I thought this might be of interest to my readers and to a lot of folks in the skepto-atheosphere: Dan Benjamin’s panel-discussion podcast The Crossover in recent months has done a couple of episodes that focused on the unique challenges faced by women in the tech and inter-webs industries. They’re both very insightful and illuminating …
Tag Archive: Technology
May 01 2013
The Problem Wasn’t the Internet
When Paul Miller of The Verge began his year-long hiatus from the Internet, I rolled my eyes. I looked to me to be a kind of attention-getting gimmick, intended to raise his profile and lend him an air of sophistication. My assumption, however, was pure prejudice, having known nothing about him as a writer or …
Apr 30 2013
Bowser the Fascist, Mario the Warchief
I’ve just finished Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, and I’m generally trying to get myself better acquainted with the societal and political conditions that surrounded the World Wars. But who needs real history? For a serious lesson in statecraft and warcraft, check out Domhnall O’Huigin’s explanation of the political context of the universe of …
Apr 28 2013
Nexus 7: It’s Not You, It’s Me
It became a little too much like work. When I decided to plunge into Android with a Nexus 7, I was happy with all the customization and inter-app communication that the platform allowed. But since then, I’ve found all the tweaks to be a little overwhelming, such that when there’s something not quite to my …
Apr 15 2013
Smooth McGroove is the Smooth McGrooviest
Paul likes cleverly-arranged a capella music. Paul also likes beautifully composed music written for video games made before 2000. In walks Smooth McGroove (and his cat), and my world is changed. I wish Mr. McGroove great fortune, wealth, and additional free time to make more of these. My hero.
Apr 08 2013
Squatting for Caro
I was curious as to whether Robert Caro, he of the voluminous Lyndon Johnson biographies, might be on Twitter. Imagine my amusement when I found this: To be clear: This account will almost certainly never be put to use. It has been reserved, however, “just in case.” — Robert Caro (@RobertACaro) May 8, 2012 The …
Apr 06 2013
Internalizing vs. “Sharing”
James Shakespeare on social media, which he calls “the curse of our age”: The key thing to remember is that you are not enriching your experiences by sharing them online; you’re detracting from them because all your efforts are focused on making them look attractive to other people. Your experience of something, even if similar …
Apr 05 2013
Ew, Your Comments are Sticky
This bit from a Financial Times piece, ostensibly about how social media is improving people’s writing skills, explains so much: “Major Memory for Microblogs”, a recent article in the academic journal Memory & Cognition, found that people were much better at remembering casual writing like Facebook posts or forum comments than lines from books or …
Apr 04 2013
Who Facebook Home is For
When I donned the blue shirt of the Apple Store specialist not so long ago, one question came up an awful lot from customers. Whether they were deciding between MacBooks and iMacs, or trying to understand why they might want an iPad or iPhone, hardly a day went by that I wasn’t asked this question: …
Apr 01 2013
Well-being for Virtually Nothing
The coming generations will make less than those that came before. Jerry Brito says, well, so what? Today…we are in a position to derive much of our happiness from pursuits internal to our minds. We do this by blogging, watching House of Cards on Netflix, listening to a symphony from iTunes, tweeting with friends and …
About the Author
Recent Comments