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 23, 2011
This is the kind of thing I just don’t understand the value or use of: This paper is the report of a study conducted by five people – four at Stanford, and one at the University of Wisconsin — which tried to establish whether computer-generated algorithms could “recognize” literary genres. You take David Copperfield, run it...
February 21, 2011
Some years ago I decided that I wanted to write a book about trees, and more particularly the strangely central role that trees play in the Biblical story. That role meant, necessarily, that they would find their way, profoundly, into Western literature, and I wanted to say something about that too. But I love trees as they are in...
February 17, 2011
Here’s the funny thing about bookblogging: I tend to feel that it’s okay to blog my way through older books, and through brand-new books, but not through recent books. Something that’s old enough to have a significant anniversary, like Winner’s The Whale and the Reactor, or that is in the public domain, like...
February 16, 2011
Michael Donohoe at the New York Times has developed an ingeniously simple way to mark the key passages in online articles, for the reader’s own use and for the use of others. He calls it Emphasis, and it’s like Kindle annotations but for Times articles. Donohoe’s hope is that it becomes a standard across the web (which...
February 15, 2011
Until recently, the remarkable Matthew Battles, of Hilobrow fame, was writing a column for Gearfuse. Then the editor of Gearfuse parted company with Matthew in this oddly snarky way: you ain’t gettin’ the pageviews, smart boy, so move on along. We’re dumbin’ down. This has prompted a conversation among some of us on Twitter, led...
February 11, 2011
One last thought about The New Atlantis. Here’s how the Father of Salomon’s House describes the various roles of the members of his college: For the several employments and offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own we conceal); who bring us the books, and...
February 10, 2011
The third section of The New Atlantis concerns the narrator’s interview with the Father of Salomon’s House, “which house, or college . . . is the very eye of this kingdom,” or, as is later said, “the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God.” When the narrator, having heard...
February 7, 2011
I just can’t express how moved and fascinated I have been by Makoto Fujimura’s Four Holy Gospels. It is a beautifully bound and printed volume, with the text of the four Gospels — from the English Standard Version — illuminated by abstract, delicate, and evocative brushstrokes. (Well, almost all of the illustrations are...
February 7, 2011
Alex Massie is right to say that if you look at him in a certain light, the Inimitable Jeeves can be a rather sinister figure — or in any event, something less simple and straightforward than Bertie Wooster’s beneficent rescuer. Though he is that. Given Jeeves’s sheer competence — and still more, the indefinable air of authority...
February 7, 2011
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Bacon’s unfinished The New Atlantis falls quite naturally into three parts. The first merely orients us to the story by explaining how the narrator and his crew came to this mysterious island. The second and third provide the real meat of the fragment, and stand in interesting relation to each other....