From the essay Zombies in Western Culture, which a friend recommended I read:

Clearly, the zombie has transcended the constraints of its own genre. Whereas early zombie films closely adhered to horror tropes, more recent renditions have wed themselves to comedy and romance (Zack Snyder released the comedic Shaun of the Dead in 2004 to critical and popular acclaim), and broken away from melodrama.

Emphasis is mine, and I still can’t get over this mistake. Clearly the comedic masterpiece Shaun of the Dead is Part 1 of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto triology ⊕ Part 2, Hot Fuzz is even better! and has nothing to do with Zack Snyder.

Is this an intentional troll? Zack Snyder does attract a lot of 4Chan attention. But how am I supposed to take the any of the essay’s many meandering philosophical references ⊕ And I thought medical jargon was bad… seriously if they can’t get this one basic thing right? Submit myself to voluntary Gell-Man amnesia?

Finished reading: The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y Gasset 📚

A series of essays published in 1929 that shows just how much we have been spinning in circles since the spasm of WW2. A reactionary right that wants all of the privileges of a liberal democracy without any of its obligations. A revolutionary left which uses its disgust for the current state of things as an excuse not to get involved in the messy business of fixing them. A middle free for ideals, morals, or goals.

It makes for fine reading, if you ignore the European imperialism and unabashed racism of the author who would, I am sure, be horrified to learn that his worst fears about the faith of Europe have been realized.

Finished reading: Fundamentals of Clinical Trials by Lawrence M. Friedman 📚

It is assigned reading for a course I’m helping prepare, so I thought I’d better read the book we’ll ask our students to use. Like many textbooks, it suffers from MANE — many authors no editors — and like many academic texts, it can get way too pedantic. Still, it is hard to argue with its overarching themes: that randomized controlled trials are the pinnacle of medical evidence generation, and that much of the trial paperwork done in the name of quality is unnecessary. I have more comments on that last point, but that is for another time.

At the very start of the textbook Fundamentals of Clinical Trials the authors make a distinction between clinical trials — comparing two or more different interventions — and clinical studies, which merely describe an intervention without comparing it to anything. So, there can be no such thing as a “Phase 1 trial”, since they typically involve a single drug at different doses and schedules. The only true trials, according to the authors, would fall under Phase 3, or Phase 2b at the earliest.

This is stupid, misleading, and not at all how the words “trial” and “study” are used by anyone else, including the biggest and most important drug regulatory agency in the world. There are many such pointless exercises of professorial power in medicine, including my favorite: whether the correct pronunciation of “+” in “7+3” is “plus” or “and”. They amount to nothing more than purity tests that award the wielders of the right language a false sense of precision. As Nassim Taleb wrote, nitpicking is the enemy of thought.

The rest of the book is good enough, but more on that later.

Finished reading: 1177 B.C. by Eric H. Cline 📚

Come for the meticulously documented story of the Bronze Age collapse, stay for what preceded it: alliances, feuds and intrigue to rival anything you’d find in the Game of Thrones.

📚 An unpopular opinion: nonfiction audiobooks are an oxymoron. Those which are better heard than read (see: Gladwell) are entertainment disguised as education, giving only an illusion of understanding.

The very best works of fiction, however, work equally well as either.

Finished reading: How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia 📚

“Finished” as in read every word on the page, yes. But to actually finish this one will take a few years’ worth of listening, as you can imagine. At least I won’t be listening blindly.

Finished reading: Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott Scheper 📚🗃️

There are two and a half books here for the price of one in this note-keeping samizdat:

• one: a brief practical guide on how to make an analogue note system;
• two: an exhaustive list of more or less science-based reasons for why you would pick analogue over digital;
• and a half: the author’s self-conscious and slightly over the top running commentary about it all.

The first one was spot on and valuable. The second needed an editor: repeated paragraphs were peppered throughout the chapters a few too many times for me to find it just charming. But an editor may also have cut the commentary, which ended up adding some sparkle — lacking in most other non-fiction books.

Better than expected, even after accounting for low initial expectations. See number 24 here

Currently reading: How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia 📚

Always wonderful to read experts in their craft writing about it. Two dozen pages in and I am already picking up on concepts beyond jazz, efortless teamwork versus dysfunctional prima donnas being broadly relevant.

Finished reading: On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt 📚

A timeless masterpiece that takes less than an hour to read, much longer to digest. What reminded me of Frankfurt’s essay was an article about the age of the bullshitter which, alas, ended up being its own kind of bullshit.