Montgomery McFate’s article “Anthropology and counterinsurgency” re-triggered quite some debate within anthropology. See e.g. Dustin Wax’s entry at Savage Minds and the appending discussion [references below]. Now McFate has re-surfaced and last monday spoke at the Women in International Security …Continue reading →
The picture at the above left I found via my pal Vít Šisler’s ↑Videogames and politics (↵Šisler 2005). It reminded me of a drawing Hypher—a core-member of ‘my tribe’—did in August 2004, which I have put at the top …Continue reading →
Speaking about writing, let’s listen to Stephen King: This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when …Continue reading →
Picasso once said that the only thing he regrets is to never have done a graphic novel (vulgar term: comic; high-culture french term: les bandes dessinées). Today, I guess, he’d strive to do a computergame. I thought about this yesterday, …Continue reading →
Like movies or novels, computer games are media. In accordance to the intentions of its authors, designers, and developers, a computer game mediates experiences to the players. The malleability and potential of the medium allows the mediation of a vast …Continue reading →
On 26 February 2013 TV2 of Denmark needed a backdrop for a report on the current conflict in Syria. As it seems someone at the station searched the web for a suitable picture and hit upon a beautiful vista of …Continue reading →
Excerpt from Neal Stephenson’s “Diamond Age” (1995), Dinosaur’s tale: Next I found myself in the care of the mammals, who were almost all shrews. They led me up into the foothills, to the mouth of a great cave. “Your …Continue reading →
by Alexander Knorr [downloadable material is marked with a ↓ and printed in bold typeface] books 2011. ↑Cyberanthropology. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer. 2009. Maxmod: An ethnography of cyberculture. [‘Habilitationsschrift,’ unpublished] 2004. ↓Metatrickster: Burton, Taxil, Gurdjieff, Backhouse, Crowley, Castaneda [.pdf | 7.3 …Continue reading →
When I entered the last chapter of ↑Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal 2008) my account read 178 diamonds. The sneaky bastard I am, I felt so comfortable once I had the combination of silenced P9, Dragunov, dart rifle, and the …Continue reading →