Ooh! Back in early February this year I frantically wrote the abstract for my AoIR paper. I wanted to call the phenomenon I was writing about distributed narrative, so I googled the term and found that nobody had used it. I mean […]

It does feel frustrating to know that the outcome of the US election will affect the world yet we (obviously) don’t get to vote. The Guardian seeks to remedy this by offering ways non-Americans can affect the election. Non-Americans aren’t allowed to […]

I don’t understand. Americans have to register to vote before they are allowed to vote. OK, that I get, after all, organising 275 million citizens is no doubt harder than keeping track of the 4 or 5 million Norwegians. The deadline’s today […]

This sounds like a book I’ll enjoy reading: The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs, by Viviane Serfaty, who teaches American studies at the University of Strasbourg. Hunting around I find that in 2002 she gave […]

I’m writing responses to various students and their projects. I should have been writing another essay, too, but haven’t yet. There are still a few more hours of workday today. Yesterday Maestro curled up to sleep in the nook of my knees […]

I’ve learnt about the demoscene from students: it’s a subculture of coders and artists who create computer graphics sequences that deliberately challenge the processing power of the computer, pushing to see what can be done, always demanding that the animation be generated […]

More than half the population mistrusts mainstream media, according to two recent Australian surveys that confirm previous US and Australian studies. The public believes that journalists and media are often biased, that they don’t check their facts well, that they invade peoples’ […]

I’m going to spend my day writing, writing an essay, and thinking that perhaps a good way to write well is to start a day by reading good writing, I’ve started on The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the […]

Have a look at portraits from an exhibition in London: online gamers and their avatars.

Andy Warhol said everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame. Now, a quarter of a century later, everyone gets to be famous to fifteen people. And that can be far more useful and satisfying. I first saw the line in David Weinberger’s Small […]