The Online Newspaper, Circa 1982
Ah, nostalgia for when technology was cool in a completely different way.
Great Microbiologists: Remember Them This Weekend
This fun Lego animation takes you through an important part of Memorial Day history — the history of how we’ve partially tamed microorganisms.
When Did Print Become an Input?
When print is an input every other content product inherits prints DNA and can’t help looking and acting a lot like its parent.
Etiquette and the Electric Friendship Generator
This film from the early days of Facebook illustrates the perils of poor etiquette with online friendship generators.
The First Four Years of College: Why Are Students Spending Less Time Studying?
A new economic analysis of the time spent realizing a four-year degree shows decreases across the board since 1961. What does it mean? Why is it happening?
Has Publishing Revealed the Achilles’ Heel of Webist Political Philosophies?
Does the power of prestige and prestige-granting organization confound the politics of the Web?
Look to Production to Predict the Next Digital Breakthrough — Editorial Offices
Is editorial knowledge generation the last “production shop” available for digital improvement?
Misused Quotes We Live By: When Rules of Thumb Get Bent or Amputated
Examine what you’re quoted carefully. Some commonly held views of the world are based on misappropriated quotations.
The Trouble with the Truth: Politics Squelches Science Again
A new NSF report is edited to suppress important facts, denying the truth.
Clay Shirky’s Collapse of Complexity — Does It Also Require a Collapse of Quality?
Clay Shirky reflects on the end of complexity. He’s right, but can simplified systems produce quality? Can other approaches also survive?
Counterpoint: The Power of Simplification — Why the Digital Age Means the End of Top-Heavy Bureaucracies
In which I argue that Shirky’s point is more about bureaucracies, cultures, and new approaches.
The True Victims of the Fall of Newspapers? Our Nation’s Loons
Who will really suffer if newspapers fail? The Onion has the inside story.
Facebook Patents the News Feed — The “One-Click” Button of Social Media Now Has An Owner
In a moment as important to social networking as Amazon’s one-click patent was for e-commerce, Facebook gets a patent on the news feed. But many questions remain, especially about prior art and what is a “news feed.”
The Internet’s Extended Cultural Memory — Is It Sapping Our Creativity?
One of the great benefits of the Internet is how it has extended our cultural memory. But has this also stolen our freedom of thought, our ability to create original works of art?
Platform Wars Come to the Book Business
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight.