September 27, 2012
An Internet kill switch is the cybercrime and countermeasures concept of activating a single shut off mechanism for all Internet traffic. The theory behind a kill switch is creation of a single point of control for one authority or another to control in order to ‘shut down the internet to protect it’ from unspecified assailants. The prospect of cyberwarfare over the 2000s has prompted the drafting of legislation by US officials, but worldwide the implications of actually of ‘killing’ the Internet has prompted criticism of the idea in the United States.
During the 2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya access to the Internet was denied in an effort to limit peer networking to facilitate organization. The Communications Act of 1934 established the United States’ Federal regulation of electronic communications. In this act, created by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration enabled the president powers of control over the media under certain circumstances such as during wartime or a national emergency. Continue reading →
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September 27, 2012
Cyberwarfare refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation. U.S. government security expert Richard A. Clarke, in his book ‘Cyber War’ (2010), defines ‘cyberwarfare’ as ‘actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption.’
‘The Economist’ describes cyberspace as ‘the fifth domain of warfare,’ and William J. Lynn, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, states that ‘as a doctrinal matter, the Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare . . . [which] has become just as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space.’ Continue reading →
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September 27, 2012
The Master is a 2012 film written, directed, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Laura Dern. The film depicts alcoholic Freddie Quell, a World War II veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and struggling to adjust to a post-war society. He is taken under the wing of a charismatic mystic Lancaster Dodd, progenitor of a new religious movement.
It was first reported in 2009 that Anderson had been working on a script about the founder of a new religious organization (described as being similar to Scientology) played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. In 2011 it was reported that Megan Ellison, daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison, would finance ‘The Master’ and Anderson’s adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel ‘Inherent Vice’ under her new production company Annapurna Pictures. Harvey Weinstein later picked up the worldwide rights to the film. Continue reading →
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September 26, 2012
A film à clef [fil ma kle] (French for ‘film with a key’), is a film describing real life, behind a façade of fiction. ‘Key’ in this context means a table one can use to swap out the names. It is the film equivalent of the roman à clef (‘novel with a key’). Notable films à clef’s include ‘8½,’ based on Federico Fellini’s experience suffering from ‘director’s block.’ ‘Annie Hall,’ is believed to be a version of Woody Allen’s own relationship with Diane Keaton. Allen has denied this in interviews, however. ‘Citizen Kane,’ is a thinly disguised biographical film about publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. ‘Dreamgirls,’ the musical film based on the career of The Supremes.
‘Magnolia’ is loosely inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson’s experience in dealing with his father’s death from cancer. ‘Adaptation’ is partially adapted from Susan Orlean’s non-fiction book ‘The Orchid Thief,’ but most of the film is a heavily fictionalized account of Charlie Kaufman’s difficulty in adapting the book into a screenplay. In ‘Lost in Translation’ Charlotte and John are believed to be based loosely on writer-director Sofia Coppola and her ex-husband, Spike Jonze. ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou’ features a protagonist based loosely on Jacques Cousteau.
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September 26, 2012
Roman à clef [raw-mah na kle] (French for ‘novel with a key’) is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a facade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the ‘key’ is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. This ‘key’ may be produced separately by the author, or implied through the use of epigraphs (a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document) or other literary devices.
Created by French writer Madeleine de Scudery in the 17th century to provide a forum for her thinly veiled fiction featuring political and public figures, roman à clef has since been used by writers as diverse as Victor Hugo, Phillip K. Dick, and Bret Easton Ellis.
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September 26, 2012
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911 – 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard and often referred to by his initials, LRH, was an American pulp fiction author and the founder of the Church of Scientology. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a self-help system called ‘Dianetics’ which was first published in 1950. He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and rituals as part of a new religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations that address such diverse topics as business administration, literacy, and drug rehabilitation.
The Church of Scientology describes Hubbard in hagiographic terms, and he portrayed himself as a pioneering explorer, world traveler, and nuclear physicist, with expertise in a wide range of disciplines, including photography, art, poetry, and philosophy. His critics have characterized him as a liar, a charlatan, and mentally unstable. Though many of his autobiographical statements have been proven to be fictitious, the Church rejects any suggestion that its account of Hubbard’s life is not historical fact.
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September 25, 2012
Deaf culture describes the communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a capital ‘D,’ and referred to as ‘big D Deaf’ in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case ‘d.’ Members of the Deaf community tend to view deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability, preferring to be called ‘Deaf’ or ‘Hard of Hearing’ than ‘Hearing Impaired,’ which most people think is the most acceptable term today.
The community may include family members of deaf people and sign-language interpreters who identify with Deaf culture and does not automatically include all people who are hard of hearing. According to sign-language interpreter Anna Mindess, ‘it is not the extent of hearing loss that defines a member of the Deaf community but the individual’s own sense of identity and resultant actions.’ As with all social groups that a person chooses to belong to, a person is a member of the Deaf community if he or she ‘identifies him/herself as a member of the Deaf community, and other members accept that person as a part of the community.’ Continue reading →
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September 25, 2012
Profanity in science fiction (SF) shares all of the issues of profanity in fiction in general, but has several unique aspects of its own, including the use of alien profanities (such as the alien expletive ‘shazbot!’ from ‘Mork & Mindy,’ a word that briefly enjoyed popular usage outside of that television show).
In his advice to other SF writers, Orson Scott Card states that there are no hard-and-fast rules for the use of profanity in SF stories, despite what may have been expected of writers in the past. The onus is squarely on the writer to determine how much profanity to use, to enquire as to each magazine publisher’s individual limits, and to think about the effect that the use of profanity will have on the reader, both in terms of how the reader will perceive the characters and in terms of how the reader will be offended by the story as a whole. Continue reading →
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September 24, 2012
Profanity is language that is strongly impolite or offensive in many situations. It can show a desecration or debasement of someone or something, or show strong or intense emotion. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures (such as flipping the middle finger), or other social behaviors that are construed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, obnoxious, foul, desecrating, or other forms. The original meaning of the adjective ‘profane’ referred to items not belonging to the church, e.g., ‘The fort is the oldest profane building in the town, but the local monastery is older, and is the oldest building.’
The meaning has changed over time. Analyses of recorded conversations reveal that roughly 80–90 spoken words each day – 0.5% to 0.7% of all words – are swear words, with usage varying from between 0% to 3.4%. The term ‘profane’ originates from classical Latin ‘profanus,’ literally ‘before (outside) the temple.’ It carried the meaning of either ‘desecrating what is holy’ or ‘with a secular purpose’ as early as the 1450s. Profanity represented secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while blasphemy was a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures, considered sinful, and a direct violation of The Ten Commandments. Continue reading →
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September 24, 2012
Y: The Last Man is a dystopian science fiction comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra published by Vertigo (a DC subsidiary) beginning in 2002. The series is about the only man to survive the apparent simultaneous death of every male mammal (barring the same man’s pet monkey) on Earth.
The premise is noticeably similar to ‘Consider Her Ways,’ a 1964 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where the world adopts a matriarchal society after a disease kills every man on Earth. Continue reading →
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September 24, 2012
The relationship between religiosity and intelligence is the subject of much research and controversy. Although IQ is a clearly operationalized measure, some professionals believe that IQ is given too much attention over other measures of human ability. Also, religiosity studies can be too broadly defined, and must be careful to identify relationships between beliefs, sentiments, and practices. Studies have begun to explore the link between religiosity and issues related to intelligence, such as educational level.
Research shows that the poorest countries are consistently the most religious, and experts have proposed that religions may play more functional roles there. Various studies further suggest that intuitive thinking styles (as opposed to reflective, questioning, analytical thinking styles) tend to increase belief in gods, and decrease the likelihood of changing views held in childhood. Intuitive thinking styles may also lead to more convicted beliefs in general. In other words, IQ could correlate with atheism, not simply because of raw cognitive ability, but because higher IQs lead to more critical analysis.
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September 24, 2012
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism and not authority, tradition, or other dogmas.
The pansy is the long-established and enduring symbol of freethought, its usage inaugurated in the literature of the American Secular Union in the late 1800s. The reasoning lies in both the flower’s name and appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word ‘pensée,’ which means ‘thought;’ it was so named because the flower resembles a human face, and in mid to late summer it nods forward as if deep in thought. Continue reading →
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