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Dropbox and the plain style The plain style may inspire too much trust. It’s smart to opt out of Dropbox’s arbitration procedures.

A Big Lots tip

Coming soon, perhaps, to a Big Lots near you: Staedtler Extruded Eraser Sticks, black or white, six for $3. The best part, as described on the back of the package: “Extruded Mars head runs through eraser core.” The god of war himself, at your fingertips.

Too many erasers? No. I will quote my dad on stationery matters: “It is better to be oversupplied than undersupplied.”

My dad on supplies

I told my dad about our visit this morning to Staples, where we bought more (still more) index cards — enough, I said, to last into the next century. Quoth my dad: “It is better to be oversupplied than undersupplied.”

That’s the best thinking about supplies I’ve ever heard.

Related reading
From the Museum of Supplies

[As a regular reader of Orange Crate Art probably knows, supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items.]

Charles Ives’s workroom

On display in Manhattan, Charles Ives’s workroom, complete with pencil sharpener and shavings.

An -itis I have known

Speaking of -itises: have you heard of rhinitis medicamentosa? I contended with that -itis this week, after using Afrin for several days. So I tried taking two Benadryl and two Sudafed before going to sleep, and I woke up feeling fine. And now I know that nasal sprays can be dangerous toys, especially when used correctly. No more nasal sprays, ever.

I am not a medical doctor, nor do I play one on the Internets. This post is a matter of anecdote not advice, with a fleeting reference to Joan Crawford.

Overheard

“I went to the doctor — I have some kind of -itis.”

Related reading
All OCA “overheard” posts (Pinboard)

Handwritten Bresson

[This story is true. I present it as it is, unadorned.]


[Dear Mother, I am in the M prison.]

Based on a memoir by André Devigny, Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) tracks the plotting of Resistance fighter Fontaine (François Leterrier) to escape from a Gestapo-run prison. Like the three other Bresson films I’ve seen, A Man Escaped has moments of handwriting. And like the other three, the film is completely compelling.

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Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
Diary of a Country Priest
Pickpocket

[The film’s title in French: Un condamné à mort s’est échappé, ou Le vent souffle où il veut : A condemned man escaped, or The wind blows where it will. The translations in this post are mine.]

iPads, iPods, Pat Quinn

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, speaking about the creation of a digital-manufacturing lab in Chicago: “When iPads came along and iPods, they helped transform music.” And so too, this initiative will help transform manufacturing.

Okay. But have iPads and iPods transformed music? No. Nor did they arrive in that order. It’s iTunes and the iPod (the app is older) that have transformed the music business. Repeat after me, Governor: “When iTunes and the iPod came along, they helped transform the music business.”

Shouldn’t a governor know such stuff?

Income disparity in higher ed

Inside Higher Ed reports on proposals to reduce income disparity at several American colleges: The President and the Paupers.

Related posts
Income disparity in higher ed
Inequality v. disparity

Google Glass on the road

Reuters reports that “Google is lobbying officials in at least three U.S. states to stop proposed restrictions on driving with headsets such as Google Glass.” The states named: Illinois, Delaware, and Missouri.

I can already hear the argument: How can we attract high-tech companies to our state unless we embrace the latest, &c.

Over my dead body, says I. And if it becomes legal to drive with Google Glass, the result will be dead bodies.

[Found via Daring Fireball.]