Archive for February, 2007
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
Inc. magazine’s second story on Kepler’s
The second part of Bo Burlingham’s three-part series on Kepler’s appears in the March issue of Inc. magazine. Burlingham recounts the struggles that Anne Banta, Clark Kepler, et al have had over the past year or so after the store reopened in October 2005. It seems that Banta has finally come to some conclusions that [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Save Kepler's by Rick
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007
The new n+1
A few months ago, I wrote a magazine article about the experience of spending a day without any digital devices—no cell phone, no Internet, no computer. Unfortunately, the piece was edited to express almost none of my ambivalence about the state we technology users currently find ourselves in—assaulted all day long by emails, unable to [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
Yves Bonnefoy out of obscurity
When I was a freshman in college, I asked one of my teachers to recommend a French poet whose verse contained much lyricism and obscurity, and she pointed me towards Yves Bonnefoy. I picked up a couple volumes of his work, which I read at the time. I saw him read sparingly when I spent [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
Back from Sea Ranch
When I was in high school, one of my best friends would occasionally tell me that his parents were spending the weekend at Sea Ranch. I imagined a bunch of cows living by the ocean, and he explained, “No, no cows. There’s, like, golf and stuff.” I would respond, “Cows! Moo!” It turns out that [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Saturday, February 10th, 2007
Baseball under the umbrella
Before going up to San Francisco today, I watched three innings of the Stanford vs. Fresno state game in the rain. I’ve only missed three Stanford home openers in this decade, and I wasn’t about to miss this one after having stayed home on Friday night when the game was rained out.
[...]
No Comments » - Posted in Baseball, General by Rick
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
Milan Kundera’s The Curtain
I read Milan Kundera’s new book, The Curtain, at Stanford’s Green Library last weekend, and enjoyed almost all of it. The book-length essay, parts of which appeared in the New Yorker, argues for a unified tradition of world literature. Kundera basically suggests that we need to view all work in the context of this tradition, [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
Steve Jobs on DRM
Steve Jobs posted his “Thoughts on Music” on Apple’s website, calling for the music industry to end its insistence on DRM. As many have noted, the statement is aptly timed to address growing pressure on Apple to open the iTunes music store to other digital music players. I’ve never quite understood what the music industry [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General, Music, Technology by Rick
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
Winning Eleven and Amazon
I pre-ordered Winning Eleven Pro Evolution Soccer for Xbox 360 last month from Amazon, and expected it to ship yesterday. However, today I received an email from Amazon stating that the game wouldn’t ship until next week. In my disappointment, I cancelled my order and went out to GameStop to buy a copy of the [...]
