Clive Thompson @saturation.social Writer, musician/songwriter, hobbyist coder. Contributing writer to New York Times Magazine and Wired. Author of "Coders". Blogging at clivethompson.medium.com, archive of writing at www.authory.com/clivethompson #science #technology #coding #software #writing #literature #poetry [email protected]
I have a section in the book Iām currently writing (about cycling across the US, and how small-scale mobility can help decarbonize the US) where I rode past the original Sinclair refinery in Wyoming and it prompted me to think about how weirdly beautiful are the aesthetics of those huge fossil-fuel-aged plants
a lot of physics and chemistry rendered into sculpture
I'm pretty sure we will
The brownstones of Brooklyn -- over which these days Wall Street guys frantically try to outbid one another with $3-$4 million offers -- because they're regarded as gorgeous and iconic ...
... were, when they were first built in the 19th century, utterly loathed by veddy propah citizens as being hideously ugly eyesores
While recognizing that horrible contemporary design does indeed exist, I have trouble fully trusting here-and-now aesthetic judgements