Book Notes: How Buildings Learn →
My latest post is a deep dive on Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. If you can’t tell from the length, this book is full of gold, and one of my favorites in a long time:
Microblog
Tools, the Technium, and the Importance of Agency →
On Kevin Kelly’s “Technium” and why human innovation is different than the biological variety.
The Two Enlightenments →
Differentiating two different variants of The Enlightenment:
The amazing spillway at Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant , Iceland.
I can’t see brutalism without thinking of Dune. Upper image looks like Caladan.
“The preoccupation with what should be is estimable only when the respect for what is has been exhausted.”
—José Ortega y Gasset**
101 Additional Advices →
A regular tradition, 101 more pieces of advice from the inimitable Kevin Kelly.
Shrinking Arctic ice redraws the map for internet cable connections →
Politico:
Calvin Coolidge
“When you see ten problems rolling down the road, if you don’t do anything, nine of them will roll into a ditch before they get to you.”
—Calvin Coolidge
Edinburgh from the air. Alfred Buckham, c. 1920.
Ruataniwha Dam , New Zealand.
Filming location for a future dystopian sci-fi film.
The Exploration Instinct →
Latest Res Extensa , on our natural genetic wiring to explore, and its biological benefits of asymmetric bets:
Kármán vortex streets in nature.
Diagram of a warship. From the Cyclopædia , 1728.
The Yukon River delta , Alaska.
Map of humanmetabolic pathways.
(via @burny_tech)
Chiesa di Santa Maria Formosa. Venice, Italy.
Rio de San Zulian. Venice, Italy.
Venice’s Grand Canal. Taken from the Rialto Bridge, 2014.
Bixby Creek Bridge. Big Sur, California.
The PCH is a national treasure.
The “fire exit” at Libreria Acqua Alta. Venice, Italy.
Made the trek here in 2014. They keep the books in floating vessels — boats and bathtubs — to keep them safe in when “acqua alta” floods happen.