Category Archives: Technology

Weekend 517.0

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Early start; I got my reasons.

(1) Fringe Intro [1985] [HD]

(2) Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason – Remixed & Updated will be released on 29 October 2021

(3) Two books from Steven Levy that should be on every shelf:

(3a) Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

(3b) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything

(4) Slim titles with a BIG punch:

(4a) John Betjeman: Poems Selected by Hugo Williams (published by Faber and Faber Ltd.)

(4b) Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot

(4c) The Book in the Cathedral by Christopher de Hamel

“You may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently.”

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Read some Orwell, get radicalized, and flex your extremism proudly.

(1) Facebook goes full Big Brother with new “extremism” warnings (OffGuardian)

(1a) Facebook asks users to report their ‘extremist’ friends (YouTube)

Does belief in the Austrian School of Economics versus the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) make you an extremist? How about being a TRAD? I’m asking for a friend.

Thanksgiving 2017

Posted on by — Leave a reply

(1) How to Talk About Star Wars at Thanksgiving With Your Ignorant, Rebellion-Backing Uncle (The Washington Free Beacon)

“On the forest moon of Endor, the Empire was able to build a shield generator without really bothering the indigenous life forms. They coexisted in harmony, Empire and Ewok alike engaging in a live and let live philosophy. And then the Rebels show up, convince the Ewoks that C-3PO’s some sort of god, and enlist them in a holy war against the Empire!”

(2) Our Love Affair With Digital Is Over (NY Times)

(2a) Staff Pick Premiere: the horror of our digital existence (Vimeo)

(3) Bob Gurr, Wheelmeister

Weekend 364.0 (…but here in this water my feet won’t touch the ground…)

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Untitled (1) The way we get around is about to change (Vox)

(2) Honda CR-Z: hybrid rockstar adds more spunk (INQUIRER.net)

“The illusion of a “tomorrowland” driving experience continues in the interior…”

(2a) The custom wallpaper is from the photo archives.
(2b) Disney’s Magic Highway

(3) Honda “Hands” (YouTube)

(4) Welcome to New Bike City (Medium)

(5) Untitled (Flickr)

Weekend 361.1 (…my green, my fluent mundo)

Posted on by — Leave a reply

(1) A quote from Before Tomorrowland by Jeff Jensen, Jonathan Case, Damon Lindelof, and Brad Bird:

“The cloaked Plus Ultra zeppelin, still visible in his alternate spectrums, hovered over the fair’s theme center, a pair of structures known as the Trylon and Perisphere. The former, a 180-foot-tall spike-shaped tower, doubled as the docking station for the invisible airship. The latter, a 180-foot-wide globe with a bumpy stucco exterior, was emblazoned with the words Le Monde de Demain. The World of Tomorrow. The interior held an elaborate diorama for a model city of the future, rings of idyllic suburbs surrounding an urban center of glittering factories, humanity wrapped around a mechanical heart.”

(2) A quote from Staying Up Much Too Late by Gordon Theisen:

“By the 1940s, when he [Hopper] painted Nighthawks, New York was as much a giant machine as the modernized house described previously as a big computer posing as shelter. Manhattan was almost totally constructed from layers of technology, from skyscrapers to elevated commuter trains to circuit-board street grid to a vast subterranean infrastructure of power lines, sewers, water mains, and fifty miles of iron pipes to carry steam throughout Manhattan.”

“The need to be reminded that such things as grass and leaves still exist, and are more than tasteful ornaments, can become acute in New York, now and in 1942. But way back in 1844, William Cullen Bryant, already fearing that massive development would obliterate all signs of Manhattan’s pastoral past, used his position as editor of the New York Evening Post to campaign for what would eventually become Central Park, an 840-acre swath of greenery in the gray sprawl of the city. This gem of urban planning was revitalized in the 1930s, when Robert Moses made visiting Central Park easier and more comfortable, adding playgrounds, a cafeteria in the zoo, and evicting a small herd that still grazed in an area known as Sheep Meadow. In fact, Moses, when not destroying entire neighborhoods to make room for an expressway, was planting some two million trees throughout the metropolitan area.”

Weekend 309.0

Posted on by — Leave a reply

(1) Sturmey Archer “The Planetary Gearset” (YouTube)

(2) Speed Traps For Japan’s Escalators (WSJ – Registration Required)

(3) Shakespeare as a Life Coach (WSJ)

“The world is grown so bad that wrens make pray where eagles dare not perch.” – William Shakespeare, Richard III

(4) ‘A Spy Among Friends’ (WSJ – Registration Required)

(5) A Ferris Wheel Family Rides Coney Island’s Renewal (WSJ – Registration Required)

(6) In Praise of the Mundane Marigold (WSJ)

“The key to using annuals creatively, said Mr. Stufano—respected for transforming Wave Hill Garden, in the Bronx, from a sad mess into an arresting jewel—is to forget fads. Train yourself to just look at the plant’s essential qualities, its texture, form, height and color, without letting the chicness factor (or the taint of that gas-station island) seep into your brain. He often used ordinary plants like marigolds and thistles in unusual ways at Wave Hill.”

(7) Francis Ford Coppola Talks Travel (WSJ)

Thanksgiving Weekend 2013 (ISON Edition)

Posted on by — Leave a reply

This is a close approximation!

(1) Eastern and Western attitudes about life explained in 18 simple infographics

Credit: Felicia

(2) Drivers Get Rolled: Bicyclists are making unreasonable claims to the road—and winning

(2a) Road safety minister to ride Brompton on tour of London’s danger spots

(2b) The Safest Suburb In The World Did It By Ending The Culture Of Cars (Co.Exist)

(3) Why Japan is Crazy About Housing

(4) German Playmobil exhibition kicks off 40th anniversary celebrations (ToyNews)

(5) Computer Scientist David Gelernter: Can the computer scientist help make computers more intuitive? (WSJ)

(6) Why Productive People Get Up Insanely Early (Fast Company)

(7) A quote from Nicholas Frankovich

“Convents and monasteries are famously clean and spare, attractive because of their poverty, not despite it. When your food, water, medicine, shelter, and acess to fresh air and sunlight are adequate, every possession in excess of what you need to maintain them amounts to a distraction from your pursuit and enjoyment of the one thing necessary.”

(8) Donovan not set for Everton return (ESPN FC)

Weekend 274.0 (Baskets Encouraged)

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Finished A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line by John O’Farrell and The 32 Stops by Danny Dorling. The latter is a clever work using facts to provide insights into the human geography of London along the Central Line.

Also, finished A Northern Line Minute by William Leith last night. It was like method acting (in book form) in preparation for the lead in a biopic on Woody Allen.

*Updated graphic!

(1) Heathrow’s Future Is Up in the Air: Debate Over Expansion vs. Building a New Airport (WSJ)

(2) Railroad company logo design evolution: 100 logos from American and Canadian railroad companies

(3) That time a giant airship darkened Toronto’s skies

(4) These Bikers Race for Last Place: Cyclists say slow riding is response to hard-core fitness world (WSJ)

“Cyclists who are looking for tough workouts have plenty of company. But for other bikers, that is just not how they roll. Instead, they are meandering over to ‘slow-bike’ clubs that are cropping up around the country. There was even a Slow Bike Race last month in Newburyport, Mass. The last one to cross the finish line won.”

“In 2011, she [Molly Peterson] launched the Slow Bicycle Society on the Eastern Shore, an Alabama club with 100 members and a mission statement: ‘No Spandex needed!’ In Tennessee, the Murfreesboro Slow Ride Cyclists, which formed two months ago, calls itself ‘a never-get-left-behind fun bicycling group’ with ‘baskets encouraged.’”

(4a) Orange Bike Pron

(4b) Fluttering About: the Papillionaire Sommer (Lovely Bicycle!)

(5) Bonzart Ampel Tilt-Shift Camera: Fun With Tilt-Shift: The Ampel isn’t the only camera you’ll ever need, but it might be the most entertaining (WSJ)

(6) The Autobiography of George Orwell: The author of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” disdained biographers, so we must rely on his correspondence for insights into his work and life. (WSJ – Registration Required)

(6a) George Orwell from ‘On a Ruined Farm near the His Master’s Voice Gramophone Factory’ (1933)

There, where the tapering cranes sweep round,
And great wheels turn, and trains roar by
Like strong, low-headed brutes of steel —
There is my world, my home; yet why

So alien still? For I can neither
Dwell in that world, nor turn again
To scythe and spade, but only loiter
Among the trees the smoke has slain.

(7) A Writer’s Daily Bread: J.F. Powers made great fiction from the mundane obstacles and triumphs of everyday life (WSJ)

From the ‘Son of a Florist’ files…

(8) A Rothko-Inspired Flower Arrangement (WSJ)

(9) Tidying up loose ends…

(a) You Can Do Anything: Must Every Kids’ Movie Reinforce the Cult of Self-Esteem? (The Atlantic)

(b) The Innovation of Loneliness