Feb 19, 2021

Etcetera #4: generalists, nostalgia, the IndieWeb

Matthew Culnane

Hello again. I have missed you.

Here are this week’s links. If you enjoy the newsletter then please forward it, share it, or simply reply and let me know.

Until next week,

Matthew (@coldbrain)

When Generalists Are Better Than Specialists, and Vice Versa

The key takeaway here is that generalists perform better in fields that evolve more slowly, where they have the time to think and to connect similar skills and experiences. Specialists are better suited to fast-moving fields where it can be harder to stay up-to-date. Not an earth-shattering conclusion, and one that chimes with my experience, but interesting to see the methodology of the study nonetheless.

See also: I’m very interested in the idea of the polymath, particularly as it’s almost impossible to be one anymore; try The last days of the polymath or The Last Man Who Knew Everything, a biography of Enrico Fermi.

hbr.org

Why we're obsessed with music from our youth

You can also file this as something that’s intuitively correct, but not often the focus of a study. The researchers found that the music of our youth is the most familiar to us and the most closely associated with autobiographical memories, with the highest correlation at age 14. Goth nostalgia, eh?

See also: The nostalgic quality of our parents’ music; how Donnie Darko used music to amp up the nostalgia feel

theconversation.com

Bookfeed.io: An RSS Feed with New Releases from Your Favorite Authors

A simple tool that uses the Google Books API to generate an RSS feed containing the latest books by authors of your choosing. I’m seeing more and more of these anti-algorithm tools lately. For all Amazon’s reach and power, I find the recommendations and announcements aspect of their marketing to be very poor: follow-up emails about books I viewed but didn’t order; titles that I have never heard of before, that I have no interest in, but are filed under the same sub-genre as something I ordered a long time ago; their failure to email me when an author I like releases something new. At least this tool solves the latter.

bookfeed.io

Same Energy

A visual search engine that returns images of a similar look and feel. I’ve found it to be surprisingly effective: put in an image of a very clearly defined object and you’ll get lots more of them in return, but put in something a little more abstract or metaphorical and the results can be really good. The only issue I can see is the same one that always crops up with anything related to image search, and that’s right and reuse—Same Energy only provides a link to the source (which might not be the original source anyway) when you sign up for an account, and makes no attempt to bring through rights information.

See also: TinEye, a reverse image search that helps identify the original source of an image

same.energy

The linguistics of hyperlinks

An interesting take on the evidential properties, pragmatics and syntax of links. This, like much of what Lauren Gawne writes, is very accessible —you don’t have to know anything about linguistics.

See also: The rhetoric of the hyperlink

www.superlinguo.com

Praxis and the Indieweb

The ‘Indieweb’ can be loosely defined as a rejection of the corporatisation of the internet and the platforms which dominate it; its adherents post content to their own domains and control how it is displayed and syndicated. Like all utopias this exists only in theory. This article nearly summarises some the issues that I have with the movement but have never quite been able to articulate—while rejecting the idea of platforms, it seems very happy to rebuild them in its own way, and it is almost entirely comprised of white middle class American males.

lipu.dgold.eu

Thread Man

For reasons unknown I have long had issues with Seth Abramson, that berk that shows up in your Twitter timeline after being retweeted by someone who knows next to nothing about politics. He vomits rambling, lazy, conspiracy-laden threads of 100+ Tweets that some people say should be blog posts; while I generally agree with that statement, in Abramson’s case they should simply be deleted. I very much enjoyed reading this, as I am now far more comfortable with my dislike of him.

See also: the article touches on metamodernism; here’s a good introduction.

www.cjr.org

Yasmin Williams Remakes Fingerstyle Guitar in Her Own Image

This week I’ve listened to Urban Driftwood by Yasmin Williams quite a bit. I’ll describe it as fingerstyle acoustic guitar instrumentals, but it’s a world away from the overly earnest new age rubbish that the term implies—it’s very rich and moving, drawing on a wide range of genres and influences.

daily.bandcamp.com

How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia

One of my favourite people to follow on Twitter is Ted Gioia, a music writer and historian. His recommendations are particularly good, and he surfaces stuff almost daily that I never see anywhere else. I’m about to finish reading this book, which is also very good—a potted history of jazz and some of its notable protagonists, along with some tips for listening. I’ve since listened to some of my favourite jazz albums and heard new things. (BTW, off the top of my head, might change tomorrow: Mingus Ah Um, A Love Supreme, The Epic.)

www.amazon.co.uk

Ted Danson: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Ted Danson is having one of the more interesting late career periods in comedy. I really like Jesse Thorn as an interviewer: he asks very perceptive questions and is able to get his subjects to say interesting things simply because he is interested in them and their work. He seems very genuine.

See also: Jesse’s interview with Phil Elverum (aka The Microphones, Mount Eerie) was a particular highlight late last year—very moving.

www.npr.org

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things - Official Trailer

I’m not entirely on board with the idea of cultural guilty pleasures, but if pushed one of mine would probably be the teen-comedy-drama-time-mixup genre. This is a pretty good example, with tolerable leads and a fun story. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

www.youtube.com

Fire 'n Ice - Nintendo Switch Online

Switch owners: If you have NSO membership, I encourage you to load up Fire ‘N Ice, a 1992 NES game that was added to the catalogue this week. It’s full of one-screen puzzles where you have to extinguish fire with ice blocks that you create. These blocks also serve as the platforms you use to get around the screen, requiring you to think quite far ahead. I’m a sucker for this sort of logic game so I’m glad its was added. Now, if they can just hurry up and add EarthBound, I’ll be very happy.

www.nintendolife.com

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Matthew Culnane @coldbrain

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