Articles in the About Category

About, Talks, Videos »

November 19th, 2011 | 2 Comments | Category: About, Talks, Videos
David Preston’s Literature & Composition Class Talk

On November 2nd, I was invited to talk to Dr. David Preston’s Literature and Composition class via Blackboard Collaborate and Howard Rheingold‘s Rheingold University. Here’s a screen capture of that talk [Warning: It's long. Runtime: 1:02:21]. Topics include a few of my projects, the web, advent horizons, collaborative learning, technology in the classroom and in the lives of the youth.

Many thanks to Ted Newcomb and Howard Rheingold for hooking this up, to David Preston and his students for their time, attention, and participation, and to Linda Burns for saving the video. This …

About, Book Stuff »

November 04th, 2011 | One Comment | Category: About, Book Stuff
<em>Follow for Now</em> is Now Available at BookPeople

Yep, nearly five years after its release, Follow for Now is now available at BookPeople in Austin, Texas. As you can see in the photo below, it’s in the General Science section, and I am quite proud.

It’s also in Cyberculture & History, and right now, in the New Arrivals.

So, if you’re in Austin and don’t have a copy, stop by and get yours.
Many thanks to Michael McCarthy and everyone at BookPeople for their support. And to you for yours.

About, Videos »

July 05th, 2011 | No Comment | Category: About, Videos
Me at SXSW 2011: Interview by Jah Furry

This is a short clip of me yammering on about my recent projects (Follow for Now, Disconnect the Dots, and The Medium Picture) at SXSW 2011. My man Shahriar Shadab filmed and edited this [runtime: 3:07], and Jeff Newelt did the interview. Many thanks to them for indulging my goofy ass, and thank to you all for indulging me further.

I’ll probably be putting this right on the front of the site as well, because it’s a decent summary of what I’ve been up to lately.
Thanks to everyone for your continued …

About, Essays, Talks »

March 20th, 2011 | 6 Comments | Category: About, Essays, Talks
Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive — My Talk from SXSW Interactive

I’ve been thinking about all of the ways we change our world with our technology for years now, but more so lately as my book-in-progress, The Medium Picture, comes into better focus. This talk itself is brand new and not quite complete. Regardless, I decided to take my own advice and get it out there. I did this one for the first time at SXSW Interactive 2011. Judging by the post-talk discussion, these ideas are generative if not fully formed. In what follows, I expand my speaking notes, including bits …

About, Announcements »

March 04th, 2011 | No Comment | Category: About, Announcements
<i>The Austin Chronicle</i>: “The World is Your Cubicle,” featuring Me

For Nora Ankrum’s recent roundup of SXSW Interactive panels and talks having to do with distance working, “The World is Your Cubicle,” she interviewed me about my SXSWi talk Disconnecting the Dots: How Our Devices are Divisive and my book-in-progress, The Medium Picture.

Here’s the excerpt that features me running my mouth:
“Having a beer with someone is still one of the most connecting things you can do,” agrees Roy Christopher, a communication studies doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin. Still, he says, “the nature of …

About, Announcements, Book Stuff »

February 03rd, 2011 | 11 Comments | Category: About, Announcements, Book Stuff
<i>The Medium Picture</i> is Now Under Contract

After years of tweaking and shopping the proposal, Zero Books has acquiesced to publish my book The Medium Picture. The thing that sold me on them, other than their recent publishing of Steven Shaviro‘s brief-but-brilliant Post-Cinematic Affect, is their statement of purpose:
Contemporary culture has eliminated the concept and public figure of the intellectual. A cretinous anti-intellectualism presides, cheerled by hacks in the pay of multinational corporations who reassure their bored readers that there is no need to rouse themselves from their stupor. Zer0 Books knows that another kind of discourse …

About, Interviews, Me »

May 04th, 2005 | No Comment | Category: About, Interviews, Me

Brian Tunney conducted this interview with me for the impecable DIG BMX Magazine. Here’s an excerpt: “The impetus behind frontwheeldrive.com remains to collect and spread the word about cultural artifacts and the people that make them. I try not to limit the subject matter anymore because I view the mind as an ecology. For any ecology to grow and flourish, it needs diversity. New stuff comes not from the well-defined fields, but from the interaction between them. Allowing theorists, artists, BMXers, musicians, skateboarders, etc. to rub shoulders, frontwheeldrive.com attempts to …