to celebrate the arbitrarily anthropocentric turning of the year, i brought bagels and bialys south from kossar's to DC, there to join w...

I think our whole society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to [participate in] ‘problem creation’ … You kno...

perhaps due to its emanations of tropical and spirituous vapours, this fruitcake-containing box was lavished with doggy affections by the p...

just lying around the media lab.

a chilly, grey-day visit to  lafayette park .

at once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormousl...

Before researchers become researchers they should become philosophers. They should consider what the human goal is, what it is that humanit...

i have been buried beneath a pile of paper for days, but emerged briefly for a cup of coffee last friday morning. on the table for show and...

the cynic says this email from patagonia is a cunning form of marketing misdirection. i have resisted all of cyber monday's blandishme...

update: an official karaoke version! it is imperative that you watch this instructive informational video which incidentally demonstrates t...

i made two of these on my last day at the ranch , using some apparently nearly pure copper sheet retrieved from the garbage can in the meta...

just north of st. marks, to be precise. someone took some trouble here and did not succumb to the false allure of uniform spacing.

this summarises most of my feelings about cars and bicycles, though it leaves out the grim frustrations of parking in crowded cities, moto...

Few people are interested in things, except the mechanics who like engines. They are more interested in themselves and humanity, and theori...

carl b. oxley III at the eastern market recycling station.

though the streets were overrun with orange, kettle korn, people in bad costumes, and fake cobwebs, jaho on the waterfront was empty and ...

[from the archive] R&D in high-end cuisine looks a lot like R&D anywhere else, but some of its frustrations are domain-specifi...

a 17-hour, 9.1 mile loop, with detours due to poor navigation. in order: everyman on west broadway, chambers street, some nyc city agencies,...

edge.org interviews daniel lieberman . of particular note: ... there's a reversal of class today. Now, it's only the very wealthy...

what does a low entropy life look like? and is the only way to reduce entropy locally to export it into the enclosing system? i hope this i...

it's been a few years since i was up late in snowmass after a day at the woodshop reading annie dillard's  for the time being , a ma...

Pelorat said, "It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy." ...

The grid is not only predictable but indeterminate, not only prescriptive but ambiguous. albert pope, "the open city," in ladd...

backstage at the ignobels , a suitcase is re-filled with appealingly goofy  frog-shaped pitch/volume instruments . from japan, of course...

To live well in community, our individual consumption and acquisition will be reined in and held by the bonds of inconvenience. In turn, we...

shock cord makes jack purcell much easier. this is MSR's silicone-core product  intended for replacing tent-pole cords. you will also...

in revere, mass. on a hot and cloudy day, after a lobster roll of truly epic size, it is entirely appropriate to take a cone of soft serve f...