Archive for the ‘ obscure digressions ’ Category
Cryptography and steganography are now used more widely in practice than at any prior moment in history, and so one might expect to find the self-evident origins of these modern practices in the work of cryptographic pioneers like John Wilkins, Francis Bacon, or Johannes Trithemius. Just as Newton’s alchemical leanings give pause to would-be historians [ READ MORE ]
this is my brief thought on wikipedia. as someone who reads an almost ungodly amount of it, I think that I am distinctly more qualified to comment on it than any random sampling. such as that one study which I can’t be bothered to find a link to now. Jaron Lanier says that “reading a Wikipedia [ READ MORE ]
right now, i am sitting in class behind an individual whom i do not know. however, i can see his computer monitor from here – as can the individual behind me see mine – and i can see that he has someone on his MSN list who is also on mine. thus, my being-in-the-world is linked to [ READ MORE ]
…wondered what foucault meant by calling the Panopticon a “Columbus’s egg in the order of politics,” perhaps this story will be somewhat illuminating. obscure though it may be, it’s a quite lovely little allusion. in the highly apocryphal tale, Columbus was getting somewhat piqued at the gentlemen who were proposing that “anyone” could have done what [ READ MORE ]