Someone makes the argument that the camera doesn’t matter much when it comes to making great photographs.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm

So I’m getting into some Jazz Fusion now — mostly because of a drummer named Dave Weckl. He’s a Demigod with the power to generate time signatures that shape worlds and alter fates. Fear him or suffer deservingly.

I’m liking his latest album “Multiplicity” quite a bit. Different, sure, but different is good.

This site will let you select the book you have from Amazon and a number of other sources, and then maintain a list of what you own. Very cool stuff — especially for geeks like me that have over a hundred technical books and need to know exactly what we currently own to avoid buying duplicates. :)

http://www.librarything.com/

http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2005/12/30/gates

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1514168659738935009

(not work-safe — language)

The author paints quite a bleak picture of the coffee shop business:

http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/#ContinueArticle

Good reading for anyone who’s considered doing it. Interestingly enough, most people who read this page probably have considered it — or at least thought it would be a cool thing to do.

A very interesting piece on the detriment of a work-focused culture, and what he thinks would happen if we were allowed more free time. Here’s the last paragraph:

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

I’ve been out of webdesign for years now, but occasionally I come across a site that just sets me back. This one here is amazing:

http://www.folietto.at/

A recent Washington post article talks about how our college graduates have been getting less and less literate over the last decade.

This is unwelcomed conformation of what I’ve been seeing for years; there are tons of people in college who can barely read and write — let alone do basic math. It’s depressing.

From the piece:

Gorman said that he has been shocked by how few entering freshmen understand how to use a basic library system, or enjoy reading for pleasure. “There is a failure in the core values of education,” he said. “They’re told to go to college in order to get a better job — and that’s okay. But the real task is to produce educated people.”

Other experts noted that the slip in scores could be attributed to most state schools not being particularly selective, accepting most high school graduates to bolster enrollment.

Uh, yeah. I’ve seen schools that will basically take anyone. These are people who can’t even read at the high school level. It’s sickening. Once the standards fall it’s game over, and our standards have been falling for a very long time.

China, Europe, and India are laughing at us. They know it’s only a matter of time.