Ever since I began paying attention to issues related to the digital age, I have been scratching my head as to why, of all people, it is political progressives who revere Big Tech, even while appropriately mistrusting just about all other powerful, corporate interests.  Why the most powerful of powerful gets a free pass is something of a mystery, but ...

I remember telling a corporate client years ago that over time websites would begin to be treated as niche TV channels. Video communications would complement or replace written word content, and static websites would give way first to the opportunity and later to a demand to program new material on a regular basis.  Of course, I was trying to sell ...

Whether you’re a democrat or a republican, I would hope that you can look at the US invasion of Iraq with analytical detachment, and  as such, I believe it is both fair and relevant to identify President Bush as having a crusader’s mentality.  For better or worse, I happen to think he legitimately believed that the relatively simple job of toppling Saddam Hussein would lead to ...

When the 1991 Gulf War put CNN on the map, that was the beginning of the end.  Ted Turner’s experiment in 24 hour news had found a spectacle — a popular and relatively safe war — that defined the model for how a network can fill a round-the-clock broadcast, even without news to report, and certainly without depth or context.  ...

Compressorhead, the all-robot band that plays hits by AC/DC, Motorhead, and The Ramones, represents another step toward a technological future in which machines continue to perform tasks as well as (or better than?) humans.  Many a techno-utopian  envisions a world in which human labor, including creative and performing arts no longer represents economic or social value.  Naturally, the prospect of ...

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