Posts by author
Lyz Lenz
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Weekly Geekery
A world of enchanted objects is both alluring and deeply terrifying. And now, a little about how Silicon Valley treats the LGBT community. It’s every bibliophile’s wet dream, but is Kindle Unlimited worth it? Oh, what a tangled web we…
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A Journey to the Center of the Literary Canon
In the Weekly Standard, Algis Valiunas debates the literary legacy of Jules Verne. “William Butcher, the foremost English Verne scholar, boasts that his man is “the world’s most translated writer, the best-seller of all time, the only popular writer to…
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From Nerd Game to Literary Glory
The role-playing fantasy game, Dungeons & Dragons, has just turned 40. And along with its enduring popularity comes a literary legacy: For certain writers, especially those raised in the 1970s and ’80s, all that time spent in basements has paid…
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Weekly Geekery
Will computers replace teachers? In Silicon Valley, ladies don’t get no respect. And that difficult intersection between women, Silicon Valley, and speaking up every time is embodied in one woman: Shanley Kane. Crowdsourced editing and fact-checking. It’s a thing now.…
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Knausguaard as a Lady
Katie Roiphe of Slate has some ideas about what Knausgaard’s critically acclaimed work would be like if, instead, he was a woman. I imagine to this committed Knausgaardians would say that they are responding to the quality of his writing…
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How the IRS Defines Art
In an essay on Narrative.ly, Alison Gerber recounts the rather harrowing IRS audit of Minneapolis artist Venus DeMars: Sometimes the line between professional and amateur is a clear, bright one. But in the United States artists are, for the most…
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Weekly Geekery
The future of the Internet should scare you. Death isn’t an end on Facebook. Really awesome revolution of information. Teeny tiny profit margin. Don’t click away! Don’t check Twitter. This is all very important.
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Why is Your Keyboard Weird?
Key arrangement isn’t the only thing modern keyboards borrow from a bygone age. We get the term “shift key” from the way a Remington Model 2 Type-Writer physically shifted the printing bar between uppercase and lowercase. Uppercase and lowercase are…
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When the Gospel of Lean Gets Mean
All of this American productivity, but cui bono? The answer is actually a little harder to get to than it seems. The Virginia Quarterly Review reports: One might be forgiven for asking what, exactly, all this productivity is for. “We…
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Weekly Geekery
How should we handle digital memories? Do we keep them or erase them from our hard drives? Why does Pocahontas endure? Facebook is emotionally manipulating you more than your mother. Welcoming our robot overlords. You aren’t the only one concerned…
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Weekly Geekery
You may never need to text words again. Except the word taco. Still no taco emoji. Wikipedia tries to better itself. Still not allowed as a source in college papers. The theory of disruption has been hugely important to technology and…
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The Beatles and Literature, Literature and The Beatles
The title of “I am the Walrus” also nods emphatically to Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” — specifically to the walrus character, who expresses his remorse after devouring helpless oysters by crying at the poem’s end. Lennon confessed…