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Malcolm Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson’s Free in TNY. As an author Gladwell is too eager to see connections where there are none (i.e. Nambobola na yata), but this review is solid.

. . .“Free” is essentially an extended elaboration of Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that “information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online”. . .

Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93.

He had spent decades thinking through the lessons of the war. The greatest of these was to know one’s enemy — and to “empathize with him,” as Mr. McNamara explained in Errol Morris’s 2003 documentary, “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.”

“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” he asked. He found the question impossible to answer.

For our weekly vino-vino (as opposed to cafe-cafe and sine-sine) Chus and I went to Barcino in the basement of Greenbelt 5. It’s a deli with wine, cheese, cold cuts and a few chairs.

First we had Fuet, because how can we resist a fatty sausage called fuet, and Manchego.

Then I asked about stinky cheeses and the staff suggested Cabrales, a goat cheese. It’s green, it smells like something has died, and it coats the roof of your mouth like sebo. Wonderful.

In his mind-opening book The Drunkard’s Walk (a mathematical term describing random motion), Leonard Mlodinow points out that in uncertain situations, we use our intuitive processes to make assessments and decisions. “Those processes no doubt carried an evolutionary advantage when we had to decide whether a saber-toothed tiger was smiling because it was fat and happy or because it was famished and saw us as its next meal,” Mlodinow says in the wry, breezy style that makes The Drunkard’s Walk such a pleasure to read — and it’s a math book. “But the modern world has a different balance, and today those intuitive processes come with drawbacks.”

Everything Is Random. Deal With It. Emotional Weather Report in the Star.

It’s Roger Federer with grand slam number 15 at Wimbledon, and history. Fifth set: 16-14. He looked altogether too relaxed, even when we had eaten most of our fingernails. Why do you do this to us? Oh right, he doesn’t know we exist.

A big hand for Andy Roddick, who repeatedly refused to go away. Not bad for a Rick Astley fan, although an inspection of players’ iPods would probably yield far greater embarrassments. A big-serve epic, the final was the opposite of the anticlimax we’d expected. The match was not decided until the very last point, providing a cardiovascular workout for Fed fans.

Dorski: End it now! Do you want Mirka to give birth on Centre Court?

Me: Actually I think he would like it.

I learned from the Guardian that Roger lost his luggage arriving at Heathrow. The perfect excuse to go shopping-mad, but what does he do? He buys replacement clothes at Oxfam. Rog, Rog, Rog, if we didn’t love you we’d hate your guts.

Before the final started I thought I was coming down with a cold, but the matched cured it. True, I drank enough tea for all the Brits still waiting for a local champion after Fred Perry hoisted the trophy in the 30s.

Hey Woody!

Later Roger stated an incontestable fact of life. “Tennis Is Cruel.” Bear that in mind, kids.

Update. With his victory at Wimbledon, Roger Federer has regained the world number one position. This was not one of his artistic triumphs, but we’ll take it. He showed us something his critics have long accused him of not having: guts. Roger was tough today. All hail the King.

And after months of watchful silence, it is time to examine our ranks and punish the turncoats. Yes, you who went over to the other side at the first hint of trouble, who now come crawling back to us.
You fair weather fans. Bandwagon jumpers. Traitors. You will feel our backhand.

Lisa Ongpin Periquet is switching between the Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories and Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil’s Legends and Adventures.

Jerome Gomez is reading Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts. This elegant, smart, funny book was first published by Hearst in 1949. Jerome’s copy is a 1977 edition, a gift from his sister when he recently moved into his own place. She found it at the bookay-ukay on Maginhawa Street.

Jerrold Tarog is reading Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks—case studies of people who experience musical seizures, hallucinations, and other epiphanies. He’s planning to reread Culture of Hope by Frederick Turner, his college bible on the definition of art.

Leo Abaya is reading By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art by Hung and Magliaro, and Conversations with Edward Said.

I’m finishing The Lazarus Project, then I’m reading The Engagement, a novel by Georges Simenon that does not feature Inspector Maigret. It was filmed in the 90s as Monsieur Hire.