Tag / internet
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Taking A Gigabyte Out Of Your Brain
Ever since Plato declared that writing will make people “cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written,” humans have had a tendency to criticize the newest methods of disseminating, recording, and representing ideas. The accusations are always similar to Plato’s: the precious internal memory is supplanted by external memory, making retention…
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Use your emojination: the cultural politics of modern messaging
Anyone with half a brain and a smartphone (which is to say, a brain and a half) knows that modern society celebrates the emoji as a mode of expression that is visual, experiential, and succinct like nothing else. Emoji popularity is so widespread that last year, it was almost no surprise to see the laughing-so-hard-I-am-crying…
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The Power of Paper
I was recently going through various boxes, drawers, and bins around my house. Among the pictures of my three-year old self and old VHS tapes, I found one of the most powerful remnants of this millennium: the front page of The New York Times from September 12, 2001. I hadn’t known we still had that,…
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Reddit, Gawker, and the new rules of online free speech
For all of you who do not religiously follow inane online drama, the past week has been an absolute soap opera on two of the web’s most popular websites. Reddit is a tremendously popular content aggregator where users vote on what content they find most interesting. Gawker is part of a popular family of news…
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Astroturf Campaigning
The internet has been a powerful organizing tool for political movements. It has been used to organize revolutions in the Middle East and protests around the world. Understandably, politicians have good reason to closely monitor sentiment online. However, powerful interests can use the the internet to support their agendas by creating the false impression of…
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20 Events that Shaped the Decade
20) Fidel Castro hands over power What seven assassination attempts could not do, time ultimately did. 19) Medvedev elected President of Russia Vladimir Putin consolidated power and increased his influence in Russia and around the globe throughout his two terms as president in the 2000s. However, when his second term was up, Putin managed to…
