The Secret Lair

Three days later, I found myself distressingly back to normal, blessedly back to normal. At least my outward routine hadn’t changed. I told my wife that I had hit a deer, and the car was in the body shop for repairs. I however, would take a lot longer to get over that late night incident. I’m still not over it actually.

“Max. Max? Hey man!” At the shove on my shoulder, I shook myself out of my memories for the fifth time that day, and focused up on my boss, Terry. He’s a large man, made larger from years sitting in a chair looking at code on a screen. Which is the same thing I do, and only through decent genetics have I avoided the worst of the weight gain that most people in my line of work get as they get older; though I am by no means thin.

“Sorry Terry, must be the lunch catching up with me.” He frowned, “We have to get this thing out the door tonight. Quit daydreaming and get into it!” He walked off with a grunt, and with him went most of my drive to code.

I tried for the sixth time to get back into the code that I was working on. It’s not brain surgery, just a financial web site, but the client wanted it out yesterday and was paying my company big bucks to make it happen. Were we going to see any of that money? Nope. Which is why I have been spending most of the last month at the computer, up late, and is the reason I was on that road at 3am to meet my date with fate.

I hunkered down for the last few hours of the day, leaving after 7pm, late again. My wife wouldn’t be happy, heck I wasn’t. Once again, it was getting dark as I left the building. I hurried a bit to my rental car, a fairly nice one, well at least nicer than the 5 year old car that was currently in the shop. I just didn’t want to be outside when the sun finally did go down. Turns out, that was a good thing.

I was driving home, avoiding “the road”, as I had ever since the accident. It was a longer route, but I didn’t want to be anywhere around there since that night three days ago.It didn’t matter. As I was coming down the hill near my house, I saw them. The shadows out of the corner of my eye, the ones that I used to see all the time on the road.

I leaned forward to get a better look out my window. Like that ever helps. It made me feel more alert though. My hands grew cold, and I don’t mean from the temperature, I mean they grew cold. My breath started to steam up as it passed over the top of my hands, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

They hurt a little, like I had just shoved my warm hands into wet snow, but I wasn’t going to pay attention to that when I was seeing those shadows outside. I was coming up fast on the stop sign at the end of the street, just a few blocks away from my home. I debated about running it, but saw that there were cars already there, so running it would mean running into one. I really didn’t want to stop, but I didn’t want to get into an accident and have to get out of my car even less. I’m still not sure if I should have stopped, but I did, and that is when they came.

I pulled up short at the stop sign, the tires screeching a bit. I had every intent to start up again as soon as it was my turn to go, but I never got that chance. The shadows that I had been seeing, the ones shaped like people, that always got out of the way before, didn’t. They got closer instead. Suddenly, the only light that I could see was that of my gauges on my car, and the reflection of them in the windows. Everything else was pitch black.

I was terrified. I couldn’t move, even though I knew I just needed to pull my foot off the break. I couldn’t move, because I could see faces, faces in the blackness. The faces were similar to the one I saw three nights ago, but each was different, like a ghostly people. Each was looking at me. It seemed forever, them staring at me, me staring back. I half wondered what it looked like outside the car, if anyone else was engulfed in the blackness, probably me just sitting in my car, the car just sitting there at the stop sign.

I slowly raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. When I did, all eyes went from mine, to my hands. I swear I saw several of those eyes widen, and then they all disappeared back into the dusk. My world returned to normal, instantly, and my hands began to warm up. The intersection was empty, all the cars must have gone while I sat there encased in shadowy forms. I slowly looked at my hands, backs, then palms, nothing strange to the eyes. So I put them back on the wheel and slowly started through the intersection. I drove the rest of the way back to my house in silence, and blessedly uneventfully.

Originally posted at Virtual Thoughts from eRoom-D

I, like other Overlords here in the Lair, have personal minions of my own, a.k.a. children. The eldest, 18, is, well… that’s for another day.¹ The middling, at 13, is something of a Zen Master and thwarts our current understanding of genetics and nature v. nurture.

But the youngest, imported from China in 2005, is my last, best hope for becoming an Overlord.²

A glimpse of our future.

Being on her good side, I don’t much fear her wrath, at least beyond what I already experience from the tirades common to most any six-year-old with mild attachment disorder and a swift right hook. But oh yes, the seed of World Domination is there. I wonder, though, how best to raise her to be a quality Overlord. Being a g33kdad, I’m already well into the process of feeding her personal inner geek. The Dark Crystal? Check. Labyrinth? Check. Steady diet of science shows? Check. Doing physics experiments around the house? Check.

I find myself debating, however, what may be appropriate when. I was raised in a different time, when parents, for lack of babysitter, would take their kids to see movies like The Blues Brothers without blinking.³ Someone would get strung up in the streets for doing such things these days. Point being, it’s sometimes hard to judge what a child may be ready for without permanently scarring them. For instance, we tried out The Goonies at one point, and realized the ‘PG’ meant something completely different back in 1985.

While I itch to watch things like the Lord of the Rings with my youngest, she’s not even close to ready for such things, both time-wise and intensity-wise. I find myself wishing there were some sort of guide to geekery that one could apply to one’s children.

I’d be interested to hear what you, the common rabble, use as a yardstick for underling exposure to things geeky. Preferably in a catalogued list. Proceed.

1. I don’t want to use the phrase ‘failed experiment’, but… [↩]
2. Overlady? [↩]
3. True story. Ah, the mysterious 70s. [↩]

Quick! Name three Russian science-fiction writers. Yes, you can count the Strugatsky brothers as two, if you absolutely must, but you shouldn’t have to. You’ve got Lukyanenko (Night Watch, Day Watch), of course, and Gluhkovsky (Metro 2033, basis for the video game of the same name) and Tolstoy (the other one, who wrote The Garin Death Ray instead of Anna Karenina)…the list goes on and on.

Now name three Finnish science-fiction writers.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

No names leaping to mind?

Here’s a little help for you—in the category “Finnish science fiction writers,” Wikipedia lists seven names:

1. Aarne Haapakoski
2. Risto Isomäki
3. Leena Krohn
4. Kimmo Lehtonen
5. Martti Löfberg
6. Hannu Rajaniemi
7. Johanna Sinisalo

Compare that to the category “Russian science fiction writers,” which yields forty-eight names (forty-nine, if you count Arkady and Boris Strugatsky as two people).

It never occurred to me to search for Finnish science fiction writers until the latest in a series of literary conversations with a Russian-American colleague at work. When the topic wandered (as it does) into the realm of science fiction recently, we spoke of Stalker, a 1979 film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (who also directed Polish science fiction author¹ Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris in 1972) and based on the Strugatsky brothers’ novel, Roadside Picnic.

Wait a minute, I thought, after our conversation had come to a close. What about Finnish science fiction?

The Finns are my people; the music that sings in my blood is a kantele, strummed by the eternal bard, Väinämöinen. In nearly thirty-eight years on the planet, it never once occurred to me to seek out Finnish sci-fi. When it did occur to me, I wondered if I might learn that in the great Venn diagram of science-fiction, the circle representing Lapland was empty.

It’s not, of course, but nor is it bursting at the seams;² compared to the rest of what we consider Scandinavia,³ Finland is the most science-fictional (at least according to Wikipedia). The tally for the remainder of Scandinavia is as follows: Denmark, 2; Norway, 4; Sweden, 5.

Finnish science fiction does exist, but there’s slight hurdle that must be overcome before I can actually read any of it: Suomalainen, the Finnish language. Apart from a handful of terms related to misbehaving, sawing lumber and cursing at farm animals, I can neither speak nor read Finnish. In order to experience Finnish science fiction, I’ll either need to learn the language or find English translations.

If you’re expecting me to announce that I plan to learn to speak (or read) Finnish in the short term, don’t hold your breath. It’s something I’d like to do, but it’s not exactly on my short range radar. On the other hand, I’m very well aware that one of the Finnish science fiction writers listed above, Hannu Rajaniemi, has a new novel—The Quantum Thief—that will soon be available in these here United States; in English, no less.⁴ And so my journey into the realm of Finnish science fiction will begin later this year.

Who are the science fiction writers of your nationality? Have you read any of their works? How do they compare with American sci-fi?

1. Poland: 30 science fiction writers. [↩]
2. American science fiction writers: 1,058 [↩]
3. Geography Trivia: Finland is not a part of what is classically considered Scandinavia. [↩]
4. Alas, no Kindle version has been announced. [↩]

What a sad world we live in when spaceflight has become blasé.

Discovery has flown her last mission and unless the private sector continues to pursue it, America has given up her place as a pioneer in manned spaceflight. All things must end, but when I reflect on the fact that cellphone footage of a rebellion in Libya that had been going on for a week drowned out the final flight of what was once America’s dream, I feel more than a little sad.

We forget the wonder. We have more stories to distract us, endless amounts of “science fiction-ish” entertainment with CGI aliens so real-look you’d swear you could bump into one at Starbucks. As a society, we’re more absorbed with Angry Birds than with exploring the stars. How banal, how shallow, how very, very sad.

Did you know NASA has just completed their first successful orbit of the planet Mercury?  Haven’t heard of the MESSENGER project on your FOX, CNN, HLN, or NPR?  Neither have I. I found out thanks to reading Charles Stross’s blog. I had to read a Scottish science fiction author’s blog to realize that NASA was doing something amazing.

That’s just so very wrong.

We geeks love our science fiction entertainment. How many novels have you read that involved spaceflight? How about computer technology developed in-part because of the space program? How about stories about extra-planetary colonization? Aliens and offworlders?

And then…think about the last time you reading about NASA in the news when it wasn’t a tragedy. THe “everyday” work of exploring the vast reaches beyond our atmosphere.  The chick that sang the Friday, Friday song is getting more press than NASA is right now. What does that say about us a culture?

I’m as culpable as anyone. Worse, in many ways. My father worked for NASA. In my parents’ attic are boxes of memorabilia that I kept: posters of the Saturn V rocket, promotional material for the Space Shuttle while it was in construction, stack after stack of educational pamphlets and other Really Cool Things. I should be paying better attention. I remember how amazing sending men into space felt, what it triggered in my imagination. I remember both the wonder fo watching the Space Shuttle take off and the horrying sense of grief and loss that came from the Challenger tragedy. Yet, I’m as oblivious as anyone else these days.

We need a little more cool science in our lives. We need to be reminded that there are wonders beyond HD TV and Netflix. That the universe is full of Neat Shit, and we aren’t nearly as smart as we think we are.

Take some time this week and consider the amazing time in which we live. Go find out why something works. Spend some time reading up on what’s going on in space exploration. Remind yourself that there are more wonders out there than in your Star Trek Fanfic or your Harry Potter trivia book.

Movie: "Now, we retake Los Angeles!" Me: "...why?"

Dear Battle: LA,

Thanks for showing me an interesting time last weekend! I did enjoy myself, but I’m afraid that most of what you tried to do on our date didn’t work out quite like you intended it to. I appreciate the effort, I really do… but I don’t think we can see each other again.

Now, I get what you were going for, and like I said, I did end up having fun. Kicking back to enjoy a movie with plenty of combat and lots of explosions is cool, and something I certainly like to do. I must say that there was plenty of both, and it all looked quite pretty. I loved how you used the shaky cam during the fight scenes to add tension, and to the chaos of the battlefield. Even better, it did a great job of helping to keep the alien invaders mysterious for the first part of the flick, which was a nice touch. That, I liked!

What I did not like was that you used the shaky cam throughout the rest of the film too. Seriously, why did you think it was necessary to have a jerky hand-camera in a scene where two men are calmly talking to each other in an office? I know, I know – you were trying to pull me into the action with a sense of immediacy, but it ended up being a bit weird. There wasn’t a character holding the camera, so maybe you meant to evoke a documentary-style feeling? Whatever your goal, it was a bit too much, sort of like the lens flares in that Star Trek movie I went out with a few times recently. Oh, and I should tell you that one of the other people that was on our group date last weekend was getting over a massive migraine, and your damn shaky cam brought it right back for her. Yeah, she was the one who stopped watching after the first few minutes. I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but that was not cool at all.

Listen, I know you tried really hard, and you had a great idea: an alien invasion told from the perspective of a team of marines on the ground should be awesome. You even scored the always excellent Aaron Eckhart as the main protagonist Nantz, and he did a great job with what he was given. Sadly, you didn’t give him much, and most of the dialogue was just uninspired. Yes, you tried to get me to care about all the other marines too by introducing snippets of their personal stories in the opening sequence. But here’s the thing – ignoring the fact that it felt like you were running through a roster of classic soldier-movie cliches (the married one with a pregnant wife, the about-to-be-wed one, the one who’s brother was just killed, the one who’s about to retire, and the rookie, to name a few), you killed several of them too early in the story for it to matter. Between not being able to keep track of most of the individual marines in the shaky-cam combat, and that many of the personal stories set up in the beginning are never revisited later, I ended up not really caring about most of them. In fact, apart from Nantz and one other solider, the other focal protagonists of the flick aren’t even among the marines that you took such care to establish in the beginning, which was just bad storytelling.

Speaking of storytelling, there were a couple of spots where you botched the science in a way that was so wrong, it broke me out of my pleasant suspension of disbelief. The worst was when you said that the Hubble space telescope was able to take thermal images of multiple objects that had suddenly appeared in earth’s atmosphere. That’s just not possible. Hubble doesn’t do that. Period. I know most people don’t have a great understanding of what Hubble’s capabilities are, but since you put the scope in your script, you had damn well better know yourself. The sad part is that you had any number of other satellites that could have done the same thing for your story, that you either didn’t bother to research, or chose not to use. Thor above, you could have even said it was an astronaut with a thermal camera on the International Space Station. The other painful science bit was when several scientists used the phrase “liquid water” to distinguish it from water in other states. While the point you were making was that it was not ice or water vapor they were talking about, “liquid water” as a turn of phrase wasn’t the right bit of dialogue to stick in the scientists’ mouths, and it was odd enough to throw me off. These may seem to be small things to you, but you know that I am a man of science, and so to wine and dine me, it matters.

Now, like I said, I did enjoy your movie, despite it’s faults. The combat and the explodey bits were intense and very well done. The design of the aliens and their tech was detailed and cohesive, and I enjoyed how new extraterrestrial weapons were rolled out at regular intervals during the course of the film. And, naturally, it had a happy ending… well, for the story I mean, not the other kind of on-a-date happy ending. Battle: LA, my dear, you won’t be getting another chance at one of those from me. It was a pleasant enough time, but I’ve moved on. Good luck with your future endeavors!

Regards,

The Bad Doctor (who kind of regrets this blind date)

The original fiction serial by David Moore continues. Click here to read part 1.

I pulled the car into the garage, not sputtering, but still giving off noises that told me that it had taken some fairly expensive abuse. It was then, as the garage door shut and I turned off the engine that I said my first words since the accident. “Shit! Shit, shit shit!” I’ve never been one for flowery cursing.

“Damnit!” I shouted in the confines of my car, slamming the heals of my hands into the steering wheel time and time again. I cried a little. “Fuck! I just killed someone! Something at least, what the hell was he?” I got out of the car, squeezing out since the garage is crammed on my side. I went around the back of the car, avoiding the lawn mower at the front of the car. I got over to the front passenger side of the car, where I had hit the man, and looked at the streak of blood on the hood.

I sort of just stood there, staring. It looked human, red and dark, but the man had disappeared. “Ok, ok. So what the heck do I do now? The guy is gone, Damn.” I was coming down off my adrenaline, and the fact that it was 3am was starting to catch up to me. Moving to the workshop I grabbed a rag and toweled off the blood, making sure I got all of it that I could see.

“Going to have to tell people I hit a deer.” I took the rag with me into the house, and rooting through the kitched drawers, pulled out a Ziplock bag and stuffed the rag into it; sealing it shut.

As I watched my hands I started talking to myself again, which is fairly normal when I am under stress. “Ok, ok, not sleeping tonight. What in the heck was that guy? I mean I always wanted there to be stuff out there, but never really believed it. Ok, maybe I did when I was a kid, but not for a while now. Even then I knew that it wasn’t real.

“The soap, got to have soap.” So what do I do now? Look into it obviously, but how? If there were one of them, there have to be more.” At that thought, I remembered the feeling of people looking on just before I left the scene. I took a moment to flip on the lights above the sink in the kitchen. Then, hands still wet, turned on the main lights as well, suddenly afraid of a shadowy reprisal. I looked over both shoulders, just to make sure nothing was there. Luckily, nothing was.

I finished washing my hands, and dried them off. Moving to the living room, I turned on all the lights, and sat on the couch. It’s a nice couch, comfortable, but sometimes takes my body heat and turns it around and heats me up. It was then that I saw the remote across the room, got up, and turned on the tv with it. Returning to the couch, I dropped into it, and slouched. Flipping channels until the sun came up.

Originally posted at Virtual Thoughts from eRoom-D

According to a recent post on Cult of Mac—a website that pretty much lives up to its name—a couple of executives at Apple took pity on a guy whose wife wouldn’t let him have an iPad 2. After this fellow returned his iPad 2 with a sticky note reading “Wife said no” attached, Apple set him a replacement with a sticky note reading “Apple said yes.”

This is all based on rumor and hearsay, but I could probably use up at least one whole pad of Post-Its¹ labeling things that my wife has told my I can’t have. Gosh, it sure would be great if anonymous executives at Apple, Dell, Microsoft and any number of other corporations sent me free stuff with sticky notes attached. Here’s your chance to build some consumer goodwill, faceless corporations; don’t let it slip through your fingers.

1. 22″ (or larger) LCD monitor (Dell, Samsung, ViewSonic).
2. iPhone 4 (Apple).
3. Slimline Xbox 360 w/250GB hard drive and Kinect sensor (Microsoft).
4. HP Color LaserJet wireless printer.
5. Roku XD|S streaming media player.
6. She-Hulk.

That should do for starters. Now, executives, just because you don’t see your corporation’s name on the list, don’t be discouraged; there’s still a very good chance that my wife has nixed the purchase of one of your products at some point,² so go ahead and send me free stuff anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

1. I don’t go for the generic sticky notes; a man’s got to have standards. [↩]
2. “We have to pay the car insurance premium/preschool tuition/electric bill.” “Kyle needs new boots so his feet won’t freeze.” “The refrigerator sounds like a outboard motor; we should replace it.” The excuses are endless. [↩]

Part 1 – Myths About Introverts

I was recently in need of some educational credits for work, and I decided to check out a book about introverted leadership. To my dismay, I quickly discovered that the book was written by an extrovert. I gave up about halfway through the small tome, feeling ickier and more ill-used than usual.

After stewing on the issue for a while and writing a scathing review on Amazon, I decided to set the record straight regarding those whom society has judged based on their personality types. I have a personal hypothesis that geeky pursuits tend to appeal more towards introverts for a number of reasons, and so introversion may be overrepresented in that crowd. Feel free to use the following as a quick and easy reference for understanding the introverts that walk among us.

Myth: Introverts are shy and socially incompetent.

The first thing you need to understand about introversion is that it is all about energy. Where does your energy come from and what causes you to burn it? Introverts live in their heads, where they indulge rich and vivid imaginations. They charge their batteries with solitary activities where their minds are free to wander and explore. By contrast, extroverts live outside of their head, processing their thoughts out loud and gaining energy through interactive experiences.

Introverts are not shy. They simply do not feel the need to verbally share every thought that crosses their mind. Find a topic that interests an introvert or something about which they are passionate and you will find more conversation than you bargained for. At times, an introvert may seem unresponsive, but in fact they may be internally processing what is being discussed. Unfortunately, conversations often leave introverts behind, moving on to other topics before they have fully processed their thoughts. This reinforces the stereotype of shyness.

Myth: Introverts are afraid to speak in public.

Speaking in public is a skill, just like social skills or any other. It can be developed and honed through practice and training. You would be surprised at the number of actors, instructors, and professional speakers who are actually introverts. Anyone can be afraid of speaking in public, and being an extrovert does not give one a natural advantage at the skill. We have all seen the person who gets to a microphone, is obviously quite nervous, and then won’t shut up. Their abundance of words does not make them a good public speaker. It makes them an embarrassment. An introvert that overcomes a fear of speaking and hones that skill may actually make a better speaker, remaining succinct, entertaining, and on topic.

Myth: Introverts don’t like to socialize

Correction: Introverts don’t like to socialize with large groups of strangers making small talk about topics that do not interest them. To an introvert, that is a waste of words and emotional energy. Introverts prefer small groups of close friends discussing things about which they are passionate.

Myth: Introverts don’t have any friends.

Think in terms of breadth versus depth. An extrovert is more likely to have a broad group of people they refer to as “friends,” but an introvert might refer to those same people as “acquaintances.” Placing value on their private lives and thoughts, introverts may bring fewer people into that inner circle. It is mostly semantics. Introverts may have many friends, but only a few that they consider “close friends.” Extroverts are certainly capable of deep relationships, but may not draw clear boundaries between those and others they know.

Myth: Introverts are a minority.

This is actually a myth that stems from bad data that has been quoted and requited until it has become its own source reference.¹ The collective results of years using instruments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has shown that introverts, like most personality traits, represent half of the American population if not a little more. The problem is that we have created a culture that values extroversion. Professional expectations, the entertainment industry, and pervasive myths place introverts at a cultural disadvantage for success.

Myth: Introversion is a disability to overcome.

Baloney. Knowing that I am an introvert does not communicate anything about my skills and abilities. It tells me how I gain and spend my emotional energy; what will feed my soul or drain me. I don’t need to “overcome” anything in order to communicate effectively, manage people, or be productive. I just need a little self awareness.

Introvert husbandry is not such a difficult line of work. If you find yourself in a position to care for an introvert, understanding how their brain works will go a long way to smooth the road in developing your relationship. If you consider yourself to be an introvert, remember that a little self awareness is good for anyone. Understand the myths that exist out there, the expectations of an extroverted society, and your own natural tendencies, and you won’t seem like such a weirdo.

1. Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength, by Laurie Helgoe Ph.D. – an excellent read, if you are so inclined [↩]