This just in - Warren Ellis, comics supremo, science fiction author, and roving gonzo journalist of the metaverse, is about to start writing a weekly column for the Suicide Girls website. Which is another reason for me to curse the fact that they don’t take debit cards or PayPal …

… er, the first reason being, ah, research. Yes, research … into, um, subcultures and social networking. Yes, that was it. Ahem. Carry on.

When people arguing the other side retreat into irony, desperate and irrelevant worst-case scenarios or a combination of the two, you’ve got to be on the right track. Here’s Scott Edelman in his column at SciFi Weekly, talking about the print/digital reading debate:

But—how can you predict the future of publishing and have nothing to say about the aftereffects of a possible nuclear war?

{snip}

Whether you think such an event might occur this decade, this century or this millennium, you should ask the next question, which is—how will we be able to read electronic stories once there’s no electricity? We won’t be able to read e-books on our computers by candlelight. A disaster of that magnitude might take us back to the basics of paper and ink. In fact, we may arrive at a time when it will be as if anything that had existed only in electronic form—such as this editorial—never existed at all.

OK, I’m pretty positive he’s doing a slightly ironic overstatement thing here. But even that is a bit lame, really - is that all a columninst and editor-in-chief of a major online magazine can come up with as the end for a piece of the rise of digital media? Bit of a red herring argument, really - it’s almost as if he wants to completely avoid having a serious opinion on the issue, which is a weird stance for an editorial column to take. 

“Synthetic worlds are big business. And not just for their creators – there are a growing number of people and businesses making a living in the real world by working in simulated ones. Continue reading “The Potential Of Synthetic Worlds”

A good Monday to you all. I’ve been a busy person. You’ll be so proud of me! Continue reading “Grasping the future - open thread”

The people at Locus magazine gave Cory Doctorow a regular column. No surprise, then, to find that he’s used the first one to throw a firecracker into the punchbowl. Continue reading “Technology Giveth, Technology Taketh Away”