Summer house
Lovely little arbour in the gardens of Muckross House, Killarney.
Quote of the Day
”Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.”
- Edward Gibbon
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Billy Strayhorn | Lotus Blossom | Duke Ellington
There’s a story behind this. In a studio at the end of a recording session, as most of the musicians were packing and getting ready to leave (and you can hear them in the background), the Duke sat down at a piano and started to play. Someone pressed the record button and here’s the result. Magical!
Long Read of the Day
Why is Britain poor?
This essay by Ed West is a really long read, but a salutary one if, like me, you are puzzled by how a large country stuffed with smart people has been sliding inexorably into absolute as well as relative decline. It’s really a kind of informal executive summary of Foundations, a remarkable online pamphlet by Ben Southwood, Samuel Hughes and Sam Bowman on why Britain has stagnated.
Here’s a sample that captures the flavour of the piece:
France is the most natural comparison point to Britain, a country ‘notoriously heavily regulated and dominated by labour unions.’ This is sometimes comical to British sensibilities, so that ‘French workers have been known to strike by kidnapping their chief executives – a practice that the public there reportedly supports – and strikes are so common that French unions have designed special barbecues that fit in tram tracks so they can grill sausages while they march.’ Only in France.
It is also heavily taxed, especially in the realm of employment, and yet despite this, French workers are significantly more productive. The reason is that France ‘does a good job building the things that Britain blocks: housing, infrastructure and energy supply.’
With a slightly smaller population, France has 37 million homes compared to our 30 million. ‘Those homes are newer, and are more concentrated in the places people want to live: its prosperous cities and holiday regions. The overall geographic extent of Paris’s metropolitan area roughly tripled between 1945 and today, whereas London’s has grown only a few percent.’ One quality-of-life indicator is that ‘800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families.’
They also do transport far better, with 29 tram networks compared to seven in Britain, and six underground metro systems against our three. ‘Since 1980, France has opened 1,740 miles of high speed rail, compared to just 67 miles in Britain. France has nearly 12,000 kilometres of motorways versus around 4,000 kilometres here… In the last 25 years alone, the French built more miles of motorway than the entire UK motorway network. They are even allowed to drive around 10 miles per hour faster on them.’
Footnote Worth noting also that the Foundations paper covers some of the same ground as the Resolution Foundation’s remarkable study, Ending Stagnation. Both carry the same message: decline isn’t inevitable; the problems are soluble — provided some things that Britons hold sacred are changed. The worrying thing is that the new Labour administration doesn’t seem interested in tackling these.
How Apple was able to get into the hearing-aid business
Yesterday’s Observer column:
Like many professional scribblers, I sometimes have to write not in a hushed study or library, but in noisy environments. So years ago I bought a set of Apple AirPods Pro, neat little gadgets that have a limited degree of noise-cancelling ability. They’re not as effective as the clunky (and pricey) headphones that seasoned transcontinental airline passengers need, but they’re much lighter and less obtrusive. And they have a button that enables you to switch off the noise cancellation and hear what’s going on around you.
I remember wondering once if a version of them could also function as hearing aids, given the right software. But then dismissed the thought: after all, hearing aids are expensive, specialised devices that are often prescribed by audiologists – and also signal to the world at large that you are hard of hearing.
But guess what? On 12 September, I open my laptop, click on the Verge website and find the headline: “Apple gets FDA authorisation to turn the AirPods Pro into hearing aids.”
Books, etc.
As promised, my review from yesterday’s Observer.
My commonplace booklet
From Seth Godin’s daily newsletter:
Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know this.
The rest of us, on the other hand, regularly use digital tools we don’t understand, don’t maintain and haven’t optimized.
Sometimes, our lack of care in the choice and use of tools only wastes our time. Often, it actually degrades the quality of what we’re seeking to create.
If you’re not regularly getting better at your digital toolbox, you’re actually getting worse.
Hmmm… uncomfortable thought for a blogger who is trying to figure out how to integrate LLMs into his workflow.
Linkblog
Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.
- Physicist Murray Gell-Mann on Einstein Entertaining snippet from an interview with the great physicist. Ends with a great story.
- Your Phone Is Not a Bomb Ian Boghost, writing in The Atlantic about exploding pagers in Lebanon and related matters.
- What is the Most Valuable Benefit You Got from Becoming a Mathematician? Lovely essay by Keith Devlin (Whom God Preserve).
Errata
The lake in Friday’s photograph taken from the grounds of Glenveagh Castle is Lough Veagh, not — as I said — Lough Gartan, which is in the next valley.
Thanks to John Darch for spotting the error.
This Blog is also available as an email three days a week. If you think that might suit you better, why not subscribe? One email on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays delivered to your inbox at 6am UK time. It’s free, and you can always unsubscribe if you conclude your inbox is full enough already!