Wall street, McKenzie Wark recently wrote, is not a place but an abstraction. It’s a host of ideas and projections. It’s what Roland Barthes would have called a mythology, or Foucault may have called an episteme. It is an idea … Continue reading
Stewart Brand once said that “information wants to be free.” Most people leave the quotation just there, celebrating the fact that in a world made more natural, the stuff of knowledge, tax returns, and secrets would move unrestricted. But Brand’s … Continue reading
This week the world did not end, but it did change. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkl announced the failure of multiculturalism (“multikulti”) as a social/cultural policy. The implications are that a German language and culturally centered nationalism is essential for … Continue reading
or, the perpetual need for binding and boundaries in discourse “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi The book has not, and will not, die. … Continue reading
Dear employers of the world, Stop cheaping out on the young ambitious people of the world by offering only “unpaid internships.” It’s class warfare anyway you cut it, and unless you are quite literally a mom and pop establishment, I … Continue reading
we are tired of division: media, culture, society, law, meaning, humanity, and so on. these are interconnected terms, defined by one another. they must be re-united. explication has been held prisoner by written language for too long. as if we … Continue reading
It has become completely impossible to ignore the massive social, economic, and cultural implications of video games. It is an industry that has outsold cinema and publishing for years. Its myths and characters have escaped consoles and computers for popular … Continue reading
here is a story about stories; with a question about whether stories are still stories and whether we are beginning to live in a post-story age. the already cool mit media lab has founded a “center for future storytelling.” the … Continue reading
is really hard. like these letters have got to be below 5 point font. then there’s this keyboard, rubberized but tiny. like text message small. still, blogging on this cute little machine is fun. because of the high i always … Continue reading
i finally got the internet here in berkeley working. until then, i felt like a child trapped under a sheet of ice, unable to breath, unable to get back in the world where i survive, let alone thrive. but here … Continue reading