No ordinary objects Abandoned by the world, no longer of use, but still carefully repaired and preserved, these were no ordinary objects. The reasons for their maintenance remain a mystery. At this point, they could only be described as "art". No—not so much "art" as something that exceeds art... Hyperart. Genpei Akasegawa & Matt Fargo, Hyperart: Thomasson artrepairthomassonsobjects
Hyperart: U.S. Rail The steepest grade on U.S. main-line track is at the small town of Saluda, on a Norfolk Southern route between Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina. The grade goes on for three miles at a slope of 4 or 5 percent. Trains have not been running on the line since 2001, but the tracks are still maintained. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape thomassonsgeographytransportation
Thomassons This was 1982, the year that Gary Thomasson was batting cleanup for the Yomiuri Giants. Thomasson had the unfortunate nickname of "The Electric Fan", which, if you think about it, was exactly what he was. Night after night, he stood in the batter's box, whiffing mightily at the ball, down on three strikes every time. He had a fully-formed body and yet served no purpose to the world. And the Giants were still paying a mint to keep him there. It was a beautiful thing. I'm not being ironic here either. Seriously, I can't think of any way to describe Gary Thomasson but as "living hyperart". Genpei Akasegawa & Matt Fargo, Hyperart: Thomasson sportsthomassons
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint An Essay by Edward Tufte www.edwardtufte.com In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now "slideware" computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year. Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations? Ban PowerPointsA Conference Without SlidesDocuments vs. decks