Random finds (2017, week 35–36) — A visual “posy of other men’s flowers”

An example of post-war architecture: David Lister High School in Hull, which was completed by Lyons, Israel & Ellis 1965. It was demolished in 2012. (Photograph courtesy of RIBA Collections)

“I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.” — Michel de Montaigne

Random finds is a weekly curation of my tweets, and reflection of my curiosity. With this week …

Something completely different.

It has been somewhat hectic these last two weeks. The end of the summer vacation, 8-year old daughter back to school (and all things related). In short, everything seems to come alive at the same time. Which is fine, but not when you’re trying to write two editions of Random Finds.

So, instead of binding other people’s words together, as I usually do, this Random Finds is a visual “posy of other men’s flowers.” With links to their words, of course.

A City Is Not a Computer.

Return of the city-state.

Sarah Goldhagen: How Built Forms Form Us.

Herzog & de Meuron uses staggered floors to create plant-covered terraces in Beirut. (Photography by Iwan Baan)

The Great Tech Panic of 2017.

How Information Got Re-Invented — The The story behind the birth of the information age. More about Bell Labs genius Claude Shannon in The bit bomb — It took a polymath to pin down the true nature of ‘information’. His answer was both a revelation and a return.

Creating the iconic Stahl House — Two dreamers, an architect, a photographer, and the making of America’s most famous house.

David Whyte — A lyrical bridge between past, present and future.

Prospero’s Precepts: 11 Rules for Critical Thinking from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds.

The Art of Living: Professor John Sellars on Stoicism as a Medicine for the Mind.

Is philosophy simply harder than science?

Why We Need the Liberal Arts Now More Than Ever.

The Human(e) Revolution.

The Philosopher of Feelings.

Post-war architecture shouldn’t take the blame for political failures. (Photograph courtesy of Sam Lambert/RIBA Collections)

In Silicon Valley, Working 9 to 5 Is for Losers. (Illustration by Daniel Savage for The New York Times)

The list of top schools for producing tech entrepreneurs shows how clubby Silicon Valley really is.

Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues.

Kouichi Kimura completes steel-wrapped home and studio in Shiga, Japan. (Photography by Yoshihiro Asada and Norihito Yamauchi )

What does it mean to be a beautiful business?

Living Beautifully Compendium No2. — Beautiful things are prepared with love.

In praise of the conversation pit.

Nishizawa Architects adds movable walls to multi-family home in southern Vietnam.

The Remarkable Laziness of Woody Allen. (Illustration by Tomi Um for The Atlantic)

You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K. (Illustration by Charlotte Ager for The New York Times)

William LaChance spruces up St Louis basketball courts with “tapestry of colour.”

Colourful Paris basketball court updated with new hues.

Kaws covers New York basketball courts in colourful murals.

To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now.

The First White President.

The 100 best nonfiction books: No 83 — The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776–1788).

“It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.” — Edward Gibbon (1776–1788), author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire