One of the classes I’m taking this semester is “Technology and the Law”, for which we occasionally have to read legal cases. One of the ones we had to read recently, PG&E vs. Thomas Drayage & Rigging Company, was surprisingly entertaining and interesting, so I’ve been meaning to write something up about it. The reason […]
On Dilettantism
I just wrote a long comment over at Ei-Nyung’s post about the positive aspects of being a dilettante. As my first comment on that post states, I’m obviously biased as I post under the title of “Unrepentant Generalist”. But I figured I’d include my comment here as well, since it’s a recurring theme in my […]
Media manipulation
This semester, I’m taking a class in “Managing Emerging Technologies”. One of the points of the class is to consider not just the technology itself, but all of the social and cultural and political ramifications of the technology. To illustrate this point, we watched the movie The Future of Food in class last week, which […]
Innovation and community
I went to my second likemind this morning, and once again really enjoyed the coffee and conversation. One person at the table where I sat posed the question of how an artist can be unique or “deviant” in today’s society. There used to be a well-defined mainstream that you could rebel against and do your […]
Design Choices
I was thinking a little bit more about the point I mentioned in my previous post where the iPod Shuffle is actually easier to use because it doesn’t give you a choice about what music to listen to next. With my other MP3 player, I’ll often spend a few minutes trying to decide what kind […]
More HP follies
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 […]
