Surfin USA

Sometimes I'm frightened by how little I know about the field I profess to be in, which is computer science.

It's a strange discipline, really. The kind of knowledge you need to know to be considered proficient at computers is rarely taught in schools, and you have to pick up elsewhere.

Once upon a time, and this was pretty recent really, I had no idea what an Ethernet cable looked like. And I'm not talking ten years ago, but like 2-3 years ago. Which isn't to really say that I had no idea, only that it was not intimately familiar to me. Now you might wonder, why on Earth would I not know about that.

Until recently, which really means until the last ten years, personal computers were expensive. Until computers broke the 1000 dollar barrier, it was considered an expensive luxury. Usually, computers were priced around 1500 to 3000 dollars, but for the common person to buy a computer, a cheap computer had to be around 700 dollars or less, and now, if you want to go bare-bones, you can get one for 300 dollars, and that's really good enough for most people, who only plan to surf.

But until recently, I had no need to get my own computer. When I was undergrad, lo those many years ago, they had plenty to go around. At the time, they weren't even networked. And when they were, I had no idea how they were hooked up.

And when I reached grad school, well, they had computers all set up there too. There was no need for me to figure out how they hooked it up to the Internet. That was some IT guys job, not mine. I just worried about logging on and logging off.

And even when I started to teach, well, there was a computer on my desk, so I had no need to get one for myself, which, at the time, was still pretty expensive.

Eventually, a friend suggested I get a laptop, and he suggested a Mac, and I bought an IBook. It was kinda expensive, being around 1200 dollars or so, but I got a discount because they were releasing one of the early Mac OS X's.

In those days, which was like 2002 or so, wireless cards were still not entirely standard. The few students who had laptops (and those numbers were growing) had a pluggable wireless card. Macs were innovative, in that the card stuck underneath the keyboard, out of the way, unlike other PC laptops where they jutted out, likely to break. Users had to remove them manually when they were put away, lest they be snapped like so much graham crackers.

The wireless card, which Apple dubbed "Airport", cost another hundred dollars, but wireless connectivity was a must have, because getting Ethernet and finding a connection was not that convenient.

Thus, I had no need to touch Ethernet, pretty much until I got a job, and there was more hardware than I've ever really dealt with.

I remember when I was teaching computer hardware, and I wanted to "build" my own computer, so I spec'ed out the parts, and paid for it. Total price? About 1300 dollars. This included a monitor, a motherboard, a case, a hard drive, a floppy drive, even a computer desk. Sad thing? I never used it. Not even once. Well, just once to set it up. I eventually let a friend borrow it, and that was that.

Still, I became aware of things that no computer class still teaches you. Such as USB, Firewire, what the typical amount of RAM was, the typical hard drive, the typical clock speed of a PC, and so forth. All these were numbers I simply cared nothing about. Why should I care? They seemed like so many random specs, like people who obsess over the acceleration of a desired sportscar. Why should I care about clockspeed? Why should I care about RAM? The computer did what it was supposed to, so I didn't care.

But it was one reason I was curious about how to build a computer. Though expensive, it was one way to learn the pieces.

And do they teach that to you? No. Name a course that talks about Firewire, USB, Ethernet. Is it an introductory course? No. Is it a course in computer organization? No. I know, because I taught that plenty of times. Indeed, for the non-techie, there's an exasperating amount of crap that you must learn, each technology being replaced by new ones.

Why are computer science majors expected to know all of this? Because they own computers!

Then, there are things people learn because they play computer games, or play with their TV, such things as component cable vs. HDMI. If you don't play video games of have an HDTV, these things are unimportant to you. For years, all anyone cared about with a television was an antennae, or a cable, a plug, and a channel changer. Now, your typical HDTV comes with a gazillion connections, as much to play video games or display photos from your digital camera, as it is to watch television. And you know what? Obsolete in five years. Some new technology will come out, supersede the current stuff. DVDs, which marked the replacement of the horrible VHS tapes, are now being threatened with replacement by HD-DVD or Blu-ray. It's back to Betamax vs. VHS once again.

So I don't feel like an idiot calling tech support to get my Internet set up, and fortunately, they make it easy, and in any case, I had to call them up to get it activated.

Eventually, it will be much like the phone service, I think (unless cities are high speed wireless all the time). You call to activate, you plug in, and voila, you are done.

And that is that.

So I'm back on the Internet again.

Hooray for me.

Fresh Eyes

Sometimes, when you stare at code too long, the assumptions you made, the decisions you made, which made sense as the time are hard to challenge. Rather than get into too much depth, here's an analogy.

At one point, people sat in front of what would now be termed, a computer. This computer was huge, and there was only one of them. And so a very limited number of people could use it.

Once someone had the bright idea (or more likely, several someones), then people could sit in front of a keyboard, possibly in a remote room, and essentially send their keystrokes to a remote machine. That machine could handle several users at once, by giving each user a tiny slice of time.

Users were said to use "dumb terminals", which basically used a computer as a kind of telephone to a computer. A key press was typed, the characters sent across a wire to the computer that would interpret it, then send back an echo of the key pressed, plus results.

Soon, people figured everyone could have their own computers, such as personal computers. Then, you can think of the Web as creating a remote computer, by which the browser is the local dumb terminal.

Often, there is the desire to put smarts near the person on the "computer" they sit in front of which alternates with the desire to put the computer remotely and having the local "computer" merely relay messages to a more powerful computer elsewhere, which is shared by many people.

Such was the case that happened today. Was it better to do a big computation now so that future results could take pieces? Or was it better to do smaller computations, whose sum total might take longer than the big computation, but be quicker. Tradeoffs go different ways depending on which way you go, and one way, which may have been dismissed a while ago may require revisiting if things have changed.

You never know til you try, right?

That's the thing with programming. There's so many ways to do things, so many tradeoffs you can make.

Remember, a bad solution in the past, might become a good solution of the future.

Genius Departed

Three men died in the last two days. None were particularly young. Bill Walsh, former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, considered the innovator of the West Coast offense, a style of play that emphasized short passes and timing routes instead of running plays, passed away a day ago.

Two directors, Ingmar Bergman of Sweden, and Michelangelo Antonioni of Italy, also passed away.

This is perhaps, as most things of this nature, a matter of coincidence. Their names are well-known, and yet many others, far lesser known have also departed.

There's not that much more for me to say since I'm not particularly familiar with the film work of these two men, though it's making me curious to check it out.

Catitude

Flip Your Lid

IKEA does something rather peculiar. In fact, it's downright infuriating. They sell these plastic boxes called Samla, which you would think come with lids. And they do come with lids, but you pay extra. Not just a little extra but around 1/3 extra. So a box that looks like it's 4 dollars might be 6 because you want a lid.

What's the point? Why make it appear cheap then tell you, oh, it's really pricey because you need a lid too?

Unbelievable.

Movin' On

I haven't had to move in quite a few years, and since then, I've acquired even more junk. Yesterday, I had the "big move". This is where you get a bunch of friends to help you out. However, there are several keys to making this all work.

First, although you are getting lots of friends, you want to minimize the time overall, and the amount of idle time they have. They are doing a lot of heavy lifting, and that's what they should be used for. Thus, you want to avoid having them pack for you. Almost anyone you meet who moves will see this is "obvious". First time movers and folks who hate to plan ahead don't like this. They see a bunch of people, and would like friends to help pack.

Packing is laborious and slow. It simply is. You have to have several weeks to plan a move, unless you have next to nothing, which is ideal.

Next, when you pack, try to label stuff. Put a big number and/or letter, like A1, A2, etc. Maybe "B" for bedroom or books.

Also, I prefer many smaller boxes over few large ones. Depending on how strong everyone is (or the boxes are), big boxes with heavy items are bad. The box can't hold them, and the people can't lift them.

If you can, decide where you want everything to go. You can choose to label where you plan to put it, e.g. dining room, bedroom, living room. That's for those moving.

Although I had a reasonable amount packed, it was still not enough. Also, move things to a location where it's easy to get the stuff, which usually means you need a clear spot where to get things.

Also, if you have stairs, you may want to do a "fire brigade". Having people walk all the way up several flights of steps is tiring. If they only go one flight, then pass it to someone, this will be ultimately less tiring.

Have refreshments. I suggest doughnuts, water, Gatorade. If you can help it, have a large fan somewhere, that someone can stand in front of to cool down (unless you move during cold weather).

If you have good movers, they will move faster than you can manage. This is why it pays to be organized.

If I had to do my move again, I would do that. I would also tear apart items like bookshelves and box them or label them separately.

I tend to avoid awkward items. Large items like bookshelves, sofas, beds, and drawers are where the hard work is. If they need to be disassembled, do so ahead of time. Figure out somewhere you can place parts because you'll be hard pressed to find them again. If necessary, have large bright colors on the really important boxes, so you can access them quickly at the other end.

The best moves are people with nothing. The idea nothing person has the following items. Small table, small couch and chairs, clothes, a TV, a coffee table. I have plenty of books, and that's a big issue.

Also, if you have a chance, move awkward stuff ahead of time. I moved probably 40 containers ahead of time, and still that only put a small dent into things.

Oh yeah, it's good to get lots of people, if you can help it. Too few, and you will tire them out. And if you can, start on time. I had budgeted four hours for the move. It took two, because I had lots of people (plus half hour to drive over).

If it's hot, turn the AC way up on both ends. The money you expend will lead to happier movers.

And, typically, no matter what happens, there's still crap leftover, so the first move may not be the last. Ideally, you take EVERYTHING, and dispose on the other end. It may not work out that way, but it's helpful.

Finally, if you can, get rid of stuff. Some people are too attached to everything they have. Ideally, they would be told, everytime they move, get rid of half your stuff which will be tossed out.

Oh yeah.

Rental moving trucks totally suck.

More Comments on Sunshine

I read Wikipedia's entry on Sunshine where they explained the plot details.

When you watch a film, you don't realize the energy that goes into making it. Danny Boyle wanted people to live together, read books about the space mission, visit scientists, try to understand the science behind the story, and so forth.

(Spoilers ahoy!)

There's a summary in Wikipedia of the story, and from it, I realized I somewhat missed part of the story. The captain of the Icarus apparently acted like some religious leader, like some Jim Jones, and convinced the crew, somehow, to commit mass suicide. He somehow survived, though his skin was mangled, presumably by the sun, in some fashion, as he came to believe that the Earth did not deserve to survive.

But Danny Boyle makes an odd directorial decision. This captain is always shown as some blurry effect, as if he's dead or has evolved into some higher being, and that seems to fall outside what the film has set up as credible. Forget whether the science actually makes much sense. It's trying to give the plausibility of making sense.

Perhaps if the captain was filmed as is, or with only slight disfiguration, rather than this blurry effect, you might, just might, buy what was going on.

But since there wasn't a great deal of time spent on his character, he is added for what appears to be no good reason, when the film is doing a pretty decent job without his character essentially trying to kill everyone.

One idea does work out well, which is the fascination with sunlight. Two characters really get into it (the doctor, and the captain), and it is some kind of attempt to explain what is going on with the other captain. It's too bad that the execution of the idea just doesn't work out.

You have to feel frustrated for such movies that are on the verge of being really good, but end up not being that way.

Review: Sunshine

I have this problem.

Sometimes I get too curious.

I want to read about a movie, so I read reviews. Most reviewers can't help but spoil something or another about a film, which is a problem if a film relies on surprises to make it work. I suggest you don't read reviews if you don't want to know much going in.

So I read a review by Mike D'Angelo on Danny Boyle's latest called Sunshine, and he basically spoils something.

But he is right. The film, for the most part, is far more intelligent than its trailers let on. A key example is in the trailer, one guy (played by Chris Evans) says "If the Sun dies, we die. Everything on the Earth dies. There is no more important mission that this.", or something inanely obvious.

It's the kind of tripe dialogue that goes in movies where either the writer or director thinks we are total idiots, and thus need something terribly obvious like this, or because they want a moment where some character can yell something out, and that's the best they can do.

Except, when it is uttered, it makes a lot of sense, and the advice not to listen also makes sense. In particular, Icarus 2 is a mission sent to implant a bomb in the Sun to reignite it. It's called "2" because a previous mission sent seven years earlier had mysteriously failed, and there was only one more chance to get it right. But as the mission moves forward, there is a distress beacon from Icarus, which has managed to survive all these years.

The crew is deciding whether they should rendezvous with the previous ship, which is nearby or not. Chris Evans, who plays headstong Mace, then utters the aforementioned line, arguing against trying to rendezvous with the other ship. Another crew member, Searle, the doctor, gives a counterargument why they should make it.

For a while, you think Sunshine will draw more inspiration from Apollo 13 where brains saves what appears to be a disaster. Alas, it draws from two other sources. Most heavily, it borrows from 2001, from the look of Icarus, to the voice of the computer (cleverly, they chose a woman's voice, though it lacks the dispassionate menace of HAL, which would have perhaps been too close in imitation). They use exploding doors to propel people.

Unlike 2001, the film wants to have characters, though character development isn't the important part of the film. Of the seven main characters, two are almost insignificantly minor, one has a bigger role. The main character is the narrator, played by Irish Cilian Murphy, who plays a physicist that has created the bomb to reignite the sun. Michelle Yeoh plays a botanist of some sort who is in charge of making sure there's enough oxygen and food. There's the previously mentioned doctor. There's a woman, Cassie, and I suppose Chris Evans, who plays Mace is the second most important character.

The other source is the one everyone loves to draw from, which is Alien, where space is menacing.

Science fiction films have rarely been about mind-altering ideas like SF books have been. They are either adventures or horror, or some mix of the two, with an occasional comedy (like Hitchhiker's Guide) thrown in for good mix.

This film most reminds me of Event Horizon, which started off eerie and creepy, and ended up ridiculously stupid. Alas, Sunshine does the same, except it is far smarter, and creates a much greater sense of awe due to the mission. And the stupid parts, while astoundingly idiotic, still make for some excitement at the end.

The writer or director really struggled mightily to figure out an ending for the film, and came up with something so crazily bad, it's hard to believe.

But up until then, it's fairly compelling stuff. Sure, they fall for the usual science problems. Ships rumble. Outside space is freaking cold.

There are also problems with characters, who, with a frickin computer as their help, still make life-threatening mistakes.

The film looks pretty gorgeous, though. I wish they had more downtime to talk about their mission or had certain personality traits that would make them take a risk that means their lives.

Ultimately, this film would have been far better served in a miniseries format. They could have done several things. First, they should have spent a good deal of time on Earth, probably shortly after the failure of the previous mission. Second, they should have delved into the characters more, possibly interesting in deciding who goes and who doesn't. Then, they should have had their mission, but jettisoned the plot-point at the end, and possibly replaced it with something else.

Even though the characters aren't particularly deep, there is sympathy in what they are doing, and so, at a simple level, just caring how their mission turns out is indeed a success for me. It's more intelligent than most SF movies, which is to say, a bit above average.

Certainly worth watching, even for the mess of an ending.

Run To You

Bryan Adams is Canadian, and yet wrote songs that seemed quintessentially American, as if belted by John Cougar Mellencamp. Until you realize that, yes, Canada is America too! And "United States of America" just isn't that great of a name for a country. Germany, Germans. France, French. Japan, Japanese. United States of America. Americans?

But I used one of his songs "Run to You", which seems like a guy cheating on his wife, because of this article.

In it, there's a quote from Jack Kerouac, who I suppose I should read more about. What little I know is likely to be inaccurate. I figure here was a guy that was on the road, essentially hitchhiking and distilled his experiences, the freedom of not being tethered to a job, to a location, roaming the Earth (well, the US) and capturing a sense of adventure that came to represent what people wanted.

It's not surprising the sense of madness, of running, of going anywhere, doing anything, is compelling. Americans, especially this President, feel the need to extol the virtues of democracy and freedom. And yet, what is freedom? What does it mean to be free?

A friend said he recently watch Fight Club, presumably for the first time. I saw it about a year or two ago for the first time as well, though, by that time, its message of male emasculation, and desire to live and not be trapped by having that IKEA house (by the way, I still need to build my IKEA furniture--and Fight Club had it wrong! IKEA names are only one Swedish word, not two!).

That link serves as a touchpoint for me, because I had gone on a vacation by myself for the first time, off to Seattle, on the West Coast. Some people travel all the time, having been, with wealthy parents bankrolling the way. Their memories of jaunts to Europe, of irreverent evenings, of folks speaking a different tongue, are imprinted on their memories.

The diary, such as it is (being on Kuro5hin, after all), takes this sense of wild freedom, of simply dropping it all, and going, going, going, and realizing how much we escape through words. We read, and we are inspired, and instead of doing the things that the words are compelling us to do, we are compelled to write, to use the same words that move us, and craft our own words, words that imitate, words that evoke, and give birth to our own vision of running.

This was written, a week or two after I had visited Seattle, and at the time, I'm sure I misunderstood its significance, probably attributing more than what it meant at the time, though there's something fascinating about it being the only diary entry for this person, a solitary moment of creativity.

In many ways, it's typical of the Web, when people were suddenly inspired to creativity, crafting their web pages, putting their content up for the world to see, spending a few hours on a lonely afternoon or evening in a fit of activity.

Then, after a 15 minute of fame moment, they went to their lives, as ordinary as ever, and left their "under construction" sign back up, realizing it's hard to crank out creativity on a regular basis, especially when inspiration is the payment, not hard cash.

So occasionally, due to the history mechanisms of sites like Kuro5shin and Slashdot, I can occasionally read this entry.

Do you spend your days madly, wildly, without thought, without reservations, without inhibitions, without anything but life, pure sweet life which sweeps down through your feet and moves you and fills your throat with laughter and your ears with music and your eyes with beauty? Can you dig it? That's life, it's right there, it's going by, it's that train that's flying by you and you gotta run and jump on and ride it like the wild ride it is, whooping and hollering until your voice gives out and your fingers are sore. The wind whips through that train and makes you shiver and tear up and hug yourself, but it's tears of joy and a cold that doesn't chill you but lets you know you are human. All your logic and all your reasoning and flying behind you like the wind that's putting violent, mad waves on your shirt; you know it's still there but you can't pay any attention to it now. All you can do is cry out for joy, because the train is going off into the sunset and you don't know where it's headed, but you know you want to get there fast, fast, fast, whereever it is, and see it all, and drink it all, and have it all, and then make sure you jump on that next train going through because that's what it means to live. It don't matter where that train started nor where it's headed, but all that matters is that you're on it and you see everything rushing by in a frenzy of enlightenment and rapture. You can't hang on to it forever and even if you could it don't run forever, but you just want to hang on as long as you can, as long as your hands have some feeling and your lips have some singing you'll hang on, hang on, until you have to let go and then with all your strength left and all your soul you jump off and fly through the night in a mad, frenzied blur of motion and your spirit itself is leaping forth, letting out one last crazied, passionate, heartfelt cry until you vanish into the sweet, enveloping night.

And so the words, perhaps better than trite, perhaps better than that, resonate more for me than it might others, because it is a moment in time, capturing a sense of the past and nostalgia.

As Bryan Adams song was about a man who runs to a forbidden love, this running is to a period of time, to words, to a memory or an impression of a memory---a metaphorical run.

And occasionally, I find solace in this run.

Rocket Man

William Shatner is the rocket man!

A Matter of Taste

Sometimes I think, in fact, I feel I know that the programming languages we have now don't quite do what we want it to do. Ideas don't transmit themselves so easily through code. Beyond a certain length, the ideas behind what is going on is replaced by a morass of code.

Code is both a kind of expression, perhaps even a poem, lyrical, beautiful. No, it's far too purposeful to reach that. At what point, does the mundaneness of purpose win out.

Ask yourself the following questions. Does it bother you if a class has more than 20 methods? 30? Do you say to yourself "Boy, that's ugly", or do you not even blink twice. The class is what the class is. If I need to add something, I add it. If that is what the solution requires, I won't try to make it "nice".

How about method length? Does it bother you that it's 400 lines long? That it can't fit comfortably in two screens? Or three? Or ten? Or do you simply keep writing because to break it up into functions would be hard. Passing parameters is "hard". You prefer to leave your thoughts uncluttered by having all variables accessible everywhere?

Does it bother you that you class does two things? Three things? Ten things? That you tie this object to that object to the next object? After all, that's what the problem seems to require. Why not do it that way?

In many ways, writing a program is like writing a story with lots of constraints. You want a boy, and a girl. OK, maybe you make them related. Oh, now you need two more boys, and two more girls. They'll all be related. This will be like the Dukes of Hazzard, where you had five cousins and uncle and not a married couple in sight with the exception of Boss Hogg and Lulu.

Think about it. Bo Duke. Was he dating anyone? Nope. Luke? Nope. Uncle Jesse? Nope. Any of the police staff? Daisy Duke? Relationships are complex, especially since most episodes were devoted to cars leaping skywards on fake ramps, and general shenanigans.

Some code makes as much sense as the Duke clan.

Does cut-n-paste code bother you? How often do you find yourself preferring to cut-n-paste rather than consolidate a function?

Ultimately, most of us as coders, myself included, don't read enough code, don't read enough commentary about code, and so we code blind, doing what we think makes sense, whether it makes sense or not. We learn through trial and error, repeating errors thousands of others made. It's as if people taking a creative writing course had never read anyone else.

I don't buy the idea that avoiding the study of others will make you somehow more creative. For every person who can break the trend and produce something truly original, a thousand churns out utter tripe, and would be far better served by studying others, and mimicking the best they can. History shows that this works far better than trying to be completely original.

And in programming, there's no need, most of the times, to be truly original.

All it requires, sometimes, is a matter of taste.

Road to Nowhere

Last year's Tour de France still held some appeal to Americans. Sure, Lance Armstrong had retired in a sport he helped popularize in the US. That the popularity hinged on his citizenship and was therefore fleeting didn't stop many Americans who otherwise would never give cycling a second look, a second look.

OLN covered the Tour for Americans. More than any other sport, cycling allows fans to get up-close and personal. Fans line tiny local roads that wind their way through rural villages so close that they can knock a cyclist off their bike. This is a sport that's truly European, as American paranoia would have no fans within a hundred feet (er meters) away. Indeed, Eddie Merckx failed to win a Tour because a rowdy fan punched him.

Floyd Landis became a bit of a hero, an American most had not heard of. He was something of the anti-Lance. He seemed like a good old boy, not particularly photogenic (but then, neither was Lance), warmer to crowds than the bullish Lance. While he held the lead for a bit, he lost many minutes with only 3 days left, only to come back the next day and make up all the missing time, and hold his lead until the final.

That was before there was some testing, and Landis was accused of doping, trying to enhance his performance. Although a second test also showed evidence of doping, Landis continues to fight to this day to clear his name. One consequence was Landis did not bike this Tour. With his hip that needed impending surgery, Landis was willing to oblige.

In the intervening year, frequent rival Jan Ullrich, who could never quite beat Lance once he started winning, retired.

This year, no American looked to be the favorite, but perhaps it's all the better. Alexandre Vinokourov, who had been a strong contender last year, had to drop out, with accusations. Tour lead, Michael Rasmussen was also excused from the race. The two names together have made this one disaster of a tour.

Perhaps no sport so scrutinizes its athletes as does cycling. Even doping tests for baseball don't have the immediacy of cycling, where results are found as the arduous competition is still in play.

Of course, Americans don't care, once again. The NBA is dealing with scandal as a referee has claimed to fix games to alleviate gambling debt. The Feds are after Michael Vick for dogfighting. Baseball has to come to grips with Barry Bonds, who's on the verge of breaking Hank (Henry) Aaron's home run record, with the taint of steroid usage.

Sport is all about competition, but at the highest levels, people look for an extra edge to overcome deficiencies in their physique or training.

But no sport seems as close as cycling is to self-destruction, and at its biggest event. A tragedy, it is.

Cornstarch! In Japanese!

Yes, cornstarch!

The Future's So Bright

Danny Boyle's latest is about to hit the theaters. Danny Boyle, in case you didn't know, directed such films as Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, Millions, 28 Days Later. He has a pretty good visual style, and perhaps is similar in style and success to Brian DePalma.

Boyle has recently directed the film, Sunshine. I won't spoil the details that much. I will only point out that there have been abysmally few movies in the science fiction genre that can compete with 2001. As slow as the film is, as mediocre as the acting is, the film reaches for profundity while it asks the question "where do we come from" with an answer that doesn't resemble those given in Judeo-Christian-Islamic texts.

Kubrick did something absolutely amazing, so amazing that no one dares copy it. He made a film where the characters were barely that at all. Did you like any of the characters in 2001? Hal becomes the closest thing to either a rooting or hating interest. The rest are bland, bland, bland. But the effect of this is completely unreal when it comes to the final scenes that are surreal, to say the least.

Many directors have made some attempt at 2001. There were some movies about Mars, that didn't fare so well. The Russian film, Solaris, is apparently the closest. The remake by Soderbergh isn't even really a remake, though it does hint on science fiction, and of course, on relationships.

2010 tried to compete, but made an interesting decision. They wanted to have real characters. They couldn't help it. How could they possibly make a film where the characters didn't matter?

So Boyle is likely to do the same in his film, Sunshine, about the Sun which is dying much sooner than expected. This is the second mission that is attempting to reignite the sun. Of course, given how important this mission is, you'd think that there would be spacecrafts sent out all the time to make this possible, rather than some Black Hole story of one craft sent out years ago, and lost, and a second sent out to complete the mission years later.

Instead of the black hole as menacing, it's the sun that's menacing. Obvious lines are spewed out about the fact that if the sun dies, then so do we, the kind of lazy exposition that is supposed to pound the impact to the lowest common denominator audience (us), as if the crew members didn't already realize how important this mission was.

Even so, the reviews have been pretty good, if not amazingly outstanding. We're not wow'ed by special effects like T2 or Matrix. No one seems to claim that it breaks new ground in SF. As profound as some SF writing has been, it can reduce to other genres, typically, space fantasy, space opera, space adventure, and rarely about the heady topics that SF writers address.

So hang on for a week, put on your SPF 1,000,000, and a nice pair of shades, because, baby, the sun's gonna be a bit bright.

The Future

Pack-a-touille

You know one thing I really don't like about myself. I'm a pack-rat. Not as bad as the worst, but bad enough. And the thing I pack the most? Books. Not only is it an expensive habit, it's a pain when I have to move. It's perhaps a rare perfect storm when there are two of us in the house that have tons of books, but to credit my housemate, she's probably read a good deal of her books, and if need be, her books would fetch more than mine would.

It's not that I read (or more precisely, buy) trashy stuff that no one else would buy. No, I buy stuff that goes bad quickly. I buy books on technology. Thus, I have a book on Windows Millenium (useless) and on XP (still OK) and on old versions of Java (useless). And I'm not often content getting one book on the topic. I need like every book on the topic. There's some kind of weird insecurity going on there, I have to admit.

How many books do you think a person needs on Python, a programming language? 2-3 tops, right? Perhaps some specialized Python books and one intro one. I'm sure I have a dozen on the topic, half of them intro.

What I'd really want, oddly enough, is a bookstore that I could just go to at anytime, that would never throw out books. I don't actually need the books at any point in time, and I'd like to get rid of them once their usefulness has declined.

But the painful part, as I mentioned, is moving. Let's say you have hundreds of books, as I do. You can box up maybe 15-20 books in a box. That's still, say, 50 boxes, if you had 1000 books, and I'm sure I easily have a thousand, possibly even two thousand books.

Insecurity, I think. If I don't know it, I want a book to tell me about it. I wouldn't mind using the web so much but there's something funny, don't you know? People seem to write far better stuff when it's for a book they intend to sell then when they will make no money off of it. Dave Thomas is a great writer of Ruby books. But does he want to make no money off it? Were people willing to lavish him with computers, food, and anything his heart desires, maybe that answer is yes. But for now, the books allow him to make direct and indirect money.

I was talking to the wife of a friend, who admonished me by saying that libraries have plenty of books for free! I decided not to engage her in debate saying that libraries don't have my books, and are likely never to have my books. They are so specialized, that it would be like having books on the classification of different Amazonian insects.

I suppose I wouldn't even mind if it was cheap, cheap, cheap to get someone to do all the heavy lifting, but in reality, it isn't. You can get some friends to help out, but they want to do it in one short burst of a few hours of time. They don't want to continuously help you like actors in a Stanley Kubrick film, who, in case you don't know, was famous for working on films for years, and getting actors to do a hundred takes.

It's so bad that I think I couldn't even sell the books for a dollar a piece, thus making the poorest return on my investment, but still better than nothing.

It's depressing really.

And so it goes.

Wimbledon: Women's Final

Saturday, I watched the women's final. Venus Williams vs. Marion Bartoli. Venus Williams has been hyped since she was like 12. Bartoli I hadn't heard of until, oh, Saturday.

Since the Williams sisters have been around for so long, all the animosity that they faced when they first came out seems to have disappeared. If you read what the Williams sisters said, you thought they were arrogant.

Well, I wrote this a while back (July 8 at 10:48 PM, it seems) and never got around to finishing it. I'll try to recall what I was thinking.

First, I remembered way back when, when the Williams sisters were criticized for their bravado. Some people didn't like uppity African American women strutting their sexuality, having confidence in their ability to win. I used to read a newsgroup in tennis where people made scathing remarks about Venus and Serena.

And yet, I felt there were many positive things. They valued education. They wanted to do other things besides tennis. Indeed, they talked about making clothes, leaving the tour, and so forth.

Venus was the star first, being the older sister, then Serena looked poised to be the better of the two sisters. Nowadays, both seem to suffer from injury and occasionally, boredom.

Venus loves Wimbledon, and even when she comes into it less than her best, as she did this year, she has some chance to win it all. Playing solid tennis to knock off former Wimbledon champ, Maria Sharapova, she came into the final a prohibitive favorite. She looked to be playing pretty good tennis.

Even so, it was Bartoli, Bartoli, Bartoli. How she swooned when she heard Pierce Brosnan, aka former 007, in the audience. How her father had weird, possibly abusive techniques to train her. How she had candies given to her when she did things right. How was this girl's stamina?

Personally, I had never seen her before. She seemed a full-figured gal, cut of a similar mold as Jennifer Capriati, but possibly the heft of Lindsay Davenport of old. In Mary Carillo's words, she's big babe tennis. Hits hard, move so-so. Her two-handed shots recall Monica Seles.

For the first 2 games or so, Bartoli looked like she could get toe-to-toe with Venus. She certainly hit hard, and Venus had a hard time keeping up. But at this stage, a lot of tennis can be mental. Given two players of seemingly equal skills, the one that stays in it mentally, hits good shots at important points, is the one that tends to win it. Occasionally, you have superior talent beating inferior talent as Graf did with many of her opponents.

Venus struggled a bit towards the end, as both she and Bartoli took a medical break, which smacked a bit of gamesmanship, though both colluded. Bartoli had blisters on her feet, but the thinking was she was tired, and needed the rest, and it was at that point, Venus looked like her hip was bothering her.

Even so, she moved around just well enough, and it was a matter of just hanging in there, just hanging in there.

And then she won Wimbledon. What was it? Her fifth? Somehow people rack up titles at Wimbledon, and the rest of the world doesn't notice anywhere near as much as when Borg won his fifth, or when Martina went for her ninth.

Now we head into the US Open, and see where the women take us.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

And on the seventh day...well, you know what happens on Sunday. It's a day of rest for Christians, except stores continue to be open on Sundays. You'd think, given that most people have their weekends free, that they would open late on Sundays. But, no...it closes early on Sundays.

Suppose you have birthday plans for Sunday, as I did a few weeks ago. Where can you go on a Sunday evening? Most places like to close by 9 PM or even earlier. Restaurants, alas, don't like catering to the late night crowd.

There are a few exceptions, of course. McDonald's and other late-night fast food places. There's diners that open up really late too. But other than that? Some Korean restaurants like to open up late too.

If grocery stores can do it, restaurants can too! The funny thing is coffee and doughnut places open up real early. They want to cater to the 6 AM crowd. It's assumed, perhaps accurately, that early folks are positive folks, and those prone to stay up til midnight or later are delinquents.

With the way jobs work, it may be so.

It's too bad, because it would be nice to get food of all sorts at whenever.

Cover Up

The creative folks that design movie posters and the creative folks that design DVD covers are somehow worlds apart.

Movie posters are imaginative, often leaving the subject of the movie as mysterious. DVD covers, by contrast, are often boring. A typical DVD cover always, always, always has head shots of the actors. The point, once you see it, is that when you wander the movie aisles in a Blockbuster, you pick movies based on actors. It's the lowest, common denominator.

This practicality vs. aesthetic can be pretty annoying. I'd love to say I observed this first, but I didn't, so all I do is point it out to you.

Next time you roam DVD covers, whether it be at Target or at Blockbuster, and next time you guy by your megaplex of movies, compare the two, and you'll find which one is the more artistically bankrupt.

Thrilla in Manila

(I'm patting myself on the back for this blog entry's title.)

Years from now, when more famous Michael Jackson videos have faded, from Billie Jean to Bad, the one left standing might be one whose concept seems so bizarre that its long lasting appeal is inconceivable.

John Landis directed Michael Jackson in a werewolf like transformation from mild mannered Michael to freaky dancing Michael. There's something about not being human, whether it be a robot, or some monster, or some animal, that touches us in some way, allows us to become, well, not heroes really, certainly not superheroes, but simply different.

I've seen a Bollywood (really Tollywood) version of this, as well as participants in a wedding. If there's one video and dance people seem to like, it's Thriller.

And that a Filipino prison, complete with man dressed as victimized woman, could organize their homage to Michael, it adds lustre to this very strange history of a song called Thriller.