If you want to get away from the world/social media, I wholeheartedly recommend Northeastern’s combination anechoic chamber + Faraday cage, which completely kills all electromagnetic and sound waves. Supremely quiet and no wireless signals of any kind. Nice and relaxing.
Some good notes and links from @mia_out about a workshop this week on museums and artificial intelligence that acts as a nice counterpart to my newsletter issue on AI in the archives yesterday.
We’re hiring a project archivist to work on the Civil Rights & Restorative Justice project, which collects and compiles documents and data on racially motivated violence in mid-20th century America. Important position on an important project—join us.
I met Cokie Roberts when Carla Hayden was sworn in as Librarian of Congress, and chatted with her for a while about history and libraries. She was really thoughtful, funny, and genuine.
The third issue of my newsletter Humane Ingenuity is now out, on using artificial intelligence in archives and what that tells us more generally about an ethical and culturally useful interaction between AI and human beings. Subscribe to get this and future issues.
10 points to the University of Chicago for having “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” as one of their application essays this year.
The third issue of my Humane Ingenuity newsletter, which will cover in depth the use (and potential abuse) of artificial intelligence in archives and special collections, will go out to subscribers tomorrow. Still time to sign up for your own copy.
Boston suburbs have an M. Night Shyamalan vibe today
After 9/11, Ruth Sergel and Here is New York set up a private booth so that people could record their memories, alone, unscripted, and unedited. Those recordings are now in the September 11 Digital Archive and watching them is still incredibly raw.
A corollary is that the remaining online venues that bring me agita, not joy, are free.
I’ll write about this in a future issue of my newsletter, but it has struck me recently that the remaining online venues that bring me joy, not agita, are services for which I pay $5 a month: Microblog (social media), Reclaim Hosting (blog), Feedbin (RSS), Buttondown (newsletter)
My favorite RSS feed right now is Stereogum’s “The Number Ones,” which is going deep on every Billboard #1 song from 1958 to the present. It’s currently in 1976, as disco is taking over.
If you’re new to the What’s New podcast, you can subscribe in your favorite podcast app by clicking on one of the links at the top of our home page.
The third season of the What’s New podcast starts today, with my conversation with Christo Wilson about revealing/auditing the algorithms that Facebook, Google, and Amazon use to personalize what they show you—based on the many things they know about you.
Subscribe to the Humane Ingenuity newsletter to get every issue delivered straight to your inbox. (It’s free.)
While you are waiting for Apple to unveil new gizmos, you can read the second issue of my new newsletter, Humane Ingenuity, this week covering the humane writing of the original director of Apple’s Mac project in 1979-80. Plus: how to audit algorithms.
Northeastern University is also seeking a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member with a scholarly focus on legal issues related to algorithms, machine learning, and other aspects of artificial intelligence.
ICYMI: We’re doing a faculty cluster hire in digital humanities here at Northeastern University, to further expand an already vibrant, interdisciplinary group of scholars, researchers, librarians, archivists, and developers. Think about joining us.
Belle and her extra-long legs are having a lazy Saturday
JR’s digital mural at SF MOMA, featuring over a thousand San Franciscans, is pretty incredible, and this is only a small portion of it. (And the individual people move, and the mural scrolls to reveal more.)
Today I’m launching a newsletter on technology that helps rather than hurts human understanding, and human understanding that helps us create better technology. It’s called Humane Ingenuity, and you can subscribe here. Here’s a preview of the newsletter on my blog.
Just finished reading Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists and loved the way it traced the rise and fall of a newspaper (done in, of course, by the internet) through the interlocking stories of a dozen people associated with the paper. Recommended.
We’re hiring a Research Data Analyst at the Northeastern University Library to join our growing programming and services related to data analysis and visualization. Join our highly collaborative and fun-to-work-in library!
The old hotel where I’m staying makes you feel at home with some nice touches from The Shining
Can’t I just enjoy my Saturday morning coffee?
