Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson
thinking knowing people
Ambient awareness is the experience of knowing what's going on in the lives of other people - what they're thinking about, what they're doing, what they're looking at - by paying attention to the small stray status messages that people are putting online. We're now able to stitch together these fantastic details and mental maps of what is going on in other people's lives.
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There's nothing wrong with talking out loud in public, but there is something wrong with the government sucking up all those utter instances in a database just in case they maybe want to bust you in five years.
mini
I lust after iPods or Mini Coopers not because they're unique, but because they've been so artfully made that I couldn't imagine doing it better myself.
complaint designed endorse reply
The one complaint about the Internet that I wholeheartedly endorse is that most of these tools have been designed to peck at us like ducks: 'Hey, there's a new reply to your comment! Come look at it!'
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We use paper documents to store knowledge so we can consult and reconsult it, giving us a type of recall impossible with our unaided minds; we use pencils to scratch down material so we can manipulate it in a fashion impossible in our unaided minds.
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When you're an expert in a subject, you can retain new factoids on your favorite topic easily. This only works for the subjects you're truly passionate about, though. Baseball fans can reel off stats for their favorite players, then space out on their own birthday.
answering engaging people productive tend themselves thinkers
The people who tend to get the most out of being social thinkers are the people who themselves are helpful. They're always talking or answering people's questions or engaging in productive conversations. They're not being trolls. They're tamping down other people that are being trolls.
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Personally, I'd love to see more social media firms develop business models that aren't reliant on advertising. If you're a social media firm selling ads, your goal is to get people to interrupt what they're doing all day long so they come and stare at your service as much as possible.
people
We're dumber and less cognitively nimble if we're not around other people - and, now, other machines.
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Insurance firms have always carefully studied real-world data to figure out what, precisely, constitutes a risky activity.
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Railing at scientists for massaging tree-ring statistics won't stop the globe from warming if the globe is actually, you know, warming.