Tag: technology

• Live Text, Reader View, No-Signup Tools

  Three techie things I’m loving. 1. Live Text Live Text, available in iOS 15 and beyond, feels not far off from magical. The ability to copy text from photos or through the camera app has completely transformed my book notetaking process as a print-book partisan but digital notetaker. I can just point the camera at […]

  September 27, 2022

  Technology

• My home screen

  The funny thing is this looks similar to the last time I shared my home screen, despite having gone through a few different iterations since then. But I landed back at the black wallpaper and (even more) minimalist layout for a few reasons: My recent job change allowed me to delete several apps I didn’t […]

  May 19, 2022

  Technology

• Please (don’t) clap

  Robin Sloan: Twitter’s only conclusion can be abandonment: an overdue MySpace-ification. I am totally confident about this prediction, but that’s an easy confidence, because in the long run, we’re all MySpace-ified. The only question, then, is how many more possibilities will go unexplored? How much more time will be wasted? Wishful descriptions of Twitter as […]

  April 27, 2022

  Technology

• On Paper Trails and Typewriting Females

  I just finished reading Cameron Blevins’ new book Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West, which I learned a lot from (see my full notes and quotes from the book below). One thing that popped out to me was the role of women in the Post Office’s workforce. Women made […]

  June 23, 2021

  America, Books, History, Review, Technology, Typewriters

• Are You Paying Attention? On ‘The Social Dilemma’ and ‘My Octopus Teacher’

  I don’t have to go looking for synchronicity because it always finds me. This time it was on Netflix. The other day I watched Netflix’s new docu-drama The Social Dilemma (trailer) based on the recommendation from a friend and a lively text thread about its implications. The film’s thesis is that social networks are engineered […]

  October 8, 2020

  Film, Life, Nature, Review, Technology

• How to help someone use a [insert frustrating digital device]

  Thanks to Jessamyn West for republishing Phil Agre’s advice from 1996 on how to help someone use a computer. Swap out computer for “smartphone” or “e-reader” and it’s still quite relevant. Some favorites: Nobody is born knowing this stuff. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner. If it’s not obvious to them, it’s not obvious. […]

  February 4, 2019

  Libraries, Technology

• Refer Madness: Hate the change, love the library

  Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. A while back, my department’s email received this message: “What happened to the CLASSIC CATALOG? I am old, I hate change, but love my library. Thanks.” I had to laugh. Funny but dead serious, succinct and self-aware, this missive captures a very real conundrum: […]

  October 29, 2018

  Libraries, Refer Madness

• Lynda Barry: ‘Writing by hand on paper is becoming a revolutionary act’

  Artist Lynda Barry writes: Writing by hand on paper is becoming a revolutionary act. Reading a physical book is becoming a revolutionary act. Protecting the books in our libraries, the arts and humanities in our colleges and universities is becoming a revolutionary act. Doing things with warm hand to warm hand, face to face, without […]

  March 30, 2018

  Arts, Writing

• Ursula Le Guin on the ‘media golem’

  A pox upon me for never having read Ursula Le Guin before she died last week. I’ll get right on that, as her reputation is high among many different kinds of readers. Before diving into her novels, though, I encountered her blog (an 88 year old blogging!) on which last year she posted “Constructing the Golem”, pretty […]

  January 31, 2018

  America, Media, Politics, Technology

• Steve Jobs Lives

  This 1987 concept video from Apple predicts not only the iPad and all of its capabilities, but also Siri, the speech-activated personal assistant that will be ubiquitous technology in a few years given how Apple products usually work. (H/T to Andrew Sullivan for the video) Andy Baio finds this amazing: Based on the dates mentioned in the […]

  October 5, 2011

  Technology