September 2010
computers and gods
“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” — Francis Bacon
Ever since the rise of modern science, the computer has been the primary research tool responsible for giving us a new window to the possibilities of reality. With its ability to manage enormous amounts of data, to manipulate elements of the modeled world, and to simulate otherworldly dimensions, some might even say that...
“God and his ways are not what most of us think. Most of what we are told about...”
– Eugene Peterson (via azspot)
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It’ll take many more years of demythologization and the wearing of diachronic goggles before we realize the truth of this claim.
(DMS)
The Rules →
youmightfindyourself:
1. Have talent. (Talent is not when your friends tell you they love your work, but when people who don’t like you have to admit it’s good.)
2. Understand how the world works. (Not just globally, but on a macro level. Understand what people need and don’t need. Understand when to approach people and when not to. Develop social skills.)
3. Choose good friends. (There’s...
Radiohead — Follow Me Around
Tim Burton's Secret Formula →
Tourist: Could you give us directions to Olive Garden? New Yorker: No, but I could give you directions to an actual Italian restaurant.
u, bad teacher!
Teacher: Tell me a sentence that starts with an "I".
Student: I is the...
Teacher: Stop! Never put 'is' after an "I". Always put 'am' after an "I".
Student: OK. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.
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When prescriptivism and grammar police fail. Whatcha gonna do Em when this happens to you? : -p
(DMS)
online, god-like communities
Virtual online communities are a bit funny. All this talk of avatar galleries, computer simulated worlds, 3-D multi-users, telepresence video-conferencing, human/computer cyborgs, and assuming multiple online identities was no doubt considered a fairytale several decades back. Now they’re the premiere sciences of today. Even funnier, the rapid development of these highly interactive,...
Watchthefilmwatcher:
One of my films I did for an experimental class. Feel free to message me if you have any comments about it.
Music is Splitter by Jonny Greenwood.
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This is very cool, exploratory stuff! It reminds me of all the experimental tropes of Stan Brakhage’s work—very edgy, pixelated, and concerned with the...
“All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom....”
– Crime And Punishment, Ch. 1, Fyodor Dostoyevski. (via miguee-e)
A refusal to prostitute God for destructive ends...
This should not imply that what the theologians have professed requires a wholesale repudiation of God, but that the finer points concerning God‘s nature will often be in need of amendment.
High School Musical: A Tale of Copy-Cats,...
Ha ha ha! Funny I know, but hear me out.
Sean J. Bliznik discusses the performative roles that real adolescents adopt from High School Musical as a means of their identity formation within online communities such as YouTube. Of such performative roles, the adolescents range from mimicking verbatim their favorite songs from the film, dance by dance, sync by sync, to exploring their own...
The Beatles — Blackbird
Blackbird singing...
Actualities Cinema →
Miss Dundee and her Performing Dogs
The actuality film—the cinematic document—might best be characterized as a photo album. Like every photo or moving image, it presupposes lots of implications that whisper there’s more going on than meets the eye. The trickiness of this kind of album relates to how its practitioners reconcile a “truthful cinema” with the fallacy that the “camera never lies.We...
Watchembunny:
Brandon asked me to record this like a year ago and i’m finally getting around to it. sorry it kinda sucks. haha.
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oh how I love this girl:)
(DMS)
“Facts have no power; they are inert and passive. Myths actively catch up the...”
– After the Future (via azspot)
Organism
“Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all,” says Kepler. Her diversity is too great, her heavenly secrets so rich, that to swallow her in one sitting would exceed the bounds of what is humanly possible. We are small creatures, yes. But we are enormously special with great potential. We have evolved to wonder, step by step, drink by drink, and have stood in awe looking up...
Why Tumblr?
Of all the telling sources, the most intimate things about me can be found here. Not that I use this site as a kind of no-holds-barred, emotionally whinny outlet. Indeed, I do not. Or that everything that I post here currently represents an actualized part of who I am. Indeed, I have much reinventing still to do. But that I use this site as an eternal blueprint to chart the emotional, spiritual,...
"Runaway" -- A Parable of Economic Crises →
Similar to the Burning House fable in the Lotus Sutra or even Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Runaway is a simple concept with brilliant execution. On the surface, we see a train speeding uncontrollably down a wobbly track due to an incompetent conductor. Underneath lies a satirical commentary on the modern economic crises, noteworthy for its critical engagements and dehumanizing effects related to...
Identity as Theatrical Performance
Social interaction, for me anyways, is a kind of theatrical performance. I seek unwittingly to create impressions on others, often like a trained actor who plays make-believe in order to secure a sense of applaud, attraction, and really, at its core—simple acceptance. But the performance seems, at times, disingenuous and even charade-like. For example, in certain social settings it feels like I...
