the Quillink annotated

Morrick's modern commonplace book.
Quick notes, interesting bits, annotated leaves, sundry things found and picked up. – by Riccardo Mori

…For we shall say that while it would not surprise us if these men thus living prove to be the most happy, yet the object on which we fixed our eyes in the establishment of our state was not the exceptional happiness of any one class but the greatest possible happiness of the city as a whole. For we thought that in a state so constituted we should be most likely to discover justice as we should injustice in the worst governed state, and that when we had made these out we could pass judgement on the issue of our long inquiry. Our first task then, we take it, is to mold the model of a happy state — we are not isolating a small class in it and postulating their happiness, but that of the city as a whole.

Plato, The Republic, Book IV, sect. 420b-c

John Carey: Back to basics while my 15” MacBook Retina screen is replaced. Reblog this? I had to.

John Carey:

Back to basics while my 15” MacBook Retina screen is replaced.

Reblog this? I had to.

Mat Honan: Why Mailbox Won't Fix Your E-Mail

Sure, Mailbox makes getting to inbox zero easier. But after spending a few days with it, I’m not sure that it actually makes me faster or more productive at reading and responding to e-mail. It imposes a rigid system on me that doesn’t do everything I need it to, so I end up opening other e-mail apps anyway. That means I’m ultimately spending even more time than I already was on e-mail. I hate e-mail.

Mailbox will be great for some people. But it doesn’t reinvent email; it just automates a process that may not work for you. Mailbox is simply a tool. A very nice one, a well-designed one. I like it. But it’s just a tool and a blunt one at that. No app will save you from e-mail. You can’t swipe and sort your way to a better you, no matter how long the line is.

I haven’t tried Mailbox myself. Apart from the idea of having a ‘reservation list’ — something that put me off from the start — I don’t like Mailbox acting like an intermediary between my mail and me.

But the point of quoting this part of Honan’s article is that I very much agree with him on the fact that you have to deal with the email you get, there’s no way around it. There are shortcuts, sure, but many of them (like mass-ignoring emails or mass-deleting them without even skimming through them) will ultimately make you look like a rude moron.

91st anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses (February 2, 1922) I assembled a little collage to celebrate the book which had the deepest impact on my literary education and which drove me to pursue writing more seriously. I’ve read it five times in English and twice translated into Italian. (Click the image for a larger version)  

91st anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses (February 2, 1922)


I assembled a little collage to celebrate the book which had the deepest impact on my literary education and which drove me to pursue writing more seriously. I’ve read it five times in English and twice translated into Italian.

(Click the image for a larger version)

 

Matt Gemmell: Staying Afraid

It was still half an hour before midnight, but the road was already deserted - which was perfectly normal for a Sunday night on the outskirts of a small, coastal fishing town in the north east of Scotland. The year was probably 1989, but I can no longer be entirely sure. I had more pressing concerns than the date. I was ten years old, I was alone, I was on a BMX bike, and I was cycling for my life. […]

You. Have. To. Read. This.

Seriously, take your time and savour this beautiful essay by Matt Gemmell. So great.


Portrait of the artist as a 20th Century Irish writer Who knows, maybe it’s time for a less serious profile picture…

Portrait of the artist as a 20th Century Irish writer


Who knows, maybe it’s time for a less serious profile picture…

If you have never experienced burnout, it’s hard to explain. Burnout is not just “I don’t feel like working right now”; it is about your mind refusing to permit you to work, because it has seen what happens when it lets you work.

Jonathan Blow (from What I Did on My Christmas Vacation)

Hartmut Esslinger’s early Apple computer and tablet designs This link is being referenced a lot lately by many tech blogs. I’m sure a lot of people will find it of interest, especially for the selection of images. I just wanted to point out a couple of things: Some people describe these as prototypes. They’re not. Many of them are simply design mockups. Some say these images portray ‘never before seen’ material. Actually, most of the photos were published in Appledesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group, by Paul Kunkel (photos by Rick English), 1997, a great book quickly gone out of print and now rare and rather valuable. 

Hartmut Esslinger’s early Apple computer and tablet designs

This link is being referenced a lot lately by many tech blogs. I’m sure a lot of people will find it of interest, especially for the selection of images. I just wanted to point out a couple of things:

  1. Some people describe these as prototypes. They’re not. Many of them are simply design mockups.
  2. Some say these images portray ‘never before seen’ material. Actually, most of the photos were published in Appledesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group, by Paul Kunkel (photos by Rick English), 1997, a great book quickly gone out of print and now rare and rather valuable. 

Resuscitating my ten-year-old Sony phone

image

Earlier today I was looking for the battery charger for an older Nikon camera, and instead I found the charger for the Sony CMD-Z7 mobile phone I purchased in 2002. I’ve changed a few phones over the years, but I’ve always been fond of this little buddy. I remember how blown away I was when its predecessor (the CMD-Z5) was announced two years before, how much I loved the design of this particular Sony product line, and how much I wanted to get one. I ended up buying a discounted CMD-Z7, which I liked because the antenna was now internal, but it also felt somewhat less robust than the Z5 in my hand.

Well, I was wrong. Despite feeling lightly built and plasticky, the CMD-Z7 has proven more than once to be a tough one. In the first four years of daily use it suffered at least three bad falls, but every time I just picked up the pieces (usually the flip, the battery cover, the battery itself), put everything back into place, and the phone got back to business as usual.

From circa 2006 on, it became my second phone, so I used it less and less frequently. What has always amazed me about it has to be its ‘will to live’, so to speak. Despite having a tiny, 680 mAh lithium polymer battery, it has always given a great perfomance, and the last time I had it with me a few days (around 2009), it still lasted more than one day and a half on a single charge.

When I decided to recharge the CMD-Z7 today, I wasn’t even hoping it would wake up. The phone had been lying in a drawer since 2011, untouched, with the battery obviously drained. Imagine my surprise when, after 45 minutes of apparent death, the phone lit up. After about two hours the battery was fully charged, and apart from a test call and some tinkering with the settings, it’s been on standby for nine hours or so — the battery icon is still on ‘full charge’.

Sure, one thing that helps battery life is that this phone isn’t exactly feature-rich by today’s standards (check its tech specs here for a laugh), but I remember having actually connected to a few web sites in the past (WAP-friendly, of course) and having checked emails on this phone.

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Just to have an idea of the size — from left to right: Sony CMD-Z7, Palm Pre 2, iPhone 3G

I think I’ll keep it charged every now and then, just for fun. If I ever decide to make some kind of experiment on iPhone withdrawal, you’ll definitely see me around with this little guy. I still like its design compared to many other ugly mobile phones of its era…