Let there be light!

[joebachman]

police departments need to bring in external reviewers to examine all of their institutional practices including hiring, promotions, and training. The long‐running racial discrepancies in the way that police officers apply force to suspects have significantly eroded trust between law enforcement and the public whom they serve

[DJA]

Bit like the twin brothers at the unsigned fork in the road.
One told the truth all the time,the other lied all the time.
A traveler needed to ask both of them the same question,in order to take the correct road.

[David Orsam]

Hi David,
I am talking about your way of simplifying two socially constructed concepts, "truth" and "lie".

Oh I love how it is MY way of simplifying those concepts.

Yes Pierre, because they are "socially constructed" and don't really exist. Nothing is true and nothing is false.

So I tried to make them simple, so simple that children could understand them, but perhaps they are too complicated for you and you would prefer to ponder on pointless paradoxes.

[Pierre]

I don't have anything to say Pierre because, as usual, I don't know what you are talking about.

Hi David,

I am talking about your way of simplifying two socially constructed concepts, "truth" and "lie".

That is why I say "I am lying now" and ask you what you think about it.

You find more about that question here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox

As you might understand, the concepts are complex. Therefore you can not use them on historical sources without problems.

Regards, Pierre

[Aldebaran]

I'll message you privately, as there is nothing related to JTR as yet.

[Caligo Umbrator]

Caligo, you are a fascinating writer. Do you have a book?

Hi, Aldebaran.

Thank you.

I do not have a book published, currently.
I am, however, engaged with two manuscripts, one of which is JTR related. The timetable initially set for this was late August and early September, though due to some misfortune that the publishers have encountered, it would appear that the more likely date will now be sometime next summer.

The delay affords me the opportunity to follow up on some research and so isn't entirely unuseful.

Do you have any published work, may I enquire?

[Aldebaran]

Caligo, you are a fascinating writer. Do you have a book?

[JadenCollins]

David, it is most likely you are correct - but considering the idiocies of the past, he may really believe they had tape recorders. It may be he also believes people watched it on the television (BBC, of course) that November.
If so, we have a real problem.

I think he got the idea of tape recorders from the tv show "Penny Dreadful". A late 19th, begin 20th century story; where one of the shrinks used some tape recorder device to record the conversation with her patient.

[Mayerling]

I thought he was doing sarcasm Jeff but, knowing he's not very good at it, I ignored him. His post certainly didn't make any sense.

David, it is most likely you are correct - but considering the idiocies of the past, he may really believe they had tape recorders. It may be he also believes people watched it on the television (BBC, of course) that November.
If so, we have a real problem.

[David Orsam]

So what do you have in mind Pierre?

I thought he was doing sarcasm Jeff but, knowing he's not very good at it, I ignored him. His post certainly didn't make any sense.

[Mayerling]

The press also had tape recorders. And everyone in those days was totally honest and trained in using tape recorders so they were able to obtain recordings which were 100 percent reliable.

Excuse me, in November 1888 the London press corps. had WHAT!!!

Where did you get the idea the tape recorder was invented in the 1880s?

I saw that comment and was bewildered - what had I missed all these years. I am aware that (in the U.S.) Edison had presented his phonograph in 1877, with it's original tin foil "records" (which did not last more than a few times they were heard). In 1888 Edison spent nearly 72 hours without sleep "perfecting" his now advanced wax cylinder phonograph, and there is a classic photograph of the blood shot eyed Edison looking at the camera over the improved recording device - but a phonograph is not a tape recorder!

So what do you have in mind Pierre?


As a result of your thoroughly confusing statement I checked "Wikipedia" under "Dictaphone". Normally I assumed that the prudent and clever Mr. Edison had patented a version of his phonograph as a dictaphone. It turned out I was wrong.

In 1881 Alexander Graham Bell created a laboratory called the Volta Laboratory in Washington D.C. Here he worked with several people, most notably Charles Sumner Tainter, whos improved on Edison's Phonograph. They created the Volta Graphophone Company. This later merged with the American Graphaphone Company. Eventually the trail of mergers leads to the present Columbia Records.

In 1907 Columbia Graphophone Co., trademarked the word "Dictaphone" which still used wax cylinders. "Dictaphone" became a seperate corporation in 1923. Wax cylinder dicataphones were used until 1947 (note the year - just after World War II, when computers began being used by organizations like I.B.M.). That year they started using a belt made from Lexum Plastic which enabled the words spoken into the dictaphone to become a permanent recording of the message. The result result was that now law courts could allow the use of dictaphones with the Lexum Plastic belt in as evidence in cases. It was not until 1953 that I.B.M. introduced "magnetic tape" and thus created the "tape recorder"!

Now, please tell me which divinely inspired press corps member or members in November 1888 recorded anything on tape recorders regarding the inquest over Mary Kelly?

Jeff

[David Orsam]

Hey, David. I am lying now. What do you say about that?

I don't have anything to say Pierre because, as usual, I don't know what you are talking about.

[David Orsam]

So now you are doing some internal source criticism.

No, I'm not. I'm simply stating the bleedin' obvious.

[David Orsam]

It might have been the right thing for her to say.

So I say:

"If Prater swore in the witness box that a cry of murder was a common occurrence when it was not a common occurrence she was telling a lie."

And you respond:

"It might have been the right thing for her to say."

Perhaps you could explain to me how telling a lie under oath in the witness box could have been "the right thing" for her to say.

[David Orsam]

Irrelevant statement. But I donīt think children do, and therefore must be taught. Even Plato did not know what "truth" was. But you think you do. And also, you think you know the difference between truth and lies.

I didn't say children innately know the difference between truth and lies. Yes they are taught and I assume you have been taught too.

Anyone who says to me "Even Plato did not know what truth was" in a discussion about the difference between truth and lies, I would regard as a tricky person who I would not trust as far as I could throw him.