June 24, 2009 at 11:45am Comments
June 24, 2009 at 11:29am Comments
Nora Schmidt writes about a curious housing trend in Hong Kong:
In South America the slums are attached to the outskirts of mega-cities such as Caracas and Mexico City like wasps’ nests on a cliff face. In a hilly island city like Hong Kong, however, living space is limited. Here you only see the laboriously constructed huts made of corrugated iron and planks of wood in which the poorest of the poor live if you look upwards – they occupy, to put it in cynical terms, a penthouse location.
Link via William Gibson.
June 24, 2009 at 11:25am Comments
June 24, 2009 at 11:25am Comments
June 24, 2009 at 11:14am Comments
"*The big thing I got out of Weingarten’s thing was the sense that he was at least laying out a vision of how actual critical insight could stay relevant in the twitter universe. Some of the ranting is just ranting, but I get the point (and something like 45% of my favorite artsists in all media are ranters, so I even liked that aspect.)."
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Synaptic Burble Baubles & Infinite Ammo
I have to admit that I’m still pretty anti-twitter. Maybe in the sense of “it’s just not for me,” but anti- nonetheless. I get that something smart and insightful CAN be said in 140 characters; I just don’t get why someone would therefore select a forum were it MUST be 140 characters. You could do your “cluster of impressions/tweets” on a regular blog/tumblr/facebook status update/whatever just as well as on Twitter.
Twitter is a phenomenon, no doubt, but I think it’s a little early for critics and writers to start adapting to it as if it’s The Future. A lot of the conversation I was reading about the Weingarten thing—not just what he said but also what Nick LCC, for instance, was saying—seemed to be missing one integral point: namely, that everything you want out of critical dialogue on the internet can be had on a good old-fashioned blog. You can be a critic or an amatuer. You can explain why you like something in 140 characters or 3,000 words. You can redirect the critical conversation at any time, whether on your blog or in the comments to someone else’s. You can participate in leak culture or attempt to respect an album’s release date or talk about a record six weeks or six months or six years after it came out. Why bother giving a fuck about Twitter and it’s constraints or freedoms? If a writer puts real thought into what he or she is writing, then the contribution will be worthy whenever it comes and however long it is. The larger problem is that too many people don’t put editorial thought into what they post, and that’s a problem across all platforms. Who gives a shit about Twitter?
(via pgwp)
June 24, 2009 at 11:14am Comments
"
The teen dismisses the idea that she focuses too much on virtual communications, saying that while she has sometimes had her phone taken away from her in school, she keeps good grades, performs in school plays and socializes with friends — in person — on the weekends.
In between, she finds time to send about 400 to 470 texts a day. Among her uses of the text messages? Studying for exams with friends, which she says is better done by text because she can look back at the messages to review.
"
June 24, 2009 at 11:13am Comments
"we’ve internalized social norms so well that we automatically know the hundreds, if not thousands, of rules that we need to follow as we go through our everyday life. Think about this as you go through today—you’re being guided by a comprehensive, albeit usually unwritten, rule book. - Bradley Wright, everyday sociologist"
June 24, 2009 at 11:12am Comments
"An ambulance arrived from Tehran’s morgue carrying the body of their only son, 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour. On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said."
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Farnaz Fassihi reports (via dailydish)
The best part? They charged the family a $3000 bullet fee to recover the body.
(via kateoplis)
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