Kester Brewin

Interesting piece in The Independent about the battle over the right to remain anonymous online – especially as waged in World of Warcraft recently. That’s not a world I have ever ventured into, but many many have, and, as Rhodri Marsden sets out: Female players were particularly concerned, very aware that revealing their gender could invite [...]

I’ve said it many times here before, but if you haven’t already tuned in to Radio 4′s ‘In Our Time‘ archive on your iTunes, then you’re seriously missing out. Listening to it I’m always reminded of the great quote in Good Will Hunting where Will quips to a Harvard student: you wasted $150,000 on an [...]

An excellent article in the New York Times the other day – ‘Hooked on Gadgets and Paying a Mental Price‘ – which explores the mental and relational cost of screen-addiction, plotting the story of one family who are all, in their own way, too hooked on gadgets: Mr. Campbell continues to struggle with the effects [...]

The iPad goes on sale in the UK tomorrow, and there will doubtless be countless smug faces like the one above, leaving Apple stores with new devices that will enhance their lives and make everything go so smoothly and swimmingly. So spare a thought for the exhausted workers who make these devices for us in [...]

An interesting story today about a scientist who implanted a microchip in his hand, which he then deliberately infected with a computer virus. He uses the chip to open doors and activate his mobile phone (weirdly, as his biological hand might seem the best tool to do that) but has now shown that his infected [...]

In a documentary to be shown shortly, Stephen Hawking has suggested that: a) alien life almost certainly exists in other parts of the universe, and b) it will probably not be friendly. If such life is found, or finds us, I think it will have a profound effect on our idea of ‘the other.’ In [...]

[ Lock In [1] ]  [ Lock In [2] ] Finally got my hands on Lanier’s book. Been devouring it like a good doughnut. In the last post I explained how Sartre sets up this paradox: we are what we are, but precisely part of our being is that we are not simply what we are. Having [...]

[ Lock In [1] ] In the previous post I raised the idea of technological developments giving rise to ‘lock in.’ Gadgets do not evolve in the organic sense ‘free’ that we might imagine: because of protocols and standardisation (think USB / railway gauges / HTML / Lego) their evolution is guided along particular lines. [...]

One of my favourite podcasts is Material World – a science review from the BBC. In a recent episode, Jaron Lanier discussed his recently published manifesto: You Are Not A Gadget. I’ve ordered it, but not read it yet, but was very much taken by one line of thought he introduced in the interview – [...]

Occasionally two things from the news catch your ear and resonate together. Today it was the news that Obama has cancelled Nasa’s new moon programme. And [ht Barry Taylor] that Gil Scott-Heron is back with a new album. The connection? I’ve always loved Scott-Heron’s early, hard-hitting social commentaries. And the lyrics of ‘Whitey on the [...]