You’ll notice I haven’t been posting much lately. I may not be posting much for the rest of the year. Infuriatingly, I can’t tell you why just yet. There’s a contract, which I haven’t yet signed. There’s a clause that allows the whole thing to implode right up until the approval of a certain deliverable. […]
Author Archive
03
Sep
2015
An Offense Against Nature Itself.
So this happened. I’m not even exactly sure what that even is, actually. It has obviously been engineered, but by some agent lacking even the vaguest grasp of natural selection. Its continued existence hinges on actions that would be described as “Extraordinary Measures” had it landed in a palliative care ward instead of my basement. […]
26
Aug
2015
Predatory Practices.
Oh, we are so fucking bad-ass. Even Science says so. The paper’s called “The Unique Ecology of Human Predators” (commentary here), and it’s been getting a lot of press since it came out last week. “People Are Deadliest Predators”, trumpets Discovery News; “Humans Are Super Predators”, IFL Science breathlessly repeats. Even Canada’s staid old CBC, […]
13
Aug
2015
“Humans”? They Weren’t Kidding.
Spoilers. Duh. So that was Humans. Eight hours of carefully-arced, understated British narrative about robots: an AMC/Channel 4 coproduction that’s netted Channel 4 its biggest audiences in over two decades. What great casting. What fine acting. What nice production values. What a great little bit of subtext as William Hurt and his android, both well […]
03
Aug
2015
A Young Squid’s Illustrated Primer
Part the First: Liminal I recently did a kind of free-form interview with fellow US-border-guard-detainee Jasun Horsley, for his Liminalist podcast. It went okay, if you discount the fact that the Skype connection seemed to go dead without warning every couple of minutes. I certainly hope that we repeated our respective Qs and As often […]
28
Jul
2015
No Brainer.
For decades now, I have been haunted by the grainy, black-and-white x-ray of a human skull. It is alive but empty, with a cavernous fluid-filled space where the brain should be. A thin layer of brain tissue lines that cavity like an amniotic sac. The image hails from a 1980 review article in Science: Roger […]
22
Jul
2015
Dr. Fox and the Borg Collective
Take someone’s EEG as they squint really hard and think Hello. Email that brainwave off to a machine that’s been programmed to respond to it by tickling someone else’s brain with a flicker of blue light. Call the papers. Tell them you’ve invented telepathy. Or: teach one rat to press a lever when she feels […]
07
Jul
2015
Spock the Impaler: A Belated Retrospective on Vulcan Ethics.
When I first wrote these words, the Internet was alive with the death of Leonard Nimoy. I couldn’t post them here, because Nowa Fantastyka got them first (or at least, an abridged version thereof), and there were exclusivity windows to consider. As I revisit these words, though, Nimoy remains dead, and the implications of his […]
22
Jun
2015
Sweet Justice. (And puppets.)
Today’s opening act is a left-over I forgot to include in that last post: a bit of flesh sculpture I was not allowed to show off in “Pones & Bones” because it would have risked spoiling a yet-to-be-aired episode of “Hannibal”. That episode recently aired, though, so the embargo is lifted. Behold: the hoofed, flayed, […]
19
Jun
2015
Space Invaders.
So, a few assorted and domestic pictures with which to see out the week. To your right, as promised a few weeks back, some Rifters-based fan art from “Toa-lagara” over at Deviant Art (and also, now, in the Rifters Gallery, with her permission). Russians do dark art so beautifully.Immediately below, a special edition enhanced appearance […]
