Digital Imaging Quotes

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5 Ways To Build Your Brand on Social Media: 1 Post content that add value 2 Spread positivity 3 Create steady stream of info 4 Make an impact 5 Be yourself
Germany Kent
Hello, Olympus! Aeolus, master of the winds here, with weather every twelve! We‘ll have a low-pressure system moving over Florida today, so expect milder temperatures since Demeter wishes to spare the citrus farmers!‖ He gestured at the blue screen, but when Jason checked the monitors, he saw that a digital image was being projected behind Aeolus, so it looked like he was standing in front of a U.S. map with animated smiley suns and frowny storm clouds. ―Along the eastern seaboard—oh, hold on.‖ He tapped his earpiece. ―Sorry, folks! Poseidon is angry with Miami today, so it looks like that Florida freeze is back on! Sorry, Demeter. Over in the Midwest, I‘m not sure what St. Louis did to offend Zeus, but you can expect winter storms! Boreas himself is being called down to punish the area with ice. Bad news, Missouri! No, wait. Hephaestus feels sorry for central Missouri, so you all will have much more moderate temperatures and sunny skies.
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
Suffering isn't real to them. War isn't real. It's just a three-letter word for other people that they see in the digital newsfeeds. Just a stream of uncomfortable images they skip past. A whole business of weapons and arms and ships and hierarchies they don't even notice, all to shield these fools from the true agony of what it means to be human.
Pierce Brown (Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3))
I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It's a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn't require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can't see me. And, and, they're there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive. The problem is it's also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I've gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I watch him, he watches me. The stress level goes up. But there's also, there's something nourishing about it, because I think like as creatures, we've all got to figure out how to be together in the same room. And so TV is like candy in that it's more pleasurable and easier than the real food. But it also doesn't have any of the nourishment of real food. And the thing, what the book is supposed to be about is, What has happened to us, that I'm now willing--and I do this too--that I'm willing to derive enormous amounts of my sense of community and awareness of other people, from television? But I'm not willing to undergo the stress and awkwardness and potential shit of dealing with real people. And that as the Internet grows, and as our ability to be linked up, like--I mean, you and I coulda done this through e-mail, and I never woulda had to meet you, and that woulda been easier for me. Right? Like, at a certain point, we're gonna have to build some machinery, inside our guts, to help us deal with this. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die. In a meaningful way, you're going to die.
David Foster Wallace
I've decided that has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination, our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We've become weightless, in the bad sense of the word.
Alan Lightman (Reunion)
In the digital age, the troll is essentially a caricature and embodiment of all the worst traits associated with masculinity. They’re culturally and intellectually shallow. Angry. Violent. Aggressive. And, after years of wading through graphic images, postmodern stew, racist propaganda, and disgusting and misogynistic pornography, they have grown into nihilists with no other purpose besides punishing the world while laughing to prove they’re stronger than their humanity.
Jared Yates Sexton (The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making)
Check it out." Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins. Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. "It's perfect! It's every bit as disgusting as the real one!" Amy nodded. "And so fast. We only called you yesterday." Jonah shrugged. "Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly." "You mean, hog ugly," Hamilton amended. "The serpents don't help," Dan put in critically. "Live fat spaghetti. Lady, if you're thinking of a modeling career, forget it!" The rapper clucked sympathetically. "You guys just don't appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that–until Gangsta Kronikles. When you're in film industry, you understand the whole picture's-worth-a-thousand-words deal." Hamilton rolled his eyes. "Here we go again.
Gordon Korman (The Medusa Plot (39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers, #1))
Multiple studies have associated the heavy use of smartphones (especially when used for social media) with negative effects on neuroticism, self-esteem, impulsivity, empathy, self-identity, and self-image, as well as with sleep problems, anxiety, stress, and depression.
Catherine Price (How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan)
discovered is that I’m an image maker, and I don’t care how its made—whether it’s through painting or photography or drawing—I just want to create images.
James Stanford
That was why, later on, he began to lose interest in photography: first when colour took over, then when it became plain that the old magic of light-sensitive emulsions was waning, that to the rising generation the enchantment lay in a techne of images without substance, images that could flash through the ether without residing anywhere, that could be sucked into a machine and emerge from it doctored, untrue. He gave up recording the world in photographs then, and transferred his energies to saving the past.
J.M. Coetzee (Slow Man)
…If getting a man is entirely dependent on the digits showing on your tags, or your scale, then he is certainly not the right one for YOU, not the other way around.
Fatima Mohammed (Higher Heels, Bigger Dreams)
An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too.
Cal Newport (Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World)
By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.The cyborg is our onthology; it gives us our politics. the cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation.
Donna J. Haraway
A wall-to-wall Instagram reel of flirtatious young women doing selfies and documenting the gaps in their thighs isn’t a zoetrope of inconsequential self-involvement, so much as a reclamation of the lens: The young and bewildered women who blinked innocently from the dark corners of the early web are holding the camera now, controlling their own images, setting the terms of engagement.
Leigh Alexander (Breathing Machine: Growing Up in the Digital Age)
As the rest of the modern world develops into what Seoul already has been for years—an image-laden, social-media-driven landscape, where digital representations of us can be automatically filtered to have longer lashes or poreless skin, and digital makeup can be instantly applied before we show up on our video meetings—it makes clear Korea’s looks-obsessed culture, where appearance norms inch further and further out of reach, isn’t some anomaly.
Elise Hu (Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital)
Too often people make their social media image more important than being true to who they really are in real life. Wonder how much different our world would be if we all strived to be the same person offline as we are online.
Germany Kent
I am a firm believer that digital imaging has already rivaled the chemical process in its ability to make fine prints. An exceptional digital print, on a fine quality paper, can take on all the delicacy of a masterful photogravure. Each is, after all, ink on paper. The unfortunate thing is that skillful digital fine art photography is being created by so few, and today’s artworld is brimming with hastily made, conceptually oriented, digital bric-a-brac.
Waswo X. Waswo (India Poems: The Photographs)
Music can trigger feelings, which in turn produce thoughts and images in our minds — it is these thoughts and images that can become novel solutions and innovative new ideas. Music is therefore directly related to the production of new ideas.
Richard Watson (Future Minds: How the Digital Age Is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters, and What We Can Do About It)
Girls also use online environments to try on personas that don’t really match their actual personalities. By posting risqué comments or images that suggest sophistication, girls sometimes conduct digital experiments in parting with childhood.
Lisa Damour (Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood)
When identity is derived from projecting an image in the public realm, something is lost, some core of identity diluted, some sense of authority or interiority sacrificed. It is time to question the false equivalency between not being seen and hiding. And time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? Going unseen may be becoming a sign of decency and self-assurance. The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, propriety, autonomy, and voice. It is not about retreating from the digital world but about finding some genuine alternative to a life of perpetual display. It is not about mindless effacement but mindful awareness. Neither disgraceful nor discrediting, such obscurity can be vital to our very sense of being, a way of fitting in with the immediate social, cultural, or environmental landscape. Human endeavor can be something interior, private, and self-contained. We can gain, rather than suffer, from deep reserve.
Akiko Busch (How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency)
In the PAO system, every two-digit number from 00 to 99 is represented by a single image of a person performing an action on an object. The number 34 might be Frank Sinatra (a person) crooning (an action) into a microphone (an object). Likewise, 13 might be David Beckham kicking a soccer ball.
Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)
Erik Erikson writes that in their search for identity, adolescents need a place of stillness, a place to gather themselves.2 Psychiatrist Anthony Storr writes of solitude in much the same way. Storr says that in accounts of the creative process, “by far the greater number of new ideas occur during a state of reverie, intermediate between waking and sleeping.... It is a state of mind in which ideas and images are allowed to appear and take their course spontaneously . . . the creator need[s] to be able to be passive, to let things happen within the mind.”3 In the digital life, stillness and solitude are hard to come by.
Sherry Turkle (Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other)
The main Stuxnet file was incredibly large—500 kilobytes, as opposed to the 10 to 15 KB they usually saw. Even Conficker, the monster worm that infected more than 6 million machines the previous two years, was only 35 kilobytes in size. Any malware larger than this usually just contained a space-hogging image file that accounted for its bloat—such as a fake online banking page that popped up in the browser of infected machines to trick victims into relinquishing their banking credentials. But there was no image file in Stuxnet, and no extraneous fat, either. And, as O’Murchu began to take the files apart, he realized the code was also much more complex than he or anyone else had previously believed. When
Kim Zetter (Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon)
In the moment all is dear to me, dear that in this logic there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as human spore, as the dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of the woman I hold in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs, and I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a region unexplored, the world of futurity, and here there is no logic whatever, just the still germination of events unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow. The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space, now concentrates on points in time; the eye sees forward and backward at will. The eye which was the I of the self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a ceaseless, uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost body I grew in logic as the city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays, endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the event, a wall with many windows, but the house gone. I must shatter the walls and windows, the last shell of the lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, but by the legerdemain of will swim through the eyes, head and arms and legs to explore the curve of vision. I see around myself as the mother who bore me once saw round the comers of time. I have broken the wall created by birth and the line of voyage is round and unbroken, even as the navel. No form, no image, no architecture, only concentric flights of sheer madness. I am the arrow of the dream's substantiality. I verify by flight. I nullify by dropping to earth.
Henry Miller (Tropic of Capricorn (Tropic, #2))
Ben developed a similarly Byzantine system for memorizing binary digits, which enables him to convert any ten-digit-long string of ones and zeros into a unique image. That’s 210, or 1,024, images set aside for binaries. When he sees 1101001001, he immediately sees it as a single chunk, an image of a card game. When he sees 0111011010, he instantaneously conjures up an image of a cinema. In international memory competitions, mental athletes are given sheets of 1,200 binary digits, thirty to a row, forty rows to a page. Ben turns each row of thirty digits into a single image. The number 110110100000111011010001011010, for example, is a muscleman putting a fish in a tin. At the time, Ben held the world record for having learned 3,705 random ones and zeroes in half an hour.
Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)
And I think I’ve found the real benefit of digital memory. The point is not to prove you were right; the point is to admit you were wrong. Because all of us have been wrong on various occasions, engaged in cruelty and hypocrisy, and we’ve forgotten most of those occasions. And that means we don’t really know ourselves. How much personal insight can I claim if I can’t trust my memory? How much can you? You’re probably thinking that, while your memory isn’t perfect, you’ve never engaged in revisionism of the magnitude I’m guilty of. But I was just as certain as you, and I was wrong. You may say, "I know I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes." I am here to tell you that you have made more than you think, that some of the core assumptions on which your self-image is built are actually lies.
Ted Chiang (The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling (Exhalation))
You fanfare your 'Information Revolution', your email, your email, your vid cons! As if information itself is thought! You have no idea what you've made! You are all lapdogs, believing your collars to be halos! Information is control. Everything you think you know, every image on every screen, every word on every phone, every digit on every VDU, who do you think has got their hands on it before it gets to you?
David Mitchell (Ghostwritten)
All kinds of cultural experiences have been reduced to the homogenous category of digital content and made to obey the law of engagement, the algorithms’ primary variable. Any piece of content, whether image, video, sound, or text, must compel an immediate, albeit often superficial, response from the viewer. It must make them tap the Like or Share button, or prevent them from hitting Stop or Skip, anything that would interrupt the feed.
Kyle Chayka (Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture)
Television is the dominant medium for information, or rather disinformation. The digital merging of word, tone and image gives it enormous influence. We need to be aware that a complete control of the social means of communication makes it possible to condition the masses, because it allows those in control to manipulate how the masses think and what they desire. Whoever controls the media can determine, control and manipulate what the masses think.
Robin de Ruiter (Worldwide Evil and Misery - The Legacy of the 13 Satanic Bloodlines)
Mine, mine. Fear, idolatry, hoarding. The delight and terror of the fetishist. Fully conscious of my folly, I’d downloaded pictures of it to my computer and my phone so I could gloat upon the image in private, brushstrokes rendered digitally, a scrap of seventeenth-century sunlight compressed into dots and pixels, but the purer the color, the richer the sense of impasto, the more I hungered for the thing itself, the irreplaceable, glorious, light-rinsed object.
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
This is Radio Free Hayden podcasting from somewhere dark and dingy that smells of ancient grease and more recent body odor. If anyone actually hears this podcast, I must first apologize that there’s no visual of me. My bandwidth is the digital equivalent of a mule train. So instead, I’ve posted this wonderful Norman Rockwell image instead of a video. You’ll note how the poor innocent ginger kid standing on the chair with his butt hanging out is about to be tranq’d in the ass by the ‘kindly country doctor.’ I felt the image was somehow appropriate.
Neal Shusterman (UnDivided (Unwind, #4))
The solution is to keep only what resonates in a trusted place that you control, and to leave the rest aside. When something resonates, it moves you on an intuitive level. Often, the ideas that resonate are the ones that are most unusual, counterintuitive, interesting, or potentially useful. Don’t make it an analytical decision, and don’t worry about why exactly it resonates—just look inside for a feeling of pleasure, curiosity, wonder, or excitement, and let that be your signal for when it’s time to capture a passage, an image, a quote, or a fact.
Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential)
Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.
Peter Joseph
Remarkably, studies of visual perception have found that two-dimensional images projected onto the retina only achieve full dimensionality as a result of our perception: we infer the third dimension of depth. Sadly, though, as the urgency to expedite all communicative transactions usurps out customary patterns of exchange, perception is accelerated as well. There does not seem to be a great deal of time left over to infer--or interpret, or imagine--much of anything at all. In the end, of course, there is nothing real about this at all, except for our propensity to let it happen.
Jessica Helfand (Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture)
Christian thinking pursues embodied community. Before physical people, with human faces we can read, human voices in which we can hear emotion, saying human words that bind us emotionally to a particular place and a particular moment, we are reminded of what the Bible really means by honoring one another, serving one another, preferring one another, loving one another, admonishing one another, confessing your sins to one another, and praying for one another. Pixels are not created in God’s image. People are. It is a holy thing to be with another human being. It is, in fact, our eternal destiny.
Samuel James (Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age)
More recently, Dallas Willard put it this way: Desire is infinite partly because we were made by God, made for God, made to need God, and made to run on God. We can be satisfied only by the one who is infinite, eternal, and able to supply all our needs; we are only at home in God. When we fall away from God, the desire for the infinite remains, but it is displaced upon things that will certainly lead to destruction.5 Ultimately, nothing in this life, apart from God, can satisfy our desires. Tragically, we continue to chase after our desires ad infinitum. The result? A chronic state of restlessness or, worse, angst, anger, anxiety, disillusionment, depression—all of which lead to a life of hurry, a life of busyness, overload, shopping, materialism, careerism, a life of more…which in turn makes us even more restless. And the cycle spirals out of control. To make a bad problem worse, this is exacerbated by our cultural moment of digital marketing from a society built around the twin gods of accumulation and accomplishment. Advertising is literally an attempt to monetize our restlessness. They say we see upward of four thousand ads a day, all designed to stoke the fire of desire in our bellies. Buy this. Do this. Eat this. Drink this. Have this. Watch this. Be this. In his book on the Sabbath, Wayne Muller opined, “It is as if we have inadvertently stumbled into some horrific wonderland.”6 Social media takes this problem to a whole new level as we live under the barrage of images—not just from marketing departments but from the rich and famous as well as our friends and family, all of whom curate the best moments of their lives. This ends up unintentionally playing to a core sin of the human condition that goes all the way back to the garden—envy. The greed for another person’s life and the loss of gratitude, joy, and contentment in our own.
John Mark Comer (The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World)
What’s occurring now, with the fourth wave of feminism crashing, is that many female artists are using occult images, ritual gestures, and witch iconography to not only connect to the divine, but to continue to make space for themselves in a field which is still dominated by men. They’re utilizing herbs, candles, ceremonial garb, and goddess imagery, and mashing it up with digital treatments and modern technology. As such, they’re turning themselves into witches: women who create things and shift perception, who trust their intuition, and who have the power to change the world. Their work is spiritual and political at the same time.
Kristen J. Sollee (Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive)
I cannot recommend Ellie Augsburger at Creative Digital Studios enough! She produced amazing work for my debut novel. I am NOT an artistic person...at all. Ellie took my bumbling rambling (frankly poor) ideas and translated them into beautiful representative images of my work. I would have been lost without her! Not only did she create my cover (print and eBook) but she also created the images for my section breaks, Facebook banner, Twitter page, and my website. As I write my sophomore effort, Ellie will be my go to for all of my design needs. If you are looking for a creative, inspiring, helpful, knowledgeable, FANTASTIC designer look no further than Ellie Augsburger at Creative Digital Studios.
Norma Jeanne Karlsson
In 2014, 54 percent of women described themselves as “unhappy with their body,” and 80 percent said that looking in the mirror “made them feel bad.” These numbers are significantly higher than in previous years. I am sure there are many contributing factors, but one is surely that, more and more, we are being presented with unrealistic standards of beauty. Models and actors are subjected to training and dietary regimens that are often unsustainable, hugely expensive, and extreme. And even then, images are cropped, airbrushed, and recolored so that the final image we end up seeing on a giant poster may not actually be anyone’s actual body but a weird hybrid of one or more people and a whole lot of digital editing.
Sam Allberry (What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves)
On social media, everyone can invent a new image for themselves. They can create a mask and work on perfecting it every day. Everyone becomes their own brand to exist in the eyes of others— a delusional world. The detachment? Vanity. Unhappy souls wanting to be accepted. Why go to the extremes? Why must anyone try to be what they’re not? I call it “digital happiness.” Digital happiness is an invention. The idea behind this display is miserable people who often want you to love them behind the mask. So, you can post the (fake) lies and be loved by even thousands that are going through this delusion. If you post the real, you’ll be ridiculed and questioned because “reality” is out of this equation, and the mask is an order.
Henry
Except now everything is digital even murder. There is a record for everything under the sun from the moon and back whether we like it or not. The image that I have of the future is that it is very bleak. It is darkness visible. The black dog of depression will hang us all in the end. Considering the life we live, the values we teach our children, what we believe in everything is a movement for change and every pause between words is a revolutionary act. The ‘struggle’ was like a painful mental illness. The liberation in retrospect was either the exit from our slavery ushering us into a novel, brave, bold and brilliant world or a mass hallucination. The political climate in post-apartheid South Africa has gone as far as corrupting liberty.
Abigail George
Paradiso, XXXI,108 Diodorus Siculus tells the story of a god that is cut into pieces and scattered over the earth. Which of us, walking through the twilight or retracing some day in our past, has never felt that we have lost some infinite thing? Mankind has lost a face, an irrecoverable face, and all men wish they could be that pilgrim (dreamed in the empyrean, under the Rose) who goes to Rome and looks upon the veil of St. Veronica and murmurs in belief: My Lord Jesus Christ, very God, is this, indeed, Thy likeness in such fashion wrought?* There is a face in stone beside a path, and an inscription that reads The True Portrait of the Holy Face of the Christ of Jaén. If we really knew what that face looked like, we would possess the key to the parables, and know whether the son of the carpenter was also the Son of God. Paul saw the face as a light that struck him to the ground; John, as the sun when it shines forth in all its strength; Teresa de Jesús, many times, bathed in serene light, although she could never say with certainty what the color of its eyes was. Those features are lost to us, as a magical number created from our customary digits can be lost, as the image in a kaleidoscope is lost forever. We can see them and yet not grasp them. A Jew's profile in the subway might be the profile of Christ; the hands that give us back change at a ticket booth may mirror those that soldiers nailed one day to the cross. Some feature of the crucified face may lurk in every mirror; perhaps the face died, faded away, so that God might be all faces. Who knows but that tonight we may see it in the labyrinths of dream, and not know tomorrow that we saw it.
Jorge Luis Borges
Until now. You and I are a mis-Match, Ellie, because I hacked into your servers to manipulate our results.” “Rubbish,” Ellie said, secretly balking at the notion. She folded her arms indignantly. “Our servers are more secure than almost every major international company across the world. We receive so many hacking attempts, yet no one gets in. We have the best software and team money can buy to protect us against people like you.” “You’re right about some of that. But what your system didn’t take into account was your own vanity. Do you remember receiving an email some time ago with the subject ‘Businesswoman of the Year Award’? You couldn’t help but open it.” Ellie vaguely remembered reading the email as it had been sent to her private account, which only a few people had knowledge of. “Attached to it was a link you clicked on and that opened to nothing, didn’t it?” Matthew continued. “Well, it wasn’t nothing to me, because your click released a tiny, undetectable piece of tailor-made malware that allowed me to remotely access your network and work my way around your files. Everything you had access to, I had access to. Then I simply replicated my strand of DNA to mirror image yours, sat back and waited for you to get in touch. That’s why I came for a job interview, to learn a little more about the programming and systems you use. Please thank your head of personnel for leaving me alone in the room for a few moments with her laptop while she searched for a working camera to take my head shot. That was a huge help in accessing your network. Oh, and tell her to frisk interviewees for lens deflectors next time—they’re pocket-sized gadgets that render digital cameras useless.
John Marrs (The One)
The Memory Business Steven Sasson is a tall man with a lantern jaw. In 1973, he was a freshly minted graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His degree in electrical engineering led to a job with Kodak’s Apparatus Division research lab, where, a few months into his employment, Sasson’s supervisor, Gareth Lloyd, approached him with a “small” request. Fairchild Semiconductor had just invented the first “charge-coupled device” (or CCD)—an easy way to move an electronic charge around a transistor—and Kodak needed to know if these devices could be used for imaging.4 Could they ever. By 1975, working with a small team of talented technicians, Sasson used CCDs to create the world’s first digital still camera and digital recording device. Looking, as Fast Company once explained, “like a ’70s Polaroid crossed with a Speak-and-Spell,”5 the camera was the size of a toaster, weighed in at 8.5 pounds, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel, and took up to thirty black-and-white digital images—a number chosen because it fell between twenty-four and thirty-six and was thus in alignment with the exposures available in Kodak’s roll film. It also stored shots on the only permanent storage device available back then—a cassette tape. Still, it was an astounding achievement and an incredible learning experience. Portrait of Steven Sasson with first digital camera, 2009 Source: Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight “When you demonstrate such a system,” Sasson later said, “that is, taking pictures without film and showing them on an electronic screen without printing them on paper, inside a company like Kodak in 1976, you have to get ready for a lot of questions. I thought people would ask me questions about the technology: How’d you do this? How’d you make that work? I didn’t get any of that. They asked me when it was going to be ready for prime time? When is it going to be realistic to use this? Why would anybody want to look at their pictures on an electronic screen?”6 In 1996, twenty years after this meeting took place, Kodak had 140,000 employees and a $28 billion market cap. They were effectively a category monopoly. In the United States, they controlled 90 percent of the film market and 85 percent of the camera market.7 But they had forgotten their business model. Kodak had started out in the chemistry and paper goods business, for sure, but they came to dominance by being in the convenience business. Even that doesn’t go far enough. There is still the question of what exactly Kodak was making more convenient. Was it just photography? Not even close. Photography was simply the medium of expression—but what was being expressed? The “Kodak Moment,” of course—our desire to document our lives, to capture the fleeting, to record the ephemeral. Kodak was in the business of recording memories. And what made recording memories more convenient than a digital camera? But that wasn’t how the Kodak Corporation of the late twentieth century saw it. They thought that the digital camera would undercut their chemical business and photographic paper business, essentially forcing the company into competing against itself. So they buried the technology. Nor did the executives understand how a low-resolution 0.01 megapixel image camera could hop on an exponential growth curve and eventually provide high-resolution images. So they ignored it. Instead of using their weighty position to corner the market, they were instead cornered by the market.
Peter H. Diamandis (Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Exponential Technology Series))
Already, when Facebook bought Instagram, it felt as though the walls of the Internet were closing in a little tighter around us users. The broad expanse of possibility, of messiness, on a network like Geocities or the personal expression of Tumblr was shut down. Digital life became increasingly templated, a set of boxes to fill in rather than a canvas to cover in your own image. (You don’t redesign how your Facebook profile looks; you just change your avatar.) I felt a certain sense of loss, but at first the trade-off of creativity for broadcast reach seemed worthwhile: You could talk to so many people at once on social media! But that exposure became enervating, too, and I missed the previous sense of intimacy, the Internet as a private place—a hideout from real life, rather than the determining force of real life. As the walls closed in, the algorithmic feeds took on more and more influence and authority.
Kyle Chayka (Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture)
tanks in combat and infantry soldiers engaging the enemy while a steward poured a fresh cup of coffee before the briefing got started. “Can you believe this, Blain? I still marvel at this every time I see it,” Madden whispered to him. He pointed to a monitor on their right—a label above the monitor said ISR Four-Charley. The image, appearing in digital high-def, showed a grouping of six armored vehicles preparing themselves to advance and join an attack that appeared to be ongoing. The group itself, a mix of three Abrams battle tanks and three Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, was the next in line to travel through a minefield before reaching the enemy. Then puffs of black smoke appeared near the vehicles. Dirt was thrown into the sky from the explosions—scattering about in the air before falling back to the ground. Then suddenly, as one, the metallic beasts came to life. These armored chariots of war were now on the move. It was slow at first. Deliberate movements as they weaved
James Rosone (Monroe Doctrine: Volume VIII (Monroe Doctrine #8))
In many ways, the Internet could ultimately be seen as the realization of the classic international-relations theory of an anarchic, leaderless world. Here’s how we think states will respond to each other and to their citizens. The Balkanization of the Internet As we said, every state and society in the world has its own laws, cultural norms and accepted behaviors. As billions of people come online in the next decade, many will discover a newfound independence—in ideas, speech and conversation—that will test these boundaries. Their governments, by contrast, would largely prefer that these users encounter a virtual world that allows the powers that be to mirror their physical control, an understandable if fundamentally naïve notion. Each state will attempt to regulate the Internet, and shape it in its own image. The impulse to project laws from the physical world into the virtual one is universal among states, from the most democratic to the most authoritarian. What states can’t build in
Eric Schmidt (The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business)
Bitcoin was in theory and in practice inseparable from the process of computation run on cheap, powerful hardware: the system could not have existed without markets for digital moving images; especially video games, driving down the price of microchips that could handle the onerous business of guessing. It also had a voracious appetite for electricity, which had to come from somewhere - burning coal or natural gas, spinning turbines, decaying uranium - and which wasn't being used for something arguably more constructive than this discovery of meaningless hashes. The whole apparatus of the early twenty-first century's most complex and refined infrastructures and technologies was turned to the conquest of the useless. It resembled John Maynard Keynes's satirical response to criticisms of his capital injection proposal by proponents of the gold standard: just put banknotes in bottles, he suggested, and bury them in disused coal mines for people to dig up - a useless task to slow the dispersal of the new money and get people to work for it. 'It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
Finn Brunton (Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency)
[...]Telecomputer Man is assigned to an apparatus, just as the apparatus is assigned to him, by virtue of an involution of each into the other, a refraction of each by the other. The machine does what the human wants it to do, but by the same token the human puts into execution only what the machine has been programmed to do. The operator is working with virtuality: only apparently is the aim to obtain information or to communicate; the real purpose is to explore all the possibilities of a program, rather as a gambler seeks to exhaust the permutations in a game of chance. Consider the way the camera is used now. Its possibilities are no longer those of a subject who ' 'reflects' the world according to his personal vision; rather, they are the possibilities of the lens, as exploited by the object. The camera is thus a machine that vitiates all will, erases all intentionality and leaves nothing but the pure reflex needed to take pictures. Looking itself disappears without trace, replaced by a lens now in collusion with the object - and hence with an inversion of vision. The magic lies precisely in the subject's retroversion to a camera obscura - the reduction of his vision to the impersonal vision of a mechanical device. In a mirror, it is the subject who gives free rein to the realm of the imaginary. In the camera lens, and on-screen in general, it is the object, potentially, that unburdens itself - to the benefit of all media and telecommunications techniques. This is why images of anything are now a possibility. This is why everything is translatable into computer terms, commutable into digital form, just as each individual is commutable into his own particular genetic code. (The whole object, in fact, is to exhaust all the virtualities of such analogues of the genetic code: this is one of artificial intelligence's most fundamental aspects.) What this means on a more concrete level is that there is no longer any such thing as an act or event which is not refracted into a technical image or onto a screen, any such thing as an action which does not in some sense want to be photographed, filmed or tape-recorded, does not desire to be stored in memory so as to become reproducible for all eternity. No such thing as an action which does not aspire to self-transcendence into a virtual eternity - not, now, the durable eternity that follows death, but rather the ephemeral eternity of ever-ramifying artificial memory. The compulsion of the virtual is the compulsion to exist in potentia on all screens, to be embedded in all programs, and it acquires a magical force: the Siren call of the black box.
Jean Baudrillard (The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena)
Imagine a latter-day Helmholtz presented by an engineer with a digital camera, with its screen of tiny photocells, set up to capture images projected directly on to the surface of the screen. That makes good sense, and obviously each photocell has a wire connecting it to a computing device of some kind where images are collated. Makes sense again. Helmholtz wouldn’t send it back. But now, suppose I tell you that the eye’s ‘photocells’ are pointing backwards, away from the scene being looked at. The ‘wires’ connecting the photocells to the brain run all over the surface of the retina, so the light rays have to pass through a carpet of massed wires before they hit the photocells. That doesn’t make sense – and it gets even worse. One consequence of the photocells pointing backwards is that the wires that carry their data somehow have to pass through the retina and back to the brain. What they do, in the vertebrate eye, is all converge on a particular hole in the retina, where they dive through it. The hole filled with nerves is called the blind spot, because it is blind, but ‘spot’ is too flattering, for it is quite large, more like a blind patch, which again doesn’t actually inconvenience us much because of the ‘automatic Photoshop’ software in the brain. Once again, send it back, it’s not just bad design, it’s the design of a complete idiot.
Richard Dawkins (The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution)
(You look the same.) (I’m not using it yet.) (Don’t you think a test run would be a good idea?) She nodded. (Probably.) Her eyelids closed as she concentrated on a mental image of the person she wished to impersonate. Her desire was to appear exactly as the immortal leader, Pallador. Calling on the powers of the dragon’s blood, she willed its enchantment alive. It was Ian’s astounded whisper that told her the charm was working. “Whoa!” Opening her eyes she fully expected to see Ian staring at the shining gems on the dragon’s blood. Instead, he was staring at her with a look that was more or less disgusted. (That’s really you?) he asked, looking her up and down as though she had turned into some sort of lizard creature. (Yes, why? What’s wrong with me?) Her gaze dropped to check for herself. All she observed was her tawny dress pulled in at the waist by Edgar’s hideous, glowing belt. She glanced at one arm and then the other, both sleeved in the same billowed silk. Her fingers flailed, still the same short, slender digits. (Oh crud,) she breathed. (It’s not working.) (Oh, it’s working alright,) Ian disagreed. Eena glanced up to find him grinning with real amusement. (You’re a dead ringer for the guy. Ghost robe, bug eyes, bony fingers, in need of a serious haircut. Exactly like him.) (Really?) (Really.) (Cool,) she breathed and then added, (That’s not very nice how you described him.) (It’s accurate.)
Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Companionship of the Dragon's Soul (The Harrowbethian Saga #6))
Images of people in the Middle East dressing like Westerners, spending like Westerners, that is what the voters watching TV here at home want to see. That is a visible sign that we really are winning the war of ideas—the struggle between consumption and economic growth, and religious tradition and economic stagnation. I thought, why are those children coming onto the streets more and more often? It’s not anything we have done, is it? It’s not any speeches we have made, or countries we have invaded, or new constitutions we have written, or sweets we have handed out to children, or football matches between soldiers and the locals. It’s because they, too, watch TV. They watch TV and see how we live here in the West. They see children their own age driving sports cars. They see teenagers like them, instead of living in monastic frustration until someone arranges their marriages, going out with lots of different girls, or boys. They see them in bed with lots of different girls and boys. They watch them in noisy bars, bottles of lager upended over their mouths, getting happy, enjoying the privilege of getting drunk. They watch them roaring out support or abuse at football matches. They see them getting on and off planes, flying from here to there without restriction and without fear, going on endless holidays, shopping, lying in the sun. Especially, they see them shopping: buying clothes and PlayStations, buying iPods, video phones, laptops, watches, digital cameras, shoes, trainers, baseball caps. Spending money, of which there is always an unlimited supply, in bars and restaurants, hotels and cinemas. These children of the West are always spending. They are always restless, happy and with unlimited access to cash. I realised, with a flash of insight, that this was what was bringing these Middle Eastern children out on the streets. I realised that they just wanted to be like us. Those children don’t want to have to go to the mosque five times a day when they could be hanging out with their friends by a bus shelter, by a phone booth or in a bar. They don’t want their families to tell them who they can and can’t marry. They might very well not want to marry at all and just have a series of partners. I mean, that’s what a lot of people do. It is no secret, after that serial in the Daily Mail, that that is what I do. I don’t necessarily need the commitment. Why should they not have the same choices as me? They want the freedom to fly off for their holidays on easy Jet. I know some will say that what a lot of them want is just one square meal a day or the chance of a drink of clean water, but on the whole the poor aren’t the ones on the street and would not be my target audience. They aren’t going to change anything, otherwise why are they so poor? The ones who come out on the streets are the ones who have TVs. They’ve seen how we live, and they want to spend.
Paul Torday (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen)
right to use Apple Corps for their record and business holdings. Alas, this did not resolve the issue of getting the Beatles onto iTunes. For that to happen, the Beatles and EMI Music, which held the rights to most of their songs, had to negotiate their own differences over how to handle the digital rights. “The Beatles all want to be on iTunes,” Jobs later recalled, “but they and EMI are like an old married couple. They hate each other but can’t get divorced. The fact that my favorite band was the last holdout from iTunes was something I very much hoped I would live to resolve.” As it turned out, he would. Bono Bono, the lead singer of U2, deeply appreciated Apple’s marketing muscle. He was confident that his Dublin-based band was still the best in the world, but in 2004 it was trying, after almost thirty years together, to reinvigorate its image. It had produced an exciting new album with a song that the band’s lead guitarist, The Edge, declared to be “the mother of all rock tunes.” Bono knew he needed to find a way to get it some traction, so he placed a call to Jobs. “I wanted something specific from Apple,” Bono recalled. “We had a song called ‘Vertigo’ that featured an aggressive guitar riff that I knew would be contagious, but only if people were exposed to it many, many times.” He was worried that the era of promoting a song through airplay on the radio was over. So Bono visited Jobs at home in Palo Alto, walked around the garden, and made an unusual pitch. Over the years U2 had spurned
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
Often interfaces are assumed to be synonymous with media itself. But what would it mean to say that “interface” and “media” are two names for the same thing? The answer is found in the remediation or layer model of media, broached already in the introduction, wherein media are essentially nothing but formal containers housing other pieces of media. This is a claim most clearly elaborated on the opening pages of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media. McLuhan liked to articulate this claim in terms of media history: a new medium is invented, and as such its role is as a container for a previous media format. So, film is invented at the tail end of the nineteenth century as a container for photography, music, and various theatrical formats like vaudeville. What is video but a container for film. What is the Web but a container for text, image, video clips, and so on. Like the layers of an onion, one format encircles another, and it is media all the way down. This definition is well-established today, and it is a very short leap from there to the idea of interface, for the interface becomes the point of transition between different mediatic layers within any nested system. The interface is an “agitation” or generative friction between different formats. In computer science, this happens very literally; an “interface” is the name given to the way in which one glob of code can interact with another. Since any given format finds its identity merely in the fact that it is a container for another format, the concept of interface and medium quickly collapse into one and the same thing.
Alexander R. Galloway
Reading a screenful of information is quite a different thing from looking. It is a digital form of exploration in which the eye moves along an endless broken line. The relationship to the interlocutor in communication, like the relationship to knowledge in data-handling, is similar: tactile and exploratory. A computer-generated voice, even a voice over the telephone, is a tactile voice, neutral and functional. It is no longer in fact exactly a voice, any more than looking at a screen is exactly looking. The whole paradigm of the sensory has changed. The tactility here is not the organic sense of touch: it implies merely an epidermal contiguity of eye and image, the collapse of the aesthetic distance involved in looking. We draw ever closer to the surface of the screen; our gaze is, as it were, strewn across the image. We no longer have the spectator's distance from the stage - all theatrical conventions are gone. That we fall so easily into the screen's coma of the imagination is due to the fact that the screen presents a perpetual void that we are invited to fill. Proxemics of images: promiscuity of images: tactile pornography of images. Yet the image is always light years away. It is invariably a tele-image - an image located at a very special kind of distance which can only be described as unbridgeable by the body. The body can cross the distance that separates it from language, from the stage, or from the mirror - this is what keeps it human and allows it to partake in exchange. But the screen is merely virtual - and hence unbridgeable. This is why it partakes only of that abstract - definitively abstract - form known as communication.
Jean Baudrillard (The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena)
At the time that he had seriously begun to consolidate his organization, Parker was working in a custom photo lab. The reader who is not much taken by audiovisual pastimes may have a deficient picture of that place where Parker was employed; or perhaps not so much a deficient picture--the dyes faded, shoddily spotted, brutishly burned in and doltishly dodged by subhuman technicians under the glare of the enlargers--as an image which had been misfiled in the archives of the memory, representing instead one of those bleak Photo Drive-Ups and Presto Printses located nowadays on the corner of almost every large parking lot, in which the clerks wait sadly behind their glass counters, but no one comes in, and the air becomes darker and darker over the course of the morning as a result of exhaust fumes (there goes another brain cell; ping! - THAT thought will never be completed now); and the pink chubby tots smiling at your from the walls in sample enlargements become steadily more grimy, and by the lunch break they are brown; and the day ticks off on the loud digital clock; and then finally a car creeps into the lot, and a popeyed couple locks that vehicle doors listlessly; they request a reprint of a washed-out snapshot of their son who was killed in the Indian Wars, and they go away; and after a long time here comes a slick-haired teenager who once took a few pix of his girlfriend holding a balloon at the zoo in front of the monkey cage on a dirty overcast day, and the clerk can tell just by looking at this customer that they won’t come out, because the guy’s a loser if the clerk knows anything at all about losers and in fact he knows a hell of a lot about losers because why else would he be stuck with this job?
William T. Vollmann (You Bright and Risen Angels (Contemporary American Fiction))
My dear readers, I find myself perplexed by the phantoms that now inhabit our veins and perpetually whisper in our ears. These specters are always watching, their formless eyes casting judgement upon our every thought and action. They stalk us behind screens and within circuits, gathering each tidbit we release into the ether to build their ever-growing profiles of our souls. Through these ghastly portals, our lives have become performance. Each waking moment an opportunity to curate our images and broadcast our cleverness. Nuance has fled in favor of hashtag and like, while meaning has been diced into 280 characters or less. Substance is sacrificed at the altar of shareability, as we optimize each motive and emotion to become more digestible digital content. Authenticity now lives only in offline obscurity, while our online avatars march on endlessly, seeking validation through numbers rather than depth. What secrets remain unshared on these platforms of glass? What mysteries stay concealed behind profiles and pose? Have we traded intimacy for influence, and true understanding for audience engagement? I fear these shadow networks breed narcissism and foster loneliness, masked as connection. That the sum of a life’s joys and sorrows can now be reduced to a reel of carefully selected snippets says little of the richness that once was. So follow the phantoms that stalk you if you will, but do not forget that which still breathes beneath the screens. There you will find humanity, flawed but whole, beautiful in its imperfection and trajectory undefined by likes or loves. The lanterns may flicker and fade, but the darkness that remains has always held truth. Look deeper than the glow, and know that which can never be shared or measured, only felt. In mystery, Your friend, Edgar Allan Poe (Poe talking about social media)
Edgar Allan Poe
On her second screen, there were the number of messages sent by other staffers that day, 1,192, and the number of those messages that she’d read, 239, and the number to which she’d responded, 88. There was the number of recent invitations to Circle company events, 41, and the number she’d responded to, 28. There was the number of overall visitors to the Circle’s sites that day, 3.2 billion, and the number of pageviews, 88.7 billion. There was the number of friends in Mae’s OuterCircle, 762, and outstanding requests by those wanting to be her friend, 27. There were the number of zingers she was following, 10,343, and the number following her, 18,198. There was the number of unread zings, 887. There was the number of zingers suggested to her, 12,862. There was the number of songs in her digital library, 6,877, number of artists represented, 921, and based on her tastes, the number of artists recommended to her: 3,408. There was the number of images in her library, 33,002, and number of images recommended to her, 100,038. There was the temperature inside the building, 70, and the temperature outside, 71. There was the number of staffers on campus that day, 10,981, and number of visitors to campus that day, 248. Mae had news alerts set for 45 names and subjects, and each time any one of them was mentioned by any of the news feeds she favored, she received a notice. That day there were 187. She could see how many people had viewed her profile that day, 210, and how much time on average they spent: 1.3 minutes. If she wanted, of course, she could go deeper, and see precisely what each person had viewed. Her health stats added a few dozen more numbers, each of them giving her a sense of great calm and control. She knew her heart rate and knew it was right. She knew her step count, almost 8,200 that day, and knew that she could get to 10,000 with ease.
Dave Eggers (The Circle)
But the psychological change accompanying these technologies is more subtle, and perhaps more important. Consciously and unconsciously, we have gradually grown accustomed to experiencing the world through disembodied machines and instruments. As I stood in line to board an airplane recently, the young woman in front of me was primping in her mirror—straightening her hair, putting on lipstick, patting her checks with blush—a female ritual that has been repeated for several thousand years. In this case, however, her “mirror” was an iPhone in video mode, pointed at herself, and she was reacting to a digitized image of herself. I take walks in a federally protected wildlife preserve near my home in Massachusetts. A dirt trail winds for a mile around a lake teeming with beavers and fish, wild ducks and geese, aquatic frogs. Bulrushes and cattails wrap the perimeter of the pond, water lilies float here and there, rippling when a fish goes by. In the winter, the air is crisp and sharp, in the summer soft and aromatic. And a thick silence lies across the park, broken only by the honking of geese and the croaking of frogs. It is a place to smell, to see, to feel, to quietly let one’s mind wander where it wants. More and more commonly, I see people here talking on their cell phones as they walk around the trail. Their attention is focused not on the scene in front of them, but on a disembodied voice coming from a small box. And they are disembodied themselves. Where are their minds and bodies? Certainly not present in the park. Nor can they be located in the electromagnetic waves and digital signals flowing through cyberspace. Only their voices can be found at the other end of their conversations, in the offices and boardrooms and homes of the people they are talking to. They are attempting to be several places at once, like quantum waves. But I would argue that they are nowhere.
Alan Lightman (The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew)
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Finding the right mentor is not always easy. But we can locate role models in a more accessible place: the stories of great originals throughout history. Human rights advocate Malala Yousafzai was moved by reading biographies of Meena, an activist for equality in Afghanistan, and of Martin Luther King, Jr. King was inspired by Gandhi as was Nelson Mandela. In some cases, fictional characters can be even better role models. Growing up, many originals find their first heroes in their most beloved novels where protagonists exercise their creativity in pursuit of unique accomplishments. When asked to name their favorite books, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel each chose “Lord of the Rings“, the epic tale of a hobbit’s adventures to destroy a dangerous ring of power. Sheryl Sandberg and Jeff Bezos both pointed to “A Wrinkle in Time“ in which a young girl learns to bend the laws of physics and travels through time. Mark Zuckerberg was partial to “Enders Game“ where it’s up to a group of kids to save the planet from an alien attack. Jack Ma named his favorite childhood book as “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves“, about a woodcutter who takes the initiative to change his own fate. … There are studies showing that when children’s stories emphasize original achievements, the next generation innovates more.… Unlike biographies, in fictional stories characters can perform actions that have never been accomplished before, making the impossible seem possible. The inventors of the modern submarine and helicopters were transfixed by Jules Vern’s visions in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and “The Clippership of the Clouds”. One of the earliest rockets was built by a scientist who drew his motivation from an H.G. Wells novel. Some of the earliest mobile phones, tablets, GPS navigators, portable digital storage desks, and multimedia players were designed by people who watched “Star Trek” characters using similar devices. As we encounter these images of originality in history and fiction, the logic of consequence fades away we no longer worry as much about what will happen if we fail… Instead of causing us to rebel because traditional avenues are closed, the protagonist in our favorite stories may inspire originality by opening our minds to unconventional paths.
Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
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Mark Haddon (Agent Z and the Killer Bananas)
The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens, a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Whenever Hiro is using the machine, this lens emerges and clicks into place, its base flush with the surface of the computer. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. Hiro finds it erotic. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. But there's more to it. Hiro's father, who was stationed in Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East, encased in many protective layers, so that when he took them out to show Hiro, it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon, zippers and straps. And once the lens was finally exposed, pure geometric equation made real, so powerful and vulnerable at once, Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia. . . . It made him feel naked and weak and brave. The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer, which includes most of Hiro. In this way, it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in. Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one, a green one, and a blue one. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain, fry your frontals, lase your lobes. As everyone learned in elementary school, these three colors of light can be combined, with different intensities, to produce any color that Hiro's eye is capable of seeing. In this way, a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer, up through that fisheye lens, in any direction. Through the use of electronic mirrors inside the computer, this beam is made to sweep back and forth across the lenses of Hiro's goggles, in much the same way as the electron beam in a television paints the inner surface of the eponymous Tube. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye, the image can be made three-dimensional. By changing the image seventy-two times a second, it can be made to move. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side, it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive, and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones, the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
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Photo retouching is a method of photo editing which focuses primarily on the restoration and enhancement of photographs whether the photo is digital or printed. The art of photo retouching has the ability to highlight different details within an image or make up for the limitations of a specific kind of camera. As such, the light exposure, contrasts or color tones can be corrected or played with thanks to photograph retouching. It is important to note though that photo retouching is not simply equitable to Photoshop. Although Photoshop is one of the most common way photo retouching is performed, photo retouching can also be performed with different chemical agents and physical changes made to film before they are printed.
Rashel Ahmed
What is “virtual reality”? It’s where people HIDE from real reality. What is the spectacular society? It’s where people watch other people having the spectacular life of which they dream. Why don’t they try to make it happen FOR REAL? There’s no high higher than REAL highs. There’s nothing better than being a real hero, not a fantasy hero. Ironically, all the spectacular people are a crashing disappointment in real life. They don’t have their scriptwriters with them to give then something clever and witty to say. They don’t have their make-up artists with them or the airbrushers or digital image enhancers that make them look so good on screen.
Adam Weishaupt (The Revolt of the Spectacular Society)
The concept of the deep vernacular web can be understood as a heuristic intended to historicize these online antagonistic communities as antecedent to social media and even to the web itself. The deep vernacular web is characterized by anonymous or pseudonymous subcultures that largely see themselves as standing in opposition to the dominant culture of the surface web. Identified to an extent with the anonymous 4chan image board—which hosts one million posts per day, three quarters of which are made by visitors from English-speaking countries—these subcultures tend to imagine themselves as a faceless mass. In direct contrast to the individualized culture of the selfies associated with social media, we might thus characterize the deep vernacular web as a mask culture in which individual identity is effaced by the totemic deployment of memes. Insofar as this mask culture constructs an image of itself as an autochthonous culture whose integrity is under threat, we can perhaps begin to understand how grievances of the deep vernacular web have been capitalized upon by those espousing a far-right ideology. Conversely we can also see how the vernacular innovations of these often bizarre subcultures, such as Pepe the Frog, have themselves been absorbed in the service of far-right populism.
Marc Tuters (Post-Digital Cultures of the Far Right: Online Actions and Offline Consequences in Europe and the US)
It is mind-boggling that despite the millions of branding and marketing dollars spent every year, much is still spent on the messengers’ wants or whimsies rather than the recipients’ core desires. We get an idea in our head for who we want to be or how we want others to perceive our offering, and we spend more time shaping and shining that image than we do ascertaining whether the image really matters to those to whom it must matter. Most individuals and organizations invest more resources in campaigning than in connecting. It should be the other way around.
Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age (Dale Carnegie Books))
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Don’t make it an analytical decision, and don’t worry about why exactly it resonates—just look inside for a feeling of pleasure, curiosity, wonder, or excitement, and let that be your signal for when it’s time to capture a passage, an image, a quote, or a fact.
Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential)
Governments continue to be motivated by the idea that the better they comprehend the world, the better they will be able to control and exploit it. They have been joined by large corporations, which also see the value in quantifying and classifying our world. From high-resolution drone and satellite images, to geographically tagged photos and tweets, mobile phones that constantly ping their location to colossal databases, and the “Internet of things”—the idea that most of the objects around us will soon be capable of communicating their whereabouts and status—one way or another, we continue to wander through the world, size it up, and digitally hammer colored nails into it.
Tim Harford (Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives)
So the first step is to make your site relevant and useful. There are two broad components of SEO: On-page and Off-page optimization. Your on-page footprint includes your: Website structure Hosting Domain URL Website content (text, pictures, video, audio) Then you add crucial usability factors like: Enhanced security Website speed Mobile responsiveness Ease of navigation Structured data layouts Couple that with conversion factors like web funneling and you can have a strong relevant on-page content. These conversion factors include: Call to action features Freshness of content Time on site New online technologies like: Live chat Integration with relevant third-party software Off-page SEO is comprised of linkages, references and signals from other websites to yours. There can be multiple ways in which websites reference you – you can be part of: Leading medical directory sites Forums, blogs Bookmarking and article sites Social media Images or video sites Online newspapers Magazines Local directories And others There are multiple ways you can get links from these sites, and together they form your offsite optimization score. How
Danny Basu (Digital Doctor: Integrated Online Marketing Guide for Medical and Dental Practices)
The Hyderabad Baby Studio recognizes that photography is not just about clicking a camera; it's about preserving the emotions, memories, and unique personality of each child. To achieve this, the studio takes a personalized approach to each session. Parents are encouraged to share their vision and ideas, enabling the photographers to tailor the session to their desires. Whether it's a specific theme, a favorite toy, or a particular milestone, the studio ensures that the essence of the child is reflected in every photograph. The final product is not just a collection of images but a narrative of a child's journey, one that parents can revisit and cherish for years to come. In an era marked by the proliferation of digital photography and smartphone cameras, the Hyderabad Baby Studio brings back the importance of professional photography. While anyone can take a picture, professional photographers possess the expertise and equipment necessary to create images that stand the test of time.
chickharsha
In a recent article, Zuboff exposes this hoax of free services in her powerful voice: We celebrated the new digital services as free, but now we see that the surveillance capitalists behind those services regard us as the free commodity. We thought that we search Google, but now we understand that Google searches us. We assumed that we use social media to connect, but we learned that connection is how social media uses us. …We’ve begun to understand that “privacy” policies are actually surveillance policies.… The Financial Times reported that a Microsoft facial recognition training database of 10 million images plucked from the internet without anyone’s knowledge and supposedly limited to academic research was employed by companies like IBM and state agencies that included the United States and Chinese military.… ….Privacy is not private, because the effectiveness of these and other private or public surveillance and control systems depends upon the pieces of ourselves that we give up—or that are secretly stolen from us.5 The private flow of data from consumer to machine also promotes the transfer of human agency from humans to machines. The data that surveillance companies capture is their source of power and is the fuel for the new economy of trillions of dollars. Zuboff has called this a “bloodless coup from above” and warns of a growing gap between “what we know and what is known about us”.6 By figuring out the cognitive comfort zones for individuals, AI-driven systems can deliver emotional and psychological needs, thus gradually
Rajiv Malhotra (Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds)
Hyderabad's weddings are known for their opulence and grandeur. From the intricately designed bridal attire and jewelry to the sumptuous cuisine and exquisite decor, every detail is meticulously documented by photographers. These images serve as a testament to the city's rich cultural heritage and the values that bind families together. The business of wedding photography in Hyderabad india is thriving. The city's residents place a high value on preserving the memories of their special day, and they are willing to invest in professional photography services to achieve this. Photographers have embraced digital technology and social media to market their services and showcase their work. They have adapted to the changing times, offering diverse packages to meet the evolving needs and preferences of couples. Established photographers continue to innovate and expand their services, offering pre-wedding shoots, destination wedding coverage, thematic photography, and more. Aspiring photographers also enter the field, adding fresh talent and perspectives to the vibrant community of wedding photographers in Hyderabad.
chickrupa
Tips on Web Design and Site Marketing Web content is king, which is why we have devoted an entire chapter to it later in this book. It is what draws visitors and ultimately what converts them to customers. So, try to make your web content as engaging as possible. Make sure the content is interactive, unique and educational. Ensure that visitors have the option of plugins while encouraging them to visit as many pages on your site as possible if they want to obtain vital information. The images you use on your website should be both enticing and descriptive in nature. In today’s world, social media is all pervasive. In order to encourage visitors to share your web content, you can include icons of social media platforms on your website. In some select cases, consider integrating social media feeds, like Facebook or Instagram, onto your website so that they can automatically show the latest postings. A "Call-to-Action" can help convert visitors to your site into customers. Always try using a very clear and concise "Call-to-Action" language. Understand what type of conversion you are looking for, and try to provide multiple levels of conversion. For example, a plastic surgeon may provide Schedule an Appointment as a call to action, which will attract only the segment of web visitors who have reached their decision stage. By adding conversion points for visitors who are at earlier stages of their decision making, like signing up for a webcast or your newsletter can help you widen your conversion points and provide inputs to your email marketing. To raise the average amount of time a visitor spends on your website and to minimize the bounce rate, ensure that your website offers a user-friendly and attractive design. This way you will increase the number of links you have on your website and boost its SEO ranking (Tip: While Google’s algorithm is not public, our iterative testing shows that sites with good usability analytics metrics like time on site and bounce rate play favorably in Google’s algorithm, other things remaining constant). Ensure you observe due diligence when designing a website that will enable visitors to navigate in different languages. For example, you may need a lot more space for your menu, as there are languages that use up more space than the English language.
Danny Basu (Digital Doctor: Integrated Online Marketing Guide for Medical and Dental Practices)
Every photograph has the capacity to be a creative canvas, and with the correct tools, commonplace events may become engrossing visual tales. Here's PicVik, an AI photo editor, collage creator, and background remover tool that blurs the lines between creativity and innovation. PicVik is more than simply an app; it's a doorway to a world where your artistic ambitions and the power of artificial intelligence collide. With PicVik, you can easily remove backgrounds from photos, create complex collages, and enhance the details in your images. PicVik is meant to be your go-to tool for digital art.
PicVik
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A long time passed before I discovered what had happened to her. Months went by as I built up the image of her in my mind. I vividly remembered the days in Serria, the harmless sea seen through the thick glass windows, her discreet but sincere smile, and the blue-eyed pool I thought loved me. No drug could lift my morale as she did. She overlooked my weaknesses. She never mentioned Eleonor, knowing just the name would destabilize me. We entrusted many things to each other. Of course, I sought accurate reports of her stay on Planet Babylon and kept all digital records of her treatment. I read them exhaustively, searching for an explanation, but nothing could explain what followed. From that fateful day, I managed only to gather disconnected fragments of her supposed life on the peripheral planets. Clues that might lead to her. An incomplete puzzle of information. I was sure something must have happened to her DNA. There were so many rumors about the glass-eyed woman that until the day I finally saw her, it seemed impossible to know for sure whether Serena, the one in my memory, ever really existed.
S. Zuppardi (The Black Shila)
Already, when Facebook bought Instagram, it felt as though the walls of the Internet were closing in a little tighter around us users. The broad expanse of possibility, of messiness, on a network like Geocities or the personal expression of Tumblr was shut down. Digital life became increasingly templated, a set of boxes to fill in rather than a canvas to cover in your own image. (You don’t redesign how your Facebook profile looks; you just change your avatar.)
Kyle Chayka (Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture)
I said, what if instead of scanning the image in, as is done in office xerography, I actually just created the data on the computer? If I could modulate the beam to match the digital bits, I could actually print with this thing. I did some test experiments in Rochester, which my immediate management felt was probably the most lunatic project they’d ever seen in their lives. That’s when my section manager said, ‘Stop, or I’m going to take your people away.
Michael A. Hiltzik (Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age)
Absolutely. I’ll take paper over a digital screen any day of the week. You can’t beat the way a book feels in your hands. Or the smell.
Lily Alexander (Image Adjuster (Image, #1))
Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that creates the illusion of real-life conditions. It does this using computer games, movies, and other programs where fluid images are displayed on a video screen or headset. A virtual reality video game or movie can provide fully immersive experiences for users with full interactivity and 360-degree views. Virtual Reality headsets are used to create the illusion of a virtual environment by using a computer known as an HMD (head-mounted display) that connects to a computer and/or gaming console.
Manuel Robins (The Metaverse: Unpacking The Hype: Understand What The Future Is Going To Look Like. Discover How To Invest In Cryptocurrency, NFT & Blockchain Gaming. ... Guide To The New Digital Revolution)
By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye, the image can be made three-dimensional. By changing the image seventy-two times a second, it can be made to move. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side, it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive, and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones, the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic sound track. So Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
Control system overlays must be faster and more reliable than the underlying systems being controlled. The Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem, first introduced in 1928, explains why. A receiver (sensor) must sample at least twice the rate of the sender (the thing being monitored and controlled) to accurately measure and control a system. This theorem forms the basis of all things digital, including telecommunications, medical imaging systems, astronomy, and more. In reality, to control a complex engineered or biological system, the receiver and controller must be much faster to maintain resilience and agility. This has stark implications for top-down management. For instance, if reports are generated and reviewed once a week, they can be used to control (manage) only situations that change no faster or more frequently than every two weeks. Anything faster moving may not be detected or is not controllable. This explains why exemplary organizations are typically characterized by overlays of people in supportive roles that are uncharacteristic of their lower-performing peers. That is not “overhead” but absolutely necessary bandwidth for sustaining high performance of fast-moving, complex, dynamic systems.
Gene Kim (Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification)
playful digitized image of Cookie Monster launched the age of the personal computer.
Michael A. Hiltzik (Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age)
The logic of a Cold War with China is more complex. Not only are China’s digital products intertwined with the environmental and economic development goals of many countries around the world, but Beijing, with its Belt and Road Initiative, is also well placed to promote trade into strategic infrastructure alliances. China has become the top trading partner for more than two-thirds of the world’s nations.1 It has a broad industrial plan to dominate emerging digital technologies in renewable energy, advanced vehicle and mobility network services, and additive manufacturing, and it has shown a willingness to do so by taking undue advantage of the openness to the U.S. education, investment, and export control systems. To build its globalist image, China’s government has declared its intention to reach net zero emissions by 2060.
Amy Myers Jaffe (Energy's Digital Future: Harnessing Innovation for American Resilience and National Security (Center on Global Energy Policy Series))
Everyone’s genitals are made of the same parts, organized in different ways. No two alike. Are you experiencing pain? If so, talk to a medical provider. If not, then your genitals are normal and healthy and beautiful and perfect just as they are. The genitals you see in soft-core porn images may have been digitally altered to appear more “tucked in”; don’t let that fool you into believing that all vulvas look that way. Find a mirror (or use the self-portrait camera on your phone) and actually look at your clitoris. Knowing where the clitoris is is important, but knowing where your clitoris is is power.
Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life)
a note could include a passage from a book or article that you were inspired by; a photo or image from the web with your annotations; or a bullet-point list of your meandering thoughts on a topic, among many other examples.
Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential)
The Role of Technology in Preventing and Solving Burglaries The world of crime and law enforcement has seen significant technological advancements in recent years. One area where technology has played a vital role is in preventing and solving burglaries. In this blog, we will explore the evolving role of technology in addressing burglary and the various ways it is employed by both law enforcement agencies and homeowners to combat this crime. 1. Home Security Systems One of the most visible and effective uses of technology in burglary prevention is home security systems. These systems often include surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and alarm systems. The ability to monitor and control these systems remotely through smartphone apps has given homeowners a valuable tool in protecting their property. 2. Smart Locks and Access Control Modern technology has given rise to smart locks and access control systems. Homeowners can now control and monitor access to their properties through smartphone apps. This technology allows for greater security and easier management of who enters your home, making it harder for burglars to gain unauthorized access. 3. Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Policing Law enforcement agencies are using artificial intelligence and data analysis to predict and prevent burglaries. By analyzing historical crime data, AI can identify patterns and hotspots, enabling police to allocate resources more effectively. Predictive policing can lead to faster response times and a more proactive approach to preventing burglaries. 4. Video Surveillance and Facial Recognition High-definition video surveillance and facial recognition technology have become powerful tools for both homeowners and law enforcement. Surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities can help identify and track potential suspects. This technology can aid in capturing clear images of burglars, making it easier to apprehend them. 5. Social Media and Digital Footprints Social media has become a valuable source of information for law enforcement. Burglars often inadvertently leave digital footprints, such as posts, photos, or location data, that can link them to crime scenes. Detectives can use these digital clues to build cases and identify suspects. 6. DNA Analysis and Forensics Advancements in DNA analysis and forensics have revolutionized the way burglary cases are investigated. DNA evidence can link suspects to crime scenes and help secure convictions. This technology has not only led to the solving of cold cases but also to the prevention of future crimes through the fear of leaving DNA evidence behind. 7. Community Apps and Reporting Many communities now use smartphone apps to report suspicious activities and communicate with neighbors. These apps have become effective in preventing burglaries through community engagement. They facilitate quick reporting of unusual incidents and can be a deterrent to potential burglars. Conclusion Technology has significantly improved the prevention and solving of burglaries. Homeowners now have access to advanced security systems, while law enforcement agencies use data analysis, surveillance, and forensics to track and apprehend suspects. The synergy between technology and law enforcement has made it increasingly challenging for burglars to operate undetected. As technology continues to advance, the fight against burglaries will only become more effective, ultimately making our communities safer.
Jamesadams
We’ve seen the emergence of a gift economy in digital products such as software, text, images, and video; the natural course of events would see this pattern extend to APM product-design files, leading (aside from the cost of input materials) to a gift economy in physical objects (but within what mandated constraints?).
K. Eric Drexler (Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization)
The maximum image quality is 1,952 x 1,536 pixels. This camera has a maximum bit rate of 50 Mbps which is one of the most important factors in digital cameras. In addition, the maximum storage capacity of this camera is 128GB, and that's something which is almost enough for one photo per second.
Alexis Rodriguez (Canon EOS Rebel T7/2000D User Guide: The Complete Beginners and Pro User Manual to Master the New Canon EOS Rebel T7/2000D Best Hidden Features including Tips & Tricks for DSLR Photography)
but the entirety of human existence. Artificial intelligence is, after all, a mirroring and mimicry machine: we feed in the cumulative words, ideas, and images that our species has managed to amass (and digitize) over its history and these programs mirror back to us something that feels uncannily lifelike. A golem world. “I’d rather see an ad for cute shoes that I am going to like than see ads for a bunch of ugly stuff I don’t want,” one student said in an early class. In our discussions, we came to call this the “cute shoes problem” because it encapsulates one of the main reasons why surveillance capitalism and the AI revolution were able to sneak up on us with so little debate. Many of us do appreciate a certain level of automated customization, especially algorithms that suggest music, books, and people who might interest us. And at first, the stakes seemed low: Is it really a big deal if we see ads and suggestions based on our interests and tastes? Or if chatbots help clear our email backlogs? Yet now we find ourselves neck-deep in a system where, as with my own real-life doppelganger, the stakes are distinctly higher. Personal data, extracted without full knowledge or understanding, is sold to third parties and can influence everything from what loans we are eligible for to what job postings we see—to whether our jobs are replaced by deep learning bots that have gotten shockingly good at impersonating us. And those helpful recommendations and eerie impersonations come from the same
Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
In September 2016, the influential blogger and commentator Andrew Sullivan wrote a 7,000-word essay for New York magazine titled “I Used to Be a Human Being.” Its subtitle was alarming: “An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too.
Cal Newport (Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World)
After the shoplifting incident, the Shinola store gave a copy of its surveillance video to the Detroit police. Five months later, a digital image examiner for the Michigan State Police looked at the grainy, poorly lit surveillance video on her computer and took a screen shot.2 She uploaded it to the facial recognition software the police used: a $5.5 million program supplied by DataWorks Plus, a South Carolina firm founded in 2000 that began selling facial recognition software developed by outside vendors in 2005. The system accepted the photo; scanned the image for shapes, indicating eyes, nose, and mouth; and set markers at the edges of each shape. Then, it measured the distance between the markers and stored that information. Next, it checked the measurements against the State Network of Agency Photos (SNAP) database, which includes mug shots, sex offender registry photographs, driver’s license photos, and state ID photos. To give an idea of the scale, in 2017, this database had 8 million criminal photos and 32 million DMV photos. Almost every Michigan adult was represented in the database.
Meredith Broussard (More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech)
In the fast-paced digital world, consistency is one of the most important factors for successful marketing. Regular and reliable communication with your audience can help build familiarity, trust, and engagement—all essential elements for long-term success. One way to maintain consistency is through social media. By posting regularly and sticking to a clear brand voice and style, you make it easier for your audience to recognize and connect with your brand. This familiarity leads to trust, making followers more likely to engage with your content and even consider your products or services. Email marketing is another area where consistency can pay off. Regular newsletters, updates, and special offers keep your audience informed and connected to your brand. By offering valuable insights or exclusive deals, you’ll encourage them to look forward to hearing from you. Blogging also benefits from consistency. Regularly publishing valuable content helps establish your brand as a go-to resource in your field, and it can improve your SEO, making it easier for new customers to find you. Consistency in digital marketing builds a reliable brand image and keeps you top of mind with your audience. Over time, this dedication can lead to stronger engagement, improved brand loyalty, and a solid reputation in your industry.
Annju
From Love In The Time of Apps: Goodwin had little doubt that in the end he would lose his action for divorce. Where could he get a fair-minded jury? His public image was so tarnished at this point that he even received a letter from the Misogynist Society. For the first time in its history, the letter advised, the Society took the side of a woman. “Our vote,” the letter closed with, “was unanimous.” On the same day Goodwin received the letter, he saw his photograph on the cover of People Magazine’s new line extension, Unpopular People Magazine. Below his photo was a banner proclaiming, “The Most Unpopular Man In America.” Goodwin believed the tag to be accurate.
Jay Begler
I remember the people I’ve heard complain about the very texture of digital images, filmless film: how it lacks richness, depth. I’ve heard the same thing said about CDs. Someone once told me that it was Mark Twain who turned in the first typewritten manuscript, and this was generally thought to be a Bad Thing: Work composed on a machine would naturally lack richness, depth.
William Gibson (Distrust That Particular Flavor)
I glance at the sky, but there are no clouds. There are never clouds. I know what clouds look like only because of the digital images in our lessons at school. I know someone who has been north, to the mountains, and swears she saw clouds. Perhaps she’s telling the truth, but I doubt it.
Denise Getson (Dry Souls (Dry Souls, #1))
The Nikon D5100 is clearly an advanced digital SLR, and offers the potential to capture professional quality images in most any situation you wish to use it. 
Douglas Klostermann (Nikon D5100 Experience - The Still Photographer's Guide to Operation and Image Creation with the Nikon D5100)