January 20, 2008 – 10:06 pm
Nerd alert: my favorite Nintendo game EVAR, Bionic Commando, is being remade for Xbox and Playstation. The best part is — they’re not just making a new game inspired by the old classic, but they are literally recreating the original NES Bionic Commando virtually level-for-level, complete with original terrible enemy dialogue (”Get the heck out [...]
January 17, 2008 – 12:15 am
Inspired by this recount of famous shed-writers, I am putting forth my own favorite hermetic book-lover story: that of Joseph Campbell spending several years in a cabin, reading for nine hours a day. Something about the unlikely combination of dedication and freedom involved in this endeavor has wedged it firmly in place at the top [...]
January 15, 2008 – 3:01 pm
John Muir Laws is the aptly-named author of a fantastic-looking new field guide to the Sierra Nevada. Although I haven’t seen it yet, it looks right up my alley — my favorite nature-related books are often the products of lone enthusiasts like Laws. From a Washington Post piece on the field guide:
When he was a [...]
January 14, 2008 – 12:01 pm
Recommended for Cool Tools fans: Great thread on AskMeFi recommending gear that just won’t quit — everything from old Toyota Hilux pickups to Doc Martens boots to cast-iron skillets. It’s almost eerie how much this matches the stuff my friends and I fetishized in high school in Seattle, which I still feel a hitherto unarticulated [...]
January 4, 2008 – 1:32 pm
Moni Mohsin for Prospect Magazine:
Despite all the acquired veneer of western education, whether it is the Bhuttos or the Gandhis, as long as there is an adequate supply of willing family members, south Asian politics remains dynastic; family brands once established (through the ballot box and personal tragedy) transcend regional concerns to bind complex polities. [...]
January 3, 2008 – 11:57 pm
From his Guardian column:
Benazir Bhutto was a courageous, secular and liberal woman. But sadness at the demise of this courageous fighter should not mask the fact that as a pro-Western feudal leader who did little for the poor, she was as much a central part of Pakistan’s problems as the solution to them.
January 3, 2008 – 11:06 am
In advance of diving in to Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms, I’m stockpiling the links to Marginal Revolution’s excellent book forum:
A Farewell to Alms, pp.1-112
Farewell to Alms, pp.112-192
A Farewell to Alms, through p.272
Farewell to Alms, final session
Plus, all 59 (and counting) references to A Farewell to Alms on MR.
