I recently spent ten days in hospital. One of the non-medical consequences is that I'm now lavishly appreciative of my phone (by the way, the medical consequences were also positive). It's a smartphone that I acquired via an upgrade a couple of months ago. It entertained me beyond my wildest dreams. ... Read More...

Continuing both the recent nonfuturist and general retroprogressive themes of this blog, this Sunday we have some early electronica and some recent folk music. Louis & Bebe Barron were an avant-garde husand-and-wife team of what we are obliged by the laws of music journalism to call electronica ‘pioneers’. They used mathematical equations to ... Read More...

According to Russell Davies the future isn't what it used to be, even in sci-fi: It's hard to miss the missing future in science fiction. Zero History [William Gibson's new novel] feels like it's set in the past, actually last year... I went to see Mr Gibson talk last night and he ... Read More...

This video's beautiful and intriguing (it starts about 1'40" in but the explanations that precede it are fascinating - more here). It's made using the light 'extruded' from an iPad captured by long exposure photography and animated using stop-motion. I've been interested in the possibilities of digital art but, to ... Read More...

Many moons ago, when I was a token female manager at a Japanese investment house, my elderly boss recounted fascinating stories of the way Japanese society had changed over the years. En route to one client meeting, he remarked upon the effects of Japanese girls’ increased wealth and freedom: they ... Read More...