tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post9018619069067554505..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Sci Fi Flicks! Some looks back and forwardDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84235773245372980172014-10-09T12:22:54.886-07:002014-10-09T12:22:54.886-07:00If your intent was to keep money from going to OSC...If your intent was to keep money from going to OSC for some stupid reason then you wasted your time. he was paid up front for the movie. Besides, the book series has made more than enough to keep him happy. I for one buy everything he writes. Sometimes both ebook and audible.<br />If I did not buy books or services from people I disagreed with then I would be pretty bored.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72728616391900648582014-10-09T09:51:11.254-07:002014-10-09T09:51:11.254-07:00Alex Tolley: It was a shame that Freeman couldn&#...Alex Tolley: It was a shame that Freeman couldn't get "Rama" off the ground. The latest SF "passion project" I've heard of is that Bradley Cooper is trying to get "Hyperion" made. But the last I heard of anything about that was about two years ago.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34564283196065377392014-10-06T22:04:09.590-07:002014-10-06T22:04:09.590-07:00ST:TNG episode "Parallels" establishes t...ST:TNG episode "Parallels" establishes that there are at least 285,000 alternate universes with an "Enterprise" in them. Whether there are any without one is not known, but it would be perfectly canon to have at least one in which Zoe Saldana gets to be captain.<br /><br />---<br /><br />"Parallels" and "Star Trek: The Reboot" or whatever they are calling it, suffer (in my mind) from an obvious flaw: the failure of the science-oriented Federation to swap files whenever possible. It may be that technological advances in one universe won't translate in another, but more likely that there are several thousand small advances that would be worth file-sharing.<br /><br />At the end of ST:The Reboot, "Captain" Kirk watches a ship from the future sink slowly into a black hole, because its angry captain refuses help. Well enough, but his next order should have been "Scotty, beam over anything that looks like a data storage unit. Also their stock of Romulan ale."rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38765400625092807962014-10-06T21:39:23.946-07:002014-10-06T21:39:23.946-07:00To Mike Davey and Paul Shen-Brown. Thanks for the ...To Mike Davey and Paul Shen-Brown. Thanks for the responses and I wholeheartedly agree. I've just been reading Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate and, though I don't agree with every detail, I do think that we would be wise to acknowledge these innate predispositions so that we might better develop a social strategy to transcend or channel them elsewhere. The oligarchs, however, know exactly what they are doing and now have unlimited scope to purvey their propaganda.daddyoyohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01694802874831650381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78058429221811728052014-10-06T21:00:54.702-07:002014-10-06T21:00:54.702-07:00Dear Mike Davey,
I have always been just as distu...Dear Mike Davey,<br /><br />I have always been just as disturbed by this behavior, but I think there is a real answer to why it seems so strong among the young. All our feelings are mediated by chemicals in our heads called neurotransmitters. There are 60 different ones, each do different things. One, called oxytocin, essentially makes people addicted to getting attention from others - a critical part of being social animals. However, the potency of the chemical wears off as you get older / experience it more frequently. It works the same way drug tolerance builds up in the brain. This is why young people scream when they get shots, while older people often barely feel the needle going in (though a different chemical, called Substance P), and why younger people tend to be much more wildly emotional. This means that there is a certain inevitability here. But the more you know how these things work, the more you can exercise conscious control over yourself. <br />I hope this helps.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4941899573417354222014-10-06T17:18:41.396-07:002014-10-06T17:18:41.396-07:00Anonymous:
Caught the movie Divergent last weeken...Anonymous:<br /><i><br />Caught the movie Divergent last weekend. I found a lot of the silly stuff in the movie makes sense if you look at each faction as a cult.<br /></i><br /><br />I realize this isn't your point, but my 12-year-old (who absolutely loved the books) was heartbreakingly disappointed in the movie. She didn't like the way the characters were portrayed, especially the ones whose roles were minimized or combined into one character. <br /><br />Myself, I didn't think it did a very good job of translating book to film. Except for the one "money shot" of a glass cage breaking, most of the scenes didn't seem to take advantage of the visual or motion aspects of the movie form. It felt more like I was watching a film of someone reading the book to me.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39921718790456209232014-10-06T17:00:37.878-07:002014-10-06T17:00:37.878-07:00Daddyoyo:
That was the first lesson I learned from...Daddyoyo:<br />That was the first lesson I learned from reading about Nazi Germany. Giving a group another group (or person) to hate builds very strong bonds.<br /><br />I've watched for this ever since, from small groups to large, people often want to find someone to make the outcast. Schools, friends, work. The only place it didn't happen as much was team sports, and of course in team sports there is the other team to beat.<br /><br />I noticed it most at school and at work. For some reason a person would get separated from the herd. They would do something minor, trip at the very worst time, get in the way of some alpha dog, take away the basketball from the star player and score. From then on they would be marked. Every event of abuse after that increased the pool of people who were either against him/her, or distanced them self from him/her to keep from getting the stain of otherness on them self.<br /><br />I've always found this to be a really disturbing part of human behaviour. I can see it being useful when someone breaks a taboo, murder, rape, pedophile, but I've never understood why the drive is so strong so young.<br />Michael Daveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06941763368626515469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51803406244974975092014-10-06T12:40:57.756-07:002014-10-06T12:40:57.756-07:00AF Rey: "So when you realize that each and ev...AF Rey: "So when you realize that each and every one of us is likely to become a demigod"...<br /><br />Yes well that's the problem. Card does not (nor do the Mormons) say that. It is only the rare truly enlightened soul who then gets to dominate and torment his own planet of beings, e.g. imposing detestable doctrines like Original Sin.<br /><br />What Card absolutely disdains is the notion that this is for everyone. Or that the civilization we all built together is worth more than a bucket of piss. Or that the average person has the insight of a tardigrade. Never, ever, ever does he posit the possibility of a "we" that could accomplish anything worthwhile.<br /><br />Sure, he is expert at this. His demigods are soulfully tormented and guilt-ridden and reluctant! He teases and lures the reader into moaning: <br /><br />"Don't be so hard on yourself Ender! It wasn't your fault! And anyway it was for the best! And we NEEEED you to take over and dominate us because we and our institutions all suck!<br /><br />"Please come and save us from ourselves!"<br /><br />It is one of the most disgusting treasons to a civilization that has been very, very good to Scott. But I will admit, he's really skilled at this and nothing that I say or post will change that.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46058674074530414752014-10-06T12:01:40.397-07:002014-10-06T12:01:40.397-07:00Caught the movie Divergent last weekend. I found a...Caught the movie Divergent last weekend. I found a lot of the silly stuff in the movie makes sense if you look at each faction as a cult. These cults managed to form some sort of cooperative. <br /><br />An interesting detail I found odd, was that the villain actually took the steps to break the society and upset the status quo, not youths. Despite being supposedly Divergent, they didn't take any actions against the society, and pretty much fought in an attempt to preserve it. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10655610794578882252014-10-06T10:49:20.296-07:002014-10-06T10:49:20.296-07:00In re: "which illustrates the puzzlement why ...In re: "which illustrates the puzzlement why a million po' white southerners marched to fight and die for their class oppressors... or march lockstep today for Murdoch, Koch and the Saudi royal house." Pardon me if I've referenced this quote before but here is LBJ on the subject: "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." In other words, if given the chance, many of these people would support a policy that takes $90 from their pockets and $100 from each black person's pocket and transfers that money to the oligarchs. They would then think that they were $10 ahead of the gamedaddyoyohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01694802874831650381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52664623357925927912014-10-06T10:05:50.368-07:002014-10-06T10:05:50.368-07:00@A.F. Rey
Based on what O.S. Card has said, there...@A.F. Rey<br /><br />Based on what O.S. Card has said, there certainly are Mormon aspects in his Ender books, but Ender himself came from the frustration that he, and many other highly gifted children, have with adults.<br /><br />My wife and I disagree strongly with Card's beliefs (social and religious) but man, it sure feels like he nailed what it felt like being gifted, at least at one point in time. That is why we go back to Ender's Game time and time again.<br /><br />Our daughter (smarter than us) also liked the book and lost interest in the direction the later ones took. It was good "validation" fiction, but unhealthy if you think it is a prescription for anything.SteveOnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24462610738761346392014-10-06T09:47:24.654-07:002014-10-06T09:47:24.654-07:00Mike Davey,
The other great prallel universe stor...Mike Davey,<br /><br />The other great prallel universe story line was in the otherwise awful ST: Enterprise, which showed the origins of the Mirror universe Terran Empire. Great episodes.<br /><br />As the saying goes, it's good to be bad.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32752800226320207582014-10-06T09:43:31.633-07:002014-10-06T09:43:31.633-07:00Dr. Brin,
Given your obvious (and justified) dist...Dr. Brin,<br /><br />Given your obvious (and justified) distaste for Frank Miller's Spasrtans I am surprised that you havenever expressedd similar dislike for SM Stirling's Draka.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89714773406381508772014-10-06T08:24:14.618-07:002014-10-06T08:24:14.618-07:00In defense of Orson Card, I suspect his focusing o...In defense of Orson Card, I suspect his focusing on demigod-like characters comes partly from his Mormon religion.<br /><br />As I understand it (and anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), Mormons believe that we are the literal "children of God." That once we "grow up," we will become beings like God, with Godlike powers, and become the savoirs (like Christ) of other worlds to come.<br /><br />So when you realize that each and every one of us is likely to become a demigod, the moral and ethical dilemmas of being one becomes important to every person, not just our feudal lords. Dealing with being a demigod is not a problem for just the strongest few, but eventually for everyone. A populist elitism, if you will.<br /><br />Of course, anyone who bases his fiction on Christianity would also have demigods saving the immoral, corrupt hoi-poloi, since that is the Christianity's underlying myth.A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15962536329678460462014-10-06T08:02:50.337-07:002014-10-06T08:02:50.337-07:00For a fun, low budget Science fiction movie with a...For a fun, low budget Science fiction movie with a lot of heart(and ideas for a fun Halloween costume) I can recommend "The History of Future Folk". <br /><br />It is on net flicks. <br />The story is about an alien who comes to Earth to release a deadly plague (so his people can have a new home)but stops when he discovers something amazing that humans have invented..... music. occam's comicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-92112864560297177602014-10-06T04:51:27.471-07:002014-10-06T04:51:27.471-07:00Paul 451,
"That said, the Lewinsky affair (i...Paul 451, <br />"That said, the Lewinsky affair (in both senses) doesn't exactly serve as a glowing testimony to Clinton's decision making skills.?" <br />Agreed, but people can make very smart decisions in one area and titanically stupid decisions in others. Intelligence is not a single thing - our minds compartmentalize. Clinton made good economic decisions that at the very least did not interfere too much with an economy that was functioning at the time, but his romantic decisions weren't so good. But this is an old pattern, Think of Charles Parnell in Ireland a century ago.<br /><br />As to the neologism there, I hope that isn't too unforgivable. Veblen wrote his book in 1899, and his twin notions of conspicuous consumption and competitive emulation are so relevant a century later that he deserves to at least get an adjective. If we can do this for fictional characters - like quixotic from Don Quixote - we should be able to do this for a real person.<br /><br />Larry, it all fits a pattern, doesn't it? I never signed up with the Democrats, but that pattern will have me voting against the republicans every time. Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69443286589245582132014-10-06T04:19:11.527-07:002014-10-06T04:19:11.527-07:00Paul Shen-Brown:
They hate anyone who isn't o...Paul Shen-Brown:<br /><i><br />They hate anyone who isn't one of them, and they make it more clear with each passing election that they only wish to serve those parts of the country that vote for them.<br /></i><br /><br />During the Reagan presidency, it became generally known that, as governor of California, he had drastically cut state funding for the universities. His reasoning was along the lines of "Why should I give financial support to those (liberal) students who are going to protest against my policies?"<br /><br />At the time I heard that, I thought it was a funny way of looking at the role of a governor, and of government in general, but passed it off as one of those quaint/funny Reagan things. 30 years later, I realize this is an expression of the fundamental evil of the right wing, exemplified by such things as Chris Christie shutting down traffic in Ft Lee in order to punish its mayor for not endorsing him.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11176898834720158612014-10-06T00:00:32.170-07:002014-10-06T00:00:32.170-07:00Vangelis also did the score for Alexander. We sto...Vangelis also did the score for <i>Alexander</i>. We stole the music for an opening to a game we were running, sadly, not science fiction.<br />We discovered another musician whose music we are likewise co-opting for a RPG campaign: Thomas Bergersen. It's not wholly electronic, but it does lend a certain atmosphere. I'm also fond of Philip Glass.<br /><br />TheMadLibrarian<br />TheMadLibrariannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75804449508198846152014-10-05T22:12:08.148-07:002014-10-05T22:12:08.148-07:00Paul Shen-Brown,
Re: Clinton.
"as if a person...Paul Shen-Brown,<br />Re: Clinton.<br /><i>"as if a person's marital infidelities disqualified them from making good policy decisions?"</i><br /><br />That said, the Lewinsky affair (in both senses) doesn't exactly serve as a glowing testimony to Clinton's decision making skills.<br /><br />Aside: <br />Googled "veblenesque", the top return was the Wikipedia article on Conspicuous Consumption, exactly what I needed to get the reference. Interestingly, this is in spite of the word itself <i>not appearing once in the article</i> (Veblen's name obviously does, but not "-esque" or any adjective form.)<br /><br />These computer thingies aren't so bad.<br /><br />--<br /><br />Tacitus2,<br /><i>"The ads for Old Man's War in various AARP publications would be something!"</i><br /><br />Not really. While the book is about old people reborn, the bulk of the film will be post-rejuvenation. Hence the cast will be young, pretty and ridiculously buff. (They'll drop the skin colour too.) That means the pre-rejuvenation will probably be the same cast with prosthetic or CG faux-ageing.<br /><br />It would be a young person's film. The audience of Hunger Games, aged two years.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34517200539555567002014-10-05T19:53:21.701-07:002014-10-05T19:53:21.701-07:00Robert, you may be remembering the famous "A ...Robert, you may be remembering the famous "A Class Divided" in which a teacher pit children against each other based on the color of their eyes. You can find it on PBS <br /><br />http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html<br /><br />Larry, of course the GOP hated Clinton from Day 1. I remember the bumper stickers, too. They hate anyone who isn't one of them, and they make it more clear with each passing election that they only wish to serve those parts of the country that vote for them. I grew up in a place where most people fell entirely under the spell of their propaganda, and consistently fought against their own interests to maintain their personal and social identities as valued members of their communities. I still run into people who whisper under their breathe that Obama's a Muslim, as if going to a different church than they do makes a person unqualified to be a leader. Pure propaganda, and the sheep-emulating bobble-headed conformity that makes it work. Whatever crisis nearly wiped out the species back in prehistory must have left an indelible mark on our instincts.<br /><br />If I had the Koch Brothers' billions, I wouldn't waste it on veblenesque self-aggrandizement. I would start making movies based on the works of more thoughtful writers, to counteract some of that propaganda. We aren't all sheep, but we all need some good mental stimulus to nourish our minds. I found that in good writing, but so many people today just don't read.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28958012373734413092014-10-05T18:28:39.905-07:002014-10-05T18:28:39.905-07:001968. The Pandora year. Each week was traumatizing...1968. The Pandora year. Each week was traumatizing. But the very last news item... was the Apollo 8 image of the Earth as an oasis in the great desert.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85189993632762661402014-10-05T18:26:45.983-07:002014-10-05T18:26:45.983-07:00On the subject of dystopias, in several media late...On the subject of dystopias, in several media lately I've heard references to Pandora's box. And every time, they seem to forget what was last out of that box. And so it goes with literary dystopias.raitonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91128830107298227752014-10-05T18:12:49.588-07:002014-10-05T18:12:49.588-07:00Paul Shen-Brown:
Why else would the GOP spend so ...Paul Shen-Brown:<br /><i><br />Why else would the GOP spend so much money trying to find out who a Democratic president was having an affair with, as if a person's marital infidelities disqualified them from making good policy decisions?<br /></i><br /><br />The GOP hated Clinton from day-1. There were "Impeach Clinton!" bumper stickers in 1993, in a very simialr dynamic to the hatred of President Obama this go-round.<br /><br />The fact that he purjured himself in testimony about Monica Lewinski was the excuse to impeach him, not the reason behind it. Most of the country disagreed, it turned out, as the Democrats unexpectedly <b>gained</b> congressional seats in 1998. But for those who wanted Clinton impeached and removed from office, it wasn't because of the extramarital sex. That was just ammunition.<br /><br />Ironically, a Clinton impeachment would have given us President Gore, who would probably have won re-election in 2000.<br /><br />Tangential irony: I can't imagine that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama would have been elected president were it not for the complete disillusionment (by 2008) with the incompentence of the Bush administration. Thus, when the Supreme Court gave us President Bush, they probably also indirectly gave us President Obama (and maybe also saved us from President Lieberman as well). Which just goes to show that one never knows the ultimate consequences of one's machinations. Or as Alan Moore had it in "Watchmen", "It never ends."LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84018475600504248822014-10-05T18:01:45.610-07:002014-10-05T18:01:45.610-07:00Mike Davey:
Wasn't there a Star Trek film or ...Mike Davey:<br /><i><br />Wasn't there a Star Trek film or episode where they found a ship from an alternate dimension or timeline?<br /></i><br /><br />Several of them, in fact. The "mirror" universe you remember from Enterprise had been revisited in DS9 as well (I don't recall one from "Voyager", but that doesn't mean it didn't happen).<br /><br />It first appeared in an original-series Trek episode called "Mirror, Mirror", which was one of the biggest fan favorites.<br /><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39580618273334033692014-10-05T17:41:39.035-07:002014-10-05T17:41:39.035-07:00Jumper, yes, music makes a huge difference to a mo...Jumper, yes, music makes a huge difference to a movie. I wonder if Star Wars would have made it as big without the big sound of John Williams' orchestra.<br /><br />I managed to find an Italian release of the Bladerunner soundtrack that had just the music, after being annoyed by those dialogue bits. Unfortunately, he hasn't made anything new for many, many years. He did quite a lot of very good music that was not soundtrack as well. I have more than 60 albums by Tangerine Dream, too, most of which were not soundtracks. I grew up listening to classical, which was fine for awhile because I lose concentration while reading if it gets too quiet, but lyrics distract from reading. <br /><br />if you like these, you might also try Jean-Michel Jarre (who was poised to do the first concert in space, except that his fellow musician happened to be an astronaut on the first shuttle to explode). Mike Oldfield and Isao Tomita are also fun, if you like things 'spacey'. Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.com