Toronto Launch for Flow Spin Grow
Please come to the Toronto launch of Flow Spin Grow: Looking for Patterns in Nature. Event details: Date: Saturday, October 13 Time: 2–4 p.m. Location: Queen Books, 914 Queen St. E. I hope to see you there!
Information about Patchen Barss’s consulting services and experience
Please come to the Toronto launch of Flow Spin Grow: Looking for Patterns in Nature. Event details: Date: Saturday, October 13 Time: 2–4 p.m. Location: Queen Books, 914 Queen St. E. I hope to see you there!
You don’t have to be the most celebrated media theorist of the 20th century to pepper your conversation with phrases such as “global village” and “the medium is the message.” In the ’60s and ’70s, though, Marshall McLuhan’s prescient aphorisms and his prediction of the internet helped propel him from anonymous University of Toronto literature […]
In this profile from the American Society of Journalists and Authors for their monthly magazine, I reveal the writing I’ve done that I regret the most. I found it a very fun ASJA Q and A
In the early 1990s, when much of the world still viewed the Internet as a passing fad for anarchist geekazoids, pornographers were already raking in millions selling online content.
Sorry to disappoint, but watching the pornography industry is not the same as watching pornography. And let’s be clear: It’s the action in the industry that matters to your organization – not that other kind of action. Matter it does. Smart media and tech entrepreneurs keep track of what’s happening in the world of “adult […]
In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was messing about in a darkened lab, studying cathode rays using a device called a Crookes tube. As he worked, a screen on the far side of the laboratory began to glow mysteriously. Even more mysterious, when he held his hand in front of the tube, a shadow of […]
When Napster and Kazaa appear in the news, it’s usually a story about digital piracy, or challenges to the traditional ideas of copyright. But the online exchange of music files is part of a change in public attitude that is both subtler and more profound. It’s the move away from mass production, toward mass customization. […]
Unfortunately, this is the lede of this article. The “lede” (journalism jargon for the opening sentence or paragraph of a newspaper article) usually serves several purposes: It describes the main issue (e.g., Is there such a thing as postmodern literature?), it introduces a person who is important to the story (such as Michael Berube, an […]
Natural selection does not plan ahead. It’s a common misconception that the evolution of species happens with some sort of foresight and will. That at some point, for instance, man’s ancestors somehow collectively decided, “OK, folks, if we’re going to dominate the world, we’re going to need to enlarge our brains, walk upright and develop […]
Historically, the dead have exploited cutting-edge communications technology to send messages to the world of the living. Their content, however, has often arrived somewhat muddled and cryptic (not, admittedly, unlike electronic correspondence originating from living sources). Thirty years ago, a spirit, whispering in Latvian through radio static, said: “Bring a halibut.” A hundred years ago, […]