For centuries, an educated person in the Western world would study Latin, Greek, and Euclid’s Elements. Before the scientific method, most knowledge was opinion. Euclid’s Elements set up the idea that knowledge should be built on a foundation. A foundation that is consistent across cultures. Every proposition has to be proved with definitions, postulates, and common notions. Look at this video; the visual demonstration will probably say more than I can in words.

The simplicity and limited domain of the Elements appealed to me. I may not be able to pass a university math course, but hopefully, I can work my way through the first book of the Elements.

I started with the free web version, and then bought a 99-cent Kindle edition of The Elements of Euclid for the Use of Schools and Colleges (Illustrated) so I could read on my phone. I also bought Delphi Collected Works of Euclid (Illustrated) because it had a long history of this famous book. It was only $2.99 for the Kindle edition, and I liked the scholarly history of how Euclid wrote the Elements and how people used it over the centuries.

I’ve been able to work through the early Propositions. I even bought a compass to draw them out myself. I’m not sure I’d even call this mathematics. It’s really just logic. The work is tedious, though. With each step, you’re supposed to cite the Definition, Postulate, or Common Notion you used to justify that step. You have to think hard as you follow along.

Here’s my work for Proposition 1. Most books describe the steps in words, and then show the final diagram. I find that confusing.

Proposition 1: To construct an equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line.

Look at how David E. Joyce works the problem at Clark University. It’s very wordy, but it also explains some of Euclid’s faults. But even Euclid’s description is very confusing, at least to me. It’s only clear when you follow the problem logically, step by step.

We start with a line segment with the endpoints being A and B. Ignore point C for now. Many teachers start by drawing line segment AB and immediately put a point C above it. I think that’s wrong.

Draw:

Then draw a circle with A at the center, with AB as the radius.

Then create a circle with B as the center, using AB as the radius.

Now, it’s time for point C. Where the circles intersect, designate points. Remember the definitions. They are abstractions, but we have to always build on them.

Definition 1: A point is that which has no part.

Definition 2: A line is a breadthless length.

Definition 3: The ends of a line are points.

Definition 15: A circle is a plane figure contained by one line such that all the straight lines falling upon it from one point among those lying within the figure equal one another.

Definition 16: And the point is called the center of the circle.

Postulate 3: To describe a circle with any center and radius.

Euclid doesn’t state that when a line crosses another line, the intersection is a point, but we assume it. He should have included it as a definition.

Because the two circles intersect, we have defined two additional points, which we can label C and D; however, D is not needed for this proof.

Now we can draw lines AC and BC.

Definition 20: Of trilateral figures, an equilateral triangle is that which has its three sides equal, an isosceles triangle that which has two of its sides alone equal, and a scalene triangle that which has its three sides unequal.

Postulate 1: To draw a straight line from any point to any point.

Common Notion 1: Things which equal the same thing also equal one another.

Common Notion 4: Things which coincide with one another equal one another.

Because AB is the radius of both circles, and AC and BC are also radii of those same circles, all sides of the triangle are equal.

Thus we have proved:

Proposition 1: To construct an equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line.

In modern geometry, we would have just drawn an equilateral triangle knowing that all three angles equal 60 degrees. And we could have measured the length of each side with a ruler. The point of Euclid is to create geometric objects with basic geometric building blocks. No numbers are involved.

The rest of The Elements involve creating ever-evolving complicated 2D and 3D geometric shapes. Some of which prove other mathematical problems, like Proposition 47. It’s an alternate method of proving the Pythagorean theorem.

But even after watching a video multiple times, it’s still hard to do it myself. Without practicing with drawing lines and circles, it’s hard to see how the proofs really work, even when they are shown to you.

JWH

You Can’t Go Home Again – But Do I Really Want To?

by James Wallace Harris, 7/28/26

What is nostalgia? Most people think of it as a mental perception, an outlook, but what if it’s just another emotion caused by a chemical reaction in the brain? What if it’s like fear or sexual desire, caused by triggers in our environment? When we were still hunters and gatherers, wouldn’t you think that all emotions evolved from traits that supported survival? Fear of tigers and snakes made fear a very good thing. Horniness promoted reproduction.

However, other emotions, like anxiety, sadness, and depression, don’t feel positive, nor would I think they’d promote survival. Have we always had such emotions? Did cavemen sit around the fire complaining they were depressed and didn’t feel like hunting mammoths today? Did they long for old campgrounds or prey they hadn’t seen in a long time?

If nostalgia is an emotion like anxiety, what triggers it? Nostalgia used to be considered an ailment, but today we think of it as an indulgence. Nostalgia has been in the news lately because Gen Z has become nostalgic for the 1990s, and especially for a time before smartphones and social media. Lots of writers and pundits are trying to read the tea leaves of current nostalgia trends.

I have always suffered from nostalgia, even when I was a kid. Nostalgia has always been both painful and euphoric to me. Often specific thoughts and sights trigger it. Does that mean nostalgia is an emotion similar to sexual desire? Then does it have a useful purpose?

Early this morning, my sister sent me a link to Google Maps showing the house her son is buying for her. She said it reminded her of the house we lived in back in the late 1950s, in the Lake Forest subdivision, near Hollywood, Florida. She asked me if I could find the address of our old home. I got on Google Maps and found that house.

That Lake Forest house is a powerful trigger of nostalgia for me. It has haunted my dreams since 1963. It’s the El Dorado of my childhood that I keep searching for in my subconscious.

I never felt nostalgia before I lived there. I’ve never analyzed why before. I have looked it up on Google Maps several times over the years, and it’s always triggered a tremendous rush of nostalgia.

My family first moved to that house in 1958 when I was in the 2nd grade. We’d just moved back to Florida after living in South Carolina for a few months. This might have been the first house my parents owned.

This was an interesting stage in my life. At 7, I evidently was old enough to remember more, so this period is an archaeological strata near the lowest part of my mind. I had memories of places before this, but they are vague and rare.

We only lived at the Lake Forest house for about a year, and then moved to New Jersey and Mississippi for my 3rd grade, and then returned to Lake Forest for my 4th grade. During the 5th grade, we moved to Homestead AFB in 1961, and then returned to Lake Forest in early November, 1963. We moved away from that house the day after John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas. That was 11/23/63, and I was in the 7th grade.

I spent less than 3 years total at the Lake Forest house, probably closer to 2 years. Yet, it’s burned into my memory. From 1963 until sometime in the 1980s, I often dreamed about the Lake Forest house. The dreams were always about desperately trying to find my way home. In the 1980s, I actually got to see the Lake Forest house again with my sister and her husband. That was an intense experience. It felt so tiny that I thought I could walk like a giant up and down the block in five steps.

Those searching for my way home dreams stopped. Visiting Lake Forest cured them. At least until I got into my sixties, when I started having a generalized version of those dreams, which I wrote about as “Can’t Find My Way Home Dreams.”

When I looked up the house on Google Maps this morning, that old intense feeling returned. I get this specific, overwhelming ache whenever I think about the places I used to live. And it depresses me in a unique way when I discover that any house I once lived in has been torn down, such as the one on West Trade Avenue in Coconut Grove.

There have been times in my life when I fantasized about returning to one of my favorite houses, buying it, and retreating there to live like a monk until I died. What’s that about? What would a psychiatrist make of that?

My father was in the Air Force, and we moved many times when I was young. I think I went to 3 first-grade schools, 3 seventh-grade schools, 1 school for 6th, 9th, and 12th, and 2 for the rest. Maybe all that moving around as a kid did a number on my psyche. Why do I want to go back to those places? I don’t mean now, but in time. Is nostalgia about finishing unfinished business?

I’ve known people who are seldom, if ever, nostalgic. My friend Laurie will call me sexist for saying this, but I feel women are less nostalgic than men. I know a lot of men who are nostalgic for the things they owned, wanted to own, in adolescence, or for the people and activities they pursued in their teenage years. Is nostalgia simply a longing for happier times? Just look at the old guys who buy old toys. I’d like a 1967 GTO.

Then how come I’m nostalgic for all the less-than-great times? For example, what was so great about the Lake Forest house? Do I want to be a kid again? Do I miss my little friends Michael Kevin Ralph, and Patty Paqquete?

I don’t know what happened to them.

They say when you die you are reunited with everyone you once knew. That’s probably a trick of the mind during the dying process. If it is, does that mean it’s the most powerful desire we have in life? To meet everyone again?

I have moved around so much that there are hordes of people I once knew. And I have run into a few of them over the years. What’s weird is such reunions are often disappointing. We discover we have so little to say to each other. We really can’t go home again. Then why do we try?

If I could travel back in time to visit earlier versions of me, I’m not sure if we would have much fun together. Is the Jimmy that was blown away by hearing Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” on a clock radio in 1965 anything like the Jim that thrilled to listen to “Like a Rolling Stone” on SACD in 2010? Or the old Jim listening to it now?

I must admit that Spotify is a goddman humongous nostalgia machine. Six feet to my right are bookcases with old science fiction magazines. They aren’t the same magazines I owned as a kid, but they are the same issues.

Sometimes I think nostalgia is feeling loss for parts of ourselves that have disappeared along the way.

What’s funny is I don’t think I’m as nostalgic in my 70s as I was in my 60s. Maybe, after decades of trying to return home, I’ve accepted I can’t.

I know I hate to travel in my old age, but that might be normal. Before I was 40, 18 months was the longest I lived anywhere. Then as I got older, that period began to lengthen. I’ve lived in this house for 20 years, and the previous house for 7 years.

I want to die in this house.

I still get deep emotional pangs when I think about certain houses, especially the Lake Forest house. Do I grieve for past versions of myself? Did Thomas Wolfe write You Can’t Go Home Again because many people feel that way? Maybe I need to reread that novel. It might be more meaningful now that I’m older. When I first read it, it was assigned in college.

It’s rather ironic that I’ve spent so much time reading science fiction, thinking about the future, and now I spend most of my time living in the past by reading old books, listening to old music, and watching old TV shows and old movies. At night, I dream about people I used to know and places where I used to work. And if I have insomnia, I lie awake thinking about the past. But is that nostalgia? I’m not so sure. I’m probably just consuming pop culture that I’m conditioned to enjoy most.

When I was younger, I’d lie awake thinking about the future, making plans. I used to worry about the future, but I don’t worry much about it anymore.

This morning I listened to an article from The Atlantic about how young people are nostalgic for the years before smartphones and social media, even if they never lived in those times. They hunger for a simpler time.

I wonder if my nostalgia for old homes is something like what they are feeling?

During my younger days, I used to love fantasizing about where I’d go if I had a time machine. Would I return to 1958 if I could? Notice the windows on the right in the picture at the top. They’re open. We had no air conditioning back then. The high today is expected to be 100F. I know this makes me a pussy, but I’d never travel further back in time before central air.

And unlike the current generation, I don’t think I’d like to travel to a time before smartphones. My memory is going, and I depend on them to recall words that won’t come to mind. As my mind becomes more crippled, smartphones are proven to be excellent crutches.

Besides, the old music I love sounds better on modern stereos. And the old movies and TV shows look way better on my 65-inch high-definition TV than they did on the old 19″ CRT. And I doubt the two heart procedures I’ve had were available in 1958.

If I’m realistic, I know any wanting-to-go-home-again nostalgia I feel is just chemical processes in my brain I can’t control. It’s about as useful as feeling horny when you’re an old fat bald guy with ED at 74. That’s just damn annoying. I guess when we’re old, we want to return to many places we used to go, and for some, it just takes a long time to realize we can’t.

JWH

Will AI Grifters Push Everyone Back to the Analog World?

by James Wallace Harris, 7/12/26

Rebecca Jennings, writing for the Intelligencer at New York Magazine, tells about how Zuhair Lakhani has created an army of AI tech influencers to promote your online product. This really bums me out. I knew that companies paid people to promote their products through fake reviews, social media testimonials, and endless scams. But the idea of armies of AI-generated agents putting all those desperate humans dreaming of making a quick buck out of work is even more depressing.

Grifters are scummy, but AI grifters are enough to make me go analog.

Using AI to automate the worst of being online is a bridge too far for me. Humans should create AI buyers to pretend to buy from all the AI sellers.

In October, Lakhani announced Doublespeed and claimed it was the only venture-capital-backed bot farm in America when he received an investment from Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z. “Because why let Russia and China have all the fun?” Lakhani asks in his launch video, in which he peels a digital mask off a pretty young woman’s face to reveal his own, sitting in front of a green-lit stack of phones, a cyberpunk set for an explicitly bleak vision. “Never pay a human again,” reads Doublespeed’s website, which advertises the ability to create AI personas on TikTok like a 62-year-old mother in Phoenix or a Gen-Z skater in Atlanta who will then post about your product. The investment was part of a16z’s three-month Speedrun accelerator program, in which young founders with start-up ideas can receive investments up to $1 million from the firm. Peers included “the world’s first AI-powered credit card,” the “world’s largest Netflix-quality AI streaming platform,” and a “Bible-based AI buddy,” which together formed what the tech publication 404 Media called an “AI-generated hell on earth.”

There is so much about the internet I love, but enshitafication is happening faster than I can try to stay cheerful and positive.

I also love watching YouTube, but AI is ruining it, too. I love learning from little documentaries, but it drives me bonkers when supposedly historical “facts” are illustrated with obviously fake photos. I know much of YouTube is created by lone creators, who don’t have the resources of professional documentary makers. But if you don’t have actual photos or videos that match your subject, please don’t generate AI slop. It just makes me cringe.

And I’m so tired of all the natural healthcare testimonials on Facebook and Instagram. If there were easy cures for all those ills, those ills wouldn’t exist.

This is one area where AI is helpful. I’ve found that if you take any claim for a natural remedy and give it to an AI, it will debunk it or explain why the claim has limited positive effects.

The internet is being ruined by greed, hate, delusion, lies, and people trying to validate their personal beliefs by brainwashing others to believe the way they do. It’s all grifting.

AI makes it much too easy for people to become grifters.

Is there any way to fix the internet? I’ve wondered if we should start over with another internet where every user has to be validated with something like a RealID. Leave the old internet in place for people who like to hang out on the dark web and be anonymous, but create another web where every packet has a validated user.

What would the Internet be like if every IP address had a validated user ID attached to it?

For now, I’m just going to start avoiding anything that smells fake, even if it looks fun. If the Internet continues to enshitify, then I’ll go back to the analog world.

JWH

I’ve Got a Noir a Day Habit

by James Wallace Harris, 7/9/26

I went for years not being able to sit through a movie or television show by myself. My mind would just feel restless after ten minutes, and I couldn’t continue. I guess I felt guilty, thinking I should be doing something more productive with my time. But being retired, I have all my time free, so why did it make me feel uneasy about frittering away a bit of it?

Then I discovered my mind would latch onto certain old movies, and I learned to relax and go with the flow. Oddly, these were mostly film noir movies. I’ve never been big on mystery or crime fiction. I just never cared whodunit. Evidently, there are aspects to film noir that calm my restless mind.

Today’s film was Flaxy Martin (1949), starring Virginia Mayo, Zachery Scott, and Dorothy Malone. I was inspired to select this movie because of The Stiletto Gumshoe’s essay, “Meeting Flaxy For The First Time.” I had no memory of seeing Flaxy Martin before, but as I watched, I realized I had.

I instantly picked Flaxy Martin for today’s dose of noir because of this photo. I’m a big fan of Elisha Cook, Jr. He’s most famous for playing the gunsel, Wilmer, in The Maltese Falcon. But Cook shows up in countless old movies and old television shows. He plays a very similar character in both Flaxy Martin and The Maltese Falcon – a bantam rooster with a rod.

I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of Virginia Mayo, but I might need to rethink that. Flaxy is a femme fatale and quite evil, and I love a good evil woman character. My friend Mike and I have been keeping a list of evil women in movies since we saw Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Flaxy is not up to the evil of Ellen Berent Harland, but she’s dangerous enough. I see that Mayo was also in two other 1949 films admire, Colorado Territory and White Heat.

I wish Flaxy Martin had been the main character in Flaxy Martin; unfortunately, she’s not. She’s AWOL for most of the middle of the film. The movie is really about Walter Colby (Zachery Scott), a lawyer for crime boss Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy). Quite a lot happens to Walter in the flick, which is why the story moves so fast.

At the beginning of the film, Walter is in love with Flaxy, not knowing that Flaxy is two-timing him with Hap. Of course, Flaxy plays both ends against the middle, and neither the audience nor Walter nor Hap knows where she stands until the end of the film. For each man, Flaxy acts as a spy on the other, but lets the audience ponder whether she’s a double agent for which one.

Flaxy Martin lacks the style of true noir, so it’s really just a good, fast-action B-movie thriller. There are noirish scenes. The movie would have been hardcore noir if the story had been told entirely from Flaxy’s perspective. We see Flaxy set up Walter, and then for the middle of the film, he goes off and falls for Dorothy Malone. The film moves fast, with several twists, but the subplot with Malone feels tacked on. That middle part does give Elisha Cook, Jr. a lot more to do, and I appreciated that.

It’s just a shame that Flaxy wasn’t the main character. Femme fatales seldom get to be the main character. It would have been great to see Flaxy manipulate all the men all the time, for the entire show.

I don’t think the production code would have allowed this, but I would have loved to see Flaxy manipulate all the men and get away with it.

The weird thing about being retired is having all this time to fill. I’m never bored, but neither am I fulfilled. I’m well occupied by a series of entertaining diversions. Watching a film noir each day is becoming as regular as lunch. I assume I’ll burn out on them one day. I wish I knew why my brain likes them now.

Eddie Muller will convince you to watch Flaxy Martin.

JWH

DARK CITY: THE LOST WORLD OF FILM NOIR by Eddie Muller

by James Wallace Harris, 7/8/26

Anyone who frequents Noir Alley on Saturday nights on TCM should find Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller to be Noir Metropolis. However, a tip about where to place your bet.

I bought the hardback edition because I knew I’d want to linger over the beautiful photos. Noir is very visual. And the book is laid out in landscape to showcase those photos. But when I went to read the book, I discovered that reading a landscape volume was a pain in the ass while sitting in my La-Z-Boy. The tiny type was also a hindrance.

Luckily, the audiobook of Dark City went on sale, and I snagged a copy. Listening to the book is like listening to 12 hours and 19 minutes of Eddie Muller on Noir Alley. Muller is one of the audiobook’s narrators. The book is written in the same style he uses to narrate his introductions on TCM. Muller’s nonfiction prose is like reading Raymond Chandler novels.

I’m glad I got the hardback with pictures, but I wish I had the Kindle edition too, so I could enjoy reading and studying Dark City with my eyes. I have to read Dark City at my desk using a book holder. That’s only comfortable for short periods.

However, I never need to read for long. That’s because when Muller describes a movie, I often jump up to go watch it. I haven’t gotten far in the hardback, but I have with the audiobook. And it might not be a book I can ever finish reading. It makes me want to watch too many noir films.

For example, I read this and immediately wanted to watch it.

After you watch the show, read about the 1947 smallpox outbreak on Wikipedia. While watching the movie, I thought some of the events were too fantastic to believe, but they happened.

Luckily, I found The Killer That Stalked New York (Frightened City) on YouTube right away.

A word of warning. A large percentage of the films Muller mentions are on YouTube. But I’m not sure if everyone can see them for free. I subscribed to the light version of YouTube Premium, which gets rid of commercials, for $8.99 a month. That fee might get me extra movies. Just check. Often, when using the JustWatch app on your phone to see where a movie is playing, it will say it’s not available to stream. Then check YouTube. It often has movies that aren’t streaming anywhere else.

Here’s Muller’s old introduction to the film on Noir Alley.

Muller tends to call every black-and-white movie from the 1940s and 1950s film noir if it involves crime. The Killer That Stalked New York lacks the visual and narrative style of The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity. Nor does it have the gonzo edginess of Gun Crazy or Kiss Me Deadly. It’s just a gripping story.

And that’s my problem with film noir. Hundreds of films get the film noir tag, but is that fair? I’ve looked for all kinds of rubrics to categorize a film as noir, and nothing works consistently.

One thing I have noticed is that some of my friends who claim to hate old movies will watch and praise a classic noir film. I’m wondering if most old films just seem hokey to them, and noirs are old movies with a story they can handle. Maybe crime stories just seem more realistic. And is this related to why every TV show on BritBox seems to be a police procedural? Are crime stories some kind of lingua fraca among moviegoers? Or do tales about criminals just have wide appeal?

If you’re not familiar with film noir, look at this list on Rotten Tomatoes. If you watch a few of them and like them, you might want to get Muller’s book to look for all the forgotten films. I’m addicted to them.

JWH