đđŹ “Life is absurd. It has no meaning. But it has beauty, and wonder, and we have to enjoy that.” Frieda Menco, Holocaust survivor, quoted in Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto
Anne Frank kept a commonplace book.
“She didn’t die. She was killed. Because she was a Jewish girl.” Hannah Pick-Goslar, a friend of Anne Frank’s đ
đ Read Understanding Blogs by Tracy Durnell.
An excellent exploration of what makes blogging its own medium.
I guess I missed World Book Day & International Cat Rescue Day in Europe but it’s still March 2 back home, so happy both of those! As I like to say when beatboxing poorly, BooksAndCatsAndBooksAndCatsAndBooksAndCats. (Because boots are good but books are better.)
Haven’t listened to Worlds Beyond Number yet but Erika Ishii in this TechCrunch interview is making me cry so that’s cool:
“When you find people to create with, you gotta grab onto them and just keep doing that for the rest of your lives together.”
I’ve got a couple recent co-authored articles:
Description framework of makerspaces: Examining the relationship between spatial arrangement and diverse user populations in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
&
Makerspaces in Libraries at U.S. Public Colleges and Universities: A Census in portal: Libraries and the Academy.
My excellent co-authors are Dr. Maggie Melo, Dr. Laura March, & researcher Emily Arnsberg.
đŽ Playing Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe with my kid. Super fun. Couch co-op Kirby seems to be his gateway to playing instead of just watching. Might do Kirby Star Allies next.
Hi friends! It’s time for an Amsterdam Photo Dump! There are 8 photos here so if you’re viewing this on a timeline, be sure to click through to kimberlyhirsh.com to see them.
Here’s what you’re seeing:
- A street lamp that has been decorated to look like Nijntje (known as Miffy in English).
- The facade of the Royal Palace Amsterdam. (The word for “rabbit” in Dutch is “konijn” and the Dutch name for the Royal Palace is “Koninklijk Paleis,” so I keep trying to come up with a rabbit-palace pun.)
- A detail of a relief on the front of Amsterdam Centraal Station featuring the patron deity of our household, Athena.
- The clock tower at Amsterdam Centraal Station.
- A pedimental sculpture on the National Maritime Museum featuring Neptune, whose image is used heavily in Amsterdam due to the importance of sailing to its history and economy.
- and 8. Votive ships made of wax at the National Maritime Museum.
- A house near the Vondelpark that I thought looked cool and haunted.
đ Read Sci-Fi Publishers Are Bracing for an AI Battle by Elizabeth Minkel (Wired).
I’m interested to see how this shakes out.