Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Charlie Watts: Selling Out? When I Wrote Just For Money

He thinks he will leave. School life is unreal. All this is unreal. He has had enough. He can’t bear his colleagues. He can’t bear the boys any more either; en masse, he thinks, they’re horrible, like haddocks. He has to get out. He’ll live on his writing. His last book did well. He’ll write more. He’ll take a cottage in Scotland and spend his days fishing for salmon. Perhaps he’ll take the barmaid with him as his wife, the dark-eyed beauty he’s been courting for months, though he’s only in love with her emotionally, so far, and he hasn’t got anywhere, really, and those long hours sitting at the bar reduce him too often to hopeless drunkenness. He drinks too much. He has drunk too much, and he has been unhappy for a long time. But things are certain to change.

The notebook he writes in is grey. He’s stuck a photograph of one of his grass snakes on the cover, and written ETC above it in ink. The snake is suitable because this is his dream diary, though there are other things in it too: scraps of writing, lesson plans, line drawings of sphinxes and clawed dragons rampant, and the occasional stab at self-analysis:
1) Necessity of excelling in order to be loved.1
2) Failure to excel.
3) Why did I fail to excel? (Wrong attitude to what I was doing?)
Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk


Concerns raise over 'rushed' dark web powers for AFP: Human Rights Law Centre


An outsider with the breeding of an insider, John Cheever sought rarefied air but resisted joining the ranks of the well-to-do...  well to do …  


Charlie Watts RIP

Some things need to be noted, and Charlie Watts’ death is one of them. I am too much a Stones fan not to do so.
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Life: Ladies And Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!


It’s sad to acknowledge that time, eventually is not on our side. Mortality catches up to us all. The Rolling Stones, one of the most enduring rock ’n’ roll institutions, has lost its drummer Charlie Watts...

Someone once told me that Charlie Watts doesn’t hit the drums, he pulls the sound out of them. In a band full of outrageous characters, Charlie was the center of gravity. Like a ticking watch in the eye of a hurricane. Quiet & reserved, a good man who once punched mick jagdev...

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Data machine: the insurers using AI to reshape the industry Financial Times 


NSW police apologise for sending email with sensitive information to wrong person


Of course we should say we’re afraid – it’s the starting point for shattering the taboos that constrain us

I have posted this as a Twitter thread this morning. I suspect I will not be popular with some for doing so. But that is
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Morning cloud


Small World in Motion 2021 Winners



A Complete Guide to Not Getting Hacked

Gizmodo: “It’s never seemed less safe to surf the web. Here are some things to think about to keep from getting hacked… maybe. Nothing is certain in life…”


Win–win denial: The psychological underpinnings of zero-sum thinking. PsycNET 


Starbucks baristas say they’re fed up with complex custom drink orders that can verge on the ridiculous. Business Insider 


What About Autumn Reading, Hunh?

How "summer reading" (and beach reads) became a Thing. - The New York Times

The Pleasure Of Falling Asleep With A Book

That is, with a book slipping out of your fingers, or falling on your face or stomach. - The New York Times


Selling Out? When I Wrote Just For Money

"This was a question I also grappled with: could my creative prostitution involve high art, be the literary equivalent of Belle de Jour (1967), stylish and sexy, or would I have to roil in whorish filth, using cheap metaphors and knocked-off cliches?" - Aeon


Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Here’s How Amazon Third-Party Sellers Reportedly Hound Customers Who Leave Bad Reviews; Microsoft Edge’s ‘Super Duper Secure Mode’ Does What It Says; The Ethics of Data: Anonymity Vs Analytics; and Apple Can Scan Your Photos for Child Abuse and Still Protect Your Privacy – If the Company Keeps Its Promises.




 

Los Angeles school gets unexpected visitor as coyote walks into classroom on first day of schoolUSA Today


The Incredible Secret Science of Ants’ Underground Cities: How Ants Build Amazingly Complex and Stable Structures SciTech Daily


Filmmaker Ami Vitale Tells the Story of Kenya’s First Community-Owned Elephant Sanctuary Nuvo Magazine 


The Grand Canyon Is Missing a Billion Years’ Worth of Rocks. Scientists May Know Why Science Alert 


Why Are Farmers in Senegal Creating Gardens That Look Like Crop Circles? Atlas Obscura