-
I finally sat down with this, after it being in my to-read pile for ages. It was entirely worth it. I particularly liked the parts about the natures of silence, and about animal sentience, and about maintenance and regeneration as a natural state. It is worth every minute of however long it takes you to read it, be it the 44 minutes Medium estimate, or a bit more, or a bit less.
-
Finally got around to finishing this, and so glad I did. Thoughtful, gentle prose from the excellent Helen Macdonald.
-
"Some of the best field naturalists I know grew up in working-class rural communities, skipping school like Billy Casper to practise forms of natural history that bent or broke the law: they ferreted rabbits, collected eggs, broke into quarries, kept pigeons, reared finches, climbed fences to poach for fish. Today they can still spot a linnet’s nest in a furze bush at 50 paces and possess fieldcraft skills that would put many a birder to shame. There’s little room for them in today’s culture of nature appreciation and even less so in nature writing, which tends to entrench a sense that the correct relation to the landscape is through walking and distanced looking." From the section on 'Landscape and Englishness', which sounds excellent.
-
"The morning light was great, the surface was still and there were great reflections and the deep blue water was a deep blue unlike anything I'd seen before. I was in awe. I still am. Sometimes nature is so incredible you left with nothing to say but "Holy shitballs"." Strong truth.
-
Yes, it's advertising, but that's really, really, really clever. Nicely done.
-
"The Whole Earth Catalogue, our bible as self-builders of our residences in the hippie-ish days of the 1970s, was subtitled ‘access to tools’. ‘With tools,’ ran the editorial preface, ‘you can do more or less anything.’" Lots of good quotations, including this, and also on fires.
-
I've linked to a single photo, because it makes me think: what it must be, to be taking photographs for Science, millions of miles away via radiowaves, and to have them not only be useful, but to turn out as beautiful as this one. How wonderful to know that the universe is as beautiful as the world, and that even in the name of research, we can take such beautiful pictures.
-
"PROBLEM: There is no way I can justify to myself spending that much money on plastic cows. Really, there is no way. WIN-WIN: I could however justify giving that same amount of money, or more, to a worthwhile charity. That would be an easy thing." Matt wants cows, in return for giving money to charity.
-
Oh wow; it's like a developer network for LittleBigPlanet. Smashing.
-
"On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more…" Lovely.
-
'"With respect to the franchises that don’t have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform, with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of, over time, becoming $100 million-plus franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us," Kotick said.' Kotick is very serious about his use of the word 'exploit'.
-
""The ability to offer these songs on a subscription basis may very well result in the newest subscription opportunity in our portfolio," he said." Kotick wants you to pay Activision to subscribe to UGC. Oh dear.
-
Beautiful.
-
"As we move into a world in which we can manufacture things as cheaply as we print them, the skills that tinkerers develop– not just their ability to play with stuff, or to use particular tools, but to share their ideas and improve on the ideas of others– will be huge." Lots of good reflections from "Tinkering As A Mode Of Knowledge".
-
Visualising the heights of people's towers by importing their savegame. Lovely.
-
"By understanding the way bees respond to all the different aspects of the natural world, the beekeeper is able to recover his own relationship to the natural world through bees."
-
"Every time Bobby Kotick opens his mouth, I see a giant cow with "GUITAR HERO" branded on its side, and Bobby Kotick is squeezing two teats as fast as he can."
Pastures New
06 October 2007
This week, after 18 months there, I left my job at Nature Publishing Group. I’m sad to go, of course; I’ll miss the friends I made whilst working there and the chance to work with many smart, engaged, talented people. I also had the opportunity to work on and help shape several exciting projects, most notably Nature Network and Nature Precedings.
It’s been an enjoyable ride, and I’m surprised at the sheer amount I learned in those eighteen months. For starters, I appear to have learned how to be a programmer in that time. I’ve also had the chance to stretch my design skills, notably in the design of interactions.
I knew from the start it would never last forever; one day, other opportunities would arise. It turned out that I was right.
On Monday, I start work at Headshift, making technological things to help people better engage with one another. It looks fun – and it looks challenging.
I can’t wait.