Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: Opinion

  • Attention Attention Attention

    Remember when it was Location, location, location? With the Attention Economy we are the ones getting mined (that’s a polite word for it), especially now, with social media up on the inauguration dias. I’m sure the tech bros and the president figure they can outwit each other, but us users are going to pay either way.

    Chris Hayes, legacy media (MSNBC) newscaster, has a new book out about attention. It’s on my list. Here is an interview at another legacy media outlet, the NYTimes.

    I am now basing my grades and interactions in my classes on what I call Attention Units; 20 minutes, a previously normal maximum for “attention span” measured for university lectures. This dates back about a decade when I was teaching with Howard Rheingold’s book in my Digital Media course at University of Tokyo.  Net Smart covers 5 parts of online digital life, the first being Attention. Then I jumped over most of that section, but gradually have come to realize it was the most important. Thus I have upgraded that into my learning and teaching.

  • Good news for readers

    Some books I gave away last year

    Independent bookstores will soon be able to sell over a million electronic books (e-books). I have over 350 books on Amazon (and over 100 on Audible) and am definitely ready to make the move. NYTimes.

  • Gulf of Google

    Google will change the names of Gulf of Mexico and Denali to fall in line behind Trump, reports CNBC. Tim Snyder, author of On Tyranny posts that most progress made by autocrats and wannabe dictators is through accession previous to any pressure. Lesson #1 (of 20): Do Not Obey in Advance.

    Time for me to move away from Google, increase my gulf. What happened to “Don’t do Evil”?

  • Pragmatics. And Jokes.

    The Reverse is a masterful manipulation of expectations that defies normal Pragmatics. This type of joke, more than most, defies built expectations.

    The best at this is Anthony Jeselnick. Profiled.

  • Eraserhead

    I remember the velvet, slick with age, and the ashtrays at the end of the arms on the creaky seats in an also run theater in the barrio Chino of Barcelona. I remember being high as hell on a new batch of hashish from the kid brother of a friend. I remember being both scared and fascinated at the same time. We decided not to stick around for the second feature, we wanted to go out to a bar to talk about Eraserhead. That was my introduction to David Lynch.