Peter Lunenfeld’s latest book is The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine (MIT Press). He is a professor in the Design Media Arts department at UCLA. His office is within walking distance of the Playboy Mansion.

• March/April 2011: The Factory Model of Desire
  Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner Moved to L.A. and Forever Changed Sex, Death, and Boredom in America.
• FULL TEXT
  June 2008: Gidget on the Couch
  What do the surf shops of Huntington Beach owe to Robert Musil and the Austro-Hungarian Empire?