Apr 27
Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships is an interesting article. If anything, social media is a counterweight to the ongoing devaluation of human lives. Social media’s rapid rise is a loud, desperate, emerging attempt by people everywhere to connect with *each other* in the face of all the obstacles that modernity imposes on …
Apr 21
For Earth Day, the Toronto Star asked 15 science fiction writers, including me, how we’d tackle climate change. To save some space, my answer was edited down. Here’s my full reply: The environment is something I watch on TV. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, it’s a pristine world free of human interference. But it’s also …
Apr 09
Popular stand-up philosopher, Slavoj Žižek has an interesting little essay on Corporate Rule of Cyberspace. My favourite part: There are two tell-tale words here: abstraction and control. In order to manage a cloud, there needs to be a monitoring system which controls its functioning, a system which is by definition hidden from the end-user. The paradox is thus …
Mar 30
This is an interview that occurred in late January and will be hitting 12 television stations and 80 radio markets in about a week via TVCOGECO. It’s for Brent Holland’s Night Fright Show. Ryan Oakley – Technicolor Ultra-Mall via Skype from Toronto Canada. What if in the future Toronto had been turned into a huge indoor mall? …
Mar 10
If you’re online, you’ve probably heard about this Kony character and the campaign by Invisible Children to stop him. Their campaign is obnoxious. At best, it’s an ineffective and dangerous product of white privilege. At worst, its little more than a cynical profit grab that panders to racism. Here’s a little known fact about Africa: It doesn’t need …
Feb 07
I quit Facebook. And when I quit, I stay quit. Not to protest anything. Not to make any sort of statement. I’m just sick of the platform. It doesn’t work for me. I want to get some value out of my time on the internet. That means, I want to get more out of it …
Dec 27
Is a world without billboards possible or good? Just ask the residents of Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. Five years after banning this ‘visual pollution’ 70% of residents find the ban beneficial. Imagine a city of 11 million inhabitants stripped of all its advertising. It’s nearly impossible when the clutter and color of our current urban landscapes …
Nov 15
Occupy Wall Street live. Around 1:00am on Tuesday, November 15th, the NYPD moved in to clear Zuccotti Park of all protestors and equipment. Members of the press, both independent and mainstream, were systematically prevented from covering the story Read about the press suppression here <a href=”http://storify.com/bendoernberg/press-suppression-at-occupy-wall-street-raid” target=”_blank”>View the story “Press Suppression …
Oct 28
An article about what happened in Oakland. Well worth the read. To sum up: the only two mainstream media live-feeds switched off at precisely the same instant—the minute before fifteen police departments working together engulfed a peaceful group of protesters in tear gas. That crucial minute, when the media (whether by accident or in compliance …
Jun 16
A riot is a collective orgasm. It is a sudden and violent release of manufactured tension. For the CBC to get so damn sanctimonious about the riot, after they’ve hyped hockey for my entire life, is like complaining when the person you’re fucking comes.
