GlennLog

Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo

January 25, 2010

Museum Fall/Fail

An American (horrors) tripped at MoMA and tore a hole in Picasso's The Actor, possibly because of a raised floor barrier.

This reminded me of a couple museum stories of my own.

Back at Yale (pause for Gaudeamus Igitur to play), I took the introduction to art history course taught by the marvelous and rightly legendary teacher and art thinker Vincent Scully. He has taught several decades of Elis how to understand art from a classical perspective that informs even the most post-modern of post-modern works. (Everything is a reaction to everything else.)

I recall him telling a story once about a painting that was so compelling that he said you were compelled to lean farther and farther into the painting, until you tripped the alarm, and large Samoan guards came and beat you to death. Surprised uproarious laughter. "It happened to me more than once," he said, to additional laughter.

In 2000, when Lynn and I went to a haphazardly organized reunion of the Yale Summer Program in Graphic Design in Brissago, Switzerland, we stayed in Basel, a great city for art, with hundreds of museums in the city and in nearby towns and across the borders of Germany and France.

We went to the Kunstmuseum in Basel, an institution with a host of seminal works (a room of Picassos, Der Blaue Reiter painting that defined Der Blaue Reiter movement), and they had what I remember was a Cy Twombly exhibit of paintings and sculpture. This particular exhibit was mostly beige monochromatic, and occupied an entire floor.

Now, for security purposes, the museum had put security tape on the floor. Cross the tape, and a buzzer sounded. For unknown reasons, the museum had chosen to use a tape that was essentially the same color as the floor, and place the tape at irregular distances from the works being protected.

Lynn and I walked around and continually, accidentally triggered the buzzers. We were, I think, just about the only people besides the guards on the floor. The guards were understanding--this was happening constantly--and it turned into a joke. It was like an interactive audio experiment. Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

The last time I was the Louvre, I did not fall into the Mona Lisa. But I did notice that the famous painting was so heavily protected by glass and alarms that it was nearly impossible to see, in addition to the crush of people around it. Other Da Vinci masterpieces were nearby with no one looking at them, and no protection whatsoever.

Posted by Glennf at 1:17 PM | Comments (2)

January 3, 2010

Doctor Who End of Time

Yes, spoilers. Super super geeky content follows.

I'm still thinking about the end of David Tennant's tenancy as Doctor Who in the two-part End of Time episodes.

We don't know much about the Doctor's past, although the Master talks about he and the Doctor playing in the fields of the Master's family estates. So perhaps there were parents (although other parts of the canon make this more complicated).

It appears from clues in the episodes that a time lord who appears on cue to Wilfred multiple times, and as one of two dissenters in the vote on destroying the universe at the end, is the doctor's mother. (It's totally unclear how she shows up so many times when she is in disgrace and was already in the Time War's time lock.)

My original theory, before the very end of End of Time, was that Wilfred was a time lord who had passed through the Chameleon Arch, and was unaware of his own identity, just like the Master was in his Professor Yana garb, and the Doctor as John Smith (also a professor! or don, at least).

I figured that the doctor's mother (we figured that out later) appearing was actually a manifestation of his hidden nature, and that calling him Old Soldier was a kind of code word that was supposed to awaken his interest in some object, like a watch.

Instead, Wilfred is just who he was: an honest, sometimes terrified, perfectly decent human being. The Doctor is undone not by the Master or some race of super-intelligent cyborgs. Rather, he gives up his incarnation because he must do the right thing in the face of someone doing the right thing.

In earlier episodes, the Doctor is always reaching out a hand to even the worst of his enemies: he is always trying to save the Master. He said to Davros that he tried to save him as he flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child (something that we will probably never know what was meant by); he tries to save Davros after the Doctor's duplicate kills all the Daleks.

So how much worse to have a good man, by his own goodness, require saving?

The actions of the Doctor's double in the Dalek Reality Bomb episodes is finally explained in part in the End of Time. The double kills all the Daleks in a single act with little forethought. Donna tries to stop him, saying, shouldn't we wait for the Doctor? And the double says, "I am the Doctor." Which is true. He is as the Doctor was when he ended the Time War.

The Doctor later shunts his double to be Rose's partner in a parallel world, and he explains that he was born in war and fire, and that his nature is equal to the same. The folks who monitor Doctor Who continuity posit that the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) was regenerated during the Time War, so born in the same spirit. (The 10th Doctor, David Tennant, says as much.)

The Doctor mourns the end of the time lords, but he also knew he had no choice. Had he not destroyed his own people and the Daleks in the Time War, then the Time Lords would have destroyed time (becoming somehow pure consciousness in the absence of time and space). The Dalek leader, Davros, having been plucked out of the Time War, tries to destroy all matter--a mimicry of the Time Lords, like all the Dalek actions in the series--making the Daleks the only life force in all universes.

There's an odd bit with Timothy Dalton as the president of the Time Lords. First, most of his acting appears to have been blue screen, which is too bad, because he gave a hell of performance, although it fell slightly flat because of his lack of interaction with almost any other person directly in front of him. He was still great.

There's a neat part of the president's role that's buried: the Doctor calls him Rassilon in the moment when he's broken the link, sending the time lords back to the Time War. Perhaps this the snake eating its own tail, because Rassilon is the founder of the time lords.

Perhaps Rassilon was revived to lead the time lords in the war, just as the Master explains his returned existence to being resurrected by the time lords to fight as a relentless warrior. (Instead, when the Dalek Emperor was in his ascendancy, he fled to the very end of time.)

What's most profound about the last episode are two elements. First, the Doctor is given some grace to have what he calls his reward: he travels around and saves some companions' lives, and aids Donna Noble's financial condition, while finishing up by saying goodbye to Rose before she's met him. In previous regenerations, as I recall the ones I saw, the Doctor has moments, if that. (In one, the previous actor apparently refused to appear in the regeneration scene.)

Second, this Doctor doesn't want to go peacefully. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor wasn't ready--it wasn't clear how long he had even had the current body. But he watched Rose nearly sacrifice herself to save the Earth's future (and probably beyond), and thus was willing to accept his fate.

David Tennant didn't go quietly into that good night. He looks slightly off camera, and says, nearly tearfully, "I don't want to go." And then regeneration happens, violently, seemingly nearly destroying the craft.

I thought for just one moment: did the producers fool us all? Was Tennant going to stay on, become a dark Doctor, provoke a huge crisis? But, no, he had no choice, the Doctor. He wasn't ready to die, and off he went.

And like his predecessors, the new Doctor doesn't remember the existential angst and what-all. He's just a new man with old memories and off he goes.

In the past, there have been interstitial bits of a several minutes long shown after Christmas episodes that explain part of a transition, made to be shown for a UK charity. We may get a few minutes more from Tennant yet, although I doubt it. (Jason Snell tells me that these appear before the Christmas specials, which is right on--he suggests maybe November 2013, the 50th anniversary of the first airing of the show.)

One more thing: many blogs and reviews are saying the Master was destroyed or died when he attacked Rassilon as the Doctor severed the link bringing back Gallifrey and the time lords. I've watched the ending a few times: it's pretty clear that this is an entirely open issue. The Master may have been brought back to Gallifrey; may have died; may be in an entirely different state altogether.

Posted by Glennf at 5:00 PM | Comments (2)

December 23, 2009

The Modern Driveway Moment

Public radio has this thing they call a driveway moment. (Oh, Mary, mother of God, it's not just something they call a driveway moment, it's something they have obtained a service mark for--so it's a Driveway Moment[sm].)

Anyway, the idea is that you are listening to a story so compelling that when you arrive at your destination, like your home driveway, instead of turning off the radio (how quaint, listening to a live broadcast but that's the demographic), you sit in your car and listen to the rest of the piece.

There are a lot of implications in that which have to do with the driveway. You drive a car. You have a driveway. You have the time (or will make the time) to sit in the car instead of going instead. You got it: 40-60 year old Caucasians living in suburbs.

Anyway, again, the modern driveway moment is different for me. I plug my iPhone into an integrated car stereo which charges and plays back content directly. I listen to a podcast; this morning, it was one of my favorite NPR productions, Planet Money, which exists only as a podcast with some pieces also being aired.

I arrived at my destination, and the piece is so interesting, I don't stay in the car. I unhook the iPod, plug in my headphones, and listen to the rest of the podcast as I walk to work. When I arrive at work, I dock the iPod and continue to play it, now through speakers in the office.

What's that? The Intermodal Playback Moments? I don't know what to call it.

Posted by Glennf at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2009

Where Is Waldo, Anyway?

It was quiet in the other room. Too quiet. What are the kids doing? READING! Woo hoo! Well, sort of. Eye strain for Where's Waldo.

Posted by Glennf at 9:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Where Is Waldo, Anyway?

It was quiet in the other room. Too quiet. What are the kids doing? READING! Woo hoo! Well, sort of. Eye strain for Where's Waldo.

Posted by Glennf at 9:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 30, 2009

I Have No Mouth So How Can I Scream

When Twitter is down, how can you tell anyone!

We need Twitter2, a backup Twitter that only activates when Twitter fails.

Posted by Glennf at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2009

Fall Harvest Syllogism

Lynn: It's squash for breakfast! [joking]

Me: Everyone's going to eat squash.

Rex: I don't like squash.

Me: Pumpkin is a squash.

Rex: I don't like squash.

Ben: Pumpkin is a squash. You like pumpkin. So you do like squash.

Rex: I don't like pumpkin.

Posted by Glennf at 7:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2009

Anathem Revisited

The first time I read Neal Stephenson's Anathem, a form of sci-fi, I felt like it was tearing my brain apart slightly. Anathem takes place on a world called Arbre, and Stephenson invented words for many things to denote the difference from our own history that were close enough to be familiar and prick at my neurons, but not identical. Fraa instead of Frere (for a brother in a monastery); concent (maybe for concentration) instead of convent; Saunt (short for savant) instead of Saint; and so on.

I could feel my brain being rewired to learn some of the concepts in the book and recognize the language he was teaching me. Randall Munroe's xkcd parodied Anathem, and perhaps rightly so. But it was clear that Stephenson was enjoying the freedom to screw around with words, languages, and frames of reference. Sometimes it gets tedious, but it's a good story with lots of science in the middle.

Now, re-reading the book is a different experience. My brain has healed from the first pass a number of months ago, and diving back in is a pleasure. Strange concepts are ordinary, and now I can simply enjoy the story. And get some of the secondary meanings.

In the concents, which are something like a combination of graduate school and monastery or convent, violations of the rules of the place--the Discipline--require that you work through chapters in the Book. But the Book, capitalized, isn't the Bible. Rather, it's a set of chapters of increasing difficulty which are full of randomness or logical fallacies. Penitents must copy out chapters and memorize the contents to answer questions. Early chapters are irritating, such as containing thousands of digits of pi, or tiresome, like rhymes that break. Later chapters represent complicated and flawed logic that will drive avouts (his word for those who live in the concents) slightly skewed or even insane. (They can also choose to leave the concent, which is a worse penalty.)

In reading Stephenson's description of the Book, I realized that he was actually referring to his own book, in some ways. Given that he changed my brain a bit in order to read his book, that's certainly one aspect.

Posted by Glennf at 8:50 AM | Comments (1)

October 15, 2009

Namechecking

My buddy Rich Siegel's firm Bare Bones gets namechecked with a mention of its flagship BBEdit text-editing and programming tool in an NPR Planet Money podcast, my favorite produced podcast.

I tweeted that detail, and a colleague pointed out that nice words were said about my Wi-Fi Networking News site by Pete Rojas, the founder of Gizmodo, Engadget, and gdgt, in this interview with Jason Calacanis about 3 minutes in. (I once wrote a blog for Jason about digital radio, and I've always been a fan of Pete's.)

Now I feel like an old man of the Internet. Which I guess I am. I started Point of Presence Company back in June 1994 with Todd Haedrich (a friend from my stint at the Center for Creative Imaging in Maine), launching the first Web sites for clients in August, I think.

That is a million years ago in Internet years.

Posted by Glennf at 8:01 PM | Comments (1)

September 29, 2009

Happiest Day, Second Variety

On Saturday, my brother-in-law Michael married his fiancée Kathy. A few months ago, they popped the question--to me! I had offered, in passing, seriously but also just so they didn't stress about having to dig up an officiant. When they asked me, I was in heaven. It's such a privilege when people you know and love want you to be the person who joins them together. Whatever one might think of the institution of marriage, it's a ritual that has enormous weight and meaning.

Michael asked my love, Lynn--his sister--to be his best woman. She insisted on being the best man, but wore a lovely dress. The couple picked Oregon Gardens as the venue, and the mid-20s in dates in September. The 25th of September or thereabouts is a very reliable day for sunny weather in the Pacific Northwest, as is the last weekend of the month.

We rented a minivan for the drive down. The boys were generally great, far better than I expected them to be, with the drive, having to wear suits, sleeping in a strange room, etc. They were troopers and awesome, and incredibly handsome in grandma-sewn vests.

Which leads me to the following interlude anecdote. A few months ago, when Lynn is back east helping her folks pack up for the move to Washington state, I'm driving somewhere with the boys and talking about the wedding in September. They are both excited. Ben pipes up, "I want to wear a dress to the wedding!" Rex: "Me want wear a dress, too."

Being a modern, perhaps post-modern, dad, I offer no concern. "That sounds very interesting. What will your dress look like?" "It'll have John Deeres on it!" Ben yells. Rex says, "Fire trucks!" I assure them I'll tell their mother and we'll figure out a plan. I relate this to Lynn who hatches the following: vests, not dresses. The boys think this is fine. In the end, she works with the boys to pick fabric: fire trucks for Rex, but butterflies and dragonflies for Ben. My mother in law, Diane, sews the vests up. They are quite smashing. (The fellows will kill me for this blog entry later, when they're more grown up, and reading my blog.)

Back to this last weekend. It was just a long, happy time with Lynn's family, as well as my dad, sister, and niece Danielle. Danielle came to take care of the kids, and also took part in the festivities. We had a nice mini-reunion, and are thinking already about having a bigger get-together at Oregon Gardens in a year. My dad and I were both overcome a few times by thinking about how much my mom would have loved the wedding. She and dad had met Michael many times and Kathy a few, and she thought the world of them. Also, she loved meeting new people.

It was also great to see a small chunk of the Warner (dad's side) and Herold (mom's side) clan, and meet Kathy's family and all of her and Michael's friend.

I acquitted myself nicely as the officiant. Kathy and Michael were a terrific bride and groom. They talk about a bride "glowing"; Kathy was practically nuclear in her incandescence.

My brilliant wife had pre-planned the cake issue with the boys. If they could stay up, cake. If they got sleepy, cupcakes in the room. The kids swooned and recovered many times, but stayed all the way to 9.30, which is about 2 hours later than they typically go to bed (Rex, usually at 7; Ben, 7.30 to 7.45).

We danced to Love Shack (which Michael had picked in the boys' honor, since they love the song), drank champagne, ate cake. I walked the boys and my family back to the resort over a rough field (lighting at night, not so much); got the boys in bed; headed back for more talk and dance.

And, in my final officiant duty, I had remembered to bring a flashlight, so returned with that in tow to lead the bride and groom--husband and wife--back to the hotel.

The wedding was the second happiest day of my life, following only my own wedding. While I love my boys and was overjoyed by their respective arrivals, the day of each birth wasn't so much a happiest day--rather, more the start of a long period of love and glee (and sleeplessness).

If you want to know my dedication to this weekend, I left my computer at home, bringing just an iPhone, and took about 8 pictures across the entire weekend.

Posted by Glennf at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)