Big Floaty Ideas
Technological Criticism from the Land Beyond Time (Next slide, please)
Or, why PowerPoint is probably making us stupid — and how its failings reflect the first wave of modern technological criticism.
Big Floaty Ideas
Riddle's philosophy section. Completely impractical, yet somehow we can't stop thinking about them.
Big Floaty Ideas
Virtuous Tools are Tangled Hierarchies
The question is not "what to automate and what not," nor even "what should we use tools for and what is exclusively human," but rather: Are the tools corrupting, or virtuous? Are they instruments that lessen our contact with reality, or do they strengthen it...
Big Floaty Ideas
A Paean To the E-ink Tablet
Computers didn't have to be this way. E-ink gives us a glimpse into an alternate technological universe in which computers are conducive to focus –– and suggests ways to automate our existing technology to serve us better.
Big Floaty Ideas
The Medium, the Message, and the Myth of the Impervious Craftsman
Those in Whorf’s camp claimed that just about every aspect of human experience was constructed by language – a position they would abridge as “linguistic relativity.” Those opposing them adopted some version of the “impervious craftsman” mindset, arguing that language is but a tool...
Big Floaty Ideas
Unreasonable Questions about Reason
What exactly is reason? In the age of AI, this question — once dismissed as philosophical nonsense — is vital.