Computer literacy used to mean knowing how computers worked; now it means just knowing how to work with them. What we need are new critical reading skills for the emerging electronic culture.
Science, Tech, Environment
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Essay: The God of the Digerati
Wired magazine says with new technology we’ll all be like gods and should get good at it. That apparently means feeling no restraint — if something looks good, do it, buy it, invent it, become it. Where have we heard this before?
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
But Is It Journalism?
From “fly-out menus” to scandal coverage, the ins and outs of Web news.
Posted inLaw and Justice
Will Free Speech Get Tangled in the Net?
When the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, cyberlibertarians breathed a sigh of relief. But keeping government out of the censorship business may not be enough to assure freedom online — censorship may now be privatized.
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Nice Work If You Can Get It: The Software Industry as a Model for Tomorrow’s Jobs
Some high-tech firms are redefining the relationship between employer and employee.
Posted inBooks
Naked in the Valley
Po Bronson’s The Nudist on the Late Shift and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley 12.02.99 | reviewed by Nicholas Confessore ‘Tis the season for mainstream magazines-Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek-to finally run cover stories on that newest of old trends, e-commerce. Skip them. You are unlikely to find a more vivid or readable tour of Silicon […]
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Seductions of Sim: Policy as a Simulation Game
For those who always thought public policy was a game anyone could play, it finally is. But beware of what the game assumes.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Only Connect
The New York Times Book (sic) Review for March 6, 1994 ran a feature piece reviewing a CD-ROM. “Microsoft Art Gallery,” an interactive digitized catalog of Britain’s National Gallery collection, won a rave. Just point and click, and you can pull up paintings by artist, period, or genre; you can also get spoken critical commentaries […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Talk of the Tube: How To Get Teledemocracy Right
If we are realistic and appropriately modest, television can enhance democratic deliberation.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Limits of Teledemocracy
Some uses of the electronic media could enrich politics. Most recent proposals, however, are video games at best and Bonapartism at worst.
