- Can the Internet survive climate change? Partly about whether the planet can survive Netflix (i.e the carbon footprint of streaming video).
- Sale of second-hand e-books infringes copyright, rules CJEU Just because you paid for an e-book doesn’t mean you own it. The EU’s highest court has ruled that the exhaustion of copyright does not apply to e-books.
- The Cathedral and the Bizarre A hyper-critical take on The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Raymond’s famous essays on Open Source software.
- DeepMind and Google: the battle to control Artificial Intelligence Terrific article by Hal Hodson.
Category Archives: Links
Linkblog
- We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful Ring lacks basic security features, making it easy for hackers to turn the company’s cameras against its customers. Why are we not surprised?
- Last House On The Left: Following Jeremy Corbyn’s Campaign Trail Remarkably insightful (long) article about Jeremy Corbyn — written four years ago.
- The scientific events that shaped the decade Nature’s summary of a decade breakthroughs in frontiers from gene editing to gravitational waves. The coming one must focus on climate change.
- The decade that tech lost its way The New York Times’s oral history of the 2010s
Linkblog
- Keynes was wrong: Generation Z will have it worse Long, thoughtful essay on Keynes’s famous 1933 essay on “The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”.
- Raspberry Pi celebrates its 30 millionth sale The little computer that could. It’s the one great British success story of our times.
- The Very Respectful Wikipedia Battles Over “OK Boomer” Another illustration of the intrinsic wisdom of Wikipedia’s methodology for separating fact from fiction. And it was invented long before anyone had heard of fake news.
- How to Control a Conversation Without Saying Much at All When one speaker is monopolizing a discussion, use a tactic called ‘cognitive incision’.
Linkblog
- 2019: the year when revolt went global Martin Gurri’s answer to the question implied by Tyler Cowen’s observation that “As 2019 enters its final quarter, there have been large and often violent demonstrations in Lebanon, Chile, Spain, Haiti, Iraq, Sudan, Russia, Egypt, Uganda, Indonesia, Ukraine, Peru, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Colombia, France, Turkey, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Brazil, Malawi, Algeria and Ecuador, among other places.” Why the frenzy of protests – and why now? Is this just a random series of coincidences? Or is there something more systemic at work?
- How the Iranian regime shut off the Internet Balkanisation proceeds apace. The New York Times also has a good report
- Why private equity should not exist Terrific essay by Matt Stoller on one of the most pernicious types of capitalist exploitation.
- The American Room Paul Ford’s great essay on the rooms in which YouTube videos are made.
Linkblog
- How reading has changed in the 2010s Good summary of a decade by Erica Wagner.
- This is water David Foster-Wallace’s famous Kenyon College Commencement Address.
- Nabokov’s pugilistic spirit Jennifer Wilson’s entertaining (and informative) review of a new edition of Vladimir Nabokov’s essays and journalistic work. He was a harsh reviewer of other people’s work.
- How the Loss of the Landline Is Changing Family Life The shared phone was a space of spontaneous connection for the entire household. Most American homes don’t now have a landline. Sobering insight into a world we are losing.
Linkblog
- The punishment of democracy Remarkable, insightful essay on the horrible election campaign to which the UK electorate is being subjected. Unmissable and wise.
- Impeach Trump. Save America. Tom Friedman on the urgency of the impeachment process. If Congress doesn’t do it, he argues, then the US will never again have a legitimate president. It’ll be back to de-facto monarchy.
- “Startups and Uncertainty” Long, thoughtful essay by Jerry Neumann on risk, uncertainty and what startups are really about.
- “This Guy Studies the ‘Global Systems Death Spiral’ That Might End Humanity” Could climate change get so bad that it leads to our extinction? A few researchers are trying to answer that question.
Linkblog
- Amazon Should Ban Auschwitz Ornaments, But Not Hitler’s Book Interesting argument by Tyler Cowen. “Where should a company such as Amazon.com Inc. draw the line when it comes to selling third-party merchandise? I propose a standard: Focus on whether the merchandise contributes to further understanding, one way or another, rather than whether it might embody evil.”
- Lovers in Auschwitz, Reunited 72 Years Later. He Had One Question. Amazing, heartwarming story.
- Larry and Sergey: a valediction A kind of living obituary of Google’s co-founders, who have stepped back into oblivion (while holding on to their shares).
- Startups and uncertainty Interesting (long) blog post by Jerry Neumann on risk, uncertainty and founding a company.
Linkblog
- Biased Algorithms Are Easier to Fix Than Biased People Fascinating study which rather goes against the grain. Researchers studied bias in human-mediated and algorithmically-mediated health diagnosis. Both showed racial bias. But the algorithmic bias was easier to spot, and is potentially fixable. Is this the case with human bias? Er, …
- The thing is, HI (Human Intelligence) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be “Humans may be a powerful technology with great potential. But until we have developed human decision-making systems that comply with some basic principles, we risk substantial harm.”
- The Sinosphere vs the Anglosphere Two Cultures that can’t get on with one another.
- Guess what: Young people don’t make the best entrepreneurs Zuckerbergism is a delusion of tech undergraduates and the lazier segments of mass media. Who knew?
Linkblog
- The New China Scare “Why America Shouldn’t Panic About Its Latest Challenger”. Fascinating (long and thoughtful) essay by Fareed Zakaria. Suggests that current US strategy on dealing with China is wrong and likely to be counter-productive. Too complex an argument for its President, though.
- What happens when a kid buys a used IBM mainframe computer and installs it in his parents’ basement Touching and funny talk. Useful for parents of geeky kids. I particularly liked Slide 21 of his presentation — the one about “Lessons Learned”. “Listen to your mother and get a warehouse”.
- Are robots competing for your job? Lovely, acerbic New Yorker essay by the historian Jill Lepore. Robots are almost certainly coming for the jobs of the manufacturers of the exclamation marks that are de rigeur in scare-stories about robotics.
- Privilege and inequality in Silicon Valley Why few successful startup founders grew up desperately poor. Sobering reflections on inequality by a poor boy who did make good.
Linkblog
- George Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’ Text of the famous diplomatic dispatch from Moscow by the architect of US policy towards the USSR. Kennan was pondering how best to deal with Stalin. His text is Interesting because we are now wondering how best to deal with Putin.
- What I’ve learned from 10,000 nights in the theatre Michael Billington reflects on his long career as the Guardian’s Theatre Critic. Lovely piece.
- Economic Man is dead, and not before time Paul Collier has written a thoughtful (and not terribly regretful) obituary in the TLS.
- The one-traffic-light rural town with some of the fastest broadband in the US Fascinating piece by Sue Halpern. Confirms the hunch that supplying fast broadband to a community is a great way to revive and empower it. And it was all done by local effort.