"Microblogging is laziness and the intellectual path of least resistance disguised as elegant..."

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:04:00 -0500

“Microblogging is laziness and the intellectual path of least resistance disguised as elegant brevity. It will also be massive. Sigh.”

- Anthony Volodkin via Twitter. This feeds on itself. It’s an elegant, insightful, and brief statement on making elegant, insightful, and brief statements. Should we be dismayed or excited about the changing communication norms?

The Web of Consciousness

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:50:00 -0500

Alex French, writer for GQ: How’s things?

Mark Zuckerberg, social cartographer and boy CEO: There’s this definite evolution happening. Where the first part of the social web was mapping out the social graph. And the second phase is now mapping out the stream of everything that everyone does. All of human consciousness and communication.

Alex: Imagine if you could broadcast people’s emotions into a feed?

Zuck: I think we’ll get there.

Alex: So how are you going to map all of human consciousness and communication?

Zuck: We don’t map it directly. We give people tools so they can share as much as they want, but increasingly people share more and more things, and there’s this trend toward sharing a greater number of smaller things like status updates, wall posts, mobile photos, etc. A status update can approach being a projection of an emotion.

Alex: That’s what I use it for.

Zuck: So it’s not so crazy to say that in a few years people will be doing a lot more of that. It takes time for people to be comfortable sharing more and for the social norms to change.

***
There’s some scoffing going around at Zuckerberg’s megalomaniac projection that Facebook (or other social tools) will become conduits for actual, realtime emotions. These naysayers are the idiots. Zuckerberg definitely overshot with Beacon, but he’s predicting a certainty here: as long as society continues to support widespread access to digital devices, we will live, learn, and love through online social circuitry.

The real challenge for Zuckerberg is maintaining Facebook’s monopoly on the social machinery market while the concept of digital living continues to develop. Critical mass is Facebook’s strongest advantage and that’s going nowhere fast… but we’ll see how it turns out.

(Conversation taken from GQ’s “Boy Genius of the Year: Do You Trust This Face?” via Scott.)

"People don’t rise from nothing. They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages..."

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:28:39 -0500

““People don’t rise from nothing. They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.””

- Malcolm Gladwell in his latest book on the genius of the everyday: Outliers.

At first, the premise of the book (a close look at how big shots built their success) is attractive marketing. You want to run and buy it and figure out how to turn a shitty life into a glittering one, because, hey, all you need to know is these few secrets, right?

But diving in, this excerpt is depressing. Outliers looks like an implicit diatribe on how the everyman just doesn’t have the goods to succeed.

Still, might merit a read! If not for the uplifting promise of progress, for the stories about Bill Gates sneaking into computer labs at 2 in the morning.

Quote and review via WSJ.

Photo

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:06:36 -0500

Photo

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:44:17 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:05:39 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:04:37 -0500

On the Street

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:48:00 -0500

Bill Cunningham is the curiously quaint but accomplished bicycling fashion photographer who narrates his imagery of streetwear for the NYT each week. (Think a jolly old man banters about The Sartorialist’s pics.)

Cunningham’s attraction is his inspired reverence for the ebbs and flows of commuter/street culture and the way that fashion responds to it. He catches stylish people in very real and accessible moments of going through their daily paces. I love seeing each week’s feature, because it adds both gravity and levity to my opinions of the hordes of outfits I see every day.

Here’s the full archive of Bill Cunningham’s On the Street vignettes. And one of my favorites, Dampened: Fashion Week goers looking riotously hot as they brave a downpour.

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:55:00 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:54:00 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:54:00 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:41:20 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:41:08 -0500

Photo

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:40:49 -0500

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:39:58 -0500

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

- Warren Buffett, who slings business and finance aphorisms like no one else can.

Dan Abrams — friend, Yale classmate, aspiring...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:35:11 -0500

Dan Abrams — friend, Yale classmate, aspiring screenwriter, and all-around A+ member of society — passed away just recently. He took with him a particular brand of inscrutable, infectious, incredible humor that our lives will not know again.

The news spread via a Facebook memorial page that’s being crafted in Dan’s memory. Bad news now arrives digitally, asynchronously, impersonally, but that does not change the senseless gravity or raw humanity that it so cruelly inflicts.

Too much, not enough, too soon, too late. Dan will be missed.

(Photo by Isaac Klausner.)

Zaha Hadid’s “pod” container for the Chanel...

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:20:00 -0500

Zaha Hadid’s “pod” container for the Chanel Mobile Art exhibit generated well-deserved hype for a sinewy tour of contemporary artists’ takes on the luxury retailer’s iconic bag. I managed to take it in on the exhibition’s final day in the States. It moves to Moscow next.

Best parts were the pod itself, the gravelly Jeanne Moreau’s come-hither narration, the fun house gimmick of parting curtains and climbing stairs, and experiencing the exhibits in assembly line fashion (visitors were spaced out at 30 second intervals which made for moments of solitude and crowd throughout the tour).

As for the exhibits, some were cool, some I could dismiss. Overall the whole thing read as simultaneously obsessed with luxury status but also aware of the industry’s blind shallowness. Mobile Art was both self-righteous and self-loathing, occupying an uncomfortable midpoint between sneering consumerism and aesthetic idealism.

Photo

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:03:29 -0500

Photos via Inhabitat.

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:02:00 -0500

Photos via Inhabitat.

Pettigrew for President

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:42:00 -0500

The story of Timothy Pettigrew, a fictional black Presidential candidate, is the earliest recollected depiction of diversity in America’s highest office. The comic strip, which ran in Treasure Chest magazine for half of 1964, concealed Pettigrew’s race until the final issue.

For older generations, this 1960’s comic book hero has resurfaced as a powerful reminder of just how unlikely yet poignant the idea of a black president had seemed to be until Obama’s appearance on the national stage.

The comic strip optimistically projected the election of a black man to happen in 1976. It took us about 30 extra years to get there.

More via NPR and National Catholic Reporter of all things (the Pettigrew character was Catholic). And check out this YouTube video showing the original comic book.