Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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doomwatch: ice power

OTTAWA -- 12,000 Hydro One customers across rural and small-town Eastern Ontario will spend a second night - and perhaps more - in the dark due to Friday's ice storm, Hydro One said at noon Saturday.

As of 12 noon, 32,000 customers between the Hawkesbury-Vankleek Hill area in the east and Brockville, southwest of Ottawa, were without electricity due to hundreds of small power line breaks and a few larger breaks.

Ottawa Citizen - 12,000 face second night without power - December 2, 2006 posted by Richard at 22:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

doomwatch: inconvenient presidents

That's the actual 2000 president (Al Gore) and the maybe actual 2004 president (George Bush) and...

well, God Help Us if the 2008 president is an anti-Kyoto climate denier-crowd nut

The only hope, in fact, is if the 2008 president is climate sane.

In case you're wondering, I just watched An Inconvenient Truth.

Climate Deniers

Bush America - not that the democrats are going to do much different, unfortunately
Harper Canada
buddy-whatsisname's Australia

Climate Do-Nothing-ers

Chretien Canada
Martin Canada

Hmm, Canada, not looking so good there. posted by Richard at 22:54 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

BG 3.09

Filled in some interesting gaps.
I guess we know why Apollo got fat now.

Labels: battlestar galactica

posted by Richard at 22:25 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

House is an elitist, authoritarian fantasy

Finished the first season of House.
The popularity of House is a bit odd.
I have to assume that the political incorrectness of House is the main attraction.

But the show is like 5 minutes of good quips from House, and 35 minutes of incomprehensible medicobabble. It may be accurate jabber, or inaccurate, but I'm not a doctor, so WTF do I care?

It is very much a medical Law & Order / CSI, with the standard three acts:

1. bad thing happens
2. solution attempted, mistakes are made - a lot about legal, forensic or medical details
3. successful solution

Another mysterious aspect of House is the the solution is ALWAYS successful. 100% of the time. At least on LO and CSI they fail sometimes. Also, an untrained person can sort of follow the legal, forensic, and criminal stuff in LO and CSI. For House, you'd have to have years of medical training to follow what they're talking about.

Now, I understand the appeal of elitism.
There are lots of times I would like to say, "Do you have a degree in computer science? No? Then shut up." But I rarely get to do so.

House is spectacular in its elitism, the return of Doctor as God.
Ordinary people are lying idiots, with particular scorn set aside for people who get their knowledge from the Internet.

This an interesting reaction to an age that is almost entirely anti-intellectual and anti-elitist. In the real world, we have the tedium of "everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether they know what they're talking about or not". In Houseworld, no one is entitled to their opinion unless they have years of training (and even then, only House gets the final word).

Which brings us to our next theme: authoritarianism. House routinely breaks the law AND defies the wishes of his patients, if he doesn't manage to manipulate them into what he wants them to do.

So this is a pretty odd combination. A weak format that follows the same arc every week: mystery illness, 35 minutes of medicobabble, 100% cure at the end. An elitist authoritarian (who is incidentally a drug addict) as the anti-hero.

Now, I can understand the appeal of this show to the actual elite, who are well tired of the amateurworld we live in. But what about the other 99% of people watching the show? Do they think they're part of the elite? Do they dream of capricious dictatorship? I don't get it.

I guess everyone watching it thinks THEY are House, that everything would go right if they were just allowed to do whatever they thought was right, while going around telling everyone to fvck off? Everyone wants to BE the elitist authoritarian?

I did like the last two episodes, particularly the classroom one.
But I think that's it for me and House. posted by Richard at 13:01 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

doomwatch: oh no, snow

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A major snowstorm forced a plane off a runway, canceled hundreds of flights and shuttered schools and businesses across the Plains and Midwest on Friday, as drivers fought sloppy highways.

At least three deaths were blamed on the storm that was moving northwest through Illinois and Michigan on a path to Canada.

...

About 2.4 million customers across central and southern Illinois and parts of Missouri were without power early Friday after ice snapped tree limbs and power lines.

CNN - Deadly storm plows toward Canada - December 1, 2006 posted by Richard at 15:08 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

bondjamesbond

Saw the new Casino Royale.
It was good.
Cool opening credits.
I also really liked the Parkour chase seen at the beginning. posted by Richard at 22:24 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

blogger beta

Dear Google,

I know you're all busy what with the PhD geniuses planning ways to spend your billions, but could you maybe spare the time to upgrade everyone else to Blogger Beta?

Because it has been months and months and months and you still won't let me transfer my site to Blogger Beta. posted by Richard at 10:41 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

doomwatch: the urban environment

Clive Doucet, an Ottawa city councillor, had a rather eclectic article in the Globe books section on Saturday.

What you need to read about... cities

I liked his comment

Many books come from what we might call the "woe is me" category. This is the dominant category in the urban library, and the choice stretches toward the horizon.

On this note, behold:

The Bookstore of Doom (Amazon Canada)

also available in American

There were a couple other interesting urban-planning-related articles in the papers. The Ottawa Citizen wrote about the new pedestrian bridge, and also about the (probably hopeless) attempt to plan the military base replacement as an eco-town.

Links to follow.

UPDATE 2006-11-03: I have done a posting with the rest of the articles I wanted to blog about. posted by Richard at 10:35 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

doomwatch: by water and ice shall ye be scourged

After a week of water woes caused by heavy rain, Vancouver is bracing for another weather nightmare: snow.

Up to 30 centimetres of snow is in the forecast for the Lower Mainland through Monday, Environment Canada said Saturday.

CBC News BC - Storm-weary Vancouver braces for major snowfall - November 25, 2006 posted by Richard at 07:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

boomer death tv

The boomers drive everything.
That means the boomer's impending mass deaths currently are in the driver's seat.
You think there are a lot of explicit medical procedurals now?
Woo boy, you haven't seen anything yet.

What is the boomer fantasy?

=====

1. power of knowledge

Particularly the power of almost-perfect knowledge
which can sometimes prevent death

Also, power in the sense that if you're smart enough, you don't have to follow anyone else's rules - your knowledge is so powerful it exempts you from convention.

2. justice

death will be avenged
truth will triumph

3. solution

every problem, including death, has a solution

4. meaning

everyone's life and everyone's death will be minutely analyzed, no action unimportant, every piece essential to the understanding the whole

=====

There you have the template for Law & Order, ER, CSI, House
and derivatives, like Numbers etc.

In all, the power of knowledge either prevents death, or avenges death.
With truth and justice for all.

USA Today Nielsen ratings for broadcast TV in the USA, Nov. 13-Nov. 19 [2006], edited to say what I want them to say (all I did was white out shows that don't support my thesis)

posted by Richard at 06:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

House

Watching season 1 of House.
I liked when he prescribed smoking.

Does the fact that I already knew nicotine was the latest word in irritable innards treatments add to my geek cred? posted by Richard at 00:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)