July 2010
119 posts
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Where's the remotest place on Earth? →
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“People whose governing habit is the relinquishment of power, competence, and...”
– Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, pg. 24
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“The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and...”
– William Deresiewicz, The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
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Surfing on Entropy
notational:
ekstasis:
Brian Eno: People tend to think that it’s total control or no control. But the interesting place is in the middle of that. Kevin Kelly: Right. We have no word for that state of in-between control. We have some words like “management,” or “herding,” or “husbandry.” All these are words for co-control. Brian Eno: I call it “surfing.” When you surf, there is a powerful...
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WatchNice animation for this new paper-eating table!
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“Engaged by brilliant illuminations; challenged by reading in Latin, without...”
– Elizabeth Drescher, on illuminated manuscripts
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“The function of these images in illuminated manuscripts has no small bearing on...”
– Elizabeth Drescher, comparing illuminated manuscripts to hypertext
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“…we now produce enough bullets each year to kill every person on the...”
– Ed Moses
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WatchWriting in my office…
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Even the Brilliant are Wrong Sometimes
I think the idea that internally consistent logic does not guarantee efficacy is pretty plain. But there is another pitfall that tends to inflate the talk bubble that I’d like to dismantle. This one has to do with the personality-driven style that much of our industry’s “strategy” is propped up by. To explain this, a historical example…
In 1650, a German scholar...
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A fantastic interpretation of Inception... →
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“From the perspective of your brain, dreaming and movie-watching are strangely...”
– Jonah Lehrer
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WatchThe End of History - the beer.
I must say I’m intrigued…
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“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
– Philip K. Dick (via randomsignal)
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Internal Logic ≠ External Efficacy
Imagine you and a small group of people are dropped in the center of a labyrinth in the middle of the night. You are tasked with coming up with a plan of escape. You spend the next day immersed in discussion, inspection, consideration and reflection on past your labyrinthian experience, before finalizing your strategy. You even write it down neatly with a very nice diagram of the labyrinth as...
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“By some miracle he is able to sound both uber-confident and completely baffled...”
– Nick Zammuto of The Books, on their song, “I Am Who I Am.”
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Happy Birthday, Michael! Everything you ever... →
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WatchMy walk to work…
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“Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe...”
– Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress, page 57
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“We’ve known for years that the Web allows for unprecedented voyeurism,...”
– Jeffrey Rosen
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Your Move: The Maze of Free Will →
Interesting, though with all the mention of moral responsibility, it would be helpful to examine whether absolute moral values exist at all. Without that question answered as a foundation, sorting out whether we are culpable for our actions is a bit beside the point. After that, if you really want to see it through, address *to whom* we are culpable.
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TOP SECRET AMERICA: An Investigation from The... →
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The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit that seeks... →
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