Algorithm and attention

There are dates that mark a before and after in history: October 12, 1492, with Columbus's mistaken course; July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille; February 13, 1919, when Charles Strite patented the automatic toaster. Then there's September 9, 1956. That evening, the world didn't see governments fall: it simply saw bourgeois decorum crumble...