the porous city http://www.theporouscity.com Lukas Bergstrom's weblog en Copyright Lukas Bergstrom 2002-2013 Wed, 22 May 2013 16:23:53 +0000 lukasb@gmail.com 17th century social media http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2268 Commonplace books as prototypes of Tumblr and Pinterest
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.

In categories: Other/History, People/Weblogs

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2268 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2268 Thu, 16 May 2013 10:10:24 -0700 The first website http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2264 TheProject.html

In categories: Other/History

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2264 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2264 Wed, 01 May 2013 09:04:08 -0700 Very cool map of genres and artists http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2263 Every Noise at Once

In categories: Music

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2263 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2263 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:19:42 -0700 Travel prep http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2262 Weather in Berlin: cold
-"All you ever wanted to know about Jews"
-includes the phrase "meta-accelerator"
-Sally Bowles: the bar

In categories: Other/Berlin

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2262 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2262 Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:41:05 -0700 Report http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2261 Alex already did.

In categories: Other/Bicycling, People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2261 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2261 Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:09:57 -0700 Lock and load http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2260

In categories: People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2260 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2260 Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:34:29 -0800 I need a tumblr http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2259

In categories: Music/Musicians

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2259 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2259 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:08:17 -0800 Mission rental market stabilizing http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2258 Graphs!
a graph showing Mission district apartment availability stablizing
Apparently apartment availability bottomed out in August of 2011. Rents for studios are even starting to decrease. Sounds like it's still hell out there, though.

In categories: Commerce/RealEstate, Other/SanFrancisco

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2258 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2258 Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:18:28 -0800 I had a flipbook made of Michelle Obama rolling her eyes http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2257 weinventyou

In categories: Arts/Animation

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2257 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2257 Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:06:08 -0800 There'll be questions http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2256

In categories: Music/Goodtracks

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2256 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2256 Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:21:19 -0800 Finally http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2255
Henceforth find me at theporouscity.com instead of inevitablebacklash.com

They point to the same place, links to the old URL won't break, but I'll be happier if we just move on.

In categories: People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2255 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2255 Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:30:26 -0800 I'm second from the left http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2254 What 6:30am looks like in the Presidio, January 17th 2013 courtesy Dave Mongan

In categories: Other/Bicycling, People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2254 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2254 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:26:01 -0800 2012: the year in riding http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2253
Full view:
a graph of my bike rides in 2012

Northern California only:
a graph of my bike rides in northern California in 2012

In categories: Other/Bicycling, People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2253 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2253 Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:32:56 -0800 The illusion of consistency http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2252 we tend to underestimate the amount we will change in the future

Brings up Chesterton
The Iliad may have been written by one man. It may have been written by a hundred men. But let us remember that there was more unity in those times in a hundred men than there is unity now in one man. Then a city was like one man. Now one man is like a city in civil war.

In categories: Arts/Literature, People

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2252 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2252 Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:42:53 -0800 I wrote a thing http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2251 Apple Maps data quality compared to Google Maps and Bing. Thinking about doing a followup with OpenStreetMaps.

And hey look, it got picked up by an LA Times blog. Haha: Apple hasn't responded to requests for comment.

In categories: Tech/Crowdsourcing, People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2251 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2251 Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:49:52 -0800 On unearned cynicism http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2250 arches his eyebrows at this post from Instagram:
Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand's king and the world's longest-serving head of state, turns 85 years old today. King Bhumibol, also known as Rama IX, has ruled Thailand for more than 66 years, and is a popular figure throughout the country.
his reply:
Well, yes, I suppose it does look that way, given if you get caught sending text messages that don't approve of the king, you can get twenty years in prison. Still, good to see Instagram covering corrupt regimes. I'm looking forward to their highlights of photos from North Korea and Bahrain.
I'm not a fan of monarchy, but the king is extraordinarily well-loved in Thailand, and implying otherwise is silly. I can't even imagine where the North Korea comparison came from.

In categories: Travel/KingdomofSiam, Other/Politik

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2250 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2250 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:58:11 -0800 New home http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2249 In categories: People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2249 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2249 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:39:01 -0800 Fix for broken images in Google Reader http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2248
A painting of a cabinet of curiosities

In categories: Tech/Net

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2248 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2248 Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:24:38 -0700 Nothing suspicious at all http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2247
Armstrong in context

In categories: Other/Bicycling

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2247 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2247 Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:45:09 -0700 For shame http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2246

In categories: Other/Bicycling

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2246 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2246 Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:33:52 -0700 Life as an edge case http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2245 iTextEditors

Simplenote's 3rd-party syncing is broken, and they don't have an OS X desktop app (not that I'd want to give up Notational Velocity anyway.) Wish I hadn't prepaid for a year subscription ...

In categories: Tech/PIM

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2245 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2245 Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:23:30 -0700 Algorithmically sad http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2244 Nick Clegg looking algorithmically sad

photo of British parliament overlaid with graphics showing algorithmic evaluations of mood

In categories: Tech

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2244 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2244 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:49:30 -0700 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2243

In categories: Photos, Arts/Visual

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2243 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2243 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:03:16 -0700 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2242 A horse

In categories: People/Me

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2242 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2242 Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:34:29 -0700 Cognitive Democracy http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2241 Unpublished paper

"In this essay, we outline a cognitive approach to democracy. Specifically, we argue that democracy has unique benefits as a form of collective problem solving in that it potentially allows people with highly diverse perspectives to come together in order collectively to solve problems. Democracy can do this better than either markets and hierarchies, because it brings these diverse perceptions into direct contact with each other, allowing forms of learning that are unlikely either through the price mechanism of markets or the hierarchical arrangements of bureaucracy. Furthermore, democracy can, by experimenting, take advantage of novel forms of collective cognition that are facilitated by new media."

In categories: Other/Politik

]]> http://www.theporouscity.com/comments.pl?id=2241 http://www.theporouscity.com/entries/2241 Wed, 23 May 2012 12:29:57 -0700