Ramblings & ephemera
In Clay Shirky’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007), he takes on the persona of someone talking about what new changes are coming with the Gutenberg movable type press. At one point, he says, “Such a change would also create enormous economic hardship for anyone [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, art, business | No Comments »
From Bruce Sterling’s “Viridian Note 00459: Emerging Technology 2006” (The Viridian Design Movement: March 2006):
When it comes to remote technical eventualities, you don’t want to freeze the language too early. Instead, you need some empirical evidence on the ground, some working prototypes, something commercial, governmental, academic or military…. Otherwise you are trying to freeze an [...]
Posted on December 10th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Social Software, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, business, security | Comments Off
From Farhad Manjoo’s “iPod: I love you, you’re perfect, now change” (Salon: 23 October 2006):
Levy writes that when this happens, the music becomes a “soundtrack” for the scenery, which is a good way to put it. The iPod turns ordinary life — riding the bus, waiting in line at the post office, staring at a [...]
Posted on October 23rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, art, business | Comments Off
From Tom Stites’s “Guest Posting: Is Media Performance Democracy’s Critical Issue?” (Center for Citizen Media: Blog: 3 July 2006):
Serious reporting is based in verified fact passed through mature professional judgment. It has integrity. It engages readers – there’s that word again, readers – with compelling stories and it appeals to their human capacity for reason. [...]
Posted on July 30th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, business, politics | Comments Off
From Barry C. Lynn’s “The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart” (Harper’s: 24 July 2006):
It is now twenty-five years since the Reagan Administration eviscerated America’s century-long tradition of antitrust enforcement. For a generation, big firms have enjoyed almost complete license to use brute economic force to grow only bigger. And so today we find ourselves in [...]
Posted on July 30th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, politics | Comments Off
From Adam Goodheart’s “10 Days That Changed History” (The New York Times: 2 July 2006):
SEPT. 18, 1957: Revolt of the Nerds
Fed up with their boss, eight lab workers walked off the job on this day in Mountain View, Calif. Their employer, William Shockley, had decided not to continue research into silicon-based semiconductors; frustrated, they decided [...]
Posted on July 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, business, history | Comments Off
From Jo Freeman’s “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” (1970):
During the years in which the women’s liberation movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless, structureless groups as the main form of the movement. …
The idea of ’structurelessness’, however, has moved from a healthy counter to these tendencies to [...]
Posted on July 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics | Comments Off
From Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Imagining Abrupt Climate Change : Terraforming Earth” (Amazon Shorts: 31 July 2005):
… paradigm shifts are exciting moments in science’s ongoing project of self-improvement, making itself more accurately mapped to reality as it is discovered and teased out; this process of continual recalibration and improvement is one of the most admirable parts [...]
Posted on July 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, history, science | Comments Off
From Tim Bray’s “On the Goodness of Unicode” (6 April 2003):
Another problem is that in these parts of the world [China, Japan, Korea], it is not unheard-of to invent new characters. The Japanese word for such charaacters is gaiji; historically they were invented for personal or company names.
Related posts
The politics & basics of Unicode
Spimes, [...]
Posted on July 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Language & Literature, Technology | Comments Off
From John Twelve Hawks’s “ How We Live Now” (2005):
Instead of resisting the Vast Machine, many of us have given into cynicism and distraction. Our contemporary culture has become a brilliantly colored surface without a deeper spiritual meaning. We care more about celebrities than our own neighbors. Are Nick and Jessica getting divorced? Is that [...]
Posted on July 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology, politics | Comments Off
From Spare me the details (The Economist: 28 October 2004):
Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist who works for Intel, the world’s biggest semiconductor-maker, has been travelling around Asia for three years to observe how Asians use, or choose not to use, technology. She was especially struck by the differences in how westerners and Asians view their homes. [...]
Posted on June 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society | Comments Off
From Holland Cotter’s “‘Unknown Weegee,’ on Photographer Who Made the Night Noir” (The New York Times: 9 June 2006):
A freelancer by temperament, he had long-term gigs with The Daily News, The Daily Mirror and the left-leaning daily PM. His beat was the inner city, and everything was raw material: the good and the bad, [...]
Posted on June 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history | Comments Off
From Hiroshi Matsubara’s “Trial By Prosecutor” (Legal Affairs: March/April 2003):
In 1990, a retired high-court judge gave an influential speech that indicted the criminal justice system [of Japan], citing the nation’s 99.8 percent conviction rate as evidence that prosecutors, not courts, decide the fate of criminals. Criminal trials, he declared, are merely “formal ceremonies” en route [...]
Posted on June 4th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics | Comments Off
From Adam Goodheart’s “The Last Island of the Savages” (The American Scholar, Autumn 2000, 69(4):13-44):
Then [in the 1860s], suddenly, the hostilities [by the Andaman Islanders] ceased almost entirely. There was one cataclysmic battle - fifteen hundred naked warriors came charging out of the jungle, straight up against the guns of a British warship, with predictably [...]
Posted on June 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history, politics | Comments Off
From Adam Goodheart’s “The Last Island of the Savages” (The American Scholar, Autumn 2000, 69(4):13-44):
This is how you get to the most isolated human settlement on earth [North Sentinel Island, in the Andaman Islands]: You board an evening flight at JFK for Heathrow, Air India 112, a plane full of elegant sari-clad women, London-bound businessmen, [...]
Posted on June 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Cool Stuff | Comments Off
From Jim Marcinkowski’s “National Security: The Attack on the Constitution“:
Over the past 30 years, I have served this country in a variety of positions from the FBI to the CIA, and as a lawyer and a prosecutor …
We fought the Soviets and I fought the Soviets because they had a fatally flawed, intolerable system of [...]
Posted on June 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: politics | Comments Off
From Daniel Brook’s “The Problem of Prison Rape” (Legal Affairs: March/April 2004):
When inmates seek civil damages against the prison system, as [Roderick Johnson, a 35-year-old African-American who is suing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice] has done, they must prove not merely that prison officials should have done more to prevent abuse but that they [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics, security | Comments Off
From Daniel Brook’s “The Problem of Prison Rape” (Legal Affairs: March/April 2004):
In his 18 months at [the maximum-security Allred Unit in Iowa Park, Tex.], [Roderick Johnson, a 35-year-old African-American who is suing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice] did time as the property of the Bloods, the Crips, the Mandingo Warriors, and the Mexican Mafia, [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics, security | Comments Off
From Suzanne Snider’s “Old Yeller” (Legal Affairs: May/June 2005):
The legal-size legal pad has been under attack since as early as 1982, when then Chief Justice Warren Burger banished legal-size documents from federal courts. One informal survey estimated Burger’s move saved almost $16 million through more efficient use of storage space. Several states followed the federal [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law | Comments Off
From Sasha Issenberg’s “On Notice” (Legal Affairs: July/August 2005):
Just over 50 percent of Americans say they read the newspaper in an average week. That may seem like a formidable number, but it is in steady decline, down from 77 percent in 1970.
Related posts
Why courts don’t use legal-size documents any longer
When newspapers began to cover trials
Japan’s [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, business, history | Comments Off
Headed off to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Since we're about to rock, please salute us.
Just had dinner at Maria's, an Italian restaurant. Not bad. Worked all day on the book. Now for a coffee shop & more work on that darn book!
NY Jets signed Bret Favre, so little bro Gus (Jets Equipment Director) has had one hell of a busy morning. Phone 1st rang at 5:45, poor guy.
Wonderful, huge Spanish dinner with Gus & 9 of his co-workers. Standing outside his hotel waiting for a cab on a gorgeous Cleveland night.
Just landed in Cleveland (which rocks, I hear) to visit my little brother Gus. He's here with the NY Jets for a game. I'm here to see him.
Bookmarked a link: Webvet.com - Pet News, Information, and Education
Alright, it's official - I'm gonna be the papa to a baby boy. Currently named Finn, but we'll see. :)
Added a product to their wishlist:
Bookmarked 5 links
Chapter 10 (Google Contacts) is hereby done. Now on (back!) to chapter 9. (Hey, sometimes jumping around helps keep things fresh!)