This week we pondered how Google defines norms, how we understand ourselves through technology, and how our present technical reality moves faster than speculative fiction.
As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS.
What Is ‘Evil’ to Google? – The Atlantic
Ian Bogost asks “what counts as ‘good things,’ and who constitutes ‘the world?'” according to Google’s norms, values, and ideas of progress
The Drones Of Burning Man – Fast Company
Was Burning Man the test bed for how drone flight might be regulated elsewhere? Complete with some great images of hobbiest drones from the festival.
Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Here’s What It Takes – Fast Company
The lengths we have to go to now, even in the physical world, to live outside the data-tracked world.
My Selfie, Myself – New York Times
How we come to know and express ourselves through technology. And taken to the artistic end, we have a National #Selfie Gallery.
What Life Will Be Like in the Cities of the Future – Time
As more sensors give us real time feedback, how do our urban environments change and adapt?
10 Things I Think I Think on Bitcoin – David Lee
Bitcoin points to an emerging “multipolar” global economic system, and first mover standards (like TCP/IP and SMTP were) seem like a good bet.
7 Supposedly Futuristic Technologies From Dave Eggers’s The Circle That Already Exist – The Atlantic
The artifacts of the future are already here, it’s not just speculative fiction. Sorry, Eggers.