Returning to the food chain would suck. You can watch the poor man get consumed at YouTube, of course, but why would you want to watch a lawyer get humiliated like that?
Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner
Apocalypse Cow
Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were going all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin’ program.
And me? I was off the boat the same time as Kurtz. Sure, I’d been obeying orders, but my mind was gone. I was in fields of green and clover. With milkmaids.
Oh man, those bullshit milkmaids…
But I had a job to do, and there would be no welcome, supple fingers pulling on my teats when we got to the end of the river. Only barbecue.
The barbecue … the barbecue.
Are they gonna say Alltop was a good man? No. Wrong. Originally appeared at Name Your Tale. Cow by publicenergy.
When Roombas Attack: The Singularity
My next novel has a comedic take on the Technological Singularity, so I thought I’d start to do some more posts about the topic here on The Skwib. The following video is a kind-of companion piece for a Time article that came out earlier this year about the Singularity and one of its main proponents, Ray Kurzweil. It is presented by the Earth’s “premier science comedian”. I’m not sure what the hell that means, but it is funny!
The Frankenstein myth predates the story told by Mary Shelly, incidentally. A form of it is as old as Prometheus, in which the Titan steals the secrets of civilization and gives it to human beings. (Zeus doesn’t like this very much, and punishes Prometheus by forcing him to donate his liver to a large avian of the family accipitridae on a daily basis.) In Jewish folklore there is the golem, which is created from clay and in many accounts destroys its creator, largely because it’s so difficult to find a decent corned beef sandwich in medieval European cities.
In most of these stories, at heart is the idea of human hubris — an overweening pride or arrogance that defies the gods, or in modern stories, reality. Well, that and dodgy meals.
Hubris has always been a component of the human heart. Without it we wouldn’t try to create things, but if we rely on it too much, we can get ourselves in trouble. Most of our problems with technology stem from this irrational confidence that we can control our own creations — something that is manifestly untrue. If you ever get the feeling that our technology is out of control, you’re not alone. And you’re more sane than those who believe technology is something we command at will. It’s a bias we all have, because it’s rational.
We can control individual technologies, in the absence of other technologies and systems. But once they start to interact, they become more difficult to understand. The very rationality that allowed us to create science and technology in the first place now undercuts our ability to understand the gestalt of many technologies and systems interacting. That is not to say we shouldn’t TRY to understand them, but it is to say we should show more humility with the further creation of new technologies.
I will now demonstrate a complete lack of humility by inserting a cartoon of a monkey pirate. You didn’t see that coming did you?
Alltop is funnier than monkeys, pirates and robots combined.
Ask General Kang: Miss Manners says it has to be 97 degrees out before I don’t have to wear nylons. What do you think?
I think you should tell me what that is in Celsius. 35? 36?
Never mind, it doesn’t matter, because that Miss Manners is a complete bitch. How DARE she tell you what to do? I’m only offering helpful advice, but she has decrees. Well, I think you should wear whatever you want. It’s still a free country, right?
Of course, I’m not sure how long it will be a free country, particularly once I’ve got my new Cyber-Simian Strike Force up to fluff.
You know I would never tell you what to wear. I think these sartorial decisions are the thing that make us different from the lower animals. (You know, non-primates.) That said, I do require the blue evil flying monkeys in my Air Force to wear their cute little silver helmets, for their own safety, of course.
So, I can wear white after Labor Day too?
Only if you want to look like a Russian hooker.
Alltop prefers looking like a prostitute from Belarus. Originally published in August, 2005. Seriously, check out the post number.
Baby existentialism
This explains so much.
Alltop was more of a baby solipsist.
Peter Gzowski returns to radio
Bill Freedman woke up in Bucolic City like he always did; the clock radio clicked on to the familiar sound of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
He hated listening in the summer, but what could you do? It was the only talk radio he could (barely) stomach.
“Oh great, more reruns,” he thought, as he listened to what was clearly an old conversation about whether bilingualism was necessary in all parts of the country.
The CBC was known for its long hiatuses in original programming during the summer. Some of their regular hosts had longer breaks than most school teachers. Or did he remember hearing something about a lockout of the regular talent? Hard to tell the difference really.
“Wait a minute,” he thought, “that’s Peter Gzowski talking. I’d recognize that affable, cigarette-roughened voice anywhere. Isn’t he DEAD?”
The conversation on the radio was interrupted by a long silence, and then Bill heard his favorite host groan.
It was a disturbing moan that ended upwards, almost as if Gzowski was about to ask one of his trademark, apparently goofy questions that was really a minefield in disguise.
“Peter Gzowski want brains!”
The guest’s screams were horribly truncated, and then Bill heard the sound of crunching, smacking. It was disgusting.
“Now play Life is a Highway,” Gzowski said beteen mouthfuls, and Tom Cochran’s tune drowned out the awful feeding.
As he bopped along to the road anthem, Bill thought the CBC had never been so interesting.