1. Negate every assertion McLuhan makes, so "The electric light is pure information" becomes "The electric light is not pure information," and "...technological media are staples or natural resources, exactly as are coal and cotton and oil" becomes "technological media are not staples or natural resources; they are nothing like coal and cotton and ( Read more... )

I am fed up with being constrained by the limits of my understanding, on a non-technical level, of the fields in which I work. Being able to write and code has ceased to be sufficient--how can I create anything new if I do not really understand what it is I am creating? What role it will play, what purpose it serves? So the next step in my ( Read more... )

Had the option of going to trivia/karaoke night or Tom Curtin's gig tonight. Contemplated each, then went to Barnes and Noble and splurged $40 on books instead ( Read more... )

Yesterday I did a volunteer shift at my church's ridiculous ridiculous annual used book sale (paperbacks for $1.50, hardcovers for $2!). I am in the midst of a minor theological struggle about it right now, since Jesus pushed over tables when he saw people selling stuff on consecrated ground, and the very same building where the pastor preached to ( Read more... )

O, have I maidens in the sitting room ( Read more... )

Once in a blue moon 4chan creates something that justifies its horrible, disgusting existence.

Like this thread from /tg, for example. Guess what sci-fi species they're talking about.

( hint: it's not wookiees )

An unintentional secret: I'm a big fan of interactive fiction. Always have been, since the days pure text adventure started to fade and point-and-click adventures weren't quite point-and-click. The genre has never truly died; it's merely gotten more niche and more literary. It's been thirty years but you still see phrases like "You see a maze of ( Read more... )

I guess I should write about my day, huh.

(Even though it's over, and a new one has already begun. Stupid off-kilter unemployed sleep cycle.)

The Brooklyn Book Festival was pretty neat! I guess I was expecting something like a trade show or a convention, what with Brooklyn having a huge and storied literary scene, but it turns out it was both ( Read more... )

I have been reading Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost at the library. At over 1,300 pages, printed in 12 pt font on pages that could wrap a dictionary, tackling this book has been no small endeavor. I have spent about five afternoons in the library reading it and I've just barely finished the first 250 pages. I guess when you get a sixty-eight-year- ( Read more... )

Sun: 62. Kevin: 0.

Yesterday I got a graphic novel in the mail! Solanin, a one-shot manga by Inio Asano. It is about a group of friends in their twenties, fresh out of school, unemployed and penniless in Tokyo in the middle of an unprecedentedly terrible recession. They strike a difficult balance between their dreams and the demands and ( Read more... )