‘Structured to mimic real library browsing, participants would search the card catalog, apply for a library card, and then check out one of the 35 books as they became available. The book titles, chosen by the “books” themselves, included “Custodian,” “Evangelical Christian,” “Fat Woman,” “Feminist,” “Iraq War Veteran,” “LDS Missionaries (Mormon),” “Olympic Athlete,” “Orphanage Boy,” “Psychiatrist,” and “Queer,” among others. Readers and books engaged in one-on-one conversations that lasted 30 minutes.’

‘Rooney was an unremarkable, cranky bore whose bitching about simple annoyances struck a nerve with other aging white people who were frightened by or opposed to change.’

"The rage and self-loathing associated with hipsters has become more annoying, more naive, and more artificial than hipsters could ever hope to be."

A stylish, simple, infographical, curt, and summarily realistic at the world in which we currently live.

Just for reference.

Check out the "Hobo Code" page.

"We had an idea. Go to a place. Ask fifty people the same question. Film their responses."

Kenan Malik writes that the attempt to preserve "cultural identity and authenticity" is largely an inauthentic act, one steeped in relativism and traditionalism, and more concerned with how individuals "should" act than how they actually do. Thanks to @kemp for the link.

A nicely designed list of the words of the year. Seems like half are from the election. Can't say I've ever heard of a "fish pedicure," but there it is.

A fantastic blog on Japanese language, literature, and culture. I revel in this. (And this is what a blog should be — written only so often, and every post is high-quality. Comments are few and long and educated and of very high quality themselves.)

Why privacy persists. "Along with new visibilities comes social understanding of those new visibilities." "If the end of privacy comes about, it's because we misunderstand the current changes as the end of privacy, and make the mistake of encoding this misunderstanding into technology. It's not the end of privacy because of these new visibilities, but it may be the end of privacy because it looks like the end of privacy because of these new visibilities."

"Scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes. Brian Eno suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or 'scenes' can occasionally generate."

On the "cognitive surplus" we're going through, and how interesting and valuable all this new engagement and experimentation with technology is.

What to do if you're robbed.

Who are those people out and about between 9 and 5? Poets and web designers, trust fund babies and people between jobs.