I’m going to go ahead and admit that I absolutely hate reading things on the Internet. Top 10 lists I can do. Emails from friends, family, and colleagues – even very long ones – I enjoy and can focus on. Ditto for technology reviews and articles referenced on Digg.
No matter how much I try, however, I can’t seem to concentrate enough to read essays, thinking pieces, good fiction or critical analysis when they are shown on a screen.
Where this leads is that I sometimes feel guilty because people I and like and respect often blog and tweet about things of interest to them, But I refrain from doing the same because most of what I read and find interesting isn’t available online. Rather, it is usually in a book or magazine, and there’s no good way for me to write about such things and link to them. The end result is that I post status updates on Facebook but I don’t really discuss the things that I find interesting and important.
I’ve decided that this stops now.
I am going to blog about the things I’m reading that I find interesting; mostly for my own sake, but also with an eye on the remote possibility that some like-minded folks out there might find my blog and that could lead to new and interesting friendships. At the very least I will be giving back and tipping my hat to the writers and editors who bring some joy to my life.
Wired Magazine (April 2009)
I subscribed to Wired about a year ago when I realized it was not just (or even really) a computer geek/reviews magazine, but rather a nice journal of big thinking and big dreams that all revolve loosely around technology.
Good stuff in this issue:
· Clive Thompson’s discussion of how Slashdot uses “crowdsourcing” to filter unhelpful comments posted by random chumps. Also impressive is the concept of “selective invisibility” invented by Disqus.
· “The Brain, Revealed,” by Jonah Lehrer. A fascinating article (with beautiful pictures) about the laboratory that Paul Allen founded to help unravel the mysteries of the human brain. Specifically, its physical structures. What I found particularly interesting was the point of view that hardware may matter after all, and that replicating a human brain (or at least self-aware consciousness) with silicon may be much harder than we think. This was not good news for me, as I feel strongly that the ability to transfer human consciousness into a medium beyond our own brains is a matter of “when” and not “if,” and when it happens it will transform humanity beyond recognition. I will write more about this subject in the future, I am sure.
· “Total Recall,” by Gary Marcus. The incredible (and, to me, inspiring) story of Jill Price: A woman who lives now and has a nearly perfect and seemingly infinite capacity for remembering everything that she has ever seen and done. The article itself didn’t have much to say other than “she exists,” but that’s really all it took to get me wondering whether we all have this ability and it is just a matter of unlocking it (or practicing).
Flying (April 2009)
This is one of several aviation magazines I subscribe to, along with Aviation Safety, AOPA Pilot, and IFR. Flying is consistently well-written.
The article I most enjoyed this month was Robert Goyer’s detailed review of the new Cirrus SR22. I am constantly amazed and impressed with the engineering, marketing, and overall intelligence of the folks who created Cirrus from scratch and blew past Cessna to become the most popular and safest general aviation (small) planes in the sky. Their SR22 line inspires lust in most guys like me who fly single engine planes.
A friend of mine owns an SR22 and one of the reasons I work so hard is that I want to own one myself someday.
The heart of the new SR22 is certification for Flight into Known Icing conditions (FIKI). I very much enjoyed reading the technical specifications on the system while imaging using it to continue flying through the winter months instead of cutting back as I always have to do, due to icing at the altitudes I fly.
Most of the rest of the issue was standard fare aviation porn (the new Gulfstream) and valid but boring finger wagging at pilot overconfidence. I will write more on this another time.
Fortune (March 30, 2009)
Sometimes I marvel that they publish Fortune freely and allow people who aren’t rich to read it. The writing is often outstanding and the concepts they cover are often new to me. Fortune’s articles are often long, and take their time diving deeply into analysis of an industry and/or company. Good stuff this issue:
· “My Metric,” a tiny recurring segment each month that asks people for unique indicators into the state of the economy. This issue’s metric was submitted by the founder of Mint.com, a financial management website. He looks at the average balance of his users deposit accounts and reports that it has dropped from $11,000 in August to $4,800 now. Sound like my 401(k).
· “Boondoggle Baloney,” by Allan Sloan. A nice little piece about the stupidity of telling companies that receive bailout money that they can’t take employees on trips to Vegas. I couldn’t agree more with Sloan. First of all, what could be more stimulative than taking your employees to Vegas? Everyone spends their money and it flows to the local economy, which needs it badly. Secondly, these types of occasional trips can be a great fun way to build morale amongst a far-flung group of employees (we did it once at our company). Third, even if it is not productive at all, it can be an appropriate reward for employees or a division that reaches certain goals. I do not think it is helpful or productive for the government to be micromanaging in this fashion. .
Esquire (April 2009)
Esquire has been described as a combination of Maxim and Harpers. (By me, just now.) Its goal is putatively to help modern men look good, act right, and attract swarms of underwear models, all while developing insight into people and concepts that the mainstream just doesn’t cover, or doesn’t cover properly.
Looking back over the last five years I would probably have to say that the five best articles I’ve read in any magazine have all come from Esquire. More than one of them by Tom Chiarella.
Also, in the last five years I’ve written exactly one letter to a magazine. Esquire not only published my letter but highlighted it. That sure made me feel good. (It was appreciation for an article by Tom Chiarella.)
The main drawbacks of the magazine, since you didn't ask, are (1) it tries too hard to be cool, with endless quips and stupid articles such as how to take a punch and how to remove a fishhook from a buddy's finger; (2) it often stinks like cologne; (3) the fashion ads are awful; (4) the fixation on how real men drink certain drinks; and (5) the whole magazine seems to be in the pocket of “Big Watch.” (A topic for another time.)
This month’s highlights:
· Chris Jones’ piece on Jonathan Papelbon was excellent. As a diehard Yankees fan I generally want Papelbon to either fall down the stairs, or, sign with the Yankees. I’ve never known much about Papelbon other than watching his intense pitching and his intense staring. In this article I learned that one of his main motivations is anger. He gets really mad and worked into a frenzy and then goes nuts for an inning or so. I have to say that I respect that.
I also see that as an incredible opportunity for the Yankees. If I were a Yankee I would not get into the box, glower at him, and bear down to wait for his fastball. Rather, I’d yell “Hi Jon!” and wave and smile as I got into the box. Maybe take a bit of the edge off the guy. I loved reading about how, after he pitched the final out of the 2007 World Series and got the game ball, he brought it home . . . and his dog tore it to shreds.
One other thing I respect about Papelbon is his honesty, even when it is not politically correct.
Two good stories here. One is about how, when he was a new player the team asked him where he sees himself after baseball. They were looking for an answer like “selling cars” or “tv commentator” and Papelbon’s answer was he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame. That caused a lot of ruckus but for him it was strange to think that anyone would have any other goal. I love that.
Also, I love how he not only had a custom poker table made for the Red Sox team flights but how he doesn’t hesitate to say of David Ortiz, “I love playing Ortiz the most. He might be the worst poker player ever. Just brutal.”
Papelbon, I have new respect for you and wish you the best. Next time you’re in Yankee Stadium maybe I will be in the crowd carrying a large sign that says “New York likes and respects Papelbon and wishes him all the best!”
· Esquire’s Annual Guide to Music gives me a great way to discover new music that is complex, interesting, and I would otherwise never hear anywhere else. When I have a free hour or two (ha ha) I look forward to listening to a bunch of this music (thanks, iTunes) and then buying the best of it (you’re welcome, iTunes).
· The Packing Orders – “How to combine 8 basic staples into 18 different looks.” I freely admit that I was born without the clothing style gene and that, left to my own devices, I’m likely to revert to what was hot in the 1980s. I also hate shopping and spending money on clothes. So, I need all the help I can get when it comes to getting dressed. This type of article helps a bunch and it is headed for my bulletin board.
Scientific American (April 2009)
I sure love SciAm. A good number of the concepts are beyond my technical reach to understand. And I know that I’m unlikely to ever contribute anything meaningful to a dialog on cosmology or string theory. But I love reading about and thinking about those topics and more. There are few people I respect more than those who toil away in the classrooms and labs doing hard science, and I love peeking into their world and thinking big thoughts from time to time.
Good stuff this month:
· Wayt Gibbs’ article about Gerald Joyce’s groundbreaking work on the role may have played in evolution. Large scale replication has been proven and now the team moves on to prove metabolism is doable. To me RNA has always seemed the more likely candidate, due to DNA’s complexity. It is hard to imagine DNA happening by chance but then again the timeframes that we are talking about are monstrously beyond comprehension. A good topic for another day.
· “Finding Balance,” by Brendan Borrell. An interesting little piece about Thomas Stroffregen’s theory that poor posture control may be a root cause of motion sickness. In an interesting study, Stroffregen showed that students who moved their legs a foot apart, as opposed to standing normally, avoided motion sickness 60% of the time in a simulator. Right now, NASA’s ground tests can only predict with 30% accuracy whether an astronaut candidate will get motion sick.
· “Does Dark Energy Really Exist?” by Timothy Clifton and Pedro Ferreira. I won’t get into the theory of Dark Energy here. I will say that I’m constantly skeptical of it, and continually amazed that we humans are able to do even a half-assed job of studying the structure of the universe while we remain largely trapped on our little rock. Cosmology is one of my absolute favorite topics to read about and this article mostly reinforced my suspicions and also excited me with the news of the Planck Surveyor spacecraft that is due for launch (by ESA) shortly. How cool is it that the echo of the Big Bang is still ringing, six billion years later, and that we can still hear and see it as cosmic background noise?
· “The Evolution of Primate Color Vision,” by Gerald Jacobs and Jeremy Nathan. I am endlessly fascinated by the process of evolution and how it happened to get us to where we are today. The story of vision is a wonderful example. Early everything/everybody was blind. Then one little dude mutated a spot that was vaguely sensitive to light, generally, and that gave him and his kids a nice advantage with the ladies and from the predators. Over very long periods of times, complex vision systems evolved, including ours which is trichromatic, and even better ones in some birds, fish, and reptiles who have not three but four visual pigments, and can see ultraviolet light.
Of course this makes me wonder. Once we crack the DNA code, will we be able to give humans that ability? What about a fifth visual pigment that could let us see infrared?
Interestingly, the authors of this article “were able to create trichromatic mice by inserting a human pigment gene into the mouse genome.” Quite cool.
· “The Dawn of Miniature Green Lasers,” by Shuji Nakamura and Michael Riordan. 80% of the chemistry and physics was over my head but this was still a fascinating story about how a group of researchers attacked the quantum-confined Stark effect which causes electrons to pile up at the wrong end of gallium nitride diodes. It was like a murder mystery except it was true, cool, and something got invented. Bravo.
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