David lafontaine's
Sips from the firehose
A site that attempts to render the internet down into one easy-to consume mental beverage.
Where the Symbols on the Dollar Come From…
This is painted on the ceiling of the Rila Monastery in the mountains of Bulgaria, one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. I can't help but wonder whose eye this ancient artist used as the model for the Eye of God. The history and beauty of this complex makes me feel...
Experiments in Podcasting: Testing the PodPress Plug-in (Again)
A couple years ago, I toyed around with including audio and video files into this blog as pod/vodcasts. My experience was that the level of control that I was able to achieve really wasn't worth all the blood, sweat and repetitive-stress injury to my mousing hand to...
Moran Cerf, Madonna, and the Mass Media Reality-Distortion Field
Moran Cerf’s work centers around the micro scale — how on a personal level, we don’t really know what we think we know. My life has been spent examining that effect on a more macro scale — where, as a society, it doesn’t matter what really happened, only what people think (and say) happened.
Reality is, indeed, what we make of it. Which is both exciting, and frightening.
The LA Times: Chronicle of a Death Foretold
The eulogies for the newspaper industry are starting to become almost commonplace, as the generation that matured and worked during the Salad Days of the 70s and 80s totters off into the sunset. Mark Heisler, the NBA beat writer at the LA Times, has weighed in with a...
CNN International segment on Murdoch, phone-hacking & tabloid tactics
The point is that the problems with the news business bear surprising resemblance to the problems of society as a whole. We’ve tied our fate to the unfettered free-market economic forces, without really taking notice of the fact that there are a few industries, at least, that are not prepackaged Cheetos. Where diluting quality and streamlining production schedules and all the other tricks of modern corporate management may work in the short term … but in the long term are not only killing the industry, but harming … well, basically Western Civilization.
How Africa Sees the Attacks on Obama
I found this painting in a humble little clothing stall in the merkato in Addis Ababa, during my last day there, when I finally got some free time to wander around and explore this fascinating city a little bit. Amongst all the funky art & tchotchkes, this...