Author: jehren

I am still attending the Industrial Ecology Gordon Research Conference and will be away pretty much until next Monday. The Conference rules do not allow blogging abut what is being discussed, but I am sure it is OK to talk about it in general terms. The idea of the Conferences is to facilitate open discussion of the latest research without attribution or specific reference so that the group can explore work in progress without fear of premature exposure. I gave some of the details a few days ago. I guessed right about the tenor of the presentations and, so, have… Read More

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Just after posting the last entry, I read David Brooks column in the NYTimes. Titled, “The Medium Is the Medium,” Brooks notes that children who read real books do better than those who do not. Just living in a house with a library leads to improved performance at school. There seems to be something about a “book” that somehow adds to intellectual development. Here’s his bottom line: > . . . [T]he literary world is still better [than the Internet] at helping you become cultivated, mastering significant things of lasting import.” > > Right now, the literary world is better… Read More

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Only yesterday, I wrote about the shortcomings of technological communication systems. They may increase the number of links among people dramatically, but can only diminish the quality and authenticity of what passes over the links. This morning I read an essay (registration required) by Tony Judt, entitled “Words” in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. While I will comment on a relevant part of the essay in a few moments, I must first note its poignancy. Judt, writing on the critical role words play in expressing our selves and our thoughts, has become increasingly disabled by… Read More

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Robert Wright wrote a semi-facetious piece in the Times about how technology is gradually networking our cognitive functions on the way ultimately to produce one monster global brain. I found the article quite confused as it tries to make a critical argument against Nick Carr‘s concerns about the distractive power of technology into a loosely connected positive story about the coalescence of individual cognitive functions into one big brain. Carr has written extensively on the distractive consequences of the heavy use of screens and other forms of information technology. Recent scientific surveys, particularly on young people (see my own reporting… Read More

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I’m getting ready to go off for a week to New Hampshire to attend this year’s Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology. I always find it somewhat of a drag to pick up and leave our place on the Maine Coast at the peak of the summer. But the last few days have not been the best. Global warming is certainly coming, judging from the intense heat of the last few days even here right on the coast. This year the focus of the Conference is on design–a subject I am always keenly interested in. As one of the first… Read More

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Being an American on the Fourth, I can’t but think about the symbolism and meaning of our Independence Day. Two things come to mind: one is historic and one is contemporary. The historic dwells on the meaning of independence. 234 years ago, it was a call for freedom from the domination of a hegemonic nation. Along with the reaction to the British tyranny felt by the people as a whole, the colonists expressed a new kind individual freedom with its roots in the very spirit of being human. That spirit, as expressed in a myriad of journalistic pieces celebrating this… Read More

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Do you feel a certain emptiness in your life. Are there moments when you have absolutely nothing to do? Do you find yourself have to go constantly–anywhere on line? Have you been using the other remedy, the old-fashioned book to occupy your precious time. If you have any of these ailments, there is a new treatment available to you. Ask your device doctor about the new miracle cure for all that ails you: the iPadberrydroidle, approved for use by people of all ages by the FDA, the Foolish Device Administration. Certain rare side effects such as boredom, continuous partial attention,… Read More

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Last night, our long standing (about 35 years) couples book club met. We usually read a work of fiction, but this time we read a short “memoir” of Leo Tolstoy, [A] Confession. Our book chooser for the occasion had been moved by the recent film of Tolstoy’s later life, “The Last Station.” In *Confession*, written in his 51st year, following his greatest literary successes, Tolstoy describes his existential battle with uncertainty about the meaning of life. Asking himself this question, “What Is the meaning of life?”, Tolstoy could not come up with a satisfactory answer that he could use to… Read More

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A small story in today’s NYTimes would perhaps be unnoticed in quiet times, but coming soon after the Gulf Blow-out, it merits attention. A Waltham, Massachusetts genetic engineering company announced that they are in the later stages of approval for a genetically modified salmon species that will grow to maturity in farms in half the time of an ordinary breed. In writing this last sentence I struggle to know what to call the unmodified salmon. Natural, no, the salmon raised in farms come from a line that has forgotten what it is to live in the wild. Wild, no, at… Read More

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I have found it difficult to write for my blog this week. Maybe it’s because the good weather outside of our Maine cottage beckons or maybe I am a bit depressed by everything going on these days. I’m still thinking about the implications of the Gulf spill. In spite of the zillions of words written about it the situation seems pretty stark and can be largely captured by just a few sentences. 1. It’s crazy to drill for oil in places where a blowout, however unlikely, would cause great harm. 2. It’s crazy to let companies like BP or any… Read More

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