internet

Plumbing the series of tubes

Screenshot of AOL on Geoworks

Did the internet somehow break while I was away? Did something change in the past 30 or so years since the internet went mainstream? Because there are a couple of weird undercurrents happening right now, in earnest, with great urgency, that seem to suggest that maybe something changed about the internet that really needs fixing. First, for some reason, laws requiring age identification are sweeping not just around the US, but globally. Why now? Well, at least in the US, the Supreme Court changed its mind and said it’s okay now. Sure, fine, whatever, they’ve been doing...

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No more printed Oxford English Dictionary?

Sad news for bibliophiles: The Oxford English Dictionary as we know it may never be printed (in full) again. Nigel Portwood, the CEO of the Oxford University Press, told the Sunday Times (behind a pay-wall, damn you Murdoch), via the Telegraph: “The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.” The current printed dictionary, the second edition, which was released in...

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