British Museum
Sunday Heather and I went to London. Destination: the British Museum (lots more pictures here).
British Museum, via flickr
Working from home
Not quite all day, but as I have some proposals and other things to finish up today, I'm largely out of the lab. I'll put in some extra
Reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow
This weekend I started reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow. First published in the early 1990s, it's now considered something of a classic in psychology, and has influenced scientists in
Saturday in Ely
Today we went to Ely, which is about 15 minutes from Cambridge by train. It's a much smaller town, but has one of the most impressive cathedrals in Britain. (Heather's account of the visit is already up, and she has several pictures.) Since we went to evensong at King's College chapel-- which is one of the most remarkable examples of English Perpendicular architecture-- it was interesting to compare them.
We biked from our house to the train station, finally found a space in the bike parking area (which is nuts), and after many minutes in line, bought tickets. This was the first time I was using the electronic ticket kiosk and my local chip-and-pin card, and with a large line behind me, I just wanted to get through the transaction as quickly as possible; as a result, I bought two one-way tickets, but at least they were to the right place.
via flickr
Joshua Lederberg on the sociability of computer centers
Something brought to mind Joshua Lederberg's description of his early computing efforts at Stanford, and the way that the computer center became a meeting-ground for all kinds of
Last thoughts on Digital Cassandras and sabbaths
I've spent the last week working through the literature criticizing the effects of the Internet on our brains, the balance between our inward (private, contemplative) ;and outward (public,
Digital sabbaths
For the last day I've been reading about the digital sabbath movement, using it to try to better understand critiques of digital culture and life: how people self-diagnose
Biking around Cambridge
I've done a lot of bicycling here. I do a certain amount of biking in California, but this is one of the most bike-friendly places I've ever lived. (Not having a car also makes a difference.)
via flickr
The bikes are ubiquitous, and they go everywhere, it seems.
The literary undergrowl of the old regime*
When I first got into arguments about “what the Web is doing to our culture and our brains,” I was manging editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was
Reading and contemplation
I've seen this in two recent essays. First, David Ulin, in a widely-circulated essay on "The Lost Art of Reading," which draws a link between reading and contemplation. He