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
July 15, 2010
I think Michael Hirschorn may be right: After 15 years of fruitless experimentation, media companies are realizing that an advertising-supported model is not the way to succeed on the Web and they are, at last, seeking to get consumers to pay for their content. They are operating on the largely correct assumption that people will be more...
July 14, 2010
These extraordinary paintings by an artist previously unknown to me, Frederick Cayley Robinson, once hung in the entrance hall of London’s Middlesex Hospital. They are currently on view at the National Gallery. Click on them for larger versions, which I got here. The stillness of the compositions and the subtlety of the palette...
July 14, 2010
I’ve written here about my interest in Amazon’s recently implemented “Popular Highlights” feature, which lets Kindle readers know what passages other Kindle readers are taking note of. But Ted Striphas points to a rather worrisome aspect of this technology: When people read, on a Kindle or elsewhere, there’s context. For...
July 13, 2010
By Rintala Eggertsson, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. More pictures here; story here.
July 13, 2010
Well, this does not seem to be good news: With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect — each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores...
July 12, 2010
Well, I may be renewing my hiatus for a day or two more: I dislocated a finger this morning playing basketball, and typing is rather painful right now. Also slow. I’ll be back soon, though!
July 12, 2010
July 10, 2010
Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth — all real dangers. I, too, deplore these afflictions. But, as between these evils and the aesthetic of Bourbon drinking, that is, the use...
July 2, 2010
Friends, I’ll be taking next week off. I expect to be back on the 12th or thereabouts. Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!
July 2, 2010
Reading Jonathan Franzen’s commendation of Christina Stead’s novel The Man Who Loved Children I see that it is also a commendation of a particular kind of novel, the realistic family-centered novel, like his own The Corrections, from what he fears is a permanent dismissal. “Haven’t we had enough of that?” —...