newly-discovered photos of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg

In the NYT, a reflection on the newly-discovered photos of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg:

What would the photographic record show if it reached back, say 500 years, instead of 180?

One answer is that it would show us this same structure over and over again: a fiercely concentrated knot of people hanging on the words of someone at the center of the crowd. And around them? People standing in looser and looser concentrations, until finally — far enough from the epicenter — their attention turns away from history and focuses on the abiding interest of almost anything else. And this is somehow the inherent bias of the camera. It always directs us toward the center of attention, never away to the periphery, even though that is where our attention eventually wanders.

[via librarycrunch]

My awesome run the other night

I have a small area map that I keep handy for plotting new running routes. My ongoing arbitrary goal is to run every road on the map, interstate excepted. So I was out in some new neighborhoods the other night (I run almost exclusively after dark), and some areas were a little sketchy. Graffiti, trash, railroad tracks, a few abandoned buildings, etc. All of this spookiness abetted by the late hour and the old guy I passed early on, who says to me, "Watch out, man. Watch out. Ha!"

A Whole New Mind (review: 2.5/5)

I first heard about A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age when Joshua Blankenship posted this excellent quote from author Daniel Pink. Great stuff, so I found the book, which isn't as great. The premise is that the Information Age was led by left-brained, linear-thinkers. Now, as we enter the Conceptual Age, the balance is shifting such that right-directed, sympathetic, synthetic thinkers are more and more valuable.

To survive in this age, individuals and organizations must examine what they're doing to earn a living and ask themselves three questions:

  1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
  2. Can a computers do it faster?
  3. Is what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?

Luckily the book isn't about outsourcing paranoia, but about some soft skills and sensibilities you'll need: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. The book is heavy on the anecdote, and generally light-hearted, but not particularly gripping. Like some other pop-business books I've read like The Long Tail and The Tipping Point, I think it would have been great as a long essay. As a book it feels a bit thin. I've heard excellent things about Pink's other book Free Agent Nation, so maybe that's worth a look.

Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan 99 (review: 3/5)

Ray Bradbury's latest, Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan '99, gathers a pair of unpublished novellas that he's been brewing for a couple decades. The first story, "Somewhere a Band Is Playing," revisits the usual Bradburyan perfect-yet-eery small-town America, in the form of a writer's colony where there are no children. "Leviathan '99" is a sci-fi reimagining of Moby Dick, with fanatics chasing a comet instead of a whale. They're good stories if you can snag it from a library and just want to burn an hour or two. He'll always give you a few great sentences, and he can pack some dense ideas in light prose. But there is no way I'd buy it at the $24.95 sticker price. It seems absurdly high for an 8x6 hardback that barely makes 200 pages. Like I noticed in his previous Farewell Summer, the publisher beefs up a fairly thin book with extra line-spacing, which probably annoys me more than it should.

The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed (review: 3.5/5)

I enjoyed reading Moneyball last month, so I got the notion to explore some other baseball books. The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed is pretty good, and a surprisingly quick read. The author/ economist JC Bradbury runs Sabernomics, a baseball nerd blog that's well worth your time. As you might expect, Bradbury applies some statistical tools and good old-fashioned open-minded economic reasoning to various aspects of baseball. Topics for discussion range from why batters get hit by pitches in the AL more than the NL, the best ways to measure hitting and pitching, manager ejection theory, salary negotiations, whether MLB is a monopoly, etc. I have to say Bradbury does a pretty darn good job of breaking down the statistics and economics jargon he introduces. Marginal revenue product and regression analysis exist happily along with LOOGYs and the cup of coffee. The thought process behind the studies he's developed is fascinating in its own right---sometimes it's just cool to read how someone thought through an intricate project, accounting for variables and dealing with potential bias. I also give Bradbury bonus points for quoting from one of my favorite thinkers, Frederic Bastiat.

One last thing that amuses and delights me to no end: almost a full third of the book is dedicated to the most extensive back matter I've ever seen outside of purely academic texts. There's an epilogue, acknowledgements, one two three four appendices, an endnotes section, a bibliography, and an index.