Category: uncategorized

~ Mark

This waking dream we call the Internet also blurs the difference between my serious thoughts and my playful thoughts, or to put it more simply: I no longer can tell when I am working and when I am playing online. For some people the disintegration between these two realms marks all that is wrong with the Internet: It is the high-priced waster of time. It breeds trifles. On the contrary, I cherish a good wasting of time as a necessary precondition for creativity, but more importantly I believe the conflation of play and work, of thinking hard and thinking playfully, is one the greatest things the Internet has done.

An Intermedia with 2 Billion Screens Peering Into It – Kevin Kelly – World Question Center 2009
~ Mark

Good travel writing contends honestly and openly with presumptions of who is traveling and why… and it does not treat local people as though their lives were just incidental, conveniently or inconveniently producing conditions for others’ escapism.

Travel Writing, Annotated – Sepia Mutiny. (via)

Man on Wire

~ Mark

Man on Wire. Fantastic movie. Wow. I’m glad the participants had to the foresight to document while they prepared. One thing I love about achievements like this is seeing that they really are projects, a dream-made-real that took years of work and preparation. A one-off, maybe, but not simply a lucky break. Props to Kottke for sharing it.

The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases

~ Mark

Do more, buy less…

We found that participants were less satisfied with their material purchases because they were more likely to ruminate about unchosen options (Study 1); that participants tended to maximize when selecting material goods and satisfice when selecting experiences (Study 2); that participants examined unchosen material purchases more than unchosen experiential purchases (Study 3); and that, relative to experiences, participants’ satisfaction with their material possessions was undermined more by comparisons to other available options (Studies 4 and 5A), to the same option at a different price (Studies 5B and 6), and to the purchases of other individuals (Study 5C). Our results suggest that experiential purchase decisions are easier to make and more conducive to well-being.

More here [pdf]. (via)
The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases

Tulpan

~ Mark

Tulpan. I liked it. I appreciate patient film-making. Lots of long takes, some room to breathe. It doesn’t take you by the hand and carry you along, but it sticks with you afterward.

~ Mark

When people look at my pictures, I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.

Robert Frank. (via)

Volver

~ Mark

Volver. I’m willing to see a few more from Almodóvar. I probably would have loved this one with a few tweaks. Great actresses, but I was hoping for less explanatory dialogue and for more of the dark humor that shows up here and there. Nice to see supernatural fantasy elements taken in stride. Ebert says.

~ Mark

The Revolution Will Be Mapped. “GIS mapping technology is helping underprivileged communities get better services — from education and transportation to health care and law enforcement — by showing exactly what discrimination looks like.”

~ Mark

The combinatorial agility of words, the exponential generation of meaning once they’re allowed to go to bed together, allows the writer to surprise himself, makes art possible, reveals how much of Being we haven’t yet encountered.

Donald Barthelme, quoted in Toward a Theory of Surprise.
~ Mark

One result of the internet, I think, is that it makes almost everyone smart more eclectic, whether in terms of substance or presentation.

Tyler Cowen.