THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/08/11 -- Vol. 29, No. 41, Whole Number 1644
Frick: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Frack: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Second Life (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
This Year's Members of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Planning for the Unthinkable? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
LIMITLESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
SOURCE CODE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Intentional Errors on Maps and Names (letter of comment
by Fred Lerner)
Names (letter of comment by gunputty)
BLACKOUT (letters of comment by various)
This Week's Reading (PACKING FOR MARS, MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, and
names in fiction) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Second Life (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I asked where are all the groovy people you meet in
Second Life coming from. They have to be the same bizarre cast of
characters you meet in Real Life. So what is the advantage? I
wonder if most people join this virtual reality world thinking it
was called Second Wife. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Year's Members of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Seattle's Science Fiction Museum has named its 2011 inductees to
their Science Fiction Hall of Fame. This June 25 the new inductees
will be Harlan Ellison, Vincent Di Fate, Moebius, and Gardner
Dozois. You can see a list of the current members of the Hall of
Fame and read about them at
http://www.empsfm.org/exhibitions/index.asp?categoryID 3
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Planning for the Unthinkable? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The struggles to bring the Fukushima nuclear plant under control
are continuing, but public attention seems to be moving away from
that particular crisis while it is still far from resolved. I may
have more interest in it than most because it is a science-related
crisis that is making the news. I also am finding the developments
more disturbing than most other people are. We keep hearing things
that make me uneasy and also I am curious about how bad this
incident can get. As of today's writing they are saying that
plutonium is leaking out of containment and into the soil. Workers
are laboring away heroically under conditions that are probably
shortening their lives. The whole incident reminds me of science
fiction warnings of the past, perhaps especially Lester Del Rey's
NERVES, and it may not come to so happy a resolution.
Every time there is a disaster in the nuclear energy industry you
hear some spokesman pointing out that with any energy source there
are dangers implicit in its production and use. The alternatives
to nuclear energy also have their risks and costs. Mining coal is
risky to the people who go into the ground to dig. Miners are
frequently killed. It is true that fossil fuels are dirty and coal
combustion is the cause of an estimated 10,000 deaths per year in
this country. CO2 from fossil fuels a cause of climate change and
changes in ocean chemistry. Much the same can be said for drilling
petroleum. It is a good point, but the two situations are not
exactly analogous. The radiation of Fukushima much more affects
the previously uninvolved in the population. People fifty miles
from a mining cave-in do not get cancer as a result of a cave-in,
while radiation from Fukushima will be causing disease at a greater
distance.
My feeling is that in actual usage (as opposed to production),
nuclear energy is safer and cleaner and has less environmental
impact than fossil fuels. But far worse things can happen in
producing nuclear energy than in producing coal fuel. Worst-case
scenarios in producing nuclear energy are much worse than in
producing other forms of energy. Few industries have downsides
running as deep as the downsides from nuclear energy production.
Many of these downsides may result from very low probability
events. For example, though the probability of a meteor trashing a
nuclear reactor is small, the effect could be really bad. Is it
reasonable to expect that a nuclear plant must be made safe in the
event, say, of a meteor strike? Probably not. We might feel
different in hindsight if it actually happens. But very low-
probability events do happen. And if your standard of safety
is so strict that a nuclear facility must be secure even if such a
low-probability events happen then you might as well outlaw
nuclear energy production altogether.
What I am reading now is that Fukushima was a very old plant and
the regulation of the plant was incomplete and sloppy. And that is
very similar to the official story of the BP spill, also blamed on
reckless procedures. I am not sure I expect anything much
different. When your corporation has been involved in a great
industrial calamity are you better off accepting blame or
deflecting it? Some people involved in such a fiasco might think
the better policy is to claim you had done everything by
regulation. But in the long term, even if what happened was not
your fault it is smarter to claim the blame. Why? Suppose
BP had taken the stance that they had followed all the rules and
regulations. That would have sent a message to the public that the
current set of rules is insufficient to avoid catastrophe. The
result would have been at the least stiffer regulations and perhaps
BP would lose its license for off-shore drilling altogether.
It is probably smarter to accept blame, even if falsely, than
effectively to tell the public that stiffer regulation is needed.
But it is not clear if anyone is to blame for the Fukushima
disaster. Certainly the crisis was caused by a very low-
probability event. This was a record-breaking earthquake followed
by a record-breaking Tsunami. Fukushima was planned well for its
time. The plant had safeguard systems for the event of an
earthquake. The plant had safeguard systems for the event of a
Tsunami. And they had human procedures if either system failed.
The problem was that the earthquake knocked out the Tsunami
precautions. Then the quake recovery was disabled by the
Tsunami. The resulting radiation called for evacuation so the
human procedures had to be abandoned. It was not expected that
Japan would suffer both calamities in such short order. It can be
noted however that they might have suspected in an earthquake area
that they could get a quake that would cause a Tsunami and that
would release too much radiation to allow for the human procedures.
The three events were not at all independent. They were closely
interlinked.
I do not know enough to judge just how bad the situation is in
Japan, but it sounds like it could get a lot worse. We still could
get a major meltdown. I don't believe anybody knows for sure what
happens then. It seems likely that a big piece of Japan will be
dangerous for a long time to come. This could be a disaster that
will be ever renewing itself in the foreseeable future.
The same people in Japan who probably thought they were over-
regulated are probably regretting not having more regulation and
better planning. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: LIMITLESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A man whose life is a failure tries taking a drug that
will increase his intelligence. It plunges him into a new world
with both big advantages and perhaps bigger disadvantages. It is a
race to see what grows faster, the strength of Morra's intellect or
the power of the enemies he attracts. Perhaps for too much of the
second half the drug could be any MacGuffin, but generally the
writing is good and even enthralling. Bradley Cooper stars as
Eddie Morra in a bracing story that examines what intelligence will
and will not buy and what is the effect that such a drug would have
on society. Neil Burger directs a script by Leslie Dixon based on
a novel by Alan Glynn. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Eddie Morra (played by Bradley Cooper of THE HANGOVER) is about
thirty and discovering there is not that much he is good at doing.
He thinks he could write a great novel, but for months cannot get
even the first sentence written. He looks like someone who sleeps
on cardboard under a bridge. His former brother-in-law gives him a
tab of NZT, a new designer drug that greatly boosts intelligence.
Just one freebie is all it takes to convince Eddie that he has got
to get more of this wondrous drug, and when he does his novel turns
to gold, he becomes a gambling genius, and graduates from betting
on cards to being one of the great geniuses of the stock market.
He even is attracting the attention of one of the great moguls of
the stock market Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro). But two problems
come along with NZT. One is finding sources for the illicit drug.
The other is to avoid being eaten alive by others who are desperate
to get their hands on NZT. Morra decides that he never wants to go
back to being just normal again, and then discovers some of the
drawbacks of using NZT.
The story is mostly told in flashback as Morra is preparing himself
to throw himself off of a high building, so the viewer sort of gets
the idea that there are some serious drawbacks to getting your
intelligence from a pill--particularly an illegal pill. But this
is not really a morality/anti-drug tale. It is more almost a
superhero story with the lead character's power being intellect,
and perhaps he is not so much a hero.
LIMITLESS would have had more power if we could see how it feels
being a genius in a world that once did not think much of him. He
could have been a sort of a latter-day Charly Gordon. But he
measures his progress by financial success, by what high-paying
successes he has rather than by any internal and emotional measure.
Even as a genius Morra seems very prosaic, wanting nothing but more
of the same things he has always wanted, money and attractive
women.
Directing LIMITLESS is Neil Burger, whose previous work includes
the engaging puzzle film THE ILLUSIONIST. I do not tend to see the
sort of films that Bradley Cooper has been in, so to me he is a new
face in film and he does seem to convey the exhilaration of his new
powers. His Morra is fairly easy to empathize with even with his
banal tastes. Abbie Cornish who plays his girlfriend is not given
much range of emotion to put across. She is almost unrecognizable
as John Keats's love interest in BRIGHT STAR. Of course, her
clothing and her hair were very different in that film. For some
reason Robert De Niro is cast as the great old Wall Street baron.
Somehow I can see De Niro as a criminal, but he just is not the
Wall Street type. Perhaps in the end (in life and in this film)
there is not so much difference in the two types.
Surprisingly, LIMITLESS never sermonizes on the morality of
intelligence by drug. It is a fresh and well-written thriller. I
rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/limitless/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SOURCE CODE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Army Capt. Colter Stevens must relive the same eight
minutes over and over to find and stop a terrorist bomber intent on
destroying Chicago. From director Duncan Jones who wrote and
directed MOON comes a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that keeps the
viewer too busy to realize where the ideas just do not work.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Spoiler Warning: there is a discussion of the ideas of the film
following the main body of this review.
SOURCE CODE is a movie that works like a video game. Army Capt.
Colter Stevens (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) must live the same eight
minutes over and over until he gets it just right. Getting it
right in this case is averting a terrorist bomb attack. Coulter
has awoken groggy on a train into Chicago and a complete stranger
Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) is calling him Sean. Now
Coulter should know who he is, but with a look in a mirror he
discovers he is in the body that this Sean used to inhabit. The
last thing he remembers before falling asleep was that he was
serving as an Army pilot in Afghanistan and got into trouble. One
would think that he was safer on a train to Chicago. Then just
minutes later the train explodes and everybody, including
Colter/Sean is dead. The latter wakes up in an ugly grunge-tech
chamber. A television monitor in the chamber shows him Colleen
Goodwin (Vera Farmiga of NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH and UP IN THE AIR),
who is telling him he has to go back and re-live that eight minutes
while he searches for the bomb and the bomber. He also wants to
find out why and how he has been chosen for this mission and how
can he set up long-term relationship with a woman who is already
dead and whose shadow he can see only in eight-minute snatches.
Apparently the government has a new technology that allows the user
to go back in time and visit the "shadow" of an event that has
already happened and to interact with people and objects. Shadow
people see him as just one of them and can talk to him and touch
him. If he can find the bomb he may even be able to disable it.
The high concept of this film seems to be "GROUNDHOG DAY with
explosions."
Presenting this story also involved having to solve some
representation problems most directors never have to think about
which perhaps delve into the metaphysics of film image. We need to
see on the screen that Colter is in Sean Fentress's body. So when
we see Colter he looks (a lot!) like Jake Gyllenhaal but in his
reflection in a mirror we see another actor Frederick De Grandpre.
To a viewer why should Colter look any different in a mirror than
he does looking directly at him. Apparently when we see Colter we
see him as he sees himself, or rather how he thinks of himself, but
seeing his reflection in a mirror we see him as others see him. I
think that the TV series Quantum Leap may have set a precedent
here, but it is not one that makes any sense at all. Speaking of
things that make no sense at all there is the title of this film.
What is "source code?" It is text written in a computer language
like C++ or Algol that will be converted to the binary language
that a computer can execute. It is text written in an intermediate
between human language and computer language. In the film it is a
device that sends a (particular kind of) person back in time to
mingle with the shadows of the past. That has nothing to do with
programming languages. There is no source code in SOURCE CODE.
The title is no more or less appropriate a title than would be
MANHOLE COVER.
In the end this film is just a lot of silly fun. There is nothing
wrong with that unless the film aspires to be a more profound piece
of science fiction. A film like the current LIMITLESS may not be
as much fun, but it has thought out the consequences of the
development of an intelligence-raising drug. I hesitate to say the
science of SOURCE CODE is impossible, but it is a whole lot less
credible that that of some science fiction films. Some science
fiction films are for turning your mind off and some for turning
your mind on. SOURCE CODE falls into the former category. I rate
it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler
In PLANET OF THE APES it is understandable that the apes speak
English, but it is absurd that until the end of the film Taylor
never asks himself how is it possible that the apes from another
planet would know English. Similarly it is not clear why Rutledge
should think it is possible to interact with things that are just
echoes of the past. Without knowing that parallel universes are
involved the whole idea of changing the images of the past does not
seem possible. There is no reason to believe that Colter can alter
and interact with the echo of what has already happened. That
would be like crawling into a film canister of KING KONG and
successfully convincing Carl Denham to leave Kong on his island.
Not to mix my metaphors but the moving finger has already written
and moved on if the worlds visited are just shadows of the past.
In SOURCE CODE the ideas simply do not bear scrutiny or are glossed
over. Toward the end of the film Colter learns Source Code is
actually generating the parallel universes. And that makes it a
little more possible. But it raises more questions. Will Colter
forever inhabit the body of another man? And does Sean have to die
for him to do that? Colter was only saved in one universe. Aren't
there a large number of parallel universes created and in which the
train still exploded, Colter died, Sean died, and in most Chicago
was destroyed? For that matter I don't remember Coulter disabling
the bomb even when he knew how to do it in the "comedian
performance" universe. It is not unusual to have a science fiction
film that requires the viewer to turn off his mind. But this film
has a lot more than most for him to turn his mind off of.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945513/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/source_code/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Intentional Errors on Maps and Names (letter of comment by
Fred Lerner)
In response to various items in the 04/01/11 issue of the MT VOID,
Fred Lerner writes:
[Mark writes,] "Actually there are a lot of places where
intentional errors are made. When logarithm tables are published
frequently there are intentional errors around the 10th-decimal
place. If those same errors show up in someone else's published
set of tables it proves that they plagiarized."
Mapmakers do this, too, making up small towns and other
geographical features to put in obscure places as a trap for
plagiarists. And for unwary motorists, too--I was running very low
on petrol on a trip through the California countryside east of Paso
Robles, and was annoyed to discover that several of the promising
towns marked on my map simply didn't exist.
[On another topic, Evelyn writes,] "Does it mean something that in
the West we put a person's personal name before his or her family
name, while in the East the family name takes precedence? [-ecl]"
And what does it mean that Hungarians traditionally put the family
name before the surname? (For that matter, what does it mean that
Jews and Arabs didn't adopt family names until relatively
recently?) [-fl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Names (letter of comment by gunputty)
In response to Evelyn's comments on names in the 04/01/11 issue of
The MT VOID, gunputty writes:
Your question about surnames/family names is an interesting one,
and I daresay a search of Google on the subject would lead you to
quite a few studies of just the question you asked. The study of
names is a fascinating one. China is not the only place where the
"family" name comes first. This is also the case in Japan, and,
curiously enough, in Hungary, and in a different form, in the Roman
Empire. In most of Europe and the cultures derived from it,
though, the custom has been a "given" name, to which a surname
might be added; but the surname was merely an adjunct, not a clan
or tribal name in the sense that Chinese ones are. Or so I
understand. Certainly tribalism and clannishness faded
comparatively early in Western culture (even in the Celtic fringe),
so that your given name became important, not the clan or tribe you
belonged to. This is not the case in most of the Arab world, I
understand, which is a cause of much friction between those people
and the West.
There are quite a few cultures that don't use surnames or "last
names" even today. The best known is Iceland: there you use your
given name and patronymic (or matronymic), and Iceland's telephone
directories are alphabetized by given name. Examples: Eric son of
Lars is Eric Larsson; Eric's sister is Anna Larsdottir; Eric's son
Gunter is Gunter Ericsson, and Gunter's sister is Vigdis
Ericsdottir, and so on. An Icelandic woman doesn't "take" her
husband's surname on marriage because he doesn't have a surname.
[-gp]
==================================================================
TOPIC: BLACKOUT (letters of comment by various)
In response to Evelyn's review of BLACKOUT in the 03/25/11 issue of
the MT VOID, there is a *long* thread of comments at
http://tinyurl.com/rasff-blackout. (Some of these were included
in the 04/01/11 issue.) [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Book sale season is here again, but it seems somewhat scaled back.
(One volunteer thought it might be because fewer people are moving
into newer houses, and a lot of the donations came from people who
were moving.)
We didn't get to the East Brunswick Friends of the Library sale
until the second day and it was fairly quiet, but one of the
volunteers said that even on the first day, it was not very
chaotic. Prices seem to have settled in at $2 for most hardbacks
and trade paperbacks, and $1 for mass market paperbacks. This is
reasonable as long as the books are not all ex-library copies
(which the science fiction ones have been at times).
We bought much less than in previous years--only a half dozen
books. Part of this is our effort to cut down our book
acquisitions, but part is also due to the smaller selection. Of
most interest were Thomas M. Disch's THE WORD OF GOD and Richard
Feynman's THE PLEASURE OF FINDING THINGS OUT.
We went to the Bryn Mawr sale the first day that they were not
charging an entrance fee, and while we did have to park in the far
lot, it did not seem overly crowded either. And there were
definitely fewer books than last year--large sections of table were
empty. This year they advertised that they had 80,000 books; my
guess is that last year they said 100,000.
Disorder (or at least inconsistency) rules at these sales. I'm
used to seeing science fiction in the mystery and regular fiction
sections, but even more confusing was that there were biographies
of Joan of Arc in the literature, biography, *and* European history
sections. (For all I know, there might have been one in religion
also.)
Again, we bought fewer books than in the past (thirteen books for
$20 total). My best find was David M. Rosenthal's THE NATURE OF
MIND, an anthology of essays and articles about the philosophy of
mind which is an excellent adjunct to the UC Berkeley course on the
philosophy of mind that I am currently listening to. I also got
WHO IS MARK TWAIN?, a collection of previously unpublished articles
by Twain from the Bancroft Collection (at UC Berkeley--I just
cannot get away from it!).
Coming up in mid-April is a sale at JR Trading, a company
specializing in remaindered books, and in June is our own library's
Friends of the Library sale. I still enjoy going to all of these,
even if I'm buying less.
PACKING FOR MARS: THE CURIOUS SCIENCE OF LIFE IN THE VOID by Mary
Roach (978-0-393-06847-1) looks at the nitty-gritty details of
space travel: space sickness, body odor, elimination, and so on.
The most memorable passage is the one in which Roach talks to Jon
Clark about the Columbia disaster and what happened to the
astronauts in it.
As Roach tells it, "At one point Clark handed me an STS-107 mission
patch, like the one the Columbia astronauts had worn on their
suits. I thanked him and set it down on the desk. It seemed like
a good time to ask about his work on the Columbia investigation.
... 'We had some very unusual injury patterns that were not
explainable by anything that we are accustomed to.' Clark said.
... 'We know how people break apart,' Clark continued. 'They
break on joint lines. ... But this wasn't like that. It was like
they were severed, but it wasn't from some structure cutting them
up.' He spoke in a flat, quiet manner that reminded me of Agent
Mulder from THE X-FILES. 'And it couldn't have been a blast
injury, because you have to have an atmosphere to propagate a
blast.' I was looking at the Columbia patch. The seven crew
members' last names were stitched around the perimeter: MCCOOL
RAMON ANDERSON HUSBAND BROWN CLARK CHAWLA. Clark. Something
clicked in my head. When I had first arrived on Devon Island, I'd
heard that the spouse of one of the Columbia astronauts would be
here. Laurel Clark was Jon's wife, I now realized. I didn't know
whether to say something, or what that something would or should
be. The moment passed, and Clark kept talking."
We recently watched the 1985 BBC version of Charles Dickens's
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. I found an interesting contrast between
Dickens's attitude toward "flighty" girls and Jane Austen's
attitude. In Austen, when a young girl who is a major character
cares only for dances and pretty clothes and soldiers in uniform,
and looks on marriage as a way to lord it over her unmarried
sisters, fate (or friends and family) conspire to make everything
turn out all right. In Dickens, when a young girl has a similar
attitude, she ends up as she probably would in real life: with a
husband who married her only for her money, and who drinks and
beats her. (I realize that the generalization about Austen is not
entirely true. For example, Colonel Brandon's first love in SENSE
AND SENSIBILITY comes to a bad end, but she is not a major
character--indeed, we never actually meet her at all.)
And speaking of Dickens, it is clear that Tolkien got his
inspiration for the hobbits' names from Dickens. Brandybuck,
Bracegirdle, Sandheaver, Smallburrow ... they have a certain
Dickensian ring to them, don't they? [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing
or two that never happened is as bad as one who
does not know how to forget.
--Samuel Butler