130 Leagues Over the Asphalt
T – I – R – E – D.
Went back to Roanoke on Saturday. My mom’s doing great: she can move both her leg and arm now, and on Sunday took a few steps (with a great deal of support). I’m told this is still Gold Medal performance, and my optimism was repeatedly fed this weekend. nanoreid was there for a bit, and I got to say hi to Ginny and Ian as well. Starr bought my mother a knitting loom which can be fastened to a solid surface, and now my mom can indulge her addiction one-handed for the duration!
Roanoke felt a little odd, there are buildings and shops which weren’t there last time I passed through – a bit like hearing an old song on the radio and finding an entirely new chorus after the second stanza. I took a hotel room there Saturday night to save us the drive to and from shrewlet‘s offered crash space in Blacksburg, but while the room was huge, the bed was hard as a plank, and we slept poorly for folks who would be driving 204 miles home. Route 460 was a beautiful, tranquil drive, though. I’m sold on that road for now.
Yesterday we woke too early, and headed over to spend lunch with Starr’s mom, then the afternoon at Amy’s with the gamer group. Her mom was going to gas grill the food, but after the gas loop rusted away at a touch, we went with good old charcoal, and lunch was yummy. I now know where Starr gets her habit of cooking a regiment’s food for a few people, and felt guilty leaving before I could consume a second hamburger.
While the afternoon was sold as a combination grilling / gaming event, I’m not sure anyone was really into the gaming, and after a few hours of excellent chatting and cattching up, we left to get me some badly needed quiet time. I developed yesterday something that feels much like my old migraine headaches, something which comes in short, searing pulses then goes away for a half-hour or so. (One of the first things Starr did when hearing about that was to check me for stroke indicators – of which I seem to have none.)
In geek news, the Mars Phoenix robot probe has a Twitter account. Andy Ihnatko referred to the account as cosplay for rocket scientists, but I’m enjoying keeping up with what the probe’s doing (or at least what it was doing 15 minutes ago – speed-of-light lag, y’know). Some quick Googling finds images taken by the Mars Recon Orbiter of Phoenix on the way down (Phoenix Down?) which means that we Earthlings not only managed to hit a target scores of millions of miles away, we got a picture of it from another camera that had previously done so under our instruction. [T]hese are the things that hydrogen atoms do when given 13.7 billion years. – Carl Sagan
So, yeah. Probably another early bedtime tonight, which is a shame because I wanted to get some WoW levelling in. With luck, the rest of the week will go a little easier on me!
Reinvention
From Wil Wheaton’s blog:
“I’m going to commit heresy right now and say what few people are willing to say out loud: most of the Star Trek movies are absolute garbage. There have been ten Trek movies, and I’d say that two of them are accessible to mainstream audiences, another two are great, and the remaining six are nearly unwatchable. If JJ Abrams wants to make his new Trek movie unlike the 80% of Trek movies that aren’t that good, that’s just fine with me. Not that my opinion means anything, you understand, but rambling on and on about things like this is the price of being a geek, and I regret nothing. NOTHING!”
I say without much fear of contradiction that the “accessible” movies were “The Voyage Home” and “First Contact”. (Man, I remember movie critics squirming as they reluctantly admitted that FC was pretty darn good.) “Wrath of Khan” has to be in the “great” category – there is no point in arguing with me there, so don’t bother.
So, I wonder which movie is Wil’s other “great”? Notice that he cannily forgot to mention the names involved…
I’m still looking forward to #11, whatever fandom decides to call it. You have to give people the chance to try something a little different, otherwise we all end up bored to tears.
But can she run Linux?
After starting the series 6 years ago, I finally picked up the last two volumes and have finished reading the Chobits comic. I liked it a lot, and I’m glad I gritted my teeth to read eight graphic novels backwards. (I usually take in an entire comic page in a glance or two, and reading unflipped manga for me is a bit like taking your car up to 55 mph in second gear. You can do it, but it’s not comfortable.)
Y’know, only the Japanese could combine 1) a serious examination of computer emotion and sentience, and 2) innocent, adorable robot girls running around unself-consciously in mildly fetishy outfits. It kept confusing me, because between the clothing choices and the male lead’s humorous over-reactions to every situation, I wasn’t sure I was meant to be taking this seriously, but then the authors would drop back into the real distress experienced by several characters because of the difficult emotional situations they faced.
The ending doesn’t contain any real surprises, but the purpose of this tale is the journey, not the destination, and the last book makes sense of several points that I’d expected to be conveniently forgotten. I no longer trust 21st century creators to do this, so it’s a welcome change to be able to believe “we were planning this all along” for once.
In completely unrelated news, Midori has found the basket of laundry that I’ve just pulled from the dryer, and is at this moment the happiest sleeping cat in Portsmouth.
Religion, on the other hand, is pushing it.
Hmm. I learned something from my last post that I wasn’t expecting to learn, which is of course more fun that way.
It seems that most of the people I know would put themselves somewhere between “Way of Life” and “A Nice Hobby” on the fandom scale, so apparently we do need another node for the 21st century.
Or do we? I think perhaps I should have stressed more that FIAWOL does not necessarily mean “shallow, pasty, anti-social nerd with nothing to look forward to in life but the next Stargate: Atlantis episode.” I answered FIAWOL for myself because fandom touches almost every part of my life, even when I’m not specifically geeking out. Just to name two examples, I got my first job in Hampton Roads because of miniatures gaming; and my significant others have all been fans, and we’ve had some good times because of it.
When you’ve got a closet of costumes, a vast library of genre media, at least three devices on which you play video games, have extensive convention staff (or even chair!) experience, and can put Chris Pike and Jon Archer in either chronological or created order… you might just be a Way-Of-Lifer. (I’m not referring to anyone specifically. If you thought I was referring to you… then that perhaps should tell you something.)
But really, you know, that’s okay. As long as the bills get paid, the bosses stay satisfied, friends and S.O.s get the attention they deserve, and we get out into the sunlight on occasion, FIAWOL is an entertaining way to spend the days.
EDIT: jdunson suggests that the “F” in each refers to an outdated type of fandom prevalent in the 60s and 80s, and that the fan culture most of us currently inhabit is a different beast completely. (I paraphrase heavily.) Interesting concept, and I believe I can see his point. Thoughts?
Acronym Fandom
The other day, I read that someone had “GAFIAted”, and it reminded me of the old fandom lifestyle acronyms, including FIAWOL and FIJANH. For those not steeped in the lingo, a quick review:
FIAWOL represented the “Fandom Is A Way Of Life” faction, those who eat, drink, and breathe fannish activities (fanac). Not necessarily ‘the basement geek’ of easy comedy – many in this category lead fulfilling lives.
FIJANH acronymed “Fandom Is Just A Nice Hobby”, the folks who spend plenty of their leisure time doing things unrelated to the fan world. Some folks use coarser language than “Nice”, with different initials.
GAFIA is “Getting Away From It All” – leaving behind the drama, expenses, sleepless nights and other trials of the subculture for a quieter, more mundane life.
So where do you fall in this list? It’s a spectrum, not separate groups, but if you had to pick one banner or another, which one would it be?
Darkness and Light
Conflicting emotions fight for possession of my journal this morning.
This is, of course, the one-year anniversary of a fool at Virginia Tech deciding that since his life wasn’t working out right, random strangers should be made to suffer. NASA Langley will “share a time of reflection with the Virginia Tech community” today, according to our website. The friends, families, and fellow students involved will certainly be in my thoughts today.
On the other hand, last night the Discovery Channel ran the most hopeful, joyful television commercial I may ever have seen, reminding me that the world is grand, and complex, and beautiful, and that for every nihilistic Greyface out there, there’s someone trying to make our time here better and happier. I can’t believe I’m feeling the urge to thank a media conglomerate for their advertising.
Boom-dee-ah-da.
Smartocracy
It’s complicated, but much against my will, I didn’t get any sleep on Saturday night. I spent much of Sunday watching myself do things, and even today. my head (while clear) is certainly in a lower gear than usual. With luck I’ll be at my usual level of coherence by tomorrow.
This weekend Starr and I watched some television programs on high-technology of the ancient world, most of it lost forever because some dictator or another felt it didn’t fit in his grand scheme. We mused that those in power over the centuries have rarely been fond of the intelligentsia, sometimes going so far as active bloody purges.
We wondered, is the animosity due to perceived threat – worry that the next revolution will come from that sector – or an insecure need to prove that the dictator’s might is greater than the thinker’s knowledge? Or might other factors be involved?
The only nation Starr and I could think of in which an enduring government has been established by (part-time, at least) scholars and philosophers is the United States; even those folks didn’t get everything right, and some would debate how well those high-minded ideals have survived the centuries. What other societies of that stripe did we miss?
We Still Choose To Go
Taking a short break from reporting on weather and virtual worlds:
Tomorrow is Yuri’s Night, the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, and of the first space flight of the Shuttle. Forty-seven years ago, a Soviet cosmonaut took mankind’s first step toward the final frontier. Twenty-seven years ago, the American space program began our first experiment with reusable spacecraft. On April 12th we celebrate a milestone which will stand as long as we reach for the stars.
There are Yuri’s Night parties in Richmond, DC, and the Raleigh area, and more all over the world – even in Second Life! The Yuri’s Night website has plenty of information about the celebrations, including a chance to win a ride on G-Force One, a plane that performs weightless simulation flights.
Our space exploration efforts have faltered in recent years, but mankind hasn’t given up; whether it be aboard an Orion capsule, a Soyuz spacecraft, or a Rutan spaceplane, a steadily-increasing number of us will have the chance to see the world from above, and dip their toes in the vast sea of stars that awaits the human race.
EDIT: jameshroberts correctly points out that our robotic exploration efforts are remarkably successful; it’s just the manned side which has faltered somewhat.
