work blues

workers want more and know there is more, but guess what; it's really too expensive to work on whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want...and Piketty suggests only a very few will ever get it.

Trouble at the lab

A 2013 oct 19 ECONOMIST article reviews problems with scientific research - i've summarized and reordered them:

1.    most scientists are not statisticians
2.    statistical mistakes are common
3.    pressure to publish incomplete results is strong
4.    a lot of research is poorly designed and executed
5.    many models are ‘overfitted’
6.    bias to publish positive results leads to bias in overall knowledge
7.    peer review is unreliable
8.    amounts of data are often overwhelming
9.    intellectual property rights restrict the use of code or methods
10.  replication is often difficult and unrewarding
11.  fraud is more common than realized

fear

by their dependence on lawyers and doctors Americans regularly prove their fear of real and imagined threats; no wonder they also lean on spooks...

trees, dead and killed

yesterday i witnessed the killing and disposal of a live tree by 4 machines powered by dead trees: chain saw, chipper, blower, and truck. is this what technology wants?

what's next?

two institutions seem to have facilitated human progress but now constrain it: the nation-state, and the corporation.

bird songs

are a variation of 2 themes: 'i'm ready for love' and 'if you can hear this, you're too close!'

NGC 3190

do you suppose there are any computers there that use the Milky Way as wallpaper?

Missing partners

Several of my favorite travel books have mystery partners:
Graham Greene JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS
John Steinbeck LOG OF THE SEA OF CORTEZ
Claude Levy-Strauss TRISTES TROPIQUES
Richard Mattiessen CLOUD FOREST (Miss X)

Braxston at Kennedy

a nearly full house heard Anthony Braxston at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on 2012 Dec 7 - and not that many people walked out.

he looked like a school janitor: rumpled white shirt, dull black shoes, droopy cardigan sweater.

i thought i heard a few wrong notes?

the show began with his turning over an hourglass, which he said to the giggles 'really helps us,' tho to do what he didn't say. when the sand ran out i was ready for the end, but they kept playing for a few minutes more - perhaps this was an encore?

he made obscure hand gestures: did 3 fingers vertical mean 3 solos and 3 horizontal mean 3 sharps (and held to the right 3 flats)?

he played the largest saxophone i've ever seen; taller than he is, but it didn't sound much lower than the next largest.

nevertheless, listening to the quintet for an hour does clean the mind of the musty tonalities of conventional music (jazz included).

sloppy language

phrases that set my logical teeth on edge:

'there you go...' (what does this mean, if anything?)
'i have no idea' (the speaker almost always has some idea!)
'there's a first time for everything' (oh, like 1 + 1 = 3?)
'There you go'