notes.husk.org

"Commonplace books that survive from the Tudor period contain a huge variety of texts, including..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:04:27 +0100

“Commonplace books that survive from the Tudor period contain a huge variety of texts, including letters, poems, medical remedies, prose, jokes, ciphers, riddles, quotations and drawings. Sonnets, ballads and epigrams jostle with diary entries, recipes, lists of ships or Cambridge colleges and transcriptions of speeches. Collecting useful snippets of information so that they could be easily retrieved when needed, or re-read to spark new ideas and connections, was one of the functions of a commonplace book. But the practice of maintaining a commonplace book and exchanging texts with others also served as a form of self-definition: which poems or aphorisms you chose to copy into your book or to pass on to your correspondents said a lot about you, and the book as a whole was a reflection of your character and personality.”

- Tom Standage: How commonplace books were like Tumblr and Pinterest, drawing from the research for his forthcoming book.

See also: the distractions of social media, 1673 style.

A prospective cover for Cloud Atlas, by Rebecca Kern.

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:57:43 +0000

A prospective cover for Cloud Atlas, by Rebecca Kern.

"BBEdit has insidiously demonstrated itself to be just plain friendlier than MacVim. (I guess this is..."

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:27:06 +0100

“BBEdit has insidiously demonstrated itself to be just plain friendlier than MacVim. (I guess this is a sign of impending dementia on my part.)”

- An interview with Charlie Stross at The Setup.

Will Be, Tim Etchells. (via; images via)

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:58:05 +0000

Will Be, Tim Etchells. (via; images via)

We Wanted, Tim Etchells. (via)

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:56:05 +0000

We Wanted, Tim Etchells. (via)

Winter Piece, Tim Etchells. (via)

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:54:06 +0000

Winter Piece, Tim Etchells. (via)

Wait Here, Tim Etchells (via)

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:52:05 +0000

Wait Here, Tim Etchells (via)

"I’ve paid a lot of attention to ways that things like “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” ended. I..."

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:56:00 +0100

“I’ve paid a lot of attention to ways that things like “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” ended. I took a lot of notes on what people liked and what they didn’t like about those kinds of endings. I take it very seriously, the idea that people are getting into an ongoing here and into a long form mystery, and I want to make sure that they feel confident that there’s going to be a payoff that makes it worth it. This page is really about reinforcing that.”

- Nick Spencer, in the commentary track of “Morning Glories” #1 - Comic Book Resources (via timoni). This seems as good a quote as any to hang the following from.

Battlestar Galactica, while good, evidently didn’t have a plan (which is hilariously obvious if you watch the spin-off movie of the same name, which tries to retcon a narrative on top of the twists and turns of the first couple of series). Buffy, perhaps the first mainstream show to attempt long story arcs, only really did them on the scale of a single season.

However, way back in ‘93, Babylon 5 started what turned out to be a five year arc, and managed to carry it off despite both cast changes and uncertainty over its fifth season. The series may have a lot of flaws (the writer, JMS, has a nasty habit of portentous writing and the effects have dated somewhat badly) but I think it’s missing out on some of the credit it deserves for actually having a plot that was thought out at the beginning, rather than coming together as the series careered onwards.

"Moffat and co are deliberately throwing too much at us at once, to make re-watching a rewarding..."

Mon, 23 May 2011 22:50:41 +0100

“Moffat and co are deliberately throwing too much at us at once, to make re-watching a rewarding experience. They’re making TV, in other words, that is meant to be watched twice or three times, not just once. That’s ambitious.”

- Mike Taylor in his recap of The Doctor’s Wife (Doctor Who series 6, episode 4). (Warning: contains spoilers for last week’s episode.)

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, by Richard...

Mon, 23 May 2011 21:27:00 +0100

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, by Richard Brautigan. (See also.)