Posted on

Reheated Laughter: The Sitcom’s Long Retreat from Risk

Norman Lear did something in 1971 that no network executive would permit today: he put a bigot in a living room chair and dared America to recognize itself. “All in the Family” premiered to confusion, outrage, and then unprecedented ratings, because Lear understood that comedy’s sharpest instrument is discomfort. Archie Bunker worked because he was allowed to be wrong in specific, recognizable, unredacted ways. The audience had to do the moral labor of sorting the joke from the injury. That transaction between screen and viewer, that demand that the audience participate in meaning rather than consume a pre-digested emotional product, defined what the American sitcom could be at its most ambitious. Fifty-five years later, the form has abandoned that ambition with an enthusiasm that borders on institutional policy.

Continue reading → Reheated Laughter: The Sitcom’s Long Retreat from Risk

Posted on

When Does AI Fakery Become AI Reality?

We are living in the precise historical moment when the question “Is this real?” has become unanswerable in real time, and the fact that nobody seems particularly alarmed by this should alarm us all. The case study arrived this month with the force of a wartime broadcast, which is exactly what it was: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose physical whereabouts and physical condition have been the subject of intense speculation since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, appeared in a video address on March 12. Social media users immediately claimed he had six fingers on his right hand. The rumor spread to millions of viewers within hours. Fact-checkers at Snopes, PolitiFact, and Newsweek scrambled to verify that the extra digit was, in fact, the hypothenar eminence, the fleshy pad at the base of the little finger, rendered ambiguous by video compression. Netanyahu’s office declared, flatly, that the Prime Minister was “fine.”

Continue reading → When Does AI Fakery Become AI Reality?

Posted on

Setting Up GZIP for Google Site Performance

The Google always has its eye on you whether you like it or not, but sometimes, you can turn around that Panopticonic gaze to do you some good as in the case of the recent “Site Performance” release as a new part of the Google Webmaster Tools suite.  Sometimes just adding fans to propel your websites faster into the internet ether just isn’t enough to make a difference with a distinction.

Continue reading → Setting Up GZIP for Google Site Performance

Posted on

Pair Networks QS-1 Server Upgrade Review

When you life your life on the web, the most important part of that devil’s bargain is finding the precisely right web hosting service that can meet your needs while sustaining and exceeding the robustness you hope bring to lighting up dark niches of the world.  For the past 18 months — our longest stint with any web hosting provider — we have been with Pair Networks on their entry level QuickServe QS-1 dedicated server and we are happy to announce we will be extending our contract with them for another year after upgrading our server to the new standard you see below.

Continue reading → Pair Networks QS-1 Server Upgrade Review

Posted on

Your Privacy is Leaking

Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, MySpace and Twitter all hope to create a feeling of loyal warmth and human companionship — but is something more nefarious lurking just out of sight beneath the surface intimacy?

Continue reading → Your Privacy is Leaking