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Posts for the date of Friday, February 07, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 3:44 PM |
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I don’t normally put in links here, but I must say AMEN to Bill Hunt of the Digital Bits.
George Lucas has said that he will NOT release the original cuts of the original Star Wars films on DVD. EVER. Why? Because his inflated, fat-headed ego cannot handle it his warts and all original versions.
Yes. Fat-headed. I don’t mean that in a figurative sense. I mean it in a literal sense. George Lucas has an enormous, fat head.
Look, I grew up with Star Wars. Hell, I LIVED Star Wars for a long, long time. It was one of the greatest parts of my childhood. But George, in his infinite egotistic stupidity has told me that my childhood will be improved through his vision.
His vision. HA! The man couldn’t direct his way out of a paper bag. Alan Smithee himself can elicit a better performance out of a piece of rotten wood than Lucas can. Yet that was the charm of the first film. And it was heartening to see him allow more talented people complete his vision. Alas, however, he’s mucked it all up with his special editions and lifeless prequels. He’s a fool.
“If you have the gall to tell me,” Bill Hunt writes, “that these films that were so much a part of my childhood don't exist as I remember them anymore, that's just fine. But then I want my childhood back. I want a refund for every movie ticket, every poster, every T-shirt, every book, every piece-of-crap action figure and every single God-damned bubble-gum card I ever bought as a kid. I'll send you the bill.”
My bill will be on the way too Mister Lucas.
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 12:19 PM |
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I have a big meeting this afternoon, so I don’t have much time to write. Have no fear, though. I’m nearly out of hell time and will soon be back to a regular posting schedule.
As it is the weekend, that means we have two movie nights coming up. Wahoo! Movie night is my favorite time of the week.
Last week we watched “Signs”, which I admit that I enjoyed. It was pretty creepy though.
On Sunday morning, Matilda was asking us what we did after she went to bed.
“Well,” I said, “we watched a really scary movie last night. It was so scary I was afraid to walk up the stairs by myself!”
Without missing a beat, Matilda shot back, “Good. Now you know how I feel.”
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Posts for the date of Wednesday, February 05, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:15 AM |
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Yesterday, while being chided for my skills with the alphabet by Cory Doctorow, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, I realized that my life is merely a series of illustrations of physics theories.
Let me explain. I complimented Cory’s book and told him that I’d place it on my shelf somewhere between John Varley and Richard Feynman. Cory appreciated the compliment, but wondered how exactly I was able to alphabetize “Doctorow” between Feynman and Varley.
Very easily. I have kids. We threw out the alphabet years ago and replaced it with Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory is where everything has a place and that place happens to be wherever it fits. For example, you have seven thousand toys strewn about the room and three plastic bins in pretty primary colors in which to place them. How do you get those seven thousand toys into those containers? Answer: You don’t. It is impossible. Nature has taught us that toys grow in volume from the time they leave the floor to the time they are placed within the bin. A bin that should hold, say, three cubic feet of toys that are strewn on the floor can, in reality, only hold two toys. How do you fix this? Quite simple. Put the smallest toys in the bin and shove the rest under the couch, table, rug, neighbor’s yard, etc.
The same thing has happened with our bookshelves. Where there once was an order, there is now chaos. It only takes the baby clearing the shelf one time to realize that you have no desire to replace all of your Vonnegut books in the order of publication. It’s no fun when you just have to do it every few days.
Chaos Theory leads to Entropy. Which, in parental terms, means that you say, “Aw screw it. I could organize this crap, but the kids will just do it again tomorrow.” You give in to the disorder and reorganize your life around it. I now walk through my house as if it were a minefield. Careful. Don’t step on that doll! Watch out for the Lincoln Log!
The second theory is String Theory. This theory states that any given toy’s interesting qualities increase exponentially when string is tied around it. A simple block becomes a toy that demonstrates the scientific qualities of centripetal forces. And a sailing missile of death. Kids are drawn to string (and tape for that matter). How many times have I walked into the house to find Barbie bound like Laura Palmer? Someday I fully expect to see poor Barbie in the bathtub wrapped in plastic. As a good parent, you ignore this because you secretly fear that your child is acting on sociopathic behavior. Better to pretend that it doesn’t exist.
The Negative Charge is related to Chaos Theory. Any given room in the house emits a positive charge. Children emit a negative charge. As they pass through a room, all objects are attracted to the child, but the force of attraction diminishes as the child moves from the center of the room to the edge. Therefore, the Theory of Negative Charge states that all objects in a room that is, or was, occupied by a child will fall to the ground as the child leaves.
Ohm’s Law states that when a parent sees the mess left by the Theory of the Negative Charge he or she will say “ohm-ygod.”
Of course, one of the basic laws of physics states, “an object in motion tends to stay in motion”. This applies to parenting as well. Have you ever seen a one-year-old? However, the inertia changes conversely when you tell the child it is time to go somewhere. At that point, “an object at rest tends to stay at rest.”
Now, at the end of the day we have the Grand Unification Theory. This theory states that a mother just wants her family to be able to enjoy dinner together as, well, a family. However, with opposite forces pulling each family member in opposite directions, the theory turns out to be bogus. For example, child #1 just wants to watch TV while she eats. Child #2 simply wants to spread her food on the table. Dad wants to sit quietly and read the paper (damn it!). But mom, undeterred, acts under the rules of the Theory of Everything which states that one must answer her questions with every possible detail, lest you wish to discover how electrons can travel backwards in time.
Illustration: “Honey, how was your day?”
“Fine.”
“Just fine? What did you do?”
“Work. Not much exciting stuff.”
“What did you work on?”
“What I always work on.”
“Maybe the kids will like to hear about it.”
“I sincerely doubt it. Can I please just read the paper?”
“NO. I just wanted to know about your day! Is that so much to ask?”
Mom then illustrates the theory of Fluid Dynamics as she runs from the table crying.
Finally, we deal with the most important familial physics concepts. The theories of General Relativity and Special Relativity. General Relativity states that your children are undeniably yours. They look like you. They act like you. The administrators of the school recognize you as your child’s parent. When she excels at school, she is under the influence of General Relativity. When she scores the winning goal at the soccer game she is under the influence of General Relativity.
However, sometimes outside forces act upon the family nuclear unit and cause odd reactions, which result in Special Relativity.
Example: you go to pick up your daughter at school and you see her walking down the hallway with her teacher. Your daughter’s clothes are soaking wet. You can hear the soft squish of water expelling itself from the foam insoles of her tennis shoes as she steps down. Her wet hair is wrapped around her head in a circular swirl. The teacher looks angry.
When the teacher says, “I just found your daughter with her head stuck down a flushing toilet because she was curious to see where the water went” the Theory of Special Relativity states that you must respond:
“I’ve never seen that child before in my life.”
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Posts for the date of Tuesday, February 04, 2003
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Posts for the date of Monday, February 03, 2003
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:15 AM |
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When I woke up Saturday morning, I didn’t think anything was unusual. It was about 8:30 a.m. I ate some food and read the paper. About fifteen minutes later, with Saturday morning cable cartoons blaring in the background, I wandered over to the computer.
At roughly 8:46 I read the headline “NASA loses contact with Shuttle”. I knew that wasn’t good. When I read the details of the article and realized they were thirty minutes overdue for landing I thought, “Oh no.”
I spent the rest of the morning glued to the TV listening to vapid morons whose understanding of the space program consisted of watching The Right Stuff more than once spew out inconsistent inaccuracies about the program, how the shuttle operates, what its mission was, and what may have happened.
I sat there, watching the various angles of that horrible descent. But, unlike most people I was looking closely. What had happened? Was their attitude slightly off? Had the avionics failed in some way, causing the angle of descent to venture outside the nominal 28 to 38 degrees? What in the hell happened? Surely that little bit of foam that fell of the tank at liftoff couldn’t have knocked off a great number of tiles. Those tiles are huge. But if it had, the shuttle wouldn’t have been able to handle the friction caused by re-entry. Breakup should have been evident for many minutes. Surely the telemetry or instrumentation aboard the shuttle would support that.
My mind reeled. This was a bad, bad day for me. I’m a space buff. Seven astronauts, the rock stars of my world, had perished. To continue the musical metaphor, they died on stage with smiles on their faces. They died slightly before the midway point between Earth and the heavens, two places they felt indelibly committed to. If an astronaut were to die, I could think of no more fitting place than between his or her two homes.
Though I am an adult, whenever I hear anything about the space program I become a starry-eyed child again. I look at astronauts the same way that many people look at professional athletes. These men and women are the elite. They are the best of humanity. Physical strength combined with stunning mental abilities and a courage beyond anything we could ever imagine.
The men and women of NASA and their sister agencies around the world understand physics. They know what laws govern our universe. And yet, as a matter of routine, they ignore those laws and fight to poke a small hole in our atmosphere and spend some time in a place that no human was ever meat to go.
That’s all you need to tell a human being. “It’s impossible. You aren’t meant to do that.” They said that when we descended from the trees and headed across the savannah. They repeated this when men crossed the Bering Straights into North America. “Don’t go there! We don’t know what you’ll find.” They said the same when we crossed the oceans in wooden ships. They said the same when we first flew. And they didn’t believe it when Laika, our canine predecessor, first went to space. Poor Laika did not survive. But John Glenn did. As did Gordon Cooper. And Alan Bean. And on and on and on.
Right now there is talk about the space program and what it offers us. There is much rhetoric about national pride, etc. All I know is that wherever the crew of STS-107 may be right now they are sitting with the crew from the Challenger and they are all saying, “Fix it and go back up there! Fix it and go! Get back up there!”
Astronauts are our greatest human resources. Forget about nationalities here. Astronauts are a source of pride for all humanity. Our entire species should look at every man and woman who has ever set foot in space and say, “Thank you. Thank you for being the few alive who are not willing to accept nature’s boundaries. Thank you for continually pushing the limits of human experience and knowledge.”
Astronauts are the pinnacle of what humans can be. They are explorers, adventurers and scientists rolled into one. They are on a constant quest for knowledge. They seek to understand this small part of our universe and try to ever expand our concept of life on this little blue-green dot and the neighborhood around us. Forget about borders, governments and social set ups. Astronauts are humans. They are all our people. They are all our heroes. Astronauts work on a daily basis, in risk, to expand humanity’s reach and understanding.
And they deserve our thanks and our awe.
Each time they strap themselves in to the shuttle they know the risk. They know that they are sitting atop of a pyro-cocktail that could kill them if something goes wrong. As they sit in space, they are aware of the myriad of situations that could kill them. They’ve studied those situations. They understand them. They’ve been thinking about them over and over and over. They think about them so they can be prepared for the situation. They know that as they re-enter the atmosphere they have three possible outcomes. 1. Bounce off the atmosphere and back out into space. 2. Burn up. 3. Land.
They know the risks. They understand them.
And, despite what happened this past Saturday, I would happily accept a job on the space shuttle. I would gladly accept the risk of take off, space and reentry. Despite what I’ve seen. Despite all the dangers. I would go in a heartbeat. And this is coming from a man who is afraid to fly.
I would go into space. I would gladly put my name beside those men and woman who have gone before. I would proudly stand beside the men and women who are waiting to go.
Just like every other space fanatic, I hope that good comes from this horrible situation. Perhaps it is time to retire the current shuttle fleet and work on a new program. A more modern, flexible, envelope-pushing fleet. The designs are out there. The discussion had been taking place over the last decade. Perhaps the men and women of STS-107 will have ushered in a new era of space travel. One that goes faster, farther. One that is stronger, more daring. One that is safer.
Let us hope. Let us hope. Because, as Richard Feynman said after the Challenger, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
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