Not many links this week. Partially because I spent so much of the week playing Portal 2. For part of the game you get an occasional recording from founder, owner, and CEO of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson. This is EVERY Cave Johnson recording. Keep in mind that they span a couple of decades.
I blame the crap links I've been getting this week, too.
p.s. Portal 2 is constructed from 100% pure awesometonium.
Photo from inside the Situation Room when the director of the CIA told the story of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. [link]
Two misattributed quotes have been floating around after the death of Bin Laden. Here's the real quotes and sources. [link]
I saw the original Hoodwinked movie and loved it. Yummy hated it. For some reason the original movie was like that - you either loved it or hated it. "Hoodwinked 2" is different. I don't think anyone is gonna come away thrilled with the experience.
At the end of the first movie several characters were recruited into a spy organization. Since then Red has gone off for special training at the temple where her granny trained. While away the Happily Ever After organization gets trashed by enemy operatives. Their ultimate goal is to steal the ultimate recipe from the temple of the sisterhood and become unstoppable. Along the way the movie is pretty weak.
Take the characters from the first movie and force them into a weak spy movie spoof. Anyone that they couldn't find roles for got forced into awkward places in the movie anyway. One of the more entertaining characters in the original was the squirrel who was so hyped up that you could rarely understand a word he said. He's pretty intelligible in this one. He worked for a wolf that was a knockoff of Fletch from the old Chevy Chase movies of the same name. He keeps one costume and loses most of the Fletchiness. Red now worships her Grannie and wants to be just like her. They're trying for a lesson about being your own person, but it doesn't really take until the very end of the movie when it takes place very suddenly.
Have you read any of Sir Terry Pratchett's stuff? Any Discworld at all? No? You should. Screw reading them in order. For the most part the books don't rely on earlier books. That and the first two books were weak. He was just getting started. If you want to read in order you should watch "The Color of Magic" and then start reading the third book. I started with "Mort". There's other good places to start, but that's generally considered a good one.
I bring all this up because there's this film company that was started with the express purpose of adapting a Discworld fable called "Troll Bridge". They've done other work to keep the main project going, but the heart of the company is dedicated to finishing a film they've been working on for eight years.
In the Discworld there's a barbarian. Cohen the Barbarian is a legend and has been for decades. He's a rescuer and defiler of maidens, looter of ruins, destroyer of mad cults, and on like that. But one can't be a legend forever. Pile on enough decades and you have elderly barbarians. Or dead ones. Cohen is the former.
"Troll Bridge" is the story of 90+ year old Cohen the Barbarian going to battle a bridge troll, only... well, nobody really remembers how the Discworld used to be except for he and the troll.
The film needs a last push to finish. $45,000. They have half and they need a bit more. $10. That's all they ask.
Watch this and decide if you think their project is worth a bit of couch change.
This review is about the second book in a trilogy. The review of the first book is here.
I read pretty much everything Robert J Sawyer puts out. His book "Calculating God" got me hooked and the TV series "FlashForward" is based on another of his novels. All of his books are near future science fiction. That is, he takes the world we know, changes one thing, and examines how that change will effect the individuals closest to it and society as a whole.
In this trilogy he's having an artificial intelligence develop on the internet. No programmer or home servers. It is made up of rogue packets on the internet (to put it painfully simply).
There is also a girl who was blind, but now has a device that allows her to see. It also allows the AI to see.
And there's a chimp/bonobo hybrid that is learning to talk via sign language. He makes a friend at another research institution via webcam.
That pretty well covers the first book. See the link at the top for this post for more.
In the second book, "WWW: Watch", we find out about a US government organization called WATCH that monitors the internet for threats. And just like how we have a plan for what to do if intelligent life in outer space is discovered they have also thought about what to do in the case of a digital intelligence. They want to make sure there's no SkyNet or Matrix. The plan basically says "kill it", but they still want to talk to the President first.
The eye technology improves so that the WebMind can hear as well as see through the girl's eyes. It can even send text messages right into her line of vision. It can also start to view videos online instead of just text. After WebMind witnesses a suicide broadcast via webcam she and her family start trying to teach it right from wrong.
The people at WATCH can't figure out how to kill WebMind. They can't question the blind girl's family directly so they get the Canadian FBI to do it for them. Same with the Japanese and the researcher there.
It's decided that the best way to keep WebMind safe is to make it publicly known. Maybe the government would think twice if they couldn't just kill it in secret. Sure, some people would be scared, but many would oppose killing it. So he announces himself by eliminating all spam for a day and sending out an e-mail to everyone whose spam he's removed. He says he hopes he can benefit mankind in many more ways. He quickly becomes a Dear Abby sort.
Then there's the primate. Having hit puberty, his violent chimp side has started to come out. But WebMind gets onto his webcam feed and explains who he is and the decisions he has to make in life.
The book is an engaging read. Some books drag and you wonder why so little has passed after what feels like so much reading. This is the opposite. I find myself amazed at how much book has blown by.
The third book in the trilogy, "WWW: Wonder", recently came out. I wasn't able to find a copy of "WWW: Watch" in book stores until just a few weeks ago. Now I have to keep my eye out for a third. I recommend these and pretty much everything that Sawyer has done.
By now you've heard the news. Bin Laden's plans to change careers to become a stage magician came to an abrupt end when he screwed up the bullet catching trick. Perhaps his choice of magician's assistant, US Navy Seals, wasn't the most prudent.
They found the compound by following a courier that brought news in and out of the compound. There were no electronic communications systems in the compound: no telephones, no internet. I have to wonder if this was because they were worried about their communications being intercepted or if this was because they were being true to their faith. The Taliban had banned TV's in Afghanistan because they thought that the radio waves would interfere with the passage of prayers to Allah. The same could be said about telephone and internet.
The compound was well inside Pakistan, not in the area just inside the border. It was in the middle of the city Abbottabad, not in a remote mountain compound. Typical religious leader. Everyone has to live in poverty and squalor except for me.
The SEALs came in by helicopter. It stalled, but they did manage to land it inside the walls of the compound. It wasn't going to lift off without repairs so they planted bombs on it and blew it up to make sure nobody else could use it either. The last thing anyone wants is AlQaeda to become an air power. Another helicopter came to get the SEALs back out.
Bin Laden had given his people orders to kill him if they were ever raided. He didn't want to be captured or killed by "the west". This didn't happen. "The west" shot him in the face.
Bin Laden was buried at sea 12 hours later. This is significantly kinder than how the Russians deal with terrorists who self-identify as Muslim. The Russians smash their balls between bricks, wrap them in pig skin, and bury them face down. This ensures that, according to their own beliefs, they're not getting into heaven. But one could argue that by showing kindness and treating prisoners and the dead respectfully we're showing that surrender doesn't mean torture and abuse. At least, not anymore. Not for those who aren't already at Guantanamo.
I'm not sure I like the burial at sea bit. It may have been a quick burial to honor Muslim burial practices. It may have been to ensure that there'd be no "heroic" raids on the place where the body was put to rest in an attempt to recover it. Many will claim it's because something is being hidden. Maybe we're only claiming to have him. Maybe he's alive and captive and we're only claiming he's dead. Maybe we had to kill him because he knew something.
It might have been nice to put him on trial. It'd be a way to publicly list the charges against him and for him to be loud and arrogant in front of the cameras. It could have humiliated him and make the leader of his corrupt little Muslim sub-sect appear human to his followers. But there would have been rescue attempts. Our best security would be a prison aircraft that never landed.
On the other hand, like with Hitler, no trial means there's never any serious public debate about the facts. Being dead with no trial means pretty much everything said about him will stick. All except with the inevitable Bin Laden deniers.
Once the inevitable revenge killings are over my hope is that AlQaeda will go the way of the megachurches in the United States. For all that the megachurches have they're really a cult of personality. Once the preacher retires or dies the whole thing falls apart. The congregation leaves. They're usually filing for bankruptcy after a year or two. I'm thinking that Bin Laden was that kind of leader. He WAS AlQaeda. Some will leave. Some will split into other, smaller terrorist groups. A new terrorist organization may expand to be the new great threat. But AlQaeda will survive as a small, neighborhood, mom and pop terrorist organization.
So long Osama. The SEALs didn't miss you and neither will we.
A guy passed away with a comic book collection worth over $1,000,000. [link]
Hopefully my retirement fund doesn't involve relying on my comic book collection.
The last typewriter factor in the world closes. [link]
Along those lines, I recommend the book "Road to Mars" by Eric Idle. The robot character is looking for a cure for humor and is used to channel Idle's analysis of humor.
Infographics about health care in America. (or Why Your Stitches Cost $1,500) [link]
An interesting article about flogging vs prison. Would you rather have 5 years in prison or 10 lashes? [link]
Roger Ebert, after 107 tries, has won the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. [link]
A camper that can be pulled by grannie's motorized scooter. [link]
I finally saw "Limitless" a couple of nights ago. It wasn't quite what I expected. I expected a power struggle between Bradley Cooper, the brilliant drug taker, and Robert DeNero, the guy who provides the drugs. But that's not what happened. Not until a lot later in the movie that you'd expect. Like a LOT.
Imagine if there was a drug that actually made you like it feels it makes you. If you feel strong it's because you are strong. If you feel brilliant it's because you are brilliant. But then the drug wears off. Once in awhile, no problem. Taken daily...
So that's what this movie is. On one level it's about a guy who has found the fountain of fucking brilliance. On another, it's a movie about drug addiction. Other users turn out to be dead or in the hospital. Withdrawl effects turn out to be blackouts, headaches, sweating, a pronounced limp, and death.
Like the trailer shows, he finishes a book he's been working on for years in days. He figures out the stock market and turns thousands into millions in a week. He has women falling all over him. But then there's the loan shark. Even after paying him back the guy finds out about the pills and starts trading the pills for not skinning Cooper and suffocating him with his own flesh. And there's someone with a knife following him everywhere.
There's only one thing that keeps me from recommending this movie for your kids as an anti-drug movie. There's a happy ending. You just have to be sure to talk to your kids about all the dead or strung out people in the movie.
But I enjoyed the movie. I like films about people being brilliant. The "The Thomas Crown Affair" remake was better than the original. "Limitless" isn't like either but is still pretty good. That said, I don't plan on getting it on DVD.
Spock is supposed to be half human/half Vulcan. This is supposed to give him an emotional side that he tries to suppress. But Vulcans aren't being of pure logic. Their emotions are actually quite strong and kinda violent. They split from Romulans because of the philosophical difference over whether or not to control these emotions. So being half human should actually tone down his strong emotions, wouldn't it? Spock should be the most hard rocking stone cold logical mind of all the Vulcans.
Or should I be looking at the poor role model his human mother was while growing up?
Last night I finished reading "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" by Frederick Pohl. Before I get into the book I want you to look at the cover. What do you see? Really, just take a moment. What's going on in that picture?
I ask because Yummy saw the cover and immediately knew what kind of weirdness was going on. Those four people climbing the stairs are all the same guy, but from alternate timelines. One of the more revealing book covers that I've seen.
Some books require a certain level of commitment to read. It doesn't get interesting for a couple of chapters, but until that point you have to make yourself read. This book doesn't do that. This book had my attention two sentences in when a guy driving a car in 1986 almost got into an accident while talking on his mobile phone.
The rest of the chapter sets up a world that you think you understand and then gives the world little kicks to make the reader sit up and pay attention.
Like I said, the book starts with someone's phone ringing, him almost getting in a car wreck, and getting a ticket. The guy is sort of a life insurance salesman. He talks about his job, his wife, his life, how he wants to go to the pool with his wife that night because after a certain time the lifeguard stops paying attention and lets people go topless. Really, he sets up a pretty normal world. Normal except for the unusually high influence that wealthy arabs have on society and it's laws. You get your first jolt that night at the pool when they decide it's safe and HE starts to unzip his top. The fact that the pool is almost immediately stormed by the FBI and our main character is arrested is a bit anti-climactic compared to the swimsuit revelation.
The FBI, led by a woman whose thumbs were cut off years ago for shoplifting, beats our central character for awhile trying to make him admit that it was him seen at a research lab recently. His face, his fingerprints, but not his suit. In fact, a bunch of witnesses place him in New York with his wife at the time he was seen at the lab in Chicago.
After a couple of chapters we leave that guy alone until half way through the book. Instead we pay attention the that same guy as a Senator in a much less Muslim America. He's having an affair with a famous classical violin player who bears a remarkable resemblance to the woman beating him in another time line. He's called to New Mexico where they've arrested someone who appears to be the Senator. The New Mexico facility is where they've been doing research into peeking into alternate realities. But few think it'll go anywhere.
After proving that the Senator is really the Senator they talk to the stranger. He says some cryptic things and then vanishes. Soon some alarms sound and everyone rushes out to see what's going on. That's when a version of the Senator dressed in fatigues arrests the Senator.
Remember "Back to the Future" when they were explaining alternate timelines? If you go back and change something then the timeline splits. In the case of this book they're operating under the theory that any time any event could go two ways both things actually happened, but in different timelines. Someone decides to wear a red shirt instead of a blue shirt? Two time lines. Anytime a uranium isotope splits there's a timeline where it happened seconds later instead.
The version of the guy who was arrested but vanished is from a timeline where they got the technology to move between timelines to work. He was forced by the people in another timeline to give them the technology. They're invading the Senator's timeline so they can go to Moscow with a nuke and shove it back through to their own timeline to eliminate their greatest threat.
In one world Kennedy is still alive, but was never president. In one world Reagan is president, but it's Nancy instead of Ronald.
Each chapter is separated by a couple of paragraphs about random strangeness happening as the barriers between timelines breaks down. Eventually all four worlds, and many other neighboring worlds, have to deal with things passing back and forth between worlds on their own just to equalize the mass that they've been moving between worlds.
The book is ripe for a sequel, but none was ever published. Too bad, too. I'd read it.
I liked the book. It was an interesting and engaging read. See if you can find yourself a copy.
I was allergic to a lot of stuff back in Kansas. For years I'd go in to get shots for my allergies. Once a week, twice a week, three times a week, then the doctor gave up because the drugs weren't doing anything anymore. I don't recall them ever helping, but it was a long time ago.
When I went off to college I was lucky enough to find an area where my allergy problems were minimal. After college I found I had some allergy issues in Kansas City, but still nothing like on the farm. Washington, DC isn't as bad as the farm, but I have to take a lot more drugs than I did in Kansas City or Pittsburg, KS.
Typically I take double the recommended dosage of an antihistamine and a decongestant. With Claritin I kept upping the dosage. At around six times the recommended dosage, taken twice a day, I finally started to notice it doing something. Any meds that end in -D (Claritin-D, Tavist-D, etc-D) kill my allergies but act as anti-Viagra and eliminate my ability to sleep. No, I'm not amped up, I just can't sleep.
This time of the year is the worst for my allergies. Everything is pollinating and every horizontal surface in the city is covered with a fine layer of yellow. I'm taking three times the antihistamine dose and taking the decongestant at double dosage every four hours like the instructions say. I also have some children's liquid allergy meds that I take hits off of for instant relief from time to time.
And I'm exhausted. I always hear people complain about how Benedryl knocks them out. It doesn't bother me much. Not normally. I dunno if it's the extra drugs or the allergies or what, but I'm exhausted.
Game: I Have 1 Day. A game for all you fans of old Sierra games. [link]
Baby pygmy goats having fun
From the maker of the mini cannon [link] comes the mini crossbow.
Best pedometer on the market is a kids toy. [link]
Arizona's state legislature passed a bill that would make presidential candidates prove they're United States citizens before they'd get on the state ballot. [link]
The governor vetoed it. [link]
Another of the ThinkGeek April Fools products becomes a reality.
I don't remember the first time I watched Dr Who, but I know I spent many hours as a kid hiding behind the couch. My Doctor was Tom Baker and my Companion was Sarah Jane Smith played by Elisabeth Sladen. One of my favorite episodes of the new Dr Who was when the new Doctor ran into her. I've just started getting her new show "The Sarah Jane Adventures" via NetFlix.
Cancer took her away Tuesday. She was 63. I'll miss her.
The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world or a relationship. Everything has it's time and everything ends.
- Sarah Jane Smith in "School Reunion"
I've decided to grow hops. I suppose this lumps me in with all the other home brewing sorts, except I don't know if I'll actually brew anything. Who am I kidding, of course I will.
I got hops rhizomes (a clump of root that puts off new plants) for me and my brother. Being a beginner I got the Cascade variety which, in geek terms, is the "hello, world" of brewing. Dunno what you're doing? Use Cascade.
I sent my brother two rhizomes. One was Cascade and the other was Centennial. They're actually very similar. Both are rather citrusy and will go well with wheat as the feed stock. I thought that hops was what we were feeding the yeast, but I was wrong. The hops are there for the flavor. It's wheat that gets turned into the alcohol part.
I'm planting mine in a bucket in my front yard. The bucket is there because the hops will take over the yard otherwise. It's like mint or bamboo in that regard. I'll run a wire up the front of my house for the hops to climb.
My brother planted his in pots indoors and recently transplanted them to either side of his flag pole back in Kansas. He has a cord of some kind going up at angles from the hops to the top of the pole.
His poked through the ground a couple of weeks ago. He was a bit concerned because they looked like hemp. Turns out hemp and hops are related. They're the only two members of their family.
Mine was content to stay in the ground and I was starting to worry. But I got home Monday, looked in the pot, and I finally have something peeking up.
Dark green sprout on dark soil taken with a camera phone. Great photo you have, Ibid.
This is the before picture for what will likely be a multi-year experiment. Hops grows best in the northern US and Canada. But looking at the conditions it likes I don't see why Kansas or DC won't work. We have the summers and winters it likes. Sure, there's a spell of a month or two mid-summer when it doesn't rain, but as long as we keep them watered they'll be fine. Right?
I'm expecting 6ft of growth this year. Next year it should reach 12ft and start producing the bit that we actually use in the beer. You'll be presented with my results along with my brother's as a comparison of how they do in the respective climates. And as a way to fill blog space. Sometimes it's hard to come up with things to write.
Game: Pigs Can Fly. Manipulate a series of things individually so when they work together the pig can get to the flying potion. [link]
Game: Sneak Thief 3 - a point and click game. [link]
Game: Clockwork Monster - It doesn't work like a normal game. Things don't act like you'd expect. Nor should you. You're likely to accuse it of cheating. The walkthrough is almost certainly a must. [link]
A great speech opposing the end of civil unions in Iowa. 3 minutes.
A video about how hard it is to derail a train in WWII. [link]
Fighting an anaconda underwater.
New skyscraper planned in Saudi Arabia. Planned to be 5280ft tall, it's much bigger than the planned reconstruction of the Tower of Babel in Kentucky. [link]
Took me a minute to figure out what was happening with this camera. [link]
In video games a pirate trap is a way to get software thieves to give themselves away. This could be the most effective one ever. [link]
Tuesday was the 50th anniversary of the first manned orbit of the Earth by Yuri Gagarin. To commemorate the event the film "First Orbit" was released. It combines a recording of Yuri's transmission with film taken from the ISS at the same place above the Earth at the same time of day and some news broadcasts talking about the event. You can watch or download the film for free. [link]
Every one dies... in video games.
Game: Big Evil Robots - you're a kid with a slingshot. They're giant robots with a weak spot. Hit the weak spot. [link]
The inventor of the digital camera shows off his first camera and how they stored the image back in 1975. 3 minutes [link]
There are places around DC that you may have heard of or seen pictures of, but you don't really know about. Places that when you see them for the first time you already know, but don't know how or why. Ben's Chili Bowl is one of those places.
Back when U st was a center of the black musical scene it wasn't uncommon to see Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, or Redd Foxx eating there. Duke Ellington actually grew up just a few blocks from there. As the music left and civil rights movement increased you could find Martin Luther King Jr and Bill Cosby eating there. During the riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ben's got permission to stay open after curfew to provide food and shelter for the various aid workers. Bill Cosby held a press conference there to celebrate The Cosby Show. Obama ate there just days before his inauguration.
The place is almost always packed. Go on a weeknight and you can probably get a table or a stool, but you'll have to wait in line to order before sitting down. Weekends it's standing room only just to order.
That said, I'm not too fond of their chili. It always seems a bit burnt to me and always gives me a stomach ache. But I'm told I need to try their milk shakes.
Recently they've expanded. They have opened a nice sit down restaurant next door called "Ben's Next Door". The front half of the restaurant is a crowded bar area with some small tables along the wall. Once you get past that there's larger tables and you can get away from the bar atmosphere a bit. Seafood is very prominent on the menu, but there's plenty of other stuff for those of use who just don't like seafood. The atmosphere is nicer than at the Chili Bowl. You're not gonna want to wear your sweat pants or paint splattered anything. One might call it snooty compared to the Chili Bowl's diner atmosphere.
But, at last, I can get a good hamburger in my neighborhood. Sure, The Saloon sells burgers, but, unlike the rest of their food, it just doesn't meet my standards. And I like their mulled wine.
Come visit as a tourist and you kind of need to visit Ben's Chili Bowl. Going to eat with your lobbyist friend, go to Ben's Next Door.
That collection of black and white boxes is known as a QR code. If you have phone that can run apps you can probably download a free QR code reader from whatever store you have. They contain data. Usually URLs, but they can also have text or phone numbers or whatever.
About a year and a half ago Bruce screwed up our brochures so badly that it was determined that we needed to develop a style sheet that spells out colors, fonts, spacing, and the like to make sure that there's something we can point at and say "THIS! RIGHT HERE! For the 19th time DO THIS!" I wanted to start putting QR codes on the brochure that would take the person to our website or to the specific website for the book mentioned on that page. But at that point they were still fairly new to the United States. Big in Japan, but less so here. Plus nobody in our office had a smart phone to demonstrate how it worked or figure the optimal size for the graphic. But I was still ready to show up at the meeting to discuss the brochure style with a strong case for the codes.
Then I called up for jury duty and vanished for six weeks. Without me in the meeting to defend the idea it was shelved.
One benefit of having my Droid is that I can now demonstrate how the codes work. I did this a couple of months ago at a staff meeting and the Colonel got very excited. She agreed that we should start putting them on our posters and on stand up displays at conventions and whatnot. Then she went to some convention where several of the vendors also had them. She came back super excited about them. We're gonna put them everywhere now. She's been collecting places that she's seen them used in ads, fliers, and business cards.
Then came questions about size. How big do they have to be? How small is too small? We ran some tests a few weeks ago to find out.
On something that the user will have right in front of them, like a business card or brochure, you can get as small as 1" x 1". Smaller than that and the camera on your phone will likely have trouble getting a sharp picture.
If the person has to stand further away you obviously have to make it bigger. Tests in the office indicate that you need to make the box about 1 inch in width for every foot away from the poster the camera will be. So 6 feet needs 6 inches. To be honest, that's like an upper limit. The camera was struggling at that limit. So 2 inches was good for 1.5 feet, 4" for 3.5', 6" for 5.5', etc.
Since writing this post a few weeks back we've used the codes on a table at a pediatric medicine conference. I helped several people install software on their phones so they could read them. We'll have to put something on the bottom of the signs that say something to the effect of "We recommend 'QR Reader' for iPhone users and 'Barcode Scanner' for Android users."
I was up late last night finishing "The Engines of God" by Jack McDevitt. This is very different from "The God Engines" by John Scalzi which is also a good book.
You may have heard that Borders has been having financial issues. I looted one of their places a little while back and discovered Jack McDevitt's books. They pretty consistently had descriptions of the stories that sounded interesting. One of the recurring characters is Priscilla Hutchins and the first of the books she appears in is this one. I have several books on my to-be-read shelf that are third in the series and I'm still looking for the first two before I read what I have. I was happy to be able to start with the first one in this series.
The book reads like two books back to back. The first book tells about a planet that once housed a now extinct civilization. A team of archaeologists is trying to explore a city that has slid into the ocean while a team of terraformers is trying to get them off so they can blast the planet and start making it more comfortable for humans. This annoys me because the planet, while a bit cold, has liquid water, plant and animal life, and an active biosphere. If you're so desperate for housing for the overcrowded Earthlings then move them in here, don't blast and wait 50 years.
But that's beside the point. The first half of the book talks about the rush to get anything of value out of the ruins and off the planet. They're rushed and held up by the terraformers who "accidentally" drop an ice asteroid into the ocean a few hundred kilometers from the site and cause as tsunami. Then a power grab between a couple of the terraformers causes all the planted nukes to go off and really screw things up.
What they were looking for was evidence of a race they call The Monument Makers. An ancient race that built giant artificial cities on moons and huge orbiting cubes. The strange thing is that these monuments and areas of a couple of inhabited alien planets show signs of collapsing civilization and burn marks at about the same times. They have samples of the alien languages, but they're trying to get more samples from the ruins on the planet that's about to be terraformed.
Having retrieved a bunch of stuff from the terraformed planet they make some discoveries that lead the team to a star system that may house the Monument Makers. Once there they promptly crash into a huge round thing only millimeters thick and have their ship disabled. They spend awhile trying to make life support last long enough for rescue. Once rescued they check out the big round thing and a habitable planet in the system that has it's own ruins. And some rather nasty surprises.
From there they're able to form a hypothesis about what caused the scorch marks and civilization falls they keep seeing. This leads them to another star system where they find out just what the Monument Makers were trying to do.
The book is kind of like a mystery. I found myself coming up with my own hypotheses about what the monuments were for. I was wrong, but so was everyone in the book.
Each of the two major story arcs in the book start kind of slow and are hard to get into, but after a chapter or two it really starts to move and the book goes from hard to pick up to hard to put down.
We saw "HANNA" this weekend. I probably don't need to capitalize Hanna, but that's how I've always seen it.
Erik (Eric Bana) is a rogue CIA operative living near the Arctic Circle with a girl named Hanna (a very bleached Saoirse Ronan). Oh, it's not like that. Erik had recruited her mother for a project to breed super fast and strong warriors. When they closed the project and eliminated the test subjects Erik took Hanna and the mother and ran. The mother didn't make it. They've been living in a remote wilderness while he trained the girl to fight and hide and defend herself. Fighting, killing, skinning, languages, the girl learns it all. All but music, electricity, how to deal with people.
But Hanna is grown up now. It's time to go back out in the world. But first they have to take out the parts of the CIA that would want her either unwillingly recruited or dead. So they let the CIA catch her and throw her in a cell. She then has to escape and try to make it from wherever the prison is to meet up with Erik.
So the movie nicely blends action sequences with a Hit-Girl type (but with some hesitance to kill) with her discovery of modern culture and technology.
You may also want to see it for the camera work. They had lots of fun using a variety of camera angles and movements that show a certain creativity. This wasn't just "point the camera at the action and roll" movie. They worked on making it visually interesting.
I'm not sure if I'll get it on DVD, but Yummy almost certainly will.
Commodore 64 - it's back. Preordering available. [link]
I'm tearing up just a bit.
This motivational poster says everything that needs to be said. [link]
The Claw of Archimedes - a brief description of a device used to defend coastal cities from a Roman siege. [link]
Interesting use of a small space. I've seen some of this in the tiny places allowed for Solar Decathlons. Watch the video to understand how it works. [link]
A longish story about the youngest arms dealers ever and their fall. [link]
Lex Luthor stole 40 cakes. And now it's canon. [link]
It's been awhile since I've had a good vaccination link. Mostly because I've been neglecting my usual blog roll for several weeks. But because of people not vaccinating their kids we've recently had:
Whooping cough outbreak in Virginia [link]
Measles outbreak in Minnesota [link]
One (so far) case of measles in Texas [link]
Slightly old news. An amendment declaring the reality of climate change was voted down along party lines. Same with another amendment saying that it's human caused. These followed a bill that would overturn scientific findings that pollution is harmful to the planet and people. This video is of snarky comments by a Representative Markey about that bill.
Old but always entertaining.
Another child rapist priest. Not sometime between the 50's and 90's either. [link]
I'm not a regular watcher, but this was a good episode of The Athiest Experience. The atheist hosts have a long talk with creationist Ray Comfort. And I want to give Ray lots of credit for having a largely honest conversation. So many of these talks have the evangelist yelling and talking crap. He still comes away without an honest understanding of the words "evidence" or "preconception", but it's a good talk and goes a long way toward understanding his thinking on many issues.
If you work for the TSA you can fire a coworker by complaining about their religion. [link]
8 sci-fi technologies that we've outpaced. [link]
They're missing the point on the treadmill. The spinning was for artificial gravity. It's why I'm still pissed that the ISS isn't round.
WETA is a digital, makeup, and prop effects company. But they also made a double amputee into a functional mermaid. [link]
I love Richard Branson. He's a billionaire who knows how to have fun with his money. He's got his own music label, airline, SPACE PORT!!!, is one of the great adventurers of our day, keeps getting himself cameos in movies, and now he's had a one person sub built that's capable of exploring the Mariana Trench. We've been to the moon more times than we've sent people to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and it's been just about as long since we've done so. [link]
A video about some new image recognition and tracking software.
A high school with an atheist club that isn't under constant attack. [link]
Bald Eagle cam. And Yummy laughed at me for wanting to set up a dove cam for the ones building a nest by her fire escape. [link]
April fools from across the internet.
Dog furniture from Ikea.
I recently listened to "Rollback" by Robert J Sawyer. I read it about four years back and only liked it. Listening to it I really loved it. That's how it is with books. Some are better listened to and some are better read.
Many people think that some day, possibly some day very soon, we'll have the technology to allow us to live extremely long lives, if not forever. Many stories address how only the rich will have it and the poor and middle class will riot. Few stories talk about the people who get the early treatments. Imagine if for only $6-10 billion you could go from being physically 80 years old to physically 25. How would your kids react to their parents being younger than they are? How about your friends? How would it feel to bury your younger siblings? Could you remain faithful to your spouse?
Forty years ago a message came to Earth from Sigma Draconis. We responded. The woman who successfully translated the main body of the message is now a very old woman. We just got another response.
A billionaire who has already had a rollback assumes that the aliens are extremely long lived. He thinks of the exchange of messages as personal communications instead of communications between species. He wants the woman who did the original translation to be around for the next message and the one after that. He wants to buy her a rollback. She agrees, but only if her husband, the main character, gets rolled back, too.
He becomes young, regrows his hair, and it more fit than he was when he was really 25. She... doesn't. An experimental cancer treatment 50 years or so ago seems to have done something to prevent the treatment from taking hold. She's still 80-something.
The story deals with the wife working on translating the new message, but the bulk of the story is the story of a man who had come to terms with his mortality and was enjoying his few remaining years who suddenly has to deal with his whole life in front of him. A life without the love of his life, who he can barely touch now. A life where his own kids are unsettled by him, where his friends who can contribute more to the world are begging for even a few more years, where he's hated for not dying in turn, where he can't work because the technology has passed him by.
Really, see if your local library has this in their audio section. It's a good listen even if you're not normally a sci-fi fan.
I picked up the original Bioshock awhile back and loved it. It had great architecture well drawn, a good storyline that unfolded over the whole game, and it was not only fun to play but fun to watch. Yummy would come over on weekends, we'd order pizza, and she'd insist that I'd play Bioshock.
Bioshock 2 reviews weren't good. By the end of the first game you'd become a cybernetic monstrosity called a Big Daddy who protected the little girls they'd been experimenting on. But he had his vision obscured and was harder to move than the human. But he was tough. Hearing that we'd spend the whole second game as a Big Daddy was disappointing. And we'd hear the story was rubbish. But when I found it for $10-15 I figured what the heck.
Really, it was over criticized. Sure, you're a Big Daddy, but you've lost the points I was really complaining about from being a Big Daddy in the first game. It's something on the order of 10 years since the first game. Somehow the highly leaky underwater city hasn't flooded yet. The Ayn Rand philosophies that brought down the people who founded the city (and you killed in the first game) have been replaced with the worship of a Stalinist. Sure, she preaches a wonderful benefits for all society, but really she's getting them to worship her... or else. She's gonna turn her own daughter into some brilliant, benevolent creature with no sense of self. Something that can run the society for the good of all and none for itself. But here's the thing. I'm playing the daughter's father. And I'm coming to get her back.
The game runs on something of a track. You're not terribly open in how to proceed, but you get to choose how you handle the threats. And from time to time you get to make a choice. It doesn't affect things at the time, but it has the potential for some significant changes later on in the game. The game judges what kind of person you are.
There were a few things I got sick of. Every Little Sister you save has the potential to get you a bunch of the chemical to earn you new powers. You have to protect her as she harvests two corpses. But that gets old fast. I started skipping it.
It was as fun to play as the original game, but not as creepy as the original. It was also as fun to watch. Yummy still insisted that I play it for her.
And I plan to pick up the next Bioshock game. It doesn't take place in the same undersea failed utopia. It looks more steampunk and sky based with no real connection to the previous two games.
I really dislike the name of this movie. The trailers intrigued me, but the title is rubbish.
As you can see from the trailer, there's a program called "The Source Code". Source code is what you write to make a program, not the name of the program. Not unless it's a compiler or something. I suppose you could get existential and say that in this case The Source Code refers to how the program lets you examine the source code of the universe or of the people on the train or something. Nah, even that's pretty weak.
So Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up in a body that isn't his on a train heading into Chicago. Eight minutes later the train blows up. He wakes up again in a harness inside a capsule. The last thing he remembers before the train is being with his unit in Afghanistan. On a computer screen is a woman being rather rude to him. But she does tell him that she's sending him back on to the train and that he needs to find the bomb.
At this point he still thinks this is some military training simulation. He treats people like they're simulations. But he finds the bomb. And it blows up.
Things are revealed over the course of the movie. Some of it is what's happened on the train. Some of it is about Program: Source Code.
See, the train was the first of what is expected to be a series of terrorist attacks. Jake has to find out who blew up the train before they sets off more bombs downtown. The program can send him into ghost images of the last eight minutes of the lives of dead people. Or maybe it's time travel. Jake and the scientists have differing opinions on that subject.
I know, the trailer told you as much. That makes an interesting movie in and of itself, but there's more that the trailer doesn't cover and neither will I. But I will tell you that it's the kind of movie that you want to see it with friends so you can talk about it afterward.
I will not get this on DVD, but I am glad that I saw it.
...but I prefer the one in the pirate bedroom. [link]
The Messenger probe has reached Mercury and is sending back pics. [link]
Judge lodges his boot in the ass of the Wisconsin Governor and his fellow GOP asshats. The ban on collective bargaining is illegal. [link]
What? Me biased?
Marvel is building up to an Avengers movie. DC now thinks they can do the same. A tip for the executives: quit. Not the project, your jobs. Quit. Or turn it over to someone and leave that person alone. Because you guys are bad at making superhero movies, particularly Superman or Wonder Woman movies. [link]
Oooh, not a single Belgian Catholic Church didn't have pedophile priests. [link]
Not that it sits solely on Catholics. [link]
That's right, by being raped the boys have brought shame on the community, not the rapist.
The US Army sabotaged an atheist concert scheduled for tomorrow after supporting and helping to pay for an evangelical christian concert. [link]
And I close with a quote about the disaster in Japan -
"Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.
"The only sense to make of tragedies like this is that terrible things can happen to perfectly innocent people. This understanding inspires compassion.
"Religious faith, on the other hand, erodes compassion. Thoughts like, “this might be all part of God’s plan,” or “there are no accidents in life,” or “everyone on some level gets what he or she deserves” – these ideas are not only stupid, they are extraordinarily callous. They are nothing more than a childish refusal to connect with the suffering of other human beings. It is time to grow up and let our hearts break at moments like this. —Sam Harris
I want to start by recommending the book "Stalking the Nightmare" by Harlan Ellison. It's a collection of short stories and essays that includes "Somehow, I Don't Think We're In Kansas, Toto", the essay that first introduced me to one of the worst produced great ideas I know of.
"Star Trek" was over, "Doctor Who" had a decade behind it, and TV studios around the world started to realize there was a market for science fiction. Several more good shows had come out, but none from Canada. They wanted to do something about that so they asked a science fiction writer, Harlan Ellison, to come pitch some ideas. He had several that they didn't like, but he finally came up with a winner.
Picture a space ship that has a passing similarity to a cluster of grapes. In each grape is a self contained biosphere. Each has a small population, but the area of the grape is big enough to sustain a different sample of a unique Earth culture. You can start to see how this would be a huge fucking ship. 1000 miles according to the initial description.
Some time back it was discovered that Earth was doomed. Well, the people were. And the other animals. The plants, too. But the Earth itself would be fine. But people had time to build a ship to take them to another planet. But this was a generation ship. Nobody who started the trip would see the end, but their great, great grandchildren might.
100 years or so into the trip it was discovered that disasters like round numbers and something mysterious happened to cripple the ship. Each grape sealed itself to protect the inhabitants. Most of the people in the main common area of the ship died. The ship drifted off course and went on through space uninterrupted. Eventually we'd find out what the disaster was, but not for a few seasons.
500 years later the inhabitants of the grapes, or at least the Amish grape, have forgotten Earth except perhaps as a myth. The world was apparently made as an area 50 miles across with a metal ceiling. They once had a computer that dictated who married who so their limited gene pool wouldn't collapse on itself, but it broke down. Now they have a rather dictatorial version of an Amish society. Their leader insists the computer still works and makes up order they have to follow or else. But this one girl is ordered to marry guy A when she really loves guy B. That's about when guy B finds a hatchway that leads to the rest of the ship. He takes the girl and runs. The Amish leaders order guy A to follow them and bring her back.
They soon find out that the ship is doomed. It's going to plunge into a star. But they have no idea how to fix it or pilot the ship. Remember, shirt buttons are an advanced technology to these three, let alone computer buttons. Sure, that's a horribly Amish stereotype, but how many Amish readers do you think this or any other blog has?
Right, sorry, doomed ship. So there was a multi-season storyline where they had to explore the ship and learn what they could and see if there was anyone who knew something useful. Season one was supposed to end with a big reveal of either the bridge or the engines, I forget. And they were to find out they needed to find whichever of those two they weren't currently in. Sorry, Mario, but the Princess is in another castle. Alas, the network started building the season ending set first and wouldn't listen to Harlan when he said they weren't anywhere close to ready for that.
The good sci-fi shows had the cast encountering new worlds and new civilizations in almost every episode. So besides the big storyline "Starlost" would have been largely episodic in that with each episode they could open another grape that would contain some variation of an Earth culture with centuries of change and evolution to it. Star Trek with less make-up and less impossible tech.
Some episodes would have guy A chasing guy B and the girl. Some episodes would be about meeting strange warped versions of the cultures we're familiar with. Some would have them fighting with the ship's computer. Some would have them leaving the ship to check out the damage.
They also planned to bring in some big name science fiction writers to write some episodes. Sure, Neil Gaiman's episode of "Babylon 5" might be the least Babylon 5ish of the whole series, but it was still good. I'm looking forward to his "Doctor Who" episode this season as well as Steven King's episode of "The Walking Dead" next season. I'd love to have seen Isaac Asimov or Arthur C Clarke writing for TV.
This being the country's, let alone the network's, first attempt at television sci-fi they messed up a lot of things. Still, the legend and Ellison's description of the disaster have kept this show's name around for 38 years. It even got the show released on DVD a couple of years back. You should go to Brandy's Husband's "block" and read his review of the DVD. [link]
And, hey, John Scalzi, now that you've got that "Stargate: Universe" experience (and contacts) under you're belt you wanna try tackling this? Please!?
I was thinking about sci-fi TV shows the other day. They're expensive. Always have been, even when they looked like crap. It's what kept Star Trek on the edge of cancellation for years. It's what got Battlestar Galactica canceled after one season in the late 70's despite impressive ratings. Not sure how Babylon 5 survived so long with such weak ratings until they were in reruns. It's part of what killed Firefly. It's what has now killed Stargate: Universe despite being a pretty good show (unsure what the ratings were, but I know it drew viewers that didn't watch previous Stargate series). And it's what makes new shows such a risky prospect. My Hulu subscription screen lists a bunch of shows that were good, but lasted one season or less. Not that Hulu viewers are valued as highly as network viewers (for not watching commercials), but at least we're not downloading commercial free stuff anymore. Anyway, we assume any new sci-fi show will be canceled at the end of season one, two at the most, unless they have ratings like Dr Who pulls down.
I get that the ratings have to be high to offset the extra expense. That's hard to do when Star Trek's old ratings seem crazy high in comparison to shows today. Today they have to compete against a few hundred extra networks and Netflix. It doesn't help that people who are likely to watch those shows are also more likely to watch them on Hulu where the profits from commercials are significantly less.
This all brings me to the main point of my essay. Could a low budget sci-fi succeed today?
Classic Dr Who had great writers, but looked like they spent more on tea than they did on sets and costumes. One episode I love shows the hand of some stage hand reaching out to help the Doctor with a hatch on a spaceship.
I've gotten Yummy hooked on Babylon 5 where the ships were clearly computer generated and the acting by some of the extras was complete shit, but the main characters were great and the story kept you going. At least it did if you didn't skip any episodes. Would it have killed them to have a "previously on..." segment before each episode?
Would the newer "Battlestar Galactica" have worked with costumes and sets from 1979?
Fringe is struggling. Could they get away with special effects from the original Star Trek?
They keep filming on location. Sure, that scene in Stargate: SG1 was in Toronto instead of DC like they claimed, but could they have gotten away with just sending the camera crew to DC and projecting their footage behind the actors? It's called Rear Projection. They did it for decades in movies. "Austin Powers" used it to get the feel of some old movies.
These are all serious questions. Would you be willing to watch a good show with weak or even bad effects if the story and acting was good?
My dream show is a remake of the Canadian shit pile "StarLost" by Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova. How have I not ranted about this show on the blog yet? Expect a summary in the near future. It was a great idea but horribly executed. Canada hadn't done sci-fi and this was their first attempt. Could it be done today with a quality team of writers, but 60's or 70's costuming and set design? Or would it get canceled mid-episode?
After living less than a mile from it for nine years I finally went to a concert at "Black Cat". Yummy's brother used to be an avid concert goer and has recently rediscovered his concert going side. Yummy and I have started attending with him.
Last Friday there was a sold out show with several bands I hadn't heard of. They could be quite famous, but I'm pretty disconnected. As the neighbor kids once asked "don't you have any music from THIS century?"
The opening act was "The Lonely Forest". They're three guitarists and a drummer and aren't at all whiney. They were fairly relaxed and seemed to be having a good time on stage. But they were loud. I kept wanting to grab a beer from someone's hand and put it on the floor to watch it vibrate. I can see how it might have been like dropping Mentos in Diet Coke if I did so.
The lead singer looks like he should be starring in films with Michael Cera. The drummer looks like he might have been Hurley's stunt double in "Lost".
They were followed by "Mona". Another three guitarists and a drummer. This was their first time in DC and they were a bit more uptight. They were trying to be cool rather than have fun. Two of the guitarists looked like they needed a pack of cigarettes rolled up in their sleeves. The lead singer reminds me of my friend Randall. One of the guitarists looks like he could have made the final cut for the male lead in "Twilight". The drummer reminded Yummy of Gort from the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still".
Between bands we were debating whether on of the stage hands looked more like a young Neil Gaiman or Robert Smith from "The Cure".
By the time the main act, "The Joy Formidable", came on the place was packed. Much time was spent avoiding elbows and making sure I still had my wallet.
Only two guitars and a drummer this time. Also the only band with a girl. She was a bit scary though. If she made faces like that at her therapist she'd have to be committed for her own safety and the safety of others.
The drummer looked like a young Weird Al.
All the bands were loud. I have no problem with that. They're supposed to be. But the noise level made it hard to hear the music. Did that make sense? I couldn't enjoy the music because the volume was so loud I couldn't make out the music. They sound better on CD or in the music videos I've embedded above.
Now listen to the videos above. Hear the difference between "The Joy Formidable" and the previous two? There's a lot more going on. All that extra activity at concert volume was painful for Yummy and we left early.
We're gonna start with the Doctor Who this week:
Steven Moffat got his Doctor Who start writing "Curse of the Fatal Death" for Comic Relief some years back. Google it yourself. What am I your mother? He also wrote this two part mini-episode for the most recent Comic Relief. [link]
Free "Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft" for Nook, Kindle, and probably whatever else you've got. [link]
"Good Omens" is still on track to be made into a movie. Originally it was supposed to be Terry Gilliam making it, but after so many years you kind of give up on that. It's Terry Jones now. Still in the Monty Python family. And the producer has already done a great job on some of Terry Pratchett's other stuff. Even if the movie doesn't get made you REALLY want to read the book. Seriously. [link]
"The difference between me and Neil in our attitude to movie projects is that he doesn't believe they're going to happen until he's sitting in his seat eating popcorn, and I don't believe they're going to happen." - Terry Pratchett
Sarah Palin, in her efforts to make people think she's remotely competent on foreign affairs, continues to show how staggeringly stupid she is. [link]
Amazon.com loves to patent stuff they didn't make and sue others already using it. Now Apple is suing them for copyright infringement for trying to use the name "Appstore". [link]
XKCD tells you how to put the Japanese radiation in perspective. [link]
Cat Island came through the earthquake and tsunami relatively fine. In related news Japan has a cat island. [link]
