#obsolete – @nickkahler on Tumblr

Have hackers and leakers made secrecy obsolete? Has Russian intelligence simply outplayed the United States, penetrating the most closely guarded corners of its government? Can a work force of thousands of young, tech-savvy spies ever be immune to leaks?

Scott Shane, Nicole Perlroth, and David E. Sanger, “Security Breach at the NSA,” 2017

nickkahler

New architectures are each, from the moment they are realized, on their way to obsolescence.

Rem Koolhaas in Jorge Otero-Pailos, “OMA’s Preservation Manifesto” from Preservation is Overtaking Us, 2014

#rem koolhaas #jorge otero-pailos #quote #oma #architecture #obsolescence #obsolete #realization #design #planned obsolescence #practice

nickkahler

The history of prison building has become a sequence of short-lived ideals that were challenged, faltered, and then failed. Near the end of the 20th century, this sequence becomes almost comic - like an accelerated movie. It has become impossible to build a prison that is not, at the moment of its completion, out-of-date.

Rem Koolhaas, “Revision: Study for the Renovation of a Panopticon Prison, Arnhem, Netherlands,” in SMLXL, 1979-81

#rem koolhaas #prison #building #sequence #short #life #ideal #fail #falter #challenge #comic #movie #impossible #jail #obsolete #architecture #design

nickkahler

The ancient word folle was used primarily to refer to ‘lewd, unchaste and wanton’ behavior, and, while an obsolete term in the eighteenth century, the folly certainly held within it connotations of libertine, eroticism and pornography. Here the folly became less an example of the bad, than a not-so-secret harbinger of the impossible desired. What was not permitted in 'serious’ building was, by definition, permitted in the folly.

Anthony Vidler, Follies: Architecture for the Late-Twentieth-Century Landscape, 1983

#anthony vidler #folle #folly #lewd #unchaste #wanton #behavior #obsolete #language #harbinger #pornography #eroticism #libertine #impossible #serious #building #architecture #romanticism #quote #permitted #use #function

nickkahler reblogged

mbelt

whentherewerebicycles

The student is put outside of society, on a campus. Furthermore, he is excluded while being transmitted a knowledge which is traditional in nature, obsolete, ‘academic’ and not directly tied to the needs and problems of today.… Young people from 18 to 25 are thus, as it were, neutralized by and for society, rendered safe, ineffective, socially and politically castrated. There is the first function of the university: to put students out of circulation.

Michel Foucault, “Rituals of Exclusion,” 1971

nickkahler

Manfred Pernice’s clumsy wood and cement sculptures deal with the idea of obsolescence of both monuments and ideologies. Exploring the particularly sensitive territory of divided Germany, Pernice acts as an archaeologist excavating urban space to unearth sites of contention. His sculptures often resemble pedestals with no statues, as if to imply that each new historical cycle will impose new heroes and symbols.

Massimiliano Gioni, “Ask the Dust” from Unmonumental, 2007

nickkahler

Google, Patent for a Floating Data Center, 2007-9 (via cnn)

Google proves that not only can architectural programmatic and design innovation can be done on water, it doesn't even need an architect to do it. Professional obsolescence is a serious threat.

#google #patent #architecture #data center #data #metadata #water #float #drawing #diagram #obsolete #profession

nickkahler

For centuries after its invention, punctuation was the province of the reader, not the writer. The average ancient Greek or Roman struggled through texts devoid of commas, periods, and even word spaces, punctuating as they went to help pick apart the words and their meaning. Well into the medieval ages, even after punctuation had been established as the writer's responsibility, readers continued to annotate their books with symbols to help index and recall the information therein.

Keith Houston, "Obsolete Punctuation Marks," 2013

#keith houston #obsolete #punctuation #punctuation mark #grammar #language #linguistics #greek #roman #comma #period #space #meaning #medieval #symbol #literacy #invention #reader #writer #history