Archive for the 'teh internets' Category

The rapture for geeks

Published at July 1, 2008 in the singularity, science fiction, teh internets, virtual reality and mundane SF. 1 Comment

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Whilst surfing over the weekend, I stumbled over a quote from sci-fi author Ken MacLeod. Now, I haven’t read any of MacLeod’s stuff for years, and it never struck me as being amazing, but this quote (apparently from his novel ‘The Cassini Division’) hit a chord with me.

(The technological singularity)…is the rapture for nerds.

Genius. I’ve been searching for a way of summing up my discontent with contemporary singularity theory, and all the time MacLeod had hit the nail right bang on the head.

For those of you not familiar with the concept of the rapture, it’s a fundamentalist Christian belief that at some point in the future Jesus will return to the earth and transport all true Christians up to heaven to leave in immortal, eternal peace with the Lord.

It’s the perfect get out clause. Belief in this happening means that Christians don’t have to deal with everything that challenges their world-view; homosexuality, the internet, women’s sexual liberation, stem-cell research, the pro-choice movement, rival religions, Darwin…all of this can be just dismissed as sin, and left to perish, when God comes down to save them.

What MacLeod is saying, is that for a large tract of the geek community, the singularity is filling the same role. It’s the perfect get out clause. Belief in this happening means that geeks don’t have to deal with everything that challenges their world-view; ecological break-down, global warming, digital rights management, the hypocrisy of being a corporate IT professional but hating anything not open-source, global poverty, the high price of oil, obesity and heart disease….all of this can be just dismissed as Luddite heresy, and left to perish, when the AI Gods rise up to save them….uploading their brains to immortal digital shells, using nanotechnology to clean up the environment, giving everyone fusion powered flying cars and lots of free cybersex with VR constructs of Kristen Bell.

Of course not all geeks think this way, just as not all Christians blindly believe in the rapture.

And me? In case you haven’t guessed already, I’m a fucking atheist.

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Early 21st Century rubbish

Published at May 26, 2008 in rubbish, science fiction, teh internets, tech and video games. 0 Comments

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I was procrastinating preparing to do some work today by clearing out my office/studio/spare room, when I found myself taking the above photo. I was emptying a drawer of the usual flotsam of modern life, when I realised it was subtly different. Maybe it’s because I’m weird, but instead of the usual collection of random badges, elastic bands, paperclips and the tops off lost biros, this little pile included:

  • An old 3rd party Playstation memory card
  • A Gunpey game cartridge for the Wonderswan, complete with protective slip case
  • A weird Playstation cable tidy thing, that I was given at a Sony developers conference some years ago
  • The cover for the network adaptor port on a black Nintendo Gamecube
  • Protective covers for what I think are Dreamcast memory cards or VMUs (x3, various colours)

I don’t know why I took a photo of it. Possibly because it’s in someway a comment on how the minutiae of even the most mundane aspects of our lives have been changed by our reliance on consumerism and technology. Or something.

If you can actually use any of this shit then give me a shout.

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Cardboard Tron

Published at March 27, 2008 in teh internets, video games, movies and virtual reality. 1 Comment

Someone has too much time on their hands…

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Fansubbing: How it works

Published at March 18, 2008 in teh internets, TV and anime. 2 Comments

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Ureshii Anime have posted an amazing piece detailing the long process they go through in creating one of their excellent fansubs.

For those of you not familiar with the practice, fansubbing is the act of taking a foreign TV show or movie (usually, but not always, Japanese anime) that’s been uploaded to the internet, and translating it and adding subtitles before re-distributing it online. Sounds simple enough, but as you’ll see from that post it’s a long and complex process. There’s also the added legality issues - obviously any fansubbing process includes piracy as a key component - but as most content by definition lacks distribution rights outside of the country of origin it’s kind of a grey area. Arguably the act of doing it opens up anime to wider audiences, so to date most Japanese studios have turned a blind eye to the practice.

Me, I live for fansubbed content. I know that a lot of what I watch will never see the light of day over here in the UK, plus nothing beats the buzz of watching a show only days after it first aired on Japanese TV. Hyper-props to Ureshii, Anime-Kraze, Saizen and the other groups…legendary.

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