Something For Everyone?

Microsoft and Sony have both now had their big day in the sun at E3 2010, and I'm still trying to digest it all. The House Gates Built seemed to be all about re-branding its motion sensing "Project Natal" by its new (awful, in my opinion) name, "Kinect". The biggest reason I dislike this name is that it all but guarantees that we'll end up with a generation of kids who think that "connect" is spelled that way. Don't we have enough illiteracy already without this nudge in that direction? As others have pointed out, it also seems too close to "kinetic" (probably by choice), both in spelling and how it sounds, which is sure to cause confusion. Oh, and the usual Halo-heads were no doubt all a-quiver at the Halo: Reach sneak peeks provided. Yawn, I say.

Boneman and I were desperately hoping that Sony would use E3 as the forum for announcing the long-awaited Resistance 3, but no such luck. Killzone 3 (Feb 2011) had already been "leaked" prior to the start of E3, but some of the highlights shown there were quite impressive. Same goes for the new Medal of Honor (essentially a reboot of the franchise, I guess), which my previous post showed. Perhaps most exciting for Vicki and I was the confirmation that Portal 2 is in fact on its way (sometime next year), and that it'll be available on the PS/3 (yay!). Sure, if it was just 360-bound, I'd buy it for that console, but I'd much rather get it for the Sony machine. I use my PS/3 way more than my XBox these days and would prefer to get most games for it.

PlayStation fans had worried that our free PlayStation Network was going away, to be replaced by a subscription-based, XBox Live-like service. Sony provided good news on that front, introducing the brand new fee-based PSN+, but leaving the original, free PSN as a perfectly viable option. For those interested, here's a list of what PSN+ offers. I have to say that the one PSN+ feature that might make me consider it is the "full game trial" in which you get to download a complete game and play any part of it you want for one hour. That's a pretty intriguing way to test drive a game, preferable in many ways to the demos that we've all gotten used to. I don't know that an hour's long enough, but being able to play any mode of the game is a huge advantage over most demos. I haven't stumbled across the one-year subscription amount yet, but I imagine it'll be comparable to Microsoft's $60 price tag. For $60, would I enjoy having the "full game trial" option as well as access to the odd free game and some early betas for a year? Maybe, maybe not; but it's intriguing to consider.

Sony also did a lot of showing off of their Wii-like, Kinect-like, "Move" peripheral (coming Sep 19/10). I will freely admit that I haven't paid as much attention to either Project Natal/Kinect or Move as I should have, and I'll try to fix that over the next little while. Last August, I posted a few thoughts on how shooters might change based on motion-sensing equipment entering the equation. I don't know if they'll really be the game changers that their promoters are claiming, but it's possible. Right now, if I had to guess, I'd say that I'll end up getting both of them (since I own both of the consoles) but I can't for the life of me see any compelling reason why just yet!

Somewhat ironically, Sony also revealed that there will soon be a SurroundSound system available for the PS/3. Could this finally be the way that I get a good sound system into my living room? That would be strange, but it could happen.

It's been a crazy few days watching the news out of E3, but it's also been a lot of fun. And it's not even over yet! "Christmas for Gamers" indeed!

[Update Jun 16/10: Nice writeup comparing the Wii, Kinect and Move here.]

This Looks Like Fun

New Medal of Honor game:

16 Years Ago Tonight

It's always tougher to celebrate the anniversary of the Rangers winning the Cup on this date in 1994 when the modern day equivalent has missed the most recent playoffs - as happened this year - but maybe, in a twisted sort of way, that just makes the significance of that bygone day all the greater.

I also think that, had you told me 16 years ago that I'd still be marking the anniversary of that victory every year since, I'd have taken some satisfaction from it. While it's nice to dream of what it would be like to have so many championships that I can't remember the details of each anymore (hello, Red Wings fans?), at times I prefer the specialness that comes from having just one... one perfect, President's Trophy-combining championship that had a whole nation watching it. Not bad at all, that.

Spring Cleaning Time

A few weeks ago, Vicki and I resumed playing Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, which had gotten abandoned when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 online gaming began dominating our PS/3 and my life. When my head finally came up from that experience, I was pretty burned out on gaming and it's taken awhile before I got back in the mood.

Insomniac Games did a fairly good job on this latest Ratchet & Clank offering, I'd say. The weapons were fun, as usual for R&C, although perhaps a little overpowered for some of the enemy AI that you face (the Buzz Blades and Spikes, in particular, often allowed Vicki to decimate an angry horde without even breaking a sweat). I found some of the environmental designs repetitive, as I swear I spotted the exact same layout on more than one planet... but it was still fun to level up the weapons and discover each new wacky character than Ratchet and Clank interact with. The humour in that game is some of the best I've seen in anything I've played.

Once we wrapped that up toward the end of the week, I put Modern Warfare 2 back in and decided to finish up its single player campaign. I was about 2/3 of the way through, I'd reckon in hindsight, meaning that it didn't take me long yesterday to get to the final gruesome scene. Along the way, Washington, D.C. was hit by an EMP and the White House came under attack, but hey! Better it happen in a video game than in real life!

Now I'm trying to figure out what to play next. I had thought about redoing the first Resistance game after watching a retrospective on it that some of the Insomniac guys held (them again!)... until I remembered that my copy is at Tammy's apartment in Toronto, while she's in the middle of a six-week long trip to Africa! So much for that idea. Maybe in August.

I may pop in my Killzone 2 disc and see how its campaign feels the second time through, as I played it in two distinct parts originally (with something else in the middle). I definitely enjoyed it the first time through, despite taking an extended break for a while.

Ah, decisions, decisions...

[Update later that evening: I decided to revisit Killzone 2 but to play it through on the second hardest difficulty this time (rather than the third hardest, aka the second easiest, that I completed it on previously). I've already died more times than I can count, but that's actually a good thing as it's making it quite a different experience for me.]

An Issue Worthy Of Being # 700

For reasons known only to the comic book gods, this month will feature 3 major milestone issues from DC Comics: Batman # 700, Superman # 700 and Wonder Woman # 600. For the final of those three, DC had to resume the numbering from the Golden Age Wonder Woman series and combine it with a couple of subsequent runs, but all of that still makes it a legitimate celebration in its own right.

Batman # 700 came out this week, with an extra long tale written by Grant Morrison and drawn by four different artists. I've learned to love Morrison's take on the Caped Crusader, even though at times it's taxed my ability to suspend my disbelief as well as my willingness to decipher complex storylines. What I've discovered over the past few years is that it's almost always worth the effort to do both of those things where Morrison's Batman is concerned. And this anniversary issue is no exception.

Here we're treated to a tale spread over four different time periods. In the first ("Yesterday"), Bruce Wayne is the Batman and Dick Grayson is his Boy Wonder; next, we're shown the present ("Today") in which Dick is wearing the Bat-costume (as Bruce is missing and presumed dead by most of the heroes) while Damian Wayne is running around as Robin; then we're given alternate, possibly competing versions of the future - the first, ("Tomorrow") has grown up Damian having inherited his father's Bat-mantle as Morrison has suggested will happen in past issues, while the final one ("And Tomorrow") showcases the Batman Beyond vision of the future in which young Terry McGuiness is the new Batman who is mentored by a frail and aged Bruce Wayne. All four of the scenarios focus to one degree of another on the murder of a scientist who developed a form of hypnotism that allowed its participants to seemingly visit the past, providing a nice tip-of-the-hat to Silver Age Batman yarns in which B&R did exactly that. Because it's a Morrison story, there's a lot more to it than that, but that's neither here nor there. What's important is that it all works wonderfully together and provides a special issue that's sure to be enjoyed by generations of future Bat-fans.

I've read that some of today's readers were "disappointed" with Batman # 700, but I certainly wasn't one of them. Well worth every nickel.

CNN.com has a short piece on the issue, as well, if you're interested.

A Lost Theory To Crack Open Your Brain

Just when I'd almost gotten through my bad case of Lost-withdrawal, "Doc" Jensen has to go and post up Part One of his final Lost theory... and it's a doozy!

He hypothesizes that not only was the island alive (which doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me) but also that it was aware of its own future (FlashForward-like) for the past two millennia, thanks to the adventures of the time traveling castaways in Season 5. The island thus finds itself in the predicament of knowing events that will unfold over the next 2000+ years, trapping it into a pre-deterministic lockstep from which it would desperately like to free itself.

This theory makes total sense to me, although of course there's no way to know if it's what the show's writing staff intended or not. But it's pretty awesome when a TV show inspires this sort of contemplation!

A Nice Slice Of Canadiana

Vicki and I just finished watching Joshua Jackson in One Week (my first viewing of it, her second), a little Canadian film that came out last year. It's the sort of movie that will probably bore some people because it doesn't proceed like a typical Hollywood offering that delivers predictable punchlines or moves relentlessly through an action-filled plot line. For us, though, it's an example of the character-driven sort of work that John Sayles and Atom Egoyan are so known for (this one's written and directed by Michael McGowan), although admittedly not quite at that level.

We both enjoyed it, with Vicki saying that it was just as good the second time around. And how can you not like any movie that features a scene involving the Stanley Cup?

Speaking Of That Old Bank Job Of Mine

Next week marks the 24th anniversary of the day I started working at the bank. That means that, in about a week's time, Vicki and I will begin our 25th year of knowing each other (we met shortly after I started there, as we both were in training at the same time on account of being new additions to the Systems department).

25th year... geez, when I put it like that, it actually sounds like a long time! How time flies!

At The Intersection Of My Last Two Jobs

As my previous work place enters its final fortnight of existence, many of its employees are still engaged in the search for gainful employment beyond June 25th (others, fortunately, have already found such relief). Coincidentally, I was on a lunch date today with one of my few remaining friends from the bank where I worked before switching jobs in 2001. As it happened, he was telling me about a manager friend of his who'd recently complained to him that all of the employees from the soon-to-be-shuttered company that he'd interviewed and extended offers to were declining those offers, sometimes in a somewhat rude manner.

I, of course, couldn't help but think back to this post, from three and a half years ago, in which I lamented the entitlement culture that was growing there. Now, for all I know, the bank may be paying terribly compared to what we made at my last job; but I really wonder about the attitude - if this perception is in any way accurate - that would lead someone to not just turn down a job but also burn a bridge in the process. And the bridge might not just be burned for the one or two individuals in question, as things like this can tarnish an entire company's reputation if it happens more than once. I hope it's an exaggeration, but on the other hand: I can't say as it would completely surprise me if it were true in a few cases. After all, I worked with quite a few people who had no notion of just how good they had it, and who also tended to behave as if Mommy or Daddy would come along and clean up any (literal or figurative) mess they happened to make. So this might just be an extension of that, if true.

"You Should Blog Your First Swim Of The Season"

That was Vicki, to me, seconds ago. Yes, I just took my first dip. Pool temp was around 76 F (~ 25 C), which is well within my tolerance this time of year. Unfortunately, the heater was turned OFF while I was in, as one of the siding guys was working on a ladder right over it and didn't want to broiled alive while he did so! Just the latest example of awesomely terrible timing we've had, including my putting a load of laundry in right before they took the clothesline down yesterday, and them working on the back porch during the only part of the day yesterday when I had a student here to be tutored... in the kitchen, right next to the back porch!

Anyway, one swim down, hopefully many, many more to come!

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (In Reverse Order)

First, the ugly, as previously seen on this blog:


Now, I only consider the following image to be "bad" due to its notable lack of water:


And finally we come to the undeniably good - the return of our pool, sporting a new liner, full of water and being warmed up by a newly-functioning heater (as of about 2:30 this afternoon):


Now we just need the siding work to be finished and it'll be time for summer to be officially kicked off!

The Endless Job

Vicki's bearing the brunt of my frustration right now as I'm nearing the end of my rope with the contractors who are re-siding our house. The job started on the Tuesday after the long weekend (May 25) and was originally estimated at about a week and a half to two weeks. We're now almost through our third week, and it still doesn't look anywhere nearly finished to me. Granted, there's been one day when no work was done at all because of rain, and two half days where the morning or afternoon work was rained out. But we've also had clear days when the workers took off at 2:00, 2:30 or 3:00 (4:00 seems to be about the latest they ever work), which has got to have contributed to this thing seeming to go on forever.

Today I'd thrown a load of laundry in the washing machine because the forecast is actually clear for a change, only to discover that "the guys" had taken the clothesline down because they were working in that area of the backyard. As I said to Vicki, "I guess I'm tossing this load in the dryer, as I don't dare slow them down by asking them to put the line back up!"

They seem to be doing a good job, but holy crap is this thing ever taking forever!

Swamp Thing Is Coming Home

According to Rich Johnston's Bleeding Cool website, DC Comics is about to return the Swamp Thing to the DC Universe. If you don't follow comics, then you might be scratching your head right now and wondering just where he's returning from.

Well, in the 90s, DC created the Vertigo imprint as a place where they could publish more mature stories. Neil Gaiman's Sandman, the post-Alan Moore Swamp Thing, Hellblazer (John Constantine), Preacher, Y The Last Man, and many other sophisticated, non-superhero titles have been released under the Vertigo banner in the past two decades.

Because DC wanted to avoid sending young readers of the DC Universe titles off in search of (theoretically) unobtainable "mature readers" Vertigo offerings, there's been a standing order, pretty much from Vertigo's creation, that characters not cross back and forth between the DCU and the Vertigo line. Thus, for example, Swamp Thing has not shown up in any mainstream DC title since the early 90s. That sort of separation has always made sense to me. In fact, though, even under the Vertigo umbrella, Swamp Thing has been virtually invisible of late, which was probably a conscious decision by the powers that be. Sidelining the character was presumably done to prepare him for a return to the all-ages domain of the main imprint. (Something similar was done with the Doom Patrol characters, who went from DCU to Vertigo, then disappeared for awhile before finding themselves back with an all-ages DC Comics title several years ago.)

Considering that no writer after Moore ever really seemed to get as much mileage out of Swampy as the British madman did, I guess this is a reasonable move. There's nothing about the character that precludes him from being used in more traditional stories... I just hope they aren't planning to undo all of the great work that Moore wrought upon him. It should be interesting to see. For years, I suspect that DC wouldn't have done this for fear of pissing off Alan and providing another reason for the writer not to come back to work for the company. By now, though, there probably isn't a person working at DC Comics who still believes Moore would ever contemplate such a move for even a heartbeat. Which means that DC really has nothing to lose in this matter. Of course, if they handle Swamp Thing's return as clumsily and artistically-poorly as they did the Doom Patrol's, they also probably have very little to gain by it.

Our Family Tree

In the last couple of years, Vicki and I have become big fans of the television program, Nova, on PBS. In fact, with Lost now complete, this eclectic Science show may just be my current fave on the boob tube. I've found that, the more I learn about Science, the more everything in the universe makes sense to me. A decade ago, I probably would have said that we would never know the answers to any of the big questions in life, so why bother even worrying or wondering about them? Now I feel like most of what we really need to know is already within our grasp or else infer-able from what we've learned so far.

Anyway, the latest dollop of goodness from Nova is this interactive Who's Who in Human Evolution toy. If you're always having trouble remembering exactly how many thousands of years ago Neanderthals are thought to have died off, this is just the site for you! (Answer: approx 30,000 years ago.) I hope that we're on the cusp of having the first generation who just accept evolution as fact, like previous generations learned to replace the Earth with the Sun at the centre of our solar system after thousands of years of misinformation.

High Quality Crap That No One Wants

Thanks to a Twitter friend, I got to read this article about the effect that the introduction of Six Sigma practices often have on creativity. The title of the article is "How To Kill Innovation", and I think that the writer pretty much nails it.

That sort of quality-first, process-focused attitude toward software development was championed by one particular individual at my last job, although it wasn't formally characterized as Six Sigma until an American executive adherent of that strategy began pushing it. That was right around the time that I got fed up and quit, so I didn't actually have to live through the two years of bureaucracy that followed. But I certainly heard enough about it.

With our introduction of Agile in 2006, we (perhaps naively) wanted to deliver quality as measured by the customers' satisfaction with what they got. Any time you try to formalize the production of "quality" by automating the creative process, you're screwed before you begin. I could enthusiastically get behind the notion of "inspect and adapt"; I suspect that I would've wilted in an environment dedicated to predictability.

No Sign Of A Red Cape, But I'm Still Intrigued

Here's the trailer for Waiting for Superman, which is about the sad state of the education system in the U.S. (or the District of Columbia, specifically):

Jupiter Takes One For The (Sol) Team

This won't come even close to topping the astonishing possibility of life on Titan that I posted about yesterday. But it's still pretty important news that Jupiter (right next door to Saturn and Titan) was recently hit by something big enough to make quite a splash. Check out the brief bit of grainy video at that link (which I heard about thanks to Vicki) and then take a moment to reflect on just how fortunate we are to have such good neighbourhood protectors, keeping us safe!

We Are Not Alone?

Is it just me, or is this indication of signs of life on Titan potentially the biggest news of the century? Admittedly, it's early days still, and a lot of inferences are being drawn from sparse data... and yet.

Today, as I was removing some weeds from Vicki's garden in the backyard, I was marveling at how industrious life is: there, in a place that had barely enough soil for me to dig into it at all, a plant had not only established a full and vibrant root system but had then supported itself as it grew to nearly a metre in height! It really made me think that life always seems to find a way. And this news from Saturn's most interesting moon may just be another example of that very fact of Nature.

Thanks to Richard Dawkins, on Twitter, for drawing my attention to this story.

[Update Jun 8/10: A nice summary of the important caveats to this story can be found here.]

A 10-Year-Old Bug

Yesterday, as I was cataloging this week's comic purchases in my Java/SQL inventory application, I encountered a bug that has almost certainly been there since I wrote the app back in the late 90s. With it having remained unseen for so long, you might think it was date- or capacity-related, as those sorts of errors have reared their ugly heads over the past decade. But no, this was a straight up boo-boo: an SQL DELETE statement, constructed by stringing together the contents of variables and string constants, in which I neglected to surround a particular value with quotes (single apostrophes).

It was for the issue number of a comic, which in most cases is something like 24, 595 or ANN10 (for Annual # 10). For those types of values, the apostrophes are optional, it seems. But if you have something like "ANN 1", with an embedded space in it, then you need to enclose the string within the apostrophes or else you'll cause an error in your SQL command... which is exactly what happened. Fortunately, the application doesn't crash in such situations because I've put enough defensive and diagnostic code in place to handle the unexpected. Instead, I got an error message which was explicit enough to point me right to the faulty line of code, and 2 minutes later I'd fixed it, recompiled, and deleted the erroneous entry that I had originally wanted to.

But I was still amazed that the bug had lasted that long without ever being tripped. Just goes to show how software really is full of ticking time bombs.

At The Intersection Of Music And Video Games

I love it when a musician I greatly respect goes on the record saying his favourite video game is something as underrated and yet classy as Ico! That's what Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood recently revealed.

I've been itching to replay Ico for over a year now, but haven't been able to find a copy of it (we borrowed it from a friend who has since given it away). Hence my excitement at the rumours swirling that Ico will be made available for the PS/3 in a 2-pack (along with Shadow of the Colossus, which we do own but didn't enjoy as much). Presumably any such collection will debut around the time of the next offering from Team Ico, The Last Guardian.

Now I'm just sure that Jonny's as jazzed about all of that as I am!

Are You A Helicopter Parent?

Turns out, you may actually be hurting the ones you love by swooping in and solving all of their problems for them. I've definitely encountered a parent or two of that sort in my Math tutoring experiences to date.

Tammy would be quick to point out, I'm sure, that we were not that way with her (except that she's in Africa right now and not likely to find Internet access any time soon).

A Week In My Life

This week has not been a typical week for me, and I'm very happy about that fact. I don't think I'd be able to take too many runs like the last several days. Without going into gory details, I finally got the results of some medical tests that have been going on since February or so, with the news that I probably don't have kidney cancer, although they'll re-look at the situation in a year's time. The lead up to getting that welcome news was a bit nerve-wracking and certainly not something I'd want to go through every week.

Paling in comparison to that health issue was the pool saga. I've mentioned a few of the issues here and on Twitter. Perhaps the low point came around noon on Monday when the newly-installed liner had about an inch or two of water in it, and then our neighbourhood suffered an hour-long power outage. Why would it matter that the hydro went out while our pool was being filled? Well, anyone who's been through this knows that the liner has to be pulled taut against the frame while you put water in or else you run the risk of having wrinkles form in the liner all over the place. To avoid that outcome, you use a compressor to suck the air out between the liner and the foundation. Since it was an electric version that our pool guys were employing, when the power died, so did the compressor. Then we then spent the next several hours (and, to some extent, days) dealing with the ramifications of that. At one point we had at least a dozen big folds in the liner; right now there are only 3 small ones left, all in one area. The jury's still out as to whether we can completely get rid of them but the pool guys are hopeful. On average, we get about one or two power outages a year, it seems; how lovely that we'd get one during the 24-hour period when we really needed the electricity to continue flowing!

While all that fun with the "cement swimming hole" was underway, we've also had a couple of guys here replacing all of the siding on our house and covering some of the last remaining wood locations with vinyl (since I really, really don't like having to paint up high). Obviously when we planned that work we didn't know that the pool liner would need addressing, but of course both bits of work ended up overlapping completely. This meant that we had to try to keep siding debris from getting into the pool area while the liner was going in (or else it'd be trapped underneath and walked on by us and our guests for the next 10 years) as well as watching that it didn't get onto the liner where it might rip it. Thanks to all the rain this week, what was supposed to be less than two weeks' work is now looking like it'll easily fill up three. You might think that I'd be well used to the constant pounding while trying to read or work on Math problems, but you'd be wrong.

And finally, to end on a happier note... I got a hug from my yoga instructor this morning (for the first time) because I told her that one of the positions that I've always experienced a little pain doing during each session has recently become quite comfortable for me. She was thrilled to hear this, and I was happy to have even so minor a breakthrough in a week that's been quite draining.

Ouch!

Of all the ways to lose a bid to record a perfect game in baseball, this may be the worst I've ever seen: a blown call on what would (and should) have been the final out of the game! It prevented Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga from joining Roy Halladay and 19 other Major League hurlers in baseball history.

It's always tough to fault an umpire on a bang-bang play at first base, but it sounds like the wrong call was made at the most inopportune of times. If that had been the only "hit" scored in the game but had come earlier, it wouldn't be so bad... but you know that Galarraga reached first base on that play and was already congratulating himself on his perfect game, only to be stunned by the call on the field.

Wow.

Maybe Repetition Had A Place, After All

I'm finding that many of the common Math terms or techniques that used to be second nature to my generation when we were in high school have much less of a foothold (not to mention name recognition) now than they used to. For example, I referred to "the origin" in the context of graphing a function recently, and the high school student I was working with responded, "Where's that?" [It's the point (0,0) on the Cartesian plane, for those who don't remember.]

One of my two high school students has never heard of cross-multiplication, and therefore never uses it to simplify his work when solving equations where the variable is in a denominator.

Even something as fundamental as the concept of factoring an expression (or, conversely, expanding a factored expression) gives pause to some students today. One of my pupils knew factoring had something to do with dividing everything by a common value, but thought that he could do that to a standalone expression. He attempted to turn 6x + 8 into 3x + 4 by arguing that he could simply divide everything by 2.

The only conclusion I can come to is that teachers perhaps are more leery of repetition these days than they ever were with past generations. I know that some of the updates to the curriculum over the past 10+ years has specifically been aimed at making the material more interesting and relevant, which is a laudable goal. But does that mean that gone are the days when a high school Math teacher would stand at the front of a classroom and step his or her class through an elaborate solution, slowly and carefully explaining each step while using the correct terminology? I didn't know that (0,0) was called "the origin" because I read it in a textbook; I knew it because Mr Pease, in Grade 9 Math, narrated the solutions that he blackboarded every day and referred to that particular point by that specific name every chance he could. In other words, he used repetition to drill the correct name into our heads. After a few weeks of that, even the slowest student in the class had picked up on the fact that (0,0) was simply "the origin."

Perhaps that style of edification has gone out of fashion now, since I often read that teachers standing at the front of the room "lecturing" isn't an effective way to educate. And I'd agree that a non-stop diet of that can be pretty boring. But has the pendulum swung too far the other way now, such that students are missing out on the chance to learn proper Math-speak? When I tutor, I try to bring some of that old-school approach back. I do my best to lead by example, in the hope that my students will pick up a trick or two from me... not because I tell them they have to, but because I use them myself, over and over. The jury's still out as to whether or not it's working at all (these things take time, after all). But I'm hopeful.

Putting The Pieces Together Is Tough For Some

I've seen a lot of examples in recent months of students who can learn Math skills in one (often rather rigid) context but then be quite lousy at figuring out how to use them in other situations. To understand what I mean, let's look at an example.

Suppose you knew that the formula for the area of a rectangle was length times width, and had known that for years. Also assume that you learned in Grade 9 how to multiply binomials and since then have even acquired the ability to solve simple quadratic equations. All of that knowledge would seem to position you perfectly to answer the following question:

"A rectangle is x + 6 units long and x - 4 units wide. If its area is 56 square units, what are the dimensions of this rectangle?"

Someone who's comfortable with Math at a high school level or higher will quickly realize that they need to solve the equation:

(x + 6)(x - 4) = 56

which is to say, solve:

x**2 + 2x - 24 = 56, or x**2 + 2x - 80 = 0

Factoring that quadratic yields:

(x + 10)(x - 8) = 0

meaning that only x = -10 and x = 8 will solve it. Since a value of -10 gives us negative values for the length (-4) and width (-14), we can safely discard it, leaving x = 8 as the only reasonable answer.

Sure enough, if we use 8 for x, we get a rectangle with a length of 14 and a width of 4, good for an area of 56 square units. Problem solved!

Every step in this solution involved Math of a sort that a typical high school student in Gr 10 or higher would know how to do. But because it starts off as a word problem (Strike 1!), has dimensions that involve variables as well as numbers (Strike 2!!) and requires the solving of a quadratic equation "out of the blue" (Strike 3!!!), it's just a full stop for many of them. I think part of the problem is that some students aren't willing to just try stuff in order to see where it leads them, in addition to a general but deep-rooted aversion to applying what's been learned for one type of problem to questions that don't initially seem similar.

I'm always shocked and dismayed when one of my Math tutoring pupils has all of the tools necessary to solve something like the example used here and yet can't even get going on it, without someone like me to push them in the right direction. I can't help but feel that some essential ingredient has been missed in their education up to this point... I'm just not sure yet what exactly that omitted component is.

No Del Toro For The Hobbit

Bad way to start the week: Guillermo del Toro has stepped down as director of the two part adaptation of The Hobbit. I can't believe how much strife and conflict this film project has had, considering that the Lord of the Rings trilogy ruled the world for three years, achieving the rare feat of both critical and box office mega-success!

My Weekend As A Math Teacher

Most of my free time this weekend has not been spent swimming (no pool!) but rather preparing Practice Sheets for a couple of high school Math students of mine, both of whom fortunately are in the same course (at different schools).

I decided to break the material down along the same unit lines that are being used within the curriculum, allowing me to focus on one aspect of the course at a time. In each case, the first page covers "Key Concepts" and instructs the student to get these clear in his/her head before proceeding on to the actual practice (i.e. questions). A typical "practice sheet" has turned out to be about 4 or 5 pages in length, and I've done two and a half of them so far (out of what I expect to be a total of four). Since final exams are now less than 4 weeks away, I want to get these completed and into the students' hands very soon, in order to give them time to spend on them before the big crunch time right before the finals begin being written. My goal is to have all four sets ready to go by the end of this week, and to get the first set or two out and being worked on sometime this week.

Hence, I've felt like a high school Math teacher all weekend. I think I could probably ace the final exam for this course right now, too.

Pool Sometime Soon, Maybe?

Despite being told that we'd have our new liner by the middle of last week, and suffering through one of the hottest May weeks I can remember, we still don't have anything but cement in that hole in our backyard. However, pool-type people are scurrying around in it right now, so maybe we'll be at the "just add water to make fun" portion of the proceedings later tonight or tomorrow. It's been a long, long wait for this, thanks to an overly-optimistic estimate and one heck of a heatwave.

[Update later that evening: After a few hours of trying, they've decided they can't fit the new liner in without fixing the "broken corners" (coping) first, which they'll do tomorrow morning. So the saga continues...]

A Good Avengers Comic For A Change

Last week I railed against the re-launched Avengers title, sorely disappointed that it was the same talking heads baloney that's turned me off that franchise of late. This week's debut of Secret Avengers was quite a different tale, however.

Writer Ed Brubaker and artist Mike Deodato were in fine form as they kicked off what I hope will be a long collaboration on Secret Avengers. Steve Rogers, the recently-resurrected Captain America, has told former sidekick Buckey Barnes to continue as the current Cap, while Rogers functions more as a Mission: Impossible operative out of costume. He's also the head honcho at S.H.I.E.L.D. in the post-Siege version of the Disney Universe (replacing Norman Osborn who took Nick Fury's job), which is probably what gives him the resources to form his own, covert group of Avengers: Black Widow, the Beast, War Machine, the Valkyrie, Moon Knight, Ant Man and Nova (an eclectic group if ever there was one).

Brubaker packs more plot and action into this first issue of Secret Avengers than I imagine we'll see in the first five- or six-part Avengers "epic". He's just so good at mixing up the characterization moments with cool stuff actually happening, making him something of a throwback in the modern era of comic plotting. This is definitely the Avengers title that I want to follow now.

Does This Make Sense To Anyone Else?

I'm reviewing the actual unit tests completed by one of my high school students right now, in order to be able to make up Practice Sheets for the student that reflect what was previously tested as well as focus on whichever areas the student was weakest in. This is all in preparation for the final exam, late next month.

The first thing I noticed is just how full of errors the tests have been. Usually it's just poorly worded sentences in which you can fairly easily guess which word was left out or what wrong word was used. But the following question absolutely stumped me (as to its meaning) when I first read it over:

If f(x) = 3x - 4 and g(x) = 2(x - 1) + 3, find the value of x.

To my understanding of function notation, this makes no sense whatsoever. The values (plural) of x for each function, otherwise known as the function's domain, are whatever subset of the set of real numbers that you can legitimately substitute into each function wherever x appears. (In this case, the domain would be all real numbers.) Therefore asking what the value (singular) of x is seems ludicrous.

After thinking about it for a minute or two, I decided that they probably meant to ask "... find the value of x where f(x) = g(x)" but there's no indication of that in the question itself. I can see that a value of 5 for x would yield the same answer for the two functions: f(5) = 11 = g(5). But who knows if that's what was even meant, when the question is so ambiguously worded. (My student had no idea at all, and got 0 on this particular part of the test.)

I'm starting to wonder about the standards being applied to some of these courses.

Bugged By Bad Dreams? Play More Video Games!

Well, at least that's one possible way to interpret this report of a study into whether those who play video games are more likely to have lucid dreaming or even take control of their dreams (I've experienced both on many occasions in my life).

2010: The Year Of The Bonobo?

We know a lot about chimpanzees, including how closely related to us they are. According to this article by Research Scientist Vanessa Woods, this may be the year in which our other closest animal relative, the bonobo, finally gets some mainstream coverage.

Why haven't we heard more about bonobos before now if they're such close neighbours of ours on the evolutionary tree? As Ms. Woods explains, talking about a species that actually exhibits gay sex and uses sex in general to relieve stress just doesn't play into the ideologies of the day (especially in the U.S.). Here's hoping scientists like her can succeed in changing that in the coming days.

A Very Nice Improvement

I was looking over the test results of one of my students today, with the school year almost complete. Because this is an elementary school child, the marks from unit tests have by far the most weight, as contrasted with the high school experience in which final exams come into play. For this particular individual, who last year (before getting tutoring) was a solid B student in Math, I discovered that 12 different test results in the 2009/10 academic year yielded an average of 90%! In other words, a jump of about 15% has been realized in the span of a single year. That's the sort of thing that makes a Math tutor's day!

Worried That You're A Bad Parent?

Check out this story about a 2-year-old who smokes 40 cigarettes a day, and you'll almost certainly feel at least a little better about your own parenting missteps!

Want To Lose Yourself In Lost?

Re-watching the entire series on DVD is one way to immerse yourself in all things Lost. (Season 6 is due out in August). Another option involves reading up on the mysteries of the show, both resolved and otherwise. Lostpedia has a great site for that, which I've just begun to explore, thanks to Tammy and Vicki.

A Comic Strip You Simply Must Read

Thanks to a friend on Twitter, I got directed to this terrific, graphically-illustrated tale which aptly summarizes the Immunization/Autism controversy that's raged for the last decade or more. I encourage all of my readers to check it out.

This Doc Has All The Answers

If you're a Lost fan and haven't read "Doc" Jensen's two-part write-up of "The End" (Lost's two and a half hour series finale), then you're just plain nutty.

Part One is here and Part Two is here. I've read a lot of reviews and reactions to "The End" in the nearly 48 hours since it aired, and Jensen's is easily the best. That guy's a fan's fan, through and through, and also incredibly insightful. I just hope he turns his watchful eye onto Fringe next, because I like that show a whole bunch but mostly because I know that I'd miss Doc's humour, intelligence and attention to detail if he simply disappeared from my life.

No Jury Duty For Me!

Unlike Liz Lemon, I didn't resort to dressing up as a famous Star Wars character in order to get out of jury duty when I headed downtown this morning. Fortunately, though, my number was not called, despite the court system going through a lot of the 120+ candidates who were nervously gathered with me.

I imagine I'll get another summons before too long, but for now: I'm dismissed!

Some Folks Just Have No Patience

Our new pool liner is still at least a couple days away, but that didn't stop these two chipmunks (and another friend of theirs, not shown in the photo) from checking out the premises. You may want to click/enlarge the picture to get a better look (or not).

There was just enough water in the bottom of the deep end to allow one of them to go for a dip at one point. We managed to get them back out of there through a combination of Vicki's nylon ladder trick and me lifting the final intruder up, up and away with a tennis racket.

Lost: The Mo(u)rning After

When I go to bed and my head is still processing the day's events, it's usually not a good night for sleeping. Last night was an absolutely lousy night for sleeping.

During the few hours in which I managed to get any sleep at all, I naturally dreamed about Lost. In one of them, I was sitting at a table with two or three other people (I don't remember who) and started weeping at the thought of SPOILER ALERT! what happened to Jack in the finale. Then I woke up to discover that, sure enough, there were tears running down my cheeks and onto my pillow! That's the kind of night I had.

One of the most interesting aspects of the wrap up, for me, was learning the meaning of the so-called Sideways world. Once it became clear what it was, it immediately reminded me of the sleight of hand that the creative team pulled on us at the end of Season 3. There, it was the "flashback" with Jack that turned out to be a flashforward, revealing that at least some of the castaways actually do get off the island. Here it was a twist that relied upon us buying into Daniel Faraday's crazy notion of blowing up an atomic bomb over the island's electromagnetic "hot spot" in the hopes of rebooting reality from 1977 forward. This assumption was further amplified in Season 6 when Desmond seemed to connect with his Sideways counterpart, although now we know that that particular juxtapositioning was either a red herring or a reflection of Mr Hume's unique ability to perceive time differently (my memory's on the former). Probably the revelation of that world's true meaning has left some fans even more disenchanted with its existence, but for me it actually gave those Season 6 vignettes greater poignancy, not less. The Sideways glimpses provided a denouement to those characters' stories in a way that spoiled nothing while still moving them forward, in a fashion.

I'm sure the hating on the finale is already is full voice by now (12 hours after it concluded), but Vicki and I absolutely loved it... from start to finish. It provided both a realistic ending, in which some lived and some died, and a more emotionally satisfying conclusion in which long-lost lovers were reunited and the promise of something "new" for them was dangled, albeit only for our imagination to enjoy. I can't think of any way the creators could have finished the six year run that would've left me more appreciative of all they accomplished. As I told Tammy over Instant Messenger last night, Lost has probably bumped Babylon 5 out of my Favourite Show of All Time spot. I'll be mourning its passage for a long time to come, I suspect.

Tonight It All Ends

It was almost six years ago now that Vicki and I sat down to watch, with some skepticism, the premiere of a new drama that TV Guide, in their Fall Preview issue, had given a very strong recommendation to. They'd managed to make somewhat intriguing what had initially sounded like a cross between Survivor (a complete waste of time which I've never had any interest in, then or now) and Gilligan's Island (something I'd long since outgrown). If I remember correctly, they predicted that viewers would be truly shocked by what they saw. And they weren't wrong. Lost's pilot episode (all 2 hours of it) blew Vicki and I away.

By the time Walkabout aired, a week or two later, I was officially hooked. The characters who crashed on the island certainly weren't proving to be the one-dimensional caricatures that inhabited other prime time dramas, as each subsequent flashback in Season One provided new insight into Jack Shepherd, Kate Austin, John Locke and the rest. This attention to character-building was something fairly new, at least within the realm of TV science fiction.

Tonight, we get the final installment of the journey that is Lost. There have been numerous and undeniable clues all season long that this isn't going to be the sort of wrap-up that many of us had expected and even hoped for; we weren't going to get closure on dozens of mini-mysteries that had been launched throughout the show's six years. I've read many articles and posts lately that seem to celebrate that fact, but I'm still sitting in the section of the arena that believes at least some of that is simply bad planning, execution or writing. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe Lindeloff and Cuse, the show-runners of Lost, always intended it to be this way. But at times it strikes me as a little like a murder mystery in which the writer loses interest in who the killer is after setting up a delightful locked-room crime.

Regardless, we'll get what we get. For all the thrills, twists and turns, and wonderful character development, not to mention the many hours of thinking, talking and writing about the show that ensued since the pilot aired, it's been time well spent following this little island adventure. I hope there's a big finish that encourages us to re-watch earlier seasons through a new lens of understanding; but that may or may not be delivered tonight. In just a few short hours it'll all be over, and every generation of fans who discover the show from now on will have a very different experience of it than we, the "live viewers," ever did. In that sense, while one era ends tonight, another one is just about to begin. And that's pretty awesome to consider.

How Much Do You Think This Is Worth?

This page of original artwork, Frank Miller's cover to Daredevil # 188 from 1982, recently sold for over $100,000 at auction. Now, it is a gorgeous image, and Miller's name has achieved elevated status among the general population thanks to the Sin City and 300 films, but still...! That's a lot of cash for a not-quite-30 year old piece of art!

You can read a few more details about this monster of a sale here.

I've said it before: if original comic book artwork starts to really take off in value, I may just have to part with some of mine. It's awfully nice having it framed and up on our walls for us to enjoy, but if any of the stuff I own becomes worth as much as a new car, I may just have to find it a new home!

New Title, Same Old Crap

I really wanted to believe that the relaunch of Avengers this week was going to be worth reading, but unfortunately it's just a fresh coat of paint on the same wreck of a car. In this version, like the last one, the heroes mostly stand around trading quips, all sounding like they're the same person (which I assume is writer Brian Michael Bendis). Something that should've occupied about 3 to 5 pages is instead the entirety of this product. Also not working in its favour is the fact that it's a $3.99 title despite having no more story pages than a $2.99 comic, padded out with text pages that aren't of the least interest to me.

It's painful to see how far my once-favourite team-title has fallen, but that seems to be par for the course with Disney Comics anymore.

OK, That's Pretty Cool!

Colour me impressed (in green or red!).

Here's a cover from my childhood... one of my faves, in fact:


This amazing image ushered in the Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams/Dick Giordano era of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, which featured a focus on relevant topics of the day (overpopulation, racism, drug abuse, etc). That GL/GA run, which lasted about a dozen issues, is one of the high water marks of comic books in the early 1970s.

Yesterday, DC Comics teased us with a strangely familiar and yet not-quite-right image:



Many of us in the comic blogosphere wondered just what this could possibly mean. On the one hand, it could be tied to the recently-completed Blackest Night series, which did in fact feature some Red Lanterns in it (though not Hal Jordan as one, as shown in that preceding cover). On the other hand, Green Arrow's former sidekick, Roy Harper, has been appearing as a sort of "Red Arrow" of late (actually codenamed "Arsenal"), but of course that's clearly Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen in that cover shot, not his beardless protege.

So WTF?

Well, today, word arrived on just what the deal is, and it's a good one: tonight's episode of Fringe, dealing with an alternate universe, will somehow feature that very-crimson variant on the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow # 76 cover, showcasing at least one crucial difference between that other Earth and ours! How awesome is that? Pretty darn, I think.

Oh, and by the way: that 40-year-old Adams drawing kicks the tar out of the new version, showing just how far ahead of his time old Neal really was!

[Update May 21/10: Here's a link to the rest of the alterniverse DC covers shown on last night's Fringe. Nice side-by-side display here.]

Is It Time For A Last Lost Lust List?

OK, so maybe the "lust" in this case is simply my deep desire for answers. But I'm really starting to worry about which answers we will and won't be receiving as Lost finishes up in a 2.5 hour spectacular on Sunday night. I'm OK with the fact that many of the smaller unresolved puzzles won't be dealt with, but there are still a fair number of large-ish ones hanging in the breeze.

Here's an example: Who was in Jacob's cabin when it was visited by Benry and Locke (Season... 4, maybe?)? It seemed like whoever was in there could be seen, at least partially, by Locke (as a dim figure sitting in a chair), and was heard - again, by John Locke but not Benry - to plead, "Help me!" It makes no sense that it would be Jacob, since we know he had the run of the island, and why would he act so directly, anyway? It could have been Man in Black (messing with Locke's head), if we accept that he wasn't really trapped in there. He couldn't have been trapped, after all, as we've seen the Smoke Monster roaming free and wreaking havoc all throughout the show's run (all the way back to the pilot episode, for crying out loud!). But if he wasn't a prisoner of the cabin, then what was the deal with the ash perimeter that was up around it, and why had it been partly erased when Jacob's acolytes arrived there in Season 6? At the time of each of these various incidents, we were led to believe they were significant... was that just subterfuge, or bad writing/planning? I'd hate to think that something like that is going to be left unanswered, but I'm beginning to lean heavily toward just that outcome. And there are dozens more just like it.

As I get ready for Sunday's finale, I keep thinking that there's a great risk at this point that Lost is going to be remembered for promising more than it delivered. Not on the order of magnitude of, say, Twin Peaks... but maybe more like an X-Files or an Alias. I hope that doesn't prove to be the case, as in most other regards Lost has been a vastly superior product to either of those earlier shows. But it is somewhat depressing to think of all the acres of soil we tilled over 6 years only to have most of it bear little or no fruit.

[Just as an aside: Has it seemed strange to anyone else that the Sideways world and the Island world seem to be converging and yet are separated in time by 3 years? Happy Jack and nice Benjamin Linus are still back in 2004, shortly after the Oceanic 815 flight, whereas their Island-world counterparts are operating in 2007. I can't help but think - hope? - that there's some significance to this. Vicki posited an interesting theory last night as we watched "What They Died For": what if someone, possibly Eloise, created the Sideways reality as a place to hide the "source" that's supposed to be at the center of the island? That would explain the other world's existence and why we've been shown it all season long, as well as the generally well-off nature of the people there (it's full of light!). It would also imply that Island Jack (the new Jacob) and Fake Locke are headed to a confrontation over something that isn't even there anymore... which would be a Hell of a twist, no? Still not sure how Desmond would fit into that, as he obviously now has enlightenment toward what's really going on... so is he going to merge the various dopplegangers together in the sunny Sideways world, or what?]

Leading The Green Energy Revolution: Texas?!

This kind of story gives me hope: Texas is actually one of the major producers and consumers of wind and solar energy among the 50 states. It's not exactly what we'd expect to hear out of the Longhorn State, given its long love affair with oil and gas, but it's good news, nonetheless. The article is a good read that I predict may surprise you.

Make Your Own Superhero

The Periodic Table of Superpowers is a lot of fun! It also brings back lots of memories - good and bad - of working with the less-jovial version that has something or other to do with elements...

So Much For Privacy

A Twitter friend linked to this CBS News report about digital photocopying machines and the way they store their document images on a hard drive... seemingly forever! They've apparently become goldmines for criminals who can buy used copiers and then experience Christmas morning (for crooks) as they get to quickly and easily "unwrap" their new gifts and discover just what treasures are waiting for them on each discarded drive. Examples from the report included health records, police reports, payroll information, and more.

I was a bit frustrated that no one asked the manufacturers: why is retention of the data a standard feature? What's the value in having digital copies kept, such that a $500 security feature is considered an "add-on" in order to clear the info after it's been scanned, printed or faxed? Why isn't that the default behaviour, maybe with a built-in delay of some short period of time? Given how litigious Americans are, this sounds like a lawsuit (against the copier companies) waiting to happen.

Fire First, Then Re-Hire Later

This story just gets weirder and weirder!

I mentioned, back in March, that a Rhode Island high school in which students had historically done very poorly in standardized testing had seen its entire teaching and administrative staff fired in an effort to improve things there. Now it turns out that all of those fired are being re-hired, following some negotiated changes to the teaching format there!

I've heard that some teachers' unions are traditionally difficult to get concessions out of, but I really hope this sort of approach doesn't become the new norm in such situations.

Come On Over For A Swim?

If you're planning to drop by anytime soon for a refreshing dip, I'm afraid we can't offer much in the way of scenery... or even water, for that matter. Here's the eye sore that's currently occupying the area where our pool used to be. Hopefully within a couple of weeks it will have been magically transformed into something beautiful.

Almost Enough To Cheer Me Up

Beautiful, full-colour Neal Adams artwork on Batman: Odyssey!! Sweet.

Pool Ownership Sometimes Sucks

Tammy was kind enough to assist us in getting the winter cover off the pool this morning, which was extremely helpful. Unfortunately, the operation itself was pretty much a disaster - not Tammy's fault in the least - as the cover appeared to be letting a whole lot of water through in both directions. This meant that we couldn't get the last billion litres (or so it seemed) of water off the cover but were instead lowering the water level beneath it by trying. Eventually we had no choice but to cut some holes in it, letting the oily-black water flow into the pool before it was light enough to be lifted off. We we were pretty sure this 2009-edition winter cover was somewhat permeable after last year's adventure, but it seemed even worse this time around (I think some of the dirty water on top had flowed through it even before today, as the pool water was disgusting under there). When we had to resort to desperate measures to get the cover off without draining the entire pool, we'd already invested a couple hours into the effort (all for naught, as the dirt spread through the pool).

At that point we also discovered that the liner was pulling away from the coping in a significant way, meaning that we'd never be able to get away with opening it anyway. So now Vicki's been calling around to get quotes on a replacement liner, which is going to be a $3000 expense that wasn't planned for 2010. Good thing I've got a great job to cover such -- oh wait, scratch that. Good thing we save lots of money for things like this... but still. I'm not a happy man right now.

How Classy People "Handle The Scandal"

You may or may not have heard about the big bruhaha involving Neil Gaiman this week, but I can almost guarantee that you'll be impressed by how he handled it (all of the details can be found there, including links to various pieces of it if you want more context than Neil provides). When the story first broke, I have to admit that I had the expected reaction: "He charged $45,000 for a library appearance that lasted part of a day?!" It just didn't match my opinion of how Neil operates, considering that he's a big supporter of libraries and is the last person I'd expect to gouge one for a fee (Sarah Palin, on the other hand...)

Of course, once I heard the full story (details at the aforementioned link), the planets resumed their normal orbits and all was right in the universe again. But that hasn't stopped others from misusing the facts in this story for their own political agendas.

Success Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

It's interesting to me how some of the companies that my former coworkers are applying to or even having interviews with are in various stages of adopting/trying out Agile. I've been contacted by a few people this week who are therefore experiencing a renewed interest in the topic, which is understandable considering how much of the previous enthusiasm was killed by that office's corporate ownership.

I've been ruminating lately on the question of, how successful was our Agile adoption? No one would be foolish enough to brand it as highly successful, I imagine, since it was ultimately reversed to a large degree. But when I measure it in terms of the changes that were accomplished, especially in the areas of empowerment, adaptability, automated tests, code reviews and test coverage, I have to think we made some pretty impressive progress. And it's those achievements, more than anything else, that my ex-colleagues now forced to seek employment elsewhere may be able to bring with them into a new organization. Even just as concrete proof that those practices really are possible and not just theoretical goals that never materialize, they're very valuable, I think.

It should be an interesting next couple of months.

The Real Smoke Monster

This BP oil disaster will likely end more lives than the nasty ol' Smoke Monster on Lost ever could (unless Fake Locke really does destroy all of reality, that is).

At Least It Was Only Four Issues Of Crap

Disney Comics' latest "event", called Siege, wrapped up today. It was a 4-issue miniseries that had lots of spin-offs and one-shots to accompany it, none of which (thankfully) I was foolish enough to purchase or read. I decided to take a flyer on Siege itself, but even that was $15.96 more than I really should have wasted on this story.

The intent of Siege, I believe, was to transition in a dramatic fashion away from the cynical stories of the past several years (Civil War, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign) and into what Disney is touting as "The Heroic Age." That's all well and good.

Unfortunately, what they accomplished was a ridiculous story involving the destruction of Asgard (home of Thor and the Norse gods) as well as one of their Superman-analogues, the Sentry, going nuts and having to be put down (thrown into the sun, in this case... which I personally had no idea Thor was anywhere nearly capable of doing, but I guess that just shows how dumb I am!) Along the way, Thor's evil half-brother, Loki, was shown to be repentant for his part in the proceedings and shocked - yes, shocked! - that Earth's superhero community had such unbridled power as the evil persona of the Sentry demonstrated.

OK, let's think about that last plot point for just a few seconds (meaning, a few seconds longer than writer Brian Bendis apparently did): Loki's been around for centuries or more, and has interacted with the Disney (nee Marvel) Universe for the last several decades. Over that span, he's seen various members of that super-fraternity defeat Galactus, the Planet Eater, at least a dozen times; he's watched them repel alien invasions, overcome enemies who can alter reality with a mere thought... and yet he "could not see that this monster was so all-powerful" (yes, that's an actual quote). Yup, he thought they were a bunch of pikers who, when pushed, couldn't possibly be capable of doing something truly destructive. Sigh.

And then, to top it off, when the Sentry's disposed of, all of the heroes who were at each others' throats through Civil War, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign, get together for a party at Avengers Tower and decide to be buddy-buddy again. Yeah, that's some fine character development, that is!

Anyway, I can take solace in the fact that I didn't invest more than my $15.96 into this. I'm sure others got soaked for a whole lot more.

Why Can't The Jays Beat The Bosox?

I know it's still early, but this is ridiculous! Check out the following win-loss records for the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox so far in 2010:

Toronto vs Boston: 0-5
Toronto vs rest of MLB: 19-11

Boston vs Toronto: 5-0
Boston vs rest of MLB: 13-16

There's something horribly wrong with results that out of whack!

[Update later that same day: Just to spite me, the Jays won the series finale this afternoon, 3-2.]

Counting Down On Lost

Going into tonight's episode, there are 4.5 hours of Lost left to be broadcast. However, that figure is somewhat misleading because it counts commercial time, which is useless at best and distracting at worst. Since a typical one-hour show on network TV actually contains about 42 minutes of true programming content, what we really have is 42 x 4.5 or 189 minutes of Lost left. Let's be generous to ourselves and round that up to 190 minutes. That's still not very much time in which to resolve or otherwise put to rest a whole lot of unanswered questions. How many? Well, I wouldn't pretend to be able to list a complete set, but here are just a few of the ones rolling around in my head (in no particular order, as should become amazingly obvious as you read it over):

• What is the "Sideways" (alternate) world that we began to see vignettes of in Season 6?
• Was the Man in Black (MIB) playing the part of every dead person shown on Lost (except for the ones Hurley sees), including those like Christian Shepherd who appeared off of the island?
• If MIB was all those dead people, what was his motivation in appearing as each and how does he know what they knew (in order to impersonate them)?
• Who was in Jacob's cabin all those years (as viewed by Locke and Hurley), how did he get trapped there, and if it was MIB then how was he able to wreak havoc as the black smoke at the same time?
• What are Charles Widmore's true intentions, and why (if he's good) does he seem to do so many evil things (including sending a mercenary death squad to the island)?
• If Benry thought he was following Jacob all the time that he was with the Others, and Widmore is fighting the MIB (Jacob's arch nemesis), then why are Benry and Widmore enemies?
• Did the Dharma Initiative/Hanso people just stumble upon the island by accident, or did Jacob "bring" them there, and if so, for what purpose?
• If the people on the island are so important (candidates), then why did Jacob allow something as potentially dangerous as "the incident" to happen in the first place, such that someone had to push a button every 108 minutes to avoid catastrophe?
• Was Desmond "special" before he was exposed to the effects of the whiteout event (end of Season 2), and if not, then why did Widmore (or whoever) arrange for him to receive Libby's boat in order to get him to the island (had someone seen the future?)?
• Was "the list" that was mentioned by the Others way back in Season 2 supplied by Jacob, taken off the cave wall, or something else?
• Why was Kate's name crossed off the cave wall?
  
• If Anthony Cooper (Locke's dad) is "good" in the Sideways world (i.e. not a con man), then who swindled Sawyer's mother back when he was a child, resulting in both of his parents' deaths?
• What the heck was Sideways Desmond doing running over Locke with his car?
  
• How did the Others know to build a runway in 2004 that would be needed in 2007 for the Ajira flight?
• What brought Saiyid back to life in the temple after the Healing Pool failed?
• In the island version of history, what happened in 1977 when Juliet banged on the bomb at the bottom of the hole? If it went off (sending the castaways forward into 2007), why weren't the people at the site killed (including Dr Chang, who went on to make Dharma videos afterward, with a prosthetic arm replacing the one he lost at the site)?
• Where the heck have Benry, Richard and Miles been for the last few episodes? And isn't Desmond getting pretty hungry and thirsty down in that well all this time?
• If Jacob can appear to Hurley, why isn't he helping more? Is that against the rules, or is he really just so laid back that he'd let everything go to Hell rather than interfere?
• If MIB gets his wish (all candidates dead), does he really get off the island, or does reality end, or what?
• If MIB believes that mankind simply corrupts (as he told Jacob), then what does Jacob believe? For hundreds of years, it seems like neither of them was capable of proving their point-of-view on the island, so why is now any different?
• Who built the giant 4-toed statue on the island?
• Is the island really "alive"/"sentient", or has everything that's been attributed to the island since the first episode really been the work of Jacob or MIB?
• Who constructed the "frozen donkey wheel" (turned by Locke, and then Benry), and for what purpose?
• Who's the boy (or boys) seen haunting MIB twice so far this season?
• Was the lighthouse mirror array (destroyed by Jack this season) really looking into the past, or the present, or into the Sideways world? What was its purpose?
• What's the real story with Eloise Hawking, and why does she always seem to exist outside of time and space somehow (as seen when Desmond was time traveling and she knew that fact, or in the Sideways world where she appeared to realize that that reality was manufactured for a specific purpose)?
• What happened to Christian Shepherd's body, both on the island (where it disappeared from its coffin) and in the Sideways reality (where body and coffin disappeared or were lost by Oceanic)?
• What happened to the Dharma Initiative back in Ann Arbor, Michigan, such that they never sent anyone to the island after Benry and the Others wiped out the island group? What have they been up to in the years since then?
• Was the psychic who warned Claire about letting her baby be raised by the wrong people (suggesting it would be calamitous if it happened) just running a scam on her, and if so, why was he so freaked out when he saw her later?
• Why did Walt have special, seemingly supernatural abilities (not including the ability to keep the actor playing him from aging, unfortunately)? Was that just a coincidence, or was he supposed to go to the island in order to play some important role?
• Why did all the women (after 1977, anyway) always die in their second trimester if they got pregnant on the island?
• What grand plan did Benry really think he was helping to orchestrate if he'd never actually had any contact with Jacob, and Richard Alpert wasn't even aware of Jacob's end game?
• Why did Locke become so super-competent (hunter, tracker, master planner, etc) once he got to the island? He seemed to be a mess before that (according to the flashbacks).
• What was the significance of the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42)? Why did they "curse" Hurley when he used them to win the lottery? What do they mean?
• Who were the pair of skeletons found in the cave early in Season 1?
• Why did Juliet think "It worked" when she died (as reported by Miles shortly thereafter)?

OK, I could actually go on and on and on, but we all know that many of these mysteries are unlikely to be dealt with in the short time left. There are probably already websites devoted to capturing every puzzle from the show, and presumably new ones have been added just in the last couple of weeks. As Vicki says, maybe the show's creators will eventually realize they have to make a theatrical release or two just to put some of the head-scratchers to bed. We can only hope.

Re-Discovering Trig

One of my students started the Trigonometry portion of Grade 11 Functions recently, necessitating my re-acquainting myself with that slice of the Mathematics spectrum. Thanks to Tammy's experiences in high school, I already remembered SOHCAHTOA and its usefulness with right-angled triangles. However, I quickly found that I needed to look up both the Sine Law and Cosine Law, as neither of them were in the easily-accessed part of my memory banks from my own school days.

Those two laws each open up what you can do with triangular shapes quite significantly. First of all, you get to use them on any 3-sided shapes, not just the right-angled ones. Also, you can fairly quickly become familiar with what pieces of data lead you to use which law, as well as recognizing when you simply don't have enough information to proceed.

My student has been doing very well in this unit so far in the exercises he's done with me, which hasn't always been the case with previous topics. It's interesting to see how different topics in Math resonate differently with each student. For people who relate to diagrams or pictures better than words, Trig can be quite a welcome relief. It's also a good combination of memorization (of a few theories and laws) and application (figuring out which formulas to use in each new situation).

I'm quite enjoying it so far and look forward to working through Trig with other students, now that I'm (back) up to speed on it (again).

Busy Weekend

So I did 3 things in the past 24 hours that aren't exactly typical for me on the weekend:

1. Went to a play (Strangers on a Train) last night; it was good but didn't feel as tightly written as the classic Hitchcock film version from the 1950s
2. Did some Math tutoring this morning for a student who had to cancel his regular session earlier in the week
3. Went out to a movie (Iron Man 2); I liked it but wouldn't put it at quite the same level as its predecessor (a little too much "Oh, we're doing that again, are we?" for my liking)

It feels like the weekend just flew by, but that's always easier to take when your work week is only about 8 hours long.

The Lost Wrap Up

In my Internet travels tonight, I happened upon the titles of the remaining episodes of Lost. I don't think they're overly spoilerish in and of themselves, but just to be safe, I'll put them under whiteout and you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to know them ahead of time:

Episode 15 (Tue, May 11): Across the Sea

Episode 16 (Tue, May 18): What They Died For

Episode 17 (Sun, May 23, 2.5 hr): The End

I don't think most of us have sufficiently prepared ourselves for the void that's going to form once we've seen the finale on May 23rd. It's going to be great to re-watch the entire show once we know what it all means, but it'll never be the same as having new episodes to look forward to. Hard to believe anything will ever top this experience, but I'd love to be proven wrong on that front... eventually.

One Of The Great Pleasures Of Comics

Just like with other forms of entertainment, comics are sometimes best evaluated when you revisit them years after they originally appeared. As I've mentioned here before, I've probably read Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, something close to a dozen times in the 25 years since it debuted. When you can have that kind of experience, you feel confident in saying that a work is something special.

Today I decided to re-read the Kurt Busiek and George Perez JLA/Avengers crossover from 2003. I was inspired to do so by a page of original artwork from the series that Vicki and I recently had framed. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the story so far and it's every bit as thrilling as it was the first time I read it. I'm enjoying the oversized edition that I bought a couple years ago, which I recommend to anyone who's as much a fan of the two superteams as I am.

One of the things I've always loved about this hobby is the fact that I can often get just as much pleasure out of a comic (or series of comics) on a re-read, years after the initial encounter. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

Put Away Those Brooms

Much to Boneman's dismay, the first 2 rounds of the 2009/10 NHL Playoffs will feature no sweeps. The last time all 12 series in the Conference Quarters and Semis went at least 5 games was 2001/02 (not all that long ago), and it's certainly a lot more common to see at least some lopsided results across that many matchups. Not this year, though.

Detroit and Philadelphia, the only 2 teams to head into a Game 4 in 2010 down 3-0 (so far), avoided the brooms in diametrically-opposed ways: Detroit took a 5-0 1st period lead over San Jose last night and eventually won 7-1, whereas the Flyers needed overtime tonight to avoid elimination at the Bruins' hands.

It figures that the Rangers would miss a playoff year where no one got swept... although I suppose if they'd made it in this year, then that particular statistic might not have held up anyway!

Science Versus The Agenda

While its eventual effectiveness is questionable at this time, I really applaud this open letter created and signed by over 200 members of the U.S. National Academy of Scientists recently. I think it strikes exactly the right note in response to the so-called ClimateGate "scandal" and its continuing fallout. The current persecution of climate scientists is sadly reminiscent of attacks in earlier centuries whenever a new discovery clashed with either long held religious beliefs, vested interests or simply popular opinions.

There's such an essential difference between followers of Science and those who always choose to believe what they want to believe: while an individual scientist might, in some circumstances, be resistant to the truth because of issues of pride or reputation, the community that he or she exists within is generally wired to accept new data with open arms in search of the truth. On the other side of the fence are people who band together to push their own agenda, utterly united in their desire to discredit or even cover up anything that threatens to overturn their point of view. How any intelligent member of our species could ever choose the latter perspective over the former confounds me, and yet it clearly continues to be a popular choice, even as we move through the 21st century.