Last year was a hard year

Until it wasn't

I got namechecked in an interesting way today, one i'm not entirely positive to characterise in any given manner. I mean, it was cool, and a little bit unexpected, in the way that unexpected eavesdropping, but you know, what to say about it? It certainly was a way though. It's like, you need the grain of sand to form the pearl; or it could end up being an infectious, festering wound. But you know, thems = the breaks.

I find that I read nowadays not with the express purpose of actually enjoying what i'm reading or to gain new knowledge or whatever straightforward purpose that is generally intimated, but moreso on how defensible a position I can take spending the time and effort required to read said subject matter. This doesn't mean I stick to only those unquestionably solid standards that dot the various landscapes of writing, but rather that whenever I pick something up, i'll think about how well I can do a job of making the case that this was a worthwhile read. It's harder than you expect, and kinda fun. Ref: White Noise.

The new year approaches, and along with, rhapsodisation. Plans are made to ignore it. I may have to excommunicate myself in a big way.

The inherent quality analogue argument

Editor's note: Hey, whaddya know, I wrote this, and it's been sitting in my drafts for 7 months ETERNITY, in internet times. Cleaned, edited, and bits added. Clearing out those cobwebs!

Line of thought that comes up:

The institution of slavery is such that there is no particular application or version such that any particular version or application is morally right, not inherently degrading and so on and so on. One of the more popular anti-abolitionist arguments of the time was that it wasn't the case that slavery was an inherently morally bad institution; it was that there were a 'few bad apples' that were giving a bad name to what was overall a fine system. This argument was rejected on the basis that this was impossible; there was no particular application that could possibly be fair or morally good or even morally neutral.

Chomsky makes a similar argument regarding corporations (presumably large, public, profit-seeking transnationals); the institution of corporateship is such that it leads to inequitability and social and environmental degradation and so on. We reject this argument on the basis that it is genuinely possible to imagine and institute a system of capital ownership and distribution such that it doesn't create or contribute to those moral bads.

Copyright these days gets much a similar rap. The idea that modern methods of distribution and creation of content these days lends itself strongly to draconian and unfair methods of copyright enforcement, and for that reason, we should abolish copyright. This is wrong because it ignores the differences between copyright and copyright enforcement: those are separate and distinct issues to be dealt with disparately.

I'm going to call this the inherent quality analogue, in that it tries to illustrate to that there exists certain inherent and basically immutable qualities in certain objects, and that these relevant qualities exist in the target of the analogue. Though, really it's more like meta-qualities, namely the qualities possess these properties, without being these qualities themselves.

Topics for further discussion: where else does this argument hold, where else is it employed, anything else I can think of, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...

Absurd

This is the story of Zeitoun.

The story of Zeitoun is set in the the complete clusterfuck that was the federal emergency relief effort of Hurricane Katrina. Like all clusterfucks, there are many factors to blame: levees that were ignored and improperly maintained; grandstanding by too many political officials to even begin counting, in nearly every position in the chain of command; a complete lack of co-ordination or even basic understanding of how the relief effort should proceed. It is in this backdrop that our hero Zeitoun, paddling about in his canoe goes about rescuing trapped victims, feeding stranded dogs, and generally being an all-round cool dude. What does he get for his efforts?

He is arrested, imprisoned, detained without charge, starved, denied medical attention, and refused phonecalls to both his wife and to a lawyer. All this, thanks to the wonderful wonderful relief efforts by
the good people at FEMA.

Eggers shows once again that he's a consummate and conscientious biographer (following on from the soul- and gut-wrenching What is the What). This is a supremely easy read; written simply, with ease and precision. Eggers also employs that trick whereby after the two main characters lose contact, he focuses on one, leaving a feverish cliffhanger on what the hell just happened to the other character.

Conceptual side-note: If there is anything that illustrated the 'near' and 'far' modes of thinking distinction, this is it. The DHS prepared for and imagined a scenario whereby al-Qaeda or the Taliban would stage an attack on the city of New Orleans in the chaos of Hurricane Katrina; and on the basis of this outrageous scenario proceeded to arrest Zeitoun and his companions. Instead of focusing on the 'near' and very real problems of the lack of sanitation, medical supplies, clean water, incompetent/insufficiently informed and trained officials, they focus on the Jack Bauer style 'far' problems of terrorism and civil war. Of course, it's more complicated than that (the use of mercenary third-parties i.e. Blackwater, the untrammeled use of deputisation, etc, etc), but when is it not complicated?

In short, this is a book about the very real effects of institutional failure, especially how those institutions fail in a time of severe crisis. There are very few silver linings in this: by the end, you're grateful and glad that our protagonist is alive and reunited with his loved ones. Compensation, justice, redress is discussed, but inevitably, little comes to fruition. An eloquently written, moving memoir of when the system fails, and what happens to those caught in it.

Get this, motherfuckers:

we own you now, and you owe us.

You know how there's that hoary old cliche of pseudo-and actual intellectuals complaining of how modern/finance/late-capitalism has resulted in certain groups of people - namely those in the finance and banking sector - have culturally and regulatorily captured governing structures, in order to maximise their profits and minimise their losses?

No? Me either. Well, i'm taking about this phrase: 'socialise the losses and privatise the gains', of which we've been seeing a whole lot of recently.

Now, what this phrase is meant to point out is the unfairness that certain industries and entities play by in the vagaries of modern commerce. The supposedly 'sensible' reaction by modern, right-thinking types (even if you're a leftie pinko, though not commie, which i'll come to soon) is to create a symmetry of non-intervention between those conjunctions: gubmint should privatise the losses and privatise the gains.

Well, here's where the commie bolshie in me kicks in. Let's have the symmetry run the other way. Let's socialise the losses, sure, but we sure as hell are gonna socialise those gains too. You made a lot of money this year? Well, hooray! Begin sharing. In a practical sense, what would this mean? High rates of progressive taxation, profit-sharing agreements, and one method quite close to the populist heart, windfall taxes. So, whiling away the time in this realm of bullshit-theorising, it's quite surprising to come across this:

Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. They are a sop to prejudice, a burden on risk-taking and a form of arbitrary confiscation. No sensible person should support them. So why do I now find the idea of a windfall tax on banks so appealing? Well, this time, it really does look different.

From Martin Wolf, in the Financial Times, no less (!) Continuing:

Fifth, it is hard to argue in favour of exceptional interventions to bail out the financial sector at times of crisis, and also against exceptional interventions to recoup costs when the crisis is past. “Windfall” support should be matched by windfall taxes.

Finally, these are genuine windfalls. They are, as George Soros has said, “hidden gifts” from the state. What the state gives, the state is entitled to take back, if it is not used for the state’s purposes.

The rest of the article is rigmarole about the incentive effects of windfall taxes, and where they should be applied (Wolf argues that it should be placed on the bonus pools of the employees of the institutions involved, mostly convincing), concluding with some mild boosterism for (carefully placed) populism.

Who da thunk it? Anyway, i've had this sitting for a little while now, and was partly inspired reading this New York article about the ongoing feud between AIG's Robert Benmosche and Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called 'pay czar' appointed by the Obama administration. It's...it's difficult to describe in words the sheer, unmitigated gall of the assholes. Bile-rising, rictus-inducing, finger-twitchingly infuriating stuff.

Golub, the chairman, was particularly angry at Feinberg’s decision to limit corporate perks—country-club memberships, private jets, sales retreats—to $25,000.

I've never wanted to choke somebody so badly in my life.

Recasting copyright

EDITORS NOTE: This is something I wrote on copyright 7 months ago now? I've gone through this with people, but it seems like my notes are complete than I thought. I've even left in my very rough plan, which is the big blocked off bit that has DELETE surrounding it. And this is how I procrastinate, productively...

An approach concerning artistic control

Roughly: Commercial publication rights and commercial derivative-works rights. Commercial publication rights are just that: they are a copy-right, a right to copy that is legally restricted and legally enforceable (how long should this last? I have no idea, but not comparatively long. Estimates range anywhere between 7 to infinity, but i'm banking on somewhere between 17-20 years.
Economists could chip in here and compute some optimal period based on sales and social welfare and all that jazz.)

Commercial derivative rights on the other hand last for the life of the artist. Non-commercial derivative works are exempt...completely. If someone uses some Radiohead track for the background music for their funny cat video on youtube (though gods knows why, and I don't really want to find out), I seriously don't think this is worthy of moral consideration to the artist. If someone creates some kind of mashup between works in copyright (say, between Jay-Z and Radiohead, and proceeds to call it Jaydiohead [link]) and proceeds to release it non-commercially, that strikes me as okay as well.

However: if said derivative work is released in a commercial sense, then original rights-holders can take action. If the derivative work itself is used in a commercial fashion (say, in an advertisement or related some such), then the author of the derivative work can take action.

CONUNDRUM: What happens if some particular derivative work is used in a commercial sense, and the derivative rights holder actually agrees and licenses his derivative work? Is he liable to the original artwork authors? Is he required to obtain permission from the original artwork authors? I feel not, but something feels uneasy about that.

What's up with that: how come book authors maintain and own copyright, and yet bands/musicians routinely give it up? Book authors effectively license their commercial publication rights to publishing houses, while maintaining their own copyright. Why do bands give up their commercial publication rights and their commercial derivation rights to major publishing houses?

You can roughly equate non-commercial derivative works with fair-use, fair-dealing, etc etc.

Pour example of all this: Take Radiohead's (look, I like Radiohead) seminal masterpiece Ok Computer. Released in 1998, it has so far been in MGM's copyright for approx. 10 years. Ideally, i'd rather Radiohead own the copyright, and licenses out the commercial publication rights to them for 20 years or whatever.

After a 20 year commercial publication period, i.e. from 2018 onwards, the original record can be published and distributed without royalties having to be paid to copyright holders (you can stick the damn thing online if you like). However, if someone wants to create some kind of commercial derivative work using Ok Computer, then they have to get in contact with commercial derivation rights holders (ideally Radiohead, but possibly MGM if that ended up being the case) and figure out a licensing deal or pro bono or whatever.

The issue of versions: doesn't matter. If 10 years after the release of OK Computer, they come out with some re-mastered super-deluxe version, that is okay. The original work will go into (semi)public domain, and the new version will begin the 20 year cycle.

The main difference between this system and current systems of copyright and public domain and so forth is that currently, copyright encompasses both commercial publication rights and commercial derivation rights for a long, long time. When the work passes into the public domain, no authors have to contacted in order to assess commercial derivation or commercial publication issues. This separates that into two different domains.

Commercial derivation rights and commercial publishing rights dissolves when the original copyright holder cannot be reasonably located within a reasonable period of time and effort [Don't even begin to tell me how weaselly that sounds.]. If a band breaks up, commercial derivation rights gone. Author dead, commercial derivation rights gone, and so on.

Obviously all the above does not in any way remove attribution rights. You can't go around claiming some particular work of art as your own if it in fact isn't. This can apply even long after the original author is dead and the works in the public domain. Shakespeare et al. I'm even willing to apply criminal charges to add some teeth to this, though ideally, i'd rather not.

Many many issues: Problems arise with multiple creators (even with straightforward multiple authors, does copyright expire when one but not the other author dies?). Corporate owned copyright (perhaps make it illegal or impossible for corporations to own copyright? But obviously, issues: what about films, albums, even advertising that require collaboration between large teams, related to first point.)

DELETE

Artists given fuller control of their copyright. Copyright reconstituted or reconsidered at least through not the financial incentive of exclusive distributive rights (given that changes in modern distribution make creation and duplication trivial), but rather through the lens of creative controls: artists don't care about the money they make (they do, but not primarily, atleast within this view), but they do care about who or what is being done with their work. Essentially, this comes down to a massive expansion and improvement of fair-use (or fair dealings, or whatever; they're all synonymical for the sake of this argument) rights for non-commercial derivative works. In this view, copyright would exist for the length of the owners' life, shorter than today, but certainly longer than many people advocate.

DELETE

On CMG being the greatest music review site to date

Cranky, adorable young men

If you're smart, and hip, and indie and whatever other epithets appended to the youth of to-day, you're already/should be reading Cokemachineglow. I've taken the fact of CMG being balls-out great as self-evident for a while now, but a) never really understood why they didn't have a wider readership, influence or market share, despite being so perfectly on point with their reviews, and b) they don't even make money from this! They have this gorgeous site and a wonderful stable of talented writers and it's all charity, what the fuck! and c) oh wait, I know why they don't have a wider readership, influence or market share.

They're incredibly fucking idiosyncratic.

As patient and avid followers of CMG may have noticed, they have a blag of sorts going now. And much like how many blags turn into self-indulgent community notice boards, CMG has done something similar; one of their latest posts is effectively a rant by David M. Goldstein's on the 2009 World Series. Their latest post? The ever-favourite pastime of Liam Gallagher baiting.

Here's the thing: The Goldstein post is actually pretty fascinating, if you're looking into a virtual spittle-flecked insight into what a Mets fan feels like. And CMG is caustic! Mounting a campaign devoted to building a better world by "castigating one smug fuck at a time" can seem pretty bitter.

But here's the other thing: it is fucking hilarious. The CMG writers are much too funny and much too talented as music reviewers/writers to let themselves down. It's not just technical abilities (seriously, how many writers do you know are even aware of the word 'copacetic'?), but their general melange of urban, urbane angry ironic hipsterdom, which manages to strike that appropriate balance of self- and other-directed anger...and then slides off way into the other-directed anger. Especially at Liam Gallagher (which to be fair, he brought on himself. By being Liam. Gallagher.)

Oh CMG. Please never stop, now or forever.

It's a pittance, to be sure

But you've sold me!

I wrote this watching the guilty article in question while flying from Dulles to LAX, and have only just remembered that I finished editing it, sort of. I sent to Simon, who has rightly been pestering me about it for a while now, and realised it would be great filler material for the blagoblag! Especially given in the light of the recommendations by some people *cough* *cough*

17 Again

It really is hard to describe how terribly bad this movie is. From its insipid scripting to the incredibly vapid acting to outright offensiveness, the movie plumbs the depth of what it is to prostitute yourself to focus groups. The overall thematic is that of a 17-year-old wise beyond his years/has a conscience kinda thing. It doesn’t help that Efron is a crappy, crappy actor for the job, and the scripting is terribly terribly boring.

Witness the witless dialogue (“I’m a lot closer to them than you think.” GROAN. “Why is that new kid waving at me?” “I don’t know, but if he were an apple, he’d be delicious.” BARF) Totally charmless direction (what is this person’s idea of humour? Or characterisation? Or directorial vision?) Scoring that tries to oh so hard to be cinematic; note to who ever is scoring this, quit trying to be John Williams. Painfully clichéd camera/montage work, which climaxes ever so wretchedly with a contrived lightsaber scene.

Zac. Efron. Cannot. Act. He is waaaaay out of his league on this one. He’s a kid, who’s pretending to be a middle-aged guy, who has to pretend to be a kid? He can barely manage ‘kid’. He’s not even very good at basketball! Worse, he’s not even convincing pretending to be good at basketball!

A notable and worthwhile mention to Matthew Perry; he’s a little typecast these days as “Chandler” i.e. bitter, satirical, wittyish one-liner deliveryman, but it’s a role that suits him well, and a role that he plays well. The interaction between Perry and rest of cast is enjoyable, if a little formulaic. Thomas Lennon is also quite good, but I have a feeling that this is only because of contrast with how uncomfortably amateurish Ze Efron is.

So, obviously, though Perry is by far the better actor, they substitute the easy on the eyes (and hopefully easy in all the other ways that matter as well) Efron for the bulk of the movie. There is a lot, a lot, of screentime for him. Yeah, too much. Unless he shows more skin (and it better be egregious amounts of skin), I’m going to keep imagining punching him in his smug, self-satisfied face. NB: the malice may be going a bit far, but fuck it, he’s irritating. I guess I should be charitable in some way, and say that he’s quite good at the physical stuff; stick to the singing and dancing, kid.

What the hell was the point of that opening dance sequence? What the hell is this movie doing? And oh my god do you have to pound the principal idea of the goddamn title into our heads over and over again? We get it, he missed out on being 17.

Incredibly predictable sub-plot about his kid wanting to go out with head cheerleader, complete with jock-bully antagonist who’s fraternizing with the daughter? Check. Oh add a secondary sub-plot with klutzy, kookie sidekick trying to kindle lost romance in irritatingly kitschy ways? Also check. Ironically, Thomas Lennon’s acting and delivery is actually not half-bad, given what he has to work with.

I never, ever, want Zac Efron to ever say the word psychiatrist or bravado ever again. In any context.

Waxing jokes? Really?

Wha…I…No one…You…let…Zac…monologue in the health class scene. What can I possibly say? What’s probably even more horrifying is that this is only the first of many. Many. *shudder*

Aaand then they make fun of geeks. And then gays. How many stereotypes are you going set up and knock down? Do you think that this gives your more interesting? Is this what you think 'diversity' is?

I haven’t finished watching this movie, and nobody needs to. It’s hard to find a reason to see this movie, much less like it; a hackneyed clichéd effort that’s a waste of celluloid and a waste of time. I’m not going to bother cataloging all the its many and severely aggravating sins, or documenting the many many ways this movie is deplorable. Unluckily for me, I was a captive in a pressurized metal tube. Don’t make the same mistake.


ENJOY! It was amusing writing this while sitting next to christian dude from Colorado, who actually seemed to be enjoying the movie. Certainly made him squirm uncomfortably in his seat.

It is happening, again

It is happening, again

Over coffee and delicious breakfast foods consumed at Single Origin, talk happened, and I want to talk more about emergence. So here, i'll wend through some stuff about emergence and consciousness and climatology and how they relate (sort of).

Simply put, emergence is how complexity could arise out of simplicity: how complex systems and patterns can arise through a series of relatively simple inter/intrasystem actions. One example of this could be consciousness.

Human consciousness as emergence - consciousness as a byproduct of the homo sapien brain, which has certain evolved features and traits i.e. highly plastic, massively modular, relative large sizes of neo-cortices, composed of various systems and sub-systems regulating various functions (hippocampus, limbic systems. frontal/rear lobes, amygdalas, etc etc). This is a relatively non-controversial position - In the same way that one ant on its own is stupid, one neuron is stupid, but many (interacting neurons) are not. While we don't understand the workings of the brain overall, we have (some) decentish ideas about what parts of the brains can do: neo-cortex responsible for social relations, hippocampus for short term memory, brain stem for regulating bodily functions, etc etc. What we don't we know much at all is the interactions between various systems (and in some cases, even within systems); we have a vagueish idea of what the underlying processes are (in some cases), but no idea of how all this makes consciousness, or the brain work the way it does. However, one feasible method of simulating consciousness could be through building networks upon networks of 'dumb' neurons; the play and interplay between the networks could possibly give rise to some form of 'consciousness'.

Climatology (specifically in relation to climate change, cf. global warming) could work in the same way. We understand some of the underlying processes, albeit in some limited way: we know albedo does...shit, we have a vague idea of hydrological systems, sunspot activites, volcanic eruptions, etc etc. But we have no idea, not even really the faintestest clue, on how all these various processes interact. We don't even know whether we know all the processes that affect climate (which is actually a pretty serious dent in the whole emergence idea of climate). Even so, we may be able to make rudimentary guesses; through inputting huge amounts of statistical data (ice cores, temperature histories, carbon histories, etc etc) in teh GIANT COMPUTORS (like this NEC one) we can hope to simulate, even if don't understand per se, what the hell is going on.

Btw, this is all me, bullshit-theorising. This wiki article does a pretty decent job w/r/t the whole attribution of climate change business, if you're looking something specific. Otherwise, wiki/google anything and everything you want to find out more on.

Apparently, I like sad religiousy music

what the hell does that even mean

Heard this on the end of the episodes on Season 2 Deadwood, and went out and got it through the magic of interwebs. Now can't stop listening to it. Blog deserves more attention, which I'm hoping to remedy beginning with this

Madeleine Peyroux - A Prayer

Oh he's one of those

yeah he's of those alright

While I look over this whole healthcare business and ponder whether I want to write some kind of thing about things, I came across this guy. He's one of those sickening intelligent people who come from sickeningly intelligent families who consistently write sickeningly smart, insightful things about their areas of expertise, in his case being public health (reminds me of the Huxleys and the Darwins, actually). Seriously, if you want a decent grip on a lot of healthcare issues, just read his New Yorker stuff. Obama reportedly ordered The Cost Conundrum to become required reading in The White House; his excellent piece of how heathcare reform was passed in various places in the world is engrossing with all sorts of historical tidbits; and as for horror, one either has the abstract (his piece on on how extended solitary confinement could be constituted as cruel and inhuman punishment, or even outright torture) or the visceral, to wit on itching. No kidding. Some seriously fucked up horror movie shit in there:

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, “this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid.” She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.’s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night—and all the way into her brain.

...

“The guy next to you?” I asked. He had had shingles on his neck, she explained, and also developed a persistent itch. “Every night, they would wrap up his hands and wrap up mine.” She spoke more softly now. “But I heard he ended up dying from it, because he scratched into his carotid artery.”

Now try going to sleep.

Comeex

how many alternate spellings are there

A quick mini-review of Understanding Comics: it's good and you should probably read it, if you're interested in these whole pictures and words business. It's pretty straightforward stuff (atleast to me, and I figure to anyone moderately intelligent and interested in the medium), and pretty well set out in terms of being a comic talking about comics. He's making a case, and not stating 'facts' per se, and there's plenty to argue and cuss and debate over. Actually, some of the most interesting material of the book is the historical analysis of comics, of the evolution and what factors (economic, social, technological, etc) ended up shaping comics into what they are today. The material on iconography, art history, styles of comic creation are also quite good as well. Plus, well-written and a breeze to read.

Feel free to disagree as vociferously as you wish regarding the Six Steps business.

Anyway, I'm going to be much more blase, and offer two what are really quite superficial observations regarding the whole reading/understanding comics criticism, especially in relation to storytelling.

Comics allow two useful improvements in storytelling:

1. The shortcutting or fast-tracking of storytelling. Basically, this is a general variation of the idea that 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Why tell when you can show? Words are cumbersome and laborious to read and process; pictures provide a much more primal method of understanding and greatly simplify the storytelling process. Note: I'm not saying here that you're going to get some kind of perfect one to one correspondence between what you want to say and what the reader understands using pictures, but that rather, the scope for communication is sped up, if only a little bit.

2. The amplification or expansion of storytelling. By using pictures, storytellers can spend far less time setting the scene, and use the readers precious attention span and mental energy involved in what they want the reader to pay attention to. The use of pictures allows for expanding the imaginative frame that storytellers wish to express and explore. Changes in plot, scene, dialogue or other technical aspects of storytelling that would be disorientating in novels or prose can be portrayed without confusing or frustrating the reader (obviously, within limits).

A quick note about abstract concepts in comics: abstract concepts are much harder to represent within comics, precisely because they are abstract (duh). We can all (well, almost all) readily form mental images of specific, concrete concepts such as 'tree' or 'car' or 'door', though obviously our exact representations of those concepts will differ. But what about 'justice' or 'beauty' or 'deconstructionism'? Obviously, there's a shared cultural symbology that can be represented, such as Lady Justice, or Michangelo's David or Derrida. But we're not going to say that that is justice itself, or that is beauty itself or deconstructionism itself (though I feel that some may disagree with me on the latter). This is a basic problem why there's a general lack of comics that tackle abstract concepts all that much (however, big mentions should be made with regards to both Scott McClouds efforts, and the entire Introducing/For Beginners series of books. Again, there's a caveat, in that both those works are quite word-heavy, and very tightly written.)

Now, i'll end this here, lest the vampire hordes of Platonists/neo-Platonists/Postmodernists/Baudrillardians attack me for my sloppy, sloppy reasoning (and tell me that all representation is futile or something along those lines). Although you'd think they'd like that kind of reasoning...(ho ho, I jest. But seriously, some of your ilk is giving you guys a bad rap. I'd look into it.)

This is probably not exactly what I should be doing

far too seriously

I've had barely 4 days to decompress and process an aptly self-described epic journey across the United States, and yet here I am already looking at gigs that are happening in the short-term future. So with apparently the foolish intention that I wish to supplant A Reminder, here's a quick perfunctory gigroll of interesting acts coming up:

In what looks to be a great double-billing (if you like the bands involved, and there is quite a bit of overlap in these two) The Lucksmiths are playing their final farewell show with Darren Hanlon on the 21st of August at The Factory. With tickets $22ish, this looks to be a very good deal, and most likely going to sell out. Advise to buy now.

Rather oddly, The Sydney Symphony is playing the music of Star Trek, along with clips of highlights from all eleven Star Trek movies. At the Opera House, for two nights only, on the 4th and the 5th of September.

You should all know by now that Malkmus is playing on the 22nd of September at the Metro.

Good news: Metric are coming to Australia for their first time. Bad news: It's at Parklife, and they are no announced sideshows. This is going to be one of those quandrys that i'm going to be slowly gnawed by frustration over, as Parklife actually has a decentish line-up this year: Empire of the Sun, Metric, Junior Boys, The Rapture, Lady Sov, and a few decent second-tier acts, MSTRKRFT, Crystal Castles, etc. But unfortunately, Parklife also tends towards a preponderance of irritatingly stupid pill-popping douchebags with oversized sunglasses and way too much fluoro (which by the way, any quantity more than zero is too much). Tickets are also pricey, as they've always been. Sidenote: Have web designers learned by now not to fucking autoplay music when you enter a site? And compound the problem by not having an easy way to turn it off? I have my own music to listen to, douchebag, and if I wanted to listen to yours, i'd turn it on. Now, you've just gone and pissed me off and close your website altogether. So DON'T DO IT

With what looks to be one of the most hyped unannounced gigs ever, Animal Collective are coming back to Australia. With over a hundred people attending a gig that theoretically does not exist yet, this does look to be a "massive hipstergasm". 11th December, at the Enmore Theatre, if last.fm is to be believed.

The music festival you should go to atleast once: Meredith is back for its 19th year. The first round ballot is now open to existing subscribers, with later ballots, online presales and what is dubbed enigmatically, "Aunty's last chance". What's surprising about Meredith, and argubly attests to its popularity, is that Meredith has not announced a single act in its lineup (Animal Collective are strongly rumoured to show up, despite the fact that they're rumoured to be playing a gig in Sydney on the first night of the festival). In one of those rare instances, its popularity may in fact be justified by quality; in addition to post solidly entertaining line-ups (past performers have included Final Fantasy, Augie March, The Avalanches and The Shins), they have lots of fun attractions (YURTS) and sensible policies (you can bring your own liquor!) From 11-13th of December, Meredith. Ticket prices have not been announced yet, but are most likely going to be quite dear.

It is too damn cold at 5.30 in the morning. This post took me over an hour to compile which is far too long. My sleep cycles are being completely fucked up by too much drinking, too much late-night staying up, not enough sleep, never enough coffee and weird-ass jetlag. I'll post something on comics soon, being inspired by both Scott McCloud and my drunken (embarrasingly one-sided, I suspect) ramblings with Matt.

Your country needs you!

To help me decide my consumption decisions

So, cause I have decided to buy some comics, you can help! Given that these comics will probably reach you at some point in the future, it's advisable to help. I've got a shortlist of sorts, but feel free to add anything you think might be great. Arguments for and against will also be taken into consideration. Here's my what I can think of the top of my head shortlist:

Earth X
Final Crisis
Blankets
Astonishing X-Men (the Joss Whedon run, namely)

Obviously, i'm leaning towards complete works/complete collections of works, but i'm amenable to other things if they are suitably awesome. If no one helps, I will be vewy sad :(

And no one gets anything. It's like an ultimatum...game. Or not. Go nuts! Reader participation is gr-r-reat. For the record: Frosty Flakes - not that great.

Visions of tunnels and scenes from caves, etc

meditations, etc

As you may have already deduced, i've semi/kinda/sorta decided on not giving you a strictly chronological travelogue diary type thing, and doing the whole random thoughts on a topic thing. So basically, i'm going to keep doing exactly what i've been doing on this blog the entire time, except with more seed thoughts in the form of traveling that i'm doing. With that disclosed, consider this:

You know when you've lost control of your Greader? When you see updates and feeds that you have no idea what they're about. You can't remember when you subscribed to them or what they are or why you subscribed to it. It's official, I can't even control my Greader binges.

My name is Rishi, and I'm a greadaholic.

Look at this face

Can you tell I am excited?

Because I am. Oh so excited.

Actually, enough of whatever the hell emotion that is. I am actually extremely extremely excited. Seriously!

I'm going to be back home soon (next week folks! Ready the standard celebratory hookers and blow), I just received a bunch of books from Amazon which I am extremely excited to read and slaver over, L.A. looks to have to stupidly amazing shit happening (fo' free! What the fuck!) , my cousin is looking to hook me up with getting into Conan (connections, natch) and I am currently looking to go to this place, because have I mentioned how freaking much I love lotus root? Taro is great too. Plus, i'm going to see if I can hit up this Kogi truck business.

This is what money can do for you: put an aquarium in a library. With sharks. And obviously, the internets. This is where I am now. It's a pretty swanktacular library. It's almost distressing how good their comic collection is, which is as adequate a segue as I can manage now.

I'm reading Understanding Comics. I don't think I really need to justify that in any way, cause uh, comics are awesome. There's a lot of interesting and cool historical stuff about representation and icon and, well comics. Definitely worth reading, even if I haven't finished reading it.

In a related piece of travelogue trivia, my interest in comics was further sparked by having a very long and involved conversation with a dude who works at this comic store in Toronto (by the way, it's a fantastic comic store, both in range and prices). I was wondering what comics I wanted to buy and created a shortlist, which I presented to the dude in question, who then proceeded to tell me that my selections were crappy/incomplete. Well, not exactly those words, but I got the gist. But it was okay, cause he wasn't like a douche or anything about it. He was in fact quite awesome in recommending me lots and lots of different comics I would enjoy. So woo dude to whom I am very sorry because I cannot remember your name. He had a cast on his leg, so ask for that! Also, as you can see from the picture, it is a lovely little tiny tiny hole in the wall. More on this at some point? We'll see.

So anyway, enough typing, I have to go be sad about missing out on Regina Spektor's sold out concert. Seriously, her concerts all over the freaking country are selling out incredibly quickly. Is she far behind? Tune in at eleven to find out!

Who'da thunk it

in which I give myself a lot of rope, and hope not to hang

I just opened up a bottle of Harbourfest wine ("Red"), and what with its shitty cork and bland mediocrity, while actually-not-bad-an-opening-kinda-like-a-softer-version-of-a-old-school-cabernet-sauvignon which unfortunately contrasts with a finish that's mediciney and 'bleh'. Look, given that i've still got cheap liquor and various cannobinols and bad caffiene and high fructose corn syrup (which is really fucking rank vile stuff, and it deserves heapings, nay, verily shovelfuls and bulldozer-capable quantities of scorn and oppobrium piled deep and high upon it) and whatever other endoc(h)ronological disruptors i've got percolating through me, I'm entitled to describe a wine as 'bleh'.

So right now, i've got to deal with a beautiful imperious purring cat, who feels that her perfect place of repose is where perchance I wish to lay and rest my not particularly weary head, who looks up at me with baleful and cynical catseyes, and gets twitchy and nervous with jealousy at this clanking clack-clack-clack that so distracts my hands from rubbing her fluffy little cheeks.

This calls for icecream.

Harbourfest? Cats? Icecream? More to come, in the next instalment:

wherein I continue merrily merrily merrily on this Joycean stream, and also use that other Joycean phenom of claiming to have a productive day, when only two lines were written. Inbetween, I hope that I try to leave David Foster Wallace's body a recognisable mess, after I am done thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) raping it.

Who would have thought it

Pretty nearly everyone really

I had an interesting and fun day today. To further explain this would require a lot of backstory and context and necessary and unnecessary justification on my part, which I'm not entirely sure i'm entirely prepared to do at this hour and place and mentality and so on. I'll dispense with the double-doubles (which is another story in itself, albeit definitely shorter and much more delicious, both metaphorically and descriptively) and post what I like most days, which is other peoples' conversation.

This is all to say, I overheard something.



Passing this risque artwork in the National Sculpture Garden, 10-year-old kid runs up to it: Hey look at me!

Parental figure: C'mon Jimmy, stand over there and we'll take your picture. We can pretend that you're a gynecologist!

(I start laughing very awkwardly [both because I was laughing right in the middle of a group of people, and did that guy just crack a vagina joke to a 10-year-old!?] into a jacket sleeve, everyone looks at me and starts laughing)

On the one hand

but on the other hand

I'm helping! I reversed a wiki troll. I do not believe that Harvard University is infact known as:

Harvard Racist Charging University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Or that it is widely asserted to be a:

a left wing liberal nest and reverse racist - private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Though, perhaps out of charity, I should have marked it with a "citation needed".

I don't care how many times i've linked it before, but this is still awesome. Infringe that copyright!

A cat curled up and a warm bed

keys to happiness

I've been searching for a while to say things that might be appropriate to say about New York City, but it's difficult, given the subject matter at hand, my own inadequacies as a writer, and the fact that I don't want to end up looking like a douchebag 'brilliant' thinker, albeit with an Antipodean twist. Besides, I think other, more abler authors have better captured some of the spirit and flavour of NYC.

I could go through the numbers and point out the exceptionalism which is captured in these slices of data, but you can read the featured and very good wiki article yourself. A couple of things that stand out: population density (more than 5 times Sydneys', Manhattans' density is over 12 times that of Sydney) the number of households that don't have a car (more than half, and more than 3/4 in Manhattan) how incredibly environmentally friendly it is (gasoline consumption hasn't changed since the 1920s, water so clean it doesn't even need to be purified; the stats of carbon output are similarly impressive) and a subway system so large and so well-known it's available on umbrellas.

I think one of the most sensible, non-retarded things you can say about NYC is how it tends to resist generalisations of it (mine notwithstanding). But a) that's a total cop out and b) it's such a trivially simple truism that it lacks worth mentioning; pablum, in a word. It might be still be necessary, given the breath, depth and scope of diversity that NYC has.

Instead, i'll end with this:

New York City is the cities' city. It is the ultimate and quintessential realisation of what cities can be and the potential of cities as expressions of human endeavour; it is, in short, an urbanists' (wet) dream.

Changed my mind

That happens...or does it?

I was going to write something about something most likely re: this holiday thing I am on, but i've changed my mind and do a plug for the upcoming Evolution, Emotions and Metaethics workshop, hosted by Richard Joyce (who has a very slick personal page, and is specialised in fields that I love so much that I have no idea why I haven't heard of him till now. He will now be pestered to death.)

Those of you on the SydPhil should already be aware, and I've been excited since it was initially announced way back in March or so. I'll be back the day before it starts (I think, if my calculations are accurate), so i'll probably be very tired and very jetlagged.

But whatever!

This would be funny

Actually, this is pretty funny.

So, a slightish confession. I've been getting pretty damn stoned with my cousins and assorted friends while i've been staying with my aunt in Oswego. In fact, i'm on the tail end of a buzz now, so forgive me if I uh...get, like...totally...rad.

I mean, if I get a little distracted.

The 'getting solidly blazed' thing (see? i'm picking up the lingo) can wait for and really deserves better treatment, in the way of a fuller post that i'll do later. Seriously, small towns and drugs are an interestin' soc-sci project unto itself.

Right now, I just wanted to talk about shit that makes no fucking sense when stoned (which is seriously most everything) and more specifically, infomercials.

Oh but there's more! Spanish infomercials. Though accurately, this should be infomercials in Spanish.

I'm semi-channel surfing, flipping through bombings in Jakarta, Nancy Grace's expose on Michael Jackson (pepsi commerical burned his scalp?!) when suddenly, lo and behold, infomercial. But not just any infomercials, but infomercials dubbed in Spanish.

Now, it's late at night, I'm pretty nicely out of it, and what the fuck? Badly dubbed informercial selling a fucking infrared oven? This would make little sense if I were sober. And oh dear god Spanish is spoken fast during these sorts of things. I was in this great little Brooklyn taqueria, listening to a Brooklyn chica talk in rapidfire Spanglish, telling her friends about how she shot down this one guy ("Oh yeah motherfucker why don't you come over here and say it") and lordy she was fast. Is it even comprehensible when you talk Spanish that fast?

As propagators and continuers of the stoner genre Bill and Ted would say, this is totally bogus. And I am getting tired, and going to sleep. Night!

This is what passes for food these days

Sometime lateish at night in Washington, I wanted to get some icecream. Not really knowing where anything was, I ran into a snack truck offering icecream and other snack food products! Huzzah right? After much humming and froing between an ice-cream sandwich or a 'chocolate eclair', coinflip decides to get the 'chocolate eclair'. This is what that contained:

"Cake Coated
Artificially Flavored
Vanilla Light Ice Cream and
Chocolate Flavoured Fudge
Center Artificial Flavour Added
*Not a Light Food"

All that being said, given time, place, and craving, it was very nom nom nom. It ranked highly on the nomosity scale. Cherish and savour, another little anecdote.

With malice toward none, with charity for all

Lincoln's greatest speech.

I'm on a bus heading up to NYC, after spending 4 great days in Washington D.C. The bus comes with free wifi, among many other conveniences, the foremost of which that it is very very cheap. But surprisingly comfortable. And you really can't beat the free wifi.

Rishi the Tour Guide note: If you want travel anywhere in Northeast/Eastern Seaboard North America, your best bet is bus travel. There's quite a few low cost bus services that all utilise yield management systems, with fares starting at $1(!!), if you book early enough. It's more likely your fare will cost 19-25, but that's still a really great price on these sorts of things. There's no hassle of customs, you can use a phone, most come with free wifi, you can get up and walk around, and they have toilets. And the scenery is much better than a plane.

Though, rail isn't a bad idea either. It's usually more expensive than bus, but less than flying. I've ridden on Amtrak a few times, and it's very romantic. Usually, you're going through picturesque countryside, and there are actual snack cars available on most trains, and some even come with full dining (and beds even!) cars. And the operators and conductors are almost always bound to be fun people, who seem to love announcing things in that great old-timey singsong announcement voice, and being generally funny people. Example:

"We're coming to Albany now, and we're going to have short 20min break to change crews. If you want to get and stretch your legs or grab a bite to eat, feel free to do so. Those of you participating in the smoking olympics should also use this opportunity to do so, as this is our last stop before New York City."

So, now you know.

Anyway, back to NYC. Having come from Washington, where politics is big (seriously, everybody talks about it, and as commonplace as 'what are we having for lunch' talk), i've been fascinated by this State Senate crisis that's apparently just been resolved. New York has had a bit of tumultuous political period in its recent history, what with the Eliot Spitzer scandal and Paterson's abysmal approval ratings and Democrats getting a hold of the State Senate for the first time in four decades and Bloomberg spending $36 million of his personal wealth (so far) into trying to secure a third term as mayor, among other things. It's classic backroom dealings and machinations and manuvering, and totally engrossing stuff.

I'm genuinely missing you guys, which is actually a little weird given that I usually don't give a shit. Love, all.

EDIT: I got new shoes. They are teal/aquarmarine and ZANY. Oh so zany.

In the throes

lust, deprivation and other stories

posts so good we never get to read them!
-sam moginie

To snark on the snark, I think it's appropriate to further that quote by the metaphor of indie bands, given that I have just come back from Canada, home and birthplace of all indie darlings, now and forever:

The best kind of indie bands are the ones you never hear; the more obscure a band, the better. I suspect that it follows some kind of logarithmic distribution, but more research is needed.

My 5 nights and 4 and a halfish days in the T.O. were some of the best in my life. I'm waxing sentimental from the sleep-deprivation and the excitement and various other pretty young things, but something will happen soon. Something, that may not be enough.

On a lighter note: Deadwood is a good show! I watched the first two episodes, and HBO do their we-are-so-edgy-and-gritty-and-make/produce/bankroll-edgy-gritty-shows thang quite well. Watch it, if blood and guts and murder set in Western times rocks your lox or sox.

Really, it's not what you're thinking

I've just been a lazy, lazy person.

So by my reckoning, i've now been overseas nearly 4 weeks, and I haven't posted anything yet. This despite the fact that i've been basically completely free for the past two weeks or so after leaving NYC. There are multiple reasons to which this can be attributed:

1) I am lazy, regarding editing/filling out my posts;
2) Hulu is freaking amazing;
3) There are have other...*cough* 'activities' *cough* that sap my motivation to do shit that I should do, like blag. Clearly, activities that make me cough (literally).

There should probably be a sub-reason in there somewhere, because sometimes I do do shit that I need to do, like researching transportation and accommodation for various places I want to stay. Pour example, I've booked my D.C. trip! Spending 4 days in D.C, but I haven't booked a return trip outta Foggy Bottom. And i'm wondering whether I want do a day (or more) to Bodymore (the answer is YES, HELLS YES I DO) or go to NYC and spend a couple of days there (ALSO YES) or go straight back to Syracuse. Also researching how to get to and stay in Toronto, and maybe Montreal. We'll see.

Actual blogging is happening I swear. I want these travel posts to be good, very good even, so i'm sweating over them quite a bit.

We're just gonna have to taxi around till we find a gate

God that is irritating.

Hey guys! Sorry for teh lack of updation, i've had intermittent access to the interwebs while i've been here. I actually have a huge post that i've written regarding flights and L.A. and what i've done and all that crap, but have noticed that i've loaded it down with way too much minutae. I need to edit, but I can't as i'm just about to leave for Philly!

A tasty tasty morsel of things to come:

On my flight from L.A. to Newark, near landing, flight attendant perks up:

"If you look out to your left, you will see the skyline of New York City. And if you look out to your extreme right, you will see absolutely nothing."

Blog soon I promise!

I've heard people like eating these days

In this post in the Atlantic Business Channel, Daniel Indiviglio argues that people being underemployed is going to stunt economic growth:

People have begun watering down their résumés to seem more appealing to jobs below their experience level. This is bad news for job seekers, but it's also bad news for the U.S. economy.

A few responses to this: People like, you know, eating. And showering. And all those other little goods and services that modern living provides often in exchange for labour. It'd be great if everyone could get employed in the position of their choice that fully maximises their output to the economy, but with the economy in the doldrums as it is, it's not like they have that much of a choice. Besides, it doesn't seem like people get all in a tizzy when we hear stories of overqualified migrants driving taxis or working in restaurants or some such.

Secondly, what do you propose people do, Mr. Indiviglio? Are you saying that people should be honest in their resumes? Cause that's gonna work real swell, according to you:

I was talking to a friend just yesterday considering résumés for an entry-level position. My friend received a six-page résumé from a candidate so overqualified, she won't even be considered.

He also argues that this underemployment will also be detrimental to workers:

That is, of course, if their résumé is not tarnished permanently by spending several years in a position that is a step back on their career path.

Right, because being unemployed for god-knows-how-long is going to look just super on your résumé.

Again, it'd all be well and good if we could get everyone the job they want and are qualified for, but sometimes, underemployment is the best of a bad lot.

I'm only posting this so that no one reads my substandard response to Brendan's 'thing', but I realise that most of you have some kind of RSS reader, which completely foils my dastardly plan. Dang.

ASIDE: I'm quoting Indiviglio who's quoting Yahoo who's quoting the Wall Street Journal. Now, I just need the WSJ to quote me and the news cycle of life will be complete. It's true, and you're right, the internets have turned into a house of echoey horrors.

Inappropriate intrusions on emotions

Someone from the internets made criticised me, and you know how important it is to go after people who say things on the Interwebs. The answer: Very Important.

In his opening salvo, Mr Wojit has made some claims regarding the appropriateness of emotion in moral frameworks, namely utilitarianism. I'd like to respond to some of those claims, as well as defend myself against any crude caricatures made of me. I'll place all the substantative claims up the top of this and append any other nitpicks that I have at the bottom of this, if you so wish to peruse them.

The general argument that I'm running is this: Emotions qua emotions are not inherently damaging. I'll admit that emotions do play a fairly strong and probabilistic role in motivating action, but I think what this does is that it changes the question from a logical one to an empirical one, in ways that that'll be detailed below.

Imagine some person spends all day thinking of terrible horrifying fantasies of murder and pain and general gruesomeness. Said person derives a lot of pleasure from this activity, more so than any other activity available to her. If a utilitarian wants to maximise pleasure, than I can't see any reason why they would object to this persons' emotions/actions.

Another example: say I think, 'man, it'd be great if I went and firebombed an abortion clinic.' But I never go through with said action, because of material/time/knowledge constraints etc etc (building a firebomb is a PITA). But I have this thought nevertheless, and harbor positive emotions and feelings towards this thought. Now, let's assume I never express this thought in any public and keep it purely within myself. If it gives me pleasure, and doesn't hurt anyone else in any way, I don't see any reasons to evaluate it in any way.

The quasi-Humean motivational 'objection': So imagine the case whereby I harbor a great unjust antipathy to certain other people of the human race, namely distinguished by the colour of their skin i.e. white people. Now, I can imagine a case whereby I maintain these very antagonistic emotions towards them, without ever acting on those emotions; they may inspire detestment or hatred or some other negative emotion but I never act on them, due to various reasons, be it fear of consequences or a general understanding that emotions should not play a part in motivating my actions or some other reason all together. My actions look exactly the same as a non-racist person; I hold doors open for them, I tip my hat and say 'hullo' when I meet them, I don't discriminate against them socially or financially or otherwise. Furthermore, these emotions do make me happy in some way, in that they provide me with some comfort in the privacy of my mind. This is again a place where I don't utilitarians can relevantly object to me having these emotions, as repugnant as they may be.

Rules are too broad: with the case of the angry person throwing a punch, we can modify the rule. We can and should say, 'Don't throw punches at people without justification' or something along those lines, rather than 'throwing punches because you are angry is bad'. Hell, we could even be a more parsimonious and bracket out the anger bit, and say something like 'Throwing punches [because you are angry] is bad'. Again, this has to do with my general skepticism of judgment of motivation. As someone who leans consequentialist, I'd much rather have good things happen, than be overly concerned about how those good came about.

The problem of appropriate response: One of the severe problems that virtue ethics faces is what constitutes appropriate virtues, and I think that problem extends here. What can we consider appropriate emotional responses to an act or state of affairs? Turn the other cheek or eye for an eye? Even reasonable persons can have completely differing and polarised emotional responses to the same situation e.g. abortion. I certainly don't want to say that your emotional responses on those cases are wrong or inappropriate per se; if they proceed to act on those emotions i.e. either commit some kind of property or personable damages or base some kind of justificatory argument on those painful emotions, then I would claim those actions are misjudged in that they are based on bad premises. But those emotions qua emotions are not in themselves damaging.

Consider the example of videogames. They often inspire very strongly felt emotions in its subjects, very frequently emotions we would rightly condemn outside of those spheres. But this doesn't necessarily mean that gaming subject act on those emotions; we don't see people gunning down people and beating up hookers for money (well, we do, but we can be pretty sure that it's not the game that motivated them to behave in that manner). Again, emotions are not in and of themselves damaging, and as such shouldn't be subject to moral scrutiny or censure. NB: I'm not ruling out other types of scrutiny or censure.

I'll also make an argument from parsimony, based of a metaethical tripartite division of intentions, acts and effects/outcomes (Told you there was going to be metaphysical baggage). Moral frameworks should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Utilitarianism, especially, should focus more effects/outcomes, and to a lesser extent, acts. Intentions should be given minimal, if not negligible, concern. The example I am primarily thinking of is the ill-gotten charity example: imagine a person giving to charity not because of charitable intentions but rather of trying to cultivate good will and personal reputation. Utilitarians shouldn't care about the intentions (which are 'bad') and care more about the act (good, in this case, though it is obviously possible to have bad acts that produce good outcomes) and care most about the outcomes (good, in this case as it alleviates suffering/produces more pleasure). To critique emotions/intentions/thoughts in this case would be detrimental to the utilitarians' case of increasing the amount of pleasure in the world.

What the argument from parsimony and the videogame example should point out is that we are much better at acting on with outcomes and acts, then we are at dealing with intentions and emotions (In fact a point that you make later in the post).

A consequentialist would care more about the outcome than how the outcome was caused (but that doesn't mean she doesn't care at all about the causes, it just means she cares less). In this case, the case over appropriate emotions becomes an empirical one: how much did the emotion matter in contributing to the outcome? Answering this question would have to be done on a case-by-case basis, as the examples above clearly show cases of emotions that have no net negative effects. In some cases, sure the emotion played a major contributive/motivating factor. But in many other cases, it has no effects on the outcomes of that case.

What a lot of this boils down is my general anti-paternalist tendencies: I value autonomy, especially autonomy over your mind and thoughts as being especially paramount. I don't mind being told what to do, especially if you can convince me in a rational manner. But being told what to feel is another matter altogether; not only is it often a unbidden, non-rational response, it's a deeply primal and often integral part of human imagination and experience. In other words, you can lead a horse to water and even convince him to drink it; but that doesn't mean he's obligated to feel nice towards you.

OPTIONAL NITPICKS

Nitpick the first: I'd add to the whole, "loving the murderer who killed your loved one means that the victim wasn't really a loved one", to me it doesn't strike me that you could in honesty and in good faith love someone who just killed your loved one. Love, by definition, to me precludes this, but i'm more than willing to say that is possible that there is someone out there who is capable of such psychological gymnastics.

Semantic/Linguistic Nitpick:

You say:

That is to say something like: there is a strong probabilistic link between the emotion, anger, and the action, violence. [emphasis added]

But then next sentence:

So unless there is some other, more direct & effective way to reduce instances of punch-throwing without having to go through emotional proscription, then it seems we have perfectly good reasons to morally worry about, judge, and critique emotions. [emphasis added]

I'm not quite sure whether I want to equate perfectly and probabilistic. I'd rather change the second sentence to probabilisitic good reasons to etc etc, but this is some pretty minor hairsplitting/handwaving.

Please stand by

An operator will be with you shortly

While I figure what the hell I want to say in reply to Mr Wojit's post, realising in the process I have no idea what the hell I want to say, and weave and dodge between arguments that make no sense to little sense and back again; then realise that I'm agreeing with him, then resolve not to. It's all very complicated.

So in temporary lieu of what is likely to be a pretty poor response, here's some cute to soften/stupid you up:

What freaks me out thusly

It's not what I know about I don't know, it's what I don't know about what I don't know.

So, one of the reasons that I rarely reach zero unread articles on my Greader is that I'm subscribed to a lot of things. No, it's probably more honest and straightforward to just blame The Browser, but that doesn't really mitigate the point. Either way, I have a lot of interests. As of writing, i've got about 6 tabs open, ranging from a longitudinal study on happiness in The Atlantic, an article on smear tactics by Gordon Brown, a lovely poem in The New Yorker, the wiki article on copyright (which by the way is still happening, but i'm making a sort of series of installments rather than one thing) and Thinkin' Lincoln, which is hilarious and I blame Matt for sucking up what precious little time I have left devoted to eating.

This is crippling.

Recently, when I went climbing, Rob asked me during one of my more extreme bouts of enthusiasm on why I didn't go climbing earlier (i've only been doing it for about three weeks) on account of the fact that I enjoy it so much (it's true, it is incredibly fun). In addition to simple pragmatic reasons of scheduling conflicts, material constraints, etc, one reason that struck me wasn't that I didn't know I enjoyed climbing; it was that I didn't know that I didn't know. If someone were to ask me the question, "Do you enjoy climbing?", I could heartily respond, "Yes, I do very much enjoy climbing." But here's the rub: Nobody asked that question, not even me. I didn't know that I enjoyed climbing, because the question of climbing-enjoyment never occurred to me within my cognitive frame of reference.

Another example: The New Yorker publishes a wide mix of reportage, newsgathering, and fictional pieces such as poems and short stories. Ordinarily, i'm more interested in the reportage and newgathering stuff, and would generally skip over the fiction stuff. But (being somewhat of a knowledge 'completist') I read the fiction, because i'm afraid i'll skip over some incredible piece of writing which I would totally love and adore. Case in point: Jonathan Lethem. Having never heard of him before, I proceeded to read Lostronaut in The New Yorker, which has been one of the nicest examples I have ever read within the short story genre. It wasn't just a 'I know this Jonathan Lethem fellow who apparently writes good shit, I haven't read any, but I know of it', but rather a complete lack of knowledge of who Lethem is and what he does.

It is precisely this kind of serendipitous finding, this finding out of things that I didn't even know I didn't know, these second-order knowledge questions, these hidden knowledge questions, that bugs me the most and compels me to spend so much time on topics and even forms of writing that are so completely varied. I'm afraid that by subscribing to a select few fields of knowledge that I know I'm fairly interested in, i'm going to miss out on some other field of knowledge that I would completely love and adore and be willing to sacrifice someone else's firstborn child to it.

Now, I realise that this is a bit of a bogeyman argument: you can't constantly be asking the 'what if' question. I understand that most people are able to resolve this argument and move on with their lives, but I haven't been able to find a satisfying resolution to this problem that allays the worst of my fear of commitment and allows me some form of peace-of-mind. I intensely dislike the 'ignorance is bliss' argument, as I feel it is a even worse argument that the one I am proposing.

In a related and grandiose but completely untenable thesis, I have the idea that this is sort of what the current Age of Knowledge is all about. That is, modern day knowledge gathering isn't a case of 'What is the answer to question X?' but rather a case of 'What are the questions that need to be asked in regards to question X?' Case in point: metaethics. Whenever I start doing ethical thought of any kind, it inevitably flounders and sinks into the quicksand that is foundational ethics. Everytime I try and do ethics, I end up doing metaethics.

So, who knows? My crippling commitment to a lack of commitment will probably (has already, i'm wagering) end up marring my life, in ways I can't even imagine, due to the reasons detailed above. Is it possible to monetise my capacity as knowledgable oddball?

Star Trek

Summation: not that bad. Read on!

You know how critics of all shapes and sizes wear out that hoary old cliche that runs something along the line of 'an exercise in tedium, punctuated by bouts of action'? Well, Star Trek could well be described as an exercise in action, punctuated by bouts of tedium. Thankfully, J.J. Abrams did not horribly mangle a wonderfully well-loved franchise that has seen better days and was on the verge of dying out completely, following the tepid performance and subsequent cancellation of Enterprise.

He did kinda kick it around a bit though.

Time-travel is such a well-worn trope and general audience-pleaser in the Star Trek oeuvre that it's possible to make a story involving whales and time-travel that still makes more sense than the plot of this latest iteration. How Abrams manages to screw time-travel up is left as an exercise for the viewer. He does it in a minor manner, mind you, mostly concerning plot that doesn't really impact on the rest of the movie in a notably negative way, but it does leave the hardcore- and even the casual-Trekkie with a little confusion and bafflement.

Good things: The dialogue, the casting and probably what most people will remember, the CGI was good. Actually, scratch that, the CGI was great. Seriously. I am very very glad that they did not skimp out on the CGI. One of the continuing historical weaknesses of the Star Trek genre has been the low-quality special FX, which generally gives the series a vaguely campy feel. It's difficult to take a hostile alien encounter in space (with pew pew lasers, no less) seriously if all you see is people falling awkwardly off chairs and sparks flying off chunky grey metal boxes. There's a level of professionalism, production values and grown-up adultness in this movie that really creates a much stronger immersive experience when bad shit happens. You see people die; not in a gratuitous, gory sense, but you can't mistake it. The explosions are loud, bright and geniunely enthralling; the thuds and slams of fists against faces are satisfyingly meaty. And most importantly, we get to see other parts of the fucking ship than just the bridge! In addition, hearing characters other than the main ones spouting scientific-sounding background chatter during conflict scenes is a good touch.

In fact, the CGI in the movie strikes me a good deal better than atleast two other major special FX monsters: Spiderman 3 and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. In the former, despite the billion-dollar budget, the CGI looked terrible in places, namely the fights between Spidey and...everyone else. In the latter, the opening scene is a gorgeous interstellar battle that eventually runs into boring and confusing. Star Trek still makes sure the CGI contributes, rather than takes over the movie.

All in all, it's a pleasant revival of a franchise that was thought to be long overdue to be put out to pasture. It's worth your money, and more importantly, your time.

A thing that is starting to bother me

First of many?

So, something i've been noticing recently is this habitual bias people tend to have against non-institutionalised activity. It seems to be that if you haven't participated in some particular institutionalised method of activity, your activities (even if they're the exact same activities, without institutional recognition) are somehow illegitimate, or non-worthwhile.

This bothers me, and it should bother you too, for very obvious reasons.

Related: My/your experience means squat. Seriously. It should be called the fallacy of (personal) experience or something similar, and more and more people should learn it. I'm sure i've talked about it at length with many of you.

My lulz for the day: My bugmenot login for the NYT is spectordefector.

Nice.

The Paint On The Canvas

(For A***, with love)

you sit in soft twilight,
sheets draped over you,
knees drawn up, watching the waning sun.

you're beautiful when you work,
a measured erotic cadence of brush and colour
I could watch for hours, and I do.

we make love after the war
throat and tongue lashings
of kisses nipped in buds and necks.
there's paint everywhere, on the sheets, on the floor, on each other
but that doesn't matter.

The only paint that matters is the paint on the canvas.

Last Night

Screeching harrier
you think you're so fab-bu-lous
tone down voice and hips

The long awaited

waiting with bated breath

So, as many of you are probably aware, I was planning to write something on this whole global financial crisis end of the world things, but have been roundly trounced in that department by many, many other commentators. So i'm going to a linkroll of sorts, with short summaries/extracts of each so you can make up your own mind (i.e. conform to my horribly horribly biased view. It makes me happy.) Consider this one-stop learning shop for all things financial crisis-ey.

If you're only going to read/write one article on the financial crisis, make it this one. You google readerites should have been advised on this already, but I reiterate. Strongly. This article is pretty much exactly what I was going to write; he covers all the issues that I was concerned about, between moral hazard and regulatory capture and the insanity of compensation that occurs on Wall Street, and the main conceptual issue that's been bothering me about this Geithner Plan/Bailout thing; that we need more of the same in order to fix this mess:

Even leaving aside fairness to taxpayers, the government’s velvet-glove approach with the banks is deeply troubling, for one simple reason: it is inadequate to change the behavior of a financial sector accustomed to doing business on its own terms, at a time when that behavior must change.

As Felix Salmon puts it, "[this article] captures all the different strands of thought that Simon Johnson has been talking about in various other articles and puts it all together in a coherent whole. Sobering." Indeed.

Another commentator who runs roughly the same line as Johnson: Paul Krugman. The other great critic of the current establishment plans. Not quite a must-read, but definitely worthwhile. The perfect supplement to the Simon Johnson article.

Willem Buiter, in his fantastic, smart and bitchy best about the forthcoming G20 summit, along with proposals to change everything from regulatory regimes to compensation structures and turning around the world economy.

Matt Taibbi recently published a long expose in Rolling Stone on the financial crisis, and it's been getting a bit of press and circulation. My thoughts: This is unprofessional. I mean, c'mon when you say things like:

Cassano [Head of AIGFP, the unit that brought AIG down], a pudgy, balding Brooklyn College grad with beady eyes and way too much forehead

or

a bald-headed Frankensteinian goon named Hank Paulson

or my favourite

valueswise they're on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties.

I'm going to lose respect for you, because you don't seem serious. (Maybe this is meant to be satirical, and I don't get the joke. Unless it's one of those 'the joke is, we're all fucked, haha.' I don't know.)

I understand that it's a sort of hatchet job, that it's supposed to be a form of expression of the righteous anger and populist rage that a lot of people (especially young) are feeling. Character assassination and outright insults are a particular style, especially of Rolling Stone, but it seriously detracts from the story, which is remarkably well-researched and surprisingly endearing. Lots of good points made, but glibness at times and overall tone of conspiracy make it unnecessarily painful.

Brad DeLong's FAQ's the Geithner Plan. If you want the simplest, most concise and more enjoyable breakdowns (along with some boosterism) of the Geithner Plan, this is it. DeLong is far more optimistic about the Geithner Plan than many others. For one thing, I seriously do not think there is anywhere nearly enough "skin in the game" for private investors; they're putting in $30 billion, and the government kicks in, what, $1 trillion? That's what, 3%? That is not enough skin in the game. God forbid we find out that these 'legacy assets' are worthless.

Here's a specific (slightly mathematic) rebuttal of the public-private partnership that's considered one of the major prongs of the Geithner Plan, from naked capitalism. We need to let the zombie banks die:

With price discovery (or the equivalent via more realistic marking of their books), some banks would be toast and need to be put in a form of receivership. But pretending these banks are viable, keeping the incumbents in place (who have incentives to take risk with taxpayer money, if nothing else so they can try to show profits and slip the leash) is the worst of all worlds. Some of the big banks already have been nationalized from an economic perspective, yet we keep alive the dangerous and costly fiction that they are functioning, private concerns. The Japanese did a variant of this program via letting zombie banks hold dead loans at grossly overvalued prices and pretend to be solvent, and look how well it served them. Oh, and in the end, the banks had to take the losses.

Another good post to why the PPIP is a bad idea:

Of course, as cash flows evolve, PIMROCK's $10B is wiped out entirely, as is the Treasury's investment. The FDIC gets repaid in a bunch of securities worth about $50B, taking a $70B loss. But, as Calculated Risk, likes to say "Hoocoodanode?" These were real market prices, Geithner or his successor will argue. Our private partners lost everything. There was no subsidy here.

Meanwhile, taxpayers will be out around $80B.

Why would PIMROCK go along with this? Because they feel it is their patriotic duty to work with the government for the good of the financial system, even if that involves accepting some sacrifices. And because they hold $100B in J.P. Citi of America bonds, and they've received assurances that if we can get the nation out of the financial pickle it's in, there will be no haircuts on those bonds. "Shaking hands with the government" means that nothing ever has to be put in writing.

Stephanie Flanders, of the BBC, and her scepticism of the PPIP:

Like nearly every finance minister in the developed world, the US treasury secretary would like US banks to offload their toxic assets at a price that both private investors and voters are happy to accept. It can't be done. Someone is going to end up sad - probably the voters.

We have fallen into the habit of taking the term "toxic" a bit too literally. These assets aren't bits of plutonium sitting in the vaults of the banks, infecting everything that comes close. They are simply assets. What's toxic about them is the fact that they don't have a market-clearing price.

Put it another way, there isn't a price that banks are willing to accept and investors are willing to pay. This is the problem that's bedevilling governments the world over and it's worth repeating. It's not that these assets have no value, as some would suggest, it's that there's no price that the banks are willing to accept.

So, all those governments have been looking for a way to bridge the gap between the banks and the market, without the taxpayer getting a raw deal. But I'm not sure there is one.

Another article from Naked Capitalism, on why nationalisation isn't so bad, along with how Alan Blinder was being such a disingenous prick.

Clive Crook argues that regulators need to move faster to shut down undercapitalised banks and shadow banks, possibly by adapting the resolution methods of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which "in effect devises pre-packaged bankruptcies for troubled banks."

Matthew Yglesias on why breaking up the banks is a good idea:

My biggest concern about the PPIP approach to the banking system is that even if it works, what it does essentially is return us to the pre-crisis status quo—banks that are so large that they’re too politically powerful to regulate effective and too systemically important to be allowed to fail.

Glen Greenwald on the supposed sanctity of AIG bonus contracts:

Apparently, the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others. Either way, the Obama administration’s claim that nothing could be done about the AIG bonuses because AIG has solid, sacred contractual commitments to pay them is, for so many reasons, absurd on its face.

As any lawyer knows, there are few things more common – or easier -- than finding legal arguments that call into question the meaning and validity of contracts. Every day, commercial courts are filled with litigations between parties to seemingly clear-cut agreements. Particularly in circumstances as extreme as these, there are a litany of arguments and legal strategies that any lawyer would immediately recognize to bestow AIG with leverage either to be able to avoid these sleazy payments or force substantial concessions.

TPM's brief history of AIGFP aka Ground Zero:

As we delve into the back-story behind the collapse of AIG, we thought it might be useful to lay out some key factual information about the firm's Financial Products unit, known as AIGFP, whose disastrous credit default swaps brought the company to its knees. How and when did AIG Financial Products get started? Who ran it, and from where? How did it get into credit default swaps, and what exactly are they, anyway? And how did this group of derivatives traders eventually wind up bringing down one of the most admired financial firms in the world?

A strangely named blog on how the innumerate quants weren't just off, but way off:

just Bayesian estimators would tell you they're off by at least a factor of 2, and realistically they were off by a factor of roughly 10

Martin Wolf on why a successful bank rescue is still far away:

"The conclusion, alas, is depressing. Nobody can be confident that the US yet has a workable solution to its banking disaster. On the contrary, with the public enraged, Congress on the war-path, the president timid and a policy that depends on the government’s ability to pour public money into undercapitalised institutions, the US is at an impasse.

And finally, the stinger:

If the bailouts Congress has been handing out so freely haven't convinced you that we aren't really in a capitalistic society any more, nothing ever will. We're running an unholy union of capitalism and socialism right now, and I really wish we'd pick one of the two and stick with it. As it is, we get the drawbacks of both, and the benefits of neither.

-Slashdot