A feast from JD:
Sackerson adds: The penultimate one makes my skin prickle - perhaps because of the harmonies of the sisters' voices as much as for the hymnal melancholy. But the LP I played until the grooves were pretty much worn through was "French Record" - the sequence on YouTube begins with this one:
Friday, August 26, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Who’s Queen Of The Castle? Chelsea Clinton Accepts Democratic Party Nomination
 |
| Pic source: http://gizmodo.com/chelsea-clinton-offers-her-mother-adorable-internet-adv-1785615174 |
As multiple controversies continue to swirl around her mother despite the partisanship of most mainstream news media and Google’s search-engine-tweaking, Chelsea Clinton today stepped forward into the limelight and accepted the emergency renomination in her favour by the Democratic Party.
“This not only reaffirms the established hereditary principle in US politics,” commented a senior campaign official, “but it also recasts Donald Trump as the ‘dirty rascal’, if you know the old children’s game. I don’t see how that oaf can recover from this.”
A visibly distressed Trump has been urgently consulting with his lawyers on the application of the Salic Law to the American Presidency.
Friday, August 19, 2016
Friday Night Is Music Night: The Dance Of Creation
JD celebrates:
Your musical offering for this week is a personal one as I reflect on things 'from this high hill of my old age' :)
The music of my youth, the music of my old age, the music of my soul: "I hear it in the deep heart's core."
;
;
;
"Nos cojimos de la mano, como los Druidas de Bretaña y Le pedimos a Dios o a los Dioses que esa danza de la felicidad. En la que estabamos immersos no terminase nunca en aquella fiesta final. Todos soplamos juntos por la pipa de la paz, De las Culturas y del Amor."- Carlos Nuñez *
Six this time - it could have been 600 or 6000! :)
____________________________________
* "Let us join hands like the Druids of Britain and ask God or the gods for the dance of happiness. The crowning celebration in which we are immersed shall never end. Together let us all smoke the pipe of peace, culture and love."
Your musical offering for this week is a personal one as I reflect on things 'from this high hill of my old age' :)
The music of my youth, the music of my old age, the music of my soul: "I hear it in the deep heart's core."
;
;
;
"Nos cojimos de la mano, como los Druidas de Bretaña y Le pedimos a Dios o a los Dioses que esa danza de la felicidad. En la que estabamos immersos no terminase nunca en aquella fiesta final. Todos soplamos juntos por la pipa de la paz, De las Culturas y del Amor."- Carlos Nuñez *
Six this time - it could have been 600 or 6000! :)
____________________________________
* "Let us join hands like the Druids of Britain and ask God or the gods for the dance of happiness. The crowning celebration in which we are immersed shall never end. Together let us all smoke the pipe of peace, culture and love."
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Smoking: could genetic testing help smokers' cause?
Genetic research holds out the hope that health advice and public policy could be targeted more precisely. The risks of smoking are not "one size fits all."
"Family, twin, and adoption studies also convincingly demonstrate a substantial genetic contribution to the development of addiction to nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drugs. Heritability estimates for nicotine, alcohol, and drug addiction are in the range of 50% to 60%." (1)
If this is so, then theoretically people could be genetically tested for their vulnerability to substance addiction and advised accordingly. And the others could continue in their habit, moderately reassured that they could stop if they so chose.
Testing might also help with more precise information about health risks. A longitudinal study of male British doctors (2) suggests that the average reduction in life expectancy is 10 years, but "that is not to say that all such smokers died about 10 years earlier than they would otherwise have done: some were not killed by their habit, but about half were, thereby losing on average more than 10 years of non-smoker life expectancy. Indeed, some of those killed by tobacco must have lost a few decades of life." It may be possible to identify the ones who are most at risk of dying in their middle years.
The same study also suggests that smoking for a few years may not be significantly life-threatening. For those in the 25-34 age group - where smoking prevalence is highest (3) - if they give up during this time, their life expectancy is almost exactly the same as for never-smokers:
If potential smokers could be forewarned of their likelihood of developing an addiction, and of their chances of dying very early from diseases associated with the habit, then the life expectancy gap might be narrowed without blanket bans.
Those who went ahead despite personalised warnings would at least be doing so on the basis of better information - and that then becomes a liberty issue, like hang-gliding (and cycling, the most dangerous form of transport).*
_________________________________
(1) "Genetic Vulnerability and Susceptibility to Substance Dependence" L.J. Bierut, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, February 2012 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095110/
(2) "Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on male British doctors" Doll, Peto & Boreham, BMJ, May 2004 - http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1519
(3) ASH "Facts at a glance", June 2016 - http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_93.pdf
*I was wrong, I'm afraid. Motorcycling is worse: 1,789 KSI (killed or seriously injured) per billion vehicle miles vs. 1,036 for pedal cycles. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447674/pedal-cyclists-2013-data.pdf
I'm disappointed - I wanted something to get back at the Puritans of the road.
"Family, twin, and adoption studies also convincingly demonstrate a substantial genetic contribution to the development of addiction to nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drugs. Heritability estimates for nicotine, alcohol, and drug addiction are in the range of 50% to 60%." (1)
If this is so, then theoretically people could be genetically tested for their vulnerability to substance addiction and advised accordingly. And the others could continue in their habit, moderately reassured that they could stop if they so chose.
Testing might also help with more precise information about health risks. A longitudinal study of male British doctors (2) suggests that the average reduction in life expectancy is 10 years, but "that is not to say that all such smokers died about 10 years earlier than they would otherwise have done: some were not killed by their habit, but about half were, thereby losing on average more than 10 years of non-smoker life expectancy. Indeed, some of those killed by tobacco must have lost a few decades of life." It may be possible to identify the ones who are most at risk of dying in their middle years.
The same study also suggests that smoking for a few years may not be significantly life-threatening. For those in the 25-34 age group - where smoking prevalence is highest (3) - if they give up during this time, their life expectancy is almost exactly the same as for never-smokers:
 |
| "Mortality in relation to smoking", etc. - Fig. 4 (selected area) |
Those who went ahead despite personalised warnings would at least be doing so on the basis of better information - and that then becomes a liberty issue, like hang-gliding (and cycling, the most dangerous form of transport).*
_________________________________
(1) "Genetic Vulnerability and Susceptibility to Substance Dependence" L.J. Bierut, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, February 2012 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095110/
(2) "Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on male British doctors" Doll, Peto & Boreham, BMJ, May 2004 - http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1519
(3) ASH "Facts at a glance", June 2016 - http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_93.pdf
*I was wrong, I'm afraid. Motorcycling is worse: 1,789 KSI (killed or seriously injured) per billion vehicle miles vs. 1,036 for pedal cycles. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447674/pedal-cyclists-2013-data.pdf
I'm disappointed - I wanted something to get back at the Puritans of the road.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Gaming Democracy
As a girl, Mother was a great reader. She would go to the glass-fronted book cabinet in the cigar-scented study and feel behind the rows for the good stuff father had hidden there, such as Madame Bovary: every system can be gamed.
She would also spend a lot of time in the school library. However, one day, she entered to find big gaps in the shelves: without warning, all the Jewish and socialist writers had been removed. The new government was cleansing the librosphere of ideological pollution: nothing was to seduce impressionable minds away from socially-agreed norms. This was, after all, the clean and progressive East Prussia of the 1930s.
Half a lifetime later, a classical student was in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, researching an incident in the Peloponnesian War. The index occupied a room on its own, full of massive volumes with pasted-in entries giving descriptions and locations of the millions of items. You felt you had arrived as a scholar, just lifting one of these, thumping it on the lectern and turning the crowded pages. Now, where was a map of the ancient harbour at Lesbos? Ah, here, coded with a Greek φ. He filled in the order slip, but was told he would have to wait for the senior librarian to come back from lunch. The time came, and my friend was taken to another room. There was the large brown envelope; the librarian snipped the corner and slid out the contents – “Lesbos: twelve unretouched photographs of lesbian love.” So that’s what the phi was for. Still, it was a publication, so it was stored, and could be consulted on request. That was liberalism in action.
Today, while Crown copyright libraries continue to grow like Topsy, ordinary public libraries are closing and selling off or throwing away their stock - but we have the Internet, accessible at all times. It is so great that more than ever, we need a librarian to guide us through its virtual stacks. But there is no leather-bound index; instead, we have search engines, chiefly Google.
Now, there is no need to destroy information: the trusted guide can bury it like a needle in a near-infinite haystack. In our world that is so very unlike “1984” (or so we are told) the hidden persuaders could – perhaps do - operate by deliberately bringing us envelopes that we didn’t quite ask for.
Twelve months ago, the former editor-in-chief of “Psychology Today” Dr Robert Epstein described a series of experiments in which people were significantly influenced in their political decisions on the basis of surreptitious manipulation of Internet search results. (1) Even with candidates well-known to the sample groups, voting could be swayed by “20% or more.” In a follow-up article last February he says, “we now estimate that Hannon’s old friends [i.e. Google] have the power to drive between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Clinton on election day with no one knowing that this is occurring and without leaving a paper trail.” (2) Yesterday, Pamela Geller wrote a piece relaying and developing Julian Assange’s allegation that one way or another, Google is working on behalf of one of the Presidential candidates and against the other. (3)
At this point I must emphasise that I am not American and not only cannot vote for either Trump or Clinton, but should be extremely perplexed if I could.
The point is, every system can be gamed. There is no need to burn material if you can hide it in some rarely-visited and unsignposted corner of the Web; there is no need to disappear dissidents if you can shut off their means of communication (imagine if Milo Yiannopoulos had no other outlet than Twitter); for every person moved by attending one of Trump’s mountebank presentations, there must be thousands making up their minds from their private, yet thoroughly-monitored and interactively-tweaked Internet searches.
The socialists have it all wrong. Great power comes not from owning the means of production but, as Rockefeller showed, from controlling its distribution. Social media and search engines are part of the modern Fourth Estate, the gatekeepers and guides of public information. If they cannot be impartial, democracy faces an existential threat from its persuaders.
Remember what happened when Athens listened to Demosthenes.
UPDATE (27 August 2016): Heads have rolled -
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/entire-facebook-trending-news-team-fired-following-breitbart-coverage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+breitbart+%28Breitbart+News%29
(1) http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512.full
(2) https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts
(3) http://pamelageller.com/2016/08/julian-assange-google-works-with-hillary-clinton.html/ _______________________________________________________________
This post appeared previously on Talkmarkets:
http://www.talkmarkets.com/contributor/rolfnorfolk/blog/gaming-democracy?post=103515
She would also spend a lot of time in the school library. However, one day, she entered to find big gaps in the shelves: without warning, all the Jewish and socialist writers had been removed. The new government was cleansing the librosphere of ideological pollution: nothing was to seduce impressionable minds away from socially-agreed norms. This was, after all, the clean and progressive East Prussia of the 1930s.
Half a lifetime later, a classical student was in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, researching an incident in the Peloponnesian War. The index occupied a room on its own, full of massive volumes with pasted-in entries giving descriptions and locations of the millions of items. You felt you had arrived as a scholar, just lifting one of these, thumping it on the lectern and turning the crowded pages. Now, where was a map of the ancient harbour at Lesbos? Ah, here, coded with a Greek φ. He filled in the order slip, but was told he would have to wait for the senior librarian to come back from lunch. The time came, and my friend was taken to another room. There was the large brown envelope; the librarian snipped the corner and slid out the contents – “Lesbos: twelve unretouched photographs of lesbian love.” So that’s what the phi was for. Still, it was a publication, so it was stored, and could be consulted on request. That was liberalism in action.
Today, while Crown copyright libraries continue to grow like Topsy, ordinary public libraries are closing and selling off or throwing away their stock - but we have the Internet, accessible at all times. It is so great that more than ever, we need a librarian to guide us through its virtual stacks. But there is no leather-bound index; instead, we have search engines, chiefly Google.
Now, there is no need to destroy information: the trusted guide can bury it like a needle in a near-infinite haystack. In our world that is so very unlike “1984” (or so we are told) the hidden persuaders could – perhaps do - operate by deliberately bringing us envelopes that we didn’t quite ask for.
Twelve months ago, the former editor-in-chief of “Psychology Today” Dr Robert Epstein described a series of experiments in which people were significantly influenced in their political decisions on the basis of surreptitious manipulation of Internet search results. (1) Even with candidates well-known to the sample groups, voting could be swayed by “20% or more.” In a follow-up article last February he says, “we now estimate that Hannon’s old friends [i.e. Google] have the power to drive between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Clinton on election day with no one knowing that this is occurring and without leaving a paper trail.” (2) Yesterday, Pamela Geller wrote a piece relaying and developing Julian Assange’s allegation that one way or another, Google is working on behalf of one of the Presidential candidates and against the other. (3)
At this point I must emphasise that I am not American and not only cannot vote for either Trump or Clinton, but should be extremely perplexed if I could.
The point is, every system can be gamed. There is no need to burn material if you can hide it in some rarely-visited and unsignposted corner of the Web; there is no need to disappear dissidents if you can shut off their means of communication (imagine if Milo Yiannopoulos had no other outlet than Twitter); for every person moved by attending one of Trump’s mountebank presentations, there must be thousands making up their minds from their private, yet thoroughly-monitored and interactively-tweaked Internet searches.
The socialists have it all wrong. Great power comes not from owning the means of production but, as Rockefeller showed, from controlling its distribution. Social media and search engines are part of the modern Fourth Estate, the gatekeepers and guides of public information. If they cannot be impartial, democracy faces an existential threat from its persuaders.
Remember what happened when Athens listened to Demosthenes.
UPDATE (27 August 2016): Heads have rolled -
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/entire-facebook-trending-news-team-fired-following-breitbart-coverage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+breitbart+%28Breitbart+News%29
(1) http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512.full
(2) https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts
(3) http://pamelageller.com/2016/08/julian-assange-google-works-with-hillary-clinton.html/ _______________________________________________________________
This post appeared previously on Talkmarkets:
http://www.talkmarkets.com/contributor/rolfnorfolk/blog/gaming-democracy?post=103515
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