language
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How anywhere is everywhere
On Quora, somebody asked, Which is your choice, radio, television, or the Internet?. I replied with the following. If you say to your smart speaker “Play KSKO,” it will play that small-town Alaska station, which has the wattage of a light bulb, anywhere in the world. In this sense the Internet has eaten the station.… Continue reading
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About face
We know more than we can tell. That one-liner from Michael Polanyi has been waiting half a century for a proper controversy, which it now has with facial recognition. Here’s how he explains it in The Tacit Dimension: This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know… Continue reading
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Data is the New Love
Personal data, that is. Because it’s good to give away—but only if you mean it. And it’s bad to take it, even it seems to be there for the taking. I bring this up because a quarter million pages (so far) on the Web say “data is the new oil.” That’s because a massive personal data… Continue reading