Issue 6: Escaping Life
By Rascal Stallion

Mafia vs Ninja

“My friend, what are you doing?”

“You really want to know? I’m going to kill you, you bastard!”

How about that for opening dialogue? Sure, the title of this movie alone should be enough to cement it as a good idea, but with opening dialogue like that, any trepidation you may have should be laid to rest. Mafia vs Ninja? Are you kidding me? Has there ever been a pairing of two more fertile subjects to arouse the interest of guys across the planet? This is right up there with chocolate and peanut butter.

I’m telling you, this movie almost has it all: great dialogue, wonderfully rich characters, and the amazing ability to combine the wild action expected of a ninja movie with the labyrinthine plot of a gangster film. If the director could have thrown in some gratuitous nudity and some explosions or beast battles, we could be talking about the greatest movie ever made. As it is, however, it’s only the greatest kung fu movie ever.

I know. I know. It seems like heresy to say this is a better kung-fu movie than anything offered up by Chuck, Bruce, Sonny or Don. Don’t get me wrong those guys kicked lots of ass and made some excellent films. They just lack the beautiful magic found in Mafia vs Ninja.

The record should also indicate that the opening sequence of Ninja III: The Domination is head and shoulders better than any other kung-fu movie even dares to be. That digression is probably worth its own article, though, so I’ll try to get back on topic.

Mafia vs Ninja follows the adventures of Jack Do and Charlie Wu in Shanghai. They get involved in a war between Chinese and Japanese crime syndicates that can only be resolved with lots of punching and kicking.

The villains are out of sight. In addition to the traditional Japanese mob bosses, you’ve got a great assortment of ringers they throw into the battle. When these guys are introduced, you know that Jack is in some serious trouble.
First we meet Nemo. He is an Italian dude who is a knife specialist. He slaughters a bunch of apples to prove his skills. You will know Nemo by his resemblance to Rolling Stone Ron Wood and his propensity to draw royal flushes.

Fuji is the sumo looking guy with the samurai sword. You will recognize him by his Hitler ‘stache.

I never caught his name, but there is also an unnamed ninja in black who leads a whole team of assassin lackeys into battle. These lackeys seem to be ordinary fodder until their big battle when their true power is revealed. They possess the ability to turn into clumps of grass that quickly scoot across the battlefield and can only be stopped with the aid of a broom.

Lastly, Mr. Jones has no gimmick but what he lacks in that respect, he more than makes up for with sheer fighting ability. He is the token American black guy. You will know him by his being the only black dude in the film.

This movie has something for the ladies, too. Jack saves a girl’s life and they begin to fall in love. This plot thread is surely enough to keep the interest of any girls you can trick into watching with you. But don’t dismiss their relationship too quickly, fellas, there may be more to this girl than meets the eye. She may be hiding a surprising secret or two.

Another thing this movie has going for it is the stellar editing work by Poon Hung. And if you think I included that just to have a reason to put that name in this article then you’re crazy.

This is a movie with a social conscience, too. It takes a hard line stance on the dangers of drugs and uses copious amounts of violence to punish those who decide to deal them. It’s not difficult to read between the lines of the message when the equation is Jack + drug dealers = pain.

Racial issues are also tackled when Jack and Charlie try to enter a “whites only” club. The manager taunts them by explaining that neither Chinese nor dogs are allowed in his club and insinuates that they are both. The equation here is Jack + racist = pain.

If you are looking for good karate action and an unbelievable level of unintentional comedy you absolutely cannot go wrong with Mafia vs Ninja. Believe it!

Issue 6: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Galdrysyll Soeval

Bird Watching

Most people in our society prefer domesticated animals. It might be a dog or cat. Often it is even a fish or a group of fish. In some cases, it is a gerbil or hamster; this usually being the case for kids. In fact, when I was a kid I had a hamster. His name was Fuji and he used to run on his wheel all night. But I digress.

As of late, I have preferred watching animals in their natural habitat rather than watching domesticated animals. In particular, I enjoy participating in one of America’s favorite pastimes: bird watching. I would highly recommend bird watching to anybody, whether young or old, male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free.

I began bird watching about two years ago when I lived in Atlanta. The studio that I rented backed up against a heavily wooded area. One of the walls of the studio contained a large window that faced the woods. As one would expect, I saw a large variety of animals, including multiple species of birds. In order to attract and observe the birds I put food on the ground, on my window ledge, and in my bird feeder.

It was most unique observing birds in this context because it was much different than a domestic feeder in at least two ways. First was in the diversity of birds that I observed. I think that it would be accurate to say that I identified between 30 to 40 different species of birds. These included, among others: common grackles, blue jays, robins, cardinals, mourning doves, brown-headed cow birds, red-headed woodpeckers, indigo buntings, song sparrows, house sparrows, eastern towhees, brown thrashers, wood thrushes, white-breasted nuthatches, and tufted titmice, just to name a few. Most domestic feeders attract less than ten different kinds of birds and some even fewer than that, maybe two or three. Another way in which my feeder differed from most domestic feeders was that I occasionally observed nature take its course. By that I mean I saw predatory creatures, most often hawks, kill and eat smaller birds. I imagine this never happens at domestic feeders.

After watching birds in this context for a long time I developed a soft spot in my heart for the mourning dove. I am not sure why I favored this bird. Maybe it was because I felt that this bird expressed the most personality of all the birds. These birds, in fact, would most often land on my window’s ledge. They would eat and drink, scuffle, flirt, take baths in the bowls of water that I had set out, and do many other fascinating things. I could literally sit and watch them for hours.

Because of my developed passion for mourning doves I became interested in learning some important facts about them:

• mourning doves feed their young milk that is much more nutritious, with a higher protein content, than either cow or human milk
• mourning doves are the most abundant bird in the United States
• adult mourning doves are 10.5 inches in length
• mourning doves are the most widely hunted and harvested game bird
• mourning doves make a sound that is best represented by the words “cooah, cooah, coo, coo.” (It’s a very low sounding moan, hopefully you get the picture.)
• mourning doves can produce up to six broods per year
• mourning doves are monogamous creatures
• mourning doves are one of the only birds that can drink water without cocking back their head

These are just a few of probably more than one hundred fun facts about these fascinating creatures.
Since I have moved from Atlanta to Oklahoma City, bird watching has remained fundamental to my way life. In fact, one of the first things that I did when I moved in was set up a bird feeder to attract birds immediately. I don’t get the diversity of birds that I observed in Atlanta due to my location, (I now live in a residential context instead of having an apartment that backs up to a heavily wooded area.) But I am still watching birds religiously and I am in the process of adjusting to observing them in this new context.

The Rescue
The other day I observed a mourning dove in the street right outside of my duplex. I saw a car drive real close to it and it didn’t fly away. So naturally I thought the bird was injured. So I went into the street, picked up the bird, and put it in a box. I put food and water in the box and placed the box in my basement to see if I could nurse it back to health.

The bird remained in my basement for a couple of days when I started to do some more involved research about the mourning dove. This was all in an effort to see if I could better prepare myself to take care of the bird. After browsing through some photographs of the bird I came to realize that what I had rescued from the street was a baby bird. The bird lacked the spots that an adult mourning dove has and it was smaller than an adult mourning dove.

With this revelation I realized that this bird may not be injured at all, but rather may just not know how to fly yet. So what I did was give the bird flying lessons. The flying lessons started with dropping the bird from just a few feet off the ground and watching it flutter back to earth. (It was during this process that I named the bird Maddy.) After a couple of days of this I didn’t think that we were making too much progress. So Ryan, my next door neighbor, came up with the idea that I should toss Maddy higher in the air, which worked out beautifully. After a couple of lessons using this methodology, Maddy was flying a long ways.

The third flying lesson, Maddy flew away.

I spent the next few days missing Maddy and wondering if she/he had survived. One afternoon when the pain of Maddy’s being gone was particularly significant, Ryan knocked on my door in haste and said “guess who is in the basement. The bird came back.” I ran down to the basement to find Maddy perched on the washing machine. It was so comforting to know that Maddy had survived and that she/he had come back to see me. I picked up Maddy and loved on her/him some. I then tossed Maddy in the air and Maddy once again flew away. Now I leave food outside my basement so Maddy can come back and see me and always have something to eat.

I believe that this story of bird rescue is significant. It was a time in which I moved past strict observance of birds to being actively involved in a bird’s life. I was able to share my life as Maddy was able to share her/his life with me.

I would recommend to those of you interested in bird watching to start just by observing. Through observing you can begin to learn the names of all the birds and observe all of their habits. Over time, you might have a strong enough bond with the birds that you can become an active participant in their lives, like I did.

Issue 6: Escaping Life
By Medulla Vesuvius

My Forbidden Love

I’ve got a confession to make.

I am in love with R2D2.

Alas, mine is a forbidden love, twice over. For one thing, he is a droid. And I am a man of fleshy stuff-skin and bones. If that wasn’t enough, R2 is also a dude, like myself. I realized it when C-3PO referred to his companion as “he” when talking to Luke-“Oh, he excels at that.” I also put two and two together when R2 whipped it out to access the mainframe of the Death Star to shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level.

I wonder which is the greater no-no: love for “fellow man,” or love for droid. In the hi-tech times to come, I wonder if the taboo of a homosexual relationship will be a thing of the past and the real threat will be relations of flesh to metal.

One thing is for sure. R2 surely has it going on. There’s no situation for which he is not prepared. Did you see how he flew with rocket boosters in the apocryphal trilogy? Or how he was able to slice through the Ewok’s rope net at a moment’s notice? And where would Luke be without R2 in the back of the X-wing fighter? I’ll tell you where: lost in space with a damaged power coupling, that’s where. Being with that spunky little robot would inspire such a feeling of security to well up in my heart that I scarce could keep it in.

And there’s something about his bobbling way of walking and cute little egg-headed, milk-carton shape that reaches out to me and says, “Welcome home, friend.” I’m not ashamed to say that many is the time I have dreamed of running a damp cloth over his dusty metal frame, intoning “Well done, my faithful little servant.” And then there’s his mellifluous voice, which is like so many exotic birds singing in my brain.

Like I said- mine is a forbidden love, an impossibility. For not only are R2 and I separated as man and machine, but also as man and fictional character. He doesn’t even really exist. But if I could somehow escape this present reality, if I too were a figment of George Lucas’s imagination, there could be no restraining bolt strong enough to keep me from R2D2.

Issue 6: Spotlight on Technology
By Dr. Roger Korby

Robots and Us

Robots – Huh! Good God, y’all! – What are they good for?

Absolutely EVERYTHING!

There will soon be a day when robots will do all sorts of things that we human beings are tired of doing. Will we actually be more productive with our new-found free time? Will the robots grow tired of their drudgery and rebel a la The Matrix? Will robots have a funny dance called “The Human” that is mostly performed by lame robots not programmed with hipper dance algorithms? In this edition of “Spotlight on Technology” I delve into the world of robots and share some of my thoughts on our silicon-based friends.

Will you, for one, welcome our new robot overlords?
Some people will be reluctant to invite robots into their homes and lives. Movies such as The Matrix and I, Robot have fed fears of robots turning on their creators. I can’t say exactly why, but I don’t think we will be having robot masters any time soon. As a species, we’ve done plenty of stupid things, but I don’t think we’ll make the mistake of allowing fully autonomous robots to make decisions that will affect millions of humans any time in the near future.

So how do I think our future lives will be affected by robots? I see the convergence of our two kinds happening slowly. We’ll start by letting them do day-to-day household tasks. This is already the case with the Roomba and various robot animals that keep senior citizens company in Asian countries. We’ll soon have PDA-like devices that translate all languages for us. We’ll probably see robot waiters, construction workers, and drivers within the next 50 years. Eventually it would be sweet to have artificial intelligence programs that could hold believable conversations with humans. These programs could be loaded into robots of all shapes and sizes. At that point, it would seem that the convergence of humans and robots would be more or less complete.

Would this actually help humanity? Will we see vast advances in human art and recreation once we no longer have to burden ourselves with the more tedious and mundane aspects of survival? I don’t really think so. Technology has been automating our lives for decades (i.e. washing machines, computer programs, etc.), and we haven’t had trouble replacing the tasks these machines automated with other tedious tasks, (such as fixing these machines.)

An android, a slot machine, and an ATM walk into a bar…
I don’t actually know the rest of this joke. Feel free to leave any versions you may know in the comments below. I was mostly just looking for a way to introduce this section about my favorite robot memories. I’ve got several of them. One of the prominent memories is of the show Battlebots. While they probably were not technically “robots” because they were remote-controlled, the machine-vs-machine fisticuffs featured on this show were a lot of fun. One semester at college a bunch of guys started getting together to watch this show. Eventually we had about 15 people crowded around the television. One moment that sticks out involved a quick 4-wheeled robot equipped with a giant pick that would slam down on its competitors, (I think it was built by the Asian guy on Myth Busters.) At the climax of one episode this machine had cornered another robot and a tense buzz grew in our living room as it slowly raised its piercing, death pick-axe. Finally, with one quick, devastating blow it slammed down, destroying the other robot in a flash of sparks. The room exploded in a flurry of cheers and high fives. (This may actually be in my top 5 moments of college. It was that special.)

I also have some fond memories of robots from various Star Treks. There were plenty of good episodes featuring Data from The Next Generation and the “doctor” from Voyager, (technically a hologram, but I think it’s close enough.) Though she wasn’t really a robot, I liked the way cyborg Seven of Nine’s character evolved as she learned to be human again. I should probably state here that I have only ever seen a few episodes of Star Trek:The Original Series. (But I am going to rectify this as soon as possible.) I have not even seen the episode from which I took my name, Dr. Roger Korby. This is especially unfortunate for this issue of Nerd City, because Korby built robots, (spoiler alert: and actually was a robot himself.)

I am a big fan of the HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have always found myself feeling sorry for him in an eerie way as he clumsily groped with the task of keeping a secret from his human companions and then tried to cover his tracks and explain himself when he messed up.

Probably the truest and coolest robots I’ve seen were in last year’s Grand Challenge. This is a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), sponsored race over 130 miles of desert and mountains where the competitors are fully autonomous vehicles. The winner was a modified Volkswagen Toureg that used video cameras, lasers and video-analyzing software to navigate, averaging a not-too-shabby 19 mph over the course. (It probably would have gone even faster if not for the 25 mph limit placed by DARPA.) NOVA did a special on this event and I highly recommend watching it if you can find it.

Just this morning I ran across this robot chair. It is this sort of outside-the-box thinking that opens doors for further discovery and offers glimmers of hope for peaceful and healthy human/robot relationships.

The Three Recommendations of Robotics
You may be familiar with the Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics: (A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.)

Not as well known, but equally important, are the Three Recommendations of Robotics, (by the way, these are real. You can’t make this kind of stuff up.)

1. Do not let robots design and build other robots without human involvement. (This is basically how all the bad stuff in robot movies begins).
2. In the near (or far) future, if you come across two robots fighting, don’t even think about trying to break it up. For one thing, they are rational beings, so the fight is most likely reasonable and justifiable. And two: they are big metal robots and you’ll probably lose an eye or limb in the process. I realize, of course, that this would break Asimov’s First Law of Robotics. This inconsistency, however, is explained by the third recommendation of robotics.
3. Do not ever bother a robot when it is recharging its batteries. This is a very private experience for a robot and it expects that all other humans and robots will respect this. It will attack anyone that interrupts it, regardless of any arbitrary “laws” that may be embedded in its programming.

I Process, therefore I Am
A question I’ve always found interesting is whether robots will ever be self-aware. I don’t really know what I think about this. To start answering this question I think we first need to know a lot more about how we humans became self-aware. Was there something supernatural involved (read: a soul) or are we just complex meat computers? If it’s the first, then robots have little chance of ever being truly self-aware. If the second is true, then self-aware robots should at least be technically possible. However, how we would actually know they were self-aware is another issue. In philosophy there is a discussion called the problem of other minds that tries to tackle how we as humans know that other people have minds. Philosophers over the years have offered several explanations for other minds and you would think this discussion would shed some light on whether robots could have minds as well. From what I’ve read, though, philosophers seem to be saying minds are human-only properties and robots will never have them, which does not help us much.

I kind of want to believe that robots could eventually have minds, so I suppose that some day when/if a robot tells me that they have a mind I would be more inclined to believe them. I am sure, however, there will be a next generation of Luddites that will not only reject this notion of self-aware robots, but will also fight the advance of robot technology in general. I am optimistic about our futures together, robots and us. And I believe, as has been portrayed often in movies and television, that there will be many valuable lessons we can learn from each other.