Posts by Robin

Approximately forty-five seconds after the release of that will.i.am video for Obama, and the corresponding insta-backlash, comes the McCain version. It is hilarious and, content aside — neither the original nor this parody offer much in the way of real policy argument — worth appreciating for its meta-ness alone.

Clive Thompson remains the single journalist most perfectly calibrated to my interests, and his latest essay for Wired is no exception. It’s about science fiction:

If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.

From where I sit, traditional “literary fiction” has dropped the ball. I studied literature in college, and throughout my twenties I voraciously read contemporary fiction. Then, eight or nine years ago, I found myself getting — well — bored.

I had a friend in college who, upon hearing a science-fiction book recommendation that cited plot, characters, setting, etc., would reply: “Yes, yes, but what about the ideas? The ideas?”

(P.S. So yes, it’s probably me who is actually calibrated to Clive Thompson’s interests, given the nature of media. That’s fine, too.)

Whoah — who wants to go through a Yale course together? They’re super well-organized and -presented — better than MIT’s OpenCourseWare, although there are far, far fewer Yale courses.

I think this one looks particularly compelling (and non-generic), but this one seems like it could be pretty mind-expanding as well.

Any interest? It could be like an extended, intermittent Snarkseminar…

Briefly: Yes, I agree: Read David Markson’s “The Last Novel.” It’s slim; it’s inventive in form but timeless in spirit; and it will shake you up.

What’s your recommendation? Stipulation: You only get one! (But you can tell us the runners-up if you want.)

As previously noted, I couldn’t hack Stephen Wolfram’s big book but I like his way of thinking. This new post from his blog is fun and fascinating. It’s about a 20-year-old kid who met a challenge Wolfram set out earlier this year — with a $25,000 reward attached. Good (if esoteric) reading.

The general concept of “discovering” solutions vs. engineering them seems fairly profound, yeah?

Tell me this has never happened to you waiting for a red light:

Like me, you probably don’t associate the traffic lights on Southampton Row with the end of the world.

But it was while waiting there in 1933 that the Hungarian polymath Leo Szilard conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, and thus the creation of the atomic bomb.

In the Telegraph, Tibor Fischer continues:

The car contains Szilard and his de facto chauffeur, Wigner (only Szilard would use a future Nobel Laureate as his taxi service). They are trying to find Albert Einstein to convince him of the need to urge the US government to start building an atomic bomb before the Nazis do.

When they finally locate Einstein and outline how chain reactions can be achieved, Einstein comments: “Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht” (I hadn

Interview with Alex Kubalsky, a designer of modern Transformer toys:

What would you like to design that hasn’t been designed yet?

Just an odd object that transforms into another odd object for no reason. Just so because it looks interesting as it transforms. It is not so much about what it is in a and b – but the path itself is c. The transformation itself is the interesting thing!

Whoah.

While we’re at it: original Transformers instruction booklets. For the record, I never used these, and was sooo proud of myself.

Okay, fine, one more thing: You’ve Got the Touch.

Nothing you can tell me will convince me this is real. Nothing.

What’s an author? Why, just the sum of her readers, of course!

Try this on for size:

This is not to say that all networked writing will take place in vast wiki collectives. The individual author will be needed more than ever as a guide through the info-glutted landscape. But writers’ relationship with their readers will change as writing moves from the solitary desk to the collaborative network. No longer just an audience, readers will become assets, and eventually writers will be judged not for the number of books they sell but for the quality and breadth of their networks.

And then imagine that perhaps it is not actually a new phenomenon. What’s Plato but the collection of people who have read, discussed, and saved Plato? What’s Rachel Carson without the same?

I am newly in love with the idea of authorship as the creation of a community — by whatever means necessary or possible — around your ideas.

English majors, have at it.

(Link from Forbes.com’s great and completely-out-of-left-field report on books.)

Every subculture has its code-words and pass-phrases. One that I particularly revile is “blood and treasure,” a favorite of warrior-politics neocons. It’s handy, actually, because anytime anybody says something like “You cannot expect Americans to spend blood and treasure blah blah blah” with a straight face, you automatically know they are not credible.

I’m not even going to link to the place where I just saw it because it’s so vile. Anybody know the etymology of the phrase, though? I just did some quick Googling but didn’t find any leads.

Another angle: What are some other classic subcultural code-phrases?

“I’m familiar with the argument” is one I hear a lot in academic and quasi-academic circles, and always seems to be sending a meta-message. Any others spring to mind?