Latest Tweets:
Internet dumbing-down hysteria compared against previous waves of anti-tech backlash #6yrsago
Salon has a refreshing take on the effect of the net on wider culture, courtesy of Dennis Baron, author of the new book A Better Pencil. Baron places hysteria about the net’s supposed dumbing-down in context with other panics of years gone by.
Historically, when the new communication device comes out, the reaction tends to be divided. Some people think it’s the best thing since sliced bread; other people fear it as the end of civilization as we know it. And most people take a wait and see attitude. And if it does something that they’re interested in, they pick up on it, if it doesn’t, they don’t buy into it.
I start with Plato’s critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They’re not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down – the ultimate irony.
We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won’t have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there’s no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant – it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of “this is going to revolutionize everything” versus “this is going to destroy everything.”
"Counterculture giants of the time, like Stewart Brand, Buckminster Fuller and Ivan Illich, championed vernacular tools as a way to give people the personal autonomy and choices they craved. But the consumerist version of this ultimately vision prevailed, such that the decentralized empowerment that networked computers provided has been a mixed bag."
Morozov on the Maker Movement | David Bollier (via johnborthwick)
Probably need to go back to 1884 or so to unravel that…
(via wildcat2030)
"You remember those days, don’t you? Back in the 1980s, when teenagers spoke in fluent paragraphs, bureaucrats wrote in plain English, and every academic paper was a masterpiece in the art of the essay? (Or was it the 1970s?) The problem with the Internet-is-making-us-illiterate theory, of course, is that bad prose has burdened readers in every era."
No, the Internet is not making us dumberer.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/10/steven-pinker-sense-of-style/
Exclusivity of Self
So here’s a thing: The Justice Department is claiming, in a little-noticed court filing, that a federal agent had the right to impersonate a young woman online by creating a Facebook page in her name without her knowledge. Government lawyers also are defending the agent’s right to scour the… Yikes…
You’re looking at Neurogrid: a slab of silicon inspired by the human brain, which is 9,000 times faster than a normal computer brain simulator and uses way less energy to boot.
Developed by a team of Stanford bioengineers, it’s worth pointing out that this is hardly the first microchip to be inspired by the human brain—they’ve come and gone in the past. It is, however, capable of simulating 100s and 1,000s more neurons than any in the past, and on less power than it takes to run an iPad.
The research appears in an article for the Proceedings of the IEEE. It’s no wonder scientists want to recreate the brain in silicon: even a mouse cortex can operate 9,000 times faster than a PC, and a even then the computer uses 40,000 times the power, too.
Hence Neurorgrid, which uses 16 custom-designed “Neurocore” chips to simulate 1 million neurons and billions of synaptic connections. It’s 9,000 times faster, and 100,000 times more energy efficient, than a personal computer simulation of 1 million neurons.
Understandable, then, that the prototype’s worth a cool $40,000—but sadly it’s not easy to code for. Kwabena Boahen, one of the researchers, explains: “Right now, you have to know how the brain works to program one of these. We want to create a neurocompiler so that you would not need to know anything about synapses and neurons to able to use one of these.”
Indeed, the idea is to use the devices to control prosthetic limbs for paralyzed people—a fitting application for a synthetic brain. But there’s still plenty of potential to make this thing way more cheaper—and, in turn, way more practical for the real world, too.
This Brain-Inspired Microchip Is 9,000 Times Faster Than a Normal PC
That Moore’s Law graph is going to blip…
(via newsweekscience)
Why the Smart Reading Device Of The Future May Be Paper
Paper books were supposed to be dead by now. For years, information theorists, marketers, and early adopters have told us their demise was imminent. Yet in a world of screen ubiquity, many people still prefer to do their serious reading on paper. The paper/digital discussion goes on. Maybe it’s just horses for courses… The interesting thing is why… (via the-feature)
"
When you buy Google Glass, you are not a consumer. You are an Explorer.
Everything about Glass affirms your specialness. The Swedish modern showroom, where a hot guy tweaks Glass’s nose grips just for your face. The card that comes with Glass, calling you an “adventurer,” a “founder.” The fact that you must be invited to purchase your pair, since there are only 8,000 Google Glasses in the world.
When you wear Glass, you and Google are a team.
But explorers are not neutral. They are the shock troops of empire. The lands explorers traverse are later conquered by armies, their sacred objects melted down for gold. Glass Explorers continue the corporation’s conquest of reality.
"Google Glass, The Corporate Gaze and Mine (via majoringindebt)
Hah! Quite… :)
(via laurennmcc)
"
As Estonian President Toomas Ilves put it recently, it is as though we have two cultures: those who care about technology and those who care about liberal democracy. And not only do they not talk to each other, but act as if the other didn’t exist.
It’s time those two worlds learned how to understand and inter-relate with each other. Then we would not have a situation where, for example, mass observation of citizens is seen by some as “acceptable” merely because it is technically possible. Or, on the other side, where policy makers look at big data and can see only dangers and threats instead of opportunities.
"Trustycon: how to redesign NSA surveillance to catch more criminals and spy on a lot fewer people
The Trustycon folks have uploaded over seven hours’ worth of talks from their event, an alternative to the RSA security conference founded by speakers who quit over RSA’s collusion with the NSA.
The technical aspects of privacy - O'Reilly Radar
Thrust into controversy by Edward Snowden’s first revelations last year, President Obama belatedly welcomed a conversation about privacy. As cynical as you may feel about US spying, that conversation…
"A non-disclosure agreement that police departments around the country have been signing for years with the maker of a cell-phone spy tool explicitly prohibits the law enforcement agencies from telling anyone, including other government bodies, about their use of the secretive equipment, according to one of the agreements obtained by an Arizona journalist."
'Independent' court scrutinising MI5 is located inside Home Office
Transparency for the Masses - but not for the administration.Clegg and Miliband call for reform of Investigatory Powers Tribunal, as critics accuse it of secrecy and unfairness
Edward Snowden's magnificent testimony to the EU
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has submitted written testimony [PDF] to an EU committee investigating mass surveillance. Glyn Moody’s Techdirt post gives a great tl;dr summary of the document, but you should really read it for yourself.
The neuromyths of the classrooms
School (like governance) is the next battle ground for rational structuring. Seriously. That’s how far behind where we think we are we really are in applying sensible thinking to real life and infrastructure.
Digital Life in 2025
PEW decides that, yes, digital is the new substrate. But, you know, they have evidence. All I have is a buzzword or two ;)Experts predict the Internet will become ‘like electricity’ — less visible, yet more deeply embedded in people’s lives for good and ill