My Fuzzy Life
I sometimes have almost no idea what the heck is going on.
Read moreTag Archives: Internet
Black Friday Memo: Unthankful
Most of my friends are a thousand miles away.
Read moreChanging science fiction, changing the world: Scholars & Rogues honors William Gibson
I have been known to say that William Gibson is arguably the most important author of the past 30 years. That’s a mouthful of an assertion, especially since we’re talking about a genre writer, I know. But even if I’m wrong, I’m not off by much. The man who more or less invented Cyberpunk, then abandoned it as quickly as he
Read more5280 Lens Mafia launches: if you appreciate photography, give it a look
Scholars & Rogues would like to introduce everyone to our new sister site, 5280 Lens Mafia, a photo blog that officially launches today.
Read moreQwest/CenturyTel merger: do you, Triceratops, take this Brontosaurus to be your lawfully wedded wife?
It was announced yesterday that Louisiana-based CenturyTel is buying Qwest, marking the second major takeover in ten years for the Denver telco. I have some history with the US West iteration of the company, having worked there from 1997 until the ill-fated Qwest “merger” in Summer 2000. I was fortunate enough to be a part of USW’s PR group, which
Read moreOf tigers and dogs and the howling jackals of the press: what the Woods trainwreck can teach us about public relations
In case you missed it, Eldrick Tont Woods, the world’s greatest golfer, has been up against some pressing PR issues of late. Pretty much nobody is arguing that he’s handled it well. Begin with the official record. While it’s not yet 100% clear what touched off the fateful events of November 27, 2009, everybody is denying that Elin was trying
Read morePredicting the 21st Century: Nostraslammy’s ten-year review
Ten years ago, at the turn of the millennium, Nostraslammy took a stab at predicting the 21st Century, with a promise to check back every ten years to see how the prognostications were turning out. Odds are good I won’t be able to do a review every ten years until 2100, but I figure I’m probably good through 2030, at
Read moreWhy isn’t Rush happy?: Limbaugh inadvertently illustrates democracy in action
America’s democratic ideal doesn’t work perfectly. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all, and in these cases it feeds our cynicism to the point where we’re tempted to conclude that the very possibility of true freedom is a sham. I know whereof I speak, because there are few people out there more soaked in bile than I am. Still, this whole
Read moreBusiness and social media: American companies growing up, sort of
Ever since the Internet began gaining popular awareness in the mid-1990s, the topic of how businesses can productively use various new media technologies has been a subject of ongoing interest. Along the way we’ve had a series of innovations to consider: first it was the Net, and the current tool of the moment is Twitter. In between we had, in
Read moreFear is the organization killer
Once upon a time the business world was dominated by hierarchical organizations that derived both their structures and mechanistic management philosophies from military thinking that traces its lineage through Frederic the Great all the way back, literally, to the Roman legions. And by “once upon a time,” of course, I mean “at this very minute.” The truth is that way
Read moreTunesDay: Go West, young man
You may not have heard of Adam Marsland. You may not have heard of his former band, Cockeyed Ghost. But as we’ve tried to demonstrate, time and time again, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Radio is a wasteland, the RIAA is waging a toxic war on the artist, and the explosion of media and Internet channels has so fractured and
Read moreLet the economy die?! Rushkoff’s goals are noble but his plan needs work
A couple of weeks ago author and NYU media theory lecturer Douglas Rushkoff penned a provocative essay for Arthur Magazine. Entitled “Let It Die,” the essay explains why we should stop trying to save the economy. In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our
Read moreTunesDay: The best CDs of 2008, pt. 1 – the Gold LPs
Most years are pretty good for music if you know where to look, and 2008 was no exception. It’s a shame that you have to search so hard, of course – once upon a time all you needed to keep track of what was good in the world of music was a radio. These days it requires a little effort,
Read moreEducating the 21st Century cyberstudent…or not?
Don Tapscott has some radical new ideas about education. Here’s a sampling (as related by ReadWriteWeb): “…the age of learning through the memorization of facts and figures is coming to an end. Instead, students should be taught to think creatively and better understand the knowledge that’s available online.” “…Google, Wikipedia, and other online libraries means that rote memorization is no
Read moreLIFE and the long view: ideologies of science and technology since the Enlightenment
Part two in a series. As I suggested in Part One, the messianic/utopian view of science and technology attributed to LIFE Magazine is consistent with an ideological bent that traces its lineage to the dawn of the Enlightenment in Europe. Francis Bacon’s highly influential New Atlantis, first published in 1626, recounts the narrator’s fictional shipwreck on the shores of Bensalem,
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lullaby pit 