Technology – Page 17 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on March 19, 2012March 14, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Live Small

Teeny, tiny apartments (makes me think of the opening scene from An American in Paris).

‘Quants.’ Sounds like an insult, but actually it’s not.

The perils of hypergraphia.

Posted on March 16, 2012March 12, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – Get Some Good Goethe

Tablets do not promote good reading habits.

Save the metro section of your daily newspaper!

Why no love for Goethe (admission – I only recently got around to reading The Sufferings of Young Werther)

Posted on March 15, 2012March 12, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Thursday Staff Meeting – Please Don’t Kill The Library!

I always suspected that Elaine Pagels maybe wasn’t the best place to start learning about Gnosticism or the early church.

Unsurprisingly, the Vatican isn’t Facebook friends with her either.

A side effect of state and local budget cuts – as libraries are needed more and more, the money for them gets less and less.

Posted on March 13, 2012March 12, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Tuesday Morning Staff Meeting – Libraries, Spaceships & Steve Jobs, The Well Meaning Fascist

Yes, there is quite a bit of arrogance in this man’s description of his library, but as e-readers become more prevalent, the fetishization of the book seems almost a necessary response.

How big is a ‘Firefly’ class space ship?

But when it comes to the T.A.R.D.I.S., it’s what’s inside that counts.

Steve Jobs’ philosophy was, ultimately, paternalistic authoritarianism.

Posted on March 7, 2012February 28, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Midweek Staff Meeting – It’s About Morals

The problem with literary piracy.

How to introduce the science fiction fan in your life to poetry.

Posted on March 6, 2012March 5, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Tuesday Morning Staff Meeting – Too Many E-Readers

E-reader fatigue?

The next level for e-readers.

Posted on February 28, 2012February 8, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Tuesday Staff Meeting – What Do These Things Even Mean?

The e-book may kill the book, but if the tablet kills the e-reader is that the end of the novel?

Actually, I’d be okay if poetry became mainstream.

I’m not exactly sure what ‘ontological anarchism’ is.

What is a bookstore, anyway?

Posted on February 28, 2012February 28, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Airport Bookstores

National Airport in DC used to have a Borders Express. Naturally, that’s gone, but to my delight, another bookstore has taken its place.

As I expected (and as usual in airport bookstores), the selection was a little too popular for me, but they did have several entire bookcases devoted exclusively to Penguin Classics. So the next time I fly out of DCA, I won’t have to worry if I neglect to bring reading material.

The Atlanta airport (where I had a layover on my way back to DC from Florida) had a smaller bookshop called Simply Books. It had a small selection of Penguin Classics on a small, circular metal rack. They also sold Amazon’s Kindle Fire and there was a small cafe attached to the shop.

Posted on February 27, 2012February 22, 2012 by the coffee philosopher

Monday Staff Meeting – Poetry In The City

The Washington Examiner is still a terrible publication run by terrible people, but it’s cool that they’re writing profiles of DC poets.

Anne Becker is the new poet-in-residence at the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center.

A nice, online resource for women writers.

The owner of Grove Press, a famous publisher of dirty minded literature has died.

Posted on February 24, 2012February 21, 2012 by the coffee philosopher · 2 Comments

Weekend Reading – Living The Swinging Single Life In DC

Forty percent of Washington, DC households have just one occupant.

Being single still doesn’t make sleeping with poets a good idea, though.

The ultimate in public art.

The Founding Fathers did not view post office as something to be run like a business, but as an essential vehicle of democracy and a civic good.

Bike snobs and coffee snobs unite for hipster superpowers (actually, I think is a great idea and would love to visit this place).

But that old standby, the 9 cent cup o’ coffee, is gone (but it’s only going up to 45 cents, which, while a huge increase in percentage terms, is not really so bad in the greater scheme of things).

It’s about freaking time.