Category Archives: Opinion

Bruce Sterling is The Zombies of cyberpunk. If 80s cyberpunk authors were British Invasion bands then William Gibson and Neal Stephenson would be The Beatles and The Rolling Stones — big sellers with broadly acknowledged reputations as innovators and geniuses. … Continue reading →

So, out of the blue, I spent a few hours collaborating last Friday with a major open source thought leader to design a logo (above) for one of his projects. Here’s the story… Early last week, Sun senior Web guru, … Continue reading →

With rumors flying around about the replacement of Justin Long, the actor playing The Mac in Apple’s current I’m A Mac ad campaign, there’s been some debate as to the campaign’s effectiveness.Actually, “debate” is probably too mild a descriptor. ‘Vitriolic … Continue reading →

How many instances of something does it take to make a trend? This week, I bought my third record in recent history that includes, in its liner notes, something of a guide to its production. And I’m not just talking … Continue reading →

Recently, I started reading The World is Flat by acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman’s thesis is that a new phase of globalization has begun, driven by advances in communication technology and the fall of Communism (“Globalization 3.0” … Continue reading →

So, in addition to posting my previous entry on “the Long Tail of Linux developers” to this blog, I also emailed a version of it to Chris Anderson himself. Much to my surprise and delight, he responded within a day … Continue reading →

Along with many others, I’ve been following the development of a set of ideas about the rising importance of niche markets in a world with ever-decreasing costs of production, storage, and communication called The Long Tail by Wired Magazine editor … Continue reading →

Recently, I’ve been off on one of my all-too-frequent blogging vacations. There are many causes for them: busy periods in my various projects, a lack of motivation to write, large scale posts that become overly ambitious and that I therefore … Continue reading →

One of my closest college friends Lindsay is moving away to go to a pre-med program in DC at the end of the month. Lindsay lives with Amy and Chris and so, as a kind of reverse going away present, … Continue reading →

I recently finished reading Everything Bad is Good for You. The book, which has lately been everywhere in the press that covers such things, argues for the existence of a “sleeper curve” of increasing complexity and sophistication in the popular … Continue reading →