James Gleick (Page 10)

The Information Age Is Older Than You Think

March 07, 2011

Originally the “Iron Age” was the most modern of the three ages in question (Stone, Bronze, Iron). The illustration above, produced via Google’s “Ngram Viewer,” gives a rough sense of the changing cultural awareness of these arbitrary, fictional “Ages.” So, what about the Information Age? Several months ago I discussed the Oxford English Dictionary’s expanded […]

Does Technology Ever Die?

February 24, 2011

Kevin Kelly has been saying for some years that technological species, unlike biological ones, are more or less immortal. They never go extinct. A few people persist in using quill pens (wouldn’t you know, there are websites), and even more people still wear leather boots. When he said that on NPR’s Morning Edition, he got […]

“Don’t tell me about microfilm!”

February 23, 2011

Finally, my biography of Richard Feynman, Genius, is available as an e-book. It can be read in all formats, without prejudice: for example, here (Kindle), here (Nook), here (Apple), and here (Sony). It is created by the innovative (and suspiciously good-looking) people at Open Road. Feynman, of course, did not live to see e-books. But he was way […]

Got Numbers?

February 15, 2011

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10. Money can’t buy you back the love that you had then.                                 —Feist Twenty-four years ago I wrote in the New York Times about Neil J. A. Sloane, a Bell Labs mathematician who had become, single-handed, a unique information-age resource. He was the world’s archivist of number […]

You Flatter Me! But You Are a Spambot

February 14, 2011

As I am new to blogging (or at least to blog maintenance), I am having my first experience with the baneful phenomenon known as Comment Spam. It is strange. Spammers post fake comments that include links to their web sites, selling the usual pharmaceuticals and other seedy merch. They want readers or, more important, search […]

The Cover

February 08, 2011

I have a warm copy of The Information in hand—the first on my block, I’m quite sure—and I am having trouble getting past the jacket. Maybe not everyone is going to like it. When I first saw a mock-up I didn’t even know whether I liked it.* The digital postage-stamp versions don’t do it justice. […]

Google v Bing: The Hiybbprqag Affair

February 05, 2011

Did Bing get busted copying Google? This is truly a sting operation for the Information Age. Google makes up a word (e.g. hiybbprqag) and temporarily rigs its search engine to point that word at a real but obviously irrelevant site (a seating chart for the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles). A few weeks later, when […]

Just a little weather

February 05, 2011

Courtesy of NASA:

Contact

Find me in the open social web (fediverse; Mastodon): @gleick@mas.to

Mastodon

Literary agent:
Michael Carlisle
at Inkwell Management,
521 Fifth Ave.,
New York 10175.

Or send a private message.