Think of the great variety of work that allowed Jobs to spend even one day as CEO: his food harvested from fields, then transported across great distances. His company’s goods assembled, packaged, shipped. Apple advertisements scripted, cast, filmed. Lawsuits processed. Office wastebaskets emptied and ink cartridges filled. Job creation goes both ways. Yet with the vast majority of workers effectively invisible to elites busy in their lovable occupations, how can it be surprising that the heavy strains faced by today’s workers (abysmal wages, massive child care costs, et cetera) barely register as political issues even among the liberal faction of the ruling class?

The effect is to enforce a historical blindness that’s entirely too common when we’re thinking about tech. If what we’re seeing now is totally new, there are no historical analogies to apply, no worker protections or regulations from the past that we might want to preserve — it’s all new, after all! And, therefore, all good.

Explaining what we mean by ‘popular’ and ‘music’ when we talk about ‘popular music.’

A great rundown of the charges leveled against Swartz, what they mean, and a thorough examination of the assumptions and preconceptions surrounding this story.

We can't all be great writers, but we can be better writers. This advice is for everyone. And I put particular importance on number 3.

This is silly. Taking this pop star's very carefully constructed image and hype seriously isn't very useful, no matter how many times you use the word 'deconstruction' and 'phallus'.