Month: October 2011

A reader expands upon a phenomenon broached in a previous post:

It should be noted how the National Anthem is treated before Chicago Blackhawks home hockey games. While the anthem is generally sung in a manner best described as "triumphant," the fans in the stadium cheer loudly throughout the entire anthem, flying in the face of the idea of "hushed reverence", sometimes coming close to completely drowning out the singer. It is actually pretty controversial in the sports world (a lame Fox News debate can be found here), but it has remained a tradition in Chicago since the 1980s.

A reader points to the above video:

There was controversy last year during the NFL playoffs when Chicago fans cheered throughout the National Anthem sung by Jim Cornelison. (What surprised me is how many people kept their hat on.)

Some remaining renditions suggested by readers:

Don't know if you have heard this one yet. In 2004, Bruce Springsteen and other liberal rock stars organized a sprawling, coordinated tour of various swing states to register voters, mobilize the base, and stump for Kerry-Edwards. You know the outcome, but Bruce's rendition of the anthem endures. He opened every show with this pensive, chiming instrumental before transitioning into an angry, hard-hitting "Born in the U.S.A." Without singing a note, he cuts through the din of shrill anti-war lefties and smug neoconservative apologists, conveying both the outrage at America's misadventure in Iraq and the unyielding love for his country.

Another:

Please don’t forget this beautiful three-part harmony version of the Star Spangled Banner, sung by those America-hatin’ Dixie Chicks.

Another:

Not sure if any readers have pointed to Jack Ingram, but his versions during last year's NBA Finals and this year's ALCS were lovely. Nice to see some understatement in Texas, don’t you think?

Another:

I simply have to weigh in to this great thread with one of the more unique and "out of left field" renditions I've heard, not as much due to the rendition itself, which is pretty good and unlikely to offend, but due to the singer: none other than Jerry Stackhouse, a professional NBA basketball player. I grew up in Detroit and went to college during the years he played for the Pistons, so I knew the brother could sing (he often did the Anthem for home games), but it was always fun to watch the amazement/amusement of other players, media and spectators when they announced who the singer was. Stack hardly looks the part of a crooner, but his rendition, which draws heavily from gospel choir stylings and R&B, is I think really beautiful – especially his inspired riff on "gave proof through the night".

Another:

This one always gets to me.  It was Disability Awareness day at Fenway Park and they had a young man sing the Anthem. He got a bit nervous in the middle, so the fans helped him out. I love the crescendo as the fans realize what's happening and voices are added to voices, and the gracious and proud cheer at the end.

Another notes:

The young girl who flubbed the National Anthem, Natalie Gilbert, got a web redemption eight years later on Tosh.0.

One more:

The Hendrix quote about his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner being "beautiful" comes from an appearance he did with Dick Cavett. I think Jimi's words on the matter sum up this entire thread.

The whole National Anthem thread here, here, here, here and here.

Tom Stafford contemplates the best way to study:

Wanting to remember, or telling people to remember, isn’t effective. If you want to remember something you need to think about it deeply. This means you need to think about what you are trying to remember means, both in relationship to other material you are trying to learn, and to yourself.

Other research in memory has shown the importance of schema – memory patterns and structures – for recall. As teachers, we try and organise our course material for the convenience of students, to best help them understand it. Unfortunately, this organisation – the schema – for the material then becomes part of the assessment and something which students try to remember. What this research suggests is that, merely in terms of remembering, it would be more effective for students to come up with their own organisation for course material.

On a similar note, Scott Adams proposed that "You are what you learn":

If all you know is how to be a gang member, that's what you'll be, at least until you learn something else. If you become a marine, you'll learn to control fear. If you go to law school, you'll see the world as a competition. If you study engineering, you'll start to see the world as a complicated machine that needs tweaking. … It's easy to feel trapped in your own life. Circumstances can sometimes feel as if they form a jail around you. But there's almost nothing you can't learn your way out of.

Clintondale, New York, 9 am

A reader writes:

Do both Lee and Yglesias understand the reason for patents?  Yes, a patent gives the inventor the exclusive right to use his/her work for umpty-ump years.  But it also allows the inventor to lease those rights to others, for an amount agreed upon by the inventor and the would-be user, until the patent expires.  Yes, the world is a better place because Microsoft, Google, and Samsung used concepts created by Apple.  But they did so without paying Apple for the right to use those concepts, and without so much as an open acknowledgement of Apple's creation of those concepts.  Mr. Lee did use the right word – those concepts were stolen, and the word doesn't need to be put in
quotes.

Then again, these days, if your corporation is big enough, you don't need to bother with patent law or ethical use.  You can just hide behind your phalanx of attorneys and play a delaying game until your opponent either goes bust or gets so tired they quit fighting.

Another insists that "Apple shouldn't have been granted the 'slide to unlock' patent in the first place." Another:

As a patent law professor, I feel compelled to respond to this item.

Timothy B Lee and Yglesias argue that society is better off when good ideas can be used freely, and that is certainly correct on one level. But it does not follow that we should restrict or eliminate the patent laws, the existence of which arguably encourages the development and commercialization of those very good ideas. It is way too simplistic to say that because competition is good, copying of ideas should be allowed. The appropriate question is how we can create systems to encourage the development and dissemination of good ideas, which then can be expanded and built-upon by others. In broad strokes the patent laws try to do this, albeit I would be the first to suggest that they do so very imperfectly.

One frustration about public discussions of the patent system is a conflation of the policies underlying the system with the administrative implementation of those policies. The US Patent and Trademark Office grants about 250,000 patents per year. Thousands of these are granted even though they do not meet the standards for patentability (indeed, about 35-40% of all patents that are litigated in court are found to be invalid, though because of selection bias, this does not mean that 35% of all patents granted are invalid).

This is a very serious problem, and generates enormous costs for society. The reasons are complex and multifaceted – lack of resources, terrible incentives for patentees, administrative incompetence, and even political pressure all play a role. Looking at the posts you linked to, it appears that this was the original objection to Apple's slide-lock patent – various commentators claim that it already existed in the 'prior art'. If so, then the patent is likely invalid. (I do not know.) But even if true, that doesn't tell us much about whether the patent system could work well, given serious attention to it's administrative failings.

It is fashionable in the software industry in particular to take the view that new ideas should not be patentable because the world would be better off if those ideas were free to all. But that is a little like walking into a grocery store and making the claim that those delicious steaks should be free for all because we would all be better off. This makes sense only if you ignore that those steaks exist in that refrigerator case because of significant (and often risky) investments by a chain of private actors, and that without a fair return on the investments, there won't be steaks in the case in the future. Unfortunately, this is indeed the position that much of the high-tech industry has taken with respect to patents, typified by the ludicrous "patent reform" law signed by President Obama in September – a series of changes that simultaneously fails to address any of the causes of the problems with our patent system, while offering giveaways to those who infringe patents. Sadly, lobbying and manipulation of public opinion works, even in the technocratic world of patent law.

Today, the US is the most innovative, intellectually dynamic country in the world, no question. But our standard of living increasingly depends on the ability to develop and commercialize new ideas – and yes, "monetize" these ideas. The patent system, warts and all, underlies this innovative engine. We misunderstand it at our peril.

Matt Mikalatos makes the case: 

We tell monster stories because we’re afraid of what we are and what we could become. Werewolf stories are inevitably about what happens when a man loses the battle to control his "natural" urges. Vampire stories (at least traditional ones) are about selfish beings who steal blood to prolong their lives, the precise opposite of Christ, who gave his blood willingly to provide the chance of eternal life for others. Zombies are all about a perverted resurrection… an eternal life that isn’t worth living, because it’s a type of continual death.

Dahlia Lithwick acknowledges how some random guy's handwritten screed is better than anything a pundit could have thought up:

We are the most media-saturated 24-hour-cable-soaked culture in the world, and yet around the country, on Facebook and at protests, people are holding up cardboard signs, the way protesters in ancient Sumeria might have done when demonstrating against a rise in the price of figs. And why is that? Because they very wisely don’t trust television cameras and microphones to get it right anymore. Because a media constructed around the illusion of false equivalencies, screaming pundits, and manufactured crises fails to capture who we are and what we value.

In the above video, Iain McGilchrist argues that modern society promotes the left side of our brains at the expense of the right (and superior) hemisphere. A snippet: 

Both hemispheres are necessary, McGilchrist says … “but one is more fundamentally important than the other, and sees more than the other, even though there are some things that it must not get involved with, if it is to maintain its broader, more complete–in essence more truthful–vision. This is the right hemisphere, which, as I demonstrate from the neuropsychological literature, literally sees more, and grounds the understanding of the left hemisphere–an understanding which must ultimately be re-integreted with the right hemisphere, if it is not to lead to error. The left hemisphere is extraordinarily valuable as an intermediate, but not as a final authority.”

Macy Halford examines the possibilities:

Apps of the Bible are now more frequently downloaded than Angry Birds, and the sacred texts of other religions aren’t far behind: there’s an iQuran, iTorah, and a digital Book of Mormon. …  For Catholics, there's EZPray, the Vatican-endorsed iBreviary, and Confession (which leads you through a personalized “examination of conscience” to prepare you for the sacrament)

He has to have some strategy when the UN vote for membership status fails. Some straws in the wind in this piece from Asharq Al-Awsat.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com