Sad Way To End The Year

A Calgary journalist, Michelle Lang, was killed earlier this week while traveling with a Canadian military convoy in Afghanistan. Recently engaged, well-respected for her integrity and bravery as a journalist, and now cut down in her prime. What a terrible end to 2009 for her friends, family and colleagues.

J. J. Abrams And The Mystery Box

A little bit (18 minutes) of J. J. talking about Lost, Mission: Impossible 3, his grandfather and the joy of creation, at TED in 2007.

Family Bonding

Tammy and I have been playing several hours of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Special Ops missions every day since the big Christmas Present Opening Extravaganza (sometimes just referred to as "Christmas morning"). It's impressive to me just how much better we play as a team now than when we started, a mere four days ago. We've each adapted somewhat to the other's style while still remaining distinctly different in our approaches. Tammy tends to be more aggressive than me, and I'm inclined to hang back and sometimes even over-think the situation sometimes. Between the two of us, though, we usually strike a happy medium.

My favourite mission so far is the one (in Alpha) set in the marketplace. It's one of the few that we've completed on the Veteran difficulty setting, and I'd still enjoy playing it some more in the future. I like that it's not timed, that you have a very specific target (killing a certain number of enemies) and that goal is always clearly displayed (a counter that decreases with each kill), as well as the fact that you're punished for killing civilians. It feels like a map where you can take your time to a certain degree, but also where bad guys frequently pop up and start shooting you if you don't pay attention to your surroundings.

Modern Warfare 2 is turning out to be a pretty special game, justifying the high praise and popularity that it's amassed in the weeks since it came out. If more games were this much fun, I'd probably never get anything done! (Book? What book?)

The Other Christmas Goodies

In addition to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, I also received some non-video game presents for Christmas!

Reading material included The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe and Our Choice by Al Gore (both from Tammy), as well as Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem and Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw (courtesy of Vicki).

In the comic book category, Tammy gave me a nice copy of Thor # 136 while Vicki loaded me up with the Justice League of America Archives # 2, World's Finest # 115 and Adventure Comics # 212, all of which are from the Silver Age. Vicki also bestowed the drool-inducing Absolute V For Vendetta on me, which will look very fine indeed beside my Absolute Watchmen from a year or two ago.

But wait, there's more: I also got a few movies on DVD. Tammy continued her recent run of finding films I've never heard of (last year it was Let the Right One In and The Lives of Others that impressed me greatly) and gave me Good Bye Lenin! and Oldboy. Vicki countered with One Week and Star Trek (special edition including a replica Enterprise).

And just so that I wouldn't have to play, read or watch any of those items bare chested, I also received shirts from Bali and Cambodia (thanks to Tammy's big Asia trip this past summer) and the Batcave.

And last but most certainly not least, I hauled in gift certificates from Future Shop and Starbucks, as well as hot chocolate (complete with mug) and chocolates of many varieties, courtesy of my long-suffering Math students and their parents. It was both surprising and endearing that each of them thought to give me something, when I really hadn't expected any of them to do so!

As you can see, I was thoroughly and completely spoiled this year, once again.

OK, That's Crazy Fun!

Tammy and I must've played 4 or 5 hours of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last night, sandwiched around a couple episodes of Lost Season 5 (so that Vicki wouldn't feel completely left out!). We were doing the Special Ops missions within the game, each of which proved to be highly addictive. I loved how strategically we had to play some of the missions in order to complete them.

The evening ended (between midnight and 1:00) after we successfully defused 3 bombs in the market place on our 6th or 7th try. Tammy was "bleeding out" (having just taken care of one of the explosives before getting mortally wounded) while I raced to take out the last bomb, managing to do so exactly as the clock ran out (on both the mission and Tammy's virtual life). It was ridiculously exciting!

New Games In The House

Christmas Haul 2009 has brought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 into my waiting hands, thanks to the lovely Vicki. She received - and is already well into - Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, courtesy of me. And finally, after seeing it on sale for $39.99, this afternoon I ordered a copy of Left 4 Dead 2, which one of my tutoring students has been bugging me to get ahold of so that we can play it in Coop mode. I made that decision after playing the demo for L4D2, and while I didn't immediately fall in love with it, I did laugh out loud a couple of times, which has to count for something.

In short: lots of gaming in this household is expected in the coming days!

The Game That Keeps On Giving

Resistance 2, as longtime followers of this blog must surely recall, came out more than a year ago now (Nov 4, 2008, to be precise). I spent hundreds of hours playing it during those first several months after its release, before eventually moving on to other - less entertaining, immersive and addictive - games. For about four or five months, though, that R2 disk rarely, if ever, exited my PS/3.

Today, more than 13 months after its debut, that terrific game was back in the console once again. Tammy, Boneman, Boneman Jr and I spent an hour and a half playing a variety of Competitive and Cooperative matches, still getting our money's worth out of a game that almost never disappoints. I can't imagine revisiting most games that long after they've come and gone, but Insomniac really knows how to make 'em.

I imagine there may be some new offerings in the video game market showing up among my presents tomorrow, and I'll greatly enjoy every single one of them, to be sure. But it's hard to top this particular Insomniac franchise and hopefully by this time next year I'll be raving about Resistance 3!

Day Of The Triffids: Timeless Classic

I see on Ain't It Cool News that the BBC is about to start running a new miniseries based on the 1951 John Wyndham gem (which I just recently read for the first time). You can actually watch 3 trailers for Triffids here, if you're at all interested.

Just in the few minutes shown, I can see that they've tinkered somewhat with the setup from the book, but it still looks like an interesting take on that material. I wonder how we'll get to see it in North America?

An Interesting Behavioural Experiment

Today is Wednesday, and that means it's New Comic Day in North America. Although I probably won't get to my local comic store until next week, were I to venture there today I'd find 10 new comics waiting for me among the dozens that arrived from scads of different publishers this afternoon, just in time for Christmas.

Next Wednesday, however, almost no new comics will be released. The reasoning apparently involves the distributor (Diamond) not wanting to have to deal with the usual hassles of shipping between Christmas and New Year's (despite a long history of somehow managing in the past). This news was received, I imagine, with some consternation by comic store owners, as it potentially meant a week of missed revenue for them. You can argue that all of the same comics will come out sooner (this week) or later (first Wednesday in 2010) anyway, but from a cash flow point of view, I think it makes a difference. For one thing, that's one week out of fifty-two in the year (nearly 2%) during which few, if any, customers would be coming into the store and possibly making impulse purchases. Add in the fact that some might be flush with Christmas cash and it makes for a poor economic scenario for the merchants.

Never fear, though, as DC and Marvel/Disney both decided to do something about it. Each of them has arranged to publish one special item next Wednesday: Blackest Night # 6 from DC and a (free?) 2010 Calendar from Marvel/Disney. The idea is that these items will bring the customers into the store during that lull week, and everything will be good. Of course, since Diamond isn't shipping that week, this solution only works if the objects in question arrive ahead of time... specifically, with today's big shipments of comic store fare!

For the 2010 Calendar, that's not such a big deal. Stores will have received them today and should have little problem "sitting" on them until this time next week. And if they didn't... so what? Who's really going to care if some copies of a calendar get out there a week early? In the case of Blackest Night # 6, on the other hand, you're talking about the hot-off-the-presses, absolutely latest issue of the hottest comic event of the year. Blackest Night is crossing over into lots of DC titles right now and interest in it couldn't be higher. So what exactly are the odds that no unscrupulous store owners will either leak or outright pre-sell copies of this much-sought-after comic between now and Dec 30? How likely is that the contents of this all-important title won't be spoiled for the majority of us before we even have the option of owning it ourselves?

To mitigate the chances of that happening, DC has taken some steps to introduce a reward system whereby all stores will receive a limited run (and therefore valuable) variant issue of something (maybe Blackest Night) early in 2010 so long as they haven't been found to have jumped the release date of Blackest Night # 6. How DC is planning to track this, I'm not sure. With the nature of viral reporting these days, perhaps they're counting on Internet reports (or the fear thereof) to keep things in check. At any rate, it seems like quite the fascinating cultural / behavioural experiment to me, and I'm already looking forward to watching the results unfold in the next 7 days.

[Update Dec 24/09: It didn't take long.]

Scientists And The What If Scenario

I got thinking the other day about how difficult it's been for environmental scientists to make their voices heard as the climate change crisis has developed over the past several decades. Until former Vice President Al Gore appeared in the film An Inconvenient Truth, it seemed as though the message was never going to be received in any mainstream manner (at least in North America). Gore, who isn't even a scientist but rather a well-known political figure, managed to get a lot of people interested in a topic that up to that point had only gotten much attention in scientific and fringe liberal circles. Why did it take the involvement of someone who's more of a pop culture star than an "egghead" to bust through that barrier? And why is there still so much resistance to the facts that are becoming so impossible to ignore?

Then I remembered how, in the first half of the 20th century, scientists seemed to be much more highly regarded. Look at the science fiction movies of the 1950s and early 60s, for example, and for every "mad scientist threatening to destroy the world" stereotype there are probably half a dozen counter examples of noble, even heroic eggheads who are using their impressive brain power to save the world from giant ants, an approaching asteroid, or alien invasion. Consider the importance of the Albert Einstein-like Professor Barnhardt, in 1951's classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. There it's Barnhardt and the rest of the world's most brilliant minds who are the only hope for averting disaster if the awesome power of alien Klaatu's police force judges Earth to be too dangerous to be allowed to survive. This is pure brain over brawn, writ large, for all the movie-viewing world (especially kids) to see.

Somewhere along the line, in my own lifetime, scientists stopped being considered role models. Sure, we all still benefit on a daily basis from the vaccines, cures, gadgets, efficiency improvements and other advancements that come from the application and extension of the various sciences, but few people seem to view the folks doing that mental heavy lifting as worthy not only of respect, but possibly of admiration, as well. If you watch some of the conservative spokespeople in the U.S., in fact, you'd tend to believe that most science is pure chicanery, performed to undermine religious beliefs or push ideological agendas. The irony implicit in that stance is enough to make your teeth ache, and yet it's lost on a sizable portion of the population. They're happy to take the fruits of scientists' labours but only so long as the direction of the research and findings don't conflict with their own superstitions, business interests or personal biases.

But think how differently we'd be positioned right now, vis-a-vis climate change, if the late 20th and earliest 21st centuries had been characterized by a re-discovery of the importance of science, rather than by an increasing rejection of its principles. In most of those impending disaster movies of the 1950s, people entrusted their fates to the white lab coated members among them who'd proven over time to be driven by facts, not beliefs; by repeatable results, not repeated doctrine; and by a thirst for knowledge, not a desire to protect their own self-interests. In other words, they placed their faith in the people who were most likely to tell them the truth, instead of following whomever happened to feed them the most of whatever they wanted to hear. It's just too bad that the reality has proven to speak so much more poorly for our species than the lofty expectations we used to hold for ourselves. And in the end, that may be what does us in.

Online Play Is (Apparently) Hard To Get Right

I don't yet own a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, though I might, come Christmas morning! Therefore I haven't yet experienced what is, it seems, a somewhat screwed up online environment. Here's one article on the sad current state of affairs there. (And by the way, if you read the line "I was literally a prisoner of Modern Warfare 2" and laughed out loud, join the club. Why is it so difficult for people to understand what the word "literally" means, I wonder?)

Anyway, reading that article, I got thinking about how rare it is that you find a game whose online setup is so well done that you just take it for granted. Both Resistance games scored pretty well, in that regard, even though we diehards complained a bit each time (Insomniac was fairly good at responding to many of those gripes). The Halo franchise on the 360 has usually been first-rate. Neither of those examples can really hold a candle to what I used to experience on the PC, however, in games like Aliens vs Predator or Unreal Tournament (the original)... or am I simply seeing those days through rose-coloured glasses? I seem to recall less frustration with finding the kind of games I wanted to play, compared to nowadays, but maybe that's because our expectations were so much lower back then.

I'd say that my own ordered priorities for online play would be:

1. High availability - it's really annoying when you're ready to play but can't get online
2. Fun factor - this is obviously somewhat subjective, but c'mon: designing an online game where anyone new to it is likely to be killed immediately upon spawning just isn't smart; the best game designers can put enough thought into what they deliver that the results can be fun for noob and pro alike
   
3. Reliable matchmaking algorithms - whether it's by type of game, type of map, skill level or some other criteria... just make sure your code actually finds the best-suited game based on what I selected, would ya?
4. Balanced play - I'm not fond of games where players who've spent more time in the game have artificial advantages (level ups, better weapons, better perks); being better at the game in terms of skill level is fine (and expected), but don't also make them better-equipped
5. Variety - The more maps, the better; the more game types, the better; and if you really want us to keep playing this game, deliver new content - free of charge - on a regular basis

As you can see, it doesn't take all that much to make me happy where online play is concerned.

Massive Action Game For PS/3 Owners

After months (years?) of idle talk about MAG, it looks like it's nearly here. Game developers Zipper Interactive have just posted news about the game going gold and an open Beta for it beginning on Jan 4. I haven't really given much thought to buying this (online-only) game, but I suspect getting to play the Beta for almost a week will probably decide the matter, one way or the other.

Anyone else interested by this news?

The Unkillable Equation

Via Wozniak, on Twitter: It's pretty cool!

A Hard Date For Aliens Vs Predator Game?

First time I looked, AvP (for the PC, PS/3 and 360) had a release date of "Q1 2010" (1st quarter, or Jan - Mar).

Next time I thought to check, the launch date had been updated to "Feb 2010", which put it squarely in the middle of that first quarter.

Today I saw a reference to it coming out on Feb 18, 2010, which puts it almost squarely in the middle of February! They just keep on splitting the difference, which is fine by me!

If that Feb 18/10 date is solid, then we're down to less than 60 days until I get my hands on a new addition to the franchise that placed an entry at # 3 on my Top Five Video Games of all time list. That's right: I'm now officially counting down to its arrival! And, of course, if Rebellion releases a demo ahead of time, I should get to try it out even sooner than that.

Fingers firmly crossed...

Math Book Update

I went on a writing jag or two this weekend, with the end result being that I passed the 100th page milestone on draft # 1 of No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help). As you can see, I've even found my subtitle along the way, it appears! I'm working on Chapter 10 right now and it feels like there are perhaps another 4 or 5 to go, meaning that I'm roughly 2/3 of the way home. With so little tutoring scheduled over the next 2 weeks (5 hours in total, compared to the 21 that I'd normally get in a fortnight) I should be able to make some substantial progress before school starts up again on Jan 4th.

It's truly starting to feel like a real thing, this latest book of mine.

"Superman"-like Neighbour Spotted In Kansas?

Is the DC Universe finally coming to pass before our very eyes?? It all started in 1938 with the publication of Action Comics # 1, featuring the very first appearance of the Man of Steel. In it, mild-mannered Clark Kent, raised in the farmland of Kansas, begins wowing the world. And now we get this story, in which a Kansas man apparently lifted a car off of a little girl after the vehicle had rolled onto her.

Keep your eyes peeled for a man dressed as a bat who helps the police solve crimes next...

The Mythical Game 9

Despite the early World Series championships sometimes featuring best-of-nine series (1903, 1919 and 1921) and the allowance of tied games (called on account of darkness; no electric lights!) in pursuit of getting one team to 4 wins, there was never a Game 9 in the history of the Fall Classic. There were several Game 8s, but never a Game 9.

When you think of the excitement that modern day Game 7s hold (in the MLB, NHL and NBA), just imagine what a Game 9 would have been like!

A Review That Mirrors My Expectations

Ever since I saw the first trailer for the Guy Ritchie-directed, Robert Downey, Jr/Jude Law-starring Sherlock Holmes film, I've been very apprehensive about it. As a self-professed Holmes fan (as well as being an actual Holmes!), I tend to have pretty high standards for any story in which the character appears. Of course, with the Conan Doyle tales now in the public domain, they're fodder for anyone who wants to try their hand at it.

Based on this preview review by comic writer/gossip columnist Rich Johnston, it sounds like the latest big screen offering is every bit the bust that its trailer made it appear to be. In fact, Johnston's views line up quite nicely with my reaction to each trailer I've seen, which has been to think, "That's not Holmes." At no point does Downey seem to embody any of the Great Detective's attributes, leading one to wonder why they even bothered slapping his name onto it. Why not create a new set piece about a drunken, belligerent middle-aged Englishman in the late 19th century who goes around getting into fights while bumbling his way through private investigations? After all, if it was successful, the creators would own the exclusive rights to the characters and could make millions off the franchise.

Anyway, this sounds like a pass for me this Christmas season. Vicki and I will continue delighting in our viewing of the DVD collection of Granada TV's British episodes starring Jeremy Brett (which are truly excellent). I'm currently also reading two original books called The Final Solution (one by Michael Chabon and the other by Walter J. Harmidarow), both of which treat the Holmes legend with considerably more respect and admiration. Hell, maybe I'll even re-read Leah Moore and John Reppion's wonderful 5-issue comic series entitled The Trial of Sherlock Holmes. That just goes to show that some people know how to use the character well, and others are simply without a clue, so to speak.

Do They Even Get It?

Reading over this article at the Freakanomics website, I kept thinking, "Do they even get it? Why are they wasting their time calculating whether driving drunk is more or less dangerous for the drunk than walking home drunk would be (it turns out that it's less) when that's not even the typical concern that we should have with drunk driving?" Then I got to the comments, and right there, at the top, was the following:

"The real problem with your analysis is that I don’t care if some drunk idiot gets himself killed while walking. I *do* care if a drunk driver kills someone *else*.
— Ramsey H"

Well said, Ramsey H! I couldn't have put it better myself!

Glad To Know I'm Not The Only One Bugged By It

Yet another pet peeve of mine shows up in the headlines. Sounds like someone is finally going to do something about it!

Bleh

In a word, that's how I feel right now. Maybe I'm coming down with something.

So Long SARA?

Based on a pamphlet and letter that came in the mail from Rogers today, it sounds like our cable provider will soon be either replacing or upgrading the Scientific Atlanta Resident Application (SARA) that's been a mainstay on our SA8000 box for years. It's a little unclear from the material we received whether Rogers is simply putting a new set of screens in front of SARA or replacing it completely. The letter states that you can still access "your original channel listings in the Interactive Program Guide" by pressing the Guide button a second time, but does that mean that SARA is still there, or just its functionality? I wouldn't shed a tear at the loss of SARA, if it's actually going away. But most of my issues with it pertain to the recording side of the box, which unfortunately fall under a separate application. It remains to be seen if any of them will be improved by this change.

One of the new features that they're touting with this mid-January release is a set of mosaic-style offerings on which they'll combine (at the head-end) six Picture-In-Picture-sized channels on a related theme ("Kids", "News", "Sports") into a single broadcast channel. Vicki scoffed at the execution (specifically that there's nothing there for women) but of course I think both the news and sports option might be interesting.

Anyway, as I said to Vicki while I read the material, "This is by far the most interesting thing Rogers has sent us in years."

[Update later that same day: Further examination of the screen shots in the flyer lead me to believe it's simply a new front-end to SARA, not a replacement... but I can't be sure just yet, since they might have opted to model the new UI after SARA.]

Happy Birthday Wishes To Tammy!

That's right... as of a few seconds ago, our "little girl" Tammy turned 23 years of age. That means that for the first time ever (and only for a short while), I'm now twice her age! I'm sure there's some greater significance to birthday # 23 than that, but it's late and my old brain needs a rest.

We won't get to see her until a day or two before Christmas, but she probably won't look too much older by then! And once she gets here for her holiday break there should be insane amounts of video game playing to enjoy.

"Do What You Love; Love What You Do"

I may just adopt that as my new motto for living and working (replacing my old standard of "Everything goes along fine right up until I have to rely on someone else.")

While I'm fortunate enough to be picking and choosing just what to work on and how to approach each such engagement, I'm regaled on a weekly basis by friends who are disgusted with one aspect or another of their own current employment. It doesn't even seem to matter which field they might be in; the story always seems to be the same. Bad bosses; incompetent peers; unreasonable customers; long hours spent on activities that end up being a waste of time; all adding up to endless frustration. I have to say: I really don't miss those days!

The Only Kind Of Jewelry For Me

Back before we got married, Vicki and I had "the ring discussion." She likes jewelry and therefore rightly expected to wear a wedding ring that we would buy for that purpose. I have no use for jewelry (unless it serves some other function, such as telling me the current time) and therefore didn't want to waste any of our money on the "traditional" wedding band that most men wear in our culture. I did say at the time, though, that I'd happily wear a Green Lantern ring if Vicki could find one for me. Unfortunately you have to be born without fear and be in close proximity when a current Green Lantern dies in the line of duty in order to get one of those suckers, and since I quake with terror every time I watch the Rangers blow another lead, my chances were pretty poor.

However, with this year's Blackest Night event from DC Comics, though, the publisher has been giving away promotional plastic rings made in the design of the various "colour corps" that have sprung up in the DCU recently. Each of the 8 rings was tied to one particular issue of a DC comic, and you'd get that ring if you bought that issue. I told my friendly comic store owner that I'd like each one and would therefore reserve each of those comics. As of a couple weeks ago, the last one in the set came out, and I now have all eight rings. There's slightly more to this story than that, though.

Pictured to the left are the 8 rings. Clockwise, starting at the top, you can see the rings of:

• the Black Lantern Corps (death)
• the Red Lantern Corps (rage)
• Agent Orange (avarice)
• the yellow Sinestro Corps (fear)
• the Green Lantern Corps (will)
• the Blue Lantern Corps (hope)
• the violet Star Sapphires (love)
• the Indigo Tribe (compassion)

It makes for a lovely set of matching merchandise for any DC fan.

However, as the rings were being produced, mistakes would happen. So, for example, there would be the odd red ring that would bear the insignia of one of the other groups rather than that of the Red Lanterns. Once word of this got out, then it became something of a lark to try to find such "variant" rings, each of which would fetch $10 to $20 on eBay due to its novelty. Around the middle of the promotion (when half of the rings had come out but half were yet to arrive), I mentioned this to the owner of the comic store, and he and I began sifting through his supply to see if he had any. In fact, out of the dozens that he had in stock, I found one orange ring with the wrong design on it (I think it was the Star Sapphire insignia). The owner wasn't about to let me swap my regular orange ring for it, mainly because the store's brand colour is orange and he thought that a variant of that shade would be a good marketing tool. Instead, he promised me the next irregular that came in, since we still had several more rings ahead of us.

And sure enough, the next week he presented me with a blue ring that was incorrectly cast with the yellow ring's design. If you look at the picture above, you'll note that those two are the closest in appearance, and so it took me a moment to even recognize that it was "wrong." I proceeded to buy a regular blue off of him (so that I'd have the complete set of normal rings) but particularly cherish my variant that somehow, inexplicably, combines hope with fear.

It's things like this that really bring out the geek in me.

Old Boss Gets New Lease On Life

OK, perhaps that title is just a bit on the hyperbolic side, but I'm really and truly happy to see how well my previous boss (and current friend), the VP of Engineering who had installed me as his Agile Manager three and a half years ago, is doing now that he's moved on to a much better job. Gone are many of the ridiculous external pressures and conflicting messages that characterized our previous existence together, replaced by an atmosphere of true empowerment and vision-setting that he's largely responsible for creating. He now exudes a lot more confidence and enthusiasm than I'd seen out of him in a few years and that's a terrific change.

We had a ninety minute coffee break together yesterday and probably could have easily talked for twice that long, had I not had a tutoring session to get to. Even just the fact that we could enjoy an hour and a half without being interrupted by a Blackberry buzzing or an emergency meeting being called shows how different his new environment is from the one we last worked together in. The joy of simply discussing ideas and comparing notes (mostly around Agile, in this case) is something that you unfortunately forget can even happen once you allow yourself to get trapped in a Crisis Mode work culture... as we both had, for awhile anyway.

I like it when good people get out of bad jobs and into ones that better suit them, and it's just too bad that more don't.

World's Worst Husband

Vicki was on one of the local TV programs this morning, speaking about the Women's Canadian Club of which she's currently the president. I drove her there and then waited in the "green room" (really just a kitchen area) while she went before the cameras and did her spiel. Just before she was to go on, one of the earlier guests came back to where I was and started asking me about my Math tutoring experiences (which had come up before the program began). I got so involved in that conversation that I missed all but the last few seconds of Vicki's interview! What kind of a husband am I?

Fortunately, I had set up both the PVR and VCR to record her appearance, and we both got to watch it together once we got home. She did great, to the point where it's hard to believe that it was her first time on TV! No flubs, no moments where she looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and no flop sweat (see: Albert Brooks in the film, Broadcast News). She's a natural, and I expect they'll ask her back for return appearances in the future.

As for me, I got to try out more of my material from the Math book that I'm writing, and it really seemed to captivate the interest of each person I talked to. I just have to pay better attention to what's on the monitor next time!

Earth One = DC Comics' Ultimate Line?

Back when All Star Superman and All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder launched (what... three or four years ago now?) I wondered if the new All Star line was supposed to be DC's answer to Marvel/Disney's Ultimate universe of books. The way it was described - top-notch talent, stories set outside of regular DC universe continuity, a slowly growing set of titles - sure made it sound that way.

But then the delays began, and before long DC stopped talking up their All Star offerings and even told us not to hold our breaths waiting for the previously-teased All Star Batgirl (never materialized), All Star Wonder Woman (ditto) or any of the other hinted-at titles. As the first run (Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely on All Star Superman) wrapped up, no further issues were mentioned. We're still waiting for Frank Miller and Jim Lee to complete ASBaRtBW, all these years later. I was never sure whether the horrendous lateness of those two titles did the idea in, or if the sales didn't match expectations (in fact, I think both sold well), but something definitely grounded the line.

And now we get this announcement today: an Earth-One series of original graphic novels, starting next year, and featuring some of the biggest DC superheroes in their own - brand new! - continuity. With another wave of top talent assigned, such as J Michael Straczynski, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, it's sounding awfully familiar to this jaded fan. I hope it's different this time, but it's hard not to be skeptical after the All Star debacle. Oh well, at least DC keeps trying to get it right...

On Past Work Places

Vicki and I were out at a Christmas party last night generously put on by the consulting company that's found Vicki a couple of her contracts over the past several years (and my own short-lived one in 2009). Many of the contractors at the event were old friends of ours from the days when we both worked at the bank (I lost count at about 15 familiar faces now marked by greyer hair or more creases). Because of that, it was a lot like a work reunion, 10 or 15 years out. Many of them seemed quite interested to hear that I'd written a couple of books (and was working on a new one) and that both Vicki and I were enjoying a form of semi-retirement, especially because we're younger than most of the folks who were there. It was great to catch up with so many people who had once been such a regular part of my life, but also kind of depressing to realize that most were much more inclined to talk about "glory days" from the 90s than to gush about what they were doing now. I guess I'm just more of a live-in-the-present type, and I can't help but feel sad when I see that sort of thing happening. If your best days aren't happening right now, then how do you drag yourself out of bed in the morning? Isn't that the way it's supposed to work: ever upward and onward?

All of that reflecting back got me wondering whether I'll have some similar experience with friends from my more recent employment, somewhere down the road. I've done a much better job - so far, at least - at keeping in touch with the folks who knew me as their Agile Manager than I ever did with the banking group. Even a year after leaving that job in the financial sector in 2001, my contacts there had shrunk to about 3 or 4, compared to the dozens that I'm still talking to sixteen months out from walking away from being the Agile Manager. Considering that about 1/3 of that most recent work force have since left that company (most by their own choice; a few through layoffs or contract terminations) it's a good thing that e-mail, Instant Messenger and this blog all provide such good vehicles for continued communication; otherwise I think it'd be almost impossible to maintain contact.

We must be getting to the end of yet another year, as that always seems to be when these retrospective thoughts come out. Hurry up and get here, January, so that we can all start looking forward again... like we're supposed to!

Math Concepts That Fry Young Minds

As I continue to tutor Math and write a book on the subject, I've gotten more and more familiar with the Mathematical concepts that seem to cause the most trouble at the various grade levels. There are quite a few of them (most of which I get into in the book) but two that have been coming up in my work a lot lately are negative numbers and linear equations.

Unlike fractions or word problems (two other members of that daunting list), though, I don't have any personal experience with ever struggling with Integers or line equations. So where it's easy for me to put myself in a student's shoes when he or she can't quite grasp how to divide one fraction by another or how to figure out which train arrives at the station first, I'm finding it more difficult to explain why 3 - (-7) is 10, rather than 4, -4 or -10 (as seem to be the most common results arrived at). I tend to refer the child to the number line in pursuit of the correct answer, but they don't seem to be getting taught that approach in school much anymore. I've tried variations like "subtracting -7 is like removing a debt of $7, meaning that you now have $7 more since you don't owe that $7 anymore" but that's admittedly a pretty circuitous route to take. In the end, I usually resort to flash cards and lots and lots of practice for the student.

With line equations, there appears to be a disconnect in the minds of some students as to what the equations even mean. In other words, they're taught that putting the equation in the form, y = mx + b, is important because they can then read the slope of the line (m, in the equation) and the y-intercept (b, in the equation) straight off the page. That much they tend to get. But they often struggle figuring out the x-intercept (since it's not staring them right in the face) as well as concepts like recognizing whether a point (x1, y1) is on the line or not, given the equation. The whole notion that a point is only on the line if you can plug its x-coordinate and y-coordinate into the equation (for the x and y, respectively) and have the equality maintained, just doesn't seem to be sinking in for some. Therefore, if you ask the question, "Is point (2,3) on that line?" they either look at you blankly or start to graph the line. All of which shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the relationship that exists between lines and equations, and that gap just compounds into larger problems once they're introduced to parabolas and other exponential functions. And yet, when I was taking Grade 9 Math way back when, it just seemed immediately obvious to me how equations with x and y in them worked, since we'd been working with the Cartesian coordinate system for awhile by then. So how do you get this point across if that particular penny hasn't dropped and equations still look like Greek to the student?

In my book I'll be confronting some of these questions and offering up what I can by way of solutions. At least I'm getting lots of real world experience dealing with what I imagine many parents are running into right now.

I Really Need To Get Some Help

Every week, when we watch Flashforward, I can't get past the fact that one of the actors looks exactly like a 30-ish Peter Gabriel! Jack Davenport, who plays Lloyd Simcoe in the TV show, is a dead ringer for the musical genius not long after he left Genesis. It takes me out of the episode every time because the resemblance is so uncanny. Who do I see about something like this?

At The Intersection Of Lost And... Radiohead?!

This is the Spanish-language promo for Lost Season Six that has gotten so much attention from fans of the show lately. It's a wonderful little 45-second bit, but I only got about 1.5 seconds into it before I recognized the haunting music that's in the background: "Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead! What a perfect choice for the subject matter! Bravo, Cuatro!

You can read a bit more about it here, if you're interested.

Another Great Aliens Vs Predator Interview

The more I hear about the upcoming Aliens Vs Predator game (for the PS/3, 360 and PC), the more excited I get about it.

This interview with Rebellion art & design guy, Tim Jones, has really sparked my interest. I love the description of the game play and how it differs depending on whether you're a Marine, an Alien or a Predator... and the fact that there will be a different (but connected) single player campaign for each of the three species! Those were both key attributes to the original AvP, and it's gratifying to see that they're being retained in the new version. I loved when I was playing AvP back in 2000 and would suddenly recognize that the scene I was in the middle of as an Alien was the same one that I'd played through previously as a Marine... except that now the humans were the enemy! I don't know that I've ever seen that in any other game, before or since.

About the only downside I can see if this game turns out to be as awesome as I hope is the sad fact that Vicki probably won't want to watch me play it on account of it being so damned scary!

Books I'm Currently Writing (November 2009 Edition)

OK, if you skimmed over the title of this blog post, so back and re-read it. I'll wait.

That's right, this time I'm referring to books that I'm writing.

I can't really say that I'm currently writing my novel, as it's been stalled for several months now. That's not because I have writer's block, as I know where the story has to go next. It's not that I've lost interest in the book's contents, as I haven't. If anything, that book is on-hold because I realized that I need to get just a little bit better at writing before I can really pull it off. Which isn't a terrible thing to discover, as long as you expect to improve (as I do).

On the other hand, what I can say that I'm working on right now - almost literally - is a new book idea. It came to me over the summer and probably won't surprise you when you hear what it is. In fact, I'd say that "lack of surprise" is a pretty good way to describe how most everyone has responded to the news of its existence, as I've shared it around. I finally decided today that the time was right to blog about it, and so here we are.

The new book is called No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math, from which you may be able to deduce its general theme. It's a non-fiction addition to my body of work, very much along the lines of the two Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan books, but probably less controversial (although you never know)! It's intended to be an entertaining mind-dump of what I've learned as a Math tutor, specifically geared toward parents. I suspect that I'll end up sub-titling it something like "How Parents Can Help Kids with Math".

I sat down for an afternoon in September and came up with an outline for No Kid of Ours, after mulling over the idea of writing it for more than a month. Just as I did before beginning the original AgileMan tome, I wanted to know if I really had enough material to make it worthwhile. After a couple hours of note-taking, it seemed fairly clear to me that I did, and so, not long after that brainstorming session, I began writing it.

As of today, I have most of seven chapters written, albeit in very rough form. I've shared some of it with Vicki as I've been producing it, and gotten positive feedback each time. Needless to say, that reaction has helped increase my confidence in the concept and in my own ability to pull off its execution. Based on the outline and how things have been going so far, I expect that the finished product will weigh in at somewhere between twelve and sixteen chapters, and probably boast a page count of around 120 to 150. (Word count is looking like it'll run 40,000 to 50,000, if I had to make a guess.) In other words, it's not going to be a massive book, by any stretch... but I definitely hope that it'll turn out to be a useful and readable one!

In news that should make AgileBoy weep with joy, I've even been thinking that perhaps No Kid of Ours is a book that I should figure out how to market. With the AgileMan collection, I've done almost no promotion, and have the sales figures to prove it. I was always a little ambivalent about pushing those books too hard, though, as the subject matter was both touchy (considering that it shed some unfavourable light on my previous work place) and of limited interest (how many people really care about Agile, or even software development for that matter?). With a book about helping kids understand and succeed at Math, on the other hand, I've probably stumbled upon a subject that could have a significant target audience. Whether it's good enough to really tap into that particular demographic still remains to be seen, but at least there's more potential this time around. So we'll see.

Anyway, yet another cat is now out of its bag (see my "pig in a poke" post if you want to learn where that expression came from). Wish me luck! And feel free to place your advance orders for No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math anytime now! (Or you could wait until I'm at least finished writing it!)

Signs Of The Apocalypse (November 2009 Edition)

I mean, really... chess boxing??

Math Tutoring Update

Just as I thought that I'd finally settled into a consistent routine with 4 students and 7.5 hours of tutoring per week, I had a new student come along. As of last Friday, I've moved back up to 5 (all Math this time, though) and somewhere around 9 hours each week (possibly more, depending upon how things go with the newest arrival).

This gives me a nice cross-section, as I now have students in Grades 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 (just need a high school sophomore to fill out the run!). I've been getting increasingly familiar with the Math curricula across those grades, and it's been interesting to see which topics are causing the most trouble. Only one of the five students knew his or her times tables when we started, although each of the others is well on the way to having them down pat by now. Fraction arithmetic shows up as a weakness pretty consistently, as do things like handling negative numbers (for those who've encountered them already) and dealing with variables. Those are the holes that are most glaring because the lack of understanding poses the biggest threat going forward; but even more benign skills such as Metric conversion, understanding how to calculate percentages and converting between fractions and decimals appear to be suffering. Of course, I'm only seeing students who need tutoring help. But I can't help but suspect that it's more widespread than just that.

Anyway, there's no shortage of work for me, it appears... which is a classic example of "good news, bad news" if ever I saw one.

'Doc' Jensen Casts His Gaze Onto Lost Season Six

I've missed reading Jeff Jensen's amazingly-textured recaps and contemplations of each new episode of Lost almost as much as I've missed the show itself over the past six months... OK, maybe not quite that much! But it was still great to be able to read this.

The Roger Ebert Story

No, not a film chronicling the life and times of the famous Chicago Sun-Times movie reviewer, but rather a long-awaited post by him, giving some details about what happened to his old TV show. It's definitely worth a read. The saddest part of it, for me, was undoubtedly reading:

"Saying goodbye to [wife] Chaz in the hospital room were be the last words I would ever speak."

Things I Thought I'd Never See

Things like this, which includes the self-explanatory shock-inducing phrase "Alan Moore has launched a web site". That, alone, is enough to make one suspect off-season April Foolery, and yet apparently it's true. Who knew Alan had added the mastery of HTML to his other sorcerous powers...? (I kid!)

A List That It's Nice Not To Be On

Canada fortunately doesn't show up on the 10 fattest countries list, whereas the United States of Obesity weighs in at # 3. I've been pointing out that trend to Vicki each time we've been to the States over the past several years. I suppose it's nice - in a sad sort of way - to see that I wasn't imagining those pink elephants after all.

Got Your Christmas Shopping Done Yet?

Yes, it's that time of the year again... specifically, the "one month until Christmas" date that I use as my "you better be done your shopping by now" deadline. This year I'm pretty much complete, although I still need to find one item at the right price. Since I'm looking for it online, though, I'm not worried about running into the mob scene at the mall when I try to get it.

Speaking of mob scenes, the U.S. Thanksgiving Week should be starting right about... (checks watch, sees that it's almost noon)... NOW. I imagine that American offices, at least in the Eastern time zone, are already beginning to shut down. We have the Black Friday Trampling news coverage to look forward to when the "door crasher" sales open up in about 44 hours' time. This is always a strange time for us Canadians, as it's just business as usual for us while our neighbours to the south get a little crazy on turkey and dressing.

And, of course, if you haven't started hearing Christmas music yet, you don't have long to wait now.

Welcome To The 21st Century, Part 2

If you haven't already seen inventor Pranav Mistry's TED demo of his SixthSense technology, then you're in for a real treat. I still can't conceive of just how some of the things he demonstrates actually work (the dynamic adjustment of the pie chart seems pretty sophisticated, if it can really handle any kind of graph or measurement object as easily as it did the pie chart) but it's incredibly exciting technology.

Anyone who managed to slog through the last short story that I posted here ("Imaginary Stories") may recall that it had something slightly similar. In that tale I predicted a portable computing device that was about the size of a marble and which you could dynamically create a screen for by simply outlining a rectangular shape anywhere with your fingertips. You'd then interact with your virtual screen by using your hands to touch/move around/navigate whatever was on the "screen" (all of which would be mapped by the device and interpreted instantly).

What Mr Mistry has been developing will probably end up making my idea look like something from the 20th century. And that's almost breath-taking when you think about it!

Books I'm Currently Reading (November 2009 Edition)

It's been about four months since I last revealed what books I've temporarily released from their shelf space, which must mean that I'm overdue for a new list. I still have The Batcave Companion on the go from the last group, but also am now in the middle of:

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman - While not quite as engaging a read as his later work, The Conscience of a Liberal, this is an interesting explanation of what happened to the economies of Japan, Brazil and others that should have served as a warning for what lurked within the financial world going into the second half of 2008. I think Krugman was one of the economists who saw the current crisis coming, though... for all the good it ultimately did anyone.

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore - I bought this because I'm such a fan of the film, but to be honest there's not a whole lot of difference between the two. Still, it's a good reference source to have handy that doesn't require loading a DVD into a player to use!

Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn - I received my personalized, signed copy from Mr Cohn himself last week, and have been enjoying it since then. I'd read (and provided feedback) on most of the chapters in it previously, but it's still a fun read and should prove to be an invaluable resource for any organization that decides to "go Agile" from here on out. Too bad it wasn't around for us three years ago! Not surprisingly, I've noted several things in this book that we did wrong in our Agile adoption in 2006 - 2008, and each is something that eventually bit us in the ass.

Calculus with Analytic Geometry by Howard E. Campbell and Paul F. Dierker - It turns out that I've forgotten nearly everything I ever knew about Calculus! That was the bad news; the good news came when I remembered that I kept all of my university text books after I'd finished with them, and shortly thereafter found this book in the basement. I may not get all the way through it, but at least it's providing a good refresher on what all this nonsense is actually about (slope of a tangent line to a curve! Who knew?) And that's good to know, just in case I end up with a Grade 12 student at some point and need to understand it.

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham - This is my 4th Wyndham novel this year, as I whipped through The Chrysalids, The Kraken Wakes and Day of the Triffids before opening this one. I realized fairly quickly that I've never read Midwich before, and that it's quite different than any movie version I've seen (in whole or in part). I like it for Wyndham's attention to detail and the matter-of-fact way his villagers take on the burden of being "cuckold", but its pace wouldn't exactly set anyone's heart a-flutter. My favourite of the Wyndham books so far is still Kraken, which I could imagine reading again (for the 3rd time) in just a few short years.

Future Shop And The Video Game Trade-In Policy

Future Shop made a bit of a splash recently when they announced a new trade-in policy for video games. Basically, you can bring in 3 (or more) used video games for the PS/3, XBox 360 or Wii and receive in-store credit toward the purchase of new games. When I heard about this, I went looking through my small collection of PS/3 and 360 games to see if there were any that I was sure I'd never want to play again. I found 2, maybe 3 (Warhawk, Haze and maybe Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which I got with my first 360 and haven't even played once yet) but decided against trading them in right now. At most, the 3 of them would get me one new game so I wasn't sure it would be worth it at the moment.

But today I went looking at the Future Shop site, to see if maybe they're selling the used games that are coming in, and perhaps I could pick something up nice and cheap. Except that I don't see any for sale! Now, maybe I just didn't look hard enough, but if not... what are they doing with all of the used games that people are trading in? Are they... possibly... repackaging them and selling them as new?! I'm not saying that they are! But if they are, wouldn't that be somewhat unethical? After all, I'm pretty sure that I'm not allowed to re-sell my own games as if they were new (I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to re-sell them, period). Even places that sell used video games advertise them as such, and discount the price accordingly.

So just what exactly are Future Shop doing with all those used games? Does anyone know? (And I hope I'm not on to something here!)

[Update: I did some more digging, and their FAQ on the topic at least states that they do sell used games, that they guarantee them for 30 days, and that they sell them for discounted prices. I've yet to find one of them among the titles I've been looking for, but I'm happy to take them at their word unless some evidence indicates otherwise.]

Science Vs Anti-Science, Part 1

Climate Change Deniers the world over scored a huge "victory" this week when hackers gained illegal access to the servers at the Climatic Research Unit within the University of East Anglia, in the UK. Specifically, the criminals stole thousands of e-mails off the CRU servers and posted them online, some of which contained embarrassing exchanges between climate scientists. You can read the response by RealClimate, perhaps the foremost blog site for climate matters, here.

There's something vaguely familiar about the pattern that always seems to emerge between those who support science and those who oppose it. Whether it's Evolution vs Intelligent Design, Climate Change vs its skeptics, or even something as ridiculous as History vs Holocaust Deniers, it usually boils down to examining data on the one side, and smear tactics on the other. Hacking into someone's e-mail server and publishing what you find there? Smear tactics. They can't attack the science so they try to embarrass the people who use it.

The funny thing about that, though, is that what was released - illegally - somehow fell well short of supporting the various conspiracy theories that the Deniers have sworn existed for years now. A few poorly-worded exchanges out of the thousands stolen suggest some tailoring of the data in this report or that one, but that's about it. As the owner of the RealClimate site puts, "... if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it."

If either side in this particular "debate" should be forgiven for taking an "ends justify the means" approach, it has to be the Climate Change advocates. After all, whether they're right or wrong (and clearly I think they're right), they believe that they're fighting for the survival of the human race! The other side believes that it's battling to protect the financial interests of various industries, to maintain the status quo and to ensure that we don't suffer economic hardship as a result of moving away from cheap, accessible energy sources. So if it were the Climate Change camp that were hacking into the computer systems of their opponents, it would still be every bit as illegal... but maybe just a little bit less reprehensible? As it is, though, it's just another case of those who don't have any data on their side resorting to dirty tricks to win the day.

And interestingly, there seems to be more jubilation over the little bits of "dirt" that the hackers uncovered than there is recrimination toward the criminal act itself, among those who say that Climate Change is a myth or conspiracy. That seems to me to be telling, all on its own.

Excited About The New Aliens Vs Predator Game? Me Too!

After watching Alien and Aliens fairly recently, I got nostalgic about my old Aliens Vs Predator game that ushered me into the online gaming world, back in late 1999 or early 2000. I can still remember some of the levels in it, despite it being about 8 years since I last played it. I decided to see if my current PC would run it, but then discovered that the game has gone missing. I still have the box and guide booklet for it, but no disc! Since I had it in at work at some point in order to lend it out to someone, I'm assuming that it never came back to me. Oh well... c'est la vie!

Tonight I went looking for information about the new AvP game that's supposed to be coming out next year. I knew that there was one, but not much about it. Now I wanted to know more.

By far the most rewarding find in that search was this terrific interview with some folks from Rebellion, the makers of the 1999 PC game that I'd so loved. They're actually the people producing the new version, which this time is heading out to PC and console owners! The interview brought back a lot more great memories, as well as filling me with hope that the new version - release date unannounced but rumoured to be 1st or 2nd quarter 2010 - will deliver like the old one did. To this day, the original AvP is the scariest game I've ever played, with several of the F.E.A.R. titles coming a distant second. If this followup feature from Rebellion ends up living up to the description that its creators provided in that interview, I will be one happy camper when that bad boy ships next year. It's more likely that I'll be disappointed, but for now: I'm living in the Hopeful Zone!

The Inevitable History Of Intelligent Life

Watching the 3-part Nova mini-series, "Becoming Human", I was struck by a pattern that I imagine must repeat itself every time some form of intelligent life springs up on a planet somewhere. I think it must always go roughly like this:

1. Very primitive life forms have been evolving for millions of years, with one (or more) eventually gaining some advantage that allows it to begin down the path to intelligence (larger or more sophisticated brain, opposable thumbs, geographic imperative, lucky mutation at the cellular level)
2. Early versions of this species diversify (naturally) until one version is able to dominate (Homo Sapiens versus Neanderthals and others)
3. Dominant version obliterates all other versions, probably unwittingly (since intelligence is still very nascent at this point)
4. Primitive spoken language begins to appear and be utilized by at least some members of species (this may come back at 2. or 3.)
5. Language diversifies (naturally) due to geographic separations and the lack of any means (or perceived need) to keep it consistent; there are no written or distributed forms of language just yet
6. Language begins enabling storytelling, which encourages the development and elaboration of imagination
7. Creation stories begin to appear and diversify (naturally) as an example of where imagination leads one
8. Cults form around various creation stories and groups attempt to promote their own creation story version over everyone else's
9. Battles rage between groups separated by geography, language barriers, cultural norms or even creation story beliefs
10. Technology continues to improve at each step, thanks to adaptive nature of intelligent life and its use of language - now including written versions - to retain ideas and learning across generations
    
11. The scientific method (hypothesize, experiment, observe, measure, adapt conclusions) slowly begins to win favour over all other approaches because of its repeatable, demonstrable nature and the tangible benefits its use provide; creation story cults try to stop its progress at every turn as it's seen as a threat to their unprovable beliefs
12. Science eventually progresses to the point of being able to study the past (through artifacts), at which point the creation story question becomes at least partially solvable
13. Members of the intelligent species have had at least thousands of generations to develop large and elaborate beliefs about their highly-favoured position in the universe, and therefore the "news" that they started off as lower lifeforms hits them particularly hard; angry denial follows on many fronts
14. Species eventually comes to grip with reality of situation and moves forward from there

It's just too bad that we're all living in Stage 13 and probably won't live nearly long enough to ever see Stage 14.

Welcome To The 21st Century, Part 1

Here's a lesson we can all learn from: If you're collecting disability benefits for an extended period of time due to "major depression", then you probably shouldn't be posting happy pictures of yourself partying, on the Internet.

First of all, we all know how insurance companies spend massive amounts of money looking for ways to deny claims (hello, U.S. Health Insurance industry!). Second, how do you expect people to believe that you're suffering from depression so severe that you can't work, if you're providing them with photographic evidence that you're going to parties and strolling on a beach? It's kind of hard to find anyone to root for in this story!

The Endlessly Inventive Human Being

The part of me that's disgusted by this story about several companies' success at manipulating global oil prices is at odds with the part of me that reads things like this and thinks, "Holy crap, we're truly amazing in our capacity to find new ways to screw each other over! How do we do it?"

And how do the perpetrators of such carefree rape of their fellow humans live with themselves? Quite comfortably, I'm guessing.

My Kind Of Physics Class!

Reading this article about James Kakalios, the author of The Physics of Superheroes and physics professor at the University of Minnesota, I couldn't help but think back to my own brush with the mysterious world of physics. I took it as my major - for one year - at the University of Waterloo, before transferring to Computer Science. It was the driest, most depressing experience of my scholastic career... but just imagine if the profs there had used comic book references to liven things up! I might be a world-famous physicist today. (Or not.)

A Good Argument

The following video, entitled "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See" was created a few years ago by Oregon high school teacher Greg Craven and posted on YouTube, where it's been viewed a couple million times since then. It's also been updated and resulted in a book being written on the same subject, from what I can tell.



I love the argument that Craven makes, as it's something I've thought about many times myself, and even blogged about before. One aspect of the debate that he doesn't touch on, but that seems relevant to me, is the idea that conservation is a positive, compassionate way of life that should be attractive on its own merits. If we think of renewable resources (such as solar or wind power) compared to those which are non-renewable or which have dangerous by-products (such as oil, natural gas, coal, or even nuclear power, to some degree) in terms of whether their use is something that could be sustained for centuries or even millennia, then the folly of the latter group becomes pretty clear. It would be like setting up your family in a house that has some bottled water and a bunch of canned food in it but never doing anything to establish any new sources of sustenance, such as finding fresh water, starting a garden, or even just determining if there's a market nearby that you can get to. Sure, for awhile you'd do just fine by using up what the house came with, but simple common sense would tell you that you and your family can't survive in that way for all that long. It's amazing just how far we, as a species, have roamed from the old farming philosophy that everyone once understood: you need to live and operate in a way that's self-replenishing or else you won't be around for very long.

And of course, the "huge cost" of environmentalism is always trotted out as a reason not to change but it's actually just a transitional cost that's incurred in order to get us onto a sustainable path. Short term pain for long term gain... which is always a good return on investment.

Craving More Dr Horrible?

Thanks to Tammy, I've started to watch this, which is a fan-made prequel to Joss Whedon's bizarrely-appealing Dr Horrible phenomenon. I'm only partway through, but so far I'm liking it!

Worried That The World Will End On Dec 21, 2012?

If so, then:

a) you're being silly
b) you're placing way too much faith in the Mayan Calendar
c) you're the perfect audience member for this year's Independence Day, entitled 2012

Oh, never mind... I'll let Nova's Neil deGrasse Tyson explain it! And if that wasn't enough for you, here he is again!

Happy Friday the 13th!

You Knew This Was Coming, Didn't You?

Dollhouse, R.I.P.

At least I managed to avoid investing myself too much in this one, unlike with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (last season's trophy kill for the executives at Fox).

Hey, wait a second: Firefly, Sarah Connor and now Dollhouse... what do they all have in common? Oh, that's right:


Poor Summer Glau... she's become the Fox Sci-Fi Harbinger of Death!

We Are All Connected

Thanks to a friend, I received a link to this video, which I thoroughly enjoyed. You can read more about it here, if you're interested. As you'll see if you go to that link, "the Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form." And that's a pretty cool goal, if you ask me!

Interesting bit of Babylon 5 trivia: I'm pretty sure Delenn, in one of the episodes, speaks of humans and Minbari all being "star stuff" and that we are all the Universe's way of trying to understand itself. Until now, I hadn't realized that she was simply quoting Carl Sagan on the topic!

Breaking News: Fire Hot!

From The Onion: Fire Hot!

Totally Unreal

I have a rather unique situation at the moment: both my XBox 360 and my PS/3 are loaded up with the same game: Unreal Tournament 3!!

I've owned the 360 version for a couple of months, and have been playing it a lot whenever I haven't been doing Halo 3: ODST on the Microsoft console. Today, though, I received a PS/3 version of the game thanks to Tammy, who apparently really wants to play it online with me! She has a PS/3 (but no 360) and I think UT3 may just be her current favourite time-killer right now. And I have to admit: for all-out mayhem, it's hard to beat!

A Marriage Made In Heaven

Thanks go out to Boneman for bringing my attention to this delightful Onion article, entitled "Barack Obama Names Alan Moore Official White House Biographer"! If only...

For The First Time In The 21st Century...

... the Yankees win the World Series! (That's right, fools... their 2000 win over the Mets was way, way back in the 20th century, since the calendar didn't start with Year 0!)

It wasn't a particularly exciting Game 6 tonight, but seeing Godzilla rack up 6 RBIs was kind of special. Especially if this ends up being his last game as a Yankee.

Final score: NYY 7, Phi 3

Hopefully this doesn't mean that I now have to start paying attention to hockey again. After a 7-1 start to the season, the Rangers have managed to give most of that back and are barely above 0.500 once again. Uhh... go team?

Congrats to the Yankees for making the most of their super-inflated payroll this year.

A Milestone And An Anniversary, All Wrapped Up With A Bow

For those who've lost count (and shame on them, I say!) this is the 2500th post on this blog. That's right: 2500! That's two and a half thousand brain farts released over the course of roughly 37 months, put out there (err, here) for the world to enjoy! If you're one of the plucky few who've read each and every one of those entries, lo these past several years, then right about now you should really be asking yourself: "What the Hell was I thinking?!"

Imagine if someone stumbled across this blog today and decided to read its entire contents in reverse order! They'd be at it for a while, of course (I've lost track of the word count, but it's probably somewhere between half a million and a million) and they'd also be immersed in a crash course on just what I find interesting... whether anyone else does or not!

Today also marks the 1st anniversary of perhaps my happiest day of last year: November 4th. That was the day that both Resistance 2 and President-Elect Barack Obama arrived to provide some much-needed relief to the long-suffering masses. It was a magical day in my life, and I can't help but get a little bounce back in my step today, just thinking about it.

When I started this blog back in Oct of 2006, I would never have believed that I'd still be at it 2500 posts later. And yet here we are. Will it last for another 2500? I wouldn't even begin to make a call on that one right now. But I'm pretty sure that, if it does go another 2500, it'll take us a lot longer than 37 months to get there! I feel tired, just thinking about that much more writing.

A Slight Reallignment Of The Tutoring Regimen

At my peak, I had six different tutoring students, filling up all late-afternoons and evenings from Monday to Thursday. Two of the six were coming to me for help in non-Math-related areas (spelling and reading comprehension), which never really sat quite right with me considering that I got into this to do Math tutoring.

As of today, however, I'm down to just four students... all for Math! It looks like those four students will account for 7.5 to 8.5 hours per week (one student is currently at 1 hr but may soon bump up to 2), which is a nice, reasonable number of hours to set aside for this part-time job. I'll have one student each in Grades 6, 7, 8 and 11, which provides me with an attractive variety of topics to tackle. As it stands right now, I may also have Tuesdays clear, as that happened to be the weekday upon which the non-Math students had landed in the past. Since Vicki and I have been doing Yoga and sometimes Cycling classes on Tuesdays, that works out very well indeed.

Two months into the school year, I may have finally stabilized my tutoring schedule... of course, I've thought that before and been wrong every time!

Phillies Survive (Barely) To Play Another Day

After taking an 8-2 lead late in the game, you'd think it would've been a snoozer from that point on in Game 5 tonight. Unfortunately for the team from Philadelphia and its fans, the Yankees just kept inching back, closer and closer, and had the tying run come to the plate in the top of the 9th before finally losing, 8-6. It should be interesting to see who the Phillies send out to the mound over the course of Game 6, as their bullpen has been pretty shaky of late. At least Brad Lidge wasn't brought in tonight, as the series would probably be over by now if he had been!

One of the highlights of the night saw Chase Utley tie a World Series record for most home runs right before Ryan Howard tied another one for most strikeouts. A few minutes later the camera crew caught a great shot of a beaming Utley sitting beside a despondent Howard in the Phillies dugout, with the former reaching over and patting the latter on his butt by way of consolation. "A tale of two swings" was the way the commentators described that scene.

Game 6 comes our way on Wednesday night from the new Yankee Stadium, weather permitting. I can hardy wait!

Yankees Gain Stranglehold On Series

You had to feel a little sorry for the Phillies last night, as they battled back from being down 2-0 and 4-2 to eventually tie the game at 4-4 going into the 9th... only to have their "closer" Brad Lidge come in and give up 3 runs to sink his team (final score: 7-4 Yankees). Nothing quiets a home crowd quite like that abrupt a transition from boisterous enthusiasm to dejected futility.

Now up 3-1 in the series, and with the final 2 games in (the new) Yankee Stadium if they need them, New York may in fact finish the Phillies off tonight in the City of Brotherly Love. The winning pitchers from Games 1 (Cliff Lee) and 2 (AJ Burnett) are set to go head-to-head in Game 5, which should make for an interesting tilt. I'm inclined to think that the Phillies will force a Game 6, just out of pride if nothing else (what defending champion would ever want to see the trophy handed out to the other team in their own backyard?)... but we'll see. Last night's Game 4 was the best installment of the series so far, so it'll take some doing to top that.

The Mad Genius, In Happier Days

Rich Johnston at BleedingCool has posted several video interviews with Alan Moore from 1985 (collected via YouTube) and oh my! what a difference a couple decades can make! This is Alan back in the days when he was excited to be working at DC Comics, enthusiastic about the potential of the mainstream comic industry, and full of energy just bursting out of his pores. Oh, to have a time machine and be able to go back and bring that Alan forward in order to unleash him on the comic books of today! Who knows what we'd get, to rival the likes of Marvelman, Watchmen and V For Vendetta! Instead we have the bitter, disillusioned old man who barely cranks out one issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen per year now.

2009 World Series: Tough To Get A Handle On

Three games in, I can't really get a feel for this year's World Series yet. The Phillies looked so dominating in Game 1 (which they won 6-1); and then, after losing a close Game 2 (3-1), they came out guns a-blazing once the series moved to their home field last night. They jumped to a 3-0 lead in the 1st and looked poised to add more... except that they didn't, and then the Yankees scored the next 6 runs, and eventually posted a fairly convincing 8-5 win.

So now the series sits at 2-1 in favour of the Yankees. Each team has had the home field advantage snatched away from them (the Yankees, after Game 1, and the Phillies, after losing their first of three at home, last night). Each team has had at least one impressive pitching performance (Cliff Lee in Game 1 for Philadelphia, AJ Burnett in Game 2 for New York). So what's really going to decide this series? Will it be a battle of sluggers, waged by the teams with the two highest home run totals for 2009? Or is the team that can field the best pitcher in the critical game going to take the trophy?

At this point, I can't see any clear favourite. Obviously tonight's game is pivotal, as the difference between a Yankees team up 3-1 or a series tied 2-2 is all the difference in the world.

Another Halloween, Another Someteen Trick-or-Treaters

While we might still see another straggler or two (it's 8:15 as I type this), our 2009 total for kids sits at 16 [9:00 update: Total = 19]. That's not too different from last year (19) or the year before (18), which speaks to consistency, if nothing else. I've only seen one student of mine come a-calling, which is a little surprising considering that they're almost all neighbourhood kids of an age that would still go out. Maybe the rest are all afraid that I'll quiz them on fraction arithmetic in order to earn their treats?!

Tonight: Fright Night Delight

The plan for this evening is to watch one or two scary movies. The reasons for this plan are many:

a) tonight's proximity to Halloween, obviously

b) the fact that it's a Friday night, which, back when I was growing up, was the weeknight that some nearby U.S. channel would always show horror or sci fi flicks, starting at 11:30 (I was usually babysitting and would have put the kid(s) to bed by then)

c) the absence of any World Series game tonight (the Yankees and Phillies are headed to Philadelphia for 3, with the series tied 1-1)

d) my general love of scary movies and Vicki's occasional tolerance of them!

No final decision has been made on what to watch yet, but I'm rooting for Aliens (we viewed Alien not too long ago) and maybe the original War of the Worlds (which I never tire of re-watching).

Well, Now That's Confusing!

I saw a headline today that I (mis)read as:

"[Ratchet & Clank Future:] A Crack in Time to be Insomniac's last FPS game!"

Had I been thinking straight, I'd have realized my mistake right away, because the R&C franchise consists of Third Person Shooters (TPS), not First Person Shooters (FPS). But in my shock, I thought, "Oh no! If Insomniac is swearing off FPSs now, how will we ever get Resistance 3 out of them?!"

Of course, the headline actually had "... last 60 FPS game" at the end, which refers to a game in which the video occurs at 60 frames per second. But I'm so used to FPS meaning First Person Shooter that my heart skipped a beat!

Working For A Living

For one brief moment today, I was back in the rat race.

This morning, I did my Retrospective facilitation gig that I mentioned over on the AgileMan blog. My day started when the alarm (I know!) went off at 6:00 a.m. I wanted a nice, comfortable amount of time for showering, breakfast and psyching myself up before heading out "to work."

I was in to meet with the session's sponsor and a couple of very nice facilitators-in-training by 7:30. The session itself ran from 8:30 to 11:00, and I'll provide some details on how it went over at the other blog shortly. Then there was a debrief, and a lunch discussion, before I headed home around 1:30, having worked a draining, exhausting 6 hours! How anyone does 7.5-hour days anymore, I'll never know!

But... But... But How Will Shit Ever Hit The Fan Now?

If this fascinating invention ever comes down in price and catches on, then within a generation or two that old expression involving excrement striking a fan just won't make any sense at all!

Comic Mashups

Some of these mashups of comic strips and comic books are genius! I especially loved the X-Men/Peanuts one and the hilarious Spy Vs Spy Vs Alien Vs Predator... but they're all pretty awesome!

AgileMan Update

For those who never visit the AgileMan blog anymore (and who could blame you, considering how rarely I post there these days), you might want to check it out just to see what Agile shenanigans I'm up to this week. I haven't had much going on on the Agile front of late, but this week is an exception.

The More Onion, The Better

Boneman just pointed me to this Onion report, entitled "Hot New Video Game Consists Solely of Shooting People Point-Blank in the Face". Not only is the video itself quite good, but there's a link there that you can use to play the game! Not since the days of Pong on my black and white portable TV have I beheld graphics and game play as sophisticated as Close Range! It has to be seen to be believed! (Fair warning, though: the Onion video has crashed Firefox on me twice already!)

"Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla"

From our hilarious friends at The Onion.

Up Next: A Clash Of Titans

With the Yankees disposing of the self-destructive Angels in Game 6 of the ALCS tonight, that sets up a powerhouse World Series for 2009: the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies against the payroll-on-steroids Bronx Bombers. The boys from the City of Brotherly Love will be full of self-confidence going in, thanks to their success in the October Classic last year, and the Yankees will be... well, more than $200 million of first-rate talent! The fact that the always-contending New Yorkers haven't won a championship since "way back" in 2000 should provide some extra motivation for them. Like Habs fans in the NHL, Yankee-rooters don't take kindly to going very long without a trophy.

No series this year has really been anything to write home about, although the ALCS had its moments. If the Angels had played relatively error-free for this match-up, it might have gone the limit; as it was, they were lucky to push it to 6. But maybe this year's World Series will make up for the lacklustre paths that got us here... one can always hope!