Shared posts

29 Sep 04:27

Dad dot GIF

by Xeni Jardin

dad

This dad has mad Dad Skills. (more…)

11 Nov 21:55

Has your cool neighborhood stopped being cool? Or have you?

by Jason Kottke

Ada Calhoun, author of St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America's Hippest Street, writes about the ever-changing neighborhoods in NYC.

I think there's more to these "the city is dead now" complaints than money. People have pronounced St. Marks Place dead many times over the past centuries -- when it became poor, and then again when it became rich, and then again when it returned to being poor, and so on. My theory is that the neighborhood hasn't stopped being cool because it's too expensive now; it stops being cool for each generation the second we stop feeling cool there. Any claim to objectivity is clouded by one's former glory.

Tags: Ada Calhoun   books   NYC   St. Marks Is Dead
08 Sep 22:42

The history of technology is the history of pockets

by Tim Carmody

Pocket Calculator.jpg

Diana Kimball writes on the complex symbiosis of devices, clothing, and the body:

In a very real way, what people tuck into their pockets signals what they care about. Ötzi the Iceman carried fungus to make fire. Japanese men in the Edo period carried medicine and seals. Queen Elizabeth I carried a miniature jewel-encrusted devotional book. European women in the 18th century carried money, jewelry, personal grooming implements, and even food. Here in 2015, we carry cellphones?--?never letting them out of our sight.

If what we put in our pockets is important, to advertise a product as pocketable is to imply that it's indispensable: something you'll always want by your side. Pocket watch manufacturers adopted this approach early; purveyors of pocket knives, pocket handkerchiefs, and pocket books (also known as paperbacks) followed suit. Technologies all, these tools still seem primitive relative to slim electronic bricks we haul around today. To find a direct ancestor of the cellphone, we need only look back as far as 1970: the year the pocket calculator was born.

It's a short essay, but still manages to cover multiple historical periods, eastern and western traditions, different problems faced by men and women -- remarkable range. A beginning.

(photo via Matthew Rutledge at Flickr)

Tags: calculators   clothing   Diana Kimball
27 May 00:56

Little Mermaid's Ursula does the Haunted Mansion narration

by Cory Doctorow

Ricky sez, "At Spooky Emipre's May-Hem convention in Orlando this weekend, Pat Carroll, the original and only voice of Disney's Ursula, read from The Haunted Mansion script that the Paul Frees originally spoke as the ride's ghost host. Of course, she perfectly performed it as her famous 'The Little Mermaid' character, complete with spine-chilling cackles."

Ursula voice Pat Carroll does The Haunted Mansion Ghost Host lines at Spooky Empire's May-Hem (Thanks, Ricky!)