Well, quite a few heady posts there lately–but, well, guess that’s what happens when one’s Constitution is torn up before your eyes. Lemme tell you something I found humorous today: I was getting ready for work and flipping channels I found one showing the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” (A new one is [...]
READ MORE »Posts in category SCI-FI/FANTASY
Five Signs the United States Is Withering Away
io9 has an interesting article today speculating on the probable causes for the end of the United States: Five Signs the United States Is Withering Away I wholeheartedly agree with all except “2. A decadent culture.” At least the way they’re describing it. The essayist is stating that because our formerly impressive, original, massive Hollywood [...]
READ MORE »Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears; redux.
I read Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling) when it first came out in 1995. I bought and read…no, devoured all of the collections of “modern fairy tales” when I was an undergrad those early 90s–Snow White, Blood Red, Black Thorn, White Rose, etc. Now, the series is being re-released [...]
READ MORE »Little Brother’s watching Big Brother. And, Bush hates literacy.
I’ve been anticipating Cory Doctorow’s latest novel for half a year now, since I first heard of it. It’s a young adult novel in which some innocent kids get picked up by Homeland Security for suspicion of involvement in a terrorist act. After the treatment they receive, the decide it’s time to bring back the [...]
READ MORE »Reading right along. (And Brust/Firefly bright point.)
It’s really sad, and in a way is reflective of how my life has been going. I used to be a voracious reader. I was introduced to the works of Poe, Bradbury, and Lovecraft around the 3rd grade. I was hooked on scifi and horror ever since. In jr. and high school I read a [...]
READ MORE »Thoughts on this year’s ICFA, pt. 2.
(And still, the weird problem remains with using “from” too many times. I swear, the blog refuses to post unless I change some of the “from”s to “frm”. It must be some kind of bug in the module that tries to detect SQL injections, is the best I can figure.) Yesterday I posted some of [...]
READ MORE »Really is “the most magical place on earth!”
My wife, daughter and I returned from Orlando, Florida yesterday after a 5-day vacation. It was simply amazing! It exceeded all my expectations, fulfilled nearly none of my fears or worries, and quite simply–I didn’t want to leave. Even now I feel a mixture of happiness and elation as well as depressed longing as the [...]
READ MORE »New over at the GrogMonkey.
I finally got a new post up on my “scholarly” blog: ♦ The Ubiquitous and Panasonic Kipple: Tracing the Consumption of Death, from Philip K. Dick to Don DeLillo’s White Noise Kind of sad, really–I have several papers and essays already written and ready, all I have to do is format them and post them, [...]
READ MORE »The universe as virtual reality.
(Insert Keanu Reeves’ “Whoa” here.) BoingBoing just posted a link to a fascinating paper on the theory that our universe is a giant VR system: ♦ Our universe as virtual reality …If the universe were a virtual reality, its creation at the big bang would no longer be paradoxical, as every virtual system must be [...]
READ MORE »The GrogMonkey lives! And pontificates.
OK, so my 3rd blog is up and running now: ♦ The GrogMonkey Here’s the “About” page on the site: This blog is designed to feature my work in English/Cultural Studies education. I’m currently working on my Master’s Degree in English with a focus on Creative Writing. While I don’t plan, at the moment, to [...]
READ MORE »Do androids dream of rock stardom?
I’m so lucky to have been born in a wealthy capitalist western society. If I have to be born in a pre-worldwide socialist era, this is where I want to be. (Oh, one day thanks to technology, nano-tech, etc., we’ll be able to advance the world beyond criminal and soul stupefying capitalism and world-wide poverty [...]
READ MORE »Bad animation; terrorists and dragons.
Seriously? Are they kidding with this? This is the CIA’s Terrorism Buster logo? OK, to be fair, that image is on a lapel pin and about 5 times the actual size or so. But c’mon. That’s pretty goofy. And by the way, I didn’t realize you could attach an ancient Middle Eastern saber on the [...]
READ MORE »Plumbing for ghosts.
So, there’s a show on Sci-Fi channel (remember, that’s science FICTION channel *grin*) called Ghost Hunters, in which some plumbers from Rhode Island use a collection of electronic devices designed for all kinds of things except detecting the supernatural to investigate claims of hauntings. The latest Skepticality podcast has an interview with the founder of [...]
READ MORE »Avast! Ye scurvy bilge rat!
It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, today! Arrrgh! ♦ http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
READ MORE »Golden age of the nefarious hacker.
I’ve been listening to Cory Doctorow reading Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown. It’s a non-fiction work that at its core describes the actions and environment that lead up to the huge crackdown by the Secret Service, FBI, and the telco companies against the “hacker threat” during the early 90′s. The work takes a fascinating look [...]
READ MORE »Countdown to X-files movie begins.
CNN has an article about David Duchovny’s new Showtime series: Duchovny gets physical — and sexual — in show I’ll freely admit to having a real man-crush on Duchovny. He’s cool, he’s smart, he’s fun and a little crazy. But what I’m most interested in is X-Files news! I was a hardcore X-phile back during [...]
READ MORE »Pirate Master! Better than expected.
(I’m posting a few things today, so be sure to scroll down and take a look at my other posts today: The existence and morality exist w/o the need for deity, Religion and deteriorating societies, and Steampunk magazine.) So last night was the first episode of the new reality show: “Pirate Master“, from the makers [...]
READ MORE »Steampunk magazine
I recently discovered a magazine on the genre of steampunk, which looks really interesting: http://www.steampunkmagazine.com/ I’ve had a vague interest in steampunk for some years–probably when I first read William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine, which is a mystery that takes place in an alternate history of 1885 when a computer age hits [...]
READ MORE »Disturbing art on trial: presumed guilty.
Another story I just discovered regarding a student and his harmless hobby: Student Arrested for “Suspected Terrorist Activity†A teen arrested, arrested, for having created a map for a first-person shooter game (think Doom, Quake, Soldier of Fortune, Thief….) based on his high school. As the article above points out, it’s not at all unusual [...]
READ MORE »Cory Doctorow, Technology, and the Industry
I read BoingBoing.net a lot, so I see a lot of references to Cory Doctorow (not knowing before today that he was a co-creator of the site.) Cory Doctorow (not to be confused with author E.L. Doctorow) is a popular sci-fi author who also provides his books for free on the Internet (so he has [...]
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