Signal versus noise

We were tearing up old newspapers the other day for a craft project, and so had a quickfire roundup of the daily news headlines over the summer. All just noiseI realised, with very little signal. This is not to blame the newspapers, just to say that nearly all of the most important events over the last 24 hours (any last 24 hours) is not that important at all.

Most politics reporting is noise. What Miliband/Fox/IDS/Johnson/whoever said yesterday to a reporter or what some unidentified source said about something is not that important. That’s all noise. The signal is Labour out; coalition in; “cuts” ahead.

“Business” reporting is noise. Stock markets and currency exchanges aren’t really business anyway (not to disparage them, just stating a fact); and the intra-day movements of either are just noise unless you are a day trader, which you aren’t. The signal is data over quarters and years, not hours.

Sports reporting that isn’t reporting on an actual match is noise. I hate it when England are playing cricket yet the sports pages lead on close-season transfer speculation in football.

Celebrity news is noise. There is no signal.

Noises off

The old flat was on a main road, in a large converted house in a road of large converted houses. We were blessed with quiet neighbours, but the traffic noise was a semi-constant background, which we only noticed once we were free of it. Because the houses were large and mostly broken into flats the people were either assured shorthold tenancy transients, or were too far down their driveways to interact.

The new flat is in a converted terrace on a residential side road, lined with terrace houses on both sides. There is very little traffic noise to speak of, which is a pleasure; but the noise can still be significant. Only this noise is the noise of people, not cars. Walking home from work the other day I was struck by the number of people coming and going and chatting to neighbours, and children playing on the paths.

I don’t know how long we will be here for, which means that it can be easy to avoid making connections with the neighbours because it might not be for long. That’s the trade-off with being mobile and flexible – where do you grow your roots?