How awesome is the picture in this article

Instead of working together to reach the promised land of online brand advertising, Facebook and Google are racing to see who can get there first.

Illustration: Brent Humphreys

Thoughts on a slow December day

What do you guys think of this? This philosophy professor at Berkeley talks about embodied consciousness -- how our perceptions and agency are intrinsically linked to our bodies and the world around us. But it seems to me that even with a phenomenon like phantom limb pain being helped by a mirror box where you can see your phantom limb unclench, it's still just another form of sensory input to your brain, just visual instead of somatosensory. Even physical reflexes that occur without consulting with your brain first are in a sense just mechanical reactions. Then, later on you get the signal to your brain that your leg kicked after your knee got hammered, and you go "ohhh, my leg kicked." Does that really imply your knee being part of your consciousness?

I dunno, what do you think? Is this an exercise in philosophy that eventually just breaks down into semantics?

ALSO:
My favorite albums/music I've discovered in 2008 (not necessarily released in 2008), in order of number scratches on the burned CDs I listen to on my half-broken discman on the subway:

1.) Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
2.) TV on the Radio - Dear Science
3.) Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
4.) Efterklang - Tripper
5.) Beach House - Devotion
6.) Portishead - Third
7.) Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase
8.) Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Vol. 1
9.) Beck - Modern Guilt
10.) Joan as Police Woman - Real Life
11.) John Fahey - entire discography
12.) Bibio - Fi
13.) Supersilent - 6
14.) Clutch - Clutch
15.) Gorillaz - D-Sides

Share your iTunes playlists

Hey all, what do you think of this SonicSwap website? It takes info from your iTunes library (not the files themselves) and essentially uploads your playlists in less than a minute. Then, you can listen to all your music anywhere you can get internet, and listen to other's playlists too. It doesn't seeeem to be illegal, and you can watch the music video while you listen. Although the sound quality isn't as good as it is right off your computer, it seems like a nice way to get to hear all the cool stuff your friends are listening to (assuming the music isn't so obscure, they couldn't find it). Anyway, check it out, share your thoughts, and maybe some music we haven't heard. My user name is "lingawonga".

This blog ain't dead! Up from the ashes, like an Axl Rose phoenix...

Chuck Klosterman reviews the new Guns N Roses album, "Chinese Democracy," in The AV Club. I haven't even heard the album yet, but this review is AWESOME.

Describing Buckethead's guitars:
"A song like "Shackler's Revenge" is initially average, until you get to the solo—then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python."

I love the checklist he posits in Axl Rose's dreadlocked head:
"Sometimes it seems like Axl believes every single Guns N' Roses song needs to employ every single thing that Guns N' Roses has the capacity to do—there needs to be a soft part, a hard part, a falsetto stretch, some piano plinking, some R&B bullshit, a little Judas Priest, subhuman sound effects, a few Robert Plant yowls, dolphin squeaks, wind, overt sentimentality, and a caustic modernization of the blues."

I am starting a robot-python wrestling league ASAP.

Free electronic music - Made by a bear, with love and care

Anonymous electronic artist Podington Bear has been releasing a song every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a year, totalling 156 original tunes.

P Bear's tracks are whimsical yet thoughtfully constructed, taking us through unexpected little turns in a Eno-like instrumental landscape. NPR's Stephen Thompson says that the music "pings and plinks and whirs and clatters like a toy machine, but it’s also made with the understanding that, when programmed correctly, robots can convey the soul-sick pathos of grieving poets.”

By his website, it seems Podington Bear is enthusiastic about the confluence of music and online media, as he encourages people to remix and appropriate his tunes for all their non-commercial fancies. Recently, the Podington Bear blog has featured a number of music videos using a mix of found footage and music visualizations to create a fantastic aesthetic of digitally-constructed organic warmth.

I love this one, where old family vacation style film is layered underneath a watermark visualization of the music.


The Beach from P Bear on Vimeo.

The Smyth Report: Administrative and Technical History of the Manhattan Project

The Smyth Report is the "official" U.S. government account of the administrative and technical history of the Manhattan Project. Released six days after "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, the report's stated goal is to educate the American (and worldwide) public about the principals and capabilities of atomic energy, specifically its military applications:

"The ultimate responsibility for our nation's policy rests on its citizens and they can discharge such responsibilities wisely only if they are informed. The average citizen cannot be expected to understand clearly how an atomic bomb is constructed or how it works but there is in this country a substantial group of engineers and scientists who can understand such things and who can explain the potentialities of atomic bombs to their fellow citizens. The present report is written for this professional group and is a matter-of-fact, general account of work in the USA since 1939 aimed at the production of such bombs."

The report addresses three major areas that I find particularly interesting while occasionally providing a glimpse into the personalities and ideologies of the (mostly non-military scientists involved with the Manhattan Project. First, its treatment of the science behind the bomb is interesting because it is both accessible and built on first principles. Rarely has such such massive research been undertaken, and the focus on applicability rather than "pure science" is easily apparent throughout the report. Lots of space is dedicated to the tension between scientific principles and industrial capacity. In fact, I was surprised by the set of challenges faced. Drawing a blueprint of an atomic bomb turns out to be fairly easy; learning how to refine the fissionable material, manufacture precision explosives, etc turns out to be the limiting factor. Interestingly, this is still true today; Iran is not limited by its technological understanding but instead by its limited industrial capacity.

The tension between the scientific and manufacturing camps raises the second interesting aspect of the Smyth Report; the administrative history of the Manhattan Project. These section really provide insight into the personalities and group dynamic that were involved. Especially regarding the issue of censorship, the report reveals the complicity (or cooperation) of U.S. scientists:

"This arrangement was very successful in preventing publication and was still nominally in effect, in modified form, in .June 1945 Actually the absorption of most physicists in this country into war work of one sort of another soon reduced the number of papers referred to the committee practically to the vanishing point, It is of interest to note that this whole arrangement was a purely voluntary one; the scientists of the country are to be congratulated on their complete cooperation. It is to be hoped that it will be possible after the war to publish these papers at least in part so that their authors may receive proper professional credit for their contributions."

Another interesting nugget is the developing tension, even then, between American heros and French surrender monkeys. In the spring of 1939, Neils Bohr led a coalition of eminent U.S. scientists who voluntarily agreed to cease publishing relevant papers; this arrangement failed, however, due to the refusal of "F. Joliot, France's foremost nuclear physicist, apparently because of the publication of one letter in the Physical Review sent in before all Americans had been brought into the agreement. Consequently publication continued freely for about another year although a few, papers were withheld voluntarily by their authors." In it's discussion of the project's administrative history, the report helps us learn a bit more about some of the leading scientists and military leaders. Their wisdom comes through most clearly in report's summary, however.

In the conclusion, the author exhibits remarkable prescience, accurately predicting several future developments in applied atomic science and articulating ways in which the Manhattan Project fundamentally changed the world. The conclusion is short and dense; I won't summarize because the entire thing is worth reading, but this is the final paragraph of the report:

"Because of the restrictions of military security there has been no chance for the Congress or the people to debate such questions. They have been seriously considered by all concerned and vigorously debated among the scientists, and the conclusions reached have been passed along to the highest authorities. These questions are not technical questions; they are political and social questions, and the answers given to them may affect all mankind for generations. In thinking about them the men on the project have been thinking as citizens of the United States vitally interested in the welfare of the human race. It has been their duty and that of the responsible high government officials who were informed to look beyond the limits of the present war and its weapons to the ultimate implications of these discoveries. This was a heavy responsibility. In a free country like ours, such questions should be debated by the people and decisions must be made by the people through their representatives. This is one reason for the release of this report. It is a semi-technical report which it is hoped men of science in this country can use to help their fellow citizens in reaching wise decisions. The people of the country must be informed if they are to discharge their responsibilities wisely."

More than anything, this leaves me nostalgic for a government I feel like I can trust. This attitude is woefully missing from our government today, which instead reflexively hides anything the least bit controversial. I hope that future administrations will recognize the essential role an active and educated populace plays in creating good government, but frankly, I'm not optimistic.

Oprah Has the Power to Pick the Next President

According to a study by economists Tim Moore and Craig Garthwaite of UMD, Oprah is omnipotent. Though they aren't the first scholars to note this fact, no one has yet applied her influence to politics. The authors attempt to show that her endorsement swung the Democratic primary to Obama; it was worth between 423,123 and 1,596,995 votes with 95% confidence, and:

"Barack Obama received 278,966 more votes that Hillary Clinton. Given that 423,123, the lower bound of the estimated impact of the endorsement is greater than this difference, the results suggest that Oprah's endorsement was responsible for the difference in the popular vote between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."

The study used 'O' magazine subscription data as a proxy for Oprah's influence. The authors found that this variable was significantly positively correlated with both votes cast for Obama and overall turnout (both .95 confidence).

"For example, a 10% change in the county-level circulation of 'Oprah' is associated with an increased vote share for Obama of approximately .2 percentage points... In total, we estimate that the endorsement was responsible for 1,015,559 votes for Obama."

As a point of reference, county wide voting results were more influenced (per individual) by gender, age, and education than 'O' readership. Subscriptions were more predictive than factors like veterans population, urban/suburban mix, or unemployment, however. Holy Shit.

This study reinforces some notions that I had, and drops one huge bombshell. First, everyone knows that Oprah is powerful. She's been named to Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people more than any other individual in history. She's the highest earning celeb year after year (270 million in 2007). Sales of books in her book club routinely jump 10,000% (!) upon inclusion. The list goes on and on. What I didn't expect, however, was the importance of celebrity endorsements to political outcomes. I doubt most observers would tell you that her endorsement effected the outcome, and that's what is so exciting about studies like this. They give you important information that isn't necessarily intuitive. This particular endorsement by Oprah probably represents the absolute upper bound of the impact of celebrity endorsements. She's the most powerful celebrity today not only in terms of media exposure and income, but also in her ability to drive consumer preferences amongst her fans. This makes her uniquely situated to effect electoral outcomes. Additionally, her political "brand" hasn't been contaminated by previous endorsements or political speech, putting her in a unique position to speak to many voters. I wonder whether other celebrity endorsements will be found to have a significant effect (the authors point to Chuck Norris's endorsement of Mike Huckabee as one possibility). Also, the authors point out that the celebrity endorsement effect may be most pronounced in primaries, where differences are mostly personal rather than ideological. After all, a non-politician celebrity is uniquely positioned to reinforce personal characteristics, but probably is not credible on the policy battleground.

I wouldn't say this paper is overwhelmingly convincing; the authors come up with a model and then think of everything they can to control for, rather than coming up with a particularly elegant framework. That being said, it's definitely good food for thought. If you've read this far, there's a chance that you might actually check out the study. Don't bother with the discussion of model building - it's not really necessary to understand either their methodology or results. Read the into and then skip right to the good stuff.

Gorillas in our Midst

Documentarian Errol Morris, (The Fog of War, A Brief History of Time), keeps a thought-provoking blog in the New York Times about photography and the implications of the medium.

He recently wrote about the cognitive phenomenon of “inattentional blindness,” where our visual systems prove to be pretty picky eaters. Even when we think we’re visually focused — watching a movie, or just observing the world around us, obvious visual cues can pass by completely unnoticed if they’re unrelated to our immediate attentional framework.

For example, in a study done by a couple Harvard psychologists, subjects were instructed to watch a video of people standing in a circle passing a ball around and to count the number of passes the white team made. Afterwards, they were asked if they saw anything out of the ordinary. Most people said no.

Then they were told to go back and check out the fact that in the middle of the scene, who walks by, but a GUY IN A FREAKING GORILLA SUIT. Haha oops, they say, slapping foreheads, stupid visual processing…

Morris relates this to how we have difficulty noticing subtle continuity errors in films (eg: guy wearing a different shirt in one cut to the next). Ultimately it may be the cognitive basis for our tendencies toward linear narrative, and our ability to fill in the blanks and to imagine human intentionality and causal sequencing when movies really are illusionary, constructed of fragments.

He uses examples such as Luis Buñuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire, ” where two different actresses play one character, each appearing periodically, until by the end they switch shot by shot.

The essays Errol Morris has written for this blog are absolutely fascinating, especially this one about his journey to discover the temporal authenticity of a set of photographs from the Crimean War.

Also, here are some more wicked amazing videos from various inattentional blindness experiments. Be cool; try them on your friends!

Album 10 years in the making

Gracing the trip hop landscape with the first release in a decade, Portishead's new album comes out on April 28th. You can hear it now for free on last.fm.

After listening to it twice today at work as I trip-hopped my way through excel spreadsheets and mailing labels, I hereby declare this album to be... awesome! It has a really nice echoey dissonance on the guitars, a bit Sonic Youth-esque, and the electronic elements don't go overboard, instead bringing things together with a full, organic sound. I also really like "Deep Water," a nice ukulele ditty amidst the other, more haunting tracks.

Life without the Moon

This article presents and interesting theory on how life on Earth may not have evolved were it not for our moon. It describes the ways that the moon affects the planet, and many of these ways are thought to have helped in the development of life on this planet. It's an interesting idea that supports the Rare Earth Theory. It's hard to know what exactly was required for life to begin on this planet, but this certainly presents and interesting idea that the Moon was a significant player in creating the right conditions.