Author Topic: PseudoPod 647: The Algorithms for Love  (Read 2436 times)

Bdoomed

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on: May 14, 2019, 01:43:29 AM
PseudoPod 647: The Algorithms for Love

Author: Ken Liu
Narrator: Dani Daly
Host: Alasdair Stuart

“The Algorithms for Love” was originally published by Strange Horizons in 2004.



Content warning:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So long as the nurse is in the room to keep an eye on me, I am allowed to dress myself and get ready for Brad.  I slip on an old pair of jeans and a scarlet turtleneck sweater.  I’ve lost so much weight that the jeans hang loosely from the bony points of my hips.

“Let’s go spend the weekend in Salem,” Brad says to me as he walks me out of the hospital, an arm protectively wrapped around my waist, “just the two of us.”





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« Last Edit: May 15, 2019, 11:46:50 PM by Fenrix »

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


SoJoeWrote

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Reply #1 on: May 15, 2019, 06:45:13 PM
Having been a listener of Pseudopod for years now, I feel the new PSA are almost hurting these episodes. Why wasn't "suicide"  included in the spoiler list?

This was an excellent story that really touches on justifications in grief.

There are times when a story cannot be done justice with only one voice actor. Dani Daly did a great job but overall I felt that Brad came off a bit condescending. In that way, the emotion Brad expresses seems hallow, where in actuality, he is in pain over the loss of his child and his wife.

 



Fenrix

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Reply #2 on: May 16, 2019, 12:00:54 AM

Why wasn't "suicide"  included in the spoiler list?


Good call. That was an oversight.

Quote

There are times when a story cannot be done justice with only one voice actor.
  

Check your tone please. You are new here, so I'll politely inform you that you are skirting the edges of violating the One Rule for these forums.

That said, we take into consideration what will work well with multiple narrators. Stories like STEADFAST and MAMA IS A FOUR LETTER WORD work rather well with multiple voices, because it's a straightforward assembly like stringing beads.

If there are two voices only with some back-and-forth, that can work well, but really only if they are both recording at the same time in the same room. (see ALARM WILL SOUND)

Also consider that to splice all the disparate pieces of audio is exceptionally time consuming. It took dozens of hours to assemble THE GERUNDING, which clocked in under 15 minutes. If we turned everything into a full cast, we would never get anything done.


All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Scattercat

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Reply #3 on: May 19, 2019, 07:23:17 PM
I kept waiting for the payoff for Brad being an obviously horrible person and it never came.  :-/  CEO of a small company who makes inappropriate sexual comments to his subordinate and apparently eventually engages her in a relationship while they're both still working there.  Ew for power dynamics alone, let alone cold-opening with a joke about vaginal fluid five minutes before you put your lust-object on national television and take credit for her work.

It's interesting to me when people find it horrifying or despair-inducing to think that there isn't a magic otherworldly "conscious mind."  It just means that we're all a part of the same universe, ne?  ;-)  There are external forces that control you - like gravity - and internal forces - like memories - and there's a use in making a distinction.  Plus, the brain has several layers of feedback loops and can edit itself, so it's not like it's just a static locked-in response.  Also, if love is fake, so is pain; still just an interpretation of sensory input by the brain.  If anything, love is better, because it's something we can make for ourselves instead of something that is built in at a deep unconscious level.  Even bacteria and plants have aversion responses, but it takes a pretty large brain before you get affection and companionship as phenomena.

I liked Laura, basically.  She's the only sensible one in the story.

Also hi.  I'm feeling a little better these days.



danooli

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Reply #4 on: May 20, 2019, 11:24:19 AM
Also hi.  I'm feeling a little better these days.

SCATTERCAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome home, wayward Kitty. So glad you're feeling better!



Marlboro

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Reply #5 on: December 25, 2019, 05:20:32 PM


 "I'm Talky Tina, and free will is an illusion."

 
Good episode.