The Disappearing Mid-Market

Earlier this year, after comparing advertisements from the 1980s and the present day, I suggested that the consumption of luxury items has become more and more widespread in network culture

Recently, I ran across a story in the Economist on
The Disappearing Mid-Market that argues that consumers are finding new ways to save through eBay and other bargain outlets (buying used clothes is more acceptable than ever) while buying more and more luxury goods. The result is the end of the mid-market. Goodbye Sears and Macy’s.

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NSA Wiretap Documents Revealed

In my article on the Centripetal City, I suggest that the concentration of Internet infrastructure poses a potential terrorist target. But what of the other sort of terror, the Orwellian terror of complete government surveillance, the state of exception created by total war? Network culture may appear to be liberating, but what of this dark underside? In (post-)Soviet America, you don’t Google the NSA, the NSA Googles you!

The scandal over wiretaps by the NSA has been brewing for some time, but yesterday Wired Magazine released documents that detail charges that AT&T built secret rooms in a San Francisco company office in order to cc: traffic from its WorldNet Internet Backbone to the NSA. Read Wired’s story here and view the documents in pdf hereRead more

new docomomo site

Together with Unjoo Noh, I designed the new web site for the United States chapter of the International Working Party for the Documentation and Conservation of building sites and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement (DoCoMoMo). Take a look and, while you’re there, find out more about this worthy organization of which I am a national board member.

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