THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/26/10 -- Vol. 28, No. 35, Whole Number 1586
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Correction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Somehow I Am Not Convinced (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Overcoming Failure to Communicate (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Pi Is the Jesse James of Numbers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
(film review by Mark R. Leeper)
SHUTTER ISLAND (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
STARSHIP: MUTINY by Mike Resnick (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Football (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
Subversive Activities Registration Act (letter of comment
by Taras Wolansky)
Animal Calls (letter of comment by Tim Bateman)
This Week's Reading (LONE STAR, THE INVENTION OF LYING,
CITY OF TRUTH) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Correction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It would appear that the news story I reported last week of the law
that people advocating the overthrow of the United States
government had to register is not a new law. I had heard about it
on NPR and verified it with an article from BusinessWeek, but it
would appear all three of us were wrong. You can see the note
below by Taras Wolansky. Thanks go to Taras for pointing this out.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Somehow I Am Not Convinced (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I received a piece of spam mail that wanted to sell me Viagra. All
the links pointed to Russian sites. It did say that it was sent
from an American company. Well, what it said was:
This email claims to have been sent by:
Irumohatu Company
184 Pamefyty Street, 722 Ekosen, UE 42534 USA
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Overcoming Failure to Communicate (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I was watching the beautiful nature documentary WINGED MIGRATION.
I notice they have a credit for "animal advisors". That is
fascinating. How do they get them to take the advice? [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Pi Is the Jesse James of Numbers (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
On January 6, BBC News reported that a computer scientist had
worked out the digits of pi to 2.7 trillion decimal places. People
have a fascination with pi and the fact that its decimal places
almost look random and do not repeat. When I talk to kids about pi
that is just about the first thing that they know about it. It
seems to them to be sort of a magical property of pi.
Well, I hate to say this, but the real property they are seeing is
that pi is not a rational number, but that is true of almost all
numbers. Rational numbers are those whose decimal expansion state
at some point repeating, and then no matter how far you go out the
repeating never stops. In fact, if you look at all numbers it is
the property of the decimal expansion repeating that is rare and
unusual. If you took an infinitely thin dart and threw it at a
dartboard that was a number line so that it hit just one number,
the odds say that it would probably be an irrational number. It
would seem to have random decimal places just like pi does. And
what are the odds that it is an irrational number the way pi is?
The odds are 100%. Let me go beyond that. The odds are
100.000000000000000% that the number would be irrational. Oh,
there are rational numbers on that number line. In fact, any
positive-length interval, no matter how tiny, has an infinite
number of rational numbers. But they still would be nearly
impossible to hit with a dart there are so few of them. There are
an infinite number of irrational numbers for every single rational.
We just don't deal with irrationals much because they are so hard
to deal with. You tell the candy man that you want a half-pound of
lemon drops. He can picture 1/2. It is very hard to ask for the
square root of pi pounds. In fact, pi has a name because it is an
important number, but (sadly) is irrational. You don't have to
create a special name for 2.5. You call it 2.5 and that is it. To
ten trillion trillion decimal places you know the value. But if
you talk about pi people have only a vague idea what the number is.
Some of the kids say it is 22/7 and I have to tell them, no, that
is just a handy number somewhere near pi. In fact, it is not all
that near. The only way to write down a number that is exactly pi
is to write pi. And then you do not know the number, you just know
its name.
Ask a first grader how much is two times three, you will be told it
is six. Six is a nice number. You can plot it on a number line
very exactly. You can plot five times six on a number line with
almost no thought. But if you ask a mathematician how much is two
times pi, you will be told it is two pi. That is darn close to
just echoing back the original question. You can get an
approximation with some work, but it will not be very accurate.
You can plot pi on a number line very inexactly. You can plot five
times pi on a number line probably even less exactly and need a
calculator to be at all accurate.
And it gets worse and worse. The square root of two is a root of
the polynomial x^2-2=0. That is, you can write a polynomial that
when you graph it, it crosses the x-axis at the square root of two.
And you can construct a line of length square root of two with a
compass and a straight edge. You cannot construct a straight line
of length pi using compass and straight edge. And there is no
polynomial with rational coefficients that crosses the x-axis at
pi. Such a troublesome number is called a transcendental number.
And, you guessed it, there are more transcendental numbers out
there than there are ones you can construct or make a polynomial
with integer coefficients that crosses the x-axis there.
The same is true for nearly every other irrational but it gets even
harder because so few even have names to call them by. The square
root of two gets used. So does e. But pi takes the flak. It is
our best-known irrational number and is famous for the trouble it
causes. Pi is the Jesse James of numbers. There are others--many,
many, many others--that are as bad, but that is the one people
know. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF (film
review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This film with the cumbersome title is a young adult movie
from a young adult novel that reminds us of precursors like JASON
AND THE ARGONAUTS and CLASH OF THE TITANS, but is set in a
contemporary setting. A high school boy finds out that the root of
his problems is that he is a demigod in the sense of Greek
mythology. In this world that mythology was not only true, the
battles of the Greek gods continue today. Percy Jackson is suspect
number one in the theft of Zeus's lightning bolt so goes from being
an underachiever to battling the great monsters and gods of the
Greek myths. This is a surprisingly satisfying fantasy adventure.
Director Chris Columbus adapts a screenplay by Craig Titley based
on the popular novel by Rick Riordan. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or
7/10
The trailer for JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS talked of a story set in a
time of "men like gods and gods like men." The makers had me right
there. The film offered special effects genius Ray Harryhausen's
mythical monsters, gods that towered eighteen feet high, and the
story of an epic quest of heroes. Few films have had films with so
much imagination to grab me. I was reminded of that first viewing
of JASON when I saw PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING
THIEF. This is a film that will introduce another generation of
kids to new worlds of gods and monsters.
Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) somehow never fit in at his
high school in New York City. In fact he does not quite fit in to
our world in general. Then one day on a school trip to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art a particularly harsh teacher turns into
a harpy. Literally, she is a harpy with wings and fangs. His
handicapped best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) turns out
actually to be a satyr. His teacher Mr. Brunner is actually the
centaur Chiron (Pierce Brosnan from the waist up; digital horse
from the waist down). It seems that in the tradition of Greek
myths, Percy does not know his lineage. His mother is a
downtrodden housewife (Catherine Keener) and the father he never
met was Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). It seems there is chaos in
heaven. Someone stole Zeus's lightning bolt. Chief suspect is
Percy. This bolt is the key to all political power on Olympus
(moved to hover just next to the Empire State Building). A rogue's
gallery of gods and monsters want to get their hands on the
lightning bolt. Nearly everyone thinks Percy has it. The confused
teen has to learn to fight like a demigod and then go to Hades to
look for the bolt. But he needs a way to escape Hades. Percy
forms a team with Grover, and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), a new
friend who happens to be the daughter of Athena--enemy of Poseidon.
The three must go across country and collect three blue pearls, the
key to escaping Hades. Each pearl is in a different American city
and each is guarded by a peril from ancient Greek myth.
Most people seem to be comparing this film, the first in a series
as the title implies, to the "Harry Potter" films. Well, Chris
Columbus (who directed two "Potter" films) directs it. And it is
based on a young adult series and it does involve a teenager with
the supernatural. Both involve boys with an unknown heritage.
There certainly are parallels, but this film is set in a different
sort of world and one with a little more gravitas since it is not
entirely made up. The atmosphere is quite different.
Will this film be remembered as fondly as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS?
Probably not. In the 21st century it has too much competition from
other CGI films. And the effects are not as much fun as those of
JASON. On the other hand they are far more sumptuous. While Jason
might have an animated monster in a scene, LIGHTNING fills the
frame with visual effects, albeit digital effects. What surprised
me is that I had some affection for an action adventure film the
way I would have in the days of Ray Harryhausen's best films.
I rate PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF a +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
One more comment on the Percy Jackson books: a friend in high
school was very enthusiastic about the series and the Greek
mythology he had learned from it. I discussed mythology with him
and was surprised how much he knew. I gave him a gift of a book on
classical mythology and later heard he wrote a report based on the
book. He came away with a better understanding of the roots of
Western culture. Had he been interested instead in Wolverine, what
would he have learned of any comparable value?
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0814255/
What others are saying: http://tinyurl.com/perc-jack-lightning
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SHUTTER ISLAND (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Martin Scorsese turns his hand to directing a
psychological horror film. Two United States Marshals travel to an
island off Massachusetts that is a cross between Alcatraz and an
asylum for the criminally insane. The film is very moody and the
plot is twisty and supremely melodramatic, though few of the twists
seem like new ideas. Fans of psychological horror may have seen
the material before, but rarely so much of it and rarely is the
tone so perfectly presented. Laeta Kalogridis wrote the screenplay
based on a novel by Dennis Lehane. I suspect this film is
Scorsese's tribute to German Expressionism. Rating: low +2 (-4 to
+4) or 7/10
Shutter Island is a dismal piece of rock off the Massachusetts
coast. It still houses a Civil War fort, but now, in 1954, the
fort and two more wards make up Ashecliffe Hospital for the
Criminally Insane, part asylum and part fortified prison. Leonardo
DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels and Mark Ruffalo is Chuck Aule, two
United States Marshals who are sent to Shutter Island to help look
for Rachel Solando. Solando is an inmate who killed her own
children and has somehow impossibly escaped from a locked cell.
She is either dead or still on the island some place in hiding.
The two marshals will need all the help they can get, but from the
first moments on the island the marshals clearly are not going to
get much cooperation from the staff.
From early on, this seems to be a plot suffering from a case of
extreme over-stuffedness. Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and
Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow) may be doing fiendish medical
experiments on the inmates. But nobody will believe the inmates
when they tell because they are considered insane. Also one of the
inmates may be the man responsible for the death of Daniels's wife.
Meanwhile, Daniels seems to be drifting into schizophrenia and sees
his dead wife visit him. And when he dreams, his nightmares are
terrible. Daniels is troubled by memories of an atrocity he took
part in during the liberation of Dachau. Besides the creepy fort
that is now a ward for the worst patients, there is also a creepy
old lighthouse that can be reached only at low tide and which may
house horrible experiments performed by the staff of the asylum. A
category 5 hurricane is about to hit the island and may level the
prison and/or drown the inmates chained to the floor. In the dark
of the moon a beast from 20,000 fathoms wades ashore and topples
the lighthouse. (Okay, I admit I made the last one up. The rest
are real.) This is a longish 138 minutes of story, but it takes a
director of genius to pack all of that into even a film of that
length.
Most horror films have retread plots and if the plot-pieces of
SHUTTER ISLAND are not so original, at least their profusion in a
single story is. What is refreshing is the stylistic return to
some of the conventions of German Expressionism of the 1920s and
1930s. In few films since the early Universal horror films (which
liberally borrowed German Expressionism) have we seen such
evocative visuals. This film seems to hark back to the German
horror of NOSFERATU and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, and to even
greater German horrors at places like Dachau.
It is a surprise to see Martin Scorsese making a horror film when
his most successful films have been crime stories. In fact, he
seems to be a lover of all kinds of films and this film is in some
ways a tribute both to the 1930s horror film and the 1950s crime
film. DiCaprio and Ruffalo look pretty good in slouchy 1950s hats
and coats. Scorsese even has a little nod to 1958's THE FLY when
he borrows the line "I said catch them, not kill them." The film
is just a little too long and the logic needs some rationalizations
by the viewer, but logic problems are a hallmark of the old horror
films.
Scorsese has made a horror film for film lovers. I rate SHUTTER
ISLAND a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1198124-shutter_island/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: STARSHIP: MUTINY by Mike Resnick (copyright 2005, Pyr,
$25.00, 286pp, ISBN 1-59102-337-8) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
So, I was at some con that Mike Resnick was also attending, and I
decided that I wanted something of his to get autographed. Now,
normally I don't run out and buy a book just because I want an
autograph, but for some strange reason, this particular time it
seemed the right thing to do. So I wandered the dealers' room
until I found these books by Resnick with some pretty nice covers,
so, in the time honored tradition of picking up a book because it
had a cool cover, I picked up STARSHIP: MUTINY. To be honest, once
I realized it was the first book in a series, and the first three
were there, well, I spent too much money on books that day.
And it sat on the shelf, waiting to be read, until all five ended
up on the shelf, at which point I decided I'd better get started.
(Yeah, like I do on all my series books. I'm juggling so many
series right now I must have four hands occupied.)
Wilson Cole is one of the most decorated men in the Republic Navy,
but he has a knack for ticking off his superior officers. Wilson
wins his medals by performing greatly heroic deeds that save lives
and make the Navy look good--but he does it by disobeying orders
and being insubordinate. He's done more things to tick off people
and yet do the most good than any man alive.
And his reward is an assignment as the Second Officer on the
Theodore Roosevelt, or Teddy R., out on the Rim patrolling
absolutely nothing during the war between the Republic and the
Teroni Federation. The Teddy R. is a dump of a ship, crewed by a
bunch of misfits who have all gotten in trouble one way or another.
It's a dead end job on a dead end ship in a dead end portion of
space a long way away from the action in the war.
Well, of *course* it turns out that the Teddy R. is not all that
far away from some action. A Teroni ship lands on a nearby planet,
and Cole takes a couple of crewmates to investigate, and ends up
thwarting an enemy action. Of course, he left the ship against
orders, and moved the Teddy R. without orders, and well, you get
the idea.
And so the story of Wilson Cole begins. He spends the entire novel
doing stuff like this, but eventually he gets in so much trouble
that it's off to jail for him, but of course things can't end that
way. And so I'll stop here, because telling you any more would be
giving away spoilers.
Starship: Mutiny is an old-fashioned military SF novel, high on
action and adventure, middling on plot, and low on
characterization. Folks, this is old-school stuff--the stuff we
all read as kids, when starships and aliens and wars and stuff were
the stuff of wonder, the stuff we would read with a flashlight
under the covers after we were supposed to be in bed sleeping.
And you know what? That's okay.
This isn't a deep and thought-provoking book by any stretch of the
imagination. It's meant to be a light-hearted military action
adventure story. And since it sets out to do that, it succeeds
quite nicely.
This is only the second novel of Resnick's that I've read, the
other being A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN. That one too was okay, but
nothing to write home about. I guess that so far, I prefer
Resnick's short fiction to his novels. We'll see what the rest of
the series brings. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Football (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
In response to Mark's comments on the Super Bowl ad in the 02/19/10
issue of the MT VOID, Pete Rubinstein writes, "I am shocked and
appalled at this item. Goal posts are no longer made of wood.
Plastic or fiberglass, surely, are the current materials."
==================================================================
TOPIC: Subversive Activities Registration Act (letter of comment by
Taras Wolansky)
In response to Mark's comments on the Subversive Activities
Registration Act in the 02/19/10 issue of the MT VOID, Taras
Wolansky writes:
Here's a mea culpa from one of the bloggers who spread that viral
story about South Carolina's anti-subversive law:
"It turns out that the Subversive Activities Registration Act is
actually a Cold War, red-scare artifact that's been on the books
since 1951. What appears to have happened is that Raw Story, who
is usually better about this kind of thing, mixed up last year's
attempt to repeal the law with the actual enacting of the law.
HuffPost ran with the story, which is how it caught my eye. ...
"Turns out this law, and a bunch like it, were already ruled
unconstitutional back in the day. ..."
[http://www.youaredumb.net/node/1483]
The 1951 legislators may have been inspired by the Federal
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. [-tw]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Animal Calls (letter of comment by Tim Bateman)
In response to Al Stoops's comments on animal calls in the 02/12/10
issue of the MT VOID, Tim Bateman writes:
The generic "ribbit" frog call used to puzzle me--until I worked
out that it was some peculiarity of Americans.
Later, of course, I heard that there is a reason, which is that
"the 'generic' frog call comes from a species that happens to live
in southern California"--next to Termite Terrace, the animation
studios of Warner Bros. Everyone thinks that frogs speak like
frogs in Warner Bros. cartoons, specifically "One Froggy Evening"
(I hope that I have that title right).
P. S. Just checked. Opinionopedia agrees that "One Froggy Evening"
is the title, though it does not mention the "ribbit" sound. [-tb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
There is much to like about the film LONE STAR, but a somewhat
(probably unintended) literary connection worth noting is to
William Faulkner's observation that "the past is not dead . . . it
is not even past." One of the most notable stylistic camera moves
in LONE STAR is to pan without a cut from a scene taking place in
the present to one taking place in the past, or vice versa. And
what is that but the embodiment of Faulkner's observation?
I also watched CITY OF TRUTH, ..., I mean THE INVENTION OF LYING.
I'm sure people will claim that the premise is so basic--like time
travel or alien invasion--that using it does not mean that James
Morrow deserves some credit. I disagree. "A Sad Place for
Hopeless Old People"? That sounds like something straight out of
CITY OF TRUTH, but it is really from THE INVENTION OF LYING. Now,
I will admit that, for example, THE INVENTION OF LYING looks at
what spontaneously discovered lying would be like in a world where
everyone had to believe everything you said, while CITY OF TRUTH
shows someone having to learn to lie. But even there, THE
INVENTION OF LYING seems to be a copy: just as in CITY OF TRUTH,
it's a dying relative that promotes the development of lying. I
think there is enough here to warrant Morrow at least asking the
writers where they got the idea. [-ecl]
[There was a time when science fiction authors were free to play
with each other's ideas. One author would write a story making a
point and another writer would take a similar idea, but change it
to make a different point. Certain writers wanted ownership of
ideas rather than the interchange. For example, Harlan Ellison
claimed that the film TERMINATOR was taken from an "Outer Limits"
episode he wrote "Soldier." Actually I always thought that
TERMINATOR was much closer to CYBORG 2087:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0060272/plotsummary. I am pleased
that James Morrow is not suing anyone who uses the idea of a
society of truthtellers. It would not be hard for the estate of
H. G. Wells to put up an argument that huge amounts of science
fiction used plots and ideas from Wells. -mrl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A sect or party is an elegant incognito
devised to save a man from the vexation
of thinking.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson