A version of this post first appeared in my newsletter.

  • “Madison’s design has proved durable. But what would happen to American democracy if, one day in the early 21st century, a technology appeared that—over the course of a decade—changed several fundamental parameters of social and political life?” Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell argue that social media is such a technology.

  • “Concerned, confused and feeling lack of control over their personal information.” The Pew Research Center’s report on Americans and Privacy.

  • “We’ve seen, at scale, what happens when digital products and services are developed with no accountability to a strategy and to local and global policies.” Former The Informed Life guest Lisa Welchman on what digital workers can do about it.

  • Another good new thing from a former The Informed Life guest: Ariel Waldman’s Life Under The Ice, an interactive peek into the Antarctic expedition that was the subject of our conversation.

  • “You are playing atonal, ice-like sheets of sound which hang limpid in the air, making a shifting background tint behind the music.” Brian Eno’s games for musicians, used to produce David Bowie’s 1995 album 1. Outside.

  • The urgent needs of the present take precedence over the needs of the future. However, ….

  • Video of a machine learning-driven LEGO sorting machine built (of course) with LEGO.

  • During the holidays, I picked up a new skill. (We live in a Golden Age for learning such things.)

  • An astonishing interactive visualization of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade from 1515-1864.

  • My appreciation of Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, who died on January 7.