Why millions of brains love (and hate) twitter [Psychology Today] →
Via @ario on Twitter itself.
posted 1 week ago on November 2nd, 2009 at 01:04 / ∞
The Meaning of Information Technology →
The first commercial computer was the Lyons Electronic Office I and was used in 1951 to perform vast calculations pertaining to the making and consumption of biscuits. You see, after the war, J. Lyons & Co., a popular chain of British tea shops, was confronted with an appetite for pastries so astronomical (which is understandable given years of tedious disputes with Germany), that the human mind was incapable of solving unaided the problem of distributing tea cakes to their customers.
Hidden in this story is the true meaning of all information technology.
posted 1 week ago on November 1st, 2009 at 23:03 / ∞
Troubling new revelations about Arendt and Heidegger [Ron Rosenbaum - Slate] →
My preferred version of Ron returns in top form.
posted 1 week ago on November 1st, 2009 at 19:39 / ∞
![Monsters and the Moral Imagination [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
In our liberal culture, we dramatize the rage of the monstrous creature—and Frankenstein’s is a good example—then scold ourselves and our “intolerant society” for alienating the outcast in the first place. The liberal lesson of monsters is one of tolerance: We must overcome our innate scapegoating, our xenophobic tendencies.
I can’t figure out who first linked this but it is entertaining reading Halloween weekend on a foggy night during a full moon.](http://2.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ksgpogXVIY1qz5yk0o1_400.jpg)
Monsters and the Moral Imagination [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
In our liberal culture, we dramatize the rage of the monstrous creature—and Frankenstein’s is a good example—then scold ourselves and our “intolerant society” for alienating the outcast in the first place. The liberal lesson of monsters is one of tolerance: We must overcome our innate scapegoating, our xenophobic tendencies.I can’t figure out who first linked this but it is entertaining reading Halloween weekend on a foggy night during a full moon.
posted 1 week ago on November 1st, 2009 at 19:29 / ∞
«The history of technology is the history of human weakness. The rest of history is what happens once human weakness has been compensated for, or accepted where it cannot be.
…
It seems plausible that the most significant freedom which artists acquired in the 20th century was not freedom from patronage but the unknown freedom of safely assuming that the public had good eyesight.»
— The Ruricolist: Technology Interesting way to consider technology’s human impact.
posted 1 week ago on November 1st, 2009 at 16:43 / ∞
Living on $500,000 a Year →
What can be learned from Fitzgerald’s tax returns? To start with, his popular reputation as a careless spendthrift is untrue. Fitzgerald was always trying to follow conservative financial principles. Until 1937 he kept a ledger—as if he were a grocer—a meticulous record of his earnings from each short story, play, and novel he sold. The 1929 ledger recorded items as small as royalties of $5.10 from the American edition of The Great Gatsby and $0.34 from the English edition.
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posted 1 week ago on October 31st, 2009 at 14:43 / ∞
Whole Brain Catalog™ →
Cutting-edge experimental technologies and new microscopy methods are now able to reveal new aspects of organization within these scales, yet the development of software tools to synthesize these data into more coherent models of brain structure and function has lagged behind. The Whole Brain Catalog™ is a client-server platform that provides rich 3-D views for researchers to zoom in, out, and around structures deep in a multi-scale spatial framework of the mouse brain. An open-source, 3-D graphics engine used in graphics-intensive computer gaming generates high-resolution visualizations that bring data to life through biological simulations and animations.
posted 1 week ago on October 29th, 2009 at 12:38 / ∞
«Wordsworth and Coleridge are watching the Lakers game. They can’t get service at the crowded bar. Coleridge smiles and says to Wordsworth: “Lager, lager everywhere, and I can’t get a drink.” Wordsworth says to Coleridge: “I have pleurisy.»
— McSweeney’s Lists: Terrible Poetry Jokes. …So there’s someone else on the planet who reads poetry while constantly wondering what it conversationally stuck with said poet at a party. Nice to know.
posted 1 week ago on October 29th, 2009 at 12:00 / ∞
What? Oh, nothing. Just making a Hellraiser pumpkin. How’s your work day going?
Excellent use of white-out.
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The downfall of Washington Mutual - Puget Sound Business Journal This one got picked up by the financial bloggers, in advance of a report on WaMu coming soon that should add to consumer outrage. WaMu’s execs managed to distract nearly everyone from two massive runs on the bank before it went under. Good stuff from local journalists.
posted 1 week ago on October 28th, 2009 at 15:24 / ∞
6lg - Uploaded by cowpiesurprise Nothing but excellence could come of Windhammer in a motion capture studio.
posted 1 week ago on October 28th, 2009 at 12:28 / ∞
The Fanciful Notion of ‘Minerality’ in Wine →
“The idea is romantic and highly useful commercially, but it is scientifically untenable,” wrote Alex Maltman, a professor at the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University.Tough gig.
posted 1 week ago on October 28th, 2009 at 10:48 / ∞
Cartogrammar: Revealing the Colors of our Landscape - information aesthetics
Andy Woodruff created a set of geographic heatmaps that represent the average colors of images taken on locations surrounding a specific landmark. In other words, the resulting maps reveal the colors that people on the ground should be looking at.“Dying leaves and crumbling bricks, baby.”
posted 1 week ago on October 28th, 2009 at 09:43 / ∞
The Return of Hobbes →
In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give “Jack” more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. “Jack” is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.
This is my inevitable, yearly trigger for re-reading my entire Calvin & Hobbes collection. (You thought I was going to say ‘Jack’s’, huh?)
