Assassin

My last lap at the pool is underwater -- a length and a half most times, sometimes longer, for a max of 2 lengths (that would be at most 150').

Yesterday I was at the pool at a new time with a new guard, who suddenly realized that (a) the pool was too quiet and (b) he couldn't see me any longer. He jumped up to go find me and was relieved to see me surface. As he explained to me, swimming that far underwater isn't all that common of a feat...

I've just seen a few back episodes (5 and 6) of the television show FlashForward, and I have to say that they've finally exceeded my ability to suspend disbelief.

Stop reading now if you're at least a month behind and don't want to read any spoilers.

I am willing to accept the basic premise of the show as long as they don't cloud try to hand-wave themselves into some region of science, but I find it impossible to believe that (a) the laws of probability have been suspended and (b) the simultaneous competence and incompetence of professional assassins.

As for the laws of probability, I disbelieve that one of the people who is responsible for the entire imbroglio just happens to be (potentially, in the future) romantically involved with the wife of the FBI agent who is tracking the persons responsible. The odds are, more or less, six billion to one against this happening.

And as for the assassination attempt against the team of FBI agents. Somehow the two teams are able to determine, with no prior intelligence, exactly when each set of targets will be vulnerable (miraculously, both sets are simultaneously vulnerable). The assassins on the West Coast fail to finish off their wounded target who has no gun in her hand until later in the action, fail to take the three center body mass shots at the target in the first place, or even remember to wear their body armor. The team on the East Coast crash their getaway car into their targets' car, thus potentially disabling their own getaway vehicle. After belatedly remembering they'd brought with an RPG, they fire the grenade into the targets' car, somehow managing to miss them all. In part because they have no body armor, the assassins are then finished off by the FBI agents without so much as wounding a single member of the FBI team. In other words, on the one hand the assault is a marvel of planning and advance intelligence (just finding their targets is a major problem); yet at the same time, these particular assassins prove to be poor shots, poor tacticians, and mostly dead.

As per isherempress's implicit request, here is a photo of me in my new top hat.



I'm wearing the vest and hand-tied string tie, of course; if you click through you can find another photo. I'll take the entire set out for an airing at music at Celtic Knot on Tuesday night.

I should mention that the time before last that I was there, Kate MacLeod showed up and I had the privilege of playing with her for a few hours. We really do have some remarkable musicians appearing there.

Cyberpunk is so 21st century. Steampunk is a bit better, but really stuck in the 19th. Behind the cut, photographic evidence of the new old punk:
( a bit large )Yes, folks, it's time for windpunk.

I'm on the World Wide Web Consortium's Voice Browser working group. This group includes text to speech markup, which inevitably includes the ideas of conveying emotion ("help" vs. "HELP!") or detecting emotion, which in turn engenders a discussion of how to standardize the semantics of emotion.

But the funny part that all email from that sub-group has the prefix "emo."

I've been invited to bring my guitar along on Thursday night (1 Oct) for the special session at the Celtic Knot... thinking about it...

I picked up By Heresies Distressed, by David Weber, at the library against my better judgment — I thought I'd see if he'd overcome the deficiencies I noted elsewhere. This was the triumph of hope over experience, as the book is a 500-odd pages long, never a good sign.

I was wrong. His character's soliloquies are so boring that other characters can't take it and interrupt them.

On mabfan's recommendation I've tried to read The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I've slogged through to page 290, three-quarters of the way through the book, and I've just given up.

I suspect the plot will begin any page now (and yes, I am in Book III, so in theory the plot has finally started) but I've lost patience. If anyone but mabfan had suggested this book I would have tossed it long ago.

Sure the author has a decent imagination, aside from his fascination with naked co-eds, but a series of loosely-connected incidents does not a plot make.

The entire summer, the Democrats and especially President Obama vilified insurance companies. President Obama made a point of accusing insurance companies of heartless, brutal tactics, giving specific (and misleading) examples of how insurance companies drop coverage.

President Obama's health care plan has arrived from Senator Baucas, and one of its main provisions is that everyone purchase health care. In other words, he's going to require everyone to send thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money, each and every year, to the those same evil insurance companies.

To quote fastfwd, "The difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense."

It's time to wish fastfwd an amazing and happy birthday.

(Except that, once again, I seem to be off by a day.)

I've never heard a president receive widespread audible opposition, much less heckled, from the floor of Congress during a speech. Then again, I never have heard one speak who deserved it more. Still, I am somewhat taken aback.

Then again, I guess you reap what you sow. He called his opposition liars and obstructionists, denounced them as greedy, and irresponsible, and had a slew of other insults handy. Obama's speech is clarion call for a bare-knuckle fight.

As for his program, it's an easy tally: huge tax increases, government control of care, and a "public option" that will (like other "public options" before it) eventually dominate the marketplace.

EDITED to add: The GOP will likely punish the heckler. News reports have ignored the widespread (and in my experience unprecedented) murmuring against the President's more egregious remarks.

I've never heard a president receive widespread audible opposition, much less heckled, from the floor of Congress during a speech. Then again, I never have heard one speak who deserved it more. Still, I am somewhat taken aback.

Then again, I guess you reap what you sow. He called his opposition liars and obstructionists, denounced them as greedy, and irresponsible, and had a slew of other insults handy. Obama's speech is clarion call for a bare-knuckle fight.

As for his program, it's an easy tally: huge tax increases, government control of care, and a "public option" that will (like other "public options" before it) eventually dominate the marketplace.

Now that Obama's speech is over, and the Dept of Education withdrew the educational materials that recruited students to help the President.

So, is it over? Or will the Democrats investigate Obama, the same way the Democrats investigated President Bush's speech to a classroom in 1991?

The Internet makes kids better writers — because unlike previous generations, they have an audience.

..plus c'est la même chose. After all the hype and delusional thinking, Obama turns out to be exactly what he appeared to be from day one: an inexperienced back-bencher with a worrisome streak of racism, meaness, a radical liberal agenda, and complete tone-deafness.

The health care campaign continues to falter, but unfortunately it's not completely dead yet. Obama is the campaign's worst advocate: Obama's comparison of his public "option" plan to the Post Office was apt and accurate but not his finest obfusticatory moment. He's villified the insurance companies; he's slandered doctors with provably false accusations; he's sent his minions out to pack meetings; and in a fit of rare honesty about his view of bipartisan dialog, told everyone that he just wants his opponents to "shut up."

And then came the brilliant campaign to turn in your neighbor for "fishy" opinions. Not that President Bush would ever have dreamed of anything that stupid, but if Bush had I'd be worried. Under Obama it's pretty clear that despite his aspirations to emulate banana-republic "presidents" such as Chavez, it's also clear that Obama is too inept.

Well, at least in the meantime. If Obama does manage to seize control of health care he'll have a potent weapon. His control over one-sixth of the US economy will command vast political patronage. Some health care companies are already falling over themselves to support Obama with pro-Obama advertising, and we can only expect the problem to get worse. I expect that Obama will find a way to suck health-care workers into "his" unions, which will provide still more political cash. And then of course comes the power to dispense, literally, life and death; expect to see that leverage applied to recalcitrant voters.

But in the meantime Obama's popularity continues to plummet. While a cause for celebration we can expect to see continued battles.

I went to see this movie yesterday, which isn't for everyone; in fact the theatre was mostly empty at the pre-afternoon show.

I think the writers and producers created an excellent adaptation of a fine novel. I had been particularly interested in seeing how they managed to deal with the fragmented, non-sequential narration of the novel — the description of which in How to Read a Novel sent me on a search for the The Time Traveler's Wife in the first place. Perhaps wisely, they did not even make the attempt, and delivered a the story, linearly for the most part, in the wife's timeline.

The ones under Fermilab... the anti-matter containment facility, in point of fact, as well as some other choice spots. Our guide, who shall remain nameless, took the time to show his friends where he works, for which I am quite grateful.

I have photos. Perhaps I can share.

Oh, and our sunset view over the prairie inspired me: I think the High Rise would make an excellent sundial gnomon... maybe a spire on top of the building to enhance the accuracy.

Well, not even half-baked.

You'd think that with 700-odd pages to choose from, the movie writers could have selected some interesting bits. Unfortunately that turns out not to be the case; in fact the movie writers (if I'm recalling the book correctly) went out of their way to invent scenes that were not in the original book.

The movie is curiously devoid of characters. Harry and his gang don't interact with the rest of the school; in fact we only see them scurrying about.

As for the major theme of the book (as much as it can be said to have a theme): society in general and Hogwarts in particular are under vicious, life-threatening attack. The culmination of this attack is a massive, noisy, and destructive intrusion into Hogwarts. In the movie, this is glossed over for the most part; we follow Harry and his gang as they muddle through a curiously condensed school year; the culminating attack is a stealthy, private affair.

All in all this does not bode well for the final movie.

Although I'm very sorry I missed the people I know who were at Montreal, after reading how well the convention hotel treated the guests I'm not as sorry that I missed the convention. And I'll remember to give that hotel a miss in the future as well.

Worldcon is in August? Well, there goes my vague plans to attend this year...