Saturday, February 27, 2010

Just Kids

Patti Smith talks in Chicago about her new memoir of early life in New York with her boyfriend and creative twin Robert Mapplethorpe. It's a book about being young & poor & in love & underappreciated & living for art & living for friends & falling out of love & dying & living while others die around you.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

General Intelligence

A paper from the "no kidding" category claims to have discovered the brain system responsible for general intelligence. Surprise:
The researchers found that, rather than residing in a single structure, general intelligence is determined by a network of regions across both sides of the brain.

"Compulsory Transparency"

The Lower Marion School District Laptop Spying Case gets taken apart by a pair of security researchers. The truly shocking thing is the combination of sneaky technology with oppressive school policies. There are some really repulsive political philosophies behind this thing.

Monday, February 22, 2010

10 Rules for Writing

Writers respond to Elmore Leonard's "Ten Rules of Writing" with ten or so of their own. Not a bad piece of advice in the bunch.

Margaret Atwood:
9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.
Part I, Part II.

Masquerade

It wasn't all fun, though, as Williams told O'Farrell when asked to recall those days. “I found it difficult,” he said. “I got sort of nasty things through the post, like severed rubber hands with blood. And there was some strange American occasionally would send me his breakfast - the cornflakes, the milk and everything - in a sealed box. And you'd think ‘I don't really like this. This is getting a bit nasty’.”

Kit Williams looks back on the Quest for the Hare, set off by his book Masquerade.

(via linkmachinego)

Friday, February 19, 2010

Richard Alpert

"There is no 'They'."

(via Arthur)

Synth Britannia

The secret history of 80's British synth bands, in nine parts. Makes me want to break out the old DX7 and TR808. I still get gear lust looking at the modular systems some of these guys have put together.

(via boingboing)

Quote of the Day

"Awesomeness now has a name. Let me introduce myself."

RIP Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen committed suicide at the age of 40 on the eve of his mother's funeral.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Stories We Tell Ourselves about Ourselves

Daniel Mendelsohn on the pitfalls of the memoir, and of memory:

As for Freud’s charge that memoirs are flawed by mendacity, it may be that the culprit here is not really the memoir genre but simply memory itself. The most stimulating section of Yagoda’s book is one in which he considers, albeit superficially, the vast scientific literature about memory and how it works. The gist is that a seemingly inborn desire on the part of Homo sapiens for coherent narratives, for meaning, often warps the way we remember things. The psychologist F. C. Bartlett, whom Yagoda quotes without discussing his work, once conducted an experiment in which people were told fables into which illogical or non-sequitur elements had been introduced; when asked to repeat the tales, they omitted or smoothed over the anomalous bits. More recently, graduate students who were asked to recall what their anxiety level had been before an important examination consistently exaggerated that anxiety. As Yagoda puts it, “That little tale—‘I was really worried, but I passed’—would be memoir-worthy. The ‘truth’—‘I wasn’t that worried, and I passed’—would not.” In other words, we always manage to turn our memories into good stories—even if those stories aren’t quite true.

Securities Fail

Felix Salmon falls for William Wild's proposal for a new form of regulatory capital for banks, which,

far from having the large potential upside of shares, has no potential upside at all. Essentially, it’s just cash, invested in risk-free assets, throwing off a very modest income stream for its owner, and which can’t be repaid or redeemed. Yet if the bank gets into trouble, all that cash would go towards absorbing losses before there’s any default.

Such capital would not be attractive to investors. But, says Wild, that’s a feature, not a bug.
There are a lot of problems with this proposed security, to the point that it becomes completely unworkable:

  1. Whether or not you call it common stock, it shares with common stock the property of being a residual claim on the assets of a firm. As such, it is first to default. It is moreover short a call to the rest of common equity at the face value of the proposed security set against the firm value. So, it provides an insurance policy to the normal common stock (but I'm assuming that as a substitute for common stock, it does not provide additional insurance for the debtholders). It will therefore have a somewhat lower value (higher discount) than normal common stock with an equivalent dividend or coupon--this means that it is somewhat more expensive than common stock from the firm's perspective. This is financial engineering at its worst.
  2. There is no adequate way to associate this security exclusively with cash, cash-equivalents or risk-free assets. The two sides of the balance sheet simply don't hook up that way. Why force an awkward fundraising process into a discussion of how much risk-free asset to hold? Why not simply have regulatory assets, rather than just regulatory capital? It's the assets that are risky as well as the current capital structure.
  3. I want stockholders to be right up against the grinding wheel--moreso than they were in the current crisis. I want them to own the consequences of their decisions, so that they're actively riding management in their own interests, rather than sitting back and letting the checks roll in.

In sum, I don't think this would work.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Mixed Blessings

In another entry in the "why is this bad gene so prevalent?" sweepstakes, the ApoE4 allele not only increases your chances of developing Alzheimer's disease and heart disease, it makes you smarter, possibly by helping you to filter out unwanted information.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church

Part of the Intelligence Squared debate.

Quote of the Day

You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.

-Randall Monroe

Warren Ellis's Mobile Idea Foundry

Or "portable business kit" for writers:

My business runs on four things, really. A netbook, a smartphone, a handheld email device and notebooks. Currently, that’s the 901, the iPhone 3GS, a Blackberry Curve and a pile of Moleskines and Field Notes. The phone and the email device have to be two different devices, because having to answer the phone when you’re in the middle of typing an email or note is, frankly, fucking annoying. (I used to work on an all-in-one handheld, a Visor or a Treo with a foldaway keyboard that I could write on as well as do email and take calls. That got annoying. Convergence is a nice idea, but not for me.

(I’d add in a fifth, an mp3 player. I thought a moment ago that was non-essential business kit, and then I tried imagining travelling without one.)

Obviously they all serve different purposes, but they are all in fact bent to the same purpose, the essential purpose of writing: getting the idea down before you forget it. Doesn’t matter if the idea’s crap. Doesn’t matter if it’s not immediately useful. Doesn’t matter if it’s half-formed. Get it down. Jot it in a text file on your computer and toss it in a folder called Loose Ideas. Thumb it out into a note file on your phone. Scribble it into a notebook (in block caps so you can read it later, if you’re me). Record it as a voice memo (I’m working with someone right now who sets his phone to voice-recording in the car and spitballs ideas into it as he drives, hits send to email it out to me when he parks, just so he doesn’t lose the ideas).

If you don’t have some kind of kit for capturing ideas, even if it’s a 50p reporter’s notebook and a pencil from the local shop for local people, you’re doing it wrong.

Kumbh Mela

The world's largest religious festival kicks off today in Haridwar, India, featuring a chilly dip in the Ganges led by a bewildering assortment of holy persons. Remember, the germs are part of the magic.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Full Distraction

(Shall I tell you something wonderfully moving? In adults, there is an ability to turn the brain up, to pay full attention, as we call it, so as to absorb information with more efficiency. In little kids, the brain is at this state of alertness all the time. Even when a kid is distracted, they are intensely distracted.)

Watching Catinca think is a pleasure in itself. She’s continually thrown by all the information life fires at her, and she has to sort of momentarily retreat within herself, with an almost audible echoing patter of footsteps, to consult with her brain about how to respond, while her face is left on autopilot, prey to random muscular spasms, gravity, Brownian motion and the prevailing winds, and then she comes running back to the driver’s seat, a dossier of data clutched in her chubby hands, feet skidding on the linoleum, and her face kind of clicks on with an “Occupied” sign again and begins to say stuff. I could watch it for hours.

-David Cairns
on The Fall, and human attention

(via Russell Davies)

Smile for Your X-Ray

Security personnel at Heathrow busted passing around "immediately destroyed" X-ray scan photos. Privacy and security violations occurring daily. Nice.

Thinking about Thinking Creatively

A group of researchers interviewed 3,500 entrepreneurs and other businesspeople, and identified a short list of 5 qualities that mark out "creative executives":
The first skill is what we call "associating." It's a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.

The second skill is questioning — an ability to ask "what if", "why", and "why not" questions that challenge the status quo and open up the bigger picture.

The third is the ability to closely observe details, particularly the details of people's behavior.

Another skill is the ability to experiment — the people we studied are always trying on new experiences and exploring new worlds.

And finally, they are really good at networking with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.
(via lonegunman & Ben Casnocha)

Bonus link from Ben: Keith Jarrett on improvisation.
In our conversation, we spent a fair amount of time discussing the mindset that drives his improvisations. It is rooted, of course, in a certain amount of confidence that his years of playing, practice, and listening have given him the tools to pull it off. Beyond that, though, Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habits. Jarrett says:

How do you find these surprising combinations...if you have perfect pitch and you know what everything's going to sound like? How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers. Perfect pitch would lead you to know exactly what it's going to sound like before you're going to play it. So one of the things I do now as part of the risk-taking and have been doing more since Radiance [2005 album] is not to play something. If my hands are in a certain position at the keyboard, I don't play in that position -- especially if I've already thought about what that sound is going to be. I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something." In our conversation, we spent a fair amount of time discussing the mindset that drives his improvisations. It is rooted, of course, in a certain amount of confidence that his years of playing, practice, and listening have given him the tools to pull it off. Beyond that, though, Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habits. Jarrett says:

How do you find these surprising combinations...if you have perfect pitch and you know what everything's going to sound like? How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers. Perfect pitch would lead you to know exactly what it's going to sound like before you're going to play it. So one of the things I do now as part of the risk-taking and have been doing more since Radiance [2005 album] is not to play something. If my hands are in a certain position at the keyboard, I don't play in that position -- especially if I've already thought about what that sound is going to be. I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something." In our conversation, we spent a fair amount of time discussing the mindset that drives his improvisations. It is rooted, of course, in a certain amount of confidence that his years of playing, practice, and listening have given him the tools to pull it off. Beyond that, though, Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habits. Jarrett says:

How do you find these surprising combinations...if you have perfect pitch and you know what everything's going to sound like? How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers. Perfect pitch would lead you to know exactly what it's going to sound like before you're going to play it. So one of the things I do now as part of the risk-taking and have been doing more since Radiance [2005 album] is not to play something. If my hands are in a certain position at the keyboard, I don't play in that position -- especially if I've already thought about what that sound is going to be. I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something." In our conversation, we spent a fair amount of time discussing the mindset that drives his improvisations. It is rooted, of course, in a certain amount of confidence that his years of playing, practice, and listening have given him the tools to pull it off. Beyond that, though, Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habits. Jarrett says:

How do you find these surprising combinations...if you have perfect pitch and you know what everything's going to sound like? How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers. Perfect pitch would lead you to know exactly what it's going to sound like before you're going to play it. So one of the things I do now as part of the risk-taking and have been doing more since Radiance [2005 album] is not to play something. If my hands are in a certain position at the keyboard, I don't play in that position -- especially if I've already thought about what that sound is going to be. I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something."

Chicago Economic Forecast 2010

As always, the real attraction of these events is not the economic component, which has the predictive value of a thrown dart. It's Marvin Zonis's always fascinating political run-down, which regularly contains information about the current state of the world that I can't recall having heard anywhere else. This is the most concise briefing on political trends you're going to find anywhere.

After a ruling by the independent Supreme Court, the Government has abandoned attempts to extend an amnesty for 8,000 government employees, among whom is President Zardari. He responded by transferring key presidential powers to his prime minister, beginning with control over the country’s nuclear arsenal.

As a flood of court suits take shape in 2010, Zardari will transfer more powers to his prime minister in hopes of remaining as president. But he will fail and be driven from office in 2010.

The two most likely successors are the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, and Nawaz Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League. Gilani, of course, is already in power while Sharif is supported by Saudi Arabia, which sees Sharif’s Islam as an improvement over the Taliban. His coming to power would stimulate the further Islamicization of the country.

The military has the deciding vote. The Pakistani armed forces have ruled the country directly for a majority of its years of independence and its indirect influence remains nearly as strong. The current chief of staff, General Ashfaq Kayani succeeded to his post when President Musharraf surrendered that office in November of 2007. A “soldier’s soldier,” he ordered the military out of politics and supported the democratic process that brought Zardari to power. But General Kayani’s term of office will expire in November 2010 and he is expected to retire. His successor will be less inclined to keep the military out of the political process. In this turbulent political atmosphere, Zardari will be out, Gilani in and the military back.

...So, for 2010, what? The risky call for 2010 is that we will finally see the end of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri, his sidekick. Pakistani intelligence knows their whereabouts and the US and Britain will put on a full court press to have them killed.

Quote of the Day

“The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.”

-Freeman Dyson

T-shirt Wars

Monday, February 08, 2010

Quote of the Day

Elaine Vassal: Happy's easy. You act happy. People see you as happy and you see yourself in their eyes. You feel happy. It doesn't work for lonely... but, happy's easy.
-Ally McBeal

Tales from the Meltdown 21: the Recap

Felix Salmon points us to Moe Tkacik's essay in the Baffler that reviews the review books of the meltdown, and mercy has he none. Andrew Lahde comes out looking smart (again) but not many others do.

Good times, good times.

Is Obama's Inner Circle Ruining his Presidency?

An interesting pair of articles from Steve Clemons at the Washington Note and Edward Luce at the Financial Times suggest that an inner circle of Obama advisors (Emmanuel, Jarrett, Axelrod and Gibbs) have pushed the Cabinet and other potential advisors aside, and have pushed tactically smart moves at the expense of the overall strategy. It's an interesting look backstage from a pair of insiders, and would explain a lot of the inexplicable problems that have been created over the past year. AmericaBlog agrees with the assessment. How to fix it?

But one thing essential to understand is that the kind of policy that smart strategists -- including by people like National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other advisers like Denis McDonough, Tom Donilon, James Steinberg, William Burns, (previously Gregory Craig) -- would be putting forward is getting twisted either in the rough-and-tumble of a a team of rivals operation that is not working, or is being distorted by the Chicago political gang's tactical advice that is seducing Obama towards a course that has not only violated deals he made with those who voted him into office but which is failing to hit any of the major strategic targets by which the administration will be historically measured.

President Obama needs to take stock quickly. Read the Luce piece. Be honest about what is happening. Read Plouffe's smart book again. Send Rahm Emanuel back to the House in a senior role. Make Valerie Jarrett an important Ambassador. Keep Axelrod -- but balance him with someone like Plouffe, and get back to putting good policy before short term politics.

Set up a Team B with diverse political and national security observers like Tom Daschle, John Podesta, Brent Scowcroft, Arianna Huffington, Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Harris, James Fallows, Chuck Hagel, Strobe Talbott, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others to give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on.

And take action to fix the dysfunction of your office.

Otherwise, the Obama brand will be totally bust in the very near term.

xkcd Reinactment

Olga Nunes, plus "Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Bruce Schneier, Jason Kottke, Google Zurich, Hank Green, MC Frontalot, Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Mr. Toast, Miss Cellania, Team Genius, Phil Plait, Allan Amato, Maddy Gaiman, Charissa Gilreath, Belinda Casas, Chuck Martinez, Jeremy James, Joanna Gaunder, Lee Israel & Octavio Coleman Esq. of The Jejune Institute" reinact the classic xkcd "We love the Internet" strip. The coolness/geekiness factor gets maxed out here.



Discovery Channel's original Boom-De-Yadda here.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Mark Jenkins
















Mark Jenkins makes packing tape babies, clothed mannequins, and other art that interrupts your day. Reminds me of the conceptual sculptures Marc & friends did in Dutch Money, only non-fictional.

IngloriousMr.Football

The Superbowl conceived by auteur filmmakers (Tarantino, Lynch, Anderson, Godard, Herzog)

(via kottke)

Anthony Bourdain vs. the Ten Year Old


(via Ezra Klein)

Images of the Week




Zeppelin under construction
Economist ad
early Bill Watterson
there's a story here somewhere, via rcs
tv2 ad

Bruce Sterling/Shapeways Interview

Bruce answers quirky questions from 3-d printing company Shapeways. A little spiky, a little flinty, all zen:
Joris Peels: In the future will people still read science fiction?

Bruce Sterling: "Science fiction" is 80 years old. Mass-produced commercial fiction is about 250 years old. "The future" is a very long time. Do you suppose people will still be "people" forever? The human species is only two million years old and the universe is 13.7 billion years old.

...Joris Peels: Does [Avatar] suck?

Bruce Sterling: Not if the intention was to clear a billion dollars with a three hundred million dollar investment. The Bollywood people I follow are hugely impressed by "Avatar."

Joris Peels: Who is the most likely person to be the first to start his own species?

Bruce Sterling: Somebody not born yet. A "species" by definition would be required to breed only with itself and not with human beings. It's hard to believe that we couldn't finesse a minor problem like that one. If you somehow engineer yourself to have four arms and wings, we could just re=engineer your stem cells and restore your so-called "species" to the status quo. Big deal.

Joris Peels: If you could resurrect one dead media, which would it be?

Bruce Sterling: The Incan quipu. It would be great to learn how those really worked.
...
Joris Peels: The hoverboard is the greatest piece of technology ever imagined, discuss.

Bruce Sterling: If we're talking strictly imaginary technology, it's hard to beat the Hindu pantheon churning the entire universe from a sea of milk by using a giant cobra.

(via boingboing)

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Avatar Review'd, the Way It Should be.

By Mike, the guy who brought you the masterful ten-part take-down of Star Wars.



Quote of the Day

Having an MRI is like being buried alive in a coffin that screams at you.

-NoFo Jake

The Roman Army Knife




Invented by the Swiss Romans, these multifunction knives were in use across the Roman empire by 200AD. In addition to a knife, fork and spoon, the knives include a spike "to extract meat from snails" and a spatula for "poking cooking sauce out of narrow-necked bottles". Apparently, Tobasco sauce has been used since time immemorial to make rations edible. More images here.