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
February 2, 2010
Stephen Emms thinks Tolstoy blew the ending of Anna Karenina. If you haven’t read the book, you might want to stop reading here.People sometimes say the same about the last narrative section of War and Peace: “Gee, that’s anticlimactic. Who wants to see Natasha having to change babies’ diapers and live a life of boring...
February 1, 2010
I think it’s really important to meditate on what Alex Payne says here: The iPhone can, to some extent, be forgiven its closed nature. The mobile industry has not historically been comfortable with openness, and Apple didn’t rock that boat when it released the iPhone. The iPhone was no more or less open than devices that preceded it,...
January 30, 2010
John Gruber is one of my favorite tech commentators, but he’s not doing so well with the iPad. He has divided the world into those who “get it” (i.e., adore the iPad) and those who “don’t get it.” This is an old Andrew Sullivan move, and one of the more annoying ones. Saying “you just don’t get it” is not an...
January 30, 2010
One of Matteo Ricci’s maps. Amazing things may be seen at the Library of Congress. Thanks to Ryan H. for the tip.
January 29, 2010
Mark Bauerlein is making a prediction: As more kids grow up writing in snatches and conforming to the conventional patter, problems will become impossible to overlook. Colleges will put more first-year students into remedial courses, and businesses will hire more writing coaches for their own employees. The trend is well under way, and...
January 28, 2010
Gruber has the need for speed: Lastly, there’s the fact that the iPad is using a new CPU designed and made by Apple itself: the Apple A4. This is a huge deal. I got about 20 blessed minutes of time using the iPad demo units Apple had at the event today, and if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be ‘fast’. . ....
January 27, 2010
If I ever write Text Patterns: the Book, this will absolutely be the cover image. (Here, via Culture Making.)
January 27, 2010
We interrupt this hiatus to comment that Larry Lessig’s essay in The New Republic on copyright and the Google Book Settlement is by far the best thing I’ve read on the settlement and the many associated issues. Sample: My wife had just given birth to our third child. On the morning of the child’s third day, doctors were...
January 27, 2010
Back from my travels — where I was treated wonderfully hospitably by the good folks at Baylor — but under the weather. I’ll get back on the horse ASAP, but I don’t know when P will be.
January 23, 2010
Amazon’s decision to open the Kindle platform for app development is not smart. It seems obvious that Amazon is anticipating the arrival of the Great Apple Tablet and is trying to forestall its dominance by turning the Kindle into a multiple-use device. In other words, Amazon is granting Steve Jobs’s argument that...