Amazon link This was referenced in the footnotes of some other book that I read, but I can’t remember which one any more (maybe Six Degrees?). Kauffman is a MacArthur Fellow who works at the Santa Fe Institute, which is a center for studying complexity theory (and a place I’ve occasionally dreamed of working at), […]
Google Maps Pedometer
I’m too cheap (and don’t do enough cool outdoorsy stuff) to buy a GPS unit to track how far I’ve gone when biking and running and stuff like that. So I was excited when Brad pointed to a tool called Gmap pedometer, which combines a nifty interface with the GPS information contained in Google Maps […]
More graphic novels
As mentioned previously, my local library branch now stocks graphic novels. I picked up a few more yesterday, of which the only notable one was Fray, by Joss Whedon. As everybody knows, I was a huge fan of Buffy (and a somewhat lesser fan of Angel and Firefly (although I went to see Batman Begins […]
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
Amazon link I’ve meant to read this since the day it came out both because I follow baseball and because I’ve liked other books by Michael Lewis, but never got around to it, because I didn’t think it was worth buying. But I finally saw it in my local branch library yesterday, so I picked […]
Thinking different
Beemer commented on my last post: But it makes me think that it would be really, really useful if we had a big long list of all the different kinds of thinking the human brain can do, and if people knew what they were good and what they weren’t good at on that list. This […]
Irony as pointer
I was listening to the Smashmouth song, Walking on the Sun, on my MP3 player on my way back from BART this afternoon. A former acquaintance of mine once dissed the song to me by pointing out that the initial lyrics were ripping off the Coke ad “I’d like to teach the world to sing […]
Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
Amazon link I borrowed this from my girlfriend Lilia, who had it recommended it to her by one of her planner friends. It’s a little bit hard to describe. Nominally, it contains Marco Polo’s descriptions of cities to the emperor Kublai Khan. But it’s more about the exploration of different aspects of what makes cities […]
Recipe for a good conversation
I was at a dinner party last night and had a great time. It was a good mix of people, with good conversation ranging over a variety of topics. Afterwards, my friend and I were discussing what made for a good conversation. I’ve pondered this before, because I really like good conversations, and I previously […]
Enlightened Selfishness
Picking up on yesterday’s anarchy post, I was thinking about what it takes for anarchy (or even capitalism) to work as a society. I was talking with some other friends last week about the concept of enlightened selfishness, and I think that is one of the keys. What do I mean by enlightened selfishness? It’s […]
Anarchy is Progress!
A friend of mine pointed me at this email, where a reader of Gizmodo criticizes them for having the temerity to insult the Queen of England. In particular, he says: Some institutions in the world, like the church, must stay intact or it causes a breakdown in civilization. There must be a counterbalance that allows […]
