September 2003 Archives
Lost in Space? Returning to TV? And the project involves filmmaker John Woo and Buffy writer, director and producer Doug Petrie?
[breif geekgasm]
Yeah, I'd probably watch that.
An interesting article on Slashdot about Word Processors: One Writer's Retreat -- wherein the author talks about the bells and whistles of emerging technology actually getting in the way of the relatively simple process of writing.
With a new novel to write, the time seemed ripe to switch software. I'd like to say I scoured about for word processors, but I didn't. In my novel, one character would write computer programs. The story question was, What software would he use? It had to be vi. Vi, a Unix editor for plain text files created in 1976 by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. I'd remembered working with a software engineer, who saw no advantage to word processors and dismissed the "prettiness" of desktop publishing. He did everything in vi. Could I write a novel in vi? I decided, Why not?
Vi fast became -- and remains, 100,000 words later -- my writing implement of choice. Most of all, what I like about vi is something that is, well, aesthetic. I like vi's keyboard-only operation. Vi doesn't assault with helpful balloons or racks of toolbar icons. No, vi has a 70s ambience (no mouse, no GUI) that's refreshingly clean. In that sense, vi is a treasured software servant. It works well without showy presence and respectfully stays out of the way.
Just for the record, I won't be writing any novels in Vi. That said, I will point out that I've never written anything creative in Word for many of the reasons the author cites in the article above: I like my word processing program to be that: a processor of words... that's it: no helpful capitalization, no auto-correct, and certainly no desktop publishing features poorly implemented and largely unnecessary.
Roughdraft is simple enough for me.
Victor Garber, who plays Jack Bristow on Alias, will guest star on It's All Relative on Oct. 29ths Halloween episode as a 'flamboyantly' gay party planner.
I must see this. I just can't imagine Garber (whom I really like on Alias) emoting for the camera in any way that involves more than two muscles on his face, so it's not that he's playing someone gay that surprises me -- it's the word 'flamboyant' that blows my mind.
A Polish company has reportedly set a world record, stretching the range of a Wi-Fi network 110 Kms at 2.4 GHz, using an antenna developed by them and an Intel Pro/Wireless 2011 Access Point.
Suh-WEET.
(via Slashdot)I place my hands around hers, gently moving her fingers to the correct buttons. "Open your mind," I say. "Here's what you're saying with the TiVo, you're saying: These are the shows I want to watch. I don't know when, I don't know in what order, maybe half of one and then half of another, maybe ten seconds here and there, maybe tonight, maybe a year from now, maybe backwards, maybe in slow motion, probably definitely skipping all commercials. This is what you're saying: Hey, Mr. TV Man, I am taking your output and pummeling it into whatever shape I see fit."
A really great little science fiction story. Or... is it?
I'd really like to see what Carnivàle is all about, because it looks like the kind of thing I'd be into, but with no HBO either our house of that of ... anyone we know, apparently ... it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
A man holds a tentacle of a 'Arcciteuthis Dux' squid on La Isla beach, in northern Spain, September 15, 2003. Scientists are trying to find out what caused two enormous squids, one of them 40 ft long, to wash up dead on Spain's northern coast this week. 'It's not a natural death and it's not the Prestige,' Luis Laria, president of marine protection agency CEPESMA said, referring to a massive oil spill from the Prestige tanker late last year. He declined to speculate on the cause.
Could have been lifted right off the front page of the Arkham Gazeteer.
Good lord, Buffy never won an Emmy until... okay, never.
Gaiman summarizes:
Avalon is a remarkable film -- it looks astonishing, is haunting, deep, frustrating and magical in equal measure, like an art-film version of the Matrix, or a middle-European Philip K Dick structure created by a Japanese director more to unsettle you then to excite you. In a grey, futuristic world, people enter a consensual reality run by computers to play illegal war-games, and the finest player is a woman called Ash. There are hidden levels to the game, and to reality. It doesn't look like anything else: it's like an SF tone poem, or a mood, as much as it is a story.
Coming out December 9th, along with a zillion other things I want. :P
Firefly wins TeeVee Awards '03: Most Unjust Cancellations Award.
But we still must wail against the cancellation of Firefly. Granted, the show's first aired episodes were a bit shaky. But those who saw the final part of its run (as well as the pilot episode Fox refused to air until it was far too late) saw the strength of its writing, its premise, and its fantastic cast.
A sci-fi western, Firefly really began to work when it more deftly mixed genres, shifting from western to action to techno-sci-fi with ruthless efficiency. It was uncompromising in its quirks -- all the outer space scenes were silent, since there's no air (and therefore no sound) in space -- and that idiosyncracy probably didn't help it with your average TV viewer.
But people who say Firefly was a flop probably didn't watch more than one episode. And many uneducated folks simply look at its sudden cancellation and jump to a bad conclusion: that after his success with Angel and Buffy, Whedon couldn't reach his built-in audience with Firefly. The problem with that reasoning is, more people watched Firefly than either of Whedon's other two creations last year, combined. It's just that the ratings bar is set a bit higher on Fox than it is on UPN and The WB.
Fox has cancelled more good shows than UPN and The WB have aired in their combined existences: Firefly, The Tick, Undeclared, Andy Richter Controls the Universe just in recent history.
Why? To bring us Joe Millionaire 2, coming this fall.
Add Pirates of the Carribean to the "early December DVD release list", alongside Alias - Second Season, Buffy - Season Five, and Firefly.
Interview - Neil Gaiman: Talks about the Neverwhere DVD, the short film he worked on, and the movie adaptation of Death: the High Cost of Living.
Rant in the Globe & Mail from Spider Robinson regarding the current state of science fiction. He opines that SF readers today seem to prefer fantasies rather than the forward-looking works of science and space travel that used to dominate the genre.
'Why are our imaginations retreating from science and space, and into fantasy?'
(via Slashdot)
