Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Blog and text archive about media theory, science fiction theory, future design, social choreography, Computer Science 2.0, new media art, robots and androids, Star Trek, The Prisoner, Jean Baudrillard, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Marshall McLuhan

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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 4 of 4

August 21st, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

MOE: If your team this week is the Cowboys, then you’re leaving yourself wide open for it. Don’t worry, Bill. The Niners won’t run it up too bad on the ‘Boys this time. But expect a thrashing!
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 3 of 4

August 9th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

LINDA: Nice job against the Packers, but don’t expect the Niners to lie down so easy. We intend on kicking the Cowboy’s butts. Just two more wins and our boy Steve goes to Disneyland and we’re on the way to a dynasty.
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 2 of 4

August 5th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

As they reached the south side of the Park, Siggy looked back at the sweep and majesty of this historical landmark. He noticed the variety of people who call this park their own. There were drug dealers and mothers with tots in strollers. There were old geezers and students from nearby New York University.
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 1 of 4

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Creative Writing, Sports Gambling

As they went inside Grand Central Station, Moe and Siggy saw more hurried commuters moving ahead with tunnel vision. Nobody wanted to look at the homeless. The bag ladies and street people would just put a damper on one’s day.
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Bayerischer Rundfunk programme on Alan N. Shapiro

June 20th, 2010 in Category: Android Data, Androids & Artificial Life, Baseball, Car of the Future, Casino Gambling, Dance Theory, Hans-Peter Dürr, Humanities Informatics, Rethinking Science, Star Trek

On June 13, 2010, Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast a 38-minute programme (mostly in German) about the ideas and projects of Alan N. Shapiro. The show was produced by Florian Fricke. It includes a segment on the social choreography ideas and practice of Alan's close friend Steve Valk.
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Consumer Culture and Naming the Animals, by Alan N. Shapiro

April 14th, 2010 in Category: Consumer Culture, New American Studies, Roland Barthes

In his famous essay "Myth Today," published in 1957, Roland Barthes added a second dimension to the semiotic analysis of Ferdinand de Saussure, to the insight of the Swiss linguist that language is a social institution. Barthes added a social theory of culture to the social theory of language.
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Charles A. Lindbergh’s “The Spirit of St. Louis”, by Alan N. Shapiro

April 14th, 2010 in Category: New American Studies

As I grew into adolescence, advertising and shopping were more and more taking command of ordinary American life. One of the first malls on Long Island was a short drive from my family’s house. It was built at Roosevelt Field, the famous airstrip where Charles A. Lindbergh took off in the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927.
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The Revolution will not be Televised, it will be led by Radical Software

April 13th, 2010 in Category: Baseball, Casino Gambling, Humanities Informatics

In my story “Betting on Longshots,” I describe how I won $3000 in the casino on the Lido in Venice, Italy when I was 24 years old, starting from nearly nothing. If I had not won that money, maybe my European wanderings would have come to an end, and I would have gone back to New York and become a dentist.
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Technology Startup Company (story)

April 13th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Creative Writing, Utopian High Tech Enterprise

Thank you for calling DigiSoft. All our agents are busy assisting other customers at the moment. If you know the extension you are trying to reach please enter it now. Or you can press one to hold or press two to leave a voice message.
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Times Square Bar (an American Slang story)

April 13th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Creative Writing

Driving a taxi must be the pits. The cabbies made more money if they got to their destination sooner. So they used every trick in the book to try to gain a few seconds. Running lights was standard procedure. Or they would lay scratch and peel out as soon as the light turned green, leaving the other cars in the dust.
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Baseball in the Information Age

April 13th, 2010 in Category: Baseball, Information Society

I am sitting in the loge reserved section at a baseball stadium which has not yet been renamed to BankOne Ballpark, UMAX Coliseum, Qualcomm Stadium, 3Com Park, or Citi Field.
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