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50 Academics on God

Umberto Eco on Lists, Order

'The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.” ~ Umberto Eco


http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/22/umberto-eco-on-lists/


http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,659577,00.html

@JamesGRickards - The Big Picture

To the Vector Belong the Spoils

Ritte Van Vlaanderen

SANTA MONICA, California — Spencer Canon didn’t set out to start a bicycle company. He just wanted a kit that didn’t suck.

He found the jerseys and shorts road riders wear boring. Uninspired. So he designed his own, black with light blue and red and yellow stripes. The old-school Belgian vibe looked great, but it needed something.

It needed a story.

Canon found one in the life of Henri “Ritte” Van Lerberghe, who once won Belgium’s biggest race on a borrowed bicycle after downing a few pints at the pub. His improbable career underscored everything Canon thinks cycling should be: fun, free and a bit irreverent. He and his friends started wearing the kit on rides.

That’s when things got weird.

“We were riding as a fake Belgian team that doesn’t exist, but the kit looked so cool we actually got sponsors,” Canon said, laughing at the recollection. “It took a few months, but our fake team and our fake brand just exploded. I realized I could take a fake team and make it real.”

Ritte Van Vlaanderen Bicycles was born.

Above: One of Ritte's neighbors offers his opinion on the Ritte Muur, the company's latest model.

The guys at Ritte (pronounced “Rit-uh”) had no experience in the bike biz when they launched the company in 2010, which may explain why they’ve done everything backward. They started with a jersey, which led to a team, which led to them building bikes, which they sold through a viral marketing campaign. In one particularly funny ad, the UCI announces it is banning the Ritte Bosberg from racing because it provides “an unfair aesthetic advantage.”

Faith v Reason...