Stephen Fry, with a hat tip to Kylie Sturgess: A concerto is an argument between an individual and the state. Between an individual and society. It is an individual voice crying out and trying to make a statement of some kind. And it’s often drowned out by the orchestra, and it fights back. And the …
Monthly Archive: April 2012
Apr 29 2012
You Are Your Own Paywall
I am highly wary of anyone who would write a book entitled You Are Not a Gadget; oh here we go, a Luddite screed about how Goog-Face-Pads are making us lonely/stupid/lazy. So it was with trepidation that I delved into a lengthy interview at The Edge from last year with Jaron Lanier on what the …
Apr 28 2012
It Looked Like a Toy
I am in the midst of reading James Gleick’s The Information (and I think I’m the last person left who hasn’t), and I was startled by his retelling of the initial reactions to the introduction of the telephone. See if it reminds you of anything. The next year, in England, the chief engineer of the …
Apr 27 2012
Introverts Defeat Geography
There is a tension that exists between introverts and the extroverts who love them. Extroverts feed off live, in-person human interaction — it refuels them and provides a spark that drives them. For introverts like myself, that spark is a rare, not-looked-for thing. Socializing exhausts us, drains us of energy, of emotion. It’s a necessary …
Apr 26 2012
This Isn’t What I Wanted, But I’ll Take It
It’s a long story, so I won’t bore you with it, but suffice it to say, I wanted to spread my own bloggy wings and fly out of the nest so generously provided me by Dawnne. I thought Squarespace would be able to handle this simple move from one platform to theirs, but they botched …
Apr 19 2012
Science Can Be Even More Awesome When Everything is Wrong
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory just figured out that gamma bursts have nothing to do with cosmic rays, and that means no one knows where they come from. Via io9: …the telescope was able to conclusively contradict 15 years worth of previous predictions while still under construction, and now it’s pretty much demolished one of the …
Apr 16 2012
Formed by Boredom
This worries me a little (by Toby Litt in Granta): A couple of years ago, I spent three months playing World of Warcraft – partly as research for a short story I was writing, mostly because I became addicted to it. This convinced me of one thing: If the computer games which exist now had existed back in …
Apr 16 2012
End the Tweaking
Advice I could stand to take, from Rob Beschizza, editor of BoingBoing: Getting snared by technology-tweaking, especially design, is the fastest and easiest way to waste time to no good end as an indie blogger type. There’s only one thing that brings in readers, and marketing people call it “content”. Writing. Artwork. Games. Whatever it is …
Apr 11 2012
Don’t Get in a Car with an Atheist!
Spotted on Indeed.com, a “job listing” from a Texas mother looking for someone to help her transport her teenage daughters to school and activities, emphasis mine: I am a mother who is 38 years old, I am a teacher in Tomball ISD, my husband is American and I am Mexican. I need to find a …
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