Will Self: Walking is political

The Stoic philosopher Epicurus maintained that free will was only an illusory sense we experience when the actions necessitated for us by circumstance fortuitously coincide with what we happen to want – it’s my belief that this perfectly characterises the psychotic spatial awareness of the vast majority of contemporary urban dwellers; while the existential threats afflicting women, and the state-sanctioned ones that impinge, in particular, on young black men in British cities, have been internalised even by those – the white, the middle-aged and the middle class – who have no reason to be so trammelled.

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Source : The Guardian

 

He Died with His Eyes Open (Factory 1)

I don’t know if you know Albatross Road where it runs into Hanger Lane, but if you do you’ll appreciate what a ghastly lonely area it is, with the surface-level tube-station on one side of the street, and dank, blind buildings, weeping with damp, on the other.

– Derek Raymond

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#19 Collected Reading

Quote of the week

“To describe a problem is part of the solution. This implies: not to make creative decisions as promoted by feeling but by intellectual criteria. The more exact and complete these criteria are, the more create the work becomes. The creative process is to be reduced to an act of selection. Designing means : to pick out determing elements and combining them.”

-Karl Gerstner


1.What Jaron Lanier Thinks of Technology Now

“These arguments have proved popular. The book has received admiring reviews in the Times and (twice) in The New York Review of Books. In the months after “Gadget” was published, Lanier lectured at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, travelled to Seoul to speak at a major conference about innovation, and made Time’s list of the hundred “most influential people in the world.” At the South by Southwest Interactive conference, in Austin, in March of 2010, Lanier gave a talk, before which he asked his audience not to blog, text, or tweet while he was speaking. He later wrote that his message to the crowd had been: “If you listen first, and write later, then whatever you write will have had time to filter through your brain, and you’ll be in what you say. This is what makes you exist. If you are only a reflector of information, are you really there?”

Technology, USA, Culture, Design

Source :The New Yorker

2. Blog Archive Better (and more) Social Bonuses

“While they were purchasing a gift for a teammate, they also became more interested in their teammate and were happier to help them further in multiple other ways.”

Business, USA, Culture, collaboration

Source : Dan Ariely


3. Handmade hashtag. Impromptu bulletin board gives positive voice to riot-struck Londoners

“My immediate neighbour was drawn to the A4 sheet saying ‘we should be producers, not just consumers’.”

Culture, Community, London, Public, Memorial

Source :Eye Magazine

4. Examining the Limitations of a Neoliberal Safety Net: Romney’s Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts

“rightfully in my humble opinion, ignore this because the government isn’t doing what the government is best at – absorbing risks.  All the government is doing is setting the stage for the individual to confront the entirety of their economic risks by themselves.”

Economics, USA, Culture, Policy

Source : Rortybomb

5. The Motorcycle Gangs

“they know it—and that is their meaning; for unlike most losers in today’s society, the Hell’s Angels not only know but spitefully proclaim exactly where they stand.”

Gangs, Culture, Media, USA, politics

Source : The Nation

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

#4 Collected Reading : May 15th 2011

1.BOOTED : What really ails Italy?

“This is true of every area of Italian life, sports included. In 1985, Verona won the so-called scudetto, the national soccer championship. It is the only year in the past four decades that the competition has been won by a small provincial team. It was also the year that the league decided to select referees by lot rather than designation.”

Italy, Politics,Culture

Source :  The New Yorker

2. The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved : by Hunter S. Thompson

“I shook my head and said nothing; just stared at him for a moment, trying to look grim. “There’s going to be trouble,” I said. “My assignment is to take pictures of the riot.”

Excess, USA, 1970

Source :  RalphSteadman.com


3. Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?

 “You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street,” says a former congressional aide. “That’s all it would take. Just once..” 

Greed, Money, Law

Source :  Rollingstone

4. Britain’s intellectuals: leading thinkers have their say

 “The economic—and other—benefits of regulations

“Richard Feynman said a “physicist commenting on anything but physics is as dumb as the next guy” and there is something to be said for that. Often, scientists feel they should remain within their area of expertise. But then many people from other disciplines are perfectly happy to offer their opinions on everything. It is incumbent on scientists to step up and be as vocal..”

Thinking, Public, Dialogue

Source : The Guardian

5. London river walks

“A personal tour of London’s many river views.”

London, Public, Everyday

Source :  Flickr

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

#1 Collected Reading : April 24th 2011

This is the first in a series of collected readings. The best of what I read and see for a given week.

1.The Sharing Economy

“She asked the crowd what percentage of time the average person uses his car. “Across the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe, it’s 8%,” she said. “Which means that over 90% of the time, this thing that costs us a lot of money is just sitting around.”

Collaboration, Technology, SF

Source :  Fastcompany

2. Jemima Kiss: How I kicked my digital habit

“The more we connect, the more our thoughts lean outward”

Technology, Life, London

Source :  The Guardian


3. Maurice Glasman: my Blue Labour vision can defeat the coalition

 “To bring together previously separated political matter in the pursuit of the common good.”

Politics, Labour, London

Source :  The Guardian

4. Let’s work together.

 The Mill Co. Project and the collaborative work ethic

Collaboration, Work, London, Interdisciplinary

Source :  Eye Magazine Blog

5. A brief history of Minimalism

 “It was through one Brian Eno that the principles and practices behind minimalism would properly, and most lastingly, permeate the pop mainstream.”

Collaboration, Music, Interdisciplinary, Media

Source :  Fact

Hope you like this first collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik