Alex Burns

Since its founding in 2012, A24 has consistently been on the upswing. The company’s success doesn’t come down to one thing, but a variety of factors: the championing of up-and-coming auteurs (Ari Aster, Greta Gerwig, Robert Eggers, the directorial duo known as the Daniels), which has established the studio as a reliable tastemaker; the execution of... See more

But it was serving a function for you because that is one form of “like.” It’s what we call in linguistic speak a “quotative like,” and that “like” substitutes for the verb “to say.” What you are doing is saying, “I’m not telling you verbatim what the teacher said. I’m giving you sort of my subjective recall of what she said.” It’s a really useful... See more

Websites are the most expressive medium I know, but they’re used today in such a tiny narrow way.

The thing is, they could be like digital paper: back-of-napkin notes, moodboards, journaling, letters, toy apps, lists, sprawling canvases.

Neo-cities : When do people start new cities vs. reforming existing ones? Is Singapore an urbanist paradise or technofascist dystopia? What can the US learn from Special Economic Zones? Can you do urban renewal right? What’s the difference between Esmeralda and California Forever? Why do most charter cities fail? How might they succeed?

Taken together, we can combine them into what we might call a hierarchy of information :

• Raw data: the endless stream of posts, likes, bot spam


• Information: headlines, hashtags, trending things


• Knowledge: the narratives we share and fight over.


• Understanding: recognizing what might not be real (or is hyperreal)


• Wisdom: systemic analysis, the ability to

... See more