http://www.idlethink.com/ en-us Copyright 2008 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:11:57 +0800 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:59:56 +0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.01D http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss this strange, modern world of ours, in which distance has dissolved into something unrecognizable, and which, consequently, at once connects and isolates as never before... (naturally I shall email him soon)... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/on_flight_aa132_somewhere_above_the_north_atlantic.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/on_flight_aa132_somewhere_above_the_north_atlantic.php Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:11:57 +0800 someone asked, the other day, what I thought of new york. I replied that it was more palpable than any other city I've encountered. and it is. it insists upon all your senses. it demands and demands. people are more... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/new_york_essentially.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/new_york_essentially.php Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:19:47 +0800 Chicago from the air affirms once again, for me, the profound SimCityness of American metropolises -- a dense chequerboard of perfectly square zones hemmed in with roads and highways, and downtown Chicago stacked up geometrically against the waterfront. but flying... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/on_the_move_again.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/03/on_the_move_again.php Wed, 05 Mar 2008 06:31:20 +0800 two political frenzies are taking place simultaneously. one is on the tip of the world community's tongues (obama, obama, obama). measured on the same scale, the other is like a drop in the ocean (malaysia? where's that?). but in their... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/02/impolitics.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/02/impolitics.php Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:41:36 +0800 as of January 31st 2008 I am, technically speaking, an illegal immigrant. my student visa expired, and my passport had been surrendered three weeks earlier to the dubious clutches of the Royal Mail and the Home Office. as of today,... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/02/status_update.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/02/status_update.php Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:57:33 +0800 [crossposted] Suharto (d. 27 January, 2008). this photo of him was taken when he resigned from power in 1998 (see the resignation!). but I prefer another photo: here's Suharto with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, bonding over Suharto's favourite pasttime of... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/goodbye_suharto.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/goodbye_suharto.php Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:09:48 +0800 somewhere there is, perhaps, a woman whose unborn child was aborted on the 22nd of January, who has since awoken in the middle of the night on that day every year hence, stricken with some small sense of horror... equally,... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/the_22nd_of_all_januaries.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/the_22nd_of_all_januaries.php Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:35:51 +0800 on my birthday I went to look at this clock: it was built in 1852, and has therefore already counted out more minutes than I will ever be entitled to. sober thoughts for a day that serves both to count... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/n1_.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/n1_.php Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:10:04 +0800 I mean, come on. on the very same page! I tried to think, the other day, about how every time someone is senselessly killed or shot, somebody close to them is experiencing the categorically worst moment of their lives.... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/cognitive_dissonance_anybody.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2008/01/cognitive_dissonance_anybody.php Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:12:58 +0800 in Paris, condemned to what is certainly the most disagreeable keyboard layout in the world. It is not only that the keyboard letters are incommodiously arranged so as to render the most common words into gibberish -- the Q is... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/merry_christmas_to_all.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/merry_christmas_to_all.php Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:21:20 +0800 a glacial december night laden with mist and almost unreal stillness. photographing it felt like blasphemy or prayer: I cannot decide which yet. I'm leaving for Paris tomorrow, and shan't be back until the new year. I had the... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/it_is_inconceivable_to_me_that_we_are_two_weeks_from_2008.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/it_is_inconceivable_to_me_that_we_are_two_weeks_from_2008.php Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:38:51 +0800 A thick, congealed greyness over London today; just the sort of day to visit a prison in Brixton. We are ushered in through four or five levels of bars and gated walkways, surrendering various personal items along the way: a... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/strange_world_its_ways.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/strange_world_its_ways.php Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:06:24 +0800 the other day I watched a mother, a wife and two boys bury a son, a husband and a father. what loss -- unspeakable, unimaginable, unconscionable. the most heartfelt sympathy seems to falter under the threat of hypocrisy and the... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/requiescat_in_pace.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/12/requiescat_in_pace.php Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:15:24 +0800 the time between my first starting to think about historical causation and my being asked to teach a class on it is almost entirely nourished by my interaction with Professor Peter Lipton -- who died, abruptly, last night. this whole... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/11/pulvis_et_umbra_sumus.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/11/pulvis_et_umbra_sumus.php Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:55:00 +0800 I'm moving to a new flat, and have been ruthlessly waging war against the colossal amounts of Stuff, Nonsense and Useless Worldly Belongings in my possession. (have not seen my floor for four days -- must become a monk after... http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/11/moving_house.php http://www.idlethink.com/archives/2007/11/moving_house.php Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:57:30 +0800