Author Archives: youngpark
Science Friction 2011-12-14 08:43:39
Let me tell you a story Of a boy with no soul. Nothing’s wrong with him, really But he isn’t quite whole. Now, the boy was a Who— Wait, there’s doubt about that. Since his Whomanity’s in question Let’s just call him Matt. See, Matt’s a bit diff’rent from most other Whos. Instead […] Continue reading
A κλών has agency, too.
On Tuesday, Professor Sample mentioned that the word clone comes from the Greek word for twig (κλών). He also noted that it was first used in botany, if I remember correctly. Two things about this. First, it comes as a shock to me that a word so entwined with the perversion of nature should come […] Continue reading
h + eh + l + ou = Hello
Please view this post on my blog. [Excelsior to vessel approaching 230°Az -45°dec rel. Hello Odin. Excelsior to vessel approaching 230°Az -45°dec rel. Hello Odin. Odin to Excelsior. Request permission to land. You are cleared for landing Odin…First time on Mars? Welcome to the neighborhood… … This is Rorschach. I have developed stability […] Continue reading
I’m pork, therefore I’m ham.
“I wastes energy and processing power, self-obsesses to the point of psychosis. Scramblers have no need of it, scramblers are more parsimonious. With simpler biochemistries, with smaller brains—deprived of tools, of their ship, even of parts of their own metabolism—they think rings around you. They hide their language in plain sight, even when you know […] Continue reading
Hope.
God. I don’t even know why I bother writing in here anymore. Catharsis? Habit? Yori says keeping a journal reduces stress. Says it’ll be good for my “mental health,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. We all know there’s nothing I can do to stave off my Huntington’s, short of going back to those […] Continue reading
Fair Trade?
Although anthropology does not explicitly train for “first contact” with extraterrestrials, it does prepare one for dealing with an alien culture. Lilith, as a student of the discipline, is well-suited to the task of understanding intelligent beings that have a different orientation to reality whether that being is human or something else. She has probably […] Continue reading
Uncanny Canine
This is BigDog, a robot designed to carry heavy loads over rough terrain. It’s…grotesque. The way it tries to balance itself (at the 0:35 and 1:25 second marks) is truly uncanny—recognizable but repulsively strange at the same time. The buzzing, the stilted gait, and the lack of a head is a little creepy. It’s as if a […] Continue reading
Comment on “Man’s New Best Friend”
This post is the comment posted in response to Rich Borean’s post. Why rats? Good question. The creators could have just as easily used a cuter creature like the hamster, which would have heightened for the reader the emotional impact (i.e. empathy towards the animal and fury at the scientists) that p.25 is meant to evoke. However, […] Continue reading
Psyched about WE3
Matthew Miller makes a fascinating connection between WE3 and Freudian psychology here. Grant Morrison is pretty big into psychology. I had a friend tell me about his use of Jungian psychology or something along those lines in his comics…The three main characters can somewhat be ascribed to the Freudian ideas of the id, ego, and superego. […] Continue reading
The Molly Millions Mystique: The case for MM as feminist symbol
In her book, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan argued that women were expected to “find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love” (2001, p. 92). This view was perpetuated by “stories and articles that showed women as either happy housewives or unhappy, neurotic careerists, thus creating the ‘feminine mystique’” (“Feminine Mystique”). Friedan […] Continue reading