Category Archives: arts

questions of emphasis

Posted on Tuesday, 2017 May 23 by Anton

In Sherlock episode “The Lying Detective”, the phrase serial killer is uttered many times, always stressing the first word – as if the second were a given, even when (for the speakers) any killings are hypothetical. That impaired my enjoyment of … Continue reading →

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a sort of conlang

Posted on Friday, 2017 March 17 by Anton

I’m re-reading Strugatsky’s Hard to Be a God. (I read it thirty-odd years ago and forgot nearly everything.) This is a newer translation, by Olena Bormashenko. At one point the protagonist eavesdrops on conspirators, who say: “The chonted will shlake, … Continue reading →

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exporting transcendence

Posted on Thursday, 2017 January 05 by Anton

In the film and TV series Limitless, a drug makes the protagonist temporarily super-intelligent. In the episodes I’ve seen, it’s not established whether any skills learned with the drug remain when it wears off. I imagine that you’d want to … Continue reading →

Posted in cinema, psychology | Leave a comment

Use of Symbols

Posted on Saturday, 2016 December 17 by Anton

In Marvel/Netflix Daredevil episode 11 “The Path of the Righteous”, [spoiler] drugs [spoiler] and takes her to a secret place. When she wakes up, he sits facing her and puts a large pistol on the table between them, “to get … Continue reading →

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cross-drafting

Posted on Sunday, 2016 February 28 by Anton

Gail Simone asks: Question of the day: if you could have one piece of art drawn by any living comics artist, not to sell, what artist and what character? I haven’t followed (paper) comics in a long time, but several … Continue reading →

Posted in cartoons | Leave a comment

Neptune’s Gulch

Posted on Monday, 2016 January 04 by Anton

In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt invented a radical new engine and (according to folklore) emigrated to Atlantis to keep his invention out of the hands of parasites. Charles Stross’s novel Neptune’s Brood is about uncovering the true history of the … Continue reading →