Humane Ingenuity 8: Ebooks: It's Complicated
René Descartes designed a deck of playing cards that also functioned as flash cards to learn geometry and mechanics. (King of Clubs from The use of the...
Humane Ingenuity 7: Getting Weird with Technology to Find Our Humanity
One of the best ways that we can react to new technology, to sense its contours and capabilities, and also, perhaps slyly, to assert our superiority over it,...
Humane Ingenuity 6: Walden Eddies + the DLF Cinematic Universe
I am very fortunate to live a short drive from Walden Pond, of Henry David Thoreau fame. With the hordes of summer tourists finally thinning out, and with...
Humane Ingenuity 5: Libraries Contain Multitudes
Welcome back to Humane Ingenuity, a continuing exploration of technology that helps rather than hurts human understanding, and human understanding that helps...
Humane Ingenuity #4: Modeling Humane Features + Teaching a Robot to Crack a Whip
[3D-printed zoetrope from The National Science and Media Museum’s Wonderlab, via Sheryl Jenkins] Modeling Humane Features If it wasn’t a famous catchphrase...
Humane Ingenuity #3: AI in the Archives
Welcome back to Humane Ingenuity. It’s been gratifying to see this newsletter quickly pick up an audience, and to get some initial feedback from readers like...
The Soul of a New Machine + Auditing Algorithms
Today Apple will release new iPhones and other gizmos and services, and as they do every year, the tech pundits will ask: "Does this live up to the...
The Big Reveal
An increasing array of cutting-edge, often computationally intensive methods can now reveal formerly hidden texts, images, and material culture from...