Two kinds of reading Niall Ferguson: I think there are two kinds of reading. When one’s reading for work, when one has to grapple with… Read More »Niall Ferguson on reading, remembering and shared culture
Recommended by OpenCulture.org, via HN. See also: Writing and Reading as Technology (1): Transforming Fire; Slow BurnWriting and Reading as Technology (2): Half-baked BeginningsWriting and… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (15): videos on the evolution of the alphabet and the spread of writing
Hat tip: HNWith apologies to subscribers who received post 14 of this series out of order due to my enthusiasm for the subject matter… …… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (13): Erik Engheim on Gutenberg vs earlier Asian printing technologies
We often have convenience now because someone did the maths before. Ben Sparks With apologies to subscribers who received this out of order due to… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (14): Magical Paper Sizes; or, The Golden Non-Ratio
Here’s Eisenstein again. There’s a lot at work: The combinatorial innovation that was the printing press created further opportunities for cross-pollination by breaking down old… Read More »Technology (23): Elizabeth Eisenstein on how the printing press created new networks and sparked further innovation
I’m working my way through Elizabeth Eisenstein’s excellent The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, an abridged version of her two-volume The Printing Press as… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (12): Elizabeth Eisenstein on How the Printing Press Changed Books
The technology of writing isn’t simply the infrastructure of thought: it’s the enabling infrastructure of most of the complex activities we think of as government.… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (11): Writing Rules
Here’s the great Elizabeth Eisenstein on the impact of the printing press on a lost world of information underload, and an interesting lens for viewing… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (10): Elizabeth Eisenstein on the Printing Press and the End of the Information Famine
Software Eats the World means… … that any product or service in any field that can become a software product will become a software product.… Read More »Technology (20): Software Eats the World (again)
Seven year-old Onfim slays his enemies; Onfim is a wild beast. Onfim (hat tip: Alex Tabarrok and Owen) reminds us that reading and writing (and… Read More »Writing and Reading (and visual art) as Technology (9): Virtual Realities