Thus Ate Zarathustra

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Woody Allen, on The Nietsche Diet Book…

No philosopher came close to solving the problem of guilt and weight until Descartes divided mind and body in two, so that the body could gorge itself while the mind thought, Who cares, it’s not me. The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup? It was Leibniz who first said that fat consisted of monads. Leibniz dieted and exercised but never did get rid of his monads—at least, not the ones that adhered to his thighs. Spinoza, on the other hand, dined sparingly because he believed that God existed in everything and it’s intimidating to wolf down a knish if you think you’re ladling mustard onto the First Cause of All Things…

The Long Tail

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Just back from the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London where I interviewed Wired Editor, Chris Anderson, about his new book, The Long Tail. He’s a voluble, intelligent, persuasive talker and he gave a polished performance to a packed house.

Two interesting points.

  • Anderson wrote his book ‘publicly’ — by publishing chapters on his Blog and inviting comments. So he harnessed the power of Eric Raymond’s motto, “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”.
  • He’s also harnessed the blogosphere by offering to give a free copy to any blogger who will review it. Smart thinking.

    • Just deserts

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    Lovely column by Richard Williams. Sample:

    In the aftermath of a punishing defeat, no man should be called to account for his impromptu remarks. But when Frank Lampard said on Saturday night that England had “deserved” to win the match in which defeat had just eliminated them from the World Cup, he was inadvertently exposing the problem at the heart of the team’s consistent inability to scale the highest peaks.

    David Beckham had used the same word earlier in the campaign. England would get to the World Cup final, the captain said, because they “deserved” to be there. Since no deeper analysis was forthcoming, his listeners were left to infer that the evidence in support of his contention might have included any or all of the following: England’s historic role as the game’s mother country; the vast popularity of the Premiership at home and abroad; the inflated pay and celebrity status of its players; and the attention lavished on the public appearances of their wives and girlfriends…

    Williams has been consistently accurate and detached about the reality distortion field which surrounded the England team from the outset.

    Those crafty Germans…

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    … leave nothing to chance. In fact they will stop at nothing. For example, they even used database technology to brief their goalie. You think I jest? Well, read this:

    The full story of Lehmann’s preparation emerged yesterday. He won the 1997 Uefa Cup with Schalke against Internazionale after making a penalty save. His manager at Schalke was Huub Stevens, who is responsible for a personal database of 13,000 penalty kicks. Lehmann used this archive against Inter and, prior to the Argentina game, he telephoned Stevens.

    The 36-year-old goalkeeper already had the benefit of the German FA’s database – they had copied Stevens’ approach – and having collated the information about who takes Argentina’s penalties and how they take them, Germany’s goalkeeping coach Andreas Kopke wrote it on a piece of paper ripped from a hotel notepad. On it was written details such as “[Julio] Cruz – stand tall, don’t move, dive right”.

    For Argentina’s second penalty-taker, Roberto Ayala, it said: “Ayala – look at shooting foot, left low.” Sure enough, Ayala placed the ball low to Lehmann’s left and it was advantage Germany.

    When Maxi Rodríguez walked up to strike the third, Lehmann knew it would be “hard, right”. He went the correct way and was unlucky not to make the save. But after Borowski had made it 4-2, Esteban Cambiasso had to score to keep Argentina in the tournament. Lehmann’s notes said: “Wait, stand tall, left corner.” He duly made an impressive stop to his left.

    Honestly — databases! It’s just not cricket.

    Editorial fatuity

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    It grieves me to say it, but my newspaper has an exceedingly silly leader today about England’s exit. It concludes:

    The consolation, if there can be any, is in the performance that brought us so close to victory. When the squad come back from Germany, for all their flaws, they deserve to be greeted as heroes. We salute them.

    In the old days, one would be left fuming at this fatuous sentiment. But there then follows a long stream of critical comments from readers (and this is at 10am on the morning of publication) taking the editorial apart.

    “Are you on the same planet as me?”, inquires Grazman. “We should salute these underperforming, overpaid, useless brats? What are you thinking? The only player with any credit is Owen Hargreaves. The rest should be ashamed of themselves.”

    Here’s another:

    How on earth do they deserve to be greeted as heroes? They were absolutely rubbish. Limped out of one of the weakest groups in the tournament, just about got past mighty Equador, then fell at the first proper test: a depleted Portugal squad without one of their key players. Utterly embarrassing performance. With one or two exceptions, the entire team should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Beckham’s time is up, Gerrard & Lampard looked a shadow of their club selves etc etc etc. Absolute rubbish…

    There’s a lot more in the same vein, and of course outbreaks of the usual infighting that goes on in Blog comments — e.g. a Scotsman complaining that the Observer, as a UK newspaper, should talk about “England” not “us”, followed by people taking the Scot to task. But what’s interesting about this is that it is happening. Newspapers used to be one-way channels of communication. Journalists rarely knew what their readers thought. No longer.

    The First Law of Television

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    This morning’s Observer column…

    The case for net neutrality is abstract, sophisticated and long term. It was therefore a racing certainty that US Senators, who respond to corporate lobbying much as Pavlov’s dogs did to the ringing of a bell at mealtimes, would struggle with it. And so it has proved. On Wednesday, the Senate commerce committee rejected an amendment to a new telecoms bill which would have enforced net neutrality, thereby opening up the prospect of electronic tollbooths.

    So has the die been cast? Not quite: the issue may be contested on the floor of the Senate. But at the moment there are lots of dire predictions about the consequences of the committee’s vote…

    John Kerry wakes up

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    Wow! I thought John Kerry was dead. But he lives and breathes! Here’s what he had so say about the Senate Commerce Committee’s decision not to endorse the principle of Net Neutrality.

    Yesterday in the Senate Commerce Committee I warned that those of us who believe in net neutrality will block legislation that doesn’t get the job done.

    It looks like that’s the fight we’re going to have.

    The Commerce Committee voted on net neutrality and it failed on an 11-11 tie. This vote was a gift to cable and telephone companies, and a slap in the face of every Internet user and consumer. It will not stand.

    I voted against this lousy bill for two reasons: because net neutrality and internet build-out are crucial to building a more modern and fair Information Society, and both were pushed aside by the Republicans.

    Everyone says they don’t want the new world we’re living in to be marked by the digital divide — the term is so cliched it’s turned to mush — but yesterday was a test of who is willing to ask corporate America to do anything to fix it, and the Commerce Committee failed miserably. Why are United States Senators afraid to say that companies should be expected to foster growth by building out their broadband networks to increase access?

    Free and open access to the internet is something all Americans should enjoy, regardless of what financial means they’re born into or where they live. It is profoundly disappointing that the Senate is going let a handful of companies hold internet access hostage by legalizing the cherry-picking of cable service providers and new entrants. That is a dynamic that would leave some communities with inferior service, higher cable rates, and even the loss of service. Not to mention inadequate internet service — in the age of the information.

    This bill was passed in committee over our objections. Now we need to fight to either fix it or kill it in the full Senate. Senator Wyden has already drawn a line in the sand — putting a “hold” on the bill, which prevents it from going forward for now. But there will be a day of reckoning on this legislation soon, make no mistake about it, and we need you to get engaged — pressure your Senators, follow the issue, demand net neutrality and build-out.

    Great stuff! But it’s like Al Gore Mk II. Why do these guys not realise that if they were passionate about causes then they might win elections

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