Total Eclipse

Forty years ago today, the lunar module Eagle landed on the moon, fueling the imagination of of an entire species for decades to come. Two men stepped outside the lunar module and roamed about the magnificent desolation that is the Sea of Tranquility. After two hours and thirteen minutes, they returned to the Eagle, the [...]

For a while now, we’ve been hearing about the crisis of journalism. As David Simon (HBO’s THE WIRE) once put it – Journalists today are expected to do more with less. As Simon has also wisely noted, this crisis in journalism began before the internet, but today, the most pertinent challenge to journalism lies on [...]

In a recent blog post, Warren Ellis posits that humanity should start Bending Mars to its will. Cheap/fast terraforming means taking the planet and fucking it up the ass until it feels like home to us.

If you don’t already read We Make Money Not Art , they’ve recently posted some interesting impressions from 23C3 (which sadly I couldn’t attend). Of particular scholarly interest I think are the notes from Joi Ito’s presentation on World of Warcraft and MMORPGs.
I can’t help but feel drawn back to McLuhan (from The Gutenberg Galaxy: [...]

From a socio-historical point of view, the 20th century ended somewhere around 1989-92 with the fall of the Berlin Walls and the disintegration of the communist bloc, and the 21st century begins with September 11th, 2001. The 90’s belong in a different period altogether, where the contextual question on everyone’s lips was “Fukuyama or Huntington?”
As [...]

For the past day or so I’ve been scouring the net for information on the current grim meathook state of affairs. I’ve been reading both Israeli and Lebanese independant blogs and webzines. I find it fascinating. Some Lebanese blogs have been getting comments in the hundreds. Surpringly, for the most part, discourse has been heated, [...]

Our Obligation to Future Generations, by Wilfred Beckerman
(c) Wilfred Beckerman, I hope he doesn’t mind me reposting it here. I found it fascinating.
The growing concern during the last three decades with the impact of economic growth on the environment has led to a widespread belief that we are failing to respect the constraints on our [...]

Tags: grim+meathook+future, future, gmf, israeli-arab conflict, middle east, war
I’m writing this post instead of studying for my exam tomorrow. Which is as good an excuse as any.
Today in Advanced Social Psychology, we had a guest lecturer; Sociologist Mr. Ahmed Chijazi from Neve Shalom who gave a talk about Interaction of Identity in the Jewish-Arab Conflict. [...]

Yes, I know I’m not supposed to post anymore, but fuck it. This really gets to me.
I’ve been so busy with The Bright Spimeworld Future vs. The Grim Meathook Future, I almost let myself forget the future I really aspire too. The one we were promised, damnit. The Airstream Futuropolis. With flying cars, and space [...]

Tags: pax-americana, terrorism, the-long-war, 1984, war-on-terror
The Pentagon has revealed plans for a complete overhaul of US military and strategic thinking from the accute and ineffective War on Terror to a more chronic approach eerily titled The Long War.
The report identifies four priority areas
· Defeating terrorist networks
· Defending the homeland in depth
· Shaping the choices of [...]