One interesting phenomena I've noticed recently is a tendency to categorize something (and often dismiss it) based on plot mechanic. "The Hunger Games" has been compared to numerous other 'many enter, one leaves, and everybody watches' stories, especially ones involving children. "Limitless" gets compared to any other story involving medical ( Read more... )

Memory is stored in so many places. A sea shell contains the memory of the organism that made it. Its trials and tribulations are recorded in the layers of material it deposited. Since it was unable to make a meaningful decision based on these memories, we hesitate to call them so, but our scientists eagerly read them, read the memories in whole ( Read more... )

This is a response to this article: "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school" by Mark Slouka. Initially I'm going to be tossing ideas against a wall because I feel his argument is broken in several different respects. Later I intend to try to go back to edit it to be more coherent. Or, at least, that's my intention right now. :-)

In ( Read more... )

I was reading and came along this quote:

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Kahlil Gibran

I rather liked it.

Sunlight reflects from moving water
forming a bright moving mosaic of light
the patterns resembling ten thousand
bright and beautiful worms writhing
in a living mass on the surface of the ocean.

A beautiful obsession has arisen within me. I do not want it calmed or abated. I wanted it integrated and made a part of who I am.

Specifics in the ( Read more... )

It is best understood in context. This is a response to an article about Richard Feynman, the Challenger, and engineering. And it is specifically in response to a post in which someone blames capitalism for the problem's Richard Feynman outlines in Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.

( Read more... )

Surely someone among you can expand on this verse of filk:

Hypoxia! Hypoxia!
This meeting will not end,
and makes my day so very dull
from hours eight until five.

A suggestion of mist lies like a soft white glow above the water, lit by the last dying rays of the sun filtered through a thick layer of clouds. Off in the distance the mountains loom, only a dimly perceived outline in the distant fuzzy gloom hinting at their monstrous implacability.

The clouds lit from above by the sun, with a sun so low the ( Read more... )

The drumbeat pulses
clockcycle to my dreams
my heart pours forth
body moving to its arcane dictates

A ritual of sound
a mystical touch
breaches my subconcious
and the dreams are more real than the stage

Structure giving form
thought giving content
my body moves to my desire
an instrument to play my anger and joy.

both feral and human
I prowl my ( Read more... )

Oh, dear, where can the matter be
When it's converted to energy?
There is a slight loss of parity.
Johnny's so long at the fair.

I really wish I knew who was the author of this particular piece of filk.