A most fascinating conversation this morning in Mexico City, apropos of which, this batch of links (some for me, some for my friend, and all for you):
Agustín Cadena "Por qué leo"Brief, brilliant. I wish people who didn't read books would at least read this one page (ish) essay. Then they'd read books. And then they'd be happier. (It's in Spanish. I'm almost finished translating it into English.)
Those marvelous marbled papers from etsy:
My Marbled PapersMarbled GoodsSteve Jobs' TED video of his Stanford University Commencement SpeechFrom the University of Chicago President's Office webpage biography of Robert Maynard Hutchins: "Hutchins was a strong advocate of academic freedom, and as always refused to compromise his principles. Faced with charges in 1935 by drugstore magnate Charles Walgreen that his niece had been indoctrinated with communist ideas at the University, Hutchins stood behind his faculty and their right to teach and believe as they wished, insisting that communism could not withstand the scrutiny of public analysis and debate. He later became friends with Walgreen and convinced him to fund a series of lectures on democracy."
According to Hutchins in
The University of Utopia, "The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens".
Quantifying an Aesthetic Form Preference in a Utility FunctionQuantifying HappinessQuantifying Rotation-Induced Illness in Squirrel MonkeysMisery, Thy Name is Rumsfeld's Vacation HomeThe Campaign for the IMFPeople, get a clue.
Robert Darnton's new
The Case for Books: Past, Present and FutureAnd last but not least, the
podcast of my book presentation in Mexico City last week is now on-line. With Javier García Diego, Carlos González Manterola, Carlos Pascual, and Eduardo Turrent (En español.)
