Blogging History: Precedents for "Internet makes us dumb"; 3D movies are dumb gimmicks

One year

Internet dumbing-down hysteria compared against previous waves of anti-tech backlash: Salon has a refreshing take on the effect of the net on wider culture, courtesy of Dennis Baron, author of the new book A Better Pencil. Baron places hysteria about the net's supposed dumbing-down in context with other panics of years gone by.

Five years

3D movies are doomed to gimmickhood: "Why economics condemns 3D to be no more than a blockbuster gimmick," discusses the difficulty of making truly 3D movies (that is, movies that lose something crucial in 2D) in a world where movies need to find a home on 2D small-screens in order to recoup.