“We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors.” —Stanislaw Lem Lers of Spoi. You Have Been Warned. Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first: this movie is absolutely beautiful to behold. The cinematography is first rate; the vehicle designs are perfect. The vistas of robots in rice paddies—corny as that may sound—are […]
Promos and PSAs
Category: On the Road, public interfaceJust a couple of quick announcements while I finish scribbling argumentative notes in the margins of Eric Hoel’s book on consciousness. First, there’s this guy called Guy d’Andigné, runs sfss: a classy, minimalist little site that reprints science fiction shorts from the public domain and the creative commons, ranging from Voltaire to Doctorow. He also […]
The Worst Fucking Summer
Category: eulogyI cannot wait for this summer to be over. It sucks so hard. Named for the body shape. And the pinto-like coloration. First it was Bean, way back in March. Never really talked about Bean here on the ‘crawl. Buns were really more The BUG’s thing and they tended to live down in the basement […]
The Big Orange Guy.
Category: eulogyOr “Beloved Old Goof”. Or “Barrel O’Greatness”. Or even “God” in Russian, at least so I’ve been told. His name was BOG, but it meant many things to many people. Note the past tense. Fuck I hate writing these things. I introduced you all to him back in 2012, when half his fur was clear-cut […]
Red Team Blues
Category: ink on artA number of years ago, while I was just beginning to figure out this whole Writing thing, I tried to classify what I saw as “successful authors”. You may know the usual names I trot out in interviews, those I cite as inspiration in developing my own voice—Delany, Silverberg, Brunner Brunner Brunner—and I won’t belabor […]
The Only Question You Need to Ask ChatGPT.
Category: AI/robotics, ink on artNo, it’s nothing to do with “Alberta brewery’s first AI-designed beer“. Although I’m not ruling out the possibility that maybe it should be. Regular visitors already know my overall perspective on this whole Chatbot/AGI thing. Recent events, while entertaining, haven’t changed my opinion all that much. (Although it’s nice to see an uptick of people […]
The Apex of Tinseltown.
Category: art on ink, ink on art, interviews, On the Road, public interfaceTurns out I have an IMDB page. I didn’t realize that myself until recently. It is very short— as befitting someone with no real presence in the industry—and yet also padded. A guest appearance on a Guelph-based podcast doesn’t really strike me as a cinematic credit, for one thing. And while I did get a […]
Stanley Kubrick, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Neill DeGrasse Tyson walk into the Mines of Moria…
Category: ink on art, On the Road, spaaaaace!!!, Uncategorized…and turn this… …into this… and and and and and …and I gotta say, I was skeptical that they could surpass the steampunk menagerie of Nantes’ Les Machines de l’île—but the Frawnsh seem to be absolute fucking masters at this sort of thing. The still photos don’t really do justice even to the scale of […]
Tub Thump Dump.
Category: On the Road, public interfaceIt’s not that there aren’t a bunch of things to talk about. I want to review a certain anime series that combines unremarkable animation with some of the sharpest TV writing I’ve ever encountered on the subject of personality uploads. I want to share my perspective on the tech bros and futurists and “prototypers” who […]
The Pong Imperative: Driving Dishbrain to Suicide.
Category: neuro, sentience/cognitionAchilles Desjardins had always found smart gels a bit creepy. People thought of them as brains in boxes, but they weren’t. They didn’t have the parts. Forget about the neocortex or the cerebellum—these things had nothing. No hypothalamus, no pineal gland, no sheathing of mammal over reptile over fish. No instincts. No desires. Just a […]