Bulkington

Should one -- moi, specifically, a journalist -- upvote the approved anti-narrative? In terms of making a modest living, I don't see much middle ground.

Both sell newspapers/pageviews. There's all the room in the world between approved objectivity and calculated dissent. It just don't pay.

The recently butchered James Foley said he'd cover local planning commission meetings if that was his last professional option.

Idealist? Chump?

Who else is going to do it, and do it well -- who informs the polis, so that a half-ass democracy can at least pretend to function?

Crowd-sourced event coverage is cheap and easy and sexy. But it doesn't provide context.

Sadly, for-profit media seems determined to capitalize on free YouTube and Twitter feeds at the expense of paying professionals to pay attention and make sense of complex issues.

Nothing new here. Move along. News at 11.

Did I say that out loud? Again?

(Edit: I'm also a big fan of The Dish View From Your Window Contest, which leads this discussion. Interesting media model at The Dish: curate/create great content/commentary, and ask readers to pay. So far, so good.)

Agreed, mainly because the period is so alien to many sub-40s Americans today. Also resonant: Islam, race, ugly American politics. It's an easy read, written by Alex Haley, who also wrote Roots. (Don't read the book (Roots) if you can find the more culturally significant mini-series. LeVar Burton was an icon in the US in the late 70s, well before he boarded the Enterprise.) The Spike Lee movie on Maclolm X is interesting, but a significantly different experience than reading the book.

Since it's Saturday night as I write, I'll bite: 'alien test'?

If humans or our near relations were to land on a planet in a distant galaxy and come across any symbols they could even take a wild guess at, their reaction should be: 'We've been here before.'

Correspondingly, taking aliens into consideration is the epitome of misdirected 'inclusiveness.' Puts me in mind of recent dispute in the feminist community, in which use of the word 'vagina' in a non-reproductive sense has become an issue becauese transgender women are excluded. (No cite, not going to google 'transgender vagina.' Thinking it was an Utne reader story.)

Gist, I assume: Even a human idiot should be able to figure out these symbols. Fair enough, and much discussed above/below. (And a fun design problem.)

But, other than an alien landing first in the 'forbidden zone' and accidently unleashing population-ending poison on whatever was left of life on Earth (and it's a stretch to even suggest credencene here), no proposal with 'aliens' in its text should be taken seriously.

Less than seriously, but I didn't open this can of sandworms, suppose aliens consider our radioactive material:

Tasty? A sexual aid? Unimaginably beautiful in some audio/visual/X-sensory spectrum we can't even imagine?

Don't bury it, advertise it!

An Earth rich in gamma radiation and alpha particles might be the celestial promised land, and certain aliens might gratefully resurrect our dead and take them through the pearly gates to their planet of toxic gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But, yeah, nuclear electricity could save the day for the next generation, so we need to figure out these niggling details.

The Box is more than a history of container transport and its world-changing impact. It's a real lesson for entrepreneurs: Visionary takes on tradition-bound oligopoly; regulators can't cope with radical concept; international standards committees are about settling past political grievances and settling for laughable compromises, rather than setting the best course future efficiencies.

Highly recommend, as did Bill Gates, who ties it explicitly to developments in computing:

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Box

But can they beat chickens at tic-tac-toe?

http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000001595360/tick-t...

Well, not to get myself flagged as anti-AI terrorist but:

Tldr;

If one believes life right now is already one eternal torment

And if one reads about Roko's Basilisk

Then wouldn't one be compelled to fight the development of AI and the coming singularity?

That's the real world objection that the LessWrong people (Witches! Or at least tools of the future...) are afraid of.

Otherwise, well worn HN singularity talking points/metaphysics.

But at least the article gives me something to consider further -- needlessly using up cycles in the Universal Super Computer. But does that make the simulation stronger or weaker? Doh!

I would add a number 8: If you're interested in public service and would like to be either a lawmaker or a government official--but the above passion/connections still hold. (That's the value-neutral version compared to 'power-hungry pol' or 'ambitious bureaucrat'.)

If you want to run in those circles, you need to know how to keep yourself and your employer/patron out of court, and be able to squeeze the opposition--legally, of course.

The trick remains managing the school debt during the apprentice/ladder-climbing years--but at least you can still think of yourself as a lawyer. Because you are. Until you take the fall. But if you don't see it coming, you aren't much of a lawyer.

Strictly a casual 'soccer' fan in US, but here are a few problems for adoption of the game--again, as an American sports fan, journalist and media manager. And please, help me understand (and I promise not get into the usual 'no action,' 'too many drama queens' objections--although it is confusing when a player falls down like he's been stabbed, and the player who stabbed him also suddenly falls down.)

Messi is a freakish talent, but how many of his exceptional maneuvers translate into goals? I don't know Messi's ratio, but would Michael Jordan's talent have meant so much if style points didn't also show up on the scoreboard? We make fun of baseball because a successful batting average is three in ten (.300) and .400 is god-like. Messi's miracles pay off, sure, but -- for the casual American fan -- the effort needs to ring the bell or it doesn't count.

Top level competition (Euro leagues) is a completely different game (and vastly superior) to what the kids play here, or even school boys and universities. It's like pro baseball vs. weekend softball. And very few moms and dads, even a full generation into 'the soccer generation' know much or care.

Americans won't go 'all in' if they can't win. Belgium: 11 million people? That's Tennessee and Alabama. The day an SEC team can go to Europe and compete, that's when the US has become a soccer power.

I love the World Cup--once every four years. Those guys are tremendous athletes with freakish skills. But I still don't care. I leave the broadcast on for background noise, like golf or NASCAR or CNN.

Please HN, correct me if I'm wrong.

While I doubt that many 75-year-olds waste time at work perusing HN, the article misses, downplays or misunderstands several important points:

The justices' often use apparently clueless analogies to prompt the attorneys during oral arguments; these are suggestions that the argument needs to be clarified or reframed. Ultimatley, it's the attorneys job to make their cases, no matter how seemingly clueless the court might be.

Much/most of the real work at SCOTUS is done by clerks, some of sharpest young minds in the US. I'm betting they will peruse HN for background on issues.

It's incredibly easy to cherrypick from the vast library of court opinions for a few rotten tomatoes to throw at a straw man.

Drifting even further afield than the above, but since it's the weekend on HN:

I remember watching a 50s era SF-based film during a Hitchcock festival (Vertigo? Read Window?)in the City, and the streets in the movie were torn up for repairs to the street car system just like outside. The place cracked up.

Everyone ooh-ed and aah-ed over the views with no hi-rises, though.

Even more unrelated to typical HN topics: How have those old tourist courts and motels on Lombard/101 on the way to the GG survived all these years? A serious question.

As old as the family, the village. Forgive Western bias, but here's Aristotle:

...that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the "tribeless, lawless, hearthless one," whom Homer denounces—the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

Or, of course, the Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/

More subtly: the notion of American "rugged individualism," and the group with which many (right-leaning) "indiviudalists" unironically self-identify.

On HN, I suspect there's high participation the group of rational, logical thinkers who consider themselves superior to the fears and insecurities that compel the typical "joiner."

Not that there's much of a San Joaquin Valley aquifer left to ruin by fracking, but politics and the sheer cost of trying to do business in California should mean the Monterrey Shale will be held in reserve. (Personally, I think I'd rather eat California produce than have cheap gas for driving around on foraging expeditions/pantry raids.)

Great piece from Mercury News on SJV water here: http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_25447586/california-dr...

Tip of the research iceberg on the obvious: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/groundwater-contam...

It (caution/paranoia/hypocrisy/indoctrination) runs both ways:

“If I’d known it was someone from the NSA, I’d have gone and shot myself,” [Wolf] says.

"Shit... charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500. I took the mission. What the hell else was I gonna do?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/quotes

Irony is an exercise in cleverness.

I can speak only about US pop culture, but to consider Stewart and Colbert, clever and amusing as they are, in the avant garde of political thought is scary.

Facile isn't wise, and for some reason wisdom is now (maybe always?) deemed boring.

Too much television, too much Web distraction. Turn it all off. Twitter, Facebook, football, futbol, campaign ads, dot dot dot.

Give me something useful: The Weather Channel and porn, in moderation.

It's difficult to think deeply about complex issues. And arguably meaningless. Still...

Jeez, I'm a codger. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Irony is a sedative. Absurdity requires revolt. Pass the bong. One more hit before I study for finals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

EDIT: Not unusually, I popped off before reading the post. I'm not a DFW fanboy, but I've found everything of his I've ever read to be substantial. Very substantial. He dared.

Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'? The best I can hope is really intense distraction: mountain biking, sailing, even golf. It's amazing how little I consider anything else while playing golf--but I couldn't get away in the middle of the afternoon unless I had the flexibility to get good work done from 4-7AM.

Intuitively, I'd bet job satisfaction is right up there with mate selection as a happiness driver, so it's certainly worth understanding.

But thinking about 'work' (the task at hand) should be distinguished from thinking too much about all the merde that is 'the job.'

Seriously, kids. You don't remember the good old days?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Soviet_Unio...

Otherwise, (local politics, human rights aside) one shouldn't cross a frontier without considering the risk of being denied permission to come out again. Whims, national and personal, abound. Check in with your consulate -- remotely, if possible -- if that'll make you feel better.

And I'm not even pararnoid. Been there, done that. (The international travel, and jobs/labor (on and off the books) when it could be scary, that is.)

Crapshoot always. The odds change. Do the math.

Not to belittle desperate migration in search of a better life.

From the wikipedia entry on The Myth of Sisyphus:

Does the realization of the absurd require suicide? Camus answers: "No. It requires revolt." He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

> Nuclear is an outdated cold-war technology that won't compete with solar economically.

Source? Or did I not catch the sarcasm?

Or am I reading this wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Or do I just lack faith?

Professors.

Police beatings have long been a staple of movies, theatre, literature. In reality, police beatings have been a staple of the exercise of authority since Kubrick's representative ape picked up that bone.

Selection bias: There's always been a generational slant, depending on whether revolutionaries or reactionaries were the more popolarly romantic at the time.

Truth: beatings hurt, and lead to more beatings. Pacificism always fails, except in art/fantasy.

Too lazy, depressed to cite the obvious. Wikipedia search quietly on your own.

(To those disappointed in the moral failings, hypocrisy of US, compared to grade-school patriotic version: Like Babe Ruth's boozing, FDR's disability, JFK's infidelity, polite media just didn't discuss certain unpleasantness. Guess what: it still doesn't. That's what worries me. And I'm the least conspiracy-minded malcontent I know.

Influential.

Mash-up. Fusion. Outside the box.

Not a revolution, but a diversionary mind bender in its day.

A format much imitated since.

My bro-psych take, Dreaded Personal Anecdotes division:

In sports, prior to big games, I tended to doze in the locker room; my brother threw up. He'd be hair-on-fire ready for mortal combat; I hoped the other team wouldn't show up. But I was 'cool' and he was considered half-crazy.

I'm the worst procastinator I know, and it really kicks in when a project is 99% complete. A deadline extension is almost as good as an orgasm for me. Without an extnension, I'll estimate the remaining time needed to finish the job, then calculate what time I have to start to hit the mark--then set an alarm and hit the rack. Hugely painful and I hate myself throughout the process, but I cannot make myself work normal hours during crunchtime. Maybe my brain is processing final steps, but I doubt it.

Related? My memory of personal events has always been very good. Now I find myself more and more distracted, anxious, sleepless over trivial matters going back to my youth: a/the missed spelling word in 3rd grade; a stupid comment on a junior high date; a missed shot in a meaningless high school basketball game. The list goes on and on.

Yet I function.

But now my teenage son won't leave the house, resists therapists and I don't blame him. I just happen to get paid while living on largely on the Net.

Just sayin'.

Re: FCRA and bureaucracy

The US federal gov't outsources a large portion of its employment background checks to a company that the FTC has charged with violating FCRA. The contractor settled for $2.6 million and kept its contracts, clearing both NSA leaker Snowden and DC Navy Yard shooter Alexis along the way.

http://www.ccjdigital.com/background-reports-on-navy-yard-sh...

On topic: Even the US trucking industry, which is desperate to hire people desperate enough to put up with ridiculous hours and weeks away from home -- working hours that are nonetheless ridiculously regulated -- is hesitant to hire felons. Accidents, plaintiffs' lawyers, juries, etc.

Classic bureaucracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision

Get drunk. Write it, and be complete. Go to bed. Sleep poorly. Get up before alarm. Caffeinate. Move your rousing conclusion to the top and try again, picking off your darlings. You're finished when you can't stand yourself anymore and it's time to shower. Think of something much better during steam. Dragon dictate while dressing. Rehearse en route -- a problem if you're just upstairs in the conference hotel. Email text to friendly teleprompter girl as sulky technician hooks up your mic. Wing it. Humbly accept false adoration. Cash the check. Add line to CV. Iterate.

Aside: the ship using the AM sank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

The more interesting questions: Was the ship's sinking the loss of a one-off prototype? Was the device blamed/abandoned, even if not at fault? Craftsmanship suggests it wasn't an early version--but where are the others?

On topic: humans are no more smart today than they were 2000 years ago; they just have better tools. Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes,someone once said.

Drone/autonomous vehicle impact on supply chain discussed here on Saturday, ahead of 60 Mins piece.

http://www.ccjdigital.com/self-driving-planes-trains-trucks-...

Got the Reddit treatment here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1rrvxb/selfdrivi...

Conclusion: Gobolinks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klecksography#History

Trade journo here (not tech). No need for blacklists in some/many/most segments. Upset corp. hatchetman calls publisher, says either the offending reporter goes or our ads do. I haven't seen a whole lot of publishing backbone/pushback out here lately. (Not that that's changed much.)

Flipside is fancy junketeering, with publishers letting corporations host journos for new product events or 'market updates' held in resort destinations. That's the list journos want to be on, 'but it doesn't impact our objectivity.'

Agree with most ofmyour points, and I even find that my boss hectors me much less now after hours than he did before I went remote(and his non-stop office interruptions were the reason I moved off-site, so big win there).

But I think I'm much less efficient, focused. Personal flaw, probably. But when at the office I never wasted a second, and grew to resent boss interrupting to come watch latest Yahoo Sports video. I wanted to get the heck out. Now I'm too inclined to piddle. Rather than stair-stepping up 5 flights to pace, I'll rake leaves then fix the kids a snack, then I've got to work after normal hours to catch up.

Also, my study used to be a refuge. Now it's where I work.

But I do enjoy nice days when I can work from the boat and no one's the wiser.