A Web Log

Claude Shannon: Tinkerer, Prankster, and Father of Information Theory   Author: John Horgan Source: IEEE Spectrum Summary: A biography of Claude Shannon and a summary of some of the basic ideas of Information Theory.  An interesting jumping-off point and a decent (and consistent) companion to  this book.

How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously Author: Gideon Lewis-Kraus Source: The New Yorker Summary: A relatively non-judgemental article about UFOs and the government's official response to the phenomena.  Initial skepticism was strategic, but denial became reflexive.  Recently there appears to be a shift towards slightly more openness. Quotes: "The following January, the C.I.A. secretly convened an advisory group of experts, led by Howard P. Robertson, a mathematical physicist from Caltech. The “Robertson panel” determined not that we were being visited by U.F.O.s but that we were being inundated with too many U.F.O. reports. This was a real problem: if notices of genuine incursions over U.S. territory could be lost in a maelstrom of kooky hallucination, there could be grave consequences for national security—for instance, Soviet spy planes could operate with impunity. The Cold War made it crucial that the U.S. government be perceived to have full control over i...

The Asset Economy   Authors:  Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper, Martijn Konings Source: LA Review of Books Summary: A short excerpt from the book of the same name by the above authors.  Terribly written, with a main thesis that should be a surprise to nobody. How One Man Turned The Busiest International Border Crossing In North America Into The Centerpiece Of His Empire Author: Erin Marquis Source: Jalopnik Summary: An overview of the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing in North America for trucks, which links Detroit and Ontario. The article's focus is on the bridge's now-deceased owner and the difficulties he has caused for the region due to his unwillingness to maintain the bridge or build a new span, while preventing the construction of a publicly-owned alternative. Impressions: This was an interesting article, but could have been so much more.  I'd like to hear more about how a private bridge was built in the first place, and how the ultimate own...

I was frightened every single day’: the perils of guarding Stalin Author: Matthew Janney Source: The Spectator Summary: A brief book review of  "Young Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Memoir and a Reckoning" by Alex Halberstadt At the Type Archive Author: Alice Sprawls Source: London Review of Books Summary: A short but entertaining article about a specific sort of typesetting machine and the London museum that houses a large number of such machines, as well as related items.  Of note, however, were a number of factual corrections submitted as letters to the editor that were included with the article.

The Computer Game That Led to Enlightenment   Author:  Peter Bebergal Site: New Yorker Summary: Short article about the video game Ultima IV and it's moral framework In Mali Author: Rahmane Idrissa Site: London Review of Books Summary: a travelogue/history of Mali.  A bit meandering but an interesting jumping-off point. Lionel Barber’s diaries — encounters with Merkel, Fuld and a piano-playing Putin Author: Lionel Barber Site: Financial Times Summary: Excerpt's from the author's memoirs of his time as Editor of the FT: ‘The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times’ by Lionel Barber Quote:  "Merkel is impressed, if puzzled, by Barack Obama’s rock star status. 'Who is he? What does he stand for?'”  Impression: an interesting and entertaining series of short vignettes.  I'd be interested in reading the entire book.

The Wrath of Corleone   Author: Noah Millman Site: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Summary: An overwrought analysis of the Godfather trilogy.   The Keynesian Revolution Author: Jonathan Kirshner Site: Boston Review Summary: Book review of new biography of Keynes: "The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes" by Zachary D. Carter Quotes: The Great War shattered the illusion that civilization was secure—and much of Keynes’s efforts in the three decades that followed were designed to save society from dystopias looming in the wings, particularly in the varied forms of authoritarian collectivism. Carter’s Keynes is “the last of the enlightenment intellectuals who pursued political theory, economics, and ethics as a unified design.” To approach Keynes’s economics innocent of such an understanding is to miss much, if not everything.  Essentially, mainstream postwar Keynesianism was a tamed and housebroken interpretation of selected part...

 Clearing the Backlog - May 9, 2021 India's COVID Shambles: It Took Us Seventy Years, Not Seven, To Get Here Author: Shashank Kela Site: The Wire (India) Summary: critical article of Indian state structures.  Nothing particularly new though. Quote: In 1979, apropos the Moro affair, the Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia remarked that for the Italian Communist Party, the state appeared to be “a kind of mythical and metaphysical entity, superior to anything like the rendering of services. For me, the state is nothing but a well-coordinated ensemble of services. And when these services are deficient or altogether absent, it’s necessary either to fix them or to create new ones. Otherwise all you are defending is corruption and inefficiency under the pretext of defending the state.” In India, unfortunately, the state is defined almost exclusively in metaphysical or in Hobbesian terms. For some nationalists, it’s the living embodiment of India’s glorious past (and manifest destin...

This site is designed to be a log of articles and sites that I come across on the web - a "web log" if you will.  It is merely meant to be a reference that can be easily accessed.  Nothing more.