Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: misanthropy

  • Radiohead backs WW2-style austerity program

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Radiohead on tour?

    Misery will be compulsory, if top rockers Radiohead have their way. The band have thrown their weight behind a “World War 2”-style programme of austerity measures: including restrictions on behaviour, and higher taxes.

    Last week, two newspaper columnists called for a return to the kind of social coercion only ever seen before in wartime. It’s all for the sake of “the environment”, but as we’ll see – it’s a very peculiar and selective version of environmentalism.

    Singer Thom Yorke told … Read More

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  • One-Click™ colonialism

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The music industry has a long and shameful history of robbing black artists of their rights. Now along comes some new software that will help speed up the job. Think of it as a sort of 1-Click “non-payment” system.

    Liblicense is a project that Creative Commons hopes to integrate with MIT Media Lab’s OLPC, or One Laptop Per Child initiative. That’s the rubbishy sub-notebook designed for developing countries, that developing countries don’t seem to want very much. (Shockingly, the ungrateful … Read More

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  • Whatever happened to… The Wisdom of Crowds?

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Future social historians looking back at the web cult – which met in San Francisco this week for a $3,000-a-head “summit” – may wonder what made them tick. Scholars could do worse than examine their superstitions. We’ll bet that lurking on the bookshelf of almost every “delegate” was a copy of James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. It’s as ubiquitous as Erik Von Daniken books were in the 1970s.

    In Silicon Valley this year, “collective intelligence” is the mandatory … Read More

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  • Neurosis as a lifestyle: remixing revisited

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    “We stand on the last promontory of the centuries! Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the impossible ? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed”
    – Fillippo Marinetti, 1909

    When a year ago I looked at some of the strange attitudes to copyright and creativity that abound on the internet, vilification followed swiftly. I wondered what was behind … Read More

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  • John Updike vs Kevin Kelly

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    Andrew Orlowski

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  • The Blooker Prize: small pieces, partially digested

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The Bible, for example, was originally produced as a scroll
    – Cory Doctorow

    Some press releases are so simply, staggeringly indescribable, we print them without comment. These are most often related to corporate makeovers or rebranding exercises, which is quite appropriate in this case.

    We’ve tried to be faithful to the original’s unique typographical qualities where possible.

    And we’d better warn you: there’s a lot of SHOUTING at the start, and odd emphasis throughout – but that’s very much its … Read More

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