The Land of Painted Caves - Finally

Well it's finally coming out, nine years after the previous book, "The Shelters of Stone". I started reading the series back in the late 1980s, if I recall correctly, when my mother and I were staying with my grandparents after my grandfather had a heart attack. They lived in a small town and the biggest selection of science fiction available was in Wal Mart.

I've always been more into hard science fiction, but after reading the novelization of Back To The Future I was willing to branch out a little. I bought the first three books in a paperback boxed set.

It's not a bad series. The author, Jean Auel, has reportedly done lots of research into actual prehistoric sites and artifacts, working them into her stories. No doubt some of the ideas included in the earlier books in the series have been displaced by subsequent research over the past three decades, but that is understandable; Arthur C. Clarke had similar issues with his Space Odyssey books. What's harder to swallow is the concentration of human innovations within the lives of the two main characters: animal domestication, tool invention, etc. But for a (Pre-)historical fiction one can easily suspend disbelief in this convergence enough to enjoy it. What's more off-putting is the apparent psychic phenomena and the practically Lamarckian race memory portrayed in the Neanderthals. If one approaches it as just being the characters' interpretations of drug-induced halucinations, it becomes tolerable enough to not get in the way of an otherwise interesting story.

I subsequently bought & read the next two books in hardcover, the first while in college, and the second after getting married and moving over 1000 miles away.

I've read the first three chapters of the new book at the Random House web site, and it looks to be setting up a few external and internal conflicts, and possibly a love triangle but that may be a red herring. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of lengthy re-exposition, thankfully, so if you haven't read the previous books there's a lot that won't make sense to you.

I've added it to my wish list. See all Jean M Auel's books, including several translations.

Belated Thoughts on The Kyle XY Final Episode

Okay, it's been a while since the series ended so abruptly. I meant to post a review a while back, but just never got around to it; either I was too busy to do it or too bitter. Mostly the former. Mostly.

Anyway, it's been a while since I watched it and don't remember everything (I guess I could watch it again on Hulu, but frankly I'm more into reruns of Enterprise these days, sci-fi wise) but I do remember this thought: I'm not so sure Jessi's clone-mom is really dead. She had some of the same abilities as Jessi, and one thing Jessi did was fake her own death by slowing down her heart to an apparent stop - precisely what she heard her clone-mom's heart do. It wouldn't have surprised me at all to have seen her make a reappearance in the next or subsequent season, had the series not been canceled.

Yes, I know the final season DVD includes a special section on what would have happened. I don't have it; I'm holding out hope for someone to some day pick up the series. It was really out of place on that network.

Trading Places Fisher Price Style

For his first birthday our son received a Fisher-Price Little People Build 'n Fun Jungle.

It's a bucket of building blocks with a couple Little People animals: a monkey and a zebra. The blocks include a couple pieces representing a stand of jungle vegetation and some tall grass, with a lion and tiger decal respectively. The lid serves as a base for the building blocks.

He enjoys it a lot, particularly the bucket which is rectangular and mostly transparent. He likes to put it on his head. It's okay, though; the bucket is irregularly shaped on the ends and has holes in the bottom so there's always a way for air to get in and out. And he never keeps it on for very long. The blocks seem to be easier for him to catch on to than the mega-blox he also got. I think the big shallow pegs and simple shapes help. He is starting to catch on to the mega-blox too now and I think the Fisher Price blocks contributed to that skill building.

They are not without flaws, however, as an astute reader may have already noted. The name of the toy implies a jungle theme, but two of the animals - the zebra and lion - are not jungle animals. And, as seen here, the lion and tiger have traded habitats.

Cruise Report Part 1: Leaving Home and Day 1

I was hoping to post about the cruise before now, but we've been a bit busy since we got back. We had a little down time so I started on it, but then we got busy again and it had to wait. But, finally, here it is. I've decided to split it into an entry for each day. Hopefully there won't be too much delay between entries.

The Cruise

In case I didn't mention this before this was a Disney cruise. It was a four-day (kinda), three-night cruise to Nassau and Disney's private island Castaway Cay (pronounced "key"), with the home port at Port Canaveral Florida. My travel agent sister-in-law told us it was a four-day cruise, but it was more like two and a half. The ship started boarding around mid-day on the first day, and we got off the ship on the morning of the fourth day. On each day it left port around sundown, arriving at the next port the following morning.

Leaving Home

As seen in my post on that day, the car was frosty on the morning we left. Our plan was to drive as far as we could the first day without staying up too late, then drive the rest the next morning. We ended up stopping in Saint Augustine, Florida, just a couple hours away from the port. As it turns out the hotel clerk recently moved there from our town. Small world.

Cruise Day One

We had the typical free breakfast at the hotel, then drove to the port next morning. We apparently got there earlier than most. The lines were very short and fast and we spent an hour or two sitting in the terminal and looking at the Christmas decorations and the model of the ship. (As it turns out there are two ships, more or less identical except for "art deco" vs "art nouveau" decor, and the model was of the other ship.) We also talked to my wife's folks on the phone. None of her family arrived until after we had boarded.

We boarded the ship and as we entered the main lobby we were asked our names and announced. After that we went to the buffet for lunch, then walked around the deck to kill some time until our cabin was ready. Along the way we happened upon a couple ping-pong tables and decided to play a bit. We didn't keep score, just played for fun. It was just as well the way the ball kept rolling away. Fortunately the portion of the deck with the ping-pong tables had plexiglass covering the view over the side.

We talked to my mother in law on the phone and were told that my sister in law and her family were checking in. We went back inside to the boarding area and waited on a balcony above where we were announced in hopes of getting a shot of them coming on, but after about 15 or 20 minutes of waiting we gave up. After a bit more wandering around, and finally meeting up with the family, we watched a bit of the show they put on on the middle pool deck. Then the ship left port as the sun set.

The cabin was nice. We got an interior cabin to save money. It was near the stern. (That's the rear of the ship to you land-lubbers.) It was comparable to a small but nice motel room. The only problem was the outer metal part of the hose to the shower head was broken and the rubber hose inside tended to kink. We didn't mention it to the cabin steward, figuring they probably couldn't fix it until they got back to port anyway. The cabin was, of course, decorated in a nautical Disney theme.

There were shows each night, and scheduled dinners at three restaurants. The shows and dinners were scheduled so that there were two shows a night, and two dinners at each restaurant. Passengers are scheduled in groups so that each night you eat in a different restaurant and get the same serving crew each night. As it happened, our group was scheduled for the late dinners. The first night we ate in the Animator's Palette restaurant. The whole room is in black and white, as are the staff uniforms, but some of the walls are painted screens with the same scenes in color behind them. Over the course of the meal the scenes are lit up so they appear in color, and the staff changes in to colorful vests. The food was pretty good. It was fairly fancy, as I recall, but I don't remember what I had.

It was late after that so we called it a day and went back to the cabin. There was a towel sculpture of a bunny on the bed, along with a couple chocolates, a schedule for the next day's events and activities, and a card congratulating us on our wedding anniversary which was that month. After such a long and active (for us) day we were ready for bed. As we passed through the Florida straits, as we would later learn, the seas were a little more rough. Since we were near the stern the effect was more than it would have been amidships. For me it was nice. I kind of rocked me to sleep, though I was awakened in the night by the coat hangers swaying and clattering in the closet. They were quiet after I shoved them to one side (which I recommend as a bedtime routine if you ever take a cruise.) I don't think my wife liked it as much. We were told later by our restaurant servers that the seas were less calm than usual for our cruise, but the previous cruise was much worse due to the weather. In fact, we had not boarded by the normal entry due to the gangway being damaged by the motion of the ship in port.

That's it for the first day. More later.

Thoughts On Iron Man, Spiderman, And ILM

I saw the trailer for Iron Man recently, and I have to say it reminds me of the recent Spiderman movies. By that I mean I'm seeing the same stilted motions in the CGI characters. ILM did the work on all the films, from what I gather, but they also did the work in the Star Wars prequils. The stormtroopers were completely convincing, even with so many of them on screen at once. If I hadn't heard otherwise I would have thought at least some were live actors. But both Spiderman and now Iron Man look like they're computer generated. There is never a moment's doubt watching them. Why is this?

I can think of three possible explanations...

A: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but only does so for Lucas.

B: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but will only give their clients what they're willing to pay for, and Sony and Marvel were only willing to pay so much.

C: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but only if basing them on the movements of a living model. They had live actor stormtroopers from the original Star Wars trilogy to work from, but for the Marvel superheroes only had still images from comic books. And let's face it: those comic book drawings evoke some very dramatic motion, but they are not realistic poses by any stretch of the imagination.

So what do you think? Is it A, B, C, or something else?

Kyle XY Season 3 Finale (Spoilers)

I finally watched the season finale last night. It was a much more effective cliffhanger than last season's.

In the promos they said someone will end up missing. I figured it could possibly be fem-Kyle XX, slipping off to disappear with her clone mother, (or should that be clone sister, since she's really more of a late-born twin than a daughter,) without telling anyone. It's the sort of thing her mother/older twin sister might insist on if she were at all competent at evading people as seemingly resourceful as latknock (or however it's spelled.) But that's not what happened.

Instead, the disappearance didn't happen until the very end of the episode. Kyle's girlfriend (who is becoming ever so slightly inquisitive about the things he does and who apparently failed to notice they were levitating) is gone.

Who did it? The obvious answer is latknock, but that may be too obvious. I mean would a member of a super-genius society be so dumb as to leave their ring behind? Okay, there's the whole "absent-minded professor" stereotype, but these folks don't seem to be made in that mold. Could it be fem-Kyle's "father" trying to get some leverage to get Kyle to help find fem-Kyle? No, that would take too much planning to pull off so soon after fem-Kyle decided to run off with sister mama. Is it that big bad corporation again? Maybe, but I forget what even happened to end their involvement in the show and suspect the writers may have too at this point. I suspect the writers plan to introduce yet another organization that's after Kyle.

But leaving that for next season, let's take a look at what we know of the circumstances of the girlfriend's disappearance. There was a security guard hanging out in front of the gym, who seems like an obvious suspect. There was the very young to be a TA DJ who spoke to Kyle in the gym. And there was the ring. Like I said, I doubt the ring was there by accident. I think it was a plant intended to misdirect Kyle, and us. And I'm really suspicious of the DJ.

Here's why. First, he's a super genius for his age, and attends (if I have this straight) the same college that the Kyles' clone parents/siblings attended. He's Kyle's foster dad's TA, and there is a precedent for villains placing their operatives close to the dad. And just look at the tension with Declan and Lori. You just know she's going to get together with the soon-to-be-revealed evil boy genius DJ, (but won't put out, per her declaration to her dad,) then when his evil affiliation is revealed the conflict will be resolved and she'll go back to Declan who will somewhere along the way do something to establish himself as her hero and the guy who truly loves her and always will and who is a true friend to her and her family, especially Kyle.

It's just all so obvious. Maybe the writers are trying to make up for last season's cliffhanger, the resolution of which was so unpredictable it didn't even seem like a cliffhanger. I do want to see what happens, though, so I'm going to watch.

About The Kyle XY Season 2 Finale (HERE BE SPOILERS)

To put it simply, the climax this season, much like the first season, was a bit anticlimactic. I can totally understand why, though. In an episodic sci-fi that's as high-concept as Kyle it's hard to write scripts that both propel the mysterious storyline and endear the audience to the characters. You haven't watched it? Why did this make the season ender anticlimactic? I'll tell you.

The big climax came at the end after the female clone (yeah, Kyle's a clone) betrays Kyle against her own will due to the instructions downloaded into her head. The betrayal consisted of reading some piece or collection of information from Kyle's mind, which Kyle had apparently downloaded from the zzyzzx(sp?) computer system while he was still living in a tank of fluid. She's all upset about it and runs off. After a brief struggle showing off their enhanced physical abilities and Kyle's head start on training, she jumps off a cliff, killing herself.

I think at this point we are meant to be shocked at her suicide, feeling bad for the poor clone who never had the benefit of the sort of loving family that has taken in Kyle. But in a sci-fi there are just too many whiz-bang neato plot developments and emerging details of the whole mystery of Kyle's developing abilities and family relationships and what that evil corporation wants to get out of his head. The audience just can't get emotionally invested in a character that quickly, particularly one who was just introduced this season and who started out as such a dangerous and menacing individual. Sure, she grew into herself as the season progressed, but it still takes a while. When Spock was killed in that Star Trek movie everyone was shocked and dismayed. If he'd been killed off at the end of the first season of the show nobody would have batted an eye. (They might have raised an eyebrow, but not nearly as many people would recognize the gesture.)

I think Lost provides a counterexample. When Walt was taken by the Others it was a much bigger deal. First off, it was a cliffhanger instead of a cliff jump. But even if they had killed Walt, it would have been even bigger if anything. I think the difference is in the character development. In Kyle it's all about Kyle and his origins and destiny and the obstacles and villains in his way. Kyle was in a tank for most of his life, so if he's a bit stiff it's understandable and an interesting part of his character. But everyone has been a bit stiff. That's not unusual for a plot-driven mystery sci-fi show, though. I think Lost succeeds at better character development in large part because of the nature of the situation and the way it's presented: everyone is searching for answers, not just one or two characters, and their past is revealed in flashbacks which add depth to the characters. We understand them better.

Kyle XY did try to add some depth to the supporting characters. But they attempted it mainly through having the bad guys try to induce some conflict in the family to destabilize Kyle's support base. (I don't think they ever actually said it, but I think that was to get him to let his guard down around the female clone so she could get into his head.) The only one with any backstory was the dad, and that was only to serve as a plot device to introduce Kyle's mind-reading ability.

All in all, though, I do like the show and will continue to watch it for its strengths, while overlooking its forgivable weaknesses. Hopefully, though, there will be a bit more character development next season, along with all the inevitable plot twists.

Is This Progress? or The Post Office Pisses Me Off!

I just mailed out a package. That should be a simple proposition, but in this case I had two different zip codes for the recipient so I had to check which one was correct.

In the past I've just fired up a handy little program called the USPS Shipping Assistant. It's a free program downloadable from the post office web site. I'd been using version 2.2 for a while and it worked great. It was much faster and more convenient than using the web site for such things. This time, however, it wouldn't run. It told me I had to run 3.0 or later.

Okay. It had been a while since I'd had occasion to use it so it was understandable that there was a later version. I'm not so sure why the old one should stop working, though. Anyway, I downloaded the new version 3.1 (over 7M compared to 2.2's 225k - that should have been my first clue) and installed it.

What a piece of crap.

It takes forever to load, which is only natural since it's built on .NET and Internet Explorer. (Damn, I hate lazy "programmers". No better that "script kiddies" if you ask me.) Every time a new dialog comes up you can watch it draw all the controls and graphics. I kid you not - it's that slow. From the looks of it, whoever "programmed" it spent most of their time doing graphic design for the interface. I'd characterize it as putting lipstick on a pig, and stand by that as being 100% accurate. If this is the sort of thing the money from the postage rate increase is going to I want a refund!

Also, when I closed it it didn't stop running! It just minimized to a little icon in my tray next to the clock. I had to right-click on that to tell it to finally exit. Why? Do they perhaps know that the thing is dog slow to load and decided that the "solution" to the slowness of loading this bloated piece of crap is to keep it running? Get an actual programmer to actually fix the thing!

I emailed the following to the USPS on their contact page, specifying in the form that it was a technical issue regarding Shipping Assistant:

Please! Please! Please! Reactivate 2.2!

I tried to use it today and it wouldn't run. I had to use 3.1 and it is PONDEROUSLY slow.

Failing reactivation of 2.2, please include the following changes in 3.2 or 4.0...
1. Drop .NET so it won't require so much memory.
2. Drop the IE interface and do some actual UI programming so it won't take forever each time you switch dialogs, or switch fields for that matter.
3. When the user closes the program, close the program. Don't leave it running in the tray.
4. Get rid of the gingerbread/bells & whistles. Fire the designers and whatever postal official let his ditzy trophy wife approve the interface while you're at it too. If the programming & design were outsourced, get someone else this time because the people who made 3.1 padded the project with useless crap.

In other words, get rid of all the crud that just slows the thing down, defeating its purpose of *assisting* our shipping. It doesn't assist if it slows us down. The changes from 2.2 to 3.1 only serve to further cement the USPS's old reputation for slowness.

I doubt it will get any action, but maybe if enough people read this blog, agree, and decide to stop settling for crap software and complain, maybe together we'll make something happen. I will post about this again when and if I get a response.

Meanwhile, I also intend to see if I can't hack 2.2 into thinking it's 3.1 so that just maybe it will work again. If I have any success with that I'll post instructions. If you have already been able to do it, please reply with instructions - no sense reinventing the wheel.

A Note On Using A 2Gig MicroSD In An LG VX8300 Phone

I just got a pair of SanDisk 2-gig MicroSD cards for my and my wife's LG VX8300 phones. I had some misgivings about buying them, since I had read a review somewhere on the interweb that noted that the phone only can read up to 1 gig. I had also read that they will format a 2-gig to 1 gig and use that. That was okay, since CompUSA had (and maybe still has, as of this writing) 2-gig SanDisks on sale for less than the same brand of 1-gig card, so I was still getting at least the same storage for less money.

Later I read in another review that it will actually format the card with two 1-gig partitions, but that if you format it with another device that supports 2 gig partitions and create certain directories (folders for those of you with no pre-Windows95 experience) it will use the full space with no problem.

When the cards came in I decided to see for myself what the phone would do with them if I didn't format them. Well, lo and behold it just created the needed directories on the existing 2-gig partition and used them without complaint. I checked the card memory through the phone's menu and it's seeing and reporting the full 2 gig. I have all my new pix, flix, and sounds bing recorded to it now, and have switched the camera resolution to its full 1280x960.

Another thing I saw in reviews was that Verizon had disabled playing MP3s on the phone, but that a menu trick would let you switch it on. You then had to create a specially-named directory just for MP3s for the phone to see them. Then others said that later versions of the firmware had disabled that trick. Still others noted that the latest version played any MP3 you care to place in the normal music directory. I am happy to report that on our phones the news is good: they will in fact play MP3s placed in that directory. I'm now listening to a shuffle of the several I've initially loaded on it. (With no headphone and on the lowest volume - decent little speakers for their size. Now playing: Lithium by Nirvana.) The headphone jack takes a smaller size plug than normal, but I should be able to find adapters at Radio Shack or somewhere so I don't have to limit my choice of headphones.

One additional caveat about playing music: if you are playing music and pause it the phone's battery will, for some reason, keep draining as if you were still playing music. Hopefully that's something Verizon can fix in a future firmware update, but meanwhile if you have one of these phones be sure to exit the music player altogether if you're done listening for a while.