March 2007

There were 21 posts published in March 2007 (this is page 2 of 3).

THX-1138: A Future Without Hope

I’ve always had a taste for dystopias.

  

I find tales of bleak alternate realities and possible futures fascinating. Some people find them depressing, but I find them inherently filled with hope. I like to believe that I would be that lonesome sole, able to shake off the shackles of the oppressors.

Here are just a few of my favorite dystopic stories: We, Anthem, The Dispossessed, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Planet of the Apes (the book is superior to either film adaptation), The Handmaid’s Tale, The Children of Men, On the Beach, The Wild Shore, The Quiet Earth, Mad Max, The Island. (Note: I realize I’m using the term dystopia broadly here to include post-apocalyptic scenarios. These two sub-genres share features I find appealing.)

  

It’s time to add a new title to this list: George Lucas’ first film, THX 1138, from 1971. It’s brilliant.

I’ll admit at the outset that this film is not for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not for many people. It’s strange. Much of it is observational rather than plot-driven. But wow is it intriguing.

THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) lives in a vast underground city. The residents of this city — who may or may not be clones — are bald, sedated, and dull. THX works in a cyborg factory, installing radioactive brains. When he returns to his apartment, he watches holographic pornvids and, covertly, falls in love with his roommate, LUH 3417. (As with many dystopias, sex is a crime in this world.)

When LUH becomes pregnant, the pair is imprisoned in a vast white emptiness with other deviants. (This section reminds me of a Star Trek episode, the name of which escapes me.) This part of the film feels very experimental, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. With bald people. LUH is killed. THX escapes with the help of two other prisoners.

  

The final part of the film is an extended chase sequence though the underground city. While not particularly exciting (The French Connection, released a few months later, featured a better chase), it’s visually striking. THX eventually escapes when the budget for his recapture is excited. He climbs from a hatchway to the world above. (A scene which, I now recognize, has been used many times in subsequent films.)

I liked THX 1138. The story is difficult to follow at first, but gradually becomes more clear. Because it’s an observational film (kind of like Altman’s stuff), most people would not enjoy it. But the cinematography is beautiful, and the movie is filled with ideas. I also like that much of the Star Wars aesthetic can be found here, six years earlier.

  

And now George Lucas brings us crap like Attack of the Clones.

(For a full review, check out Alexandra DuPont’s take. She likes it too.)

Six Years of Foldedspace

What a gorgeous day. The sun is out. It’s 19 degrees centigrade. (That’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who home-school your children.) The camellia and magnolia are in bloom. My lawn is newly mowed. The birds and squirrels are chattering while the cats — all four of them — explore the ground below. (Max was amazed — amazed! to see that the back doors allowed him another way in and out of the house.)

I’ve dragged the card table and a couple folding chairs out here onto the porch, so that I can have a real and proper writing table. I’ve been puffing my pipe. I’ve been reading comic strips. I’ve been answering e-mail. In short: life is grand.

And soon Kris will return from Virginia, making things that much better.

Today marks this site’s sixth anniversary. I’d had a site before that, of course, and even an “online journal” (which is what we called them back before they were blogs, back when we coded them by hand). But it was six years ago today that I signed up at some place called Blogger and began my experiment with formalized writing for the web.

That first year was rocky. I didn’t post often. I posted typical “here’s what I ate for breakfast” entries. I worried about the upcoming Lord of the Rings films. (With some cause, as it turns out.) After Septemeber 11th, I went silent for a whole month as I tried to wrap my brain around it. Notable entries from year one:

During the second year, I left Blogger, which at that time was too unstable and inflexible for my liking. I moved to a new platform called Movable Type. It was great! It lived on my own server and offered all sorts of flexibility. Notable posts from this period of 2002-2003 include:

In retrospect, this blog’s third year was its Golden Age. It had many readers, and they left many comments. I wrote about a lot of things (especially Proust). I had fun. I wrote about a high-school leadership camp. I met Dr. Comic Book Guy. I dreamed I met an old friend (while naked). I fell in love with the iTunes Music Store. Mac, Joel, and I played with a videophone. I meditated on the simplicity movement. I wrote about Dad. Twice. (That last entry is one of my favorites.) I had knee surgery. I went clam-digging. I entered the photo competition at the county fair. I went camping with Mac. I took a writing class from Rick Piet. I started reading the Patrick O’Brian books. (And managed to get me, Joel, and Dave kicked out of a Patrick O’Brian movie.) We endured an ice storm. We spent time in Yakima with Jeremy and Jennifer. I wrote about the malleability of time.

The fourth year began with a bang. I changed the layout to the form you see here today. This layout has served me well. I’ve tried to change it a couple of times, but always you folks have risen in revolt. This year was marked by a sudden change: we bought a new home. Some favorite entries include:

During this site’s fifth year, I discovered The Decemberists. I learned that Tuesday is Sno-Ball day. The cats shared a weekend at Rosings Park and were fascinated by a squirrel. I actually shared too much cat. I also shared the golden rules of weblogging. I struggled to get better sleep. My heart was melted by the gin fizz.

And, of course, I wrote the most important entry ever: Get Rich Slowly! Little did I know at the time that this one article would launch my career as a professional blogger. But it did. And it has.

In the fall of 2005, midway through the site’s fifth year, Movable Type died. It suddenly decided that I wasn’t allowed to access my blogs. Nobody could comment. This sucked. Hard. I was forced to start from scratch. Since that day, I’ve been moving old entries over to the new version of the site gradually, but there are still many that cannot accept comments.

The past eighteen months have been up-and-down for me here. I suffered some mild depression, which affected my writing. I started some new blogs, which affected my posting frequency. I tried to move this site to WordPress, but again you folks opposed the change.

Finally, last fall, I found and equilibrium, and since then I’ve tried to return to the same posting schedule and content I had before. I know I haven’t succeeded completely, but I’m trying. For the past few months — and for the forseeable future — my life is Get Rich Slowly, the blog. This is my future. Because I spend so much time at it, I don’t have as much time to live, which means I have less to write about here. But it won’t always be this way.

Check back in another six years. With any luck, foldedspace will be in an other golden age!

Max and Toto Sitting in a Tree

Toto is sleeping on the chair in my office. Max is sitting on the desk, watching the mouse pointer flit across the screen. He gets bored. He walks to the edge of the desk and looks at the chair where his sister lays. He pauses.

Then gingerly he steps down next to her. Toto lifts her head and hisses. She growls. But she does not move. Max ignores her. He curls up beside her. Toto growls some more, but then she goes back to sleep. Max sits there, touching his sister, not quite snuggling, but most definitely touching.

THIS IS A MIRACLE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

You cannot even begin to understand how awestruck I am by this scene. (Well, those of you who know Toto may understand.)

Just now she picked up her head and licked herself. She glanced at Max, but she did not growl, and she did not pull away. They’re still touching, crowded together on the chair.

Amazing Video of the Moon Transiting the Sun

I’m an astronomy geek. I’ve always been an astronomy geek. But never have I seen anything as amazing as NASA’s beautiful video of the moon transiting the sun. (A transit is, essentially, the same as eclipse, except that the forward body does not fully occlude the rear body.)

Here’s an image of the transit:

But an image cannot do this justice. Do yourself a favor and watch this on video. NASA has three video sizes: small, medium, and large. Watch the large version.

If this doesn’t blow your mind, you fail to comprehend the cosmic scale involved here. This is light-years (ha!) better than any movie special effect. This is real life! That is our sun. That is what allows all life on Earth. It’s awesome.

Here’s some info from the NASA web site:

“The images have an alien quality,” notes [NASA scientist Lika] Guhathakurta. “It’s not just the strange colors of the sun. Look at the size of the Moon; it’s very odd.” When we observe a lunar transit from Earth, the Moon appears to be the same size as the sun — a coincidence that produces intoxicatingly beautiful solar eclipses. The silhouette STEREO-B saw, on the other hand, was only a fraction of the sun’s diameter. “It’s like being in the wrong solar system.”

The Moon seems small because of STEREO-B’s location. The spacecraft circles the sun in an Earth-like orbit, but it lags behind Earth by one million miles. This means STEREO-B is 4.4 times further from the Moon than we are, and so the Moon looks 4.4 times smaller.

STEREO-B has a sister ship named STEREO-A. Both are on a mission to study the sun. While STEREO-B lags behind Earth, STEREO-A orbits one million miles ahead (“B” for behind, “A” for ahead). The gap is deliberate: it allows the two spacecraft to capture offset views of the sun. Researchers can then combine the images to produce 3D stereo movies of solar storms.

Of particular interest are coronal mass ejections (CMEs), billion ton clouds of electrified gas hurled into space by explosions on the sun. “STEREO’s ability to see these clouds in 3-dimensions will revolutionize our understanding of CMEs and improve our ability to predict when they will hit Earth,” she says.

The STEREO mission is still in its early stages. The two spacecraft were launched in Oct. 2006 and reached their stations on either side of Earth in January 2007. Now it’s time for check-out and calibration. The first 3D views of solar storms are expected in April.

I can watch this video again and again. If anything is going to make believe in a god, it’s going to be something like this. Amazing. Don’t you folks be lobbying to cut my space program!

[NASA: Stereo eclipse, via kottke]

Rating the Bond Films: The Brosnan Era

In December, I watched all the Sean Connery-era Bond films. In January, I watched all of those from Roger Moore. Last month I watched all of the films from the Pierce Brosnan era, which also includes Bonds Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig. This final group of films shows signs of life, then plummets the series to a new low. Fortunately the most recent Bond film is the best yet.

The Living Daylights (1987) – Timothy Dalton [6.6] – B-
The first 25 minutes of this film are baffling. The second 25 are just boring. But despite the rocky start, about midway through I became accustomed to Dalton’s style and accepted him for what he is. He’s a softie. He melds into the picture more than Roger Moore did. (Moore always stood out like polished silver in a drawer of stainless steel flatware.) The story here is very strong (continuing a trend — the last few Bond films have had stronger stories). Maryam d’Abo doesn’t fit the mold of previous Bond women. She has a different look. She’s lovely.

License to Kill (1989) – Timothy Dalton [6.4] – B+
The strongest Bond story since the 1960s, and a solid Bond film indeed. No secret agent stuff here, just pure vendetta.

GoldenEye (1995) – Pierce Brosnan [6.9] – A-
Bond seems to have finally hit its stride. A magnificent opening shot. Hell, a magnificent opening sequence. Sure the final stunt defies physics and probability, but it’s AWESOME. The cinematography is gorgeous, like nothing before seen a Bond film. (Though it reminds me of Casino Royale in many ways. (Aha! Upon compiling this roundup I learned that the director and cinematographer were the same on both films.)) A fine cast, including two X-Men and Borimir. I love the Russian dancers singing “Stand By Your Man” — best comic scene EVER in a Bond film. The only thing that really keeps this from making it to the top of the list is a lack of “tightness”. The story is fantastic, the directing is fantastic, the acting is fantastic — but things just aren’t as smooth as they should be. Two-thirds through there’s an extended chase scene with a tank that’s just tedious. Also, there are far too many explosions. A top-notch bond flick. (And, seriously, it’s just gorgeous.)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) – Pierce Brosnan [6.4] – C+
This film features two great supporting players. Jonathan Pryce is Elliot Carver, a media mogul bent on causing World War III so that he can reap the rewards of increased viewers (and get an exclusive century-long deal in China). Michelle Yeoh is Wai Lin, a Chinese secret agent working alongside Bond. The script, at times, is great. But this Bond is undone by some of the worst features of the series: nonsensical action scenes (the teaser is just lame, the parking garage scene is not much better, and the motorcycle chase is the kind of thing that has made me walk out of movies in the past). There’s also a dreaded mass-combat ending, though it’s just Bond vs. the army of bad guys. This is the weakest film since the end of the Roger Moore era.

The World is Not Enough (1999) – Pierce Brosnan [6.3] – D-
Lame, idiotic opening boat chase. It’s sheer lunacy. Want to see a boat drive through the streets of London, knocking over market stalls, crashing through restaurants, making things explode that couldn’t possibly explode? This is your movie. Dumb dumb dumb. A huge step backward for the franchise. There’s yet another ski chase, but it’s dumb. There are far too many random explosions, and each of them features Chinese fireworks to “add” to the effect. We have to endure “hilarious” witticism after “hilarious” witticism. Puns are not funny when they’re stretched over the thinnest of frameworks. “He was buried with work…” Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. So damn funny. This film’s worst sin is that it’s boring. It should have been called “20,000 Explosions are Not Enough”. There are more explosions here than in all other Bond movies combined. That is not a good thing.

Die Another Day (2002) – Pierce Brosnan [6.2] – F
James Bond meets CGI. This film is awful on nearly every level. It has three redeeming features:

  • An intriguing plot.
  • An effective credits sequence that also serves as exposition.
  • Rosamund Pike

Pure dreck.

Casino Royale (2006) – Daniel Craig [8.0] – A
Ah: the creme de le creme. Casino Royale is far, far more violent than the Bonds that have come before. It’s a product of its day: a loud, visually exciting piece. It’s also overly long, though I’m not sure what I’d cut. But damn, it’s exciting. The opening credits sequence is the best of any Bond film. The soundtrack is a thing of beauty. (To really appreciate it, you have to have seen several of the Bond films recently, I think. It begins with a unique theme, which is close to, but not the same as, the traditional Bond theme. This is fitting since this is ostensibly the first Bond adventure. As the film progresses, this new theme gradually changes, always drifting closer to the Bond theme we know and love. But it’s only at the final scene of the theme that we finally hear what we’ve expected to hear the entire time. Nicely done.) I’ve seen this film twice now, and like it more after a second viewing (and after having viewed the entire series). I’m buying the DVD when it’s released tomorrow — the first DVD I’ve purchased in a long time. After I took Kris to see it, I asked her how she liked it. “I’d only give it a B,” she said. She paused. “But compared to the other Bond films, it stands head and shoulders above the rest. It was actually good in spots.” Many spots, if you ask me.

Keeping score
On average, the Connery-era Bond films received a rating of 7.1 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.47 from me. On average, the Moore-era Bond films received a rating of 6.6 from users of the Internet Movie Database. They received a GPA of 2.09 from me. The Brosnan-era Bond films received a rating of 6.7 from IMDB. I gave them a GPA of 2.39. (Note that without Casino Royale, these scores are 6.5 and 2.12.)

Which Bond is best?
This is a tough question to answer. Each actor has his strengths. (Well, except for Lazenby.) Timothy Dalton doesn’t get a lot of credit, but I like what he did in his two films. Moore did a fine job with the glitz and glamour side of Bond, but he was inept at the action sequences. For my part, Moore and Brosnan did the best job of capturing all sides of the character. Brosnan, though, was, except for his first outing, handicapped by terrible scripts and, at times, bad direction. Daniel Craig’s turn showed much promise, and an exciting new direction for the character, but I’m withholding judgment until I’ve seen a couple more performances.

In conclusion
I’m glad to have watched all the Bond films in rapid succession. I don’t feel the need to ever do it again. I think that the reboot of the series in the most recent film is exactly what needed to happen. The series has, it seems, returned to its secret agent roots, ditched the comic book character villains, and decided to take itself serious. Now if they can tone the action scenes down even further, the producers may have finally found that fables lost era of Bond gold. (Because despite all of its cultural capital, the series has never been able to sustain a run of good films.) I look forward to the 22nd installment!

I’m Writing a New Book Every Month

Amy Jo — who has re-opened From a Corner Table, by the way — forwarded a link to Write-a-Go-Go, a site which challenges people to write 36,000 words in 3 months.

Welcome to your new challenge. Ready? 36,000 words sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? 144 manuscript pages? But when you break it down to 1,000 words, three times a week, isn’t that something you can do?

This got me to wondering: is it something I can do? Is it something I already do? I don’t know. But because I’m a geek, I knew could find out. A little digging turned up a word count plugin for WordPress. I installed it and voila! Now I have word count stats at GRS.

I average 29,300 words per month at Get Rich Slowly. It’s not as easy to use plugins with Moveable Type, so I’m not going to try to calculate my word count here. I suspect it used to be in the 25,000 word per month range but has probably fallen to around 15,000 words per month. Do I write another 5,000 words per month at my other sites? Probably. I think it’s safe to say that I’m publishing 50,000 words per month. I’m writing 1,500 words per day. (I’m actually probably writing double that — I figure half of what I write never sees the light of day.)

How much is 50,000 words per month in real-world terms? According to this guide to average manuscript lengths, novels are generally between 25,000 and 150,000 words. A 50,000 word novel would be 200 pages long. I’m writing the equivalent of a 200-page book every month.

Holy shit.

Now, there are a lot of considerations that go into writing a book that I’m not having to cope with. Short articles are much different than a book-length manuscript. I’m not saying that one is harder or that one is easier — they’re just different.

But still.

I’m writing a book each month.

The mind boggles.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Wow is it warm outside.

I just made a 3-1/2 mile walk to run some errands. I had thought about bundling up in a turtleneck. I’m glad I didn’t. The air feels room temperature, except that there’s a strong wind. There’s a little mist hanging in the air. It’s nice.

I had hoped to listen to my iPod, but I updated its OS this morning, and when it was finished it asked me to plug it into the wall adapter. Fine in theory except that I’d just sent it to Virginia with Kris. She’s gone for a week of “glass training” at the FBI headquarters.

So instead I walked without a book playing in my ears. I listened to the wind. And to the birds. And to the dogs. And to the children playing in the park. I smiled to see the blossoming cherries, and the green of the willows, which are already showing tiny leaves.

I reached the library around noon. As I deposited my books in the return slot, I was tempted by the smells emanating from the Chinese buffet next door. I resisted. I walked up the highway to the grocery store, pausing to admire the shiny BMW 325i at the used car lot (“pre-owned” car lot — ha!). I resisted. At Safeway I bought a bag of greens, a tub of olives, and some lunch meat. (Kris managed to find some preservative-free lunch meat for me, which is keen.) I was tempted by the cookies. I resisted. I did stop to buy 25 cents worth of chiclet gum on the way out the door, though.

On my walk home, I passed several people out walking their dogs. The Asian man who owns the Buy-Rite was on the sidewalk in front of his store, cigarette dangling from his lips, swinging a golf club — whish, whish, whish.

At home, Meatball decided he could go outside to join his brothers. Toto followed me around, moaning piteously. “Where’s mom? Where’s mom?” Eventually she decided I would do for company. She followed me upstairs and purred as I watched my last James Bond movie.

It’s already lonely without Kris.

Safari: A Love/Hate Relationship

The default Macintosh browser is Safari. It’s a lovely piece of work. It’s by far my favorite browser to work with on a daily browser. But it has a problem. It’s woefully unstable. It crashes all the time, on every Mac I own. (And I have four of them.) It’s been like this since day one. This is a Bad, Bad Thing.

Because of what I do — maintain an infinite number of weblogs — I keep approximately 10-20 browser tabs open at all times. These are things about which I am currently writing, or hope to write soon. When Safari crashes, it takes those tabs with it, and there’s little hope of recovering them. (In extreme cases, I do sort through the hundreds of pages of browser history in search of a particularly important page, but mostly I just give the sites up as lost.)

For a long time, I switched to Firefox. Firefox crashes, too. But when Firefox crashes, recovery is easy. Firefox saves your “session”. That is, it remembers which tabs you had opened at crash. There is no excuse for Safari not to incorporate saved sessions. This is an easy thing to program. I could program it. Seriously. It’s basic.

There are other reasons to prefer Firefox, too, of course: extensibility, speed, etc. The thing is: Safari offers a better user experience. It’s more pleasant to use. Sites look much better in Safari. I prefer Safari to Firefox. Except…

At this point, I really have little choice but to move to Firefox. I simply cannot continue to work like this. It sucks to have a dozen prime page get flushed down the drain.

Where is John Galt?

I’ve never been sympathetic to anti-tax rhetoric. Taxes are the price we pay for living in a country like the United States.

Sure, I wish the government had different spending priorities. But that’s why we have elected representation. If our legislators don’t do what we want, we vote them out of office. Taxes are the “price of admission” for civilization.

That’s what I’ve always believed.

Still, it’s one thing to have taxes withheld from my paycheck. That’s been going on my whole life, and I’m accustomed to it. I’m also used to paying taxes on the manufacturing business that I own with my family. That’s routine.

But it’s an entirely different thing to pay estimated taxes on my expected web income. I just wrote the checks for the first quarter payments. It’s as if a part of my soul has been ripped from me! (It’s certainly as if one month of my time has been taken from me.)

Where’s John Galt when I need him?

A Clean Mess

I’m in the process of cleaning my desk. It’s a mess. It was smart to set aside space in the guest room for my office: I’m able to come here for peace and quiet when I need to get writing done, especially on Sunday afternoons. But setting aside a space for writing hasn’t helped with my tendency toward clutter. If anything, I’ve become messier.

I have a habit of jotting down story ideas on whatever scrap of paper is at hand when I have the inspiration.

  • Here’s a broad overview for “Get Rich Slowly: The Book” scribbled on a napkin from a restaurant.
  • Here’s a barely legible note — “How much in an emergency fund? — on last week’s shopping list.
  • On letterhead from my day job, I’ve neatly printed notes describing “how to test-drive a career”. I have a rough outline for the entry. I’ve even written a quote from a Broadway musical related to the subject.
  • I often get ideas while driving to and from work. I listen to many self-development books on my iPod while commuting. These frequently spark ideas. Here’s one: “Small town personal finance”
  • On the back of library receipt I’ve jotted ideas for improving site layout. I remember writing these down while stuck in traffic.
  • My wife and I recently watched a screener for an upcoming film about credit. I have several pages of notes on that. Far more notes than will ever make it to the actual review at Get Rich Slowly.

These are just a few of the notes cluttering my desk. Add to that the stack of personal finance magazines, the tumble of books, and the dirty tea mugs and you have a very messy space.

In fact, I shouldn’t even be writing this. I should get back to cleaning!