It’s up on Hulu for now, but I figured if I could embed and make it easy for you, why not?

Thoughts welcome.

(By the way, don’t believe me about the “sexed up and corrupted” bit when it comes to vampires? Read some of the pre-Dracula vampire literature. They were vile, foul-smelling creatures whose organs had long been replaced by a giant, blood-holding stomach. Over time, they went from that to goths with an eating disorder.)

Synopsis
WWZ collects various individual accounts from the Zombie War, or what would later be known as World War Z. These stories are told by numerous tellers, each filling in a bit from their perspective. Tellers include astronauts stuck on the IIS, military personnel who fought to reclaim infested “White Zones”, doctors who saw the first cases, Japanese otaku who actually had to get out of their house, political attaches, body guards, and others.

Review
Brooks creates a world full of folks as individually convincing as the world he creates. I found it interesting how the author interjects real people from popular culture into the story. While none is ever named, descriptions are more than enough. (A Paris Hilton-like character and Colin Powell-like President both appear in the story, among others whose names are always withheld for “legal reasons”.) Of course, none of these folks is ever directly interviewed, just people around them.

The research that went into this book is obvious from the start. Details are interjected by each of the interviewees which create not just a believable future in which the dead reanimate, but which also shows the level of care taken to ensure that slang and speaking styles are used correctly depending on where in the world the person being interviewed comes from. In fact, more than once while reading the book I asked myself whether this had been imagined or whether this book actually came from a real, alternate universe in which the dead do indeed rise.

I’m sure this book is considered to be in the “horror” genre, but I’m not so sure I’d be so quick to place it there. There are no passages in which something terrible is lurking behind some door, waiting for the main character to open it, so there aren’t any moments which catch the reader by surprise. Instead, the fright factor comes from the matter-of-fact tone throughout each of the stories. The most extraordinarily frightening details don’t actually involve zombies, but instead those very human moments which make us seem frighteningly inhuman. Whenever zombies are involved it’s more suspenseful than anything. Again, this is due to the matter of fact tone taken when interviewing each of the folks who went through (and obviously survived) the war.

Overall, I highly recommend this book For those who enjoy this type of writing, you’ll probably want to go back to reading the Local Interests section of the paper, or listening to Ira Glass on NPR. If you enjoy zombie literature, you’ll probably want to check out Stephen King’s Cell, which while not technically a zombie novel, it’s close enough to the genre to be of interest.

By the way, if you really, really want to know what I consider a must to read, and you use Google Reader, go ahead and add me to your “Shared” list: gnorbx@gmail.com. And yes, it’s always reciprocal. If you don’t use Google Reader, then check out my Shared Items. I warn you, though, I tend to go on thematic blitzes, so if everything there looks like it’s about transhumanism or self improvement or writing or philosophy, try going back a few pages.

Anyway, here’s the new Le Linkage list of sites you should visit:

Novelr Needs Your Help: So Eli over at Novelr has finally hit the big time and started receiving a fair share of pageviews. The problem with this, as anyone who’s ever run a site knows, is bandwidth. He needs more now, and doesn’t have the money to cover it, so he’s sort of asking for donations. Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that I don’t often ask for money. In fact, the only time I’ve ever even mentioned donations is when I added that “Donations” area at the bottom of my home page, with links to the Methuselah Foundation and the Digestive Distress and Dysmotilities Association. (As you can guess, the donations aren’t for me. I’m in the very, very fortunate position of being able to offer Gnorb.NET for free, since Google Ads pay enough to cover the bandwidth.) But I’m asking you, if you have a few dollars to spare, to help a blogger out.

Edit: From Eli (in the comments section below): “The crisis is over, Gnorb. A few really good readers pooled together their resources and the Novelr’s above the water again.” In other words the M Foundation and the DDDA can still use the help.

Root & Sprout^TM: This one’s for the parents out there. Oft mentioned blogger Melissa G is starting a new monthly publication! Root & Sprout is an online magazine “for practical information, stories, and advice about being a parent and raising kids.” Now, I know every parent reading this is already awesome, but check Root & Sprout out to see what you can learn from other just-as-awesome parents. And tell ‘em Gnorb sent you.

Writing Tools for Mac: If you’re a writer and you have a Mac, you’ll want to check this list of writing applications out. There’s a video there, too, by the way. I don’t know how you can help someone out with this, but I’ll include it anyway.

Edit: As per reader request, I’ll help a brother (with a Mac) out by making a shortlist: SubEthaEdit, Google Docs*, Microsoft Word*, BBEdit, Scrivener*, TextExpander, WriteRoom*, Ulysses, StoryMill, CopyWrite… You can see some descriptions at Literature and Late.

WSF report: 90 Is the New 50: Ever dream of climbing Mt. Everest at the ripe young age of 125? More and more biologists are jumping on the engineer negligible senecense bandwagon. Maybe it’s time you do as well. Options to extend life are, at the moment, limited to lifestyle choices — diet, exercise, and leading a purpose driven life — which may increase your life from ~75 years to ~90 years. Not much, but enough to give you a chance at receiving the treatments. Help yourself and future generations out by calling your senator or state representative. “Without funding, this longevity science which is truly on the verge of a breakthrough will be marooned.” (After you read that, however, I also highly recommend Is Aging Itself a Disease? by the Vorlon-loving Anne.)

2008 Consumer Action Handbook: If you’re in the US, ever heard of the Federal Citizen Information Center? Probably not. Too bad, because it’s their job to distribute free and low-cost (less than a gallon of gas) Federal consumer publications. Find out how to get out of bounced checks and overdraft fees, improve your credit, reduce junk mail and telemarketing calls, get a paid apprenticeship, and much more. Before you help a brother out, why not make sure you’re in a position to help?

Using Mini-Retirements to Get More Out of Life: While on the subject of finance, let’s talk about retirement. If you work, you’re likely looking forward to the day when you can finally call it quits and actually get on to living your life. But what about taking mini retirements? The truly wealthy do it all the time. Can you set yourself up to doing it? The article linked goes to an interview with Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich .

10 Books that Prove Science Fiction Just Got Harder: For the past few years, the market for hard sci-fi (science fiction that isn’t afraid to explain what’s going on) has been getting smaller and smaller. However, it looks like the genre’s about to be revolutionized by a group of very awesome books that recently came out. When I saw this I realized my reading list had just gotten larger.

Neil Gaiman Writing for Dr. Who? In short, no. Gaiman’s name has been thrown about after Steven Moffat took over the show and made the following carefully worded statement: “Well, Neil and Steven Moffat had dinner, and Neil hasn’t said no, but there’s many slip between cup and lip…” Remember the game telephone? Where you pass on a message to someone and they pass it on, and eventually the last person gets a message that’s totally different from the first? Well, the internet rumor mill is a lot like that, and the “hasn’t said no” turned into “OMG NEIL IS WRITING DOCTOR WHO BEST NEWS EVER.” He’s not. Yet.

Alright, so that about does it for this edition. Want to read more? The head on to Sentient Developments for George Dvorsky’s “What I’ve been reading” list. And like I mentioned before, you can check out more of what I’ve been reading by checking out my Google Reader Shared Items. And, if you don’t feel like reading, but instead want to watch a couple of informative, yet entertaining movies, Mark Cuban has a couple of recommendations.

As a side note before I begin: some of this stuff reminds both The Wife and I about a Far Side cartoon we both saw a few years back. A man is walking to his kid’s bedroom with a book under his arm and a smile on his face. A little kid laying in bed, covering up to his (or her?) nose, yelling “Daddy, please! Not another bed time story!” The caption on the cartoon: “Bedtime at the Stephen King household.”

Alright, now back to your regularly scheduled Le Linkage:

SciFi.com Drive In: I love old sci-fi movies. They’re fun to watch, think about, and when necessary, make fun of a-la Mystery Science Theater. For those of us who enjoy old science fiction, SciFi.com (the online presence of the SciFi Chanel) has an array of old movies (including Metropolis and Le Voyage Dans la Lune, serials, and other miscellaneous films available for streaming in the drive-in section of their site. While there, make sure to check out their book reviews and their massive stock of Battlestar Galactica content.

Is That a Photoshop?! Yes, actually, it’s a fake. A frigg’n good one. She’s not real.

If You Could Live Anywhere, how about Abakalin? If this artist’s rendition of a topopolis is anything near accurate, sign me up! Of course, there’s that whole matter of construction and it taking more materials than there are on Earth… or most of the Solar System for that matter.

The Last Question: If you love science fiction chances are you love Issac Asimov. What better way to appreciate the man’s genius than to read his tale about what he expects the last question to be. Can you guess it? And can you guess the answer? (For you evil Doug Adams minions, no, it’s not 42.)

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long: This story will seem fairly familiar to any of you who’ve seen the movie A.I., since it is the inspiration for the film. This short story was written by Brian Aldiss and was first published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1969. It tells a tale of of humanity in an age of intelligent machines and of the aching loneliness endemic in an overpopulated future.

I, Cthulhu: If you know the name Neil Gaiman, you’re probably aware that he’s to blame for the great-but-gory Sandman comics. What you may not know is that he’s a spectacular author in his own right. In this short story, Gaiman shows us the lighter side of The Old Ones, starting with Cthulhu. (If you’re not familiar with the H.P. Lovecraft “Cthulhu mythos” you may not get all the humor presented here. Still, it’s a good read.) After this, check out some of his other short stories.

Final Fantasy Short Stories: I’ve talked about this before, but seeing as I’m reading a lot of short stories these days, I thought it fitting to bring up again. There were three short stories published a while back which cover the backstory of the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, specifically the two years between the movie and the game Final Fantasy VII. The stories aren’t fan fics, but were published by Square-Enix. These are well written and worth a read: The Maiden Who Travels the Planet, Denzel’s Story, and Tifa’s Story.

Synopsis

Myst: The Book of Atrus begins with the story of Atrus, a young boy living with his grandmother, Anna, in “the cleft”, a fissure near a dormant volcano. Atrus was abandoned to Anna by his father, Ghen (Anna’s son), after Atrus’s mother dies giving birth to him. (Ghen abandons Atrus before Atrus is even named.) Through the years, Anna teaches Atrus a number of things about their D’Ni heritage, including how to speak and write the language, as well as how to observe the world around him. This is emphasized by Atrus’s notes and drawings, which are presented throughout the book, and should be familiar to anyone who has played the game.

When Atrus is about 13, Ghen comes back in order to take Atrus away to study with him. Ghen has been living in the D’Ni homeland, studying the remnants of their lost civilization. The civilization was apparently only recently lost, and according to Ghen it was all Anna’s fault. Nevertheless, Ghen is studying (and wants to teach Atrus) “The Art” of building Ages, in order to rebuild the D’Ni race and in the process make themselves gods.

Ages, as explained by Ghen, are special worlds built by the D’Ni. Maybe. This is where some of the major confusion starts within the book: while Ghen is insistent upon the idea that he has created the Ages, Atrus believes (or discovers) that instead the books are links to preexisting worlds. This point isn’t ever made clear, however, as every action taken by Ghen, Atrus (and Catherine) after that revelation pretty much indicates that Ghen was right.

After about 200 pages and three years, Ghen gets tired of Atrus questioning him all the time, and along with his Lurch-like servant (who, while a potentially cool character is left almost entirely as an enigma) traps Atrus in a hallway where the only way out is Ghen’s fifth age, Riven. (Ghen, by the way, isn’t all that imaginative about his Ages or their denizens, naming them such things as “Person One” and “Age Thirty-Seven”. The fact that some people and places have other names given them previous to Ghen’s arrival is what tips Atrus off that Ages are links, not worlds. Again, this point is rather confusing in the book.)

In Riven, Atrus meets Katran (Catherine), who ends up teaming up with Atrus’s grandmother in order to help him escape the wrath of Ghen and at the same time trap Ghen in Riven, which like all other worlds created by Ghen, are falling apart due to shoddy construction. (The fact that the worlds are falling apart tells me that the worlds are indeed created by Ghen, and that they’re just links. Again, this point is never really made clear during this book.)

Eventually, Atrus escapes to a world he thinks was created (linked to?) by Katran, Myst.

Review

If you’ve ever played any of the Myst game, regardless of whether you loved them or hated them, you will likely concede that if nothing else the games were visually stunning. With worlds (called “Ages”) so realistically imaginative, it wouldn’t be all that difficult for someone with enough gumption (and funds) to create lands like those in real life. If you not only liked the visuals, but also the games, then you likely enjoyed the game for its puzzles as much as (if not more than) the landscapes presented. While the novel attempts to carry this tradition on by spending pages describing the scenery, it does so at the expense of the rest of the novel.

By far the weakest point of this book is the character development. The game really doesn’t have characters, since the player is supposed to be the main character. As such, not much character development is necessary in the games. Sadly, this is made painfully obvious in the book. As I read, I found it increasingly difficult to really care about any of the characters, save for Katran (Catherine) and Anna, both of whom have their big scenes near the very end of the book.

The book contains no more than about ten characters, three of which are explored, six of which can be considered minor, and one which can be considered in between. While this is well and good for most novels of average length (about 100,000 words, with about 30,000 words dedicated to each main character), it seems as if everything we learned about the main characters could have been said in a third of the space.

• Early on, we learn that Atrus is your basic Anakin Skywalker/gifted wonder child type, kind and extremely observant and intelligent. Sadly, that’s about all we learn, and the rest of the novel is spent hammering this point home while adding almost no more.
• Likewise, Ghen is your run-of-the-mill megalomaniac, power-hungry, over-zealous father/bad guy bent on the idea of godhood, who decides Atrus needs his learning and that everything out of his child’s mouth is pure idiocy unless it agrees with him. (He get’s pissed when he finds out Anna has taught Atrus a thing or two about D’Ni.) If nothing else, you learn through out the book — over and over again — that he’s a small minded asshole with apparently few redeming qualities (if any). Again, this point is made repeatedly, and the reader knows without question that this is one of those bad guys who you never really sympathize with. Oh, and he’s hot for Katran/Catherine, supposedly because of her ability with The Art, which only the D’Ni are supposed to know. (That she was able to use Writing was another confusing part of the story which was unsatisfactorily explained at the end, if at all.)
• Finally, there’s Anna, who’s the sweet, loving grandmother. Her character, while ignored for most of the book, is potentially the most interesting, since it is when secrets and elements are revealed regarding her background that the story moves and gets really interesting. She’s artistic, caring, intelligent, and as we learn later on, cunning. Too bad we learn all this in the span of about 10,000 words: I wouldn’t have minded spending some more time learning about her, although I guess I can do that in the prequel, Myst: The Book of Ti’Ana.

What the book lacks in character development, it partially makes up in story. The discoveries made by Atrus are very much in line with how the player would feel during one of the games, and for that the book gets points. The way Atrus observes those things around him, while simplistic, do color the story in such a way that you’re looking to explore more of the world. Of course, if I wanted to do that I would play the game or read National Geographic: I certainly wouldn’t pick up a novel for that.

Conclusion

Overall, the novel makes for a nice, light read if you have some time on your hards and enjoyed the games. Otherwise, I wouldn’t much bother with this novel, unless you’re willing to spend a lot of time immersing yourself in the worlds of Myst. As such, if you decide to pick up the book, get a copy of The Myst Reader (Books 1-3), since it has all of the novels for about half the price you’d pay for them individually. (This is what I did, mostly to save myself a little room in my already crowded bookshelves.)

Do I plan to read the next book in the series? Maybe. Just not now. The story was simple enough to ensure that I wouldn’t forget it, and lackluster enough to ensure that I don’t feel the need to read more.

Business School Podcast for Free: America’s leading business schools — Wharton, Duke’s Fuqua School, Harvard — are all making courses available for download via iTunes. (If you expect me to tell you why this is good, you’re wasting your time. Go check it out now.)

The Perfect Mark: Ever wonder if anyone actually ever falls for those emails we all get promising to make you rich if you help out some Nigerian widow stash US$45-million in your bank account? Wonder no more: the answer is yes, and who they ensnare might surprise you. This New Yorker piece is an actual story about a guy who, in his greed and pride, fell victim to these scammers and ended up in jail for it. [Source: Black Marks on Wood Pulp. Also, reminds me of this previous Gnorb.NET piece on avoiding CraigsList scammers.]

Becoming Human: So, how did we get from where we were 4,000,000 years ago as simple, knuckle-dragging Australopithecines to the current state of Homo Sapiens? This very interesting Flash video shows you where we came from and how we got here.

Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Modern English: In the course of human history, not many have had quite as strong an impact as General George Washington, the first President of the United States. His farewell address is agreed upon by historians to be one of the finest in all American politics, since it deals with issues we struggle with even unto this day. The problem is that since it is written in 1790’s English, most people today can’t really understand it, which is why xkcd undertook the task of translating the piece into modern English. One his commenters upped the ante, reposting a modern day translation of the American Declaration of Independence.

The Height of Hubris? Ever seen the movie Gattaca? In it, the main protagonist is a lowly, genetically inferior human trying to get to space. In the process, he begins transforming his body, one of the ways being limb-lengthening surgery. In this BetterHumans piece, Simon asks whether his personal desire for such a surgery (available from a reputable source for as low as US$20,000 in China) is hubris, or whether he really is justified in wanting to make himself taller. After all, “The majority of CEOs are over six foot, the taller US presidential candidate tends to win the election, and people earn more money, on average, with each extra inch of height.” Here, he outlines reasons for and against the surgery. A very interesting read, especially for those interested in Transhumanist topics and cosmetic surgery.

The Last Question: So, we’ve seen where humans came from and where we are. Now, where are we going? Sci-Fi legend Isaac Asimov tells a short, trillion-year tale of how this whole human experience might end, and maybe how it began. “The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way…”

Multi-Touch Monitors: This is seriously cool. In this video, Jeff Han and Phil Davidson demonstrate how a multi-touch driven computer screen will change the way we work and play.

Holy Crap! Is This Real?! And now, for something totally different.

Online Game: Dodge: Simple and Addictive: Does it get any better than that? It’s the kind of game that keeps you as entertained as a stoner watching a side-loaded washing machine. Whoooa…. hey, nachos!

Well, that does it for this week. You can check out the previous episodes in the Le Linkage category of Gnorb.NET.

This has been one really screwy week. I’ll start with last night and sort of jump around from there.

For a few weeks now, The Wife and I have been talking about rearranging the furniture in our apartment. While the setup we have isn’t all that bad, the desire for a home-office area has been a pretty strong one.

Currently, our home office area consists of a bookshelf, a desk, and two storage racks in the storage closet. Unfortunately, everything’s not all in one place: it’s strewn about the apartment, with the different items in very different places within the house, none of which are really easily accessible. Living in an 800′ compartment, this arrangement just screams I look nice, but I’m just sort of ‘here’.

The biggest problem with this arrangement is that it makes it hard to track some client-related materials which, by their lack of prominence, are costing me money in the long run. Not good.

As such, we’ve decided to rearrange the furniture in our apartment so that it is more business friendly.

The first step in all of this was to buy a better laptop for business use. As I’ve mentioned before, our 600MHz PIII Inspiron 8000 running Windows ME just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Mind you, it makes a great laptop for just taking somewhere and writing, so it’s not all bad (especially when I load VidaLinux (VLOS) on it), but it isn’t up to the task of doing things like running Money 2006, Word 2000, Excel 2000, WinAmp video, accessing a wireless connection, and running Firefox all at once. If those seem like stringent standards to you then sorry to inform you, but you’re obviously not a computer geek. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We ended up picking up an Inspiron 1501 for about $1200. It came with a $300 discount, so we were fairly happy with it, and includes a AMD Turion 64 x 2 TL-50 (1.6GHz/512KB), 1gig RAM, 120gig hard drive, 9-cell (5.5 hour) battery, Microsoft Office Basic 2007, PC-cillin Antivirus (2 years, I think), Windows XP Home (no Media edition available in business computers), 2-year at-home service, accidental damage protection, and a car/air power plug. We figured that while this isn’t exactly a graphics and multimedia powerhouse, we don’t exactly expect to be playing World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade or anything nearly that graphics intensive on it, so it’s fine with us. (I might get Civ IV, but only for those long plane rides, and when I’m really really bored.)

In addition to the new computer, we needed to get a couple of bookshelves. This would give us more storage place for our (my) ever growing collection of books, as well as some of the customer-related materials. A couple of weeks ago went down to Target to pick up a couple of bookshelves which matched the bookshelves we already had (since we also bought those at Target) and picked them up on special for $15.00 each. Unfortunately, this was two weeks ago: after we bought them, the boxed bookshelves sat behind the couch, gathering dust until last night. I’ll come back to these.

The past couple of weeks at my job have been pretty stressful. With a software release upcoming, the job of the technical writer has shifted from documenting existing software, to keeping up with the constant last minute changes from all the programmers, to making sure he knows about the last minute changes so he doesn’t spend hours documenting something which no longer exists. As annoying as this sounds, this isn’t inherently bad: I enjoy the excitement, and since I actually like my work (most of the time), it’s not something I mind. Last week, however, things went from stressful to annoying: because of the quickly arriving deadlines, in order to get the job done (and get it done right) I had no other choice than to stay late every night, usually until about 10:30pm. (To put in in perspective, I normally work from 8:30am to 5:30pm, so the extra time was about 4-5 hours, depending on the night.) Add to that my weekend work time of 8 hours on Saturday, 4 hours the previous Sunday, and I’m sure you can tell last week was a pretty long week for me.

(By the way, if you’re wondering why I haven’t written all that much, this is the biggest reason why: I’ve been at work. A lot.)

On the bright side, I seem to have gotten a lot more work done from the hours of 5 to 10 than 8 to 5, which is why I got to thinking that maybe I should ask my boss to hook me up with a laptop. Heck, I can do most of my job from home anyway, if I can do it at night, then all the better: I hate working during the day, preferring instead to work when it’s dark. (The later, the better.)

Another bright side is that I got to watch a lot of sci-fi shows and movies via WinAmp (Shoutcast TV, actually): Lost in Space, The Matrix, Swordfish, War Games, The Day the Sky Exploded, Stargate SG-1, and a few others. While I’m not much of a TV person, the infusion of sci-fi was a welcome one. I needed to do something to relax.

As all of this was going on I was informed that my “uncle”, Berto (my maternal grandmother’s brother) had just passed away. He was the closest thing to a maternal grandfather I had, the man who taught my dad about the pizza business (the primary source of income for our family for the first decade of my life), and the closest thing to a father my mom ever had. My mom took an immediate flight to Puerto Rico when she found out, but the death was especially hard in light of recent events: her aunt (my grandmother’s sister), who she was also very close to, died in December. Here’s the reall scary part: all of them — my grandmother, her brother and her sister — all died of diabetes. Needless to say that this makes for a very uncomfortable reality for my mom, as well as for the rest of us: Puerto Ricans have something along the lines of a 25% rate of occurrence in diabetes, and even with drastic changes to our diet, there is still a very large possibility we’ll end up with the condition.

Anyway, so back to the job: Friday night I finally got where I wanted to get as far as documentation was concerned. I could have gotten further ahead by going in yesterday (Saturday), but decided that I needed to spend some time with The Wife. Frankly, I couldn’t have picked a better day: 75^oF, just a couple of clouds in the sky, and soft winds. The perfect Florida day. I got up early to go work out, then got to spend some time in the steam room, the sauna, and the jacuzzi. I was tempted to spend a bit of time out on the beach: the white sands and deep blue water were particularly inviting. But it was almost 10:30am by this time (I had started working out at 7am) and I wanted to spend time with The Wife, even if she hadn’t yet woken up.

While yesterday was fun — we went out to eat and went to a couple of places for fun — I was really excited about what we would be doing at night. Remember those bookshelves I talked about earlier? Well, the plan was that we would go ahead and build those, then re-arrange the furniture into whatever new configuration we decided. This is when things got ugly.

Now, a disclaimer: I suck at manual labor. SUCK. Badly. Harder than a Hoover. And I hate it: I hate building computers, I hate working on cars, and most of all, I hate — haaaaaaaate — building bookshelves using crappily written instructions. (I also hate computers, but that’s another matter entirely.) Nothing brings out my anger more than having to build something like a computer or a bookshelf. That’s because since I suck at it, I usually do it wrong. Seriously, I’m a pretty talented guy, but when it comes to stuff like this, I stink out loud.

So, three hours after I started, I finally finished the first bookshelf. Unfortunately, it was wrongly built, since all the shelves were upside down, and the bookshelf looked hideous. Frankly, I didn’t mind all that much — after all, they were going to be covered in books — but The Wife… she likes her style. So, in order to make her happy. I tried to take the bookshelf apart. This turned out to be a rather huge mistake, since cheap Chinese particle board doesn’t exactly take well to being taken apart. Before I knew it, the bookshelf had already broken. In frustration, I decided to help it along by destroying the rest of it with my mighty hammer.

Man, that felt good. It left me with a shattered, useless bookshelf, but man… that felt good. I should smash up stuff I’m angry at more often.

Scratch that. No I shouldn’t.

About an hour later — after I had cooled down some — I started building the second bookshelf. By now it was midnight, and I couldn’t get to sleep. The Wife decided to help me out, probably for my own safety. In about 30 minutes we got the bookshelf done. While we didn’t get to re-organize the house like I wanted, that little act alone was enough to give me a small measure of peace, enough to sleep, at least.

This morning I got up around 8:30am. The first thing I wanted to do is write a bit and catch up with my life. I have a number of blog entries I want to get out, but most importantly, I need to start working on a story I’m writing for a book I’m collaborating on with other 9Rules members. Seeing as I’ve also been chosen as/picked up the role of managing editor (I guess) I have to get a few things moving with the book. Last thing I want is to see a project like this fall to the way side because of laziness and excuses.

With that I’m off to do my life thing. Plans for today include buying a new bookshelf to replace the smashed one, cleaning up the house (which looks like a bomb exploded in it), upgrading to Wordpress 2.1, and continue working on the 9Rules book project.

[Edit: During the process of moving the second bookshelf so I could clean up the remnants of the first, that one, too, broke. I really, really hate this.]

1) Until the sixth episode there are only, like, 4 black people on the show. The two that are male don’t show up until the third episode AND THEY’RE BOTH IN FRACK’N JAIL! Is there a message here? Do we have fans of The Bell Curve on the writing staff or something? (By the way, the other two are a religious leader — of course — and a delicate little thing up on the bridge, with a forehead so big it would require its own expeditionary team to map it.) Also, in the first season, what’s up with all the fat people? I mean, they’re all in jail, except for one guy, who turns out to be a total jackass, bullying people around. Seriously, I’m expecting they’ll have an episode shot entirely within the confines of the fleet’s Weight Watcher’s ship, where all the morbidly obese individuals are running arou… wait, morbidly obese people don’t run around. They probably have jump-capable mopeds, though. Anyway, so here’s my first complaint: lack of diversity.

2) About the floating jail: who the hell would endow a floating jail with light-speed capabilities!? Second, why did they keep that ship, or rather, their people? Dump them off into one of the non-jump ships, fill the boat with a bunch of kids from one of the non-jump capable ships, and let the criminals to their fate.

3) I hate the intro to the show. Haaaaaate it. It’s the most uncomfortable beginning in television, by far. Every episode starts with the words “Previously on Battlestar Galactica”, then the story of how the Cylons invaded and the humans were kicked out is shown. As text. Then, clips are shown of previous episodes relating to the upcoming episode. Next, the show starts, for about 5 minutes, Then, the opening credits are played, followed with a preview of the upcoming episode. Finally, 8 1/2 minutes later, the episode finally really begins.

Seriously, this is — BY FAR — the Most. Annoying. Intro. EVAR! I mean, obviously some evil genius (a Cylon?) sold them on taking an independently good concept of a preview of the last show or shows, tacking on to it another independently good concept by showing a bit of the show before the actual intro in order to aid success, then tacking on to that the incredibly stupid concept of showing an incoherent preview showing us what we’re about to watch, convincing them that this would somehow be a great idea (After all if one is good, three must be great!) Unfortunately, this turned out to be an incredibly stupid idea that could have only been made more worse by adding to the end of the episode both a recap of what we just watched and a preview of the next show.

Mind you, I’ve only seen the first season, so I pray to the Lords of Kobol (They pray to Y2K programmers?) that they patched up the intro in later seasons. Let’s see, how about this:

- Say “Previously on Battlestar Galactica”‘
- Show the clips of previous episodes which relate to the upcoming one;
- Start the theme song, displaying the show story (without text this time) and opening credits
- Nix the preview of the upcoming episode. That’s like showing me a recap of the show at the end of the episode.

Alternately, they could replace the whole “Previously” part by including that within the intro song, where the clips of the episode we’re about to watch currently reside, music and all. This opens up the space for the whole suspenseful introduction thing they’re so fond of.

Total start time, about 3 minutes. [Addendum: I just finished watching season 2 -- not to be mistaken with season 2.5 (?!) -- and they clean this up. Now the intro is much better, although they could still get rid of some elements, like the preview of the upcoming episode which is useless when you don't understand it and frustrating when you do.]

4) Regarding the women: What the hell is up with the casting crew picking only women with mouths that would make Sailor Moon jealous?! Seriously, those mouths are HUUUUGE! And the lips, hell let’s not even talk about those.

Separated at birth, or did they just go to the same plastic surgeon?

A picture says all that needs to be said, anyway.

There are only two ladies on the show which don’t fall into this category (only “one” who would actually count as pretty), and both of them have the cute-without-trying thing going. I’m sure BSG fans can guess who I’m talking about.

5) Cravings: For some reason, every time I watch this show I want to smoke a cigar and drink. Can’t guess why…

6) Props and sets: My biggest complaint about this show — honest to the gods complaint here, not just rant — is the lack of imagination on the part of the staging crew: American mid-west style cities (at least the close ups), 17th century galleons, suits and ties… Considering human cultures on this planet, all at the same time, couldn’t come up with similar style architecture or clothing, the thought that some other culture, light years away and thousands of years separated from us, could possibly have identical clothing — even if they came from essentially the same heritage (sort of) is simply absurd. Yes, I know — suspension of disbelief for the sake of story/relateability. I understand that. However, this isn’t a complaint against just this sci-fi, this is a complaint against almost all sci-fi shows, which for some reason feature rather homogeneous human cultures, even across the vastness of time and space. The only show I saw with a bit of a difference here was Babylon 5. (Some Star Trek episodes also offer alternative cultures, but they’re always cultures which are somehow disconnected from the rest of the human species.)

7) Storyline complaint: While the overall story of the show is pretty good, I’m left wondering as to why just about every frack’n interpersonal conflict in the show is caused by an aparent epidemic of pathological dishonesty. Seriously, at least half of the show’s conflicts could be easily and non-violently resolved by the simple act of telling the truth. (I’m talking to you, Mr. Baltar!)

What’s up with all the papers, picture frames, cards, CD’s, etc. being made into octagons? It’s like these people have a love for corners, so they decide to stick eight of them on everything. I know they wanted things to be different, but seriously, there are other, more important things to worry about here, like, oh I don’t know, neckties? Like, why do they even exist? Or 3-piece suits, for that matter? In fact, it seems an awful lot of today’s Earth technology has made it into their hands.

9) The camera work, was it done by someone who just finished taking their Parkinson’s medication? I’m all for equal opportunity and all, but if I get motion sickness any time I’m watching the show then we have a problem.

10) Frack. Frack frack frack frack frack. That’s a replacement cuss-word the show uses in place of… well, I’m sure you can guess which word is replaces. Hint: it sounds like frack. At first it’s cute and funny in the “hee hee, I said a bad word” sort of way. Then they started using it everywhere, to describe everything. After that it got really annoying.

11) A lot of the story had me thinking “Is it just me, or did I see this in Star Wars?”

12) Editing mistakes: The first season is replete with major mistakes that made it on air. The biggest of these is on episode 2 of disc 3 (of the first season): at about the half-way point in the episode, the Boomer that’s on Caprica starts coughing for some reason. They show her for about a full second, just sort of looking at something behind the camera while the coughing is going on. Too bad she’s not coughing. After that, she starts saying something and suddenly you see this big dark spot form around her mouth, like she’s an old car leaking oil into the exhaust or something. If you look closely, you can see why they did this: her lips don’t match, at all, in any way, shape, or form, what she’s actually saying. When I first saw this I thought there was a problem with my television. Nope, it was the show alright, unless I was watching a reeeeeaaallly faulty DVD.

13) Story element complaint: At one point you can hear Major Adama tell one of the crew that unlike in previous cases, the “rumor mill’s right on this one.” Uhm… don’t know if you noticed, my dear Major, but the rumor mill’s got a fracking good record. In fact, the rumor mill seems to be just as good as prophesy in stories like this: all prophesies come true exactly as predicted, RIGHT NOW.

Ok, so enough of my complaints. Is there anything I did like? Actually, yes. A lot, which is why we kept watching.

1) I like the way they work on issues like torture (waterboarding, specifically) and, from what I hear, suicide bombers, taking one side of the issue at a time, instead of trying to teach something to viewers by taking both sides. Other topics of interest include the Atheism vs. Deism debate, and whether we allow ideas to harm us, much like today’s fear of terrorists-among-us.

2) I like some of their more innovative story aspects, like the use of real-but-imaginary enemies. These allow

3) The music: By far the best part of the show has been the phenomenal music. Frankly, this is some of the absolute best, most innovative music I’ve ever heard on a television show. Lots of minimalist aspects as well as properly placed dissonances in contexts you normally wouldn’t expect them in. [Addendum: The music gets even better in season 2.]

4) Cliffhangers: this show looooooooves cliffhangers. In fact, it was a great cliffhanger at the end of the first season that made me want to watch season 2. [Addendum:... and a cliffhanger at the end of 2 that has made The Wife and I almost desperate to watch 2.5.]

Finally, I think the overall story-line is great. Unfortunately, individual episodes in season 1 don’t actually have very distinctive elements. In other words, I wouldn’t go back and say “this was my favorite episode.” Yes, there was a beginning, followed by conflict, followed by resolution, but unless the show is watched in context it is really hard to spot that. The second season, however, corrects this, however, and makes the episodes much more interesting individually, as well as within the overall story arch.

Personally, I plan to buy the series, but it’s not a priority for me (so not any time soon), since it’s not something I can watch just one episode of and really be satisfied: I need a whole weekend to devote to just watching the series, or I would have to watch it sequentially over a period of time.) In this aspect, the show is a lot like Farscape and Babylon 5, both of which featured long-term stories and where the science fiction played secondary to the storyline, instead of being the main feature. Both of these shows were loved by fans (including myself), even if they weren’t as melodramatic as BSG.

My recommendation is that if you love sci-fi, buy yourself a copy of the show (BSG: Season One, BSG: Season 2.0 (Episodes 1-10), BSG: Season 2.5 (Episodes 10-20)) — you can even buy individual episodes — or borrow it from a friend, then dedicate a weekend to watching the thing. Repeat for seasons 2, 2.5, and whatever else. (I’m presuming here that you’re like me and either don’t have the Sci-Fi channel, or don’t have the time to watch television at a prescribed time and prefer instead to just buy your shows.) If not interesting in watching, then at the very least buy the soundtrack. (BSG mini-series, BSG: Season One soundtrack, BSG: Season 2 soundtrack; you can listen to clips via these links). You’ll thank me later.

For now, while I wait for 2.5, I’ll keep myself content by watching my latest acquisition.

Star Trek Schematics: Space ships have always fascinated me, which is why I found this site absolutely amazing. Here you’ll find a collection of schematics for a number of Star Trek vessels and stations. Want to know what Deep Space Nine looked like, level by level? What about a Romulan Bird of Prey? You’ll find it here.

Springtime On Mars: With all the stuff we’re sending to Mars, you have to wonder what it’s going to look like in a few years. Check out this funny video depicting that Mars — and its inhabitants.

Futurismic Sci-Fi Stories: If you enjoy reading original science fiction, whether just barely sci-fi or far out adventures, this is a site I highly recommend. A number of (what I can only presume are amateur) authors submit their stuff to this site, and the result is one of the best free collections of original sci-fi on the net. Don’t expect any fan fiction here.

Orion’s Arm: What’s the future really going to look like? Nobody knows, but this site is dedicated to creating a fictional future more realistic than any by basing it on what we actually know today. If you’re like me and you enjoy the actual technology and historical developments more than you enjoy character development, this is one for you. It’s like reading the history of Earth from the standpoint of someone in the year 12,000-ish.

Top Ten Servers in Movies: Face it, in every sci-fi film where a human battles technology an evil mainfraim is inevitably at the center of everything bad that has been happening. This is a subjective list of the top ten servers in movies. And yes, it does include HAL.

What might life be like 50 years from now? Can we expect robots voting? Will there be Chinese on the moon? While some of these predictions may seem outlandish now, let’s not forget that the technological singularity is predicted to happen sometime around 2045. (This date may change, but that there will be a technological singularity is almost without a doubt.) After that, AI may really be asking for voting rights, and as for the Chinese, I expect them to be on the moon — and start setting up colonies — much faster. (How they’re going to get stuff from there to Wal-Mart, I have no idea.)

Meet Pleo (Is it alive?): The Wife’s been asking for a dog. I think I’ll get her one of these instead. After all, who wouldn’t want an android baby dinosaur walking around the house?

Sci-Fi South Park: I know, I know. Not exactly what you’d call sophisticated, but South Park actually has a couple of rather interesting episodes for those of us who enjoy science fiction. The two linked here (one of which is 30 minutes, the other 1 hour, split into 2 videos) use elements from movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Terminator and Akira to get the full effect. Funny stuff, if you can get past the overall crudeness of the series (and I’m not talking about the animation style).

• Trapper Keeper: Cartman’s Trapper Keeper threatens to take over the world. After he’s done bragging, a stranger tells him that it will soon take over the world if they don’t destroy it now.
• Go, God, Go, Part I and Go, God, Go, Part II: What happens if we abolish religion altogether? This hour long episode, split into two parts, asks that question and attempts to answer it (insofar as South Park every attempts to answer anything) from the standpoint of the 26th century, where two atheist human factions and an atheist sea otter faction are vying for control of the Earth. Apparently, in this future, space travel hasn’t gone all that far, although flying cars have. !

That’s it for this episode of Le Linkage. More episodes can be found in the Le Linkage category page.

First impression: after seeing just the opening movie, I’m… not all that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, I totally dig the story line and seriously liked the movie — I certainly plan to add it to my collection — but I guess after everything I heard I sort of expected this to be better. The dangers of being put on too-high a pedestal, I guess.

Side Note: Did anyone else notice the similarities — in both storyline and scenery set up (particularly when it came to the hangar in the Galactica) to the storyline and scenery used in the old show Space, Above and Beyond? (Can I get a show of hands of people who actually remember that show?) What about the officers’ quarters, is it just me, or do they remind anyone else of the officers’ quarters in some of the Star Trek ships? I’m thinking mostly the design of the walls here. Finally, did anyone else notice that the weapons being used by the Cylons consisted mostly of 50-megaton nukes against cities and 50-kiloton nukes against the ships? Didn’t the Russians have missiles in the 200-megaton range in the 1960’s?

While watching this, I started thinking:

1. Why isn’t it that we see more of the technologies being developed (or thought about) in real life in sci-fi shows and movies?
2. What technologies, if any, would I consider the most likely to come to pass?

To expand on the first question, here’s what I mean: when you listen to speakers like Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil — folks who know a thing or two about predicting the future and inventing the future they predict — you always hear about technologies which would seem to make us superhuman: red blood cell substitutes which allow us to hold our breath underwater for four hours; curing cancer by treating it as it is, a repair mechanism of the body gone awry; the cure for aging and aging-related death; the cure — and I use the term loosely here — for sleep. (Basically, all of the technologies gushed about in Transhumanist and Posthumanist websites.) Yet, very rarely in these shows and movies do we see even a hint that these technologies exist.

Case and point: in Battlestar Galactica, some really interesting technologies are talked about, technologies being at the very least speculated on, if not actually being developed today. Two examples I can think of are uploading of memories into computers in order to continue your existence (the problem of continuity aside) and a technological Singularity (which would be pretty much the only way a Cylon race could even show up, I guess).

While these are interesting inclusions in and of themselves, I can’t help but wonder why people in the show are so “human.” Not once did I hear about possible modifications to increase natural capabilities, such as memory-expanding brain implants, which are being discussed today; Cyberware and brain-to-computer interfaces, which are being developed and used today (and would be very handy in those ships); genetic modification and exploitation, some methods for which are entering human trials now; and better communications systems, such as brain-to-brain communications, which are in the early stages of development today. Call me spoiled, but I guess I was expecting that a civilization capable of near-light speed travel would also have a tendancy towards technological enhancements of biological mechanisms. In other words, why I didn’t see more cyborgs (the non-fiction, real life kind) is beyond me, and was a bit of a dissapointment. (Also, why were these people so comfortable with death? I mean, sure, they had a religion, but wouldn’t their doctors have figured out by now that “hey, you know, maybe this death thing isn’t good, and it isn’t really necessary!”)

To expand on the second question: science fiction has a strange way of feeding the “art imitates life imitates art” loop. After all, how many of the technologies we saw in the original Star Trek series have we seen already developed in the real world? (Hint: if you have a flip-cell phone, you’re using one of them.) Likewise, many of the technologies we’re seeing in sci-fi today are technologies which I fully expect will come to pass. Some of these may seem completely “out there”, but considering the rate in which communication systems evolve (Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns) I would be surprised if these technologies weren’t invented, most of them in our lifetimes (which may be a lot longer than we might think, if the radical anti-aging crowd delivers on their promises).

Here’s a list of some of the technologies I fully expect to see developed and why:

• Virtual Worlds (as in The Matrix): The rise in popularity of virtual environments like Second Life and other intricate MMORPGs will likely continue until we can start interfacing with each other in full emersion virtual reality. How long thereafter will it be before people choose their virtual world life to their real life? We saw a glimpse of what the first truly commercialized stages of this could look like in the movie Minority Report, and this has been featured in various science fiction novels, such as Tek War series by William Shatner. People’s desire for this type of technology has been manifested over and over in films and media. If you think business savvy tech folks haven’t noticed, think again. This is one technology that will, for good or ill make its way into the public.
• Ingestible Communications Devices, Brain to Brain Communications (as featured in Aeon Flux): The movie Aeon Flux was a particularly interesting one to me because many of the technologies presented there, particularly the ingestible communication systems and bio-enhancements, are not just desirable: they are the next logical step if we continue on this path. Internal communications as featured will allow us to continue the path of independence that the Gen-Y crowd is most known for. Imagine being able to hold meetings (at your own leisure) in your head, without having to leave the park where you’re playing with your kids?
• Telexistence (as featured in Dune, the 1984 version): Imagine the ability to physically interface with remote environments while feeling you’re truly there. Doctor’s are currently experimenting with operating on patients hundreds of miles away using robotic arms and videos, but the ability to telexsit, to “be in two places at once” is something which could give people more of a god complex, as well as a few god-like abilities. This could be combined quite well with sense-transferring fabrics (featured in movies like Minority Report and Babylon 5: River of Souls. You can see developmental versions of both technologies at the TACHI Lab project site.
• Bio-enhancement (as featured in countless movies, but I’ll stick to Aeon Flux for this one): I remember reading a book when I was a kid titled something like The Next Millennium, or something like that, in which the authors speculated what the next thousand years of human development would look like. Given that the writers were an engineer and a biologist, it was no surprise that all the advancements they focused on dealt mostly with those two fields. One of the more interesting developments (predicted for the year 2400 and later) would be the wide-range use of bio-enhancement technologies. I’m not just talking about the red blood cells I mentioned earlier (although those are both interesting and very desirable), but rather more mundane things (if that’s the proper word), such as replacing finger nails with a pen-like device and a digital clock; receiving retinal implants which allow for multiple eye colors simultaneously (they emphasized the popularity of the “rotating color iris”, which would present all colors at the same time and rotate them like a weird, optical spectrograph); and adding pouches to different areas of your body. They also touched on something a bit more interesting: bio-engineered humans designed to better live with their surroundings. One example I vividly remember (which was also prominently shown in the movie Aeon Flux) was the replacement of feet with another set of hands. In the book, these were meant for use by people who were living in low-gravity environments who would have little practical use for feet. While tests like this aren’t exactly ongoing (and the technologies for which will likely not be around for another few years) I fully expect to see some level of bio-enhancement taking place, first by making us into cyborgs, then by re-engineering us at the biological level.

I’ll stop here because, frankly, I could go all day with these: invisibility cloaks (Ghost in the Shell, strong AI (The Matrix), space elevators (The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson), improved communications networks, teleportation (Star Trek, but only with information), fully immersible computer interfaces (Johnny Mnemonic), improved portable searches (for real life items, not just Internet things, a la Star Trek tri-corders), cryonics (uhm… everything), etc. There are thousands more technologies I could hit upon but I’m sure these may whet your appetite a bit, if not scare you half to death.

If there are any technologies you honestly feel will likely come about in the near future which others may be dismissive of, or would just like to let your mind roam free on the topic, feel free to share them here. (Or on your own blog, but don’t even mention flying cars: they’re still at least another 30-50 years off and have been talked about to death already. Hover cars, however, are another story.) I’m especially interested in hearing from any self-proclaimed Transhumanists and Futurists, since it seems that you fine folks are the ones putting the pressure on the scientists to develop technologies which would aid us in the truly important technologies, like radical life extension.

Finally, ask yourself this question: 15 years ago, what did you think the world would be like? Did you expect it to be anything like what it is today? Did you expect the Internet, or cell phones, or iPods? Did you expect a cure for diabetes, or ALS, or cancer? Has the future impressed you, disappointed you, or left you with a feeling of “ho hum”? The Wife and I actually talked about this a few nights ago and I came to the realization that, while the future isn’t at all what I expected, I couldn’t have imagined my life now at that time. No way could I realize that I would spend a good part of my day interacting with individuals from all over the world, or having access to thousands of hours of music and speeches in my hand, or being able to communicate with anybody at just about any time from just about anywhere. But then again, I guess predicting the future is a bit of a gamble unless you’re helping invent it.

Note: This article has also been published over at Betterhumans.

I was originally planning to wrap things up by talking about some insane comic book crossovers I’d love to see, but the simple fact is, there’s nothing I could come up with that’d be crazier than what’s already been done. There are very few ideas too stupid or backwards for them to actually put to paper, so it’s nearly impossible to come up with an idea so bizarre that it’s hilarious simply for its inherent unfeasibility. And if something hasn’t been done, and you’ve thought of it, chances are some writer or editor has too, and it’s already in the works.

I mean, look, they did an X-Men/Star Trek crossover ten years ago, and writer Scott Lobdell probably pitched the idea SOLELY because he wanted to write the following scene: “Wouldn’t it be cool if — ?”

The World’s Biggest Diamond Mine: Originally, this was supposed to be the “world’s biggest hole”, but as it turns out there are a couple of man-made holes larger than this one. (Insert “I used to work for a bigger hole than that” joke here. And no gay jokes, please.) This set of pictures shows exactly how big this thing is: it’s so big, flying over it has been banned because it creates such a powerful and large vortex of air over it. (You can replace “it’s so big” with “your momma’s so fat…”) What’s even more interesting is that this hole — about a mile wide and half a mile deep — is found right in the middle of a town in Russia.

Let’s Complicate Some Issues: Don’t you hate it when some nutty left-winger comes up to you to tell you how wrong your conservative values are, and how obviously right they are because, let’s face it, it’s a simple issue? And what about when some nutty right-winger comes up to you to tell you how wrong your liberal values are, and how obviously right they are, because it’s a simple issues? In this essay, the author talks about the complexity of real life issues and why “the only way either liberals or conservatives can turn them into such exercises in obviousness is to omit big parts of the picture, [which] guarantees that we’re not seeing it accurately.”

Comic Book Foreign Policy (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3): I’ve been following this set of articles for a little while now, and they’re pretty interesting. The author talks about how the comic book industry is making comics a serious ground for political and ethical debate using today’s real-life issues. A must read for anyone who enjoys comics and politics, pro-war and anti-war alike. (As of this writing only three parts have been written. There’s still a fourth one to come.)

//Edit: Part 4 has been published.

Free Older Moves: The title says it all. Movies where the copyright has expired, which are now in the public domain, are made available here for download. (Bittorrent required.) Some greats and greatly bad are here, such as the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space. I haven’t searched, but I don’t think Manos: The Hands of Fate has quite made it to this list. Yet.

English as a National Language: Does it Require Protection? “The problem isn’t just restricted to schools and papers. There are places in THE US of FREAKIN A that you can go and feel like a feel like you just crossed a border. Not only will English not be the residents first language, you’ll be lucky if it is spoken at all.” With the election-year politics dominating Washington, puff-my-patriotic-chest amendments such as the one making English the official national language of the United States are being brought up (again) by one side or the other in order to get the votes of single-issue voters. But does English really need protection as the National Language? (By the way, if the quote at the beginning sounded good, you’re in good company: it sounded good to all the people who agreed with you back when it was first written — in 1890.)

Chad Vader: What if instead of the Death Star, a dark lord of the Sith was in charge of your local supermarket? This hilarious Chanel101 Web series attempts to find out. Super hilarious!

Carbon Calculator: Interested in living a “Carbon Neutral” life? Let’s face it: unless you’re blinded by politics, you know that human activity is severely affecting the planet’s climate, making creating what’s been dubbed a “climate crisis”. While your government (local or national) may not be doing much to help protect the environment, you can find out how much you’re affecting the environment on a personal basis, and how much it would cost you to invest in technologies to help you be as “carbon neutral” as possible.

So, How Big is Earth Compared To…? If you’ve ever been in an astronomy class (or have ever been in an astronomy-themed conversation), you know that compared to Jupiter and the Sun, the earth is tiny. Do you realize exactly how tiny? The following images from 3D modeling software show how big Earth is compared to every planet from Mercury to Pluto (yes, I still count it as a planet) and the Sun, and how big the Sun is compared to other stars, such as Rigel, Aldelbaran, and Betelgeuse.

An Introduction to Buddhism: When first learning about Buddhism, it’s easy to get confused with terms like “rebirth”, “karma”, “eight-fold path”, “Skandhas”, “noble truths” — you get the drift. But if you’re interested in Buddhism, or just learning what it’s all about, this page offers a number of essays to help you get started. (I recommend starting with the Five Minute Introduction.)

If you’re a Firefly/Serenity fan, then today is the day you’ve been waiting for.

Actually, I’ll take that back: Monday was the day you were waiting for. Sadly, this post is not about some miraculous change of heart by the networks to return the series to TV. It’s also not the announcement of another Serenity movie, at least not in the big-movie-theater sort of way. This post is actually to announce that the documentary Done the Impossible: The Fans’ Tale of Firefly and Serenity, a massive DVD project which brings together the cast, crew, and noted fans such as writer extaordinaire Orson Scott Card (author of the Ender’s Game series) to pay a tribute to “the greatest science fiction series ever created” (according to Card).

I don’t disagree with him one bit.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, no I’m not a huge fan of the show. I like the show — a lot — but I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan. Still, this is an awesome development, especially if, like me, you actually like to watch the extras and commentaries included with DVDs. (I’ll gladly pay the little extra for the 2-disc edition almost any time.)

If you’ve never seen the show, imagine this: you see a guy who’s an ex-confederate soldier after the American Civil War. He goes out west to make his living transporting cargo — legal and otherwise — to the various sprawling cities, most of the time while trying to stay away from the authorities. He gets a together a posse (a doctor, a priest, a few hired guns, and a parlor maid) to do all this and — well, there you go. Now, take all that and put the guy in a junky, old spaceship, mix in some western music and Chinese culture, and make the cities planets. Finally, add the best writing you’ve ever heard on a science fiction show and you have yourself a show that can be loved by sci-fi geek and non-geek alike. (Think about it as science fiction that will attract more than just nerds and people with bad hygiene.)

Edit: To get a feel for the show, here’s the intro. Thanks be to YouTube.

Edit 2: Here’s the movie trailer, plus the first 15 minutes or so of the movie (divided into 2 clips), just to whet your appetite a bit.

The point of science fiction is not to focus on the technology. The point of science fiction is to focus on how people work within very real situations that wouldn’t necessarily be occurring (or would be occurring, but with different consequences) if the technology didn’t exist. This show covers all of that. Very human, very relatable, and the character development is awesome.

If you’ve never seen the show Firefly, at least do yourself a favor and watch the movie Serenity. After you fall in love with that, go grab the show (or stream it using WinAmp’s Shoutcast TV streams, available for free) or go grab the documentary, which can be pre-ordered right now for about $17.00. It includes something like 5-hours of lost footage and a ton of interviews with the cast and crew, so if you’re a fan it’s definitely worth it. (If you still doubt me, watch the trailer, or at least the celebrity highlights (Quicktime required).) By the time you’re done there, you’ll probably be in the same position I was when I first discovered the series: hungry for more.

Your assignment for tonight is to go out and either rent that movie or buy it, then sit at home with your significant other (whether they be spouse, pet, or android) and enjoy this incredible work.

ScienceBlog.com — Drunks Don’t See the Monkey: “It’s pretty difficult to overlook the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, or even an average-size person dressed in a gorilla suit. But a new study indicates that people who were given a simple visual task while mildly intoxicated were twice as likely to have missed seeing the person in a gorilla suit than were people who were not under the influence of alcohol.” Lesson: never try to spot a man in a gorilla suit while tipsy. Because if you can’t spot the gorilla, what good are you?

Engadget — Korea to test 1,000 remote-controlled domestic robots: “The Ministry of Information and Communication … will begin placing 1,000 wheeled, cell-phone controlled automatons — dubbed URCs, or ubiquitous robotic companions — into households and kindergartens this fall as a trial run for new robot technologies. The URCs will do the usual handling of domestic tasks as we might expect (and some … like cleaning rooms and reading books to children), as well the usual hanging out, taking care of pets, [and more] … The only thing at all disconcerting about any of this is the fact that unlike normal household droids, these URCs will be operated wirelessly from a central computing center ala I, Robot.” Having just watched that movie agan, the thought of a remote controled robot companion isn’t one I’m at all too comfortable with.

Akihabara News — The Wonderbra powered USB keyboard: Ok, uhm… hmm. How do I… err… geez, oh man… heh… I mean… Hmm. So, like, anyways, I uhmm… hmm… How do I put this? Uhm… What?

USB powered keyboard bra with USB powered camera tail that can be switched out with other USB powered items, such a lights and memory sticks. You have to see this for yourself [Angelkitty.jp]. I guess what I’m wondering is where exactly that thing is supposed to be plugged.

KurzweilAI — Frozen Brains Awaiting Resurrection Day in Storage: (From St. Petersburg, Russia) “Kriorus, the world’s first cryonics company outside the United States, located in Alabushevo village in Russia, has two brains in cryonics storage so far. The price: $9,000.” Just what we need, Russian discount cryonics. “You want better brain? Lie down. We do operation, take out brain now. Give you new brain next week. We freeze brain now so if you want back later, you have. ”

My Heart’s in Accra — Book review: “Globalization and its Enemies”: “This is the basic question development economists try to answer. It’s a question with profound practical implications – if we could suggest strategies that consistently helped nations grow wealth, we could address a huge range of problems in education, public health and state stability. It’s also a question that both development economists and political commentators are surprisingly bad at answering.” A very thorough book review and critique by Ethan Zuckerman. Good reading for anyone involved in economics or business.

The New Yorker — How can someone live with only half a brain?: This week’s New Yorker features a particularly interesting article about the hemispherectomy operation. In this procedure, an entire side of the brain is removed as a treatment because of cancer or chronic seizures. The incredible thing is that if the hemispherectomy is done when a patient is very young, the remaining hemisphere does double duty and the child often develops normally. (This one also came by way of My Heart’s in Accra.)

Index of 1,000 Full Length Anime On YouTube: (via Digg) “There are no ads or garbage clips to weed through, just 1000 anime episodes and movies. This index includes The Animatrix, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Samurai Champloo, Serial Experiments Lain, Ultimate Avengers, and more.” Not weird and not news, but I’ll be damned if I don’t put this link up.

Anyway, that was until I saw the first trailer, just released today. (If you thought different then you’ve probably never heard of Uwe Boll.) After seeing the trailer, I’ll admit, I got pretty excited about it. Really excited.

07/04/07, baby. 7-4-7.

Newsflash Edit: Looks like the trailer was leaked in YouTube.

(Note: I would still go to the Transformers.com site and see it there. Much better quality. Still, this isn’t bad.)

Newsflash Edit 2: Looks like someone pulled the trailer from YouTube. (Gee, I wonder who.) Anyway, the only place you can see it now is at Transformers.com, which is just fine, unless you use Linux; Flash 8 is requred and Macromedia still hasn’t released it for Linux. Dumbasses.

As a side note, It’s nice to see that all my childhood media heroes are getting resurrected onto the movie screen, most of which are good movies (think Batman Begins and X-Men). This probably means that economically, generation X-ers and Y-ers are finally worthy of attention by industries that have until now been held captive by the economic power of the baby boomers.

Now that we’ve captured the movie market, maybe we can begin influencing auto makers. Why not start asking for our own Transformers? (Hybrid, of course.) Heck, if that’s too hard I’d settle for my own KITT (as in Knight Rider).

The thing is, right now the only “cool” cars are SUVs, Hummers (also known as “monster trucks”), and hybrids, depending heavily on who’s deciding what “cool” is. On the whole, hybrids are generally pretty cool. SUVs and Hummers, however, scream of middle-age soccer mom like a bald man in a convertible Corvette screams of midlife crisis. (Because SUVs and H2s have become the new Minivan. H3s just plain suck.) Maybe auto makers should start updating them to appease the GenX and GenY crowd. After all, if they’re making gas guzlers anyway, if they’re going to force us to drain all of the planet’s resources, why not at least make them appealing to us? (Suck it, Gore!) How to do that, you ask? Easy. Just have the engineers watch at all the 80’s TV shows and get them to start making that stuff. We’ll even let them start with something simple: how about adding a new “Go go Gadgetmobile” feature to the Toyota Sequoia? Call it the Sequoiavalon. Or better yet, since we’re apparently at war, (against… Iraq? Terror? Gangs? Illiteracy? The Poor? Democrats?) how about making super intelligent Hummers that come with mounted weaponry as a standard feature? (Think Airwolf, but on wheels.) Terrorists aside, this would come in handy when riding through insurgent strongholds like Detroit and New Orleans, or when trying to find a parking spot in South Beach on a Saturday night.

After all that is done, maybe we can start with the Transformers. Because, as we all know, what better way is there to fight terrorism, Detroit, New Orleans, or parking problems than with a weapon-loaded Transformer Hummer?

None. Optimus Gasguzler to the rescue, bizatch.