christmasgorilla = christmas gorilla = chris muscarella


Jul 31, 2008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] Tilly and the Wall - Nights of the Living Dead

via fred-wilson
Jul 30, 2008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] Emmylou Harris & Dave Matthews - Gulf Coast Highway
Jul 29, 2008
My friend, Adam, used to live in the garden apartment of Jhumpa Lahiri’s brownstone. A few months ago, I harbored a hope that I would take over the apartment. I’d seen Ms. Lahiri speak, but had never read any of her work. Recently, in anticipation, I read Interpreter of Maladies—her first book of short stories.

It was wonderful. But I left it with a question: she writes with such poise and melancholy. It’s very feminine. Why are those qualities attractive? Are they feminine qualities? (pretend you’re sexing definite articles not ascribing things to women)

Jul 28, 2008
Spent the weekend sailing in Maine with my brother and mother. It’s a lot of work getting a boat ready for primetime cruising. Spent the weekend sailing in Maine with my brother and mother. It’s a lot of work getting a boat ready for primetime cruising.
Jul 25, 2008
“ We’ve known it for a long time: the web is big. The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we’ve seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe about just how big the web is these days — when our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once! ” - Googleblog on July 25, 2008

I’m pretty convinced that I don’t really understand magnitudes greater than 10^3.
Jul 24, 2008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Dead Right
Jul 22, 2008
Picasso: 11 Lithographs of Bulls A visual study in minimalism. Picasso: 11 Lithographs of Bulls

A visual study in minimalism.
Jul 14, 2008
“ There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. ” - Ed Howdershelt (via hilker)
Jul 9, 2008
Infrastructure - The Cracks are Showing, The Economist The Economist article points out: In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $1.6 trillion was needed over five years to bring just the existing infrastructure into good repair. This does not account for future needs. By 2020 freight volumes are projected to be 70% greater than in 1998. By 2050 America’s population is expected to reach 420m, 50% more than in 2000. Much of this growth will take place in metropolitan areas, where the infrastructure is already run down. Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend where he asserted that India would be the largest produce exporter in the world. Because of lack of infrastructure (roads, trains), they can’t even get their produce from the country to their cities before it rots. In the US, our civic infrastructure has given us an economic edge for a good part of the last century. Going forward, we’re being outspent on infrastructure by most European nations and by China. I think it’s interesting to analogize world economies to a technology stack. It’s great to move further up the stack to more powerful levels of abstraction (high-level languages vs. knowledge workers not involved in manufacturing), but if the bottom part of your stack suffers from bit-rot or someone innovates a cheaper stack, it’s hard to compete. Photo Above of the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse in 2007. Infrastructure - The Cracks are Showing, The Economist

The Economist article points out:

In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $1.6 trillion was needed over five years to bring just the existing infrastructure into good repair. This does not account for future needs. By 2020 freight volumes are projected to be 70% greater than in 1998. By 2050 America’s population is expected to reach 420m, 50% more than in 2000. Much of this growth will take place in metropolitan areas, where the infrastructure is already run down.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend where he asserted that India would be the largest produce exporter in the world. Because of lack of infrastructure (roads, trains), they can’t even get their produce from the country to their cities before it rots. In the US, our civic infrastructure has given us an economic edge for a good part of the last century. Going forward, we’re being outspent on infrastructure by most European nations and by China.

I think it’s interesting to analogize world economies to a technology stack. It’s great to move further up the stack to more powerful levels of abstraction (high-level languages vs. knowledge workers not involved in manufacturing), but if the bottom part of your stack suffers from bit-rot or someone innovates a cheaper stack, it’s hard to compete.

Photo Above of the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse in 2007.
Jul 7, 2008
“ He had a booming voice, but it wasn’t so much the boom that struck me. It was his honk. The New York Honk, as it was called, was the most fashionable accent an American male could have at that time, namely, the spring of 1963. One achieved it by forcing all words out through the nostrils rather than the mouth. It was at once virile … and utterly affected. ” - Tom Wolfe, A City Built of Clay {Felker}
Jul 2, 2008
“ In the early 1860s, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., then a brash Harvard undergraduate, wrote an essay criticizing Plato, whose classifications of ideas he found ”loose and unscientific.” Holmes sent a copy of the essay to Emerson, whose books, he later said, had ”set me on fire.” He soon received in return a nugget of stern wisdom. ”I have read your piece,” Emerson replied. ”When you strike at a king you must kill him. ”
Jun 27, 2008
Depicting character strengths with slinkies. From this excellent photostream. via matthewb

Depicting character strengths with slinkies. From this excellent photostream.

via matthewb
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christmasgorilla is the personal web-site of Chris Muscarella—me. I am the co-founder and President of Products at Mobile Commons and an artist & technologist working with mixed media. I live in New York City. This is an impressionist web-site that exists to share things that I find interesting—and because I needed a soap box.