Reading Is Cool

I quickly learned that fact-checking is a predominantly American phenomenon. The French don’t do much of it, most Russian papers certainly don’t either, and even the Swiss — possibly the most exacting and precise people on the planet — do not make use of fact-checkers in quite the same way as Americans do.

Sei Shonagon and William Hazlitt, two radically different writers from radically different times and places, both were stubborn advocates of hate. Neither defined it in terms of superior races or religions but instead in terms of daily disgust, shameless behavior, spiders, fleas, barking dogs, charmlessness, odiousness, quarrels with friends. Shonagon’s and Hazlitt’s hating is more about disappointment: for Shonagon, in others; for Hazlitt, in himself.

Jeremy Hutchison sent emails to manufacturers around the world, asking them to produce a fairly simple and common item. He added a special requirement though: the product had to be imperfect, come with an intentional error. Moreover, the worker was in charge of deciding which kind of error, malfunction or fault he would add to the good. The artist reassured the factory that, whatever the result, he would pay for the faulty object…

Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history. Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home.

I've been thinking about the emergence of a new type of 21st-century professional. I call them "free radicals" because they take their careers into their own hands and put the world to work for them. The commoditization of once-pricey resources like business management services (now in the cloud) and everything open-source is the wind at their backs.

Free Radicals are resilient, self-reliant, and extremely potent. You'll find them working solo, in small teams, or within large companies. They're everywhere, and they're crafting the future.

My thinking was something like, “You want to watch me? Fine. But I can watch myself better than you can, and I can get a level of detail that you will never have.”

<…>On my Web site, I compiled various databases that show the airports I’ve been in, food I’ve eaten at home, food I’ve eaten on the road, random hotel beds I’ve slept in, various parking lots off Interstate 80 that I parked in, empty train stations I saw, as well as very specific information like photos of the tacos I ate in Mexico City between July 5 and 7, and the toilets I used.

These images seem empty, and could be anywhere, but they’re not; they are extremely specific records of my exact travels to particular places. There are 46,000 images on my site. I trust that the F.B.I. has seen all of them. Agents know where I’ve bought my duck-flavored paste, or kimchi, laundry detergent and chitlins; because I told them everything. 

Theresa M. Senft spent nearly a decade studying camgirls and camgirl culture, coining the term “micro-celebrity” to describe the practice. Along with the idea that fame was a commodity—or experience—that could be produced on a small scale, camgirl culture left deep marks on web aesthetics and community: the high-angle self portrait, the shared documentation of food and other daily minutiae.

I spent years feeling unhappy because people were cruel to me. But I realise now that it's not my face that is the problem but people's prejudices. We live in a society that says physical difference is bad and beauty is good. But this has resulted in disfigured and disabled people like me being treated like second class citizens because our bodies are different and we are seen as less than human.

Creative people have a reputation for eccentricity. It's not hard to see why when we consider the habits of some well-known creatives.

Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget.

Most people view creativity as an asset—until they come across a creative idea. That's because creativity not only reveals new perspectives; it promotes a sense of uncertainty.

“How is it that people say they want creativity but in reality often reject it?” said Jack Goncalo, ILR School assistant professor of organizational behavior.

TIAM is a proposal for a computer program which generates fairy-tale plots. Based on the work of Vladimir Propp, who reduced the structure of Russian folk-tales to 31 basic functions, TIAM aims to question the limitations and implications of attempts at programming language and narrative. Because the program is unable to deliver a finished story, rather only a crude synopsis and illustrations, users have to improvise, filling the gaps with their imagination.

“Most of these units have never sold, and though they were finished just three years ago, they are already falling into disrepair, the concrete chipping off the sides of the buildings. Vandals have stolen piping, radiators, doors—anything they could get their hands on. Those few families who live here keep dogs to ward off strangers.”

“All I remember then is a knock on the bedroom door and my wife, Patsy, she sits down on the bed and hugs me, and I’m holding the gun in my left hand, down here, out of sight”.

Joe Holt, a computer consultant and entrepreneur who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, describes how he's learned to manage the voices in his head.