Recent Posts

Work Worth Doing

Plum tree bursting with fruit at Mullen and Franconia on the north side of Bernal Heights, June 2009.

I’m deep into researching a new book project these days, covering San Francisco history from the late sixties to the late seventies. It’s incredibly fun to be in discussion with a couple dozen great writers […]

Commons and its Enemies

IBM’s latest slogan is “We can make a smarter world” or something idiotic like that”¦ here, again, in a dumb marketing campaign we immediately confront the basic problem. The world is an incredible intelligence already. We humans really don’t understand it well at all”¦ It might make sense for a corporation like IBM […]

At the Edge of Commercialization: The Maker Faire

Following the siren song of the Fossil Fool, or expecting to anyway (he was very late!), I joined a surprisingly large contingent of San Francisco cyclists to ride the 20-odd miles to the Maker Faire at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds. Gray foggy skies kept us cool as we headed out, and right away the […]