Skip to content

Daily Bafflements

• Over at The Nation, Moira Wegel imagines the effects of digital humanism, or those “digital tools [that] promise to give dusty humanities courses a fresh sheen of Silicon Valley sex appeal for the undergraduates who might not otherwise take them.” Also known as pie charts.

• This week in The Mansions of Secret Billionaires, and in Real Estate Agents Acting like Enraged, Honor-bound Butlers: “Stephen Lindsay, one of the real-estate agents who sold the house, spoke to me only after I agreed to leave my phone and bag in another room. He then put the family’s lawyer on speakerphone and announced that he would take the secret of Witanhurst’s ownership ‘to the grave.’”

• In Baffler no 21, Josh MacPhee asked:  “Who’s the Shop Steward on Your Kickstarter?” Well, the news in today is that “If Kickstarter is a store, then Indiegogo is that guy in the alley selling watches sewn into the lining of an open trench coat.”

• And, after years of newspapers peering out from paywalls only to dive back behind them, have we finally reached “Peak Free”?