Category Archives: Technology

Notebook

Posted on February 19, 2017 by

We don’t know yet what the televising of the conventions will do to American politics, to elections, to the convention system itself. Some of us fear what one good demagogue with a fine voice and a rousing profile might do … Continue reading →

Posted in Media, Politics, Technology, TV, US politics | Tagged , , , , ,

Notebook

Posted on January 10, 2017 by

The most striking novelty of the American landscape today, to anyone who knows it pretty well, is a little box about as big as a prairie schoolhouse. These boxes are trim and white and you see them every thirty miles, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Technology, TV, Uncategorized | Tagged , , ,

How to fix the Internet

Posted on January 4, 2017 by

“For years, the benefits of anonymity on the net outweighed its drawbacks.” Not so now, says Walter Isaacson, who has a few ideas on how to deal with trolling, hacking and cyber-bullying.

Posted in Social Media, Technology | Tagged , ,

Reasons not to like Apple

Posted on April 28, 2016 by

An entertaining, mischief-making list in the Guardian. I particularly liked Number 24,  “Error 53”: How many corporations possess and wield the power to criminally damage their products – your products – after they’ve sold them to you? Apple’s notorious “Error … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | Tagged ,

Distractions, distractions

Posted on February 15, 2016 by

Should tech companies be doing more to stop us from becoming addicted to our apps? In an essay in The New York Review of Books, Jacob Weisberg introduces us to an ex-Google engineer who thinks we all need help:

Posted in Social Media, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Before Tim Peake

Posted on January 15, 2016 by

In honour of today’s space-walk, a classic front page from 1962.

Posted in Comedy, Journalism, Technology | Tagged , ,

Notebook

Posted on October 27, 2015 by

You become a doctor for what you imagine to be the satisfaction of the work, and that turns out to be the satisfaction of competence. It is a deep satisfaction very much like the one that a carpenter experiences in … Continue reading →

Posted in Notebook, Science, Technology | Tagged

Twitter fakes

Posted on March 15, 2015 by

There’s a 31 percent likelihood that even he is a bot, apparently.  James Gleick on the rise and rise of not-so-human online voices : Because the Twitterverse is made of text, rather than rocks and trees and bones and blood, … Continue reading →

Posted in Social Media, Technology | Tagged , , , ,

He saw it coming

Posted on March 14, 2015 by

J.G. Ballard writing about social media before it even existed. From an article in Vogue magazine, 1977: [HT: Suzanne Heath]

Posted in Literature, Social Media, Technology | Tagged , ,

Will the robots eat our jobs?

Posted on March 2, 2015 by

 Intelligence Squared are playing host to Walter Isaacson & Co in Westminster tonight, debating whether the age of automation is going to liberate us or wipe out whole professions. (£30 seems a lot to charge for a ticket, but maybe … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Politics, Technology | Tagged , , , ,