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Digitally altered portrait of a man in a suit with his face pixelated, framed by computer windows.

What the Doomsayers Get Wrong About Deepfakes

Experts have warned that utterly realistic A.I.-generated videos might wreak havoc through deception. What’s happened is troubling in a different way.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on November 13, 2023
A portion of the author’s music collection; bootleg cassette tapes and CDs. Photo by Maya Walker.

The Pirate Preservationists

When keeping cultural archives safe means stepping outside the law.
by Jesse Walker via Reason on September 10, 2023
A Silicon Valley office building.

Better, Faster, Stronger

Two recent books illuminate the dark foundations of Silicon Valley.
by Ben Tarnoff via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023
A meme, entitled The Many Faces of Generation X, showing stills of a girl from a movie called The Breakfast Club.

The Constructive Culture of Gen X Cynicism

Skepticism drove some of this more cynical or realistic worldview, based on their experiences growing up in the 70s and 80s.
by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on June 5, 2023
Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.
by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on May 26, 2023
Drawing of performers and different audio technologies.

The End of the Music Business

A century of recorded music has culminated in the infinite archive of streaming platforms. But is it really better for listeners?
by Ethan Iverson via The Nation on April 10, 2023
Four men gather around a horse drawn cart carrying newspapers from Philadelphia, New York and Maryland.

There’s Already a Solution to the Crisis of Local News. Just Ask This Founding Father.

As modern lawmakers consider various means of public assistance for local news, they can learn from the founders’ approach to supporting journals and gazettes.
by Steven Waldman via Politico Magazine on April 2, 2023
Early phonograph.

How the Phonograph Created the 3-Minute Pop Song

And how streaming is changing it again.
by Clive Thompson via Medium on February 25, 2023
Drawing of a fighter plane.

The Real Developmental Engine

Throughout its history, the technology sector has been dependent on the federal budget.
by Jeannette Estruth via The Drift on February 22, 2023
Collage of eyes.

Who’s Watching

The evolution of the right to privacy.
by Marina Manoukian via The Baffler on December 1, 2022
A person holds up a "Don't Tread on Florida" poster at an August rally in Tampa featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio.
partner

The ‘Florida Man’ is Notorious. Here’s Where the Meme Came From

The practice of seeing Florida’s people, culture and history in caricature form is deeply rooted in the state’s colonial past.
by Julio Capó Jr., Tyler Gillespie via Made By History on September 14, 2022
Photo of two kids, on African American one white, at a computer ca. early 1980s.

Framing the Computer

Before social media communities formed around shared concerns, interests, politics, and identity, print media connected communities.
by Kelcey Gibbons via Charles Babbage Institute on August 1, 2022
Los Angeles at dusk.

The Politics of Concrete

Infrastructural projects should be understood in terms of whose lives they make more livable—and the futures they enable or foreclose.
by David Helps via Protean on July 21, 2022
Illustration of screens, electronics, and sound waves.

The Hidden History of Screen Readers

For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs.
by Sheon Han via The Verge on July 14, 2022
Vannevar Bush portrait

The Atlantic Writers Project: Vannevar Bush

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
by Ian Bogost via The Atlantic on July 11, 2022
A milk maid shows her cowpoxed hand to a physician, while a farmer or surgeon offers to a young man inoculation with cowpox that he has taken from a cow.

Whack-a-Mole

Vaccine skepticism and misinformation have persisted since the smallpox epidemics. With the internet, it's only gotten worse.
by Rivka Galchen via London Review of Books on January 27, 2022
A bronze statue of Civil War soldiers on horseback, in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

How Twitter Explains the Civil War (and Vice Versa)

The proliferation of antebellum print is analogous to our own tectonic shifts in how people communicate and what they communicate about.
by Ariel Ron via The Strong Paw Of Reason on January 6, 2022
Split image - half a 1980s computer, other half a modern laptop; on the screen for both, an hourglass icon that symbolizes loading.

54 Years Ago, a Computer Programmer Fixed a Massive Bug — and Created an Existential Crisis

A blinking cursor follows us everywhere in the digital world, but who invented it and why?
by Sarah Wells via Inverse on December 3, 2021
Photograph of a dilapidated mall from the rear parking lot.

Mallstalgia

Once derided as cesspools of Reagan-era consumerist excess, the shopping mall somehow became an unlikely sort-of quasi-public space that is now disappearing.
by Jason Tebbe via Tropics of Meta on November 29, 2021
Public Broadcasting Service logo

Epistemic Crises, Then And Now: The 1965 Carnegie Commission As Model Philanthropic Intervention

How the commission that led to the creation of the U.S.’s public television and radio systems can serve as a model for countering disinformation today.
by Peter B. Kaufman via HistPhil on November 2, 2021
Hands holding a cell phone
partner

Even Before the Internet, We Forged Virtual Relationships — Through Advice Columns

These communities allowed for blending fact and fiction in creating new identities.
by Julie Golia via Made By History on October 3, 2021
A protestor wearing syringes, protesting the vaccine mandate
partner

Doubters’ Push for Religious Exemptions from Coronavirus Vaccination May Not Work

With all organized religions supporting vaccination, states may question the sincerity of those claiming exemptions from getting vaccinated.
by Kira Ganga Kieffer via Made By History on September 20, 2021
QAnon proponent and Trump supporters

Bad Information

Conspiracy theories like QAnon are ultimately a social problem rather than a cognitive one. We should blame politics, not the faulty reasoning of individuals.
by Nicolas Guilhot via Boston Review on August 23, 2021

In the Dead Archives

The comment section of a Grateful Dead concert archive offers a sometimes-dark glimpse into a dedicated fan community.
by Max Abelson via n+1 on August 20, 2021
Collage of audio-related images, records, cassettes, CDs, wav files, ipods, electronic media icons, and an ear.

What Will Happen to My Music Library When Spotify Dies?

If your entire collection is on a streaming service, good luck accessing it in 10 or 20 years.
by Joe Pinsker via The Atlantic on July 19, 2021
Jim Jones and family

In the Image of Jonestown

In our flattened historical imagination, pictures of atrocity and those of progress can coincide in unsettling ways.
by Jay Caspian Kang via The Nation on July 10, 2021
Joe Biden.
partner

The History of Using Computers to Distribute Benefits Like Biden’s Relief Checks

Technology can break down, but just as often with government tech, glitches are rooted in policy failures.
by Marc Aidinoff via Made By History on March 10, 2021
White House staff vacuuming

The Secret Life of the White House

The residence staff, many of whom have worked there for decades, balance their service of the First Family with their long-term loyalty to the house itself.
by Susannah Jacob via The New Yorker on February 24, 2021
An illustration of the caning of Charles Sumner.

The Caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate: White Supremacist Violence in Pen and Pixels

Absent social media, the artists of the past shaped public knowledge of historical events through illustrations.
by Peter H. Wood, Harlin J. Gradinn via Tropics of Meta on January 20, 2021
A shackle hanging from a post.

A Massive New Effort to Name Millions Sold Into Bondage During The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Enslaved.org will allow anyone to search for individual enslaved people around the globe in one central online location.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on December 1, 2020
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