Many architects and designers, when talked down from the theoretical towers of “sculptural forms” and “floating volumes” and made to speak of their craft in humbler terms, are apt to use a phrase as naive as it is loaded: “good design.” It suggests such an apparent universality that any of us should be able to [...]
Category Archives: General
4 Jun 2008
The Aesthetics of Brewing
Fort Collins is a town that loves it’s beer. With at least 5 breweries in town, we do not drink Coors (stop asking!). I have to give a shout out to Odell Brewing Co. for it’s design. Their logo is fantastic (see right) and so are it’s label designs (see left). Not only do they [...]
3 Jun 2008
This really happened…
at my high school. This explains any grammatical or spelling mistakes; I had teachers like this. Yes, I did have “Crapo” in high school. This is not exaggeration. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
I present for your enjoyment a brief vignette of high school English class, in dramatic form:
SCENE: A classroom. Students [...]
3 Jun 2008
Lineages
I was thinking about the progression from exponent to godfather to grandfather status in a movement (literary, musical, etc.). It seems fuzzy when someone goes from an “Exponent” (a more gender neutral term for “Father”) to a “Godfather” (no gender neutral term, maybe “Elder Statesperson?”) to potentially “Grandfather” (“Grandparent”) of a movement. To help clarify [...]
3 Jun 2008
Solutions for Problems
The Top Ten Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems
“…we get just nine cents of value for every dollar spent trying to stop terrorists.” Contrast with: “Correcting these mirconutrient deficits would cost $286 million per year.” The U.S. could have fixed this many times over considering that the Iraq war costs about $100,000 per minute. Just [...]
24 May 2008
WTF?
A bit late on this one, but I can tell you what I think: History is not their strong suit. Fox News, I thought you were evil ideologues, but maybe you are just incompetent. Hanlon’s Razor at work, I suppose. I’m picturing an unfortunate undergraduate intern asked to Google Image search for a picture of [...]
24 May 2008
“Don’t pretend to be innocent.”
Learning to Speak Olympics
This is an interesting impression of how Chinese learn English. I know that some Americans, say in business, are beginning to learn Chinese, but it does not seem as widespread as this. Is widespread such a good thing if “Do you want to go to a movie?” = “I’d eventually like [...]