The Best Technology Writing 2010

Julian Dibbell

Published by Yale University Press 2010

The Best Technology Writing 2010

Julian Dibbell

In the series The Best Technology Writing

https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300165654

Overview
Contents

About this book

The iPad. The Kindle. Twitter. When the Best Technology Writing series was inaugurated in 2005, these technologies did not exist. Now they define our 21st-century lives. As Julian Dibbell writes in his introduction to The Best Technology Writing 2010, “The digital is us. Yet for that reason, it is also something more, a lightning rod for our feelings about technology in general.” Whether it is Sam Anderson’s giddy but troubled defense of online distractions, David Carr’s full-throated elegy to the dying world of pre-digital publishing, Steven Johnson’s warm appreciation of Twitter’s bite-size contributions to collective human intelligence, or Evan Ratliff’s fascinating month-long quest to disappear without a digital trace, many of the essays gathered here register our intense and complicated fascination with digital media. But as Dibbell notes, these essays also remind us that some of the most disruptive and fascinating technologies continue to come from beyond the digital world. Jill Lepore’s writing on the politics of breast-feeding gadgetry, Stephen Silberman’s investigation of the placebo effect in pharmaceutical testing, Burkhard Bilger reporting on efforts to build a better cook stove for the developing world, and Tad Friend’s profile of electric-car developer Elon Musk’s efforts to head off environmental catastrophe all invite us to reflect on how many aspects of human experience remain fundamentally unchanged by digital technology.

Packed with marvelous essays on technologies old and new, The Best Technology Writing 2010 is an outstanding addition to this “fantastic” (Cory Doctorow), “fascinating” (Chris Anderson) series.

The Best Technology Writing 2010 includes essays written by:
Sam Anderson
Burkhard Bilger
Joshua Bearman
Mark Bowden
David Carr
Douglas Fox
Tad Friend
Ben Greenman
Vanessa Grigoriadis
James Harkin
Adam Higginbotham
Alex Hutchinson
Steven Johnson
Kevin Kelly
Jill Lepore
Alexis Madrigal
Javier Marias
Mike Massimino
Evan Ratliff
Daniel Roth
Clay Shirky
Steve Silberman
Annie Trubek
Lawrence Weschler

Author / Editor information

Julian Dibbell is a contributing editor at Wired Magazine and the author of the books Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot and My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	ii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Vanish Evan Ratliff Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Why We Tweet Steven Johnson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
Baby Food Jill Lepore Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
Thinking Machine Douglas Fox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
David Hockney’s iPhone Passion Lawrence Weschler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
Airships Javier Marías Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
Naked Truth Ben Greenman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable Shirky Clay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Do You Own Facebook? Or Does Facebook Own You? Vanessa Grigoriadis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
The Answer Factory Daniel Roth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Hearth Surgery Burkhard Bilger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
The Inkjet Counterfeiter Adam Higginbotham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Handwriting Is History Anne Trubek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
In Defense of Distraction Sam Anderson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
A Crime of Shadows Mark Bowden Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	206
Global Impositioning Systems Alex Hutchinson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Plugged In Tad Friend Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Caught in the Net James Harkin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	274
Telegraphs Ran on Electric Air in Crazy 1859 Magnetic Storm Alexis Madrigal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	284
Technophilia Kevin Kelly Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Can D.I.Y. Supplant the First-Person Shooter? Joshuah Bearman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	302
The Placebo Problem Steve Silberman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
The Fall and Rise of Media David Carr Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	328
Tweet from Space Michael James Massimino Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	332
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337

Language: English
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages
- Main content: 288

eBook

Published: September 21, 2010
ISBN: 9780300165654