The 23rd, 5th meme

Via Frank Boosman:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the test of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

So...

The approach to new media just discussed does not foreground any particular cultural period as the source of algorithms that are eventually encoded in computer software.

That's from "New Media from Borges to HTML" by Lev Manovich in "The New Media Reader". I assure you that it would be more likely that I would have something fluffy like "Abandon in Place" near to me, as I usually scan blogs from bed in the morning, but it just happens that I'm at my desk so my bedside table is farther from me than a pile of new media theory texts.

"The New Media Reader" is the best collection of essays to put our web in context which I've run across, including works from Borges, Bush, Sutherland, Kay, Calvino, Baudrillard, and more than I'd like to list. I recommend it for those darks nights of the toolmaker's soul, when your languages have turned on you and your systems have scorned your influence.