https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QUbpAhe7s0
great surf.
Friday, 5 July 2019
Monday, 1 July 2019
Sunday, 30 June 2019
Malcolm Gladwell - Revisionist history podcast series 2 episode 6 - King of Tears
Malcolm Gladwell
"Beauty and authenticity can create a mood, they set the state. But I think the thing that pushes us over the top into tears is details. We can cry when melancholy collides with specificity."
When you remove the duplicate parts of a rock 'n roll song, it shrinks by 60%. Lots of generic phrases because everybody comes from a different background and the cliches are necessary for those different people to talk to each other. So lots of duplicates. If you would go deeper or get too specific, you start to loose people.
Country and hiphop shrank at most by 40%. Tightly knit musical communities. If you speak to people who understand you world, your language, your culture, you can be a lot more specific.
Various versions of "He Stopped Loving Her Today", most notably George Jones, who had just been recovering after heavy drug and alcohol usage because his wife had left him.
"Beauty and authenticity can create a mood, they set the state. But I think the thing that pushes us over the top into tears is details. We can cry when melancholy collides with specificity."
When you remove the duplicate parts of a rock 'n roll song, it shrinks by 60%. Lots of generic phrases because everybody comes from a different background and the cliches are necessary for those different people to talk to each other. So lots of duplicates. If you would go deeper or get too specific, you start to loose people.
Country and hiphop shrank at most by 40%. Tightly knit musical communities. If you speak to people who understand you world, your language, your culture, you can be a lot more specific.
Various versions of "He Stopped Loving Her Today", most notably George Jones, who had just been recovering after heavy drug and alcohol usage because his wife had left him.
Friday, 28 June 2019
random songs
- Lizzo ft Missy Elliott - "Tempo"
- Bonaparte - "Melody X" (as featured in "Dark")
- Bonaparte - "Fuck Your Accent"
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
Haruki Murakami - "The Elephant Vanishes"
Though I'm Murakami'd out, I thought I'd give this a try. There's the usual boring stories, but a few stand out.
"On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning" is amazing. A short story version of "Voices of a distant star"
(halfway)
Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. There were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.
"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dream to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves-just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."
And so they parted, he to the east, she to the west.
"little green monster" - love the repetition and the short focused stab of its story.
"On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning" is amazing. A short story version of "Voices of a distant star"
(halfway)
Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. There were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.
"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dream to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves-just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."
And so they parted, he to the east, she to the west.
"little green monster" - love the repetition and the short focused stab of its story.
I want to lead a general existence and yet be a distinctive, separate entity.
Yesterday could have been the day before yesterday, or vice versa. I'd sometimes wonder what kind of life this was. Which is not to say that I found it empty. I was - very simply - amazed. At the lack of demarcation between the days. At the fact that I was part of such a life, a life that had swallowed me up so completely. At the fact that my footprints were being blown away before I even had a chance to turn and look at them.
If sleep is nothing more thann a periodic repairing of the parts of me that are being worn away, I don't want it anymore. I don't need it anymore. My flesh may have to be consumed, but my mind belongs to me. I'm keeping it for myself. I will not hand it over to anyone. I don't want to be "repaired." I will not sleep.
[...] so rich with the genuine sense of daily living.
Good Omens (mini series)
Kinda enjoyable, but not very good. Too Neil Gaiman ish. Anti-christ boy defeats his father, the Devil, by simply saying "you were never my father." The whole Good of Intent always winning of the baddies. David Tennant is okay but his snakey devil is becoming a boring character. Also, of course no real drama, nobody really dies, and the usual Gaiman jokes. Only watch when you're hungover.
Dark (season 2)
Second season of the confusing German time-travel series, where a God Particle allows people to jump back and forth by 33 years. Basically it's a bit of an incestuous time-travel, because everyone at the end turns out to be someone's aunt and grand daughter at the same time. A bit too confusing to properly follow, but the dark mood is enjoyable. Also, some good songs (used in the typical slow-motion final-minutes montage of everything dreadful happening simultaneously.)
Agnes Obel - "It's happening again"
Bonaparte - "Melody X"
Agnes Obel - "It's happening again"
Bonaparte - "Melody X"
Cognitive load in services and teams
https://www.instapaper.com/read/1205617145
Interesting article on how to scale services; not by technology but by load that a team can take. Reduce intrinsic cognitive load ("how to create a class in Java") and extraneaous cognitive load ("how do I deploy this?") to maximize germane cognitive load: the part that actually adds value.
Interesting article on how to scale services; not by technology but by load that a team can take. Reduce intrinsic cognitive load ("how to create a class in Java") and extraneaous cognitive load ("how do I deploy this?") to maximize germane cognitive load: the part that actually adds value.
Friday, 21 June 2019
I Am Mother
Not bad Netflix film about a girl growing up with her robot mum in a post apocalyptic world. Guess what, nothing is what it seems.
The "secret" is nothing crazy, but it's still a good watch overall.
The "secret" is nothing crazy, but it's still a good watch overall.
Wednesday, 12 June 2019
Friday, 7 June 2019
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
Pertubator - "Humans are such easy prey"
via spotify playlist "Synthwave from space"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8DekFFCE5c
Nice, good fast vibe. And starts with a quote, woot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8DekFFCE5c
Nice, good fast vibe. And starts with a quote, woot.
Monday, 20 May 2019
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Alexandra Streliski - "INSCAPE"
Quite amazing piano music.
Should watch a live video.
Reminds me a bit of Yann Tiersen and Ludovico Einaudi.
Should watch a live video.
Reminds me a bit of Yann Tiersen and Ludovico Einaudi.
Friday, 12 April 2019
Olivia Laing - "The Lonely City"
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one's being as laughing easily or having red hair. Then again, it can be transient, lapping in and out in reaction to external circumstance, like the onleiness that follows on the heels of a bereavement, breka-up or change in social circles.
Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Jon McGregor - "Reservoir 13"
Story about the 13 years after a girl went missing in a small (Northern?) English village. Almost abstract writing, and though you never get really close to any of the characters, beautiful writing, with a very smooth transition of time from close-up to distant, small steps to large jumps, even within the same sentence. Great portrayal of emotions through simple actions.
Great examples of using recurring imagery to show the passing of times and paint the setting: foxes mating. fox cubs. fox cubs setting out on their own.
He'd been in the job three months ow, and his supervisor said there were no complaints as such but did he want to have a think about engaging with the customers a little more? Martin said he would certainly think about that, and went out to the loading bay for a smoke and a kick of the packing cases which were stacked there. The sun went down around half past four but it was already dark by then, the murky light blotted out by the high moors and the gathering clouds.
Les Thompson walked his fields in the evening while the sun was still warm on the grass. The heads were up and the cut would come tomorrow. In the beech wood the fox cubs were taken away from their dens and taught to find food for themselves. A white hooded top was found in a clough on the top of the moor, oiled a deep peatbrown and fraying at the seams. The make and design were confirmed as a match by the missing girl's mother. The forensic tests took weeks and were inconclusive. Extensive searched were conducted where the top had been found but nothing further was unearthed.
Sophie Hunter and James Broad were known to be courting. This was the word Stuart Hunter used, without irony. Everyone had long assumed they would get together, but it was only a few weeks before they realised that something was wrong. They were in the cinema room at Sophie's house one afternoon while her parents were away, and she told him not to take this the wrong way but sometimes it felt like kissing her brother. James told her she didn't have a brother and she said that wasn't the point. He wasn't annoyed. He was almost relieved. He said that when he kissed her it didn't feel like kissing his sister but more like kissing her mum. She asked when he'd kissed her mother and he said often. She's a very liberated woman, he said, and she told him he was disgusting. It takes one to know one, he said. They were still holding each other, and although they knew where the conversation was going they were in no hurry to let go. He kissed her one more time, very softly, and shook his head. We used to run around naked together at playgroup, he said. It doesn't feel right seeing you naked now. People will be disappointed, she told him. Captain of the rugby team and the head prefect? We're supposed to be the dream team. This is it then? he asked. I guess it is, she said. That's okay, isn't it? He nodded. Mind you, she said, my parents aren't due back for hours. She watched him as she unbuttoned her top. Well, this is confusing, he said. He shifted on the sofa. But if you're going to be like that about it. She reached for the button of his jeans and they kissed again, quickly, and pulled off just enough clothes to have sex. He came quickly with a shout and a sigh and afterwards she stayed astride him for a moment, stroking the side of his face and telling him they would always be friends. And once they'd wriggled back into their clothes she told him, as though it was nothing, as though she'd only just thought of it, that actually Lynsey really liked him and he should think about that at some point. He shook his head and told her she was a disgrace. She asked him what the problem was. She wasn't even at playgroup with us, she said. It would be different. He buttoned his jeans and reached for the remote control. You can choose, he said.
Kid stuff. Building dens. Swimming in the river. Going into the caves. She'd always wanted to do a bit more, push things further. She wasn't much older than they were but she'd seemed a lot more mature. She was so pretty, Sophie said, lighting the pipe again. Wasn't she pretty, James? James glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. He looked at Rohan, and nodded. They'd all fancied her, he said, even if they hadn't admitted it at the time. There was something exciting about her, he said. She talked us into climbing the fence round the quarry, and she was the first one to jump off the rope-swing. She was hardcore. And she was smart, Sophie added, from the back seat. Lynsey sat up straight again. We should all go to the same uni, she said. Shouldn't we? We could live in the same halls and everything. James passed her the pipe, and they listened to the click and draw as she smoked it, the long pause before she sighed out the smoke. James and Sophie were both picturing Becky launching out from the rope-swing, this girl who none of them really knew, the light catching on her long bare legs as she fell through the air and something new stirred in them all. I was the only one who kept in touch with her, James said, after she went back to London. Emails, postcards, nothing much. I didn't have a phone and there was no Facebook in those days. But we kept in touch. We - fuck it. We liked each other, okay? We liked each other. He turned round and took the pipe from Lynsey, who was falling asleep again. He thumbed it full of skunk from the bag on the dashboard. Becky was the one who talked her parents into coming here again for New Year, is what she reckoned. He toked hard on the pipe, and coughed as he let the smoke go. So there's that for a start. Rohan took the pipe. And then when she was here we all met up and hung out for a bit, except it was cold and there wasn't really anywhere to hang out. It was nice seeing her though. We head a little bit of a connection or something. And she'd grown up a lot since the summer. He's talking about her being physically mature, Sophie said, sleepily. Don't be coy, James. You mean she had tits, yeah? Me and Lynsey were well jealous, weren't we, Lyns? Lynsey opened her eyes and looked at Sophie, Edinburgh, she said. We'll all go to Edinburgh. I'll do English, you guys do whatever. It's cheap up there. Sophie stroked her arm and said yes, we'll definitely all go to Edinburgh, we'll all go together, if we get in, we'll be a gang up there. Lynsey closed her eyes. I didn't just mean that, James said. But it was part of it, Sophie murmured. The car was quiet for a moment. When they talked about Becky now it was hard to actually picture her face. The photo on the news had never looked right, but it had replaced the image of her they'd held. She was being lost all over again. Outside the car the evening was still and the light was softening over the reservoir.
Great examples of using recurring imagery to show the passing of times and paint the setting: foxes mating. fox cubs. fox cubs setting out on their own.
He'd been in the job three months ow, and his supervisor said there were no complaints as such but did he want to have a think about engaging with the customers a little more? Martin said he would certainly think about that, and went out to the loading bay for a smoke and a kick of the packing cases which were stacked there. The sun went down around half past four but it was already dark by then, the murky light blotted out by the high moors and the gathering clouds.
Les Thompson walked his fields in the evening while the sun was still warm on the grass. The heads were up and the cut would come tomorrow. In the beech wood the fox cubs were taken away from their dens and taught to find food for themselves. A white hooded top was found in a clough on the top of the moor, oiled a deep peatbrown and fraying at the seams. The make and design were confirmed as a match by the missing girl's mother. The forensic tests took weeks and were inconclusive. Extensive searched were conducted where the top had been found but nothing further was unearthed.
Sophie Hunter and James Broad were known to be courting. This was the word Stuart Hunter used, without irony. Everyone had long assumed they would get together, but it was only a few weeks before they realised that something was wrong. They were in the cinema room at Sophie's house one afternoon while her parents were away, and she told him not to take this the wrong way but sometimes it felt like kissing her brother. James told her she didn't have a brother and she said that wasn't the point. He wasn't annoyed. He was almost relieved. He said that when he kissed her it didn't feel like kissing his sister but more like kissing her mum. She asked when he'd kissed her mother and he said often. She's a very liberated woman, he said, and she told him he was disgusting. It takes one to know one, he said. They were still holding each other, and although they knew where the conversation was going they were in no hurry to let go. He kissed her one more time, very softly, and shook his head. We used to run around naked together at playgroup, he said. It doesn't feel right seeing you naked now. People will be disappointed, she told him. Captain of the rugby team and the head prefect? We're supposed to be the dream team. This is it then? he asked. I guess it is, she said. That's okay, isn't it? He nodded. Mind you, she said, my parents aren't due back for hours. She watched him as she unbuttoned her top. Well, this is confusing, he said. He shifted on the sofa. But if you're going to be like that about it. She reached for the button of his jeans and they kissed again, quickly, and pulled off just enough clothes to have sex. He came quickly with a shout and a sigh and afterwards she stayed astride him for a moment, stroking the side of his face and telling him they would always be friends. And once they'd wriggled back into their clothes she told him, as though it was nothing, as though she'd only just thought of it, that actually Lynsey really liked him and he should think about that at some point. He shook his head and told her she was a disgrace. She asked him what the problem was. She wasn't even at playgroup with us, she said. It would be different. He buttoned his jeans and reached for the remote control. You can choose, he said.
Kid stuff. Building dens. Swimming in the river. Going into the caves. She'd always wanted to do a bit more, push things further. She wasn't much older than they were but she'd seemed a lot more mature. She was so pretty, Sophie said, lighting the pipe again. Wasn't she pretty, James? James glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. He looked at Rohan, and nodded. They'd all fancied her, he said, even if they hadn't admitted it at the time. There was something exciting about her, he said. She talked us into climbing the fence round the quarry, and she was the first one to jump off the rope-swing. She was hardcore. And she was smart, Sophie added, from the back seat. Lynsey sat up straight again. We should all go to the same uni, she said. Shouldn't we? We could live in the same halls and everything. James passed her the pipe, and they listened to the click and draw as she smoked it, the long pause before she sighed out the smoke. James and Sophie were both picturing Becky launching out from the rope-swing, this girl who none of them really knew, the light catching on her long bare legs as she fell through the air and something new stirred in them all. I was the only one who kept in touch with her, James said, after she went back to London. Emails, postcards, nothing much. I didn't have a phone and there was no Facebook in those days. But we kept in touch. We - fuck it. We liked each other, okay? We liked each other. He turned round and took the pipe from Lynsey, who was falling asleep again. He thumbed it full of skunk from the bag on the dashboard. Becky was the one who talked her parents into coming here again for New Year, is what she reckoned. He toked hard on the pipe, and coughed as he let the smoke go. So there's that for a start. Rohan took the pipe. And then when she was here we all met up and hung out for a bit, except it was cold and there wasn't really anywhere to hang out. It was nice seeing her though. We head a little bit of a connection or something. And she'd grown up a lot since the summer. He's talking about her being physically mature, Sophie said, sleepily. Don't be coy, James. You mean she had tits, yeah? Me and Lynsey were well jealous, weren't we, Lyns? Lynsey opened her eyes and looked at Sophie, Edinburgh, she said. We'll all go to Edinburgh. I'll do English, you guys do whatever. It's cheap up there. Sophie stroked her arm and said yes, we'll definitely all go to Edinburgh, we'll all go together, if we get in, we'll be a gang up there. Lynsey closed her eyes. I didn't just mean that, James said. But it was part of it, Sophie murmured. The car was quiet for a moment. When they talked about Becky now it was hard to actually picture her face. The photo on the news had never looked right, but it had replaced the image of her they'd held. She was being lost all over again. Outside the car the evening was still and the light was softening over the reservoir.
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