J.R.McHale

The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” Writers Worth Watching

lileks:

Hugh Ferris’ skyscrapers may have been the most influential drawings of his time; every big city has a structure whose architect couldn’t help wondering what this new project would look like if Ferris sketched it. 

theyear2000:

my-ear-trumpet:

paper-or-plastic:

Literal translation of Manhattan zoning ordinances, Hugh Ferriss, 1916

Hugh Ferriss‘ renderings, at their best, are some of the most evocative examples of American art of the previous century. Perhaps among his best known works is a series of sketches which show the development of form as it responds to building set-back requirements in zoning codes. Organic Processes in design development are here evident, as crystals seem to morph into buildings, their forms the logical result of the maximization of available light for the city below.

Time Out Chicago recommends 13 books as Summer 2010 reads, including “Kraken” by China Mieville: “In his new one, magical underground forces in London want to release a giant squid god, and a hapless cephalopod expert discovers he holds the key to unleashing the deity. We repeat: giant squid god.”

Jolt Digest: the online companion to the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Philip K. Howard at TED on Four Ways to Fix a Broken Legal System

Facebook, arguably the largest and most important website in the world has most of its content walled off from Google. In fact, the biggest loser in the Facebook privacy debate is not Facebook, it’s Google. Why? Because the more people that put all their status updates, information and pictures behind a wall of privacy, the fewer status updates available to Google (and other search engines as well). The net result is that Google’s mission to index all the world’s information has been irreparably damaged. 500mm Facebook users and most of what they all publish to their networks is unavailable.

Now, a larger problem. Books in their digital format look vastly less ‘finished,’ less genuine. And we can vary their font and type size, making them resemble all the more our own word-processed manuscripts … . All the e-books I’ve read have been ugly — books by Chang-rae Lee, Alvin Kernan, Stieg Larsson — though the texts have been wonderful. But I didn’t grow up reading texts. I grew up reading books. The difference is important.

Tim O’Reilly once said that the problem for artists isn’t piracy – it’s obscurity. I think that’s true. A lot of people have commented: ‘You can’t eat page views, so how does being well-known help you earn a living as a writer?’ It’s true; however, it’s very hard to monetise fame, but impossible to monetise obscurity. It doesn’t really matter how great your work is; if no one’s ever heard of it, you’ll never make any money from it. That’s not to say that if everyone’s heard of it, you’ll make a fortune, but it is a necessary precursor that your work be well-known to earn you a living. As far as I can tell, these themes apply very widely, across all media.

Facebook Users’ Bill of Rights

The trailer for Jean Luc Godard’s new film “Film Socialisme” which allegedly shows the entire film in super-fast motion.

[P]eople only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone! Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone. So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t.

David Weinberger imagines an alternative universe in which Mark Zuckerberg is born before Tim Berners-Lee, and invents the Web.

The ten best science fiction detective novels

The 2010 Edgar Winners.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/63890987001?isVid=1&isUI=1

Techcrunch interview with Robert Cailliau, a Belgian informatics engineer and computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.

Out today, Daniel Okrent’s “Last Call – The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.”

Q&A with Daniel Okrent at Barnes & Noble’s Review and Barbara Spindel’s related review of the book.

An excerpt from the book in The Daily Beast: In the excerpt, Daniel Okrent writes that long-held beliefs about Joe Kennedy’s bootlegging business are wrong.

Other reviews:
Business Week: “It’s the most persuasive, witty, and best-documented explanation yet as to why Americans decided to endure a ban on alcohol, the federal government’s most intrusive regulation of all time.”

History News Network: “This may be a rare case where one can plausibly accept a book jacket description at face value: ‘Last Call is capacious, meticulous, and thrillingly told. It stands as the most complete history of Prohibition and confirms Daniel Okrent’s rank as a major American writer.’”

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.

TV Economics 101: Why you can’t watch every show online for free

Up There: a short, 13 minute, documentary about the dying business of hand painting advertisements on the sides of tall buildings – a business, now, with the advent of vinyl appliques, pretty much limited to New York City and Los Angeles.

Two interesting posts by Thomas Baekdal: (1) The first rule of privacy, and (2) Facebook is dying; social is not.

More on Facebook’s recent privacy changes:
Wired: Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative.