Issue 5:
Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By
Medulla Vesuvius
The total solar eclipse of March 29th has gotten me thinking about ideas of a more stellar nature than usual. I am by no means an astronomer or a scientist by even the most modest definition of the words. However, mere consideration of the world around us does not have to be left only to the professionals.
In particular, I’ve been thinking about “the movement of the spheres” and human perspective. When you consider the story of science through the ages, one of the biggest knock-down, drag-out fights revolved around the sun. (Yes, pun intended.) You probably remember the story from high school: old dude named Galileo posits the idea in the 17th century that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, and understandably, gets into some hot water with the Catholic church. I’m sure everybody knew by that time that the sun was pretty important to life here on earth, keeping us warm, giving us light for half of our days, causing plants to grow…but to suggest that the entire planet was subordinate to this other heavenly body, that our home was not the center of all heavenly concern…I can understand the church’s worries.
Here’s another thought that forces us to use a wider-angle lens. We call our neighbor that’s just 93 million miles up the street “the Sun,” giving it an individual identity. But “the Sun” is also a star. That’s an uncomfortable thought. There are a lot of stars out there. I would prefer the Sun to be special, unique.
In a recent review of the Star Trek episode “All Our Yesterdays,” Mr. Atoz, the Librarian mentioned a plot point where a planet is doomed for destruction by a neighboring star going into a supernova phase. And our sun, like the billions upon billions of other stars out there, also has an expiration date. According to the Astronomy Picture of the Day, (a site run by actual astronomers), the sun has another 5 billion years of life left in it before it will become a red giant and grow large enough to swallow Mercury and Venus and then eventually go supernova, basically exploding like the Death Star at the end of Star Wars.
All of this information gives me pause this week as I think about perspective. From one point of view, (i.e. my own), I can breathe a pretty big sigh of relief-five billion years is a long time. When this probable supernova of the Sun happens, I’ll have been gone about 4,999,999,925 years. I wonder if there will be any life left that far into the future. Scientifically-speaking, 5 billion years is a long time, for scientists estimate the age of the entire universe to only be 13.7 billion years, long enough for the possible development and destruction of life on our planet three or four times over.
That far into the future, even a cataclysmic event like an entire planet’s life destroyed by a neighboring supernova event is no big deal. It’s like saying a big “sucks to be you” to a theoretical group of people.
There’s a great scene in the Vietnam war movie Platoon, where Private Taylor, (played by Charlie Sheen), and Sgt. Elias, (Willem Dafoe), are laying out under the canopy of heaven, thinking aloud about morals and responsibility and the horrors of war and Elias says, “I love this place at night. The stars…there’s no right or wrong in them. They’re just there.”
But there’s a strand of thought where there is right or wrong in the stars. In the literary arts, there came a point when our written word sloughed off descriptions of nature as idyllic, pastoral settings and scenery to a new world view, where nature was a character against us-Jack London, Hemingway, even Melville’s Moby Dick. Increasingly more common became depictions of struggle–man vs. his natural environment, as if the earth didn’t want us here.
But nature’s fury is balanced by our seemingly unique situation here on good old planet earth. It is unarguable that things could be a lot less hospitable to humans. Just look at some of the other possible homes just in our own solar system: if we were somehow dropped right in the middle of one of the planets out past Saturn, we would freeze to death before choking in the poison atmosphere. Or travel the opposite direction, towards Mercury and Venus, where we would die from massive sunburn and, again, poison atmospheres. We’re kind of like a cosmic Goldilocks settled in where it’s “just right.”
And so, when natural phenomena like solar eclipses make news, I can’t help but try to put those events as well as the mass of humanity into perspective: is the dark universe around us friend, foe or indifferent?
What say you, dear reader?
Issue 5:
Escaping Life
By
Rascal Stallion
Today, I am Master Chief.I am a bullet blasting, grenade tossing, human saving, Covenant killing machine. I will massacre every stinking alien that threatens my species and I absolutely will not stop until every one of my enemies lies lifeless in a crumpled heap beneath my boots.
What is it?
What’s Halo? Oh, it’s only the greatest XBOX game ever. It’s only the game that didn’t just single-handedly keep Microsoft alive in the highly competitive home gaming market but also propelled the XBOX past the PS2 and Gamecube to the top of the mountain. It’s just the only game since Tetris to capture the imagination of avowed non-gamer (and nerd city contributor) Medulla Vesuvius. Needless to say, it was awarded “Game of the Year” by every relevant gaming entity upon release and they were right.
Set in a distant future where an overpopulated Earth has forced its residents to find homes on faraway planets, Halo chronicles the assault on humans by a tribe of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant is a collective of alien races that range from easily dispatched to crap your pants tough. Only one is man enough to stand against the Covenant and save the humans from annihilation. You are SPARTAN-II cyborg Master Chief and enough of all this talking; you’ve got some killing to do.
What sets it apart?
Halo is a first person shooter, which is a very saturated genre. I’m not sure what makes it so much better than every other FPS but I am certain that it is, indeed, superior. (You may now openly question my credentials for writing this game review.)
The plot is engaging, the weapons and vehicles are piquant and the hordes of enemies are just cool. Also, the Covenant employs a sophisticated AI that keeps the action from growing stale. Additionally, some battles (particularly those against the aptly named Flood) can be especially maddening as you must blast your way through seemingly endless waves of foes.
Halo’s crown jewel, however, is its multiplayer mode. Four players can fight with or against one another in a variety of games. Plus, you can join up to four XBOX consoles together to allow for a 16-person game. If you were captain of your school’s AV club you could set each team up with their own tv in a cinch. Oh, the joy is immeasurable when you sneak up behind your buddy and whack him on the head with your shotgun or tag him with a stick bomb (known in the manual as a plasma grenade) and just step back to watch him explode.
Now, with XBOX Live and a trusty internet connection, you can play against your friends (or strangers and sexual predators) from across the world while sitting by yourself in your mom’s basement.
Halo has been so popular on college campuses there is no doubt its’ existence lowered the male students GPA by at least 1 percentage point. Guys would stay up all night playing massive multiplayer games against one another while books and notes sat idly on the desk, knowing they just couldn’t compete with Halo’s mesmerizing battle action.
Will I ever want to play it again?
Does a bear poop in the woods? Haven’t you been paying attention at all? Even if you don’t want to repeat the entire storyline, the final level is worth playing over and over again and the multiplayer mode could keep a group satiated on a desert island for at least a year.
Final thoughts
In 2004 Bungie finally released the long awaited sequel, Halo 2…and I hated it. Now, maybe it’s all my fault. Perhaps the long wait between releases simply had me at such a high level of anticipation that no game could hope to achieve it. Perhaps my excitement placed unrealistic expectations on the game. Or maybe Halo was so good that Halo 2 just had no chance of competing.
Don’t get me wrong; some improvements were implemented. Halo 2 gave us new vehicles and maps. Not only were there new weapons available, but we now had the option of shooting two guns at once for ferocious effect. These things were all cool. In fact, I’d even concede that the multiplayer side of Halo 2 is superior to I.
The source of my disdain lies in the single player story mode. Everything starts off pretty standard until a few levels in, when suddenly the unthinkable happens. You stop playing as the master and begin playing as a member of the Covenant? WTF!?! Sure he’s a dissident Covenant Elite and battles against the other aliens but this is simply not acceptable.
Why do games do this? It’s like when the Syphon Filter (excellent game, by the way), sequel came out and on some of the levels you had to play as Lian Xing instead of Gabe Logan. What was that all about? Nobody wants that. It’s just the stupidest thing ever.
All I know in Halo is killing those Covenant bastards and now you want me to play as one? No way. Nuh uh. Whoever wrote that plot can have my copy of Halo 2 and stick it up their ass. They can keep it there, too, until I decide I want it back so I can play another multiplayer game.
Issue 5:
Life in Space
By
Mr. Atoz, The Librarian
Requiem for Methuseleh
Rating: “Indeed, Captain“
Synopsis:
Captain Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to a small planet looking for ryetalyn to make an antidote for Rigellian Fever, which plagues nearly the entire crew of the Enterprise. Down on the planet, they are attacked by a strange, floating robot known as M4. M4 is actually a type of “guard dog” of the planet’s owner, Flint. (According to Flint, M4 also works as a “butler.”) Flint is openly hostile and says he will kill the three where they stand if they do not leave, but later rescinds his threat and takes our heroes to his residence, where M4 gathers the rytetalyn they need for the antidote. At Flint’s place, they meet a strange young woman named Rayna, of whom Flint took guardian when Rayna’s parents were killed, as Flint explains. Rayna is highly intelligent yet extremely lonely. As fate would have it, Kirk falls for her. As this is happening, Flint begins to play a little game with Kirk’s affections, which seems to suggest a bit of jealousy.
As the two men’s jealousies escalate, Spock discovers several unrecorded pieces of music by Johannes Brahms and unrecorded paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci. Flint reveals that he is an immortal being and acquired enough wealth to create the perfect woman. Disgusted with humanity, he exiled himself to the small planet to live with this woman and used Kirk’s affections to draw out Rayna’s emotions for himself, something he could not manufacture. Flint, with intentions to kill Kirk and the crew, shrinks the Enterprise into a strange suspension, but is goaded to let the Enterprise go by Rayna when she learns the truth about herself.
Eventually, Kirk and Flint’s jealousies collide, and they end up physically fighting. During the fight, Rayna simply drops dead because her strong emotions for both men kill her. Flint, in his grief, releases the three with the ryetalyn and the Enterprise is saved, the only injury being Kirk’s emotions. Kirk, fatigued by his grief, sleeps fitfully while McCoy and Spock watch over him. McCoy tells Spock that he feels sorry for him more than Kirk because Spock will never know the emotional hurts that love for another can bring and the loneliness that one can feel. As McCoy leaves, Spock touches his captain’s mind and simply speaks the word, “Forget.”
This is one of the first episodes of
Star Trek I’ve ever seen. I think it’s a bit disjointed and would probably make a better movie or novel than it does a one-hour television episode. The episode’s strongest component is that it’s a bit of science fiction shaking hands with Shakespeare. It’s tragic, but the story’s intense tragedy and emotion doesn’t connect in the one hour provided for it. Even after several viewings I’m left puzzled, still trying to figure out what it is about Rayna that Kirk falls for. It just seems impossible that Kirk’s emotions could be so fragile. But Kirk’s emotionalism becomes a little more clear when you put it into the context of his being on a space odyssey, or a journey.One underappreciated element of Season Three of TOS is its portrayal of loneliness amongst the different crewmembers. “All Our Yesterdays” addresses Spock’s “potential” loneliness, “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” addresses McCoy’s, and “The Lights of Zetar” addresses Scotty’s, albeit with a very light hand. I think “Requeim” is the strongest episode dealing with the loneliness a crewmember feels. Kirk has found the perfect woman for him, both intellectually and physically. However, in a short span he discovers not only that she is not real, but also the creation and possession of another man. That’s pretty tough, especially when you are lonely and you are on a long journey that seems to have no end.A point has been made before that during Kirk’s fight with Flint, he tells McCoy to stay out of it and that it’s over a woman. To many, that would seem discomforting to know that the captain would put his emotions above the good of the crew. But I say that’s the strong point of the episode. Captain Kirk is not himself.I indicated before that I think the episode is clearly rushed. Much more could be made of exactly what or who Flint was. He is without question one of the most fascinating foes the Enterprise encountered on its five-year mission. Could Leonardo Da Vinci, Moses, Johannes Brahms, and just for the sake of modern referential conjecture, Vincent Van Gogh, Bob Dylan, or Martin Luther, have all been the same immortal being? What would make this being immortal? Flint, no doubt, is a mysterious character, and one worthy of closer study, or a spin-off. I didn’t take the time to verify this, but I have heard that there are some Trek novelizations where Flint makes subsequent appearances.My favorite moment, as you probably have guessed, is the last scene. Spock once again shows his un-Vulcanlike compassion for his captain and friend by releasing his memory of Rayna. I also love McCoy’s monologue at this point. As much as love hurts, it is always better than the alternative- being incapable of love. I’m usually more sympathetic to Spock, but in this episode, I’m more sympathetic (and more appropriately, empathetic), to Kirk. In fact, I probably am more empathetic to Kirk in this episode than I am at any other time. When loneliness and emotional ideals meet, the result can be an excruciating heartache, especially when what we’re looking for is not found at the crossroads of loneliness and perfection.
Issue 5:
Spotlight on Technology
By
Dr. Roger Korby
In an age when we enjoy such conveniences as sliced peanut butter, drive-thru liquor stores, and one-stop shopping, (need eggs, a rifle and new tires? Stop by your local Wal-mart!); should we really be expected to settle for manually operated VCRs to record TV on analog tape? In this week’s Spotlight on Technology, we talk about a great alternative to VCRs.
Ding Dong!
Wife: “Honey, the 21st century is at the door and he says he’s got some cool new technology he’d like to show us!”
Husband: “Yes, what is it?”
21st Century: “This here is a Digital Video Recorder. You plug your cable or satellite into it and it records television easily and conveniently.”
Little Bobby: “Oh boy, Dad! Can we get one? Please?”
Wife: “I’d never have to miss one of my stories if we had one of those.”
Husband: “Well, OK. We’ll take seven!”
What is a Digital Video Recorder?
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) are like glorified VCRs. The primary function of both is to record and play back video, but DVRs record shows as digital files on a hard drive instead of on videotape. Scheduling recordings on a DVR is a much simpler process than it is on VCRs. DVRs have detailed program guides that let you see what is coming on later and let you schedule recordings. They also have advanced features like letting you record all new episodes of a certain show or all shows featuring a certain actor with one click.
Recording high quality digital video eats up hard drive space like the Sarlacc chomping down on Jabba’s guards. I have my DVR set to a “good” quality and it uses about 2 gigs per hour. Videos recorded at this setting are very watchable and use less space than the “great” setting, which uses around 3 gigs per hour. Depending on the DVR you get, you can record anywhere from ten to over a hundred hours worth of video.
Besides the hard drive, pretty much the only other components in a DVR are a TV tuner and a processor of some sort (to move the video from the tuner onto the hard drive). Some DVRs have more than one tuner, allowing you to record more than one show at a time.
Do I really need one?
You might be saying to yourself, “But I don’t watch that much TV.” I didn’t either before getting a DVR. But now that recording is so easy, I just record anything that looks remotely interesting and have ended up with some new favorite shows that I would not have given a try in the past, (like Numb3rs, Miami Ink, This Old House, and America’s Test Kitchen).
What kinds of DVRs are out there?
There are basically two kinds of DVRs. Commercial standalone devices and DVRs you piece together using standard computer parts and special recording software. I have only used the second kind of DVR.
Stand-alone DVRs
Stand alone DVRs, such as TiVo and Cox’s or Dish Networks’ DVRs, are DVD player sized devices that sit between your cable/satellite connection and your TV. They are designed from the ground up to do one thing - record television, and they do a really good job of it. You usually have to rent the hardware (or sign a contract) and pay a monthly fee for the service. I’ve checked into Cox’s offer and it was going to cost around $15 for the service and a DVR receiver that can hold 50 hours of video. Tivo costs around $17 a month and you have to sign a three-year contract, which bites. TiVo’s device will hold 80 hours of video, which is nice, but I hate contracts and three years is pretty ridiculous.
Do-it-yourself DVRs
If you have a decent computer (at least 512 megs of RAM, 1ghz CPU, and 100 gigs of available hard drive space), you can save some money by building your own DVR. A DIY DVR is simply a normal computer that has a TV tuner and recording software installed. There are a lot of different DVR software titles to choose from and if they cost anything, usually the charges are one time- there is no monthly service fee. I currently use SageTV and have been really pleased with it. You can get a bundle from SageTV with their software, a good TV tuner card and a remote for around $150. Another piece of software I’ve used is BeyondTV, but at the time I was using it, there were some shortcomings. For instance, you had to be logged in and running BeyondTV for shows to record. In SageTV the recording process runs as a Windows service, so it will record stuff even if you are not logged in. I haven’t tried the newer versions of BeyondTV, so there’s a chance they’ve fixed this. Microsoft’s Media Center Edition of their Windows XP operation system, (which you can basically get only if you buy a new PC), also records television. I haven’t used this before but I’m not a big fan of it, which I’ll explain below. There is some free DVR software for Linux called MythTV which is supposed to be great, but I don’t know much about it.
One of the biggest benefits of building your own DVR is that your shows will be recorded in open formats, as opposed to the proprietary DRMed formats that all the standalone and Microsoft Media Center DVRs use. (For more on DRM, or Digital Rights Management, see last issue’s article.) SageTV uses MPEG2, which can be converted into pretty much anything. Since the files are not DRMed you can play them on other computers and burn them to DVD without any trouble. Doing this on a standalone DVR, however, is either impossible (on older TiVo’s and on Cox’s DVR) or expensive. TiVo will sell you a DVD burning DVR for around $500, or you can use TiVo ToGo to transfer shows to Windows computers in your house and then use another $50 program to burn them to DVD.
DVRs of all kinds usually have some sort of “intelligent recording” feature that analyzes what you record and records other shows that it thinks you will find interesting. I tried SageTV’s intelligent recording and eventually just turned it off. It can take a while for the device to learn what kinds of shows you like, and I gave SageTV a few weeks but it just never really recorded anything I wanted to watch. The last straw was the day I came home from work and it had recorded an entire afternoon of retarded Nickelodeon cartoons because I had taped an episode of South Park the night before. (There’s a really funny scene in an old King of Queens episode where Spence’s TiVo is convinced that he is gay.)
Buy or Build?
So, should you buy one or build one? If you have a good enough computer, can scrounge up about $150, and are comfortable with installing hardware in your computer, (or have a friend who will do this for you), then I recommend building your own DVR. In the long run it will save you money (at the end of your three-year contract, TiVo would have cost you over $500) and you gain some freedoms that you don’t get with the standalone devices.
If you don’t have a computer suitable for DVR use, I would recommend buying or renting a standalone DVR. If you don’t mind the three-year contract, TiVo does have some appealing attributes chief of which is the fact that the TiVo is all the TiVo company does, so you know they’ll keep innovating and introducing new features (if they don’t go out of business.) Cox and Dish Network are busy with other things besides supporting their DVRs, so I imagine their feature sets will take longer to advance. One nice thing about Cox or Dish Network, though, is that you can get a DVR and receiver in one unit which saves some space in your entertainment center.
So there you have it. Get your ass off that couch, get a DVR and plop that ass back down on that couch to watch some conveniently recorded television.
Issue 5:
Sydney Brown's Sixty Seconds
By
Sydney Brown
Well, it’s that time again. Welcome to the 2nd edition of Sydney Brown’s Sixty Seconds. I have nothing else to add. It’s just rude to not at least say hello. Well, maybe rude is a bit harsh…..impolite. It would be impolite. Here’s what I’ve been watching. And you should be too:
Jack Paar: As I Was Saying…… (1997) ****
Stunning documentary covering the TV career of one-time Tonight Show host Jack Paar, a brilliant yet egotistical man who never backed down from anything, and as such made his show a must-see affair. Tons of clips chronicling his career (including his infamous 1960 live quitting of the Tonight Show) demonstrates just what television could bring us, SHOULD bring us, and most likely will never bring us again.
Permanent Midnight (1998) Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Hurley ***
Harrowing fact-based tale of Jerry Stahl, a TV writer (most notably of ALF) who threw away his career, marriage, and family due to his addiction to heroin. Good film surrounded by great little scenes and shocking moments (the babysitting scene is especially uncomfortable.) Janeane Garofalo and Fred Willard have great cameos.
Strange Brew (1983) Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas ***
Cult film about the Canadian born McKenzie Brothers (a hit sketch from SCTV) and their travels to a beer company. Script has the balls to rip off Hamlet, and almost pulls it off. Script is ridiculous, unbelieveable, and quite stupid (much of the film has a “let’s just throw SOMETHING out there” feel.) But when Moranis and Thomas just riff off each other, there are moments of absolute brilliance. First ten minutes and last five are easily the best.
A History of Violence (2005) Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris ***½
Mortensen plays a small town diner owner who foils a robbery (a little too well) and suddenly finds himself the focus of a mob boss who may know a lot about his past. Great character study that questions what matters more: who a person was or who a person is. Very violent and some of the plot is a little too “actiony” but the acting is terrific. Infamous for earning William Hurt an Oscar nomination despite only appearing in one scene.
The Squid and the Whale (2005) Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney ****
Quite possibly the best film of 2005, director Noah Baumbach’s semi-autobiographical tale of his parents’ divorce and its effect on him and his younger brother. Daniels is the “too smart for everyone” father and Linney is the “free spirit” mother though it is MUCH more complicated than that. Sharp and crackling dialogue mixed with an almost realistic feel makes this an absolute MUST-SEE.
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