Category Archives: Net stories

Readers more fluent in German than I

Posted on April 6, 2008 by acb

Should hurry to this essay on Joseph Weizenbaum (pdf, found through wikipedia). I don’t have any problem with accompanying biography, but the essay on his philosophical position is a bit much when I can’t find the dictionary. But it has … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Quicks and squicks

Posted on April 3, 2008 by acb

You know the little children who tug at you to try a different shop when you walk through a bazaar? Amazon just turned your cellphone into one of of these (I write “cellphone” because it seems to be a US … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 4 Comments

The nerd is the enemy of civilisation

Posted on March 20, 2008 by acb

Inspired by Scott Rosenberg, I have started to read Joseph Weizenbaum’s book Computer Power and Human Reason. Weizenbaum, who died last month, was the inventor of ELIZA, the first chatbot; and he was so horrified by the enthusiastic reactions to … Continue reading →

Posted in God, Net stories, nördig, Science without worms | 6 Comments

How to adjust the area

Posted on December 9, 2007 by acb

You’ll have to scroll down to the bottom of this Language Log post to learn the answer. It is a wonderful example of the perils of machine translation. A rather cleaner piece of linguistics, from the same sourse, is a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Leaving Facebook

Posted on December 5, 2007 by acb

I have only one friend who uses facebook to the exclusion of other online means of communication, and, while he is a very old and dear freind, I can still initiate email contact if I want to. The discovery that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 4 Comments

Ultimate procrastination

Posted on November 20, 2007 by acb

Thanks to John Naughton I have just stumbled upon a site which appears to list every public or semi-public talk being given in or around Cambridge University. It is a glorious searchable toyshop of interesting ideas and almost the best … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather, God, Journalism, Net stories, nördig, Science without worms, Software, Worms | 2 Comments

A very quick further note on censorship

Posted on November 9, 2007 by acb

I have been discussing with the imperfectly Voltairean Mrs T. in comments the sort of grounds on which modern states actually censor, rather than those which they pretend to themselves they apply. In particular, I want to argue that notions … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories, War | 8 Comments

Fresh hells of idiocy

Posted on October 28, 2007 by acb

I see towards the end of a comment thread, where only the trolls cavort and gibber in the ruins, two things: that someone is arguing against me on the basis of a wikipedia entry whose only substantive source is an … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 2 Comments

Cartoons, stupidity, cleverness

Posted on October 26, 2007 by acb

I think the third frame in this Doonesbury packs a lot into one picture. Whereas xkcd, here, doesn’t even need speech. And, on geekery, I want this for Christmas. Still geeking: you could not improve this definition of “open”, or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 1 Comment

Short, vulgar, accurate

Posted on October 4, 2007 by acb

This picture — from B3ta and jwz — is more or less the whole of the facebook experience, except for scrabble and a horrible webmail interface. Be warned. It uses crude language. Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 1 Comment