Year: 2016

The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof. — Backchannel

The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof. — Backchannel

Instead I answer his question. “I am writing about how technology has changed humanity.”

Now he looks nervous.

“Basically, this story is a controlled experiment,” I continue. “Napoleon is a place that has remained static for decades. The economics, demographics, politics, and geography are the same as when I lived here. In the past twenty-five years, only one thing has changed: technology.”

…

“All scientific experiments require two conditions: a static environment and an independent variable. Napoleon is the control; technology, the testable variable. With all else being equal, this place is the perfect environment to explore societal questions like,

  • What are the effects of mass communications?
  • How has technology transformed the way we form ideas?
  • Does access to information alone make us smarter?”

…

As we discuss other apps on his home screen — YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo — I realize that my line of questions are really just attempts to prove or disprove a sentence that I read on the flight to Dakota. The sentence appears on page 20 of Danah Boyd’s book, It’s Complicated, a study of the social lives of networked teens:

“What the drive-in was to teens in the 1950s and the mall was in the 1980s, Facebook, texting, Twitter, instant messaging, and other social media are to teens now.”

Continue reading “The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof. — Backchannel”

A clever algorithm generating millions of random ideas is turning the tables on patent trolls — Quartz

A clever algorithm generating millions of random ideas is turning the tables on patent trolls — Quartz

Artist and engineer Alexander Reben has written an algorithm that exploits the convoluted US patent system in order to mess with patent trolls—people and organizations who file for patents on trivial concepts without any intention of building a product, then extort money from those who actually make things.

His project, All Prior Art, posts ideas for “inventions” to prevent people from filing patents they’re not going to use. According to US patent law, if there’s “prior art“—in this case, a previously published version of the idea—no one can file a patent on it. He’s posted 4.2 million such ideas and counting.

Says Reben, “The real purpose of the patent system is to reward innovation and help protect people who put in a lot of time and money testing and doing R&D.” He hopes to address this with his fake ideas.

The algorithm pulls from the entirety of current US patents and mashes together random phrases and sentences, so the inventions are quite often meaningless.

Merriam-Webster Unabridged

Merriam-Webster Unabridged

Merriam-Webster Unabridged is the largest, most comprehensive American dictionary currently available in print or online. It is built on the solid foundation of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged and is the best source of current information about the English language.

We are actively engaged in creating an entirely new edition of the Unabridged, and new and revised entries and usage content will be added to the site on a continuing basis.

…

Merriam-Webster Unabridged includes rich, clear definitions and more usage information than ever before. Definitions have been enhanced with over 123,000 author quotations. Supplementary notes provide additional context, and usage paragraphs offer clear guidance and suggestions for words with confused or disputed usage. Dates of first known use are being added, and editorial style changes are being made throughout the dictionary to make entries more readable and easier to understand.
Continue reading “Merriam-Webster Unabridged”

The True Story of the Backward Index (Video) | Merriam-Webster

The True Story of the Backward Index (Video) | Merriam-Webster

There it sits, hidden in plain view on a set of shelves in the basement of the Merriam-Webster offices: the Backward Index. But why would anyone type out 315,000 words spelled in reverse?

Pelican Books

Pelican Books

Read on any (or all) of your devices

Whether you are reading on a smartphone, tablet or widescreen monitor, the text adapts to offer the ideal reading experience for any screen size.

Always pick up where you left off

Start reading a book on your phone on the way to work, continue at your desk over lunch, and pick it up again in the evening with your iPad.

Your reading position is automatically bookmarked and synced across all your devices.

Highlight and share passages

Highlight a passage of text to save for later, or share your favourite extracts with friends on social media.(Highlighting is only available on laptop / desktop devices at the moment – we’re working on bringing it to mobile soon.)

All Pelican books are available to read online. Read the first chapter for free, and unlock the full book for £4.99.

Pelican Books

Pelican Books

All Pelican books are available to read online. Read the first chapter for free, and unlock the full book for £4.99.

In 1936, Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin, overheard a woman at a bookstall in King’s Cross station asking for ‘one of those Pelican books’. Presumably she meant a Penguin, but Lane, concerned that his competitors might snatch up bird names, decided to launch a new flock of non-fiction books. The Pelican imprint was born.

Costing no more than a packet of cigarettes, and aimed at the true lay reader, Pelicans combined intellectual authority with clear and accessible prose. As the first British publisher of intelligent non-fiction at a genuinely low price, Pelican became an informal university for generations of Britons. With books on economics and history, art and literature, philosophy and culture, Pelican was, according to the Spectator, ‘a decisive influence on the growth of public understanding of the world.’ Over nearly half a century, the series sold more than 250 million copies, becoming, in Lane’s words, ‘the true everyman’s library for the twentieth century’.

In 2014, after nearly three decades in retirement, Pelican was reborn. In its new incarnation Pelican continues the same mission: to publish truly accessible books from authoritative and award-winning writers on a wide range of essential subjects. Continue reading “Pelican Books”