Fish, England, Prediction, Prison, Opera
How To Kill A Fish
Cat Ferguson | Topic | 2nd May 2018
Bash it or spike it, if you must. “It usually takes a lot longer for a fish to asphyxiate than it takes for a person to drown. As a trout convulses, it tears its own muscles apart; they flood with lactic acid and burn up their cellular fuel reserves, triggering a series of chemical reactions that speed the degradation of fat and muscle. Even in the freezer, away from microbes, trout that suffocate go rancid a month sooner than those that get whacked in the head” (4,900 words)
Will There Always Be An England?
Andrew Sullivan | New York | 27th April 2018
A returning expat takes stock. “In a little less than a week in London, I have yet to buy anything from someone English. Everywhere I hear foreign accents or one of the more than 300 languages London now incorporates. Thirty-seven percent of the capital’s population is foreign-born — the same as New York City — and that share is predicted to be 50 percent by 2031. For those whose self-understanding is wrapped up in bluebells and tea, these times are culturally terrifying” (2,950 words)
The Economics Of Artificial Intelligence
Ajay Agrawal | McKinsey | 27th April 2018
“When looking at artificial intelligence from the perspective of economics, we ask the same single question that we ask with any technology: What does it reduce the cost of? The answer reveals why AI is so important relative to many other exciting technologies. AI can be recast as causing a drop in the cost of a first-order input into many activities in business and our lives: Prediction”. As the cost of prediction falls, so the value of data will rise — and so will the value of human judgment (2,400 words)
Murder At The Alcatraz Of The Rockies
Chris Outcalt | Atavist | 1st May 2018
A prisoner is beaten to death at ADX Florence, the prison in Colorado where America locks up serial killers, terrorists, and drug kingpins considered too dangerous to keep anywhere else. Permanent surveillance is supposed to make crime impossible. “The killer had used fists and feet to pummel a fellow prisoner to a pulp. He’d committed murder in broad daylight, with cameras everywhere, yet avoided being caught in the act. Who had done it? And, more importantly, why?” (10,900 words)
New York Chronicle
Jay Nordlinger | New Criterion | 2nd May 2018
Nights at the opera. On Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ at the Met: “Then came the mad scene — which was shocking, and not just in the usual way. The soprano was utterly free. She was newly flexible, even gymnastic. The voice had taken on a new beauty. This mad scene was unerring and gripping. Nothing in the previous acts had prepared me for it. Like others in my business, I have heard many Lucias, some of them legendary. I have never heard a better mad scene, ever” (2,880 words)
Video of the day Views Of Tokyo 1913-1915
What to expect:
Footage from the Eye Film Institute, set to a natural rate with sound added by Guy Jones (4’06”)
Thought for the day
Complexity is a device for evading simple truths
J.K. Galbraith
Podcast Life Inside No 10 | Red Box
Matt Chorley, Philip Collins and guests talk about life inside 10 Downing Street
(47m 01s)