Adrian Buck > Recent Status Updates

"The conscious experience of "thinking in trees" does not feel like looking at a tree" - because there is no such experience ?

"We say 'He kissed the bride', so we ask 'Who kissed the bride?' We say 'Henry kissed her', so we ask 'Whom did Henry kiss?" But why don't we ask 'Whom Henry kissed?'

"The human mind can only do a few things at a time, and the order in which information comes in affects how that information is handled. As we'll see, a writer must constantly reconcile the two sides of word order: a code for information, and a sequence of mental events."

"Chunking is not just a trick for improving memory; it's the lifeblood of higher intelligence...giving...trading...selling...market...economy...monetary policy...quantitative easing."

"...keep in mind the guiding metaphor of classic style: a writer, in conversation with a reader, directs the reader's gaze to something in the world."

"Classic writing, with its assumption of equality between writer and reader, makes the reader feel like a genius. Bad writing makes the reader feel like a dunce."... And both are problematic.

"The best words not only pinpoint an idea better than any alternative but echo it in their sound and articulation, a phenomenon called phonesthetics, the feeling of a sound. "

"A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer's perspective of an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts."

"And certaynly our langage now vsed veryeth ferre from what whiche was vsed and spoken when I was borne. " William Caxton, 1478

"Concentrate on storage, and do so well in advance. Destroy anything redundant. Archive anything not actively needed. Offer incentives to people to get rid of as much as possible. See to it that new workplaces are equipped with suitable, sufficient storage but not overprovided."

"Each jump in technology in the past - the typewriter, the telephone, the desktop computer and now the internet - has been allied to a change in the way knowledge work has been done." Really?

"... the offices of the 1960s and 1970s did not measure up to the demands of the IT revolution.... Older buildings have often fared better..."

"The unexpected burden of paper storage and possible electronic solutions is a digression. No one anticipated that the price of the paperless office was to be more paper-storage equipment. It was going to be cables and heat."

"Windows are a brilliant invention. They let in light, keep out heat, cold, dirt and noise, and they provide a view."

"Comfort is generally considered to be related to temperature, relative humidity, air movement and probably light and noise levels." Admission - I get uncomfortable when my classrooms are too quiet.

"The laptop does not allow the screen and keyboard to change position in relation to each other, except by altering the angle that the screen makes with the keyboard, which is not sufficient. " - actually since switching from a desktop to a laptop, all my back and shoulder pain has disappeared.

"As in other situations, the more sophisticated and complex the object, the higher the cost and more that can go wrong."

"When masonry load-bearing walls and timber ceiling joists were the form of construction used, only small rooms were possible."

"Time is now a much more important dimension in providing space than it was in the past. "

"In the UK, 1993 guidance from the Health and Safety Executive asks for a minimum volume per person of 11 cubic metres, which in a typical office would imply an average floor area of 4.6 square metres. "

"In thé UK an average lettable area per person of about 15 square metres is fairly typical for a medium sized organisation with a range of different levels of seniority in the staff. In Scandinavian countries thirty square metres is not atypical."

"When a building cannot support the work that is being done there, because it is inadequate in size, shape, layout or management, it shows. "

The portrait of Dorian Gray - tremendously uneven. Good idea for a short story/novella though.

"Office work, depending on this collecting, ordering, manipulating and passing on of information... " - School work?

"It is only when they are physically together that people can best get to know each other, understand each other's skills and weaknesses, learn by example, find those people with whom they work best and discover in what type of work they themselves excel." Teachers?

"...'is this technology? Or... '"

Jamaica will change it's flag by 2025?

That was weird, if Mitchell doesn't think Crispin Hershey would be seen as Martin Amis, he doesn't have a good handle on his readers.

"you dub novels about novelists 'incestuous'" - I call them 'wank'.

"...while the wealthy are no more likely to be born stupid than the poor, a wealthy upbringing compounds stupidly while a hard scrabble childhood dilutes it, "