The Invisible Library

So, I was reading Pandagon yesterday when I discovered that some really weird folk think Battlestar Galactica is secretly a Mormon recruitment tool[1]. Their evidence? The show makes use of religious imagery and mythology. Which is pretty week as arguments for propaganda go. By this definition, Superman,[2] Star Wars[3] and everything Philip K. Dick[4] ever wrote is also super secret (but right out there in the open) religious propaganda.

Once upon a time, this argument might have applied to the original BSG, which was Mormon mythology dressed up in swank, quilted late seventies space opera. But the new series? Not so much. As Amanda Marcotte pointed out, just because a story derives some of its momentum from popular religious ideas doesn’t automatically mean the creators are promoting that religion. Also, religious pluralism, modern gender roles with women in leadership positions and decidedly secular attitudes towards sex, drinking and drug use don’t exactly scream, “Join The Mormons!” As with any artfully done work of storytelling, it’s not that simple. BSG can’t be broken down into simple declarative statements about its morals and message. It’s a nuanced discussion of various current ideas.

But there is one really obvious way you can tell that BSG isn’t telling it from the mountain: stories told with an ideological agenda are no fun. Whether they are serialized TV dramas, movies, comics or novels, an ideologically driven narrative stands out because the author is selling you a flat pack of easy answers to hard questions. And he (usually it’s a he) is not afraid to beat you silly with the truth stick to make his point[5]. This has some predictable effect on the way the story is told.
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One of the reoccurring problems in serialized storytelling is Villain Decay. Your Big Bad appears, scares the bejesus out of the hero, who just barely survives the first encounter to fight another day for Truth, Justice and another sign post an the way to Earth. But by the sixth or seventh time the villain appears, the hero has figured out their week spots and they are easily defeated. If they keep coming back after that, this big bad scary villain devolves into a joke.

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I’m just going to continue being the io9 mirror site for a bit because they have an awesome pic of the BSG cast, ala the Last Supper which gives clues to Season 4. You may want to ignore the comments as io9 seems to be overrun with people who feel the need to voice, repeatedly that they aren’t all that into Battlestar Galactica or that they liked the old series better, for it’s realism. Crack heads, in other words.

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Gawker’s new sci-fi blog, io9 has six reasons why Star Trek should stay dead. I agree with all of them and then some.

As much as I enjoyed watching TOS with my dad as a kid, (and still like some of the old episodes, even if they do creek a bit) there’s really no new business to be had in the Star Trek Universe. It always was and always will be a straight up Cold War fable. But the Cold War’s over; turns out we won and the Klingons Soviets weren’t all that scary, more deluded and sad and, wait, what was the cold War all about again? Something about Capitalist Imperialism vs. Communist Dictatorships with a gooey heart of Socialism as the supposed compromise that would settle all problems. Except that, as history proves time and again, dictatorships are notoriously short lived, Capitalism unrestrained by social obligations is even worse and pure, unadulterated Socialism is about as realistic a political philosophy as a future with no drugs or alcohol is plausible. The future is Democratic Socialism and unmanned space exploration. There’s no need for intergalactic daring do when robots work just fine. Pretending otherwise just makes everyone look stupid, what with their moon boots and matching leotards.

I say we let JJ Abrahm’s Star Trek movie (”It has been confirmed that a tribble will make an appearance in the new film”) be the whipping boy of the Writer’s Strike; let it sink under the weight of contractual obligations unfulfilled and die, finally so we can get back to new episodes of Battlestar Galactica before 2009.

It’s VP day! Farhad Manjoo at the Machinist Blog has the definitive Mac vs PC article which finally gives the only answer you’ll ever need: buy a Mac:

The present article is an attempt to prove to you that, on price alone, the Mac is not the BMW of computers. It is the Ford of computers. I am not arguing that the Mac is cheaper only if you consider the psychic benefits conferred by its quality. Rather I’m going to illustrate something more straightforward: Even though you may pay a slight premium at the cash register for a Mac over a comparable Windows PC (a premium that gets slighter all the time), it will cost you less money — real, honest-to-goodness American dollars — to own that Mac than to own that PC.

Why this should be has to do with an economic truth that has not recently mattered much in the computer industry, but that, in an age of eBay and unyielding obsolescence, is now crucial. It is resale value. Macs fetch far more on the aftermarket than do PCs — and after years of use, you can offset that cash-register premium by selling your Mac for a better price than you could your PC.

Consider this example: Last Thanksgiving, you could have purchased a fairly well-outfitted Windows desktop — the HP Pavilion Media Center A1640n — on sale from some retail outlets for $699. The machine came with 2 gigabytes of memory, a 250 GB hard disk, and it ran on a quick 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Around the same time, you might instead have picked up Apple’s top-of-the-line Mac Mini, which came equipped with a processor slightly less powerful than the HP’s (a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo), a far smaller hard disk (80 GB), and less memory (512 MB). The Mac Mini would have set you back $799, or $100 more than the HP.

A good way to gauge the current market value of a computer is to check how much buyers have been willing to pay for similar models in auctions recently completed on eBay. Doing so for the HP shows prices ranging from $236 to $257 — let’s say a rough average of $250. Sales of the Mac Mini, meanwhile, go from about $445 to $550. Let’s assume you can unload yours for $500.

If you used your HP for a year and then sold it, you would have spent $449 to own it — that is, your purchase price of $699 minus your sale price of $250. The Mac Mini, for the same year, would have set you back far less: $799 minus $500, or just $299.

I ran such comparisons on many Windows and Mac systems sold during the past four years, and in nearly every one — whether the machines were laptops or desktops — the Macs sold by enough of a premium over comparable Windows machines to make up for the greater amount you would have paid when buying them.

I have a 4 year old G4 Powerbook 12″ with 40 Gigs of memory and 256 Megs of RAM. I used it to build this blog, write a novel and it got me through grad school– and it’s still kicking ass. The only repairs it’s ever needed were a few freeware patches, a replacement battery ($80) and a replacement AC adapter ($20) and those needed replacing only because they wore out.  I upgraded twice, first to Panther, then to Tiger with zero problems or bugs. A quick perusal of eBay tells me I could sell this thing for between $400 and $600. I purchased it for around $2000. Now sure, with wear and tear, maybe that would knock a hundred bucks off the price. But could you imagine a Dell or HP laptop selling for 40% it’s cost after 4 years? Hell no. Most PCs don’t even last that long because, as Farhad points out, they get eaten alive by spyware and viruses long before they ever have a chance to be resold.

So. Buy a Mac. It’s not only pretty and (mostly) virus free, but if you have a need to resell it, you’ll get your money’s worth. Not that you’ll need to resell it; Elvira and I have three Macs at home, all between 3 and 5 years old and they all work brilliantly. We’ll be using them for years to come.

Today, Elvira and I celebrated our Seventh Wedding anniversary in that tried and true way couples have for years: we bought Guitar Hero III for the Wii and spent most of the afternoon making really loud (and bad) music. It was great! I have a whole new respect for CC Deville and Dave Peverett. Poison and Foghat songs are far more complex than music snobs like myself give them credit.

Last night we saw Across the Universe (another tradition; did you know that the Seventh Anniversary is Psychadelic Musicals featuring Beatles songs? Me either. I thought it was flatware or cotton sheets).  It was excelent. But then I’m always impressed by Julie Tamor, she has a really solid ans unique visual language and brings a lot of innovative staging technique from the theater. The scene with Max being drafted is amazing stuff. Highly recommended.

I think tonight I’m making dinner. That should be fun. Spaghetti and meatballs, all around!

I downloaded Season 3 of Doctor Who a few weeks ago (yippee for Bittorrent!) and have watched the whole thing, so for any American fans who haven’t seen the last episode (scheduled for Friday Night here on the Sci-Fi Channel) you may want to skip this post.

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I’m a Star Trek geek from way back, so the much anticipated forthcoming movie and refurbished episodes of the Original Series have me in a Trekish mood of contemplation. That and my office is 85 frickin’ degrees and so I can’t help but zone out into Daydream land occasionally. One recent heat induced fugue got me thinking about the technology of Star Trek and I realized something that had never really occurred to me before: the humans of the Federation seem to have a distinct lack of imagination when it comes to how they use their super sophisticated technology. What follows may sound like a rant but is all meant in good fun and as a thought experiment (maybe towards a bit of space opera of my own? Who can say).

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Good friend and regular reader, Andrew sent me this link to the Eugene Weekly, about Wizard Rock:

What you may not know, however, is that within the last couple years, an entire music subculture has been spawned from the world  of Harry Potter: wizard rock. More than 200 bands have come up with clever names (The Hermione Crookshanks Experience, for example) and written rock ‘n’ roll, punk, acoustic and even dance songs about everything from going to Hogsmeade to saving Ginny Weasley from deadly basilisks. There is an engaging purity to the music these bands make since the often campy songs ooze with absolute joy and silliness. These folks genuinely have fun mixing their love of music and Harry Potter.

The best part is, several of these bands make regional tours playing in library’s and chanting slogans like, “Fight Evil, read books.” Good stuff all around.

I was almost certain that Spider-Man 3 would be suck-proof. I was a chump.

Too many characters, all of them crying and some of the most unmotivated emotional turnarounds I’ve ever seen in a movie. It was Spider Man and his Schizoid Friends, Bi-Polar Boy and Insecure Girl.

Venom was completely unnecessary. He was on screen for maybe ten minutes and added nothing to the story. But then, that basically describes venom in the comics as well, so it should have been expected.

Gwen Stacy was completely underused as a character. She is supposed to have been Spider Man’s first great love. Instead, she’s the other woman for about five minutes, then disappears only to show up a Harry’s funeral because… she somehow knew Harry? Really? How? When?

Sandman was good. I wish there had simply been more for him to do, and there would have been, if they hadn’t decided to shoehorn Venom into the movie.

Also, half the time, Spider-Man is running around with his mask off. He wears a mask for a reason but I guess the Studio decided that seeing Toby Maguire being Emo was more important than story or continuity.

The movie would have been fine without Venom or Gwen Stacy. Focus on the Harry, Peter, MJ love triangle with the Sandman subplot (and maybe add in the Vulture, as played by Ben Kingsly as a flying criminal mastermind manipulating Sandman and also having a hand in the death of Peter’s uncle). Save Gwen Stacy as the sub plot for the next film, with Bruce Campbell as Mysterio. Number 5 can be about the wedding of MJ and Peter, as interrupted by the Lizard and Shocker. Save Venom for number 6 or better yet, number not at all.

But on the bright side, there really is no way Pirates of the Caribbean 3 will suck, right? Update: 5/28: yes, I was right. Much better!