If The Internet Was A Place

Imagine if instead of approaching our computer as a cold, mechanical piece of metal and glass that receives inputs and delivers outputs, we saw it as a relationship with the emergent, ineffable internet mystic that we’re collectively creating.

How might we approach that device differently?

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or been to the roof of Facebook. The roof is amazingly landscaped — it has native species of plants and these meandering walking paths — and in a way, it’s exactly what I’m talking about in the book. It’s the architecture of thinking, it’s put there to encourage innovation and conversation, but just for employees.  

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“We want to think of the internet as a physical place. It is not about making the virtual physical, but rather to argue that the virtual also exists physically.”

- Woon Tien Wei

in the last decade, technology has transformed from a tool that we use to a place where we live. If we’re setting out to change the character of technology in our lives, we’d be wise to learn from the character of places.

The difference between schools and libraries

From John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education (via Austin Kleon):

To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean, and quiet. They are orderly places where you can actually read instead of just pretending to read.

For some reason libraries are never age-segregated, nor do

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I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ― Jorge Luis Borges