Author Archives: dougstinson
Swedenborg and the Great American Experiment
My mother is one of those women who relate through self effacement. For example, after being complemented on a wonderful Sunday dinner, she is likely to respond: “I always serve peas with this meal; I don’t know why I served … Continue reading
The Age of Creation
I’m reading “Now: The Physics of Time” by Richard Muller. It reminded me that by “the expansion of the universe” we don’t mean that the galaxies are moving away from each other, but that more space is being created between … Continue reading
GDP Blindness
Everyone seems to agree that Europe is a basket case compared to the US. Left-leaning economists say it is because of “austerity”, right-leaning economists say it is because of the “burdensome welfare state”. Wondering around Vienna, Austria recently I counted … Continue reading
Robust Design and the Downside of Efficiency
I just read the article The Downside of Efficiency by Mark Buchanan. I realized that there is an analogy between what is discussed in that article and changes in the way we design products. It was formerly the case that engineers were … Continue reading
Of Myth and the Gift Economy
First published in 1983, may consider “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde “a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities”. Hyde claims that creativity is “a gift” … Continue reading
The Fragility of Freedom
In high school I was an idealistic and active participant in the local Methodist Youth Fellowship in my New Hampshire town of 6,000 souls. Concerned with growing drug use among teens, our Fellowship’s adult leader and his wife opened the … Continue reading
The King is Dead. Long Live the King
Particularly with the proliferation of camera phones, there is a growing belief that we are inundated with images and, in particular, that the “soft”, that is, electronic, nature of these images is creating fundamental changes in how we view photography, … Continue reading
4×5 Kodachromes of WWII
A friend clued me into this blog: 4×5 Kodachromes. The lighting and the Kodachrome colors in the 4×5 format make these dramatic images. As was pointed out in the comments, the photos of women factor workers must have been staged – … Continue reading
My new Photo Blog
I’ve decided to make all my photography-related posts on a new blog, Douglas G. Stinson Photography. I will use “Unexpected Connections” for my more philosophical musings. As keep this distinction clear, I have deleted my purely photography-related postings from this … Continue reading
Creating ones self
In his blog on technology for the writer’s group The Loft, my friend Don reinterprets the Ouroboros, conventional “he who eats the tail” as “that which creates itself by speaking itself.” I know I’m supposed to think the Ouroboros paradoxical. The … Continue reading
Unexpected Connections 