Karl Gallagher

Planetary Temperature History

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:12:32 GMT

JSH pulls out the data from some glacial ice cores to provide an interesting perspective on current temperature trends.

Giving Thanks

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:34:21 GMT

hradzka has the best words on the day.

Vaccines and Data

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:51:18 GMT

The Atlantic has an interesting article on the issues surrounding influenza vaccinations. Makes a pretty good case that the flu shots don't have much effectiveness in keeping people from dying. There's a rebuttal out, of course.

The scariest part for me is the poor quality of the data on flu deaths. Diagnoses are based on symptoms, not tests of the virus, so we don't actually know how many people have been getting sick or dying from influenza. No one's doing well designed experiments to test the effectiveness of the vaccine and one of the big arguments (herd immunity) would be damned hard to test in any case.

I suspect we're not going to have a real grasp of the effectiveness of medical treatments until we give up on the privacy of medical records. If we get to the point where everyone's records are searchable, and detailed to the point where you can tell if a swab test was H1N1 positive or the doc just wrote a prescription to make the patient go away, there's going to be a lot of patterns discovered that'll make irrelevant all the watch-36-patients-for-six-months microstudies that policies get based on now.

Rule 34 Check

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:53:05 GMT

Does there exist a fanvid of Miss Piggy singing "It's Raining Frogs! Hallelujah!" ?

Back In Uniform

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:06:35 GMT

. . . or rather I soon will be, once the last of the insignia arrive in the mail.

On Saturday I was sworn into the Texas State Guard. I'm in the 4th Civil Affairs Regiment, exact assignment still to be determined. Our normal mission is disaster relief, such as helping out folks hit by wildfires. We specifically train for operating shelters. Helping house refugees in the wake of Katrina boosted the reputation of the TXSG. Currently they're trying to double their size to pick up more missions the National Guard is too busy to handle with it's deployments.

I'd read about the State Guard but hadn't thought they'd take me until I met a couple of members recruiting at Lockheed's "Preparedness Fair." I spend way too much time in front of a computer cranking out paperwork just to feed the bureaucracy. Now I have a chance to get out in the fresh air (or smokey air if we're dealing with wildfires again) and help people in need. It's also a form of military service, something I've been wanting to do since 9/11. Finding out that the Air Force's take on my reserve obligation is roughly "we'll call you if we get invaded by aliens" has been damn frustrating when there's a war on. Now I can serve, if not anywhere near a combat zone, at least picking up the tasks of the people who are getting deployed.

The "back" part of being back in uniform is a bit ironic, as nothing is usable from my old uniforms. After 14 years the pants don't fit any more. The AF promoted me while I was in the reserves, so the rank can't be recycled. I'm getting ACUs instead of BDUs. My specialty badge has been replaced by Buzz Lightyear's belt buckle. And I changed my name a decade back so the nametag can't be reused either. So my uniform is starting out from scratch.

I'm also going to need some new icons . . . the beard is gone.

Recommended Books

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:40:39 GMT

Implied Spaces
It's rare for me to feel the "sense of wonder" from an SF novel today. I've read enough that most books are exploring niches or playing with variations on stuff I've seen before. Implied Spaces isn't the first SF novel I've read on Singularity-level societies either but it does it better. The inhabitants think of themselves as having come up to the Singularity and stopped just before it, but by my definition they're well into it. Not least of their powers is effective immortality--for someone to die for real the sun would have to blow up and destroy all his backups. That raises the question of what people want when they have it all, which the characters refer to as the "Existential Crisis." The author finds one answer in the Most Ambitious Villain Ever. Seriously. Next to this guy Sauron is shaking down kindergarteners for lunch money. What he wants is too big a spoiler for me to ruin for anyone. Highly recommended to all SF fans.

The March Series (aka Empire of Man)
At first glance this series fits nicely into the Military SF blood-bath niche. Bunch of guys dumped on a dangerous world, slaughtering wogs in piles and taking casualties so heavy that not even a name will keep minor characters alive. If Weber's outline had been handed to a lesser writer that's probably what we would've gotten but Ringo found more in it. The dominant theme is Prince Roger's growth from a spoiled, sheltered child to a man and a leader. It's not easy--the only thing in the book more dangerous than walking point is being a father figure to Roger--but he rises to the responsibilities forced on him. The more subtle theme, driving the second and third books, is how religion works as part of society, both driving behavior and being used as a tool. Having a practicing Satanist Priestess as part of the Marine unit makes it easier to illustrate some of those points.

The series is supposed to go for seven books. Right now there's no date for the fifth one--Ringo is waiting on an outline from Weber--and I'm fine with it ending where it is. At the end of book four Roger's completed his personal journey. There's room for plenty of stories in the setting but Roger would be off-stage for the best ones. If he does his job well he'll never have blood on his sword again.

Cotillion
Of all the heroes of Heyer's romances Freddy has to be the least romantic. It's made very clear that he's not handsome or witty or commanding. The only classic romantic hero trait he has is dancing skill. What he does have to offer is practical competence. Not in the fixing plumbing way, that's nothing a Regency gentleman would even think of doing. What he does is solve the problems faced by a lady of his own class dealing with the complexities of Society. Something that, after a while, is more appealing to our heroine than cutting a dash or striking Byronic poses. As a guy who's more practical than romantic myself that makes me like the story.

Only Engines?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:25:38 GMT

One of the minor flurries in Washington DC right now is a line item in the defense budget an alternate engine for the F-35. Not something I'd care that much about if I wasn't working on that plane. The idea is that having a second company making engines for the plane will provide a back-up against problems and cost savings from competition. Given that both the current and previous administrations have tried to kill that piece of the program it's not that widely held an idea. The case against it is pretty simple--why pay for two designs and production lines when you only need one to get the job done?

So various op-eds are appearing extolling the virtues of competition and offering the historical precedent of the competing F-16 engines. Yes, both companies would have a better incentive to improve on cost and quality as they vie for each year's batch of engines. But everybody offering that argument seems to be just fine with the engines going into a single fighter design produced by one partnership. If competition is such a great thing wouldn't more of it be better? In the absence of those arguments it feels like a typical effort to defense Congressional pork barreling.

I'm not even hoping for someone to question whether it's a good idea for a single plane to replace the F-15, F-16, F-117, F/A-18, A-10, and AV-8.

Checking for Bugs

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:03:36 GMT

There's a hypothesis floating around that we may not be living in the "real world" but are part of a simulation. Setting aside the massive assumptions in that argument, how would we go about checking to see if we are in a sim instead of reality?

For a Warcraft character there's a lot of clues that they're in an arbitrary rule set. Horses vanishing when they go through a door . . . being able to hand someone an object but not set it on a table . . . not being able to drink milk without some lessons in the school of hard knocks . . . they're all clues. Then there's the random problems that come from errors in the code. Sometimes you can move across a flat surface . . . sometimes there's a little wrinkle and you're stuck. People or animals you've dealt with before act in bizarre ways or freeze. You can be moving down a ramp and suddenly fall through the solid ground. The bugs are a bigger giveaway than the deliberate design omissions.

So what bugs make it look like we're in a simulation? Well, there's light. Sometimes it's a particle. Sometimes it's a wave. Nobel prize winners wave their hands and gibber trying to resolve this. But that's exactly the kind of glitch you get when developers steal legacy code from two different applications. Verse A had light-waves, Verse B had photons, and our world behaves according to which one a particular piece of code came from.

Then there's the speed-of-light limit. Integral to physics? Or just a simple barrier the devs threw in to keep us from peeking at under construction areas? ("Nerf light!" celticdragonfly says to this.)

Biology is full of bugs, no pun intended for once. The boot process for life is hard to explain. Evolution keeps producing errors despite millions of iterations. And human psychology . . . well, is that a bug or a deliberate design feature?

I mean, if you have two possible explanations for how the human mind works:
1. A product of evolution intended to maximize healthy offspring
2. A scenario generator optimized to produce entertaining conflicts for spectators and role-players

. . . which one fits the observed data better?

Fencon 2009 Report

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:18:44 GMT

Oh, bliss--a weekend where all adults in the family can go play, thanks to the wonderful Lee Ann being willing to babysit the whole time. celticdragonfly and I got to fencon mid-afternoon. fordprfct came straight from work so he didn't get to join us at Lois and Lillian's panel. The two writers discussed how their friendship had evolved and helped them become writers. It also had some interesting illustrations of how technology and fandom had evolved since they met in 7th grade (which was before I was born).

After dinner I wandered into the game room and caught up some with bonafidelis. We got into a game of Galaxy Trucker. Fun game, but I like the building ships part more than the knocking them apart. After that bonafidelis pulled out his complete Munchkin set and rounded up a group for a game. We settled on merging Munchkin Booty, The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin, and Munchkin Blender (the pirate, western, and meta versions respectively). fordprfct and some other people joined us so we had seven players, not counting the replacement for the teenager who dropped out early (He was upset to discover that nasty behavior provoked retaliation. Hopefully the lesson will stick.). Fun game, but when we got to end game it Would Not End. Too many screw-you cards in the deck let us keep someone from winning round after round. So when it was finally over I was ready for bed.

Saturday morning I skipped panels for chatting with friends and wandering the dealer's room, then went back to gaming. I was wanting to get some role-playing in and it looked like I was in luck. Someone had scheduled a Serenity RPG game and another group trying to promote their superhero game was talking about doing an SF scenario. While I was killing time waiting for them I joined a session of A Game of Thrones. It's a Diplomacy-meets-wargames board game based on George RR Martin's fantasy series, which I should probably check out as I've liked his SF. The game was convoluted enough to make me play very cautiously, which got me stuck in a corner of the board with no place to expand to. So as we got closer to the end I struck out with some attacks on my neighbors, motivated more by a desire to learn how the combat rules worked than any sensible strategy. Still an interesting game. Unfortunately for me part of why I joined was that the GMs of both RPGs mentioned above were playing so I could be sure of not missing when they started their sessions . . . but the board game went on long enough to eat their time slots. So no role-playing for me this con. A couple of people were talking about starting up new campaigns, hopefully I'll be able to join one.

It did end early enough for me to see Lois's keynote speech, which she made a Q&A session. Pity, her keynote from Barcelona was printed in the con book and it was a fascinating essay, but I grant she can't come up with those all the time. And lots of people did have questions. We ducked out on the end of Carla's GoH concert to figure out dinner plans. Once we had plans, we tossed them to go join jazz007, kd5mdk, tygerr, and cawingcrow. Had lots of fun hanging out and catching up with them. It's hard keeping up with friends in other cities.

After dinner the three of us went on a bookstore run. Which is pretty coals to Newcastle given what the dealer's room was like, but they didn't have the next book in the series celticdragonfly was reading and this Had To Be Fixed. We got back for the end of the Cabaret and watched from an overflow room. Unfortunately the quick side remarks that make that kind of thing fun is exactly the sort of thing I have a hard time following through that sound system so I wasn't catching much. Afterward we went back to our rooms as celticdragonfly was feeling tired and stressed. A head to toe massage did wonders for the stress, but added to the tired so I wound up sampling room parties on my own. Which is to say with jazz007 and kd5mdk.

Room parties can be cheap entertainment unless you do foolish things like buying a pre-supporting membership for the San Antonio Worldcon bid. I've never been a Worldcon and I figure if I can't go to one maybe one will come to me. The Armadillocon party was brightened by Lois holding court (though I'm sure she thought of it as an informal Q&A). I had a chance to ask my question. Lillian's introduction essay in the con book had mentioned that the Sharing Knife stories were partly influenced by the question of how Rangers and Hobbits would really interact given logistics and culture clashes--"a counter-argument to Tolkien." She told me what sparked that was reading LotR fanfic online, which I find a fascinating example of new ways authors can have indirect influences on each other. I never did make it to the Apollocon party . . .

Sunday's highlight was Lois reading from the next Vorkosigan book. Great stuff. We're getting more of Armsman Roic, and seeing Miles from a new character's viewpoint. My favorite lines were still in Miles' voice though. It's more than a year until the hardcover is out, so Baen can look forward to getting our money for an electronic copy.

I was up for more time at the con, but the rest of the family was wanting to get home, so we packed up and headed out. Lee Ann and the kids had a wonderful time over the weekend so everyone was happy.

What did I miss--I got to see a bunch of ORAC folks but they were usually too busy running the con to chat. Now that Alanna's getting older we may start getting to meetings again. We did get to see macgyvergal and her lovely granddaughter Kaylee. Other folks I was happy see again include faxpaladin, filkferengi, lolleeroberts, and ziactrice. People are the best part of a con.

Worst part? Well, one of my buttons vanished. I don't know if it was theft, accident, or poor maintenance . . . but since it was my Hanlon's Razor button I figure I have to go with poor maintenance.

Firefly Gaming

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:36:52 GMT

Fencon is this weekend and I'll be there. Haven't scheduled any gaming sessions, but if anyone's interested let me know and we can probably find some time for a game. For folks who haven't run with me before, this would be a Firefly RPG with GURPS Lite rules. I've got pre-generated characters and a bunch of scenarios ready to go.

Pity the Poor Helpdesk

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:30:36 GMT

I needed a configuration change for my account on our main database. After a few calls they decided that I wasn't asking for this because I'm too lazy to search on narrow criteria but actually need need to do large pulls like I said. So I got a call telling me that they were emailing the instructions but "it's a long, drawn out process" and feel free to call if I need more help. I felt pretty wary about that--I was expecting "get your manager to fill out form A and then get the Vice President for IT to fill out form B" and such.

Then I get the instructions. Pull file X out of the database. Put in this directory. Doubleclick (it's a .bat). Log off and back on. Done in a couple of minutes.

I shudder to think what kind of users the tech support folks have had to deal with if they're describing that as "long and drawn out."

Weekend Ups and Downs

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:04:43 GMT

Our goal was for this to be a quiet weekend at home, getting a bit of extra housework done before celticdragonfly has some downtime so we can relax afterwards. We actually got a little of that done . . .

The fun part of the weekend was having Tom come over for gaming. Probably did more talking than gaming, and Maggie was in as many games as any of the adults. She roped me and celticdragonfly into the American Girl game. Not a bad game for kid stuff, you actually had to make some resource decisions instead of mindlessly rolling and moving. Tom introduced her and fordprfct to Zooloretto while I grilled dinner. Afterwards we had a round of Race for the Galaxy for the guys, where I proved that getting the right cards in the right order greatly reduces the amount of skill you need to win.

Maggie'd been feeling a bit off through the day and was feverish by evening, so we punted on church. She was hot enough we decided to have her seen, so I took her to the "Minute Clinic" at the local CVS. The nurse discussed various possibilities, then took her temperature, and said "She needs to be worked up." Okay. A new ER not connected to a hospital had opened up nearby so we headed over. The "FirstChoiceER" folks are efficient. Only one form to fill out, and I was still working on it when the doctor came in to see her. Symptoms matched influenza so they did a nose swab. Results came back positive for H1N1. Oink. So Maggie is on Tamiflu and the rest of the family is getting a prophylactic dose of the same. Jamie can still go to school unless he has symptoms.

I'm happy with the First Choice folks. The paper work guys were efficient, the nurse was gentle with Maggie doing an unpleasant task, and the doctor discussed possibilities and what he'd be able to find out from tests instead of pretending omniscience. Good facility, too. Nice mural for the kid room though Maggie was too wiped out to appreciate it. Now part of this is that it's a new outfit so there weren't many other people clogging up the system. But they are clearly trying to do a good job rather than go through the motions.

WoW-Inspired Discussion

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:24:07 GMT

During a boss fight drwex warned of an attack with a "vicious frontal cone."

celticdragonfly: "That'd be a great band name."

fordprfct: "A Madonna cover band."

A Look At XCOR's Rocket Development

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:50:52 GMT

Bill Whittle celebrated the Apollo XI anniversary by dropping politics for a bit and visiting XCOR Aerospace to look at their rocket-powered aircraft. Part One of the video looks at XCOR's success in converting conventional aircraft to fly under rocket power. Part Two looks at their Lynx suborbital design. I'm a serious fan of XCOR. I'd met Jeff Greason before he started doing professional rocketry and got a chance to present to his crew in Mojave once. They're taking the best approach to developing new technology--incremental steps, getting a working system they can test and operate at each step. The next step is a custom-built vehicle that'll actually exit the atmosphere. I'm looking forward to seeing it fly.

Reactions to Half-Blood Prince

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:28:06 GMT

celticdragonfly and I snuck off to see Harry Potter 6 this weekend. I loved it. I'm sure the purists are horrified at how much of the book got cut, but to me it's like The Princess Bride--the "good parts" edition. It's a fun ride with a good mix of adventure and teenage silliness.

The cuts I'm happiest about are the "poor Tom Riddle" flashbacks. Building a case that an abused child will inevitably become a mass-murderer is a poor companion to the other parts of the series that defend the power of people to choose to do good.

Now if they'd cut Luna's scenes, that would've hurt. I could've done with less Ron, but it's not his fault he's being used as the foil to show how much Harry is maturing.

Discussing the movie afterward we decided that most plot holes can be explained as symptoms of Dumbledore's overwhelming arrogance.

People are still telling Harry not to say Voldemort's name with no explanation. The reason came out in book 7 (Voldie can spy on people who use his name), long after it would've been useful for Harry to know. Heck, if Harry had known earlier he could've suggested making "Voldemort" the standard greeting in the wizarding world. Just go down the hall saying "Voldemort, Patil! Voldemort, Harry. Voldemort, Bill." Then get to the classroom to hear "Voldemort, class" followed by a chorus of "Voldemort, Professor." The evil SOB would be driven more crazy than he already is. Yes, I'm proposing a magical DDOS attack.

Hermione is showing another aspect of Dumbledore's line "It is our choices, Harry that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities." She's showing that she doesn't value brains nearly as much as bravery. It's just that the cards she has to play are all "smarts" rather than athletic skill or charisma. I'm reminded of the Mercedes Lackey filk "The Archivist," who also wanted to use his smarts to become a hero's companion but lacked Hermione's luck. Just as Harry chose not to be a Slytherin, Hermione chose to not be a Ravenclaw.

Not that you'd care about the distinction from watching this movie. The book showed the importance of House rivalries dwindling in the face of major threats. The movie skipped them completely. They had clues for those who knew how to look--banners, uniforms, body language--but I don't think any house name was mentioned onscreen.

Recently Read Books

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:06:58 GMT

10,000 Year Explosion
Some folks have the idea that human evolution ended with civilization. With no predators or starvation we don't have the selection pressure weeding out the weak genes so our genome will be static. That would be true if we bred randomly. Given that people tend to be very selective there's a lot of opportunity for new genes to propagate through the population in a few generations. This book tackles the evidence of recent changes in the human genome and tells their stories.

The Box
Anyone who reads a book about the history of shipping containers must be a compete geek, right? Well, I wasn't keeping it a secret. But there's a lot more to this book than boxes. Shipping your freight in a container that doesn't have to be opened from factory to customer can by a great savings in time and money. IF, and here's the big if, the whole system is set up to handle 40 foot boxes on ships, trucks, and trains. Without that it's just a box so heavy the longshoremen refuse to handle it.

So we have a history of how companies, vehicles, communities, and government agencies had to change for containers to be effective. Except they didn't change. Almost every company doing ocean shipping before containers went under or was forced to merge. Old ships were converted, then replaced by purpose-built containerships. Ports were abandoned, their traffic taken over by new ones built up from the marshland. Felixstowe became Britian's largest port starting from a minor facility so small the union hadn't bothered to organize it. Unions went from dominating their communities to a handful of crane operators. New York City's longshoremen once could tip a mayoral election. Now the piers hold restaurants and the ships go to New Jersey. Whole systems of government regulations and industry cartels collapsed. The Interstate Commerce Commission wound up being abolished. How often does that happen to a government agency? So there's a heck of a lot of drama in there for a story about boxes. I'd strongly recommend it for anyone interested in how technological changes are resisted by social, commercial, and government forces.

Space Doctor
Harry Stein writing near-term science fiction in 1981. This sort of thing usually ages very badly as technology overtakes it. Well, this one holds up well. Stein wrote a description of building a solar power satellite system from the view point of the doctor treating construction accidents and other aliments of the work crews. There's a few dated moments ("Behold, the marvelous invention of CAD software! And new medical databases you can access over the net!") but all the parts in space hold up just fine. That's because we've made effectively zero progress toward actually building large-scale structures in space since Stein wrote the book. Entertaining reading (as long as you weren't expecting much detailed characterization) but got me brooding a bit on the implications.

Is There a Better Explanation?

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:39:28 GMT

Technical concepts
Never fit into haiku
But acronyms do

Parenting Poll

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:33:26 GMT

Watching Disney's Robin Hood got 7-year-old Maggie onto the subject of honeymoons and where to go on them. I figure that's a decision to make together with the spouse-to-be. So next time this comes up I'm tempted to say "You should decide that with your husband. So when you meet someone, ask him where he'd want to go on a honeymoon so you can get to know him better."

View Poll: #1417869

Questions Meme

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:41:54 GMT

Latest questionnaire, via soldiergrrrl.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My father's friends Karl and Otto. My mom wanted Kevin but gave in to the argument about the three friends vowing to name their first-borns after each other. As I understand it there aren't a Karl Frank and Frank Otto out there so the other two didn't hold to it as forcefully.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
5/30/09.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It's not much, but it's mine.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Good roast beef.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
See icon.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes, but we'd argue about stuff a lot.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Heavens, what would make you think that?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Falling is not a fun thing for me.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Don't have one.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Dress shoes yes, sneakers no.

12. Favorite sport to participate in?
What sport?

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
French vanilla, with chocolate sauce.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Depends on the person . . . I'm kinda shallow some ways.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I have a hard time getting motivated to do things.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
I wish I was home with celticdragonfly.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Only the ones who'd have fun with it.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Different shades of brown.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Office babble.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Green.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
celticdragonfly

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Yes.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
I don't do sports or regular TV.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Brown, what there is of it.

28. EYE COLOR?
Green.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
I have enough problems in the morning without sticking my fingers in my eyes.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Steak.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Star Trek.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Green.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Spring.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Kisses, with the right people.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Just one?

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
celticdragonfly

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Multi-way tie. I'll give the nod to rampantmouse.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Some Golden Harbor by David Drake, and World of Warcraft Programming by Whitehead, McLemore, and Orlando.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
"An IRISHMAN has an abiding sense of TRAGEDY which sustains him through temporary periods of JOY."

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
The kids watched a video while we had a WoW raid.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)
Happy kids.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Berlin, Germany.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I'm good at crunching numbers.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Johnson City, New York.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
Eh, I'm not expecting anyone to actually do it.

A Few Comments on the Star Trek Reboot

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:25:23 GMT

I finally got to see Star Trek last weekend. Overall a fun movie. Tossing the existing continuity overboard leaves things open for them to tell whatever stories they want. I'd like to see more good SF movies. But I still have complaints.

To all the old fans, Spock is the Smartest Guy Ever. The new fans will remember him as "Guy who lets billions die by dropping a decimal point." Way to characterize.

There's an attitude to the Old Kirk and other heroic ship commanders. If someone's going to be saving the world regularly he needs to be a serious badass. If Old Kirk was dropped on a strange world and attacked by a monster he'd improvise weapons from his survival capsule, or lead it into a trap, or run with a determined expression while looking for something he can use as a weapon or trap. Screaming and flailing arms while running is what the comic relief does, not the badass hero. No complaint about the actor, he did what he was asked to do well. But the writers either don't like or don't understand what a badass starship commander should be.

The lack of badassitude could be blamed on Kirk growing up without a father (thus losing out on paternal advice such as "Never try to outrun a cop with a vehicle over two centuries old"). But Old Kirk wasn't the hero because he was Kirk, but because he was the badass who could pull victories out of any unlikely situation. New Kirk got lucky once. But if we can't count on him to beat barroom thugs or a polar bear, how can we have faith in him beating bigger foes?

Meanwhile Spock, commanding a shipload of cadets in a major crisis, hands over the con to 17-year-old Chekov so he can rescue his mom instead of delegating that to a security landing party. Court martial, dereliction of duty. Chekov abandons his post to take over a transporter technician's job without handing over the con to anyone. Court martial, dereliction of duty, two counts.

The movie made a Big Deal over Uhura's skills up front. So they were telling us this to make sure we'd believe it when they showed her doing something amazing, right? Such as translating Romulan transmissions when Starfleet's computer can't handle more than a century's worth of dialect drift? Well, maybe in an early draft of the script. But somewhere along the line was the production meeting where someone asked, "If Uhura's not doing much in the second half, and this Nurse Chapel doesn't do anything until the hurt/comfort scene, can't we rewrite them as one character?"

Is there any other good explanation why Christine Chapel wasn't one of the characters carried over from the original series?

I miss Professional Uhura more than Chapel though. She got through the original series without ever being rescued. She could fend off attackers with a quip or a water pitcher. Or, after vamping Mirror-Sulu, with a knife. There were glimpses of her personal life--singing as a hobby--but we never found out her first name. She was an officer, doing her job. Now the reboot has her as the Love Interest. That's a big loss. It also rubs in that the reboot has no women in leadership roles. Even the board of admirals judging Kirk was all male.

Pike appointing stowaway Kirk as first officer is a plot contrivance on the level of "Antigones pursued by a bear." May not make any sense but the whole story collapses without it.

As for Scotty's last-minute technobabble save--that's the best they could do?

I'm hoping they make more Star Trek movies. With a clean slate they can tackle some great stories. But they didn't reach the full potential with this one and I'm hoping they do better. There's good precedent for it. The first season of Next Generation wasn't nearly as good as the later ones.

Quote From A Voicemail

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:49:29 GMT

"The boat is sinking and you are the only one who can help me out. By the time you get this message I may have drowned but please try to call me anyway."

You'd think I could go to one meeting without someone panicking.

Girl Genius Trivia Test

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:11:18 GMT

Your result for Transylvania Polygnostic University entrance exam...

Hugo Glassvitch

Not bad. About as good as one could expect from a non-spark in fact.

Take Transylvania Polygnostic University entrance exam at HelloQuizzy

Ouch. Some tough ones in this.

Memorial Day

Wed, 27 May 2009 22:44:17 GMT

We had our traditional Memorial Day observance on Monday. I read the Gettysburg Address to the kids, preceding it with watching the movie Gettysburg. Well, most of it. It's a bit longer than a six-year-old's attention span. So we ended it with Chamberlain's defense of Little Round Top. Pickett's Charge can wait until they're older and can handle moral ambiguity a bit better. Next year it'll be a WWII movie. Maggie is understanding the issues a bit better but I want to find something clear-cut. Gettysburg is still a good choice for the day. The movie does a lovely job of bringing out the issues people were fighting about with a minimum of lecturing.

Pillow Fights

Thu, 21 May 2009 22:02:23 GMT

Last night Jamie came up to me in the living room and challenged me to a duel. He was offering a drumstick and a cooking spoon as weapons, which I wasn't thrilled with, so I offered a pillow fight instead. We quickly armed ourselves with cushions from the couch and comfy chair and started swinging away. Maggie promptly got a pillow and joined in. I made sure they weren't going to whack Alanna, who was toddling around enjoying the show. Then the little one picked up a pillow of her own and walked into the middle of us. Just wanted to join the fun. So I tapped her pillow with mine, just hard enough for her to feel it, and went back to whacking the big two as they kept swinging at me. Alanna laughed! She was so happy to be part of the game. So I gave her some more taps until we were all tired of the pillow fight.

Life is good.