Category Archives: humanities

contagion and corruption

The Economist (Mar.30) paraphrases a paper on “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development” (by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, American Economic Review Dec.2001): The harder it was for Europeans to settle a region, the greater the culture … Continue reading

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packers and mappers

Reciprocality: some interesting stuff about the psychology of creativity.

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ungrammatical boys, ungrammatical boys, whatcha gonna do?

Okay, the Grammar Police gag has been done before, if not quite so stylishly. I don’t mind an excuse to plug my favorite college strip.

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short and stout

Steve Baker tells the tale of the Utah Teapot. (Found through another Steve’s links.) Links in turn to the Stanford Bunny. And what collection of digital models would be complete without Lena Sjööblom? I first saw her in Foley & … Continue reading

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generic carnivory

The oddest things sometimes bug me. Does anyone else remember a children’s book which mentions eating “roast beast”? Update. One reader (see, this is how I smoke you out) points it out in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I feel … Continue reading

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words about letters

I feel like mentioning, for no particular reason, that The Font Bureau’s Graphite Condensed looks remarkably like Walt Kelly’s Henry Shikuma’s lettering in Pogo.

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paper forever

In the New Yorker, a review of The Myth of the Paperless Office. (Link from Monty Solomon on a private list.) Paper enables a certain kind of thinking. Picture, for instance, the top of your desk. . . . The piles look … Continue reading

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