Kevin Kelly, provocateur

Kevin Kelly is a writer and senior brain at Wired magazine. I first came across him by reading his essay "Scan this book!" in one of Jeff Shafer's issues of New York Times Magazine that was sitting on the dining room table in 329 last spring. I was inspired to go back and look up this article after realizing that it had significantly implanted itself in a central part of my brain--I think I've referred to it in about 25 conversations since the time I read it.

In "Scan this book!", Kelly explores the meaning and ramifications of Google's ongoing project to digitize all books. Here is my html version of the article, which is really a travesty considering the (characteristically) beautiful layout and accompanying photography from the magazine version. It's probably worth searching out a physical copy at your local library. (It will be found in the May 2006 issue).

He's got other technology-related essays on his personal website and some shorter stuff on his blog.

Here is one such short piece that I will recommend: "The Rise and Fall of the Copy"

As they have done for me, his writings may very well force you to edge topics you may have formerly relegated to the category "irrelevant sci-fi inquiries" into your everyday perspective on the world.