In the 17th-century Jesuit missionaries began to educate amerindians and settle in the theocratic communes (“reductiones”). Their native wards proved capable of learning the skills and arts required to build magnificent churches and compose baroque music.
Tag: culture
Blackberry Portrait
the new cultural icon of those wanting to appear busy (and important). look for more uptake in middle management in 2007
US Boy Scouts are a sick joke
6 years ago, the Boy Scouts convinced the US Supreme Court that their principles gave them a constitutional right to exclude gays and atheists. Now the California Supreme Court has been asked to look at the other side of that coin — whether the Scouts are a religious organization ineligible for certain types of government aid, including $-a-year leases of public land.
hard to believe how stupid boy scouts are in the us. i never mention my history with scouting when in the us for that reason.
4:00 in Chengdu
“It’s stewed rat head” one of my companions grins matter-of-factly before donning a pair of disposable plastic gloves, selecting a choice skull, snapping open its jaw and with a happy abandon not normally associated with this time of the morning proceeds
Greasy spoon
colloquial for diner. fascinating!
Dick Cheney Google Searches
funny and a good sign that this stuff is becoming mainstream
Transhumanism in The Economist
is it too much to hope for that we won’t get uninformed views dominating, just like with all the GNR technologies? on the other hand, this might be a watershed moment where the term enters the early adopter phase
Wordie
Wordie lets you make lists of words — practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. You can then see who else has listed the same words, and talk about it. It’s more fun than it sounds.
this is a cute idea. collaborative wordsmithing. it will be interesting to watch whether this helps at all with the coinage process
What code DOESN’T do
- Code does not move
- Code is not green text on a black background
- Code has structure
- Code is not 3 dimensional
- Code does not make blip noises as it appears on the screen
- Code cannot be cracked by an 8 year old kid in a matter of seconds
- Not all code is meant to be cracked
- Code isn’t just 0100110 010101 10100 011
- People who write code use mice
- Most code is not inherently cross platform
Funny because it is so true!
2007-04-08: Movie computer feats. I especially like
They strike at core mythologies about how computers work and the great yearning we all have for them to anticipate our thoughts and desires and meld with our own minds.
BlackBerry Orphans
Like a bunch of teenagers, some parents are routinely lying to their kids, sneaking around the house to covertly check their emails and disobeying house rules established to minimize compulsive typing.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 