Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Although he was largely an observer of the technical community that created Silicon Valley, his various ideas and crusades around the Whole Earth Catalog, which he created in the fall of 1968, foreshadow and resonate with the techno-utopian culture that the Valley spawned.
John Markoff • Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand
The primary human relations—to space, time, nature, and to other people—have been subjected to a warping pressure that is something new under the sun. Those who argue that the very nature of history is change—that change is constant—are missing the point. Our era has seen an escalation of the rate of change so drastic that all possibilities of evol
... See moreSven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
truculent
Richard Powers • The Overstory: A Novel
Cal Newport • The Rise of the Internet’s Creative Middle Class
Researcher Simon DeDeo on the three eras of information history:
The premodern/archaic era, when most information was generated by non-human phenomena like seasons, weather, drought, flood, hail, lightning. “The gods”.
The modern/postmodern era, when most information was broadcast by a small number of information “sellers”, and consumed by a large
“artwork personalization.”
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld

In our reality, Ted Nelson served as a muse rather than the Internet’s architect. Legend has it that he conceived of Xanadu as an antidote (or amplifier) for his attention deficit disorder. He dreamed of a word processor that allowed users to surf through and freely explore associations, related material, and alternate contexts of any given piece o
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