Computation. Contemplation. Conversation. By Takashi Toyooka.
[diversions]
Really. What is up with today's entertainment news on the CBC news website? It's practically tabloid material.
I expect better from our public broadcaster.
[photos]
The Central Experimental Farm has become one of my favourite spots for taking photographs; there's just such a wealth of interesting subjects. Here's a few recent ones:
I also have some photos from a recent climbing trip to Bon Echo Provincial Park, which I will also post to my flickr site soon.
[humour]
Heard on CBC Radio today (not exact quotes):
"Regular programming is unavailable due to a labour dispute. We apologize for the inconvenience, and are working to restore programming as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, please enjoy some of the best of CBC's past shows."
This was immediately followed by:
"N.R.C. official time signal. The beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicates exactly one o'clock, eastern daylight time."
beep... beep... beep...
[politics]
Although I can understand the anti-war protests taking place down south, and I would have supported them before the invasion of Iraq, now, it's totally wrong-headed.
Pulling troops out of Iraq now would certainly condemn that country to a civil war, and possibly pave the way to a far more extreme dictatorship than the one the U.S. wanted to replace; it would be political suicide for George W. Bush; it would be perceived as a terrible defeat by enemies and allies alike; it would irreperably weaken the U.S.'s position and clout on the world stage; it might even embolden terrorist organizations and reduce U.S. security back home.
The Americans must now finish what they started. They have no choice.
[computers]
Aim: To install Solaris 7 (Intel Edition) on this Pentium-233 computer; then, compile, install, and configure a bunch of cool free software such as the GNU tools and fvwm; then, package it nicely into a case.
The Machine: received for free from a friend of a friend, the Pentium-MMX used to be in a very unconventional tower case that had the 5-1/4 inch drive bays at the bottom and the motherboard on the opposite side as usual. It annoys me, so I'm going to take it away for recycling. I happen to have another case lying around, so I'll use that instead.
The Software: received back when Sun started giving away Solaris free, for non-commercial home use. I believe it was mainly aimed at free software developers. I took advantage.
The Name: My computers are named after fictional planets. Hiigara is the name of the home planet of the people in the computer game Homeworld.
Why? 'Cuz it's there.
[television]
Time again for me to wax poetic on Battlestar Galactica. Top ten reasons it's better than Star Trek. Some very small spoilers here, mainly from the first season.
10. The technology - the mixture of low-tech and high-tech is a nice touch; it makes the machines on Battlestar look real and "used."
9. Specialist Cally - played by Nicki Clyne. Hey! I don't care what you say. Battlestar has her; Trek didn't. Score one for BSG.
8. No technobabble - Related to point 10, Battlestar doesn't allow itself to get bogged down by pseudo-science in a misguided effort to explain its technology.
7. Long story arc - Each episode practically picks up where the last one left off, and virtually all plot lines are ongoing. For drop-in viewers, this is murder, but I love it.
6. Politics - Dissent, factions; cultures, religions; media, propaganda: real down-and-dirty politics, which was almost completely absent from Trek.
5. Ethical dilemmas - An ethical or moral dilemma in Trek is when the correct moral choice is very difficult to follow; in Battlestar, it's when you have no frackin' idea what the correct moral choice is in the first place.
4. Characters with problems and secrets - In Trek, nobody seemed to have any major problems or secrets, on the level of, for example, Tigh's alcoholism or Kara's role in Zack's death - or if they did, they came out and were mostly solved before the episode ended.
3. Dynamics of power, authority, and leadership - For a leader to take real power, the followers must give their support. I don't think this complex dynamic between leaders and followers was ever fully understood in Trek.
2. Decisions with consequences - Battlestar episodes don't all end with a "resetting" of the characters and their relationships.
1. No contrived problems and solutions - Trek had a bad habit of setting up artificial problems that would be solved, by the end of the episode, with some pseudo-scientific hack, or a parlour trick. Battlestar avoids the easy and pat solutions because, as in real life, they don't usually exist (and when they do, they're not usually stories worth telling).
[television]
I find it remarkable that this article mentions Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who by name - and the "new distribution method" by which many people are accessing them - because they are exactly the two shows I continue to access, in exactly the means described, after I cancelled my cable subscription months ago.
I'm bound to say, however, that I think Battlestar is so good, that as soon as the DVD for season one is on the shelves (in about a month's time, I believe - I hope!), I will be snapping it up like a... like a... well, I can't think of a good simile, but like something really fast, believe you me.
[diversions]
Intellectually, I know this was bound to happen somewhere. Maybe it has happened multiple times already: "man dies after marathon video game session."
But I can't quite understand it on a personal level. Lord knows I've had marathon gaming sessions. But after, you know, six or seven hours, your eyes feel like sandpaper, your stomach is grumbling, your shoulders have cricks in them, and your hands are carpal tunnelling all the way to hell. And back.
I just can't imagine a computer game that's that good.
