- Adam Smith and the Pin Factory Lovely essay by John Kay. Adam Smith’s account of work in a pin factory, his model for the division of labour, which begins The Wealth Of Nations, is “perhaps the most famous description of an industrial process in the history of economic thought”. But did Smith ever visit a pin factory? Not as far as anyone knows. He took his example, without attribution, from Diderot’s Encyclopédie, and added details of his own invention. Shocking perhaps; but does it matter? No.
- The Twitter Electorate Isn’t the Real Electorate I wish more journalists understood that.
- Most websites don’t follow European cookie consent laws, study shows
- Facebook Loves to Pass the Buck Scathing article by the NYT’s Kara Swisher about the hypocrisy implicit in Andrew Bosworth’s ‘internal’ memo.
Memex 1.1
John Naughton's online diary
