Simon Griffee

What: Kurt Vonnegut

• A Nihilist’s Guide to Meaning #

  In lieu of meaning, I mostly adopted the attitude of Alan Watts. Existence, he says, is fundamentally playful. It’s less like a journey, and more like a piece of music or a dance. And the point of dancing isn’t to arrive at a particular spot on the floor; the point of dancing is simply to dance. Vonnegut expresses a similar sentiment when he says, “We are here on Earth to fart around. …continue

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• Be Kind, Damnit!

  Here’s another poster using Google’s Roboto typeface, quickly made to celebrate it becoming an open source project!

  

  Text from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. Exclamation point mine. Download an infinite resolution version for printing (36kb PDF).

  And here’s a free, open source web typography template using Roboto (demo), made especially for you, dear writers, readers.

• The Elements of Style UNIX As Literature #

  Thomas Scoville: I will admit NT made my life easier in some respects. I found myself doing less remembering (names of utilities, command arguments, syntax) and more recognizing (solution components associated with check boxes, radio buttons, and pull-downs). I spent much less time typing. Certainly my right hand spent much more time herding the mouse around the desktop. But after a few months I started to get a tired, desolate feeling, akin to the fatigue I feel after too much channel surfing or videogaming: too much time spent reacting, not enough spent in active analysis and expression. …continue

• Forbes Special Report on Communicating #

  Milton Glaser, Noam Chomsky, Arthur C. Clarke, Vint Cerf, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Goodall and Desmond Morris among others.