“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” So said The Investor’s Business Daily as part of an anti health care tirade on July … Continue reading
Between 1993 an 1997 I was a university lecturer teaching media studies. I recently found a lecture I wrote in 1994, introducing the Internet to students taking a module entitled “Communication and Information Technology”. It’s quite precient… Here’s an extract: In the Industrial Age, media production has been the reserve … Continue reading
Made-up statistics suggest that 43% of all Internet communication is the simple recitation and repetition of catchphrases, script snippets and sketches from popular TV programmes. I’m not taking about random usage either – there are specific scenes, phrases, words and even syntactical structures that attain totemic significance. See my previous … Continue reading
I finally bought a Blu-Ray player. I say “finally” as I’ve spent several months trying not to buy one… As an inveterate early adopter and fully diagnosed, unmedicated geek, I tried to build one. Problem is, I’m the wrong kind of geek. To clarify – there are technical geeks and … Continue reading