Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?
By: Alan Jacobs
October 6, 2014
It seems that my thoughts on the issues raised in the previous two posts are expanding, like No-Face in Spirited Away, into something significantly larger than I can manage here. So you will hear more from me on these matters, but probably not in this format.
October 6, 2014
inc.com I promised a follow-up to my previous post, so here I am. In this post and the next I want to discuss two essays by David Graeber — one and two — because I think that, while they seem to have very different purposes, they contribute in interesting and useful ways to a single important point. Let me say at the outset that I...
October 5, 2014
So wrote R. P. Blackmur, an eminent poet and critic from Princeton University, writing in the Sewanee Review in 1945. His essay is called “The Economy of the American Writer: Preliminary Notes,” and his chief question is whether it is possible for literary writers to make a living. Plus ça change, oui? An essay very much worth...
October 4, 2014
Thanks to those who answered my question about defenses of the liberal arts and the humanities. What makes for a good defense of the liberal arts? (I’ll refer only to the liberal arts in the rest of this post, since defenses of the humanities can usually be fit within that larger category.) That’s a question that can only be answered...
September 26, 2014
I’m sure this has been noted many times, but it strikes me that one of the central conventions of sitcoms is that people have a single location where they tend to meet: Cheers, Monk’s Café, Central Perk, Paddy’s Pub, etc. All social-media platforms aspire to be this: the one-stop shop for your...
September 26, 2014
Take a good look at the iOS screenshot above and you’ll see something interesting. Look just above the keyboard, at the row of suggested words — a new feature in iOS 8, though one that has been around a while in Android. Apple doesn’t just get its suggestions from a universal dictionary. Its description of this “predictive...
September 26, 2014
Like everyone else I know, it seems, I’m fooling around with Ello. My first comment there was: “So if I understand this correctly, we’re all going to follow the same people here that we follow on Twitter, and then we’re done, yes?” My next comments were about the peculiarities of the timeline, or more specifically...
September 25, 2014
Every defense of liberal education in general, and the humanities more specifically, that I can think of makes one or more of the following arguments: studying the liberal arts makes you a better citizen studying the liberal arts makes you more empathetic and compassionate studying the liberal arts teaches you critical-thinking...
September 25, 2014
I was drafting this post before Freddie deBoer’s recent post on the subject, so this isn’t really a response to Freddie. But what the heck, call it a response to Freddie. I want to respond by changing the terms of the conversation: Instead of asking “What is the university for?” I’d like for us to ask, “What is this...
September 22, 2014
I’ll pay $100 for the best 100-word description of a plausible technological future in 100 years that I would like to live in. Email me. — Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) May 12, 2014 Tell me a happy story, please! Pretty please?? A happy, happy story. Turns out a good many people are willing to comply.