Author: Bob Benz

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Art Bob Dog Bob

Best in show …

A Portland art gallery celebrated the Westminster Dog Show with its own take on canines, asking artists to do their interpretations of various breeds in what it is calling the Wurstminster Dog Show.

I liked Driscoll Reid’s Newfoundland so much that I purchased it. And I almost bought a really, really strange take on the Maltese by Jason Vivona. When I e-mailed the link to Lara, she responded with a terse: “I don’t want that.” Hmm. Maybe I need to reconsider. It certainly captures the psychedelic nature of Mully the Maltese …

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Books

What the dormouse said

I just finished John Markoff’s “What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.” It’s been on my list for a while. Overall, it was a great read.

Some of it is a rather dry account of the rise of the personal computer in Silicon Valley. And at times Markoff seems to generalize about the connection between the computer innovators and the counterculture. But there are strong ties in many spots, especially in the way LSD and the counterculture affected the worldview of these folks and their attitudes. It goes a long way to explain the open source movement and some of the collaborative approaches to development that have characterized the rise of the personal computer.

A few interesting notes:

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Categories
Web Bob

Genealogy of influence …

I found this cool site today that shows the links among various writers, artists and philosophers. It’s called Genealogy of Influence. Just click it and it’s pretty self-explanatory from there. It uses a neat Wikipedia mashup to flesh out details on each person listed. The creator, Mike Love, also has a blog where he discusses the project. Good stuff …