Bits & Pieces

I think that part of my experience of growing up in the American South in the early ‘60’s was one of living in a place unevenly established in the present. You could look out one window and see the 20th century, then turn and look out another window and see the 19th…It provides a sort of parallax. If you only have one eye, you don’t have depth perception. If you’re able to look at things with one eye in the 21st century and the other eye in the 20th century (or possibly even the late-19th), it provides a kind of perspective that otherwise wouldn’t be available.

An interview with William Gibson | The Verge

Sounds very similar to how i feel sometimes, torn between the work/life culture of India and the US.

What can be explained is not poetry. W.B. Yeats (via bodasdesangre)

American design is consumer driven. What Americans want, they get. Unfortunately, they typically don’t want what we may call “good design,” perhaps because they don’t know what it is. So they get “splashy” or “feature-rich” design, because that is what they like. But this is changing fast. Thomas Lockwood, Designmanagement Institute (via justinlowery)

People turn to software to learn the meaning of words, learn which countries were bombed today, and learn to cook a paella. They decide which music to play, which photos to print, and what to do tonight, tomorrow, and Tuesday at 2:00. They keep track of a dozen simultaneous conversations in private correspondence, and maybe hundreds in public arenas. They browse for a book for Mom, a coat for Dad, and a car for Junior. They look for an apartment to live in, and a bed for that apartment, and perhaps a companion for the bed. They ask when the movie is playing, and how to drive to the theater, and where to eat before the movie, and where to get cash before they eat. They ask for numbers, from simple sums to financial projections. They ask about money, from stock quote histories to bank account balances. They ask why their car isn’t working and how to fix it, why their child is sick and how to fix her. They no longer sit on the porch speculating about the weather—they ask software Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface