March 2010
25 posts
1 tag
'GRAHAM TYLER AUTUMN IN TAIPEI, NINETEEN NINETY...
I can’t remember his name now. This is what happens when your parents move around. You just make new friends all the time and you can’t remember their names. They blend into these archetypes, kind of, like these characters whose faces change in every new city your family lands in.
Anyway, my Cool Friend, he picked up a slicked rock from the riverbed outside our apartment complex. A...
1 tag
'the past's future,' or, 'on being very wrong.'
“Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in [sic] no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”
How could anyone have been so wrong? On one hand, the article is simply a reaction to the majority of “computer pundits” who...
one of my favorite comics ever. →
1 tag
'a really stupid riddle & why it's really...
“I can tell people the score of any football game before it starts.”
Can you figure out how?
Hint #1: The speaker’s not psychic.
Hint #2: Lots of riddles depend on grammatical ambiguity.
Spoiler: Before any game starts, the score is always 0-0.
Scientifically speaking, the riddle works like this: the listener presumably aligns the prepositional phrase “before it...
the ragbag: frequentative flyers →
it turns out that the guy who was sitting next to me on my æroplane was studying linguistics so i axed him what was the hawt new thing in his field that gave him wood every time he thought about it. he didn’t answer me outright but he did tell me a little bit about frequentatives.
according to…
I did not know this! And I find it awesome!
1 tag
'A LETTER TO THE PRACTICING MAGICIAN'
Sometimes, at night, when I slip outside into the cold to freeze my brain into shutting up so I can get to sleep, I hear your violin from behind the closed door.
Last night, I just stood there listening to you.
Every note bent and broke inside the empty silence of the deep night. And I could hear so clearly your fingers sliding, moving, feeling your thoughts through your strings with such great...
1 tag
“‘You and Dahlia possess a curiosity that is both idle and ravaging.’...”
– Celebrants, Corinna Valliantos.
1 tag
'files & folders,' or, 'the way we organize data'
Since the early days of computing, file systems have worked more or less the same way. “Folders” (note the metaphor) contain folders and files, and the system works in a (theoretically infinite) hierarchy. This system is a functional analogy to filing cabinets. It also takes care of the need for hierarchical organization in a computational system. Is it a good compromise between the computer’s...
1 tag
'SHIBUYA STATION,' or, 'TWO MOMENTS I GENERALLY...
I sat on the tile floor of Shibuya station, my elbows resting on my knees, my head in my hands, and serious men in suits looked down at me, disapproving that I was white and that I was making a fool of myself in public. Her father stood near me. I imagined, though I didn’t see him at all, that he was looking down at me like, “Sorry I let you near my country, let alone near my house,...
“If you’ve ever seen the Yanomami blowing that snuff up their noses, that...”
– Wade Davis, On Endangered Languages, January 2007.
Internet 'in running' for Nobel Peace Prize - BBC →
hman:
‘The New Nice’ for real, I guess.
“The internet is among a record 237 individuals and organisations nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize…
The internet’s nomination has been championed by the Italian version of Wired magazine for helping advance “dialogue, debate and consensus”…”
(BBC)
Some thoughts on this:
The Internet did not do good. The people who use the Internet have...
“I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most...”
– -Bill Gates, University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana, 2004.
People don’t give Bill Gates too much credit. Today, everyone points to Steve Jobs and the heads at Apple as the true innovators in computing technology. The more tech-forward point to Linus Torvalds as the great visionary (and...
“Ben,” she says. She leans over, kisses him on the cheek, and pauses,...”
– Statement of Purpose, Kevin Moffett.
something I realize I've never mentioned.
I realize I’ve never mentioned this, but the name of my book is a reference to Manx Radio.
Manx Radio is the national (and one of the only) radio stations on the Isle of Man. Up until a few years ago, the station closed down at night until 6:45 the next morning. Every night, upon closing, they would play the following message:
To the fisherman at sea, and to all those who earn their...
“Happiness consists mostly, other things being equal, of having the ability when...”
– Daniel Poole, on happiness.
This happens to be one of my favorite Murakami...
