Thursday, July 10, 2014
Seven Reasons Not to Write Novels and Only One Reason to Write Them
I can think of seven reasons not to write novels:
First: There are too many novels and too many people writing them. Not only do those already written continue to exist and demand to be eternally read, but thousands more entirely new novels keep appearing in publishers’ catalogs and in bookshops around the world; then there are the many thousands rejected by publishers that never reach the bookshops, but which nonetheless exist. It is, then, a commonplace activity, one that is, in theory, within the grasp of anyone who learned to write at school, and for which no higher education or special training is required.
Second: And precisely because anyone, whatever his or her profession, can write a novel, it is an activity that lacks merit and mystery. Poets, philosophers, and dramatists do it; so do sociologists, linguists, publishers, and journalists; politicians, singers, TV presenters, and football coaches; engineers, school teachers, civil servants, and movie actors; critics, aristocrats, priests, and housewives; psychiatrists, university professors, soldiers, and goatherds. It would seem, though, that for all its lack of merit and mystery, there is still something strangely alluring about the novel—or is it simply a desirable ornament? But what is so desirable about something that lies within the reach of all professions, regardless of their previous training, prestige, or earning power? What is it about the novel?
Third: Writing a novel certainly won’t make you rich: indeed, only one in every hundred novels published—and that’s an optimistic percentage—earns a decent amount of money. The money earned is unlikely to change a writer’s life and it certainly won’t be enough to retire on. What’s more, it can take months or even years of work to write an average-length novel that some people then might want to read. Investing all that time in a task that has only a one percent chance of making any money is absurd, especially bearing in mind that these days no one—not even aristocrats and housewives—has that amount of time to spare. The Marquis de Sade and Jane Austen did, but their modern-day equivalents do not; and worse still, not even the aristocrats and housewives who don’t write but do read have time enough to read what their writing colleagues write.
Fourth: The novel is no guarantee of fame, or only a very minor fame, which could be acquired by far speedier and less laborious means. As everyone knows, the only real fame comes from television, where novelists are becoming an increasingly rare sight, unless the writer in question is there not because of the interest or excellence of his novels, but in his role as fool or clown, along with other clowns from various fields, whether artistic or not. The novels written by that truly famous novelist-turned-TV-celebrity will merely provide the tedious and soon-forgotten pretext for his popularity, which will depend less on the quality of his future works, which no one really cares about anyway, and far more on his ability to wield a walking stick, wear stylish scarves or Hawaiian shirts or hideous waistcoats, and explain how he communicates with his unorthodox God or how easily and authentically one can live among the Moors (this always goes down well in Spain). Besides, it would be nonsense to struggle to write a novel purely in order to become famous (for even if you write in the most pedestrian of styles, that, too, takes time) when nowadays one doesn’t need to do anything very much to become famous. Marriage to or an affair with a suitably prominent person and the subsequent slipstream of marital and extramarital goings-on are a far more efficient way of going about it. Or you could simply commit some indecent act or outrage, although nothing, of course, that involves a long prison sentence.
by Javier Marías, Three Penny Review | Read more:
Image: Grammarly
First: There are too many novels and too many people writing them. Not only do those already written continue to exist and demand to be eternally read, but thousands more entirely new novels keep appearing in publishers’ catalogs and in bookshops around the world; then there are the many thousands rejected by publishers that never reach the bookshops, but which nonetheless exist. It is, then, a commonplace activity, one that is, in theory, within the grasp of anyone who learned to write at school, and for which no higher education or special training is required.
Second: And precisely because anyone, whatever his or her profession, can write a novel, it is an activity that lacks merit and mystery. Poets, philosophers, and dramatists do it; so do sociologists, linguists, publishers, and journalists; politicians, singers, TV presenters, and football coaches; engineers, school teachers, civil servants, and movie actors; critics, aristocrats, priests, and housewives; psychiatrists, university professors, soldiers, and goatherds. It would seem, though, that for all its lack of merit and mystery, there is still something strangely alluring about the novel—or is it simply a desirable ornament? But what is so desirable about something that lies within the reach of all professions, regardless of their previous training, prestige, or earning power? What is it about the novel?Third: Writing a novel certainly won’t make you rich: indeed, only one in every hundred novels published—and that’s an optimistic percentage—earns a decent amount of money. The money earned is unlikely to change a writer’s life and it certainly won’t be enough to retire on. What’s more, it can take months or even years of work to write an average-length novel that some people then might want to read. Investing all that time in a task that has only a one percent chance of making any money is absurd, especially bearing in mind that these days no one—not even aristocrats and housewives—has that amount of time to spare. The Marquis de Sade and Jane Austen did, but their modern-day equivalents do not; and worse still, not even the aristocrats and housewives who don’t write but do read have time enough to read what their writing colleagues write.
Fourth: The novel is no guarantee of fame, or only a very minor fame, which could be acquired by far speedier and less laborious means. As everyone knows, the only real fame comes from television, where novelists are becoming an increasingly rare sight, unless the writer in question is there not because of the interest or excellence of his novels, but in his role as fool or clown, along with other clowns from various fields, whether artistic or not. The novels written by that truly famous novelist-turned-TV-celebrity will merely provide the tedious and soon-forgotten pretext for his popularity, which will depend less on the quality of his future works, which no one really cares about anyway, and far more on his ability to wield a walking stick, wear stylish scarves or Hawaiian shirts or hideous waistcoats, and explain how he communicates with his unorthodox God or how easily and authentically one can live among the Moors (this always goes down well in Spain). Besides, it would be nonsense to struggle to write a novel purely in order to become famous (for even if you write in the most pedestrian of styles, that, too, takes time) when nowadays one doesn’t need to do anything very much to become famous. Marriage to or an affair with a suitably prominent person and the subsequent slipstream of marital and extramarital goings-on are a far more efficient way of going about it. Or you could simply commit some indecent act or outrage, although nothing, of course, that involves a long prison sentence.
by Javier Marías, Three Penny Review | Read more:
Image: Grammarly
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
The Code
At the beginning of the year my boss implemented a new dress code. Corporate casual. First of all, I would like to say that the business is not a corporation. It is, in fact, an LLC and that C stands for company. LLC’s are generally the best option when there’s a sole owner of the company. And yes, he’s the sole owner. Which means that he gets to make all the rules. Even if they’re stupid.
No one was quite sure what corporate casual meant. We googled it. The gist of every article is that no one knows what corporate casual is. It seems to involve a lot of polo shirts and also, for women, a lot of creative darting and tailoring. By creative I mean it has basically no relation to the female body. Or, it has some kind of a relationship to some female’s body but whose is a mystery. Middle-aged Barbie with relaxed proportions.
Rule number one is NO JEANS. Well, black jeans are okay but blue jeans are not. If you wear blue jeans you are liable to look sloppy. Doesn’t matter if your jeans are $300 designer jeans that you are wearing with an expensive collared shirt, blazer, and oxfords. Blue jeans give people license to look sloppy and so they are not allowed. They also stain the off-white Eames office chair knockoffs from Crate & Barrel with an indigo butt. Of course, my boss wears blue jeans in the office all the time. But also of course, he’s the boss so he can do whatever he wants. Actually, those jeans might be more of a washed teal. Which seems more offensive.
Rule number two is UPTOWN. It’s an interior design firm whose clients are all billionaires who live on the Upper East Side. The office used to be in SoHo but now it’s in Midtown and now that we are in Midtown we are no longer allowed to dress downtown. The guidelines we were given were “the shops on Fifth and Madison Avenues.” He means in the 60s but there’s an Urban Outfitters on 43rd and 5th and even though I’m not 17 I’m tempted to follow the letter and ignore the spirit and shop exclusively at Urban Outfitters from this day forward.
Rule number three is “no shorts unless they are from Bergdorfs.”
Rule number four is men must tuck their collared shirts in (they are only allowed to wear collared shirts). And shine your shoes because a man with scuffed shoes is pathetic.
I’m not a man, but I do wear collared shirts most of the time. I never tuck them in. I spent most of the winter trying to get away with slipping under the dress code as much as I could. I wore a collared shirt, but it was plaid flannel, and I wore it with black jeans (but expensive designer black jeans, so). Rule number three seems sexist. Why can’t men wear shorts if women can wear skirts? Women can’t wear shorts either but men can definitely not wear skirts. I’m going to assume that capris are out of the question for any gender just for the sake of cultural decency.
The thing about a dress code is looking presentable. Ultimately, presenting. A man looks like a man and a woman looks like a woman. Any other gender is not possible in corporate casual. Gay men (and this is interior design so there are plenty of gay men, the boss included) must look like men. You can be a queen, but tuck that shirt in and wear a suit if possible. Lesbians can look like either men or women, but please, choose one. Gender fluidity is a downtown construct and our clients have no tolerance for queerness. Why would they? Their 20,000-square-foot houses are designed down to the the toilet roll holders. Everything is expensive and everything is in its right place. Wicker for the Natatorium chaise lounges and chintz for the Guest Bedroom Sitting Room club chairs and don’t you dare think about mink pillows in the Breakfast Nook, those are for His Study (He being the master of the house). Even the servants’ quarters are completely designed (though it’s just Crate & Barrel for them).
As my boss said in our last staff meeting, “We are selling people an aspirational lifestyle.” Presenting is not the same as being. It’s showing people what you’d like them to see. Presenting is aspirational, even if those aspirations aren’t your own but the ones you’re paid to present.
No one was quite sure what corporate casual meant. We googled it. The gist of every article is that no one knows what corporate casual is. It seems to involve a lot of polo shirts and also, for women, a lot of creative darting and tailoring. By creative I mean it has basically no relation to the female body. Or, it has some kind of a relationship to some female’s body but whose is a mystery. Middle-aged Barbie with relaxed proportions.
Rule number one is NO JEANS. Well, black jeans are okay but blue jeans are not. If you wear blue jeans you are liable to look sloppy. Doesn’t matter if your jeans are $300 designer jeans that you are wearing with an expensive collared shirt, blazer, and oxfords. Blue jeans give people license to look sloppy and so they are not allowed. They also stain the off-white Eames office chair knockoffs from Crate & Barrel with an indigo butt. Of course, my boss wears blue jeans in the office all the time. But also of course, he’s the boss so he can do whatever he wants. Actually, those jeans might be more of a washed teal. Which seems more offensive.
Rule number two is UPTOWN. It’s an interior design firm whose clients are all billionaires who live on the Upper East Side. The office used to be in SoHo but now it’s in Midtown and now that we are in Midtown we are no longer allowed to dress downtown. The guidelines we were given were “the shops on Fifth and Madison Avenues.” He means in the 60s but there’s an Urban Outfitters on 43rd and 5th and even though I’m not 17 I’m tempted to follow the letter and ignore the spirit and shop exclusively at Urban Outfitters from this day forward.Rule number three is “no shorts unless they are from Bergdorfs.”
Rule number four is men must tuck their collared shirts in (they are only allowed to wear collared shirts). And shine your shoes because a man with scuffed shoes is pathetic.
I’m not a man, but I do wear collared shirts most of the time. I never tuck them in. I spent most of the winter trying to get away with slipping under the dress code as much as I could. I wore a collared shirt, but it was plaid flannel, and I wore it with black jeans (but expensive designer black jeans, so). Rule number three seems sexist. Why can’t men wear shorts if women can wear skirts? Women can’t wear shorts either but men can definitely not wear skirts. I’m going to assume that capris are out of the question for any gender just for the sake of cultural decency.
The thing about a dress code is looking presentable. Ultimately, presenting. A man looks like a man and a woman looks like a woman. Any other gender is not possible in corporate casual. Gay men (and this is interior design so there are plenty of gay men, the boss included) must look like men. You can be a queen, but tuck that shirt in and wear a suit if possible. Lesbians can look like either men or women, but please, choose one. Gender fluidity is a downtown construct and our clients have no tolerance for queerness. Why would they? Their 20,000-square-foot houses are designed down to the the toilet roll holders. Everything is expensive and everything is in its right place. Wicker for the Natatorium chaise lounges and chintz for the Guest Bedroom Sitting Room club chairs and don’t you dare think about mink pillows in the Breakfast Nook, those are for His Study (He being the master of the house). Even the servants’ quarters are completely designed (though it’s just Crate & Barrel for them).
As my boss said in our last staff meeting, “We are selling people an aspirational lifestyle.” Presenting is not the same as being. It’s showing people what you’d like them to see. Presenting is aspirational, even if those aspirations aren’t your own but the ones you’re paid to present.
by Brittany Taylor, Full Stop | Read more:
Image: Johanna Kasimow
The CD Case
There are approximately 100 compact discs on my desk right now. Behind me are two racks holding another 2,000 discs. In my basement, there’s an additional couple thousand, and in my mother’s basement there are about a dozen boxes holding hundreds more of my passionately adored glorified coasters.
I collect vinyl, too, and I’ve held on to some old cassettes. And of course I have two hard drives full of MP3s and a paid subscription to a music streaming service. But at heart I’m a CD collector. I still own CDs I purchased when I was 14. I haven’t retained anything else from when I was 14, except for my teeth. It’s possible my copy of the Singles soundtrack will outlive my molars.
Not only have I not gotten rid of my old CDs, I also buy new CDs nearly every week. Call it loyalty or lunacy, but the CD remains my preferred music delivery device. It’s more convenient than vinyl and more tangible than digital. I like the sense of continuity it gives my music collection, jumbling up records I bought in 1992 with 2003 and 2011 and yesterday. I like picking out discs for car rides and letting them collect over the course of weeks in the backseat. The rest I like looking at on display in my office — it’s part monument, part money pit, part mirror, part climbing hazard for my 2-year-old son.
Even if I wanted to sell my CDs, I probably couldn’t, and I actually like that, too. Used CDs are worth virtually nothing now. But the upside of this is that you can buy older albums on disc for virtually nothing. I’m sympathetic to arguments that Amazon is an evil empire, but I must admit to conspiring with the enemy to build my collection of Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell albums, at prices much lower than the downloads. Accumulating has never been easier, and my shelf space never tighter.
Perhaps I should feel a little embarrassed admitting to all of this. There’s a lot of pressure in our culture right now to essentially imagine CDs out of existence, to mentally finish off what the market is slowly suffocating. Over and over, we’re told that nobody buys them anymore. Only two demographics are commonly identified as CD purchasers in 2014: “old people” and “the semi-Amish not-quite-olds who can’t figure out technology,” the implication being that anybody who knows better wouldn’t bother. CDs currently exist in a cultural no-man’s-land recently defined by singer-songwriter Todd Snider as “post-hip, pre-retro”1 — the format is passé, but not so passé that it qualifies for reclamation.
CDs outsell vinyl records many times over, but CDs don’t have nearly the cachet or booster-ish press coverage. Even cassettes have been revived by indie labels like Burger Records, which are successfully remaking cheap, junky, and sonically wobbly plastic-encased media as collectible boutique items. (This partly explains why, at this very moment, there are cool kids listening to White Lion tapes post-ironically at the trendiest dive bar in your neighborhood.) CD buyers, meanwhile, are made to feel like we’re living in a Richard Matheson story. Just last week, it was reported that CD sales in the first half of 2014 fell 19.6 percent from the first half of 2013. Last year, CD sales represented 57.2 percent of total album sales, which was 10.4 percentage points lower than 2011, when CDs were already in steep decline.
This may sound like the death rattle of a medium, but I prefer taking a glass-half-full perspective: Can you believe that CDs still account for even that many album sales? It’s like discovering that Hollywood is secretly subsidized by VHS hoarders. Apparently there are at least a few people like me still out there: In the past six months, 62.9 million CDs were sold, nearly 10 million more than the 53.8 million downloaded albums. It might be a far cry from the 70.3 billion songs that were streamed during the period, but it’s also a hell of a lot more than “nobody.”
Regular listeners of the WTF With Marc Maron podcast know that at some point in each episode — probably during the monologue, but sometimes during the interview — Maron will typically talk about his love of listening to albums on vinyl. If he mentions a particular artist, it will most likely be Creedence Clearwater Revival. (One out of three times it will be “first four albums”–era Black Sabbath.) Now, I would be as annoyed by a middle-aged man pontificating on the purity of hearing music on wax as you probably are if I didn’t happen to agree with Maron. Listening to CCR on vinyl is indeed phenomenal. Can I interest you in Side 1 of Cosmo’s Factory — hey, where are you going?
My point is, just as there are albums that are well suited to vinyl, there are other albums that work best in other formats. If we are talking Young MC’s Stone Cold Rhymin’, Fine Young Cannibals’ The Raw & The Cooked, or Adam Sandler’s They’re All Gonna Laugh At You! — to name three random but scientifically sound examples — I think we can all agree that shelling out $29.99 for a deluxe vinyl to be played on a stupidly expensive turntable just doesn’t seem right. Those records demand to be played on tape, preferably on a boom box that was purchased in the electronics section of a department store that went out of business in 1993. It feels appropriate to hear those albums this way, just as hearing “Lodi” with pops and crackles feels appropriate.
As for the CD format, I can’t imagine listening to, say, Green Day’s Dookie any other way. Dookie is to CDs what Creedence is to vinyl. It is a record resting eternally in the collective memories of aging music fans, a lost piece of data tucked inside scarcely used multidisc changers and laundry baskets full of shit leftover from collegiate apartments. The Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head is like that, too. So are Odelay, Siamese Dream, and Exile in Guyville. You can’t hear thos records without anticipating the parts where the disc is scratched to hell and won’t stop skipping.
I realize that my pro-CD argument may seem like it’s predicated entirely on personal experience and nostalgia. There’s no reason anyone hearing Dookie for the first time today can’t enjoy it via streaming. But I’m not disparaging new technology or changes in music consumption; rather, I’m making a case for CDs enhancing the listening experience for certain kinds of albums.
And I have reason to believe I’m not alone here. A few years ago I interviewed Father John Misty, early in the promotional cycle for his excellent 2012 album Fear Fun. At the start of our conversation, he casually alluded to listening to Slayer’s Seasons in the Abyss right before I phoned.
“That’s crazy,” I said, “I just bought Seasons in the Abyss at a used CD store yesterday.”
“It’s a very CD kind of album,” he replied.
Exactly.
Just in case not everyone is convinced by what Father John and I are talking about here, I will attempt to make my case with greater clarity by listing five types of albums that justify the continued existence of CDs.
by Steven Hyden, Grantland | Read more:
Image:uncredited
I collect vinyl, too, and I’ve held on to some old cassettes. And of course I have two hard drives full of MP3s and a paid subscription to a music streaming service. But at heart I’m a CD collector. I still own CDs I purchased when I was 14. I haven’t retained anything else from when I was 14, except for my teeth. It’s possible my copy of the Singles soundtrack will outlive my molars.Not only have I not gotten rid of my old CDs, I also buy new CDs nearly every week. Call it loyalty or lunacy, but the CD remains my preferred music delivery device. It’s more convenient than vinyl and more tangible than digital. I like the sense of continuity it gives my music collection, jumbling up records I bought in 1992 with 2003 and 2011 and yesterday. I like picking out discs for car rides and letting them collect over the course of weeks in the backseat. The rest I like looking at on display in my office — it’s part monument, part money pit, part mirror, part climbing hazard for my 2-year-old son.
Even if I wanted to sell my CDs, I probably couldn’t, and I actually like that, too. Used CDs are worth virtually nothing now. But the upside of this is that you can buy older albums on disc for virtually nothing. I’m sympathetic to arguments that Amazon is an evil empire, but I must admit to conspiring with the enemy to build my collection of Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell albums, at prices much lower than the downloads. Accumulating has never been easier, and my shelf space never tighter.
Perhaps I should feel a little embarrassed admitting to all of this. There’s a lot of pressure in our culture right now to essentially imagine CDs out of existence, to mentally finish off what the market is slowly suffocating. Over and over, we’re told that nobody buys them anymore. Only two demographics are commonly identified as CD purchasers in 2014: “old people” and “the semi-Amish not-quite-olds who can’t figure out technology,” the implication being that anybody who knows better wouldn’t bother. CDs currently exist in a cultural no-man’s-land recently defined by singer-songwriter Todd Snider as “post-hip, pre-retro”1 — the format is passé, but not so passé that it qualifies for reclamation.
CDs outsell vinyl records many times over, but CDs don’t have nearly the cachet or booster-ish press coverage. Even cassettes have been revived by indie labels like Burger Records, which are successfully remaking cheap, junky, and sonically wobbly plastic-encased media as collectible boutique items. (This partly explains why, at this very moment, there are cool kids listening to White Lion tapes post-ironically at the trendiest dive bar in your neighborhood.) CD buyers, meanwhile, are made to feel like we’re living in a Richard Matheson story. Just last week, it was reported that CD sales in the first half of 2014 fell 19.6 percent from the first half of 2013. Last year, CD sales represented 57.2 percent of total album sales, which was 10.4 percentage points lower than 2011, when CDs were already in steep decline.
This may sound like the death rattle of a medium, but I prefer taking a glass-half-full perspective: Can you believe that CDs still account for even that many album sales? It’s like discovering that Hollywood is secretly subsidized by VHS hoarders. Apparently there are at least a few people like me still out there: In the past six months, 62.9 million CDs were sold, nearly 10 million more than the 53.8 million downloaded albums. It might be a far cry from the 70.3 billion songs that were streamed during the period, but it’s also a hell of a lot more than “nobody.”
Regular listeners of the WTF With Marc Maron podcast know that at some point in each episode — probably during the monologue, but sometimes during the interview — Maron will typically talk about his love of listening to albums on vinyl. If he mentions a particular artist, it will most likely be Creedence Clearwater Revival. (One out of three times it will be “first four albums”–era Black Sabbath.) Now, I would be as annoyed by a middle-aged man pontificating on the purity of hearing music on wax as you probably are if I didn’t happen to agree with Maron. Listening to CCR on vinyl is indeed phenomenal. Can I interest you in Side 1 of Cosmo’s Factory — hey, where are you going?
My point is, just as there are albums that are well suited to vinyl, there are other albums that work best in other formats. If we are talking Young MC’s Stone Cold Rhymin’, Fine Young Cannibals’ The Raw & The Cooked, or Adam Sandler’s They’re All Gonna Laugh At You! — to name three random but scientifically sound examples — I think we can all agree that shelling out $29.99 for a deluxe vinyl to be played on a stupidly expensive turntable just doesn’t seem right. Those records demand to be played on tape, preferably on a boom box that was purchased in the electronics section of a department store that went out of business in 1993. It feels appropriate to hear those albums this way, just as hearing “Lodi” with pops and crackles feels appropriate.
As for the CD format, I can’t imagine listening to, say, Green Day’s Dookie any other way. Dookie is to CDs what Creedence is to vinyl. It is a record resting eternally in the collective memories of aging music fans, a lost piece of data tucked inside scarcely used multidisc changers and laundry baskets full of shit leftover from collegiate apartments. The Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head is like that, too. So are Odelay, Siamese Dream, and Exile in Guyville. You can’t hear thos records without anticipating the parts where the disc is scratched to hell and won’t stop skipping.
I realize that my pro-CD argument may seem like it’s predicated entirely on personal experience and nostalgia. There’s no reason anyone hearing Dookie for the first time today can’t enjoy it via streaming. But I’m not disparaging new technology or changes in music consumption; rather, I’m making a case for CDs enhancing the listening experience for certain kinds of albums.
And I have reason to believe I’m not alone here. A few years ago I interviewed Father John Misty, early in the promotional cycle for his excellent 2012 album Fear Fun. At the start of our conversation, he casually alluded to listening to Slayer’s Seasons in the Abyss right before I phoned.
“That’s crazy,” I said, “I just bought Seasons in the Abyss at a used CD store yesterday.”
“It’s a very CD kind of album,” he replied.
Exactly.
Just in case not everyone is convinced by what Father John and I are talking about here, I will attempt to make my case with greater clarity by listing five types of albums that justify the continued existence of CDs.
by Steven Hyden, Grantland | Read more:
Image:uncredited
Third Place
The arc of this World Cup nears its completion. Over prosperity and poverty, over cities and shores and jungles, over fair winter and fiery winter, it ascended, curved, and now looks to settle, in Rio’s Maracanã on Sunday.
But first, the midweek semifinals. Four teams remain, and four heavyweights at that—Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands. Two of these will paint the enduring portrait of this World Cup. [ed. And now there are two.]
There’s hardly a World Cup whose final image hasn’t occurred in its final match. Think of Holland’s Nigel de Jong’s karate kick to Spain’s Xabi Alonso’s chest in 2010; or Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in 2006; or Ronaldo, who’d sat out most of the past three seasons because of knee injuries, scoring the only two goals of the 2002 final against Germany; or Zidane’s two first-half goals against Brazil in the ’98 final, and the strange sight of Ronaldo, then at the height of his powers, seeming to struggle to stay on his feet; or the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year, Roberto Baggio, missing the decisive penalty against Brazil in Los Angeles in 1994; the euphoria of Paolo Rossi in ’82; the Dutch scoring in ’74 against West Germany in West Germany, within two minutes of kickoff, and with the Germans yet to touch the ball; and on, and on.
All eyes are on the finalists. The memory machine is ready to fire. And because finals happen in the absence of other games, the possibility of something great floats in the mind, waiting to be ruined. In a very real sense, the World Cup is already over, but for the comparatively minor business of settling which of these four teams will win and what lasting image the two finalists will leave us with.
And yet before Sunday’s final, there’s Saturday’s game, which for me carries the same weight—not for its importance, but for the window it provides into the people who play. This will be the third-place game, in which the losers of the two semifinals meet to decide who finishes third and who finishes fourth. Finals are dreamscapes, heavy shimmering things. The spectacle and competition make a final less about its players and more about the game itself; the players fill a void that’s been waiting for them, as even now such voids are waiting in the Moscow of 2018 and the Qatar of 2022. But that third-place game …
by Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Paris Review | Read more:
Image: From a 1994 German postage stamp.
But first, the midweek semifinals. Four teams remain, and four heavyweights at that—Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands. Two of these will paint the enduring portrait of this World Cup. [ed. And now there are two.]
All eyes are on the finalists. The memory machine is ready to fire. And because finals happen in the absence of other games, the possibility of something great floats in the mind, waiting to be ruined. In a very real sense, the World Cup is already over, but for the comparatively minor business of settling which of these four teams will win and what lasting image the two finalists will leave us with.
And yet before Sunday’s final, there’s Saturday’s game, which for me carries the same weight—not for its importance, but for the window it provides into the people who play. This will be the third-place game, in which the losers of the two semifinals meet to decide who finishes third and who finishes fourth. Finals are dreamscapes, heavy shimmering things. The spectacle and competition make a final less about its players and more about the game itself; the players fill a void that’s been waiting for them, as even now such voids are waiting in the Moscow of 2018 and the Qatar of 2022. But that third-place game …
by Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Paris Review | Read more:
Image: From a 1994 German postage stamp.
Yahoo's Developing a Map Algorithm to Find the Most Beautiful Route
In a research paper published to arXiv, Daniele Quercia from Yahoo Labs explains how a new algorithm could optimize directions for beauty. "The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant," she writes.
So, how does it work? Well, first Quercia and her team created a database of images, taken from Google Street View and Geograph, of the center of London. Then, they crowdsourced opinions about how pleasant the parts of town were relative to each other via UrbanGems.org: users see two images and have to choose which one is nicest. It's Hot or Not for cities.
Armed with that data, the team plotted heat maps, showing how the beauty of London varied with geographic location. From there, it was fairly straightforward to create an algorithm that found the most attractive route rather than the fastest: it searches through the possible routes typically suggested, but adds attractiveness along each one and then chooses the one with the highest score.
The results tend to be about 12 percent longer than the shortest route. In a slightly-less-than-scientific test, Quercia had 30 Londoners follow her suggested paths, and they agreed that the routes were indeed more attractive than the shortest.
by Jamie Condliffe, Gizmodo | Read more:
Image: uncredited
Google Is About To Take Over Your Whole Life, And You Won't Even Notice
[ed. See also: UI, UX Who Does What? A Designer's Guide to the Tech Industry.]
“I have a weird question for you,” I stammered, sitting in a hotel room across from Matias Duarte and Jon Wiley, the Google design leads for Android and Search, respectively. As a reporter, you tend to ask a lot of stupid sounding questions, and it’s generally no big deal. But I was about to ask an extremely stupid sounding question--the type of question that, just by breathing it into the air, might out me as actually stupid, tainting every future conversation we’d have to come.
“What is Google?”
Yes, It's A Lot Of Services
The question may have been stupid, yes, but it was apropos. Google had just announced a new initiative called Material Design that promised to unify all Google products (and even third-party Android apps) under a common UX tongue. Google seemed to be morphing into something, but what?
With Material Design, Google has become a second reality inside touch-screen devices--complete with its own rules of logic and physics--and if Google has its way, it will eventually break free of touch screens to quite literally reshape the world around us.
“When you make things, you inherit thousands of years of expertise. But software design is just getting started,” Wiley had explained earlier. “We took a step back. We looked at all of the software and asked, what is this made of?”
A day before, as Google revealed its big plan at its annual I/O conference, it was overwhelming to conceptualize what this blob of digital services had become. Was Google a search bar that lived in a laptop web browser? Was Google a dashboard for your car? Was Google the Android tablet, being used to control an Android TV game? Was Google the system of white note cards, being sent from an Android phone to an Android Wear smartwatch? Was Google a magic blue button that lived on these cards, making anything possible with a tap?
In reality, all of these notions of Google are true. It's a series of services that have become our digital infrastructure. And in the very near future, Google will exist, not as something you need to understand as "Chrome" or "Android," but as a conduit of information that's on just the right screen at just the right time. When you check your watch at the train station, you'll see when your next train is arriving. But when you check that same watch at work, you'll see the most important email from your boss. That watch will unlock your computer--no need to use a password--and your email will be waiting. Walk away mid-response, no problem. Your phone has the email waiting on its screen, cursor blinking mid-sentence, as you walk to your meeting.
Luckily it's not all work. After five, on your ride home, every one of these screens will be dedicated to new tasks: picking up your kids, making your dinner, and showing you Game of Thrones reruns.
And Google is grounding all of these infrastructural services through a new approach called Material Design, which will be introduced inside their upcoming mobile OS, Android L. It's an impressive, underlying logic to Google's interface across all devices that I believe will not just unify their services across the digital world, but bring them into our analog world, too.
“I have a weird question for you,” I stammered, sitting in a hotel room across from Matias Duarte and Jon Wiley, the Google design leads for Android and Search, respectively. As a reporter, you tend to ask a lot of stupid sounding questions, and it’s generally no big deal. But I was about to ask an extremely stupid sounding question--the type of question that, just by breathing it into the air, might out me as actually stupid, tainting every future conversation we’d have to come.
“What is Google?”
Yes, It's A Lot Of Services
The question may have been stupid, yes, but it was apropos. Google had just announced a new initiative called Material Design that promised to unify all Google products (and even third-party Android apps) under a common UX tongue. Google seemed to be morphing into something, but what?
With Material Design, Google has become a second reality inside touch-screen devices--complete with its own rules of logic and physics--and if Google has its way, it will eventually break free of touch screens to quite literally reshape the world around us.
“When you make things, you inherit thousands of years of expertise. But software design is just getting started,” Wiley had explained earlier. “We took a step back. We looked at all of the software and asked, what is this made of?”A day before, as Google revealed its big plan at its annual I/O conference, it was overwhelming to conceptualize what this blob of digital services had become. Was Google a search bar that lived in a laptop web browser? Was Google a dashboard for your car? Was Google the Android tablet, being used to control an Android TV game? Was Google the system of white note cards, being sent from an Android phone to an Android Wear smartwatch? Was Google a magic blue button that lived on these cards, making anything possible with a tap?
In reality, all of these notions of Google are true. It's a series of services that have become our digital infrastructure. And in the very near future, Google will exist, not as something you need to understand as "Chrome" or "Android," but as a conduit of information that's on just the right screen at just the right time. When you check your watch at the train station, you'll see when your next train is arriving. But when you check that same watch at work, you'll see the most important email from your boss. That watch will unlock your computer--no need to use a password--and your email will be waiting. Walk away mid-response, no problem. Your phone has the email waiting on its screen, cursor blinking mid-sentence, as you walk to your meeting.
Luckily it's not all work. After five, on your ride home, every one of these screens will be dedicated to new tasks: picking up your kids, making your dinner, and showing you Game of Thrones reruns.
And Google is grounding all of these infrastructural services through a new approach called Material Design, which will be introduced inside their upcoming mobile OS, Android L. It's an impressive, underlying logic to Google's interface across all devices that I believe will not just unify their services across the digital world, but bring them into our analog world, too.
by Mark Wilson, Co.Design | Read more:
Image: Business Insider
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
A New Day
[ed. And the walls came down.]
Surrounded by thousands of packages of marijuana, Seattle's top prosecutor sought some advice: Which one should he buy?
A new day, indeed.
Twenty months after voters legalized recreational cannabis for adults over 21, Washington state's first few licensed pot shops opened for business Tuesday, catering to hundreds of customers who lined up outside, thrilled to be part of the historic moment.
The pot being sold at four stores in Seattle, Bellingham, Prosser and Spokane was regulated, tested for impurities, heavily taxed and in short supply - such short supply that several other shops couldn't open because they had nothing to sell.
Pete Holmes, Seattle's elected city attorney and a main backer of the state's recreational marijuana law, said he wanted to be one of the first customers to demonstrate there are alternatives to the nation's failed drug war.
"This is a tectonic shift in public policy," he said. "You have to honor it. This is real. This is legal. This is a wonderful place to purchase marijuana where it's out of the shadows."
Dressed in a pinstripe suit, Holmes stood inside Seattle's first and, for now, only licensed pot shop, Cannabis City, south of downtown. The shop was sweltering. He fanned himself with a state-produced pamphlet titled "Marijuana Use in Washington State: An Adult Consumer's Guide."
Unsure what to buy, he asked the owner of the company that grew it, Nine Point Growth Industries of Bremerton, who recommended OG's Pearl. The strain tested at 21.5 percent THC, marijuana's main psychoactive compound.
The shop's 26-year-old twin salesmen, Andrew and Adam Powers, explained its benefits to Holmes: mainly, that the taste is not too "skunky" to turn off the occasional user.
Holmes noted it had been quite some time since he smoked pot. He paraphrased a line from the "South Park" cartoon series: "Remember, children, there's a time and place for everything. That place is college."
He spent $80 on 4 grams, including $20.57 in taxes.
Washington is the second state to allow marijuana sales without a doctor's note. Voters in Colorado also legalized pot in 2012, and sales began there Jan. 1.
Washington's Liquor Control Board began working right away to develop rules governing just about every aspect of the industry, from what fertilizers can be used to how extracts are produced.
But the board has been overwhelmed: Nearly 7,000 people applied to grow, process or sell pot, and those licenses are being reviewed glacially by the board's 18 investigators.
Fewer than 100 growers have been approved, and only about a dozen were ready to harvest in time for the market's launch. As for the stores, most first had to get lucky in state-run lotteries for 300-plus retail licenses being issued. Then they had to strike deals to buy product from the growers - in many cases at exorbitant prices.
Surrounded by thousands of packages of marijuana, Seattle's top prosecutor sought some advice: Which one should he buy?
A new day, indeed.Twenty months after voters legalized recreational cannabis for adults over 21, Washington state's first few licensed pot shops opened for business Tuesday, catering to hundreds of customers who lined up outside, thrilled to be part of the historic moment.
The pot being sold at four stores in Seattle, Bellingham, Prosser and Spokane was regulated, tested for impurities, heavily taxed and in short supply - such short supply that several other shops couldn't open because they had nothing to sell.
Pete Holmes, Seattle's elected city attorney and a main backer of the state's recreational marijuana law, said he wanted to be one of the first customers to demonstrate there are alternatives to the nation's failed drug war.
"This is a tectonic shift in public policy," he said. "You have to honor it. This is real. This is legal. This is a wonderful place to purchase marijuana where it's out of the shadows."
Dressed in a pinstripe suit, Holmes stood inside Seattle's first and, for now, only licensed pot shop, Cannabis City, south of downtown. The shop was sweltering. He fanned himself with a state-produced pamphlet titled "Marijuana Use in Washington State: An Adult Consumer's Guide."
Unsure what to buy, he asked the owner of the company that grew it, Nine Point Growth Industries of Bremerton, who recommended OG's Pearl. The strain tested at 21.5 percent THC, marijuana's main psychoactive compound.
The shop's 26-year-old twin salesmen, Andrew and Adam Powers, explained its benefits to Holmes: mainly, that the taste is not too "skunky" to turn off the occasional user.
Holmes noted it had been quite some time since he smoked pot. He paraphrased a line from the "South Park" cartoon series: "Remember, children, there's a time and place for everything. That place is college."
He spent $80 on 4 grams, including $20.57 in taxes.
Washington is the second state to allow marijuana sales without a doctor's note. Voters in Colorado also legalized pot in 2012, and sales began there Jan. 1.
Washington's Liquor Control Board began working right away to develop rules governing just about every aspect of the industry, from what fertilizers can be used to how extracts are produced.
But the board has been overwhelmed: Nearly 7,000 people applied to grow, process or sell pot, and those licenses are being reviewed glacially by the board's 18 investigators.
Fewer than 100 growers have been approved, and only about a dozen were ready to harvest in time for the market's launch. As for the stores, most first had to get lucky in state-run lotteries for 300-plus retail licenses being issued. Then they had to strike deals to buy product from the growers - in many cases at exorbitant prices.
by Gene Johnson, AP | Read more:
Image: Swagger & Young
Investors Are Buying Troubled Golf Courses and Giving Them Makeovers
[ed. See also: Welcome to the Everything Boom, or Maybe the Everything Bubble.]
When the Gaillardia Golf and Country Club opened in 1998, it was to be the crown jewel of golf in Oklahoma City, complete with an 18-hole P.G.A. championship course and a 55,000-square-foot clubhouse of Norman-style architecture. The Gaylord family, best known as Oklahoma media moguls and owners of the Grand Ole Opry, sank a reported $59 million into the project.
Over the next 15 years, however, the course changed hands and fell into disrepair as a glut of new courses and declining demand punished the market. Finally, early this year, Gaillardia was sold to Concert Golf Partners, an investment firm based in Newport Beach, Calif., which assumed $7 million in loans and now owns the property free and clear.
“Between 1998 and 2005 there would have been a bidding war,” said Peter Nanula, the chairman of Concert Golf who previously ran Arnold Palmer Golf Management.
While golf is still anathema to many investment portfolios, investors who have the cash see the current market as an opportunity to scoop up distressed clubs and revamp their business models.
“It’s certainly a buyer’s market,” said Larry Hirsh, president of Golf Property Analysts. “There are a lot of distressed courses, financing is difficult and most buyers don’t have the ability to write a check.” (...)
Last September, the world’s largest owner and operator of private clubs, ClubCorp Holdings, went public at $14 a share. The Dallas-based company, which had been owned by the private equity firm KSL Capital Partners, has used the injection of capital to add to its portfolio of clubs and eventually pay off its high-yield debt. It now owns 109 golf and country clubs in 23 states and Mexico. Its shares climbed as high as $19.30 in May and closed at $18.63 on Thursday. (...)
Though the industry as a whole has been under a black cloud, not all clubs are losing money. The clubs that have held up best are those in densely populated areas with limited land on which to develop, Mr. Main noted. “You can have a club in Chicago doing better than one in Florida or Texas, even after you factor for the weather,” he said.
The worst off are those developed in the last 15 years as part of a residential community off the beaten path. “They’re relying solely on demand from that community,” Mr. Main added. Indeed, many of the new courses built during the housing boom were meant to be subsidized by home sales. When the bottom fell out of the housing market, developers had no way to pay for the expensive amenity. In many cases they defaulted on their loans, which are now getting scooped up by investors.
“Golf courses have high fixed costs,” Mr. Nanula said. “At a typical course, it’s at least $500,000 a year just to mow the grass.” Moreover, many clubs are mismanaged, he said. “The typical dynamic at a private club is that it’s not run with profit in mind but with the idea of making the place fabulous,” he said. As a result, he said, “we consistently see clubs that have no rhyme or reason on spending.”
As such, investors focus primarily on buying private clubs — annual and monthly dues are “stickier” than daily fees on public courses — and turning around the operations.
While the right location and management is crucial, the golf clubs that are doing well have also evolved from being golf centric to family centric. “It’s now golf with a small ‘g’ instead of a capital ‘G,’ ” Mr. Affeldt said, explaining that ClubCorp is refreshing food and beverage operations, relaxing dress codes and adding water parks, tennis courts and fitness facilities. Case in point: His home club, Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas. “Kids are playing putt-putt golf and running around in their bare feet while grandmas do water aerobics,” he said. “It’s the epitome of a multiuse, multigenerational club.”
When the Gaillardia Golf and Country Club opened in 1998, it was to be the crown jewel of golf in Oklahoma City, complete with an 18-hole P.G.A. championship course and a 55,000-square-foot clubhouse of Norman-style architecture. The Gaylord family, best known as Oklahoma media moguls and owners of the Grand Ole Opry, sank a reported $59 million into the project.
Over the next 15 years, however, the course changed hands and fell into disrepair as a glut of new courses and declining demand punished the market. Finally, early this year, Gaillardia was sold to Concert Golf Partners, an investment firm based in Newport Beach, Calif., which assumed $7 million in loans and now owns the property free and clear.“Between 1998 and 2005 there would have been a bidding war,” said Peter Nanula, the chairman of Concert Golf who previously ran Arnold Palmer Golf Management.
While golf is still anathema to many investment portfolios, investors who have the cash see the current market as an opportunity to scoop up distressed clubs and revamp their business models.
“It’s certainly a buyer’s market,” said Larry Hirsh, president of Golf Property Analysts. “There are a lot of distressed courses, financing is difficult and most buyers don’t have the ability to write a check.” (...)
Last September, the world’s largest owner and operator of private clubs, ClubCorp Holdings, went public at $14 a share. The Dallas-based company, which had been owned by the private equity firm KSL Capital Partners, has used the injection of capital to add to its portfolio of clubs and eventually pay off its high-yield debt. It now owns 109 golf and country clubs in 23 states and Mexico. Its shares climbed as high as $19.30 in May and closed at $18.63 on Thursday. (...)
Though the industry as a whole has been under a black cloud, not all clubs are losing money. The clubs that have held up best are those in densely populated areas with limited land on which to develop, Mr. Main noted. “You can have a club in Chicago doing better than one in Florida or Texas, even after you factor for the weather,” he said.
The worst off are those developed in the last 15 years as part of a residential community off the beaten path. “They’re relying solely on demand from that community,” Mr. Main added. Indeed, many of the new courses built during the housing boom were meant to be subsidized by home sales. When the bottom fell out of the housing market, developers had no way to pay for the expensive amenity. In many cases they defaulted on their loans, which are now getting scooped up by investors.
“Golf courses have high fixed costs,” Mr. Nanula said. “At a typical course, it’s at least $500,000 a year just to mow the grass.” Moreover, many clubs are mismanaged, he said. “The typical dynamic at a private club is that it’s not run with profit in mind but with the idea of making the place fabulous,” he said. As a result, he said, “we consistently see clubs that have no rhyme or reason on spending.”
As such, investors focus primarily on buying private clubs — annual and monthly dues are “stickier” than daily fees on public courses — and turning around the operations.
While the right location and management is crucial, the golf clubs that are doing well have also evolved from being golf centric to family centric. “It’s now golf with a small ‘g’ instead of a capital ‘G,’ ” Mr. Affeldt said, explaining that ClubCorp is refreshing food and beverage operations, relaxing dress codes and adding water parks, tennis courts and fitness facilities. Case in point: His home club, Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas. “Kids are playing putt-putt golf and running around in their bare feet while grandmas do water aerobics,” he said. “It’s the epitome of a multiuse, multigenerational club.”
by Sarah Max, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Pacific Links International
Quantum State May Be a Real Thing
[ed. I'm counting on Quantum State to win the Physics Bowl next year.]
At the very heart of quantum mechanics lies a monster waiting to consume unwary minds. This monster goes by the name The Nature of Reality™. The greatest of physicists have taken one look into its mouth, saw the size of its teeth, and were consumed. Niels Bohr denied the existence of the monster after he nonchalantly (and very quietly) exited the monster's lair muttering "shut up and calculate." Einstein caught a glimpse of the teeth and fainted. He was reportedly rescued by Erwin Schrödinger at great personal risk, but neither really recovered from their encounter with the beast.
The upshot is that we had a group of physicists and philosophers who didn't believe that quantum mechanics represents reality but that it was all we could see of some deeper, more fundamental theory. A subclass of these scientists believed that the randomness of quantum mechanics would eventually be explained by some non-random, deterministic property that we simply couldn't directly observe (otherwise known as a hidden variable). Another group ended up believing that quantum mechanics did represent reality, and that, yes, reality was non-local, and possibly not very real either.
To one extent or another, these two groups are still around and still generate a fair amount of heat when they are in proximity to each other. Over the years, you would have to say that the scales have been slowly tipping in favor of the latter group. Experiments and theory have largely eliminated hidden variables. Bohm's pilot wave, a type of hidden variable, has to be pretty extraordinary to be real.
This has left us with more refined arguments to settle. One of these is about whether the wave function represents reality or just an observer's view of reality.
Waiving a function
For example, say I shoot a single photon at a single atom, which may or may not absorb the photon. According to quantum mechanics, the atom enters a superposition state where it's both in its ground state and its excited state. We describe this superposition state with a wave function. One view of quantum mechanics states that the wave function really represents the atom. But an alternative interpretation is that the wave function represents what I, the observer, know about the atom—reality may be something else entirely.
The difference is subtle, but we only need to return to an atom and a photon to see it. Imagine that a photon can excite the atom into one of two possible states, but I only know about one of them. When I make my measurement, I can't ask "what state are you in?" I can only ask "are you in state two?"—that's the nature of quantum measurements. In my previous example, where I only have two possibilities, this doesn't matter. If it's not in the excited state, I know the atom is in the ground state.
But now I have three possibilities: the atom is in its ground state or in one of the two excited states—one of which i don't know about. In a measurement of my atom, I am still limited to a yes or no answer. There is no way for me to use that to distinguish between a superposition of two states and a superposition of three states. That's because the wave functions that represent these two possibilities overlap; they both include the chance of being in the ground state and state two.
In the original example, the wave function that I know is the same as the wave function of the atom: it represents reality. In the second example, the wave function is only my knowledge of the atom, not the atom itself. This difference can be resolved by making multiple measurements. I'd see that my measured probability distribution differs from that predicted by the wave function. That is, given enough measurements, the two wave functions are distinguishable.
In this case, figuring out what's going on is trivial. But the question applies to other, more complicated cases. Can these two perspectives on the wave function always be distinguished from each other, even when the wave functions involved generate the same probability distribution function? (...)
Now, a group of researchers has extended previous work to show that, yes, under a wide range of conditions, these two points of view do differ. They show that the wave function must in some sense represent the observed system rather than what the observer knows about the system. (...)
If you take the view that the wave function only produces a probability distribution and then take all the wave functions that produce the same probability distribution—in other words, the observer's possible choices of wave functions, based on his or her knowledge of the system—and try to reproduce measurement results, you'll fail. Consequently, there is a single wave function that must represent reality.
So which wave function represents reality? Many different wave functions could be right, because they produce the same probability distribution function, but we can't tell them apart. That's the consequence of this finding: one wave function represents reality, but our ability to tell which one is reduced.
At the very heart of quantum mechanics lies a monster waiting to consume unwary minds. This monster goes by the name The Nature of Reality™. The greatest of physicists have taken one look into its mouth, saw the size of its teeth, and were consumed. Niels Bohr denied the existence of the monster after he nonchalantly (and very quietly) exited the monster's lair muttering "shut up and calculate." Einstein caught a glimpse of the teeth and fainted. He was reportedly rescued by Erwin Schrödinger at great personal risk, but neither really recovered from their encounter with the beast.
The upshot is that we had a group of physicists and philosophers who didn't believe that quantum mechanics represents reality but that it was all we could see of some deeper, more fundamental theory. A subclass of these scientists believed that the randomness of quantum mechanics would eventually be explained by some non-random, deterministic property that we simply couldn't directly observe (otherwise known as a hidden variable). Another group ended up believing that quantum mechanics did represent reality, and that, yes, reality was non-local, and possibly not very real either.To one extent or another, these two groups are still around and still generate a fair amount of heat when they are in proximity to each other. Over the years, you would have to say that the scales have been slowly tipping in favor of the latter group. Experiments and theory have largely eliminated hidden variables. Bohm's pilot wave, a type of hidden variable, has to be pretty extraordinary to be real.
This has left us with more refined arguments to settle. One of these is about whether the wave function represents reality or just an observer's view of reality.
Waiving a function
For example, say I shoot a single photon at a single atom, which may or may not absorb the photon. According to quantum mechanics, the atom enters a superposition state where it's both in its ground state and its excited state. We describe this superposition state with a wave function. One view of quantum mechanics states that the wave function really represents the atom. But an alternative interpretation is that the wave function represents what I, the observer, know about the atom—reality may be something else entirely.
The difference is subtle, but we only need to return to an atom and a photon to see it. Imagine that a photon can excite the atom into one of two possible states, but I only know about one of them. When I make my measurement, I can't ask "what state are you in?" I can only ask "are you in state two?"—that's the nature of quantum measurements. In my previous example, where I only have two possibilities, this doesn't matter. If it's not in the excited state, I know the atom is in the ground state.
But now I have three possibilities: the atom is in its ground state or in one of the two excited states—one of which i don't know about. In a measurement of my atom, I am still limited to a yes or no answer. There is no way for me to use that to distinguish between a superposition of two states and a superposition of three states. That's because the wave functions that represent these two possibilities overlap; they both include the chance of being in the ground state and state two.
In the original example, the wave function that I know is the same as the wave function of the atom: it represents reality. In the second example, the wave function is only my knowledge of the atom, not the atom itself. This difference can be resolved by making multiple measurements. I'd see that my measured probability distribution differs from that predicted by the wave function. That is, given enough measurements, the two wave functions are distinguishable.
In this case, figuring out what's going on is trivial. But the question applies to other, more complicated cases. Can these two perspectives on the wave function always be distinguished from each other, even when the wave functions involved generate the same probability distribution function? (...)
Now, a group of researchers has extended previous work to show that, yes, under a wide range of conditions, these two points of view do differ. They show that the wave function must in some sense represent the observed system rather than what the observer knows about the system. (...)
If you take the view that the wave function only produces a probability distribution and then take all the wave functions that produce the same probability distribution—in other words, the observer's possible choices of wave functions, based on his or her knowledge of the system—and try to reproduce measurement results, you'll fail. Consequently, there is a single wave function that must represent reality.
So which wave function represents reality? Many different wave functions could be right, because they produce the same probability distribution function, but we can't tell them apart. That's the consequence of this finding: one wave function represents reality, but our ability to tell which one is reduced.
by Chris Lee, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image: uncredited
Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered
One moment you're conscious, the next you're not. For the first time, researchers have switched off consciousness by electrically stimulating a single brain area.
Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness – until now.
Although only tested in one person, the discovery suggests that a single area – the claustrum – might be integral to combining disparate brain activity into a seamless package of thoughts, sensations and emotions. It takes us a step closer to answering a problem that has confounded scientists and philosophers for millennia – namely how our conscious awareness arises.
Many theories abound but most agree that consciousness has to involve the integration of activity from several brain networks, allowing us to perceive our surroundings as one single unifying experience rather than isolated sensory perceptions.
One proponent of this idea was Francis Crick, a pioneering neuroscientist who earlier in his career had identified the structure of DNA. Just days before he died in July 2004, Crick was working on a paper that suggested our consciousness needs something akin to an orchestra conductor to bind all of our different external and internal perceptions together.
With his colleague Christof Koch, at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, he hypothesised that this conductor would need to rapidly integrate information across distinct regions of the brain and bind together information arriving at different times. For example, information about the smell and colour of a rose, its name, and a memory of its relevance, can be bound into one conscious experience of being handed a rose on Valentine's day.
The pair suggested that the claustrum – a thin, sheet-like structure that lies hidden deep inside the brain – is perfectly suited to this job (Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B, doi.org/djjw5m).
It now looks as if Crick and Koch were on to something. In a study published last week, Mohamad Koubeissi at the George Washington University in Washington DC and his colleagues describe how they managed to switch a woman's consciousness off and on by stimulating her claustrum. The woman has epilepsy so the team were using deep brain electrodes to record signals from different brain regions to work out where her seizures originate. One electrode was positioned next to the claustrum, an area that had never been stimulated before.
When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments (Epilepsy and Behavior, doi.org/tgn).
by Helen Thomson, New Scientist | Read more:
Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness – until now.
Although only tested in one person, the discovery suggests that a single area – the claustrum – might be integral to combining disparate brain activity into a seamless package of thoughts, sensations and emotions. It takes us a step closer to answering a problem that has confounded scientists and philosophers for millennia – namely how our conscious awareness arises.Many theories abound but most agree that consciousness has to involve the integration of activity from several brain networks, allowing us to perceive our surroundings as one single unifying experience rather than isolated sensory perceptions.
One proponent of this idea was Francis Crick, a pioneering neuroscientist who earlier in his career had identified the structure of DNA. Just days before he died in July 2004, Crick was working on a paper that suggested our consciousness needs something akin to an orchestra conductor to bind all of our different external and internal perceptions together.
With his colleague Christof Koch, at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, he hypothesised that this conductor would need to rapidly integrate information across distinct regions of the brain and bind together information arriving at different times. For example, information about the smell and colour of a rose, its name, and a memory of its relevance, can be bound into one conscious experience of being handed a rose on Valentine's day.
The pair suggested that the claustrum – a thin, sheet-like structure that lies hidden deep inside the brain – is perfectly suited to this job (Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B, doi.org/djjw5m).
It now looks as if Crick and Koch were on to something. In a study published last week, Mohamad Koubeissi at the George Washington University in Washington DC and his colleagues describe how they managed to switch a woman's consciousness off and on by stimulating her claustrum. The woman has epilepsy so the team were using deep brain electrodes to record signals from different brain regions to work out where her seizures originate. One electrode was positioned next to the claustrum, an area that had never been stimulated before.
When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments (Epilepsy and Behavior, doi.org/tgn).
by Helen Thomson, New Scientist | Read more:
Image: Kirk Weddle/Getty Images
Monday, July 7, 2014
Nature's Dying Migrant Worker
In a cool January day in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Steve Ellis culled his sick bees. The only sounds were their steady buzz and the chuffing of the smoker he used to keep them calm as he opened the hives, one by one, to see how many had survived. The painful chore has become an annual ritual for Ellis, and, hardened now like a medic on the front lines, he crowned another box with a big rock to mark it.
“This one is G.A.D.,” he said. “Good as dead.”
Ellis, of Barrett, Minn., is one of some 1,300 commercial beekeepers from across the United States who migrate to California each year, along with nearly 2 million hives, for the single largest pollination event in the world. Below him in the sprawling valley, nearly 1,400 square miles of almond trees — three-fourths of the global supply — were ready to burst out into a frothy sea of pink and white. To grow into a nut, every single blossom would need at least one American honeybee.
Ever since the ominous phrase “colony collapse disorder” first surfaced in 2006, scientists have struggled to explain the mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees. But here in America’s food basket the escalating stakes are laid out as clearly as the almond trees that march in perfect rows up to the horizon.
Modern farm economics have created an enormously productive system of genetically engineered, chemically dependent agriculture. But it relies on just one domesticated insect to deliver a third of the food on our plate.
And that insect is dying, a victim of the very food system that has come to depend on it.
A rush of recent research points to a complex triangle of causes: pervasive pesticides, a flowerless rural landscape dominated by cash crops, and the spread of parasites and diseases. Together they inflict enormous damage on the honeybees that crisscross the country each spring and summer, like migrant laborers, to pollinate everything from almonds in California to apples in Maine.
In the past several decades, the number of crops that depend on bees for pollination has quadrupled, even as the number of hives available to pollinate them has dropped by half. Every winter, beekeepers on average continue to lose a fourth to a third of their hives, raising fears that the gradual decline of these remarkably resilient insects will soon limit the production of foods that Americans now take for granted. (...)
When he looks out over the edge of the old gravel pit near Elbow Lake where he keeps his hives, Ellis sees what he calls a vast agricultural desert of corn and soybeans — two plants that don’t need bees for fertilization. Synthetic fertilizers have replaced the natural ones, farming has become increasingly specialized and now about a third of Minnesota’s land — and much of the Midwest — is covered with just those two crops.
Almost all Midwestern crops are now genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, so farmers can kill weeds efficiently without harming their yields — a major advance in productivity that has revolutionized agriculture. But the widespread use of herbicides has virtually wiped out the milkweed, clover and wildflowers from Minnesota’s vast farming regions. That doesn’t include the millions of acres devoted to grass in urban areas, another form of chemically intensive monoculture.
For bees — which need 150 million flowers to make enough honey for one hive to survive the winter — there isn’t much left to eat.
“This is supposed to be the land of milk and honey,” Ellis said.
What flowers remain are increasingly exposed to a new family of insecticides that, along with corn and soybeans, have exploded across the Midwest and the world: neonicotinoids. They come coated on virtually every seed planted in every major crop across the country — sunflowers, canola, cotton, soybeans and corn. Each spring when farmers take to the fields, some unknown quantity of the chemical escapes into the environment, especially in corn country.
Ellis sees it every year in May, when his neighbors crisscross their fields with massive planters that inject the pesticide-coated seeds into the earth. They have to use a talc to keep the seeds from sticking together, and as the air pressure in the machines forces the seeds into the ground, the contaminated powder escapes and drifts over the land.
But May is also the month when his bees work the blooming willow trees, shrubs and other flowers around the gravel pit, collecting pollen and nectar as they play their part in the seasonal reproduction of plants. And when wind blows the fine powders from corn seeds over the blooming plants around his yard, many of the bees that return to the hive come back and die.
The sight of thousands of bees twitching and convulsing in front of their boxes has become a near-annual event for Ellis and other beekeepers in the same predicament.
Farmers don’t have much choice in this transaction; 90 percent of the seed corn available to them comes precoated with neonicotinoids. It’s just one of the many chemical and genetic advances that have helped farmers double their production from 80 or 100 bushels per acre to up to 200 today, said Leon Johnson, who farms near Ellis in Barrett.
“It’s hard to argue with success,” he said, even though he recognizes that there is a downside to that abundance.
“Most farmers are smart enough to know you can’t kill all the bees going forward,” he said. “But we haven’t been asked.” (...)
Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, neonicotinoids have sparked a quiet revolution in agriculture. Because they are considered far safer than their predecessors, they won fast-track approval by the EPA and are now the most widely used insecticides in the world. Made from a synthetic nicotine, they are a neurotoxin to insects — but not for people, their livestock and their pets.
But it’s their delivery system that makes neonicotinoids truly novel.
As the chemical-coated seed germinates and matures, the insecticide moves into the circulatory system and grows with the plant. As a result, today all major crops — and even many of the geraniums and petunias at retail garden centers — are poisonous to insects, regardless of whether they need to be protected. It’s a built-in insurance policy.
“Making plants themselves toxic is a whole different thing than killing bugs with a toxin,” Ellis said. “It’s a game-changer.”
by Josephine Marcotty, Star Tribune | Read more:
“This one is G.A.D.,” he said. “Good as dead.”Ellis, of Barrett, Minn., is one of some 1,300 commercial beekeepers from across the United States who migrate to California each year, along with nearly 2 million hives, for the single largest pollination event in the world. Below him in the sprawling valley, nearly 1,400 square miles of almond trees — three-fourths of the global supply — were ready to burst out into a frothy sea of pink and white. To grow into a nut, every single blossom would need at least one American honeybee.
Ever since the ominous phrase “colony collapse disorder” first surfaced in 2006, scientists have struggled to explain the mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees. But here in America’s food basket the escalating stakes are laid out as clearly as the almond trees that march in perfect rows up to the horizon.
Modern farm economics have created an enormously productive system of genetically engineered, chemically dependent agriculture. But it relies on just one domesticated insect to deliver a third of the food on our plate.
And that insect is dying, a victim of the very food system that has come to depend on it.
A rush of recent research points to a complex triangle of causes: pervasive pesticides, a flowerless rural landscape dominated by cash crops, and the spread of parasites and diseases. Together they inflict enormous damage on the honeybees that crisscross the country each spring and summer, like migrant laborers, to pollinate everything from almonds in California to apples in Maine.
In the past several decades, the number of crops that depend on bees for pollination has quadrupled, even as the number of hives available to pollinate them has dropped by half. Every winter, beekeepers on average continue to lose a fourth to a third of their hives, raising fears that the gradual decline of these remarkably resilient insects will soon limit the production of foods that Americans now take for granted. (...)
When he looks out over the edge of the old gravel pit near Elbow Lake where he keeps his hives, Ellis sees what he calls a vast agricultural desert of corn and soybeans — two plants that don’t need bees for fertilization. Synthetic fertilizers have replaced the natural ones, farming has become increasingly specialized and now about a third of Minnesota’s land — and much of the Midwest — is covered with just those two crops.
Almost all Midwestern crops are now genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, so farmers can kill weeds efficiently without harming their yields — a major advance in productivity that has revolutionized agriculture. But the widespread use of herbicides has virtually wiped out the milkweed, clover and wildflowers from Minnesota’s vast farming regions. That doesn’t include the millions of acres devoted to grass in urban areas, another form of chemically intensive monoculture.
For bees — which need 150 million flowers to make enough honey for one hive to survive the winter — there isn’t much left to eat.
“This is supposed to be the land of milk and honey,” Ellis said.
What flowers remain are increasingly exposed to a new family of insecticides that, along with corn and soybeans, have exploded across the Midwest and the world: neonicotinoids. They come coated on virtually every seed planted in every major crop across the country — sunflowers, canola, cotton, soybeans and corn. Each spring when farmers take to the fields, some unknown quantity of the chemical escapes into the environment, especially in corn country.
Ellis sees it every year in May, when his neighbors crisscross their fields with massive planters that inject the pesticide-coated seeds into the earth. They have to use a talc to keep the seeds from sticking together, and as the air pressure in the machines forces the seeds into the ground, the contaminated powder escapes and drifts over the land.
But May is also the month when his bees work the blooming willow trees, shrubs and other flowers around the gravel pit, collecting pollen and nectar as they play their part in the seasonal reproduction of plants. And when wind blows the fine powders from corn seeds over the blooming plants around his yard, many of the bees that return to the hive come back and die.
The sight of thousands of bees twitching and convulsing in front of their boxes has become a near-annual event for Ellis and other beekeepers in the same predicament.
Farmers don’t have much choice in this transaction; 90 percent of the seed corn available to them comes precoated with neonicotinoids. It’s just one of the many chemical and genetic advances that have helped farmers double their production from 80 or 100 bushels per acre to up to 200 today, said Leon Johnson, who farms near Ellis in Barrett.
“It’s hard to argue with success,” he said, even though he recognizes that there is a downside to that abundance.
“Most farmers are smart enough to know you can’t kill all the bees going forward,” he said. “But we haven’t been asked.” (...)
Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, neonicotinoids have sparked a quiet revolution in agriculture. Because they are considered far safer than their predecessors, they won fast-track approval by the EPA and are now the most widely used insecticides in the world. Made from a synthetic nicotine, they are a neurotoxin to insects — but not for people, their livestock and their pets.
But it’s their delivery system that makes neonicotinoids truly novel.
As the chemical-coated seed germinates and matures, the insecticide moves into the circulatory system and grows with the plant. As a result, today all major crops — and even many of the geraniums and petunias at retail garden centers — are poisonous to insects, regardless of whether they need to be protected. It’s a built-in insurance policy.
“Making plants themselves toxic is a whole different thing than killing bugs with a toxin,” Ellis said. “It’s a game-changer.”
by Josephine Marcotty, Star Tribune | Read more:
Image: Renée Jones Schneider
h/t Scott P.
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