Features

The Way to Paradise

Mario Vargas Llosa

Translated by Natasha Wimmer

London: Faber and Faber, 2003

Pp. 424

In this riveting historical novel, Peruvian writer Maria Vargas Llosa, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, reimagines the physical and ideological journeys of Paul Gauguin and his grandmother, Flora Tristan. Separated by half a century and a fragmented family history, the two never met, but they shared a common dream of creating heaven on Earth.

Neither succeeded in founding their utopia, but the daring and energy with which they pursued their respective quests made Gauguin a ground-breaking artist, while Tristan gained recognition for her radical feminist writings and exposure of the horrendous conditions of Europe’s working class. Judging from the book title, Llosa finds the magic in the quest, not the destination.

Both Gauguin and Tristan revolted against the bourgeois society into which they were born, but for different reasons. Gauguin declared war on (Western) civilisation, convinced that it precluded the development of art. As he told the young artists who gathered around him in Brittany where he first sought an unspoiled society, “To truly paint we must shake off our civilised selves and call forth the savage inside.” (p. 23)

Brittany was not far enough away from Paris, and soon he began to plan his journey to Tahiti in the South Pacific. 

For her part, Tristan began by rebelling against women’s oppression and broadened her scope to fight against the exploitation of the entire working class. Her travels were for the purpose of founding a Workers Union that would spread from France across Europe and then the world, to spark a peaceful revolution that would end in a harmonious, just society where all workers were guaranteed good housing, healthcare and education. 

Both were plagued by lack of funds, as well as health problems — his caused by “the unspeakable illness”, presumably syphilis, caused, some would say, by his own indiscretions. Flora’s bad health, on the other hand, stemmed from injuries inflicted by her husband from whom she was unable to get divorced under the prevailing, male-biased, legal system. This abusive marriage was the original cause of her radicalisation.

Both Paul and Flora were essentially loners, following their inner voice and logic, unafraid to be different, and sometimes hounded by the police — she as a subversive and he for his often scandalous behaviour. Both met many obstacles and disappointments. Gauguin found that the Maori of Tahiti had already forsaken many of their traditional customs under the pressure of missionaries and colonialism, while Flora saw that many workers had been cowed by their exploiters and the church into accepting their miserable lives. Finally, both, like the author, were true cosmopolitans, capable of playing many roles and moving between different social circles and countries.

In telling the parallel tales of Gauguin and Tristan, Llosa ushers the reader into a variety of fascinating milieu from Tahiti’s lush tropical forests and Peru’s oligarchy, to the slums of London, Paris and a string of French cities at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Much of the book’s charm lies in the singular personalities of Gauguin and his grandmother, but the reader meets many other real and imagined figures, from the European socialists who facilitate Tristan’s campaigning to Gauguin’s troubled relationship with “the mad Dutchman” (an obvious reference to Vincent Van Gogh). Most fascinating is how the author traces the personal development of the two — how Gauguin became an artist in the first place, what inspired his greatest masterpieces, and how Tristan’s radical thinking evolved. Their respective trajectories pose many questions: What is art? What is revolution? Are they possible? How are they made?

Besides rich descriptions of land- and cityscapes, and the often idiosyncratic people who inhabit them, Llosa employs several literary devices to entangle the reader in his tale. Much of the novel unfolds as flashbacks. Llosa thrusts us into a scene, dropping references which are only half understood and then returns to the past to explain how Paul and Flora got where they are. To explore their inner lives, he pops up from time to time to question them directly about their fears and shortcomings. Or is it their own inner voices expressing self-doubt? One is not really sure. Much is deliberately left ambiguous.

With a keen eye for the paradoxes of life and tongue-in-cheek humour, Llosa exposes human frailty and the difficulties of making change for the better. He has an uncanny ability to mock his characters and elicit sympathy for them at the same time. Most of all, he tells an incredibly good story, much of which is true, at least in essence.

From roller coasters to cruises to destinations, virtual reality is exploding as a way to market travel.

You can parasail and paddle-board using virtual reality content produced by Florida’s Visit St. Pete/Clearwater Tourism Board. You can land a jet on Hamilton Island in Queensland, Australia, then go swimming with tropical fish in the Great Barrier Reef. You can watch the opening song “Circle of Life”, recorded at a live Broadway performance of “The Lion King”, and peer around the theatre at everything from the aisles and audience, to the performers and props, to the conductor and backstage. And even if you can’t afford Dubai’s luxury Burj Al Arab Jumeirah Hotel, you can take a 3-D online tour of a royal suite, lobby, helipad, bar, spa, restaurants, marble staircase with cheetah-print carpet and rotating canopy bed.

“VR is taking the world by storm, similar to what mobile did seven years ago,” said Abi Mandelbaum, CEO of YouVisit, which has created over 300 VR experiences for destinations, from Vatican City to Mexico’s Grand Velas Riviera Maya. “Virtual reality is the most realistic experience you can have of a place without being there. It’s powerful. It gets people excited and engaged and interested in having that experience in real life.”

Virtual reality offers immersive, 3-D experiences via videos and images with 360-degree perspectives, using a $100 headset from Samsung or a virtually free cardboard contraption designed by Google. You need your own smartphone, and the $100 headset works only with certain Samsung models. You can also watch VR videos online with a 360-degree view, though they’re not as immersive as using a headset because you’re not shutting out your surroundings.

Whichever your method, by moving the device or cursor in different directions, you can see the sky, the floor, down a hallway or around a corner. Mandelbaum said the average user spends 10 minutes on a VR experience, “an eternity” in the digital world.

Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, created a VR experience to introduce a new ride, Lightning Rod, billed as the “world’s fastest wooden coaster.”

“You can take your phone and spin it up and down, look behind you, to the left or right, to get an idea of what this ride is like,” said Dollywood spokesman Wes Ramey, comparing the VR experience to looking at photos or reviews before booking a trip. “The ride will not open until March, but this builds buzz around it. It gives people an opportunity to ride it virtually before it’s completed.”

Mall of America in Minnesota is launching its first VR videos this month, showing its onsite aquarium, Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park, Santa exhibit, a shopping wing and a choral performance. Carnival Corp.’s new Fathom brand, which plans voluntourism cruises to the Dominican Republic and Cuba, is working on VR content that shows participants in onshore activities like planting seedlings in a reforestation programme, reciting English with schoolchildren, dancing to Latin music and sharing a meal with locals.

Because so few consumers own viewing devices, some VR producers set up at trade shows, shopping malls, pop-up stores and even on the street where they can provide the headsets. The Miami-based Newlink public relations firm created a VR experience for the Dominican Republic that can be seen on YouTube in a simple 360-degree version, but the company also showed it at trade shows, supplying VR headsets so viewers could get the full effect. As a marketing technique, said Newlink spokeswoman Lourdes Perez, “it is the next big thing”.

Is there a risk that viewers will be so satisfied by the VR experience that they won’t need to see the real thing? Visitors to Seattle’s Space Needle observatory sometimes focus less on real views of the city out the windows because they’re so mesmerised by virtual views on the observatory’s walls, screens and videos.

Because you are happily browsing the Web, jumping from page to page, from video to video, you may have the impression that it’s a free ride. It is not.

After all, the Web and its digital contents are not much different from commercial hard copy printed magazines and newspapers. They all rely on advertising or sales of some kind to make a profit and be viable. We may be excused if sometimes we miss this point. It’s because ads on the Web are insidious — well, more or less. In many cases it’s not about direct advertising as much as it is about paying for subscriptions.

First of all there’s your Internet subscription of course. Whether it’s prepaid or billed; whether it’s 3G or 4G, ADSL or dedicated and leased lines, you are paying for it one way or another.

Then there are these countless “little” subscriptions here and there: news channels, music streaming, pro e-mail and domain name, software apps, etc. Whereas most basic formulas are free, you often have to pay to get the higher, supposedly better version. What may be deceiving is the fact that each subscription is usually a few dinars, often less than ten or even five.

Deezer streaming music service costs less than JD4 per month. LeFigaro French online newspaper is JD9 per month and Dropbox Cloud storage is JD7 per month (for a massive 1TB). Owning a domain name, such as myname.com for instance, on the Internet is about JD15 only for a whole year.

It’s when it all adds up that it starts hurting; understandably.

To entice the consumer many services start for free or offer a free-trial period, only to shift to a paid service afterwards. The same goes with the little software applications you download. You are first happy to have downloaded and installed a perfectly working free product. It then starts nagging you by displaying pop up messages that offer an “improved and professional” version for very little money.

And then of course you have these ubiquitous ads everywhere. You may not be paying for them directly, but this is business somehow, one way or another. We have to get used to and accept the fact that the space on the Web, however virtual it may be, is like the physical space on paper, on the screen at the movies or on TV, on a billboard on the street, or on the walls of a building: it will be used for commercials; there’s no escape.

You can find ad blocking software on the Web and that you can install, so that your Internet browser does not allow ads to bother you and spoil your viewing pleasure. It is fine, except for the fact that many sites just won’t open at all if they detect that their ads are being blocked. Back to square one!

The Web is not free and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Overall, it is money well spent. It’s a service and services usually don’t come free. After all no one said it was a government sponsored or subsidised service.

PARIS — The city of Paris has decided to collect and archive the notes, poems and drawings left by passers-by on informal memorials at the sites of the November 13 attacks, to keep the memory intact of the moving and spontaneous show of solidarity and compassion towards the victims.

The decision was made the week following the attacks that left 130 people dead, the director of the Archives of Paris, Guillaume Nahon, said Tuesday.

City teams this month have been carefully gathering the pieces of paper damaged by rain. They have also removed faded flowers and consumed candles and have taken photos of the changing memorials.

“We’re trying to combine two objectives: to maintain these memorials during the time of grief and at the same time, to save the tribute notes,” Nahon said.

Every day, new messages are left by passers-by, including lots of children drawings.

Hundreds of them are now drying out in the rooms of the Archives of Paris. They will be treated against mould and scanned in order to be available to scientists as well as the public on a future website.

“To Justine, a young girl full of life... I will keep in memory these moments of joy and adventure I’ve spent with you in Santiago de Chile,” one letter says, written on a schoolbook page.

Other messages celebrated Paris’ lifestyle and used the Eiffel Tower or French flag as symbols of peace.

Someone wrote: “We’ll keep living, laughing, singing together, refusing the Barbary that kills innocent peoples.”

Archivist Mathilde Pintault said: “It is important to keep track of the amount of tributes that have been left and the diversity of these tributes, some from children, from older people, from relatives of the victims, from anonymous people.”

Archivist Audrey Ceselli told the AP she works with a “sense of urgency” but tries not to read the highly emotional notes in order to be able to do her job.

“To go there is difficult for us, as Parisians... we are paying attention to the notes because they are fragile, but we don’t focus on the substance for now,” she said.

The operation is a first for the Archives of Paris. Most of the tributes left following the January attack against satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo have been lost. The city is now trying to gather some photos taken at the time.

Raphaelle Fontaine, 22-year-old student from southwest of France visiting Paris for a few days, felt the need to come to the Bataclan concert hall, the site of the deadliest attack on Nov. 13, to light a candle.

“It would have been even sadder to throw all these messages away. They are part of Paris’ history. To me it’s a way to keep the victims’ memory alive,” she said.

There is a strong circle of sisterhood that we women hold very dear to our hearts. Our friendships are rock solid and we support each other instinctively through thick and thin. In our busy day-to-day existence we might sometimes forget to be in touch with one another frequently, but whenever we do, we reconnect exactly from where we left off. 

I got some shocking news this morning informing me of the demise of the tall, athletic, mild mannered and beautiful Aneeta, a friend that I made in Dubai, when I moved out of my home country India, more than 25 years ago. She was all of fifty and had come to Jordan with her husband last year, to celebrate this milestone in her life. 

After spending one week at the Dead Sea, which she had fallen in love with, she declined to go to Petra or Jerash or even the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ. In desperation at her sheer refusal to visit any of the touristy locations, I took her to the Citadel and the Colossian in downtown Amman. She was simply content to spend all her time with me. And thank God for that because at this moment, that is what is keeping me from falling apart. 

How do you come to terms with the untimely death of a beloved friend? How can you make sense of the passing away of someone who led an exemplary lifestyle? She did extensive yoga, she jogged on the beach, she never touched alcohol and cigarettes or red meat and she did regular medical checkups. She was the least likely candidate for a massive cardiac arrest. If anything, she should have lived to be, a hundred and three. 

Whenever I met her, and of late it was a bit irregular, she inspired me to become like her. I had bumped into her for the first time, at the lobby of the building where we lived. Both of us were new in Dubai and we hit it off instantly. She was recently married and was just setting up house. I was trying to get my driving licence and had to go for extensive lessons. I could not afford a babysitter and each morning I used to drop my sleeping child in her apartment before going off to my driving school. She did not know how to look after an infant and one day I came back to see her feeding the baby spicy chips dipped in sugary tea, which our daughter was gobbling up. I was horrified for a moment but seeing the look of delight on my child’s face, I joined in.

Over the years, we became firm friends. She hated my monotonous dress sense and tried to make me a stylish dresser by passing on the phone numbers of her dress designers. When I did not call anyone, she gave up on me. A little known fact about her was that she had acted in a television serial with the Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, before he became so famous. In her place, I would have announced this to the entire world, but she brushed it off with her usual calm smile. 

A tireless worker, a beloved wife and mother and above all, a wonderful human being, I still cannot believe that she has left for her heavenly abode. In my circle of sisterhood, one link is slightly stretched. Rest in peace, my friend, till I reconnect with you again.

AMMAN — In his exhibition, “Another Place”, Palestinian artist Ibrahim Jawabreh deftly walks a fine line between innocence and ominousness.

With the recurring, seemingly childlike drawings of little happy children, his acrylic paintings on canvas are an authentic attempt to recapture lost innocence and simplicity.

Although they may appear to the untrained eye as crude, over-simplistic pieces, each artwork speaks of the painstaking details put into it — from the layered backgrounds, the subtle differences between each “character” and their simple clothes, to the symbolism of the recurrent motifs of pets and saplings, which speak of home and family.

Images of these smiling figures crowd Jawabreh’s works — sometimes overwhelmingly — as they hold their saplings and munch on their watermelon slices. 

Their smiles are almost too good to be true, but the bright colours surrounding them and the familial atmosphere they exude dispel such impressions at first.

However, the artist breaks the “happy tone” with several pieces that veer towards the ominous.

In one piece, he replaces the bright colours with a negative polaroid-like effect that — despite the smiling faces — imparts a sense of foreboding from the child-like figures.

Another piece completely obscures the smiling, friendly faces with threads of black paint, in perhaps an expression of the loss of innocence.

Bits and pieces of the bright colours can just barely be discerned beneath the black web, mirroring the difficulty of retrieving childhood memories after the pains of adulthood.

“I’m the clown,” the artist writes. “I paint little children. Colour their faces with my salty tears. And when I’m done, I feel sad for the kids I’ve killed looking in the mirror.”

Viewers find themselves questioning the smiles and bright colours in the other paintings before them. Could they be nothing but a façade? Are they attempts to hark back to better times to escape a bleak reality?

“The wound was soft when I created them,” the artist writes in Arabic, adding that “the severity of pain” made him “forget [his] head at their feet” and die.

It is up to the viewer to take these smiles at face value, or question them and probe the paintings for answers.

Jawabreh’s heritage subtly seeps into his work: in the designs on the dresses worn by the children, in their attachment to the saplings that connect them to their land and in the sense of longing for home and family.

But the art speaks for itself rather than taking the questions of displacement and occupation head-on.

By committing to a consistent style that deceives with its simplicity and simultaneously prompts deep questions, the artist catches one off guard and captures the innocent, yet paradoxically deep curiosity of children. 

The artworks are on display at Wadi Finan Art Gallery until December 31.

Winner of the 2015 Middle East Car of the Year Award, the latest generation of Ford’s attainable icon, the new Mustang is the most advanced, efficient, refined and sportiest yet. Brimming with feel-good charm, from distinctive acoustics to evocatively evolutionary design, the viscerally charged new Mustang’s biggest changes are under its skin.

The first Mustang factory-fitted with independent rear suspension and first powered by a four-cylinder engine since 1978-87, the new model is aimed at US and global markets, including Europe for the first time. Slotting in between 3.7-litre V6 and 5-litre V8 versions, the new turbocharged Mustang 2.3-litre EcoBoost driven is muscularly efficient, and boasts power comparable to 2005-09 4.6-litre V8 predecessors.

Nostalgic yet contemporary

Arriving to coincide with the classic nameplate’s 50th anniversary, the all-new Mustang features a more contemporary interpretation of the original American muscle car. Not deviating far from predecessors’ hallmark long bonnet, fastback roofline, recessed headlights, vertical tri-bar rear lights, the new Mustang, however, has a moodier more urgent demeanour and viscerally athletic posture, and LED lighting elements. 

Harmoniously retaining classic design cues but seamlessly integrated with Ford’s current family design themes, the new Mustang is influenced by the 2011 Evos concept’s wide hexagonal grille and deep-set, squinting and heavily bowed headlights. And with long, high bonnet with distinctive dual centre scallops, it looks snoutier and more aggressive, with a palpably sense of dynamic urgency.

Wider and with more prominent profile curves, pinched hips, more sculpted surfacing and ridges, and better integrated more flowing fastback and rear deck, the new Mustang projects more power, presence and prestige. Nostalgic yet contemporary it features circular vents, meaty three-spoke steering wheel, big round dials, four-gang gated driving mode toggle switches and plenty of chrome-effect trim inside.

A small brute

Inevitable, welcome and necessary for contemporary customer and legislative efficiency considerations, the Mustang 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder EcoBoost is especially relevant in Europe and markets like Jordan. A high output and efficiency unit, the four-pot EcoBoost develops 310BHP at 5500rpm and generous 320lb/ft torque throughout a broad and versatile 2500-4500rpm band for effortless overtaking, it can also return frugal 8l/100km fuel efficiency.

Dispatching 0-100km/h in a swift 5.8 seconds and capable of 240km/h at full tilt, the Mustang 2.3 EcoBoost is a compact brute with quick-spooling turbo, that all but eliminates low-end turbo lag and pulls meaningfully and smoothly from tick-over. Underwritten by generously broad torque peak, power wells to its 5500rpm peak, before an up-shift again summons the Mustang’s brawny and versatile mid-range. 

Designed to perform like a V6 engine, the EcoBoost is however at its best when riding its rich, muscular and generously flat peak torque band, where it noticeably hardens by 2500rpm and feels like a previous generation V8. Such an impression is aided by somewhat low-revving characteristics and gurgling and growling intake acoustics piped through the cabin for dramatic effect.

Committed and charismatic

Despite small pockets of archaic-minded naysayers among the muscle car faithful — the new Mustang’s adoption of more sophisticated rear independent — rather than live axle — suspension is welcome and modernising change. With independent rear integral-link suspension and improved body rigidity for better suspension and steering precision, the new Mustang delivers noticeably enhanced handling, ride and cabin refinement.

Smoother, more settled and comfortable than predecessors, the new Mustang’s independent rear wheel travel provides fluency over imperfections and settled, buttoned down rebound control over crests and dips. Firm but forgiving the Mustang’s 255/40R19 tyres generate high grip levels on turn-in and through corners. Slightly stiff over sharp sudden speed bumps the Mustang nonetheless comfortably smooth, with taut body control through corners. 

Tidy turning-in the Mustang’s steering features adjustable weighting. Stability control and engine throttle gearbox responses can also be tailored for sporty driving or comfort. Well-balanced with intuitive on throttle adjustability, the Mustang’s handling is agile and after settling into a corner, is highly committed throughout. With wide track, rear wheels tenaciously dig in as one reapplies the throttle to blast onto a straight.

Visceral and visible

Stable at speed, the Mustang rides with heavy and firmly planted feel, while sat hunkered down, its long bonnet features dual scallops to help place it on road and create a muscle car ambiance. Ergonomic and accessible, with well-adjustable driving position, the Mustang’s well-padded front seats comfortably accommodate larger taller occupants, but stiffer side bolstering would help match its high lateral grip. 

Airier and with better visibility than chief rivals, the Mustang’s generous 385-litre boot and useably-sized — if not hugely spacious — rear seats prove usefully practical for a 2-door sports coupe. Using mostly good quality plastics and soft textures, its cabin feels more up-market, and with Premium guise, as tested, features heated and cooled seats, dual-zone climate control, ambient lighting and 50 Years Anniversary decals

Well-equipped, the Mustang EcoBoost features an intuitive Sync infotainment system with voice-activated connectivity, 8-inch touchscreen and 9 speakers. Safety kit includes eight airbags, childseat latches and optional driver assistance systems including adaptive cruise control and blindspot and cross traffic assists. An optional performance package with limited-slip rear differential, stiffer anti-roll bars and firmer damping provides enhanced cornering ability, agility and control over mid-corner road imperfections.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2.3-litre, all-aluminium, turbocharged, in-line 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 87.55 x 94mm

Compression ratio: 9.5:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing, direct injection

Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential

Gear ratios: 1st 4.17:1; 2nd 2.34:1; 3rd 1.52:1; 4th 1.14:1; 5th 0.87:1; 6th 0.69:1

Final drive ratio: 3.15:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 310 (314) [231] @5500rpm

Specific power: 137.1BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 194BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 320 (434) @2500-4500rpm

Specific torque: 170.1Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 191.9Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5.8 seconds (est.)

Top speed: 240km/h (est.)

Fuel consumption: 8l/100km

CO2 emissions: 179g/km

Length: 4782mm

Width: 1915mm

Height: 1381mm

Wheelbase: 2720mm

Track, F/R: 1582/1648mm 

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.328

Headroom, F/R: 955/883mm

Legroom, F/R: 1130/777mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1430/1325mm

Luggage volume: 382 litres

Fuel capacity: 60 litres

Kerb weight: 1598kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 52 per cent/48 per cent

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.5 metres

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson Struts/integral link, anti-roll bars

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, 320mm/discs, 320mm

Brake callipers, F/R: Twin/single

Tyres: 255/40R19

OSLO — Men have often argued that they are the superior sex when it comes to sense of direction, and many previous studies have backed them up. 

Now a new study has not only provided evidence to support previous research but has also shown that the male sex hormone testosterone could be the reason why men are indeed better at navigating.

Wanting to explore if the reason behind a better sense of direction was due to sex hormones or cultural conditioning, or perhaps something else, a team of researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology  first asked a group of 18 male and 18 female participants to find their way around a virtual maze using 3D goggles and a joystick. 

The participants were given navigational tasks to complete from different starting points while in the maze, such as “find the yellow car”. During the task the researchers continuously recorded images of participants’ brains using an MRI scanner to monitor brain activity.

The results showed that men performed better than women, solving 50 per cent more of the tasks by taking more short cuts and using cardinal directions, the points of North, East, South and West, to orient themselves. The women used a different strategy, often using a route to get to their destination, rather than cardinal directions

The study’s author, Carl Pintzka, concluded that “Men’s sense of direction was more effective. They quite simply got to their destination faster.”

In the next step of Pintzka’s research, a different group of 42 female participants was split into two groups. Twenty-one received a drop of testosterone on the tongue before taking part in the task, and 21 received a placebo. Many of the women who had received the testosterone performed better than the ones who had not. Although they were unable to solve more tasks, they were better able to use cardinal directions, like the men in the earlier study.

The research also showed that men and women use different areas of their brain when navigating, with men using the hippocampus — the area of the brain need to use cardinal directions — more than women.

As losing one’s sense of direction is one of the first symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease, Pintzka hopes his studies could help researchers to better understand the development of the disease, and — as twice as many women as men are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s — how it could possibly be related to the sex hormones.

Today’s artificial intelligence may not be that clever, but it just got much quicker on the uptake. A learning programme designed by a trio of researchers can now recognise and draw handwritten characters after seeing them only a few times, just as a human can. And can do it so well that people can’t tell the difference.

The findings, published in the journal Science, represent a major step forward in developing more powerful computer programmes that learn in the ways that humans do.

“For the first time, we think we have a machine system that can learn a large class of visual concepts in ways that are hard to distinguish from human learners,” study coauthor Joshua Tenenbaum from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a news briefing.

Although computers are excellent at storing and processing data (your calculator is probably much faster than you at, say, finding the square root of a large number), they’re less-than-stellar students. Your average 3-year-old could pick up basic concepts faster than the most sophisticated programme.

“You show even a young child a horse or a school bus or a skateboard, and they get it from one example,” Tenenbaum said. “If you forget what it’s like to be a child, think about the first time you saw, say, a Segway, one of those personal transportation devices, or a smartphone or a laptop. You just needed to see one example and you could then recognise those things from different angles under different lighting conditions, often barely visible in complex scenes with many other objects.”

In short, he said, “you can generalise.”

And while current “deep learning” approaches have resulted in major advances in technologies like facial and speech recognition, they often still require hundreds, even thousands of examples before they can recognise the shared qualities that allow for such a generalisation.

But there’s something else humans can do with just a little exposure — they can break an object down into its key components and dream up something new. For example, if you saw a motorcycle (two-wheeled motorised vehicle) and a unicycle (one-wheeled human-powered vehicle), you might be able to imagine a one-wheeled motorcycle, a combination of each vehicle’s conceptual “parts”.

“To scientists like me who study the mind, the gap between machine-learning and human-learning capacities remains vast,” Tenenbaum said. “We want to close that gap, and that’s our long-term goal.”

Now, Tenenbaum and his colleagues have managed to build a different kind of machine learning algorithm — one that, like humans, can learn a simple concept from very few examples and can even apply it in novel ways. The researchers tested the model on human handwriting, which can vary sharply from person to person, even when each produces the exact same character.

“Handwritten characters are well suited for comparing human and machine learning on a relatively even footing: They are both cognitively natural and often used as a benchmark for comparing learning algorithms,” the authors wrote.

The scientists built an algorithm with an approach called Bayesian programme learning, or BPL, a probability-based programme that is resilient to a certain amount of deviation. This algorithm is actually able to build concepts as it goes, essentially building bits of its own programming as it goes.

In a set of experiments, the scientists tested the programme using many examples of 1,623 handwritten characters from 50 different writing systems from around the world, including Sanskrit, Tibetan, Gujarati and Glagolitic (an ancient Slavic alphabet).

In a one-shot classification challenge, the scientists showed humans and the computer programme a single image of a new character, and then asked them to pick another example of that same character in a set of 20. People were quite good at this, with an average error rate of 4.5 per cent. But BPL slightly edged them out, with a comparable error rate of 3.3 per cent. Two different programmes based on deep-learning methods fared far worse than either people or BPL, with a 13.5 per cent and 34.8 per cent error rate.

The scientists also challenged the programme and some human participants to draw new versions of various characters they presented. They then had human judges take a look at the human-produced and algorithm-produced sets, and try to determine which ones were made by man and which were made by machine. This was a kind of visual Turing test — a method devised by renowned 20th century computer scientist Alan Turing to test a machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligent behaviour that can’t be distinguished from a human’s.

As it turned out, the humans were barely as good as chance at figuring out which set of characters was machine-produced and which was created by humans. And in another experiment, in which the scientists asked both human and machine subjects to create a brand-new character for a given writing system, the humans also found it difficult to distinguish the two. In short, the algorithm appears to have passed a basic Turing test.

The findings could be used to improve a variety of technologies in the near term, including for other symbol-based systems such as gestures, dance moves and spoken and signed language. But the research could also shed fresh light on how learning happens in young humans, the scientists pointed out.

“Although our work focused on adult learners, it raises natural developmental questions,” the study authors wrote. “If children learning to write acquire an inductive bias similar to what BPL constructs, the model could help explain why children find some characters difficult and which teaching procedures are most effective.”

Relationships That Work

Adam Saenz and Jeremy Dew

New York and London: Routledge, 2016

Pp. 131

Combining personal and professional experience with psychological and educational research, psychologist Adam Saenz and counsellor Jeremy Dew argue that human relationships are the key factor in the teaching and learning process. Knowing that “life’s greatest reward, life’s greatest treasure, is to be connected to another human being,” they view relationships as resources — more valuable than money, education or physical ability in creating people’s success and well-being. (p. 15) 

“Relational skills — and not just knowledge of specific academic content — are relevant to our students’ capacity to make a meaningful and favourable difference in their future world.” (p. 23)

Since educators are primary role models for relational skills, the authors invite teachers to look inside themselves, and reflect on their attitudes and practices for the sake of their students’ and their own well-being. 

The book opens with Saenz recounting how his emotionally and socioeconomically

impoverished background was leading him into criminality, and how he was turned around by caring teachers. Like in Her Majesty Queen Rania’s address to the Teacher Skills Forum last week, teachers are at the centre of his narrative: “Education did not change my life; educators changed my life.” (p. 17)

“Relationships That Work” elaborates four main questions that are essential to relationship-building, whether with students, colleagues or parents. While educators may understand the importance of relationships, the question is how — especially how to connect to students who are very different from them. 

The first question is “Why am I here… doing what I do?” This requires reflection on the part of teachers as to whether their core values are in line with their work — or is teaching just a job for them? “The idea is that in linking our deepest values with what we do on a daily basis, we create access to a fuel source that is pure enough and vast enough to sustain us over the course of our life in our vocation.” (p. 39)

In the authors’ view, emotions are also fuel, and the second question is “How do I manage my emotions?” so that they can be energy fuelling healthy relationships, sometimes referred to as emotional intelligence. “Apart from academic content, teachers also teach social/emotional content by modelling for students appropriate ways to experience and express intense emotions, such as anger and anxiety.” (p. 68)

This is not about denying conflict or anger, but about recognising emotions and what triggers them, and learning that one can choose to express them in ways that build rather than erode relationships. 

The third question is “Can I Build a Bridge?” and concerns social relations, empathy and connecting to others. This chapter includes a checklist for assessing whether one is so task-oriented that it gets in the way of teamwork and building bridges. Like the chapter on emotions, the ability to build bridges is pivotal for classroom management and dealing with what the authors term “escalated” students. 

“Can I build a fence?” is the fourth question about protecting one’s time, space, energy and resources, protecting one’s self from abuse and maintaining respect. In the authors’ view, demarcating boundaries is just as important for maintaining healthy relationships as is bridge-building. 

The above summary is too schematic to give a real sense of the impact of “Relationships That Work”. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone reading this book without doing some soul-searching, reflecting on their own professional and personal life. That, of course, is the authors’ purpose. One can hardly remain detached when presented with real-life stories and dialogues revealing the authors’ own experience and how educators grapple with problems they encounter with students, colleagues, parents and themselves. 

There are examples of teachers who seem to instinctively know how to deal with “escalated” students, instances of those who burn out from work-related frustrations, and stories of others who learn to make changes so their work is more fulfilling. These examples are presented in such a vibrant and compelling way that one automatically thinks: Is this me? Could it be me?

This is not simply a manual proposing better teaching practices (though that should be an end result). It is more a challenge to consciously live a constructive and satisfying life, in which education is the primary focus, though the authors’ approach is also applicable to other fields, such as family relations, child rearing, therapy, caregiving and wherever interpersonal relationships are involved, which is virtually everywhere.

Because Saenz and Dew speak logically and persuasively to the heart and the mind, it is hard to avoid their challenge.