humanity
The gutting of our human subjecthood
A sense reflected in the plans
An ethics of mutual care
Foregrounding maintenance and repair as an aspect of technological work invites not only new functional but also moral relations to the world of technology. It references what is in fact a very old but routinely forgotten relationship of humans to things in the world: namely, an ethics of mutual care and responsibility.
I choose a world with pyramids
Which would you choose: a world with pyramids? Or without?
Humanity has always dreamt of flight, but the dream is cursed. My aircraft are destined to become tools for slaughter and destruction. But still, I choose a world with pyramids in it. Which world will you choose?
Cardinal sin
Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.
The duty of industrial design is first and foremost to users and the users are, generally, human beings, with all their complexities, habits, ideas and idiosyncrasies.
Making Death a Victory
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself—and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.Nature undisturbed
My chief aim is simply to describe and explain the technological fabric of society, not to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And yet I would not argue that technology is neutral or value-free. Quite the contrary: I suggest that the signs of human presence are the only elements of the landscape that have and moral or aesthetic significance at all. In nature undisturbed, a desert is not better or worse than a forest or a swamp; there is simply no scale on which to rank such things unless it is a human scale of utility or beauty. Only when people intervene in nature is there any question of right or wrong, better or worse.
Creations of human artifice
In the twenty-first century, the question most of us ask when disaster strikes is not "How could God let that happen?" but "Who screwed up?" This is a salutary development: We take responsibility for the world we live in. Whether or not our world is the best of all possible worlds, it is a world we have made for ourselves. We live in an engineered landscape, on an engineered planet. Our cities and farms, our dwellings and vehicles, our power plans and communication networks—these are all creations of human artifice. If we don't like it here, we have only ourselves to blame.
Humility
Maybe what the real world of technology needs more than anything else are citizens with a sense of humility – the humility of Kepler or Newton, who studied the universe but knew they were not asked to run it.
Why I Walk
An Article by Chris ArnadeOn my first day I literally walk across the city, to the extent it can be done…The next day I do another cross town walk, but in a different direction, filling in the blanks from the prior day’s walk.
Then, over the next week(s), I walk between 10 to 20 miles per day, picking and choosing from what I have seen before, highlighting what I like, what I want to know more about, refining the path, till by the end of my trip, I have a daily route that is roughly the same.
While that is certainly not the most efficient way to see a city, it is the most pleasant, insightful, and human. I don’t think you can know a place unless you walk it, because it isn’t about distance, but about content.
Makers and Making
An Article by Alan JacobsThe [Silmarils] are good; their making was at least potentially innocent; but afterward arose a lust for owning and controlling that led to great tragedy… The aspect of humanity which the elves represent most fully – both for good and ill – is the creative one.”
And this is why “making” in and of itself is not the answer to our decadent moment. “Love of things, especially artificial things, could be seen as the besetting sin of modern civilisation, and in a way a new one, not quite Avarice and not quite Pride, but somehow attached to both” – and this is the Fëanor Temptation. It is in light of this temptation that I advocate repair, which is a mode of caring for what we have not made, but rather what we have inherited. We will not be saved by the making of artifacts — or from the repair of them, either; but the imperative of repair has these salutary effects: it reminds us of our debt to those who came before us and of the fragility of human constructs.
evermore, and other beautiful things
An Article by Linus the SephistIf all evidence of civilization on Earth was destroyed, and humans had to re-build society from the ground up, what would be different? Feynman reckons that pivotal scientific moments, like the discovery of the atom, will still happen in the same way. Perhaps mathematics will be similarly rediscovered.
Someone told me once in response to this question, no artwork would ever be recreated. The art we create – music, stories, dance, film – isn’t a fundamental element of the universe, or even of humanity. It’s unique to each artist. If you choose to create art, you leave something in the world that has never had a chance to exist before, and will never again have a chance to exist. There will never be another Beatles or Studio Ghibli or Picasso. Art, in its infinite variations of originality, is cosmically unique in a way the sciences will never be. Art immortalizes human experiences that would otherwise vanish in time.
The mortifying ordeal of being known
A Fragment by Tim KreiderYears ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.
sodelightful.com
A Website by Christina TranI'm Christina Tran. If you want to trace the trails I've made in the world through the intermittent marks left on the interwebs, below is a map of my becoming in no particular order. But I also hope we get the chance to share a meal, explore nature, experience art, and/or create something together sometime. Because we are all multi-faceted, multi-dimensional beings who can't be TL;DR'd.
Sunshine
A FilmA team of international astronauts are sent on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057.
The Elements of Style
- Choose a suitable design and hold to it
- Make the paragraph the unit of composition
- Use the active voice
- Put statements in positive form
- Specific, definite, concrete
Choose a suitable design and hold to it
A basic structural design underlies every kind of writing.
Writing, to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily the order in which those thoughts occur. This calls for a scheme of procedure. In some cases, the best design is no design, as with a love letter, which is simply an outpouring, or with a casual essay, which is a ramble. But in most cases, planning must be a deliberate prelude to writing.
The more clearly the writer perceives the shape, the better are the chances of success.
Make the paragraph the unit of composition
As a rule, begin each paragraph either with a sentence that suggests the topic or with a sentence that helps the transition.
More commonly, the opening sentence simply indicates by its subject the direction the paragraph is to take.
Use the active voice
"I shall always remember my first visit to Boston” is better than "My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me."
Put statements in positive form
Make definite assertions. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.
"He was not very often on time” becomes “He usually came late.”
“She did not think that studying Latin was much use” becomes “She thought the study of Latin useless."
Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is.
If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority.
Specific, definite, concrete
Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.
Omit needless words
When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentence short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
The principle of parallel construction
This principle, that of parallel construction, requires that expressions similar in content and function be outwardly similar.
Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs in the kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.Steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion
Here we leave solid ground. Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised. There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rule by which writers may shape their course. Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.
Design informs even the simplest structure
Design informs even the simplest structure, whether of brick and steel or of prose.
Even the kind of writing that is essentially adventurous and impetuous will on examination be found to have a secret plan: Columbus didn’t just sail, he sailed west, and the New World took shape from this simple and, we now think, sensible design.
Do not overstate
When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.
A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole.
Do not explain too much
It is seldom advisable to tell all.
Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end
The proper place in the sentence for the word or a group of words that the writer desires to make most prominent is usually the end.
The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to the words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition.
Writing is one way to go about thinking
And the practice and habit of writing not only drains the mind but supplies it, too.
Style is not separate from substance
Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
The young writer should learn to spot them - words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning but that soon burst in air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.