Productive Culture

[dr_tectonic]

I followed a link to a very interesting essay today, and when I bounced up to the "Essays" page to see what else the author might have written of interest, discovered that there were already eight followed links from some unremembered previous visit. So it would seem that Paul Graham writes good stuff.

Why Americans make some things well and others badly.

Comments

[thetarnishedowl.livejournal.com]

Great link! Thanks.

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

Paul Graham sort of single-handedly revolutionized spam filtering by saying "Hey... how about Bayes?"

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly my fault - I've linked to several of his essays on my blog. He writes way interesting stuff. I haven't read through all of his essays yet, but I came across an old one recently explaining why hackers should behave more like painters than engineers. It's quite interesting and makes a lot of sense: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Good one! I love stuff that talks about the hacker identity/culture/aesthetic and gets it right.

And, yes, I'm sure it's All Your Fault™.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

I have always thought that is the problem with American Olympic gymnastic teams.

Hear me out. What is lacking from our women's gymnastics is a sense of grace. American gymnasts focus on power and variety, and when coupled with the youth of the participants, it leads to quick and strong movements with little finesse, which is why I think they haven't been medalling so much. I would like to see a gymnastics team that required a bit of ballet for its participants.

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

While I don't entirely grok his unhealthy fascination with LISP, I loved his essay on how high school is basically warehousing people, and how this creates the wretched atmosphere it does.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

high school is basically warehousing people, and how this creates the wretched atmosphere it does.

I attended a magnet high school for math and science. On the few occassions i attended classes with one of my friends at one of the neighborhood high schools, it always seemed terribly oppresive. I'm so glad i opted out of that environment for the one i did back then.

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

You might like Virginia Postral's The Substance of Style:
How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness as well. Even though the car industry is not keeping up, there are many other companies that are marrying substance and style like Apple does. She talks a lot about the cultural impulses behind it.