Trolls
Wikipedia defines an Internet troll as slang for “a person who starts flame wars or intentionally upsets people on the Internet by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community.”...
Learning to Listen
I’ve set myself a long, slow project: learning to listen to music. There’s a low rumble of piano lessons in the distant background (from age 6), lessons focussed on the solo literature and good music, which is to...
The Cabbagehead
Years ago, I studied the work of a photomontage artist called John Heartfield. “Heartfield” is the adopted name of Helmut Herzfeld (1891-1968), a German adamantly opposed to the rising Nazi party in the 1920s...
I am a digital immigrant
I only heard of the term “digital immigrant” a few days ago and would like to pay my rather belated respects to Marc Prensky, who, in 2001, coined the terms “native” and “immigrant” to...
Chord Change
The best news in many days came from Germany this morning, specifically from the church of St. Burchardi in Halberstadt. There, a performance of an organ composition by the irrepressibly inventive musician John Cage...
Alice and Bob and Spooky Effects in Time
The little comic strip reproduced here is from the NASA website. “Alice” and “Bob” are not people, certainly. They might be particles, but they don’t have to be. They’re pretty much complete abstractions, and...
