Month: June 2011

A noun.

A reader writes:

It probably says something about the trivial nature of my mind that I grasp very little of what Spinoza has to tell us about nature and science.  However, he can, apparently, tell us quite a bit about Jeeves.  From the esteemed philosopher, Sex-in-Spats, and his article “The Man Behind the Stuffed Frog Mask: What Spinoza’s Ethics can tell us about Reginald Jeeves.” Money quote:

Spinoza writes that, through reason, “[the free man] is lead adequately to conceive himself and all things which can be conceived by his intelligence.” To be a Spinozist is to undergo a rigorous regimen of constant intellectual–and bodily–self-improvement. The more one understands nature, the more one “passes to the highest human perfection, and consequently is affected with the highest joy which is accompanied with the idea of himself and his own virtue . . . the highest possible peace of mind.” Happiness is the recognition of the power of one’s own mind. If there is one thing we know beyond a shadow of a doubt about Jeeves, it is that he is extraordinarily intelligent, well-informed and constantly learning more things. Bertie extols Jeeves’ intelligence continuously throughout the stories, and in every misadventure Jeeves shines through as a paragon of sagacity and cunning.

Or, more succinctly:

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Jeeves,” I said.
“Oh no sir, thank you. I was quite happy with my Spinoza.”
“Eh?”
“The copy of Spinoza’s Ethics which you kindly gave me some time ago.”
“Oh, ah, yes, I remember. Good stuff?”
“Extremely, sir.”
 “I suppose it turns out in the end that the Butler did it.

– from Jeeves in the Offing

Self-explanatory:

Hathos aside, this is a pretty serious charge to level at the father of your child:

Bristol Palin writes in her new book of losing her virginity to boyfriend Levi Johnston on a camping trip after getting drunk for the first time on too many wine coolers. She awoke in her tent, alone, with no memories of what had happened as Johnston "talked with his friends on the other side of the canvas." She had vowed to wait until marriage.

Venkat Rao argues that a finite amount of attention will doom the corporation:

Take an average housewife, the target of much time mining early in the 20th century. It was clear where her attention was directed. Laundry, cooking, walking to the well for water, cleaning, were all obvious attention sinks. Washing machines, kitchen appliances, plumbing and vacuum cleaners helped free up a lot of that attention, which was then immediately directed (as corporate-captive attention) to magazines and television.

But as you find and capture most of the wild attention, new pockets of attention become harder to find. Worse, you now have to cannibalize your own previous uses of captive attention. Time for TV must be stolen from magazines and newspapers. Time for specialized entertainment must be stolen from time devoted to generalized entertainment.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

A different sort of dollar menu.

David Gems explains his research:

Currently [diseases of aging] are, by and large, tackled individually. One scientist studies heart disease, another Alzheimer’s disease, another macular degeneration and so on. Yet such ailments are symptoms of a larger underlying syndrome: aging. It is for this reason that there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to treating diseases of aging. The battle with aging is akin to that between Heracles, the hero of Greek mythology, and the multiheaded Hydra. Each time Heracles hacked off a head, two more would sprout in its place. Likewise, the old man successfully treated for prostate cancer may not long afterward stagger back into the physician’s office with macular degeneration and dementia.

Roger Ebert measures his own mortality by the fact that he's shrinking.

"I think marriage should be between a man and a woman, but I don’t have the right to prohibit others to have the right to get married. … [My pastor and I] spoke about the fact that I thought it was the right thing to do. But religiously I was definitely torn. He said to me, ‘Look, civically, you have a responsibility to represent your community. That has nothing to do with God,'" – Nelson Castro, one of three religious Democrats in the New York Assembly to change their position last week to help pass a marriage equality bill.

But the bill is still hanging by a thread in the Senate, with just one vote shy of approval – and today is the last day of the legislative session. Follow developments in Albany here. A summary of last week's dramatic events here.

Andrew Phelps test drives a new project from the Sunlight Foundation called Inbox Influence. The Gmail plugin scans body text, email addresses and links from companies, political candidates, and friends and family to expose that entity’s political connections:

That kind of information might help people make better decisions about whom they do business with. I pay Comcast $55 a month for Internet access, and I never thought to look up the company’s political history. Might I choose to take my business elsewhere? What if I find out my favorite grocery store gives money to causes I don’t support? Or that my aunt is a closeted Tea Partier?

Dodai Stewart's concerns are worth hammering home:

Many of us have a vision, a belief: you work, reach the age of 65, and retire somewhere sunny to wear muumuus and collect stained glass. But the reality is that a 65-year-old women will likely live 20 years or more, and often, the money runs out. Just plugging your age and salary into a retirement calculator can be a sobering experience; if you want scale down and live on 75% of current salary when you're 85, you may need to save $1,000 a month, starting now. And! If you can only save $500 a month, and would like to retire with a $1 million, you will need to save for 38 years and 3 months to reach that number. (Adjusting for inflation, you need to save for 56 years and 3 months.)