Internet
-

Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Some people wait a lifetime to find a website full of cool-looking old cassettes. (via John Gall) This tumblr collects “funny tombstones from around the world.” (via Jason Arias) To commemorate the Giants winning the World Series, McSweeney’s is selling…
-

Should We All Commit Facebook Suicide?
“But somewhere in that transition from a social site meant to deepen interpersonal relationships to a self promotional, commercial tool, Facebook lost its appeal. “The various facets of my life merged into a web of connectivity where I could no…
-

The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
The author of the forthcoming My Life with the Lincolns asks what happens when you type Abraham Lincoln into Etsy. The answer is pretty awesome. Anyone interested in fiction and the Internet should read this now. Sappho and banjos! (via Bookslut) “Why…
-

No Wi-Fi: A Very Short Q&A with Alan from Borderlands Cafe
A couple weeks back, I was in a bad way. I’d recently joined Twitter, was always on Facebook, and checked my email (and I don’t exaggerate) about 75 times a day. I couldn’t stand it, but I also couldn’t stop.…
-

Ceasefire Liberia And The Promise of the Internet
Going through the book blogs every week, I read a lot about how the Internet is ruining everything — from publishing to our attention spans to investigative journalism to our social lives. But every once in a while, I hear…
-

Science Saturday
Happy 40th birthday to the internet. Just don’t go buying a Harley to prove you’re still vibrant. In what may be the most counter-intuitive finding in recent years, the internet might actually make people smarter, which frightens the hell out…
-

You Caught Me
Tao Lin’s characters are constantly connected, yet physically detached. The technology they live and breathe often seems less mechanical than its users.
-

Poems for the Gmail Generation
Brandon Scott Gorrell’s debut collection, During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present is an anxious, ambivalent ode to Internet culture.
-

The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
It’s summertime. BookExpo is in the past. Writers have taken a little break from accosting critics. The book blogs finally have some free time. And like most people, they are spending that time poking around the Internet and finding lots…
-

Harvard Study ‘Punctures Twitter Hype’
That’s the claim of a BBC News article which quotes the study’s lead researcher, Bill Heil, as follows: “Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends,” and “it looks like a few people are creating content…
-

The Machine that Changed the World
Just in case you were looking for a compelling 5-part documentary series to watch for free over the weekend, consider The Machine that Changed the World, a history of computing jointly produced by WGBH Boston and the BBC in 1991.…
-

Is the Internet Ruining Our Lives?
We’re distracted, our attention is shot, we are under surveillance, and we don’t care! We like being linked and friended by strangers who may or may not be who they say they are.