February 2012
4 posts
Is Norway's pension fund investing in surveillance...
On February 10th, Dagens Næringsliv, a Norwegian newspaper, published a long investigation into Norway’s ties with companies that produce surveillance and censorship technology that is used in authoritarian states. Their article is in Norwegian (someone should translate it!) and can be viewed on Scribd.
What follows is a quick summary in English that was sent to me by the author of the...
Why did Steve Jobs park in the handicap spot?
I’ve always wanted to know why Steve Jobs parked in handicap spots. Walter Isaacson, alas, doesn’t really investigate this in his biography.
That’s what I’ve just found on page 47 of The Macintosh Reader. It’s in an essay by David Bunnell, Macworld publisher, recounting his visit to Apple’s headquarters in the early 1980s:
“We could tell that Steve was...
Love Research and Got Some Free Time?
UPDATE: I’m no longer soliciting applications
As some of you may know, I’m working on my second book. At this point, I know enough about the overall structure and flow of the argument that I can start delegating some basic research tasks to others.
Thus, I’m looking for 2-3 research assistants who can commit to 10-15 hours of work every week and who can stay on this project...
[APPLICATION PERIOD OVER NOW] Love Research and...
As some of you may know, I’m working on my second book. At this point, I know enough about the overall structure and flow of the argument that I can start delegating some basic research tasks to others.
Thus, I’m looking for 2-3 research assistants who can commit to 10-15 hours of work every week and who can stay on this project from mid-February to mid-June (I expect the workload to...
January 2012
3 posts
more on conspiracies and anti-vaccination
Now I’m beginning to grasp what it must be like to be Cass Sunstein (Sunstein, having proposed the idea of “cognitive infiltration” a few years back, got an entire book from conspiracy theorists in response).
I’m talking, of course, about my most recent column that proposed a solution that I thought was quite innocent: to have search engines add a line on top of some controversial...
My review of The Digital Origins of Dictatorships...
Perspectives on Politics (2011), 9 : pp 897-900 (original)
Evgeny Morozov, Stanford University
The Digital Origins of Dictatorships and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam. By Philip Howard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 304p. $17.20.
Philip Howard’s important book offers a timely and thorough treatment of a subject that has been catapulted into the...
Steve Jobs's interview with Red Herring, 1996
I couldn’t find this interview anywhere on the Web and Red Herring’s archives are, well, not helpful either…
WHAT’S NEXT? —- While other CEOs are talking about ideas, Steve Jobs, CEO of NeXT Computer, says he’s talking about reality.
1 January 1996
In 1976, at the age of 20, Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, where he not only built the Apple II, but...
December 2011
0 posts
Benjamin on the future of the book
Couldn’t be more timely:
…already today, as the contemporary mode of knowledge-production demonstrates, the book is an obsolete mediation between two different card-filing systems. For everything essential is found in the note boxes of the researcher who writes it, and the reader who studies it assimilates it into his own note file.
Walter Benjamin, Einbahnstraße, 1928
November 2011
2 posts
this is how you start a takedown!
The first paragraph of Matt Cartmill’s review of Donna Haraway’s Primate Visions book. It appeared in the International Journal of Primatology (Vol. 12, No. 1, 1991)
This is a book that contradicts itself a hundred times; but that is not a criticism of it, because its author thinks contradictions are a sign of intellectual ferment and vitality. This is a book that systematically...
October 2011
1 post
Socratic dialogue on Jarvis, public parts, the...
The Internet: Let’s jump straight to the very heart of the matter: why do you hate Jeff Jarvis?
The Critic: I certainly don’t hate him! But I do have rather complex feelings about Jeff. Shouldn’t we all? I’ve really tried not to pay any attention to him for a couple of years — he couldn’t last much longer, I naively said to myself — but soon I’ve...