Aux armes, citoyens,To arms, citizens, Formez vos bataillons,Form your battalions, Marchons, marchons !March, march! Qu’un sang impurAbreuve nos sillons !Let an impure bloodWater our furrows!… Read More »Blood, Bones and Building; or, Love’s Labours
This image we know and love – the classic ukiyo-e woodblock print, as Japanese as Tsunamis and Mount Fuji, one of the launchpads of Japonisme,… Read More »New Wave: the Hybrid Hokusai
Here’s Eisenstein again. There’s a lot at work: The combinatorial innovation that was the printing press created further opportunities for cross-pollination by breaking down old… Read More »Technology (23): Elizabeth Eisenstein on how the printing press created new networks and sparked further innovation
I’m working my way through Elizabeth Eisenstein’s excellent The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, an abridged version of her two-volume The Printing Press as… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (12): Elizabeth Eisenstein on How the Printing Press Changed Books
CX. There are, moreover, some inventions which render it probable that men may pass and hurry over the most noble discoveries which lie immediately before… Read More »Technology (22): Francis Bacon on Combinatorial Innovation, the Big Three Technologies of the Renaissance, and Pure Science
The Uncertain Paternity of Invention The father of invention must be laziness … or play.* 10 magic points if you already knew that the world’s… Read More »Innovation at Play: Webcam 1.0
The technology of writing isn’t simply the infrastructure of thought: it’s the enabling infrastructure of most of the complex activities we think of as government.… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (11): Writing Rules
For those who came in late… So did I. Get Back (released in November 2021) is a 7 hour documentary in three parts, made almost… Read More »Get Back: Thoughts on Watching The Beatles
If you don’t trust metamask with what happens in your browser, (I wasn’t sure) install a browser you won’t use for other stuff (Edge? Brave?).… Read More »How to Make an NFT in less than an hour
Here’s the great Elizabeth Eisenstein on the impact of the printing press on a lost world of information underload, and an interesting lens for viewing… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (10): Elizabeth Eisenstein on the Printing Press and the End of the Information Famine