How Popular Culture is Making us Smarter

"Everything Bad Is Good For You" is the title of Steven Johnson's book about contemporary popular culture. His theory of the "sleeper curve" depicts the high and steady growing cognitive demands of video games, tv-programs, movies, and - surprise surprise: the internet. It is entertaining written but more important: Its a more systematic attempt to understand popular culture than the sensational title suggests.

Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good for You. How Popular Culture is Making us Smarter. Penguin Books 2005

Very useful:

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Bibsonomy

hazardous waste

Once the hazardous waste of the future, but still much more beautiful than today's:
Computer History Museum

Use phoneboxes, lined paper and card files.
WB.

Punchcard Art

Watch this:

Do Not Fold, Bend, Spindle or Mutilate: Computer Punch Card Art - Virtual Exhibition

The punch cards in this exhibit were manufactured 35 years ago but were never used. The staff of the Visual Arts Center mailed the cards, or in this case canvases, to a wide selection of artists and cultural figures. Participants were instructed to create artworks using the cards and to return their artistic creations to the VAC. They were free to write, paint, draw, cut, print, and/or do whatever they wished with the punch card in direct contradiction to the traditional dire warning: "Do not fold, bend, spindle or mutilate."