the sap also rises

bureaucracy

2008-11-21T10:45:00.001-08:00

Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reducing of friction and of material and personal costs--these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and especially in its monocratic form ... Bureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is "dehumanized," the more completely it succeeds in

life as transcript

2008-11-19T05:25:00.001-08:00

last night, yochai benkler made the usual introductory remarks in advance of the berkman center's workshop on subject security. Some May Say that living online is gradually killing off living in meatspace, but it also increases the opportunities for interaction -- it's a new space for communication and association and it looks very little like the geographic space we're used to interacting in,

bricolage

2008-11-18T19:31:00.001-08:00

every so often, i come across something that feels great; some organization has gone and used the resources available to it and done something interesting, unexpected, funny, gentle -- bricolage is the fancy word. it's particularly nice when that something involves a product i used to work on, and when it involves neighbourhoods and communities that coalesce around a transient event or phenomenon

we must have one

2008-11-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

the toaster for the well-equipped home. (unfortunate: depending on the image, the product is likely an uncrisp piece of toast.)

self, expanding, #2

2008-11-16T21:23:00.001-08:00

What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul." Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever

self, expanding

2008-11-16T21:03:00.001-08:00

I find it useful to think of the ego complex as a thing that keeps expanding, not as something to be overcome or done away with. An ego has formed and hardened by the time most of us reach adolescence, but it is small, an ego-of-one. Then, if we fall in love, for example, the constellation of identity expands and the ego-of-one becomes an ego-of-two. The young lover, often to his own amazement,

the kelmscott chaucer

2008-11-14T16:29:00.001-08:00

michael arranged for us to visit the houghton today to see books printed from the days of classical printing through to the revival of artisanal printing in the late 19th century and beyond. some wonders: william morris's copy of the hypnerotomachia poliphili, printed by aldus manutius in venice in 1499. a copy of the works of virgil, with extensive, crabby marginalia attributed to philipp

make your own muppet

2008-11-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

fao schwartz has a new service that allows you to make your own muppet online. presumably, the patterns get sent to some lasercutter somewhere, sewn up by an itinerant stuffed-toy artisan, then make their way to you.

weather

2008-11-09T08:07:00.001-08:00

what else is really nice: when the night before was damp, the day that follows is dry and sunny, the leaves on the walnut and beech in the yard have turned yellow but not yet fallen off the trees, and there's a mug of tea on the porch.

stamps by typographers

2008-11-07T05:30:00.000-08:00

a neat collection assembled by michael russem (i think as part or consequence of designing the mentoring stamp). for reasons not entirely clear, this one by gerrit noordzij is my favourite:

final marks

2008-11-06T07:49:00.001-08:00

after press last night, we watched final marks, a short film about letter design and letter cutting in stone at the john stevens shop in newport RI (also, apparently, the oldest continually operating business in the US). particularly nice: showing how modern roman characters (like times new roman) are products of the original way of drawing letters with brushes -- there's barely any gap between

the packagers are smarting up

2008-11-04T06:10:00.001-08:00

finally.

the shape of things

2008-11-03T19:28:00.001-08:00

when enough data gets together, neat stuff happens. it's probably not precise enough to call it an emergent property of data en masse, but that's good enough for the moment. in any case, flickr now has enough photographs tagged with nested geographic information (through yahoo's gazetteer WoeID service* and latlong coordinates) that place geometry can be inferred. to simplify: take all photos

ithaka

2008-11-03T05:55:00.001-08:00

As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon -- don't be afraid of them: you'll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit

where does the flavour go?

2008-10-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

not long ago, on a cold late morning close to lunch, i made a bowl of whole-grain udon dressed with a vast quantity of chopped cilantro and fresh garlic and a trace amount of mirin. i forked up a clump and, instead of a taste explosion, discovered a blandness remarkable in its profundity. i cannot be sure but blame the whole grain flour nonetheless; it has its place, just not in my noodles. not

an unusual compliment

2008-10-29T10:51:00.001-07:00

so, i'm trying to get this project off the ground. Max: youre a little model-happy2:16 PM me: hey? Max: im reading your document carefully me: oh ok Max: its um modelicious 2:17 PM me: i was trying to convince an originator

discovering topology

2008-10-28T18:40:00.001-07:00

a nice new idea for a game, even though i don't play online games ever.

outside at this very moment

2008-10-28T10:52:00.001-07:00

you know what's really spectacular? when the skies are the grey of galvanised metal and it has just rained. at this time of year when the leaves on the sugar maples are between green and burnt orange, their trunks become a dark brown-black and they look like paintings of themselves.

a great idea

2008-10-22T12:55:00.001-07:00

this is a great idea even if aaron says it's not as data-intensive as i think it is.

ann cooper and polycausality

2008-10-19T07:26:00.001-07:00

i like to say that everything is polycausal. one example, obviously, is food. in 2005, we ran a tutorial in the biology department here (bio95hfy, no longer offered) on biology, agriculture, conservation, and ecology. one of the core ideas of the class was how the patterns of human food-consumption are multiply-determined: culture, location, transportation, genetics, industry, among many other

risk

2008-10-16T12:02:00.001-07:00

the workmanship of risk is the kind of work in which serendipity can make itself visible. one of the major characters of the workmanship of risk is the cumulative, irreversible trajectory of the work. a mistake made at any point in the work irretrievably affects everything up to that point and cannot be undone (hence the risk). "fixing a mistake" is frequently thought of as "undoing the mistake,"

praxis, transcendence

2008-10-13T21:26:00.001-07:00

Pride in craftsmanship is well explained by saying that to labor is to pray, for conscientious effort to realize an ideal is a kind of fidelity. The craftsman of old did not hurry, because the perfect takes no account of time and shoddy work is a reproach to character. But character itself is an expression of self-control, which does not come of taking the easiest way. Where character forbids

informational graphics

2008-10-07T09:28:00.001-07:00

this is quite good. (ironic)

gilbert and george

2008-10-07T07:05:00.000-07:00

bending it:

power in the north

2008-10-06T19:09:00.001-07:00

this week, we read from various writers on inequality in power. (and also from marx's capital and the grundrisse, but of those two densities let no more be said.) rhetorical imperatives seem to drive at least most of the classical social theorists to propose strongly monocausal explanations for phenomena like class and inequality, even though that kind of explanation is singularly unconvincing