Yule Heibel's Library tagged newyorker →  View Popular, Search in Google

Great insights from Adam Gopnik. Loved these passages, near the end of the article, especially regarding a technology's descent from omnipresence to ...just something:
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Now television [once the object of jeremiads about the disintegration of modern life] is the harmless little fireplace over in the corner, where the family gathers to watch “Entourage.” TV isn’t just docile; it’s positively benevolent. This makes you think that what made television so evil back when it was evil was not its essence but its omnipresence. Once it is not everything, it can be merely something. The real demon in the machine is the tirelessness of the user. A meatless Monday has advantages over enforced vegetarianism, because it helps release the pressure on the food system without making undue demands on the eaters. In the same way, an unplugged Sunday is a better idea than turning off the Internet completely, since it demonstrates that we can get along just fine without the screens, if only for a day.
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And: "Thoughts are bigger than the things that deliver them." Truer words (etc etc)...

adam_gopnik newyorker internet socialcritique

The following observation (by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, director of the Gender and Policy program at Columbia) is, sadly, very very true. There is a male unwillingness to mentor and/or sponsor women. I only have to look at my own academic experience and my PhD advisor...
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“Sandberg, to her great credit, had Larry Summers. She has had sponsors in her life who were very powerful, who went to bat for her. That’s very rare for a woman.”
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sheryl_sandberg feminism women leadership newyorker ken_auletta facebook

A companion audio-slide-show by John Seabrook to his Dec.21/09 article about Zaha Hadid in The New Yorker. Very interesting, discussion of visual inspiration(s), form, etc., this is a lot better than comparing Hadid's architecture to fast food snacks like chips (see FastCompany piece).

john_seabrook newyorker zaha_hadid audiocasts architecture starchitecture rome maxxi