The subject of Donald Rumsfeld came up while IM’ing with a friend a couple days ago. We were talking about the various accusations flying around, and my friend asked: “i wonder what bush’s real agenda is in keeping rumsfeld around”. My response was “He’d have to find another scapegoat when more allegations arise. He keeps […]
Category: thoughts
Aramis or the Love of Technology, by Bruno Latour
Amazon link I really liked Science in Action, another book by Latour, so when I saw this on a friend’s shelf, I borrowed it. Unfortunately, it took me several months to actually get through it; I started it over Christmas vacation, but I kept on getting distracted by other things, until I finally powered through […]
The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World, by Peter Schwartz
Amazon link I liked the talk by Peter Schwartz that I went to, so when I saw his most well-known book at the used book store for $3, I picked it up. A pretty quick read detailing the idea of scenario planning, a management strategy involving coming up with several detailed future possibilities for the […]
Howard and Arianna
So, after yesterday’s post which talked separately about Arianna Huffington and Howard Stern, I was amused to hear Arianna as a guest on Howard’s show this morning. Politics really really makes the strangest bedfellows. They commiserated about the idiocy of Bush especially after the robotic press conference last night, before Stern got distracted by inquiring […]
More thoughts from Alternet
First of all, George Lakoff’s ideas are exemplified once again by this Arianna Huffington column, where she is talking to the 11-year-old son of a friend of hers: “Arianna,” he said with the enchanting optimism of a Greek-American boy, “I’m going to convince you that you should support Bush in November. Here are two questions […]
Big versus small companies
Just a quick observation – something I said at work today and thought was interesting. I was commenting how some people use process as a way of covering themselves in case things don’t go well (a reflection of my earlier sentiment). I understand how process can be used to answer questions of importance if it […]
Shirky on software development
I’m a big fan of Clay Shirky’s writings, and am subscribed to his mailing list. His most recent post discussed situated software, and I wanted to discuss it some more. So I am. Shirky teaches classes on social software at NYU, and observed an interesting pattern in the software that his students were submitting for […]
Defining John Kerry
A friend sent me a link to this article over at Yahoo, describing how Bush has scored points by defining John Kerry with a series of negative ads since the end of the primaries. We then saw this article where Ralph Nader, of all people, tells Kerry to loosen up and be himself. As usual, […]
The Passion of the Christ
I went to see Mel Gibson’s new film The Passion of the Christ over the weekend, mostly because I want to see anything that engenders this much controversy so that I can form my own opinion. Plus, the Christ story (“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever […]
Constructing the self story
I was talking to a friend last night who passed along an interesting observation to me: that people actively seek out evidence to support their worldviews. I’ve always believed that our perceptions color our view of the world in a passive way; that we see what we expect to see. Where one person sees the […]
