Author: geoff

Dust and despair from the end of the 60s

Prompted by Charlie‘s comment on my posting about science fiction books, I’ve been reading some Ursula Le Guin. Having really enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness, I immediately started in on The Dispossessed. That was three weeks ago; I just finished it tonight. Barely. Willing myself to complete it. Trying to summon up a little curiosity about how it might end.
I know it’s supposed to be a masterpiece, but these flat passages about these desiccated people on their minimalist world failed to grab me. (For hardscrabble life on the edge, give me Steinbeck any day.) And the more I read, the more I felt that these characters were all simply stereotypes representing facets of the sociopolitical debate that seized so many at the end of the 60s, from Paris to Berkeley. When the helicopter-borne troops moved in, and the strikers were hunted through the city, I could practically see the footnotes about Paris ’68 and Kent State. And the future, for all concerned, was so damned bleak that I almost gave up on it.
Oh, well. Can’t win them all. What next, I wonder? I’d like to find the first book in a nice space-opera series, with just the right kind of cynical… oh, wait: that’s DVDs. OK: give me something like Feersum Endjinn, or a new Neal Stephenson (but with an editor, please – not like the undisciplined ramblings of the Baroque Cycle).

Sam and Andy – it's a wrap!

From Sam Harris’s final contribution to his debate with Andrew Sullivan at Beliefnet:

You want to have things both ways: your faith is reasonable but not in the least bound by reason; it is a matter of utter certainty, yet leavened by humility and doubt; you are still searching for the truth, but your belief in God is immune to any conceivable challenge from the world of evidence. I trust you will ascribe these antinomies to the paradox of faith; but, to my eye, they remain mere contradictions, dressed up in velvet.

Indeed.

A picture saves me a thousand words

I was planning to write a long blog piece about how Google, Wikipedia, and eBay have changed how we remember things.Mainline model of class 45 diesel locomotive D49 The Manchester Regiment The tentative title was “Nostalgia really isn’t like it used to be”, and I was going to illustrate the point by explaining how a few minutes remembering what it was like to clean out the ashes from the coal-fired boiler in the kitchen (c.1956) had eventually, and serendipitously, led me to post a successful bid on eBay for a Mainline model of a class 45 diesel locomotive (D49, “The Manchester Regiment”).
But then I saw that xkcd had already captured the essence of the situation, so I don’t have to.

Random 10

OK, GoodMathBadMath shamed me into doing my duty. Hello, iTunes, whatcha got for me today?

  • “Voodoo City” by Black 47 (from Home of the Brave)
  • “Had to Cry Today” by Blind Faith (from Blind Faith)
  • “The Test That Stumped Them All” by Dream Theater (from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence)
  • “If You Leave” by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (from The Best Of O.M.D.)
  • “KDX 125” by the Pet Shop Boys (from Relentless)
  • “Begonia Seduction Scene” by Porcupine Tree (from On the Sunday of Life)
  • “Melatonin” by Radiohead (from Airbag/How Am I Driving?)
  • “A good thing” by Saint Etienne (from Tales From Turnpike House)
  • “Baby’s Callin’ Me Home” by the Steve Miller Band (from Children of the Future)
  • “Beyond the Invisible” by Enigma (from Love, Sensuality, Devotion)

Deprecating limbo

Yahoo! Reports! That! the Catholic Church buries limbo after centuries:

In writings before his election as Pope in 2005, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made it clear he believed the concept of limbo should be abandoned because it was “only a theological hypothesis” and “never a defined truth of faith.”

“Defined truth of faith.” So when it comes to faith, truth is whatever one defines it to be? That way madness lies….

Fear of a Blank Planet: one week to go

The buzz around Porcupine Tree’s Fear of a Blank Planet is amazing. The critics are certainly impressed: my old school friend Paul Smith sent me an early draft of his review in which he talks about the challenging nature of the music:

It’s official: I love this album – but it’s taken three weeks of my life to let it weave its special charm. Whether it is the best thing the band has recorded is still very much open for debate, but it is a very special release from a very special British band.

Then on Monday I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, browsing the latest Sound&Vision magazine, and they were waxing lyrical about the album. And after praising the 5.1 version (which I have on order) they go on to tease…

You can get that mix right now in DTS 5.1 on a limited Special Edition CD+DVD of Planet that also includes a 40-page booklet. But fans of high-resolution sound will want to know that a DVD-Audio edition (with extras) is due in September. S&V acquired an early copy, and the sound is superb…. Porcupine Tree’s music has simply outgrown two-channel stereo.

Sigh. Where’s my credit card?
PT will be touring the US to promote the album starting next month. In fact the first show is on May 8, right here in Seattle at the Showbox. It’s going to be a busy few days: I fly down to San Francisco on Friday May 4th, so that I can go to Steve and Wendy’s wedding on the 5th. On the 7th I’m going to visit my colleagues at A9 in Palo Alto, then I’ll fly home and get psyched up for Porcupine Tree on the 8th. Mmmmm….

Inference

If you were to read the following sentence in a news item, could you correctly recreate the rest of the story?

The Salt Manufacturers Association said the evidence did not prove that salt reduction would have any significant health benefits for the majority of people.

If you deduce from this that there is new, overwhelming evidence that limiting salt intake has dramatic health benefits for the whole population, you’d be right. It’s a great time-saver: just flip to the bottom of the story, check out the industry association reaction, prefix it with NOT, and you don’t need to read the rest of the story.