"Whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon—honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth—it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate "wars" that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement. More generally, then, we should define war as a self-replicating pattern of activity that may or may not require human participation— Barbara Ehrenreich I was watching TV pundit/editor of Mother Jones Magazine David Korn commenting on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's botched Iraq war when he said, "...it's almost like saying if we had an army of a million giant flying robots things would have turned out better. It's denying reality... it's all a giant experiment for them..." Those two ideas struck me; irresponsible, inexperienced leadership and a million robot army. A scary proposition, fast becoming a very real possibility. DARPA is slowly crafting robots around the art of war. What is DARPA? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . DARPA funds an … [Read more...] about A Million Robot Army
David Mamet’s Memo: To the Writers of The Unit
If you've never read David Mamet's memo to the writers of The Unit, prepare to be amused. The author of 50 plays and 25 screenplays, Mamet is a study in why playwrights often dazzle when it comes to screenwriting. They learn to move the plot forward dramatically, scene by scene, through character and dialogue, without the help of Lizard men descending from the ceiling or massive car chases. Known for his witty, acerbic style, staccato musicality of dialogue and ability to render the dynamics of complex human emotion into nuanced, yet dramatic turns, Mamet's writing is sometimes surprising and often lovely. His dialogue is so distinctive, it spawned the slang phrase Mamet Speak. But in 2006, Mamet was working in the Hollywood Dream factory at the breakneck pace television demands, as executive producer on a weekly drama for Fox called The Unit, based on his co-producer's book Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counter terrorist Unit. The show ran for four seasons. In this letter, David Mamet's frustration with his writer's is apparent, but between the lines … [Read more...] about David Mamet’s Memo: To the Writers of The Unit
Giant Squid: The Kraken Revealed
Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumbered and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. — Alfred Lord Tennyson Remember those spooky artists renderings of sperm whales battling Giant Squids? Or the 19th century illustrations of boats being pulled down into the depths by tentacled arms? Well, it turns out, those stories were true. A crew of Scientists, funded by Discovery Channel and Japan's NHK TV, just filmed a bus sized Giant Squid in its natural habitat for the first time. As a writer, this intersection of mythology and … [Read more...] about Giant Squid: The Kraken Revealed
