Fighting Fire with Fire: Reclaiming our Minds Through Design

Note: I'm also experimenting with writing on Medium, so you can find this post there as well! For years now we have been hearing about the need for people to unplug, toput down their phones, to return to a more reflective rather than reactive mode of existence. Much ink has been spilled describing the social … Continue reading Fighting Fire with Fire: Reclaiming our Minds Through Design

Phenomenology of the Virtual and the Real

A long over-due crosspost from gnovis! Way back in 2011 I embarked on a project exploring the colloquial distinction between “the Internet” and “the real” — as in, “Linda, why don’t you join us in the real world instead of texting your friends?” I interviewed friends, parents, and acquaintances hoping to identify the differences between … Continue reading Phenomenology of the Virtual and the Real

Don’t hate the dual-screen

We've all done it - the knee-jerk judgement passed on the person starting intensely at their phone at dinner, at a movie, among friends. And certainly, it is true that a substantial amount of our mobile activity is inessential at best, a waste of life's precious minutes at worst. But too often these screens are … Continue reading Don’t hate the dual-screen

Otto’s Notebook vs the Memex: Comparing the smartphone and the PC as two paradigms of cognitive enhancement

A bit of old news: I had a paper published in gnovis, CCT's peer-reviewed journal! Huber, L. (2015). Otto’s Notebook vs the Memex: Comparing the smartphone and the PC as two paradigms of cognitive enhancement. Abstract: The history of computing has been characterized by an effort to replicate and augment human intelligence. Today’s personal computers … Continue reading Otto’s Notebook vs the Memex: Comparing the smartphone and the PC as two paradigms of cognitive enhancement

Mythologies of the Future Pt. 1: the “end of work”

The hypothetical future end of work is a dream that has been around since the earliest days of human civilization-- yet the information revolution (paired with an ongoing period of economic recession) has been cause for a renewed and newly believable consideration of the idea that some day-- we may simply run out of jobs. … Continue reading Mythologies of the Future Pt. 1: the “end of work”

“MRW”: Remix Culture and the Reaction Gif

This post originally appeared on the gnovis website. The remix is a subject of growing concern and intellectual debate in the past few decades. It has gone from a relatively circumscribed musical practice to an essential element of our entire creative culture, with notable examples including everything from Grumpy Cat to Warhol’s screen prints. As … Continue reading “MRW”: Remix Culture and the Reaction Gif

Beacons: New, but Not yet Disruptive

“iBeacon” is a new technology currently in the throes of the same questionable phase of adoption and experimentation as products like Google Glass, Nest, and many other technologies in the IoT/context-aware/augmented reality department. The iBeacon is interesting because it has a relatively low barrier to entry, it is a simple enhancement on existing location services … Continue reading Beacons: New, but Not yet Disruptive

Drinking from the firehose: extended cognition & shitty interfaces

We suck at creating effective interfaces for exploring and utilizing the Internet. In particular, I want to complain about the browser.  I spend a huge portion of my waking life and cognitive energies working in a single Chrome browser window. This browser is the interface to my work environment, my school environment, and large parts of my … Continue reading Drinking from the firehose: extended cognition & shitty interfaces

Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (#TPRC42)

This weekend I attended the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference in Arlington, Virginia. I am not a policy expert nor a computer scientist- but it was very interesting to see some of "hot spots" of debate and interest in this field. I was most interested to glean a sense of areas of technological developments that are … Continue reading Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (#TPRC42)

The Prayer Nut and the Mobile Phone

I recently visited the Rijksmuseum during a trip to Amsterdam, and had the pleasure to experience the "Art is Therapy" exhibition, a kind of "meta" exhibition wherein the curators created large, printed post-it notes with commentary on works of art meant to show how the works could change the viewer, could incite positive change and a … Continue reading The Prayer Nut and the Mobile Phone