Brian Sholis

- “The way we talk about relevance suggests that it is a quality a work possesses, something an author has engineered or achieved, an accomplishment. This, too, seems wrong to me. Relevance may have more to do with the audience; it is a quality of our reading at least as much as an attribute of what we read.”

- “Textual interfaces make automation trivial, and automation tools much easier to build.”

- "The aggregate carbon footprint of Shopify’s fragmented conglomerate of small internet businesses on the other hand, is massive. Each product line houses an inefficient, dysfunctional (mini) supply chain, involving extra transport steps, re-boxing and temporary warehousing, drastically increasing CO2 emissions (and baseline cost) when compared to... See more

- "Our algorithmic self may or may not be faithful to how we see ourselves, but it has just as many dimensions and secrets."

* “The mark of a great friend is somebody who believes in you, looks out for you, and has your best interests in mind. Those who give you honest feedback, even when the truth is hard to share and even harder to hear are worth their weight in gold. When you acknowledge their feedback, friends become like bumpers at a bowling alley. They let you... See more

- “It seems like the quantified self movement is about our relationship with time, about the fact that we don’t know how much we exercised or what we ate, we can’t really perceive ourselves mechanically and in a world where there are so many units of time all at once, where there are so many timeframes. It’s really easy to lose track of when you... See more

"This book traces the history of adult education in America from its roots in the popular tradition of self-improvement, to present day education outside a college or university setting. The author persuasively links developments in the realm of popular self-improvement to cultural and social forces, and explores the reasons why ordinary citizens... See more

- "Even if we’re anonymous or confusing to other people, we remain pellucid and knowable to platforms, which establish a recognizable personal brand of sorts algorithmically. When we encounter ourselves in the guise of recommended content and customized ads, we are meeting our coherent public image, as the platforms have deduced it from an entire... See more