Notes from Under Grounds: On View Now: “Jorge Luis Borges: Author, Editor, Promulgator.” Exhibit at the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia of the works of Borges, including books that he published, translated, or wrote prefaces to. Unsurprisingly the collection includes “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Orlando.” Looking forward to Nora Benedict’s forthcoming in-depth post about the exhibit.
Links
Deferring maintenance
New York Times: Oroville is a warning for California Dams, as Climate Change Adds Stress. We have, as a society, been neglecting maintenance – of our infrastructure, our code, our bodies. (Well, I have, anyway.)
“One thing”
Rands in Repose: One Thing. A good description of some of the psychology behind the Deming principle of minimizing work in progress.
You cross the threshold of inbox usefulness when you begin to mistake the act of managing the importance rather than acting on the importance. Speaking as a human who has crossed this uselessness threshold multiple times, I am prepared to declare that I am 100% done with productivity products. There is a better, simpler, and more productive way.
Light reading
Full copies (in PDF) of Nat Hentoff’s short-lived magazine The Jazz Review available at Jazz Studies Online. Just look at the table of contents for the first issue…
RIP Nat Hentoff
Sorry to hear about the death of jazz critic and free speech advocate Nat Hentoff. Ninety-one is a good run, by any measure, but we need his contributions more than ever.
Reverse engineering “Yoda Stories”
Zachtronics: Reverse Engineering Star Wars: Yoda Stories. I spent way too much of my life playing this game back in the 1990s.
Your daily “past isn’t even past” update
Cavalier Daily: Final report on Confederate memorials presented to city. Interesting tension between moving the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and recontextualizing them, with some unusual voices on both sides.
Interesting, too, to note the association of both statues within a historically segregated park and the donor of both statues and park, namely Paul McIntire, also a major donor to the University of Virginia.
About signs of hope in North Carolina…
Good news from North Carolina?
Salon: North Carolina’s season of hate is over: it’s time to repeal the state’s anti-LGBT law. It’s easy to forget, in the aftermath of the presidential election, that there were some signs of hope at the state level.
“I’m a Mac.” “And I’m a PC.”
Let all the children boogie.
Buzz Aldrin gets cured by Dr. David Bowie. For real.
There’s a starman waiting in the sky. He’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds.
Christmastime is here again
Aquarium Drunkard has links to all the Beatles Christmas fan club records.
Greetings, Mr Pence.
Washington Post: Mike Pence’s new neighbors greet him with rainbow flags. Welcome to Chevy Chase, Mr. Pence.
In the press
I was featured in a UK article about the conference that I spoke at in Bristol a few weeks ago.
John Knoll, filmmaker
Wired: Meet John Knoll, the Special Effects Genius Behind Rogue One. Turns out that Knoll wasn’t just responsible for the special effects; he actually made the story pitch to Lucasfilm. Looking forward to seeing this movie.