robinsloan

7 ms·

1.
by robinsloan 7y ago
One definition for fascism that I heard long ago and always found useful is that it's a cult of strength. Fascism says: strength is virtue, and it's the weak who are -- who have always been -- holding back the strong. (It's a
2.
by robinsloan 8y ago
I think it depends on which "we" you're talking about! In many cases, "we" do value accurate information. I'm thinking not just of high-quality news organizations, but fact-checking sites like Snopes or Politif
3.
by robinsloan 8y ago
Internal migration in the U.S. has fallen consistently since the 1980s; more people today live closer to where they were born than they did in previous decades. And in most places in the U.S. -- certainly, the places captured by this loneli
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by robinsloan 8y ago
Yes, this definitely counts as criticism! I think the best critics are the ones who can tell you specifically how and why something is great. As an example, James Wood's book "How Fiction Works" is basically a compendium of p
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by robinsloan 8y ago
Even with elaborate CSS in play, I think the web has deep characteristics that you can either lean into or struggle against. For example, there's the simple fact of scrolling; does your web page embrace that default behavior, or overri
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by robinsloan 8y ago
"At the same time as I've been playing this game, I've been making my way through a popular science-fiction trilogy written by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu, and the books have spun my evenings with Fortnite into a deeper,
7.
I Played Fortnite and Figured Out the Universe(theatlantic.com)
3 points by robinsloan 8y ago|1 comments
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by robinsloan 9y ago
Absolutely agree. Even just this first segment, from Fresno to the Bay Area, is going to be transformative.
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by robinsloan 9y ago
This doesn't describe my experience of the Bay Area (2004-present) at all. Here's a sincere tip: start attending the Seminars About Long-term Thinking organized by the Long Now Foundation. Take a friend or two. Sitting in those (p
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by robinsloan 9y ago
Just a nitpick here, but when you write > breaking the global graph up into connected subgraphs I feel like it's too conservative -- and takes "the transportation graph" as too fixed an entity. Consider how much the shape
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How Checkers Was Solved(theatlantic.com)
1 points by robinsloan 9y ago|0 comments
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by robinsloan 10y ago
That is exactly what I was curious to know -- thanks!
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by robinsloan 10y ago
Sincerely curious -- why is that? I was under the impression that public domain was well-established & well-understood, legally…?
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by robinsloan 10y ago
I vote for "Parable of the Sower", definitely. I've enjoyed some of her other books, and I still have more to read, but this is the one that really left a mark on me.
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by robinsloan 10y ago
Thanks for sharing this here. FYI for those who haven't read it, Butler's "Parable of the Sower" is one of the most crucial novels of the last century. It mixes a future so dark and plausible it makes other dystopias loo
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by robinsloan 10y ago
This is so interesting. Where do you find these musicians initially? Soundcloud?
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by robinsloan 10y ago
Ha hahaha. Sure enough, I clicked this story b/c I was like, "Oh hey! That matches my interests!" ;)
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by robinsloan 10y ago
Ha -- the short story was, sorry to say, not that popular ;)
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by robinsloan 11y ago
This is the best narration/description I've seen so far => https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534971/magic-leap/
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by robinsloan 11y ago
It's worth saying that, in general, Quanta is exemplary; not really "popular science" at all but something much deeper. I see that this writer, George Musser, isn't one of their staff regulars, so this piece might be an
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by robinsloan 11y ago
How people actually use technology, part XXXIV: > But Facebook is most popular? Yes. Everyone wants? Everyone. Do people have email addresses? No. He makes the email addresses. Has a stack of pre-made Facebook accounts at the ready. He p
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The Facebook-Loving Farmers of Myanmar(theatlantic.com)
20 points by robinsloan 11y ago|6 comments
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by robinsloan 11y ago
Everything Nicola Twilley writes is fantastic -- definitely a byline worth following. Twilley classic => http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/47/twilley.php
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by robinsloan 11y ago
Nice to see this here. Warren Ellis's newsletter is an amazing, ongoing view into the life & brain of a working (fiction) writer => http://orbitaloperations.com/
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by robinsloan 11y ago
Re: "There is no such thing as 'raw data'" -- and of interest to Kuhnians everywhere -- this is a terrific book about climate data, climate models, & computation => https://mitpress.mit.edu/books&#
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by robinsloan 11y ago
If you are into this kind of stuff, keep an eye out for "The Burglar's Guide to the City" by Geoff Manaugh, coming in October. It looks fantastic: http://www.amazon.com/Burglars-Guide-City-Geoff-Manaugh/d
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by robinsloan 11y ago
An editorial director is a bit different from a corporate communications person. Many/most VC firms (indeed, many/most companies in general) are now looking to attract audiences of their own rather then rely on the eyeballs gather
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by robinsloan 11y ago
"Lego-like" == what a great description.
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by robinsloan 11y ago
Agree; this is just better/funnier prose. The author is indeed probably "non-technical" but the specificity of the 1999-2000 Web 1.0 references indicates he/she has been steeped in this culture for a long time. I suppose
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by robinsloan 11y ago
Why "ever"? It seems to me like more & more artifacts like this are getting photographed -- and/or even scanned in 3D! -- and posted online. But maybe you're alluding to something in the culture of archaeology I don&

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