A.J.Samuels

As 2 Live Crew’s hype and front man, Luther Campbell was the face of one of the most controversial outfits in the history of hip-hop. In the late eighties and early nineties, the Miami native led the band’s numerous battles against state and federal obscenity laws after authorities in Florida arrested record store owners for – more

Recently, reports of pacifist gamers revolutionizing the virtual first-person shooter landscape have been making the media rounds. According to the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio, winning expressly violent games by running away, hid- ing, or bringing fallen comrades back to life with a defibrillator has become all the (anti-)rage. But as Andreas Lange, – more

As a student of electronic music at San Francisco City College in the late seventies, Tuxedomoon’s Blaine L. Reininger always had an affinity for synthesizers and sequencers. At the time (and place), the then novel electronic instruments were more geared towards experimentation than making pop songs—a distinction for which Reininger, a classically trained violinist, had – more

In recent months, Bitcoin’s fluctuating market value has been the object of much speculation, as has the identity of its creator(s), the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Touted by some as the untraceable peer-to-peer digital money of tomorrow, Bitcoin has been demonized by others as the computer-savvy criminal’s e-cash of choice. A.J. Samuels spoke with Steven Levy – more