Although the book still remains (unread) in my Amazon Wishlist, Nicholas Carr‘s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains has been thoughtfully scrutinized by assistant professor Zeynep Tufekci. Here’s one of the memorable paragraphs from the review in which Tufekci discusses (or rather contests) contemporary online pop-culture (or ‘memetics’) as the evidence [...]

There’s currently an interesting discussion going on on Ian Bogost’s blog about academic clichés like “I’d like to argue..”: “Mumblespeak makes potentially interesting works unreadable, contributing to their esotericism. Good editing does not involve cutting material, but cutting chaff. I’d wager that the average scholarly book’s length could be reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 without [...]

With weeks of social isolation, and an increasing amount of repetitive strain injuries, last week was finally the time to hand in the New Media master thesis! After having the essential meetings and discussions with UvA professor R. Rogers (honestly, planning is still not my strongest point), I finally got some grip on the main [...]

Since the release of the popular music streaming service Spotify in The Netherlands this week, my Twitter-stream exploded with messages from enthusiasts who were waiting for months for Spotify to expand its streaming empire. So now the application’s here, along with a massive database of music, and localized advertising for – for example – (in)famous bourgeoise singers, [...]