Some Candy Talking

Arrive LAX: 4pm
Depart LAX: 6am
Sleep: 0 hours
Experience: Priceless

I was 10 feet in front of guitarist/genius William Reid (whom I like to just call "God") at the show. That's my cell phone in the bottom right of this video.

Remembering Ayn Rand

Petzold has unanswered questions about Ayn Rand's view of Earth Day, as he remembers one of her TV appearances in 1970. It's a very accessible view, though, because even if it hadn't just been noted on CNN on Friday (Going Green: Bad for Business?), she wrote a brilliant philosophical analysis of environmentalism (aka ecology) in 1971: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.

UPDATE: This line in the aforementioned article is similar to what gives Petzold nightmares:

Anyone over 30 years of age today, give a silent 'Thank you' to the
nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestack you can find.

I consider this smart writing, exactly the kind of thing which makes Ayn Rand's words so memorable. Out of context it sounds absurd, but once you get her point that industry has caused a minor amount of pollution while tripling your life expectancy, then it's, well, a smart and memorable line.

More: here's a recent interview with MIT professor Richard Lindzen: Relax, the planet is fine.

No Coachella -- yes!

What's better than being me and seeing The Jesus and Mary Chain play at Coachella (aka Crowdchella -- nice one, PLo!) in four days? Being me and seeing The Jesus and Mary Chain play a warm-up show at The Glass House, with a sold-out capacity of 800, in three days. Surprising side note: the starlet of Lost in Translation, which invoked the classic Mary Chain song Just Like Honey during its climactic scene, is rumored to have a guest spot in this Pomona, CA show.

Starring Dahlia

My second music video stars Dahlia, who turns the big 1 in nine days. (My first music video, starring Elias, is here.)

Outlining versus thinking

I'm not sure this is relevant to Toiler's psycho-epistemological comment about "the danger of ordered lists," but I've found that standard outlines are not as brain-friendly as we are led to believe in middle school. Structured data, such as a detailed outline with points and sub-points and sub-sub-points, actually has high impedance relative to humans and is very hard to cognize. It's just not the way we think. Such mechanical structure is useful for organizing data for reference, but not for working out or capturing a line of reasoning.

What does our thinking really "look like"? Like ordinary language. (What a coincidence!)

So if I were to write a book, I wouldn't expect to create any detailed outlines -- ultimately because I would expect my target audience to be people, not computers.

Grooming, international style

I don't have much motivation to post my thoughts about the war anymore, because they are simply: it is too hopeless, as long as the conservatives are making things worse than even the lefties would be able to do by doing nothing.

But today I'm confused about which is worse:

A) Fifteen armed forces hostages laughing and shaking hands with their captor;
or
B) Blair stating: "Throughout, we have taken a measured approach: firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting either."

The West is being "groomed", as psychologists say, to feel gratitude toward the offender, and comfort in doing nothing when offended. On these principles, what could go wrong in the future, really?