Saturday, 31st of December, 2005

Looking at someone else’s films-seen-in-2005 list, I recalled that I too saw Code 46 in 2005, with Angela. We both enjoyed it, which is interesting because Ange doesn’t generally like science fiction and thinks she doesn’t like Blade Runner in fact (to which Code 46 does bear some comparison, although Gattaca is probably closer) (but I think Ange would probably quite like Blade Runner these days.

Anyway, what struck me most strongly about this film, with its slow, slow pacing and very understated performance from Tim Robbins (and an amazing and not-at-all-understated performance from Samantha Morton) was that it’s practically the only film I’ve ever seen which approaches what you could call “hard sf for film”. Sure, there are some unlikely elements - lots. But it’s a thoughtfully and very deeply realised future, and is thoughtful about its use of science.
There’s a wonderful scene in a clinic which Tim Robbins’s character visits, seeking Samantha Morton’s character; he tries a trick that he uses with people to get them on side, using drug-enhanced (or implant-enhanced?) intuition to find out facts about them from tell-tale physical movements/reactions. But this clinic has introduced an aerosol into their environment to counteract just the sort of ability-enhancements of people like him, one of a couple of scenes in the movie where we are reminded how the world really works.

Matt Cheney’s review has more, much of what I agree with. I was interested though, looking at the IMDB link above, that in fact most of the comments there are overwhelmingly positive. When I saw it, I then thoroughly depressed myself by reading lots of moronic Americans complaining about it on the web. So yeah, if you’re looking for gunfights and explosions, cardboard characters saving the world, and if you dislike being immersed in a world which only slowly reveals and explains itself to you, maybe give it a miss.

Friday, 30th of December, 2005

I was thinking of entitling this post “Mel Gibson is a cunt” but thought better of it. If you wonder why, just go read this blog post. Some doubt is expressed at the start about the veracity of the quotes, but someone went and checked (it’s from a Playboy interview from 1995) and it’s all correct.
In summary: evolution is obviously bullshit (his word), Darwin got a few things right (like why giraffes have long necks) but a lot is laughable, women are inferior to men, some moral issues like abortion just shouldn’t even be discussed. And so on. I’d like to read the whole interview. Or would I?

So yeah. In case you were wondering, after the whole Passion of the Christ affair, whether he had any redeeming features, well… it seems not. Admittedly that’s from ten years ago, but can you imagine he’s grown a brain since then?

Monday, 26th of December, 2005

Seminal British free improv guitarist Derek Bailey has died this Christmas day aged 74. Very sad news, if it’s true - I’m assuming so, having gotten it from a pretty reliable source, although I’m not seeing much news on it yet. I guess it was only yesterday.

I haven’t come across a lot of his music, and I think on the whole it wouldn’t be totally my thing, but having been close enough to the improv/experimental scene here in Sydney for quite some time, and having been interested in stuff like the Tzadik label as well as Bailey’s experiments with drum’n'bass (on one album) and his collaboration with David Sylvian on the Blemish album, I do feel a connection.

I must confess when John Peel died I was really pretty cut up, which was perhaps surprising since I almost never had the opportunity to hear his show - but he’s someone who touched just about anyone interested in leftfield music of any kind. I’m sure Derek Bailey’s death will be cause for sorrow across the music world.

Thursday, 22nd of December, 2005

For anyone who’s interested, I’ve put together my Big Mother of a List of “best” music of 2005 over at the Utility Fog weblog. Lots to be enthusiastic about this year!
Maybe if I’m feeling really enthusiastic at a later date I’ll try and put little potted explanations next to them all. There’s a lot though - eek! For now, a discussion and then lots of listings.

Wednesday, 21st of December, 2005

A court in Pennsylvania has ruled that it is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design in schools as an alternative to evolution.
It’s a pretty strong result, in which ID’s proponents are given a right ticking off, and it’s stated clearly that it’s impossible for ID to remove itself from its creationist/religious roots. Hurrah!

Just as I posted the above, Tim pointed out a good Grauniad article here.

Wednesday, 14th of December, 2005

How entirely odd.

I’m not sure I like these things where some semi-automated service makes one into a product, with incomplete data and no real clue. Still, every one of the albums featured there does have me playing on it!
Sometime I should make a list of everything I know of that I’ve played on. It’d be a big and incomplete list…!

Tuesday, 13th of December, 2005

Cronulla. Lovely place for a BBQ.
I was shocked when I went to the SMH website on Monday morning… And I mean “in shock” - I could hardly think straight for a good half an hour as I looked at the images of the self-satisfied-looking bare-chested motherfuckers. And yes of course there are motherfuckers on “both” “sides”. *sigh*

And while we’re on the subject of utterly contemptible wankers (no I’m not talking about our federal government, nice guess though), let’s talk about Alan Jones.
Well, let’s not. Just read David Marr in The Age.

Anyway, I think basically the Chaser sums it all up here.

Saturday, 10th of December, 2005

Terry Bisson writes the often hilarious and always incisive little “This Month In History” items in Locus Mag - items of future history that reflect quite scathingly on the present.

I just discovered that he made a short-short play of his story “They’re Made of Meat”, which I present for your reading pleasure: http://www.terrybisson.com/meatplay.html. It’s a nice little commentary all at once on the mind/body problem and other aspects of cognitive science, racism, speciesism, and many of the favourite tropes of science fiction. Go read.

Friday, 9th of December, 2005

I’m sure I did this before. Maybe I even posted about it - I can’t remember.
But I was just reading some True Blue philosophy (more about later, if I can be bothered - I want to write some true blue philosophisin’ of my own before posting a link) and found, elsewhere, a link to the World Views quiz, and did it again, and was delighted once again to find that it’s a tie between Materialist and Existentialist. That probably just about sums it up - my ontological/epistemological philosophy is scientific materialist, and my moral philosophy is probably most closely aligned to existentialism of a sort. Vaguely (the latter) anyway.
So here you go:

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Existentialist 88% Materialist 88% Modernist 69% Postmodernist 44% Fundamentalist 31% Cultural Creative 25% Romanticist 19% Idealist 19%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Note in the description that apparently in order to be a materialist, I must be an unreconstructed reductionist as well: ie, it is inferred from the fact that I believe that nothing “exists” other than matter and energy that I must believe that everything can be explained by the reductionist program. I’m not sure this is true - in fact, I think the explanatory gap is an unexamined bugbear which requires a bit more analysis in many thought experiments and the like (remind me to talk about Frank Jackson’s Mary - that thought experiment about colour-perception qualia that doesn’t prove what it thinks it proves…)

Note also that after Existentialist I’m part Modernist, part Post-Modernist (presumably because I’m quite emphatically, in the test’s terms, a moral relativist), and then lesser bits of other options. Fun!

Thursday, 1st of December, 2005

The blurb:

Check out ASif! (Australian Specfic in focus!) – launched today with over 50 reviews by 22 reviewers of Australian speculative fiction and comics! The site aims to double review every Australian publication, author and artist of specfic. A big task, but someone’s gotta do it.
The aim is to have all the low-down you need to find out what you wantto read and where you need to go to buy it. And for the next month, there are freebie prizes, including a copy of the forthcoming ShadowBox CD, for spiffy answers to the online treasurehunt! What are you waiting for? Click here!

I’m meant to be writing reviews, and will do soon - have been too busy and a mite lazy, but lots of good stuphs there anyway!