I first properly immersed myself in the internet and its myriad delights and horrors in 2000. I’d dabbled a bit for a few years before then, but 2000 was the first year I had a proper internet-ready PC at home and could spend time on the great adventure of, ahem, “surfing the net”. Read the rest of this entry »
Jonathan Franzen is telling us what he thinks is wrong with the modern world. Rebecca Solnit sees the changes to our world post-internet as profound and troubling. These are two recent examples of the personal essay as a wail against life today, particularly life with technology, the internet, etc. Both these articles, at least to some extent, look back to supposedly halcyon days and see technology etc as the destroyers of an idyllic past.
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Sometimes the internet seems to be filled with nothing but guilty pleasures. While many of us would struggle to live without it, spending time on the internet can feel like time wasted. There is a nagging doubt that the internet cannot ever match up to the finest books, or works of art, or even films. Each moment browsing is a moment that could, potentially, be better spent elsewhere, admittedly with less cute photos of cats. Read the rest of this entry »
Hi folks. No time for a proper, real blog post today. Apologies etc. I’m a busy man. Or at least I like to give the impression that I am. However, I thought I’d keep you all entertained with a little placeholder. Please enjoy this lil’ cartoon from Sticky Comics, after the jump (for those of you on the front page, anyways…): Read the rest of this entry »
What is it about that old saying that everyone has a book in them? Why do we all believe it? Is it reassuring just to know that at any time we could depart from our mundane lives in order to write the Great (Insert Country of Origin Here) Novel? Is it almost enough to just know we could do it, without having to actually go through with the messy business? Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year 