Davos Newbies

Its Web manifestation is lousy, but there’s rarely a week when I’m not very pleased that I’m a subscriber to The New Yorker. But the current issue is, for someone of my interests, an absolute blockbuster.

Lots of political bloggers have commented on Sy Hersh’s gloomy view on the transition from a ground war to an air war for US forces in Iraq. An obvious must read. And the kind of academic blogs that I follow are rightly complimentary about Louis Menand’s review of Philip Tetlock’s Expert Political Judgment. Tetlock’s research seems to confirm what I’ve always believed: foxes are better forecasters than hedgehogs. What I hadn’t heard about until the issue arrived at home yesterday was an account of the Harrisburg “intelligent design” trial, which I lapped up.

And more personally, no one had mentioned the profile of type designer Matthew Carter. Carter is the designer of, among many, many other fonts, Vincent, which we use as the text face in my new publication. I think it’s a wonderful face.

Dave Winer: “We need to determine what authority means in the age of Internet scholarship. And we need to take a step back and ask if we really want the participants in history to write and rewrite the history. Isn’t there a place in this century for historians, non-participants who observe and report on the events?”

A few years ago, observers looked at the Internet and wondered how we could deal with the quantity of information we now had easily available. The more interesting question is now evident: how do we determine quality?