“It is man’s cunning to endlessly solve problems; it’s the universe’s intelligence to have never a problem. Man’s dominion is one of constant control: the domain of the universe is one where everything competently, perfectly, manages itself: everything!
— Robert Wolfe
“The smack goes to Europe or America. Some self-obsessed narcissist who otherwise would be causing untold pollution driving to and from work every day, probably in a car without passengers, only to go burning electricity in an overheated office somewhere — thanks to us he stays home in a stupor and gets the sack. His work gets outsourced to Bangladesh, where someone does the same job better for a fifth of the pay, which he uses to feed a family of seven, and to top it all he commutes to work on a bicycle-the whole earth benefits.”
— The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett
In a recent Rolling Stone piece Matt Taibbi described Antonio Garcia Martinez as “the most interesting and damaging defector to have ever left the ranks of Facebook. An iconoclastic combination of Travis McGee and Michael Lewis, he is a former physics Ph.D. candidate from Berkeley who worked at Goldman Sachs before his two years at Facebook.”
The Travis McGee reference intrigued me so I bought Martinez’ book (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley). Only halfway through but can safely say it is one of the best books I’ve read about Silicon Valley. Martinez’s writing style reminds me of Taibbi and he makes the world of tech start-ups read like a thriller. I’m at the part of the book where he’s just gone to work for Facebook:
“Facebook is full of true believers who really, really, really are not doing it for the money, and really, really will not stop until every man, woman, and child on earth is staring into a blue-framed window with a Facebook logo. Which, if you think about it, is much scarier than simple greed. The greedy man can always be bought at some price or another, and his behavior is predictable. But the true zealot? He can’t be had at any price, and there’s no telling what his mad visions will have him and his followers do. That’s what we’re talking about with Mark Elliot Zuckerberg and the company he created.”
If The Social Network is how Facebook started, Chaos Monkeys is what it became. Nobody knows what it will become.
I’ve been reading John Sandford novels since he started writing them. Every Lucas Davenport, Virgil Flowers, Kidd book he’s written. And the handful of other characters and co-authored novels. In all of these books I don’t recall finding a continuity error. Every plot seamless. But I came across the following while re-reading Dark of the Moon (Virgil Flowers)
“Knock at the door. Bad news. Bad news always knocks quietly. He thought of his son in Minneapolis, this daughters in Alberta Lea and Santa Fe.’
— Page 111, Dark of the Moon
And just six pages later…
“This is brutal, Virgil said, standing with his hands in his jeans pockets. “The family hear yet?”
“Not much family, not that we k now of — maybe she has cousins. They never had children.”
— Page 117, Dark of the Moon
I checked and double checked and the reference is to the same minor character. I guess this could be explained by the speaker (a deputy) in the first quote not knowing the dead couple (locals) had children, but that’s a stretch.
“Meditation is not about doing anything. It is simply paying attention.”
Not counting basic hygiene (brushing my teeth, etc), the only thing I do every day is meditate. I sit for 30 minutes, sometimes longer. Every day for the last 500 days. I keep track but I’m not sure that’s good idea. Too easy to get fixated on the streak, keeping the string going.
I’ve missed twice in the last 1,000+ days. Once when I was sick and again when out of town attending a high school reunion (#50). I’m not sure why I keep track of my practice. Maybe it’s for the same reason prisoners make marks on their cell walls (do they still do that?). They’re afraid they’ll forget how long the’ve been in prison? I’d rather think I keep track because it gives me a little added encouragement to sit, although I really don’t think I need that anymore. My daily meditation is the best half hour of my day. But why?
Steve Hagen says meditation is useless. The only reason to meditate is to mediate. Which sounds like something only those who meditate would say or understand. I’m sure when I started (10 years ago?) it was for stress management or relaxation or something but somewhere along the way it became an end in itself.
I find it simultaneously the simplest thing in the world and the most difficult. I’m sitting on a cushion on the floor, focused on my breath. What could be easier? And within seconds my mind has jumped to some random thought… I gently bring my awareness back to my breathing… and the cycle repeats, endlessly. Why would anyone invest half an hour every day doing this? Again, Steve Hagen: “At the heart of meditation is the intention to be awake.”
Meditation Now or Never (PDF of favorite excerpts)
James Fallows on the traits very intelligent people:
“They all know it. A lifetime of quietly comparing their ease in handling intellectual challenges—at the chess board, in the classroom, in the debating or writing arena—with the efforts of other people gave them the message.”
“Virtually none of them (need to) say it. There are a few prominent exceptions, of talented people who annoyingly go out of their way to announce that fact. Muhammad Ali is the charming extreme exception illustrating the rule: He said he was The Greatest, and was. Most greats don’t need to say so. It would be like Roger Federer introducing himself with, “You know, I’m quite graceful and gifted.” Or Meryl Streep asking, “Have you seen my awards?”
“They know what they don’t know. This to me is the most consistent marker of real intelligence. The more acute someone’s ability to perceive and assess, the more likely that person is to recognize his or her limits. These include the unevenness of any one person’s talents; the specific areas of weakness—social awkwardness, musical tin ear, being stronger with numbers than with words, or vice versa; and the incomparable vastness of what any individual person can never know. To read books seriously is to be staggered by the knowledge of how many more books will remain beyond your ken. It’s like looking up at the star-filled sky.”
This interview was recorded in 2014 and runs one hour and twenty minutes. If you are not a fan of Gibson’s novels you can skip this. If you are a fan but haven’t read The Peripheral, you should not watch this interview. The interview is notable in that Mr. Gleick doesn’t interrupt Mr. Gibson once. He lets him fully answer each question before asking the next one.
Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy. I read the first book in the trilogy and found it… disturbing. Didn’t feel a pull to read the other two. The film is directed by Alex Garland who did Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, two films I enjoyed very much (if one can claim to enjoy 28 Days Later).
I simply could not put this book down. I tried. But then I’d read just a few lines of the next chapter… and the next… and it’s the middle of the night. This was gripping adventure story. Overlaid with a sense of impending doom (see above). Deeply religious people frighten me. That’s okay, Barb says, because most religious people are not that serious about it. Hmm.
The philosophical underpinning of this book is deeply concerned with how authoritarian regimes take power. […] The Magisterium’s most chilling weapon in its quest for domination is its League of St. Alexander. The League is a secret society for children whose members wear badges and attend extra church services, and they’re encouraged to inform on any adults they catch doing anything sinful or heretical. At Malcolm’s school, the headmaster tries to forbid his pupils from wearing the badges on school property. The students, drunk with power, promptly inform on him; he’s taken into the Magisterium’s custody and never heard from again. Continued…
Can’t wait for part two.