A loop eternal: Big Dog Backyard Ultra An Article www.theguardian.com Run a single loop measuring 4.16667 miles within a single hour. Now do it again. And again. Now keep doing it – starting a new loop on the hour, regardless of how fast you finish the previous one – until there’s only one runner willing or capable of doing so. Welcome to the simple – some might say sadistic – concept of the Big Dog Backyard Ultra in Bedford County, Tennessee. sportsrepetitionendurance
That which requires caring Today's real world of technology is characterized by the dominance of prescriptive technologies. The temptation to design more or less everything according to prescriptive and broken-up technologies is so strong that it is even applied to those tasks that should be conducted in a holistic way. Any tasks that require caring, whether for people or nature, any tasks that require immediate feedback and adjustment, are best done holistically. Such tasks cannot be planed, coordinated, and controlled the way prescriptive tasks must be. Prescriptive technologies eliminate the occasions for decision-making and judgment in general and especially for the making of principled decisions. Any goal of the technology is incorporated a priori in the design and is not negotiable. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology Holistic and prescriptive technologiesThe Nature and Art of WorkmanshipThe Nature and Aesthetics of Design agilesoftwareprocess