After the hard drive on my laptop died last month, I received the new hard drive, reinstalled everything, copied all of my data over from the external drive, and got back up and running. Then last week, the screen died. It still works when I plug it into a monitor, and if I shine a […]
Technology affordances
I bought an iPod Shuffle before Christmas. I had actually planned to buy an iPod Nano, but when I walked into the Apple store, I compared the size of the two, and realized that the Shuffle was about one third the size. I like hearing albums in their entirety, but I decided to give the […]
Patterns, stories and communities
I was thinking about the P.S. in my learn-and-latch post and trying to figure out the process by which people absorb general patterns into themselves. In fact, what are those general patterns? What forms do they take? My thesis of the day is that the general patterns I was talking about are stories. I circle […]
Ethel
I’d heard of local string quartet Ethel at some other event earlier in the year, but never followed up until seeing they were giving a free concert at the World Financial Center last week. They’re fantastic. They played a variety of new music which suited their talents, from neoclassical works (I really liked the pieces […]
Learn and latch
On the plane ride to my parent’s place, I read the book Flock and Flow: Predicting and Managing Change in a Dynamic Marketplace, by Grant McCracken. I’ve been reading McCracken’s blog, titled This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics for a while and really enjoy his commentary on the process of ethnology […]
Pitching oneself
Liz commented on my Conversationalist post that it’s often difficult to talk about things that are important and meaningful to us. I think it especially applies to esoteric things like a graduate student’s research, where 99% of the world doesn’t even know what it’s about, and doesn’t care. I’ve definitely had the same feeling – […]
The Futurist, by James P. Othmer
I stopped by the library on Monday evening since I happened to be walking by, and walked out with four books. One of the books I picked up solely because of its title: The Futurist, by James P. Othmer. It’s smart and sassy with trenchant commentary on the modern world. Here’s the protagonist’s description of […]
HP still sucks
My laptop’s about to die. Well, the hard drive, at least. It’s making grinding noises, and it takes forever for files to load up, and the computer blue screens if I leave it on for more than a couple hours. So I might not be blogging much for the next few days, while I sort […]
Conversationalist
One of the skills I continue to work on is the art of conversation. This seems to be key to so many things I’m interested in, from management to communication to cognitive science. And it has the added benefit of being useful at parties! So what makes for a good conversationalist? One of the qualities […]
New Amsterdam Singers
A month ago or so, somebody wrote me. They had been looking for information on El Nino by John Adams, came across my account of it, noticed that I was now living in New York, and suggested that I check out the New Amsterdam Singers, where a friend of theirs sang. Intrigued, I checked out […]
