Sleep much?

Posted on by albrooke

Do you have trouble going to sleep (or staying asleep)?  I have friends who wake up in the night to take melatonin (which seems counterproductive, though I don’t want to be discouraging).  My method is to make sure that the temperature in the house starts with a “6” in fahrenheit (“5” would work better, but my family would protest from under their mounds of elk skins).

In any case, The New Yorker (“Annals of Insomnia”) has an amusing article for anyone who has (or fears) sleep issues:

Patricia Marx, “In Search of Forty Winks: Gizmos for a good night’s sleep” The New Yorker (Feb. 8 & 15, 2016) [link]

Read it tonight — not on your computer, silly, avoid that blue light!  Print it out and leave it on your bedside table.

Stealing “white”

Posted on by albrooke

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“This is theft. And this — stealing the color white — is a very good example of the problem. It’s not a national security secret. It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates.”

John Carlin, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice (National Security Division.  Del Quentin Wilber, “Stealing White: How a corporate spy swiped plans for DuPont’s billion-dollar color formula” Bloomberg Businessweek (Feb. 4, 2016)[link]

This story has everything—simple chemistry, industrial espionage, criminal prosecution, and international travel!  The details seem criminal—hacking private computers, bribing disgruntled ex-employees, secret safe-deposit boxes, lying to federal agents—but there is something about the basic chemistry which seems like it should not be protectable.  So simple: Ti + O + O.  But like many things it is more complicated than that.

Further reading: FBI press release: “Walter Liew Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Economic Espionage” (7/11/2014) [link]; “U.S. v. Liew: Opening Statements and FBI Testimony Kick Off Seven-Week Industrial Espionage Trial” Orrick (1/8/2014) [link].

Dark Corners

Posted on by albrooke

Dark CornersDefinitely dark, this little book is well-crafted, if (honestly) ultimately unfulfilling.

Stephen King apparently said “No one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence,” and indeed all the characters (but one) are either obsessive, unstable or malignant (or a combination of all three). Whereas it is common in certain types of fiction to be frustrated with a character’s bad choices, that only happens if we have established some sympathy for the characters.  I’m not sure that happened in this multithreaded plot.

But you may have a different opinion. Ruth Rendell, Dark Corners (2015). [amazon link]

Perception and acceptance

Posted on by albrooke

“And Grace calls out, ‘You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.’ Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.”

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

#sanbernardino

Posted on by albrooke

Politicians and public figures are fundamentally like all other human beings and have the same basic responses to tragedy. This is true no matter their position on controversial issues of policy (say, gun control). So it is no surprise that they respond immediately, like the rest of us do, with familiar words and phrases that express their human solidarity with those who suffer. Even the most accomplished speechwriters will take hours or days to come up with words adequate to great suffering. No human being, even the most articulate, can offer adequate words in the first moments after terrible news. To demonstrate that level of rhetorical fluency would in fact be to demonstrate an inhuman lack of empathy. Inarticulacy is the proper, empathic immediate response to tragedy.

Excellent musing on the responses (and counter-responses) to the San Bernardino shooting.

Andy Crouch, “On ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ After the San Bernardino Shooting: Prayer—and lament—is the proper first response to tragedy.”  Christianity Today (December 3, 2015) (link).