Sinister Dexterity

Friday, February 7, 2003, 08:34 p.m.
New Blog Page

It's official: the "longer essays" page is now the blog. I will maintain this page as an index and links page, but the blog now lives permanently at http://sinisterdexterity.crimsonblog.com.

Wednesday, January 22, 2003, 8:30 AM

A bunch of new stuff on the other blog page.

Sunday, January 19, 2003, 4:11 PM

I was browsing around emode.com after taking the Star Wars test below, and found this quote from Borges, which I remember reading but don't recall the source offhand:

"Any life is made up of a single moment — the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is."
-Jorge Luis Borges

Sunday, January 19, 2003, 4:01 PM
I'm Yoda

Yoda

You are wise beyond your years — a sage for the ages, the master's master. That's why your Star Wars type is Yoda. Sure, you might not look too much like the little green Jedi Master, but you have a quiet contemplative way about you that commands respect.

People trust you, especially your friends who are constantly coming to you for advice and sometimes predictions. While you may not be able to tell them who's going to win the big game, you do possess the rare ability to see the big picture. You never lose sight of the fact that we're all part of a greater whole. It keeps you grounded and balanced, and it's the perfect cover for a mischievous sense of humor that always catches others off-guard. This mix of wisdom and impish delight promises to bring you long life...another thousand years or so anyway.

Take the test.

Saturday, January 18, 2003, 10:30 PM
Gnostic Renaissance Information Project

As they say: "Gnostic Silence & Persecution - NEVER AGAIN!" Quotes on persecution of Gnostics by the Roman Church, and a short list of links.

Friday, January 17, 2003, 08:25 p.m.
SF, fantasy, and suspension of disbelief

I would not call myself a science fiction or fantasy fan in the usual sense of those terms, though many of my favorite works of fiction have scientific or fantastic elements to them. I've been realizing recently that my problem with a lot of science fiction comes from my unwillingness to suspend disbelief in the extreme anthropomorphism that is common in the representation of "alien" lifeforms in so much SF.

Star Trek, in its various forms, is the perfect example. (I also admit that I was an absolute fanatic of the original Star Trek, but that phase passed before there even was such a thing as the Next Generation. So in addition to my misgivings about the anthropomorphism, I also associate Star Trek fandom with childishness, and I have always rejected the offshoots as "not the real thing," though the technical quality of the new shows is often better.) How am I to believe that, on a planet light-years away in a distant part of the galaxy, races of people evolved that differ from Earthlings only in, say, the morphology of the bridge of the nose? Or maybe it's not a matter of evolution; maybe sometime between the 20th and 24th centuries, the "intelligent design" movement really did disprove Darwin, and neither humans nor Klingons evolved at all. So God created humans on our planet, and creatures that looked almost the same, but with one or two significant differences per species, on planets billions of miles away? Why not all the same, or all different?

I have a much easier time with the Tolkien-style fantasy, in which variably anthropoid creatures live together in varying degrees of harmony and tension. Just as this earth supports various kinds of primates, countless breeds of dogs, and different big cats, it seems like there could also have been elves, hobbits, and dwarves coexisting with men. permalink