In which I feel relatively free making up statistics because my assertion doesn’t care — and reliable data is hard to find if not nonexistent.
Author Archives: Will
Consider the Lilies of the Field
Yesterday I spotted a valiant, optimistic beauty in my lawn. The crocus uses what time it has, when it can. It must. Today it still reached for the sun. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. [Matthew 6:34 (ESV)]
The Illusion of Perfection
One of my favorite stories of a political figure is of Jimmy Carter, who said, yes, I’ve sinned. I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do–and I have done it–and God forgives me for it. We know […]
Connectivity
Respect for others’ time is difficult when you cannot see them. The telephone interrupts dinner, church, conversations. The burden of ignoring the interruption placed on the recipient no matter how respectful the caller intended to be. Social cues are missing. The same for e-mail, or instant messaging, or the apps on that phone in our […]
Sabbathday
Sun shining over the hill and through my window, slowly climbs down the wall. The calico sleeps and purrs after breakfast, half on the book I was reading. There’s a feeling of possibility. This spaciousness and calm I miss during the week. In conversation with Joan Halifax, Krista Tippett remarked, “We experience time as such […]
An Aside
(Experimenting with WordPress’s post-formats and other features could be fun.)
Woke Up This Morning
Starting the morning with a poem is, oddly, a practice that hadn’t occurred to me until listening to Krista Tippett’s conversation with Naomi Shihab Nye: Your Life is a Poem. No. 1 Daughter, around the time she became the Big Sister, wrote “pomes” she would carry around the house in her pocket. I wonder if […]
The War on Terror
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. What are arms? An intercontinental ballistic missile? A tactical nuclear device? A MiG-29? A tank? A Gatling gun? Chlorine? Ammonium nitrate? A sword? Any blade longer than three […]
Apt
Courtesy of her grandfather on her mother’s side, No. 1 Daughter took the aptitude tests offered by the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation. We accompanied her to New York City this past weekend to discuss the results. I’ve not done any research in the area, but my opinion, having suffered other aptitude and personality tests, and […]
Member Since 1994
One does not simply passively consume the Internet–though small children with YouTube on auto-play might. It is not broadcast, or even interactive, television: the Internet is a many-pronged communications platform, a universe of ends. Its killer application was e-mail (and USENET and IRC and FTP and gopher and) then the World Wide Web. The web […]
Escapism
I have not been bored since I learned to read. I would read anything and everything; and what with the public libraries and my family’s collection, I didn’t often run out of material. Unless there was a planning failure. If I forgot to stick a book in my pocket. Did you know other houses don’t […]
The Annual Rant About Daylight Time
Imagine the ridiculous conceit that the sun would change its place in the heavens or the earth pause in its rotations because some men in Detroit were unable to do the math necessary to talk with their business partners in Boston and New York, after the telegraph and telephone made that even possible. Or the […]
Shut Up and Sit Down
The Arlington (NY) Central School District, after declaring a snow day because it was snowy, sent parents a note regarding the possibility of intentional student absences on two days in particular: walkouts are planned for March 14 and April 20. The organizers * of the local events know that civil disobedience bears accepting the consequences. The […]
Belonging
Schools are some of my favorite places in the world. Were I to rank the pleasures in my life, they would be there with libraries, forests, and the quiet of an old church. Something of the smell of reheated surplus cheese and frozen foods drags me back to the glory days of my childhood. Even […]
The Kids are Alright
And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They’re quite aware of what they’re going through — from “Changes,” David Bowie (1971) Much of what I read online lately seems to be written by recent college graduates, by younger folks puzzling out the ways […]
Leftovers
One of the marvels of modern society has been the ability of the packaged food industry to get our children to eat what are, essentially, leftovers. Campbell’s soup in a can, for example. It’s already cooked. We just heat it up. How is that different from leftovers? Swanson’s TV dinners: cooked, frozen, just thaw and […]
Cast Your Eyes Upon the Sky
The room darkened. I stood to turn on the lights. This done, I turned. And looked out the window. The Internet samples pretty pictures from others’ lives. Turn your attention to the world, and see the beauty in yours. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass […]
Step Away From the Computer
Nestled among the advertisements for upscale apartments (Enjoy Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale! Only $4,300,000!) in this week’s edition of The New York Times Magazine is a thoughtful piece by Kyle Chayka not entirely about Roam, a company offering a selection of live-work spaces for the discerning digital nomad: “The World is Your Office.” And this one time I’ll […]
The Water the Frog Boils In
The last few days I’ve been watching presentations from LISA and Velocity on the difficulties and rewards of the cultural transformation needed by a lean, agile DevOps practice. It’s pleasant to be reminded of the range of interests of those in this field; I dislike falling into caricature. So while I generally enjoy John Naughton‘s writing […]
Business Ethics
One of the products I worked on at Prodigy was ProdigyBiz, since expired. ProdigyBiz basically sold brochure-ware. You too can have a presence on the Internet! Some of the businesses which bought the product used it. By “use” I mean updated the website with their telephone number and a blurb about their business. But the […]