Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant…

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Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him.

From Borges’ short story Borges and I, which, even though it’s so short, I’ve tumbled before. My reading of his work has been scattered (I picked up a few different collections to fix that), but it almost always hurts my brain in a good way. For the volume of imagination and inventiveness and ideas in such efficient form, I remain convinced that the right Borges at the right time can more worthwhile than entire literature classes.

La Ventana (The Window)

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La Ventana (The Window). Antonio is an ailing old man whose estranged son is coming to visit. He gets a haircut, retrieves the special bottle of champagne, goes for a walk, has the piano tuned. Movies like this are proof that you don’t need dramatic twists, revelations, surprises or other antics to make a worthwhile film. Even predictable is fine if you’ve got a premise you’re willing to follow for a few minutes and a world with a few characters you’re willing to care about. This one was really nicely done.

There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher…

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There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher, and then a little bit higher … and we’re sitting there in awe, and we’re gasping for air … and right at the moment of truth, we realize one of the following four things:

A. Blake is about to make the single greatest highlight in the history of professional basketball.
B. Blake is about to give us the highlight of the night.
C. Blake can’t pull this off because the degree of difficulty is too high, but he’s trying anyway.
D. Blake is going to break his neck or land in a such a way that his leg flies off his body and lands in the fifth row.

Those are the four options EVERY time he goes in the air. Watching it unfold reminds me of watching my 3-year-old son, who’s equally fearless (and dangerous).

Bill Simmons on Blake Griffin, who’s probably the most ridiculous player I’ve ever seen.

There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher…

quote

There’s Blake flying up for an offensive rebound, soaring higher, and higher, and then a little bit higher … and we’re sitting there in awe, and we’re gasping for air … and right at the moment of truth, we realize one of the following four things:

A. Blake is about to make the single greatest highlight in the history of professional basketball.
B. Blake is about to give us the highlight of the night.
C. Blake can’t pull this off because the degree of difficulty is too high, but he’s trying anyway.
D. Blake is going to break his neck or land in a such a way that his leg flies off his body and lands in the fifth row.

Those are the four options EVERY time he goes in the air. Watching it unfold reminds me of watching my 3-year-old son, who’s equally fearless (and dangerous).

Bill Simmons on Blake Griffin, who’s probably the most ridiculous player I’ve ever seen.

Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot

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Alex Tabarrok mulls over the recent OkTrends post on the Mathematics of Beauty.

I think there are certain types of beauty that greatly attract some men but repel others. Analagously, some people will pay hundreds of dollars for an ounce of caviar that other people won’t eat for free. The reason some people love caviar, however, is not that other people dislike it. Instead, it just so happens, that the thing that some people love is the very thing that repels others. We see the same phenomena in art, some people love John Cage, other people would rather listen to nothing at all. ;)

Now if we mix in this kind of beauty–beauty over which there are violent disagreements–with the kind that most people do agree upon (think Haagan-Dazs vanilla ice cream) then I suspect that it will appear that lower rankings increase messages. But what is really going on is that high rankings–conditional on their also being many low rankings–actually signal an extra strong attraction. Someone who tells you that John Cage is their favorite composer is telling you more than someone who says Aaron Copland is their favorite composer.

Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot

Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot

link

Alex Tabarrok mulls over the recent OkTrends post on the Mathematics of Beauty.

I think there are certain types of beauty that greatly attract some men but repel others. Analagously, some people will pay hundreds of dollars for an ounce of caviar that other people won’t eat for free. The reason some people love caviar, however, is not that other people dislike it. Instead, it just so happens, that the thing that some people love is the very thing that repels others. We see the same phenomena in art, some people love John Cage, other people would rather listen to nothing at all. ;)

Now if we mix in this kind of beauty–beauty over which there are violent disagreements–with the kind that most people do agree upon (think Haagan-Dazs vanilla ice cream) then I suspect that it will appear that lower rankings increase messages. But what is really going on is that high rankings–conditional on their also being many low rankings–actually signal an extra strong attraction. Someone who tells you that John Cage is their favorite composer is telling you more than someone who says Aaron Copland is their favorite composer.

Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot

2010 Review of Books (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

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Good round-up and commentary on his year in reading. New to/of interest to me:

  • Secrets by Daniel Ellsberg
  • A Bee Stung Me So I Killed All The Fish by George Saunders
  • Prince of the Marshes by Rory Stewart
  • Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
  • Becoming Attached by Robert Karen
  • Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  • The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

2010 Review of Books (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

2010 Review of Books (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

link

Good round-up and commentary on his year in reading. New to/of interest to me:

  • Secrets by Daniel Ellsberg
  • A Bee Stung Me So I Killed All The Fish by George Saunders
  • Prince of the Marshes by Rory Stewart
  • Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
  • Becoming Attached by Robert Karen
  • Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  • The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

2010 Review of Books (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)