Open Culture » Technology

How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

Dan Colman — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:40:54 +0000

Every year, The Edge.org poses a thought-provoking question to 150+ engaging thinkers, and the answers never disappoint. This year, they throw out the question: How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? In this collection, you will find answers by George Dyson, Clay Shirky, Tim O’Reilly, Marissa Mayer, Richard Dawkins and many more. Below, I’ve included an excerpt from Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan), who has a less sanguine outlook on how the internet is changing our world. He writes:

I used to think that the problem of information is that it turns homo sapiensinto fools — we gain disproportionately in confidence, particularly in domains where information is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epidemiology, genetics, economics, etc.). So we end up thinking that we know more than we do, which, in economic life, causes foolish risk taking. When I started trading, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clarity. I also saw how people built too many theories based on sterile news, the fooled by randomness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addition, the supply and spread of information turns the world into Extremistan (a world I describe as one in which random variables are dominated by extremes, with Black Swans playing a large role in them). The Internet, by spreading information, causes an increase in interdependence, the exacerbation of fads (bestsellers like Harry Potter and runs on the banks become planetary). Such world is more “complex”, more moody, much less predictable.

So consider the explosive situation: more information (particularly thanks to the Internet) causes more confidence and illusions of knowledge while degrading predictability.

You can find Taleb’s full answer here, and the entire collection of thoughts here. If you want to tell us how the internet has changed the world for you, please add your thoughts to the comments section below.

How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Why Open Video?

Dan Colman — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:14:41 +0000

What is open video? And how does it promote free speech, participation, diversity and a more engaged media sphere? Get the answers from Amy Goodman (Democracy Now), Xeni Jardin (Boing Boing), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Yochai Benkler & Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard Berkman Center), among others. This is a mission to get behind. Excellent work by Peter Kaufman and Intelligent Television. Note: You can download this video in OGG and MP4 formats.

Why Open Video? is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It

Dan Colman — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:52:03 +0000

Lawrence Lessig calls Jonathan Zittrain’s book “Absolutely required reading.” Cass Sunstein says it’s “Absolutely essential reading.” And Lawrence Tribe declares that it is “The most compelling book ever written on why a transformative technology’s trajectory threatens to stifle that technology’s greatest promise for society.”

The book is The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It. You can buy it on Amazon for $11.56, or, even better, you can download it for free from Zittrain’s web site. Visit the web site, and find the PDF here. Thanks for this tip goes to Tony Yet, who guest blogged TED to China: An Inside View earlier this summer.

The Future of the Internet: A Free Stanford Course

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture: Available in Text or Audio (For Free)

The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Technology Is Amazing, Nobody Is Happy…

Dan Colman — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:14:28 +0000

A good clip that comes from Alec Couros’s 80+ Videos for Tech & Media Literacy. It features comedian Louis C.K. offering his funny thoughts on how our generation handles new technology. We’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.

Technology Is Amazing, Nobody Is Happy… is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Our Rapidly Changing Digital World

Dan Colman — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:25:09 +0000

In case you needed a reminder, we’re no longer living in your grandfather’s world. This video makes that plainly clear. Everything is changing in a blink, and education offers you and your kids the best way to navigate it all. Don’t take it for granted.

via The DigitalBlur. Thanks Jillian for the tip on this one.

Remember to catch us on Twitter.

Our Rapidly Changing Digital World is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Salvador Dali (and Other VIPs) on “What’s My Line?”

Dan Colman — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:06:29 +0000

What’s My Line? aired on CBS from 1950 to 1967, making it the longest-running game show in American television history. During its eighteen seasons, the show featured hundreds of celebrities & VIPs. Above, you can watch Salvador Dali in action. You can also rewind the video tape and check out Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt, Groucho Marx, Carl Sandburg, among others. For more oldies and goodies, check out Orson Welles Vintage Radio & The War of the Worlds on Podcast: How H.G. Wells and Orson Welles Riveted A Nation.

Salvador Dali (and Other VIPs) on “What’s My Line?” is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The History of the Internet in 8 Minutes

Dan Colman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:12:04 +0000

We have here a short, catchy animated documentary that explains how we get from the 1950s to the internet that we know and love today. Along the way, it covers inventions ranging from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet. Have a look:

The History of the Internet in 8 Minutes is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Free Stanford Computer Science & Engineering Courses Now Online

Dan Colman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:06:23 +0000

Stanford Engineering Everywhere is a new project rolling out of Stanford, and it’s making available to anyone, anywhere 10 complete online computer science and electrical engineering courses. This includes the three-course Introduction to Computer Science series taken by the majority of Stanford undergraduates.

The top-notch courses are free, which means that we’ve added them to our large collection of Free Online Courses. They’re also accessible via multiple formats (YouTube, iTunes, torrents, etc.) and released under a Creative Commons License, allowing students and educators worldwide to use these courses for their own educational purposes. They come complete with handouts, assignments, exercises and software. Quite a good deal, I must say. Below, we’ve posted the initial lineup of courses. Definitely check them out.

Introduction to Computer Science

Artificial Intelligence

Linear Systems and Optimization

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Free Stanford Computer Science & Engineering Courses Now Online is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Download Cory Doctorow’s Technology Writings (Free New Book)

Dan Colman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:27:24 +0000

A quick fyi: BoingBoing blogger Cory Doctorow has released a new collection of essays called Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future. As he summarizes it, the book features “28 essays about everything from copyright and DRM to the layout of phone-keypads, the fallacy of the semantic web, the nature of futurism, the necessity of privacy in a digital world, the reason to love Wikipedia, the miracle of fanfic, and many other subjects.” You can download a free PDF version here, or purchase a hard copy here. Also don’t miss the free tech/copyright writings by Larry Lessig below.

Free Download of Cory Doctorow’s Graphic Novels

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture: Available in Text or Audio (For Free)

The Future of Ideas: Download Your Free Copy (and More)

Download Cory Doctorow’s Technology Writings (Free New Book) is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The Automated Publishing House

Ed Finn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:58:58 +0000

The New York Times has a great article on a professor of management science who has founded an almost completely automated publishing company. The 200,000 books he’s published sound, well, terrible, and terribly overpriced: “Among the books published under his name are ‘The Official Patient’s Sourcebook on Acne Rosacea’ ($24.95 and 168 pages long); ‘Stickler Syndrome: A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers’ ($28.95 for 126 pages); and ‘The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India’ ($495 for 144 pages).”

But Philip M. Parker, the man behind them, is nothing if not ambitious. He’s also programming his machines to generate language-learning crosswords (i.e. clues in one language, answers in another), acrostic poetry, and even scripts for game shows and videogames. All of this reminds me of a novel by Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age. In it, engineers of the future design a sort of artificially intelligent primer for young girls–the book generates stories and lessons on the fly. Maybe Parker’s read this one before.

The Automated Publishing House is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com