Category: Writing

Nag Nag Nag: Cabaret Voltaire vs Akufen’s (karaoke slam mix)

It’s been a while, a long while, since I’ve posted anything music related, so I offer up a contrast of sorts. Here’s Cabaret Volataire‘s brilliant Nag Nag Nag from their 1980 Live at the YMCA album. Simple distorted guitars, bristling synthesizer electronics, this was early – but still danceable – industrial music no doubt inspired by the Cold War […]

Book Review: Ready Player One

It’s 2044, the world’s a dystopian mess and people escape to, learn, live and work in a virtual world called OASIS (the followup to William Gibson’s cyberspace and Neal Stephenson’s metaverse). At the start of the book, videogame designer James Halliday, the ultimate 1980s geek, leaves his vast fortune to the person who can find […]

Why I Write (Or How I Started Writing)

“Two hundred years of American technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of unlimited potential. But it was the minds of 11 year old that could see that potential.” – C.R. Stecyk My first stories were skateboarding stories inspired by C. R. Stecyk‘s Skateboarder Magazine articles, his fabrication and chronicling of the Dogtown’s Z-boys’ […]

Why I Keep A Journal

I’ve been keeping a journal for more than 25 years. I should say “mostly keeping a journal” because there have been periods of time where I haven’t written in a journal regularly – though probably, I was writing just not in a journal. At the pace of one page per day, that’d come to 9,132 pages […]

Book Review: The Dog Stars

I’m not a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction though I’ve read more than a lifetime’s worth and I get why it is popular: We live in a world of uncertainty and great post-apocalyptic stories give us the hope that we can survive the worse of times. Peter Heller’s brilliant The Dog Stars gives us the story of loss, survival, and […]

Head-Mounted Display DNA Synthesis

How will virtual reality change our view into DNA synthesis? With a head-mounted display interface to mixed reality, you will not only hold DNA in your hand, you will watch the way your modifications are translated into proteins. As amino acids are added to your protein, separate algorithms will tell you whether your product folds correctly […]

NSA Art Project

With the National Security Agency’s new open source face recognition API, take a selfie, upload it to their database and begin searching for your twin(s). Armed with a series of matches, create photographs and profiles based on available online data and post to your heart’s content. Bonus points for using genomic information to find your twin(s). […]

Reading Buddies

In kindergarten, first and second grade, my reading buddies were fourth and fifth graders. I started reading to younger kids when I was in fourth, fifth. But starting in sixth grade, the assignments were made by OSIS and based on reading level and  need. I read to kids all over the City. Young kids from […]