| iPad Thoughts |
[28 Jan 2010|10:48am] |
I start with this link to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shaterri's LJ, where the questions about the iPad he raises show what I'm perceiving as its great strength and weakness. Note, I've never seen one, or held one, so this is the usual distant-armchair speculation.
The iPad strikes me as a huge step forward AS A GAMING PLATFORM and as an E-BOOK READER, as well as a (relatively) passive WEB BROWSER. Basically, anything you can do with a computer or an Internet interface where intimacy, closeness, drag-anywhere, touch-anywhere, swivel-and-tilt it I/O is helpful. I wish it had been offered as a gaming platform primarily, and an ebook reader, and an "Internet reader"/surfer.
The problem is, it's supposed to be able to do more, and includes a software keyboard. Imagine for a moment typing on that. It'll be the equivalent of either, a) curling up in your lap with a book and then trying to type on it, or b) laying your flat screen down on a desk and looming over it while typing on it. Neither is comfortable, intuitive or gainly. So it's probably a very poor email client, nor good with very active Internet applications, where you have to add specific information with lots of typing, etc.
Another problem, the enhanced reality/map/traveling options don't make sense, because who's going to carry this thing around? It doesn't fit in your pocket--the great weakness of an iPhone/iPodTouch (small size) is what makes it useful outside the house/office. Walking around streets with an iPad will be the equivalent of walking around with an open book--dorky, ungainly, fumbly, two-hands, takes up too much field of vision, etc.
Finally, market: is there a market for the iPad? This one is really tough to answer, most because people don't buy gadgets entirely for rational reasons. Every pundit and spin doctor, even when trashing the device, end their TV segments with, "Boy, I sure want one!" So heck, it could simply sell amazingly by virtue of a semi-unconscious atmosphere of "get it now!"--social proofing.
But I think the iPhone exploded into everyone's hands for one set of reasons: it's a phone, it's portable, and with an AT&T plan (and heck, everyone's got to have SOME plan), it became very inexpensive ($199 for the second gen). In there is also a status symbol element, and something portable is more important for that--a status symbol you can conceal (in pocket) or whip out ANYWHERE, has more caché than anything in your home.
The iPad has none of those: it can't make or receive phone calls (okay, Skype, but hardly it's main use, and I don't know if trying to use an iPad to talk without earbuds would make "side talking" look suave by comparison), you probably can't walk around with it (unless you're the sort of person who always has a valise, case, backpack, etc., on your person, in which case, don't you have a laptop in there?), and it may be you don't want lots of screen real estate when you're out in public (shoulder surfing is harder to hide on a subway with an iPad, compared to an iPhone or iPodTouch).
So I think the iPad is at its best at home, in your lap ("holding the Internet in your hands," Jobs said, and he's right, that's incredibly intimate, and a HUGE selling point), or to curl up with an ebook, or play awesome games with the interface and I/O options shaterri points out, which will result in games of a whole new stripe (consider many of the games on the iPhone devices now as harbingers of what's to come).
So will people buy it? Not sure. Is it worth $500+ to you to be able to curl up on the couch with all these things, rather than sit at your desk or fumble with a hinged laptop? Could be, but typing will be a bitch. I suspect iPad sales will be driven the way Xbox, PlayStation and other gaming platforms are driven: by the arrival of some "must have" application (app), probably a game, that only makes sense or is only available on an iPad.
--Axiom
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| Ultimate Geek Cooking Machine |
[15 Jan 2010|10:50am] |
And it's all ours! We've bought a sous-vide immersion circulator! This is the real deal, from PolyScience. It arrived yesterday, we set it up immediately, but haven't tried it out yet.
Thing is a total scientific instrument. It doesn't even talk about cooking in the manual, just specs and warnings and tolerances.
Basically, it's a boil-in-bag cooker. A big plastic tub holds water. The fancy machine monitors the temperature (to within 0.1 F degrees!) and circulates the water. A separate machine (not pictured) sucks all the air out of special food-grade plastic bags. Then you just drop the bag containing your food into the water and leave it a specified time. You CANNOT OVERCOOK, since the water can be set to the temperature you want the final product to be. Sure, you can leave it in too long and ruin it, but it won't overcook! :)
Here's more info if you're new to sous vide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous_vide
Whee!
--Sous Videiom
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| A Meme in Memory |
[13 Jan 2010|11:11am] |
In memory of family and friends who have lost the battle with cancer; and in support of the ones who continue to conquer it! Post this on your LJ if you know someone who has or had cancer.
----
Dad, Mom, Aunt, Great-Uncle, more than half of my family gone to cancer. And it's terrifying how likely I--we all--are to get it.
Cure, cure, cure! Or vaccine. Anything. I hope!
--Axiom
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| Bird is the Word |
[06 Jan 2010|01:57pm] |
I just had a New York pigeon fly into my face.
Walking along, fall into step beside a fellow with a large dog on a leash. Store wall to one side, SUV on the other, when a different person walking a different dog approached from ahead.
The pigeon stuck between had no where to go, flew straight up, panicked, and...flapped in my face.
I had this Brooklyn pigeon, breast to my nose, flap-flap-flapping in my face.
I coughed, sputtered, shoed it away, laughed. It's a very odd sound, wings in your ears.
--Birdiom
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| Cat health advice requested |
[06 Jan 2010|11:28am] |
Everyone, one of our cats has something weird, and I don't know if it's worth taking her to the vet for it. I certainly will, if that's what I should do, but I thought I'd ask first.
Our smaller cat, the skinny one, Mandy, has small sores on the back of her head and neck. You can't see them under the fur, you can only feel them, and even then only if you pet her the right way. They are scabrous, crusty, little sores. There seem to be more than there were before (I've noticed this for two days now).
But the cat is FINE. She doesn't scratch them. Her fur is perfectly intact. There's no blood. She's clear-eyed, eats fine, poops fine, seems as happy and healthy as ever. There are no fluids.
I don't know if a perfectly healthy, happy cat should go to the vet for something that could be cosmetic, or could just be little healing scars from where the BIGGER CAT (Julia) gnaws on her--could that be it? If so, why haven't we seen any blood?
This doesn't feel like an infestation, there've been no bugs, the other cat has no such sores, and again, we've observed no abnormal or excessive scratching/bathing.
Q: Should I take her to the vet?
Thanks!
--Axiom
UPDATE: Vet says almost certainly nothing to worry about, no need to bring her in.
Thank you all! *wag!*
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| R.I.P. Kim Peek |
[22 Dec 2009|12:51pm] |
I'm so sad to learn Kim Peek is dead.
To me, he seemed a window into humanity's potential--good and ill.
--Axiom
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| Fiddler's Remorse |
[16 Dec 2009|03:48pm] |
I'm in the elevator. It's only one flight up, but I'm carrying groceries and my work bag in one hand, I'm feeling lazy.
The elevator's door closes. I'm alone. My apartment key is out. I just have to fiddle with it.
I'm a fiddler. I fiddle with things, knobs, switches, gaps between windowpanes, gaskets, it doesn't matter. It's what happens to young button pushers. As a youth, I pushed every button I could find. 29-story elevator? Get ready for 29 stops. Big red STOP THE ESCALATOR button? Oh yeah. Piano and computer keyboards channelled the destructive urge into socially acceptable productivity, but the button-pusher in me evolved into a fiddler.
So I stuck the key into the "Lights ON/OFF" key-activated switch. Why? I don't know. Why? It's not like my apartment key fit. Why? Because I'm a fiddler, and fiddlers must fiddle with stuff. I twist the key.
All the lights and the fan go off. The elevator is an impenetrably inky box, silent but for the whir of the motors. I'm not stuck, the elevator's working fine--I'm just in the dark with no air.
The door opens (only one flight, after all), I try desperately to twist the key another direction to turn everything back on--no dice.
I slink away, home, and forget all about it. "Hey," I figure, "The building staff will just put the proper key in the moment they notice, turn, click, all is good." Fiddlers are often good at self deception.
Today I take the stairs down. I pass the elevator. "OUT OF ORDER." Two repairmen have the door open. They're checking everything.
"Uh, what's wrong?" I ask, knowing full well.
"Lights and fan are out."
"Oh, really?" We fiddlers are often good at feigned surprise. "So, nothing wrong, safety-wise?"
"It's just the lights and fan. We'll fix it."
"Have you tried the key switch?" I offer, sounding as neutral as possible. "Maybe that's all that's broken?"
Looking at me funny, he inserts his elevator key and tries the switch. Everything springs back to life.
"Hey, thanks," he says. "Looks like just a fiddly switch. We'll clean the contacts. Thanks, seriously!"
I smile, walk away, and feel like some kind of horrible criminal.
Worst part? I know I'm still sick. I know I have the bug. I'm a fiddler. This won't stop me. All it makes me want is a good set of lock picks.
Of course, it'd be a bad idea to give a set of lock picks to me--a fiddler.
--Fiddliom
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| BLINK! |
[16 Sep 2009|07:17pm] |
You know, blinkday! What good is it to a fox to celebrate his birthday? He's born in a litter with four or five others--some celebration, everyone gets the same thing.
But the day he firsts opens his eyes, that's his alone. His first blink. BLINKDAY!
Today is Axiom's blinkday! Woo!
P.S.: Don't tell me that all the members of a canine and feline litter tend to open their eyes around the same time, this is MY vulpine mythology, and I say we each get our own blinkday. So there.
--Blinkoim
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| Blink! |
[16 Sep 2009|04:36pm] |
It's my blinkday!
--Axiom
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| Report Speed |
[28 Jul 2009|03:47pm] |
Today I joined Twitter. Rather, I created a Twitter for me (AxiomAxiom), rather than the business Twitter I've been using for months now. Already I've noticed something:
As television/radio news grossly outpaced print news, and as online news grossly outpaced television/radio news, now TWITTER and BLOG news is grossly outpacing online news.
Example: I knew this morning about the exchange between Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador (3rd and 1st in this year's Tour de France, that greatest of all cycling races). No, I don't follow their Twitters or blogs, but on my own Twitter feed, I got retweets and saw mentions. Now, hours later, it shows up on CNN.com.
I honestly didn't think that there were orders of magnitude left to exploit in journalism. Newspapers reported in days, television/radio in hours, online news in, let's say, half-hours. But now, if you're listening, if you're plugged in through your computer at work, your computer at home, your palmtop, your smartphone, you can get news in MINUTES. This is faster than the time it takes for an editor at CNN.com to decide a story gets on the site, with a picture and a bit of proofreading.
I find this extraordinary. There is no "breaking a story" any more. Drudge Report or Huffington might be able to get something up in half an hour, but those who are on the spot can give you their perspective (not journalism, I know) in a matter of minutes.
It seems like enough, but is there an order of magnitude left that imagination nearly fails to grasp? Could it be that the future holds instantaneous reporting, by letting people see through everyones' else eyes? I won't bet against it, not any more.
--Axiom
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| Geek? |
[17 Jul 2009|11:22am] |
If it's bold, it applies to me:
THINK YOU'RE A GEEK? Can you/have you:
1. Properly secure a wireless router.
2. Crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
3. Leech Wifi from your neighbor.
4. Screw with Wifi leeches.
5. Setup and use a VPN.
6. Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.
7. Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.
8. Turn a web camera into security camera.
9. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
10. Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.
11. Identify key-loggers.
12. Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote.
13. Program a universal remote.
14. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone.
15. Benchmark Your Computer
16. Identify all computer components on sight.
17. Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
18. Troubleshoot any computer/gadget problem, over the phone.
19. Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.
20. How to irrecoverably protect data.
21. Recover data from a dead hard drive.
22. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network.
23. Install a Linux distribution.
24. Remove a virus from a computer.
25. Dual (or more) boot a computer.
26. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
27. Boot a computer off a network drive.
28. Replace or repair a laptop keyboard.
29. Run more than two monitors on a single computer.
30. Successfully disassemble and reassemble a laptop.
31. Know at least 10 software easter eggs off the top of your head.
32. Bypass a computer password on all major operating systems. Windows, Mac, Linux
33. Carrying a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
34. Bypass content filters on public computers.
35. Protect your privacy when using a public computer.
36. Surf the web anonymously from home.
37. Buy a domain, configure bind, apache, MySQL, php, and Wordpress without Googling a how-to.
38. Basic *nix command shell knowledge with the ability to edit and save a file with vi.
39. Create a web site using vi.
40. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
41. Hide a file in an image using steganography.
42. Knowing the answer to life, the universe and everything.
43. Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers without a KVM switch.
44. Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. Bonus point if you can use I Feel Lucky.
45. Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.
46. Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.
47. Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
48. Construct a costume for you or your kid out of scraps, duct tape, paper mâché, and imagination.
49. Be able to pick a lock.
50. Determine the combination of a Master combination padlock in under 10 minutes.
51. Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.
52. Use a digital SLR in full manual mode.
53. Do cool things to Altoids tins.
54. Be able to construct paper craft versions of space ships.
55. Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)
56. Fix anything with duct tape, chewing gum and wire.
57. Knowing how to avoid being eaten by a grue.
58. Know what a grue is.
59. Understand where XYZZY came from, and have used it.
60. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
61. Burn the rope.
62. Know the Konami code, and where to use it.
63. Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.
64. Learning to play the theme songs to the kids favorite TV shows.
65. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.
66. Calculate THAC0.
67. Know the difference between skills and traits.
68. Explain special relativity in terms an eight-year-old can grasp.
69. Recite pi to 10 places or more.
70. Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.
71. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
72. Understand the electromagnetic spectrum - xray, uv, visible, infrared, microwave, radio.
73. Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
74. Understand basic electronics components like resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors.
75. Solder a circuit while bottle feeding an infant. (lead free solder please.)
76. The meaning of technical acronyms.
77. The coffee dash, blindfolded (or blurry eyed). Coffee [cream] [sugar]. In under a minute.
78. Build a fighting robot.
79. Program a fighting robot.
80. Build a failsafe into a fighting robot so it doesn’t kill you.
81. Be able to trace the Fellowship’s journey on a map of Middle Earth.
82. Know all the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit.
83. Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
84. Know where your towel is and why it is important.
85. Re-enact the parrot sketch.
86. Know the words to The Lumberjack Song.
87. Reciting key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
88. Be able to recite at least one Geek Movie word for word.
89. Know what the 8th Chevron does on a Stargate and how much power is required to get a lock.
90. Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.
91. Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.
92. Stop talking Star Wars long enough to get laid.
93. The ability to name actors, characters and plotlines from the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.
94. Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
95. Sleep with a Cricket bat next to your bed.
96. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
97. Identify evil alternate universe versions of friends, family, co-workers or self.
98. Be able to convince TSA that the electronic parts you are carrying are really not a threat to passengers.
99. Talk about things that aren’t tech related.
100. Get something on the front page of Digg.
I wanna know how cargoweasel does on this!
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| Cat advice? |
[15 Jul 2009|12:18pm] |
Okay, cats are animals, and as clean and domestic as we like to think them, they're still animals, as are we. Today, our cat did something terribly foul, and I want to know from others familiar with cats if this was normal.
Julia hopped up on the kitchen counter as she often does. Reaching out, cargoweasel gave her tail base a scritch-squeeze. Nothing abnormal, really. I happened to be standing on the other side of the counter.
Suddenly, a cloudy fluid shot out of Julia's vagina. It smelled HORRIBLE. Five or six fat drops of it. Julia promptly turned around and started licking it up. I had to seriously scrub down the countertop and my fingers to get the smell off. It wasn't urine and didn't smell of urine. But the smell was strong and particularly nauseating.
Okay, what the hell was that? Catgasm? Some kind of glandular thing? Is it normal? Will it happen again? Does Cargo just *excite* the lady cats that much? She's been spayed for nearly a year now, I didn't think stuff like that would happen.
Help!
--Axiom
EDIT: Okay, anal glands. But should we be concerned, perhaps of infection?
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| Off to AC! |
[02 Jul 2009|09:57pm] |
Mercy, no post in all of June. I need to get back into the LJ game! Just so darn busy lately.
Off to Anthrocon in the morning. If you're going to be in Pittsburgh, wave hi!
--Axiom
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| Axiom's Joke Book |
[12 May 2009|02:35pm] |
How can we be sure the scientist who popularized H-bar never cheated on his wife?
Everyone knows PLANCK'S CONSTANT!
--Axiom
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| Worse than I Thought |
[02 May 2009|03:34pm] |
I've been avoiding the fancy new scale cargoweasel bought, because I knew it was going to give me bad news.
Current Weight: 248.6
Up from my all-time contemporary low of 220, but my real "plateau" weight the last few months has been 225, so the gain is really a solid 25 pounds.
It snuck up on me. It only took FOUR WEEKS, but I put on 25 pounds. Incredible. That's the danger of a) having been morbidly obese in one's life, and b) being forty years old. Weight can come on VERY quickly.
So the goal is to return instantly to the life patterns I had before: nothing but the shakes, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, and if I eat any other food, fine, just don't let it disrupt the pattern. For instance, next weekend I'm going to a wedding, and there WILL be food and I'll eat it. But I can contain it to just the actual wedding, not the whole day of, not the whole weekend of, no giving up exercise that day.
I have to. My life depends on it.
--Axiom
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| In Trouble |
[29 Apr 2009|10:31am] |
I'm in trouble.
Gained 20 pounds since my recent low:
Lowest contemporary weight: 220
Current weight: 240
Several false starts. Attempts to return to the diet and exercise are full of energy and "can do!" in the morning, fail by the evening. It's shakes and determination until about 6:30pm, when it's suddenly normal food, then bad food, then crazy bad food.
I have to address this now, before I gain any more.
PLAN: There is no plan but the same plan: get back on shakes, return to regular exercise and progress one day at a time. But now I'm announcing the problem, pulling in my support network, admitting something's gone wrong and facing it with open eyes.
We all stumble. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we stay down for a while. We lay there, baffled, in denial. But so long as we eventually stand back up and start again, we can NEVER LOSE.
--Axiom
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| Weasel go zoom! |
[08 Apr 2009|03:02pm] |
The weasel's at biking camp, riding hard.
Go weasel go!
Have fun, cargoweasel! Don't fall down, don't stop to chase rabbits, do breathe lots of air!
--Axiom
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| Axiom Returns |
[10 Mar 2009|11:21am] |
Hello fatties. I'm back, after several weeks of uncontrolled behavior. That's the problem: no structure, no control. Fattening food? I can have that and did all last year, so long as it was part of the lifestyle that's kept me slim and active. But the last few weeks featured a collapse of good habits and a return to the bad ones.
I've gained weight and lost my exercise patterns. Is it bad? Not so bad. The gain is minor, but enough to erode my self esteem and establish unhealthy behaviors. Time to break them and get back on track. Even a whole year of great living isn't enough to protect me against getting cocky with my inner demons: they are not to be ignored or trifled with.
The answer is always the same. Face them, then re-establish the good patterns, remember the fun and joy of healthy living, re-engage the support network (that includes you guys!) without shame or fear. Stop avoiding that which can help me.
I'm back! Ticker returns on Thursday. Thanks for being here.
--Axiom
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| The Black Hole in Star Wars |
[05 Mar 2009|10:48am] |
Few things are so passé as amateur pop-critical analysis of Star Wars, but I just had to speak my peace on this. It's been bugging me for years.
Whether or not you agree with me, just for this essay, submit to me on two points:
1) Star Wars (1977) was a stand-alone film, never meant to be part of any trilogy or nonology or some massive universe. Sure, the writers (including Lucas) had a backstory, maybe even more, that's what good writers do. Heck, maybe he even thought up a whole universe around it, as he claimed. Doesn't matter, that's true of every well-written movie, to some extent. But the proof is in the film: it has a start, a middle, a finish: big bad guy dies, threat removed, princess is saved, everybody gets medals, the end. Sure, the black hat is bruised but flies away to lick his wounds and return for another day, and the mysterious Emperor is yet unseen, and the girl was kissed but not married, this leads to my next axiom (sorry):
2) Star Wars (1977) was made as a FUN film, an homage, redoing, retelling, revising and to capture the spirit and joy of the "B" picture adventures of the 30s and 40s. I don't have to defend this, Lucas has come out and said it in numerous interviews (citation needed, someone find it for me, I'm lazy). All of these serials were based on the same formula, and that formula is followed in the film and before it in countless plots, identified by Jung and Campbell as the Heroic Journey (citation: go read Jung and Campbell, jeez!). The Heroic Journey is always the same, and it necessitates just about everything that happens in the old "B" serials, the adventure stories and Star Wars (1977) itself.
Okay, if you've granted me those two points, I can build my case. It's a sad case, really. My case is:
Luke is boring, and that's what killed the Star Wars franchise.
Ouch. But it's sad and true that the Hero archetype (Hero with a Thousand Faces, etc.), with damn near every story that follows what Campbell calls the Heroic Journey (Beowulf and beyond), and every "B" serial that inspired Star Wars (1977), such as the 1930's Flash Gordon series, the hero is a BIG DUMB BLOND GUY or an ADVENTURE-SEEKING WHINY GUY or some mix of the two. Most heroes are either naive (and learn wisdom, near the end) or just powerful and have to prove it over and over again. Boooooring.
Lucas picks the "young kid who wants more than this provincial life" who is "destined for greatness" but is "naive about the world out there" and thinks it's all fun and games, is "aware of his potential" and "chafes under the swaddling" and feels his power growing. Okay, that's a fine heroic archetype, used constantly. But the truth is, he's the alcohol-based propellant in the aerosol can, used to drive things forward, and it's EVERYTHING ELSE in Star Wars that's interesting--the flavors, the product in the can, if you will, that's interesting.
His mentor, Obi-Wan, is interesting. His world, his universe, full of evil empires and scrappy rebels, is interesting. His toys, landspeeders and ELECTRIC binoculars, are interesting. His tools, X-wings and lightsabers, are interesting. His companions, droids and space smugglers, are interesting. His love interests and challenges are interesting. His adventures...I can go on and on. But he is not interesting. He is not the MacGuffin, that's the "plans in the droid," but he's carried along right beside the MacGuffin, and aside from being blond and doing derring-do, he's not that interesting. Even the REALLY interesting villain, Darth Vader, isn't HIS enemy--he's Obi-Wan's enemy! Dammit, Luke doesn't even get a cool nemesis!
Okay, enough picking on Luke, people have picked on Luke for years. That's not the real purpose of this essay. What I'm saying is, the boringness of Luke brought down the Star Wars franchise. How? Because 1) the film Star Wars (1977) was meant to stand alone, with Luke at its heart, boring as he was, and 2) it followed the heroic journey/"B" picture formula. BUT THEREAFTER, for every other film, every other book, every other scrap of Star Wars franchise material, Lucas and everyone else tried to yank it around to make someone more interesting the hero.
That someone was Darth Vader. From the OPENING CRAWL of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), we have a wrenching turn. "The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space..." Wait, what? We went from Vader not knowing crap about our Hero except, "Hmm, the force is strong with this one," from his ship while locking on him, just before Han Solo shoots him from behind (love those pirates), to obsession? We will learn, of course, that Luke was lauded throughout the galaxy for blowing up the Death Star, yay young Skywalker, a name they might have considered changing, considering Darth Vader was passing familiar with it! But I digress.
The point is, the cipher that is Luke, that anyone inhabiting the Hero role in a "B" serial (or homage to it) in a fun flick meant to be a stand-alone is going to be a bit boring, a zero, a hole, a gap. In archetypical analysis, Jung would say, it was an empty spot where the listener could project him/herself, where we all could, a space left intentionally close to blank, culturally empty so we could share it, as part of the collective unconscious. Later cultural critics would drop the "collective unconscious" part but keep the rest.
I've been bothered by the remaining films and especially the prequels by the fact that they bent over backwards to "infill" that hole with the story of a dark non-hero, Anakin, Darth Vader (proto), heck, anyone but Luke. It's a reaction in part, I think, to a bit of sting I suspect Lucas felt when everyone said, "Great movie, George, that Star Wars, loved everyone in it, except that boring Luke." But who cares if the hero just moves things along, everyone else in the movie WAS great. I loved it! In trying to find a compelling hero, a "complex" center for the other films, the remaining entries in the franchise LOST ALL THE FUN for me. Personally, I'd take a dozen more hours of whining Luke if it meant awesome characters like Han and Chewy and Obi Wan.
This is why, in those cases when someone asks me for advice on how to make their central character in the book their writing "more interesting," I say, "Who cares? Just give them more interesting things to do and people to meet and places to go--and have them react to those. If that doesn't work, then at least we'll all have fun along the way."
--Axiom
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| Little milestone |
[20 Jan 2009|05:00pm] |
The home scale reads 221 pounds. While this isn't accurate and doesn't count (only official doctor visits on the doctor's scale really count), I've found it's pretty accurate. My modern-era all-time low is 220, so I'm back to my current threshold. That's not the milestone.
The milestone is, apparently I weigh less than cargoweasel. He's up a bit, though dropping rapidly. I'll likely fall behind him again as he's training for a triathlon and my goals aren't as hard core, but still. It's nice for once to weigh less than my partner of eight inches greater in height!
--Axiom
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