Four times a year 3quarksdaily runs a competition for great blog writing. This month it’s the Arts and Literature prize. An article of mine from October (Mapping the Cracks: Art-Objects in Motion) is in the running, all I need now is some votes…

• To check out the details of the prize go here
• To see the list of nominations go here
• To vote directly go here

That should keep you busy, there’s lots and lots… ]]> Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:27:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/words/3quarksdaily-arts-and-literature-prize-vote-for-me http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/ My mild-mannered English husband Adam lives quite a colorful existence in his dreams. Having benefited from hours of delight at his dead of night musings, I thought it was only fair to share them with the world. ]]> Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:24:00 -0700 http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/ http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers... Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films… ]]> Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:24:00 -0700 http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/09/16/img-mgmt-hubrisnemesiswhatever/ Another binary myth fundamental to Western culture is the eternally popular hubris/nemesis complex. According to this idea, those who transgress against the natural order always get their just desserts. Hubris is a Greek word, meaning, “an impious disregard of the limits governing human action in an orderly universe” (Encyclopedia Britannica 2006). The great and gifted are most susceptible to sin, and in Greek tragedy usually the hero suffers from this tragic flaw. Expressed in countless myths, ranging from the Tower of Babel to Jurassic Park, hubris applies to various breeds of arrogant and boastful behavior. Often it is an evil… ]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:22:00 -0700 http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/09/16/img-mgmt-hubrisnemesiswhatever/ http://threeframes.net/ Three frames is all you need ]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:01:00 -0700 http://threeframes.net/ http://atlasobscura.com/ Welcome to the Atlas Obscura, a compendium of this age's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica. The Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project with the goal of cataloguing all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist. If you're looking for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, phallological museums, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built entirely out of paper, the Atlas Obscura is where you'll find them. ]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:14:00 -0700 http://atlasobscura.com/ http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/08/15/how-nuclear-radiation-can-change-our-race/ This is a remarkably uninformed article about what effect a huge nuclear war would have upon the human race. The author seems to think that the radiation would create a race of bald, big brained super humans (Homo Superior) with no wisdom teeth and only four toes on each foot. Depending on the number and disposition of these new super humans they would either a) kill all the normal humans, b) be killed by all the normal humans, c) enslave the humans, or d) co-operate with humans and help them. Of course this all relies on the well known evolutionary… ]]> Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:36:00 -0700 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/08/15/how-nuclear-radiation-can-change-our-race/ http://www.physorg.com/news152210728.html A new brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to "get lost" in a good book — suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life. "Psychologists and neuroscientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story," says Jeffrey M. Zacks, study co-author and director of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University in St.… ]]> Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:04:00 -0700 http://www.physorg.com/news152210728.html