compass

Author Archive for bkerr

Fire XIV

Posted on June 3rd, 2009 by bkerr

Just another interesting fact about oak trees:
What can destroy oak trees? — One common element that destroys oak trees is fire. When fire, caused by lightning or by a careless human being, hits a tree, the fire can spread and burn several trees. Another common destruction is caused by developments and the use of [...]

Fire (lucky) XIII

Posted on April 10th, 2009 by bkerr

The Natural Area Preservation Division of the City of Ann Arbor will conduct a prescribed burn today in BLUFFS NATURE AREA. Prescribed burns are used to enhance the ecology of a site by controlling invasive plants. The fire is conducted by trained personnel and will be under control at all times. [...]

Fire XI

Posted on June 28th, 2008 by bkerr

From The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (1976):

7. The more living patterns there are in a place—a room, a building or a town—the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.
8. And when a building [...]

Not an Employee Handbook: Wordle style for yonder harried and haptic nonemployee — click urgently upon each to embiggen

Posted on June 27th, 2008 by bkerr


Innovation Everywhere

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 by bkerr

Fire X

Posted on May 29th, 2008 by bkerr

http://isthesunburning.com.

NotAnEmployee Fails to sign up for Commuter Challenge

Posted on April 7th, 2008 by bkerr

NotAnEmployee Fails to sign up for Commuter Challenge

Originally uploaded by evilai

Fire VIII

Posted on March 17th, 2008 by bkerr

From Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0 by Trebor Scholz in First Monday Vol. 13 No. 3:

The language of Web 2.0 is a placeholder for several agendas. It burns the torches of 1960s–style rebellion, a “business revolution” of self–declared anarchists who frown upon authority and control as bad and deem openness as always [...]

Fire VII

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by bkerr

From The Man Who Was Thursday by that ancient asshole G.K. Chesterton:
“Do you see this lantern?” cried Syme in a terrible voice. “Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted [...]

Fire VI

Posted on March 7th, 2008 by bkerr

Star Wars: A New Hope; you remember this part. Think about it:
Grand Moff Governor Wilhuff Tarkin (to Darth Vader): The Jedi are extinct; their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion.

Fire V

Posted on March 6th, 2008 by bkerr

Party like it’s 1674! Paradise Lost (book II, ll. 910 — 920):
                            Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus’dly, [...]

Fire IV

Posted on March 5th, 2008 by bkerr

From The people, yes by Carl Sandburg. There’s more where this came from, but you’ll have to go to the library and see for yourself:
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.

Fire III

Posted on March 4th, 2008 by bkerr

Arlo Guthrie sings Cooper’s Lament:
Hey brothers, now and then
There’s something that ought to move you
More than a pen
You don’t need no school or knowledge
You’ve got something else to lend
And all the people in the world
Can make it better again
And it ain’t easy, yes I know
It’s a hard and rugged road
Don’t be swindled, don’t be fooled
Just [...]

Fire II

Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by bkerr

From Works and Days by old Hesiod. Some things never change:
For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked [...]

Fire

Posted on March 2nd, 2008 by bkerr

First in a series. This from The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century by Gerald Stanley Lee (published 1906 — find it @ Project Gutenberg):
“The poet of the new movement shall not be discovered talking with the doctors, or defining art in the schools, nor shall he be seen at first [...]