Sixian

Browse versus search is a radical increase in the trust we put in link infrastructure, and in the degree of power derived from that link structure.

Over the hours of walking, I found myself thinking again about time—and especially about its relationship to the human scale. You can’t walk a mile as fast as you can scroll one. But when moving yourself physically through space, you are also much more aware of how fast and how far you walk (your body certainly remembers to remind you). I suppose... See more

Likewise, players lose hours inside god games. They are sometimes referred to as “time-sweep” games and noted for their addictiveness. Crucially, time moves faster in the god games. Years pass with one turn of Civilization or SimCity. One Sims day is equal to 24 minutes in our world. There is also a particular kind of time-abolishing focus required... See more

Society’s Social Contract with Its Citizens

1. You will give up your privacy.


2. If you’re willing and able, you will have a job.

Arman: Prior to this industry, prior to 2000, when Napster and the ripping services emerged, it was an interesting model for this business. You had a few dominant, large labels that controlled every aspect of music from the discovery of the talent, to the producing of the songs, to the recording of the songs, because they own the studios because it... See more

The “conversational web”. A web obsessed with arguing points. A web seen as a tool for self-expression rather than a tool for thought. A web where you weld information and data into your arguments so that it can never be repurposed against you. The web not as a reconfigurable model of understanding but of sealed shut presentations. And a web that... See more

This idea of relativity is what is often left out of the narrative that the internet has broken our relationship to “natural time.” It is presumed that if we could synchronize a perfect harmony between inner and outer time, we would rediscover a sense of belonging to the planet and to each other. We are haunted by the specter of an innate, perfect... See more

It’s not just about the experience of control, though. The minuscule provokes both awe for its mechanisms — the technical means by which it was brought into existence; the details of its structure — and the distortion of time. In On Longing, Susan Stewart argues that the miniature is a space unattached to “lived historical time”: diminution... See more