Category Archives: HSFFU

The Problem with Paradoxes

  By Phineas Delgado | September 30, 2012 - 3:42 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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I'm confused just looking at it...

First, I wanted to apologize for the delay in getting another post written. I was writing a post on education that kept dissolving into a bitter diatribe about everything that’s wrong with the education system in America today, and I didn’t want it to be about that. So I’ve shelved it for another time – possible when there isn’t so much political rhetoric floating around.

On a happier note, I went to see Looper; science fiction’s latest foray into a quagmire of another sort – time travel. I’m not sure if objectively-minded men really thought about the possibilities of traveling back or forward through time before H.G. Wells wrote his famous novella on the topic, but Lord knows that we do now. There’s hardly a franchise in science fiction that hasn’t at least skirted the subject of time travel. Some, like Doctor Who and Back to the Future have even built themselves around it. It’s so popular, in fact, that we’ve built real scientific theory around something that may not even be possible. Theories like the “causality loop”, better known as the “Predestination Paradox”.

I’m confused just looking at it…

Now some of you might not of heard of a causality loop before, but I guarantee most of you have seen one in action. It’s the idea that the act of going back in time is what created the possibility of going back in time. Terminator probably best illustrated this principal – John Connor, rebel leader of the future, sent the man into the past that would become his own father, and event that HAD to occur in order for him to be born in order to commit the act. This is why causality loops are called Predestination Paradoxes.  Sometimes, the writers are so good at telling the story we don’t see the paradox. In Back to the Future, for example, the primary theme is the Grandfather Paradox, the question about what would happen if you happened to alter your own family history (usually posed as “what would happen if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather – meaning you would cease to exist – which would then mean you couldn’t kill your grandfather). But in watching Back to the Future as many times as I have, you see the subtle causality loop. You see, because they combine the two concepts, you lose the idea that Doc Brown knew all along that Marty had to go back in time. The whole reason Marty and the Doc are friends is because Doc Brown knew this and had to foster Marty’s character into one that would fill the eventual need. So, everything he said prior to Marty traveling back in time was carefully orchestrated because he KNEW that it would work. It’s easy to overlook because we are focused on the fact that Marty changed reality for himself. And this is where Back to the Future was genius without doing it on purpose. The created the idea of a time traveler exists outside the paradox (unless the paradox affects them directly, and then there is time to correct it… or there wouldn’t be a story). Franchises like Doctor Who (which really took time travel to a whole new level), ignore the paradox concept entirely, mainly because, in the words of the immortal Doctor, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly… timey-wimey… stuff.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I think my favorite representation of a causality loop was in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode Time’s Arrow, a two-parter, presented a story in which the Enterprise is called back to Earth because a geologic team discovered what appeared to be Data’s head in a cavern with artifacts from Earth’s 19 century. The loop was created when they found the head, and completed when Data’s head was lost in the past and he was reconnected with that head in the future. It’s a great presentation of a causality loop, and it was a great story. Causality loops were a favorite story-telling tool of the franchise. A fact illustrated by the fact they used them in nearly every iteration of the franchise, including the MMO, Star Trek Online.

Back to Looper. I won’t go into any specifics about the because I don’t like spoilers any more than you do. But based on what we already know from the trailer and marketing pieces, we know that it involves hit men who kill people sent back into the past from the future, eventually leading to them killing their future selves, thereby “closing the loop”. I’ve always like the Terminator flavor of time travel – a one way affair that only goes into the past. Usually, when people are sent back to a time predating the invention of time travel, they either have the machine, or they can be retrieved by the people in the future (see the 1994 Jean Claude Van Damme Sci-Fi jaunt, Time Cop as an example).

Another great example of a causality loop was the 2002 interpretation of the aforementioned Time Machine. After the hero travels to the future, after failing hundreds of times to save his dead fiance in the past, he meets the Über-Morlock, who proceeds to explain the Predestination Paradox to him in stunning simplicity. He has to explain, to this seemingly brilliant man, that he couldn’t change the past because that’s why he traveled to the past. Get it? You see, the poor man finished the time machine so he could save his dear love. If he saved her, he never would have been driven to complete his project, and thus never had the chance to save her. Now the paradox is clear, isn’t it? And that’s what makes Time Travel so tricky, and why Doc Brown wanted to destroy his own time machine. In his own words, “I wish I’d never invented that infernal time machine. It’s caused nothing but disaster.”

Let’s hope we never figure this one out.

Into That Good Night

  By Phineas Delgado | September 11, 2012 - 10:17 pm | , , ,
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Do you really remember?

Lately, we’ve all been waxing a bit political, which is understandable considering the upcoming Presidential elections this November. But today, more than any other day, we should set aside those thoughts and ramblings. This day is more important than that.

I was preparing for an interview the morning of September 11th, 2001. Back then, I was selling mortgages, and I had been working for a brokerage that was bought by a funding company, making it nigh impossible to sell. I had set an interview with a small local bank for a Loan Officer’s position, a position I held for two years. I was putting on my tie when the phone rang. It was my mother. I assumed she was calling to wish me luck, but her voice was more frantic than that. “Are you watching the news?” I told her was getting running late and I wasn’t watching TV. “Something’s happening in New York. I think a plane ran into the World Trade Center.” My curiosity got the better of me and I turned on the set. What is it about the possibility of watching misfortune and disaster that draws us in like moths to a flame?

Do you really remember?

What was I watching? What was going on? Was it an accident? I was talking through the scenarios with my mother when, to our mutual horror, we watched the second plane careen into the south tower. Surely that wasn’t an accident. Why would anyone ram a plane into an office building? Why was this happening? I got off the phone because I had to go to my interview. I called the bank, and Danny, the Vice President of the bank, answered. He said everyone had left and the bank was closing, but since I was on the way, he’d wait for me. We had my interview, but we mostly talked about the event and our pasts. I don’t think we even really discussed the job much.

Every so often, our lives are marked by some terrific event; that day where we ask one another “Where were you when…” For our grandparents and great-grandparents, it was Pearl Harbor. And then for our parents it was the Kennedy Assassination. For me it was the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. But 9/11 ran deeper. It scarred all of us. It wasn’t just an event, it was an attack. It was a statement against everything that we hold dear.

We have a special abhorrence for the death of innocent people – innocent at least in terms of conflict. We’ve been lucky in the US. Our government, while raucous, is very stable by comparison. We don’t generally have to deal with terrorism on our own soil. We’ve been a dominant military power since the start of the 20th century. We’ve powered the world economy with our own. And with the death of Osama Bin Laden and the subsequent faltering of Al-Qaeda, we feel like we won.

But we didn’t win. And we didn’t remember. Sure, we all remember what happened and who caused it. But we forgot what it was like before that happened. We changed everything about our lives. We police ourselves. We’ve become paranoid. We are so afraid of another attack on our soil that we scream and rant about closing the borders and check old ladies and children for illicit materials when they board planes. Ladies and Gentlemen, they got exactly what they wanted – Our fear.

So if we want to honor those people who had their lives taken unfairly, we should do so with lifted heads, rigid backs and firm resolve. We will not, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, go gently into that good night. We will find our liberty and wave it about on flag staffs made from the will of our forefathers and sing songs about the glory of our country until the sun burns out.

Rage with me, friends. Rage against the dying of the light.

Where No Han Has Gone Before

  By Phineas Delgado | August 30, 2012 - 11:27 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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Shit's about to get real.

One of the unwritten rules of geekdom is that you have to pick a universe to be your favorite, and that you will defend it tirelessly against the non-believers. Nowhere is this more evident than with Star Trek and Star Wars. Anyone who’s been following me for a while will know that this is a repost of sorts – I’m updating a piece I wrote for Geek Shui back in July of 2010. It’s a popular topic; and by popular, I mean it makes people want to hack off each other’s limbs with light sabers and set phasers to kill.

Shit’s about to get real.

OK before we continue, I wanted to go over a few Rules of Engagement (who knew I would find a use for the Law of Armed Conflict outside the military… and yes, there is such a thing… and yes, they enforce it… back on topic now):

  • First, there will be no “magic” or bending of the physical “laws” of the universe. No Jedi. No Sith. No Q – we’re pitting tech against tech, here, not mythology against mythology. Besides, the Q are all powerful and could simply will the force out of existence or, for that matter, will everyone into sponges
  • Second, while I might mention the Borg, they will not be a player, mainly because they don’t play nice with anyone and would likely just end up a third faction – besides, the Borg would likely win in a “Mary Sue-less” environment. Why? Because one cube would be all they need to adapt to the technology and more cubes would come. ‘Nuff said
  • Everything considered MUST be canonical. We’ll talk about that in a moment
  • Lastly, everyone has their own opinions on this – if you plan to comment, please try to back up your arguments with some sort of data. And for the Yoda’s sake, be respectful

Comparing Star Trek and Star Wars is a popular concept. The battle cries are many, and the banner has even been flown at the highest levels (I’m talking about the famous interview exchanges that went on between Bill Shatner and Carrie Fisher). There are a few sites that have already gone into great detail about how the Empire would trounce the Federation (and anyone else in the Trek universe), but I found that a lot of it is based more on guessing and fanaticism than an actual impartial view of the “science” involved. In doing research on the topic (both in the past and again as I write this), here’s what I discovered:

Taking the incredible lapse of time out of the equation (mostly because quite honestly the tech in the Star Wars universe has been mostly stagnate for at least 40,000 years), the science used in each of the Universes is very different. This is probably because Lucas was writing pulp science fiction based on old-time serials, and Roddenberry was creating an idyllic future for mankind. Those very different motives meant very different approaches to the “science”. Roddenberry was bound by what he knew our technology was in the 60′s, and where it could possibly reach in 300 years. Lucas was only bound by his own imagination.

What that means for the “science” is that while Star Trek is lousy with scientific theory and rhetoric, Star Wars has very little. For example, we hear all the time about Warp Drive and the principles of Space-Time. There are technical manuals and jargon and all sorts of explanations as to how things work. But we have no idea how FTL travel works in Star Wars, only that they call it “traveling through hyperspace”. We know they have red laser and green lasers, but no idea how light sabers contain the energy into blade form. Lucas, quite simply, didn’t care. It didn’t add to the story. It was a Space Opera, not Science Fiction.

That doesn’t mean the fans didn’t have at it, though. Both universes have spawned countless variations and tales, add-ons and continuations of the original stories. Star Trek had “The Animated Series“, Star Wars had “Droids“. This gets us into a discussion on what is canon and what isn’t. With Trek, canon is defined as anything that appears on film or television with the exception of The Animated Series, which is very specifically non-canon (despite their use of the original cast for voice-over work). Additionally, Paramount (who owns the property), has licensed the name and intellectual property for non-fiction reference books which are also tied to the canon (though not always canon themselves). Further complicating the matter is the fact that the Star Trek canon often contradicts itself, mainly because Gene Roddenberry had no idea his show would mean so much to people. He wasn’t worried about keeping the integrity of the timeline intact. One example would be in the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, Spock mentions that “one of his ancestors” was human – later it was his mother (hardly an ancestor). Further, the character is smug and demeaning. Also, it mentions that they were traveling outside the galaxy, which was later changed because of the immensity of that prospect. So in trying to keep it simple, after Roddenberry left us, his legacy was managed so that we could make sense of it. So, in essence, if you didn’t WATCH it, and or it wasn’t live actors, it isn’t canon.

In Star Wars, it’s different. George Lucas is still alive and very much a part of defining what is in isn’t canon. In his mind, the only canonical items are those from the movies (i.e. the movies themselves, the radio play and the novelizations – and any work that comes from them specifically). Lucasfilms has said that with so much work out there, they do their best to reconcile everything and make it work. I think the best example of this is when George Lucas was asked where Anakin got his scar in Episode III. His reply:

“I don’t know. Ask Howard. That’s one of those things that happens in the novels between the movies. I just put it there. He has to explain how it got there. I think Anakin got it slipping in the bathtub, but of course, he’s not going to tell anybody that.”

I think that explains a lot.

So let’s look at the universes themselves. Star Wars tends to do things on a massive, epic scale (which is why I think people choose them as the favorites to win in a confrontation). But with that in mind, there seem to be come major inconsistencies as it relates to the power output of their ships, – which is what makes an “apples-to-apples” comparison so difficult. Star Wars measures its power output in watts (W), which is a concept with which most of us are familiar. It’s the unit that measures how much work it takes to move an object one meter in one second against a force of one newton (N). Ooooh, science-y. Star Trek on the other hand, measures the power output of its craft in dynes (dyn)(which actually makes more sense from a propulsion standpoint). A dyne is the unit which measures how much force it takes to accelerate a mass of one gram one centimeter per second per second. Brain hurt yet?

What we need to know, then is how watts compare to dynes. In relative terms, a newton is equal to 100,000 dynes. So that means it would only require a single watt to move an object one meter per second against the force of 100,000 dynes. You have some grey matter leaking from your ears – you should take care of that.

Now, let’s get to comparing ships. A single Imperial-I Class Star Destroyer (which is about 1600 meters long – a little more than twice the length of Enterprise-E) has a reactor that produces 7.75 x 1024 W of power. Just to provide a little perspective, the flux capacitor from Back to the Future only requires 1.21 x 109 W of power to TRAVEL THROUGH EFFING TIME. The Sun – the life giving orb of boundless energy at the center of our Solar System but out about 4 x 1026  W of power, a mere 100 times that of the ISD. I don’t think that the materials they used could contain that amount of energy, but what do I know. Meanwhile, a standard Federation ship, in this case the U.S.S. Voyager, can produce roughly 4 x 1015  dyn of power (so using the earlier equation, about 4 x 1010  W). The ships in Star Wars ARE more massive, on the order of 10 to 20 times more, but that hardly requires 100 TRILLION (1014) times more power.

Maybe the Emperor wasn’t confident in his manhood…

I’ve just illustrated the first problem in comparing these two universes. And really, I think it’s because Star Trek is fundamentally different than any other type of Science Fiction involving space craft. Star Wars is more typical of the genre as it related to space battles, with said battles being more along the lines of those we are familiar with (you know, with fighters and large ships with marines and landing forces, etc). But Star Trek battles play out more like gun duels or barroom brawls. It wasn’t until much later in the history that space battles started to take on a more familiar (and massive-scale) approach, with the inclusion of smaller craft and large group tactics. Even then, ship-to-ship combat seemed to be the order of the day. To make a more naval comparison, Star Trek battles play more like submarine battles (with their heavy use of torpedoes and ship-to-ship tactics), while Star Wars battles play more like surface ship battles (with air/space fight support, landing forces and battle formations).

So what we’re left with is this: Star Wars overestimates and uses impossible physics while Star Trek just makes up units and particles, like “isotons” and “rapid nadions”. Comparing these two is like comparing Barack Obama to Mitt Romney; they’re both full of crap, but different kinds of crap. The last time I did this, I presented a scenario, but I feel like that it’s too easy to assume I’m not being objective, so I’ll just offer some basic comparisons and give example scenarios.

OK, so let’s look at tactics first. The Imperials strategy is based off of their numerical superiority, even when facing enemies in their own space. Star Warsis presented as being more populous than Star Trek, but I honestly think their Galaxy is much smaller than ours. There are about the same number of worlds in both universes, but it takes longer to get around in Star Trek and they only occupy about 5% of the galaxy. By comparison, the populated area of the Star Wars galaxy is about 50-60% of the total space.

Most of the races in Star Trek are humanoid, and they haven’t mastered automatons, like in Star Wars. That said, computer technology in Star Trek seems more advanced, particularly in the tactical sense. While computers are used in Star Wars the amount of missing going on in the blaster arena seems to allude to the idea that they aren’t computer guided. They may provide tactical assistance, but it’s never really seen. Scanners, likewise, seem to be more advanced in Star Trek, with an ability to scan for even very small items, inconsistencies in hull composition, propulsion trails, etc.

The weapons themselves are also very different. The beam weapons in Star Trek produce a beam of high energy particles called “nadions”. In the Star Trek Universe, they have the unique ability to affect nuclear bonds, which is why they create heat. In Star Wars, the weapons are actually plasma-based, though it’s never really discussed in detail. I’m assuming that based on the fact that they need to refine tibana gas for the blasters to work, and they can run out of “ammo”. That also means that the blasters aren’t just direct energy weapon, meaning that the shields on the Trek vessels might not be as effective, since they are designed to dissipate high energy weapons, not plasma. This is evident in the fact that the Romulans use plasma torpedoes, and they are highly effective. Ironically, those shields would be highly effective against Ion cannons.

The torpedo and missile type weapons are also completely different. Proton Torpedoes are slower and more like traditional warheads than Photon or Quantum Torpedoes. The Star Wars heavy weapons were designed for a multitude of purposes, including planetary bombardment, but were typically slow moving. They are traditional warheads; explosive, but because of standard ordinance. Photons, on the other hands, were actually more destructive because they used the annihilation of matter/anti-matter as the catalyst. They also moved at near light speed – too fast to be targeted and shot down. A single photon torpedo could destroy an entire city, while a proton torpedo would be more like destroying a few city blocks. Even from a capital ship.

So at the end of the day, Imperial ships are more powerful, but are inefficient at targeting because it’s hard to miss such large ships. Federation, Klingon and Romulan ships are smaller and produce less power, but have better weapons and targeting on the whole. The personnel are more plentiful on the Imperial side, but it seems like the Federation is better trained, Klingons have more will, and ROmulans a stronger sense of survival than the Imperials do. The Imperials have fighters, but the Trek side doesn’t need them because their ships are far more agile and capable of FTL speeds over shorter distances.

This is a “to-scale” representation of smaller ships and landing craft.

This is a scale representation for the larger vessels. See, a Romulan Warbird is nearly as large as an ISD.

I imagine it like this: A Sector Group of Imperials (for reference, the fleet at the Battle of Endor was a Sector Group – about 2,400 ships, including fighters) against a combined battle fleet of Federation (about 100 ships), Romulan (about 30 ships) and Klingon (about 40 ships) forces. The size of the ships isn’t as big a deal as you might think, making the fighters much less effective. The Trek computers track them too easily and they can’t outrun the beam weapons that don’t fire bolts, but rather continuous streams. Wide dispersal blasts of photons and phasers make being in an unshielded fighter a bad thing. Smaller Trek ships are easy pickings for the larger Imperial ships, though, and a Super Star Destroyer would make short work of any ship that approached too closely. I can imagine a couple of Negh‘Var battleships ramming into it and taking it out, though.  All in all, I think the Imperials would win in a single engagement, but a prolonged war would end in a Star Trek victory, mainly because they are more adaptive and would find ways to creatively destroy even the largest Imperial ships. I’m interested to know what you think, but rtemember, be respectful and try to stick to canon.

That means Han shot first, and Khan was the biggest badass of them all.

Define “Geek”…

  By Phineas Delgado | August 20, 2012 - 9:12 pm | , , , , , , ,
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Just a few kinds of geek. What kind are you?

As many of you know, I spent the weekend, neck deep in the revelry that is Gen Con. I don’t have a great deal of time for gaming, and honestly, I don’t have anyone to game with, so I went mostly to spend time with my oldest friend, John (@Cmaaarrr). I had been to Gen Con in the past (also with the intention of meeting people from Twitter), but it was only for a single day, and the last day to boot, and I’ve also been to Dragon*Con, but I honestly wasn’t totally prepared for the event. In the end much fun was had by all, and I even made some new friends and have a few stories to share.

But that’s not the point here…

Lately, as I’m sure you’re all aware, there has been a rather large discussion about what it means to be a “geek”, and who should be allowed to call themselves such. The entire concept strikes me as ludicrous to the extreme, and I haven’t said a whole lot on the topic, even in conversation. I did write about the seemingly rampant misogyny that seems to be infecting the “geek” community of late, but that’s its own issue. So then I saw this tweet:

A thought provoking tweet

There’s nothing wrong with this tweet. Nothing at all. But it brought to mind a particular conversation in the community after Comic-Con about who is and isn’t a geek. I’m not going to go into the particulars, because most of you are probably already familiar with the subject, and I don’t want people to confuse my position on this. It’s just that this tweet got my gears turning.

A long time ago, when I first started writing for Geek Shui, I also wrote a small piece for G33kMade on the topic of what I thought it meant to be a geek. It was a short few paragraphs on what I thought it meant to be a geek. I don’t have the original text anymore, so I will do my best to hit the high points.

To me, a geek is someone who is passionate about a “thing” and that “thing” can be ANY “thing”; be it cars, motorcycles, computers, comic books, gaming, whatever. Although, I think I’ll let YOU call the Bikers “motorcycle geeks”. Labels aside, though, it’s a simple truth. And there will always be those people who really geek out, and those that just enjoy whatever it is they geek about about to be called a geek by people who don’t. We all know the various levels and everyone is a geek to some extent; they just may not call it being a geek.

Just a few kinds of geek. What kind are you?

I knew this kid in high school, Mike DeBiasi, who was probably some flavor of autistic. He was “slow” in school, but you could ask him anything about Star Trek: TOS and he could answer it. Seriously, if you gave him a number between 1 and 79, hew could name the episode, when it aired, who directed it, who the guest stars were and what the basic plot was. I’m a BIG Trekkie and I can’t do that. He quoted obscure lines to test me, and often he stumped me, and he loved every second of it. And he didn’t care that people thought he was a dork or whatever. He liked what he liked and to hell what anyone else thought.

We all should be so strong.

So when I saw the diatribe about the “booth babes” at Comic-Con and the question as to the “geek cred” of Felicia Day, it didn’t really sync with me. I don’t see the world that way, and I would never look at a person, or their work, and decide whether it was “geeky” enough. Being a “geek” isn’t defined by set parameters, nor should it be. It’s simply label; one we all apply differently. There is never a reason for anyone to try to force someone else to label the way they do. We get enough of that with media and politics and bad television.

I milled around the Indiana Convention Center for 3 and a half days, and I saw every kind of geek imaginable. I saw people who geeked over Magic the Gathering (which reminded me that I should really sell my cards). I saw people who geeked over hand-stitched leather bags (made by Mad Girl Clothing and sold by Pendragon) – I’ll admit I was one of them. I saw people in costume (my personal favorites were the Steampunk Ghostbusters) and people carrying large bags of games. It was a total geek fest. And two blocks over and up, I saw hundreds of testosterone junkies geeking out over motorcycles (though, again, I would never say that to their faces – but it’s true). And there were even people geeking out over swimming. And there were beautiful girls, and men with questionable hygiene habits; groups wandering the exhibition hall endlessly, and people who holed up in a room and role played all weekend. And the Lord saw that it was good. And there was evening and morning, and evening and morning, and evening and morning. Thus was the Con.

I never thought I’d see the say that a geek would tell someone that they weren’t good enough or geeky enough. I remember wishing I could just have a conversation with someone that understood what I was talking about. Hell, I still wish for it. I think we all need to get over ourselves a little bit. I mean isn’t there a certain amount of irony in all of this? I suppose you could call it poetic justice when a dorky guy tells a pretty girl she’s not geek enough, but at the end of the day, we all know that 20 years ago, the same people bashing the beautiful woman would have done anything to carry her books to class.

Damn right, I would have.

The Irony of Hate

  By Phineas Delgado | August 8, 2012 - 9:03 pm | , , , , ,
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Something happened this past Sunday. You may have heard about it, but you probably aren’t talking about it. A lone man, armed with a handgun, walked into a Sikh temple and began shooting people; 7 of them to death (including himself). So before I continue, I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt sympathies for the families of those killed.

The reason I’m writing this is because this story barely made the news. And while there are updates and the news does sort of cover it, it’s not getting anywhere near the coverage that the Aurora shooting got. So, I started comparing the two events in my mind and thinking about what we can do to keep this stuff from happening over and over again. I know I just talked about this – I talked about Aurora, but to be fair, I think there’s still a lot to discuss – but please hear me out. I think it’s important.

Stuffed animals and flowers adorn a makeshift memorial near the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, in Oak Creek, Wis., where a gunman killed six people this past Sunday

My first questions is: Why isn’t this being covered the way Aurora was? For over a week after the shooting in Colorado, Aurora news dominated the front page of just about every news media outlet. Yahoo had 3 or 4 spots in it’s news story slider dedicated to various aspects of the shooting. This week we have, “Star Trek Mansion“, “Mysteries at the County Fair“, “Woman Turns 555 Ikea Blue Bags Into Dress” and “Meet Kourtney K.’s Baby“, just to name a few. There are quite a few about the Olympics, which is understandable, but the Sikh Temple shooting isn’t on the slider at all. It is in the “News” section, but honestly, I think something of this magnitude is important enough to be more prominently displayed. CNN did a somewhat better job, giving the “Massacre” it’s own section, but it’s not prominently displayed for easy navigation. Fox News didn’t do any better. On their site, a story about political ads is the feature while the shooting is given the same importance as a story about country music singer Randy Travis’ DUI Arrest. Yeah, because apparently the personal life of a washed-up entertainer is as important as the deaths of 6 innocent people.

And where are the ribbons? Aurora had a few. You know what I’m talking about because my piece on Aurora used one of them. Where are the public memorials? Not like the one above, I mean the kind of prayer meetings and public announcements of support for the Sikh community. I’m not saying there hasn’t been any, I’m saying that Aurora was compared to 9/11… the Temple shooting was treated like just another hate crime.

My next question, and it will likely not be answered with any satisfaction is: How can we keep this from happening again? I don’t know that there is a way, honestly. I already went over my feelings about gun control in my piece on Aurora (I’m generally opposed to it – though I am for tight control of assault rifles and other military grade weapons). Making guns illegal doesn’t prevent bad people from getting them. In this case, the gunman was affiliated with hate groups, who probably already have lots of channels for acquiring things illegally. As I said with Aurora, if this man was intent on causing harm to people, he would have found another way to do it. Then we’d be talking about banning THAT thing. There’s no quick and easy solution here. I do know that whatever solution we come to, it will not include making guns illegal. To do so would require a paradigm shift in the way Americans think; something I don’t foresee happening.

It concerns me that we don’t care more about the Temple shooting, both generally as a people, and more as a community of geeks. The conspiracy theorist in me (it’s time we admit we all have one) thinks that the only reason Aurora was so shocking and so well covered is because we don’t really know why it happened. We expect people from hate groups to commit hate crimes, and that expectation comes with a certain amount of apathy. There were children involved in Aurora, as well, which makes it worse from an emotional standpoint – unless your a Sikh. But what of the reason we don’t care is because, deep down, we don’t see the Sikh’s as “US”. And there is a percentage of people who will read this (hopefully a very small one) that have no pity or empathy for the Sikh because they are not “US”. For the past decade, we’ve had an alarming trend of disliking, ignoring or otherwise not paying attention to anything that isn’t “US”. Even the recent Olympics broadcast has been edited for our consumption, with NBC deflecting critics by saying “we’re focusing on what Americans want to see.” Of course, by doing so, the miss moments like members of the North and South Korean teams shaking hands – moments that are iconic and significant.

Science Fiction doesn’t hold any answers to this. We can’t imagine our way out of a problem like this one. The Sikh Temple shooting seems to be simply about hate – something of which we’ve become far too accommodating. I don’t have a solution. I wish I did. What I do know is that is starts with us. Each and every one of us – Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Black, White, Asian… human. We are all the same and when we attack each other, it diminishes us all. Hatred stems from ignorance. Ignorance of the fact that Aryans (academics call them Indo-Iranians or Indo-Europeans) – the so-called “master race” that Hitler and the Nazis venerated – came from India. That’s right, natives of India are Caucasian, despite their dark skin and hair.

So the “white-supremacist”, because of his hatred and fear of other races, killed 6 people of his own race.

Irony has a new poster boy.

One Ringy Dingy

  By Phineas Delgado | August 6, 2012 - 12:05 am | , , , ,
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For the first time, I’m going to recap a topic I’ve covered previously; the very first one I did, actually. When I started writingHow Science Fiction Failed Us two years ago, I tried to stay true to the title as much as possible. I was inspired to write it after seeing some git nearly wreck his car because he was texting while driving, which made me think about the origins of the cell phone and how the idea had been inspired by science fiction. I don’t look at it quite that way anymore, I suppose (not the texting while driving part – anyone who does that deserves to be forcibly removed from the gene pool – I mean the articles). These have become more “op-ed” pieces; a place for me to share my thoughts on a given subject in a way where I don’t have to worry about who I might offend. It’s been a long journey, and I hope it gets longer.

Anyway, back on point. When I look back at that first piece, it was rather short, and really only focused on the aspect of us really being too irresponsible to have that level of technology, which is still true. But I wanted to look a little more at the subject.

Gordon Gecko – Trendsetter. Who knew we’d all look this stupid in 20 years?

So the other night, I went to the remake of the Total Recall, which I’m not going to get into here, but there was some great technology “previews” that got me thinking about where we are today, and where it appears that we’re heading. I re-watched the original 1990 version, and while I know that our collective vision of the future adapts as we create new technology, the differences between the two were striking, considering 1990 wasn’t all that long ago. What am I saying? It was over 20 years ago. Anyway, one of the more striking differences was in communication.

As you know, cell phones revolutionized communications in the early 90′s. We all watched Wall Street in 1987 – I’m thinking of the iconic scene of Michael Douglas on the beach talking on his DynaTAC 8000 – and suddenly we wanted to unplug. Cordless phones were already common, but going completely wireless was still out of reach for many. Most of us had to go through that awkward “pager” phase, which if you had one, you know was something akin to being “all knees and elbows” in a wireless sense. It let you keep in contact, but you still needed change for a payphone, or you had to constantly ask, “Hey, do you mind if I use your phone.” When I was in the Air Force in the mid-90′s, pagers were near the end of their life-cycle. Lots of places still had payphones, but those that didn’t usually has signs along the lines of “No you can’t use our phone”. What was really funny was watching someone with a pager borrow someone’s cell phone.

Cell phones have come a long way since the days of the DynaTAC. Even my first cell phone, which was the Nokia 239, is extremely primitive by today’s standards (though it would probably still work – those Nokias were nigh indestructible). And it’s not just about the device itself, the entire system is better than it was. Many of the phone lines today are the same ones we used 30 or 40 years ago, though most telephone companies are upgrading to deal with the demand for high speed internet demand. Cell phones, though, while supporting older technologies, have been on a steady forward progression at a very rapid pace. Look at it this way; land line phones worked on the same equipment for decades, with the only noticeable difference on the customer end being the change from operator managed exchanges to automated switches. Cell phones have progressed to a new generation of technology about every 10 years. And you can bet your bottom dollar it’s being doled out to us – the technology moves much faster than that, but they don’t want to risk alienating customers who just laid down money for a “cutting edge” phone by bringing out new tech right away.

Back to Total Recall. So in the old movie, Quaid (played by the brilliantly vacant Arnold Schwarzenegger) was contacted by an operative using a payphone outside his building. Interestingly, the phones in the original version were all Video Phones (which was a Sci-Fi staple from the 60′s through the 90′s – mainly because it let you see the person who was on the other end, and it seemed a logical progression from the land line phones at the time). In 1990, they couldn’t have know how popular cellular phones would be. They were even rare among Hollywood types back then. It’s worth noting, though, that car phones (which were very popular in the 90′s – because that would never be a bad idea) were very prevalent in the film, and were so powerful that they could contact Mars without any delay in the signal, which is something that isn’t possible unless we learn how to send radio signals faster than the speed of light – at best it would take about 5 minutes for a radio signal to get to Mars from Earth.

The new film had possible the coolest interpretation of future phones that I’ve ever seen. Quaid (this time played by the equally vacant Colin Farrell), was called by his HAND. That’s right, his hand. It lit up, and he held it to his head, not like you would hold a phone, but as if you would rest your head in your hand. And when just talking wasn’t enough there was this interactive glass… well… everywhere, and he put his hand on it, and it activated UI on the glass that included video. Damned impressive. More impressive was that the phone seemed to be implanted in his hand, and they were able to trace his location by it. He removed it (which looked painful) and gave it to someone else, which seems a bit odd, but who am I to judge who people buy and sell in the future?

It paints an interesting picture, though, about how ingrained the cell phone has become in our daily lives. On one hand you can see that even in the 90′s they had some idea how important staying in touch would be. They just thought it would be with car phones. It’s amazing how delightfully inventive our science fiction can be, but at the same time, incredibly short sighted. It makes me wonder if in 20 years time, we’ll be watching the new version of Total Recall and saying, “Can you believe they thought we’d need glass? GLASS?! Really?!”

Olympaid

  By Phineas Delgado | July 30, 2012 - 11:05 pm | , , ,
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OK, before any of you say anything, this article isn’t going to be about Science Fiction failing anything. This is about the Olympics. But I have to name the articles something, and I like the theme.

Anyway, like most Americans… and everyone else in the world… I’ve been watching the Olympics this week. An event steeped in history and decorum; an idea rooted in some of our most ancient cultures. I could bore you with paragraphs about the history of the Olympic Games. There was a time when they were so important that the Greeks used them to track the passage of time. That’s right, no years, no BC, no AD. If you were a time traveler, and you asked what year it was, they would say something like, “It’s 3 years after the 117th Olympiad.” Yeah, they talked like that.

I would post the actual rings, but I don’t want the IOC to serve me with a C&D. This is what Londoners have been reduced to…

Anyway, this piece is less about what Olympics were and more about what they’ve become. A lot can change in 4 years. Remember the halcyon days of the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Remember how good China suddenly was at not being a total douchebag to the world (and it’s own people) for two weeks? Ahh, memories. Back then, we had to wait a whole day to find out what was going on. Twitter was still an infant and didn’t have the reach or the clout that it has today. Social Media was in it’s adolescence; hell half of us were still using MySpace, and we were still just learning what a meme was. Now the Olympics are in London (I’m still pissed Cincinnati didn’t make the cut), and Social Media is a pervasive part of our everyday lives.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because of recent events in the news regarding Olympic athletes being barred and punished because of things they said on Twitter. Now, before I continue, I understand that as an American, I’m used to being able to say whatever I want without fear of prosecution. And I understand that when you’re trying to peacefully create an environment where people of different cultures meet and compete, you have to curtail speech in the interest of keeping things friendly. The rules of conduct are created and enforced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and their subordinate national committees (each country has its own committee that is responsible for selecting athletes to represent them in the Olympic Games). In the past, the IOC has shown itself to be biased and liberal to the extreme, with a clear interest in making money over any other consideration. I’m sure people would disagree, but I’ll explain my thoughts.

I started paying attention before the Games when I read about a Greek athlete who was dismissed from the Greek National team because of a tweet. Twitter seems has created a niche for itself as the place for us to express our internal monologue; that is, those things that we think, but normally wouldn’t say. The athlete in question, βούλα Παπαχρήστου (Voula Papachristou), was immediately dismissed after posting the following to her ~9,000 followers on Twitter: “With so many Africans in Greece … at least the West Nile mosquitos will eat homemade food!!!” Now I’m not familiar with the political situation in Greece, aside from their economic troubles, but it seems that they have an issue with illegal immigration much like the US does. However, I’m not sure that calling someone from Africa an African is technically racist, no more than calling a Mexican a Mexican is. Her tweet could be seen to imply that… no, fuck that. Her tweet doesn’t imply anything… unless maybe you’re Greek. The only thing she’s guilty of is being bad at jokes. The GOC disagreed, though, and they destroyed her dreams in an instant. That said, I don’t know what their stated policy on tweeting is, and they made it clear that they think the tweet was racist, but it WAS in line with her previously well-known political views. Why even let her compete for a spot if you knew what she thought before she started? Of course, the Greeks can do whatever they want with their own team.

So the next thing that stood out was the news story about the IOC’s strict rules against Olympians tweeting about their sponsors, even if those sponsors are local, or even family and friends. They can’t promote themselves, or anyone who sponsors them in any way while they are at an official event, including trials. Some of these kids don’t have big name sponsors paying their way. They rely on donations made to personal websites and social media campaigns by their friends and family. But if they aren’t allowed to promote using Social Media avenues, or post pictures of themselves at the events, it makes it harder for them to do so. The kicker here is that it has nothing to do with the image of the Olympics or the athletes themselves, it’s all about money. Here is a statement the IOC made on the issue:

“Ambush marketers have, in the past, used their association with athletes to suggest or imply that they have an association with the Olympic Games,” reads the code of conduct. “This undermines the exclusivity that Organizing Committees can offer official Games and team sponsors, without whose investment the Games could not happen.

“The implication of an association with the Games through use of athletes is particularly powerful during and immediately before the Games. Participants who do not comply with Rule 40 may be sanctioned by the IOC in accordance with the Team Members’ Agreement which provides for wide ranging sanctions, including amongst other things removal of accreditation and financial penalties.”

So here is the scenario in a nutshell: Let’s say that a server from Terry’s Turf Club was a member of the US Olympic Team, and in support of their employee, paid for their travel. That employee couldn’t tweet a “thank you” to Terry’s because the IOC thinks that it would hurt their relationship with McDonald’s, who is an “official sponsor” of the Olympics. Does anyone really think that giving Terry’s a little promotion will hurt McDonald’s sales? How many people are going to McDonald’s just because they sponsor the Olympics? Shouldn’t they be giving money to the IOC in the spirit of supporting peaceful competition and sportsmanship? Since when is a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” arrangement? Hercules would be rolling in his grave if he had one. Some of the Athletes are staging a protest, but if they push too hard, they’ll be removed.

That ties into the picture above. That’s a real T-Shirt being sold in London. The IOC has been downright draconian in their enforcement of their copyrights. One shopkeeper had a hand made paper-machete display of the rings and some torches and was told to remove it or face a lawsuit. They weren’t claiming to be an official sponsor or affiliated with the Olympics. They were showing their support for an international organization that’s supposed to be doing good things. Instead, they are forced to remove their harmless display and are left with a bad taste in their mouths. I chose not to use an image of the actual rings, not just to illustrate a point, but because I don’t want to get served. I understand that the IOC doesn’t want people making a buck off their trademarks, hence the extreme lengths the t-shirt designer went to in order to disassociate themselves: square “rings”, London and Olympics spelled incorrectly, and 2102 instead of 2012. The IOC pays a lot of money for their trademarks any copyrights, so I understand that they want to preserve them. But they could make it easier to get licenses, so that local business get a benefit from the Olympics being there.

My final thought on the Olympics revolves around the concept of fairness. There is a long-standing rule in the all-around gymnastics competition that limits the number of participants a country can field. It prevents the power-house countries from dominating the event. But I’m not sure why that matters. Their argument is that it would be bad for the sport, but I’m struggling with the “how”. If you finish 5th in the world, but your two teammates are 2nd and 3rd, you don’t get to play. Even though the people between 6 and 24 aren’t as good, and your elimination only allows someone who wasn’t as good as the other 24 to compete, it’s “fair”. It’s sort of like the idea of not keeping score, or giving everyone a trophy, regardless of how well they do. Sure it allows countries with less advanced programs to participate, but then it stops being about who the best in the world is. And isn’t that what the Olympics are about?

I think we’ve lost the spirit of the Olympics. The ancients suspended everything, including wars, to participate in the games (by contrast, we canceled the games in 1916, 1940 and 1944 because we wouldn’t stop fighting). It wasn’t about making money, or controlling who could sell what. The men who participated wanted to know who was the best, strongest and fastest. There were no silver and bronze medals. If you didn’t win, you got nothing. We seem to have forgotten the point.

Zeus would not be happy.

Road Warriors

  By Phineas Delgado | July 28, 2012 - 9:35 pm | , , , ,
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Now, I’m not talking about the movie. I’m talking about us. Road Warriors each and every one of us. It’s been estimated that the average American will spend nearly an eighth of our lives in our cars. That’s an average of 8 to 9 years – that’s a lot of time. So that got me to thinking about the automobile and how it came to be so central in our lives. And that led to my disappointment with the current state of the automobile, at least compared to what we were supposed to have according to our Science Fiction.

They have three years come October 21st. Every real geek in the world is counting.

Probably the most recognizable of the future’s cars is the Delorean from Back to the Future. I remember watching it fly at the end of the movie, and all of the flying cars in the second movie and I totally suspended my sense of disbelief (not quite as much as I did for the hoverboard, but that’s neither here nor there). In 1985/89 it seemed completely reasonable that cars would be able to fly by 2015. But unless Detroit is hiding something up it’s sleeve that we don’t know about, it’s just not going to happen. There have a few forays into the “flying car” arena, but none of them is really viable, at least in the sense of them being readily available and usable by the general population. I want a car that can be flown like driving a car, just like I saw Doc Brown do.

In that vein is the flying cars in The Jetsons. I know it’s a cartoon, but damn it, it takes place in the 21st century, and it was in the imagination of the people in the 60′s that we would have flying cars. Flying cars that folded into briefcases. And while that would require instant miniaturization along the lines of what we saw in the original Transformers cartoon (remember how Megatron was huge as a robot, but when he transformed, he fit in Soundwave’s hand?), but I think we’re still entitled.

But the car I REALLY wanted was K.I.T.T from Knight Rider. A car that could drive itself AND talk, and it looked cool as shit to top it off. It’s really the gold standard for Sci-Fi cars, in my opinion. I mean the voice left a little to be desired – I would have given K.I.T.T a female voice I think – but who didn’t want to be Michael Knight? They even made attachments for your car to give it that pacing red “eye” to make your car look like it could talk too. How can you not want a car that has a Turbo Boost? Now they have cars that park themselves and my car’s bluetooth talks to me, and it’s cool, but it’s not the same. More modern Science Fiction remakes, like I, Robot and Minority Report, give us a seemingly plausible look at cars that move at high speed being controlled completely by computers. To the point that human control of the vehicles, while possible, is inadvisable. If Will Smith can’t control one, I know I can’t.

When we look at cars today, it seems to me that they are basically the same as they were 100 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve added a lot of gadgets to our cars – we’ve made improvements on the original designs, but I think Henry Ford could get into a car, drive it, and understand how it works with only minimal instruction. They use the same fuel, and operate on the same basic principals as the model T’s of so long ago. We’ve tried electric cars, but they don’t seem to have enough OOMPH for us (mainly because it take a lot of energy to propel a 2,000 pound vehicle at highway speeds – more energy than most batteries can produce). But I don’t think the means is what we like. I think it’s the motivation.

Listen, I’ve never been one to buy into conspiracy theories, but if there is one I could believe, it would be that the automakers and the oil producers are in bed together. The automakers have no reason not to explore developing REAL innovations in automobiles, like power by Hydrogen fuel. And yes, I know there are Hydrogen and Propane cars on the road, but they are far too few. And yes, I know Propane is still technically a fossil fuel, but it’s a byproduct of Natural Gas and Petroleum refinement and as a result, much cheaper. It’s also a much cleaner fuel than diesel and gasoline, but burns just as well, if not better. It is more volatile than the others, sure, but safety is the easy part. Granted it isn’t the perfect solution, because it still produces greenhouse gases, but it does it in far lower amounts, which would buy us time to perfect hydrogen fuel and fusion.

Why won’t we do it? Back on the conspiracy bit; I think we don’t have it because there’s not enough money in it. I normally don’t was political here, but there’s a lot at work here. There’s a ton of money to be made in oil, and very little in renewable and alternative fuels. That’s why these technologies are so expensive; they have to recoup the loss of futures. Let’s assume that automobile manufacturers are invested heavily in oil companies and visa-verse. It’s in the best interests of both to keep cars inefficient and dependent on oil. Yes, hybrid cars exist, but they are expensive, and they only became more affordable when gasoline prices rose past $3.00 a gallon. The American automobile industry was given an infusion by the government, and seems to be healthy enough now. Why were they unhealthy? Bad investments in part. But mainly, they were making expensive cars with poor gas mileage at a time when fuel prices were skyrocketing. Foreign cars were already getting better mileage and were better managed, so they suffered less. But they aren’t racing to make better cars either. Then again, it’s not like we stopped buying them.

So who wants to buy me a flying Delorean with a flashing red “eye”?

Ride Sally Ride

  By Phineas Delgado | July 24, 2012 - 2:43 pm | , ,
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This week has been good news for people who like bad news. Between the mass shooting in Aurora and the still-festering mess that is State College, PA, it’s sad to me that the loss of an American… no… a HUMAN pioneer was presented as second-rate news. So I’m going to take some time to talk about how I feel about Sally Ride.

This is my favorite photograph of Dr. Sally Ride – Requiescat in Pace, Sally.

I was 8 years old when Sally Ride became the first American woman, and just the third woman ever in space. It was June 18th, 1983 (yes, I’m 37), and back then, I watched every Shuttle launch. I even woke up early on a Saturday to watch it. I didn’t understand the significance of the event then, but looking back as an adult, I think it’s neat that I have this memory. There was always a sense of youthful optimism surrounding the shuttle flights. America was sticking it to the Soviets (they were still sending people up in Soyuz spacecraft – think of a Russian version of Apollo/Gemini craft), we had an awesome reusable spacecraft for the first time in history (Ride’s first mission was just the 7th shuttle mission), and we were going to live in space.

Of course, we didn’t quite live up to that last one.

Sally Ride represented everything positive about the Space Program. In a country that still fights with misogyny and sexism, having a woman so prominently in the Space Program showed that women could do anything men could do (though the Soviets beat us to that punch by more than 20 years). Even in the early 80′s, she was subject to intense media scrutiny, suffering through questions like, “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job.” As if that were something exclusive to women… I know I’ve had those days, and I’m a man of action. Another little-known fact is that at she was (and still is) the youngest American to go into space, setting the low bar at 32 years of age (Damn, I already missed it). She had double majored in English and Physics, then went on to get her Master of Science and PhD, both in Physics, knowledge she used to help design the robot arm the Shuttle was famous for. She went into space twice (STS-7 in 1983 and STS-41G in 1984) and was training for her third trip when Challenger exploded and the world stopped in 1986. She was assigned to the Presidential investigative committee and headed the Operations subcommittee. One of her most important achievements while with NASA was the founding of the Office of Exploration.

After leaving NASA in 1987 (she left before they restarted the program in 1988, thus never going into space again) she did a number of things, but most importantly, I think, was being a professor of physics and space science at UC San Diego. In 2003, she was asked to serve on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which she did, mirroring her efforts on the Rogers Commission in 1986. She was also (according to him) the only person who publicly supported Roger Boisjoly’s warnings about the equipment prior to the Challenger disaster. Additionally, it’s worth noting that Dr. Ride was the only person to serve on both boards of inquiry. I think that speaks volumes about what people think of her opinion and expertise, and how committed she was to the Space program, even after her departure from NASA.

In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Science and served as the President and CEO. This is a great company that produces educational materials for elementary school students focusing on science and female roles. From their website, “A key part of our corporate mission is to make a difference in girls’ lives, and in society’s perceptions of their roles in technical fields. Our school programs, classroom materials, and teacher trainings bring science to life to show kids that science is creative, collaborative, fascinating, and fun.”

Sally died of Pancreatic Cancer on July 23rd, 2012. She lived a life full of achievements, wonder and tragedy, and at the end of it all, it can be said that she used her awesome powers for good. My life is better because of Sally Ride – all of our lives are better. She will be sorely missed, and the only fitting tribute is that we teach our children about her and what she stood for and accomplished. Because I want my daughter to be like Sally Ride.

We all should.

Tragedy in Aurora

  By Phineas Delgado | July 23, 2012 - 12:09 am | , , , , ,
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This is dedicated to the people of Aurora, Colorado.

For those that don’t know me, I’m a night owl and a Redditor, so the news about Aurora got to me very quickly. I had almost attended a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises myself, but I ended up going this past Saturday. I happened to be browsing Reddit when the news broke and I was beside myself (which is saying something because I’m a pretty big guy). I’ve been around, but I still find a hard time wrapping my brain around an event like this. This is one of those incomprehensible acts that defies any attempts to rationalize or understand. As I watched the drama unfold (in a way previously unseen) I started thinking about how we react to this type of violence today, as opposed to how we have in the past.

A Fitting Tribute

I’m not going to go over the details, because I believe the devil is in the details and there’s a lot we still don’t know, most important being the “why”. This sort of thing has happened before, though not quite to this magnitude, but this time, something feels different this time. That’s not to say that if this had been a midnight screening of the latest Sex and the City, that we wouldn’t be talking about it the same way, but the way the geek community immediately responded on this makes it feel different to me – more connected, more concerned and more involved. I just think back to the somewhat recent shootings in Oakland and Seal Beach and I can’t find nearly the same amount of coverage on them. Is it the fact that it happened at a highly anticipated event? Is it the fact that geeks (who truly rule modern media) were closely watching the event? Or was it really more chilling and awful? It’s difficult to say. But just to give some perspective, here’s a link to a list of the Mass Shootings in the US since 1991 as provided by the L.A. Times (Deadliest U.S. Mass Shootings). I wonder how many you remember.

As I was saying, as I watched this unfold, I noticed something that really bothered me: political and ideological grandstanding. As with most shootings, the more liberal among us (read: Democrats if you’re in the US) immediately call to ban guns, or at least make them harder to get. Then the conservatives (read: Republicans in the US) go to the other extreme and say that if there were less controls and more people were armed, the effect would have been lessened, or the threat removed altogether. Of course the entire argument is ludicrous because it only happens when something like this occurs. We don’t have any meaningful dialogue about gun control because our nation is so polarized right now that we can’t heave meaningful dialogue about ANYTHING. But let’s face facts: Legally or illegally, if this man wanted to hurt people as badly as it seems clear that he did, getting the guns wouldn’t have been a problem. And even if he couldn’t get guns, he seems more than capable of using other means to kill lots of people. I mean hell, his apartment was not only rigged to blow up anyone who came in (and his stereo was set to play loudly at midnight, ensuring someone would try) but also burn down the whole building. If he’d have gone into that theater with pipe bombs, it would have been a lot worse.

The other thing that seems to be happening falls into ideological grandstanding. I’ve seen tweets and posts along these lines: “12 people died in Aurora, but 6000 children die every day because they don’t have clean water” or “hundreds of people die everyday because of poverty, where is the outrage there?!” Perhaps my own experience has jaded me, but I don’t see how those types of comparisons don’t trivialize the event. Yes it’s sad that 6,000 children a day because they lack clean water, but in my mind, that’s a predictable event and not tragic; at least not on the same level. To me it reduces the importance of an event like this one to compare it to other kinds of sadness. People aren’t suddenly going to go, “I lost my best friend to a maniac, but shit, that’s nothing compared to the suffering of the children in Syria.” It’s apples and oranges, pure and simple, and shame on people who trivialize the pain of the families involved by trying to guilt us (and them) into caring MORE about something else completely unrelated.

I don’t like that this happened, and I like less that we will blame everyone in the world except the man who pulled the trigger. We’ll blame the guns because they fired the bullets. We’ll blame the government for not banning the guns. We’ll blame the gun makers for… well… making the guns. We’ll blame the theater for not having metal detectors or more police. We’ll blame the shooters parents for raising a loon. We’ll blame everyone but him; the one man who planned and devised and schemed to kill as many people as he could for a yet unknown reason. I don’t get that. We turn victims into criminals and criminals into victims. The guy that shot all the people in Seal Beach pleaded not guilty. People SAW him do it. I’m sure his lawyers will paint him as a victim of some sudden mental illness. The guy that shot all those people at Ft. Hood; they didn’t blame him, they blamed his religion. Religion is just philosophy with some divinity added for flavor. It can’t make choices for you. We’ve become a culture where people don’t have to be responsible for themselves, they can blame their environment, or their parentage, or their movie choices.

Ah, that opens another can of worms doesn’t it. There are going to be people who blame this on the violence in movies, and to an extent, at least I can understand that. There have been crusades against comic book and cartoon violence since I was a small child, mainly for fear that it could adversely affect the impressionable mind of the children that were watching and reading. The target audiences for Warner Brothers and MGM cartoons were adults, but they played the old cartoons from the 40′s alongside newer ones from the 60′s, and even though I didn’t understand a lot of the references, I still laughed when Daffy had his face blown off. And there were stories of the children who killed other children trying to act those things out. But seriously, where was the supervision? How were they allowed to do those things without someone noticing?

As for comic books, the Comics Code doesn’t monitor acts of violence in and of themselves, it only prevents the actual show of the violence (so you could have a criminal commit a mass shooting and the aftermath, and you can show him shooting, but you can’t show victims being shot). And since the Aurora shooter identified himself as “The Joker” I’m sure they’ll find a way to blame comic books and the movies they inspire too. But really, Science Fiction hasn’t failed us here. There’s plenty of this kind of depravity in Science Fiction. Heath Ledger’s “Joker” rendition, the final portrayal of his career, was so spot-on, and the movie so senselessly violent, that people immediately assumed that it was connected to his untimely death. Movies like The Road Warrior and The Book of Eli portray acts of violence like this one as ultimately evil and they people who commit them always meet a justifiably horrific end.

If only that happened in real life.

To all those who lost their lives because they went to the movies – Requiescat in Pace.