February 2012
3 posts
3 tags
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Do you know where all the really sad stories I’m getting are coming from? They’re coming, it turns out. from kids. Kids in college. I’m starting to think something is just deeply wrong with the youth of America. First of all, a truly disturbing number of them are interested in writing fiction. Truly disturbing. And more than interested, actually. You don’t get the sorts of things I’ve been...
December 2011
1 post
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November 2011
3 posts
“Designers talk a good game about culture, but it is rare to see them address...”
– Grant McCracken - via: Is Design Thinking Dead? Hell No. (via jeanphony)
“Mr. Bloomberg met daily with several deputies and commissioners, and as more...”
– This meme, of journalists describing elected officials (or, nonsensically, municipalities) as moving to dismantle these protests because their “patience wore thin” is particularly irksome. Because, and any competent editor/reporter should know this, the right to peaceably assemble isn’t subject to...
5 tags
“Learning is not punishment. It is a reward. If it is made a punishment, you...”
– Stanley Bosworth, founder of St. Ann’s School
October 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Co-signed
Courage is this thing that you dig out of a pit of shame, most of the time, I think.
I think courage is not this thing where you walk around - I mean, that’s the people who are full of crap, is the people who walk around acting all courageous and saying the right thing. I think the real courage is to be somebody incredibly broken who occasionally pulls it out. Like, that’s courage....
4 tags
August 2011
3 posts
4 tags
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Apple App Store reviews →
Maybe the much-decried culture of entitlement in the reviews is in fact an expression of powerlessness…
chartier:
The typical user feels pretty powerless around technology. The industry is run by large, faceless corporations that are usually almost impossible to get in touch with. Exhibit A: part of the popularity of Apple’s retail stores and online interactive support tools is that...
7 tags
“I have this theory about modernism and fantasy, which I’ll do in 30 seconds....”
– Lev Grossman | Books | Interview | The A.V. Club
July 2011
3 posts
“Are you standing in someone’s place? Do you perhaps owe them something for...”
– Trying to Remember the Beginning of the AIDS Crisis, 30 Years Later - Culture - GOOD
1 tag
“People complain New Yorkers are rude, which is imprecise. New Yorkers are some...”
– Here Is Everything I Learned in New York City - The Morning News
2 tags
“Psychologists tell us that the more stimuli people are bombarded with, the more...”
– You got a problem with that? | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine
June 2011
7 posts
“In an alternate universe, DFW is still alive, and is still writing about...”
– American McCarver. Your Sports Blog.
3 tags
“Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We...”
– How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet by Douglas Adams in 1999(!) and just as relevant today.
5 tags
Watchvellum:
Extending the Touchscreen - ITP Thesis Teaser (by Michael Knuepfel)
This gets awesomer as it goes.
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It's all about the carry →
chartier:
The thing I am concerned about is the constraints that the traditional computing side of Windows 8 will enforce on its hardware. Microsoft touts its upcoming OS as a jack of both trades: you can touch and swipe through books, news, and videos while carrying your tablet around the house or the park, then sit down at your desk and plug the tablet into a USB keyboard, external disk, or...
3 tags
"After content farms, there is no difference... →
maura:
A little light reading for your Friday. (It sort of stumbles to a finish, but it’s still very O_o-inducing.)
(Via Whiney.)
May 2011
8 posts
“The Center had much to recommend it. Its doors knew me from a distance. They...”
– Galatea 2.2 (1995)
5 tags
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“Another concern of Mr. Keller’s is the prediction by many that the smartphones...”
– This Is Your Brain on Twitter - NYTimes.com (emphasis added)
Nick Bilton gets it right, as per usual.
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Another thing Obama's getting right →
This is actually a really impressive piece of work. Kudos to the designers.
chartier:
Huge redesign. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see more government websites look like they were designed within the current decade.
April 2011
3 posts
4 tags
That wacky, wacky patriarchy
julieklausner:
This New Yorker article is to stupid as their Scientology piece was to crazy. Of the many insane, jaw-droppingly stupid quotes attributed to film producers featured in Tad Friend’s piece about women, film and comedy, this is my favorite:
“Both men and women can relate to Kevin James in ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop,’ who’s the little guy being shat upon.”
LOL, be right back u guyz!...
“Not to be “that guy,” but seriously, fuck April Fool’s Day on the Internet.”
– maura
March 2011
9 posts
3 tags
“There are likely to be more Barbie dolls connected to the internet in ten years...”
– Nicholas Negroponte, 1999 via Fuck Yeah Internet Fridge
4 tags
"Did we just walk in a circle?" →
….and some of my respect for Aaron Sorkin returns.
4 tags
J-P Teti: The iPad is 99% more open than any other... →
An eighth-grader understands something many grown-up engineers do not.
roboteti:
The iPad is actually opening up technology to more people. None of this crap about it being closed is accurate. By giving people freedom to explore the app store without having to worry about anything (except their wallets), Apple has possibly made the best move they could make by locking down the iPad’s...
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July 2010
1 post
3 tags
“To state the provisions of the Alice Tax simply, which is the only way Alice allows them to be stated, it calls for this: after a certain level of income, the government would simply take everything. When Alice says confiscatory, she means confiscatory.
The ruling principle of the Alice Tax is the concept of enoughness — a concept so foreign to the current American notions of...
May 2010
2 posts
2 tags
4 tags
“The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a...”
– Sex and Gender « xkcd
April 2010
2 posts
3 tags
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March 2010
6 posts
The Archaeology of the Ignorance of Pre-Internet... →
And just to finish up the trifecta…
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“…younger readers are probably not familiar with the concept of the...”
– Alex Balk perfectly captures the vertigo of looking back on your not-*that*-long-ago analog youth, and in a love song to the Magnetic Fields no less.
The Magnetic Fields: Live At Town Hall, New York City, March 11, 2010 - The Awl