Hypercrit

Michael Becker writes about journalism, new media and digital culture in general.

Month: February, 2007

Trek Tech: Tricorders

Okay, so I’m not the first to note that certain elements in our society and technology are rather like certain elements of a certain science fiction franchise. How can a person fail to note it these days? Look at my phone, for crying out loud: a Motorola Razr that looks about as much like a […]

A New Approach to the Memex

In 1945, Vannevar Bush published his now infamous article in the Atlantic entitled “As We May Think.” In that article, he proposed the idea of the memex, a computer like device that would record its user’s interactions with the world for easy retrieval later. The system was based on microfilm (it was 1945, after all), […]

Thesis News

I submitted the second section of thesis pages to my committee. Only an untold number left to go…

An Extended Metaphor

Imagine two bathtubs in the same room, about five feet apart. One is mostly full of blue water. The other is mostly full of red water. You are sitting on a stool between the tubs, and you would like to get some of the blue water into the red to make a lovely purple hue.
Now rename […]

Academic Freedom

What does academic freedom mean in the digital age? I was browsing the Wired Campus blog, provided free courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and saw two stories that interested me in particular. At the university in Fresno (Cal State or UC, I can’t recall), a new policy has been put in place that […]