Internet/society
These posts contain assorted thoughts about the internet, society, the modern world, and so on.
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Let’s unfork the web
This post is about a new bookmarks page I have added to my blog in hopes of inspiring other people to recreate the web of curated links we once used to move around on the internet. Read more
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Cringe and joy, part two – being heard
This post is about the joy (that I have experienced in my work) of helping people feel heard. I speculate on why people feel such a need to be heard and what it means that I want to help them do that. Read more
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My left ear
As you know if you read this blog regularly (or as regularly as I write it, anyway), I have strong opinions about some things. For example: I have spent fifteen years working toward these goals, and I am passionate about them. But I’ve also thought a lot about whether being passionate about a goal is… Read more
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Including the unincluding
Here is a question I’ve been mulling over for the past few months. How can you include people who don’t believe in inclusion? Put in other words: I’m not making up this problem. Here’s a quote from a recent New Yorker article about Hong Kong: Last year, when the Party faced mounting complaints over deadly… Read more
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Neverending
My last post on this blog was nearly two months ago. That’s the longest gap I’ve had so far in, what is it, three years? I am writing nearly every day, but it is all going into the book. The book? It’s still plodding along like the dear little dogged thing it is. It says… Read more
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Blog reading made easy and fun
So we just got back from a family car trip. At a rest stop on the way, I picked up a cute little brochure called “Born To Be Wild: The Guide to Getting Kids Outdoors.” I like to see what people are saying about nature, so I picked one up. The brochure is formatted like… Read more
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What goes around
Here is a little pestering idea you might want to be pestered by. I started this blog to pass on pestering ideas, so there you go, little idea, move along. When Google first got exciting, it was because it was more accurate than anything else out there. It was more accurate because it relied on… Read more
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Lonely for …
So yesterday I get in the mail the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly, and it’s a double dose of loneliness in one day. The Atlantic has an article called “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” while in the New Yorker it’s “The Disconnect.” I read these with interest, partly because I’ve been writing similar things… Read more
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Life without … what?
Recently I’ve come across three random tidbits that struck me as strangely connected. They are all narrowings of self-definition, of what it means to be a human being. Humanity = electricity My son and I have been enjoying some episodes of a television series called Life After People. The series examines what would happen to… Read more
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It takes all kinds, even on the internet
I’ve been enjoying the fascinating spectacle going on lately with everybody talking about social media, spurred by Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker essay on social media and activism. Here’s my perspective on it. Lowering the bar (Warning: this is the “that’s just what I said” part of this post — can’t remove it — tried.) Gladwell… Read more
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Social media, Haiti, and the easy way out
I’m working on the eighth in my “observations” blog posts, but it’s like pulling teeth and is taking a long time (you’ll find out why soon). But here is another issue that has been grating at me lately and I find I can’t keep still any longer. Okay. If I see one more news article… Read more
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Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink
I got off Facebook today. I was only on it for about a month, but I learned some interesting things from the experience about the internet and social connections, some of which will help me improve my own social web application (Rakontu), and some of which may be useful to others. Me and the gorilla… Read more
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Show me the village
The weekly print edition of the Christian Science Monitor has an article (not available online) in its December 20 edition by Gloria Goodale called “Show Me the Money.” The article explains how sites like YouTube, Hulu and Metacafe are doing less posting of user-generated content and more delivery of commercial content, essentially because little-s, naturally… Read more
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The internet has failed storytelling
So I’m looking at Kathy Hansen’s blog and as usual she brings the news to the news-poor: an article called “The internet is killing storytelling” in the London Times that is apparently the talk of twitter-town. I simply had to respond, even (evidently) after everybody else already has done so, and added this comment: The… Read more