Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson
thinking opposites data
PowerPoint presentations, the cesspool of data visualization that Microsoft has visited upon the earth. PowerPoint, indeed, is a cautionary tale in our emerging data literacy. It shows that tools matter: Good ones help us think well and bad ones do the opposite. Ever since it was first released in 1990, PowerPoint has become an omnipresent tool for showing charts and info during corporate presentations.
lets produce thousands total truly
The Internet lets thousands of total strangers collaborate to produce a truly hivelike result.
book reading serendipity
When you broadcast your book reading voluntarily, it creates moments of fascinating serendipity.
memories computer social
Memory has always been social. Now we're using search engines and computers to augment our memories, too.
computer consumers files requiring tiny
Software is now so complex - requiring so many gazillions of tiny files all over your computer - that most consumers don't want to bother to know what's really going on.
glory job love novelists particular requires room sit solitary themselves
Novelists in particular love to rhapsodize about the glory of the solitary mind; this is natural, because their job requires them to sit in a room by themselves for years on end. But for most of the rest of us, we think and remember socially.
argue attempt begun main message people technology ways
The main message of 'Smarter Than You Think' is an attempt to look at the productively new and interesting ways that we have begun to learn about the world, to think about what we found, and to mull it over and argue about it with other people as we use technology.
book people online
As Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman document in their book Networked, people who are heavily socially active online tend to be also heavily socially active offline; they’re just, well, social people.
funny animal appreciate
That's the old ecological tale that explains humans' inability to fully appreciate global warming. To wit: if you drop a frog in a pan of hot water, it jumps out. If you drop it in a pan of cold water, then turn the heat up slowly, you can roast it to death.
powerful thinking talking
A huge amount of our everyday thinking - powerful, creative, and resonant stuff - is done socially: talking to other people, arguing with them, relying on them to recall information for us.
type pencils
Type as quickly as you can and always carry a pencil.
compare people public
There is something about the ability to externalize our thoughts and compare them with other people in a public way that is really transformative for the average person.
mostly narcotic online
Why are online games so addictive? It's mostly the narcotic appeal of 'leveling.'
almost brains came help internet people problem remember syndrome terrible
Tip-of-the-tongue syndrome is when people almost remember something but need a computer, or someone else, to help them find it. The problem is, our brains have always been terrible at remembering details. They were like that way before the Internet came along.