The one where Chandler achieves beatification.

We've reached an interesting watershed point in our technological development.  Not too long ago, all media was interpreted physically - ink on a page, light on a photograph, or the sound of a musical instrument being played.  Those experiences are all now digitally mediated, and without that silicon interpreter they no longer even exist.

I seem to recall a bold defense in a 1980s pornography case which was based on the fact that videotape on its own was meaningless, an anonymous greyish-black magnetized coating on mylar. It was only when the tape was dragged across a tape head and the results displayed on a cathode ray tube that the content could be considered obscene, so the production of the tape itself was innocent of wrongdoing. Sad to say the plea was unsuccessful*, but in my mind there's some truth to the hypothesis.

After all, in the case of a suitably comprehensive global disaster, the only use for a Kindle full of ebooks would be as a possible source of fish hooks**, content rendered useless by the final death of the battery, whereas paper-based books would retain their meaning and utility.

But surely not all the media of the computer age would be lost!  Walter M. Miller Jr.'s brilliant novel A Canticle For Leibowitz describes a future dark age in which racing forms and electrical blueprints have become the apocrypha of a new religious order.  Imagine instead the digitally-inspired religion of the post-apocalypse!

Picture if you will: a ruined monastery, its cracked walls shored up with street signs, fragments of concrete, and corrugated iron, the ubiquitous building materials of the end of the world.

Within the patchwork walls, a tonsured novice kirtles up his robes, mounts an ancient bicycle and begins to pedal. As his speed increases, the generator attached to the rusted chain in place of a rear wheel start to hum.  With a crackle of sparks, a scratched LCD screen flickers to life, and the assembled monks of the Order of Netflix™ once again reverently watch the temptation of Saint Chandler by Rachel, the Lilith of the Old World, and his rejection of the evil temptress in favour of the Blessed Monica.

I leave the question of Phoebe's status as demon or angel as a decision that each of us must make according to the dictates of their conscience, and the tenets of their faith.

- Sid

* Normally I'd say that the defendant didn't get off, but that seems inappropriate for a porn trial.

** How unfortunate that you would be unable to use a Kindle for kindling.
 

And counting.

Heart of the Swarm, the first expansion module for Starcraft II, is being released on March 12th. Blizzard Entertainment is famous for their superb cinematics, and the first look at the opening for the new module clearly demonstrates why.

However, I have to make the guilty admission that, over time, I've drifted away from my dedication to Starcraft, and as a result I felt a need to brush up my skills a bit before March 12th.  So I metaphorically blew the dust off my Starcraft II shortcut, and once again fired up the game after a long absence.

Not too surprisingly - or perhaps surprisingly to those of you who aren't gamers - that long absence encompassed a substantial number of upgrades and patches, so it took a bit of time for the game to bring itself up to date.  Once the system was ready to let me log in, I was amused to see that the current version of the game was as follows:

I admire Blizzard's attention to detail, but honestly, couldn't this have been held down to three decimal points?  Although I do have to admit that I'm a bit curious over what changed from Version 1.5.4.24539.

- Sid

Hopefully they serve popcorn, too.

Last year my employers were good enough to send me to San Francisco for a publishing conference.  Not only was it a great professional development opportunity, but San Francisco was a marvelous location for blog-related activities, as detailed in last year's postings about Borderlands, rocket ships, and changes of hobbit.

This year the conference is being held in Austin, Texas at the end of April, and I put in a request to attend again - I fully accept and understand that the company has the prerogative of turning down this sort of request, but if you don't ask, they can't possibly say "yes".

As it turned out, my VP and new departmental manager agreed that I could attend - much thanks to John and Ted - but I didn't see Austin as offering very much in the way of genre-related sidetrips.

And then I stumbled across a reference to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema...

The Alamo Drafthouse is arguably one of the world's most famous theatres when it comes to genre films.  It's actually a chain, with locations in a number of US cities, but it got its start in, you guessed it, Austin Texas.  They're not exclusively a genre chain, but their annual Fantastic Festival, famous poster series, and general interest in science fiction and fantasy films have given them a strong presence in the community. In fact, I've mentioned the Alamo Drafthouse before - that was the location of the surprise debut of the 2009 Star Trek reboot, introduced and hosted by Leonard Nimoy.

In addition to that reputation in the fan community, the Alamo Drafthouse has taken a unique approach to the movie-going experience.  Their theatres have a full dinner menu with table service (the seats have something very similar to lecture hall countertops), and also serve alcoholic beverages.  In addition, their online booking system lets you reserve a specific seat in the theatre in advance, so there's no need to show up early and stand in line. Finally, they are famous (or infamous) for their draconic rules involving summary ejection for cell phone use or talking during the movie.   

To summarize:  the Alamo Drafthouse is a genre-friendly movie theatre that lets you pick your seat in advance and drink beer during the movie, and throws out people who talk or use their cell phones - is there some reason NOT to go?

So that takes care of one evening's entertainment in Austin.  Hmmm...I wonder what my movie options will be?  End of April, start of May - damn, no, I miss the premier of Iron Man 3 by one day.  Unless I get lucky - wow, imagine if history repeated itself and Robert Downey Jr. showed up on stage!

Or, if not so lucky, Tom Cruise with the blooper reel from Oblivion - sometimes you pays your money and you take your chances.

- Sid

Tidbits IV.

Or maybe just cheaper than showing Armageddon.

Speaking of threatening meteors, I see that Space is showing Deep Impact today, which is either an astonishing coincidence or really responsive programming.

(And possibly in slightly bad taste under the circumstances, come to think of it.)


Obviously a science fiction fan in the wait staff.

The latest from the good people at Johnnie Fox's Irish Snug who previously used quantum physics to flog Guinness.


Not only that, but it's sold out.
I admit to having made my share of genre-related purchases.  I have a souvenir Doctor Who t-shirt from London, a variety of toy robots, a couple of animé action figures, and of course my slowly growing Major Matt Mason collection, but I'd like to think that I've kept it under control.

That being said, I can understand both the desire to build a perfect replica of the HAL 9000 interface from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the urge to own one.  But honestly, five hundred bucks?* 

I think that HAL himself says it best:  "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."
 

Regardless, thanks for your support.
In September of 2012, I proudly reported that The Infinite Revolution was number 23,702,450 out of all the web sites in the world, which put me very close to the top ten percent.  Astonishingly, in the subsequent five month period, I've jumped to 12,745,249 - how is this possible?  Who are all these visitors, and why do they never leave any comments?  Damn it, speak up, people!

- Sid

* However, I'm not here to tell people how to live their lives.  Should this screen grab give you the desire to shout "Shut up and take my money" at the ThinkGeek orderbot, you can obtain your very own HAL 9000 here.

And why are they throwing them at Russia?

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. On 30 June 1908, Moscow escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometres - a margin invisibly small by the standards of the universe. Again, on 12 February 1947, yet another Russian city had a still narrower escape, when the second great meteorite of the twentieth century detonated less than four hundred kilometres from Vladivostok, with an explosion rivalling that of the newly invented uranium bomb.

In those days, there was nothing that men could do to protect themselves against the last random shots in the cosmic bombardment that had once scarred the face of the Moon. The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-​first century, there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice. The human race had spread from pole to pole. And so, inevitably...

At 09.46 GMT on the morning of 11 September, in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball appear in the eastern sky. Within seconds it was brighter than the sun, and as it moved across the heavens - at first in utter silence - it left behind it a churning column of dust and smoke.

Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate, producing a series of concussions so violent that more than a million people had their hearing permanently damaged. They were the lucky ones.

Moving at fifty kilometres a second, a thousand tons of rock and metal impacted on the plains of northern Italy, destroying in a few flaming moments the labour of centuries. The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the earth; and the last glories of Venice sank for ever beneath the sea as the waters of the Adriatic came thundering landwards after the hammer-​blow from space.

Six hundred thousand people died, and the total damage was more than a trillion dollars. But the loss to art, to history, to science - to the whole human race, for the rest of time - was beyond all computation. It was as if a great war had been fought and lost in a single morning; and few could draw much pleasure from the fact that, as the dust of destruction slowly settled, for months the whole world witnessed the most splendid dawns and sunsets since Krakatoa.

After the initial shock, mankind reacted with a determination and a unity that no earlier age could have shown. Such a disaster, it was realized, might not occur again for a thousand years - but it might occur tomorrow. And the next time, the consequences could be even worse.

Very well; there would be no next time.

A hundred years earlier a much poorer world, with far feebler resources, had squandered its wealth attempting to destroy weapons launched, suicidally, by mankind against itself. The effort had never been successful, but the skills acquired then had not been forgotten. Now they could be used for a far nobler purpose, and on an infinitely vaster stage. No meteorite large enough to cause catastrophe would ever again be allowed to breach the defences of Earth.

So began Project SPACEGUARD. Fifty years later - and in a way that none of its designers could ever have anticipated - it justified its existence.

Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

At approximately 9:20 on Friday, a meteoroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.  Estimates as to the object's exact size and weight vary - NASA's estimate is 17 meters in diameter and a weight of about ten metric tonnes.  Windows shattered,  buildings were damaged, and over a thousand people were injured, over one hundred of whom required hospitalization.

Coincidentally, the Chelyabinsk explosion took place sixteen hours before asteroid DA2012, 50 meters in diameter and 190,000 metric tonnes in weight, came within 27,000 kilometers of Earth, the closest recorded passage of an object of that size.  

I don't know who's tossing these things at us, but I have to think that eventually they're going to throw a strike.

- Sid

 

"I can put you back in the saddle...stand you up tall."

This blog posting is dedicated to Ted Vincent, who convinced his mother-in-law to watch Cowboys and Aliens in spite of her avowed dislike of both groups.

I've just finished reading a couple of Joe R. Lansdale stories, Dead in the West and Deadman's Road, both of which involve zombies in the post-Civil War West. Perhaps due to his Texas roots, Lansdale has always had a strong affinity for Western settings, albeit with unexpected and fantastic plotlines, as demonstrated in his work on Jonah Hex for DC Comics in the early 90s.

The interesting thing about these two weird Western tales is that there's no context for the characters to realize the nature of the peril they're facing.  Let's face it, if the media reported an outbreak of zombies tomorrow morning, a substantial percentage of the US population would smile happily, put an oversized clip into their AR-15, and go out into the streets to git some, as they say.  But in the West of the late 1800s, there's really no cultural basis for knowledge of the walking dead, and as such the characters are horrified and astonished to a much greater extent.

The movie Cowboys and Aliens offers a comparable scenario in terms of a situation where people are faced with an enemy with absolutely no precedent in their milieu.  As things stand right now, I suspect that virtually anyone in the world, upon seeing a bright ball of light descend from the sky, land in the back yard, and expel a couple of green fellows with big heads, would say, “Aha, aliens!”  Culturally speaking we’ve been preparing for this for years – in fact, I could probably write a reasonably plausible Men In Black subplot dealing with extraterrestrial Hollywood producers who have been funding movies with the purpose of preparing the general population to accept alien visitors more easily.

Cowboy and Aliens is oddly lacking in this area - it's surprising that there's an almost complete lack of speculation as to the origin of the titular creatures (the aliens, that is).  Other than someone asking the preacher if the invaders could be demons, there's no real curiousity about the origin of the giant fanged bullfrogs that are behind the problems.

Historically speaking, it's a very near thing.  A well read latter-days cowboy might be familiar with H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, which first saw print in 1897, and it's Wells who first introduces the idea of extraterrestrial invaders to the cultural mindset.  But other than that possibility, the whole idea of aliens would have to be a mystery to the Texes and Hopalongs of the Wild West.

Regardless of the opinion of the cowboys, there's a very basic question left unanswered.  What would the aliens think of the whole "cowboys" idea? Depending on their cultural matrix, who knows what they might think was actually going on with the riders of the purple sage?

As usual, science fiction has already address this question, so I close with the following excerpt from The Secret, a story in the Retief of the CDT series by Keith Laumer.  Jame Retief, a member of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, is about to rescue a captured alien diplomat who is being tortured with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies.*

"Mr. Minister, the US cavalry has arrived.  Are you ready to go?

"Heck no, Retief, we're just getting to the good part, where Roy mounts his wench and rides off into the wasteland."

"I think maybe you've got Trigger and Dale confused, D'ong."

"I confess I pay little attention to names. But how I admire the savoir fair of the cowbeomen, who, in times of strife, think first of love.  Always they and their faithful mates couple joyously as they dash off across the plains, hero and villain alike!"

Remember that quote the next time you're watching a John Wayne movie and he tells everyone to mount up...

- Sid

Recommended Reading:
If you're interested in this particular sub-genre of science fiction, I strongly recommend David Drake's trio of Roman-meets-alien books - Killer, Legions of Bronze, and Birds of Prey.  Drake does a very good job of creating convincing scenarios in which the Romans come out on top against aliens who may have superior technology, but not superior determination and bravery.

* Hey, I don't write this stuff, I just reference it.