Amazing story in The Economist.

A FEW years ago Francis Schwarze noticed something unusual. Dr Schwarze, who works at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, in St Gallen, knew that sound travels faster through healthy wood, which is stiff and dense, than it does through the soft stuff left by a fungal attack. But some fungi, he found, do not slow sound. Moreover, the acoustic properties of wood so affected seem to be just what violin-makers desire. So Dr Schwarze had some violins made from the infected wood and discovered that they sounded like a Stradivarius.

But the really lovely bit is that at the end of the piece the magazine provides two audio recordings which enable one to compare a violin made from untreated wood with one that’s made from fungal-infected timber.

Trudy Miller, an Apple spokeswoman, released this statement yesterday: “Customers around the world are upgrading to iOS 6 with over 200 new features including Apple Maps, our first map service. We are excited to offer this service with innovative new features like Flyover…”.

Quite so. Thanks to Technology Review for the pic.

Mt friend Michael Dales has written a thoughtful blog post triggered by disagreement with something I wrote about Twitter in my Observer column.

Here’s the relevant para:

This new disenchantment with Twitter seems daft to me. […] as for the API restrictions, well, Twitter isn’t a charity. Those billions of tweets have to be processed, stored, retransmitted – and that costs money. Twitter has already had more than $1bn of venture capital funding. Like Facebook, it has to make money, somehow. Otherwise it will disappear. Even on the internet there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Michael says:

I agree with John’s reasoning, but not his conclusion that it’s daft. The reason why is this: in an effort to make money, Twitter is changing the product. I think it’s similarly daft to me (sorry John :), to assume that just because I liked product A, when it’s changed into product B, I should like it just as much. I don’t disagree that Twitter needs to find a revenue stream, or object that it should make changes to make that happen. I don’t agree however that I should like the new Twitter just because I liked the old Twitter.

I now have to repay the compliment. I agree with Michael’s reasoning. It’s not ‘daft’ for him to come to his conclusion.

The problem — I now realise — lies in my casual use of the term ‘daft’. When I wrote that the “new disenchantment with Twitter seems daft to me” I should perhaps have used the word “naive”. At any rate, what was in my mind as I wrote the sentence was that it’s naive or unrealistic to expect that a service that is expensive to provide can continue forever without its owners seeking to commercialise it in some way.

The etymology of ‘daft’ is interesting btw. The wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary says that it derives from the Old English gedæfte — meaning “gentle” or “becoming” — and sees a progression over the centuries from “mild” (c.1200) to “dull” (c.1300) to “foolish” (mid-15c.) to “crazy” (1530s).

Oh heck. I’ll just have to watch it.

Aristotle taught us that rhetoric has three components: what is said; who is saying it; and where it is being said. I thought of this while watching Charlie Nesson’s talk at a recent Berkman Center symposium on ‘truthiness’. As a teacher, Nesson has an almost legendary status, and you can see why from the way he does this talk. And as for location, well, the Berkman Center was essentially his idea. He also has the serene confidence that comes from being right at the top of his game: what other academic, for example, would seriously contemplate the notion of poker as a “mindsport” like chess?

Terrific address by Larry Lessig to the graduation class at John Marshall Law School. It’s about what’s happened to the practice of law in America. Vintage Lessig: witty, thoughtful, moving. Inspiring, even. Best lecture I’ve seen in ages.

Make yourself a cup of coffee and watch it.

It goes without saying, of course, that the British tabloids are a disgrace. But sometimes they make one laugh.