CCJRNL

 

The Oxford Comma Is Safe...For Now

For now, the Oxford comma lives on at Oxford. And it lives on in my heart. Life is nasty, brutish, and short (or, to introduce unnecessary ambiguity, "life is nasty, brutish and short"), and the least I can do for myself is to hold tight to the linguistic niceties about which I, for whatever reason, care. It's comforting. It's calming. And when it comes to taking a firm position about mostly unimportant debates, that's about all I can hope for.
via npr.org

As an unabashed Oxford Comma booster, I am happy to see that the threat of its extinction -- raised yesterday by the University of Oxford's seeming abandonment of its own punctuation rules -- turns out to be largely overblown. Fellow commaphile/grammar nerd NPR writer Linda Holmes has an entertaining take on it all in the article linked here.

Filed under  //   books  
Posted June 30, 2011 by Chris Coldewey 
 

Adapt

Tim Harford is a Financial Times columnist and the presenter of Radio 4's More or Less, which won the Royal Statistical Society's 2010 award for statistical excellence in broadcast journalism. He is also the author of several books, including The Undercover Economist. His latest is Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.

Cory Doctorow: First of all, some context -- what's the thesis of Adapt, and how does it refine, extend or improve upon The Undercover Economist?

Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist was a book about the economic principles behind everyday life, from the way Starbucks prices drinks to the rise of China. Adapt isn't primarily an economics book at all — it's a book about how complex problems are solved. (If ideas from economics help, great. But sometimes they don't.)

That said, the two books start from a very similar place: describing the amazing complexity of the economy that produces the everyday objects which surround us. In Undercover it was a cappuccino, and in Adapt I describe a memorable project in which a student called Thomas Thwaites attempts to build a simple toaster from scratch. But in Adapt this complexity isn't just a cause for a "wow, cool" moment — it's a headache, because it's a measure of the obstacles facing anyone who wants to solve problems in this very intricate, interconnected world.

Ultimately Adapt argues that the only way forward is experimentation, which can either be formal or ad hoc. Whether we're talking about poverty in Nigeria or innovation in Boston, solutions tend to evolve rather than be designed in some burst of awesome genius. And then the question is — what do we need to encourage those experiments?

via boingboing.net

Filed under  //   books   economics   innovation  
Posted May 31, 2011 by Chris Coldewey 
 

Float!: Building on Water to Combat Urban Congestion and Climate Change

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Float! Building on Water to Combat Urban Congestion and Climate Change proposes a new way of building: on water instead of on land. Although the concept may seem revolutionary, it is an obvious solution to overcrowded metropolises. Most world cities are situated on the water and have too little space where it's most needed: in the city center. Building on water allows inner-city areas to expand.

Floating buildings have many advantages. They are both flexible and mobile. A buoyant structure can be moved to make space for a new building, decreasing the need for the demolition of a development that still has a productive economic future. Floating buildings outwit changing water levels by rising and falling with the tide and, in so doing, promote a more responsible water management. They leave no scars on their sites, permitting planners to actively meet the demands of the moment.


via amazon.com

Forget Burning Man -- the world needs a new festival: Floating Man. And this is our handbook.

Filed under  //   books   urban planning   water  
Posted December 12, 2010 by Chris Coldewey 
 

The Domino Project: Seth Godin's new publishing platform

Media_httpwwwthedomin_gdidr

 

To launch the Domino Project, a bestselling author is walking away from traditional book publishing and using the tools of new media to bring his (and his colleagues’) ideas to the world in a new way. Amazon is working with me to create The Domino Project, a new kind of book publishing venture, one that will redefine both what it means to be a publisher and what we think of as a book.
via thedominoproject.com

Following on his announcement that he's abandoning traditional publishing, bestselling author Seth Godin hints at what's next for him with the Domino Project, a collaboration with Amazon.com.

Filed under  //   books   innovation  
Posted December 9, 2010 by Chris Coldewey 
 

The Worldchanging Book: Revised and Updated

We are extremely pleased to be able to announce the new edition of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, to be released this spring (and already available for discount pre-order at Powell's, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon).

via worldchanging.com

The new edition of the Worldchanging book is out -- congrats to Alex and the team.

Filed under  //   books   future  
Posted November 21, 2010 by Chris Coldewey