What if I told you that The Matrix was first released 20 years ago? That can’t be real, you think. I still remember seeing it in the cinema! Morpheus would just look at you and say “What is real? How do you define ‘real’?” In this reality, The Matrix was Read more…
[Spoiler Alert] “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation”, Alisdair Gray. These words are an integral part of Walkaway, the novel by Cory Doctorow, where he has decided to do something very rare, instead of showing us a dystopia, he paints a utopia, Read more…
Last Sunday night Citizenfour, the Laura Poitras documentary about Edward Snowden, won the Oscar for best documentary. This is a great development for those of us who believe that the Snowden revelations constitute one of the most important events of our time, and hopefully it will prompt a wider examination Read more…
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard is a newly released documentary which follows Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm, three of the founders of the Pirate Bay, through the trial, conviction and appeals process that made them famous. I sat down to watch the documentary expecting a Read more…
I am currently reading REAMDE, Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, and although I am still going through the initial pages (I am savouring it as I do most of Stephenson’s work), and it already has me thinking about new trends in literature. Cyberpunk is a well-defined post-modern sub-genre within science fiction, Read more…
Before starting to criticise Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget”, I have to state clearly that this is an important book that should be read by anyone interested in debating the role the Internet plays in modern society. However one may want to criticise its content, and there are Read more…
Technophobia, Luddism and techno-scepticism are topics close to my heart. I have heard about Jaron Nanier’s You Are Not a Gadget, but I have not read it yet. That is why I want to point people towards this excellent review by the Technology Liberation Front (one of my new favourites). Read more…
Before being attacked by the Lynne Trusses of the world, the title of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End is not missing an apostrophe. The book is named after a retirement community which was chosen by either “an everyday illiterate or someone who really understood the place.” Vinge is part of a Read more…
Rock on: How I Tried to Stop Caring About Music and Learn to Love Corporate Rock by Dan Kennedy. I had high expectations for this book because it describes the experiences of a middle-management marketing type employed by Atlantic Records during the time internet downloading became prevalent and started affecting Read more…