“The assumption driving these kinds of design speculations [Google Glass] is that if you embed the interface–the control surface for a technology–into our own bodily envelope, that interface will “disappear”: the technology will cease to be a separate “thing” and simply become part of that envelope. The trouble is that unlike technology, your body isn’t something you “interface” with in the first place. You’re not a little homunculus “in” your body, “driving” it around, looking out Terminator-style “through” your eyes. Your body isn’t a tool for delivering your experience: it is your experience. Merging the body with a technological control surface doesn’t magically transform the act of manipulating that surface into bodily experience. I’m not a cyborg (yet) so I can’t be sure, but I suspect the effect is more the opposite: alienating you from the direct bodily experiences you already have by turning them into technological interfaces to be manipulated.”
“The poor are not the raw material for your salvation.”
Helder Camara, discovered in this lovely post by Liam Black.
More from Liam Black:
Each year the socially entrepreneurial Cirque de Soleil sets up its big tent at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Champagne is sipped whilst corporate CEOs, Russian oligarchs and Arab potentates ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the miracles being performed by the social entrepreneurs. The Occupy movement activisits on the other hand are kept a long distance away and canapés are not put out for them. Their diet is tear gas and police truncheon.
Power, class – especially class – and entitlement are three subjects nowhere near high enough up the agenda of Skoll and Davos. It is very fashionable at such gatherings to hear mainstream politics trashed as unable to compete with the whizzy, sexy, genius social entrepreneurs. Yawn, party politics. How boring. How last century.
But ask yourself this: without political backing where will your idea get? What has had the biggest impact on well-being in this country in the last ten years? Eden Project? Big Issue? Jamie Oliver? Divine Chocolate? Or the government’s decision to ban smoking in all public places?
@benleventhal goes Norman Rockwell in Chefhampton.
“Among the wiry Brooklyn hipsters, Cointre stands out as a pompous, medieval butcher type, and is the one you want beside you when your house burns down and there is not a chair to sit on. Hidden behind an awe-inducing lion’s mane of wheat locks and a French accordion of a smile is his generous spirit and infinitely expressive mimicry and jest.
His cooking:
Simple, but misleading in its suggested modesty.
It isn’t ‘French cuisine’, it isn’t ethnic cooking and it certainly isn’t fusion. Antony does what he feels is best, borrowing ideas from around the globe in creating his own dishes rooted in a natural balance of flavors. His instincts are collaborative, allowing room for a lot of spontaneity and improvisation. He fetishizes on good quality products, which are seasonal, local and organic.
On wine:
A seeker of truth through wine-related enlightenment, Antony is a devotee to artisanal winemaking. Favoring the small producers who harvest and treat the fruit as has been done for centuries with minimal intervention. A truly amazing meal is always paired with a few of his personal selections.”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - So Good at Being in Trouble.
From Tyler Surfboards, courtesy of Lane Wood.
I smile in my sleep.
by david
I run into some version of this essay by some moneybags twig-bishop about once a year, and it bugs me every time.
Here’s the thing. Wealth is not a number of dollars. It is not a number of material possessions. It’s having options and the ability to take on risk.
As with carrying, so with owning in general. Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.
When rich people present the idea that they’ve learned to live lightly as a paradoxical insight, they have the idea of wealth backwards. You can only have that kind of lightness through wealth.
“My prosthetic legs were off. We were deeply in love and I could not be happier. I know she felt the same way. After Reeva finished her yoga exercises she got into bed and we both fell asleep.”
Oscar Pistorius, beginning what may be the strangest official statement I’ve ever read.
Continuing:
“I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights. I went back into the bedroom and grabbed my cricket bat to bash open the toilet door. A panel or panels broke off and I found the key on the floor and unlocked and opened the door. Reeva was slumped over but alive.”
“Chris Muscarella would like to dispense with the preciousness around food and let people who dine together do what they want to do. For most of us, that is not golf clapping at the chef’s subtly magnificent use of kohlrabi foam, or arranging our whimsical wine glasses for the best Instagram angle. We’re there to enjoy each others’ company. The food, he says, should be a backdrop to the communal dining experience.
As Ricky Roma says in Glenngarry Glen Ross, “Great meals fade in reflection. Everything else gains.”
