Archive for 'Culture'

I’ll admit, it’s kind of weird when you realize one day that you’re living in the future.  Admittedly, it’s not exactly the future that some sci-fi auteurs envisioned (witness poor Stanley Kubrick and 2001–no Pan Am flights into space quite yet;  hell, there isn’t even a Pan Am anymore), but the technology is making things change at a pretty good clip.  Nowhere is this more true than in the world of media.  Think about what was strange and exotic only a ...

I’m seriously starting to believe that, like bacon, there’s nothing that beer can’t do.  From a recent snippet in National Review:

Minnesota governor Mark Dayton (D)…demanded a $37 billion budget, funded by a more “progressive” income tax on individuals making more than $1 million.  When Republicans refused, Dayton forced a 20-day government shutdown, the longest in state history.  Two weeks into it, however, he caved, jettisoning his calls for tax hikes…  It’s not hard to see why compromise was reached:  When ...

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You know how you can tell that you’re getting comfortably settled into middle age? When you get excited about visiting the new supermarket in town. They just opened up a Fresh Market where I live, and I swear–walking in there was like going to some version of heaven where they stocked an endless supply of Kona coffee, irresistable baked goods an steaks so tasty that a vegetarian would fall off the wagon faster than Superman after a stiff ...

Well, the Japanese are at it again. Leave it those industrious fellows to take virtuality to the next logical extent:

Since the marriage rate among Japan’s shrinking population is falling and with many of the country’s remaining lovebirds heading for Hawaii or Australia’s Gold Coast, [the resort town] Atami had to do something. It is trying to attract single men—and their handheld devices.

In the first month of the city’s promotional campaign launched July 10, more than 1,500 male fans ...

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Ever hear of Jaron Lanier? If you’re not a geek who lives on the cutting edge, you probably haven’t, but he’s been putting out some interesting ideas about the blurring of boundaries between technology and religion (a theme touched upon in my own book HAMMERJACK–in between chases and stuff getting blown up, of course). Lanier recently penned an article for the New York Times that distilled a few of these themes, which is well worth checking out ...