Forbidden Planet

Must it? My work, such as it is, consists of sitting alone at a typewriter and tapping fitfully at its keys. It has occurred to me that the only distinction between what I do and what a stenographer does lies in my having to invent what I type. - Laurence Block, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit

I recently read the short story "First Contact" by Murray Leinster. It is about the first contact between a human spaceship exploring the Crab Nebula and an alien spaceship doing the same. You might expect a cautious story about miscommunication and cultural faux pas. However, there was no ambiguity about the mindset, or concern about misunderstanding - the tone was pure distrust and paranoia. The essential argument was that while it would be great to establish trade and communication with the other race, they could not be trusted. Neither spaceship was willing to let the other leave in case it should follow it home or learn of its origin - since the next logical step would be for the other to launch a military campaign. The premise is that you could not have two equals negotiating. One has to be dominant, the other subservient. And since no race would willingly besubservient, it was necessary to make it subservient through force. The story revolved around both ships pointed

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When I was younger, the issue of free-will was easy for me to answer: of course we have it, and we are 100% responsible for each and every action and immediate consequence thereof. Of late, I took to wondering if we really do have free will because people tend to behave predictably (if irrationally). Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my explanation of "popular culture" and trends was that people's judgement was clouded by drug use (how else would you explain people liking Elton John or Genesis?). The 80s in my mind was the aftershock of the 70s. By the 90s I started to wonder what was wrong with people, after all, 20-30 years should have been plenty of time for people to shake themselves from their torpor. In the 00s, I began thinking that maybe popular "culture" actually was popular and people actually enjoyed it. Then I started thinking maybe there is something different about me, about the way I process and react to the world around me. Culminating with my thoug

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force -- the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism... "Thus I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. "During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded wi

I should like to buttonhole one of the oldsters and say to him: "I see that you have reached the highest life expectancy and are now close to a century or more; please give us an itemized account of your years. Calculate how much of that span was subtracted by a creditor, a mistress, a patron, a client, quarreling with your wife, punishing your slaves, gadding about the city on social duties. Add to the subtrahend self-caused diseases and the time left an idle blank. You will see that you possess fewer years than the calendar shows. Search your memory: how seldom you have had a consistent plan, how few days worked out as you intended, how seldom you have enjoyed full use of yourself, how seldom your face was unflurried, what accomplishments you have to show for so long a life, how much of your life has been pilfered by others without your being aware of it, how much of it you have lost, how much was dispensed on groundless regret, foolish gladness, greedy desire, polite society --

Our Sympatico connection in Montreal is not working. It has been flaky for a while and now it is mostly not working. The problem is a connection one, not software or setup. Unfortunately, getting that through tot he first line of tech support is very, very hard to do. They assume it is a software problem and ask you to uninstall an reinstall various bits of software. Unfortunately, as Sofia found out last night, this left the computer even less functional. There solution, contact Microsoft to fix the OS setup and then call them back. Bah! How do I know it is a connection problem and not a software problem? Simple, my laptop has problems connecting in Montreal, but when I connect to a Sympatico service in Ottawa, it has absolutely no problem. Aside form that, the DSL lamp on the modem keeps going out. The past weekend was absolutely brutal, we hardly had any service at all. It will have to wait until I am back in Montreal Thursday night for me to start addressing it. sigh. I have to con

Received a letter from a natural gas supplier encouraging me to sign a contract to lock in to a guaranteed price for natural gas for the next 5 years. It is filled with the usual scare propaganda such as natural gas prices have risen 103% over the past 5 years and are expected to continue to increase . Their lock-in price is a little more than 20% above what I currently pay at market cost . I have had my home in Ottawa for 9 years and in that time my home heating bill has gone up only 20% as I continue to pay market cost for natural gas. Why did my heating bill go up only 20% over 9 years when natural gas prices have risen 103% over the past 5 years? Simple. A lot more goes into my heating bill than just the cost of natural gas, there is delivery (despite being piped into my home, I still get charged delivery), infrastructure costs, taxes and one or two other things. The natural gas component of my heating bill is not bulk of the bill. Even so, why don't I lock in? Because the co

This is the first book (chronologically, though the sixth to be written) in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the kids over Christmas and they enjoyed (despite my finding some annoyances with it). I wasn't sure if I wanted to read more from the series, but not finding any good books to read, I decided to gamble and borrow The Magician's Nephew from the library. It is a much better book than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . A lot more happens in it and the kids enjoyed it more. Tania even remarked that this book was more interesting because there was more stuff happening. Even I enjoyed it. The story of the creation of Narnia wonderfully parallels the Genesis account of Creation, but in a manner that is novel and fresh; there was clearly a lot of thought given to it. While Aslan's sacrifice in the second book paralleled Christ's crucifixion (with Edmund standing in for fallen humanity), it was not a

Your Brain is Purple Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself. What Color Is Your Brain?

Last Friday I registered Tania for a day camp at the Ecomuseum . I also took Jason there, but he was too young for the camp, so we just enjoyed a nice walk outside with the animals. Photo credits: Richard of Forbidden Planet

Seeing as it is still officially winter, why not post a few more winter pictures from Canada? All shots are taken in either Montreal, Ottawa, or somewhere in between. Photo credit: Richard of Forbidden Planet

Being a daring, living life on the wedge sort of guy, I recently counted the number of wedges in mandarin oranges. Total # Wedges 11 10 6 9 2 8 1 11 I was inspired because I had once heard (many years ago) on a science show that every ear of corn has an even number of rows. I have never actually confirmed that. But I decided it would interesting to see if any regular pattern appeared in Mandarin oranges: always the same number of wedges or always even or odd numbers of wedges. It seems to be a 2:1 preference for even numbers of wedges. Image nabbed from here .

A while back I posted a piece of SPAM e-mail I received. It is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is responsible for the majority of search hits on my blog (about 60% at the moment, just after New Year it was running around 90%). But it would be nice if other topics were drawing people to my blog instead. I've had two comments on the post. One was an anti-curse comment aimed at exorcising Anthony de Croud in the name of Christ. I have deleted that one, since I think it was left by a robot that scours the web looking for references to this letter and then posting the anti-curse. The second is this one came yesterday evening from an IP address in Guatemala: LUCK is nothing more than adequate timing in a particular situation, I have received this letter from a loved one and it hurts to see that this wish of luck hides such thoughts of anguish relating to health and well being,if one wishes LUCK one does not threaten someone to do something he does not wish, I have alway

The Ottawa library is changin their URL from library.ottawa.on.ca to biblioottawalibrary.ca and I don't like it. Mind you, I mostly use their portal located at lirico.ca any how, so it is not a big deal. I suppose if I was like most people, I would just bookmark pages, but I don't. I insist on typing in each and every URL I visit. Just as I insist on typing in each and every username and password I have. For a software developer, I can be a terrible Luddite at times.

In Canada, in the Winter, from time to time, it snows. Like today. It is more of a snowstorm, actually. The morning began with strong winds and frozen ice pellets looking very much like styrofoam beads (the sort you might find in Floam or a stuffed toy). There are still strong winds and the ice pellets have changed to snowflakes - briskly driven snow flakes. Looking out the window I can faintly see the outlines of the pine trees across the parking lot in the blowing whiteness. It is the sort of image one imagines when thinking about the barren, windswept expanses of Antarctica. It is the sort of day that makes you want to go out and brave the elements. The video is not mine, I grabbed it off YouTube. It is claimed to be Oswego, New York during a snowstorm 05-Feb-2007. [Updated @ 13:31, just recieved an e-mail saying that because of the poor weather, they are shutting the office down early today. Which is good for me, since I get to leave for Montreal earlier. It should be an interestin

... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language