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Photo Hope for the Week
Go, Blue Jays!
Quote of the Week
In the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was one of several revolutions that overturned society. Mechanical creatures intruded into farms and homes, but still this invasion had no name. Finally, in 1802, Johann Beckmann, an economics professor at Gottingen University gave this ascending force its name [technology] . . . He hoped his outline [a textbook titled Guide to Technology] would become the first course in the subject. It did that and more. It also gave a name to what we do. Once named, we could now see it. Having seen it, we wondered how anyone could not have seen it.
Source: Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants
Posted: 2025 Oct 18Or check out this TEDxSF by Kelly.
Music of the Week
Category Archives: Through Space
Drop. Snap. Repeat.
I am under no illusions: finding the airport bus at Edinburgh International Airport doesn’t rate as an impressive adventure-travel story. Continue reading
Travelling Since 16 Hours
We have been travelling since 16 hours. We don’t want to eat. We don’t want to drink. We don’t want anything. Continue reading
Cheap and Good; Good and Cheap
One of a miscellany of short observations from a trip to Scotland. £280. I look again. Yes, that’s what it says. £280. In the last 24 hours I have slept, oh, about 4 hours max. My first meal of this … Continue reading
The View From Ten Thousand Feet
After hours of intermittent dozing in a space so cramped you couldn’t put convicts in it without provoking human rights complaints, my point of view is a tad jaundiced. All I want is to be once again in a place where throwing garbage on the floor is socially unacceptable. Continue reading
I’m Sorry (So Sorry)
Two things are needed to learn a language: patience and perseverance. Which of these two virtues matters more, do you think? Continue reading
But It’s So Easy
Even in English, impatience is the cat that gets my tongue. Working in Spanish just makes it so much better. Continue reading
Cats on a Hot Tin Roof
My Oxford says a cat is a “small, furry, domesticated, carnivorous quadruped.” What does it know? Continue reading
Clackety-Clack (Don’t Look Back)
Barrelling through the early-morning intersection, a bus threatens my toes, which are, admittedly, hanging over the sidewalk’s edge a little too eagerly. As the gale induced by this no-doubt speed-limit-obeying bus subsides, I step out into the crosswalk, not caring … Continue reading