IMPO: In My Professional Opinion...

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was written by Ursula K. Le Guin and published in 1973. In addition to being one of my favorite stories, I think it is a biting thought experiment that asks what type of community we want to live in and what we are willing to give up for it. There are vast spaces between the written narrative, and it leaves the reader with a lot of room to concoct characters, v...

Yumi and Martin join me in discussing the impact Nirvana had on our lives. They were a rebuttal to the highly produced music of the eighties. Given the changes in our media consumption habits and technological cocooning, can someone ever shake us like they did? A couple points, when Yumi refers to bijuaru-kei bands, it means hair metal bands. Also ohshee katsu is the phenomenon where people demons...

Martin and Kouji use Ted Chiang’s short story The Lifecycle of Software Objects as a platform to discuss the concept of personhood, inequity, and the political process. Along the way, Martin admits to failing the Turing Test and hunting culinary heretics. If you find this conversation interesting, and even if you don’t, look for Ted Chiang’s collection of short stories, Exhalation where this story...

Martin and Kouji use the 1967 James Bond film set in Japan to discuss ecological disaster, class conflict, and the true meaning of power in LOTR. Get full access to In my professional opinion... at radagastbrown.substack.com/subscribe

This episode allows Martin and Kouji to flex their nerd gaming muscles. Hear Martin seethe over my shallow grasp of legacy graphic engines. I attempt to return serve with an origin story of Halo, but it is too little too late… game, set, and match Mr. Killman. The foundational piece of media for this conversation is a 30 minute stand alone episode in Apple TV’s Mythic Quest called Dark Quiet Death...

Martin and Kouji loosely scaffold their conversation around Megazone 23, a set of three animé movies. The first two are available on Amazon Prime if you really want to waste a few hours, but if you listen to the great AI songs included in the podcast, you will get the idea. Along the way, some other topics include: * latté art as a reflection of your soul or lack thereof, * the basis of a just soc...

We discuss Ursula K LeGuinn's "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas." It is a great, quick read, but you can get the gist from the songs too. If you enjoy these episodes, please like, subscribe, and leave feedback and ideas for future shows. And even if you are not Hugh Jackman, share your professional opinions. Get full access to In my professional opinion... at radagastbrown.substack.com/subscri...

Our first topic is The Wedding Singer , a 1998 movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. There are tons of spoilers here so please give it a watch if you haven’t seen it.  Yes I realize it is Michael, not Brian Stipe of REM. And Worf’s son’s name is not Lumpy, it is Alexander. Listening is free but please subscribe to add comments. Get full access to In my professional opinion... at radagast...