Fantasist's Scroll

Affirmitive action in comic books?

Okay, I guess I see their point regarding the lack of minorities in comics, but it seems like people spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. But, according to this article on Wired News, it’s a big deal to some folks. I have to admit, the hyper-sexualized women get to be a little much sometimes. I mean, c’mon, don’t these guys get out at all? When was the last time they saw a real, flesh-and-blood woman?
And, where are all the Asian heroes? Afterall, there are a lot more Asian people than there are Caucasian. It’s changing, but very slowly. Look at how long it took to get realistic Black heroes in the comic books. And, even then, they still tend toward stereotypes.
Well, let’s hope the anime craze will help change that some. Maybe the Asian animators will feature more Asian characters. Only time will tell.

An odd, little item that caught my attention…

In this commentary from the Guardian, a couple of interesting sociological phenomena were brought to my attention.
First, the clever way of dealing with armed robbery in a restraunt. It seems that in certain “unruly” neighborhoods in Honduras, women always order red wine. The reason being that it’s easier to hide their jewelry in their red wine than in white wine. Apparently, they’ve discovered that hiding their jewels in their drinks is an effective way of foiling the robbers.
Second, the whole culture of Americans essentially buying a trophy wife in Latin American countries. Middle-aged men are apparently offering younger women from Latin American countries security in exchange for, well, whatever middle-aged men get from having a trophy wife.

What got me thinking about these two things, though, was how odd it seems to my American way of thinking. So, if my culture skews my vision on this, what else does it do that I’m not aware of? How does that effect my description of a created culture? Sure something to think about as we create our unique, fantasy worlds.

Cheap computing makes research easier and more feasable!

Researchers are using low-cost “super computing” ala Linux to figure out how species differentiate, according to this article on Wired News. They’re also investigating the relationship all these sub-species have to each other currently. It sounds so simple that I think it’s deceptive. They’re inputing tonnes of data, including habitat, diet, and reproduction statistics. Then, they’re analyzing all that for subtle relationships that might not be obvious to human researchers.
But, what’s cool is that they’re doing it on a budget using an Open Source operating system! Truly, we are all standing on the shoulders of giants as we march into this new century of high-technology. And, that, as far as I am concerned, is very, very cool.

Of course, I also wonder what they will find. Can we ever know how things evolved? More importantly, can we begin to predict in what way things will continue to evolve? Will we then try to steer that evolution? Should we? As always, new improvements in science and technology provoke moral and ethical questions that we, as a race, will need to answer eventually. We try to skirt these issues now, but we must deal with them or they will deal with us!

(And, again, this appeared on my other blog earlier this month. This, BTW, is a shameless attempt to promote my Diary of a Network Geek.)

Over all, not bad.

Okay, I have to admit that I didn’t read the comic book on which this was based, but it was still an enjoyable movie. The basic plot, without giving too much away, is a mad genius is out to cause world-wide chaos and mayhem and, somehow, plans to turn a profit off it all. To thwart this madman’s nefarious schemes, a group of quite unusual adventurers are gathered together. Adventure and mayhem ensue.

The characters are well developed, and unique even though they’re based on existing literary figures. The writers manage to make these characters their own fairly well. Of course, that means making some changes to them. The most disturbing of the changes, I found, was making Captain Nemo Indian. Not that I have anything against Indians, and certainly, the character in the movie was great, but it really has nothing to do with the literary character at all! But, once I set that aside, I’d say that Nemo became probably my second favorite character. My third favorite is a tie between Dorian Grey and Skinner, the second invisible man. Both were well thought out and “real” in a way that such gimmicky characters rarely seem to be in movies like this.
My favorite character, however, was the aging Alan Quartermain. And, that, of course, was due to Sean Connery. I’ve loved him as an actor since he was James Bond.

There were only a few internal inconsistencies that were troubling. The first being a vampire walking about in the sunlight. The second being the aforementioned Nemo changes. And, of course, there was all of Nemo’s technology. It was far, far in advance of anything even thought of at the time. It relied on concepts not even dreamt of yet.
The other thing I found both troubling and intrigueing was totally personal. There was quite a reference to Freemasonry in the film, not all of it flattering. But, that only bothered my because I am, in fact, a Freemason.

Over all, a good movie, but hit the matinee and save a couple of bucks.

Will that be cash, check or charge?

Technology keeps marching on, doesn’t it? Now, according to this article on Wired News, there’s a Canadian company that offers churches a new way of collecting donations. An interactive kiosk. What will they think of next? Will indulgences be autioned off on eBay? Will “independant” churches offer PayPal as a method of donation? I wonder what God thinks of all this? Does this offend his sight? Are the money lenders in the temple?
It seems strange to me, but then, I guess it’s harder and harder to collect money for charity these days. Who knows if it will even work? It sure is an interesting idea, though. Even if it is a bit frightening.

Will this become more common as we become more integrated with technology? Will shrines have donation kiosks available to distribute prayers for the faithful on their pilgrimages? Can a priest be replaced with a PERL script? Man, there are so many ideas for stories here that I can hardly imagine all the possibilities! Sci-fi religion at it’s best!

A digital prayer a day?

Hmm, well, why not? I mean, we can get other kinds of reminders to our phones or pagers, so why not a reminder to pray?
This article on Wired News really made me think about where we’re taking religion as a society. I’ve seen plenty of free Islamic programs for the Palm, so why not a generalized one? A simple PERL script or two is all it should take to send a random reminder to pray to any Internet-enabled wireless device. Or, a more generalized “spiritual” message could be sent. Or, really, anything that would be regular and in text format.
Personally, I like the idea of getting random reminders to make contact with God. It might be nice to have my cellphone, which I’ve come to think of as a tool of the Devil, remind me that God is watching me and that He does care about me. Why shouldn’t technology remind us of our spiritual selves? Just because the old Catholic church had issues with early scientists doesn’t mean that we should not make use of this kind of tool for spiritual awareness. I’d like to think that the modern Vatican, which is online now, would agree with me.

Hmph, maybe I’ll have to develop something to make that work. Stay tuned!

It must be sweeps week.

That is the only explanation I have for last night’s episode of Enterprise. It was called “Bounty” and the “main” plot was about Archer being held captive by a bounty hunter. However, the plot that they advertised was all about T’Pol being in heat.
I almost feel sorry for Jolene Blalock because I can’t be the only one who thinks of her as the Striper in Space. I mean, really, she’s in that decontamination chamber every other episode greasing up with “Decon Gel #5” and thrusting her mammaries at the screen. Who do these people think they’re kidding? That’s not story-telling, though it might be considered science-fiction. (I mean, really, can those things be real?) I know their audience is somewhat less than they’d hoped, but I think resorting to T&A just isn’t the way to win viewers. For once, I’d love to get through an entire season of Star Trek without some low-brow, trailer-park-trash alien shaking her “money-maker” at the screen. Is that too much to ask?

Of course, the fun didn’t stop there. When we flipped over to the Cartoon Network and saw “The Family Guy”, which is part of Adult Swim and get more sex. Frankly, I understand why it was pulled from regular TV and put into syndication. So, it wasn’t just Enterprise that stooped to the lowest common denominator, but still….

As my dear, departed grandmother would say, “What’s the world coming to?”…

Blog of a fugative heiress?

Maybe, maybe not. I saw the story on Wired News, but it’s been other places on the ‘net, too. It’s possible, of course, that this fugative from a repressive, arranged marriage is legit, but there’s enough controversy surrounding it that it quite possibly is just a stunt. Some have speculated that it’s just a creative attempt to generate some buzz about a fictional account of an escaped “poor, little rich-girl”. Who knows for sure? No one, yet. I’m sure it will come out eventually, but for now, no one really knows. It certainly would be an interesting literary device. In fact, I had thought of doing something similar, but in a fantasy setting.
My idea was to have an electronic version of a fantasy character’s diary. In particular, a Marco Polo-like character who would allow the reader to explore the fantasy world I was creating via journal entries. It’s an idea that I may still pursue.
In any case here’s her blog if you’d like to check it out.