Off-World Blues
Matchwood Smith is a blues man, a burn-out, and the unlikeliest interplanetary diplomat ever. Match has been knocking around the universe with his parasitic manager, and his on again, off again, BEM girlfriend, for what could be a millennium (thanks very much, general relativity). So long that he may be the last true genetic human being left alive. So long that Match is starting to consider chucking in the towel. But Match’s plans for an early retirement suicide are foiled when he is ‘rescued’ by a group of Numen–the latest step in human evolution–who need his genetic material to guarantee the future of the numen race. But Match’s willingness to save the numen race is tested when he discovers that a more nefarious plan is afoot…
Logline of the week – Off World Blues
June 17th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Clay Shirky on the revolution of social media – Why Iran’s attempts at censoring will ultimately fail…
June 16th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Amazing points in this TED talk by Clay Shirkey that are very applicable to what’s going on in Iran right now.
To paraphrase (with my analysis in parentheses):
The Great Firewall of China failed (and Iran’s attempts at media control will fail too) because it was designed to censor an old media model:
But the new social media world (including Twitter, and Facebook, and MySpace, and Bebo, and… too many social networks to count actually, with more emerging every day) the things to be censored are:
Clay talks about the earth quake in China, but he could just as easily be talking about the protests in Iran. He says that the only way a country like China can control the media message now is by attempting to block the services–Twitter, etc.–but this is doomed to fail, because new services crop up on a daily basis. So unless China (and Iran) are willing to turn off the internet spigot all together (like North Korea) the regimes will soon find it impossible to control the messages their citizens send and receive.
Interesting times, no?
Proposed Sociological Experiment: Red vs. Blue prejudice
June 14th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately–the divisiveness and outright hostility that seems so pervasive in the current political dialogue. I’m growing increasingly worried about the two echo chambers of the left and right that seem to create this us vs. them environment where there seems to be no common ground, and where we routinely dismiss those who disagree with us in the most simplistic and dismissive terms–stupid, nut job, ignorant, fascist, etc. It seems to me that this is creating a national cultural environment where violence becomes an accepted viable means of forwarding a political viewpoint, because there appears to be no middle ground, no means or place where opposing viewpoints can be debated in a more rational, less histrionic way.
Logline of the week – Friendship, NY
June 10th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Friendship
When Alix, a soon to be 30 party girl, heads upstate determined to figure out once and for all what it means to grow up, her weekend of self-discovery is interrupted by a psychotic preacher, his cannibalistic followers, and a nasty little Lesch-Nyhan syndrome causing parasite. Alix must grow up, and fast, if she intends to survive…
Logline of the week – Fetish
June 3rd, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
A devoted but dissatisfied family man with a penchant for deviance falls prey to a sadistic killer with a twisted sense of humor who frames him for a series of psycho-sexual murders.