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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/09/99 -- Vol. 17, No. 41
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-957-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-957-2070, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
===================================================================
1. More changes:
The Factotum is moving to Holmdel April 12. The Editor/Chair is
moving to Holmdel April 28. There will probably be a name change
of the club. For now, note that the *internal* archive of old MT
VOIDs is now at http://www.dnrc.bell-labs.com/~eleeper.
The MT VOID will be renamed. The Chair/Editor and the Factotum are
arguing about the new name. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Ironically, in any such argument with the Chairman, Editor, and
Grand Exalted Poobah on one side and the simple little Factotum on
the other side, the Factotum always wins. This will show you how
much faith to put in titles. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. When I was in school we studied physics, and I have to say that
it did not always make a lot of sense to me. In specific we
studied nuclear reactions. We studied fission reactions and fusion
reactions. In some senses they were the opposite of each other.
One is the breaking up of the nuclei of atoms; one is the gluing of
them back together. They seem like they are the same thing
happening, just in one you are running the clock forward and in the
other you are running the clock backward. But that is not what
really happens. Each of them releases a very great deal of energy.
Of course, usually when you think of fission, you think of the
atoms with big clumsy nuclei. Uranium has a really big atomic
number and a big clumsy nucleus. There are lots of particles in a
uranium nucleus. If you hold a uranium nucleus in your hand and
are even the slightest bit careless, pieces of the nucleus will
fall off on their own. It is like halvah. But when the uranium
nucleus breaks apart you get a lot of loose energy leaking out. On
the other hand, when you think of fusion you think of smaller
nuclei and they are not all crumbly. They love to stick to each
other. They are like wads of gum. You can stick them together and
they stay where they are stuck so you end up with a bigger nucleus.
And again you end up with a lot of loose energy leaking off.
Now intuition tells us that one should have absorbed a great deal
of energy, but that is not how it happens. And this was always a
puzzlement to me. That is it was until I came to work for AT&T and
telecommunications industry in general. I have to say that while
this has not helped me to understand the physics any better, I have
seen the same principle apply to major corporations that apply to
nuclei of atoms. Employees really are where the corporation gets
its energy; they are the energy of the company. Now when I worked
for AT&T it was big and crumbly. Twice it broke into pieces. And
energy was emitted in the form of laid-off employees. I guess the
model was that there were employees acting as glue to keep the big
corporation together. When the company fissioned, former employees
were emitted in all directions. Now you would assume mergers and
acquisitions are just the reversal of this operation, but--aha!--
that is not what happens. Instead what you have is just like what
happens in the nucleus of an atom. When two companies merge you
have lay-offs and again you have one-time happy and loyal employees
emitted from the system.
Now what happens when these employees are emitted? They start
desperately looking for jobs. The lucky ones go to other
corporations. And they may even look good to other corporations
since they have experience. The other corporation hires them, but
then has to face the question of how to pay them. Now put yourself
in the place of a corporation where one of these people is
applying. This is someone experienced and may even have knowledge
of a competitor's processes. They cannot afford to let him go.
But they have to find the money to pay him. They could let one
employee go, but the salary from one less-experienced employee will
not cover the salary of the newly hired-more experienced employee.
Plus money has to come from somewhere to pay for the Human
Resources people who run the hiring process. They really have to
lay off two of their employees to cover their expenses. So one
lucky employee is absorbed and two unlucky employees are emitted
into the job market. They will probably go to two different
companies, each of which will lay off two employees, making four
unemployed people. What you get then is a classic chain reaction.
Companies all over the industry are laying off employees faster
than they can get absorbed and you have massive unemployment and
terrible destruction like one gets from a nuclear fission chain
reaction.
So American corporations and nuclear particle reactions each shed
light on the behavior of the other. Each acts in much the same
way. Presumably the answer to why is it that both fusion and
fission reactions give off energy is simple. Somewhere in the
nucleus there has to be a particle that enhances itself by making
"the hard decision" to let the energy packet go, supposedly for the
good of the atom. One the energy packet is emitted the this new
particle is raised to a higher energy state though overall the atom
has less energy. Of course, the atom will be totally destroyed
somewhere down the line of the reaction as the result of this
reaction and others like it, but for the time being the atom will
feel better about itself. I would like to name this new particle a
"moron."
(This article is dedicated to Gary Zukov.) [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. THE MATRIX (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: What a mixed bag! This is a film with
great ideas, beautiful visuals, terrific
martial arts, and concepts that tie reality in
knots. It also has incredibly thin characters
and long sections where the plot does not
advance beyond who is kicking, shooting, or
blowing up whom. The storytelling is totally
muddled. But for the characters and the plot
this would be a great film. Rating: 6 (0 to
10), high +1 (-4 to +4). Note: Every effort
was made to keep this review spoiler-free.
THE MATRIX is a tough film to review for many different reasons.
In the first place, what can one say about the basic concept
without revealing too much? The entire premise of the film is
something of a surprise. I will say that it is fair to say that
things are not as they seem at the beginning of the film, but
saying anything more than that about the premise could conceivably
damage the viewer's enjoyment of the film. In this story the
actuality is really very different from being what it seems to be.
Philip K. Dick would have been right at home in THE MATRIX with his
frequent stories of reality being turned inside out. I believe
there was an episode of the newer series of THE TWILIGHT ZONE on
this concept, but this is its first treatment in detail in a
feature-length film.
Neo, the main character (played by Keanu Reaves), has this gut
feeling that there is something different that is going on beyond
with everybody seems to know. It is something VERY different. Neo
wakes up one morning with a phone call from the mysterious Trinity
(Carrie Anne-Moss) Trinity seems to be something like a hacker with
what frequently look like magical powers--powers like an ability
jump amazing distances. Trinity takes her orders from someone even
more elusive and mysterious, the nearly omniscient super-hacker
Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). The government is trying to track
down the hackers Trinity and Morpheus, and sends to recruit Neo
some agents who look a lot like the title characters in MEN IN
BLACK. Neo is given the choice of helping to capture Morpheus or
of being enslaved by strange forces. Soon it is not clear to Neo
what is real and what is in his dreams. But when he throws in his
lot with Morpheus and Trinity, things become even stranger. And
then they become a lot stranger still.
THE MATRIX is written and directed by brothers Andy and Larry
Wachowski who previously demonstrated that they could write and
direct a nice compact and tightly plotted thriller with BOUND.
There is, sadly, little that is compact or tightly plotted about
THE MATRIX. This is a film just chock full of martial arts fights,
shootouts, and bomb explosions. But the Wachowskis spend very
little screen time fleshing out their main characters or getting us
to care too much what happens to them. We know they stand between
the world and some really nasty fate. Presumably if they lose, the
people in the audience lose also. But that is not the same thing
as making us really care if these people live or die. Keanu Reeves
sees to be is a sort of stupor through much of the film. That is
not unrealistic considering the circumstances but it certainly
kills his empathy value. The characters get themselves in and out
of danger without ever creating dramatic tension.
Somehow in BOUND the Wachowski Brothers did a much better job of
getting the audience to identify with their primary characters.
Unfortunately, the two brothers were far more concerned about the
look of the film than about making the audience empathize with
Trinity or Neo or even Morpheus. This film shows the main
characters getting lots of action, having lots of fights, but never
giving us any reason to care who wins and who loses those fights.
The exquisite look of the film, frequently variations in visual
themes of blacks and reds, is created by cinematographer Bill Pope,
who previously filmed DARKMAN, ARMY OF DARKNESS, CLUELESS, and
BOUND. Perhaps part of Pope's inspiration was the noir-ish world
of DARK CITY. His photography nicely shows off the stunts and
martial arts work of Hong Kong director Wu-ping Yuen, here just a
stunt coordinator and a martial arts instructor. But all too often
Yuen seems to be soaking up screen time. It seems a pity that this
film has such an audacious concept and ends up with so many fights
that could have been taken from any simple police procedural plot.
It is a little insulting to the audience to present some of the
more interesting ideas and then to treat them on such a superficial
level, almost as if the script did not realize how good its own
ideas were. THE MATRIX could have done so much more to engage the
intellect and not simply a gut reaction.
When there was so much potential for an intelligent story here the
Wachowski Brothers have opted to spend most of their screen time on
mindless action. This is a good martial arts film and action film
in a world already overflowing with martial arts and action films.
It should please the vast bulk of the audience who want to see it
Friday night, have a good time, and have forgotten about it by
Saturday morning. Those who would want an intelligent and
thoughtful piece of science fiction will be more tantalized and
frustrated than gratified. I rate THE MATRIX a 6 on the 0 to 10
scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would
stay out and your dog would go in.
-- Mark Twain
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