The Augmentation of the World
I am in Tokyo, on the balcony of my 30th floor hotel room, looking down on the bustling city after dark. I am trapped beneath the black night sky, surrounded by glass skyscrapers, bright neon lights and the endless city. Two hundred and twenty miles above are astronauts aboard the International Space Station, whose night-time...
iReal: Does Real Life Still Matter?
With each passing year we are spending more and more of our lives online. Living online does not mean living in a ‘virtual reality’ or ‘virtual world.’ It means that while we’re still living in the real world, we experience it organized for us by electronic networks like Facebook, which are displayed on digital screens....
Just Doing It with Hyperactive Man
The scene is Tahrir Square during the heart of the Arab Spring: A BBC reporter pulls a celebrating young man aside and asks “What’s next for Egypt? What comes after Mubarak’s government falls?” The man, with a wild gleam in his eye, turns to the reporter and giddily responds that he doesn’t know. The revolution...
Legacy of the Counterculture
Be Careful What You Wish For In 1969, at the peak of the hippie counterculture, Joni Mitchell wrote “Woodstock”, a song whose lyrics epitomize my parent’s generation: “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves, back to the garden”. As the first decade of the new millennium has drawn to a...
Coming Soon: Digital Scarcity?
The Los Angeles Times recently ran an article titled “CD and mobile music sales fall in 2010, but vinyl continues its resurgence”. This article, based on the Recording Industry of America’s 2010 Year-End Shipment Statistics, revealed that vinyl LP sales surged 26% while digital music sales – albeit still positive – were fairly unimpressive. Over the...
Repent for your Humanity!