Latest Project

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

Latest project I’m involved in — a documentary on egg donation. Trailer, clips, and additional material available on the website (Eggsploitation.com). DVDs shipping next week.

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A Review of Splice

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

By Matthew Eppinette, CBC New Media Manager

Splice is a science fiction / horror film about genetic experimentation gone wrong. Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) are scientists working to combine strands of DNA from multiple animals to create a new organism that will generate proteins aimed at curing animal diseases. Achieving success in their animal experiments, Elsa is anxious to move on to working with human DNA. However, the pharmaceutical company for which they work is focused on generating quick profits on animal cures, and announces they are retooling the lab for protein research rather than DNA research.

Elsa convinces Clive to initiate a human DNA experiment, simply to see if they can get the genes to combine. Away from everyone else in the lab, they start the experiment, then move it to the next step, then to the next — each time promising one another they will stop the experiment before the step is complete — until a full-term creature is born (via an artificial womb).

Continue reading at CBC-Network.org

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Gehry’s New Building

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

Frank Gehry has a new building up.  It’s a brain health research center associated with the Cleveland Clinic, although this center is in Vegas.

The LA Times ran a review earlier this week, and today a follow up on the varied reactions Gehry’s work always prompts.

For the record, based on what I can see from the pictures and the LAT review, I love it (not that my opinion counts for anything).

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Lost is Almost Over

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

But there is a ton of stuff you can do in the mean time. Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen has a post highlighting several options.

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Windy and Cold

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

Woke up with quite a headache this morning (it’s Spring!) so I ended up watching more of the morning news than I usually do. One of the things that genuinely amuses me is they way weather people in Southern California try to manufacture weather drama. So today, for example, they announced repeatedly that it is going to be “windy and cold.”

Having lived in Chicago for seven years, windy and cold brings to mind wind chill temperatures from single digits to the 20s.

So just how cold and windy is this SoCal day predicted to be? Sunny, winds 15 to 20 mph, and 64. That’s right, 64 degrees. Six. Four. I know people who keep their A/C at 68, so it’s hard to think of 64 as “cold.”

Cool, maybe. I might even go for crisp, given the wind. But cold? No, California. It is not cold.

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Arrested Peanuts Development

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette
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Mediated to Death?

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Matthew Eppinette

By Matthew Eppinette, CBC New Media Manager

Thomas de Zengotita’s Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It is an exploration of the way in which media, broadly construed (“arts and artifacts that represent, that communicate”), impact the way in which we perceive both the world and ourselves. The author covers a number of topics, including the expansion of choices and options in every area of life, the extension of adolescence, the decline of heroes alongside the rise of celebrities, political apathy, busyness, and changing attitudes toward nature.

The development of mediating technologies is part of the project of modernity, and these technologies tend toward making everything optional. That is to say, events, experiences, and other aspects of life are being turned into nothing more than options. Choose them or don’t choose them. It doesn’t matter. Except when it does. What he terms “Justin’s Helmet Principle” dictates that some options — such as bicycle helmets for children — are less optional than others, because they clearly are such good ideas that no one would opt out of them.

Continue reading at CBC-Network.org

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Two Words that Describe My Current Situation

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Matthew Eppinette

Transition (noun) — movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change.

Hiatus (noun) — a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.

August 31 was the last day at my job, and, as many of you know, I’ll be starting classes at Fuller Seminary later this month.  So, during this time of transition I’m taking a bit of a hiatus from spending time online.

As classes start and I settle into a new routine, I’ll evaluate how much time I have to devote to all things online.  In the mean time I’m thinking through what it is I want to accomplish by spending time online, which will help to determine what priority I put on updating things here at 2BHuman.

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The Use of Science in the Search for Human Perfection

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Matthew Eppinette

McGill University’s Margaret Somerville has a thought-provoking piece, “The Flawed Quest for Perfection,” in the Ottawa Citizen.

Does any given use of this science, in the search for human perfection, damage or destroy the essence of our humanness? That leads to the question of whether at least some imperfections are elements of that essence and of immense value as such. Just like the hand-knitted sweater, are they part of what makes each of us unique originals?

. . .

I propose a very important question we need to ask in deciding what we may and should not do with our new technoscience, that is, what is ethical or unethical: Does any given use of this science, in the search for human perfection, damage or destroy the essence of our humanness? That leads to the question of whether at least some imperfections are elements of that essence and of immense value as such. Just like the hand-knitted sweater, are they part of what makes each of us unique originals?

HT: Bioethics.com

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Why Does This Interest Me?

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Matthew Eppinette

Maybe because I once had a job that involved implementing warehouse automation systems.  Or maybe I’m just a nerd.

Anyway, it’s an article from last week’s Chicago Tribune on how Netflix’s warehouse works.  With pictures.

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