Currently Reading - "Touching A Nerve" by Patricia Churchland

Nothing groundbreaking to report here so far. I'm already convinced that I am my brain, and that dualism is bunk, and that we do not survive our own death. There has been some discussion of the neuroevolution of morality and mammalian caring, which is interesting to examine at the level of hormones and their receptors in the brain (specifically, oxytocin and vasopressin).

I was interested in Churchland's book (which I became aware of through here interview on The Colbert Report) because the study of neurophilosophy sounds so dang sexy. In the latter half of the book (which I have yet to read), I'm hoping for a little more in the philosophy department with regard to the broader implications of 'neuroexistentialism'.

Rawls Well That Ends Well

If it is 'Rawlsian' to think that society should be organized so as to mitigate the inequities inherent to arbitrary circumstances of birth (which are not of our own choosing) in order to eliminate (or at least limit) the impediments to potential human flourishing, then I guess I'm a 'Rawlsian'.

But I dunno, I haven't read his book.

Death & Risk: Some Perspective

Our intuition about risk does not often comport with the available statistics. We tend to be afraid of incredibly rare things like terrorism or school shootings, while downplaying the dangers of something as mundane as driving a car. The number of annual gun deaths in the United States is roughly the same as those who die in car accidents every year, about 30 000. About two thirds of those gun deaths are from suicide. Yet we tend to be quite a bit more fearful of gun violence than car violence. The fear is not proportional to the data.

It's not that we shouldn't be afraid of guns. Rather, we should be more cognizant of just how risky driving can be. The psychology of fear is not always rational, and what we are exposed to in the media certainly skews our perspective even further. This is just one example among many, of course. Summer beach season is approaching, which can only mean one thing... SHARKS!

So what should we be afraid of? Well that depends on when and where you live(d), but here's a pretty good breakdown of death in the 20th Century. If that's not enough, here's a handy list of 150 things smart people are worried about. Some responses are serious, others not so much. (I think water scarcity is going to become a big deal globally fairly soon.)

But aside from risk and fear, what do we think about the numbers? As I was scrolling through this infographic comparing death toll numbers, I was reminded of this statistic: Over seven million children die every year before reaching the age of five.

Just let that thought detonate in your brain.

Now consider how little sleep you will lose over it.

Scary. Now imagine trying not to lose any sleep if you learned that you will lose your little finger tomorrow (à la Adam Smith).

Scarier.

(Still) Currently Reading: "Demonic Males" by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson

Evolutionary feminists would remove our inhibitions about examining animal behavior as a technique for thinking about human behavior. They would insist that people can think about the evolutionary pressures that elicit rape, for example, or other forms of violence, without necessitating any absurd pronouncement that because rape is "natural" it is in any way forgivable. After all, no one considers the case of the black widow spider, who kills and eats her male counterpart after mating, to mean that murder and cannibalism are okay. Any behaviors can still be studied as biological phenomena, regardless of how unpleasant they are.

Despite the admirable intentions of those who believe that patriarchy is solely a cultural invention, there is too much contrary evidence. Patriarchy is worldwide and history-wide, and its origins are detectable in the social lives of chimpanzees. It serves the reproductive purposes of the men who maintain the system. Patriarchy comes from biology in the sense that it emerges from men's temperaments, out of their evolutionarily derived efforts to control women and at the same time have solidarity with fellow men in competition against outsiders. But evolutionary forces have surely shaped women, too, in minds as in bodies, in ways that both defy and contribute to the patriarchal system. If all women followed Lysistrata's injunctions and refused their husbands, they could indeed effect change. But they don't. Patriarchy has its ultimate origins in male violence, but it doesn't come from man alone, and it has its sources in the evolutionary interests of both sexes.

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson

So. Much. Win.  

Currently Reading: "Demonic Males" by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson

Very few animals live in patrilineal, male-bonded communities wherein females routinely reduce the risks of inbreeding by moving to neighbouring groups to mate. And only two animal species are known to do so with a system of intense, male-initiated territorial aggression, including lethal raiding into neighbouring communities in search of vulnerable enemies to attack and kill. Out of four thousand mammals and ten million or more other animal species, this suite of behaviours is known only among chimpanzees and humans.

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson

Now this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has a passing interest in anthropology and primates, and I am not quoting this as some kind of revelation here (this particular book was published in 1996, after all). I just feel the idea of our shared common ancestry with chimps bears endless repeating. Our closest living relatives engage in some of the same types of ugly behaviour that we do, such as organized warfare and procuring sex through violence (i.e. rape). However, the significance of this basic observation is either unknown to or ignored by some social theorists and Über-liberal blank slaters, who prefer to think that the evils of war and rape are human inventions that we may rid ourselves of if they weren't simultaneously being conjured up and glorified/legitimized/perpetuated by male culture. 

I'm mainly referring to the more radical elements of feminist theory here about how male violence is purely a social construct. Such a claim seems ludicrous on its face in light of the available evidence of our biological evolutionary heritage. Males especially are apparently predisposed toward violence. Of course, this requires that something resembling a 'human nature' exists in some form, an idea that is thoroughly rejected in some academic circles. 

The knee jerk reaction to claiming that violence is part of human nature is that this is somehow meant to be taken as an endorsement for it. While it may be that rape is a natural phenomenon (chimps do it, and I'm not sure any sane person could argue they are operating within the confines of some form of "rape culture"), it does not necessarily follow that this is behaviour is desirable. It is not an appeal to nature. It is merely an attempt to explain the world using available evidence. It sucks that dudes do bad things, but that doesn't give us license to make stuff up about why it happens.

This is not to say that culture cannot exacerbate or mitigate these nasty types of behaviour. I think this is quite clearly the case. It is just that culture is not solely responsible form them, as is sometimes claimed. To illustrate this point, anyone who asks a question such as "how do children learn to aggress?" has it all backwards. The real question should be "how do children learn not to aggress?" Setting our thoughts straight about the how and why of human violence (which almost always perpetrated by males) will allow us to be more effective when it comes to creating the kinds of social conditions we desire. We didn't invent bro culture recently, we evolved it long ago.

The evolution of violence as an adaptive strategy for achieving certain goals has far more explanatory power than social constructivist theory when it comes to why people behave badly in spite of having 'learned' not to. Culture can only go so far, and some individuals will always find a way to break our hearts. Admittedly, this is a rather tragic view of human nature, but it seems the most accurate one.

10km PR - 51:49

I wasn't planning on doing an uptempo run today, especially after the 21km jaunt two days ago. This one started out rather leisurely and I was feeling good after 5km, so I decided to try and keep the pace somewhere around 5:00/km for the rest of the 10km run. To my knowledge, this is the fastest I've ever run the distance. It looks like I stopped my GPS watch (Garmin Forerunner 305) prematurely by 0.19m. But hey, who's counting?

I'd like to bring it under 50 minutes, a goal which should be reachable in the near future with a little speedwork and a stronger start focused on consistently nailing a 5:00/km pace. Sprints and fartleks are more of a summer thing which I prefer to run on the trail once the snow has cleared. Shouldn't be long now.

Currently Reading: "Columbine"

"The media version [of Columbine] was a gross caricature of how [the students] saw it, and of what they thought they had described.

"It made it difficult for social scientists or journalists to come to Littleton later, to study the community in-depth and see what was really going on. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle had played out in full force: by observing an entity, you alter it. ... Heisenberg was a quantum physicist, observing electron behavior. But social scientists began applying his principle to humans. It was remarkable how similarly we behaved. During the third week of April, Littleton was observed beyond all recognition."

From "Columbine" by Dave Cullen 

While this book somehow manages to be meticulous in its detail while remaining engaging and accessible, I am hesitant to consume large portions of it in single sessions. This is because one is required to take frequent breaks in order to digest what one has just read. The topic is obviously horrific, and yet it is as relevant as ever. The writing is disarming. I have yet to decide if this is good or bad.

I have little memory of how the events unfolded in the media as they happened. My understanding of the shooting took shape later with the Michael Moore documentary Bowling For Columbine. I don't recall when I first watched it but the documentary wasn't released until 2002, a little over three years after the tragedy. Moore dealt mainly with the culture surrounding guns in America and how ubiquitous and easy to acquire they are. But the doc also touched on how the shooters were represented by the media and how people tried to rationalize the horror we had just collectively witnessed.

Which brings me to the quote from the book. In the race to find answers (which presumes answers exist in the first place), the media inevitably taints their own reporting by repeating unverified reports and relying on "eyewitness accounts" of the tragedy. Unfortunately in this case, as Cullen aptly points out, "witness" is conflated with "student". Not every student saw what happened, and yet their stories are both sought after and widely reported with little consideration for how this may affect the stories we are all constantly writing and revising in our own minds. This creates a kind of feedback loop of obfuscation where "more information" actually brings us further away from the truth. Thus, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Memories are notoriously unreliable and prone to confabulation, yet we all place an undue amount of trust in our ability to accurately recollect the past. The brain rushes in to fill the gaps and reduce dissonance. There may be no intent to deceive, but an inherently faulty memory can do real damage in situations like these. Things get jumbled up in the chaos, and responders have to make decisions in real time based on unreliable information. Investigators then in turn have to deal with rumours masquerading as truth, which impairs their ability to ultimately find it.

Then there is everyone else who is struggling to make sense of it all. They latch on to misrepresentations, conjecture, and any other tidbit of  information (reliable or otherwise) which will allow them to speculate in any number of ways. This is where confirmation bias creeps in, where we seek to reaffirm our preconceived ideas about video games, androgenous rock stars, Goths, gun culture, etc. Whatever fits. Stories are built up and people become entrenched. Narratives become nearly impervious to truth, and real work must be done to change the minds that have already been made up.

I'm just starting Part Three of the book, "The Downward Spiral" which details the individual characters responsible for the attack. Further down the rabbit hole I go...

AT-LP120 Pre-Amp Removal Mod - Test Recordings

AT-LP120 Pre-Amp Removal Mod - Test Recordings
44/16 FLAC (ZIP)

Many owners of the Audio Technica AT-LP120 report that when they bypass the internal pre-amp for use with an external one, the sound is somewhat dark and closed in. I, too, have found this to be the case. Using the built-in preamp results in a rather brighter sound, though it often approaches 'harsh' levels and can even accentuate surface noise. To remedy this, folks have chosen to mod this turntable by completely removing the internal preamp / USB circuit board and connecting the wires from the tonearm directly to the RCA output cables.

I have performed this mod and made a few recordings to test the before and after results.

METHOD

Here is a video demonstrating how this modification is performed (I did not make this video):

I'm no expert electrical engineer (I'm not even a novice one), and I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. I probably wouldn't have been able to attempt this without the help and confidence provided by the Youtube video. But it really wasn't too difficult a process. The most tedious part is reassembling the bottom half of the table with those teeny tiny little spacers that move out of position if you merely blink in their general direction.

Aside from connecting the correct wires from the tonearm to the RCA output plugs, you need to "install" your own ground wire for use with your external preamp. It's just a matter of finding some spare wire and stripping the ends -- nothing special here, and I didn't even attach one of those fancy spade connectors to the receiver/preamp end.

The tracks I've used for the comparison are:

The Beatles - "Taxman" {Revolver (1966) - Capitol ST-2576 1971 Reissue}

Emmylou Harris - "One Of These Days" {Profile (1978) - Original US Pressing (Warner Bros. Records - BSK 3258)}

Matthew Wilder - "Break My Stride" {I Don't Speak The Language (1983) - Original CDN Pressing (Epic - FZ 39112)}

For each song, I recorded four different versions (all using the Ortofon 2M Blue moving magnet cartridge):

Unmodded with Built In Preamp - This is a straight recording using the tables internal amp switched ON.

Unmodded with Cambridge Audio 551p - This is with the internal preamp switched OFF, using an external preamp.

Modded with Cambridge Audio 551p - This is with the internal preamp board REMOVED, using an external preamp.

Rega RP1 with Cambridge Audio 551p - This is a kind of 'control' group to measure the AT-LP120 against once modded.

Note: These are straight recordings that have not been click-repaired. Volume adjustments have been made to allow for comparison.

 RESULTS

First of all, the most important result is that I didn't break the turntable. My connections all appeared to work perfectly, and there's no weird unexpected noises coming from the deck. It's the same as it ever was. A promising start, but how does it sound?

Here's what the frequency analysis looks like for "Taxman" in the order listed above (click for full view):

A simple listening test can very easily distinguish between the built-in preamp and the 551p with the internal preamp bypassed (switched off). The difference is stark and I was surprised by how much 'bypassing' the preamp affected the sound. One would assume that turning it off and using a higher quality external preamp would result in a better signal, but this is not the case. In a way, you're almost better off using the internal amp because it doesn't result in a such a muddy and dead sound. The only way to fix it is to yank the whole circuit board out all together.

So I did just that, and again the difference is noticeable. With the 551p, the sound after the mod is bright and lively, but not too harsh. The high end roll off is much less steep with the 551p after the table has been modded. There's even a slight boost in the 5kHz-10kHz range. With the internal preamp left in and switched off, the frequency response starts taking a dive at round 6kHz. You don't need to have dog-like hearing to notice that.

After the AT-LP120 has been modded, the sound it produces sounds remarkably similar to the Rega RP1 using the same cartridge and preamp. It appears the RP1 has a slightly better frequency response, but only marginally so. This likely comes down to the tonearm and overall construction of the table.

 CONCLUSION

With the internal preamp circuit board left in the AT-LP120, there is effectively no way to upgrade the sound with an external preamp. With the built in preamp switched off, the sound coming out of the turntable is veiled and somewhat muddy. Using the internal preamp goes a little too far in the opposite direction, resulting in an often excessively bright sound. The only way to get the most out of this table with an external preamp is to perform a little surgery. And it's worth it.

I would recommend this mod to anyone who wishes to use the table with an external preamp. There is literally no point in using an external preamp unless you cut out the internal one. The dark sound is unavoidable otherwise (unless you opt to continue using the built in preamp).

Vinyl Rip Test Recordings - FLAC (zip)

** These music recordings are for educational purposes only. **