Seth Roberts - Becoming His Own Mouse
[Republished from QS] I'm becoming a devoted fan of Seth Roberts, one of the great champion of self-experimentation. Roberts, an emeritus professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, has spent many year studying himself, and, even better, offering many practical clues...
Negotiating with Nazis - A Good Idea
Yesterday George Bush said: Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi...
Links for Talk at Maker Day
BodyBugg Wrist Device Tracks Behavior by Category Emotion Map Reality Mining with Mobile Devices Talk to Baby...
Eric Kandel's In Search of Memory
At the beginning the memoir he published last year, the great neuroscientist Erik Kandel gives an account of his first sexual experience. His partner was "an attractive, sensual young woman," named Mitzi, who worked as a servant in his parents...
5 Posts on Getting Things Done
Below are links to some recent posts with background material (and a small amount of new reporting) connected my story in Wired on David Allen and Getting Things Done. Wired profile of David Allen GTD and "The Civilizing Process" Courtesy,...
Why work so hard: The eusocial meaning of Getting Things Done
Why work so hard? If there's a sore point in the literature of business self-help, this question touches it. A person who carries a to-do list everywhere; who divides the workday into segments; who strives for optimal efficiency: the...
The Unity Influence on Getting Things Done
In a conversation with David Allen for a profile that ran in this month's Wired, I asked him how seriously he took the doctrines he encountered during the spiritual quest that led to him becoming a minister in the Movement...
What is a Good Cult? David Allen, GTD, and New Religious Movements
Among the most interesting things that came out of my research on GTD was the program's roots in the human potential movement of the 1970s, and the role David Allen played in one of its most vivid chapters. He was...
Courtesy, Conditioning and GTD
I argued this month in Wired that the methods David Allen prescribes in Getting Things Done are more than practical hints; they are tools of civilization that make new demands on our conscience. Getting Things Done is to us what...
David Allen, GTD and The Civilizing Process
In the profile of David Allen in the October issue of Wired I discuss some of his intellectual antecedents, the influences that shaped Getting Things Done, and indirectly, all of its users, including myself. The story is an intellectual profile,...
A.J.P. Taylor on Spying
In the course of some casual research, I came across a venemous review of a number of books about spying by the late A.J.P. Taylor. I've been thinking lately about what - if any - difference it makes that spying...
Alberto R. Gonzales and The Hive Mind
ATTY. GEN. Alberto R. Gonzales dealt our assembled senators a mighty dose of frustration recently, parrying their wickedest thrusts by claiming, for example, that key decisions about which U.S. attorneys to fire emerged from "a process that was ongoing that...
Terry Eagleton Reviews Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion
Terry Eagleton attacks Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion in the latest issue of the London Review of Books. Eagleton points out, as have many others, that Dawkins' contempt for religion blinds him to the meaning of the faith he attacks....
Milquetoast Agnosticism
The November issue of Wired, with my story on The New Atheism, was posted online yesterday. I've been reading as much of the comment as I could. Much of it is positive, some it is loony, but there are also...
Atheists for Jesus
Hyde Park - Speakers' Corner I recently interviewed Richard Dawkins for an upcoming story in Wired on "the new atheism." Dawkins mentioned his wish that there were an "atheists for Jesus" group, a suggestion he first made in writing...
South Park Crash
Since 1992, the real estate fortunes of South Park have been a lagging indicator of the Web development business. Walking to get coffee yesterday, I came across one of the last of the crappy old post-earthquake victorians being crushed; the...
Uke Concert
I too read the Times story today about the 7 million + views of the guitar wizard on utube. It was a deadly distraction. Among other things, I watched this: While My Uke Gently Weeps...
Spamless At Last
After 12 years with the same email address, I had finally reached a spam-crisis. I was filtering heavily, but even my filters were choking. At the suggestion of Paul Boutin, I've been experimenting recently with spamarrest, and though it took...
Morel Story - Shawn Ryan and Cathy Wood and Friends
About a year ago I went up to the Yukon with David Arora, author of Mushrooms Demystified, to take a look at what was predicted to be one of the biggest morel mushroom season since the commercial pick began. The...
Public Warning - Listening to the Toilet
Art Botterell's idea for a warning system that transmitted good news rather than bad news was provocative and reminded me of something. Finally, I recalled what it was: the hilarious description near the end of Gravity's Rainbow of how to...
Panic, Warning, and National Security - Art Botterell Interview
Art Botterell is one of the main subjects of Reinventing 911. Botterell is an extremely interesting person, whom I met at a panel discussion honoring the publication of Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World. The...
Wired Story - Reinventing 911
Many months ago, I published a short piece in Wired about the NIST report on the evacuation of the World Trade Center. I was a fan of the NIST report. However, several readers criticized my piece for proposing a moral...
Comments on "Disobey!"
There have been quite a few Web comments and pointers recently on the very short piece I wrote for the June issue of Wired about the National Institute for Standards and Technologyís report on who escaped from world trade tower...
Who Got Out and Why
I spent today reading the lengthy report by the National Institute for Standards and Technology about who escaped from the 9.11 World Trade Center attacks, and why. If you have a taste for this sort of thing, the report will...
About The Microsoft Memo
A recent story about Microsoft and Open Source, published this week in Wired, has been generating a lot of email. While I'm trying to respond to everybody directly, I want to note here how much I enjoy getting this feedback,...
Philip K. Dick - Degraded Histories
At the annual used book sale sponsored by the San Francisco library I got a very large pile of old biographies, memoirs, and out-of-date collections of local anecdotes. These books always fascinate me. Perhaps what I like is analogous to...
Ghetropolis
My day wasted after finding this blog. click...click...click...click...click...click...click...click...click...click...click...click...
Wireless Coaching
I've read the stories about Bush's earpiece at Salon and Is Bush Wired?. Football fans may appreciate this reference, to the first time wireless coaching was used, by the legendary Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns....
From My Friend Robespierre by Henri Beraud, 1825
"The most extravagant idea that can enter a politican's head is the belief that all a people need to do to spread their own laws and constitution is to enter another nation with a sword." --Maximilien Robespierre, December 21, 1791...
Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison, and Media Treason
I happened to catch the broadcast, last weeks, of the CBS 60Minutes II story about American soldiers and Pentagon contractors torturing Iraqi prisoners. Sometimes I have trouble getting past minor details of such stories. In this case, I got hung...
Bush Press Conference, Press Fans Tear Hair
There's been lots of whining by disappointed followers of the Washington press, which got its sad fanny kicked by George Bush during the press conference this week. Just as it used to be more fun to tease Red Sox partisans...
Dr. Rice's Grammer Jammer
Focused on details, as always, I listened to Dr. Condoleezza Rice's congressional testimony this morning with admiration. One sentence especially impressed me. In it, Dr. Rice used an astoundingly agile combination of conditional and subjunctive moods in the past tense...
Some Interesting Dean Stories
Rob Mackey's piece for The London News Review on why the Republican Party is publicizing their eagerness to face Howard Dean in the U.S. 2004 Presidential Race: Please Nominate This Man. Also, The Washington Post responds to some recent Web...
The War on Christmas
This week on CNN there was an enlightening debate on a topic of national importance, moderated by anchor Kyra Phillips: PHILLIPS: Merry Christmas or happy holidays, a Christmas tree or a holiday tree, Which should it be? It depends on...
In Memoriam Hugh Kenner
I was sorry to read that Hugh Kenner died yesterday. The Times obituary gives a few highlights, mentioning Dublin's Joyce (1956), The Pound Era (1971), A Homemade World: The American Modernist Writers (1975), Joyce's Voices (1978), Ulysses (1980; revised in...
Dean Links
Here are some of the Dean-related links I found most useful and interesting. With one exception, I am not bothering to put the official Dean campaign links here - they are all easily accessible from The Dean Blog. And many...
Joe Trippi - Mastermind?
I've been busy trying to close my Howard Dean/Emergent Media story for Wired, which accounts for a few days of silence here, but I did notice this very interesting Joe Trippi profile at The New Republic. Trippi is such an...
Howard Dean - A Negative Scenario
Now that all the regulars have weighed in, let me throw a monkey wrench into the this emergent system. Thanks to Paul Boutin and Tom Morris for helping me focus my thoughts on this. Tom Morris is the Web master...
Howard Dean - Five Airports, One Twice
My trip to talk to Dean took my from SFO (my home town airport) to Denver International, then from Denver to a small private airfield called Centennial where the Governor's plane was sitting, then the Las Vegas on the campaign...
Dean Campaign Manifesto Discussion
The imaginary retroactive manifesto for the Dean campaign sparked an intelligent and wide ranging discussion that is growing quickly. I also got a few responses via email I want to highlight here. Steven Johnson, with whom I've had great conversations...
The Dean Campaign
I'm still working on my story about the Internet side of the Dean campaign for Wired. It is giving me information anxiety. There is too much going on. It is impossible to get a bird's eye view. This problem is...
Howard Dean and Emergent Media
In the middle of research for a Wired story about Howard Dean and emergent media. The more I learn about the campaign, the more fascinating I find it. A recent front page story in the Wall Street Journal (reposted here)...
Amazon's Search Engine - Alexandria II
Amazon made some news today. They've just launched a gigantic digital library containing more than 120,000 titles, with the goal of quickly incorporating a lot more. The interesting thing is that these are not ebooks. Yes, all the text is...
Social Networking and Howard Dean
For a story about Howard Dean tentatively scheduled for Wired's January issue, I've been collecting references to theories of the Web, social networking, emergent media and [insert favorite buzzword here]. These references are easy to find, of course - just...
The San Francisco Chronicle - An Appreciation
The Wired saga has gotten surprising attention and if some inland subscribers to the New York Times found their Book Review supplement missing on June 27 it’s because my mother snuck up their steps and stole it. The New York...
Was Wired Right?
Two early reviews have very different takes on the book, which was officially published today. Salon: The Future Was So Bright, by Andrew Leonard The New York Observer: A White-Hot Media Company’s Mania for Breaking New Ground, by Brad Wieners...
Winer's Front Porch: Rossetto Responds
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 21:28:19 +0200 Subject: Re: You and Dave Winer From: Louis Rossetto You are mischaracterizing my position in order to create a dichotomy with Dave Winer's. For me, the Web was not only a platform, it...
Wired's Worst Stories: Zippies, The Long Boom, and Push!
What was Wired's worst story? The three likely nominees for this prize are easy to identify. By popular anti-acclaim, the three worst Wired stories ever were: Here come the Zippies! (2.05) In May of 1994, Wired announced that a confab...
Louis Rossetto vs. Dave Winer
Back at the dawn of time, Dave Winer and Louis Rossetto had a little debate about the future of Web publishing. It was 1994. Things got heated. “The era of public access Internet has come to an end,” Louis proclaimed...