Thinking Computer

Tools For Thinking About Censorship

Ada Palmer | Reactor | 21st February 2024

“The majority of censorship is self-censorship, but is intentionally cultivated by an outside power. Real censorship regimes see themselves as constantly underfunded and understaffed while attempting to seem all-reaching and all-knowing. Censorship aims to be visible, talked about, feared. This increases its power. We must cut through the Orwellian illusion and remember the realities of how it works” (4,400 words)

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The World’s First Computer

Evaggelos Vallianatos | Classical Wisdom | 23rd February 2024

Ever since it was unearthed from a shipwreck in 1900, the Antikythera Mechanism has perplexed scientists. This dictionary-sized device with bronze-toothed gears had a calendar for Greece’s major annual events; an eclipse calculator; and an Olympiad dial for sports. Likely built 2100 years ago by the astronomer Hipparchos, it is “the most complicated piece of scientific machinery known from antiquity” (1,400 words)