Consider a familiar, mundane, urban situation: You walk into an ATM vestibule in a bank. Your arrival has been preceded by other customers. No queue exists. But a ‘queue’ forms nevertheless and it deploys a simple algorithm: You simply wait till everyone that was there before you takes his or her turn. You don’t careContinue reading “The Real Social Software: ‘Crowd Solutions’ To Co-ordination Problems”
Category Archives: General
Six Years of Walking To Work
This past weekend, I completed six years of walking to work. My daily commute is a thirty-minute walk, give or take a few minutes depending on whether I’m trying to get to class on time, or perhaps lugging a slightly heavier backpack than usual. Somehow, miraculously, my walking commute has ensured that while living inContinue reading “Six Years of Walking To Work”
Even ‘Degenerate Art’ Can Tempt: The 1937 Entartete Kunst Exhibitions
In July 1937, in Munich, the Nazi Party mounted the Entartete Kunst exhibitions of ‘Degenerate Art.’. The exhibit featured over six hundred paintings, sculptures, prints, and books, a collection put together by a six-man commission that had confiscated–from the collections of thirty-two German museums–art deemed ‘modern, degenerate, or subversive.’ The exhibition remained in Munich tillContinue reading “Even ‘Degenerate Art’ Can Tempt: The 1937 Entartete Kunst Exhibitions”
Video Game ‘Cloning’: What Is It Good For?
Cloning of video games is a Bad Thing. Or so sayeth Brian X. Chen and some video game developers (New York Times, March 12th, ” For Creators of Games, A Faint Line on Cloning”). Roughly, the thesis advanced is: ‘cloning’ can be destructive of developer motivation and the video game market, and thus seems toContinue reading “Video Game ‘Cloning’: What Is It Good For?”
Skream’s Where You Should Be, Eight Hours in Brooklyn, and Summer
I’ve written before, on this blog, about the “fine-grained, specific recall” of memories that listening to a song can bring about. I’m inclined to think that any time I pen a note of appreciation here about a particular piece of music, I will do so by also noting and paying attention to its associations; itContinue reading “Skream’s Where You Should Be, Eight Hours in Brooklyn, and Summer”
Labor Relations in Low Earth Orbit: The Skylab Strike
Three weeks ago, the world celebrated the twenty-eighth anniversary of the end of the manned portion of the Skylab mission. Well, not really. Enthusiasts of manned space exploration certainly did; others had to be reminded. Students of the history of science can edify us about the scientific value of the three Skylab missions (meant toContinue reading “Labor Relations in Low Earth Orbit: The Skylab Strike”
Bill Keller Needs to Drop the Snark and Do Serious Journalism
Over at the New York Times, Bill Keller, who has been doing his best to make sure it will be hard to take him for a serious journalist, writes a piece–bursting to the seams with snark–on Wikileaks. Keller thinks he is providing a serious evaluation of the fallout of Wikileaks (most particularly, its leaking ofContinue reading “Bill Keller Needs to Drop the Snark and Do Serious Journalism”
Provincialism’s Easy Allure Or, Writing Outward From The American Academy
In The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin writes, As sophisticated as the recent literature about conservatism is, however it suffers from three weaknesses. The first is a lack of comparative perspective. Scholars of the American right rarely examine the movement in relation to its European counterpart. Indeed, among many writers it seems to be an articleContinue reading “Provincialism’s Easy Allure Or, Writing Outward From The American Academy”
Cary Sherman is Upset SOPA and PIPA Were Not Enacted
I am thankful to the RIAA‘s Cary Sherman for having provided a wonderful sample of writing, which may profitably be used by those teaching classes on rhetoric and critical thinking. I’m referring to Sherman’s screed in today’s New York Times, which alternates between self-pity and bluster in complaining about the failure of the passage ofContinue reading “Cary Sherman is Upset SOPA and PIPA Were Not Enacted”
Roger Cohen, the “Two Footballs”, and False Dichotomies
Over at the New York Times, Roger Cohen has an Op-Ed contrasting football and football. I mean, Association football and American football. Or, rather, soccer and football. Roughly Cohen’s thesis is: soccer is all skill and art, football is all violent force and anti-finesse; America reveals its plebeian failure to appreciate soccer artistry by itsContinue reading “Roger Cohen, the “Two Footballs”, and False Dichotomies”
Samir Chopra 