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WITHOUT END. “The multitude appears as stronger than previous collectives as it is afforded carte blanche to keep the ‘conversation’ going: there is literally no ending.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE RULE OF THE MOB. “The memory of the multitude softens history, changing the parameters of the who, when, what and why of remembering. With digital searching, accessing, participating, there is little unseen, untouched or uncommented upon by the multitude. This has diminished the former gatekeepers of memory, as David Lowenthal observes: “No longer what elites and experts tell us what it was, the past becomes what Everyman chooses to accept as true.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

INFINITE NAKEDNESS. “The former self, its lives and lovers, all become entangled in digital databases that without conscience betray the wild exigencies of youth, not in unguarded gossip, but in perpetuity. As Jaron Lanier suggests: “A ‘Facebook generation’ young person who suddenly becomes humiliated online has no way out for there is only one hive.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE TRAP. “Hyperconnectivity, then, for all its infinite extensionality, is actually strangely reductive. Our shadow archives grow by the second, with social media exerting a ‘residual abundance’: a digital and digitized gravitational pull that seems counter-intuitive to the pronouncements of the acceleration of life lived online.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE UGLY CITY. “Today, the Twitter fuel of instantaneity destroys the relative privacy of intimate sociality that once enabled the opportunity for second thoughts. Adam Gopnik, for example, argues this is not “newly unleashed anger but what we all think in the first order, and have always in the past socially restrained if only thanks to the look on the listener’s face -- the monstrous music that runs through our minds is now played out loud.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

The toe-nibbler pretending to be serene. View in LinkedIn

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK. “Respiratory disease meant I was deprived of a grandfather. His only presence in my life was through one of his rib bones; it was cut out of his chest during an operation, cleaned up and kept by his widow as a memento. Years later, my grandmother would use it to open her morning post and then leave it to rest on the living room table. My grandfather never held me to his chest, but I’ve held part of his chest to me.” Simply, wow. https://lnkd.in/dbTpr_S View in LinkedIn

CANDIDATE STRANGE STARS. “Now, based on this feature of these strange worlds, scientists in China say they may have detected four good candidates for strange planets. These exoplanets revolve around pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars that appear to flash like lighthouse beacons from our perspective here on Earth — in orbits of about 348,000 miles (560,000 km) or less.” https://lnkd.in/dhCeUnA View in LinkedIn

EXTREME PROXIMITY. “The extraordinary density of strange planets means they can survive even if they come within 14.7 miles (23.7 km) of a strange quark star they are orbiting, virtually grazing its surface. In contrast, a normal planet's orbit can take it only as close as about 348,000 miles (560,000 km) before getting ripped apart by the dead star's gravitational pull.” https://lnkd.in/dhCeUnA View in LinkedIn

EXTREME DENSITIES. “Normal planets have densities that are no more than 1,870 lbs. per cubic foot (30 grams per cubic centimeter). In contrast, strange planets would typically have densities of nearly 25 million billion lbs. per cubic foot (400 trillion grams per cubic centimeter). (For comparison, gold has a density of about 1,200 lbs. per cubic foot, or nearly 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter.).” https://lnkd.in/dhCeUnA View in LinkedIn