perambulation-intro

Perambulation

Thoughts on data, society, and other things that don't fit neatly into buckets.

Is the holiday over for digital offshoring?

March 3, 2014 – 5:00 pm by Alistair 0 Comments

A relatively unknown debate over whether special effects shot overseas should be subject to tariffs could have wide-ranging consequences for the digital economy.

James Burke says the darndest things

February 17, 2014 – 7:11 am by Alistair 3 Comments

At Strata last week, science historian James Burke gave a brilliant keynote. Afterwards, we had a coffee break for members of the media, during which he expanded on some of the things he’d said on the main stage. The topic of the Internet came up. I love the way he put this: “I think theRead more

The Internet likes to tease

February 1, 2014 – 11:58 am by Alistair 0 Comments

The art of a good headline has been undermined by our reptile brains, and in the process, we're blinding our search engines by eliminating useful metadata. Once, a headline conveyed a quick summary of the story: Fifteen dead in high-speed bagel tragedy. Today, however, the structure of news has separated the tease from the story.Read more

We didn’t lay a hand on him

January 29, 2014 – 12:18 pm by Alistair 3 Comments

What happens when we turn machine learning to the task of detecting your worst fears—and immersive environments into your personal hell? A rather nihilistic look at the virtual version of Orwell’s Room 101.

The most ironic thing on TV last week

January 27, 2014 – 5:29 pm by Alistair 0 Comments

While I watched Daily Show episode on big data and privacy, 117 companies watched me.

Some facts on the ‘Flu

January 13, 2014 – 3:41 pm by Alistair 0 Comments

In which I ask a smart infectious disease physician some questions about the flu and get straight answers.