- “The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration” By David Autor, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane. Though published aeons ago (2003, to be precise) it still seems to me the wisest analysis of the likely impact of robotics on employment.
- Dan Wang’s 2019 Letter Truly remarkable review of the year in technology, including an informed, detached perspective on the prospects for Chinese domination of new tech.
- The Shadow Commander Long New Yorker profile of Qassem Suleimani , the Iranian general assassinated by the US last week. The interesting thing is that it was published in September 2013, and it explains how significant he was for Iranian strategy in the Middle East. So there was no excuse for the “Who he?” response in the West to the news of his death.
- Our Neophobic, Conservative AI Overlords Want Everything to Stay the Same Lovely provocative essay by Cory Doctorow on the innate conservatism of machine-learning algorithms.
A new crypto journal
An unexpected development. It’s called Nakamoto. Here’s the pitch
When Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, he solved an unsolved problem in computer science, developed the foundation for a new digital theory of property rights, and gave birth to a $100B industry.
Yet much of what we see in the news and on social media about cryptocurrency and blockchain doesn’t convey the pace of technological progress and commercial traction that people in the space perceive. And there’s even less discussion of the philosophical principles that motivated Satoshi Nakamoto, or the society that he wanted to build.
That’s why we’re launching Nakamoto. We want to create a venue for quality technical, philosophical, and cultural writing that is of general interest to the crypto community as a whole, for beginner and expert alike.
Raspberry Pi: a great British success story
This morning’s Observer column:
I bought my Pi from the Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge. Across the street (and one floor below) is the Apple store where I had earlier gone to buy a new keyboard for one of my Macs. The cost: £99. So for £15 more, I had a desktop computer perfectly adequate for most of the things I need to do for my work.
The Pi is one of the (few) great British technology success stories of the last decade: sales recently passed the 30m mark. But if you got your news from mainstream media you’d never know…
Linkblog
- The gig economy is being fuelled by exploitation, not innovation The death of a DPD courier is the brutal end-game for the gig economy’s faux innovation. Sobering piece by James Temperton.
- Myths about refuse and recycling
- Why chemo might be good for you Unlikely title, lovely post.
- Having kids What Paul Graham didn’t know until he had children. Perceptive essay IMHO.
Quote of the Day
The saying I picked up when I worked in California is that knowledge travels at the speed of beer. Engineers like to share, and it’s hard to stop technical knowledge from diffusing. There wouldn’t be technological clusters like Silicon Valley in the first place if that principle were not true.
A Crusader’s castle?
Nope. Just a folly built by a wealthy Cambridgeshire landowner many moons ago (and recently restored by the National Trust, which now owns both his magnificent house — Wimpole Hall — and estate).
Today in the Lake District
One of my sons is walking in the Lake District this holiday. This morning he sent me this on his way to a summit.
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
Newcomers to the public domain
January 1, 2020 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1924 are open to all!
This from Duke Law School:
On January 1, 2020, works from 1924 will enter the US public domain, where they will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.
Now the wait is over. How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. HathiTrust will make tens of thousands of titles from 1924 available in its digital library. Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can afford to publicly perform the music. Educators and historians can share the full cultural record. Creators can legally build on the past—reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs.
I see the hand of James Boyle in this. A great scholar, and a wonderful advocate for the public domain.
The designated mourner
Pitiless summing up in an NYRB review article by Fintan O’Toole on Joe Biden’s quest to be the bearer of the Kennedy flame in US politics:
The Master Clock has moved too far forward. The Kennedys are too long dead. “Irish Catholic” no longer carries that old underdog voltage of resistance to oppression. The center of gravity of Irish-American politics now gathers around Trump: Mick Mulvaney, Kellyanne Conway, Brett Kavanaugh. A politics of white resentment has drowned out the plaintive wail of common sorrow. The valley of tears has been annexed as a bastion of privileged white, male suffering. Biden, who once promised to turn back time, is an increasingly poignant embodiment of its pitilessness.
Quote of the Day
“To fail to understand that life is going to knock you down is to fail to understand the Irishness of life.”
- Daniel Pat Moynihan, US Senator, Ambassador and formidable public intellectual.