Monthly Consumption July 2011

On Growth And Form (1917, D’Arcy Thompson)

A lucky used find, this one’s incredible. One side is the reframing of speed, weight, consumption, and the various other attributes of animals related to their size and the basic geometry behind scales. Then there are the illustrations that are case studies in clarity while making you want to make wall-posters out of every one. And his writing style actually keeps you hooked.

A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100 (2011, Venkatech Rao)

A sprawling description of recent history that reframes global politics with corporations at the center, followed by some quick ideas about what’s next. Recommended for putting the current Wal-Mart era in its place and for at least serving as a good intro, with links for further reading. [via longreads]

PostScript (Wikipedia)

An underappreciated odd bird technology. The idea of using living code - a Turing complete language - to represent text and designs is fascinating. Add on top of this that language being a rare example of a concatenative language, and having the longevity to survive from the Xerox PARC project to serving as the undocumented basis of Mac OSX’s window system.

Ooo Baby Baby - The Anthology (1974, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)

Gordy and his colleague Billy Davis had written a song called “Got a Job” as an answer song to “Get a Job”, a recent hit by The Silhouettes.