Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 153
February 28, 2015
First You Ignore Them, Then You Quarrel With Them, Then You Laugh At Them, Then You Win Dept.
The Closed Minds Problem - NYTimes.com
... is there a reason I go for door #3 ["Point out the wrongness in ways designed to grab readers’ attention — with ridicule where appropriate, with snark, and with names attached"], other than simply telling the truth and having some fun while I’m at it? Yes — because the point is not to convince Rick Santelli or Allan Meltzer that they are wrong, which is never going to happen. It is, instead, to deter other parties from false equivalence. Inflation cul...
February 25, 2015
Infamy, Infamy, They All Have It Infamy Dept.
A friend of mine — who might well be reading this as I speak, HI THERE GABE — is preparing to do some promotion for a book of his that got picked up for publication. He's going to have orders of magnitude more attention than I have ever received for anything creative I've ever done.
For fun, I tried to imagine myself fielding the degree of attention he'll be receiving, and even that much frightened me. (That he has years of experience on me dealing with the public in some form is not lost on m...
February 23, 2015
My One And Only Dept.
Within the course of any one week — heck, any one day — there's just so much to talk about: one of the better definitions of what it means to punch up, not down(punching down is easy; punching up is hard); Oliver Sacks's farewell letter to the world in theNew York Times(not a dry eye in the house); and a dissection of the Italian filmHuman Capital(just because something is set in another country doesn't mean it'll supply you with a diverse point of view).
But somehow, all three of those things...
February 22, 2015
In All Heaven And Earth, Only I Alone Reserve The Right To Offend Dept.
Why Are Misogynist Lyrics "Entertainment" in 2015? | The Pitch | Pitchfork
Of course offensive art has a right to exist, and is necessary. All art has a right to exist — but its status as art is not protection from others' opinions. Art’s interpretations by the audience that receives it is as much a part of it as its creator’s intentions.
Emphasis mine. Great article overall, but that particular slice of it caught my eye and demands some expansion.It puts in the baldest possible terms one of th...
February 19, 2015
Immovable Type (Dis)continued Dept.
The makers of Movable Type, the software I've used for years on end to host this blog and a few others, announced today that they have an AWS appliance version of their software. The "micro" instance is free, but anything beyond that is either $0.07 per hour or $499 a year.
I suspect that's as close as we're going to get from here on out to a free-to-use version of the program, especially now that the open source version is on life support and is only receiving security patches. An earlier, si...
February 17, 2015
No Mind Doesn't Mean Mindless Dept.
... When I talk about not knowing what you're doing, I'm arguing against "expertise", a feeling of mastery that traps you in a particular way of thinking.
But I want to be clear — I am not advocating ignorance.Instead, I'm suggesting a kind of informed skepticism, a kind of humility.
Ignorance is remaining willfully unaware of the existing base of knowledge in a field, proudly jumping in and stumbling around. This approach is fashionable in certain hacker/maker circl...
February 16, 2015
Radio Shuttered Dept.
Goodbye to the Electronics Store - NYTimes.com
I’m not nostalgic for the old days when shopping for electronics meant dealing with the hassle of driving to a mall, finding parking and studying inserts in the weekend newspaper for deals. Still, there was a certain excitement about hauling a stereo or computer home. Receiving a brown cardboard box with the Amazon smile logo emblazoned on it is more efficient but feels just a little less satisfying.
It's a shame to see the likes of Radio Shack van...
February 15, 2015
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast Dept.
We don’t have less time than ever; on the contrary, life expectancy has steadily increased. What we have, at this latest point so far in human history, is more of so much else — more people, more books, more cultural products of every kind, in addition to the staggering volume of online content. We feel ever more acutely the mismatch between available time and all the possible ways we could spend it. ... And yet, despite the ostensible constant novelty — new informatio...
February 13, 2015
Noise Filters Dept.
HULK’S TOP TEN FAVORITEST MOVIES OF 2014 | Badass Digest
BECAUSE AS OUR LIFE EXPERIENCE BECOMES POPULATED BY MORE AND MORE THINGS, WE'RE GETTING MORE AND MORE DEPENDENT ON SURFACE ESTIMATIONS. EVERY DAY, WE ARE BEING HIT WITH SO MUCH "NEW" INFORMATION THAT THE CONSTANT PRESENTATION OF THE UNCANNY IS BECOMING OUR NEW NORMAL (PLEASE READ PRESENT SHOCK; LINK BELOW). AS SUCH, WE'RE HAVING TO SEE THE SURFACE OF A THING, ASSUME IT IS WHAT IT IS, AND MOVE ON BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME. AND BECAUS...
February 11, 2015
Texas Sharpshooting Dept.
Why Is Academic Writing So Academic? - The New Yorker
... an academic writer is trying to fill a niche. Now, the niches are getting smaller. Academics may write for large audiences on their blogs or as journalists. But when it comes to their academic writing, and to the research that underpins it — to the main activities, in other words, of academic life — they have no choice but to aim for very small targets. Writing a first book, you may have in mind particular professors on a tenure committ...
