Games, Design, Culture, Politics...

You may note that up there in the title bar, the last subject I planned on covering with Squaremans was Politics. But the 2008 American Presidential Elections kinda put the kibosh on that because I’m not really interested in domestic policy. I’m not an armchair legislator, I’m an armchair diplomat and that means I prefer to speak ex cathedra on subjects I know too little about that are happening really far away, rather than subjects I know too little about that are happening right here.

If you’ve been following Twitter or read any Aged News you’re aware that something’s going on in Iran. There are massive protests and people have been killed. The media, maybe unintentionally, repeatedly draw dramatic analogy with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. By drawing this analogy I think perhaps they’re encouraging people in the West to come to the wrong conclusions about what’s going on in Iran. Continue reading…

There are two great traditions in Science Fiction. Technology vs Human Nature, and the Question of Identity. Moon seems to belong to the second, but I think that’s a smokescreen. I think it belongs to the first. Continue reading…

Gentile or Jew
O ye who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

Continue reading…

The Seventies was a great time for movies, wasn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, I think the movies we get today are pretty damned good, especially if you’re a genre fan like…well, everyone reading this by definition. And I’m not reminiscing about a time I remember, I was 6 at the time. But in the 1970s the national climate, the paranoia, the economic depression, the disillusionment, produced a unique generation of film the likes of which we’ve not seen since. Others have written about this better than me. You sum over that and what do you get?

Well, the obvious answer is The French Connection, which came out in 1971 and changed the rules about what audiences would accept. It was gritty, real, unflattering. The heroes were not good-looking, they weren’t even movie stars. They swore in a way that would have been unthinkable just 3 years earlier.

And ok, it’s a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, you’re doing yourself a disservice, but I’m a geek about this stuff and so that means I enjoy tricking myself into thinking I have some insight into the matter.  When everyone else says “The French Connection” I think “Gosh, isn’t that a bit obvious?” And instead I say “Klute.” Continue reading…

If you’re a regular reader, and if you’re not I’m giving you a field promotion right now, you know I never do this. I never post links. I write essays, and I have a style, a narrative style where I make points by building a narrative around then and in this manner I avoid seeming too didactic. Or maybe more didactic. But based on my Google Analytics, it works. People read and tend to spend a lot of time here reading so I feel like I’m onto something. I post essays and I never just post links and I’m not ever going to do that.

But I’m posting a link.

http://wave.google.com/

This is breathtaking. Google is, typically, reinventing the manner in which we use the internet to communicate. Google’s data indicates that email is rapidly becoming obsolete. Already is obsolete for a whole generation of kids who take instant communication for granted. Continue reading…