Posted by on under samuel morse, iry, best thing since sliced bread, panics, phe, hysteria, thoreau, typewriters, backlash, aces, pencil, brains, critique, telegraph, waves, peoe, attitude, memory | 
Salon has a refreshing take on the effect of the net on wider culture, courtesy of Dennis Baron, author of the new book A Better Pencil. Baron places hysteria about the net's supposed dumbing-down in context with other panics of years gone by. Historically, when the new communication device comes out, the reaction tends to be divided. Some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread; other people fear it as the end of civilization as we know it. And most people take a wait and see attitude. And if it does something that they're interested in, they pick up on it, if it doesn't, they don't buy into it. I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony. We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything." Is the Internet melting our brains?...
Tagi: samuel morse, iry, best thing since sliced bread, panics, phe, hysteria, thoreau, typewriters, backlash, aces, pencil, brains, critique, telegraph, waves, peoe, attitude, memory
Posted by on under street view, cool spot, google, trike, question of the day, aces |
The Street View Trike has been around for a while, but now Google is looking for more places to send it. Know a cool spot where a car can't go? Google wants to hear about it. If you have any ideas,...
Tagi: street view, cool spot, google, trike, question of the day, aces
Posted by on under japanese folklore, artts, fearsome creatures, mythic monster, ebay, night parade, hyakki, detail shots, mster, aucti, somee, edo period, shigeru, wild things, analys, dori, 13th century, comic books, specimen, aces |
A spectacular specimen of traditional Japanese yokai (mythic "monster") art has popped up on eBay. Wow, talk about where the wild things are! From what I can tell, this scroll may be a vintage copy of a centuries-old original, and really ought to be in a museum. I hope the auction stays up for a while, and someone takes some time to copy the images elsewhere -- each one of these detail shots is so full of personality and mischief! The "Buy it now" price? $15,000. I asked Yokai Attack author Matt Alt to tell us what we're seeing in this monstrous tableau, and he kindly obliged. His analysis below (with more after the jump). The Haykki Yako (百鬼夜行), literally "the night parade of a hundred demons," is one of the most famous tales in Japanese folklore. It first appeared in a Buddhist text in the 13th century, and is the story of a nightmarish evening during which legions of yokai, oni, and other fearsome creatures erupted from their usual hiding places to openly terrorize the world of the living. According to one version, they paraded down Kyoto's Ichijo-dori avenue in the late 1100s. The Hyakki Yako (also spelled "Yagyo") inspired countless generations of Japanese artists, including Toriyama Sekien, who penned an influential series of yokai guides in the 1770s; woodblock artists of the 1800s; and manga masters such as Mizuki Shigeru in the 20th century. A handful of illustrated scrolls depicting the event are known to exist, mainly from the early Edo period (1603 - 1868). They weren't created as fine art but rather as entertainment, passed around and scrolled through together with friends, just as people enjoy comic books, television shows, or video games with friends today....
Tagi: japanese folklore, artts, fearsome creatures, mythic monster, ebay, night parade, hyakki, detail shots, mster, aucti, somee, edo period, shigeru, wild things, analys, dori, 13th century, comic books, specimen, aces
Posted by on under cramped spaces, n travel, usb socket, studio apartment, wan port, palm of your hand, internal battery, wireless networking, upper east side, carrying case, aces, puppy, router, tailor, nbsp, ces |
Looking to take 802.11n to places you never thought possible? You know -- like your studio apartment on the Upper East Side? TRENDnet's Wireless N Travel Router (which was
announced way back at CES) is tailor made for cramped spaces, fitting within the palm of your hand and offering up a single WAN port, a carrying case and a USB socket. Unfortunately there's no internal battery to keep this puppy alive in the wild, but for $79.99 we can't kvetch too much.
Filed under: Wireless, Networking
TRENDnet 'world's smallest' Wireless N travel router now on sale originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: cramped spaces, n travel, usb socket, studio apartment, wan port, palm of your hand, internal battery, wireless networking, upper east side, carrying case, aces, puppy, router, tailor, nbsp, ces
Posted by blogs@bobvila.com (Ben) on under energy resources, clean energy, little boys, aces, ufo, reliability, health care, parents |
It doesn't get as much news coverage as health care, war in the Middle East, or little boys flying off in their parents' homemade UFO, but the Smart Grid is a topic worthy of our nation's attention. The Smart Grid plans for spreading alternative clean energy (wind, solar) from places where it is produced to places where it is consumed. It will also increase the security and reliability of the nation's energy resources. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) says ...
Tagi: energy resources, clean energy, little boys, aces, ufo, reliability, health care, parents
