Any Comments
I’m writing an article for the Irish Times to coincide with the Irish Blog Awards and I’d appreciate comments from anybody interested.
The line I’m thinking of taking is Irish blogging has had a great year, expanded in numbers, diversity and talent but has it all come a bit late? In the USA the blogging scene […]
Are Memories Made of This Any Longer?
Part of the fascination of reading blogs is asking what are they replacing? And as instant, regular and throw away thoughts become more prevelant and interact with formal creative dramas like 24, Lost, Desperate Housewives, and reality driven narratives like Survivor, questions go begging. For almost ever drama and art have been about memory […]
Post-Moore’s Law - Is There a “New Technology Futures”?
When George Orwell sat down to write his account of a dystopian future, 1984, he had in mind the combination of cynical, polarising politics of post-war Europe and the growing art of information technology. George Orwell managed to make the eavesdropping, surveillance-heavy future enabled by technology full of social, psychological and philosophical menace. In fact […]
Second Life Could be a Second Chance
I mean to get things right. It’s amazing to report that most people I talk with about Second Life are thin on detail. What is it good for? Oh, simulation, you know. So I wanted to ask a few questions of different scenarios on the off-chance that SL fans would have the answers. Earlier in […]
Ten Steps to the Future
In the old days imagining the future was a regular routine for a few gurus called futurists such as Alvin Toffler who took in upon themselves to predict how our lives and society would unfold. The tools are there now for us to do it ourselves, or rather the tools are there to allow […]
Denial By Another Name
Opinion is not divided over Iran’s attempts to question the Holocaust. In fact there has been no collective hand wringing over how we provide this particular conflict with propaganda ammunition by not engaging with the accusation that the West suppresses free speech. All done and dusted you might say. We’ve had that debate and concluded […]
Is That the Mainstream or The Margin?
The famous American philosopher Thomas Kuhn once compared scientific explanations to a building surrounded by scaffolding to support all the people doing running repairs on the basic structure. News is a bit the same. Yes, Iraq is important but we kinda get the point. People are dying in unnacceptable numbers, it is a disaster and […]
Does Clooney Matter?
News that George is headed off to China to discuss Darfur issues there with political leaders is one of those lump-swallow moments. Another celebrity, another world issue. To the tune of, If I were a Soldier, A Soldier: If I were a Clooney, a Clooney, A Clooney Was I… I’d probably keep out of […]
Stalkin’ Dawkin
Richard Dawkins author of The Selfish Gene and now The God Delusion has been voted Britain’s top intellectual as well as pubishing his new anti-religion book (see above), and getting the dubious honour of TV over-exposure. It’s happening at a time when a fundamental belief in God is regaining old ground. No coincidence then […]
Clint Eastwood - Old Timer Takes Aim
Clint Eastwood’s two new films look at either side of America’s conflict with Japan, and specifically at the Battle of Iwo Jima, the point where America established itself on Japanese territory in early 1945. It turns out that iconic moment, captured in a photo and then cast in bronze, of a half dozen American soldiers […]
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