Tuesday, December 29, 2015

A theory.

So, I actually saw Star Wars last week. And it was awesome. Seriously. I loathed the first two prequels and skipped the third because I figured that I'd wasted enough time on Star Wars shite.  Fast forward 15ish years and I would have skipped the Force Awakens, too, if it weren't for the fact that J.J. Abrams was directing and the book club reviews were pretty positive. One thing that bothered me (and this is kind of sort of a spoiler) was that Force seemed more powerful in this movie, and it wasn't clear to me why. I think this article has a fairly compelling explanation. And it does so by way of referencing Tolkien. What's not to like?

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

In which Masket is called a nerd by NPR

At long last, here is my interview on the NPR Politics Podcast about the politics of "Star Wars." This represents the peak of my academic career. As Emilio Sandoz said, "I was born for this!" No, wait, I don't like where that analogy leads.

Anyway, I come in at around the 4-minute mark.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

You will see this number everywhere, now.

Following up on last night's conversation, here is the Kung Fu Monkey blog post which establishes the concept of The Crazification Factor for the first time.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The video Seth Masket was born to watch....

The Message


I'd like to recommend a new science fiction podcast called "The Message." It's a story about a modern cryptography team trying to decode an extraterrestrial message received on Earth in 1945. The whole thing is pretty short -- just eight episodes, each under 20 minutes. I'll admit that the dialogue is contrived, and the plot will seem familiar. But it's pretty entertaining, and the story takes some good twists. Mostly, it's a nice use of the podcast format to tell a sci fi story.