Running for Your Life: WTF? Part One

Some reading passages rise up and slap you in the face – and you say, OK, this deserves a platform, as the kids are saying these days.

Such is the case in this chunk of the “Media in the Age of Algorithms” chapter in the book, “WTF?” by tech thinker Tim O’Reilly:

“Virtually every consumer-facing Internet service uses constant experiments to make their service more addictive, to make content go viral, to increase its ad revenue or its e-commerce sales. Manipulation to make more money is taken for granted, its techniques even taught and celebrated.

But try to understand whether or not the posts that are shown influence people’s emotional state? A disgraceful breach of research ethics!

There is a master algorithm that rules our society, and  … it is not some powerful new approach to machine learning. It is a rule that was encoded into modern business decades ago, and has largely gone unchallenged since.

It is the algorithm that led CBS Chairman Les Moonves to say in March 2016 that Trump’s campaign ‘may not be good for America, but it is damn good for CBS.’

You must please the algorithm if you want your business to thrive.”

Next: Running for Your Life: WTF? Part Two

Running for Your Life: Vegas, Baby!

Among hockey purists, I may find myself on my own, but …

I’m all in with the Vegas Golden Knights.

An expansion  team in the Stanley Cup Finals? Unheard of!

Yeah, but have you seen this team play hockey?

These guys are castoffs, notably better on paper than what say, the Penguins in 1967, or the Blue Jackets in 2000, were able to net. Still, these athletes were viewed during the expansion draft last year as expendable by their respective pro teams.

(There’s a not small consideration about a $500 million entry fee that Vegas ponied up which figures in the math here but …)

Underdogs. Who among the true sports fan doesn’t get pumped up about the underdog? (Over there at the NBA Finals, we have, ta-da: the Cavs vs. the Warriors…. Yawn!)

The underdog is in a battle against the team led by the most prolific scorer and suddenly fierce competitor (Are you paying attention Sidney Crosby?) Putin pal Alex Ovechkin.

Oh, and speaking of my beloved Penguins, Vegas, baby, will pit Ovechkin against Washington Capital-killer goalie Marc Andre Fleury, the biggest game goalie in the league.

One of these two guys is going to win the Conn Smythe trophy, awarded to the Stanley Cup Final MVP.

Let it be the Flower!

Next: Running for Your Life: WTF?

Running for Your Life: Enter “The Gateway” Part Two

It’s summer – in Canada, the start (May 21) of the much-awaited season, Victoria Day (yes, Canada, still honours the crown, with some rising at dawn to watch royal weddings) – and past time to make your list for beach and lakeside reading.

Top of the list, I most humbly suggest, “Gateway to the Moon,” the latest novel by Mary Morris.

Set aside the disclaimer (I am married to the author).  This novel is killing it in reviews, lists, word of mouth. It’s the World Wide Web, they tell me, so here’s a trailer for you:

http://bit.ly/2x3o7Yw  

I’ve written about the book before in this space, so I'm not going to go on about character, plot, setting.

Rather, let me say that if there is one thing I think we can all use is a great read – that rejects the impulse to add your cry to the partisan sinkhole that now defines so much of American publishing.

Now’s the time to read important books. Not the latest screed, ripped-from-the-headlines political tract. But an honest to God work of art that will thrill you, make you cry and keep you amazed from the time you pick it up to the time you regretfully put it down.

That’s “Gateway to the Moon.” Buy the book and enter summer bliss reading space.

Next: Running for Your Life: Vegas, Baby !

Running for Your Life: World Without Mind by Franklin Foer

It’s akin to heresy during the time of Thomas Aquinas to rhapsodize over this title on the internet.

Religious heretics were burned at the stake or beheaded. (Hello, Sir Thomas More!)

For some, as martyrs to most noble causes. Belief. Besides for those faithful, the adorned heavens await in the afterlife.

Here, in what is quaintly called cyberspace, a solid two thumbs’ up for “World Without Mind” merits nothing of the kind. Just deafening silence. Because the tech powers that be will do everything in their power to direct traffic away from these remarks.

(Kind of gives “going viral” a whole new definition. As in, don’t read, or you’ll get sick, if not poisoned.)

But do your mind a favor and read the book. Foer, in the parlance of the day, unpacks the internet and its pernicious effect on originality and pre-internet creativity.

Remember books that sold at prices that could sustain all kinds of writers, not just the schlocky and familiar, but those who are willing (and able, yes!) to take a chance with something truly new? I’m thinking, say, Thomas Mann or, uh, Herman Melville.

Oh, and remember the old Apple slogan, “Think Different.” Ha! There’s a cruel joke for you. Don’t take my word for it, Google yourself the origins of that ad campaign. On your “smartphone.” Or ask the hive mind.

For heaven’s sake, don’t think on your own. Cause that unthinkable unthinking place is where we’re heading as described in the global warning that is a World Without Mind, a book of courageously conveyed conviction that stands as much chance of turning up as a recommended purchase on Amazon as Sir Thomas More currying favor with the Devil in Hades.

Next: Running for Your Life: Enter “The Gateway” Part Two  

Running for Your Life: Touches of Tennessee

The Morgan Library closed its Tennessee Williams “No Refuge but Writing” exhibit on Sunday (May 13).

Didn’t see it? A pity. Not to worry, here’s a taste.

Like so much of what the Morgan does best, the show narrows its focus on artist genius, on what served as inspiration to take that genius and make art.

In the front of a cherished book of Williams, the Collected Poems of Hart Crane, a young man of 22 who would later pave the way for daring work on the American stage, scribbled:

“Alas for the poet, the dreamer  . . . He fights a solitary battle against the world’s dullness.”

Elsewhere, we learn that Williams could not contain his wild and lyric impulses, and early in his life fled to Mexico, chased by his “Blue Angels” (what he called his dark moods of depression. Any coincidence that Tony Kushner would write of Angels during a modern period of mass depression, the American AIDS crisis?)

He writes of the duality of the single heart, and I’m moved to near-tears, then read that “A Streetcar Named Desire” would enjoy 855 performances, amazed that his words that elevate and sting, a timeless outlet of wild and lyric impulses, live on.

Next: Running for Your Life: World Without Mind by Franklin Foer