4 ms·
> But there was more to it than that. Hidden inside the repetitive floor plans and the daily schedules of these franchised businesses, Roofman had found the par
by y7 10y ago
> But there was more to it than that. Hidden inside the repetitive floor plans and the daily schedules of these franchised businesses, Roofman had found the parameters of a kind of criminal Groundhog Day: a burglary that could be performed over and over in different towns, cities, and states—probably even different countries, if he’d tried—and his skills would only get better with each outing. In a very real sense, he was breaking into the same building again and again, endlessly duplicating the original crime.
> For Roofman, it was as if each McDonald’s with its streamlined timetable and centrally controlled managerial regime was an identical crystal world: a corporate mandala of polished countertops, cash registers, supply closets, money boxes, and safes into which he could drop from above as if teleported there. Everything would be in similar locations, down to the actions taking place within each restaurant. At more or less the same time of day—whether it was a branch in California or in rural North Carolina—employees would be following a mandated sequence of events, a prescribed routine, and it must have felt as if he had found some sort of crack in space-time, a quantum filmloop stuttering without cease, an endless present moment always waiting to be robbed. It was the perfect crime—and he could do it over and over again.
> For Roofman, it must have looked as if the rest of the world were locked in a trance, doing the exact same things at the exact same times of day—in the same kinds of buildings, no less—and not just in one state, but everywhere. It’s no real surprise, then, that he would become greedy, ambitious, overconfident, stepping up to larger and larger businesses—but still targeting franchises and big-box stores. They would all have their own spatial formulas and repeating events, he knew; they would all be run according to predictable loops inside identical layouts all over the country.
Personally, I got a bit bored with the author's style of continuously seeking bold metaphors for the same thing, but I'm curious: do people consider this interesting writing, or does this style detract from the content?
- sb8244 10y agoAt the risk of looking simpleton, I tend to get sucked into a story and then I don't focus on the exact writing style. Thus, I found this interesting. The exception is horribly bad grammar and misspellings. I can handle one or two instances, but things start to pop out after awhile in prose with too many errors.
- munin 10y agoreading lots of BLDBLOG definitely gets repetitive. some people have a problem where they bury their ideas in lots of low calorie writing. you know these people, they take ten minutes to answer a question like "did you commit that change?" some replace their low calorie filler with small chunks of high calorie writing. however, equally popular is to use lots of high calorie writing instead, which is what BLDBLOG does. each sentence is so rich, but tells you so little. although maybe your problem is that you have ADHD or want "just the facts" writing. it's comforting to sit and let yourself be carried by a familiar voice. in a "just the facts" world what is the point of stories? you can re-write most of shakesperes works to be in three or four sentences. would that be better?
- mistersquid 10y ago(Context: I used to teach American Literature at a Carnegie Mellon R2 university, and I can recognize what other humanities scholars would identify as good writing.) From the point of view of a belles lettres/liberal arts reader (as opposed to an audience interested in journalistic reportage) Manaugh's writing is engaging, thought-provoking, and compelling. Manaugh makes his points through his style and, in my view, his style is superb. From a purely informational perspective, I can see how such a dense and somewhat repetitive style could be annoying and uninteresting. However, from the perspective of someone, say, interested in cultural studies as a humanistic discipline, Manaugh's cultivation of his ideas using a richly detailed metaphorical scaffolding is aesthetically pleasing and informationally satisfying. In terms of the level of engagement and in a domain more familiar to people develop software, I would compare Manaugh's style to Paul Ford's style in "What is Code?"[0]. Ford is himself someone quite experienced in the world of humanities, and his "What is Code?" is a highly-detailed ethnographic window into the world of bespoke software creation. tl;dr: "The Burglar With His Very Own Mac Attack" would be considered by many humanities scholars as well-written, even if they did not agree with Manaugh's conclusions. [0] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjkmenulrnMAhUI9GMKHSbyAyQQFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fgraphics%2F2015-paul-ford-what-is-code%2F&usg=AFQjCNFqVVi86DOCCEX2LFdETJ03DN3oXA&sig2=kgUunvpwfhf2cCBHraLgpA https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- joesmo 10y agoDetracts immensely. The story is super interesting yet the author babbles on and on with inanities. Poor writing that was clearly not edited well. Remove all unnecessary text was certainly a rule not followed.
- s_p_lee 10y agoI felt that Manaugh's repeating the some concept in consecutive paragraphs had a nice parallel to Roofman's repeating the same crime in consecutive burglaries. That said, I was turned off by the low information density and ended up skimming those paragraphs.