Hidden Order | Periscope Depth

From the Blog

Jul

all my life I’ve been searching for something

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

I have a new unit of measurement called the “caseyanthony.”

It is the minimum amount of media saturation required for me to be informed about something that I have no interest in.

I will click on just about every link I find on Breaking Bad, predator drones, Gene Wolfe or top shelf whiskey. Marginal developments in those fields leap into my field of view.

But I’ve never seen a news report, read an article or found a blog post about Casey Anthony. And yet! Through the sheer humidity of coverage and commentary, I’m aware that:

She’s a woman.

She was on trial for killing a person or persons.

She was found not guilty of that charge yesterday.

That’s all I know. I couldn’t tell you which state she lived in, how many people she was supposed to have killed, what their relation was to her, or any of the material circumstances that informed the not guilty verdict. If you want intelligent commentary on the Casey Anthony trial, stop reading right now.

But solely with the information above, I could write a decent Craig Ferguson monologue for The Late Late Show. Or at least a callback joke 3 weeks from now. And I could hold up the quieter end of a bar conversation (“Casey Anthony? I know, right?”). So the information I have about Casey Anthony renders me employable and sociable.

My ability to get “informed” (very loosely) even with a complete lack of curiosity testifies to the power of social media. Between the Facebook stati of a hundred contacts, the promotion of Huffington Post articles via thousands of “likes” and a slew of jokes on Twitter, I now know a very little bit about something. I surrounded myself with a permeable sphere of ignorance and the blogosphere squished through it.

How much buzz does it take to promote an event from total blank to a barely visible phenomenon? One caseyanthony’s worth.

My discovery of this new unit could revolutionize every social science (send MacArthur Fellowship nominations to prof.coldheart@periscopedepth.com). But the first thing that came to mind was: damn, this is why kids keep failing classes! It’s the rare nerd who is genuinely curious about the cotton gin, Silas Marner or the quadratic formula. Some kids have parents at home who’ll supplement the rewards/punishments treadmill, so that helps. But the vast majority of kids show up at school not just unknowing, but uncaring, of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I’ve spent the past six months living a productive life full of competing interests, wonderful friends and work that requires a lot of concentration. To breach those defenses to plant the seed of Casey Anthony awareness in my mind has taken (A) millions of dollars of media coverage and (B) the uncoordinated effort of dozens of unconnected friends. Not just deliberate effort, but order emergent from chaos. My bare minimum knowledge is a result of both immense planning and unplannable mass action.

Even that hasn’t inspired me to learn more. But if you asked me to write an essay about her, I could get a C-minus.

If it took that much effort just to instill awareness in me, what chance does Eli Whitney have?

Apr

so much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 9:48 am

Link dumps in lieu of content:

#: Actual inflation up at least 6.9 percent in the past year. Most inflation statistics that you read in the news report core inflation – inflation that excludes changes in the price of oil or food. But if inflation comes from an increase in the money supply relative to the demand for dollars, then we’d want to look extra closely at any industry the U.S. subsidizes – any stops along the trough where the feds pour more money in. And the U.S. subsidizes domestic food production, to the point that American corn sells on the international markets below cost, and wheat sells at nearly half cost. And the price of oil today certainly reflects decisions that the Commander-in-Chief makes in regards to certain Middle Eastern provinces. So if you have an argument for why I should pay more attention to core inflation than bottom-line inflation, I’d love to hear it.

(This article explains inflation in better detail than I can)

#: On the subject of economics: a New York Times article on Jan Chipcase, a “human behavior researcher” for Nokia. He travels all across the planet – to Vietnam, to Sri Lanka, to Bangladesh or to Mississippi – to simply document how people live. Nokia’s not trying to sell these people cell phones – at least not through Chipcase, anyway – but rather, trying to understand what their needs are and if Nokia can make a product that fulfills them.

The article also explores one of my favorite themes: markets evolving out of nowhere, unbidden and unpredicted. How does a Ugandan day laborer send money to his mother in a rural village where only one person (a “phone lady”) owns a cell phone?

Someone working in Kampala, for instance, who wishes to send the equivalent of $5 back to his mother in a village will buy a $5 prepaid airtime card, but rather than entering the code into his own phone, he will call the village phone operator (“phone ladies” often run their businesses from small kiosks) and read the code to her. She then uses the airtime for her phone and completes the transaction by giving the man’s mother the money, minus a small commission. “It’s a rather ingenious practice,” Chipchase says, “an example of grass-roots innovation, in which people create new uses for technology based on need.”

Order arising from chaos turned me onto economics in the first place. I eat nuggets like this for dessert.

#: “”Expelled, Ben Stein’s new jeremiad against Charles Darwin, purports that Darwinism caused the Holocaust. Not true! In fact, the Holocaust is almost solely the work of Scandinavian astronomer Tycho Brahe!”

#: More coverage of John McCain on the campaign trail:

McCain has a whole slew of superstitions and rituals, many stemming from his days as a Navy fighter pilot, a notoriously superstitious bunch. He won’t throw a hat on a bed (bad luck), and he carries a lucky feather, a lucky compass, and a lucky penny — and nickel, and quarter.

[...]

He’s got more stuff on him, too. On St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago, “this guy had a lucky four-leaf clover that was laminated,” Buchanan said. “He pulled it out of his pocket and told the senator it had brought him good luck and now the senator carries it around in his wallet.”

I don’t know what bothers me more: the notion that President Dog might decide to bomb Iran based on a horoscope, or that he’ll carry any random piece of shit that a stranger hands him. Here, Senator – my grandfather had this rusty sewing needle with him when he landed at Omaha Beach. My mom buried it with him five years ago but I want you to have it.

#: Finally, Delta and Northwest announced plans yesterday to combine and form the world’s worst airline. Finishing the work that the TSA started on September 12th, 2001 would daunt most challengers, but I think Northwelta can handle the task. Combining their unions’ contracts, their legacy software and the various deals they have with our nation’s airport hubs, they can make transcontinental travel just as quick, safe and cheap as it was in 1908. If you need me, you can find me in the club car, stretching my legs.