Ramblings & ephemera
From AP’s “Borrowed books returned to museum — 92 years later” (CNN: 6 November 2000):
The Field Museum of Natural History recently returned 10 volumes to the American Museum of Natural History in New York — 92 years late.
It seems a researcher from the New York museum took the books with him when he accepted a [...]
Posted on June 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history | Comments Off
From Technology Review’s “Big Brother Logs On“:
In his 1998 book The Transparent Society, which is well known in the privacy advocacy community, science fiction author and technology watcher David Brin argues that society inevitably will have to choose between two versions of ubiquitous surveillance: in one, only the rich and powerful use and control the [...]
Posted on May 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | Comments Off
From The New York Times Magazine’s “Skin Literature“:
Most artists spend their careers trying to create something that will live forever. But the writer Shelley Jackson is creating a work of literature that is intentionally and indisputably mortal. Jackson is publishing her latest short story by recruiting 2,095 people, each of whom will have one word [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Cool Stuff, Fiction, Language & Literature, On Writing, weird | Comments Off
From BBC News:
In fact, it turns out that images stored electronically just 15 years ago are already becoming difficult to access. The Domesday Project, a multimedia archive of British life in 1986 designed as a digital counterpart to the original Domesday Book compiled by monks in 1086, was stored on laser discs.
The equipment needed to [...]
Posted on November 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, history | Comments Off
From InfoWorld:
In chapter 4 of Klaus Kaasgaard’s Software Design and Usability, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) alumnus Austin Henderson says that “one of the most brilliant inventions of the paper bureaucracy was the idea of the margin.” There was always space for unofficial data, which traveled with the official data, and everybody knew about [...]
Posted on November 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Language & Literature, On Writing, Technology, history | Comments Off
From sleazy and how!:
I’m a sucker for a sleazy mystery or a trampy romance novel from the 1950’s-60’s. I usually buy these silly books more for the covers than the stories, but sometimes both are equally bizarre.
This is a gallery of some of the better books I’ve come across. Some have book summaries, others [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Cool Stuff, Language & Literature, history | Comments Off
From The Invisible Library:
The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.
Related posts
Sleazy books
One powerful metaphor!
Library book returned 92 years late
Word of the day: Synecdoche
Word [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Cool Stuff, Language & Literature | Comments Off
From "Unwanted at Any Speed", a review of Richard Porter’s Crap Cars in The New York Times Book Review:
The DeLorean DMC-12 of 1981-83, he writes, had an engine “so weak it would struggle to pull a hobo off your sister.” Not since Raymond Chandler have I met a metaphor so much more powerful than would [...]
Posted on November 20th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, On Writing | Comments Off
From “William Caxton“, at The Science Show:
More than 500 years later a copy of Caxton’s first edition of Chaucer became the most expensive book ever sold, knocked down at auction in the 1990s for 4.6 million pounds. But in the 15th Century, the obvious appeal of the newly printed books lay in their value for [...]
Posted on September 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, history | Comments Off
From “William Caxton“, at The Science Show:
In 1474, his History of Troy, his own book, became the first book to be printed in English and two years later he brought his press to England setting up shop near the Chapter House in the precinct of Westminster Abbey, where parliament met. Caxton had an eye for [...]
Posted on September 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, history | Comments Off