Best of the Moment
technology-media
south-asia
Peggy Nelson | Nieman Storyboard | 23 July 2010
Of course we should take cellphone calls in the middle of dinner. We're part of a global networked conversation, not just the one going on at table. Note the risqué first paragraph
David Leigh | Guardian | 25 July 2010
Back-story on how Guardian, NYT, Spiegel co-ordinated document dump from Wikileaks, and a best guess as to how Wikileaks came by the documents
Jay Rosen | Press Think | 26 July 2010
Appealing to national traditions of fair play in the conduct of news reporting misunderstands what Wikileaks is about: the release of information without regard for national interest
Wikileaks | 25 July 2010
Introduction and reading guide to the dump of classified US documents on Afghan war, published by Wikileaks and written up in NYT, Guardian, Spiegel. Start here if you want to read the primary sources
Mike Sacks | Paris Review | 20 July 2010
Interview with television historian Ben Glenn, about history of "canned laughter" in comedy, and the "Laff Box", an automated device which dominated laughter market for 30 years
Scott McConnell | American Conservative | August 2010
Highly readable short history of "Commentary" magazine. Captures breadth and quality of early writing, ideological arc under Norman Podhoretz, gruff editorial genius of Neal Kozodoy
Paul Ford | Ftrain | 20 July 2010
Fine essay on editing as craft. Editors are people who are good at process. They impose order, meet schedules, get things right, and ship product every time without getting sued
Jeffrey Rosen | NYT Magazine | 19 July 2010
Legal scholar examines impact of social media and internet search on private life and reputation. "The worst thing you've done is often the first thing that everyone knows about you"
Chris Wheal | 21 July 2010
Journalist whose family suffered a tragedy explains what it's like to be on the receiving end of reporters at work. Some insightful remarks on the news business, including in the comments
Tom Scocca | Scocca | 20 July 2010
An entertaining review of a mobile telephone. Truly, there are no limits to human ingenuity, or, at least, to Tom Scocca's ingenuity. Spoiler: After reading this you probably won't be buying a Droid X
Fred Vogelstein | Wired | 19 July 2010
Not the antenna flaw this time, but Apple's war with AT&T, which has US network monopoly for iPhone, and can't cope. Apple hates AT&T, but seemingly has no alternative
Chris Jones | Esquire | 12 July 2010
Great read. Retired Las Vegas weather-man turns to casino surveillance, spots a way of beating "The Price Is Right", inveigles himself and friends on to show, walks away with jackpot
Heather Havrilesky | Salon | 17 July 2010
"Mad Men" shows how American dream was cynically packaged for mass consumption in post-war years—creating a society perpetually distracted, dissatisfied
Gene Weingarten | Washington Post | 18 July 2010
Hackneyed subject: how search-engine optimisation and need to drive web traffic are dumbing-down news headlines, news reporting. Even so, wonderfully funny. And accurate
Ethan Zuckerman | My Heart's In Accra | 14 July 2010
Lively TED talk from founder of Global Voices blogging network, about bridging language and cultural divides online. For the moment, technology can't do it. Human touch vital
Conor Dillon | The Millions | 13 July 2010
Neglected mark of punctuation roars back into life, jump-starter for short, punchy sentences online. "The jumper colon is a paragraphical Red Bull, a rocket-launch of a punctuator, the Usain Bolt of literature"
John Naughton | Guardian | 4 July 2010
Rival publishers strongly doubt that Rupert Murdoch can make money by charging for general content. But they are muting their scepticism, because they desperately hope his experiment succeeds
John Crace | Guardian | 2 July 2010
On the day that Rupert Murdoch's London Times puts up its online pay wall, the still-free Guardian sets out its stall to new readers, and sticks a few stilettos in the Times's back along the way
Tim Adams | Business Week | 1 July 2010
Brûlé himself is a showy, cheesy writer, but this is a well-put-together account of his career, of his branding consultancy, and of his magazine Monocle, described here as a commercial success
Matt Rutledge | Woot Blog | 30 June 2010
CEO of Woot.com explains to his workforce why he is selling the company to Amazon.com. "Our business model is so vague that there’s no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we’re truly doing"
Tom Scocca | Slate | 29 June 2010
Wonderfully funny pastiche. Supposed machine analysis of Camille Paglia's journalism. Top and tail each piece with a new sex-related twist, and the rest is belligerent boilerplate
Jack Shafer | Slate | 23 June 2010
Don't say yes. If you must, know what's in it for you, what the outcome will be. Beware that familiarity breeds candour, so limit your exposure to the reporter. Above all, never ever drink with your profiler
Frédéric Filloux | Monday Note | 20 June 2010
Well-crafted round-up of factors pushing premier French newspaper into bankruptcy. Overmanned, overborrowed, over-unionised. Some potential buyers, none very plausible
Patrick McKenzie | MicroISV | 17 June 2010
Miniature masterpiece. 40 ways in which online forms fail to allow for diversity of human names. And, as commenter says in excellent thread: "don't even get me started on addresses"
Anonymous | Economist | 17 June 2010
Magnificent obituary of eccentric big-thinker at The Economist. Predicted Japan's rise in 1962, the internet in 1984. Coined “intrapreneurship”, “telecommuting”, and, maybe, "privatisation"
Charles Arthur | Guardian | 16 June 2010
Spielberg film imagined technology in the year 2054. Eight years on, its vision looks cautious. Pre-crime systems and gesture-based computing are already with us
Jay Rosen | Press Think | 14 June 2010
Press doesn't have a simple left/right bias. It distorts every issue by methodologically assuming and claiming a neutral middle ground, with "extremists" on either side
Edward Champion | Reluctant Habits | 13 June 2010
Radio interviewer gives simple, practical advice. "Maintain eye contact when you ask those pivotal first few questions. Don’t look down at your question list during the opening minutes"
Jonathan Lehrer | Barnes & Noble Review | 8 June 2010
Lehrer reviews Clay Shirky, who argues that we are ceasing to watch television, thus acquiring lots of new spare time we can use more creatively online. Lehrer interested but sceptical
Bruce Newman | Mercury News | 2 June 2010
Apple's third founding shareholder, Ron Wayne, sold back his 10% for $800, because he feared the company might go bust. And thereby lost $22bn
Matthew Shechmeister | Gizmodo | 1 June 2010
Nobody new is going into the business, but the last repair shops are doing well on a customer base of hipsters, collectors, prison inmates
Micah Sifry | TechPresident | 31 May 2010
"We've got live video from a mile under the ocean, and competing news sites offering leak-counters for how bad it is. But are we doing anything with that information?"
Raffi Khatchadourian | New Yorker | 30 May 2010
Best of many attempts to profile eccentric Australian hacker. Interviewed while making and posting "Collateral Damage" film. Much new detail on Assange's life, Wikileaks's operating structure
Nicholas Carr | Wired | 24 May 2010
When we read online, we scan fragments, browse links. With printed text we read deeply, attentively. Both are useful. The danger is that skimming has become our dominant mode of thought
Alex Pappademas | GQ | June 2010
Frothy, anecdote-filled profile of National Enquirer. Deeply cheesy and proud of it. Strong on Elvis, Michael Jackson. But sometimes breaks big story, as with John Edwards's affair during presidential campaign
Anonymous | Onion | 20 May 2010
"Aging, scared newspapermen throw themselves at the latest mobile technology trend in a humiliatingly futile attempt to remain relevant"
Fake et al | MetaFilter | 19 May 2010
Amazing, nail-biting real-time thread. MetaFilter commenters in DC and New York club together to save a pair of visiting Russian students from falling into the hands of sex-traffickers
Kris De Decker I The Oil Drum I 19 May 2010
Long, detailed explanation of why electric cars little better than a century ago. Acceleration eats up battery improvement. Can have speed, or range, or size but not all three, maybe not even two
Joel Meares | NY Review Of Magazines | 13 May 2010
Fascinating behind-scenes look at "Watchtower", and the Jehovah's Witnesses who produce it and read it. "Big on plague and pestilence." Women can contribute, but not on scriptural topics
Megan McArdle | Atlantic | June 2010
Shopping channel perfects art of selling. Even Marlon Brando wanted to work there. "You tell a story, about the viewer, and the product’s place in her life"
Colin Percival | Tarsnap | 13 May 2010
Short presentation that does exactly what the title says. "Cryptography prevents evil people from reading your data, modifying your data, pretending to be you" (PDF)
James Fallows | Atlantic | June 2010
Long feature, full of interesting insights but frustratingly inconclusive, about Google's efforts to help struggling news media find profitable new business models online
Michael White | Guardian | 9 May 2010
Memoir of political columnist offers beguiling slice of Fleet Street history. Watkins filed hand-written copy up until his death. Once interviewed Michael Foot by telegram. And coined the phrase, "chattering classes"
Robert Fortner | 2 May 2010
Forget computers controlled by natural speech. Machine recognition flatlined at 80% accuracy in 2001. Acoustic signal alone not enough for reliable interpretation, even when boosted by statistical analysis
Virginia Heffernan | NYT | 30 April 2010
Self-published books gain status thanks to higher production quality, print-on-demand, market acceptance of user-generated content. But no discussion, oddly, of e-book readers
Steve Jobs | Apple.com | April 2010
Apple boss explains his refusal to support Flash on iPhone, iPad. For advanced Apple fans only. But how often do you see a Steve Jobs byline? And, as you'd expect, polished piece of corporate prose
Bill Gurley | Above The Crowd | 28 April 2010
Good explanation of why the industry works the way it does. Big money comes from affiliate fees paid by cable subscribers. Industry has learned how to protect that revenue stream against online competition
T.X. Hammes | Armed Forces Journal | July 2009
Microsoft PowerPoint plays dangerous role in US military culture. Encourages over-supply of indigestible information, makes nuanced thought impossible. Go back to writing short papers
Tom Slee | Whimsley | 25 April 2010
Attack on Clay Shirky's essay, "Collapse of Complex Business Models", and, more generally, on big Gladwellian think-pieces which rely on anecdote, analogy, manipulation, exaggeration
Steven Berlin Johnson | 23 April 2010
Two possible futures for digital text. "Commonplace-book" model allows text to be searched, copied, cut, pasted. Good. "Glass-box model", apparently favoured by iPad, allows read-only. Bad
Mathieu von Rohr | Spiegel | 23 April 2010
Enjoyable account of tensions at German-language Wikipedia, mirroring those at English parent. Site increasingly dominated by small group of prolific contributors prone to epic squabbles
Christian Rudder | OK Trends | 7 April 2010
Free online dating-site boss says subscription charges are a bad business model for the customer. Aim of paid sites is to sign up new subscribers, not introduce existing subscribers to one another
Mark Leibovich | NYT Magazine | 19 April 2010
Long, gushing, profile of an obsessive political journalist and networker, Mike Allen, a reporter for Politico, whose morning note serves as agenda-setter for the political and media world in Washington, DC
Jason Chen | Gizmodo | 19 April 2010
For Apple fans only—by now a pretty big constituency. New iPhone has forward-mounted video chat camera, sharper display, noise cancellation. Apple lost a prototype, Gizmodo found it
Patrick Liszkiewicz | Media Commons | 9 March 2010
Farmville is everything a game should not be. Defined by obligation, routine, responsibility. Wraps players in web of social obligations. Requires neither chance nor skill. And is conquering the world
Foster Kamer | Village Voice | 7 April 2010
Nick Denton, owner of Gawker, tells his staff how to write a traffic-grabbing blog post. Profane, depressing, revealing. "The staples of old yellow journalism are the staples of the new yellow journalism"
Tim O'Reilly | O'Reilly Radar | 29 March 2010
Big, geekish essay by tech guru on whether the internet is moving towards a single operating system for utilities such as search, payment, location—and whether Apple or Google will capture it
David Kushner | Mother Jones | 6 April 2010
Profile of Julian Assange, Australian who runs website where anyone can post secret information. Aims to produce one big scandal per week. This week's scandal: video of massacre in Baghdad
Clark Hoyt | New York Times | 3 April 2010
Public editor rebukes International Herald Tribune for agreeing to restrain news coverage of Lee family, paying damages for a single glancing reference. Suggests pulling out of Singapore
Tandy Trower | Technologizer | 29 March 2010
If you were ever driven mad by that animated paperclip in earlier versions of Microsoft Office, or if you have a thing for Microsoft, this piece is a must-read. If not, then pass by
Clay Shirky | 1 April 2010
Essay applying theory of history to media business models. Prosperous societies grow more complex. Complexity grows burdensome, cannot be reversed. Society collapses under its weight, back into simplicity
Walter Mossberg | All Things Digital | 31 March 2010
Near-rave review for new Apple tablet from top tech writer. Fast, light, intuitive, long battery life. Great for reading, viewing, chatting. Displaces laptop, except for serious writing, spreadsheets
John Pozadzides | Lifehacker | 30 March 2010
May be most useful thing you read all year. Adding a capital letter and an asterisk increases time needed to hack an 8-character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries
Margaret Atwood | NYR Blog | 29 March 2010
Yes, that Margaret Atwood. Posting here a beguilingly warm and chatty appreciation of Twitter. If you think you're too old or too grand for Twitter, this piece will (probably) change your mind
Jessica Vascellaro | WSJ | 24 March 2010
Google co-founder says he pushed for withdrawal because China's example was emboldening other countries to plan internet censorship, and because it reminded him of Soviet childhood
Andrew Leonard | Salon | 23 March 2010
Nestle's Facebook page a quiet backwater until enviromentalists flocked there this week to denounce the company. Resulting spat will probably be studied at business schools for years to come
James Fallows | Atlantic | 23 March 2010
Legal officer gives background to Google's move out of mainland China to Hong Kong. "If self-censorship is the law, we weren't interested in blatantly violating the Chinese law within the firewall"
Susan Orlean | New Yorker | 22 March 2010
Airports used to have wall outlets all over the place. Now they're being taken away—leaving the airports full of frustrated people poking behind desks and under benches desperate to plug in a laptop
Tom Bissell | Guardian | 21 March 2010
Once-promising young author recounts three-year addiction to cocaine and video-games. Regrets cocaine, still loves Grand Theft Auto. Strange, skewed, beguiling piece of writing. Part-brave, part-silly
Lisbet Rausing | New Republic | 12 March 2010
Essay. Historically, libraries preserved and organised scarce resources. Issue now is coping with abundance. Best done by maximising open access online, especially to academic writing
Ian Chillag | NPR | 10 March 2010
Perfectly safe for work. American TV station tries to ban newsreaders from using 119 clichéd words and phrases. Here they all are, run together into a surreal and very funny monologue
Howard Raines | Washington Post | 11 March 2010
Ex-editor of NYT says Fox, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes pervert American journalism, publish propaganda, not news. Other media intimidated
David Gelernter | Edge | 4 March 2010
Computer scientist argues that the internet is evolving, not as a tool nor as a universe of answers, but as a giant thought process. Soon, everything will be structured as part of a lifestream
Gabriel Sherman | New York | 28 February 2010
Big, gossipy profile of News Corp boss, combative in old age. Main elements: WSJ prepares to take on NYT, spat with Google, paid content, James Murdoch's struggle to succeed
Nathan Yau | Flowing Data | 8 February 2010
A lesson for site administrators on how not to structure an email list, unless you want to drive all of its members mad. Courtesy of Caltrans, which did just that. Excellent visualisation
P.W. Singer | Foreign Policy | March 2010
Distinctions blur between commercial war video-games, professional training simulations, and real electronic warfare. Best-selling combat video-game, "America's Army", is a US army product
Ian Daly | New York Times | 23 February 2010
Fun report on use of robots to cook restaurant food and wait tables. They can also cadge drinks, smoke cigarettes, spar with knives, and stamp their feet while mixing mojitos
Kurt Bollacker | American Scientist | March 2010
Detailed, pessimistic account of problems in making data secure, legible for centuries to come. Do the obvious things—back up, print out—but they won't be enough
Steven Levy | Wired | 22 February 2010
Magnificent piece of tech journalism. Old subject made fresh. Wonky but still compelling account of how search giant has taken a great product and kept on improving it
Jay Rosen | Press Think | 21 February 2010
American journalists go too far in their wish to appear impartial. They give equal time to the wise and the foolish, report absurd propositions without comment, especially in political reporting
Nate Blakeslee | Texas Monthly | 18 February 2010
Energetic young Texas talk-radio host traffics in conspiracy theories, captures Tea-Party zeitgeist, attracts huge and growing national audience for crazy ideas
Joseph White | WSJ | 17 February 2010
New technology means that your next car may not turn on, brake or shift like the cars you've owned before, especially if it's a hybrid. Should you be driving it?
Dave Vanderwerp | Car And Driver | December 2009
If you're driving a runaway Toyota, here's the drill. Hit the brakes. if that doesn't work, shift to park or neutral, then hit the brakes again—they'll work this time. At worst, turn off the ignition.
Richard Eskow | 3 Quarks Daily | 8 February
Anthology of Google Voice transcriptions formatted as poetry. Funny, touching, and revealing of how the simplest messages can gain dignity when rendered in written form
Sam Anderson | New York | 5 February 2010
New online service brings you face-to-face with random strangers via webcam. Trouble is, they're deeply weird, and most of them don't want to talk to you
Charles Petersen | NYRB | 4 February 2010
Interesting non-tech account traces Facebook's success back to high social status of first users at Harvard. Site used to take campus life as its model, now it projects suburban values
Caleb Crain | Steamboats | 30 January 2010
Amazon-Macmillan row likely to be first of many power struggles between intermediaries as books go digital, piracy increases, prices find new levels. Authors beware!
Alan Rusbridger | Guardian | 25 January 2010
Despite lame title, excellent overview of newspaper industry from Guardian editor. Business model still problematic. Editorial model improving as mainstream learns from blogosphere
Walter Mossberg | WSJ | 27 January 2010
Beautiful, well-priced, blows away Kindle. But too big for the pocket, and maybe too small to substitute outright for laptop. Could go either way: niche or mass market
Lawrence Lessig | New Republic | 26 January 2010
Printed word has thrived on a simple, "fair-use", copyright regime. No more. Google settlement pushes books into legal labyrinth that has already swallowed film, music
Bruce Schneier | CNN | 23 January 2010
Chinese hackers got into Gmail through backdoor created for American authorities to survey email, just as they tap phones. Surveillance a major source of insecurity
Rebecca Solnit | Huffington Post | 21 January 2010
Reckless American media claims of "looting" in Haiti have undercut relief effort. Anyhow, what are people supposed to do when their families are dying of hunger and thirst?
John Gapper | Financial Times | 21 January 2010
FT, WSJ, now NYT lead way towards new business model for newspapers online: charge for content, accept sharp drop in readership, command higher advertising rates
Gabriel Sherman | New Republic | 19 January 2010
Profile of Washington Post under publisher Katherine Weymouth and newish editor Marcus Brauchli. Sour tone reflects input from Post journalists who wanted Brauchli's job
James Surowiecki | New Yorker | 17 January 2010
If you’re watching only sixteen channels why should you pay for eighty-five? It may seem unjust, but probably, it works out cheaper for everyone that way. A bit like flat-rate pricing
Vitaly Kamluk | Viruslist | 17 December 2009
Backgrounder on highly sophisticated and specialised market in "botnets" which steal confidential data, distribute spam, run denial-of-service attacks. Fascinating, scary
Michael Bierut | Design Observer | 14 January 2010
Doomsday Clock created in 1947 by landscape painter, for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Reset this week, it still holds public attention
Steve Coll | New Yorker | 14 January 2010
Journalists covering disasters feel "ghoulish and intrusive", but in bearing witness they are doing something useful, and can usually count on sympathy from victims and aid workers
Caroline Davies | Guardian | 14 January 2010
London internet cafe hosted market for stolen credit-card numbers, personal data, phishing scams, viruses. Settlements via escrow. A "Pay-pal for criminals", said judge at trial
David Drummond | Google Blog | 12 January 2010
Google to cease censorship of content on Chinese domain, following Chinese attempts to hack into Google servers, mainly targeting Gmail accounts of human-rights advocates