Letters To An
Overseas Friend.

Remember this:

I didn’t forget it. It got lost amongst official looking papers and things like localization. I thought it was gone. Finally excavated it after, evidently, 17 months. I thought it’s been longer. Always meant to do something with it. Instead of neglect it.

With your permission, I’d like to do something with it now, as a kind of response. Probably something involving video. Or a game. Well?

While in the black hole of technical learning, the little thoughts, although ever present and probably not diminished in quantity, receive less completion than at times when the wandering mind is indulged. Here are a few:

Ownership of food from a restaurant. If I buy a sandwich, am I the legal owner of that sandwich and can choose to do with it as I please? Or is it more like an end-user licence agreement with the sandwich shop? If I post a video of the sandwich on Youtube, can it get pulled down? As provocative as that question is, I ask that question in earnest. Sounds legally possible, although not plausible.

A sentient and desirous 3D-printer that desires to print sentient 3D-printers that desire to print sentient and desirous 3D-printers.

Picturing things unavailable to my imagination. Like the ocean swelling up enough to engulf people off the roof of a five story building. How could this be? But it clearly is.

Saw The Wind Rises. There are many obvious reasons for liking Ghibli films, but I can now confidently say there is a slightly more obscure reason that might only appeal to me. And this is very appealing: Miyazaki films have no bad guys. Lots of actors acting badly, but no bad guys. Lots of characters who might even be the root cause of conflict. Yet, they have these believable and relatable motivations fighting off our moral gut reactions.

So far, I remain the only person I know who does not like The Iron Giant.