The internet seems to be full of interesting/fascinating content - but finding it... Harder, much much harder than I would have thought* - take my current knowledge, constantly changing mood, always shifting preferences, cataloged and uncatalogued past reading/watching/listening and growing and shrinking list of interests (and nearly infinite list other details) and (unsurprisingly?) I have not found even a hint of a solution*** for spectacular content recommendations. I think that is why finding Cabinet Magazine was such good luck - the main thing I want to say about the magazine was already written in 2007 Luna Parkin a review of Cabinet No. 26, "MAGIC":
"For anyone interested in, well, interesting things, Cabinet magazine is one not to miss"
and by The Times Literary Supplement in 2010:
"The simple process of being told things you didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t know you didn’t know, is a sustained pleasure as you shuffle through Cabinet"
Those quotes nicely sum up my reaction! In two issues (47 and 48) here are some things that I have read about: hollow-form jewelry, Greek views on ingestion/anatomy, simulating an economy thru fluids, weather manipulation, the time on analog watches/clocks in advertisements, reefer fleets, US Mail sorting, paper information cataloging, banana ripening rooms, Amazon warehouse arrangements, WWI observation trees, the Tree of Tenere, the history of forestry, Synanon and the sounds of sea shells. Wow! What is the value of this reading - not sure, but I guarantee it is interesting and unique which is pretty much priceless... (Oh, and as a side note, I find many of these articles are best read with an internet connected device in reach to look up references and vocabulary that I am not familiar with...)
Rating: 5 of 5 (The value of something interesting and unique is nearly incalculable!) First Read Date: January 2013
CM
If you asked me 20 years ago about people living in orbit or on the moon* I would have made some impressively stupid guesses about when that might happen - and with that for perspective on my extremely poor guesses about future it will come as no surprise how badly wrong I would have been 10 years ago about the time frame for someone to produce a computer program capable of producing consistently awesome content recommendations or act as a true personal information assistant. (And I strongly suspect that at this point these two things are not - at least in how I envision them - even part of the 'not very evenly distributed' already here future at this point).
**I don't remember being quite as optimistic about robots/androids or flying cars, probably because I wasn't as interested.
***I would love to be quickly and mercilessly proven wrong about this by someone reading this pointing me to something I have not seen! Please! I would update this in a heartbeat if by-my-standards truly awesome content recommendations are a click away (BTW - I would gladly pay for this).