The first time an outsider enters the realm of a comic convention, they walk through a “garden of earthly delights” that encompasses many of the touchstones of popular and geek culture. Cosplayers, those individuals that celebrate characters from mass media by adopting the dress, behaviors, and communication patterns of their favorite personas, bring the worlds …
In addition to working on my SxSW proposals for 2016, two conference presentations, and the various other academic pieces I written in the past six weeks, I have also been hired in by Geek Bar DLC to be a quasi “academic-in-residence” and write a series of articles. This assignment was kicked off by my article that I wrote …
January 18, 2012 will be best remembered for the “blacking out of the web” as several of the core business of the Internet have either decided to blackout the site (e.g., reddit.com) or black out their logo (e.g., google.com). The focus of the outage has been the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA, the Protect …
Thanks to one of my good friends, I have had a chance to review the newest online social network service by Google called Google Plus. For the most part, I have enjoyed the simple way the Google Plus allows users to organize and maintain a conversation. I have posted a partial review on the Center …
One of the regional newspapers in Ohio wrote on Sunday about the ability of residents to connect to high-speed Internet service. The argument that was presented in a follow-up article was that broadband connectivity was part of the overall business infrastructure planning of rural Ohio. The one point of concern offered in the follow-up article …
A common theme has emerged over the past couple of months. This theme has been discussed by opinion leaders, business leaders, celebrities, more celebrities and, more importantly, Wired Magazine. The argument is the death of/dying World Wide Web. The premise is that mobile and tablet computers have increased the number of applications (“apps”) available to …
Well friends, another year has come and went. As it seems to be tradition, I’m going to try once again to put together some thoughts on the year that was and what I see happening next year. Portable computing will continue to evolve: One of the areas of growth in the computer market has been …
I admit, for being a student of cyberstudies and a strong supporter for open source, that I was late in the whole Linux party. I finally have a Linux computer in my office, and it has been working great. It seems that most of the barriers to entry with regards to Linux have been worked …
It seems that the issues that I get requested to speak on most during the last couple of months have been the issues of cyberbullying and sexting. Most of the time it comes in the form of an educator who has heard of me and wanted me to talk to other teachers about these technological issues. There was a rare occurrence that I had …
During the summer of 1996, I experience my first taste of freedom. Since I recently graduated high school, I had the summer to myself. There was no track or cross country practice. There was no band rehersals. It would be three months till I found a job. I had no responsiblities to anybody. So, I …