Manifesto Multilinko

Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.

[to search, use Blogger search in top bar]

HOME ----

[contact me]

My Blogger Profile

View my photo galleries.

Listen to my radio station.

follow me on Twitter

Linkblog

OLD BlogMarks Linkblog

Currently Reading

This is an Ottawa blog (Ontario, Canada).

[blogroll me]

Cool blogs:
(* = recently updated)

Blogger profiles in Ottawa

Hot links:
delicious - popular - new

Other good sites:
Slashdot
Wired News
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata

This page uses Extreme Tracker which is determining your referrer by running some JavaScript.

The commenting system is Reblogger.

BlogCanada webring

This blog is listed on BlogShares.

Monday, June 15, 2009

What Star Trek could do

Star Trek can play the following roles:

1. Real information about science
2. Sense of wonder about space exploration
3. Envision future technology
4. Envision future society

The original series gave us 2, 3, 4. Some good science but it was never a focus.

Next Gen was ok with sense of wonder (although a bit muted since they were on a cruise ship) and was amazing with its vision of technology. It also had a very ambitious vision of society, unfortunately one so utopian (no money, everyone is nice, everyone is understanding, all is done by consensus, blah blah blah) that it made for terrible drama and would be a bloody boring future to live in. They pretty much dodged anything remotely controversial, unlike the original series.

The terrible particle-babble ("tetrions") of the Next Gen was a tragic lost opportunity, considering this is as close as millions upon millions of people will get to science.

There is also a major flaw in the "envision future society" bit - Roddenberry had a very progressive vision in the 60s with equality of women and races - the obvious modern equivalent would be with sexuality, but there are no gay people in the future in Star Trek. That's pretty lame. Why not make Sulu gay? After all, he is.

Plus which, for the straight guys like me, could we have some more interesting women characters? Seriously 7 of 9 and T'Pol? Hey, look at our b00b1es! You can have way way more interesting characters like BSG Starbuck and Boomer, who are complex and not in the barbie doll mold but still super hot.

The new Trek movie is FAIL:
1. terrible science
2. you barely know you're in space and no one is excited about it
3. no technology vision
4. a society that appears to be basically identical to our current one in every way

Wow, that's quite the science fiction adventure you've put together there, except without the science, and the science fiction, and the vision, and the future.

Labels: movie, Star Trek

posted by Richard at 20:47 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Star Trek: the problem of Delta Vega

(I'm pretty sure in the movie they said Delta Vega 4, but whatever.)

SPOILEROILEROILER

This is VERY BAD SCIENCE.

So this place looks to be like 100,000 km from Vulcan - in other words, it has to be a moon, or the spectacularly unlikely case of a planet sharing the EXACT SAME ORBIT.

But Vulcan is basically a desert, while with Class M breathable nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, while Delta Vega is all ice, also with Class M atmosphere.

But they should be receiving the same amount of insolation.
So ok let's assume we have only seen the equatorial regions of Vulcan and we just happen to be seeing one of the poles of Delta Vega.

So we're obviously in the Vulcan star system, but there's only a Federation base there?
Don't you think the Vulcans would have a nearby moon covered with science bases?
What's the Federation doing with a base in the Vulcan solar system?

Makes no sense.

The unofficial info in Memory Alpha is very disheartening

Although the Delta Vega depicted in Star Trek is located in the Vulcan system, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman named it after the planet in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In an interview with TrekMovie.com, Orci said, "We moved the planet to suit our purposes. The familiarity of the name seemed more important as an Easter egg, than a new name with no importance." [1]

According to writer Roberto Orci, the part of the mind meld sequence in which Prime Spock sees the destruction of Vulcan was meant to be "as impressionistic for a general audience." The idea was that Spock saw the planet's destruction through "a telescope or some other type of measuring device," but showing it that way on-screen "isn't very cinematic." However, Orci himself prefers to think of Delta Vega as being in close orbit of Vulcan. [2]

This is one of the fundamental problems of modern science fiction, which is you have these TV and movie writers who know nothing about science or about the genre, and think it's just an excuse to make stuff up. This was particularly prevalent in the Next Generation, where it was clear they had writers from like random network TV shows writing stories for a completely different genre.

Things have names for a reason.
Scientists don't go hmm... ok that's alpha Centauri and right next to let's put Gamma Tarkania.

And you couldn't have Spock looking through a telescope? He's f&#king SCIENTIST for Christ's sake. He's SUPPOSED to look through telescopes.

Sigh.

Labels: movie, Star Trek

posted by Richard at 20:25 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Star Trek: the problem of time travel and Spock

* SPOILERS *

The Problem of Time Travel

Time travel, like any deus ex machina, always leads to major plot problems.
Most plots just avoid the issues entirely, and hope that the entertainment outweighs the flaws.
Sometimes they have the characters explicitly state: "um yeah if you think about this you'll get all tangled in temporal paradoxes so don't bother".
Others try to constrain the time travel in such a way as to make it possible only under circumstances that serve the plot.

There is lots of time travel in Trek (particularly Voyager), including in Voyage Home (ST 4) and First Contact (ST 8), both of which are movies I like.

The problem with unconstrained time travel is it breaks the rules of drama. In time travel stories, people are always rushing against time, while you're thinking... um, what's the rush? Just travel to yesterday sometime and fix it.

Now add to this the problem of Old Spock ("Spock Prime"). One of the ways you can get around time travel issues is by having the characters not know how it works, or how it happened. But Spock is a Science Genius. He has perfect recall. He knows 150 years of Federation history and galactic science. He's already travelled back in time in Voyage Home and knows about the Guardian of Forever, and he almost certainly knows about the Bajoran time-travel orb, just for three examples, plus he has this ship full of handy black-hole-making red matter AND he has Scotty, Super Engineer/Scientist. You're telling me out of all the thousands upon thousands of planets, devices, civilizations and scientific advances he knows about, there isn't one that would let HIM travel back in time AGAIN?

Particularly considering HIS ENTIRE PLANET INCLUDING HIS MOTHER ARE NOW STONE DEAD?

All Spock Prime has to say is "hi, sorry for the inconvenience, I'm just going to fly backwards around the sun in a certain way and un-f*ck this timeline, nice meeting you".

The Problem of Spock

Spock Prime loves peace. He has 150 years of deaths and wars in his head. You're telling me the most important thing for him is to help the Vulcan Colony? He's not going to try to stop the war with the Klingons? Make peace with the Romulans? Stop the advance of the Borg? Go to the Delta Quadrant and mind-meld the Dominion into pacifism? Or provide advice and information about the galaxy so that in a thousand thousand ways large and small, death and disaster is prevented?

Makes no sense.

Labels: movie, Star Trek

posted by Richard at 07:49 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Star Trek review

* SPOILERAMA *

For those of you keeping track, this is Star Trek 11.

The Plot

The fundamental core of the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

What is the problem exactly

So first off, it's not clear what the underlying problem is. A sun is... going supernova? The Romulan sun? Err, you might want to all leave then, not much you can do about that. But a sun going supernova doesn't expand, it just goes boom. You're going to what, "absorb the energy" with red matter?

So why don't all the Romulans use their fleet and get everyone the hell out of there?
Why is Ambassador Spock flying the "fastest ship in the Federation"?

In this universe, are there still Romulus and Remus?

Not Enough Time?

Ok so this guy is sitting around in his giant mining ship near his home planet, for some reason, not helping anyone, and bam! Spock appears and bam! the planet is destroyed and bam! they travel through time and...

and then he IMMEDIATELY attacks a Federation ship?
So your planet is destroyed and you're somewhere else and your first thought is - hey, let's attack the nearest thing.

And your mining ship has tons of missiles that can lock on ships, ready to fire?

And he knows Spock was on the ship? And he expected Spock to do what exactly? Fly faster? Shoot the red matter better? What?

So your planet has JUST been destroyed, you destroy a Federation ship for no clear reason, and then, having travelled back in time (which means your entire beloved planet IS STILL INTACT AND YOU HAVE THE MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IN THE QUADRANT) you... sit in space and wait for 25 years for Spock's ship? Err, what?

So everyone on the entire mining ship is like, hey, our planet was destroyed but now we have it back, but we're so ?angry? that we are going to SIT FOR 25 YEARS IN SPACE and wait for a ship to appear.

So at no point did it occur to anyone... err hey, why don't we all go tell our families that their sun is going to explode, so they might want to relocate to a less killy planet. And oh by the way if we're feeling all vengeful (for some reason) we could use our future technology to make the Romulan Empire far more powerful than any other in the quadrant.

Ok so, they capture Spock and then drop him on... a moon I guess? Called Delta Vega 4 or something? Which has a very good view of Vulcan becoming a black hole? Like a VERY good view... so close you'd think it might be affected by the planet you know, imploding.

So the Vulcans who have lots of spaceships and technology, they just sit there while an alien ship drills a hole into their planet? Considering the amazing drilling platform was overwhelmed by TWO GUYS from Starfleet, the Vulcans couldn't have sent what, a flying scooter to crash into it? They have ZERO planetary defence? They have ZERO ships in orbit? They have ZERO ships on the surface? What?

Ok, so the Enterprise arrives into a sea of destroyed ships and no one is like, hmm, it's kind of a shame that ALL OF OUR FRIENDS FROM THE ACADEMY ARE DEAD. No one is like, hey maybe we should see if there are any escape pods?

And when Kirk finds out this is the guy who killed his father, he has no emotional response?

And when THE ENTIRE PLANET VULCAN implodes, everyone is like, oh my, what a great pity?

And then EARTH has no defences? STARFLEET ACADEMY doesn't have a single thing it can send against a mining platform in the sky RIGHT NEXT TO IT?

All is Darkness

So their awesome solution to destroying the Romulan ship is to turn it into a black hole? But wait a second, wasn't it JUST RIGHT NEXT TO EARTH? So now you've got a black hole, at a minimum, in the Sol system, and most likely, very near to Earth. Awesome. Brilliant plan.

No Sense of Wonder

One of the great things about the classic opening is the sense that, OMG, we're in space, isn't this cool and amazing. In this movie, these people could be anywhere. They're not excited to be in space. They're not excited to see the ship. Mostly the run or walk in corridors a lot, they could be in some building somewhere for all the difference it makes.

Very Bad Science Fiction

The whole thing is very very bad science fiction. Time travel, black holes, red matter, imploding planets - garbage.

Very Bad Drama

It is also very bad human drama and plotting. It makes no sense. Almost none of the human emotions map to any normal reactions.

Yes, they blew up Alderan in Star Wars, but that was decades ago. If you want to see what a modern reaction would be, even the crummy Enterprise series had a reasonable sense of what a reaction to an attack of this magnitude would be, and of course BSG had an actually thoughtful take on what this would mean for the survivors.

I know it's all part of the dramatic reboot: kaboom, look at me, I changed the timeline, kaboom, look at me, I blew up Vulcan. But it's going a bit far.

In particular, since the Vulcans were the core founding members of the federation, this will alter dramatically its evolution.

The Transfer of Command

So Spock has to relinquish command because he is emotionally compromised by the death of his mother (oh and incidentally the destruction of his entire planet), but Kirk is fine despite the exact same guy killed his father?

Plus which this "emotionally compromised" language is ridiculous. ALL Captains are emotionally compromised. There is perfectly good canon language and ship's practice to remove command: insanity or severe illness are the main ones. "No longer mentally fit" etc.

Plus which at a minimum Kirk and Spock should be under courtmartial for assaulting each other and other members of the crew.

The Role of Women

In a remarkably retro move, which I hope doesn't indicate the current state of our society, women have basically no active role to play in this version of Star Trek. Their permitted roles are to be a helpless mother giving birth, to be a basically non-present mother with at most a couple lines, and to be sex objects, green or black or otherwise.

Head of Vulcan council is man, head of Star Fleet review board is man, security guards are men, all men all the time.

Uhura's entire role consists of being an object of Kirk's attention, being Spock's lover, and one time saying "I know Romulan but they're not saying anything so that doesn't help". I don't think she so much as pushes a single button in the entire movie.

This is completely anti the Roddenberry ethos. He was operating within huge constraints in the 60s, but he still managed to have women as scientists, ship captains, ambassadors... women in many different roles.

If he was doing Trek today, not only would he have women in all different roles (which is so normal today as to not even merit mention normally), including many command and action roles, but he would have a lot more diversity (instead of the usual "mostly white men plus some token colour / aliens") and at least one gay character.

The characters themselves

For some reason, they're all genuises except Sulu and McCoy.
Uhura - language genius (a la Enterprise Hoshi)
Kirk - unspecified genius
Spock - always a genius
Chekov - some kinda gravitational something genius
Scotty - general engineering / science genius

The general scope of McCoy's character is done well - one of the points you never really see in the series is he is much older than Kirk. But he doesn't actually do anything in the entire movie other than make Kirk sick. And say "I'm a doctor, not a X" a lot.

The only characters that get much development or actually do much of anything are Kirk and Spock.

That being said, as characters (physically and "presence" wise), they're all pretty good. Kirk and Spock are strong, McCoy and Chekov are the right ages, Sulu is fine. Uhura appears fine, kind of hard to tell since she had nothing to do. Scotty is much younger than he should be, but whatever.

The Academy

I thought the entire thing was going to be set at the Academy. Other than a few shots, what I thought would be the entire movie is skipped with "3 years later".

Captain Kirk

So the promotion path is: show up on a ship you're not allowed on, get arbitrarily immediately made First Officer, and then have your Captain in a wheelchair and become Captain. What is this, Klingon promotion? He's on ONE MISSION and he's Captain? Are you kidding me?

Galaxy Quest

Both the red matter and the ridiculous design of the mining ship were dangeously close to Galaxy Quest territory.

Star Wars and Banzai

Both the planet blowing up and the pointless alien companion for Scotty (Jar Jar Binkstar?) are rather close similarities to Star Wars.

The interrogation scene is oddly reminiscent of the interrogation in Buckaroo Banzai, right down to the unexplained water flooding the floor. (As a side note, their mining ship stocks mind-control bugs? How convenient.)

The Con

Basically the entire movie is just to set up Kirk in the Captain's chair, Spock as his first officer, Sulu and Chekov at the console, Uhura as the Space Secretary, Scotty as the engineer and McCoy as the gruff doctor. In an alternative trekverse.

They could have just started with that and done, you know, an actual movie.

The Alternative Universe

This is a rather convenient canon dodge. Why is X different? Oh yeah, Alternate Universe. In case you're keeping track, some highlights:

* Vulcan gone
* two Spocks
* Spock's mother dead
* Kirk's father dead (we never heard of in original series)
* Uhura Spock's lover
* Romulans look different
* They know way more about Romulans and Klingons than they did in original series

Faster Spacecat! Faster!

In keeping with our fast-paced modern times, it's much faster and more dynamic - the ships move faster, the people move faster. Which is entertaining for a blockbuster, but I don't know how sustainable it would be in a series.

Overall Ratings

3/10 as science fiction
6/10 as drama
8/10 as summer fluff

So basically what you would expect if you take a series that had some threads of science fiction, ideas, and character interaction, and make it a Summer Blockbuster.

In Conclusion

Abrams set out to make a dynamic movie about Kirk and Spock, and in that he succeeded. He also set out to re-cast the characters and put them all on the bridge, and he got there in the end. In any other aspect, the movie fails.

Reviews I Liked

* Roger Ebert
* IGN
* Huffington Post

The List

I think I have this in my blog already, but I couldn't find it quickly, so:

Star Trek 1: terrible. slowest. movie. ever. opening scene shows empty space for like 5 minutes. seriously.
Star Trek 2 (Khan): everyone likes this a lot. I think it's ok.
Star Trek 3 (Spock): also ok although I didn't like that they changed Saavik
Star Trek 4 (Earth): good
Star Trek 5 (god): terrible
Star Trek 6 (Klingons): not good. too many US references ("Nixon goes to China")
Star Trek 7 (Generations): I liked this a lot. almost perfect if they had just fixed up the themes a bit and given Kirk a better death
Star Trek 8 (Borg): also good except Data should have said "Resistance is futile" and also Zephram Cochrane sucked
Star Trek 9 (umm, the one with the facepeeling guys): terrible
Star Trek 10 (Romulans and Picard clone who looks nothing like Picard): terrible
Star Trek 11 (reboot): acceptable as fluff but bad drama and terrible science fiction

Labels: movie, review, Star Trek

posted by Richard at 10:02 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Friday, May 22, 2009

Euro exchange rates in Ottawa

It should be possible to crowdsource this daily, but anyway, I single-sourced it.

to buy 1 Euro

TD Bank 1.6428
Calforex (3rd floor Rideau Centre) 1.6055 (2:26 PM)
Accu-Rate (World Exchange) 1.6221
Calforex (3rd floor Rideau Centre) 1.5988 (3:01 PM)

So in summary: Calforex has the best rate by far, but be aware that its rate really does change during the day.

Previously:
March 09, 2007 cheapest options for foreign currency for Canadians?

Labels: foreign exchange, forex, money, travel

posted by Richard at 15:46 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Torture is always only about power

Everyone knows torture doesn't result in useful information. The leaders know it, the cadres know it, everyone.

The purpose of torture is not getting to the truth, it is controlling the truth. It is inventing and manipulating reality. Torture is about power and the ultimate power to bend someone's reality to your will.

King Canute famously could not command the tides. But if you torture someone, they will eventually say that you can command the tides, or that there are no tides, or that it is high tide when it is low tide. They will say anything.

Garry Wills wrote about lies in Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, he said lies are an assault on the fabric of reality.

Torture is a systematic effort to create untruth, a systematic assault on reality.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, of all things, showed this very clearly. In a two-part episode about torture echoing 1984, they are easily able to extract all the useful information from Picard using drugs. Yet they still torture him, not to get information, but to prove a point, about state power, and about the power of one individual over another. The goal of the torture is, in the end, to get Picard to say something that is self-evidently untrue, and ultimately, to BELIEVE that it is true, to change his very reality so that he literally no longer believes his own eyes.

THAT is what torture is about. Not some ticking clock fantasy.

Andrew Sullivan has recently written compellingly about this

The assertion of total power through unchecked violence - outside the Constitution, beyond the reach of the law (apart from legal memos from hired hacks instructed to retroactively redefine torture into 'legality') - will be seen in retrospect as the key defining theory of Bush conservatism. It ended with torture. Why? Because reality may differ from ideology; and when it does, it is vital to create reality to support ideology. And so torture creates reality by coercing "facts" from broken bodies and minds.

This is how torture is always a fantastic temptation for those in power, even if they first use it out of what they think is necessity or good intentions: it provides a way for them to coerce reality into the shape they desire. This is also why it is so uniquely dangerous. Because it creates a closed circle of untruth, which is then used to justify more torture, which generates more "truth." This is the Imaginationland some of us have been so concerned about.

The Western anathema on torture began as a way to ensure the survival of truth.

via Jay Rosen - Quote and Comment

I've said it before - I don't use this word lightly. Cheney is evil.

And to me, just as the fact that the citizens didn't march in the streets when it was announced that there were SECRET FUCKING PRISONS, but that it was ok, because they were really useful, just as that lack of action meant democracy is all but dead, the total inaction of citizens when faced with clear, detailed evidence of torture carried out by their government means basically game over. The government can do anything. Maybe it always could.

posted by Richard at 22:33 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

ChangeCamp Ottawa - May 16, 2009 - City Hall

For the tiny number of people who read this blog for Ottawa news, I should mention that our unconference, ChangeCamp Ottawa, is ready to go May 16. It's free (including lunch!), it will be an opportunity to discuss citizen engagement, open government, transforming government with technology, and hopefully some of the politicians will be there to participate directly with the citizens.

Registration is at

http://changecampottawa2009.eventbrite.com/

When you register, you will automatically be sent an invitation to our conference social network, hosted on Pathable.

If you want to participate in the organising, join us at

http://wiki.changecamp.ca/ChangeCamp_Ottawa

Labels: ottawa

posted by Richard at 17:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Ottawa demolition

I finally got a shot of the demolition of the Convention Centre demolition.

I hope the new building doesn't suck. I don't see how it could be worse than the POS concrete thing that was there though.

Labels: ottawa

posted by Richard at 23:31 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

in which I ride the double-decker

It was a rather disheartening chilly day at the Blair stop watching one "out of service" bus after another whizz by, interspersed with Hurdman buses, but it was worth it, because The Double-Decker arrived.

Good:
* takes up less space
* cool view from up top

Not so good:
* garbled announcement from driver (he was saying "there's lots of room up top" but I heard "there's no room up top")
* narrow and (I think) single set of stairs up and down to the upper deck
* you are not allowed to stand on the upper deck until the bus has completely stopped (there was an OC Transpo guy up there forbidding everyone to stand) which means you're supposed to
1) Somehow ring your stop (I didn't see many places to ring on the upper level)
2) Wait until the bus has come to a full stop
3) Shove your way down the stairs as fast as you can in order to
4) Get out of the bus before the driver closes the doors and continues to the next stop

Also I suspect some people may find the unobstructed view through the front window

either terrifying or (in the case of the guy who was there today) so entrancing it's possible all they do is ride on the upper level front row all day.

Overall it's cool, but they need to resolve the issues of loading and unloading the top level (particularly if the bus is full) before it will actually be useful.

You can see the full photoset on Flickr: Ottawa Double-Decker Bus.

Labels: ottawa, public transit

posted by Richard at 23:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Monday, April 20, 2009

format

I think it's the long URL in the twitter stream that's made my format go all wonky.

Labels: meta

posted by Richard at 15:07 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

Ottawa house next to park - Sandy Hill / Rideau-Vanier

According to Yahoo maps (which inexplicably provides no embedding option), this is in Rideau-Vanier, just north of Sandy Hill.

This isn't mine, just posting for a co-worker.

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8184911

View Larger Map

Labels: housing, ottawa, real estate

posted by Richard at 14:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

HOME -

Twitter Updates

Linkblog

Currently Reading

SPOILEROILEROILER

*** SPOILERS ***

*** SPOILERAMA ***

* SPOILERS *

* SPOILERAMA *