James Gleick

5 August 2018

“The Telephone Transformed—Into Practically Everything”

“I carry around one of these little boxes,” says a Motorola executive, Al Zabarsky, “and get every day,...

by gleick

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21 December 2016

Oop: Time Travelers Missing from My Book Time Travel

The odds that anyone’s favorite time travelers appear in the pages of Time Travel are, unfortunately, less than 100%. Perhaps...

by gleick

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5 November 2016

Time for Earth Time

The time has come to deep-six not just Daylight Saving Time but the whole jury-rigged scheme of time zones...

by gleick

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8 September 2016

Remembering “Chris Marker”

Ben Lerner's appreciation for "Chris Marker, whose name was not 'Chris Marker' ... "

by gleick

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Today’s Dead End Kids

Published by gleick

Who can “claim the name” of Anonymous? Anyone. The lack of identity may not be ideal for organizing a political philosophy or program, but that is not seen as...

28 December 2014

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Total Noise, Only Louder

Published by gleick

Kids used to ask each other: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears, does it make a sound? Now there’s a microphone in every tree...

20 March 2014

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Wikipedia’s Women Problem (2013)

Published by gleick

There is consternation at Wikipedia over the discovery that hundreds of novelists who happen to be female were being systematically removed from the category “American novelists” and assigned to...

29 April 2013

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How Google Dominates Us (2011)

Published by gleick

How thoroughly and how radically Google has already transformed the information economy has not been well understood. The merchandise of the information economy is not information; it is attention....

20 August 2011

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Touching History

Published by gleick

I got a thrill in December 1999 in the Reading Room of the Morgan Library in New York when the librarian, Sylvie Merian, brought me, after I had completed an...

31 July 2011

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Autocorrect, Unexpurgated

Published by gleick

I mention a certain writer in an email, and the reply comes back: “Comcast McCarthy??? Phoner novelist???” Oops. Did I really call him “Comcast”? No. The great god Autocorrect...

5 April 2011

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Patently Absurd (2000)

Published by gleick

W hen 21st-century historians look back at the breakdown of the United States patent system, they will see a turning point in the case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com...

20 March 2000

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Watch This Space (1995)

Published by gleick

WHERE HUMAN ANATOMY meets data processing, there are just two important devices: the brain and the wristwatch. The brain is nice, but it doesn’t tell time very well. So,...

9 July 1995

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