Author Archives: Egg Syntax

Some nice downtempo stuff coming out of Durham

http://bigfok.bandcamp.com/

 

‘Big Fok is a beatmaker/producer from Durham, North Carolina. He was brought up listening to many different genres of music and his music reflects that. His sound has been described as “dark, cinematic and refreshing”. His music is based in old school and southern hip hop but you also can hear influences of blues, electronica, ambient, trance, soul, and shoegaze as well as his own original sound. ‘

The Secure Transport of Light | booktwo.org

[Yet another ridiculously good essay by James Bridle. The man blows my mind. -egg]

The process of laying cables across the ocean is a fascinating and venerable one, that proceeds in stages out into the deep ocean and back, ploughing trenches into the littoral to lay fragile cable under the sand in shallow areas, and paying it out across the deep seabed far from shore. These cables are fat bundles of optical fibers – millimetre-thick strands of glass, through which light is bounced all the way to its destination.

The most resonant moment comes when the ship reaches shore. When a cable-laying ship is a few hundred metres off shore, the last segment of cable is put on a small boat and brought to the beach. And there, thousands of miles from its origin, a man emerges from the ocean, carrying the internet over his shoulder. Sunbeams, indeed.

The Secure Transport of Light | booktwo.org.

The badly wrong math of austerity

“In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff released a paper, “Growth in a Time of Debt.” […] This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. […] “This error is needed to get the results they published, and it would go a long way to explaining why it has been impossible for others to replicate these results. If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.” Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems. | Next New Deal, via Dan W.

“In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff released a paper, “Growth in a Time of Debt.” […] This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. […]

“This error is needed to get the results they published, and it would go a long way to explaining why it has been impossible for others to replicate these results. If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.”

Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems. | Next New Deal, via Dan W.

The New Aesthetic — “In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth….

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier – Boing Boing

[Note: I would personally feel irresponsible to completely abandon the news — but for sure I try to keep myself out of the daily (or hourly!) churn and just get the big picture as I need it. See also the slow news movement. -egg]

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier – Boing Boing.

Rolf Dobelli, author of the forthcoming book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, has an essay in the Guardian that explains the many reasons why you shouldn’t read, listen to, or watch news. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I found it thought-provoking.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitization.

News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can’t act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is “learned helplessness”. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression.

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier