“magazines”

I’m floored too. (And envious!) What Meaningful Machines lyrically calls «flooding» in a recent Wired article, Me Translate Pretty One Day, is a stunningly beautiful translation algorithm, baffling in its simplicity.

Though if it’s simple to state and understand, it’s only because it relies on operations on a terrifying (computational, mathematical) scale. (Like the first time one invokes inside a theorem, say, the set of all possible sets, there’s a mixture of fright and awe—we can barely believe our moxie to write such thoughts.) In a very real way, the algorithm is written in Moore’s law language and if it escaped us all it’s mostly because our words are so shy, so inadvertently constrained by past assumptions.

Ah! How exciting! Machine language translation is on the horizon.

I feel — numb. Distant. Detached. Separate. Futile. Tepid. Coward. Been on a media breakdown^ELZR for too many days now—Scrubs^WP, Nausicaa^WP, The Economist, The New York Times, porn, (Ben Shneiderman’s) interface design articles, Wired, (so many) books. Unprecedented amounts of physical exercise sprinkled throughout (bizarre, I know). Much been thought, outcomes uncertain (to put it hopefully).

Only 30 pages into Finite and Infinite Games^AM I think it’s the best book I’ve read. ”Seriousness,” it says, ”is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.” Been far too serious in my life lately. Too scared.

Stupid death won’t go away. Seems my (maternal) grandfather has lung cancer—most likely metastatic. Brutal prognosis. He’s been staying here at home and I’ve been escaping it all—so far away. So serious.

And yet I’m hopeful now. I can never force myself to post something until I’m hopeful. Until I’ve a plan. Until I’m back. (Too scary otherwise.)

Gonna play.

And I am, because it really, really, really is true: YouTube’s lonelygirl15 is the birth of a new art form.

How Gibsonian (or Laughing-man-esque) the whole video-cult esoterica was, don’t you think? (Though no one would have predicted that we would become obsessed with a (fictional) chirpy teen.) Danah boyd has some interesting things to say and the New York Time’s article on the memebomb is outstanding (but would some link love really kill them?).

As I mentioned a week ago, I am just starting to feel my way around McKinsey’s Quarterly but it’s been impressive so far. I recently finished reading the three complimentary articles I was granted upon registering (which is free) and they were all remarkable.

This may sound silly but I was happy to read such a well-crafted confirmation email. Notice the avoidance of empty superlatives, the non-patronizing, the effort, not to sound hip or flippant or “professional”, but to be useful. The complimentary premium articles were the extra touch that made me want to share this with the world. This is persuasive (marketing) writing at its best.

The McKinsey Quarterly is impressive by itself too, most interesting and with the best graphs I’ve seen since The Economist (and they present them inside sexy, useful Flash “exhibits” that allow you to zoom in/out and pan around).

OK, pardon the profanity. I had been following the Net “Neutrality” argument from a perplexed distance for some time (as I’ve chronicled about before) but this month’s Scientific American editorial on the subject and its disgusting rhetoric is just too damn much. Perverting George Orwell’s masterpiece on the dangers of imposing equality, Animal Farm^WP, so as to defend that very same imposition is off-limits, it’s too low, it’s too devious. It’s repulsive. Yuck.

There are several more gems sprinkled throughout. Here’s another one:

Of course, forget the silly “caprices” and blind moneylust of the pesky owners of the cable themselves. Who could know better about the cable business and its needs than casual passersby like ourselves?

To respond in kind, I propose a different appropriation of George Orwell, this one from his other anti-totalitarianism classic, 1984^WP:

One good thing came out of that editorial though, I found out about Hands Off The Internet, a sane organization against government intervention on the net. Pay them a visit.

My final discovery of A List Apart—a magazine “for people who make websites”—has been late coming, but as the article I’m about to talk about explains, relationships in the web are just difficult to establish (they require “an exorbitant amount of synergy”, why-the-lucky-stiff would say). I’ve been visiting them fairly frequently along the past couple of years and almost always I’ve learned something valuable. It is not only top-notch content, the attention to detail is painstaking too, though it takes you several visits to start noticing it: from the spot-on illustrations (most by the very talented Kevin Cornell), to the helpful snapshot feature at the right, to the issue-number stamp, to the tasteful ads, to the impeccable atmosphere they maintain throughout, to Zeldman’s and Kissane’s careful editing—it’s not a print wannabe, it’s the first web-only alreadyam.

The cover article of issue 221 (as of this moment, the latest) is a gem and the reason I started writing this post. By Amber Simmons, it is wonderfully titled ”Gentle Reader, Stay Awhile; I Will Be Faithful” and deals with how to write (particularly, with how to write for the web) by introducing the never-before-better-named idea of a faithful writer—a writer who thinks of her reader, who anticipates her questions and curiosities; a loyal writer, respectful of her reader’s time and intelligence; a writer who delivers. Truly great advice—I know I’ll never write the same again.

I’m ambiguous towards Seed. On one hand, it has excellent webdesign; features like a daily zeitgeist and cribsheets; articles like the unnerving Culture-shaping parasite, the funny Big in Japan, and the unexpected The Value of Small Things; and intriguing syndicated posts like Einstein in Lust and Getting Physical. Its Snowish^WP slogan—”Science is Culture”—is pure genius.

On the other hand, it lacks good editing at times and can be glib, informal, superficial, and, well, too pop. I’ve been reading quite a lot of scientific articles lately and am thrilled by how rewarding it’s been. Yes, they can be dense, intricate, and dry, and the genre sure has its very own idiosyncrasies (ticks), but they are also clear, painstakingly crafted, in-depth, documented, and supremely interesting: distilled thought of the highest import. So I’m not sure if a popular science magazine is right for me now—perhaps, (gulp), I’ve outgrown them (and after the absolute fiasco that became my former childhood choice, Conozca Mas, I’m wary).

Marketing Myopia^WP, from the recently deceased economist Theodore Levitt^WP is a fascinating article from 1960. Despite its now quaint and outdated examples, despite being wrong in several of its predictions, this is one of the classic articles of marketing and deservedly so. Perhaps the biggest surpise for me was to reread a sense of marvel and respect at business, a lucid and bracing criticism of capitalism, that I hadn’t seen since I read some Peter Drucker^WP last year. The “intellectual” community, specially in Mexico, has so often made deriding business and its babbits its raison d’etre, that I find such cogent analysis incredibly refreshing.

Here two fragments:

At the end of the article, there’s an equally engaging retrospective commentary fifteen years after. Levitt could write.

As a sidenote, this was an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review, which I’ve always dismissed on the base of its exorbitating price. I’ve been reading through online article abstracts from the current edition and I’m most impressed. I’ll be sure to buy it next time.

As I said, today I’m happy and since my father isn’t coming to dinner (he has some appointment) and I’m home alone, I’m off to give myself a treat. I’ll go buy the previous-week Economist, which looks to be quite something (Inequality and The American Dream is the cover article, and the edition’s suvey is on logistics—need I say more?) and read it under a tree somewhere after eating Hindu rice at this very nice restaurant on Lopez Cotilla.

Next day update: Dinner was great, not so much for the rice (Biryani Hyderabad), which was a bit too spicy for my taste, but because I got to some interesting talking with the restauratrice, who gave me some very useful advice on my Honda: I could get almost free service checkups at Centro Magno’s agency, and they actually give free tours of the Honda plant here in Guadalajra (where they supposedly build a car in under two hours). I’m baffled at the incredible amount of local knowledge available if one will only listen.

They didn’t have the previous-week Economist at Galerias’ Sanborns so I had to settle with the previous-previous-week one, to which I gladly agreed once I realized it contained the 26-page technology quarterly. I gobbled up some it at the restaurant and then the rest up until late at night at Minerva’s Starbucks (it was too rainy outside for a tree and anyway, outdoors are heavily overrated). It was a wonderful edition—I was laughing so hard at times I got quite a few surprised looks. It felt like talking with a very witty, very sharp ole friend. And I found out two important things: I’d much rather read the day away than go watch a movie (and they cost about the same) and The Economist is far and away my favorite magazine.