kottke.orgJason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext productsTraits of the creative personality- September 16, 2008 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's ten paradoxical traits of the creative personality. Furthermore, people who bring about an acceptable novelty in a domain seem able to use well two opposite ways of thinking: the convergent and the divergent. Convergent thinking is measured by IQ tests, and it involves solving well-defined, rational problems that have one correct answer. Divergent thinking leads to no agreed-upon solution. It involves fluency, or the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas;...http://www.kottke.org/08/09/traits-of-the-creative-personality Travel by container ship- September 16, 2008 Another story of traveling by cargo ship. The stevedores, or as we call them in the states, longshoremen, are becoming the latest group of tradespeople to be put out of their jobs by robots. The ships already practically steer themselves, that's why I'm staying in the pilot's cabin, "there is no pilot". The course of the ship is plotted in advance as a series of vectors with turns at key points. The ship's computer lets the officer on duty know when it's time to make a turn, and corrects...http://www.kottke.org/08/09/travel-by-container-ship David Foster Wallace dead at 46- September 14, 2008 David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 tome "Infinite Jest," was found dead last night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46. Jesus. No no no no. So fucking sad and unfair. I am in here and upset. (link)http://www.kottke.org/08/09/david-foster-wallace-dead-at-46 War and Peace-grade traffic- September 13, 2008 If you live and work in Los Angeles and have an average commute, you spend 72 hours a year in traffic. That's enough time to read War and Peace once, get through Wagner's The Ring Cycle almost five times, or watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy almost eight times. The page includes stats for other cities too. Update: A closer read, a bit of arithmetic, and several emails have convinced me that the 72 hours is not the overall commute time but the time spent sitting motionless in traffic...http://www.kottke.org/08/09/war-and-peacegrade-traffic Talking body parts- September 12, 2008 Surreal Nike commercial featuring British sprinter Nicola Sanders and her talking body parts. (link)http://www.kottke.org/08/09/talking-body-parts The recent architectural development of NYC- September 12, 2008 Not sure I agree with all of it, but New York magazine's interesting piece about all the new development that has been going on in NYC for the past few years is certainly worth a read. In the last 25 years, the city's population has increased by a million people, and another million will be here 25 years from now. The question is not whether to make room for them but how. We could, in theory, rope off most of Manhattan to new development and push new arrivals to the city's fringes. Had we done.http://www.kottke.org/08/09/the-recent-architectural-development-of-nyc 2008 Summer Paralympic Games photography- September 12, 2008 I don't mean to link to every single thing on The Big Picture, but Alan's knocked it out of the park again with these fantastic photos of the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games. These sports look more difficult than the ones at the regular Olympics. Take, for instance, goalball: Participants compete in teams of three, and try to throw a ball that has bells embedded in it, into the opponents' goal. They must use the sound of the bell to judge the position and movement of the ball. Games consist of...http://www.kottke.org/08/09/2008-summer-paralympic-games-photography Usain Bolt: 9.55 seconds- September 12, 2008 Some physicists have worked out what Usain Bolt's time in the 100 meters in Beijing would have been if he hadn't started celebrating before the finish line: 9.55 seconds. The original paper is here. I tried doing this the day after the race but even the HD footage wasn't good enough to see the tick marks on the track and I didn't want to mess around with all the angles. (via justin blanton) Update: The folks at The Science of Sport lay out a much more sensible case relying on split times that..http://www.kottke.org/08/09/usain-bolt-955-seconds What is new media art- September 12, 2008 How to identify interactive or new media art. 7. Someone in your audience wearing a Crumpler bag, slinging a fancy digital SLR andor standing with their arms folded smugly says, "Yeah..yeah, I could've done that too..c'mon dude..some Perlin Noise And ProcessingRuby-on-RailsAJAXBlue LEDsMaxMSPAn Infrared CameraLots of Free Timeetc. Pfft..It's so easy..." (via russell davies) (link)http://www.kottke.org/08/09/what-is-new-media-art Biking terminology- September 12, 2008 From a Copenhagen blog that highlights biking style, a plea to cool it with all the subculture cycling attitude and terminology already. Let's straighten things out, shall we What you see in the photo above, taken in Copenhagen, is something we call a "cyclist".Not a "bicycle commuter", nor a "utility cyclist". Certainly not a "lightweight, open air, self-powered traffic vehicle user". It's a cyclist.The Copenhagener above is not "commuting" - or at least she doesn't call it that. She's not...http://www.kottke.org/08/09/biking-terminology |