and miscellaneous thoughts
When we listen to a remix of a familiar song, we can instantly identify the signature elements taken piecemeal from the original. At the same time we know just as quickly that this is not the original this is something different, a remix, even if it has those pieces we so easily recognize. They [ ]
Nearly all the aliens ever created in fiction are just barely alien at all. They are all fundamentally human, with wants, needs, and emotions that are either identical to ours or thinly-disguised copies. We can t really write about aliens without basing their psychology on ours. If anyone did otherwise, nobody would care to read about them, [ ]
I ve been thinking about what it would be like to terraform a planet. One major step in the process, somewhere along the way, is initiating and encouraging the proliferation of plant life. A planet blanketed in green is generating an awful lot of oxygen for the atmosphere. It would be a tough task to generate [ ]
I wonder how the world will change now that history has become self-documenting. If we wish to look back thirty thousand years, we must analyze dust and bones. In caves we might stumble onto forgotten paintings, and at the bottom of the ocean perhaps lies a skeleton submerged in the sand. And we do what [ ]
It occurred to me today that candy in the United States is eternal and immutable. Over the course of the 20 years I ve been alive, some variations have been introduced, and some new things have achieved moderate success, but the crux of the candy hasn t changed one bit in decades. Hershey s bars. Kitkats. Reese s cups. [ ]
It used to be that when people did their work, there was nothing but the work. Maybe other people were around, and maybe there was scenery to be looked at if you were a shepherd (in which case it s essentially your job to look at scenery anyway), but in the end there wasn t much to do [ ]
Today the internet tossed up something I did not expect to see, an old video of Steve Irwin on the Conan O Brien show, and now I m here at work and trying not to cry. It might be the music for an associated video, With A Spirit by 009 Sound System, which even on its own brings [ ]
I ve noticed lately how the days we re afraid of are oftentimes not so bad as we expect. Usually they re days that deviate from the norm somehow, days where we have to go on stage or face something down. But it turns out we know what to expect from these days. They re consistent. We re afraid of [ ]
I wish there were a word for that moment when you tell a story to someone you don t know that well, an acquaintance maybe, or share something with them, and they don t see what you see in it, so they give no reaction at all because they re not sure what you re getting at. Like when you [ ]
I am on a hillside in the blackest night, and before me is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The valley is painted with cityscape, right in front of me and far away, like a train set for a child. It is marked with strips of fire which blaze distantly, seeming transfixed and [ ]