Some links, without much in the way of commentary:<\/p>\n
Scott McCloud on criticism.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Cory Doctorow on science fiction’s relationship to the present.<\/a><\/p>\n For some years now, science fiction has been in the grips of a conceit called the \u201cSingularity\u201d\u009d\u2014the moment at which human and machine intelligence merge, creating a break with history beyond which the future cannot be predicted, because the post-humans who live there will be utterly unrecognizable to us in their emotions and motivations. Read one way, it\u2019s a sober prediction of the curve of history spiking infinity-ward in the near future (and many futurists will solemnly assure you that this is the case); read another way, it\u2019s just the anxiety of a generation of winners in the technology wars, now confronted by a new generation whose fluidity with technology is so awe-inspiring that it appears we have been out-evolved by our own progeny.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n Technology journalists from 1984 on the first Macintosh.<\/a><\/p>\n The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a \u201d\u02dcmouse\u2019. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n Dresden Codak, on the ancestry of Michael Crichton.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Frank Rich on the meaning of the “balloon boy” incident.<\/a><\/p>\n Richard Heene is the inevitable product of this reigning culture, where \u201cnews,\u201d\u009d \u201creality\u201d\u009d television and reality itself are hopelessly scrambled and the warp-speed imperatives of cable-Internet competition allow no time for fact checking. […] None of this absolves Heene of blame for the damage he may have inflicted on the children he grotesquely used as a supporting cast in his schemes. But stupid he\u2019s not. He knew how easy it would be to float \u201cballoon boy\u201d\u009d when the demarcation between truth and fiction has been obliterated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some links, without much in the way of commentary: Scott McCloud on criticism. Cory Doctorow on science fiction’s relationship to the present. For some years now, science fiction has been in the grips of a conceit called the \u201cSingularity\u201d\u009d\u2014the moment at which human and machine intelligence merge, creating a break with history beyond which the … Continue reading Links to Things<\/span>