Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Four social scientists nurse their pet success theories, then get into a bar fight. A tale of human success stories and the formulas we've invented to explain them.
Date: 2003-6-17
Author: Erik Benson
Summary: Are we more objective creatures than we seem? Erik Benson suggests that subjective thoughts are nothing more than stale objective thoughts that we didn't want to re-think. A guest essay.
Date: 2003-4-29
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The night the universe conspired against me, or how to get from the worm to the cheeseburger without solving the order of the chicken-and-the-egg first.
Date: 2003-4-8
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: What makes smart people be so stupid? Could it be that intelligence is still a work-in-process?
Date: 2003-3-11
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: 2002 is over but there's important business we've left dangling that should've been wrapped up by now.
Date: 2002-12-29
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Travelling to and from home on Thanksgiving, thinking about the rise of the automobile, the accidental pleasures of mass transit, oil dependence, and the premise of Bill Maher's new book.
Date: 2002-12-03
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Africa is a basket case and the donors are rolling in the aid, but the guys in charge over there are more interested in spending donor money on private jets and country clubs than solving starvation issues. A suggestion for motivating a bit of change.
Date: 2002-11-19
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The accidental discovery of "Harry"--someone born on a key date in the era of the civil rights movement--and the other coincidence he connected.
Date: 2002-9-10
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Say, California seems indestructible enough, surviving floods and earthquakes and botched deregulation, how about we stick it with a dumb IT policy as well--like mandating open-source software? It can't hurt 'em, and we'll get to see what happens.
Date: 2002-8-27
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Debate is at the heart of our culture and legal system, and the Internet offers some benefits that boost the power of debate like gasoline on a fire.
Date: 2002-8-13
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: One night the author sits down for a Tarot card reading, and the next he's on a roller coaster ride through astronomical and theoretical physics, cellular automata, computer science, chaos theory, and the way humans can seem to find meaning in anything.
Date: 2002-7-30
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Disenchanted revisits the issue of copyrights and patents, this time taking inspiration from a bottle of water found on a pillow. Might IP laws change to concede the right to copy?
Date: 2002-7-23
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: It's the end of the world and there's only two people left alive, an atheist and a Christian. With the apocolypse in full swing, it's one hell of a time to start making apologies.
Date: 2002-7-2
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The giants of retail crush the little guys with little more than a reflex. America's corporate Grand Masters are like forces of nature, causing pipsqueeks in their path to die from the sum of their own mistakes.
Date: 2002-5-21
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Making someone a target is like a litmus test, revealing who has a strong self-identity, and who's ready to fall apart at the seams
Date: 2002-4-9
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The Kyoto protocol wants too much and too fast. It's an embodiment of chronocentrism at its worst: disparage the past, and distrust the future.
Date: 2002-3-26
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Most journalists pretend to have no bias, and claim to present their stories evenhandedly. But impartiality doesn't seem to be a reliable human trait. Shooting a few messengers might straighten them up.
Date: 2002-3-19
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Although tainted by a murderous campaign, the Unabomber''s Manifesto is remarkably well written and sobering. It''s just got a few crucial things wrong with it.
Date: 2002-3-12
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: While one man was busy cultivating a selective and refined taste for all things rare and exclusive, another was wallowing in mass-produced, Top-40 culture. Which one was the connoisseur?
Date: 2002-2-26
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Why are hack-job Science Fiction movie adaptations just as entertaining as the book, and why do faithfull book-to-screen reproductions always seem so dull?
Date: 2002-2-19
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Chernobyl's design was significantly different from Three Mile Island, not because their engineers weren't smart, but because the old Soviet ethic dismissed fear's impact on productivity.
Date: 2001-12-18
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Would signing a contract and carrying a few pages of ads compromise your integrity as a writer, or does the added liability (and bigger budget) make you a better source of information than your independent cousins?
Date: 2001-12-4
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Is the flood of western culture a threat to Muslim fundamentalists because it's the seed which might spark a revolution? And how does swimwear factor into peasant revolt, anyway?
Date: 2001-11-27
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The modern leader's guide to dashing hopes against the rocks, running a country into the ground, and cursing opportunity. Or: How I learned to take inspiration from Thabo Mbeki and love incompetence.
Date: 2001-11-20
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: You don't need to empty pocket change into every collection tin they wave under your nose. In fact, next time, just say no.
Date: 2001-10-23
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: A couple of airline bankruptcies would make a nice meal for the vulture capitalists and clean up a flagging industry that can't properly serve its customers. However, that's impossible so long as the cobwebs of Government regulation and a foolish $15 billion rescue package keep propping the current system up on crutches.
Date: 2001-10-9
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Thank you for flying Disenchanted Airways. In case of an emergency, anti-terrorist devices have been installed between your seat and the dinner tray.
Date: 2001-10-2
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: What a great way to wake up, huh? 9am and all the phone lines are down. Jeez Louise...
Date: 2001-9-11
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: One less car, one more casualty of a motorized world. One cyclist talks about getting in the nylon saddle, missing death by inches, and the smell of diesel fumes.
Date: 2001-9-4
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Some day, lad, all this will be yours. Copyrights only protect work for a limited time, and then they expire - sending literature, art, music, ideas, and more into the public domain. Just what makes you think you deserve all that, anyway?
Date: 2001-8-28
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Resistance to scandalous ideas, especially when they advocate new freedoms, tend to use slippery-slope arguments that assume the general public are a bunch of easily suggestible morons who need to be protected from themselves. Not so.
Date: 2001-8-14
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The kind of shenanigans a buncha weirdos get up to when they converge on a hotel for the weekend could make your eyes bleed. Or warm the cockles of your heart.
Date: 2001-8-7
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: How unwanted solicitations have driven us to spoil our own luxuries, and how a comparison with air pollution may guide steps to deal with it.
Date: 2001-7-17
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: THIS IS YOUR BEST OPPORTUNITY!!! Get in on the ground floor with work-at-home, it's like having your own business - only you never reap any of the profits!
Date: 2001-7-10
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Not selling enough string? Washing powder? Just draw a happy face on it! Anthropomorphism makes everything seem more human.
Date: 2001-6-26
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Slap on those GAP clothes and... damn... does that Ikea couch look good in your living room, or what? We know you have better things to do than worry about which clothes or hang-outs are going to get you labled as a conformist. Time to hit Pier 1 Imports and stop paying attention to elitist bores.
Date: 2001-6-5
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: John Taylor Gatto paints a grim picture of the public school system, comparing it to nothing less than mass mind control. What, exactly, is the hidden purpose of our schools?
Date: 2001-5-29
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: You used to take privacy for granted, but now you can't. Just by being alive you give someone an economic and political reason for spying and collecting data on you. But could only way to deal with losing privacy be to give it up voluntarily?
Date: 2001-5-15
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Would you come over here and say that? The best feedback you can get from your work is the kind that makes you wish you'd never done it. After all, a pat-on-the-back doesn't even scratch an itch there.
Date: 2001-5-1
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Advertising targets kids heavily to get them hooked young, but it's also meant to give them a point of reference more media-saturated than their parents had. The reason? We poor, pathetic, human consumers don't know how bad it is until it gets worse.
Date: 2001-4-24
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: You should ask yourself these questions every morning, so that by the time you get to work you'll know why you even woke up in the first place.
Date: 2001-3-27
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Trying too hard to be interesting or exciting just turns you into a pretentious phony. The people with the most exciting lives are probably not movie stars, but the kind of folk who eat as many Kraft dinners as you do.
Date: 2001-3-20
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: That guy who spends too much of his time telling you why ''Macintosh Rules, Windoze Sucks'' is not your friend. Find out if you or someone you know is a Brand Zealot, and what to do about it.
Date: 2001-2-27
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Nuclear war isn't going to happen, so don't waste money on bomb shelters and canned food anymore. A simple theory explains why.
Date: 2001-2-20
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Stressed? Burnt-out? Frustrated? Try booze. The definitive guide to avoiding frustration by ignoring the problem and having a beer.
Date: 2001-2-13
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Or: How To Save The World with money, not love. An anti-thesis to the neo-hippy movement's idea that you can save a tree by waving a pamphlet in someone's face.
Date: 2001-2-6
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Revealing the true motives behind the anti-pornography brigade.
Date: 2001-1-16
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: Defending every human's right to think something sucks without having to justify it.
Date: 2001-1-9
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: A woman fails to understand what she's passed up because she's too busy trying to be entitiled to something.
Date: 2001-1-2
Author: Chris Wenham
Summary: The critical and indispensible member of society who helps you find your place in life.
Date: 2000-12-26
Matches 1-50 of 64 found.All material published at this site, unless otherwise indicated, is Copyright © 2000 - 2004 Synesmedia, Inc. All rights reserved. No reproductions in any media are permitted without written and electronically signed permission from Synesmedia, Inc. Disenchanted occasionally features references to real people, companies and products for the purpose of satire.
Disenchanted is published by Synesmedia, Inc. Synesmedia also publishes Interchange Techniques