I have a confession to make : I have never seen a western movie. There, it’s out. No, I have never seen Unforgiven or Tombstone. I have never seen the American remake of Seven Samurai. I have never had the cinematic joy of vicariously riding off into an 8 mm sunset or tying a woman to train tracks. I don’t really know what kind of guns they had back then, and what was necessary to be the fastest gun in the west. To be honest, I don’t even know what was actually considered the west. I imagine it’s somewhere past the central time zone, sauntering in between mountain and surfer territory. I’m not sure why people actually chose to forego civilization and fend off bears, but I imagine that according to society’s rules prostitutes and priests followed shortly thereafter.
ROBOHEART
sci culture and art
Keep the bikers! Great zombie-bait!
Every zombie movie is a snowflake universe. They all have their own specific laws regarding their own specific zombie universe. Some of them have fast zombies that attack humans at a full gallop, broken legs and all. Some of them have slow zombies that count on each other, using a hyena tactic to overcome their human prey. There are some zombie-verses where brains are a delicacy, and some where it’s the only item on the menu. But regardless of which donut-shaped zombie universe you find yourself in, one thing is certain. You want to move like a running-back and not like a lineman And you never, ever want to open the door.
Japanese VS American Hero Archetypes
No this isn’t about who would win in a fight between Superman and Goku. Specifically this is about a particular mainstream Japanese hero character I see over and over again in Shonen action based Anime / Manga and how it compares to mainstream American super heroes. Of course I don’t mean to say there aren’t characters on both sides that break the mold, only that the type I describe seems interestingly prevalent in modern mainstream media.
Growth Mindset
For me, the biggest difference is that Japanese super powers are based around a growth mindset. The hero must train hard to unlock his hidden potential. Even if he is the chosen one of some kind or come from another planet, it doesn’t come for free, it takes hard work. Most American super heroes were born with their powers or gained it all at once through some happenstance beyond their control. They will usually go through an awkward period of learning how their powers work, but it will be more about discovery than training.
Do Androids Laugh at Synthetic Banana Peels?
Everyone loves robots. How can you not? With those large mechanical LED Bambi eyes and cuddly exterior, it’s difficult not to feel a deep rooted protective love of our cyber friends.
Robotics has come a long way baby. We live in a world where robots are a part of our everyday lives. They make the gadgets we use and entertain adults and children alike. What we hope for advancement in (or secretly fear) are androids, robots created to seem “human” in the looks or actions. The progress is almost startling when considering robots like Asimo, or even simple chat programs like Cleverbot, the disturbing lovechild of a programmer and a perfect example of robot learning, gathering information from thousands of individual human interactions.
Post Humans Hate Scifi
By that I really mean, they will hate the science fiction of today. In all likelihood a passive experience like a movie or TV show will be of no interest to them at all. But lets just say it is still relevant, or at least it can be converted into a new entertaining format for super humans. In this case I think the new humans would only be able to, at best, muster some amount of historical appreciation. At worst, they may find it quite stupid and insulting, assuming post humans are capable of being insulted.
It seems to me that most science fiction stories are cautionary tales. They are so often about the failure of scientific advancements to account for the human spirit. I touched on this in an older post. Scifi today has to appeal to the emotions of people today. Continue reading
Now We’re Thinking with Portals!
Well, hello there. Can you speak? Can you say “apple”? No? Well, let’s just jump through this portal and see what our soul says at the other end.
I see you enjoy playing with the funny physics of this world. Place two portals on the floor and toss a cube into there and watch it bounce out one, twirl in a graceful swimmer’s turn, and dive back into the portal to bounce out again. I also notice you like to place two portals on each of those parallel walls to look at yourself in an unending sequence of portals. You seem quite enthralled with your backside, watching yourself move around and shimmy from side to side. I wonder what Freud would say about that? And sometimes you enter the portal and stand there, frozen in space, unable to move forward or backwards. Is it fear that prevents you from moving forward? Or maybe it’s the comfort of being in the portal itself, a snug cocoon between the future and the not-so-distant past.
You’re asking the wrong Phil
So happy Groundhog day, even though it’s almost over. The movie “Groundhog Day” has more repeat value for me than almost any other movie. Is that ironic? Also, here’s a weather related question. Do we need to be able to accurately predict quantum behavior in order to achieve relatively perfect weather prediction? Is that even theoretically possible, at least for all intents and purposes? Would the Uncertainty Principle significantly obstruct such predictions? Would you need to know the impossibly precise position and speed of all environmental elements to know the exact weather for a month? Will meteorologists run into the limits of physics before even reaching the near perfect 7 day forecast? Well, I doubt it, but there may be a theoretical limit out there somewhere.
Butterfly Memories
Recently I travelled back in podcast time and listened to an old episode of Radiolab that covered memory and forgetting. It may have been one of the most fascinating episodes I have listened to so far.
Human brains are incredibly fragile things. The other organs, such as the liver and heart, feel solid and strong. They are dense, rich collections of tissue that hold together firm like buckey-balls. But the brain, in contrast, is a very loose collection of neurons and gray goo, seemingly held together by magic. I had heard that the texture was similar to jello, so was quite surprised when I did feel one to find that it was much softer than expected. If it is like jello, it is like jello that is a few minutes shy of completing the firming process and is likely to fall apart in your hands if you try to pick it up. And somewhere in this crumbly wet mess that we call our brains is our soul. And our memories.
The Node Corporation of the Future
I have long thought that one of the biggest problems with corporations is that they are designed to diminish accountability and personal responsibility, much like the military, like a controlled mob mentality, like the act of multiple people pulling switches to electrocute a singe man. Beyond that, their only driving force is to make money. So the things they do, particularly when they get too large are going to seem evil to an individual person. They will only act in a way that seems moral if that action just happens to line up with their profits. They will only tell the whole truth by coincidence, and when intentionally telling convenient truths, they will be so edited they function as lies. When a company does something that outrages the public, almost none of the people working there feel directly responsible. After all no one did anything wrong, they just signed a piece of paper, submitted a report, kept their mouth shut, felt responsible only for doing their jobs. Even the CEO and board of directors feel more responsible to the shareholders than to their own conscience. To me it seems like they are serving an invisible beast with an insatiable appetite
The Stork episode 6
In this short but sweet tasting episode of “The Stork, Hunter From The Future” Mr Stork shows his hunger for life, in spite of the Mountain of trials he has yet to Face.
