Category: Technofuturism
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Asymmetric Intimacy
One of the most novel and under-considered realities of the internet age is the extent to which it has allowed for the creation of heretofore unprecedented types of relationships. Asymmetric intimacy–one of these new types–is about the way that you run across something and think to yourself, “[Person who I’ve never met] would love this.”…
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Journalism’s Overreporting Problem
Right now, in the United States the presidential campaign season is hitting its stride, and all the big news organizations that are still alive have an abundance of reporters on that beat. Frankly I’m far too lazy to do any real research into this, but I’m confident in saying that every majors new organization has…
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Why Gamification Excites Me
It’s worth establishing right off the bat that (A) gamification is a stupid ugly word; that it (B) is misused and abused to mean shallow vague things of very limited value; and (C) neither of those things diminish the power of that idea. Before I explain to you the immense power behind the incorporation of…
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Money as a Game
I’ve been thinking a fair amount lately about the idea of “gamification”–yes, it’s an atrocious word but a useful concept. I’m sure there’s value in thinking about how we can bring the most successful aspects of games into the concrete world of physical people and objects. I know there are many activities I should be…
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Of Chauffers and Operating Systems
In response to some poor writing, Ben Brooks was trying to come up with a good analogy for how computers are like cars. Specifically, how we can use the analogy to understand the difference between Macs and Windows PC. In response, I sent him an email which adds drivers (chauffeurs) into the mix. The crux…
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Why You Hate Your Facebook Friends
Friendship–whatever we are to understand that to mean in the age of “friending”–and relationships generally can take place on the internet as well as offline. No one denies that. But few people seem to understand the advantage of internet-originating relationships against the physical-world-originating kind. To grasp the distinction in a deep way, it helps to…
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Why No One Reads Your Blog
This site has been available at this web address for nearly four years. Before that, I had a eponymous blog at a different URL for about three years. And during that whole time maybe 100 people actually read anything I’d written with enough attention that they left a substantial response. So I think we can…
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Technology Killed the Record Industry
It’s 1950 and the only media you can consume on your own schedule are printed words and records. You have no accessible way to take control over any other cultural artifacts that you may hold dear. You may have thought Gone with the Wind was an excellent picture–as I’ve been lead to believe people once…
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The Future of Cars
I claim no expertise on anything that this piece talks about. Almost anything I say on this topic could be laughably wrong or foolish. I decided to do it anyway. Some people think cars in the future will look massively different–three-wheeled, pod-shaped, etc–I do not. I think predictions like that are generally a mistake. Before…
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“The Wire” and the Future of Reporting
I have today two different pieces essentially covering the same ground from slightly different angles. I was too attached to each to delete it and unable to figure out a way and to combine them, so you’re getting two for the price of one this 15th. The companion to this is “An Overwrought Historical Analogy…