Category Archives: Opinion

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

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With the newly made Game of Thrones series on HBO many people, including myself are finding out about the story for the first time.

For those not in the loop, let me give you the elevator pitch. In 1996 George R. R. Martin published A Game of Thrones, the first book in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series. Over the next 14 years he published 4 more books, and has two more books planned. In 2011 HBO created a series based off the first book and presumably will continue with the next books in coming years. The rise in popularity is due in part to the publication of “A Dance with Dragons” the newest of the books and has led to all sorts of games and other merchandise.

If you haven’t read the books but enjoy fantasy like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or perhaps just like epic-ly long stories like Peter F. Hamilton writes, you might give this a shot. The story is wonderfully complex, the different characters all have their own agendas and any prediction about what the future holds is easily overturned as people make decisions and mistakes in rapid succession.

Unlike other books this story doesn’t follow a single character, or even just a group of good characters. Rather, it follows a dozen or more characters, both “good” and “bad” and is not afraid to kill them off in realistic situations. (Sorry, not trying to spoil anything, just making sure you don’t get too attached to any of the characters as you start out.)

One other thing I would say about these books (perhaps as a warning) is that there is not one single plot line. In Harry Potter there is a single character with a single goal. In A Game of Thrones there are a lot of characters and a lot of goals, and no matter who “wins” in the end, a lot of people are going to lose. One would hope that the ending will be happy, and perhaps for everyone in Westeros it will be, but the way the books are structured I have no doubt that some favorite characters will be losers in the end. The books do not guarantee that “good” will always win and the wealth of characters offer an array of “good” characters who (at least right now) appear to be on opposing sides.

[Note: These books contain enough language, violence, and sex to not be suitable for younger audiences without some editing.]

But now on to my point:

I’m on book four, A Feast for Crows, which is what many people consider to be the low point or the slow point of the books, but I disagree. It’s true, the characters in book four are a lot of secondary or tertiary characters, and to some extent I really don’t care about them, but I think that this is a necessary change for two reasons.

Reason 1: The book centralizes around two or three main families and occasionally jumps off to someone else for plot thickening reasons. When book four makes these other people the subject, it reminds the reader that there is more going on in the wide world, and even the decisions and actions of minor characters can change the outcome for the entire land.

Throughout the first three books the reader discovers a lot of information second, third, or even fourth hand. Book four turns the tables and shows you what happens from a closer look.

So while these characters feel out of place and unimportant, I can’t help but feel that the actions and decisions we see in book four will have huge consequences in the following books as things rise to ultimate battle for Westeros.

Reason 2: In the first three books Martin finds his own style of story telling which nicely jumps from one character to the next chronicling important events as they unfold. As he progresses from book two to book three he begins to adapt his style so that we leave characters right before a big event and return to them after the event, leaving the event to be described in flashback memories from each character.

This style is very efficient for such for a story of such scale, since it allows both the story of a big event without excruciating detail and also the setup for the characters next big challenge.

Overall I like that style, but by the time the reader gets to the end of book three it starts to get a little repetitious. From what I have read about book four is that Martin decided he wanted to tell the whole story for half of the characters instead of half the story for all the characters. And I think he did a really good job.

The pacing of the story is certainly slowed in book four, but it’s a welcome change to the chaotic whirlwind of action that was book three. Think of it as a respite before things start to get crazy again in the coming books. (I only assume the next books will be crazy busy, because there is a lot to happen for everything to be resolved.)

In short, A Song of Ice and Fire is an epic series that you might want to look into. And while some people have complained that A Feast for Crows is the low point of the series, I think that it is a welcome change and well met, provided it is only temporary.

*ADDENDUM*
To clarify any potential confusion:
The five books from George R. R. Martin are part of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Song of Ice and Fire is the ‘subtitle’ for each book. Some people refer to the whole series as Game of Thrones. Also, I have seen abbreviations used in many cases as well, usually just the first letter of each word of the title.

A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One
A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two
A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three
A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Four
A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five
The Winds of Winter: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Six (Forthcoming)
A Dream of Spring: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Seven (Forthcoming)

A Song of Ice and Fire Wikipedia page.

Facebook Books

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I’ve been meaning to get this in writing for some time now, because if I don’t I won’t be able to say “I told you so” when this actually happens.

With Facebook’s launch of the new Timeline feature, I think they are poised very nicely to start offering printed memorabilia. Think about it. They have photos, status updates, events, comments from friends, and more. They know what got the most attention. They have a good idea of what’s important to you.

Imagine this: you go to Facebook and click on a “Printed Book” button. Give them a starting date and a stoping date and Facebook instantly generates a 40 page book of photos, status updates, comments, and likes for your four years of college. You page through it, approving the photos, proofing the text, and swapping out the status updates or photos that are inappropriate for the type of book you are getting.

Rather than your college years, maybe you choose a vacation you took. With maps of where you “checked in” photos that you took at those places and comments from jealous friends who watched your progress from home.

Apple has been promoting books from iPhoto for years. Many photo printing places offer similar selections of printed photo books. There are a few independent companies that let you do something similar, but NONE of these options have the social element and all inclusive data stream like Facebook has.

The books certainly won’t be cheap, but they need to be terribly expensive. For $50 you could give your brother a book of photos and updates chronicling from when he met his girlfriend to the day they got married. (Depending of course on if your brother’s privacy settings allow friends to print books of his timeline or not.)

If Facebook doesn’t jump on this, a third party application will. (If one hasn’t already.)

In fact, I almost see parents setting up accounts for their newborn children to populate it with photos and updates in order to get a full life catalogue. (Facebook might even add this type of thing as a feature.)

That’s my prediction. What do you think?

A Technology Rant

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To all of you PC and Linux users who say that the PC is a superior platform because you can “tweak” it, and it’s for “smart people” to use.

You’re right. I feel so much better, having spent an hour troubleshooting the lack of sound in my video game. That hour I could have been playing was much better spent in frustration and tedious research. Had I been able to play for another hour I would have more quickly realized that my game would freeze for an unspecified reason at a specific point every time I tried to move to level two of my game. Without that initial crash I would not have lost my save data and remembered that I couldn’t rely on autosave, and would not have had to play through the first two hours a second time.

These machines we own, these piles of plastic and metal are nothing but toys. Cheap, pathetic toys and it’s a surprise they even run at all.

Half of you are currently scrolling to the comment section to tell me that I need to update my drivers. Others are blaming the software vendors. A few of you have already typed “get a Mac” and are about to press “submit.”

That’s not the point.

The point is that THIS IS NOT THE FUTURE.

THIS IS A DISASTER! We are living in A MESS.

I have an old and unhappy smart phone. It runs android. It’s crashed on me. But it’s crashed on me less in the last two years than my PC has crashed in 3 months. My iPad’s crashes can be counted on one hand. On both these devices apps can be deleted an reinstalled with minimal fuss in only a few minutes. You don’t even have to loose your data!

It’s often been joked that “Linux is free, if you don’t value your time.” This is almost becoming true for any PC. The time it takes to care for the stupid little critters is hardly worth the cost of owning one.

I know how much some people cringe at the though of a closed garden and closely groomed ecosystem. But IT WORKS.

Technology is suppose to make our lives easier. We spent the first 30 years of personal computing making our lives harder. We have finally started to learn how to correct this and our technology has finally reached a stage where we can make this possible.

Our solution always tends to be “we need newer technology.” The updated software and hardware has done little to ease our burdens. We just get frustrated and annoyed faster. We don’t need “better” technology, we need BETTER DESIGNED technology.

We need things with LESS FEATURES. We want LESS TO GO WRONG. We want all our things to WORK.

So stop telling me this video editing app is better than that one. They both have problems. Stop telling me OGG is better than MP3. Because nothing can play it. Stop telling me that a free system is better than my paid ones. You get what you pay for.

Let’s stop supporting the crap that doesn’t work start perfecting the stuff that does.

3d Tech for 2D Media

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I’ve been thinking a lot about 3D technology over the past few months, since that is what the industry is talking about. While I’m not a huge fan of 3D content, I think this new technology offers many exciting opportunities which we are not quite ready to take advantage of.

Sony’s 3D dual-view split screen gaming
Talking with some colleges a month or two ago, we discussed using the 3D glasses to show different images to different people. About a week later a friend told me that Sony was already planning to do this with some upcoming games or console. I was super excited.

For those who haven’t heard, here is the rundown:

3D works by showing a different image to each eye. Right eye sees image one, left eye sees image two, by means of special glasses. Typically, the left lens is polarized opposite from the right lens, but if you used the same lens for both eyes, you would see a 2D image, you’d just see only half of the images presented on the screen.

So you make a pair of glasses that only sees image one, and a second pair which only sees image two. (Without glasses you would see both images at the same time, I can only assume this would not be pleasant to look at.)

Now two people can look at the same TV and see two different images, all you have to do is tell your game console how to display images correctly.

That’s cool, but now what?
This is just the beginning of what’s possible, though. Using the same technology, a movie theatre could show a movie with close captioning or subtitles. If you don’t want to see the words, you wear one pair of glasses, if you want to see the words, you wear a different pair.

If the tech got good enough and could be attached to either headphones or specifically directed sound devices, two people could watch two different shows on a TV at the same time.

Or maybe a Bluray disk has an alternate ending. Wear one pair of glasses and you see one ending, the second pair gives you an alternative ending.

Branching off of Sony’s idea, what if two kids wanted to play two different games, or two different consoles at the same time. It’s possible, we just have to tell the TVs how to handle the signals.

Too good to be true?
These ideas are not without problems or downsides. If a third person enters the room, the visual complexity of watching Seinfeld and Oblivion at the same time, would probably be rather headache inducing.

3D technology still requires specific seating requirements and even though you are watching 2D footage, you will be wearing glasses.

What do you think? Is this the future? What problems do you foresee with this new tech? How do you really feel about 3D?

Hypothesis on Water Levels

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In theory, it is possible the increase in ocean levels can be attributed to, at least in part, the growing number of seafaring vessels in the water today, accounting for many of the crashed planes, sunk ships, and every growing sea creatures.

If anyone is interested in funding a study, drop me a line.

Krikkiters and the 5 Star Rating System

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It’ll have to go.

Netflix does an amazing job of categorizing and filtering movies in an effort to suggest movies you might like and hide movies you probably are not interested in. The metrics it uses are quite interesting, typically breaking things down by genre and categories over the course of several pages where you can set your “taste preferences”.

This is all fine and wonderful, but Netflix also employs a rating system for viewers to rate movies. It’s a 5 star rating system where 1 star means “I hated it,” 2 – “I didn’t like it,” 3 – “I liked it,” 4 – “I really liked it,” and 5 – “I loved it.”

This results in me giving almost all movies 3 stars, except for the occasional few that strike me and get a 4 star rating with the coveted 5 star rating reserved for movies by Edgar Wright and Peter Jackson.

More often then not, I find this rating system to be relatively unhelpful. Since most my movies are rated 3 stars Netflix has a hard time finding movies for me that it thinks I will rate more than 4 stars. To be fair, they are mostly accurate with their guesses, but whenever I say “I liked it” I usually like to follow with a “but this was wrong” clause. Very rarely do I like everything in a movie. But if I liked the acting but not the plot, how does it rate? If I loved the concept but nothing else, how many stars is that? What if I thought the book was better?

I think it would be more helpful if Netflix offered more rating options after viewing a movie. For example:

“I like the concept, but horribly executed.”

“Really bad dialogue. But otherwise passable.”

“Failed to hold my attention.”

“Special effects look like the work of a teenage dog. Acting was surprisingly good.”

“I cannot believe someone got paid to make this.”

Now, arguably, this is where the user reviews come in, you can write whatever you want about the movie. But free text data tends to be very hard to parse. Especially when compared to other possible rating systems.

What if Netflix gave “advanced users” an options for “advanced ratings” for movies. Rather than rating the movie as a whole an enthusiastic movie reviewer would have the option to rate the movie on several characteristics. For example: Plot, Acting, Concept, Storytelling, Suspension of Disbelief, Writing, Action, Humor, Production Quality, etc.

It might even be possible to allow the user to choose a standard subset of criteria from a vast selection of possible theatrical aspects. Maybe the user could even rate the individual actors performances for each movie.

Would anyone actually use this? I think if only a small percentage of Netflix users began using more advanced ratings there would be potential for a large wealth of data, data from consumers.

No really, would anyone use this? Probably not. But I still think a 5 point rating system for movies is a silly concept.

What I would really like to see from Netflix, more than anything, is an IMDB style actor network database. Or perhaps, a means to integrate the two sites.

Whenever I find a movie, I grab my iPad or iPod or Cell Phone or Laptop or Desktop computer and go to IMDB. Pretty much immediately. (Occasionally I use a close friend, but it’s a lot harder to follow an audible stream of names you don’t recognize.) As I peruse IMDB I usually find myself looking at movies and thinking “I wonder if those are on Netflix…” I then need to go to Netflix and search the movie out. And if I’m on my iPad I can’t add DVDs to my queue, only instant streaming movies. But if IMDB had a button which read “Add to Netflix queue if available” I could easily add all kinds of movies without having to hunt and search them out.

Basically, I want IMDB ease of hunting and cross referencing with the ease of streaming Netflix provides.

Would anyone actually use this? Oh yeah.

Dear Post Office,

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I’m sorry I had the wrong address, my information was obviously outdated. And I thank you for giving me the correct address, yet I can’t fathom why you would send me the correct address on the front of letter I was trying to send.

I mean, I’m trying to get a letter to someone and you not only know who, but also the correct address to reach them.

All I’m saying is that I don’t understand how this benefits anyone. It doesn’t help me because I have to find another stamp, possibly another envelope and mail this letter out again. It doesn’t help you because you have to handle it again to send it back to me and then a third time to send it to the original recipient.

Now, I get the fact that you don’t want everyone sending out misaddressed letters. I can tell from this label that you have a “window” of time where you will forward the letter without problem. I just think there has to be a better way to handle these things.

For example, maybe after the “free forwarding window” has ended you can simply continue to forward the mail (provided you know the correct address) and then send a humiliating postcard back to the original sender. It can say something like “you are a bad person” or “you don’t know much about so-and-so, do you?” or “have you talked to so-and-so lately? They’ve moved.”

Perhaps you can augment this strong language with an obnoxious picture or perhaps a small bill which contains a small forwarding fee that needs to be paid. Maybe you can flag our mailboxes with a “this person sends bad letters” flag after a few bad letters have been sent.

You know where we live, it’s not like we are hiding from you guys.

What it really comes down to is that we live in the 21st century. The whole aspect of sending a physical letter is actually rather inconvenient for someone who does most of their work online. Having to resend a letter only makes the whole process more inconvenient and makes me think that it really isn’t worth the trouble.

Despite the wealth of personal information we put online today, very few of my friends and family actually list their mailing address on Facebook or other social networks. The Post Office, however, has a list of EVERYONE’s address. If there was only some way to tap into that.

Now, I realize I could simply ask all my friends and family for their addresses, but this entails a lot of work. (I’m sure you know all about keeping track of addresses.) Many of my friends are moving throughout the year. Others I don’t see or don’t respond to my inquiries. (Yes, I have considered this to be an indication that they don’t want me sending them mail.) Also, it ruins any surprise that they will be getting a letter from me.

My solutions as listed here might not be perfect, and in some instances it might actually be a bad idea. All I ask though, is that you take a careful look at what you are actually doing and find some ways to make the user experience better. The last thing you need to do right now is force more people away to using electronic or alternative means to deliver their messages.

Thank you for your time, and your help in the past to deliver messages.

Hope you can figure something out.

-Philip

In the event of an Apocalypse…

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I’ve been watching a lot of depressing movies lately. Not necessarily on purpose, it just turned out that way. First I saw The Road (my rating: 1/5), then I saw Daybreakers (4.5/5), followed by Doomsday (3/5), and then Carriers (4/5) (reminded me of Zombie Land (4/5)), and finally Twilight: Eclipse (2/5).

So on my drive home from work today, I started thinking: “If I was the only person that was alive in the world, what would I do?”

The answer came to me rather quickly. I would drive.

I would drive like I was in a movie. I would take fast corners, spin donuts, teach myself those crazy hand break turns. When my car died, I would simply find another one. Maybe I would even find another one first. But I would drive.

Ultimately, this wouldn’t really matter much, because if I honestly was the last person alive things would get really boring really quickly, but still, I think that’s what I would do.

What would you do if you were the last one alive?

Blind as a bat

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It has come to my attention that the phrase “blind as a bat” is not at all politically correct. Bats are not actually blind, they just don’t see the way we see. That is to say, they see things differently than we do. In todays society of tolerated opinions, saying someone is blind because they don’t see things the way you do is not only frowned upon, but grossly inappropriate.

Think about it.

Time Travel

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Tova 1Many people have talked about the possibility of time travel and the implications it might have. No one, though, has come close to imagining the true potential of time travel. That is, until now.

The real potential of time travel is huge: food will never spoil. Now, I know what you are thinking. You think if you find some old turkey in your fridge then you can simply go back in time a few days and make a turkey sandwich. That is just stupid. For, you see, if I go back in time a few days, chances are I won’t be in the mood for a turkey sandwich at all. Rather than go back in time, it would be better if I bought some turkey from the future to keep in case I ever needed a turkey sandwich.

How would this work you ask?

Take milk for example, a fresh gallon of milk usually has an expiration date of about two weeks. Now, if you sent that milk two weeks into the past, it’s expiration date would be four weeks into the future. The milk would essentially be good for a month.

If we began producing food or milk 200 years in the future and ship it back to the current present, then we will have milk that will last for 200 years and two weeks.

What’s more, in the future, we may discover better or more efficient ways to produce things like milk. Perhaps the milking process can be made even more humane, provided I am allowed to use that word to describe a cow. Indeed I am hesitant to use such language when commenting on the animal kingdom. You see, cows are not human. They don’t know what it is like to be human and therefore, have no reason to be treated humanely.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve the mistreatment or neglect of animals, but I do feel that humanity should not take it’s humaneness lightly. We have worked hard at being humane and I would hate to have all this effort stolen by a bunch of bovine who do nothing but stand and eat all day.

On those same lines, if I was a cow, which I am most certainly not, I would not expect a free handout from humans wishing to treat me more like them. I don’t want a two story house or a bed or a boat. I don’t want a steak dinner and I don’t need the government to step in with a new healthcare plan. All I need is a patch of grass and a few hundred gallons of water, or perhaps a few wine coolers on a hot day.

Five personalities I want to see play Harry Potter

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Johnny Bravo “Whoa momma! Wanna watch me comb my hair really fast?”
The Joker “You wanna know how I got this scar?”
River Tam “Nothing in the ‘verse can stop me.”
Billy Mays “I’M HARRY POTTER AND TODAY I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT…”
Sponge Bob “I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready…”

This still bothers me

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‘Cause she’s so high
High above me, she’s so lovely
She’s so high, like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite
She’s so high, high above me

She’s so high by Tal Bachman

Am I the only person who has actually listened to these lyrics? Tal Bachman is comparing a lovely woman to three people: Cleopatra, Joan of Arc and Aphrodite. What do we know about these women?

Cleopatra was widely regarded as a very beautiful woman, if not the most beautiful woman in the world.

Aphrodite was (is?) the greek goddess of love and beauty. Hard to match that, eh?

Joan of Arc was a French Peasant girl who was burned at the stake for causing an uprising at the age of 19.

I have never heard anything about Joan of Arc being beautiful. In fact, there is little if any talk about her personal appearance at all. When I think of peasants from the 1400′s I don’t imagine beauty queens.

I haven’t massively researched this topic, but I’ve done some causal searches. One would think if Joan of Arc was beautiful, people would talk about it right?

Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, was neither a queen, nor a courtesan, nor a beauty, nor a mother.

The Independent

Joan of Arc was not beautiful. She probably wasn’t even remotely pretty. Why then, good people, is Joan of Arc’s name right along side Cleopatra and Aphrodite? Does Tal Bachman even know who Joan of Arc is?!

What’s even worse, at least from my standpoint, is that I have never heard anyone else questions this. Everyone is like “yeah, that’s a good song.”

Since when is it not only possible, but popularly accepted to compare Greek goddesses with French peasant girls? I mean, am I missing something here?