The Floating Island

Jul 8

Freedom: A closer look at Enslaved

by Ken | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

Another quick piece on Destructoid from yours truly, examining the way in which gameplay and narrative elements work together to reinforce a theme.

(inner voice: Don't say ludonarrative harmony. Don't do it. It makes you a wanker. Resissssssst!)

Freedom: A Closer Look At Ninja Theory's Enslaved.

Jun 25

Once a boy named Mr. Me...

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Goddammit, not this guy again. Every time I'm wandering through my head just minding my own business and trying to have a good time, this fucker shows up. Just be cool. You didn't hear him.

"Ignoring me? Yeah, that'd work if this was a busy street or some bullshit, maybe. I'M IN YOUR HEAD, JACKASS..."

Continue reading Once a boy named Mr. Me....

May 7

I need to let go of my seven year marriage, but there is an even bigger and dearer part of me to let go of; I need to let go of the fear. The man that was in that bar was a real man, a real part of me, a part of me that I have known for 20 years or more, a part of me that I have saved and protected even as I have periodically hated that man. That part of me that sneaks around in the night, that hides his real desires even from himself, that man that needs anonymity and shadows, not light and intimacy. That man that fights and resists love.

Continue reading One month in.

Jan 24

Don't Forget - the Century Linker

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

My post history is as spare as ever! Let's amend that a bit, today.

I should probably get back to using del.icio.us to bookmark things, although I'm still not quite convinced that Yahoo intends to keep it around. But for expediency's sake, a while ago I started mailing myself links that I found interesting but never had time to actually read while at work, because, you know, working.

I started an email with the subject line, "Don't forget," and every time I found something of interest, I'd open it, paste the link, reply, and then get back to whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. But, I never really would get around to revisiting them very often - they'd just sit there, collecting in my inbox.

Luckily, gmail queues continuing conversations under the same line. But a few days ago, I discovered that the queue has a limit. The limit is 100 (a round, sensible number, like the number of soldiers Gatsu killed in one evening in order to keep his loved ones safe.)

Good old terrifying, broken Gatsu.

Anyway, once you hit the 100th post, the thread is finished. If you continue to reply to it, it simply starts a brand new thread with the same subject line. No real problem, but I found myself thinking, "Really? A hundred links, and I've barely bothered to engage with them past noting their existence. Oh internet, have I ceased to appreciate your beauty? Am I merely a gawking bystander now, without the patience to drink in your grisly, magical wonder? FORSOOTH. It cannot be. WHAT HAVE I BECOME???"

Accordingly, it seems like at the very least, I should hand the information off to more people who might have some kind of interest. Plenty of these are way old, and in internet-time, where anything that was posted longer than three hours ago is Old News, I'm sure it'll be unimpressive to many of the techno elite. But you know, fuck those guys.

According to that magical site of wonders io9, IBM now has the technology to recreate a working cat-brain inside of a computer. If you don't understand why that is awesome, I challenge you to prove to me that you are more complicated than a cat in any significant way. Maybe you can! But maybe you just think you can, because you're a biased human that believes Costco is actually a positive mark of cultural progress rather than a temple to caloric suicide.

The cat robot revolution is coming. Mark my words. Its heralds are already among us. You were warned.

Dec 1

Long Gone Automaton

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Should you find it to be geographically plausible, you should by all means track down Edward Bateman's Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny exhibit at your earliest convenience. Failing that, simply following the link may bring some small, fascinating glimmer of the future past to your present. Finding oneself puzzled by the strange and wondrous inventions of the modern age, it is often a comfort to look back and the strange and wondrous inventions of yesteryear, to find that in some respects the world is not now more saturated with amazement than it has ever been, though the aesthetics may change with each passing year.

And to all ye Floating Island denizens that have drifted many places in this specific passing year - fire off a warning flare from time to time, so that we can see you off the bow and estimate your locations. We'll swing around and pick you up eventually, never fear.

Oct 21

Man on the Street - Freezepop, Portland

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We sent our cyberpsychonaut into a Pacific Northwest orbital velocity to investigate. He never came back. About a month later, we received this capsule containing a recorded communication, $12, an opium pipe and a breath mint. Apparently, it was a hell of a show.

Continue reading Man on the Street - Freezepop, Portland.

Sep 16

Word of the day: Panopticon

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

1) From Wikipedia:

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."^[1]

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."^[2]

But wait, there's more.

Continue reading Word of the day: Panopticon.

Sep 6

Welcome to the Plain of Jars

by Ken | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The legends say that these huge stone jars in Laos were drinking vessels belonging to a race of giants. There are nearly a hundred of these sites, each having as few as one jar, or sometimes hundreds, scattered about the plains like plastic cups on the floor of a general admission area after the final act leaves the stage. Perhaps that's exactly what they are, the remains of a race of strange beings that visited to see something magnificent occur, and left when the lights came up.

If it were not for all the unexploded ordinance that still litters many of these sites, we could all explore there freely, like ants, dreaming of the giants' afterparty and sifting their dregs for nourishment.

Source: Weird Asia News

Aug 26

UFO Response Team

by Ken | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

So, I saw these guys driving east on Lincoln this morning, around 9:15 AM or so.

Photo by Timoni

This isn't the actual car that I saw; I tried to get a shot of it myself, but of course my piece of shit WinMo phone camera chose that perfect moment to crash, as it so often does. The shot in fact is from a Flickr user - and if you search for "UFO Response Team," you'll find a whole lot more. Not just from San Francisco, but from all over the place. The one I saw was nearly identical, though - a refurbished police cruiser, the top having been spray-painted a matte black to try to match the rest of the car, Response Team decal on the back, UFO "tally" on the bumper.

In fact, they seem to have their own website. A privately funded organization, clearly, if they can't afford a better than a blogger site. ;)

Either they're crazy enough to actually be trying to find UFOs, in which case my hat's off to them - or it's an art stunt. If it's the latter - what do you feel they're trying to say?

Aug 10

Artist aggro

by Ken | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

All of we Island denizens are creatives, covering the range from hobbyist to amateur to semi-pro to professional. On a regular basis, we take these creative activities that we love - writing, drawing, mixing, designing - and we ask ourselves, "Is there any way I could do this all the time, and support myself with it? Can I find a way to get by in this world, doing these things I enjoy? And if so, how?"

That being the case, I've been idly clicking back to this thread, which has been generating quite a buzz among Deviants and other creatives on the net.

Continue reading Artist aggro.

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